Imagining The Sociological Imagination: the biographical context of a sociological classic

Charles Wright Mills's arguments in The Sociological Imagination are very popular and this paper focuses on the biographical context in which his programmatic statements were occasioned. This breaks new ground by locating The Sociological Imagination and earlier programmatic statements in the professional and personal travails that motivated them. This approach is adopted in order to display the intersection between biography and sociology in Mills's life and career, a feature that he made a central part of sociology's promise. The paper utilizes this approach to reflect on the reasons why The Sociological Imagination became so popular and was able to transcend Mills's general unpopularity at the time of his death; and as part of the explanation of why the dismissal of the book on its publication contrasts with the contemporary view, enabling it to transpose successfully to a time significantly different than at its writing.     

The cultural and social incorporation of sociological knowledge

Any evaluation of sociology as a discipline ought to focus not only on the way sociology is produced, but also on how it is consumed. In this article, we examine the degree to which sociological concepts have been incorporated into the vernacular of American society, the impact of sociological techniques and methods on politics and society, and the relationship between sociology and public policy. While sociologists often point to the problems caused by a certain alienation from the general culture—for example the notion that sociology is written in an obtuse language that the public cannot comprehend—we point to the problems that develop when sociology is too readily incorporated into American culture and society. The danger is that the more popular sociology is, the less likely it will be to maintain the sharp intellectual edge that made its incorporation possible in the first place.     

The sociological study of stress

This paper presents a critical overview of current concepts and analytic practices in stress research and considers how they can be changed to make the research more consistent with core sociological interests. An overarching concern of the paper is the analytic use of basic information about people's social and institutional affiliations and statuses. It is important that such information be treated not simply as data that need to be controlled statistically; we must examine the bearing of these data on each domain of the stress process: the exposure to and meaning of stressors, access to stress mediators, and the psychological, physical, and behavioral manifestations of stress. The conceptualization and measurement of stressors should move away from their focus on particular events or chronic strains and should seek instead to observe and assess over time constellations of stressors made up of both events and strains. Moreover, the effects of the mediators--coping and social support--are evaluated most fruitfully in terms of their effects in limiting the number, severity, and diffusion of stressors in these constellations. Finally, sociological stress researchers should not be bound to outcomes that better serve the intellectual interests of those who work with biomedical and epidemiological models of stress, nor should the research be committed exclusively to a single outcome.     

Paradigms for analysis of social institutions: A case for sociological institutionalism

This paper makes a case for sociological institutionalism, particularly its Veblenian variant or connection. This is attempted against a background of the surge of renewed interest in analyzing institutions within modern social science, especially economics and sociology. This is indicated by the emergence of the new institutional economics as the (modified) neoclassical approach to institutions and the revival of economic sociology with its conception of the institutional embeddedness of the economy, respectively. Still, many pertinent differences between economic and sociological institutionalism are overlooked or minimized in the current literature. By exploring such differences, the paper helps span a gap in the literature in which comparative analyses of economic and sociological approaches to institutions are rare.     

Building competency in self-care for social work students: a course-based case study

ABSTRACT

There is increasing recognition that social work educators must do more to ensure that social work students transitioning into the profession are prepared to engage in adept self-care practices. However, documented curricular efforts targeted at meeting this aim are few. This paper documents the impact of a credit-bearing self-care course on student (N = 40) competency about self-care. The course occurred in a social work education program at a large public institution in the United States. The researcher used a pre-experimental (e.g. pre/post) design to assess course outcomes. Results indicate significant improvements in student knowledge about self-care, skills related to engaging in self-care practices, and value related to self-care. After a review literature, this paper will provide a foundational overview of the course, delineate outcome variables and measures, explicate evaluative findings, and discuss salient implications derived from this endeavor.     

The television archive: A source for the sociological study of culture

In this essay the George Foster Peabody Collection and the WSB Atlanta Television News Archive are described. A discussion of the form, structure and content of the collections reveal that each are ideally suited to visual sociological investigation. In all, the textual body of visual imagery found in the Peabody collection is an important source for the study of culture. The collection offers access to fifty years of award winning audio and video recordings, spanning news, documentary, international, entertainment, public service and childrens program submissions, the WSB collection contains a rich array of materials that service to elaborate on a cultural and historic framework of the new and old south. Hard news stories along with documentaries reveal a variety of public and social rituals of historic importance, the WSB and Peabody collections can be accessed to fulfil a number of scholarly endeavors. Visual sociologists, anthropologists and communication scholars are encouraged to further explore the use of these two electronic media archives.     

Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun

The paper documents the early stages of grammaticalisation of a new first person singular pronoun, man, used in multi‐ethnic adolescent peer groups in inner cities of the U.K. I argue that the pronoun derives from a plural noun man, which is used in the peer groups to refer to a group of individuals whose precise composition is defined by the linguistic or situational context. The recruitment of man as a pronoun is encouraged by the frequent use of its homonym as a pragmatic marker and address form in the peer groups, and by the locally salient connotations of some uses of the singular noun man. The functions of the plural noun and the pragmatic marker are reflected in the two main rhetorical functions of the new pronoun: adolescent speakers use the man pronoun to position themselves as members of a contextually defined group and thereby provide authority for their opinions or mitigate a potentially face‐threatening act, and they also use it to solicit empathy from their interlocutor or construct solidarity. I suggest that a compositional model of the semantics of pronouns can account for the emergence of the new pronoun.     

