From “Swinging Hard” to “Rocking Out”: Classification of Style and the Creation of Identity in the World of Drumming

This article takes a social constructionist approach to the study of a seldom considered subculture—the “world” of drumming. I describe this subculture from both the “etic” and “emic” perspectives, showing how drummers and drumming are perceived and experienced by the musicians themselves (insiders) as well as the “outside” public. The main focus is on the drummers' intersubjective “mental maps” of their world, specifically exploring how they create musical and personal identities by adhering to a rigid classification scheme surrounding “styles” of drumming. I demonstrate how drummers use drumming equipment, personal appearance, education, and “purist” attitudes to separate styles of drumming and to construct distinct social selves. Of special interest is how drummers are cognitively socialized into “thought communities” which teach and reinforce attitudinal and behavioral norms. I conclude with a discussion of the possibilities of applying my analytical framework to other worlds of music and art, as well as some forms of occupational and avocational specialization.     

Negotiating Personal Experience over the Lifetime: Narrative Elasticity as an Analytic Tool

Sociology and neighboring disciplines have produced different analytic tools to examine the dialogical relationship between individuals and society (“narrative work,” “identity work,” “moral career,” “moral breakdown”). However, the question of how individuals negotiate the interpretation of personal experience over their lifetimes in a changing cultural context remains unexplored. This article introduces narrative elasticity as a feature of narrative work and as a time‐sensitive analytic tool for conducting inquiries into processes of temporal retraction and expansion of what storytellers conceive as the normal order of significance. The application of this tool to the analysis of mature and elderly Chileans' life stories shows how cultural change occurs at the individual level, considers factors that motivate and inhibit processes of reinterpretation of personal experience, and identifies different levels at which it operates.     

Survival and change: Social work with angry men

Abstract

This paper discusses the risk elements in encounters with six angry male clients of a social services neighbourhood team. Their preoccupation with basic survival needs produced an identification of the worker with an elusive “stolen object”; this leads to a discussion of how we also felt we had become identified with an image of persecuting parent, rooted in their childhood experience. The key notion of our “struggle” with them is linked to that of “boundary-setting” and the therapeutic value of the characteristic escalation of client/worker conflict is examined. The worker's survival is seen as a confirmation of the client's personal integrity. The process of disengagement is then analysed with particular attention to the material transactions between client and worker that served to mark the end of the engagement. We acknowledge the minimalist nature of our strategy with these men, and attempt to examine outcomes.     

Going to the Crackhouse: Critical Space as a Form of Resistance in Total Institutions and Everyday Life

This article explores the extent to which organizational identity claims and the formal organization of social control influence how actors in a total institution conceptualize their “real” selves. The setting for this case study is Project Rehabilitate Women, a drug treatment program serving incarcerated female offenders. Using Goffman's analysis of the total institution as a guide, I explore the importance of “secondary adjustments” for self-definition. This analysis will show that the capacity of residents to distance themselves from the label of “addict” is contingent on the formal structure of social control. I will argue that, in the absence of traditional distancing strategies, residents construct “critical space” as an alternative means to subvert institutional control mechanisms and to creatively acquire the resources necessary to articulate definitions of self that are distinct from staff constructions. It is clear that resistance, whether temporary or sustained, successful or failed, is central to how subordinates maintain their sense of self in an environment committed to radical self-transformation.     

Gender and Temporality in Interpersonal Systems

This essay provides a nonessentializing account of how gender affects the social construction of time in communicative interactions. Niklas Luhmann's systems theory serves as the theoretical framework for explaining how time is constructed through communication codes. Using Luhmann's model, the essay argues that gender is a communication code that operates to align social participants' perspectives towards a socially constructed “present.” However, the essay notes that participants' experience of that present will be contingent upon the specific cultural and historical criteria that constitute their use of the gender code. The criteria specific to Anglo-American culture are used to illustrate how this instanciation of the gender code might affect temporal experience.     

Narrative Mapping of Social Worlds: The Voice of Experience in Alcoholics Anonymous

At the threshold of an unfamiliar social world, newcomers may seek knowledgeable or experienced others for orientation, information, and advice. Oldtimers, “pros,” and veterans, in turn, may draw upon their personal experience to offer “narrative maps” of the new psychosocial geography. The prepresentations of reality contained in narrative maps may shape newcomers' decisions, actions, and discourse. Despite their ubiquity and significance, however, narrative maps have received scant attention as a topic of sociological inquiry. The personal narratives in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous provide a rich opportunity to explore how experienced members articulate a version of the past, population, practices, and problems of a new world. The contexts, uses, and consequences of narrative mapping are considered.     

Social Capital for Vulnerable Groups: Insight from Employed People Experiencing Homelessness

Abstract

Social capital is a term that has evolved within the social sciences, and has been presented as a mediating factor in how people experience the social environment. In 2008 and 2009 we conducted one-to-one interviews with 61 people experiencing homelessness in an effort to investigate the concept of “pathways” from homelessness. Our findings show that social capital was not just about making positive friends or improving social relationships. Instead, personal issues of identity, self-esteem, and individualization were contributing factors to developing social capital; and social service agency practices could contribute to how these are experienced. Further areas of research are discussed along with the application of research findings to other vulnerable populations.     

