Toward a Historical Sociology of COVID-19: Path Dependence Method and Temporal Connections

Encountering the unprecedented social crisis of COVID-19, an increasing number of sociologists are calling for historical sociology to engage empirically with the dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis. I present the “path dependence method” and the “temporal connections” to interpret social life during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using the path dependence method, I show how the personal, social, and national problems created by the COVID-19 crisis initiate a new path and furthermore how this newly created path is justified in a society. Through the temporal connections, I will show how non-Western countries responded more reasonably and quickly than most Western countries to the COVID-19 crisis. The overall aim of this research is to disclose effectiveness of historical sociology, to encourage researchers to think time variable, and to argue that linking historical-sociological knowledge to the COVID-19 crisis would be a positive step for an in-depth COVID-19 sociology.     

From Play to Art—From Experience to Insight

This article investigates the role of play and playlike activities (imagination, art) in developing and using symbolic tools. We understand processes of development of symbolic tools as coordination between two types of relationships: the subject–object relationships and the subject–subject relationships. This coordination begins when a new, playlike frame of activity is introduced in the interaction. The imaginary frame of activity changes relationships between the participants. Furthermore, the imaginary activity frame may enter into interaction with the out-of-play activity frames (“reality” frames). Structures and relationships built within the imaginary frames are then used to shape the actual understanding of the world (subject–object relationship) as well as the interpersonal relationships and identities of the participants.

Introduction and further development of imaginary frames is a recursive process that takes place on different but related time scales: from microdevelopment through ontogenetic development to cultural development. Our project was designed to demonstrate some of the key moments that occur in the symbolic construction, in an “untangled” manner. To that effect, we designed a drama workshop to outline and illustrate processes that take place at the point of introduction of a new, imaginary frame and at the point when this imaginary frame begins to interact with the out-of-play frames. The aim of the workshop was to magnify each stage in construction of semiotic tools by “walking” professional researchers through a series of playlike activities.     

Applicability of multiple matrix sampling to estimating effectiveness of educational programs

When evaluating the effectiveness of an educational program, a sampling strategy known as “multiple matrix sampling” is particularly effective and efficient when the goal of the evaluation is estimating group (as opposed to individual) performance. Although this technique involves sampling both program participants and items and, subsequently, different participants being assessed over different sets of items, the results may be used to estimate those which would have been obtained had all participants been administered all items. The technique is here described in some detail, with advantages and disadvantages discussed, and examples of its application are given.     

Which Diagnostic Criteria are Most Useful in Discriminating Between Social Gamblers and Individuals with Gambling Problems? An Examination of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Criteria

The current study sought to identify which diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder have the greatest ability to differentiate between social and problem gamblers. This study was conducted on a sample of male and female college student athletes across the U.S. (n = 8674). Classification and regression tree analysis represents an appropriate technique when addressing the question of an item’s diagnostic value, as it sequentially selects variables to isolate sets of observations with similar outcomes. The current results suggest that the item related to preoccupation (“Have there been periods in the past year where you spent a lot of time thinking about gambling?”) was the DSM-5 item best able to differentiate between male and female social and problem gamblers in this sample. When considering only the nine criteria retained in the DSM-5, three criteria were identified as key for distinguishing between social and disordered gamblers among men, and one criterion was identified for distinguishing between groups of women. In addition, these results do not support the notion that the illegal acts criterion has a particularly low base rate and found that it can be an important indicator of disordered gambling in a college-aged sample.     

Lightning Rods in the Local Moral Economy: Debating Unauthorized Migrants' Deservingness in Israel

Localized debates about who unauthorized migrants are and what they do, or do not, deserve unfold in a culturally specific register that is deeply charged with emotion and moral valuation. Structuring such debates are vernacular discursive frames that emerge from, and reflect, a common “local moral economy.” Taking Israel as case study, this article examines six elements of the country's local moral economy – biopolitical logic, historical memory, political emotion, popularized religion, an ideology of “fruitful multiplication,” and hasbara (“public diplomacy”/propaganda) – and explores their impact on public debates about unauthorized and irregular forms of migration. Here, as elsewhere, conventionalized distinctions that frame much migration scholarship – e.g. “economic” vs. “political” migrants, “migrant workers” vs. “refugees,” even the terms “authorized” and “unauthorized” themselves – bear but limited salience. Migration researchers who hope to influence local policy debates must recognize the weight and influence of local moral economies, and the chasms that divide vernacular from conventionalized frames. Achieving this sort of nuanced understanding is, at root, an ethnographic challenge.     

