Geschlecht, Schicht und Bildungspartizipation

Analyses of educational participation frequently assume that gender and social class have an independent effect on the participation level. In contrast to this assumption the paper analyses the question whether gender differences depend on social class or not. The Power-control theory of Hagan, Gillis and Simpson is applied to develop a theoretical answer to the question. The empirical analysis reveals two class dependent gender effects: Higher gender differences are observed for higher educational levels of parents and for households with a migration background. Further analysis indicates that distribution of power within the household can explain these effects.     

Barrieren, Brücken und Balancen

The present paper discusses conceptions of appropriate distance relations in present day service jobs. We show how employees manage their emotions in order to comply with these largely ideological conceptions. In two comparative case studies of a call center and of community care for elderly people we demonstrate that the conceptions of appropriate distance are diametrically opposed to the objective spatial distance of the interactants. Thus, Customer Relations Management suggests an emotionalised relation between customers and call center agents who are located hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away from customers. This emotional closeness supposedly maximises the economic exploitation of the commercial interaction. In the service of elderly care which involves close body contact, however, the conception of a professional relation between carer and client is based on the carer’s ability to distance herself in order not to ‘burn out’. We show that the effects of rationalisation, bureaucratisation and new technologies in service jobs of both capitalist service economies and welfare states create dilemmas between the feeling rules and the working conditions. Service workers try to solve these dilemmas by more or less improvised practices of manipulating their feelings and sensations.     

Notfall, Nähe und Hilfsbereitschaft

The paper presents data of a survey about helping behaviour in the flood catastrophe in august 2002 in Germany. In this situation helping behaviour can be operationalized as giving donations for victims or helping in the flood area. It can be shown that helping behaviour like this is related to the individual definition of the situation as a case of emergency as it is defined by Darley and Latané. Nevertheless, the regional distance to the flood area is the most important factor on helping decisions.     

Gentrifizierung in Wien, Chicago und Mexiko Stadt

The lack of comparative gentrification research is regularly addressed by the scientific community. Despite the vast amount of isolated case-studies from different urban contexts, there are only few comparisons of gentrified neighborhoods on a global level. It is hypothesized that to a large extent the lack of international comparisons is based on the limits of quantitative secondary data. Therefore, a qualitative research project was designed to develop an analytical scheme of categories. An actor-analysis was conducted in three neighborhoods in Vienna, Chicago and Mexico City. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed in a qualitative content analysis and then linked to the theoretical gentrification-framework. The result, an analytical scheme of 14 categories, provides a new approach to face the significant lack of international comparisons.     

Sinne, Kommunikation und Gesellschaft — Eine Theorieskizze

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for the sociology of the senses in which different forms of interaction and communication can be analyzed. The pragmatics of the senses are structured by a) characteristics of the senses as perceptual systems and therefore as an anthropological condition of action, communication and society, b) a pre-reflexive cultural concept of the senses which guide our experience by a five-part, organological and isolationistic pattern which is related to functional conditions of the coordination of behavior and c) a specific part of the interaction order which makes perception mutually expectable.     

Soziale Kompetenz: Hierarchisiert, vergeschlechtlicht und ökonomisiert

This paper discusses the gender-dimension of the notion “social skill” and states that different uses of the term support the gender hierarchies. In the 1970ies “social skills” were attributed to women. Nowadays “social skills” are forming part of the curricula in the educational system. In this process “social skills” are used to fit economic interests and appear to be gender-neutral. A closer look shows that depending on the context the notion has a “male” or “female” bias. The radical shift of work and employment is described by terms like dispersion of borders between life and work, subjectivity and rationalization and has its equivalence in the educational system.     

Die analytische Soziologie: Soziale Mechanismen, DBO-Theorie und Agentenbasierte Modelle

Within the analytical sociology, Peter Hedström — professor at School of Social Sciences of the Singapore Management University — developed an approach to come to valid explanations of social phenomena. In this article, his approach will be described and critically assessed. The approach is based on the micro-macro view in sociology. With the assistance of the so called DBO-theory, certain social mechanisms are formulated on the micro- and macro levels to come to a sufficient (middle-range) theory for the explanation of social phenomena. To investigate the validity of the theory, agent-based models are calculated.     

Ungleichheit und Vorurteil

The authors take a look at how established sociological research in Germany deals with two distinct subjects: migrants in the German school system and New Fascists. The article highlights surprising, contrary feeling rules social scientists active in these two research areas develop regarding their objects of investigation. As it turns out in both cases social disintegration serves as an explanatory research frame. But feeling rules derived from this frame point in opposite directions. New Fascists are cast in the roles of victims of social change and institutional failure, thus calling for empathy and/or sympathy as the feeling to be directed towards them. Migrants, in contrast, are blamed for their situation, which invokes indifference and antipathy as a feeling rule. Comparing both research areas reveals how they connect to each other. Together they establish a dichotomous emotional regime which traces the lines of simultaneous inclusion in and exclusion from the German society.     

