The Ukrainian reading public in the 1920s: real,implied, and ideal

The reading public was discussed in the Soviet Ukrainian press during the 1920s, at a time when the drive to eliminate illiteracy and implement Ukrainization was scoring increasing successes. Sociological studies of the “real” reader indicated strong preferences for pre-revolutionary authors and foreign writers in translation. Under pressure from Moscow, in the late 1920s Mykola Skrypnyk, the Commissar for Education, and the literary theorist Kost' Dovhan' changed the rhetoric advocating Ukrainization, stressing its proletarian content. They supported the concept of an “implied” working-class reader who read Ukrainian and was simultaneously committed to developing socialism and a “proletarian” culture. However, many sophisticated writers pitched their work to an “ideal” reader, whom they imagined as the end-product of Ukrainization – a culturally literate, urban, and critically thinking consumer. The three ways of conceptualizing the consumer clashed, as the Ukrainization policy went through two major shifts during the period of the first five-year plan (1928–33). Ideologists, educators, and writers adapted to these shifts by redefining the way they conceptualized the reader.     

The sources of political orientations in post-industrial society: social class and education revisited

This paper studies the impact of social class and education on political orientation. We distinguish the 'old' middle class from a new class of social/cultural specialists. However, the difference in their political orientation may especially be related to the level and field of education; the new middle class is more highly educated and often in fields of study that extensively address social competencies, characteristics independently affecting political outcomes. Analyses on Dutch data showed that education is more important in the prediction of 'cultural' liberal issues than social class. Economically-oriented issues are more strongly affected by social class. This means that interests of the new middle class are served by liberal standpoints relating to a strong government and income redistribution policies, but not relating to cultural issues.     

The power elite and elite-driven countermovements: The associated farmers of california during the 1930s

The involvement of the power elite in social movements has been a neglected area of research. The investigation of elites has generally been limited to that of local elites, political parties, and philanthropic foundations, and their involvement in social movements is believed limited to resource support (either to further or deter the progress of an insurgent social movement) or the institutional obstruction or facilitation of the movement. I contend that under specific conditions, the power elite may become active mobilizers, leaders, and supporters of countermovements (movements to deter insurgent movements). These conditions arise during periods of heightened insurgent movement activity and when the efficacy of institutional channels to safeguard or advance the interests of the power elite is reduced. This is illustrated in the case of the Associated Farmers of California, Inc., a countermovement aimed at interfering with and obstructing the attempts of farmworkers to strike and unionize during the 1930s by enlisting citizens and citizen groups as anti-unionization shock troops. It also opposed New Deal policies and legislation. The mobilization of nonelites into the Associated Farmers originated in and was carried out by agricultural and industrial elite of California to advance their own interests. Citizens allied with the Associated Farmers either because of ideological alignment with their goals or dependence on their economic activities. The theoretical ramifications of this example will be explored.     

Union Transitions Among Cohabitors: The Significance of Relationship Assessments and Expectations

Data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to estimate the effects of couple‐level measures of cohabitors' relationship assessments and expectations on their union transitions. Although positive relationship assessments deterred separation, they did not hasten entry into marriage. Female partners' negative assessments of the relationship increased the odds of separation, whereas such reports among male partners weakened the odds of marriage. Plans to marry were positively associated with marriage entry, but this effect was considerably larger for White couples than it was for Black couples. Cohabitors' expectations that their union would dissolve were also associated with union transitions. When both partners reported an even to high chance of dissolution, the odds of marriage were low, and the odds of separation were high. Cohabitors' own relationship assessments and expectations are significant predictors of their union outcomes.     

Internal and External Stress Factors Associated with the Identity Development of Transgendered Youth

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to present an alternative to a traditionally-held view that transgendered youth suffer from some sort of disorder, and instead shed light on the internal and external stress factors that may lead the young person to seek help. Social service professionals need to be aware of such factors in order to make a full assessment of what a potential transgendered adolescent client's issues are, and in order to work at changing some of these external pressures societally so that more transgendered youth can attain peaceful identity integration.     

