探索新的关系和生活模式 ——关于成都男同性恋伴侣关系和生活实践的研究

这些年来,李银河提交同性婚姻提案的努力,将同性恋伴侣关系和家庭生活引入了公众视野,但国内学术研究对此尚无涉及。基于对成都“同志”社区的实地研究,本文详细考察了男同性恋伴侣关系和家庭生活的具体实践、追求平等关系、反思现有婚姻制度,以及争取社会承认的努力。研究强调中国社会中的同性之间的亲密关系正在转型,同性恋伴侣关系开始挣脱占据主导地位的异性恋亲属体系,成为一种可供选择的家庭生活模式。同时,借鉴西方近期关于“酷儿”家庭的理论和实践,文章讨论了同性恋伴侣关系对于主流社会和亲属制度的启示,呼吁在制度上给予这样的“草根”实践以更多的承认。     

社会性个体的生成：杜威的儿童研究及其社会理论意涵

本文通过集中讨论杜威基于儿童研究而进行的行动力教育,揭示实用主义思想对个体主义的具体理解。在美国镀金时代,孤立个体主义加剧了现代美国人的道德危机和社会分裂。杜威此时进行的儿童研究与教育改革,首要的目标是重新理解现代个体的行动结构和人格形态,以克服孤立个体主义造就的行动难题。利用“刺激—反应”的行动机制,杜威同时结合了自然力量和社会意识,力图在开展行动力教育的过程中塑造一种“社会性个体”。社会性个体一方面保留了源于自然的神圣性,另一方面又不断吸收来自社会的文明传统,以应对现代世界在人心和社会两方面的挑战。本研究有助于我们进一步理解美国社会学的早期思想根基并反思当下的生存处境。     

论启动消费信贷与消费体制改革

文章阐述了消费结构不合理、消费断层是当前消费需求萎缩的直接原因 ,消费信贷对解决消费断层具有独到的作用 ,分析了消费信贷现状、作用机制、效果不明显的原因。指出改革消费体制 ,优化消费环境是启动消费信贷的关键环节 ,提出了改革消费管理体制的具体政策建议。     

Using environmental imperatives to reduce meat consumption: perspectives from New Zealand

Sustainable food consumption is an important issue globally, that will intensify if current projections of population growth, urbanisation and the growing ‘middle-classes’ in developing countries continues. Reducing meat consumption is one approach that can help with food sustainability and security, while helping to address the problematic environmental outcomes associated with agricultural production – assuming that a reduction in meat consumption will at some point be reflected in production practices. Currently, sensory perception, health, convenience and price are more immediately influential than environmental concerns in determining meat consumption practices. Moreover, consumer culture under neoliberalism and the context of New Zealand as an agricultural nation are significant underpinning factors in lifestyle practices including food choice. In this paper, I share the perspectives of New Zealanders on meat (and meat-like) consumption and production practices in order to find out (a) what factors are prominent influences in meat consumption and (b) how these factors might be utilised to reduce meat consumption by applying them to meat-less/reduced foods. I argue that these environmental factors need to be promoted alongside known influential determinants of purchase decisions in order to make the idea of reduced-meat consumption a more attractive option for consumers.     

生命与伦理:齐美尔生命哲学基础上的个体法则

以其早年对货币经济下的个体处境及两种个体主义的思考为背景，晚年的齐美尔在生命哲学的基础上集中阐述了有关伦理准则的个体法则。西方的主导伦理思想视伦理为普遍法则对个体行动的约束，普遍法则的合法性建立在一种二元对立的、机械的、理性的、目的论的视角之上。个体法则却以作为应该的个体生命为源泉，打破了以康德为代表的西方伦理思想中的各种视角局限，同时回应了齐美尔早年有关货币经济、文化悲剧和个体主义的思考，提供了一种与功利主义、利己主义等不同的个体主义话语。     

扩大内需的潜力工具--个人消费信贷

经济增长的动力,最终来自于需求.西方新古典学派的消费理论为消费信贷的实践奠定了理论基础.发展个人消费信贷是启动目前国内经济的一个新思路,它在刺激内需、实现市场供求平衡、丰富银行金融业务、增强行业竞争力等诸多方面发挥着作用.个人消费信贷业务的有效开展,对于带动整个国民经济的发展具有重要的战略意义.     