Performance et relations de conseil: comment la structure relationnelle de l’élite des chercheurs français en cancérologie a conditionné leur progression entre 1999–2001 et 1996–1998

This article shows that performances of a specific subpopulation of French researchers in cancer research depend on their advice network. They make progress if they maximize access to scarce resources and their connection to other groups in certain cases. The absence of status competition within the group of peers is an advantage as well as a sufficient relational opening beyond the group with a majority of “dependent” researchers. By taking into account a shape of “glass ceiling” and a specific case of hematologists, the researchers who have the right structural qualities are 11 times more likely to make progress in terms of performance.     

The Lies That Bind: Heteronormative Constructions of “Family” in Social Work Discourse

The social work profession has an enduring history of commitment to American families; in fact, it has often led the way in embracing alternative family arrangements. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) families are gaining more political visibility and lobbying for rights and protections from which they were previously excluded. Therefore, this study is an analysis of social work's contemporary, defining representations of LGBTQ families. Twelve LGBTQ “family” research studies were culled from the database Social Work Abstracts, and subjected to queer discourse analysis in order to illuminate how these alternative family forms are being constructed within the discipline. This analysis details the multiple ways in which heterosexual norms are privileged throughout the research studies. For example, the heterosexual family is often constructed as an unchallenged index for psychological health, appropriate partnering, and child rearing practices, social acceptability, and general normative behavior. LGBTQ relationships often earn their “family” designations by their ability to approximate these legible, heteronormative “family” characteristics. As such, this queer discourse analysis indicates that LGBTQ families are ultimately invited to join, but not to change, the traditional terms of “family,” thus making the social work research less of an exploration of alternative family forms and more of an endorsement of same-sex, nuclear families.     

Mixed-Methods-Sampling als Mittel zur Abgrenzung eines unscharfen und heterogenen Forschungsfeldes

Problems in defining the research field and in generalizing emerge in both quantitative and qualitative research. With the analysis of “fears of the future in dystopian feature films”, a multi-stage sampling strategy is presented to point out these difficulties as well as to illustrate one possible way of dealing with them. Particularly, in heterogeneous, rapidly changing and diffuse fields of research conducting mixed-method-studies can compensate for the weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative research logics. Therefore, further research should address issues of field delineation, sampling and generalization in greater detail.     

Temporal effects on biodiversity and composition of arthropod communities along an urban–rural gradient

Global urbanization is rapidly increasing, yet the prevalence of single order and time point studies likely miss important temporal effects of urbanization on entire communities. We studied three sites along a rural–urban gradient in the Seattle metropolitan area with three sampling periods from 2009–2011 to examine how arthropod communities respond to increasing levels of urbanization in a similar habitat type through time. Consistent with previous studies, urban areas contained altered environmental conditions relevant for litter arthropods, and arthropod biodiversity decreased with urbanization. However, urban arthropod biodiversity was not influenced by environmental measures, supporting the idea of an “urban-filter”. Urbanization was not a factor influencing how communities responded to the effect of time, suggesting that other factors (e.g. disturbance) may ultimately be more important for determining patterns of biodiversity through time in urban areas. Finally, our study illustrates urbanization forces can structuring entire arthropod communities similarly through time, having important consequences for our understanding of urbanization’s temporal effects and indirect influence on community interactions and ecosystem processes. As the effects of urbanization will inevitably vary through time, we suggest that multiple time point studies are required to increase our ability to accurately describe arthropod community responses to increasing urbanization.     

Negotiating Personal Experience over the Lifetime: Narrative Elasticity as an Analytic Tool

Sociology and neighboring disciplines have produced different analytic tools to examine the dialogical relationship between individuals and society (“narrative work,” “identity work,” “moral career,” “moral breakdown”). However, the question of how individuals negotiate the interpretation of personal experience over their lifetimes in a changing cultural context remains unexplored. This article introduces narrative elasticity as a feature of narrative work and as a time‐sensitive analytic tool for conducting inquiries into processes of temporal retraction and expansion of what storytellers conceive as the normal order of significance. The application of this tool to the analysis of mature and elderly Chileans' life stories shows how cultural change occurs at the individual level, considers factors that motivate and inhibit processes of reinterpretation of personal experience, and identifies different levels at which it operates.     