Framing authoritarian legitimacy: elite cohesion in the aftermath of popular rebellion

ABSTRACT

Protest activity presents a significant threat to state legitimacy in nondemocratic settings. Although authoritarian regimes rely heavily on coercion, state officials must also justify their authority to both the public and other elites. Previous work has shown how elites vilify challengers to legitimize repression, but scholars have yet to examine how state officials engage in meaning work to prevent elite divisions from forming in light of popular challenges to regime legitimacy. In this study, we examine elite framing processes in a case of popular resistance to a 1953 currency reform in Communist Czechoslovakia. Using archival material, we trace the inter- and intra-organizational processes through which officials construct legitimacy claims by explaining and adjudicating blame for the popular rebellion. Results indicate that authoritarian rulers relied on a variety of discursive mechanisms to generate consensus among subordinate elites and protect regime legitimacy. We conclude by discussing implications for research on authoritarianism and social movements.     

Marriage Rituals as Reinforcers of Role Transitions: An Analysis of Weddings in The Netherlands

Using a nationally representative survey of married couples (N = 572) in The Netherlands, I analyze three characteristics of the contemporary western marriage ceremony: (a) whether couples give a wedding party, (b) whether couples have their marriage consecrated in church, and (c) whether couples go away on a honeymoon. Hypotheses are developed arguing that marriage ceremonies reinforce role transitions in two complementary ways: They reduce uncertainty about the new roles that people will occupy, and they provide approval for norm‐guided behavior. Multivariate analyses support the hypotheses. Elaborate marriage ceremonies are more common among couples for whom the transition to marriage is more drastic, and traditional values in the social context of the couple go hand in hand with a more elaborate marriage ceremony.     

Records on Nationalist and Opposition Movements in Late Imperial Russia: The Police Fonds of the State Archives of the Russian Federation

This article examines collectivization as a crucial aspect of the Soviet state’s ambitious effort to “Sovietize” its postwar western borderlands. Given the enormity of this task, the state leaned heavily on local agitators to convince residents to join the farms, and to manage the farms and their workforce. This put heavy responsibility on local activists to get results, but it also gave them power. This article provides a microhistory of these dynamics in the Transcarpathian village of Bila Tserkva. Faced with a failing collective farm and increased state scrutiny in 1949, village activists blamed the local Jehovah’s Witness community for allegedly subverting a successful collectivization effort. In reality, religion provided convenient scapegoats for villagers and the state to disguise a broader indifference and animosity to Sovietization. This case study demonstrates that state control of its borderlands was limited and dependent upon locals for information and the projection of power.     

Popular Literature,the City and the Memory of Vanished Others in Poland and Ukraine: The Cases of Marek Krajewski and Iurii Vynnychuk

Abstract

A comparative analysis is made of the evocation of urban memory in the work of the Polish author of detective fiction Marek Krajewski and the leading Ukrainian writer of postmodernist fiction and popular historical publications Iurii Vynnchyuk. The cities that form the focus of the work of these writers, Wroc^/law for Krajewski and L′viv for Vynnychuk, both experienced massive population shifts after World War II, meaning that the postwar populations had little or no memory of the pre-war cities. The legacy of this disjunction can be felt to this day. This study demonstrates how both writers re-create a sense of memory through a number of similar memory strategies and concludes that the recreation of memory in these writers’ work can be understood as what Marianne Hirsch calls postmemory, yet that this is postmemory removed from the traumatic context of Hirsch’s original concept. It is also argued that these writers demonstrate that an effective ‘cultural memory’ can be produced in a situation when ‘communicative memory’ is lacking, through an imaginative and accessible representation of the ostensibly inaccessible past. This is achieved through the utilization of mass cultural forms, which some theorists of urban memory see as conducive only to forgetting.     

The Significance of Networks in the Initiation of Small Businesses in Taiwan

This paper investigates theoretically a factor that impacts the institutional and structural environment of initiating small investments in Taiwan, namely personal relationship networks. A potential investor needs market opportunities in order to earn profit, business organization to exploit the opportunity, and capital to initiate the business. In Taiwan's network economy, the solidarity provided by family networks makes small initial business organizations possible. Subcontracting systems, both horizontal and vertical, make the entry-level investment low, and the decentralized production/marketing processes provide numerous market opportunities for small investments. Taiwanese entrepreneurs opt to start their business ventures primarily through the use of network financing, since bank loans fall under the dominion of government policies.     

