Sociological Perspective Research Articles

Catalysts of social change and innovation: Mediating role of social self-efficacy and social support on social entrepreneurial intentions

There has been a recent surge in social entrepreneurship to address pressing social problems. Social ventures drive positive change and reshape traditional business norms by providing innovative solutions and fostering inclusive growth. Social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) is crucial to studying social entrepreneurship since it sheds light on the underlying motivations and factors that drive people to engage in social enterprise. The study examines empathy, moral obligation, perceived social support, social self-efficacy, risk-taking motive, and innovativeness as determinants of SEI. Data collected through an online questionnaire from 349 commerce and management students were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Results reveal a significant influence of social self-efficacy, perceived social support, risk-taking motive, and innovativeness on SEI. Notably, the results highlight an indirect influence of empathy and moral obligation on SEI mediated by social self-efficacy and perceived social support. The study also reveals how social vision and social proactiveness relate to social self-efficacy. The findings have significant implications for encouraging social entrepreneurship. Policymakers and educators may use these insights to develop specific activities that assist prospective social entrepreneurs by enhancing the attributes that affect their desire to establish social ventures.

Finding One’s Way Through the Gender Expanse: Examining the Use of Metaphors in Gender-Affirming Care as a Step Toward More Inclusive Spiritual Care Practices

AbstractChaplains can play a unique role in providing care for trans and gender-diverse (TGD) people by addressing their spiritual needs. However, spiritual care for TGD individuals may fail to be inclusive in at least three ways: spiritual care may focus solely on religious TGD people, on a limited part of the whole range of gender identities, or on a specific route toward gender affirmation. In this article, the aim is to develop an inclusive perspective on spiritual care for TGD people. To that end, inspired by work by Susan Sontag, we examine spiritual care for TGD individuals through the philosophical lens of social imaginaries, focussing particularly on metaphors, tracing how metaphors used in care for TGD people have changed over time. We elaborate on the potential of the metaphor of “orientation in gender-expansive space,” based on queer theory and literature about worldview-inclusive chaplaincy, for envisioning an inclusive approach to gender-affirming spiritual care.

As though the ’80s never happened – recalibrating value through music

How can we renew awareness of the civic value of the arts and humanities? This article responds to this question mainly with reference to music. It notes the rise since the 1990s of extrinsic criteria of value evident in sociological, economic and psychological arguments for the significance of music and the arts, which risk a profound instrumentalisation. In reaction, recent defences of the arts stage a stand-off against sociological perspectives, in particular, returning to older humanistic defences. Recalling the growth of interdisciplinary popular music and cultural studies from the 1980s, which unveiled the multivalent relationships between aesthetic and social dimensions of music, sets this polarisation into relief, productively shifting the debate. Music emerges as a vital medium for living, active in differentiated lives, an environment that may alone proffer meaning, pleasure, hope and a sense of collective imaginative and public life amid intensifying anxiety, desperation and the denial of collectivity. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)

Speaking for music?

How does musicology articulate the value of music and the study of music? This is an urgent question given the collapse of music provision in schools and its impact on the discipline at university level. One response has been to demonstrate the pro-social benefits of music through empirical work allied with approaches in psychology and sociology. While this is important, we should be wary of downplaying the aesthetic value of music at the expense of more obviously instrumental functions. A recent convergence of disciplinary interest in aesthetics, from neuroscience to political theory, suggests the aesthetic dimension of music, far from being some outdated fiction, remains a powerful challenge to habitual academic discourse. Against the trivialisation of music on the one hand, and the reductive readings of critical orthodoxies on the other, I argue that music affords modes of sense-making that have never been more needed. (This article is published in the thematic collection `The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)

Ocean and Beyond: A Benthic Imagination of the Black Historiography in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and Henry Dumas’s “Ark of Bones”

Ocean can be read as a mnemonic text, from anthropological, historiographical, sociological, and literary perspectives, despite ocean being constructed, in our popular imagination, as a void –a ‘non-place’ in Mark Auge’s term.Ocean, in general, symbolizes chaos. The present studyseeks to identify the symbolic and material connotation of ocean water,recognizing how ocean becomes an integral part of African-American diasporic identity, cultural, and historiographic legacy, predicated on a mnemonic context, as represented in August Wilson’s play Gem of the Ocean and Henry Dumas’s short-story “Ark of Bones,” bringing out a literary-historical dimension of ocean water, closely linked with identity-formation.

