Social Sciences, Misc

This paper aims at capturing a paradoxical situation of modern Romanian nationalism that is both a symptom and a consequence of the country’s post-communist “liquid” modernity: the tension between the essentialist and the constructionist discourses related to nationalism and ethnic identity. Approaching this topic can be an important endeavor not only for a better understanding of the condition of an eminently liminal geography in Europe’s late modernity (East/West, democracy/totalitarianism, tradition/modernity), but also for addressing two questions of major importance to political (...) anthropology: (1) which are the political consequences of exposing a certain community to the scientific discourse produced in the sphere of the social sciences about that very community? (2) how is it possible for modern national identity to be commodified and for citizenship to be contractualized? (shrink)

The last time you went to your doctor, you might have emerged feeling dissatisfied and disoriented. Nothing was clear after you left the office, and you don’t know whether it’s your fault or the doctor’s. While patients need to take control of the visit and set their agenda, the latest research shows that doctors and patients need to connect on a more emotional level as well. -/- In Talking to Your Doctor, readers will learn to: -/- •Talk to your doctor—and (...) get your doctor to talk to you • Remake the relationship with your doctor, and our health care system, on the basis of good communication •Make sure your visit with the doctor is productive and meets your needs •Help yourself and others avoid over-testing and over-treatment -/- Starting with the conversation can redress imbalances and put the relationship of doctor and patient, and eventually the entire health care system, back on a healthy footing. Using illuminating model dialogues, real transcripts from the clinic and hospital, resources for communication improvement, and a brief history of doctor-patient communication, the author helps readers develop strategies for obtaining better care from their doctors, from the minute they step into the exam room. (shrink)

Social change is slow and difficult. Social change for animals is formidably slow and difficult. Advocates and scholars alike have long tried to change attitudes and convince the public that eating animals is wrong. The topic of norms and social change for animals has been neglected, which explains in part the relative failure of the animal protection movement to secure robust support reflected in social and legal norms. Moreover, animal ethics has suffered from a disproportionate focus on individual attitudes and (...) behavior at the expense of collective behavior, social change, and empirical psychology. If what we want to change is behavior on a large scale, norms are important tools. This article reviews an account of social norms that provides insights into the possibility and limitations of social change for animals, approaching animal protection as a problem of reverse social engineering. It highlights avenues for future work from this neglected perspective. (shrink)

Participant observation ethnography as a primary methodology, while common in other areas of social science, has been underrepresented in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) literature. In many studies, ethnography is used to supplement findings or address questions arrived at through other methodologies, whereas the present pilot study promotes its viability as a primary method. In the Fall of 2017, graduate student researchers (GSRs) and other staff at the “Teaching Center” (TC) used ethnographic methodology as a means of meeting the (...) TC’s mandate for the 2017- 2018 year. The TC wanted to gather data on the efficacy of the classes as well as the staff members’ own processes of curriculum design and implementation. By adopting participant observation ethnography, the GSRs provided data for the TC and also discovered the utility of ethnography as a tool for designing research questions. This paper has five core sections devoted to describing the pilot study. These sections cover the aims of the TC and the context in which this pilot study was developed; a review of SoTL literature and the presence of ethnography as a primary methodology within it; an outline of the development of the methods used in this study; and how ethnography served as a tool for designing subsequent research projects. It concludes by offering several recommendations and comments to SoTL practitioners who are considering using ethnographic methods in higher education. (shrink)

Holding students to high standards and assessing, measuring and evaluating their learning with challenging, authentic problems in the midterm and final exams is the goal of the professors who teach core signal processing concepts. However, the heavy reliance of these subjects on mathematics makes it difficult for students to genuinely grasp the concepts and relate to a conceptual framework. Specifically, analyzing the signals and the functionality of systems in Fourier domain; separating the system level analysis from signal level analysis; and (...) understanding how they are related in time domain and frequency domain are among the most challenging concepts. Students’ lower grades observed over past years in the introductory signal processing course exposed a potential disconnect between the actual level of learning and the high expectations set by the professors. In this paper, we present the active learning techniques that we implemented in one of the summer session offerings of this course in our department. The research explored Peer Instruction, pre-class reading quizzes and post-lecture quizzes. In addition to the mid and end of the quarter survey results, the comparison analysis of the grades students achieved in the active learning integrated course in the second summer session and the standard course offered in first summer session is discussed. According to our results, the developed techniques helped students in the active classroom perform significantly better than their peers participating in standard lectures when tested by challenging questions in their exams. (shrink)

Unless one has beliefs before having all of the data that would justify those beliefs, one will fail to acquire that data and, moreover, one will be a bureaucratic cripple, who cannot act because he is in a perpetual state of skepticism-induced decision-paralysis.

