How Sentiments Organize Social Action

Sociological studies of affect and associated processes have a long tradition in the discipline, originating with Durkheim's interest in religious belief and practice. Contemporary interest in the area has focused on several distinct instances in which affective evaluations are learned, are expressed toward others, organize behavior in social situations, and change. Attitudes, emotions , feelings, moods, and sentiments are distinguished from one another and studied as distinct factors in the organization of social action. Affective information is socialized in families and reinforced in social institutions as the actor matures. Interaction with others and the exchange of social rewards leads to patterns of social organization in proximal and distal groups as actors identify others who share similar patterns of orientation to social objects. Status structures in groups are reflected in patterns of sentiment distribution. Similarly, sentiment and emotion structures impact status behavior in groups. Technological developments have advanced measurement of emotional reactions, expression of sentiments toward social objects, and identification of social structures in social media. Theoretical developments in the study of sentiment and emotion are highlighted in the essay.     

Integration of migrants — an extraordinary undertaking? An analysis of Swiss policy and handling of resident immigrants; a municipal example—Bern

Migration and multiculturalism are key topics in politics, in the media, in education and in the social sciences. It is a phenomenon that has been discussed again and again during the last fifteen years with the aim to find solutions. A theoretical set of points of consideration is established in the first chapter in order to understand how migration is running counter to the ‘normal’ condition and development of society, and tends to cause problems in various contexts. Case histories in the second chapter show how communities are handling the consequences of immigration in practice and in the framework of the specific prevailing national and welfare state structures, and especially how communities are meeting the challenge politically and with their system of social services. In the final chapter the most important findings are summarized.     

Religion and Incorporation: Islam in France and Germany

This article attempts to examine religion, particularly Islam, as an emergent type of corporate ethnicity in France and Germany and how Islam is represented and recognized in relation to the established principles governing the interaction of church and state both in the histories of each country and in comparison to the United States. Although religion constitutes one element of pluralism and diversity in which Islam would be the “religion of a minority” among other ethnic groups in the United States, in Europe Islam emerges as a “minority religion” in European nation‐states. Such a conceptual difference is reflected in the understandings and applications of multiculturalism and recognition in European countries and the United States. The question then is how to insure a historical continuity between principles and ideals of states on the one hand and how to integrate the religious diversity raised by Islam into the secularism of liberal European societies on the other.     

The Jockey Club and the town in colonial Australia

This analysis examines the formation and development of a Jockey Club and an annual race carnival in a small country town in northern New South Wales, Australia, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. These institutions are discussed in terms of their role in bestowing status and legitimacy upon the town of Grafton, as well as in terms of their importance in local political, social, and economic life. Comparisons are made to similar organizations in Britain and the United States. The seemingly disproportionate power and prestige associated with the Jockey Club is examined in terms of its broader role in establishing purpose and self-image to the rural community.     

Relationships between marital quality,social, and familial interactions by residential location: Implications for human service professionals

Gerontological literature is reviewed concerning the factors contributing to marital quality of later life couples. Data are presented which compare the marital quality of older couples residing in a retirement facility and elderly couples living in the community-at-large. The couples' interactions with friends and frequency of visits with children are examined in terms of the relationship between these variables and marital quality of the subjects. Implications for practice are discussed.Ellie Brubaker is Associate Professor of Sociology at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Brubaker holds a Ph.D. in Social Work from the Ohio State University. Her current research is in the area of social service delivery to older families.Linda Ade-Ridder is Assistant Professor in the Department of Home Economics and Consumer Sciences and an associate of the Family and Child Studies Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Ade-Ridder received her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Living at the Florida State University in 1983. Her current research is being conducted on the roles of women, including women in older marriages and eating disorders in women.     

Deindustrialization, Female-Headed Families, and Black and White Juvenile Homicide Rates, 1970-1990

Recent research in urban sociology posits that the proliferation of female-headed families in American cities is a result of declining economic prospects due to profound changes in the structure of the urban economy. Meanwhile, macro-level theory and research in criminology suggest that an association exists between family structure and rates of lethal violence among juveniles. Given these two streams of sociological thought, there is good reason to expect that increases in juvenile homicide rates since 1970 may be due, in part, to changes in the structure of the economy and the family during the 1970 to 1990 period. However, the nexus between deindustrialization, female-headed families, and juvenile homicide has received little attention in extant research. The objective of the current study is to remedy this gap in the literature by bringing together ideas about deindustrialization and female headship in an attempt to explain city-level changes in Black and White juvenile homicide rates between 1970 and 1990. In particular, the research investigates the hypothesis that a decline in the manufacturing base of cities increased rates of female headship and thereby indirectly raised homicide rates. Race differences in the hypothesized structural relationships also are examined.     

