Class and class conflict: An objective-subjective interactive approach

Class conflict is one of the biggest sources of social tension. But why do some individuals perceive more class conflict than others? In this article, we consider how subjective self-placement interacts with objective social class to shape people's perception of class conflict. We argue that the common finding that individuals often misidentify with the incorrect class can have implications on how they perceive class conflict in their society. Analyzing data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP 1999 and 2009), we find that while, overall, perception of class conflict is higher among the working class and lower among salariats, self-placing lower in the social structure can bring perceptions closer together. Specifically, we show that salariats who deflate their class identities to levels expected of the working class perceive levels of class conflict similar to the working class. This study is among the first to document the disparate effects of the interplay between objective and subjective class on perception of class conflict across countries and over time.     

Anticolonial thought,the sociological imagination,and social science: A reply to critics

Sociology was born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a project in, of, and for empire. This essay excavates a tradition of social thought that grew alongside metropolitan sociology but has been marginalized by it: anticolonial thought. Emerging from anticolonial movements, writers and thinkers, anticolonial thought in 19th and 20th centuries emerged from a variety of thinkers (from indigenous activists in the Americas to educated elites in the American, Francophone and British colonies). I argue that this body of thought offers distinct visions of society, social relations, and social structure, along with generative analytic approaches to the social self, social solidarity and global relations—among other themes. Anticolonial thought offers the basis for an alternative canon and corpus of sociological thinking to which we might turn as we seek to revitalize and decolonize sociology.     

Maintenance work: Interrogating the sociology of art

The following article explores the different ways art sociologists investigate art that is based in the participatory arts. The aim is to shift the empirical focus to the art practice, which speaks for itself, and to place the work of the artist and all who cooperate or collaborate in the making of the artwork at the center of sociological analysis. By allowing the artist to speak fully about their work, art sociologists can uncover new social and cultural phenomena and better understand the different motivations underlying art-making. The following literature highlights the recent tendencies in the sociology of art, explores the “social turn” in art and presents different sociologists who focus on the art practice and the art’s voice. For further development of the field, I suggest the sociology of art needs to catch-up with the recent tendencies in art by placing the empirical focus on participatory art practices that will not only give us a better understanding about the intricate actions taking place in the art making, but it will also illuminate new layers of social life that are hidden. To conclude, I suggest that sociologists engage with participatory-based artists to enhance sociology through a public sociology of art.     

Making sense of the emerging conversation in evaluation about systems thinking and complexity science

In the last twenty years, a conversation has emerged in the evaluation field about the potential of systems thinking and complexity science (STCS) to transform the practice of evaluating social interventions. Documenting and interpreting this conversation are necessary to advance our understanding of the significance of using STCS in planning, implementing, and evaluating social interventions. Guided by a generic framework for evaluation practice, this paper reports on an inter-disciplinary literature review and argues that STCS raises some new ways of thinking about and carrying out the following six activities: 1) supporting social problem solving; 2) framing interventions and contexts; 3) selecting and using methods; 4) engaging in valuing; 5) producing and justifying knowledge; and 6) facilitating use. Following a discussion of these issues, future directions for research and practice are suggested.     

The complexity of ignorance

We examine the kinds of mistakes that are frequently made when the general public is asked to identify political symbols from the past half century. A particularly striking phenomenon is inversion: the event is recalled backwards, so that Rosa Parks is remembered for having given up her seat on a bus to a white person. A second type of error occurs by linking a name to the wrong person, as when John Dean is identified as a movie actor (James Dean). Still another type of mistake involves a correct substantive categorization but with temporal displacement, for example, the Tet Offensive is said to have occurred during the Korean War. In each of these cases we are able to speculate about the social and psychological processes that have led to the misremembering. However, not every error is lodged in respondents: we initially treated as incorrect all answers that did not fit our own expectations; but we were soon forced to recognize that other frames of reference could be brought to the task and lay equal claim to the truth. Names are alphabetical and authorship is equal.     

Putting Sociological Knowledge to Good Use

Sociologists, I propose, have a great deal to contribute to research and theory on human rights, especially owing to the many ways we approach the study of the many aspects of society. In this article I suggest some ways in which sociology can contribute to this mission.     