The Barrier Factors of Social Empowerment Through Business Assistance as A Challenge in Realizing the Concept of Utilitarianism

This study aims to analyze the barrier factors of social empowerment through business assistance in Bontonompo District as a challenge in realizing the concept of utilitarianism. Type of the research was an empirical legal research through a sociological juridical approach. The research location is in Bontonompo District, Gowa Regency, South Sulawesi Province. The data sources used consist of primary data sources and secondary data sources. Primary data sources include interviews, questionnaires, and direct field observations. Secondary data sources are obtained from documents and scientific journals. The research uses descriptive quantitative analysis by projecting the collected data. The research results show that the barrier factors of social empowerment through business assistance include legal, law enforcement, infrastructure, community, and cultural factors. Therefore, the government must ensure that social empowerment through business assistance is oriented toward community self-reliance, resulting in an improved standard of living as a manifestation of the concept of utilitarianism.

Employing social imagination in Iraqi feminist theatrical text

ان فعل بناء المعارف والمفاهيم الفكرية والثقافية تتطلب تشكيلا درامياً معرفياً جمالياً لتوليد ابعاداً تأويلية لتكوين مسافة موضوعية جمالية للمتلقي يأخذ حيزاً لاستقطاب مرتكزات ومديات القضايا الاجتماعية واستنباط معالجاتها الاجتماعية وفق قراءة الاختلاف والمغايرة التي ينتجها الخيال الاجتماعي للكاتبة المسرحية. وبطبيعة الحال فإن للمسرح النسوي خصوصية في تدوين القضايا الاجتماعية ومن هنا تنبثق مشكلة البحث الحالي: كيف وظف الخيال الاجتماعي للكاتبة النسائية العراقية. وهدف البحث بالتعرف على الخيال الاجتماعي في النص المسرحي النسوي وتحدد البحث بنصوص الكاتبات العراقيات للفترة من (2018-2022) وعددها خمسة نصوص. تم اخضاع نص مسرحية أيوب ومسرحية استيطان للتحليل. وشمل البحث مبحثين اختص الاول بدراسة الخيال الاجتماعي مفاهيمياً . اما المبحث الثاني فاختص بدراسة الخيال الاجتماعي في نصوص المسرح النسوي عالمياً وعراقياً. ومن اهم نتائج البحث: 1. استثمرت الكاتبة النسوية الخيال الاجتماعي في نصوصها المسرحية كتقنية كتابية ابداعية ارادت من خلالها استكشاف القضايا الاجتماعية والسياسية بأسلوب مغاير ومخالف للواقع لتفتح افق التفكير الناقد والتأويل للمتلقي . 2. اتخذت من الخيال الاجتماعي اداة لخلق شخصيات رغم واقعيتها إلا إنها معقدة بأمراضها النفسية التي خلفتها المجتمعات بمؤسساتها السلطوية مما جعلها ذاتاً مأزومة مؤطرة بسياسات الخوف والاستلاب والحرمان والاضطهاد.

Large-scale Deep Neural Network Benchmarking in Dynamic Social Vision

Large-scale Deep Neural Network Benchmarking in Dynamic Social Vision

Against the extremes: Simmel’s social and economic pluralism

ABSTRACT We live in times of increasing polarization in which the margins of the political spectrum begin to dominate our social imagination again. While the neoliberal iteration of the capitalist project suggests extreme individualism as the normative default position, the devastating impact of the globalized economy on many has reignited the pursuit of socialist alternatives. In this constellation, Simmel's social theory of modernity can be a useful resource to undercut the return of the old battle between opposite economic systems. This paper argues that two kinds of pluralism can be derived from his conceptualization of the social effects of the money economy. In contrast to one-size-fits-all concepts of freedom, Simmel embraces a social pluralism which acknowledges a plurality of cultural spheres as relevant for the self-actualization of modern individuals, attributing different combinations of independence and embeddedness to them. Moreover, he rejects the social extremes of socialism and individualism since they fail to properly integrate individual freedom into the social whole without undermining it. Instead, Simmel gives us the vision of a pluralist economy in which democratic worker's cooperatives are combined with an overall liberal market to satisfy both the longing for community and the endeavour for individual distinction.

