SYNSEG – Eine Methode zur <Emphasis Type="Italic">syn</Emphasis>taxgeleiteten <Emphasis Type="Italic">Seg</Emphasis>mentierung von Kodiereinheiten für die Analyse von Gruppenprozessen

Observing group processes allows for obtaining insights into what successful groups do differently than less successful groups. In doing so, observational data is typically transcribed or integrated into coding software, coding units are identified, and coding systems are applied to code these units with regard to the respective content. While there are systems available for transcribing and coding observational group data, the segmentation of coding units is mostly left to the coders’ intuition. Standardized and tested procedures for identifying coding units are not available for group research, limiting the reliability of coding group data. We introduce a method which aims at systematically identifying and segmenting coding units to enhance coding reliability. SYNSEG – syntax-based segmentation of coding units – suggests ten rules to segment coding units based on German grammar. To test for reliability, two coders applied SYNSEG for segmenting a 60-minute group discussion. A normalised Levensthein Distance of nD = 0,19 indicated satisfying coder agreement. We discuss the relevance and applicability of SYNSEG in applied group research.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">What do unions do?</Emphasis>—Evaluation and commentary

Most books in the social sciences quietly slip into oblivion soon after publication. Very few remain frequently cited 20 years later and only a handful merit a retrospective symposium. One of these books is Freeman and Medoff’s What Do Unions Do? When it was published, a reviewer (Mitchell, 1985: 253) labeled the book “a landmark in social science research.“ Two decades later this verdict still rings true. The authors of WDUD should be justifiably proud.     

Sozioökonomischer Status,Deprivation und die Affinität zur <Emphasis Type="Italic">AfD</Emphasis> – Eine Forschungsnotiz

Using three recent data sets (ALLBUS 2016, GLES 2016, ESS 2016), we show that the affinity for the AfD is a socially stratified phenomenon. Actors with minimal education and low income, the unemployed, workers, and actors who feel deprived in socioeconomic terms have a stronger tendency towards supporting the AfD than those actors with a higher socioeconomic status. This finding contrasts with previous research, which describes the rise of right-wing populism in Germany as the result of some kind of clash of idealistic cultures lacking any foundation in the economic basis of society.     

Sociology’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Suicide</Emphasis>: A Forensic Autopsy?

For decades Durkheim’s theory of suicide has been tested and found wanting. Yet, rather than being consigned to the dust-bin of history, it lives on and is pointed to as an exemplar of the powers of sociological theory and research. If this rationalizing and/or dismissal of so many falsifications of the theory were an isolated phenomenon, it might be evidence of some lemming-like propensity for suicide or a disciplinary death-wish, among a few sociologists. But it appears to be a much more widespread and common occurrence. In this paper we explore some possible explanations of this ‘falsification denial’—‘The Social Misconstruction of Reality’ (Hamilton 1996), ‘When Prophecy Fails’ (Festinger et al. 1956), ‘Underdetermination’ (Duhem 1954; Quine Journal of Philosophy 67:178–183, 1970, Erkenntnis 9:313–328, 1975; Lakatos 1970), and ‘Boundary Maintenance’ (Erikson 1966), and we outline some of the more important and pernicious consequences of this falsification denial for the discipline and future of sociology.     

Jurassic <Emphasis Type="Italic">technology</Emphasis>? Sustaining presumptions of intersubjectivity in a disruptive environment

While the problem of intersubjectivity has motivated a great deal of sociological research, there has been little consideration of the relationship between intersubjectivity-sustaining practices and the physical environment in which these are enacted. The Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT) is a strategic site for exploring this relationship. With its labyrinthine layout and bewildering exhibits, the MJT provides a natural “breaching experiment” in which concrete elements of the space disrupt normal competencies for sustaining presumptions of intersubjectivity. Using ethnographic data on visitor interaction, this article specifies two disruptive aspects of the physical environment and identifies four methods of repair on which visitors rely to reestablish presumptions of intersubjectivity. The analysis of spatially situated processes of intersubjective disruption and repair in an extreme case such as the MJT is a first step toward “emplacing” the intersubjectivity problem in more everyday settings.

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A Critique of Max Horkheimer’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Critique of Instrumental Reason</Emphasis>

I produce a critique of Marx Horkheimer’s book Critique of Instrumental Reason as a way to introduce the concept of pragmatic critical theory. I start by mentioning that C. Wright Mills’s concept of “The Sociological Imagination” has many of the qualities of critical theory while emphasizing its potential for pragmatic solutions to social problems. I discuss some of the qualities of German social theory including its tendency toward over-philosophizing, before going on to discussing this book as well as the work of such scholars as W. I. Thomas and Emile Durkheim who produced morally-relevant social analysis, and especially the work of Max Weber whose exposition on the nature of rationality is used to provide background information that puts the work of Max Horkheimer in broader sociological context. I discuss how fantasies and substitute satisfactions are substitutes for a well-balanced life. I emphasize why Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School in general did not appreciate the American concern for pragmatism, but I nevertheless show the importance of a pragmatic approach to social reform. His critique of nationalism that runs as a theme throughout this book as offering a poor substitute for a sense of community is also pertinent. I end by emphasizing that Horkheimer’s emphasis on authoritarianism as a reaction to modernization, and Christopher Lasch’s emphasis on narcissism as a reaction to modernization, both emphasize negative aspects of their own societies, and learning how to avoid both extremes is a useful lesson to take away from both of their writings.     