Intercultural education and recent European pedagogies of religious education

I give a brief account of the emergence in Britain in the late 1960s of a secular religious education (RE), utilizing material from the religions of the world, and refer to its role in multicultural education in the 1970s. Next, I summarize some developments in the history of the uneasy relationship between multicultural and antiracist education up to the early 1990s, when new critical approaches to multicultural education appeared, noting that the political climate in Britain under Conservative Governments prevented any positive influence from these on policy. Since the election of a Labour Government in 1997, two main factors have resulted in the restoration of some multicultural/intercultural education to the curriculum: The first is a response to social disruption nationally and globally. The second is the introduction of citizenship education in the curriculum of English and Welsh schools. In the case of social disruption, in relation to riots in England and to the events of 11 September 2001, in New York and their global consequences, religion has been a key element requiring analysis and response. Policy discussions, in England and Wales and in Europe more widely, are recognizing the importance of the religious dimension to intercultural education. New interpretive and dialogical pedagogies of RE share similar analytic stances towards ‘culture’ and ‘religion’ and similar critical and reflexive methodologies to recent approaches to multicultural/intercultural education. Thus, RE, employing these pedagogies, can make a direct contribution to an intercultural education working to promote social cohesion. There are also opportunities for fruitful collaboration between educators in the RE and intercultural fields.     

阿拉伯语在阿尔及利亚的发展及现状调查

马格里布地区在历史上历经复杂的社会生活变化,阿拉伯语在马格里布的历史发展现状是一个需要研究的问题,阿尔及利亚是其中最具代表性的国家之一。本文通过纵向历史回顾,综述了古代、近代和当代阿拉伯语在阿尔及利亚的发展历程,并通过问卷调查的形式,研究阿拉伯语在阿尔及利亚的发展现状和特点,分析了阿拉伯语的使用在阿尔及利亚所面临的问题及未来的发展趋势。     

阿拉伯语在阿尔及利亚的发展及现状调查

马格里布地区在历史上历经复杂的社会生活变化,阿拉伯语在马格里布的历史发展现状是一个需要研究的问题,阿尔及利亚是其中最具代表性的国家之一.本文通过纵向历史回顾,综述了古代、近代和当代阿拉伯语在阿尔及利亚的发展历程,并通过问卷调查的形式,研究阿拉伯语在阿尔及利亚的发展现状和特点,分析了阿拉伯语的使用在阿尔及利亚所面临的问题及未来的发展趋势.     

Facing east: the World ORT Union and the Jewish refugee problem in Europe, 1933–38

The World Union of Societies for Promotion of Artisanal and Agricultural Work among the Jews (ORT Union) was created in Berlin in 1921 by emigrants from Russia, veterans of the Russian ORT that had been founded in St Petersburg in 1880. By 1933, the ORT Union represented a transnational association of public philanthropic organisations and maintained a large network of professional schools and vocational training courses scattered all over Eastern Europe. After the advent of the Nazis in 1933, the ORT Union managed to work out and fulfil several relief programmes directed towards the rescue of the German Jews and improving the refugee problem. The ORT leadership considered the remote Birobidzhan region in the USSR as a possible asylum for the German‐Jewish refugees and tried to organise their large‐scale resettlement there. Although, because of a considerable change in Stalin’s foreign policy in the late 1930s, this ambitious plan was not fulfilled in full measure, the efforts of the ORT Union to rescue German Jews and solve the refugee problem undoubtedly led to an expansion of its activity and created a transcontinental network of technical and agricultural training institutions. ORT’s connection to the migratory processes of this period cannot be overestimated, especially in relation to professional training, which allowed thousands of refugees to adapt in a very short time to the new socioeconomic reality in the countries of their destination. Using documentary sources preserved in archives in Russia, Britain, Germany and Israel, this article analyses the all‐embracing programmes offered by the ORT Union for ameliorating the Jewish refugee problem in Europe from 1933 until the eve of the Second World War.     

Between organization and spontaneity of protests: the 2010–2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the role of social groups in mobilizing resources for protests in repressive contexts. In particular, it examines the impact of organizations and informal groups on individual engagement in the protests developed in 2010 in Tunisia and in 2011 in Egypt. The empirical analysis draws on the following data sources: the second wave of the Arab Barometer (2010–2011), two focus groups in Egypt conducted between 2011 and 2015 with members of trade unions and of Popular Committees who had participated in the 2011 protests in Egypt, eight semi-structured interviews conducted in 2017 to workers in Tunisia who had engaged in the 2010–2011 protests, and interviews conducted in January and February 2011 to 100 women in Tunisia within a study tackling police violence against women during the Tunisian uprisings.