Kunstkonsum und Kunstsozialisation

The dependence of art consumption on the social stratum is one of the basic findings of the sociology of art. During the last decades, both the discussion of social inequality as well as differentiations within the various art fields have undergone considerable changes. These processes should effect the consumption of art. The empirical analysis of data on the profiles of visitors to art galleries and art museums shows various effects: as before the educational background determines the consumption of art, however there is also a certain hierarchy of the locations in which art is consumed. Cluster analysis results in a typology of visitors that shows that the importance of education varies within the different clusters.     

Jugendliche Lebensstile und Nachhaltigkeit

?My Life ?? My Style ?? My Future?? was a project in which pupils of two Viennese schools analysed their own lifestyles and those of other teenagers by using social research methods. The article presents quantitative results regarding consumption patterns, communication styles, values and attitudes in order to explore the potentials for sustainability-related communication strategies for young people.     

Die ambivalente Autonomie des Kulturschaffens: Film, Pressefotografie und Architektur im digitalen Wandel

Basing its findings on a qualitative study, this article examines the digital transformation of cultural production in film and video, press photography and architecture in Austria since the beginning of the 1990s. The focus is on the aspects cost structure of the means of production, occupational roles, and working methods. Amain result is that the use of digital means of production allows a single person or a small enterprise to realize several or all production stages alone, removing the former need to divide the labor. For this phenomenon, the term ‘rational universalism’ was coined by the author. The increased autonomy for the cultural producers connected to it provides not only freedom, especially with respect to artistic and organizational possibilities, and moreover easier entrance to the market, but can also be a mixed blessing for the actors, as it may mean fiercer competition and the risk of precarious working conditions in the investigated cultural industries.     

Ökonomischer Liberalismus, postmodernes Diversity Management in Unternehmen und der Geist des Kapitalismus

The present article introduces the concept of Diversity Management, which has its roots in the USA. The latter regards the workforce’s diversity, inequality, differentness and individuality as an essential contribution to a company’s success. Against the backdrop of the hegemonial waves in the world system and the related cultural cycles, the argument is being launched that an organizational change from fordism to post-fordism has taken place in the framework of the USA’s hegemonial downturn and the emergence of post-modernism as a cultural pattern. In this context, “diversity” has been able to make its way as an issue. On the one hand, this development attempts to carry out even more the “modern” ideas of “individualism” and “social equality of opportunities” also on an entrepreneurial level; on the other hand, the industrial-capitalist differentiation of labor, person and lifeworld is being demarcated in a “post-modernistic” way and is even more strongly tied into the logic of capital.     

Wandlungen des Sterbens im Krankenhaus und die Konflikte zwischen Krankenrolle und Sterberolle

Dying in hospital has long been considered as inevitable but talking about it should be avoided, if possible. For some time now, new ideals of dying demand higher social expectations and requirements for the care of dying people (e.g. psycho-social and spiritual care). This trend can also be found in hospitals. On the basis of a running micro-sociological observational study carried out so far in four hospitals and two hospices the social organisation of dying in the hospital is being investigated and results are presented with an example of a case study. Observed dying trajectories show that the staff refers to two competing metaphors as an interpretative frame for performing its work that we call the ideal of the “short and good” dying and the ideal of the “long and laborious” dying. These idealisation correspond with the practice of “discrete” dying (that have been found in hospitals until the 1970s and that are still dominant in the medical world) and with the practice of “intimating” dying (which are drawn from the demands of the hospice-movement). Within this interpretative frame the staff is able to cope with uncertainties of the dying process. The idealisa-tions help to reformulate cumulative mess trajectories as successful and good work and thus tensions between the sick role and the dying role are minimised.     

Soziologie und soziale Ontologie

Recent philosophical work attempts to describe social phenomena in general categories, an approach also interesting for sociologists. The questions as of what constitutes social objects or facts and whether there is a common structure of social phenomena are mostly neglected in sociology. This neglect is problematic because basic questions about conceptualisation and explanation in sociology cannot be pursued without a clear understanding of social phenomena. The philosophical discussions take place vis-à-vis the doctrine of ontological individualism which means that social phenomena are shadow phenomena without reality. Only the actions of individuals and the mental processes being constitutive elements of the actions are real. In opposition to this dogma, Gilbert, Searle and Ruben argue that social phenomena cannot be reduced to actions. Quite the contrary, actions can only be understood if the existence of the phenomena is presupposed. From a sociological point of view there are three remarkable aspects: First, all three authors offer good arguments against ontological individualism. Second, their arguments are based on the reconstruction of the use of everyday concepts referring to social phenomena and are therefore comprehensible. Third, the understanding of social phenomena merely as collective subjects, intentions or systems of interlocking beliefs is too restrictive. Despite this failure these theories show a way to gain a more realistic understanding of social phenomena.