Sociological Theory Research Articles

Heroism through the prism of reflections on the country and its future: assessments by generations

The phenomenon of heroism is multifaceted, and it can be viewed as representations of collective memory or through the lens of attitudes towards the country and its future. The theoretical foundation of this research is based, on the one hand, on a philosophical analysis of the semantic meanings of the concepts «hero» and «heroism», including variations in different cultures, and it defines the constants of the national semantics of heroism. On the other hand, it relies on the sociological theory of N. K. Mikhailovsky and the theory of social action, particularly the affective (borderline) theory. It also draws on the developments in creative and relational theories (M. Emirbayer, A. Mische), and relational sociology by P. Donati. The empirical part of the study involves the analysis of data from quota-based online surveys with a random sample, conducted by a group of sociologists and philosophers from the Institute of Sociology of the FCTAS RAS, Tyumen State University, and Vernadsky Crimean Federal University at the beginning of 2023. The survey included 1350 respondents from eight federal districts of the Russian Federation. The research results showed that heroes and heroism remain predominantly associated with the Soviet past, when the names, faces, and destinies of heroes were known from childhood, and the entire era was considered heroic. Heroism was ideologically supported and socially constructed during that time. In the present, heroes are usually depersonalised and associated with a group, such as the military or professionals. Post-Soviet generations had difficulty naming a hero on their own, as for a long time there was no social demand for this type of personality and behaviour. Regarding contemporary Russia, half of the respondents expressed positive feelings of pride, hope, and love, while some felt concern, disappointment, and shame. Furthermore, the clustering of responses indicated that feelings towards Russia are variable and not exclusively dichotomous. Respondents could simultaneously express love, disappointment, and hope. As for the future, respondents were much clearer about their own personal future (70% or more) than about the future of the country. The Soviet generation was more optimistic about the country’s future compared to the post-Soviet generations. This, among other signs, may suggest that post-Soviet generations found themselves in a situation where there was not only no demand for heroic personalities but also the state did not articulate a clear vision of the country’s future. Therefore, they have formed their own view of their personal future, which is seen more clearly and independently of the state’s goalsetting, while heroes and heroism are primarily associated with the Soviet past.

Gambling as Work: A Study of German Poker Players

The study addresses the question whether professional gamblers can be considered an occupational group from a sociological perspective. It combines survey data on poker players from the German state North Rhine-Westphalia with sociological theory in order to explain the oxymoron of professional gambling. The descriptive analysis of the survey data is supplemented by ego-centric network data of the poker players to analyze whether hobby and professional players maintain different forms of social relationships. Even when semiprofessionals and professional players are grouped together for the purpose of comparative analysis, they fulfill the criteria of occupational groups according to Salaman’s major work on the topic. The study points to the fact that more research on occupational groups outside of the common fields is needed and bridges the gap between the literature on serious leisure and sociological research on professions and professionalization.

Managing reports of trouble: designated officials’ responses to reports of mistreatments initiated by service users and relatives

ABSTRACT Mandatory reporting of elder abuse aims to detect and prevent mistreatment and improve services. Service users and their relatives can raise concerns, but only staff can file mandatory reports. This article examines how the concerns of service users and relatives were managed by designated officials in reports of mistreatments in care for older adults in Sweden. We lean on sociological theories of “interpersonal trouble” and organizational “disputes domains.” The thematic analysis is based on 28 incident reports initiated by service users or their relatives. The analysis shows that the reports were managed in one of three ways: asymmetrically, by 1) dismissing or 2) supporting the complainant’s position, or symmetrically, by 3) treating complainants’ accounts as credible but minimizing their seriousness. There were differences between reports initiated by service users and relatives. Dismissing concerns about abuse, mainly those made by relatives, risks support for service users failing.

