I am Just Doing my Bit to Promote Modesty: Niqabis' self-portraits on photo-sharing websites

In this article, I discuss the main arguments that deal with mainstream media representations of niqabis in the West. In distinguishing between such representations of niqabis and their self-representations distributed online on photo-sharing sites, it is my purpose to highlight the entirely different visual rhetoric that emerges from the latter by pointing to various aspects of the self-portraits. After giving an overview of the literature that discusses the niqab, and indicating that niqabis' voices have been entirely neglected, I analyze several self-portraits of two niqabis located online in reference to a theoretical framework offered by Kati Caetano who has traced established ways of representing Muslim women in journalistic photography. Finally, I argue that niqabis disrupt the normalized associations of the niqab with passivity, otherness, and violence by establishing intimacy with the audience.     

The Square of Polish Innocence: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and its symbolic topography

The text refers to the space around the Nathan Rapoport’s Monument to the Fighters and Martyrs of the Ghetto and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN in Warsaw (Poland). The site of death – at the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto – has now become a site overloaded with other symbolic messages. Two main symbolic centers (the 1948 Monument and the 2013 Museum) are today encircled by ten other, additional memorials. The message emerging from the content as well as the proportion of commemorations is that Polish solidarity with the Jews was a fact and it stood the test of terror and death brought by the Germans. Although it does not undermine the veracity of the few and isolated exceptions, such a version of events is drastically different from the actual facts. Both symbolic centers are perceived as emblems of Jewish minority narrative. Additional artefacts are a message formulated by the Polish majority. They constitute a kind of symbolic encirclement, block. Emphasizing the dominant majority’s version of the events in this place is in fact a symbolic pre-emptive action. It is meant to silence the unwanted narrative or suppress even the mere possibility that it might emerge. What turns out to be at stake in the dominant Polish narrative about the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish relations is the image of Poland and the Poles. This shows not only the topographic and symbolic situation but also the socio-cultural context of the functioning of the new Museum.     

Social representations of the euro in Austria

In summer 1997, a survey on attitudes and social representations of the single European currency was conducted in Austria on a sample of 534 respondents. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire on economic expectations and psychological aspects relating to the change of the national currencies to the single European currency. In addition to the standard questionnaire distributed in all 15 EU member states (Müller-Peters et al., 1998. Explaining attitudes towards the cure. Design of a cross-national study. Journal of Economic Psychology 19, 663–680), subjects in Austria were asked to indicate what they freely associated with the term “European single currency” and to evaluate their own associations. On the basis of individuals' attitudes towards the euro, the total sample was divided into five sub-samples of (a) strong opponents of the euro, (b) moderate opponents, (c) neutral or indifferent respondents, (d) moderate supporters, and (e) strong supporters. Social representations of these sub-samples were then analysed. Firstly, frequencies of associations within the five groups were investigated by correspondence analysis. It was found that opponents associated mainly negative feelings with the euro, thinking of currency instability and financial losses in conjunction with it. Moreover, strong euro opponents feared a loss of national autonomy and the unjust distribution of EU-related benefits and costs. Supporters, on the other hand, most frequently mentioned the facilitation of tourism and trading opportunities. Comparability of prices and incomes across Europe and the stimulation of the national economy were other frequently mentioned positive consequences. Secondly, sequences of associations were analysed. Four groups showed a tendency to more extreme emotions, that is, positive or negative, at the beginning of the association process with a shift towards neutral associations after their initial associations. The belief in a stronger European identity and a threat to Austrian identity, respectively, proved to be a relevant cause for subjective support of or opposition to the euro. Moderate opposition seems to be related to anticipated financial restrictions, both at the individual and the national level.     

Making autism through Ocean Heaven (海洋天堂, Haiyang tiantang) and the possibilities of realizing disability differently

This article focuses on a filmic portrayal of issues relating to autism in a Chinese context, using this as a prism through which to consider how meanings associated with disability in general, and the autistic spectrum in particular, are produced. Instead of perpetuating a reductive positive/negative approach to representation, the article focuses on the fluid and dynamic ways in which author and audience co-produce texts relating to disability in ways which are invariably influenced by, and reproducing of, specific socio-cultural and discursive circumstances. Meaning-making in relation to disability is, however, ongoing and there is potential to realize disability differently.     