This study concerned the relationship between views of possession and theft. Four groups of children aged 7-8; 9-10; 12-13 and 16-17 completed a questionnaire based on the work of Furby and Irving and Siegal. Results demonstrated that possession concepts become more differentiated with age, focusing more on the importance of positive acquisition, single ownership and social influence. Attitudes towards theft crimes become more harsh even in the face of mitigating circumstances. This increased harshness may be understood in terms of possessions (...) becoming progressively more a part of the self-concept. Thus theft and consequent loss to self leads to empathy with the victim and feelings of retribution for the thief. The results are discussed in terms of the literature on social and moral development. (shrink)

The central contention of The Implicit Mind is that understanding the two faces of spontaneity-its virtues and vices-requires understanding the "implicit mind." In turn, Michael Brownstein maintains that understanding the implicit mind requires the consideration of three sets of questions. First, what are implicit mental states? What kind of cognitive structure do they have? Second, how should we relate to our implicit attitudes? Are we responsible for them? Third, how can we improve the ethics of our implicit minds?

The concept of 'authenticity' is highly valued on social media sites (SMSes), despite its ambiguous nature and definition. One interpretation of 'authenticity' by media scholars is a human's congruence with online portrayals of themselves (e.g. posting spontaneous photographs from their lives, or using real biodata online). For marketers and 'influencers', these patterns of behaviour can achieve certain gains: sales for a business, or success of a campaign. For existentialist philosophers, using 'authenticity' as a means to an end is against its (...) very definition. In this paper, I investigate what SMS users are looking for by their supposed 'authentic' portrayal online. My experimental approach draws upon empirical data from the Instagram social media site. Using machine learning techniques, descriptions and features of posts - including subjects, captions, and contexts - will be categorised and aggregated. I will then interpret these findings, drawing upon work by Taylor, Golomb, and Guignon, whose works on authenticity are based on mid-20th century existentalists. I argue that the existentialist ideals on authenticity are not necessarily present in contemporary SMS use. I will also argue that the popular interpretation of authenticity on SMSes can be self-defeating, when it seeks to turn the 'for-itself' into an 'in-itself'. (shrink)

This chapter aims to direct attention to the political dimension of the social media age. Although current events like the Cambridge Analytica data breach managed to raise awareness for the issue, the systematically organized and orchestrated mechanisms at play still remain oblivious to most. Next to dangerous monopoly-tendencies among the powerful players on the market, reliance on automated algorithms in dealing with content seems to enable large-scale manipulation that is applied for economical and political purposes alike. The successful replacement of (...) traditional parties by movements based on personality cults around marketable young faces like Emmanuel Macron or Austria’s Sebastian Kurz is strongly linked to products and services offered by an industry that simply provides likes and followers for cash. Inspired by Trump’s monopolization of the Twitter-channel, these new political acteurs use the potential of social media for effective message control, allowing them to avoid confrontations with professional journalists. In addition, an extremely active minority of organized agitators relies on the viral potential of the web to strongly influence and dictate public discourse – suggesting a shift from the Spiral of Silence to the dangerous illusion of a Nexus of Noise. (shrink)

In this work, touched on some social issues whatever the result, and a raising awareness was aimed by some new technological upgrades for the vital infrastructures of states, social order and economic plans. The main aim is one world order which has no king and accepts nations as local governance as a requirement of hierarchical order. It is completely based on economic benefits of all nations as there is no alternative to establish a healthy economic order as economic management is (...) directly related with laws. As the important is a law exists or not, or is just or not for justice, also it encourages to develop organic laws in state institutions as it recognizes any state institution as autonomous. No state has this constitution. This work is only an offer. (shrink)