Professional Gender Segregation in Scientific Discourse: Trends and Contradiction

Introduction. The article examines current ideas about professional gender segregation in Russian and foreign scientific discourses. Comparative analysis of various approaches to understanding gender issues allows us to identify new potentials for their study, as well as to pay attention to the development of the optics of Russian science in considering gender differences. Gender issues in the field of information technology require the closest attention and study, since this area is at the forefront of scientific, technological and social development.Methodology and sources. The theoretical and methodological basis for interpreting the results of the study was the main provisions of sociological and economic theories: the theory of social representations (S. Moscovici), the concept of habitus (P. Bourdieu), role theory (R. Linton), and rational choice theory. To work with empirical data, we used the methods of comparative text analysis, analysis of documents and research reports (The Gender Inequality Index, The Global Gender Gap Index, Global Gender Gap Report, “Women and Men of Russia-2022”), and discourse analysis.Results and discussion. In foreign studies, with the long-established vision and acceptance of gender problems, there is an understanding that past steps to achieve gender parity in the labor market lead to a new configuration of gender differences, which requires new efforts to eliminate them. In Russian scientific literature, the main emphasis is on monitoring the current situation of women in the professional environment, analyzing statistics and searching for hidden mechanisms of professional gender segregation.Conclusion. The results of the analysis show that in the presence of demonstrative statistics and large-scale empirical research, there is no theoretical consensus in the scientific discourse about the professional gender situation. There is a clear dissonance between the statement of problems by theorists and the lack of a request to find their solution on the part of practice, where gender “neutrality” or “indifference” reigns in some professional contexts. Conclusions are drawn about the nature of the Russian scientific gender discourse, which needs to develop a thesaurus of nonbinarity and develop an effective way of reasoning about gender issues.

THE SOCIOLOGY OF AGING AND SOCIAL GERONTOLOGY: CRITICAL TENSIONS AND NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS

Abstract This paper argues that the sociology of ageing has been diverted from developing a clearly sociological approach to ageing and old age by its entanglement with social gerontology. Dominated by social and health policy and advocacy on behalf of older people, the sociological analysis of later life has taken second place. The rise of critical gerontology and cultural gerontology have put further distance between sociology and the sociology of ageing. The changes to ageing and old age challenge the residualisation of ageing within the wider sociological community and set up new tasks for a sociology of ageing which resonates with contemporary later life. We argue that to achieve those tasks requires not only separating the sociology of ageing from social gerontology, but also employing contemporary sociological theory can enable the sociology of ageing to move beyond the ‘problem’ of old age. This involves an analysis of the social structural dimensions of contemporary ageing, its symbolic representations and the embodied and agentic experiences of people becoming older. We conclude that a re-envisioned sociology of ageing can also better equip social gerontology with more effective tools to understand the ‘new ageing’.

Reflections on Distance in Remote Placement Supervision: Bodies, Power, and Negative Education

School placement plays a critical and complex role in the professional development of student teachers. When universities and schools shut their doors and moved all teaching activities online in March 2020, initial teacher education (ITE) providers across Ireland had to implement emergency alternative practicum supports in order to ensure that students could complete their ITE programmes. Many initial teacher education providers across Ireland introduced professional online conversations as an alternative approach to professional practice supervision. It is easy to view this response to the COVID-19 crisis in purely deficit terms. For obvious reasons, no sensible teacher educator would advocate for abandoning school visits and replacing them with online professional conversations. Nonetheless, emergency measures arguably brought about affordances to the delivery of teacher education, which are deserving of consideration and may help to inform future practice. In this paper, we draw on our recent experience of ITE emergency practicum supervision to explore assumptions and tensions inherent in traditional teacher education practices. We reflect on how we enacted and experienced professional student–tutor conversations without the normally preceding classroom observations and interrogate normalised assumptions about the value and purpose of classroom observation. Our reflections are infused with ideas gleaned from philosophy and sociological theory and are underpinned by a theoretical formulation which we call “negative education”. “Negative education” refers to the learning that takes place as a consequence of deprivation. In these terms, we come to examine the negotiation of power and relationships in different learning environments. We explore the benefits of “zooming out”, to disseminate power, and show how this helps to engage with the broader aspects of teaching which are so easily overlooked by both tutors and students during “normal” school visits.