The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? the theory construction movement revisited

Using book publication dates as markers, I divide the movement of (formal) theory construction into two periods. The first period started in 1954 and lasted for about a decade; the second period started in 1965 and ended in 1972. I argue in this paper that the publication of a dozen more books on how to construct scientific theories in the seven years after 1965 marked the beginning of the end of, rather than the end of the beginning of, the theory construction movement in sociology. Although the formal mode of theory construction is dead now, efforts toward theory construction will never end. I conclude by delineating the major features of a new approach to theory construction that has been emerging in sociology.     

The Moral Effects of Economic Teaching

Over the past 2 decades, dozens of studies have explored the relationship between exposure to economics and antisocial behavior. With a few exceptions, these studies find the economists and economics students are more likely to exhibit a range of “debased” moral behavior and attitudes, both in the controlled environment of the laboratory and in the outside world. This article presents a review of these studies. It draws on the various studies to address the question of whether the found differences are due to a selection effect—that is, those with antisocial tendencies tend to study economics—or an indoctrination effect whereby exposure to economic theory causes antisocial behavior. The article suggests there is evidence that both effects play a role in explaining the debased behavior of economists and students of economics.     

Robin Williams and the Long Twentieth Century of American Sociology … or Back to the Future

In this essay, I reflect on the ways elements of Robin M. Williams Jr.'s research agenda might be carried forth in a meaningful way to sociological studies of twenty-first-century phenomena—in particular identifying the ways in which the facts of human interaction, of human expectation, and of human influence shapes outcomes of significance for our present, our future, and, therefore, our past.     

Banking on Families: How Families Generate and Distribute Social Capital

Before we can determine the relevance of social capital to the sociology of family and kinship, we must fill the gaps in our theoretical knowledge. For example, we still do not know how couples, parents, children, and groups generate, accumulate, manage, and deploy social capital. Neither do we know the consequences of social capital for the welfare of families and their individual members. To investigate these areas, we must replace the makeshift measures currently in use with measures that do not confuse social capital with the presumed consequences of access to same. With this attention to theoretical elaboration and careful measurement, we will discover whether the idea of social capital is fruitful or merely decorative.     

Dealing with dysnomia: Strategies for the cultivation of used concepts in social research

This article follows recent calls to turn social theory away from its fixations on intellectual history and toward the mechanics and craft of creating social theories in the research process. The subject of this article is a dilemma common to theorizing in social science: dysnomia, or the phenomenon in which some object is poorly named. Specifically, this article focuses on how social scientists distinguish original concepts from their equivalents in everyday speech. Three tactics for dealing with dysnomia are named—academic arcana, classification and sociologism—and considered in order to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of each.     

Training research-minded social workers: experience from Estonia*

ABSTRACT

Social work education in its modern sense started to develop after Estonia regained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. The aim of this article is to introduce good practices of teaching research-mindedness, this being one of the main principles in teaching social workers-to-be in the University of Tartu in Estonia. We have been inspired by the academic tradition of university teaching in general, the new international definition of social work and, not least, the realisation of social workers in practice of not being able to apply academic knowledge to everyday social work practices. This article revisits the term research-mindedness and examines how it has been integrated into the university level teaching process. Our purpose is to discuss the methods students of bachelor’s and master’s programmes can learn to ‘translate’ social issues into research questions, critically appraise the findings and ‘translate’ them back as new research evidence for social work practice.     

Gendered and classed experiences of work–family conflict among lone mothers in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Research on the relationship between lone motherhood and social class is indeed limited. Drawing on 39 in-depth interviews, the overall aim of this article is to increase knowledge of the ways that working conditions and access to economic resources impact on Swedish lone mothers’ opportunities to integrate paid work and family. One assumption is that lone mothers are guided by culturally shaped ideas about the proper way to be a mother, and that variance between mothers’ notions of good mothering and the means for their realization, i.e. sociological ambivalence, may give rise to conflicts and dilemmas. Results show that low incomes, non-standard hours and temporary employment reduced working-class mothers’ prospects of practising the kind of mothering they considered proper, creating dilemmas and high levels of conflict. Mothers could not always effectively use the rights granted to parents by the Swedish welfare state. The variances between notions about good mothering and the means for realizing them were not as big for middle-class mothers, thanks to greater access to economic capital and flexible working hours. Different opportunity structures hence significantly influenced lone mothers’ opportunity to combine paid work and caring commitments in ways they found appropriate.     