Many studies have been conducted to investigate the implementation of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in ESL and EFL contexts, but those conducted in EFL context, have reported that the application of CLT was challenging. Still, as far as the Afghan EFL context is concerned, there is a lack of empirical research investigating the issue. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore afghan EFL lecturers’ perceived challenges in practicing CLT. The study also aims to examine if there is any (...) significant relationship among teachers use of CLT, the perceived challenges, and their demographic profiles. This study uses a quantitative research approach in which a survey questionnaire was given to EFL lecturers teaching in a public university. The results of the study revealed that the EFL lecturers had positive perceptions of using CLT activities, as there were evidence of a number of major CLT activities conducted in their classrooms. The results also revealed that they faced certain challenges that prevented them from implementing CLT effectively. Furthermore, significant correlation was found between students’ related challenges and teachers’ perceptions of using CLT; however, no significant correlations were found among teachers’ demographic profiles and CLT perceived challenges. This research is significant since it could be used as a resource presenting a comprehensive picture of CLT implementation in EFL classrooms in Afghanistan. (shrink)

During the last decades, knowledge has attracted the greatest attention in a growing number of disciplines, generating a deluge of literature. However, it has yet to become the object of a fully established sociology of knowledge able to fulfil the challenges of present society, often called the knowledge-society. We posit knowledge as a basis on which to model social life, proposing a three-dimensional approach to social reality (i.e., individuals, social aggregates, knowledge). Looking at knowledge as at ‘a cooperative good’ and (...) a communicative process, we then apply the same three dimensions to knowledge itself as a sociological production, ending up with a typology encompassing three knowledge families (intellectual, practical and objectified) and three ways of access (direct personal knowing, indirect social acquaintance, externally recognised and personally introjected acknowledge). Steps towards a theory of knowledge-society are then proposed. (shrink)

The aim of this conceptual paper is to discuss the issue of managing fake news in the online environment, from an organizational perspective, by using reactive PR strategies. First, we critically discuss the most important definitions of the umbrella term fake news, in the so-called post-truth era, in order to emphasize different challenges in conceptualizing this elusive social phenomenon. Second, employing some valuable contribution from literature, we present and illustrate with vivid examples 10 categories of fake news. Each type of (...) fake news is discussed in the context of organizational communication. Based on existent literature, we propose a 3D conceptual model of fake news, in an organizational context. Furthermore, we consider that PR managers can use either reactive PR strategies to counteract online fake news regarding an organization, or communication stratagems to temporarily transform the organization served into a potential source of fake news. The existing typology of reactive public relations strategies from the literature allow us to discuss the challenge of using them in counteracting online fake news. Each reactive PR strategy can be a potential solution to respond to different types of online fake news. Although these possibilities seem to be extensive, in some cases, PR managers can find them ineffective. In our view, this cluster of reactive PR strategies is not a panacea for managing fake news in the online environment and different strategic approaches may be need, such as communication stratagems. In this context, communication stratagems consist in using organization as a source or as a vector for strategic creation and dissemination of online fake news, for the benefit of the organization. We conclude that within online environment PR managers can employ a variety of reactive PR strategies to counteract fake news, or different communication stratagems to achieve organizational goals. (shrink)

Революционные события 1917–1920 гг. в России не только потрясли мир в момент их совершения, но и существенно, даже круто изменили его, причем это влияние в течение десятилетий возрастало. Социали-стическая революция в России вызвала мощный резонанс в мире, стала новым направлением развития. Речь идет не только о силе примера, о повторении события в других обществах. Ее воздействие и шире, и глубже. Она существенно изменила систему мирового порядка в ХХ в. В статье рассмотрен аспект данного влияния на трансформацию миро-вого порядка в разные (...) периоды ХХ в., а также сделана попытка связать это влияние с общими тенденциями исторического процесса. (shrink)

Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (2016), Explanatory Pluralism. Cambridge University Press, xiv + 223 pp. £64.99 cloth.

