In the Spirit of Selden Bacon: The Sociology Of Drinking and Drug Problems

In 1943, the sociologist Selden Bacon proposed studying drinking behavior from a “sociologic” perspective. Since then, a problem-oriented approach – a sociology of problem drinking and problem drug use, not a sociology of drinking and drug use behavior – has dominated the literature on alcohol and other drugs. However, a review of the literature reveals a sociology of drinking and drug problems in the spirit of the research that Bacon proposed. This article suggests that the sociology of drinking and drug problems can be regarded as a multidisciplinary field of study and usefully divided among three primary perspectives: (1) a sociocultural perspective that considers social change, modern society, and cultural influence; (2) a socio-environmental perspective that explores social learning, social setting, and alienation; and (3) an ideological perspective that examines cultural, institutional, and professional ideologies. The sociology of drinking and drug problems exposes the considerable influence of “sociologic” factors on problem drinking and problem drug use across scientific disciplines and, in particular, that problem drinking and problem drug use, from a multidisciplinary standpoint, are not caused exclusively by biologic traits. However, the sociology of drinking and drug problems is limited by the problem-oriented approach. More research needs to analyze the normal use of alcohol and other drugs to better understand the connection between substance use and social life.     

“In Their Own Voices”

Abstract

Social policy should be informed by scientific research. Yet, the rapport between researchers and policy makers remains poor, and the translation of social research into social policy haphazard. Many researchers follow a positivist paradigm and prepare quantitative reports that are difficult for policy makers to decipher. Good research is “wasted” because policy makers consider it irrelevant to the real-life problems of their constituents. Policy research that are qualitative narratives are more readerfriendly and thus more appealing to policy makers. This article argues for the inclusion of qualitative methods into research conducted to inform social policy and offers several case examples.     

Moral bureaucracies and social network research

In the wake of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), research ethics governance does not just affect the ethical dimensions of social research but also the range of scientific decisions available to researchers. Because of the sensitive status of personal data and the aversion to even minimal risk by what we call “moral bureaucracies”, we are concerned that social network researchers will increasingly limit their research decisions to “safe” options, like reusing anonymized datasets, choosing target populations based on convenience rather than theoretical relevance, and routinely subcontracting fieldwork to professional data collection companies, among others. We also suggest that scientific associations and social scientists in general need to adopt a proactive role in preserving both scientific freedom and genuine ethics advice within this new regulatory framework.     

Public attitudes to countryside leisure: A case study on ambivalence

This paper describes a research study designed to look critically at the framework underpinning current attitude survey research on countryside leisure. The argument proposes that people do not have set and stable needs and attitudes. Using a framework informed by recent debates on discourse and rhetoric in social psychology, the research examines whether people appear to have, on the surface, variable and flexible views on countryside leisure which reflect deeper societal tensions, ambiguities and uncertainties. This perspective is in stark contrast to current key U.K. leisure policy documents and understandings which implicitly assume people to have unitary and stable needs and views which reflect internally consistent “attitudes” (although the needs which people are assumed to have in relation to countryside leisure are subtly different across the different policy documents). Using seven topical and strongly contested disputes over the appropriateness of particular leisure uses for the English countryside the research “playfully” seeks to determine whether people's expressed views and attitudes to the same issues of countryside leisure can be radically transformed in line with wider cultural controversies. This hypothesis is explored by introducing the same issues, framed in line with three ‘cultural’ voices, in three consecutive weeks. The hypothesis is largely confirmed across many of the countryside leisure controversies and is interpreted as revealing of the considerable ambivalence in people's expressed preferences. The results are argued to be highly relevent to policy makers and some implications of this kind of research are drawn out for U.K. government agencies. Wider theoretical implications are also explored concerning the power of contemporary cultural rhetories, and of how a more reflexive understanding of such rhetorics might inform the practices of a variety of social groupings.     

Homo ludens im sozialwissenschaftlichen Seminar

The teaching of social sciences consists of social interactions and is, therefore, an appropriate object for scientific analysis. A game-theoretic approach reveals that ”chicken games“ and ”prisoner’s dilemmas“ are abundant in university level courses. It can also deliver systematic solutions to the problems of cooperation students and teachers are confronted with in everyday a cademic life. One of these solutions is the reforming of courses into games, as based on a perspective borrowed from cultural anthropology. ”Excitement and fun“ become the ”selective incentives“ which may boost seminar interaction and output, and forge ”privileged groups“, i.e. ”teams“.     