COVID-19 and Tribal Education: Addressing the Issues and Challenges Faced by the Children of the Konda Dora Tribe in India

COVID-19 resulted in disruptions that were both economic and social, significantly impacting the school education of tribal children. This study captures such experiences of the Konda Dora tribe in India by applying Mill’s Sociological Imagination to the interviews of 43 children (6–13 years) and their families. A narrative thematic analysis was applied. The findings suggest that COVID-19 aggravated the existing infrastructural and academic inequalities as well as patriarchal norms, negatively influencing school outcomes. As the gap in learning persists, the study proposes measures to minimize the impact of the pandemic and historical biases on the education of tribal children.

Cyber Laws And Emerging Use Of Artificial Intelligence: View From Sociological Perspectives

Cyber Laws And Emerging Use Of Artificial Intelligence: View From Sociological Perspectives

Geographies of race in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT This article is a discipline-defining agenda. It addresses the oversight of Geographies of race in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and explores geography’s potential contributions to the unfolding debates around race, decolonisation, and whiteness. Geographies of race remain unmarked and therefore unchallenged within the field of geography in CEE. Consequently, geographers typically consider CEE as peripheral to the global racial discourses and possibly post-racial. By drawing on sociological, migration, historical, and anthropological approaches, particularly in Poland, the article emphasises the importance of geography in discussions around race, decolonisation, and whiteness. It considers the appeal of geographies of race to this “peripheral location” to demonstrate a shift in racial and colonial discourses. By bridging interdisciplinary approaches and challenging prevailing discourses, the article aims to broaden the scope of the geographies of race and foster a more inclusive and global understanding of race and colonisation.

Fireside Chat: Getting the sociological imagination on the A-level curriculum

Fireside Chat: Getting the sociological imagination on the A-level curriculum

Local Agendy 21 an Environmental Security in Naturally Valuable Areas

Areas with recognised natural values need special protection of environmental resources and cultural and architectural elements, as well as securing the living conditions of the local population and socio-economic activation. Especially in Local Agenda 21, which should consider such security, this task requires preparing comprehensive strategic documents. From an ecological and sociological perspective, this article looks at the situation of the local community in Poland. In this context, concern at sustainable development strategy, ecological security, discussion about sustainable development in national park territory, and human activities for the local environment. The article draws attention to the difficulties in local, sustainable development strategies and directions of activities involving the local community in ensuring natural and social order. In short, the analysis presents the importance of ecological security, the social situation in regions of natural protection, and the role of the local community in a strategy of sustainable development and ecological security.

The trading house: A relational and configurational insight into family businesses

What analytical framework can we employ to conduct ethnographic investigation into family businesses? As sociological and anthropological perspectives increasingly extend their gaze beyond the legal confines of firms to include the kinship groups (household, business family) behind them, no existing integrative concept examines the sui generis organizations formed by these overlapping institutions. Based on fieldwork conducted among shopkeepers in rural France, this article proposes a relational and configurational approach to family business by developing an overarching category: the ‘trading house’. Combining Claude Lévi-Strauss’ analysis of the aristocratic house with feminist-inspired perspectives on domestic economy, the trading house refers to an interdependent group of (re)productive cooperation—comprising, at least, a business and a household—that, directly or indirectly, ensures the management of a transferable symbolic and material estate centered around a market activity. The relational perspective examines boundaries, resources, and interpersonal ties within the house as outcomes of an ongoing relational work, which delineates, blurs, and (dis)connects domestic, business and family spheres, all the while ensuring the historical continuity of the estate beyond its living representatives. The configurational perspective simultaneously draws attention to the (re)productive, monetary, and reputational interdependencies that bind and unite the members of the house across these shifting boundaries. This framework is particularly well-suited for understanding traditional small businesses in rural areas.

COVID futures: Social imaginaries of post-pandemic lives in Australia

Many expert commentaries predicting what life will be like in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have been published. The views of the public on post-COVID futures have received less attention. To explore these issues, this article draws on qualitative interviews conducted with Australian adults, conducted in three stages in each of the first pandemic years of 2020, 2021 and 2022. The final questions asked were: ‘What do you think your way of life will be like once the COVID crisis has passed? Will it go back to the way it was before – or be different in important ways?’. This article analyses participants’ responses to these future-facing questions across the three annual interview sets. Continuities and differences in the imaginaries of pandemic futures expressed in each of these years are identified. Findings demonstrate the value of documenting public understandings, practices and feelings concerning imaginaries of the future of crises such as the pandemic across an extended timescale. The study identified the complexity of how quotidian life, emotions and biographical experiences are entangled with broader socioeconomic, policy, infrastructural, cultural and political dimensions in people’s predictions of what a post-COVID world might be like at different stages of the pandemic.