Factors in educational exclusion: including the voice of the youth

The processes of educational exclusion are multiple and diverse. Research has shown that exclusion from school goes far beyond access. It is associated with crucial issues related to educational processes (belonging, recognition or representation) and results (knowledge or certificates). The objective of this article is to delve into the analysis of factors in educational exclusion, including the voice of the youth, as a key element in understanding these factors. The article begins with a literature review addressing the meaning, mechanisms and profiles of educational exclusion. It then presents qualitative fieldwork, consisting of six focus groups of young people (aged 14–24) who have been excluded from mainstream educational institutions in Barcelona, Spain. The results of the empirical analysis point to four critical elements in the process of educational exclusion as experienced by the youth: educational transitions; the role of teachers; the impact of grouping practices and disciplinary mechanisms; and the contrast between mainstream educational institutions and alternative learning arenas. By including the voice of the youth, the article provides a better understanding of the factors contributing to educational exclusion so as to advance in the construction of an educational system able to guarantee students’ right to learn and succeed in school.     

Climate,class and culture: political issues as cultural signifiers in the US

Since the 1970s, social scientists have argued that general pro‐environmental attitudes have diffused throughout American society, rendering socio‐demographics largely irrelevant in predicting support for such issues. The public reaction to the issue of climate change, however, is an exception to this narrative. While media bias, ideological framing, and business influence are often invoked to explain public apathy, I argue that ignoring class and culture in determining why climate change is so divisive is a potentially significant oversight. Using the cultural theory of Bourdieu, I examine how the conception of and reaction to climate change varies with economic and cultural capital using data from 40 interviews of Boston‐area respondents. The results suggest that climate change may indeed be a ‘classed’ issue – both in how the respondents conceive of it in the first place, and how they speak of social class in the context of it. The results suggest that social scientists should go beyond rational‐choice and media framing explanations, to take two prolific examples, in exploring how disagreements on the importance of climate change persist in the US.     

The Tunnel at the End of the Light: the Crisis of Transition in Hungary

The economic, political and social transition processes of the last two decades, far from being in harmony, clearly have a detrimental rather than an enriching influence on each other. These processes will never become harmonised just by themselves in a natural fashion. The worst obstacle of a successful transformation is that the chief actors, such as the government, the market and the representatives of the society. The Prince, the Merchant and the Citizen do not show the necessary commitment, competence and determination to create a new, effective type of partnership. This is a challenge which urgently demands answers on all levels of governance, economic and social life. This must be done in the frames of local communities, and on the regional, the European and the global levels. Nearly twenty years after the political turnabout, Hungary now needs a new social contract and must lay down the ethical, political, institutional and intellectual foundations for its twenty-first century democracy.

An investigation of the link between gambling motives and social context of gambling in young adults

The current study examined the relationship between gambling motives and gambling in various social contexts using both retrospective and real-time assessment of gambling social context. Ninety-five young adults (79 males, 16 females; aged 19–24 years) who reported gambling at least 4 times in the past month participated. Scores on the Gambling Motives Questionnaire (GMQ; Stewart & Zack, 2008) were used as a measure of gambling motives (Enhancement, Social, Coping). Data on the social context of gambling (alone, with family, with friends, with strangers) were derived retrospectively from the Gambling Timeline Follow-Back (G-TLFB; Weinstock, Whelan, & Meyers, 2004) as well as in real time using experience sampling (ES) methods (Conner Christensen, Feldman Barrett, Bliss-Moreau, Lebo, & Kaschub, 2003). For both the G-TLFB and ES data, we conducted a series of multivariate regression analyses with the block of gambling motives predicting gambling behaviour in each social context. Across the two assessment methods, coping gambling motives positively predicted gambling alone, whereas social gambling motives negatively predicted gambling alone and positively predicted gambling with friends. These findings suggest that individuals who gamble for particular motives are more likely to do so in specific social contexts.     