Trend-Soziologismen

An excursive contentanalysis of the media suggests evidence of a strong and widespread public interest concerning sociological issues: the quest for social positioning, cultural and economic change or practical “tools” for management and marketing. But this public need for sociological explanation and consulting is only to a minot degree satisfied by professional sociologists. The majority of the media-released results are distributed by representatives of a profession named “trend-“ or “future-research”. A closer look at the work and publication-strategies of these consultants indicated that the most active protagonists like Matthias Horx not only claim to be “sociologists”, but undertake strong attacks against professional and academic sociology and social scientists. The claim to conduct authentic sociological research and using techniques of “social research” helps to legitimate the publication of the superficial results of this sociologistic research in newspapers, magazines, and media-websites. Thus for professional sociology the question arises what to fo and how to react. One strategy could repeat the practice of the so called “Third Culture” of the international science-community’s members who have started a widely renowned public discourse to meet public demands of being scientifically informed.     

Cognitive Claims-Making,Enclosure, and the Depoliticization of Social Problems*

One of the most important contributions of recent social problems theory is the insight that social problems are inherently political phenomena. Existing scholarship on this characteristic has not dealt systematically with (1) the degree of overt politicality of social issues, or (2) the dynamic element of this politicality. This paper first reviews recent literature in the “medicalization of deviant behavior,” and sugests that this literature illustrates how the political element of social problem phenomena can be suppressed and replaced with a seemingly apolitical and technical perspective. Then it is proposed that interpretive social problems theory might deal more adequately with this pattern by incorporating a continuum ranging from “open” to “closed” social problems and analyzing the dynamics of social problem “enclosure,” and that certain sorts of claims—cognitive as opposed to normative—are especially conducive to the depoliticization and enclosure of social problems.     

Research utilization: Reaching decision makers

“Is anyone listening?” is the question behind a decade of radio probing of deep space. It is also the question which haunts many researchers of social policy issues. We introduce our subject with a recent example of a clear response to a research “probe” in youth services policy space. It is also an unusually successful case of researchers “reaching” policy makers.     

Multi-Organizational Fields and Social Movement Organization Frame Content: The Religious Fro-Choice Movement*

As an explanatory method in studies of social movements, analyses of collective action frames have generally focused on the variable efficacy of the frames of social movement organizations (SMOs)in the mobilization of potential participants. However, this work has for practical reasons used the acknowledged analytic simplification that SMOs only target potential participants–and not opponents, elite decision makers, or the media–when constructing their frames. To incorporate multiple targets into future studies of SMO frame construction, this paper expands on the idea of a multi-organizational field. I propose that the characteristics of the targets in the field and the social structural and cognitive boundaries between them determine SMO frames. This perspective is demonstrated by analyzing changes in the collective action frames of SMOs in the religious pro-choice movement from 1967 to 1992. I argue that this perspective may explain findings where a frame fails to “resonate” with potential participants–the frame may not have been created with them in mind.     

Restricted and Elaborated Modes in the Cultural Analysis of Politics1

The “cultural turn” that swept across the social sciences a generation ago ushered in renewed attention to the cultural analysis of politics. Yet despite this growing area of research, there remains a lack of integration between cultural and noncultural studies of political phenomena. Should this state of affairs be a source of concern for cultural sociologists? I believe it should be. In this essay, I outline reasons why this is the case and what might be done to address this issue. Drawing loosely on Basil Bernstein’s distinction between “restricted” and “elaborated” codes, I suggest that cultural analyses of politics need to be more “elaborated” in nature and I offer three guidelines that can orient this type of research program.     

Moving People and Knowledge: Scientific Mobility in the European Union1

This paper considers the relationship between highly skilled scientific migration (HSM) and the transfer of knowledge within the European Union (EU). To understand these processes we need to conceptualize the phenomenon and then develop appropriate operational tools. HSM engages two key concepts: (1) the concept of skill or knowledge; and (2) the concept of migration. nalysing the impact of HSM requires an understanding of who is moving (and the quality of their skills) and the nature of their migration. This might include consideration of the direction of flows; their frequency, duration, and permanency; and the propensity to return. In order to evaluate the impact of these processes on the regions concerned and develop appropriate policy responses, we need to examine the relationship between scientific mobility and the transfer of knowledge. Much existing literature focuses on the size and direction of migratory flows assuming a clear correlation between human mobility and the transfer of knowledge to identify the “winning” and “losing” regions. More recent work emphasizing “circulation”. questions these assumptions and suggests that flows may not be unidirectional, homogenous, or permanent and may be mitigated by certain “compensatory” mechanisms This article considers some of the issues raised in the literature and the ways in which the variables identified may interact to shape these relationships with important implications for sending and receiving countries and individual scientists. This article does not endeavour to present new conclusions. Drawing on a pilot project concerned with the mobility of Italian scientists, it begins to map out a research agenda capable of informing a new study of scientific migration in the context of EU enlargement that may potentially inform other research in this field.     