我国的异化消费现象及应对策略

异化消费是一种非理性的消费模式,这种消费模式的出现加重了原有的生产和消费之间关系的失调程度。异化消费与科学消费观所倡导的消费理念是背道而驰的。如何用科学的消费观匡扶和纠正消费领域出现的问题,尤其是如何用科学消费观抵制和战胜异化消费现象是研究生产消费关系的一个重要领域。     

金融危机影响下居民消费行为特征研究——以武汉市城镇居民为例

利用武汉市统计年鉴和统计信息网最新数据,对比分析2002～2007年和2008～2009年第一季度武汉市城镇居民的消费数量、消费结构、消费增长率、消费结构变动度、平均消费倾向和边际消费倾向等经济参数,结果发现受金融危机冲击,武汉市城镇居民的平均消费倾向比2007年下降了17.04个百分点,边际消费倾向大约下降了3/4,居民信心受到严重冲击。以此分析结果为基础,提出应对危机的相关措施和建议。     

Intersubjectivity: Towards a Dialogical Analysis

Intersubjectivity refers to the variety of possible relations between perspectives. It is indispensable for understanding human social behaviour. While theoretical work on intersubjectivity is relatively sophisticated, methodological approaches to studying intersubjectivity lag behind. Most methodologies assume that individuals are the unit of analysis. In order to research intersubjectivity, however, methodologies are needed that take relationships as the unit of analysis. The first aim of this article is to review existing methodologies for studying intersubjectivity. Four methodological approaches are reviewed: comparative self-report, observing behaviour, analysing talk and ethnographic engagement. The second aim of the article is to introduce and contribute to the development of a dialogical method of analysis. The dialogical approach enables the study of intersubjectivity at different levels, as both implicit and explicit, and both within and between individuals and groups. The article concludes with suggestions for using the proposed method for researching intersubjectivity both within individuals and between individuals and groups.     

Using Critical Realism to Explain Indeterminacy in Role Behaviour Systematically

We demonstrate in this article how critical realism can be used to explain indeterminacy in role behaviour systematically. In so doing, we both rebut various criticisms of critical realism made recently by Kemp and Holmwood and attempt to illustrate the weaknesses and absences of approaches that concentrate unduly on the collection of expectations of (different groups of) actors concerning roles and the behaviour of incumbents. Within a framework that recognises that structure and agency are ontologically distinct but necessarily empirically related entities, we argue that structures should be seen as sources of indeterminacy within role behaviour for at least four reasons: the co‐determination of roles through the intersection of structures; conflicting role expectations caused by contradictions inhering within structures; asymmetries of power within social relations; and asymmetric repetition within structural reproduction/transformation. In light of this discussion of structural sources of indeterminacy, we then go on to demonstrate how critical realism is also able to analyse systematically the agential sources of indeterminacy within role behaviour and expectations through theories of psychobiography and reflexivity. We thus conclude that critical realism contains the conceptual tools required to illuminate the point(s) of intersection between structure, culture and agency which is central to understanding both role behaviour and the plurality of expectations concerning such behaviour.     

Corporate Governance and Firm Performance： A Sociological Analysis Based on Chinese Experience

基于676家上市公司1997-2007年问的面板数据及对上市公司高管、独立董事、基金经理和证券分析师等的深度访谈资料,分析公司治理和企业绩效之间的关系,揭示在中国制度背景下与代理理论的预测颇为不问的公司治理与企业绩效的关系模式。而所谓的“最佳”公司治理做法是在特定社会、政治、文化等制度环境下各种复杂社会力量和利益群体进行“建构”的结果,其作用的发挥在很大程度上取决于是否契合所在的制度环境,因此,并不存在普适的“最佳”公司治理模式。基于中国经验的社会学实证研究,为解构这一世界性公司治理迷思提供了新视角和证据。     

道德失范的表现及其评价

道德失范是以过去僵化的计划体制下生成的道德理念和规范作为参照系对现今的道德意识和道德行为的一种评判。道德失范似一把双刃剑给社会带来了双重影响。它一方面引起了人们道德意识淡薄和社会行为的无序,另一方面又使人们形成了一种适应市场经济体制的新的道德理念并因此支配着人们的行为。     

Contingency,novelty and choice. Cultural evolution as internal selection

Sociological, economic and evolutionary paradigms of human agency have often seen social agents either as the rational controllers of their fate or as marionettes on the strings of historical, functional or adaptive necessity. They found it therefore difficult to account for the variability, intentionality and creativity of human behaviour and for its frequently redundant or harmful results. This paper argues that human agency is a product of evolution, but that genetic variation and inheritance can only provide a limited explanation of its complex nature. The primary evolutionary problem which human agents face while they are alive is not to adapt to stable environments, but to respond flexibly and creatively to a contingent, uncertain world. Variation and selection therefore take two connected but distinct forms, one external, genetic, and inherited across generations, the other internal and cognitive, and operating during the lifetime of individuals. An examination of this lived part of evolution provides a better understanding of key properties of agency.     