Findings show that both in Egypt and Tunisia protests were neither spontaneous nor fully organized as formal organizations and informal and spontaneous groups strictly interconnected in sustaining protests. In Egypt, established Islamic charity networks provided the structural basis for Popular Committees to engage in the 2011 protests and the initially spontaneous workers’ groups, institutionalized through the legalization of EFITU, were crucial for national wide protests occurred throughout 2011. In Tunisia, the major trade union UGTT was essential for mobilizing workers in the initial stages of protests but was backed by informal and spontaneous groups of workers during the process of protest diffusion.

Results remark that the 2010–2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings were therefore well-grounded on intermediate mobilizing structures capable to survive in the interstices of an authoritarian context. Findings suggest to consider that, in repressive context, spontaneous groups and more established and formal organizations continuously switch from one form to another, overlap, and transform themselves faster than they would do in democratic contexts.     

Framing the Picture of the Child

The paper studies the forms that are used in planning for a child’s early childhood education and care in Finnish day care from the perspectives of social constructionism and discourse analysis. It asks how childhood is conceptualised in these forms and what are the social functions of early childhood education and care as implied in the conceptualisations. The paper shows that the conceptions of childhood and the understanding of the functions of early childhood education and care are mostly in unison and are rooted in traditional discourses, approaches and practices of Finnish day care. Consequently, the child’s view and the child as an agent in her/his world are not present in the forms.     

Promoting ergonomics in Algeria: activities of "the research and training laboratory" in the University of Oran

The growing need in Algeria to develop ergonomics knowledge and practice in industry was behind the initiative to develop a training and research project within the ergonomics laboratory at Oran University. Since 2005 the laboratory team is running an academic option master in work design and ergonomics. The evaluation of the academic master in 2010 revealed the acute need of the local industry for professional competences in ergonomic and work psychology. A professional training master program in "ergonomics & work psychology" was then developed in partnership with local industry, five European Universities and six Universities from three Maghreb countries. Research projects were initiated around the two training programs, in conjunction with a number of ergonomics dissemination and promotion activities. Preliminary results of the project are presented and discussed in relation to the local context, and in the light of similar cases in Industrially Developing Countries.     

Mediating production and consumption: cultural capital and 'cultural workers'

This paper examines recent debates about the role of what Bourdieu termed cultural intermediaries in the formation and reproduction of the relations of cultural capital. Workers in the cultural or creative industries were given a central place in Bourdieu's schema in the creation of hierarchies of value in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Subsequent writers about the apparent emergence of a creative economy (Lash and Urry 1994; Featherstone 1991) have given workers involved in the production and distribution of cultural goods a pivotal place in the development of late or post-modernity. More recent work (Negus 2002; Nixon and du Gay 2002) has criticized the validity and coherence of the term as it has come to be understood and called for more rigour in its definition and use. This paper adds to this debate by considering the book trade as a space in which the gap between production and consumption of cultural goods is mediated. It suggests that cultural intermediaries, as cultural workers, are engaged in the reproduction of the cultural aspects of social class by 'shoring up' their insecure position in the relations of cultural capital, rather than simply being the taste leaders of a reflexive modernity.     

In pursuit of capital: The charismatic turn among the Chinese managerial and professional class in Malaysia

This article explores a so far neglected dimension of the ongoing debate on the relationship between the politically contested position of the ethnic Chinese and their dominant role in the economies of Southeast Asia in general and in Malaysia in particular. While the prominence of the ethnic Chinese in the business life of Malaysia is ubiquitous, they also seem to be the engine of the striking growth of the Christian community, in particular the Pentecostal-Charismatic groups. This ‘charismatic turn’, it has been argued, reflects a major shift in the social position and power relations among the ethnic groups and the consolidation of the position of the Malaysian Chinese in the modern Malaysian nation state. This article critically reappraises this ‘empowerment thesis’ by analyzing the opportunities that conversion to Christianity and membership of Pentecostal-Charismatic groups offer to Malaysian Chinese business people, managers and professionals. In particular, this article identifies the forms of capital (in a Bourdieuan sense) involved and analyzes how these forms of capital are utilized and imbued with meaning in the interface of religion and business.     

Gender Inequality in Authority and Autonomy in the Workplace in Japan,Britain, and the United States*

Abstract This study examines gender inequality in the distribution of various aspects of autonomy and authority in the workplace in Japan, Britain, and the United States. In all three societies, there are clear gender gaps in access to autonomy and authority relations, but the distributions are most unequal in Japan. The main part of this study involves the testing of four hypotheses which attempt to explain gender differences in autonomy and authority. The first hypothesis, which focuses on family responsibilities, receives limited support from the Japanese and British data. Japanese and British women are disadvantaged in obtaining managerial positions and supervising other employees by the presence of children. The human capital explanation of gender inequality in the workplace appears to be supported to some extent in Japan and Britain because gender gaps are reduced when we controlled for Render differences in education, tenure and work experience in these countries. The differential access to managerial positions is an important source of gender inequality in workplace social relations in all three countries. Nonetheless, significant gender gaps remain. especially in the United States. When all these factors (family responsibilities, human capital and managerial positions) are taken together, gender gaps are reduced substantially in Japan. In contrast. persistent gender inequality is found in the United States.     

