Sociological Shift Research Articles

High Resolution Spatio-Temporal Model for Room-Level Airborne Pandemic Spread

Airborne pandemics have caused millions of deaths worldwide, large-scale economic losses, and catastrophic sociological shifts in human history. Researchers have developed multiple mathematical models and computational frameworks to investigate and predict pandemic spread on various levels and scales such as countries, cities, large social events, and even buildings. However, attempts of modeling airborne pandemic dynamics on the smallest scale, a single room, have been mostly neglected. As time indoors increases due to global urbanization processes, more infections occur in shared rooms. In this study, a high-resolution spatio-temporal epidemiological model with airflow dynamics to evaluate airborne pandemic spread is proposed. The model is implemented, using Python, with high-resolution 3D data obtained from a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) device and computing model based on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model for the airflow and the Susceptible–Exposed–Infected (SEI) model for the epidemiological dynamics. The pandemic spread is evaluated in four types of rooms, showing significant differences even for a short exposure duration. We show that the room’s topology and individual distribution in the room define the ability of air ventilation to reduce pandemic spread throughout breathing zone infection.

Home health care industry in India; an account of genderised labour in commercial health care economy

In India traditional care givers has provided care to family members and kith and kin. It is noteworthy that when it comes to family providing care to ailing, elderly and children, care work has been genderised in nature. There has been change in recent decade in Indian economy where many women have involved in jobs outside home leaving a care gap. The other sociological shift is the breaking of traditional joint family system making it difficult for the family members to carry the work of care-giver. This transition in family and economic systems leaving a gap in care giving has enabled markets to enter in creating paid workforce. This paper explores how care work has grown to become commercialized in nature and how it has shifted from feminine unpaid work to paid and genderised nature of work in India.

Oaknín, Mazal. Feminism, Writing and the Media in Spain. Oxford, Peter Lang, 2019, 209 pp., ISBN 978-3-0343-1865-5

In line with the sociological shift in translation and literary studies, which is experiencing increasing success nowadays, Professor Mazal Oaknín offers us an essential work to delve into the evolution of women’s writing in Spain in the twentieth century and how it is represented and constructed through the media. Unlike descriptive research focusing on cultural products, this scholar bases her research on the influence that historical context and marketing constraints have exerted on the image through which three emblematic female Spanish writers (Ana María Matute, Rosa Montero and Lucía Etxebarría) have introduced themselves to the world of letters and their readerships.

Young Disabled Adults Facing Developmental Tasks and Life Choices – In Search of Daily Life Quality

Emerging adulthood, in numerous individual biographies, also in the case of disabled people, is the time of permanent need for self-actualisation and time of verifying one’s subjective vision of “being an adult,” i.e. being responsible for one’s own decisions, pursuing professional and economic independence. Due to developmental acceleration, sociological shift in terms of undertaken roles and realized developmental tasks as well as their moratoriumlinked delays, it is also the time conducive to educational activity. This psychological time of a young person, its course and specificity depend, to a large extent, on numerous (micro-, mezo- and macro-) conditions of family life and social life in today’s world which is more competitive and less predictable than it used to be for generation of the late 1990s. All of these factors contribute to the fact that maturing to adulthood seems to be a state which is harder to achieve nowadays. It is displayed in the form of delaying the moment of taking up a job or other important decisions in family and relationship contexts.The study aims to present the selected aspects of daily life of disabled young adults, described in the context of developmental tasks of this period and considering the perspective of investment in relationships, development of one’s own resources, pursuing education and entering the job market which are all, from a temporal perspective, a chance of complementing one’s own identity.

Using the Mass Observation Project: A Case Study in the Practice of Reusing Data

Mass Observation was founded in 1937 to collect subjective, qualitative data on everyday life in Britain, and has continued to record the ordinary and the everyday ever since. Mass Observation’s purpose has always been to make the data it collects available to a range of disciplines to apply their own methodological approaches upon, resulting in data that can be reused within different projects and disciplines. This paper will use Mass Observation as a case study to illustrate how a sociological shift in attitude towards subjective data has played out in the use of a dataset traditionally viewed as a historical archive. I will review how the data itself is used to define and design methods of analysis, examining the epistemological implications of this approach to research design and the new dimension to the researcher-data subject relationship that is introduced. I will conclude by suggesting that research using Mass Observation exemplifies the methodological opportunities and insights that can be gained by adopting a broader, multi-disciplinary research approach to reusing data.