论当代大学生道德自律性的培养

培养大学生道德自律性是高校道德建设的重要目标 ,在当前高校大学生道德教育中必须坚持以“三个代表”思想为重要指导 ,充分发挥“两课”和人文素质教育课的主渠道作用 ,坚持理论联系实际 ,与时俱进 ,提高大学生道德教育的实效性     

从"三个有利于"到"三个代表"——当代中国马克思主义政治评价标准的继承与发展

邓小平创造性地提出了“三个有利于”,江泽民则阐述了“三个代表”的重要思想。从“三个有利于”到“三个代表”是当代中国马克思主义政治评价标准的历史性继承和发展。“三个代表”对“三个有利于”的继承性主要体现在都强调了生产力的基础地位 ,都以人民的利益作为价值取向等。其发展性则主要体现在“先进文化”在社会发展中的重要作用     

The right tool for the job: problems and solutions in visualizing sociological theory

The visualization of social theory is an important part of the development and communication of our theoretical ideas. While most theorists use figures of some kind, few if any have formal training, or guiding rules or principles for the representation of theory. This has often led to poor visualization efforts, and the visual culture of sociology continues to lag behind the natural sciences. The intent of this paper is to serve as a practical and empirically aided guide for social theorists, by providing insights surrounding the cognitive and perceptual properties of certain elements and figures. Through these properties we identify four major problems in theory visualization: vagueness, reduction, unwanted spatial inferences and unwanted metaphorical inferences. We offer solutions to these problems, and to improving theory visualization more generally. Our hope is that this paper will serve as a resource for more thoughtful and informed visualization for practicing social theorists.     

Social representations of inclusion and stratification: ethnographic research within two Israeli elementary schools

Based on ‘Social representations theory’, this ethnographic research examines the processes by which two Israeli elementary schools represented some children, but not others, as ‘weak’ students and in need of remedial teaching. This approach differs from most current research regarding children with disabilities, which mainly deals with the opposite process of how to include, as equal school partners, those who have already been represented as in need of some kind of special education. Our findings show that school life is founded on a representational dichotomy: while inclusion is the declared school ideology, daily discourse and school activity mainly serve stratification. This dichotomy is tolerated partly because the meaning of this activity is incorporated within school routine and ignored and partly because it is represented as a response to a supposedly self‐evident reality of the unequal intellectual potential of students.     

Protagonists' and Adoptive Process Representations in Italian Children's Books About International Adoption: A Qualitative Study

This qualitative study aims at identifying the main representations of the international adoption process through a comparative analysis of 62 Italian stories about international adoption. Content analysis involves the use of thematic analysis as well as computer-assisted text analysis. Results show that adoption is represented varying from a polarization in which “the positive” is situated in the “adoptive world” while “the negative” pertains to the world of the origins, to a more integrated representation in which both the adoptive context and the origins entail positive aspects.     

Methods for Studying the Structure of Social Representations: A Critical Review and Agenda for Future Research

This article deals with the methodologies commonly used in the framework of the structural approach to social representations. It concerns free and hierarchical evocations, the characterization questionnaire, the similarity analysis, the basic cognitive schemes model, the attribute‐challenge technique and the test of context independence. More than a simple review of these methodologies, it offers a critical approach concerning the problems encountered and related to: thresholds or “cutoff points” used to diagnose the structure (core vs. periphery) and the accuracy of the structural diagnosis, grouping methods employed to reduce the corpus of verbal associations, the dilemma between reliability and feasibility, especially in field research, the adequacy and number of modalities of response in the framework of the structural diagnosis. Following this evaluation, this article suggests potential solutions to overcome these methodological limitations. Moreover, as methodological issues are closely related to theoretical questions, the link between social representation theory and identity approaches is discussed.