This paper investigates the local implementation of Malaysian public GAP standard called MyGAP by examining its effectiveness in raising the awareness and improving the pesticide use practices of participant smallscale farmers toward better food safety and quality assurance. For this objective, 19 MyGAP certified and 57 uncertified durian farms in the state of Pahang, Malaysia were surveyed. The research found that certified farm managers have a much better understanding of the basic intent of the policy than uncertified farms, reflecting the (...) individually oriented interests and motivations of participant farmers in the national scheme. Their interests in and assessment of the merits of the scheme are found to concentrate in economic realms rather than in the original policy goal of food safety and quality assurance. As regards pesticide use practices, certified farms showed a much better performance than uncertified farms in record keeping and pesticide use and management. There remains a question, however, whether it is due to the farming practices improved through MyGAP adoption or due to the participation of farms already well-performing prior to MyGAP adoption. (shrink)

The starting point of Tarde's sociology are individuals. That does not make it a methodological individualism. Instead, it is a sociology of infinitesimal difference which finds in individuals an adequate reference for addressing social life, and that ends up by turning problematic both the notion of individual and society. Imitation is here an elemental form of social relation, but it is not the only one: opposition and invention are elemental social relations as well. Social life, in what it has of (...) proliferating and chaotic, is made up of these relations, differential relations that can however be organized, or better yet integrated, both logically and teleologically (without being totalized by this organization). By relying on pluralistic ontological and epistemological positions which privilege difference over identity, time over space, the infinite over the finite, this sociology shows itself as off-centered regarding formerly and today’s holisms and individualisms. Re-reading it as an infinitesimal sociology of flows and ensembles can open a way to go beyond the oppositions between individual and society, and between micro and macro approaches. (shrink)

Academic inquiry, in devoting itself primarily to the pursuit of knowledge, is profoundly and damagingly irrational, in a wholesale, structural fashion, when judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare. Judged from this standpoint, academic inquiry devoted to the pursuit of knowledge violates three of the four most elementary rules of rational problem-solving conceivable. Above all, it fails to give intellectual priority to the tasks of (1) articulating problems of living, including global problems, and (2) proposing and critically (...) assessing possible solutions – possible social actions. This gross, structural irrationality of academic inquiry stems from blunders of the 18th century French Enlightenment. The philosophes had the brilliant idea of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world, but in implementing this idea they made three disastrous blunders. They got the nature of the progress-achieving methods of science wrong; they failed to generalize these methods properly; and most disastrously, they applied these methods to acquiring knowledge about society, and not directly to solving social problems. These blunders are still inherent in academia today, with dire consequences for the state of the world. All this has been pointed out prominently many times since 1976, but has been ignored. (shrink)

Zijn filosofen gek? Zo ja, waarom? En ligt dat dan aan de filosoof, aan de filosofie of aan de diagnostiek? Dat zijn de vragen die in 'Diagnose van de moderne filosoof' centraal staan. Nicole des Bouvrie neemt aan de hand van het diagnostische handboek van psychiaters en psychologen (de DSM-V) de situatie van de hedendaagse denker onder de loep. Autisme, psychoses, anorexia en andere aandoeningen passeren de revue, om aan de hand van een grondige anamnese van hedendaagse denkbeelden uit de (...) westerse filosofie een diagnose te stellen. ''Des Bouvrie laat als geen ander zien hoe filosofie en waanzin zich in elkaar kunnen verstrikken, maar ook hoe ze bij elkaar een zone van vrijheid vinden.'' Filosoof Wouter Kusters, winnaar Socratesbeker 2015. (shrink)

According to the working definition of the International Big History Association, ‘Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods’. In recent years Big History has been developing very fast indeed. Big History courses are taught in the schools and universities of several dozen countries. Hundreds of researchers are involved in studying and teaching Big History. The unique approach of Big History, the interdisciplinary genre of (...) history that deals with the grand narrative of 13.8 billion years, has opened up a vast amount of research agendas. Big History brings together constantly updated information from the scientific disciplines and merges it with the contemplative realms of philosophy and the humanities. It also provides a connection between the past, present, and future. Big History is a colossal and extremely heterogeneous field of research encompassing all the forms of existence and all timescales. Unsurprisingly, Big History may be presented in very different aspects and facets. In this volume the Big History is presented and discussed in three different ways. In its first part, Big History is explored in terms of methodology, theories of knowledge, as well as showcasing the personal approach of scholars to Big History. The second section comprises such articles that could clarify Big History's main trends and laws. The third part of this book explores the nature of teaching Big History as well as profiling a number of educational methods. This volume will be useful both for those who study interdisciplinary macroproblems and for specialists working in focused directions, as well as for those who are interested in evolutionary issues of Astrophysics, Geology, Biology, History, Anthropology, Linguistics and other areas of study. (shrink)