A Historical Survey of Southern African Liturgy: Liturgical Revision from 1908 to 2010

AbstractThe article surveys liturgical developments in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa from 1908 to 2010. The author uses numerous source documents from several Anglican archives to analyse the experimental and fully authorized liturgies, detailing the theological and sociological shifts which underpinned any significant changes. The author includes several sources which, until this point, have not been considered; particularly in relation to the reception of newer liturgies. These include letters, interviews and newspaper articles. Influences from the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of South India, the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Church of New Zealand all contributed to the authorized rites in the local church. Furthermore, the article shows that local, traditionally disenfranchised voices are now beginning to be included with liturgical transformation.

Recursive Exercises to Help Students Engage and Recognize Sociological Shifts

Introductory sociology courses encourage students to shift from understanding social relations and inequalities through an individualistic lens toward a more sociological one. It is difficult for students to know how far they have advanced toward a sociological perspective if they do not have a good sense of where they began. This paper describes an approach intended to assess a sociological shift over the course of a semester by combining various recursive techniques that take place at the beginning and end of the semester: letters to oneself, social opinion surveys, and recorded small discussion groups. Although the shift was often not dramatic, the approach proved to be useful not only to help students keep track of their own developing sociological perspective but also as a way to improve teaching and assess student learning outcomes. Although ideal for small classes or discussion sections, I discuss ways to also adapt it for larger classes.

A Revolution of Perception? Consequences and Echoes of 1968, edited by Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey

A Revolution of Perception? Consequences and Echoes of 1968, edited by Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey. New York, Berghahn Books, 2014. vi, 206 pp. $95.00 US (cloth). A Revolution of Perception? contributes to scholarship on 1968, a year that marked a historical and political but also cultural, linguistic, and sociological shift. volume is based on a conference held in 2009 at Oxford University and edited by Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, a professor of history at Bielefeld University, who has published a number of studies of 1968, including 1968: Eine Zeitreise (Frankfurt, 2008), 68er Bewegung: Deutschland--Westeuropa--USA (Munich, 2001), and Die Phantasie an die Macht: Mai 68 in Frankreich (Frankfurt, 1995). In her introduction, Gilcher-Holtey states that volume's eight studies are [n]ot linked by a common analytical referential frame but by a leading research question: has 1968 movement had an impact on schemes of perception and classification, on criteria of vision and division of social world? (7). volume opens with Hennig Marmulla's analysis of a book planned but never written by Hans Magnus Enzensberger about his time in Cuba in 1968 and 1969. Marmulla also considers role of Enzensberger's time in Cuba and of Third World for his publication Kursbuch, which launched in 1965. Steffen Bruendel examines two publications in Britain, Black Dwarf and Red Mole, and their circulation between 1968 and 1973. He shows how Britain was involved in international solidarity movements, an insight that revises previously held notions. Bruendel cites four major factors that underscore internationalism of publications and thus, by extension, of Britain at time: role of individuals on editorial board, such as Tariq Ali, who themselves had a migratory background; movements of peoples from United Kingdom's previous colonies or commonwealth to Britain; content of two publications; and finally, travel of people active in various movement organizations or actions to and from England. In his article, Aribert Reimann examines Dieter Kunzelmann's letters from Amman, Jordan, and takes up issue of anti-Zionism among New Left. Reimann argues that the chronology of emergence of pro-Palestinian solidarity movement among [West] German students suggest no long-term agenda of left-wing anti-Semitism among New Left (71). The appropriation of anti-Zionism into 1960s' politics of protest had, Reimann states, little to do with any long-standing tradition of left-wing anti-Semitism, but understood Middle-East--however mistakenly--as yet another example of violent resistance against Western imperialism (77). …

The Internet Imaginary: Between Technology and Technique

The Internet Imaginary: Between Technology and Technique

Childlike Parents in Guus Kuijer’s Polleke Series and Jacqueline Wilson’s The Illustrated Mum

In this article, theories from age studies and children’s literature studies are combined to shed light on the construction of adulthood in books for young readers. The article begins with the sociological shift from a traditional model of adulthood with fxed benchmarks and increased commitment to a new ideal of fexibility in adulthood, as described by Harry Blatterer. It then explores how three acclaimed children’s books by Guus Kuijer and Jacqueline Wilson respond to this shift. The narratives all feature parents who display features that are explicitly labeled as “childlike” or that can be interpreted as diverging from the traditional model of “full” adulthood that Blatterer describes. As a result, the child protagonists are shown to experience stress and grief. Although the novels stress the playfulness of childlike adults as enjoyable, they ultimately promote a traditional model of responsible adulthood, even if few adult characters can actually live up to it.