Exploring the Root Causes of Inequality and Gender Issues in Current China Based on Existence Theory

Much of gender inequality has its roots in differences between men and women in society. In addition to the difference in the sexual division of labour, the difference is rooted in the roles and relations constructed by society. Inspired by Chizuko Uenos writing, the author intends to explore the inequality and gender issues that could not be ignored. This article takes advantage of the existence theory, a new sociological theory, to explore the root causes of gender inequality in current China. This article also compares the existential milestones of men and women and uses contradictory milestones to explain gender inequality and inequality in different social classes. In addition, the article discusses why the common perception that taking care of families is women's natural responsibility exists in modern society. Finally, the article points out some legislation approaches to address gender inequality and compares the progress of feminist awareness in China and abroad, hoping to push the development of gender equality.

An Analysis of New Medias Appreciation of Ugliness Anti-Performance and Anti-Authority in Postmodern Contexts

In the era of information virtualization, entertainment expression has become the ideological tendency of public discourse. Under the dual drive of technical support and market interests, the appreciation of ugliness has been transformed into individual alienation and emotional behaviour, rebelling against the traditional concept of beauty in cognition and forming a popular and spreading trend of network with grotesqueness, ugliness, and specialisation as symbols. This paper will combine psychological and sociological theories, take the popularity of Nikocado Avocado on YouTube as an example, explore the root causes of the proliferation of ugliness appreciation in todays new media, and further propose ways to purify the social aesthetic environment. Through this study, it was found that the essential reasons are as follows: First, the anti-authority and anti-elite cultural atmosphere formed in the post-modern context makes people more willing to deconstruct beautiful things and oppose traditional mainstream aesthetics; Second, personal jealousy produces subconscious confrontation against beautiful things; third, in order to attract the flow brought by new media and satisfy economic interests, ugliness is performed. To solve this problem, the government needs to play an important role in the media and strengthen the auditing of Internet content. At the same time, relevant departments should disseminate correct aesthetic concepts in society and strengthen the aesthetic education of teenagers.

Lost in transcription

This article focuses on the transcription of vocal folk music in Norway, and furthermore on how such transcriptions are used and interpreted. It could be stated that notation, as we know it today, is not fully feasible for use in folk music. Nevertheless, this is today the most common and widespread written notation method both for documentation, research and training in folk music. The article asks whether today’s notation is an adequate model for transcribing folk songs, and further what consequences it may have for the genre if the transcriptions do not render a sufficiently nuanced picture of the sounding material. The analyses are based on an empirical material taken from a review of eleven sheet music samples, with vocal transcriptions from the last forty years. In addition, they build on an overall study of the tradition for writing down folk music in general, and discussions related to this. The study shows that the vocal collections are largely characterized by simplified transcriptions, with few genre-­specific features noted in the transcriptions. Through various findings, a need is outlined to develop the written language in order to better adapt the transcriptions to the expression of the genre. Through linguistic and sociological theories, the topic is discussed with a focus on different power perspectives.

Operationalizing the Autonomy dimension of Legitimation Code Theory: A Hallidayan approach

This article is a theoretical one aimed at elaborating and operationalizing one of the more recently developed aspects of the educational theory named Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (e.g. Maton 2014). LCT is a sociological theory with a markedly interventionist streak, which is reflected in endeavours to identify and recommend ways of removing obstacles to knowledge-building for learners. Out of three active dimensions in LCT, this article is focused on the particular dimension termed Autonomy. As applied to situations of knowledge communication, Autonomy appears to be concerned with the degree of insulation or focus with which a given topic is treated, i.e. whether the topic of, e.g., a school lesson, is ‘autonomous’ in that lesson or whether competing topics and perspectives are brought in to further the educational process. However, the concept of Autonomy is in need of both concretization and operationalization and will therefore be interpreted through the lens of certain aspects of Hallidayan linguistic theory that may fruitfully elucidate the concept. The operationalization will be exemplified through two cases of knowledge communication.

