The sociology of social classes

Comme son titre l'indique, cet article tente de récapituler les travaux les plus importants sur les classes sociales dans la sociologie québécoise des cinquante dernières années. Ces travaux se rattachent à divers courants de pensée théorique qui ont suivi des voies parfois parallèles et parfois opposées les unes aux autres: problematiques d'inspiration weberienne, parsonienne, marxiste, gurvitchienne, tourainienne, etc. En meme temps, la sociologie des classes s'est integree dans plusieurs conjonctures politiques successives, toutes marquees par la question nationale. Ses debats scientifiques eclairent les principaux enjeux de ces conjonctures eu egard au changement social et aux groupes qui en sont l'avant-garde.
As its title indicates, this article attempts to summarize the most important work on social classes in Quebecois sociology during the last 50 years. Social class research in Quebec has been associated with various theoretical approaches (Weberian, Parsonian, Marxist, Gurvitchian, Tourainian, etc.) which have taken either parallel or conflicting paths with each other. At the same time, the sociology of classes has been associated with many successive political conjunctures, each of which has been marked by the national question. These scientific debates illustrate the most important stakes involved in these conjunctures, especially with regard to social change and avant-garde social groups.     

The sociology of identity: social science or social comment?

Robert W. Connell 2002 Gender Cambridge and Oxford : Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishing Ltd . 184 pp. £ (hardback) £ (paperback)     

Star wars: aspects of the social construction of citations in Anglo-Canadian sociology*

Il ressort clairement de la lecture des textes en sociologie de la connaissance et de la science que les savants élaborent leurs interprcctations de la réalité en tant que membres de groupes et de réseaux sociaux. Autrement dit, les savants ne réagissent pas uniquement en fonction de la problématique à l'étude ou de normes scientifiques largement diffusées. D'où l'hypothèse selon laquelle les sociologues canadiens citeront les études de leurs collègues en fonction de l'emplacement géographique des universités de ces derniers et des contacts sociaux qui en découlent. L'auteur analyse les citations de deux livres, From Culture to Power de Brym et Fox et Sociology de Stebbins. L'analyse révèle que les auteurs de l'Ouest sont sous-représentés dans les références de From Culture to Power, qui surreprésentent ceux des grandes universités ontariennes, tandis que Sociology accorde une plus grande attention aux ouvrages d'auteurs des Prairies et de 1'Ouest. Writing in the sociologies of knowledge and science makes it clear that scientists construct their interpretations of reality as part of social groups and social networks. That is, scientists do not react solely to the research problem at hand or to widely diffused scientific norms. This view leads to the hypothesis that, in Canadian sociology, authors will cite others' studies as a function of the geographical location of their universities and resulting social contacts, emphasizing the latter. Analyses are conducted for citations in Brym and Fox's From Culture to Power and Stebbins' Sociology. Results show that references in From Culture to Power underrepresent scholars in the West and overrepresent scholars from Core universities in Ontario, while Stebbins' book gives greater attention to works from the Prairies and the West.     

A sociology classic revisited: religion in Banbury

This is one of a series of articles which document religious change in Britain by updating the data contained in classic British sociological and anthropological community studies,. The statistical and impressionistic observations on religion in Banbury in 1950 and 1967 in Margaret Stacey's Tradition and Change are augmented with data collected in 2010. The article identifies significant problems in interpreting the original Banbury data and offers some general observations on the advantages and difficulties of piggy‐backing on previous research.     

The sociology of social problems in Japan

The sociology of social problems in Japan has different characteristics from its counterpart in the United States. These differences are the circumstances surrounding an individual’s knowledge of social science prior to World War II, and the two main streams of social science after the rush of American sociology into Japan following that war. A few legends in some of the main fields of study are reviewed. Additionally, one of the most urgent social problems facing sociologists in Japan, the decline and survival of departments of sociology, is described and discussed.     

The sociology of late secularization: social divisions and religiosity

At the start of the twentieth century the religious differed from the religiously indifferent largely in being religious. Now they differ in a number of other social and demographic characteristics that reduce interaction between the two populations further than simple numbers would require. That some of the main carriers of religion are immigrants or adherents of recently imported faiths reinforces the sense that religion is what other people do. In the context of the stock of religious knowledge being depleted and religion‐taken‐too‐seriously being unpopular, the narrow demographic base of the religious makes conversion unlikely and thus makes the reversal of secularization unlikely.     