Of Roots and Wings: Letting Go of the College‐Bound Child

This article examines how parents experience the process of “letting go” of their college‐bound children. The focus of our analysis is on how the parents evaluate the meanings of their children's leaving home and adopt strategies to facilitate the process for both themselves and the departing child. Our analysis is based on interviews with thirty sets of parents. The interview materials allowed us to recognize and then parse the paradoxical task faced by parents of fostering “attached individuation” for both themselves and their children. We address four broad and persistent themes that emerged from our conversations with parents. First, we consider how parents manage the range of sometimes‐conflicting emotions generated by the letting go process. Second, we analyze the content of parents' worries as a good unobtrusive measure of how they understand the transition to college as a ritual marker in their children's lives. Third, we show how negotiations about geography—about proper distance from home—in choosing a college reflect efforts to impose a measure of gradualism into the letting go process. Fourth, we report on how parents theorize the impact of a child's departure on family relationships in general.     

Relational Troubles and Semiofficial Suspicion: Educators and the Medicalization of “Unruly” Children

Using an interview‐based analysis of the accounts of interactions between educators, parents, and clinicians, this study explores educators' roles in interpreting childhood troubles as the medical phenomenon of attention deficit‐hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The analysis of interviews shows how children's “personal” troubles become understood as “relational” ones, prompting increasingly sophisticated social responses. I argue that the institution of education, operating in a clinical capacity but lacking the legitimate authority to assign ADHD diagnoses, plays a hybridized, semiofficial role in the medicalization process. This assertion informs a critique of the “informal/official” dichotomy found in the sociology of deviance lexicon, and furthers previous positions in the sociology of mental health that have implicated school representatives in the social construction of behavior disorders.     

Premarital sexual standards for different categories of individuals

A survey study of 666 undergraduate students was conducted to examine how standards for a target depend on the target's personal relevance, gender, and age. Whether male and female students have different sexual attitudes was also examined. Respondents were randomly assigned to complete a sexual permissive scale for one type of target. No evidence was found for a double standard, but age and personal relevance of the target affected the standards endorsed. Less permissiveness was endorsed for younger targets and targets who were “personal” (e.g., “sister” or “brother”) to the respondent. Furthermore, female respondents were less permissive than male respondents. Whether this gender difference reflects women's greater sexual conservatism or women's lack of power in the social structure is also discussed.     

Toward a Historical Sociology of COVID-19: Path Dependence Method and Temporal Connections

Encountering the unprecedented social crisis of COVID-19, an increasing number of sociologists are calling for historical sociology to engage empirically with the dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis. I present the “path dependence method” and the “temporal connections” to interpret social life during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using the path dependence method, I show how the personal, social, and national problems created by the COVID-19 crisis initiate a new path and furthermore how this newly created path is justified in a society. Through the temporal connections, I will show how non-Western countries responded more reasonably and quickly than most Western countries to the COVID-19 crisis. The overall aim of this research is to disclose effectiveness of historical sociology, to encourage researchers to think time variable, and to argue that linking historical-sociological knowledge to the COVID-19 crisis would be a positive step for an in-depth COVID-19 sociology.     

Interpretation and interview context: examining the General Social Survey name generator using cognitive methods

This paper reports on a small (N=50) study of how survey respondents interpret the General Social Survey (GSS)'s “discuss important matters” name generator. The study involved concurrent think-aloud interviews, in which respondents were debriefed about their thought processes immediately after answering the name generator. Analyses of these responses indicate that some respondents had difficulty in specifying what was meant by the term “important matters”; sizable minorities understood the question in terms of frequency of contact or intimacy rather than in terms of specific social exchanges. Most of those interviewed said that their “important matters” had to do with personal/intimate relationships or other issues of personal life (e.g., finances, hobbies, or health), but appreciable numbers referred to work and political discussions. An interview context experiment revealed that a respondent's definition of “important matters” can be shaped by the substantive content of the preceding parts of an interview schedule. Notwithstanding these findings, the composition of the networks elicited in the study does not appear to vary substantially across interpretations of the name generator. We conclude that the name generator succeeds in measuring “core” discussion networks, though with somewhat nonspecific content. Implications for the measurement of personal networks in sample surveys are discussed.     

Power at a distance: Organizational power across boundaries

Organizational approaches can help to make sense of social phenomena, including inequality, politics, and culture. This is partly because large organizations exercise great power, both over employees and in their external environments. Revising Charles Perrow's classic account of the “society of organizations” in the 20th century, we argue that the organizational landscape has changed. There has been a dis‐embedding of individuals from organizations that contrasts with Perrow's idea of individuals being “absorbed” by organizations. Despite this hollowing out, there is a persistence of concentrated economic power or “concentration without centralization.” Organizational power in this landscape is increasingly exercised at a distance, not only geographically but also in the sense of moving across organizational boundaries and through technologies of valuation. Three bodies of research exemplify different types of power at a distance. (a) Research on global production networks shows how power travels across geographic and network distances. (b) Research on financialization and its consequences shows how power is mediated by frames and metrics. (c) Emerging research on big data and Artificial Intelligence shows how power is encoded into seemingly neutral technologies and made to seem inevitable. This work helps to update the sociology of organizations and opens up new research questions.     