The motivational foundation of social networks

The origins of motivations for network behavior are found in modern theories of early childhood development. There are two types of early motivations: safety on the one hand and efficacy on the other. Safety corresponds to and is generated by networks of cohesion, while efficacy comes about from separation and corresponds to networks with structural holes and is typical of brokerage situations. Both cohesion and brokerage are necessarily involved in any network situation as a matter of fundamental theoretical necessity, but they occur under different circumstances in individual and organizational action. Studies are reviewed that show that effective relations both within and between organizations require both cohesive bases and brokerage between otherwise not well connected units.     

Building on Bourdieu: A sociological grasp of public relations

Bourdieu sees actors as struggling and competing to position themselves in so-called fields with the help of different forms of symbolic and material resources (capital). Here it is argued that public relations assist organizations in struggle for such positions, and a typology of different resource types is developed. By extending the sociology of Bourdieu to analyze public relations a more realistic perspective of the practice can be achieved.     

The sociology of grit: Exploring grit as a sociological variable and its potential role in social stratification

This paper proposes the currently fashionable psychological notion of “grit” as a potentially useful variable in sociological analysis and explores its potential for contributing to addressing sociological concerns. Grit, comprising perseverance and passion toward long‐term goals, has received growing attention within academia and from the general public as a strong predictor of achievement. Grit captures an important, noncognitive, underdeveloped aspect of agency not included in life course or stratification studies. Grit can contribute to our understanding about how the subjective beliefs that are typically treated as agency are actually translated into volitional action that constructs one's life course, a crucial potential life course mechanism. This paper suggests incorporating grit into sociological understanding of individual‐level aspects of stratification, moving beyond its current conception anchored fully in psychology, to further understand what it is, where it comes from, and why it is sociologically useful.     

The 'negotiated night': an embodied conceptual framework for the sociological study of sleep

Sleep is essential for our health and well‐being but it has, historically, been the subject of little sociological study. Yet sleep is not, as common sense would have us believe, ‘asocial inaction’. Like our waking lives, it is a time of interaction. The sociology of sleep presently exists in a state similar to the early stages of development of the sociology of the body, waiting for something like Frank's (1991 ) typology of body action, which served as a heuristic guide through which action and its multifaceted components could be understood. This paper argues that one productive analytical framework is to adapt Watson's (2000 ) ‘male body schema’ for the sociological investigation of sleep. This revolves around four interrelated forms of embodiment: normative (opinions and perceptions about healthy sleep behaviour); pragmatic (‘normal’ as related to social role); experiential (feelings related to sleep); and visceral (the biological body and sleep). The possibilities this model provides for the sociology of sleep is illustrated in the paper through the analysis of a case study of sleep negotiation between a couple.     

Building research capacity for social work practitioners: a regional perspective

This article explores the research experiences, interests and capacity of social work professionals working as frontline workers and managers in human service organizations in regional South Australia. It also draws attention to social work practice issues requiring further investigation as identified by these professionals. The research data for this paper were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data provided evidence to show the extent of research interests among social work practitioners in the region. Qualitative data added depth to the findings by identifying social work practice issues as described by research participants. The study revealed that few participants had any research experience; however, the majority felt the need to undertake research, expressed interest in research training and a desire to be involved in research projects. These findings have implications for higher education providers in the social work discipline. They draw attention to the importance of better preparing students for research in practice, and also for schools of social work to actively engage in building research capacity and output in regional Australia.

Abbreviations: Frontline social work professionals (FLSWP); The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)     

The sociological perspective and policy analysis: A case study approach

Case studies are widely used in law, medicine and business schools. In this paper an example of how the case method can be used in complex organization, industrial sociology or political sociology classes is presented. The case method also lends itself to an applied approach challenging the student to use a sociological perspective in policy analysis. The utility of the case method for instructors using an applied approach is demonstrated.     

Family reunification in a social structural context

Using a multi-level discrete time hazard model, this study examines whether county level social structural characteristics affect the rate of family reunification, after adjusting for child attributes. Children who were placed in foster care for the first time during 2004 from 945 counties in 17 states are included. The county level characteristic examined included urbanicity, racial composition, percentage of female-headed households, proportion of households in poverty and foster care placement rate. The results show that with the exception of poverty, the other contextual variables affect family reunification, although the effects are most pronounced within the first six months of foster care placement.     

The closing of a social HMO: a case study

A social health maintenance organization (SHMO) integrates acute and long-term care and provides an extended-care benefit for elderly who are at risk of institutionalization. This article reports findings from a case study of the termination of the Group Health SHMO in Minnesota. Interviews were conducted with social workers and at-risk elderly who had been receiving long-term care through the SHMO. The case study examines the post-SHMO transition and the process of replacing SHMO care coordination and longterm care services. Most of the elderly and their caregivers indicated they were "losing ground"--that is, they were paying more or getting less care. Some were paying more for less care. Because they tended to switch to private-pay arrangements and to rely more on informal care, it appears that their care system became much less stable after the closing of the SHMO.