Networking of Intellectual Capital in Southeast Europe: Boosting the Transition to Meritocratic Societies

Being aware that brain drain is perceived as a menace for national economies in the region of Southeast Europe, this paper will closely address the possible beneficial aspects of highly skilled migration and ways to achieve regional sustainability utilising this kind of migratory movement. In this sense, the appearence of a scientific diaspora and other knowledge networks would be stressed not just as a crucial result of their migration but also as a potential method of deriving benefits that can ensure development and consolidation of a meritocratic society. The process would be elaborated in the context of the regional integration with the European Union and accepting inherent standards, but also in the context of the wider social reforms which contain a transition process as whole. The paper will try to argue that civil societies in the region have the capacity to utilise accumulated human capital in the networks to a more significant extent.     

The Formation and Manipulation of Collective Identity: A Framework for Analysis

This paper is concerned with how people involved in ‘local’ protest might come to see themselves as part of wider social groupings and even global forces of resistance. An ethnographic study of the No M11 Link Road Campaign in London examines participants' definitions of their collective identity boundaries at different stages of involvement. Cross-sectional material from the beginning and later in the campaign shows that there was a transformation in collective identity boundaries towards a more inclusive definition of ‘community’. Analysis of participants' accounts before and after involvement in the eviction of a tree suggests the role of conflict with the police in producing an oppositional definition of the collective identity, facilitating links to other groups in resistance to illegitimate authority. Finally, biographical material indicates the implications of transformed identity boundaries for co-action with wider social groups. It is argued that the same intra- and inter-group processes that determine how identity boundaries extend to include a broader community might account for how people come to see themselves as part of a global social movement.     

Interlegislator Relations and Policy Making: A Sociological Study of Roll‐Call Voting in a State Legislature1

Legislative roll‐call voting is crucial in policy making. Standard approaches to studying roll‐call voting focus on legislator attributes, ignoring how social factors, such as legislator relations, may drive voting. Using original data based on a state legislature, I adopt a relational approach to examine how legislator relations impact roll‐call voting net of attributes. Results show that relations strongly influence voting, adding significantly to the explanatory power of the models. These results imply that standard approaches to studying roll‐call voting should incorporate consideration of social factors, suggesting the value of social influence models in studies of political phenomena.     

The moral economy of contemporary working‐class adolescence: managing symbolic capital in a French public ‘Adolescent Centre’

Working‐class adolescents of French urban peripheries are key figures in a new social debate that reactivates the nineteenth century spectre of ‘dangerous’ classes to be controlled. Since the 1990s, French social counselling has privileged two modalities of response: taking account of suffering and government by listening and speech. We hypothesize that the contemporary moral economy allows for social interactions that go beyond social control and institutional domination. This is partly because professionals engaged in this moral undertaking may keep a critical distance, and partly because the concerned populations aren't necessarily devoid of resources to advance their interests or incapable of resistance. The concept of moral economy, coupled with the ethnographic method, is heuristic for fully comprehending the complexity of these issues and their stakes. Our fieldwork was centred on a French Adolescent Centre in an impoverished commune in Paris's periphery, from January 2010 through March 2011. These institutions were established in the early 2000s to respond to adolescent ‘suffering’ by crossing social work and psychiatry. Adolescents, parents, and other institutions (especially schools) solicit the professionally diverse staff for assistance, which in turn may take on cases and/or make referrals to other support institutions. By paying attention to all the scenes upon which the story of a counselled adolescent evolves, and bearing more general social evolutions in mind by applying the concept of moral economy, we can consider the multiplicity of seemingly contradictory processes as a whole. We see the destabilization of parents and their loss of symbolic capital, partly due to the norms of contemporary parenthood and partly due to the stigmatization of working‐class adolescence. But we also discern possibilities for expressing sentiments of injustice and humiliation, for increasing symbolic capital, and in some cases a reappropriation of the system, particularly in trajectories marked by a will for social ascension.     

Formation of Identity in Wartime El Salvador: Protective and Harmful Factors

In a qualitative study of the effects of war on identity in rural postwar El Salvador, 11 interviews from data collected 3 years after the war were analyzed for social and individual identity factors. Subjects had been adolescents during the civil war. Prolonged war experiences, especially for those who became combatants at a very early age, had a negative impact on identity formation. Those who had the greatest identity problems felt a deep sense of betrayal, abandonment, and/or a general lack of trust. This included those who felt betrayed by their group, which in war consisted of an armed political one.