TUNDRA, SPIRITUS, MADAM WIG AND HE-GOAT: A STUDY OF NICKNAMES OF TEACHERS IN TWO GHANAIAN GIRLS’ SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

Nicknaming is a common practice in most academic environments. This study investigated nicknames students used for teachers in two girls’ Senior High Schools in Ghana, utilising Scott’s (1990) Sociological Theory on Resistance to Domination. Employing an ethnographic approach that includes participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and informal interactions with the students, the study revealed that ‘namers’ secretly nicknamed their referents and used these names in the absence of the ‘named’ mostly in informal conversations in both inside and outside of the classrooms. These nicknames are used to identify the teachers’ characteristics inside and outside the classroom, focusing on the teachers’ speech behaviours, fashion lifestyles, physical appearances, and personal habits. A key significance of the findings is that they contribute to the extant literature on nicknaming practices from a site that has been under-researched. Further, the study is a significant foundation for future exploration of students’ use of nicknames for teachers in Senior High Schools and other academic settings in Ghana and elsewhere. The study also has implications on the structure and use of language in the senior high school environments as most of the nicknames are coined in the English language and Twi.
 Keywords: Informal Conversations, Nicknames, Public Transcript, Senior High Schools, Teachers.

METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE THEORY OF “LANGUAGE AND PERSONALITY”

The article dwells upon the deterministic dependences of language and personality within the framework of the triangulation approach. The article analyzes the theory of personality in symbolic interactionism and the theory of personality of A.N. Leontiev, as well as the lifestyle theory in the Russian sociology. The author develops methodological prerequisites for the theory of “language and personality”.

Food Taboos and Avoidance Practices affecting Pregnant Women at Larteh in the Akwapim North District, Eastern Region, Ghana

Purpose: The cultural beliefs of a group of people play a pivotal role in determining the nutritional status and well-being of the people. Understanding food beliefs and practices is critical to the development of dietary recommendations, nutritional programmes, and educational messages. An aspect of cultural beliefs that greatly affect majority of people especially children, pregnant women and the aged is food taboos and avoidance practices. The main aim of this study is to explore the various food taboos and its associated practices that affect pregnant women in Larteh.
 Materials and Methods: The study employed aspects of quantitative and qualitative approaches, and used the cross-sectional exploratory design. The random sampling technique was used to select 75 participants for the quantitative aspect, whilst the purposive sampling approach was used to select five opinion leaders for the qualitative aspect. A closed-ended structured questionnaire was used to obtain quantitative data, whilst a structured interview guide was used to collect the qualitative data. Whilst the quantitative data was analysed using frequencies and percentages in IBM-SPSS v9, the qualitative data was analysed using narratives. The results were presented in tables.
 Findings: Among the key findings were pregnant women were forbidden from eating snails, crabs, shellfish mudfish and eggs. It was further revealed that the people perceive these taboos as a way to protect pregnant women from experiencing stillbirths, deformities and delayed labour, among others.
 Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: The sociological theory of functionalist perceptive anchored the study and its assertion that food taboos and avoidance practices are handed down to generations was affirmed. It was thus suggested that there should be public education on the nutritional needs of people in Larteh, especially the vulnerable so that adequate provision can be made for them because of food scarcity and limited choices of food commodities due to numerous food taboos and avoidance practices. Moreover, given the deep-rooted nature of the beliefs, it is advisable that when nutritious foods are restricted, nutritional interventions should rather search for alternative sources of nutrition, which are available and considered appropriate for pregnant women.

