On Masking and Revealing the Culture of the Cross-Culturalist

There is a gulf between the analytic and experiential aspects of cross-culturalists' functioning that is reflected in the split between explicit scientific rules for studying the culture of others, while following an informal oral tradition for considering our own cultural makeup. This article discusses both a possible strategy for correcting this situation and the barriers that are likely to prevent such a correction. Structured cultural self-study procedures are presented as a possible resource in the continuing development of graduate students and professionals, and these have already proven highly effective in teaching cross-cultural psychology to undergraduates. Fostering commitments to standardized self-study and to applications of experiential learning is currently not likely to flourish due to complex academic and epistemic traditions, discussed as six cultural self-masking factors. A specific self-study protocol is offered to provide a beginning point for generating improved reflexive methods and for individual trial use. Through disciplined reflexivity, benefits might emerge in the form of better bias control in research, enhanced external validity, and a new theory about the interplay of investigators' self-knowledge and the conduct of cross-cultural research.     

L'Intervention Sociologique After Twenty-Five Years: Can It Translate into English?

The sociological intervention is a research method developed in France by Alain Touraine in 1976 to explore social movement action. Since then it has undergone significant development, both in terms of the type of social experience explored and the broader research program framing it. Despite its importance, the intervention remains little known and virtually untested within English-language sociology. This article examines key dimensions of this research method through discussing several examples, and argues that the intervention has much to offer English-language sociologists concerned with questions of agency and reflexivity, relationship, narrative and experience.     

Hearts and Minds and Morality: Analyzing Moral Vocabularies in Qualitative Studies

A strategy of analyzing the moral vocabulary of a social movement or subculture is proposed by which ethnographies and other qualitative works may place the moral and ethical concepts used by respondents into a broader sociological context. Through examining the moral resources, the status hierarchy which the specific moral resources within a given moral vocabulary form, and the historical and cultural contexts within which these moral resources exist, it is argued that it becomes possible to analyze and anticipate the moral claims and form of discourse which will be produced by a specific movement and/or subculture. It is also argued that this method may be used to predict how the opposition to a movement and/or subculture is perceived through the formation of an antithetical moral vocabulary.     

Towards a Cultural Analysis of the Modern Family: Beyond the Revisionist Paradigm in Japanese Family Studies

Under the influence of the "new history of the family" of the past few decades, a revisionist view of the "modern family" has emerged among family theorists in Japan. In spite of the significant merits of this new paradigm, I have argued that the failure of its proponents to address certain theoretical and presuppositional issues has discouraged a cultural analysis of the modern family. In recent years, one of the foremost theorists to attempt to bring cultural analysis fully into sociological discourse has been Jeffrey Alexander. I have drawn extensively on Alexander's discussion of Durkheim's later thought as the key to a cultural program in the field of sociology. In doing so, I have suggested that one effect of the transition to modern society is the sacralization of what Durkheim termed the "domestic order". Furthermore, in considering the mechanism by which the central emotional axis of the family comes to revolve around either the parent–child bond or the conjugal bond, I have postulated the existence of a "sacred" dyad—in the Durkheimian sense—within the family unit.     

Global Visions: Global Civil Society and the Lessons of European Environmentalism

To illuminate the obstacles to the development of a global civil society, the experience of the most developed transnational social movement—the environmental movement—in the most developed supranational political system—the European Union—is considered. National differences are shown to be persistent and there is little evidence of Europeanization. It is argued that the impediments to the development of a global civil society are yet greater and that, despite the advent of antiglobalization protests, global civil society remains an aspiration rather thanan accomplished fact     

21世纪的美国社会保障:趋势与借鉴

美国社会保障的未来趋势是：预期寿命延长、劳动力数量增长缓慢、退休人数增加、退休年龄不断提前，这些共同加剧了社会保障收支不平衡状况，企业成为社会保障的生力军，社会保障事业出现私有化和私营化苗头。其借鉴意义：重视预期寿命延长对社会保障的压力，及早为延长退休年龄做好准备工作，重新定位企业在社会保障制度中的地位，改善社会保障的管理工作。     

社会认知经典研究述评

社会认知是指个人对他人或自己的心理与行为的感知与判断的过程。从 1 93 0年代开始 ,社会心理学家就已经对此问题开展研究。 1 947年 ,J.S .Bruner在以往研究基础上 ,提出了社会知觉概念 ,并且进行了相关实验 ,开启了现当代社会认知研究的大门。 1 970年代后 ,社会认知研究开始广泛借鉴认知心理学的理论和方法 ,尤其受到信息加工理论的深刻影响 ,开展了大量的实证研究。文章在把握社会认知研究的历史脉络基础上 ,评述几个在社会认知研究发展史中占有重要地位的经典研究。     

文化领导权与知识分子的使命

葛兰西基于文化领导权理论提出了一条总体性、内在性的、渐进性的文化变革途径,这一理论突出了知识分子在实现文化变革和社会变革中的重要作用。在文化困境普遍化的当今时代,文化变革已经具有了直接的社会变革的意义,通过知识分子化获得文化领导权也几乎成为社会变革的唯一途径。因此,为了能够引领文化变革,知识分子重要使命就是克服自身严重的分化状态,使自身和社会实现知识分子化,从而克服文化困境,进而推动社会变革。     

The Contribution of NPOs to Family Policy Formulation in EU Member and Applicant States

This paper examines the role of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the process of family policy formulation in eight member states and three applicant states of the European Union. Drawing upon interviews with representatives from the nonprofit sector, the author argues that the experiences of NPOs in family policy-making vary considerably between countries because of the way state–nonprofit relations operate. Social origins theory illustrates why these variations exist by pointing to broad societal influences on the nonprofit sector, but new empirical evidence presented here suggests that, in a particular policy field, other factors, such as the significance of the field on policy agendas, the strength of one particular organization in a specific cultural context, party ideology, and financial viability of the NPO, shape the role of organizations in the formulation of policies