Trust,scepticism, and social order: A contribution from the sociology of scientific knowledge

The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which studies the organisation and content of science, has made two original contributions to the understanding of social order at large. First, SSK scholars regard social order as a problem of establishing “cognitive order” and knowledge. A wealth of case studies has demonstrated that interpersonal trust is necessary to achieve agreement and shared perception among particular collectives of specialists. Second, SSK scholars insist that all types of cognitive order and knowledge, whether “scientific” or “lay,” are the result of socially organised scepticism being parasitic upon existing trust and background expectations (an argument that I call “the Parasitic View of Scepticism”). Sociologists with an interest in today's so‐called “knowledge” and “information” societies, and more specifically, in the social distribution and political uses of doubt and unknowns (including “post‐truth”), would benefit from adopting the Parasitic View of Scepticism and investigating the corrosive and generative consequences of scepticism on the trust relations and the cognitive/social order upon which it is based, in line with insights from the emerging fields of agnotology and the sociology of ignorance.     

Visual sociology and sociological vision,revisited

Visual sociology has two main interests: picture-making by researchers (or their subjects) in the course of sociological fieldwork, and pictures made by social actors in the context of everyday life. Focusing on the latter interest and based in three social aspects of images—that they are produced in general societal settings and specific institutional settings, and are a kind of discursive practice—three approaches to the sociology of visual material are illustrated.     

Towards a sociology of social anthropology

Theory and Society - The framework that I have used, I suggest, provides insights into how the paradigms in our discipline, or any discipline for that matter, are generated, become dominant and,...     

The professional ideology of social pathologists transformed: The new political orthodoxy in sociology

In a landmark article published in 1943, the young C. Wright Mills roundly criticized early American sociologists who focused on the sociology of social problems. These “social pathologists,” Mills argued, were social conservatives with homogeneous viewpoints who strove to maintain the established social order. A review of recent surveys on the political attitudes of sociologists, an analysis of recent articles on social problems published by the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Society for the Study of Social Problems, an examination of social problems textbooks, and a consideration of the proceedings of the ASA annual meetings reveal an extraordinary turnabout. An ongoing trend toward the politicization of sociology and the radicalization of the sociology of social problems has resulted in a diminished stature of the profession which jeopardizes its future.     

Learning to feel: the neglected sociology of social movements

This paper discusses the experience and ideology of emotions among animal rights activists, and more broadly, the applicability of the sociology of emotions to the field of social movements. I examine the case of a social movement which relies heavily on empathy in its initial recruitment, and which has been derisively labeled by outsiders as ‘emotional’. I explain recruitment to animal rights activism by showing how activists develop a ‘vocabulary of emotions’ to rationalize their participation to others and themselves, along with managing the emotional tone of the movement by limiting the kinds of people who can take part in debates about animal cruelty. The interactive nature in which emotions develop in social movements is stressed over previous approaches to emotions in the social movement literature, which treat emotions as impulsive or irrational.     

A social world of sociology in Japan

This article discusses the characteristics, problems, and future direction of sociology in Japan. The core problem of the discipline is the disparity between theories and empirical studies. That is, sociologists in Japan are not yet accustomed to the practice of integrating both conceptual inquiry and empirical methods—which has resulted in futile research that is unable to influence social policies. This article explores this problem by surveying historical and institutional circumstances that have surrounded sociologists since the founding of the discipline. The issues discussed include: the birth of the discipline, the rule of the academy by prominent universities, the system of funding, and the practice of recruitment. By suggesting problems that should be dealt with by today’s sociologists, the article indicates the road that sociologists must follow to rise above their “TV commentator” image and take on more influential social roles as professional experts.     

The question of mathematical social theory revisited: Some methodological considerations

Methodologically, the most advanced social science discipline is considered economics, especially its neoclassical version. A number of practitioners in the other social sciences, especially sociology and political science, perceive economics as a scientific exemplar in methodological (and theoretical) terms. This methodological exemplar has been, particularly in the last decades, attempted to emulate by some of these social scientists. The outcome of this emulation, by adopting and extending its methods, of neoclassical economics in parts (but not all) of sociology, political science, and elsewhere has been rational choice theory as a general social paradigm. This paper tries to show that many misapplications of the methodology of neoclassical economics in rational choice theory have ensued from such methodological emulation. That neoclassical economics does not necessarily contain or lead to a mathematical rational choice model is the core argument of this paper. The paper fills in a gap created by the current literature’s focus on the methodological bases of mathematical rational choice theory in neoclassical economics.