Experiences,Burdens, and Support Needs in Siblings of Girls and Women with Anorexia Nervosa: Results from a Qualitative Interview Study

For many years, siblings of women and girls suffering from anorexia have been regarded as “the forgotten kin,” as they have been overlooked by both researchers and clinicians. Therefore, the goal of this explorative study was to investigate siblings’ experiences, burdens, and support needs in a differentiated manner. Siblings (n = 16) of patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis “anorexia nervosa” (F 50.0) took part in a qualitative, in-depth interview study; the data were assessed using content analysis. The results of this study should be especially interesting for clinical social work. Using the findings, a variety of concrete recommendations for psycho-social practice can be made, for example regarding the inclusion of siblings in treatment settings, as well as specific support concepts for siblings of anorexic women and girls in different age groups.     

Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders

Abstract

The author responds to Hill et al.'s “Gender Identity Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence: A Critical Inquiry” and Moser and Kleinplatz's “DSM-IV-TRand the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal.” The author sees the paper as raising the issue of whether there are any cases for which sexual and gender identity diagnoses are appropriate. The author believes a central issue is how does one decide that something is just unusual (normal variation) or something is disordered (pathological). The author believes the concept of “medical disorder” can be applied to human behavior and gives examples to support that view. The author supports an essentialist view that some “things” (like being human and modes of sexual expression) have properties or qualities that are invariable and represent the true essence of the “thing.” From this perspective, the author finds the arguments for eliminating the categories of GID and paraphilias from the DSM as weak at best.     

Exploring the stability of communication network metrics in a dynamic nursing context

Network stability is of increasing interest to researchers as they try to understand the dynamic processes by which social networks form and evolve. Because hospital patient care units (PCUs) need flexibility to adapt to environmental changes (Vardaman et al., 2012), their networks are unlikely to be uniformly stable and will evolve over time. This study aimed to identify a metric (or set of metrics) sufficiently stable to apply to PCU staff information sharing and advice seeking communication networks over time. Using Coefficient of Variation, we assessed both Across Time Stability (ATS) and Global Stability over four data collection times (Baseline and 1, 4, and 7 months later). When metrics were stable using both methods, we considered them “super stable.” Nine metrics met that criterion (Node Set Size, Average Distance, Clustering Coefficient, Density, Weighted Density, Diffusion, Total Degree Centrality, Betweenness Centrality, and Eigenvector Centrality). Unstable metrics included Hierarchy, Fragmentation, Isolate Count, and Clique Count. We also examined the effect of staff members’ confidence in the information obtained from other staff members. When confidence was high, the “super stable” metrics remained “super stable,” but when low, none of the “super stable” metrics persisted as “super stable.” Our results suggest that nursing units represent what Barker (1968) termed dynamic behavior settings in which, as is typical, multiple nursing staff must constantly adjust to various circumstances, primarily through communication (e.g., discussing patient care or requesting advice on providing patient care), to preserve the functional integrity (i.e., ability to meet patient care goals) of the units, thus producing the observed stability over time of nine network metrics. The observed metric stability provides support for using network analysis to study communication patterns in dynamic behavior settings such as PCUs.     

Adjudicating Frame Shifts and Frame Disputes in the New Millennial University: The Role of the Dean

This paper argues that sociological theory provides a sound basis for analyzing the social organization and reorganization of the college or university and for guiding the activities of the college dean. Frame analysis theory, developed in the study of social movements, and the attendant concepts of frame shifts and frame disputes, are drawn on to facilitate understanding of the organizational change being experienced by many comprehensive universities today. Various university constituencies proffer sometimes competing frames that can be characterized as “old school” vs. “new school” or “theoretical” vs. “practical,” yet collective and at least moderately harmonious action is required to attend to the tasks at hand. More specifically, the processes of frame alignment detailing the way that the frames held by various individuals and groups link to larger frames, offer a valuable theoretical tool for a dean. The dean’s task is one of adjudicating frame disputes within the college, navigating frame shifts in the university and reframing the concerns of the college to both internal and external audiences. The author concludes that the use of frame analysis demonstrates that sociological theory can be a vital contributor to the leadership of colleges and universities and to leaders’ understanding of the changes occurring therein.     