A Spiritual Blockbuster: Avatar, Environmentalism, and the New Religions

Abstract over the past ten years, religious studies scholars have used newly acquired knowledge of film history and theory to support pathbreaking research in the area of religion and film. Although valuable work on religion and film has emerged in media studies, the field’s coverage of this topic has not kept pace with religious studies. I believe media studies scholars should look to religious studies methods for ways of constructing interdisciplinary projects in this area. In this spirit, I take up work on the new religions to survey changes in the way Hollywood addresses religion and spirituality. New religions are religions that have emerged in the recent past. Scholars define them according to different time frames: the past century, the post-World War II period, or the post-1960s period. I am using a prevalent model that defines the new religions as religions that have emerged since the 1960s. This is a moment that corresponds roughly to the emergence of the New American Cinema. I argue that sociological shifts chronicled in work on the new religions help to explain changes in the way religion and spirituality appear in contemporary Hollywood.

Pregnancy rate in women with primary infertility based on self-reported stress level at the time of initial infertility consultation with a reproductive specialist

consulted by a psychologist, were asked their intention to disclose or not to disclose OD procedures to future offspring(s) and reasons for their answers. Statistics were conducted by t-test and Mann-Whitney rank-sum tests with significance at p<0.05. RESULTS: In 2008, nearly half (42.1%) of OD recipients responded ‘‘yes’’ to questions regarding planned disclosure. Therewas a significant decrease in disclosure by 2009 (21.1%). Afterwards, disclosure increased roughly 8.5% yearly, peaking in 2012 (47.4%). Patients planning to disclose, cited future offspring(s) are entitled to know their genetic background in order to understand their donor’s health history; and their subsequent long-term health risks. Additionally, these patients did not want to ‘‘keep a secret’’ in the household. OD recipients who did not plan to disclose remained consistent (10% margin) over the 5-year review, albeit 2012 achieved the lowest response (17.1%). Common reasons cited by reluctant to disclosure patients included: cultural disapproval, fear of community ostracism and potential offspring confusion of self-perception. CONCLUSION: Although this study demonstrated the highest OD recipient planned disclosure rate (47.4%) occurred in 2012, 40-60% of the overall population each year was uncertain of whether they would discuss or would be reluctant to disclose to future offspring that the pregnancies were the result of OD. Our center considers the recent rise in disclosure to be evidence of a generational and sociological shift towards acceptance of OD as a pathway to successful parenthood.

Beauty, brains or health: trends in ovum recipient requirements

What do ovum donation (OD) recipients request most from their ideal donor: beauty, brains, health or similar appearance? Previous data showed recipients requested ‘similar appearance’ or ‘similar gene pool’ to themselves. We consider the possibility that these criteria may have changed due to a sociological shift towards societal acceptance of OD participation, thus we evaluated recipient requests for specific donor criteria over 5 years.

Lourdes and holistic spirituality: Contemporary Catholicism, the therapeutic and religious thermalism

This article explores historical and sociological shifts in understandings of healing at the popular Marian pilgrimage site of Lourdes. Using extensive survey and fieldwork data, it moves away from existing pilgrimage studies which concentrate on the sick, contested medico-miraculous narratives and cures, to approach this space as a site for the exploration and negotiation of embodied, communal and holistic aspirations. It contends that modern pilgrims, both female and male, conceive of forms of suffering and the need for healing on a holistic spectrum and use a variety of devotional practices and a ‘therapeutic landscape’ to address physical, emotional and psychological concerns. Using a methodological approach centred on ‘belief’ and ‘lived religion’, it charts a well-observed shift in contemporary spirituality (within and outside religious affiliation), which prioritises self-realisation, connectivity and embodied well-being – a therapeutic spirituality augmented by newer forms of ‘religious thermalism’. As such, it contributes to the ongoing debate in the sociology of religion about the relationship between holistic spirituality, secularisation and ‘traditional’, institutional mainstream religiosity.

Who Are You, Mrs Walter Shandy, Aberratio Naturae?