Das Profilstudienprogramm: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Konfliktberatung für Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen</Emphasis> des Instituts für Psychoanalyse an der Universität Kassel. Ein psychoanalytisch-pädagogischer Ansatz

Zusammenfassung  Der Aufsatz stellt das Profilstudienprogramm ‚Konfliktberatung für P?dagoginnen und P?dagogen‘ an der Universit?t Kassel vor. Dabei handelt es sich um ein freiwilliges Studienangebot für Lehramtsstudierende. Die Ausbildungsziele werden auf Grundlage von aktuellen Untersuchungsergebnissen zu den Gründen von Frühpensionierungen im Lehrerberuf im Kontext von psychosozialen Belastungen und berufsrelevanten Pers?nlichkeitsmerkmalen erl?utert. Im Anschluss daran werden die Bedeutung der Berufswahlmotivation sowie die Schulung der F?higkeit zur Selbstreflexion als ein wesentlicher Teil der Professionalisierung im Lehreramtsstudium hervorgehoben. Die verschiedenen Seminarbausteine werden vorgestellt. Abschlie?end wird die Bedeutung des Profilstudienprogramms für die Lehrerbildung diskutiert.

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ownership Society</Emphasis> and Women: Exploring Female Householders’ Ability to Accumulate Assets

Wealth indicators have not been widely examined in studies of women’s economic well-being and little attention has been paid to assets within female-headed households, specifically. Using SIPP data this study examined factors associated with asset accumulation of female householders. Differences between households with and without children and with and without other adults present in the household were emphasized. Findings indicated the presence of children consistently reduced the likelihood of owning assets but had little impact on equity values when women owned assets. The effect of multiple adults within the household varied depending on the asset held.     

A Disputed Truth. Defending Emmanuel Todd’s Approach of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Je suis Charlie</Emphasis>

In May 2015, Emmanuel Todd published Qui est Charlie? Sociologie d’une crise religieuse, a radical analysis of France’s current political state. The central claim of Todd’s book is the idea that the “Je suis Charlie” demonstrations of January 2015 showed how French politics are dominated by a hidden “religious crisis”. Todd posits that there are two France [not unlike the red states and blue states in the U.S.] and that the traditionally right-wing, catholic, inegalitarian France has gone through a crisis with its recent secularization. For Todd, the fall of Catholicism in the “inegalitarian” France has caused the rise of a pro-european “zombie Catholicism” obsessed with secularism to the point of being islamophobic. The book stirred an intense controversy in the mainstream press. In June, Anne Verjus published a series of research notes defending Emmanuel Todd (http://reflexivites.hypotheses.org/7240). This article is a compilation, edition and translation of her research notes. Anne Verjus defends the method used by Emmanuel Todd, addresses the main criticism received by the book and laments the state of current academia in the way it responded to “a disputed truth”.     

Driving in a dead-end street: critical remarks on Andrew Abbott’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Processual Sociology</Emphasis>

In his book Processual Sociology (2016), Andrew Abbott proposes a radically new theoretical perspective for sociology. This review essay discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his “processual” approach, in comparison with other dynamic perspectives in sociology such as, in particular, Norbert Elias’s “process sociology.” It critically questions central ideas and arguments advanced in this book: the reduction of social processes to “events,” the focus on stability as the central explanandum of sociological theory, the implicit separation of individual and social processes, the proposition that the social world changes faster than the individual, the idea that “excess” rather than “scarcity” is the central problematic of human affairs, the strong emphasis on the inherent normativity of sociological concepts, the focus on values as the core of human social life, the neglect of human interdependence, power, coercion, and violence, and the distinction between “moral facts” and “empirical facts.” Detailed criticisms of the arguments in various chapters are given, and alternative viewpoints are proposed. The conclusion is that Processual Sociology fails to provide a fruitful approach for understanding and explaining social processes, and that it even represents, in several respects, theoretical regression rather than progress.     

Examining Community Life “in the Making”: Emile Durkheim’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Moral Education</Emphasis>

Although often overlooked in sociological circles, Emile Durkheim’s (1902–1903) Moral Education provides an important cornerstone in the quest to understand community life. Not only does Moral Education give a vibrant realism to the sociological venture in ways that Durkheim’s earlier works (1893, 1895, 1897) fail to achieve, but in addressing discipline, devotion, and informed reasoning as humanly engaged, collectively accomplished fields of activity Emile Durkheim also provides an exceptionally consequential baseline analysis of human knowing and acting. Notably as well, focusing on the organizational, intersubjectively achieved features of elementary education, Durkheim’s Moral Education lays bare the interactional nature of the moral order of community life. Indeed, as a sustained analysis of the way of life of a group of people collectively participating in the educational process, this text addresses the most basic features of people’s relations to one another and the broader society in which they find themselves. Much more than an account of childhood socialization, Durkheim’s Moral Education also presages the more thoroughly humanist sociology that Durkheim develops in The Evolution of Educational Thought (1904–1905), The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) and Pragmatism and Sociology (1913–1914).     