Big History has been developing very fast indeed. We are currently observing a ‘Cambrian explosion’ in terms of its popularity and diffusion. Big History courses are taught in the schools and universities of several dozen countries, including China, Korea, the Netherlands, the USA, India, Russia, Japan, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, and many more. The International Big History Association (IBHA) is gaining momentum in its projects and membership. Conferences are beginning to be held regularly (this edited volume has been prepared on (...) the basis of the proceedings of the International Big History Association Inaugural Conference [see below for details]). Hundreds of researchers are involved in studying and teaching Big History. (shrink)

An extended analysis compared to observations shows that modern “globalised” world civilisation has passed through the invisible “complexity threshold”, after which usual “spontaneous”, empirically driven kind of development (“invisible hand” etc.) cannot continue any more without major destructive tendencies. A much deeper, non-simplified understanding of real interaction complexity is necessary in order to cope with such globalised world development problems. Here we introduce the universal definition, fundamental origin, and dynamic equations for a major related quantity of (systemic) risk characterising real (...) complex system development tendencies at any level of dynamics. Practically important conclusions are derived, opening further detailed applications in economy, finance and development practice. (shrink)

InthewakeofthepresentcrisisintheMiddleEast,thispaperproposestolocatethe processes of state formation and nation building within a larger historical context, recovering the historicity of the crisis. It records the rise and fall of a nationalist developmental project in Syria through an analysis of class relations. It highlights an essential continuity in the nature of class reproduction from the late Ottoman to the early independence period, centered on the conservative nationalism of the mercantile ruling bloc. It associates the rise of a national developmental project with the politicization of (...) the Bmiddle classes,^ which occupied a central role in the state apparatus. This class represented the main driving force behind the expansion of the boundaries of political power and the process of nation building. It is the class polarization of society that fuelled the development of a nation-building project and favored the creation of a national populist alliance against the monopoly of traditional ruling classes. However, this alliance was short-lived, and the process of authoritarian demobilization that followed led to the resurgence of personal networks and the end of nation building. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the split that exists between the discipline of international relations and intellectual history in the light of comparative and connected global history, international relations and the “travel” of ideas in translation studies. By looking more closely at the uneven and combined development approach, it seeks to identify the mechanisms that make the international context a particular field of causality in the analysis of political thought. How are geopolitical interactions between various societies perceived by the social actors who (...) experience them? How does this perception affect their personal identification and the definition of their community and account for the importation, appropriation and redefinition of foreign political ideas as well as the production of new meanings. This framework of analysis is developed by studying the political thought of the Egyptian intellectual Rifâ‘a Al-Tahtâwî (1801-1873). The central argument of the article is that the thought of Tahtâwî represents an attempt to construct a project of an other modernity formulated in terms of the geopolitical context of the time, which was marked by the consequences of the Napoleonic invasion, the decline of the position of Ottoman Egypt in the international hierarchy and the rise to power of Muhammad ‘Ali. -/- Cette analyse revient sur la fracture existant entre la discipline des relations internationales et l’histoire intellectuelle à la lumière, tout d’abord, de l’histoire globale, croisée et connectée ; ensuite, des relations internationales ; enfin, de la traductologie et du « voyage » des idées. L’objectif est d’identifier, par le biais d’un approfondissement de l’approche du développement inégal et combiné, les mécanismes constituant le contexte international comme un champ particulier de causalité dans l’analyse de la pensée politique. Comment les interactions géopolitiques entre différentes sociétés sont-elles perçues par les acteurs sociaux qui en font l’expérience ? Comment cette perception affecte-t-elle leur identification personnelle et la définition de leur communauté, et motive l’importation, l’appropriation et la redéfinition d’idées politiques étrangères ainsi que la production de nouvelles significations. Ce cadre d’analyse est développé via l’étude de la pensée politique de l’intellectuel égyptien Rifâ‘a Al-Tahtâwî (1801- 1873). L’argument central est que la pensée de Tahtâwî représente une tentative de construction d’un projet de modernité autre formulé à travers un engagement dans le contexte géopolitique de l’époque, marqué par les conséquences de l’invasion napoléonienne, le déclin de la position de l’Égypte ottomane dans la hiérarchie internationale et l’accession au pouvoir de Muhammad ‘Ali. (shrink)