Book Review: Different and Novel Point of View in Consumer Behaviour: Review of Consumer.ology from Philip Graves

This article provides a comprehensive review and analysis of Philip Graves' "Consumer.ology", a seminal work that offers a fresh perspective on consumer behavior. The book challenges traditional market research theories and aligns with certain psychological and sociological theories, emphasizing the importance of environmental influences, unconscious factors, and social context in shaping consumer behavior. The article delves into the "Crowd Factor" in consumer behavior, a concept particularly relevant in today's digital age where online commerce dominates and celebrity endorsements, along with viral trends, significantly sway consumer behavior. The article also explores Graves' AFECT criteria, a unique perspective that challenges traditional market research theories. The insights from the book are particularly relevant for marketers and businesses in the digital age, providing valuable insights for crafting more effective strategies to influence consumer behavior. The article concludes that "Consumer.ology" is a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding consumer behavior, offering a fresh perspective and valuable insights for marketers and researchers.

Building a Strong Clinical Sociology Program through Accreditation

Existing international clinical sociology undergraduate and graduate programs or programs in a related field with a clinical sociology concentration or track should consider the Commission on the Accreditation of Programs in Applied and Clinical Sociology (CAPACS) to increase the marketability of graduating sociology students. The Commission works collaboratively with interested program faculty and staff to professionalize the discipline. Students graduating from a program that is CAPACS accredited makes use of sociological theory and research methods; and students must complete a meaningful practice experience so that they are exposed to professional orientation and ethics.

The Legal Formation of Class in Migrant Care and Domestic Work

This article analyses the relationship between law and class formation through the case of migrant care and domestic work, and puts sociological class theory into conversation with critical migration research. It contributes to class theory by analysing how law helps produce class relations in the Finnish context. The Finnish state channels migrants into cleaning and domestic work through policy measures, and migration law ties them to the reproductive sector, making law a central social relation that defines migrants’ relation to production. The analysis draws on interviews with migrant care and domestic workers (N = 30) holding temporary work permits and examines their structural and affective descriptions of a position restricted by law. The article argues that the way migrant domestic work is formalised in the legislation produces a class relation for migrants, in which they lack full ownership over their labour power. The findings demonstrate how migrant domestic workers express gratitude for their employment despite experiencing it as devalued, indicating labour as repayment of the ‘gift’ of the residence permit.

Intimate networks of care: Perceptions of intergenerational family care and experiences of ageing among Chinese midlife and older lesbians and gay men.

This article examines how lesbians and gay men imagine and build their 'intimate networks of care' and negotiate moral expectations towards intergenerational family care as they age. To date, little is known about the strength and complexities of different intimate ties or the role of intergenerational dynamics in shaping ageing sexual minority people's care needs and choices. Based on narrative interviews with ageing Chinese lesbians and gay men, the findings reveal their experiences of constantly juggling their ties with families of origin, moral values around intergenerational care and the urge to receive support from and offer support to chosen networks of people. Participants exercised agency in expanding their networks of care by building friendship and (online and offline) community networks for mutual care and support in later life. Nevertheless, as evidenced by the centrality of ageing with(out) children, and the moral obligation of caring for parents in participants' narratives, participants experienced tensions between enacting what was considered morally right/wrong and developing networks of care that were perceived as emotionally intimate. Linking relational sociology with the sociology of morality, we discuss the conceptual utility of 'intimate networks of care' for sociological theorising of the linkages between sexuality, care and relational lives.

Addressing Urgencies of Democratic Interaction in the Public Spherean: Attempt to Facilitate Disagreement on Audience Dramaturgies of Disagreement