Banjar Regency Ulama's Perspective on Buying and Selling Nira Water in Trees and Review According to Muamalah Jurisprudence

Nira water is a natural resource that is rich in benefits and has high economic potential because it can be made into various kinds of food. In the process of buying and selling nira water in trees carried out by the community, the buyer must pay a certain amount of money to utilize the nira water in the tree without knowing how much nira water he will get. This raises questions about the law of this activity through a review of Islamic law. This research examines the practice of buying and selling nira water in trees with a focus on the aspects of Islamic law. in the tree with a focus on its Islamic legal aspects. Through an empirical legal research method with a legal sociology approach based on direct observations and approach based on the results of direct observation and The results of this study show that the law of the practice of buying and selling nira water in trees is not legal. practice of buying and selling nira water in trees is not valid because in this practice there is an element of gharar, namely the uncertainty of the transaction resulting from the uncertainty of the transaction. uncertainty resulting from the non-fulfillment of sharia provisions in the transaction. The impact of transactions that contain gharar. The impact of transactions that contain gharar is the element of oppression of one of the parties. The impact of transactions that contain gharar is the element of oppression of one of the parties to the transaction.

Evaluation of the Implementation of Diversion and Restorative Justice in the Child Criminal Justice System in Jayapura City

This research aims to analyze the implementation of diversion and restorative justice in the Juvenile Criminal Justice System (SPPA) in Jayapura City. This research uses a sociological juridical approach with qualitative research methods. Data was collected through literature study and field research, including interviews with law enforcement officials and the community. The research results show that the public's understanding of diversion and restorative justice still needs to improve, while law enforcement officials' understanding is quite good. However, community satisfaction with implementing diversion and restorative justice is still low due to several factors, such as a lack of attention to victims, judge decisions that are considered unfair, and criminal sanctions that are considered too light. Apart from that, there are several obstacles in implementing diversion and restorative justice, such as difficulty presenting child witnesses, complicated statements from perpetrators, and limited space for child detention. This research concludes that implementing diversion and restorative justice in Jayapura City is yet to be optimal and needs to be improved through more intensive outreach, increasing the capacity of law enforcement officers, and improving supporting facilities.

Dynamics of Moderation of Religious Islamic Organizations in Indonesia

The strengthening of intolerance and religious movements of various mass organisations after the 1998 reform in Indonesia caused social friction. The Ministry of Religious offers religious moderation as an essential aspect of the plurality of spiritual life. What is the concept and practice of religious moderation for each mass organisation? This research is qualitatively descriptive, with a sociological approach to religion. The concept of religious moderation of mass organisastions is different; they claim to understand the principle of wasathiyyah so that it becomes a view of life that accepts religious differences outside themselves. Religious moderation is in the form of religious views, attitudes, and behaviours that balance the interests of life, the world and the hereafter, personal with the public, and others. There are four indicators of religious moderation: nationalism, tolerance, non-violence, and local cultural accommodation. MTA understands religious moderation based on two principles: not being self-righteous, and do not blame other groups; FPI departs from its vision, religious moderation over the spirit of ‘amar ma’ruf nahi munkar; LUIS sees religious moderation based on the principles of Islam as a religion of rahmatan lil’alamin, the implications for the balance of the relationship between habl min Allah; habl min an-nass and habl min al-’alam; and MMI understands religious moderation based on three aspects: Islam is a religion that is syumul and rahmatan li’alamin; religious moderation related to sharia enforcement; and religious moderation means that fulfillment of maqashid asy-syariah includes ushul al-khamsah: hifdz al-din, hifdz an-nafs, hifdz al-mal, hifdz al-’aql, and hifdz an-nasb.

Critical Reflections on Hassan Zrizi’s Novel: I shall await you at theThreshold of Hope

This study examines the thematic exploration of social and spatial dynamics in I Shall Await You at the Threshold of Hope by Dr. Hassan Zrizi. The novel presents a decentralized social vision, inspired by the experiences of marginalized individuals. The novel portrays a poignant landscape characterized by suffering and expectation, with recurring motifs of disappearance and the tension between life and death. The author employs the metaphor of the mountain's base to represent the social proletariat in the ancient Roman sense, thereby highlighting a static, hierarchical structure. The narrative arc involves the reintegration of this base with the pinnacle, encouraging reflection on concepts of verticality, horizontality, and transversality. Artistically, the novel adheres to postmodern aesthetics through the fragmentation and re-appropriation of space, confronting the threat of oblivion while offering a message of boundless potential.