Keywords and Cultural Change: Frame Analysis of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Business Model</Emphasis> Public Talk, 1975–2000

Keywords chronicle and capture cultural change by creating common categories of meaning against diverse local usages. We call this the global-local tension. To test competing theories of this tension, we employ frame analysis of more than 500 journal abstracts over a 25-year period, tracking the spread of business model as an economic keyword generated during unsettled economic times. Analyses reveal the simultaneous adoption of “global” and “local”frames without one supplanting or co-opting the other. The global-local tension is conciliated by providing primacy across communities of discourse to a small collection of frames (i.e., the global presence) while maintaining a plurality of local use within communities (i.e., the local alternative).     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Si,Se Puede</Emphasis>: Organizing Latino Immigrant Workers in South Omaha’s Meatpacking Industry

Faced with declining union membership and a growing immigrant workforce, the US labor movement has started to realize the importance of organizing immigrant workers. Yet the conventional wisdom among many within the movement is that immigrant workers are “unorganizable.” Based on a case study of a collaborative effort between the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and Omaha Together, One Community to organize an estimated 4,000 Latino immigrant meatpacking workers, I demonstrate not only the “organizability” of immigrant workers, but also the fact that they have been organizing themselves, with the help of a community-based organization, in the absence of union efforts. This case study suggests that in order to facilitate successful organizing campaigns among immigrant workers, unions need to reach out to community-based organizations and institutions that have established relationships with immigrant workers.

‘Shopping for Change’: <Emphasis Type="Italic">World Vision Canada</Emphasis> and Consumption-Oriented Philanthropy in the Age of Philanthrocapitalism

According to Charity Intelligence Canada, in 2014, at least 21 Canadian non-profits published a gift catalogue featuring a range of “products”^a that donors could “purchase” for people in need. These charity gift catalogues, along with other shopping-inspired fundraising initiatives, represent a significant shift in the philanthropic arena towards philanthrocapitalism. Using two World Vision Canada campaigns as exemplars, this article offers a critical analysis of what the author calls “consumption-oriented philanthropy”^b—a class of charitable giving that is heavily guided by market principles without involving a consumer product. Unlike purchase-triggered donation campaigns (in which a charitable donation is made when a consumer product is purchased), consumption-oriented philanthropy does not require the purchase of a for-profit commodity; instead, consumption-oriented philanthropy reformulates aid recipients or charitable aid itself into symbolic commodities. By re-framing charitable aid as a pseudo-shopping experience, however, consumption-oriented philanthropy ushers in an entirely different set of values, expectations, and logic that shapes the way in which donors understand and engage in philanthropic giving.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">The Power Elite</Emphasis> in historical context: a reevaluation of Mills’s thesis,then and now

This article presents a reevaluation of C. Wright Mills’s classic book, The Power Elite, in light of recent historical evidence about the changing nature of the corporate elite in the United States. I argue that Mills’s critique of the mid-twentieth century American elite, although trenchant and in large part appropriate, fails to acknowledge the extent to which business leaders of that era adopted a moderate and pragmatic approach to politics. Operating with an orientation they termed “enlightened self-interest,” the elites of that era promoted policies that—at least to an extent—served the interests of the larger population. I show how the history of the American corporate elite as well as the character of the current US big business community allows us to gain a clearer perspective on the actions of the group’s mid-century counterparts.     

“The Cowl <Emphasis Type="Italic">Does</Emphasis> Make The Monk”: Understanding the Emergence of Social Entrepreneurship in Times of Downturn

In order to contribute to the debate about social entrepreneurship, we take an empirical perspective and describe the phenomenon in Catalonia, Spain, during the financial crises of the early twenty-first century. For this aim, we conducted 43 in-depth interviews with social entrepreneurs, launched a web-based survey with 90 responses, and built a database with 347 organizations and/or ventures settled in Catalonia with an explicit social/environmental goal. The data show that many social/environmental initiatives emerged during the economic crisis, either as a self-employment alternative to unemployment, or as a commercial venture started by nonprofit organizations as a reaction to the reduction in public expense in this sector. In addition, the crisis fueled the emergence of ventures oriented to non-market exchange and social currencies. As a whole, we argue that this new reality can be conceptualized as the emergence of an unsettled Strategic Action Field where banks, business schools and public administrations alike promote the label of “social entrepreneurship” through awards and startup services, whereas other groups claiming the same social/environmental goals contest this market-oriented definition of the field.