In the research project 'Dramaturgies of Disagreement in Contemporary Theatre,' I examined how theatre performances dramaturgically work with substantial disagreement within audiences and non audiences. In the first part of this article, I present and discuss the cultural politi cal context, the societal backdrop, and the agenda of this research. I argue for the need to deal critically with normative prem ises and closures in this research. In the second part, I exemplify how a move from a normative point of departure towards a more descriptive approach may be realised. I start this part by presenting the applied sociological theory of communities of disa greements (Iversen 2014), before I describe, analyse, and compare three Norwegian par ticipatory performances from recent years. I propose the metaphorical terms of theatre as either arena , laboratory, or catalyst for communities of disagreement to highlight differences between the dramaturgical approaches. I further examine how the rela tion between the limited public space of the theatre and the wider public sphere is con ceptualised differently in the three cases. Finally, I relate the analysed dramaturgies to a spectrum of political theory that spans from deliberative to agonistic democracy to further illuminate and facilitate legit imate disagreement on dramaturgies of disagreement. Art does not need any justification. Yet public funding of the arts in democratic societies is dependent on such justifica tions. And no public funding results in poor conditions for the arts. That means, art is dependent on justifications after all. As a theatre researcher, I contribute to the form ation, affirmation, and negotiation of such justifications, whether I am aware of it and intentionally partake or not. The Nordic welfare states are known for their (relatively) extensive support of the arts. However, the traditionally pre sumed societal consensus on this support has been showing signs of weakness for a while. Hence, the Arts Council Norway and the Danish Arts Foundation11 have called attention to the need for renewed strategies of legitimisation. Their latest research pro gramme, 'Arts and Social Communities,' has been motivated by this need. My research into dramaturgies of disagreement in con temporary theatre has been funded by this programme. What I present and discuss in this article reflects my experiences of con tributing to this programme.

Actualizing societal membership in imaginary interaction: The "real construction of society" in the opening of current affairs TV discussion.

The wonder of modern mass-scale society has preoccupied sociological theorists for centuries. How does the whole live on and function? At the extreme of strong empirical traditions, conversation analysis focuses on studying the interactional organization of ongoing action and identities. My article puts these two inquiries together to explore the broader relevancies of situated talk and evidence the skillfulness of social actors in managing multi-scaled cultural memberships simultaneously. Approaching society as a processual accomplishment, this article investigates the instantiation of "societal membership" in a mundane institutional setting of broadcast television. The aim of the article is to experiment with how classical theoretical conceptualization can feed into methodological insight and how detailed empirical scrutiny can enrich our theoretical understanding of the mysteries of modern co-existence. This entails casting an analytic eye on the duality of structure and action. The article re-examines the structural scope of on-site interactional achievements. From an opposite angle, it highlights how integrative societal structures are made real and maintained in the art of interactional encounters. This two-way dynamic is exemplified by scrutinizing a fragment of a televised current affairs program. A set of theoretical key concepts is introduced to shed light on the societal orientations of participants in the opening talk of the program. The opening talk addresses an imaginary audience directly via the camera. It provides a view of the interactional methods used by journalists to invoke relevant identifications for the anticipated recipient at a distance. The encounter is imagined, yet instead of imagining a community in the reception, the analytic focus of the article is on actualizing society in the production of the talk. The spatially and temporally organized societal membership materializes in social relations and interdependencies, which are constituted through intersubjective interpretations, normative positionings, and interactional choices by intentional and knowledgeable actors in the routines of everyday life. The article reverse-engineers the relational framework of the deliberative public sphere enacted in mediated interaction as a collaborative scene of the democratic system. This is achieved by explicating the contextually embedded acts of societization taking place in a journalistically regulated field of participation by means of quasi-interactive public speech.

The Extent of Women's Enjoyment of Sacred Space

Religious feeling and experience is one of the components of religiosity, which in sociological theories is sometimes placed in the axis of religion and sometimes around the components of religiosity, and is expressed through sacred symbols and semantic system. Religious feelings are interrelated with religious rituals and community, which cause production, reproduction and mutual reinforcement. As a holy place and space, the mosque is expected to create a holy experience in the community instead of the ritual bringers, and by creating a common experience, it strengthens empathy and a sense of unity in this community. But the way that the policy makers of our country have taken in separating men and women in this place has caused the destruction of the meaning system of sacred space and architecture for women. This article aims to state the existence of such a problem in the hope that political and social planners will act in order to solve this problem.