ZURUECKGEZOGEN: Veränderungen in der Mitgliedschaft der DGS

DGS-Nachrichten

ZURUECKGEZOGEN: Ver?nderungen in der Mitgliedschaft der DGS     

Soziale Beeinflussung in Mikronetzwerken am Beispiel der Erhebung von Markenpräferenzen mit dem „Tischmodell“

Brand preferences in a homogeneous student milieu are analyzed in order to model how social influence affects people’s views and opinions. In this study the individual person is not considered as unit of analysis, but rather the people eating together at a table in a canteen. In classical surveys the opinions of the respondents should be independent from one another. In contrast to standard surveys the study presented here explicitly aims to examine the influence of a micro network on the attitudes of the constituent actors. To measure this effect an overall degree of conformity is calculated based on all table communities. Simulations are used to estimate the influence of the relations constituting the table community on the agreement of brand preferences among the table companions. Similar to the well-known bootstrapping procedure, the respondents are randomly grouped into table communities, where the distribution of group sizes matches the observed distribution for every resampling. By controlling for the socio-demographic structure of the table communities it is possible to estimate the effect of the micro-networks on the agreement of brand preferences. It turns out that the relevance of the “network effect” remains, even if the distribution of socio-demographic factors such as age, gender and field of study were held constant within the table communities. The presented “table model” can be applied to many problems.     

Demografische Alterung und Reformen der Alterssicherung in Europa – Probleme der ökonomischen,sozialen und politischen Nachhaltigkeit

Ageing is one of the long-term challenges for old age security in Europe, in particular for the intergenerational contract of pay-as-you go public pensions. The comparative macro-sociological analysis maps the demographic trends, political constraints, and social policy reform dynamics across Europe. Due to demographic ageing all European societies face long-term sustainability problems of their pension systems. Despite many reforms, European welfare states differ in the timing of retirement and the extent of pay-as-you-go public pensions. The comparison of ten European welfare states reveals the cross-national variations in reducing early retirement and in partially shifting to prefunded pensions. In addition to financial sustainability, the contribution also discusses other sustainability issues, particularly social inequality and political feasibility, which must be overcome in addition to the demographic challenge.     

Vereinsmanagement in Zeiten der Veränderung

Associations and unions are under high optimisation pressure because of fewer public money and general changes in society. Many try to cope with this hard situation by looking for business management instruments. Quick solutions are however not easy to get. These organisations are for their members, to a high degree, social communities as well as political action communities and economic or services communities. These three different forms of communities constitute subsystems in associations with their own very specific organisatinal logic. If one of those subsystems get out of balance it would affect the two others. Modern management instruments are useless in changes projects handling changes, as long as the managing committee doesn’t initiate broad and extensive internal discussions about the future direction of the association. Project handling changes have only a chance to succeed, if they equally take into consideration all three subsystems.     

Bildungserfolg von Kindern in Abhängigkeit von der Stellung in der Geschwisterreihe

Based on grades in school and on parental educational aspirations the article investigates the influence of siblings’ birth order on educational opportunities and educational success of elementary school pupils. It is examined whether this influence varies by social strata, i.e., whether it is moderated by the socio-economic status of parental households. Theoretical background are the resource dilution model which focuses on siblings’ rivalry for scarce family resources, the confluence model which refers to the intellectual environment within families, and the family niche model which postulates effects of siblings on personality traits of children. Furthermore, status maintenance motives of parents are used to explain birth order effects. Empirical analyses are based on a study of 1369 pupils—4th graders of elementary schools—in the city of Wiesbaden, Germany. It can be shown that the birth order has negative effects on the chosen educational indicators (grades in school, parental educational aspirations). In accordance with prior research, grades of children get worse with their position in the birth order, other things being equal. The birth order also affects educational aspirations which parents hold for their children. In this context, the crucial result of the article is: When older siblings already guarantee the social status of the family in an intergenerational perspective, parents with high SES reduce their educational aspirations for younger siblings (elimination of the status maintenance motive). In families with low SES, however, parental educational aspirations for younger siblings increase, when older siblings successfully have reached higher educational credentials (social learning from role models).     

Struktur und Identität des Nicht-Religiösen: Relationen und soziale Normierungen

With reference to recent research, the article outlines central elements of a sociological analysis of the non-religious. Starting with a definition of the non-religious via its relation towards the religious, we distinguish different forms of this relation and three levels of its analysis. Then we analyze two different societal constellations: a strong religious norm in the US, and a strong non-religious norm in the GDR. We show how an arena of conflicts emerges in the debates over religion, in which religious and non-religious positions struggle for dominance. We analyze different variations of non-religious positions in this context. In both constellations the non-religious position acquires a positive identity by reference to science. In one case this is motivated by the attempt to maintain the borders of the scientific field; in the second case it is motivated by a claim of superiority, which questions the legitimacy of the religious in general.     

Stabilität und Wandel der nationalen Identität in der deutschen BevölkerungContinuity and change of national identity in the German public

In this article we study the content dimension of German national identity at three points in time. We run multigroup confirmatory factor analyses with data from the ISSP modules on national identity to demonstrate that in 1995, 2004, and 2014 three distinct latent dimensions can be identified in the meaning Germans attach to their nation, namely civic pride, ethnoculturalism, and chauvinism. These dimensions correlate substantially higher in 1995 than in 2004 and 2014. Exploratory latent class analyses show both continuity and change in the combination of positions citizens manifest on these dimensions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the conceptualization and measurement of national identities as well as for the development of German citizens’ relationship to their nation in the period studied.     

Polaritätserfahrungen in der Leitung von Gruppen

Taking part in groups offers several learning experiences as well as personal change for group members and also for facilitators of groups. These may precede from apprenticeship to routine, they will learn to avoid exhausting themselves and the group; encounters will happen on a moderate emotional level; self marketing may confound with intervening into the group process; growing competence can bring up new conflict. Facilitators aware of this change have a change to avoid professional deformation and to run their work in a good emotional balance.