This article explains the foundation of knowledge acquisition through discourses involving research methodology and research methods; differences between the two concepts is exemplified, with the former (research methodology) addressing philosophical underpinnings around the process of research, and through which human epistemic quest for knowledge is addressed, while the latter (research methods) addresses problems involving the application of qualitative or quantitative techniques (in some cases mixed-methods) in answering the researchers' underpinning research questions / hypothetical postulations. Challenges surrounding research ethics is relevantly (...) addressed with a view of explaining issues needed in ensuring research processes are successfully accomplished through ‘detailed eye for issues’, for example, the application of skills needed to access research participants without inflicting harm unethically. (shrink)

In Mexico, the management of public resources has been questioned by the State, and mainly the results that the public administration at its three levels (federal, state and municipal), by the lack of transparency in the application and verification of public resources. The experience that gives us the operation of different emerging programs that focused on reducing social and economic inequality in the country, we can locate them as the first attempts in the search for a solution that is complex. (...) Moving from the role of the benefactor and welfare state to the promoter of the regions and in the recognition of the focalization of priority attention areas, the path that has been taken is not only the beginning. Recognizing the public nature of public finances as a promoter of social development, we must understand it as the one assumed by the State through social, political and economic co-responsibility to solve poverty and marginalization of its own public policy orientation and vision of solution has been made since the eighties. From the above, we can point out some preliminary conclusions including the study of the indigenous language-speaking population with a high level of social exclusion in the methodology for the definition of multidimensional poverty in Mexico, will allow the allocation of public resources in the fight against poverty to be effective since it will make it possible to identify to the target population that is subject to social exclusion and marginalization. This invites us to a final reflection: What to do to address the just social demands of the indigenous population that is immersed in poverty, marginalization and exclusion? What to do so that they do not leave their communities, and if they have already done so, how to attend to the needs of family groups that are due to the expense of a remittance that may never arrive? (shrink)

This article attempts to provide an insight about the status of Students Union in Nepal, and describes, how they are not been able to solve the problems arising in the daily life of students.

This is a review of an important textbook that provide the basics of research methods skills to an absolute beginner. It sets the basics of what a beginner researcher or students needs to know in pursuit of their journey of epistemological venture, both in the use of qualitative and quantitative research.

Corruption is one of the major problems of present day world, that is intangible in itself, but, plays a major role in our daily life, which either, directly or indirectly, is effecting our lives. Through this paper, we have tried to classify the types of corruption under five major headings.

In the first part of this article we survey general similarities and differences between biological and social macroevolution. In the second (and main) part, we consider a concrete mathematical model capable of describing important features of both biological and social macroevolution. In mathematical models of historical macrodynamics, a hyperbolic pattern of world population growth arises from non-linear, second-order positive feedback between demographic growth and technological development. Based on diverse paleontological data and an analogy with macrosociological models, we suggest that the (...) hyperbolic character of biodiversity growth can be similarly accounted for by non-linear, second-order positive feedback between diversity growth and the complexity of community structure. We discuss how such positive feedback mechanisms can be modelled mathematically. (shrink)

Мировой порядок как система определенных идей и правил, господ-ствующих в международной политике, стал формироваться в Европе начиная с XVI в., окончательно утвердившись в XIX столетии. Однако этот порядок держится обычно в пределах трех-четырех десятилетий, а затем под влиянием изменившихся обстоятельств и нового баланса сил меняется. В настоящее время мы как раз переживаем период смены ми-рового порядка и начала формирования новой его системы. В статье анализируется начало ослабления мирового порядка, основанного на американской гегемонии, рассматриваются характерные черты и методы, которые используют США (...) для поддержания своих позиций в мире. Автор показывает, почему не могла надолго установиться абсолютная американская гегемония, каким образом глобализация стала более выгодной не для развитых, а для развивающихся стран, как постепенно формировалось убеждение в неизбежности ослабления ли-дерских позиций США. В статье дается характеристика современного положения в международных отношениях как ситуации, когда началась реконфигурация Мир-Системы, что должно означать наступление эпохи турбулентности и формирования новых коалиций. Это будет своего рода переходная эпоха к более устойчивому новому мировому порядку, становление которого будет непростым. Автор высказывает идеи от-носительно того, в каком направлении и как этот новый порядок будет формироваться, о возможных принципах этого порядка и механизмах его установления. (shrink)