Books vs. articles: Two ways of publishing sociology

Sociologists tend to publish either in the form of articles in scholarly journals or in the form of books. This paper attempts to show that not only do specific university departments have scholarly cultures emphasizing one or the other, but that structural and demographic factors — such as location, public or private status, and size — are correlated with each. Book departments tend to be found at exclusive private universities in or near big cities on both coasts, while article-producing departments tend to be in land grant universities in the South and Midwest. Recognizing that such publication decisions are not purely scientific in nature but are also partially socially constructed ought to allow us to have more diversity in how departments structure their scholarly cultures.     

What is algorithmic governance?

This article contributes a coherent framework to the rich literature emerging in the field of algorithmic governance while also resolving conflicting understandings. Tracing the history of algorithmic governance to the broad architecture of the universal Turing Machine, the article identifies a common thread of critical concern in the literature on algorithmic governance: the growing institutional capabilities to move contestable issues to a space of reduced negotiability, raising questions of social asymmetry, inequity, and inequality. Within the social context of algorithmic governance, the article highlights three general areas of concern where the social negotiability of processes is threatened: the problem of power (surveillance), discrimination (social bias), and identification (system identity).     

Sociology and the public understanding of science: from rationalization to rhetoric

This paper contributes to the reappraisal of sociological theories of modernity inspired by the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). As much as these theories rely on received ideas about the nature of science that SSK has called into doubt, so do they rely on ideas about the public understanding of science. Public understanding of science has been assumed to conform to the monolithic logic and perception of science associated with rationalization, leading to an impoverished view of the cognitive outlook of the modern individual. Rationalization has become the basis for the construction of theoretical critique of science divorced from any clear reference to public understanding, with the result that theory has encountered considerable problems in accounting for public scepticism towards science. However, rather than question rationalization, the more typical strategy has been to propose radical changes in the modernization process, such as postmodernism and the risk society. Against this, an alternative view of public understanding is advanced drawn from SSK and rhetorical psychology. The existence of the sociological critique of science, and SSK in particular, suggests that the meaning of science in modernity is not monolithic but multiple, arising out of a central dilemma over the universal form of knowledge-claims and their necessarily particular, human and social grounding. This dilemma plays out not only in intellectual discourses about science, but also in the public's understanding of science. This argument is used to call for further sociological research into public understanding and to encourage sociologists to recognize the central importance of the topic to a proper understanding of modernity.     

The Founding of the Clinical Sociology Association: A Personal Narrative

This paper discusses the rediscovery of clinical sociology in the 1970s and the founding of the Clinical Sociology Association in 1978. The author recounts his role in these events and traces their origin in his personal life.     

Reflexivity and the Sociology of Practice

Reflexive theories offer an alternative perspective on sociological intervention and an interpretation of current social conditions that open up new possibilities for the theoretical, professional, and societal recentering of sociological practice as what I will call the sociology of practice. From a reflexive perspective, sociological knowledge and everyday knowledge are related through a process of mutual transformation in ways that foster a convergence of theoretical and applied issues, redraw the boundaries between sociological and the extrasociological activities, and require new forms of lay–expert engagement in which lay knowledge plays a substantive role. Discursive models of engagement are typically advocated, but I argue that an interventive model of lay–expert engagement organized as the sociology of practice optimizes the possibility that engagement will meet reflexive criteria. The sociology of practice is recentered as a substantive body of knowledge relevant to the work of all sociologists and essential for ameliorating social problems.     

W. E. B. Du Bois at the center: from science,civil rights movement,to Black Lives Matter

I am honoured to present the 2016 British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture at the London School of Economics. My lecture is based on ideas derived from my new book, The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. In this essay I make three arguments. First, W.E.B. Du Bois and his Atlanta School of Sociology pioneered scientific sociology in the United States. Second, Du Bois pioneered a public sociology that creatively combined sociology and activism. Finally, Du Bois pioneered a politically engaged social science relevant for contemporary political struggles including the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.