Subverting Social Policy on the Front Line: Agencies of Resistance in the Delivery of Services

An understanding of policy implementation issues in many of the core fields of social policy requires attention to the mode of service delivery that is characteristic of those fields: face‐to‐face interaction between frontline service staff and service users. A focus on implementation as interaction between these groups reveals the significance of ‘agency’ to the analysis of why and how certain social policy outcomes occur – and in particular why outcomes may sometimes be different from those anticipated by formal policy objectives. This article considers how the agency of workers and users shapes the processes of mediation, negotiation and adaptation that occur in different service delivery contexts, and identifies ways in which resistance to intended policy outcomes, and to the practices expected to deliver them, is formed and expressed. Drawing on a wide range of empirical research material, the article shows how agencies of resistance produce outcomes that are uncertain, fragile and contested, and whose effect can be the subversion of formal policy intentions.     

Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: A Sociological Analysis Based on Chinese Experience

Based on the 1997-2007 panel data of 676 listed companies and in-depth interviews with the senior executives, independent directors, fund managers and securities analysts of these companies, this paper tries to analyze the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance from a sociological perspective. The results show that the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance in the Chinese institutional environment is sharply different from the predictions of the agency theory. The empirical findings from China lend strong support to the new institutional argument that “best” corporate governance practices are socially “constructed” by various social forces and interests groups in specific social, political and cultural contexts, and how “good” a corporate governance practice is depends to a large extent on whether it fits in with the institutional environment in which it is embedded. There exists no universally “best” model of corporate governance across the world. Our empirical sociological study based on Chinese experience offers new perspectives and evidence for deconstructing the global myth of corporate governance.     

The Ethical Implications of Current Theoretical Developments in Social Work

Correspondence to Dr Mel Gray, Department of Social Work, University of Natal, King George V Ave, Durban 4001, South Africa. Summary The paper examines the ethical implications of current theoreticaldevelopments in social work and discusses important ways inwhich efforts at understanding within social work can be guidedby moral values. At the present time, there are a variety oftheories through which the world of social work can be understood.In attempting to achieve as accurate an understanding of socialwork reality as possible, it is suggested that social work needsto move beyond empirical rigidity, technological approachesand ideological dogma to a critical, reflective epistemologicalstance which takes account of the profession's worthwhile ideals.To this end, the paper discusses the notion of the autonomousmoral self and examines the implications of critical and constructivistthinking on this notion of selfhood. It considers what it meansto develop an adequate understanding of social work realityand re-examines the meaning of objectivity. Finally, it highlightsthe need for reflection on, and an appreciation of, the allencompassing nature of morality.     

Students and the Consumer Credit Market: Towards a Social Policy Agenda

The rise in access to complex consumer credit arrangements has taken place against a backdrop of a call for increased individual responsibility. Consumers are required to behave in a way which recognizes both their rights and responsibilities. But how much responsibility should they be expected to shoulder in critical areas of complex choice? Students represent a particular group of novice, sometimes vulnerable and often targeted consumers, who may display limited financial capability and responsibility. In addition to arguments for a more nuanced understanding of individual responsibility in different environments, the role of commercial agents and their marketing practices, which can have major implications for social policy, should also be considered. From the perspective of both students and relevant agencies and organizations, this article examines the nature, role and limitations of individual responsibility in managing credit and debt. While the social and economic system confers rights on lenders, their responsibility in marketing remains limited. It is argued that a framework for more responsible marketing of credit is a critical element of social policy acting as a bridge between individual responsibility and regulation. Qualitative research is used to illustrate the argument for marketing's social responsibility from the point of view of students entering credit arrangements to meet short‐term needs but with long‐term implications.     

The child in child protection: Invisible and unheard

The paper presents findings from a qualitative study of four child death reviews published in Australia. The study was informed by the theoretical concept of childism. A critical social research methodology facilitated the exposure of childist dynamics in statutory child protection. The transformation of child protection practices and systems has traditionally relied on the imposition of never‐ending structural changes, policies, and procedures. This paper proposes that transformation and the erosion of childist dynamics is contingent on humane and ethical statutory child protection agencies.     

Experiencing Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Discourse and Activity

The article introduces the Vygotskian tradition in the realist theoretical discussion of the structure-agency problem. Archer's concept of internal conversation is discussed in terms of internalization and externalization of conversational dynamics. The article addresses in particular the methodological issue of observing how external events trigger internal use of language, and how these internal dynamics are externalized. The experience of talk is proposed as a conceptual key to the understanding of internal conversations and of the relation between structured activity and agency. The experience of talk is defined with the help of the notions of emotional experience, personal sense and inner speech, as they are conceptualized in activity theory and in particular in the works of L.S. Vygotsky and A.N. Leont'ev. Students' experiences of critical conversational events with teachers are analyzed on the basis of written autobiographical accounts. The experience of talk emerges from the analysis as a form of emotional experience in which the horizon of the individual's subjective view relates to specific circumstances external to the individual. Autobiographical accounts of critical conversations are suggested as a type of data which allows access to the experience of talk.