Videoüberwachung von Demonstrationen und die Definitionsmacht der Polizei. Zwischen Objektivitätsfiktion und selektiver Sanktionierung

The paper examines the use of video surveillance in the context of protest policing, drawing on group discussions and expert interviews with the riot police as well as ethnographic fieldwork. The use of video surveillance is legitimised by the police through a promise of objectivity and stringent compliance to the law. The author analyses the use of video surveillance as a contingent process of actively constructing evidence. It consists of a series of decisions in three phases: starting with the determination of the potential to use surveillance to the police oriented application, and finally, the follow up phase, focusing on the developments of results and prosecution. The variety of courses of action to make use of surveillance right up to manipulation of results is considered to be an expression of sociological discretion, in which the police definitional power rests. Especially, the involved technology allows for existing contingencies apparent in every substep to become invisible through material objectifications and abstractions. In this process, the law proves to be only one motive for agency among others. The idea of the police being determined by law becomes visible as a necessary fiction.     

Transnationale Projektarbeit. Berufsbiografische Strategien der Sicherung von Autonomie, Zugehörigkeit und Identität

The article intends to broaden the discussion about the globalization of management by analyzing an intermediate, operative level of management in the context of transnational project work. In contrast to Kanter’s (1996) thesis of the emergence of a “world class of management” the identity concepts, career strategies and social embeddedness of this level of management clearly show the contradictions and ambivalences peculiar to this kind of work. Drawing on group discussions as well as problem-centred interviews three types of biography politics in the context of transnationalization are discerned. By more or less intentionally unfolding these politics in the course of their biographies, the subjects are struggling for autonomy, affiliation and individual history.     

Bastler — Sammler — Spurensucher. Zum Verhältnis von Geschichte und Systematik der soziologischen Theorie nach Robert K. Merton

For the history of sociology not to lose its relevance to the discipline, it should not be understood as a biographically oriented parade of recognized and forgotten classics, but rather complement sociological theory. Writing upon these premises, the historian of sociology would cease to act as the discipline's identity engineer who, considering the competitive field of theories and subjects, conservatively serves sociology to find and stabilize its historical identity. Furthermore, s/he would no longer operate as collector of ideas in search in the history of sociology for concepts of sociological analysis that were abandoned at some point, and in doing so, would cease to pursue the objective of critically undermining the dominating paradigms in contemporary sociology. On the contrary, since the ‘historic turn’ in the philosophy of science, the historian of sociology has to take up a trace-tracking role. In contrast to Robert K. Merton's stance, the theory and history of sociology should not be understood as two separate ventures. Rather, the genealogical exploration will lead to a historical epistemology of disciplinary paradigms that emphasizes that theoretical paradigms must be analyzed within the social context of their genesis. Such an approach would enable us to systematically identify the prerequisites and range of contemporary theoretical paradigms. Beyond Merton's former analysis, theory construction in sociology requires that systematic and historical reconstructions go hand-in-hand.     

Schulqualität, Schulerfolg und Gesundheit. Ergebnisse aus der österreichischen „Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children“-Studie

Based on the question, how school quality, academic achievement and health are linked to each other, the paper presents a research model that regards students’ health as a central educational resource that mediates between school quality and students’ academic achievement. The empirical test is based on the most recent data of the “Health Behaviour in School-aged Children” (HBSC) survey by using a structural equation model. The results indicate, that school quality influences students’ academic achievement as well as their health. According to our model, students’ health acts as a mediator between the quality of schools and students’ academic achievement.     

Ewing, Katherine: Stolen Honor. Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin; Spindler, Susanne: Corpus delicti. Männlichkeit, Rassismus und Kriminalisierung im Alltag jugendlicher Migranten; Toprak, Ahmet: Das schwache Geschlecht - die türkischen Männer. Zwangsheirat, häusliche Gewalt, Doppelmoral der Ehre

Ohne Zusammenfassung