The Experience of Migration: Settlement and Adjustment in Milan*

We examine two perspectives on the management of migration, involving the distinction between settlement and adjustment. The latter refers to urban migration that involves significant personal maladjustment, while settlement emphasizes the importance of social networks and coping strategies in moderating the consequences of migration. Using a sample representing both rural and urban origins and differential length of residence in Milan, it is shown that (contrary to assumptions involved in the “maladjustment” perspective) neither prior urban experience nor length of exposure to urban life is associated with better adjustment. Various coping strutegies are explored (e. g., pre-migration and social-network help) as potential contributors to successful settlement. Finally, the “settler” (in contrast to the “maladjuster”) is shown to be more insulated from urban-oriented change in life style and ideology.     

Toward a Sociology of Nature

Although we often believe that nature stands apart from social life, our experience of nature is profoundly social. This paper unpacks this paradox in order to (1) explain sociology's neglect of the environment and (2) introduce the articles in this special issue on “the sociology of nature.” I argue that sociology's disinterest in the biophysical world is a legacy of its classical concern with tracing society's “Great Transformation” from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft: while early anthropologists studied “primitive” societies that allegedly had not yet completed “the passage from nature to culture” (Lévi‐Strauss 1963 : 99), pioneering sociologists presumed that industrialization and urbanization liberated “modern” society from nature and therefore focused their attention on “urbanism as a way of life” (Wirth 1938 ). As exemplified by the articles in this symposium, environmental sociology critiques the nature‐culture and town‐country dualisms. One of environmental sociology's core contributions has been demonstrating that nature is just as much a social construction as race or gender; however, its more profound challenge to the discipline lies in its refutation of the sociological axiom that social facts can be explained purely through reference to other social facts. “Environmental facts” are a constitutive feature of social life, not merely an effect of it.     

Confucian ethics and economic development: A study of the adaptation of Confucian values to modern Japanese economic ideology and institutions

This paper analyzes the relationship between Confucian values and odern Japanese economic development, especially in terms of the adaptation of selected Confucian values by pre- and post- World War II Japanese industrialists and government officials toward the formation of a modern Japanese ideology of capitalist economic development. The use of such Confucian values is examined in terms of their appearance in three different areas of Japanese social life: education, the workplace (including both labor-management relations and industrial organization), and the role and attitudes of the government bureaucracy. While such values were consciously used by elites to further economic development, they also reflected in many cases these elites' own personal ethical values. Moreover, although it is difficult to measure precisely how much such values impacted the course of modern Jap development, it is clear that they did have an effect, both positive and negative. Such values and their expression in institutions have also been subtly transformed over time to meet the changing needs of Japan's developing economic and social environment, with the result that in many ways they are now better termed “post-Confucian” Yet, at the same time there is a continuing emphasis on the central values of “respect for learning,” “social harmony” “loyalty” and “familism.”     

Classification,Subjectivities, and Personal Visibility

This article proposes extending the empirical sociological debate regarding the complex ways social classifications construct scenarios of subjectivity. Based on the case study of the Boarding School for the Gifted Disadvantaged in Israel, the article describes how a new cultural order created a new scenario of subjectivity (“gifted disadvantaged”) that had not been known before. This scenario was shaped in relation both to the ethnic classification in Israel, as well as to two social categories that were well‐known in the educational field (“gifted” and “disadvantaged”). To understand the institutional dynamics involved in the construction of a new scenario of subjectivity, content analysis of the organizational documents that accompanied the founding of the school was carried out, and in‐depth interviews with graduates of the school were conducted in order to understand how those who populate the new scenario experience their subjectivity years after its construction. The findings indicate a specific connection between classifications, subjectivity, and personal visibility. Specifically, the study reveals a number of phenomenological aspects that enhance the experience of visibility: the cognitive identification of two types of self; the experience of cognitive liminality; and the consciousness of having a subjectivity deserving of special nurturance.     

The Mainstream of Consciousness: An Interactions Analysis of a Phenomenological Concept*

William James' concept of a personal “stream of consciousness” was carried in a phenomenological direction by Alfred Schutz, who showed that people create their individual and interpersonal reality through selective attention to one another. This idea is discussed here from a symbolic-interactionist standpoint, wherein the various “streams” become one “mainstream” of social thought, consciousness and action. Fundamental concepts of interpretive sociology such as the self, meaningful objects, interpersonal encounters and relations, and social reality, are examined through observations of a jazz ensemble during rehearsals, using James' original ideas and their further development by Schutz.