This work focuses on the relational dimension of the encounter between teacher and students meant as a structural element for teaching practice. By using theoretical group-analytical and anthropo-analytical coordinates, the authors psychodynamically problematize some relational conditions that may influence learning. This research concentrates on the circumstances that limit and allow the birth of a group arrangement capable to learn from experience, rather than on a perspective to teach-learn in a perfect agreement with planning. Intercultural education is pointed out and located (...) as a horizon and ideal term to guide educational practice. (shrink)

The most exciting and important new philosophical idea of the past decade, in my view, is the discovery that we urgently need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academic inquiry more generally, so that the basic intellectual aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom. We urgently need to transform our schools and universities so that they become rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to tackle our grave global problems, and thus make progress towards as good a (...) world as possible. (shrink)

What ought to be the aims of science? How can science best serve humanity? What would an ideal science be like, a science that is sensitively and humanely responsive to the needs, problems and aspirations of people? How ought the institutional enterprise of science to be related to the rest of society? What ought to be the relationship between science and art, thought and feeling, reason and desire, mind and heart? Should the social sciences model themselves on the natural sciences: (...) or ought they to take a different form if they are to serve the interests of humanity objectively, sensitively and rigorously? Might it be possible to get into human life, into art, education, politics, industry, international affairs, and other domains of human activity, the same kind of progressive success that is found so strikingly, on the intellectual level, within science? These are some of the questions tackled by What’s Wrong With Science? But the book is no abstruse treatise on the philosophy of science. Most of it takes the form of a passionate debate between a Scientist and a Philosopher, a debate that is by turns humorous, ironical, bitter, dramatically explosive. Even as the argument explores the relationship between thought and feeling, reason and desire, the two main protagonists find it necessary to examine their own feelings and motivations. (shrink)

This French article aims at analyzing the Ricardian problem of an "invariable standard of value" in Ricardo's own terms. It is argued that Ricardo's commentators and modern followers have changed these terms significantly. The problem actually branches into two subproblems, i.e., that of "invariability" strictly, and that of "neutrality with respect to distribution". These subproblems do not matter to Ricardo to the same extent. He regards the latter (in various formulations recapitulated here) as a complication of the former, which is (...) the crucial one in his search for a "good" standard. This exemplifies precisely how Ricardo could theoretically focus on the production side of the economy at the expense of the distribution side. With these conclusions at hand, the paper can be critical of Marx's and Sraffa's interpretations of the Ricardian problem of the standard: respectively, because Marx's is simply incorrect, and because Sraffa's solved a problem that was unrelated to the original one in Ricardo. -/- -/- . (shrink)

"Meeting strangers" is a metaphor for the increasingly common experience of working with diversity in family therapy. This book offers a model of cultural family therapy for working with families across cultures, particularly immigrants, refugees, and minorities in mainstream society. -/- The author draws together several emerging trends in therapy and the human sciences: narrative approaches, transcultural psychiatry, studies of autobiographical memory and the distributed and saturated self, translation theory and sociolinguistics. He offers an understanding of the "situated nature" of (...) human problems and tools for translating the family's culture and idioms into a common language in a culturally responsive and collaborative way. -/- Each chapter is both theoretical and practical, far-reaching and grounded in the experiences of families in therapy. The chapters of Part I, Meeting Strangers, introduce themes of cultural family therapy, a synthesis of family therapy and transcultural psychiatry that reframes the presenting issue in therapy as the "presenting culture." Here DiNicola both critiques family therapy's unexamined use of cultural concepts and introduces fresh conceptual tools, such as spirals, masks, and roles, that facilitate the therapist's engagement with the family culture. -/- Part II, On the Threshold: Language, Identity, and Cultural Change, introduces a number of "changelings," "liminal people," and "orphans." Between or on the thresholds of two or more cultures, they struggle with issues around language and translation, identity and cultural change. The overbearing influence of Western concepts is seen in DiNicola's examination of the psychological, social, and cultural implications of the myth of independence. -/- Part III, Families as Storying Cultures, demonstrates in extended cases the power of narrative and of metaphor to transform experience. The final chapter is a moving memoir of the author's fascinating journey to Brazil to meet his father for the first time. -/- The author's aim is "to open space for people who have been treated like minor characters in the drama of family therapy." In doing so, he puts onto center stage all sorts of strangers in society, families of diversity, and their human predicaments, inviting his readers to engage in the full richness and complexity of culture, families, and therapy. (shrink)