The aim of this paper is to examine the critically unacknowledged aspect of the canonical Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: the authorial delineation and narrative management of the character of Mrs Shandy, who is a silent presence in the background even though the pivotal personal events for the narrator of this spoof-autobiography are his conception and birth. The novel, otherwise thoroughly structurally and thematically experimental, seems to be fossilized in the ancient and Christian philosophers' assumptions about the physical incompleteness of the "weaker vessel" and the malign influence of her disturbing physiology, which for centuries fed into the ontological concept of a woman as Nature's aberration, aberratio naturae. Mrs Shandy's muteness, a striking contrast to her husband's verbosity, her absence and exclusion from the affairs of the male dominated household seem to run counter to the novel's progressive form and linguistic audacity, the sociological shifts slowly taking root and medical discoveries made before and during this age of paradoxes.

Event tourism governance and the public sphere

Political and sociological shifts have profoundly affected state, business and civil society relationships. This paper explores governance as a new form of public–private policymaking wherein stakeholders deliberate on and take action to achieve common goals. It examines how different public spheres facilitate (or not) sustainability debates, and specifically facilitate (or not) discussion about sustainable tourism. Using a case study of the 2009 Australian World Rally Championship, the paper explores the development of the public sphere. Tuckman's group development process – forming, storming, norming and performing – is employed as a lens to understand these processes. Key findings include: the way the public sphere is constituted has a major influence on the dialogue that takes place; citizens are currently reactive, rather than strategic and creative in their engagement; the “third way” project, seeking to empower communities, requires government commitment; there is a blurring of public–private interests; control of knowledge and expertise within the public sphere is largely controlled by corporate and state interests; fast action to secure events prevents debate and engagement; and a discursive public sphere is essential for transparent and accountable governance, and sustainable development, and to move beyond government by powerful corporate interests and extra-local rule systems.

VertNet: A New Model for Biodiversity Data Sharing

Biodiversity is in a crisis caused by multiple human impacts on the environment [1]–[3]. The immediate and critical tasks in addressing this crisis are to examine global biodiversity patterns and document changes through time and space in order to understand the factors contributing to loss of biodiversity [4]. Meeting this challenge has emerged as a global priority [5]–[7] that requires approaches to mobilize data across broad geographic and taxonomic ranges. The community of vertebrate natural history collections has begun to meet this challenge by establishing social and technological infrastructures that provide open access to species occurrence data through broad participation and funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). One result is VertNet, a publicly accessible database of vertebrate biodiversity data from natural history collections around the world. VertNet currently consists of four existing global vertebrate networks: Mammal Networked Information System (MaNIS) (http://manisnet.org – mammals [8]); Ornithological Information System (ORNIS) (http://ornisnet.org – birds); HerpNET (http://herpnet.org – amphibians and reptiles); and FishNet 2 (http://www.fishnet2.net – fishes). These networks collectively mobilize over 52 million records from over 70 institutions, which represent about 70% of all the vertebrate species occurrence data that are accessible through GBIF. VertNet was created to develop the tools and infrastructure necessary to make the data in these distributed networks available in a standard format to maximize their potential for understanding and protecting biodiversity. GBIF and VertNet work synergistically to enhance biodiversity data mobilization efforts. GBIF has identified the important role that VertNet will play in its new emphasis on decentralization of services and applications [5]. In particular, VertNet provides important data maintenance services, including data cleaning and indexing, thus removing development and deployment burdens for many fundamental tasks from GBIF. Data from VertNet are currently accessed through the four networks by a broad audience at a high frequency of about 2.5 million records per week. The networks continue to grow, even those whose extramural funding have expired; MaNIS, for example, has grown from 17 contributing institutions under the original grant to 38 institutions, with a waiting list of 31 more that will be added to the network as time and resources permit. The same enthusiasm is mirrored across the other three vertebrate networks. This rapid growth demonstrates an important sociological shift from skepticism to enthusiasm for data sharing. Ironically, the success of these networks has become their biggest challenge, straining original architectures and demanding a scalable and more sustainable solution. Below, we provide perspectives on the sociological and technical developments that brought vertebrate biodiversity networks to this point and discuss solutions to the immediate and anticipated challenges.

More Than Ink-Stained Wretches: The Resocialization of Print Journalists in Converged Newsrooms

Newsroom experiments with convergence—a sharing of news staffs, technologies, products, and geography—disrupt not just the norms and routines of newspaper news work hut, more profoundly, the professional socialization of print journalists and their perception of themselves as a distinctive kind of news worker. This article draws on case studies of four converged newsrooms to examine conceptual and sociological shifts among newspaper journalists. Findings suggest print journalists are undergoing resocialization to an expanded view of professionalism; ingrained habits and learned skills related to newsroom structure and storytelling norms are more resistant to change.

From bedside to boardroom: sociological shifts and bioethics.

From bedside to boardroom: sociological shifts and bioethics.