Culture’s Coherence: How the Trees Compose the Woods

In cultural sociology, the concept of culture refers to processes and products of meaning-making. This concept sustains coherence while also encompassing empirical complexity and theoretical difference. Much of the variety in the way cultural sociologists talk about culture is simply attributable to inconsequential terminological difference, and the remainder is attributable to differences of empirical angle and theoretical emphasis within the field which are encompassed by this core idea. Cultural sociologists understand meaning as transcending biology, irreducible to social structure, and public rather than private. These conceptual boundaries provide a firm foundation for empirical research and guide the development of cultural theory. Further exploration of the concept of “meaning” is better pursued in the analytic philosophy of meaning, but such exploration is unnecessary and potentially counter-productive for cultural sociology.     

Sociological Perspectives on Japanese Manga in America

Japanese popular culture has, according to journalist Roland Kelts, “invaded” the United States in the 21st century, and in particular Japanese comics, known as manga, have successfully “conquered America,” according to Wired magazine. Within the publishing trade itself, the medium's cultural and commercial success became known as the “manga revolution” or the “manga boom.” Yet despite all of this excitable rhetoric, there has thus far been scant sociological research into the particularities of this emerging phenomenon, and what exists is widely dispersed across multiple humanities and social science disciplines. This essay therefore aims to unite this scattered literature and provide a comprehensive survey of sociological perspectives on Japanese manga in America. I identify and explore three main substantive trends in the scholarly discourse: (i) studies of gender and sexuality and the homoerotic manga genres known as boys' love or yaoi; (ii) intellectual property, copyright, and the global digital piracy of manga colloquially known as “scanlation”; and (iii) studies of cultural production and the political economy of the American manga industry. This essay concludes with a discussion of the limitations these perspectives have in common and suggests a more critical research program drawing upon an expanded theoretical toolkit.     

Interdisciplinary agendas in visual research: re-situating visual anthropology

In this article I review recent literature on visual research methods in the social sciences to explore two questions. First, I examine how recent interdisciplinary exchanges have portrayed the founding disciplines in visual research and representation through a focus on visual anthropology (and to a lesser degree visual sociology). Second, I critically survey the common aims and interests of academics promoting visual methods from/for their disciplines. As we delve into the “new” visual research literature, it becomes clear that contemporary visual researchers from different disciplines have common interests: reflexivity; collaboration; ethics; and the relationship between the content, social context and materiality of images. I shall argue for a more collaborative interdisciplinary approach to visual research whereby disciplines might learn from each other without seeking narrative foils to assert the supremacy of their own discipline at the expense of others.     

Neighborhood and community effects in East and Southeast Asia: A systematic review and meta-analytical exploration of publication bias

Neighborhood and community effects studies have informed urban policies in the West for three decades. Since about ten years ago, this research line is seen increasingly in East and Southeast Asia as well. As an emerging field, the literature has yet to be critically reviewed and its body of literature provides a unique opportunity to study the effects that different research communities might have on its development. This systematic review collects 165 studies and gives a critical appraisal of this literature, specifically focusing on publication bias. Findings show that “true” neighborhood effects might be overestimated. Health research shows greater publication bias than human geography and general social science. Studies by only local scholars are more prone to bias than studies from collaborative teams or only nonlocal scholars, suggesting that this field is relatively early in its life-cycle or that publication pressure is much higher in Asia compared to the West.     

Cultural capital in educational research: A critical assessment

In this article, we assess how the concept of cultural capital has been imported into the English language, focusing on educational research. We argue that a dominant interpretation of cultural capital has coalesced with two central premises. First, cultural capital denotes knowledge of or facility with “highbrow” aesthetic culture. Secondly, cultural capital is analytically and causally distinct from other important forms of knowledge or competence (termed “technical skills,” “human capital,” etc.). We then review Bourdieu’s educational writings to demonstrate that neither of these premises is essential to his understanding of cultural capital. In the third section, we discuss a set of English-language studies that draw on the concept of cultural capital, but eschew the dominant interpretation. These serve as the point of departure for an alternative definition. Our definition emphasizes Bourdieu’s reference to the capacity of a social class to “impose” advantageous standards of evaluation on the educational institution. We discuss the empirical requirements that adherence to such a definition entails for researchers, and provide a brief illustration of the intersection of institutionalized evaluative standards and the educational practices of families belonging to different social classes. Using ethnographic data from a study of social class differences in family-school relationships, we show how an African-American middle-class family exhibits cultural capital in a way that an African-American family below the poverty level does not.     