This book is discussing patterns of radical religious thought in popular forms of Black music. The consistent influence of the Five Percent Nation on Rap music as one of the most esoteric groups among the manifold Black Muslim movements has already gained scholarly attention. However, it shares more than a strong pattern of reversed racism with the Bobo Shanti Order, the most rigid branch of the Rastafarian faith, globally popularized by Dancehall-Reggae artists like Sizzla or Capleton. Authentic devotion or calculated (...) marketing?Apart from providing a possible answer to this question, the historical shift of Bobo adherents from shunned extremists to firmly anchored personifications of authenticity in mainstream Rastafarian culture is being emphasized. A multi-layered comparative case study attempts to shed light on the re-contextualization of language as well as expressed dogmatic perceptions and symbolism, attitude towards other religious groups and aspects of ethnic discrimination. Further analysis includes the visibility of artists and their references to practical and moral issues directly derived from two obscure ideologies that managed to conquer airwaves and concert halls. (shrink)

Although high-performance human resource practices do not directly affect corporate social performance strengths, they do positively affect CSP strengths in companies that are highly innovative or have high levels of slack. High-performance human resource management practices also directly and negatively affect CSP concerns. Drawing on the resource-based view and using secondary data from an objective, third-party database, the authors develop and test hypotheses about how high-performance HRM affects a company’s CSP strengths and concerns. Findings suggest that HRM and innovation are (...) important capabilities because they create and enhance other capabilities. (shrink)

This forward-looking resource offers readers a modern contextual framework for conducting social science research with indigenous peoples. Foundational chapters summarize current UN-based standards for indigenous rights and autonomy, with their implications for research practice. Coverage goes on to detail minimally-invasive data-gathering methods, survey current training and competency issues, and consider the scientist’s role in research, particularly as a product of his/her own cultural background. From these guidelines and findings, students and professionals have a robust base for carrying out indigenous research (...) that is valid and reliable as well as respectful and ethical. Among the topics covered: -/- · Cultural theories and cultural dominance. -/- · The legal framework of research in indigenous contexts. -/- · The role of language within indigenous peoples’ cultural rights. -/- · Methodology: how to optimally collect data in the field. · Researchers’ influence and philosophy of science. -/- · Learning how to prepare research in indigenous contexts. -/- Research Methods in Indigenous Contexts is an important reference benefitting a wide audience, including students and researchers in the social sciences, humanities, and psychology; decision-makers of NGOs and GOs that act with regard to humanitarian aid, for tourism projects, or any other contingency with indigenous contexts; and policymakers interested in the aspects of human activity upon which indigenous cultural concerns are based. (shrink)

This book posits that a singular paradigm in social theory can be discovered by reconstructing the conceptual grammar of Gabriel Tarde’s micro-sociology and by understanding the ways in which Gilles Deleuze’s micro-politics and Michel Foucault’s micro-physics have engaged with it. This is articulated in the infinite social multiplicity-invention-imitation-opposition-open system. Guided by infinitist ontology and an epistemology of infinitesimal difference, this paradigm offers a micro-socio-logic capable of producing new ways of understanding social life and its vicissitudes. In the field of social (...) theory, this can be called the infinitesimal revolution. (shrink)

Title in English: Psychology of Nationality as A New Studies Umbrella in Indonesia. Abstract: The role of psychology in dealing with issues of and improving the welfare of the nation has often been raised into topics of psychology seminars and conferences, both in subdisciplines of social psychology, clinical-macro psychology, and other subdisciplines. Psychology, as a science that deals with human dimensions, tries to contribute from formulating the definition of "nation" to doing research and social intervention on the nation's problems. This (...) phenomenon is very encouraging because it shows that we are continually questioning ourselves as a nation, a precondition for healthy development, as well as seeing and trying to reach the possibilities of how our nation will "become". Every psychology (assumed that psychology is not singular) that indicates and prescribes adherence of feelings and commitments of citizens with the imagined community of the nation deserve to be called as Psychology of Nationality. (shrink)