What Kind of War? “Mommy Wars” Discourse in U.S. and Canadian News, 1989–2013

The “Mommy Wars” is a cultural frame asserting the existence of a battle between employed mothers and homemakers. We perform critical discourse analysis of U.S. and Canadian news articles using this term from 1989 through 2013 (N = 402). Building upon the concept of symbolic annihilation, we highlight how the frame distorts and trivializes mothers' experiences. First, ironically, although some authors describe the Mommy Wars as not real, usage grows rapidly over time. Moreover, the meaning expands to include “alternative wars” on a multitude of childrearing differences and on disputes outside of mothering altogether (e.g., type of water used); this serves to equate trivialities like tap versus filtered water with work‐family conditions, effectively rendering them equally inconsequential battles among “mommies.” Finally, the frame trivializes social problems through a focus on (middle‐class) mothers' individual choices as a solution to Mommy Wars. Privileging maternal “choice” with only passing mentions of fathers and the state absolves these groups of responsibilities for the next generation. The use of Mommy Wars rhetoric acts as a divisive, symbolic wedge, ultimately perpetuating a war against mothers.     

S’orienter dans les espaces sociaux en ligne. L’exemple d’un jeu

This study of the social space formed around Mountyhall, an online game, takes as starting point not the distinction between “real” and “virtual” but the concrete circulation of participants. Focus is placed on the “cosmopolitanism” of social webspaces and the alternation between connected/unconnected. Crossing this case study with an analysis of statistics and graphs leads to formulating the notion of “orientation principle” for explaining how participants themselves draw boundaries and label activities. Two “orientation principles” are analyzed: the first one about time in relation to the game and the other about the geography of this online social space.     

The Legacy of Lynching? An Empirical Replication and Conceptual Extension

Research shows enduring impacts of lynching on a variety of modern outcomes. For instance, Messner, Baller, and Zevenbergen found that lynching is associated with contemporary white-on-black homicide. We propose a model describing how events from the past can have effects on events in the present. Essential to our framework is the notion of social forces of “resistance” that can impede or facilitate the temporal transmission of collective memories. We test “indicators of resistance” that influence the transmission of a collective memory supportive of a “legacy of lynching.” Analyses reveal that the positive and significant association between lynching and white-on-black homicide observed by Messner et al. is attenuated and becomes statistically nonsignificant with the inclusion of these indicators. Our results suggest that the temporal transmission of a racist cultural schema manifested through lynching is more likely where resistance is low. These findings have implications for how researchers can study historical legacies.     

The Process of Cognitive Liberation: Cultural Synapses,Links, and Frame Contradictions in the U.S.-Central America Peace Movement*

Based upon qualitative interviews with thirty-two Central American peace activists, this article elaborates the process of “cognitive liberation” through the application of frame analysis. In addition, I seek to explain the diffusion of this social-psychological state from Central to North America. Attention is given to the role of the church as a common cultural link that functioned as a micro-mobilizing context, which provided missionaries who served as “meso-mobilizing actors.” The term frame contradictions is introduced to specify the condition in which irreconcilable differences between a movement's frame and its opponent's frame are exposed, thereby facilitating frame adoption. I conclude that some type of cultural link is necessary for the development of a common frame that can integrate groups cross-nationally and that can provide agents of mobilization to serve as a synapse through which frames can be transmitted from one country to another.     

Social Suffering and Embodied States of Male Transnational Migrancy in San Francisco,California

Through the analysis of a social program for migrant and homeless labourers, this article focuses on embodiment, suffering, and the changing nature of masculinity in a specific Latino migrant population in San Francisco. It highlights particular aspects of personhood while relating migrant narratives of this singular “lonely” population to aspects of current political economy and articulations of social suffering. It explores how spatial and temporal conditions such as “shifting suffering,” “being stuck,” being betrayed, and “conformarse” (conforming) highlight embodied states of changing masculinity and transnational migrancy. Through an examination of belonging and exclusion, continuities as well as discontinuities of representations, self-validation, and a nostalgia for a possibility of a future that cannot be and a present that still remains, this article presents a much-needed ethnography of embodied affects emerging in different arenas of transnational migrancy.     

Two lives in transition: Agency and context for assisted living residents

This research uses data on two “focal case” individuals residing in one residential care/assisted living (RC/AL) facility, collected as part of a larger ethnographic study exploring later-life transitions, including those leading to the moves into housing and care settings. In-depth examination of the 10-year transition histories of these two women highlights the major erosion of autonomy with advancing frailty, illness, and relocation into supportive housing. A second major theme is that an understanding of the contemporary events and challenges for these two individuals is substantially enhanced by nesting them within the temporal context of earlier life events, including personal relationships, social events, and preferences. Individual history, elicited from resident, family, staff and professional views, serves to contextualize current choices and reactions to key events. As researchers, adding this temporal context moves our understanding of their identities well beyond a simplistic snapshot view as “resident” in AL.