The experiential gap in disaster research: Feminist epistemology and the contribution of local affected researchers

ABSTRACT

In this article, we make the case for a situated knowledge of disasters. By applying a feminist standpoint framework, we argue that an ethic of “objectivity” and a privileging of the unattached researcher creates an experiential gap in the disaster literature whereby researchers who themselves experience disaster are undervalued and underrepresented. We analyze reflexive accounts by disaster researchers to show what epi stemological barriers emerge from conventional processes of inquiry and the systematic disadvantaging of local, affected researchers. We also study patterns in articles by “outsider” and “insider” researchers, focusing on differences and similarities in research questions, reflexivity, relationships with and access to participants, and larger theoretical goals. This comparison reveals that the unique position of affected researchers can help to bridge formal knowledge and practical life knowledge, creating new and worthwhile paths to understanding the social effects of disaster.     

The Social‐psychological Aspects of Team Formation: New Avenues for Research

The ubiquity of teams in the modern workplace cannot be denied, as Curseu, Kenis, and Raab (2009, p. 30) note, “team formation is a challenge in modern organizations as most of them use teams to perform a variety of organizational tasks.” How teams form is, therefore, a question of much practical interest. Research illustrates that stratified social systems influence the choice and decision‐making behaviors that shape group and team formation (Hechter, 1978). From a structural social psychological perspective (Sell & Kuipers, 2009; Lawler, Ridgeway, and Markovsky, 1993), teams are like microcosmic societies. They represent a process of social cohesion through interaction. Additionally, they can be organic, mechanical, homogeneous, and heterogeneous. In other words, teams are structural and cultural artifacts of societies. Members of society through interaction create these “social artifacts,” which may consist of hierarchically organizing sets of individuals into a group, or multiple groups, relative to power and status dimensions. In this paper, we aim to show how contributions from social psychology have informed research on team formation. Thus, two research questions guide this paper: What are the mechanisms of team formation via partner selection for self‐organizing teams? In what ways, can these studies advance scholarship focusing on the social psychology of inequality? To establish a foundation for understanding the various studies on team formation, we begin with a general overview on how team and team formation has been conceptualized. Next, we examine the social psychological research on team formation via partner selection. In doing so, we note the importance given to the 4 major mechanisms of team formation emerging from the literature: competence, homophily, familiarity, and affect. Lastly, we conclude the paper with a discussion addressing the research questions guiding this paper and suggest opportunities for social psychologists to consider for future team formation studies.     

The Phenomenon of Social Enterprises: Are We Keeping Watch on This Cultural Practice?

Social enterprises have reached world levels as an alternative to combat negative effects of the economy such as unemployment, poor distribution of income, and poverty, thus stimulating social entrepreneurship with local actions directed especially to excluded communities. This article corresponds to a study that uses the bibliometric method to analyze the world scientific literature on social enterprises in order to research on the possible existence of investigation projects that may have approached the cultural dimension of said phenomenon. Studies in this field may contribute to the establishment of social enterprises as a cultural practice, for the promotion of a more equitable social and economic development. The analysis of the scientific publications inherent to the topic, suggests, among other results, that the academic production is diverse, but there is still a lack of initiatives in order to explore new perspectives concerning the phenomenon. On the other hand, similarities in the motivation of the studies allow outlining 10 categories that evidence the most interest in the research on social enterprises.     

“Child perpetrators of sexual abuse”: The emergence of a problematic deviant category

This article critically examines the emergence in the professional literature of a new category of criminal deviant: the very young juvenile “sexual offender” (“child perpetrator”). It is argued that current research and writings on “child perpetrators” 1) fail to adhere to established tenets of scientific inquiry; 2) attempt to pathologize species‐typical behaviors; and 3) reflect symbolic opposition to widespread sexual license perceived to have resulted from the “sex positive” interpretive changes regarding sexuality that occurred during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Interactionist methods are applied in tracing three decades of interpretive changes regarding sexual behavior as reflected in the content of professional and popular sexological literature from the mid 1960s to the present. It is concluded that the writings on “child perpetrators” constitute an anomalous but predictable development in the field when considered against the background of recent trends in sexual discourse, professional ideology, and the current widespread perception among many Americans that children are no longer safe from harm while engaged in their normal daily activities.