Structural changes in the receiving country and future labor migration--the case of Kuwait

This article describes changes in the volume, age and sex composition, retention, productivity, types of occupation, and economic sector of the labor force in Kuwait. The focus is on the structural changes in the indigenous labor force. Data were obtained from censuses and labor force surveys during 1965-93. Policies after the 1990 invasion pertained primarily to security of public employment sector among natives. Over 98% of private sector employment is among non-Kuwaitis. Government programs support high fertility. Female illiteracy has declined, and the proportion of women with a higher education has increased. Natives comprised 20.4% of the total labor force in 1993. About 90% of native males work in the public sector. 45% of total male employment is in the production sector. Around 50% of non-Kuwaiti males have been employed in production work over the decades. Over 90% of Kuwaiti females in 1993 worked in professional or clerical work. Over 50% of total female labor force participation is in the service sector. Concentration in the public sector increased for Kuwaitis and declined for non-Kuwaitis. Labor force participation declined with increasing age. Retirement benefits encouraged early retirement. The private sector is experiencing the departure of long-term migrants and more rapid turnover of labor. Hours of work are longer in the private sector. Kuwait is still dependent on foreign workers in the production and service industries. It is likely that native male workers will replace foreign workers in professional work and administrative/clerical work. Policies that will assure future reliance on imported labor include the assurance of government jobs for Kuwaitis, retirement rules, and the profitability of the trade in labor.     

An ergonomics approach to citrus harvest mechanization

Due to the increase of production costs in manual harvesting, strategies must be developed in order to overcome these effects, such as the attempts in implementing agricultural machines in harvest activities, whether being totally or partially mechanized. This study brings a qualitative and quantitative comparison on the impacts in work conditions and productivity in Brazilian orchards caused by the use of semi-mechanized harvesting systems, such as multiplatforms. The results come from the application of Ergonomic Work Analysis method, which focuses in the activity, quantifying and analyzing times and frequencies of the harvesting cycle, as well as the amount of movements. To achieve this, footage, interviews and a stopwatch were used in the observation 12 pickers' work cycles, six for each method of harvesting. The data interpretation pointed to improvement in working conditions with a reduction in the amount of movements performed by the picker, and increase of up to 60% in productivity with the use of semi-mechanized harvesting. Thus, the found results indicate the viability of this harvesting method. However, other variables must be observed in future studies in order to complete the guidelines for a healthy progress in the area of citrus harvesting in Brazil.     

A comparison of disability management practices in Australian and Canadian workplaces

The health, well-being and productivity of workers and employers in today's society is becoming increasingly important. The social, emotional and economic costs of injury and illness are such that governments throughout the world are attempting to implement policies and practices to contain these costs. One response in this area is Disability Management (DM). DM focuses on the management of employees with work injuries or illnesses in the workplace rather than offsite in rehabilitation centres. Regional interest in the DM approach has now gained momentum in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. This article briefly reviews two studies that were conducted in Australia and Canada (results have or are being published elsewhere). Although the two studies were not designed for comparison purposes they provide interesting and useful information about the similarities and differences in the practice of DM in Australia and Canada. Findings are compared in terms of five primary principles of DM and it is argued that it is important to understand the ecological contexts in which DM occurs as well as share trans-national research in this area to help inform policy and practice.     

Democracy and oligarchy in trade unions: The independent trade unions in the Transvaal and the Western province general workers’ union in the 1970s

The aim of this paper is to examine democracy and oligarchy in the independent trade unions in the Transvaal and the Western Province General Workers Union in the 1970s. The unions considered in the Transvaal comprise the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSA TU) and the Consultative Committee of Black Trade Unions. The Consultative unions consisted of the Commercial Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (CCA WUSA) and a large proportion of the present Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA). This study covers the period from the foundation of the unions in the early 1970s to the second half of 1979 for the Transvaal unions and to the end of 1980 for the Western Province General Workers’ Union. It is divided into two major sections. The first deals with theories of democracy and oligarchy in trade unions by considering Michels’ iron law of oligarchy. His iron law is evaluated in the light of two centuries of experience in the British trade unions as analysed mainly by the Webbs, Clegg and Hyman. After deriving a theory of democracy and oligarchy in trade unions based on the historical material, it moves on to examine democracy and oligarchy in the independent trade unions in the 1970s. The stage the unions reached at the end of the period is evaluated and some conclusions are drawn.

Before considering theories of trade union democracy and oligarchy however, it is necessary to clarify some key concepts and consider the role of democracy in trade unions.