Living on the Edge: The Appeal of Risk Sports for the Professional Middle Class

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Sports Participation ◽  
Characteristic Class ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Demographic Group ◽  
Class Status ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Class Habitus ◽  
Structural Aspects

Early sociological research describes risk sports as a form of resistance to structural aspects of highly industrialized societies. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that conventional social forces operating on the demographic group (young, White, professional, middle-class males) from which most athletes originate actually motivate risk sports participation. This study contributes to the literature by seeking to explain risk athletes’ characteristic class status, a dynamic largely neglected by previous studies. Drawing on Bourdieu’s analysis of the relationship between sport and social class, I suggest that risk sports appeal particularly to members of the professional middle class because of such sports’ capacity to simultaneously satisfy and provide a temporary escape from a class habitus demanding continual progress through disciplined labor and deferred gratification.

De-unionization and Drug Death Rates

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert DeFina ◽  
Lance Hannon
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Union Density ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Drug Deaths ◽  
Drug Death ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Institutional Decline

Drug death rates in the United States have risen dramatically in recent years, sparking urgent discussions about causes. Most of these discussions have centered on supply-side issues, such as doctors overprescribing pain killers. However, there is increasing recognition of the need to go beyond proximate causes and to consider larger social forces that bear on the demand for pain-relieving drugs. Informed by sociological research linking labor unions to community health, we empirically examined the relationship between union density and drug death rates for the years 1999 to 2016. We found that states experiencing greater declines in unionization also tended to experience greater increases in drug deaths. Estimates from our fixed-effects models suggested that a one standard deviation decrease in union density was associated with a 42 percent increase in drug death rates over the period. Although the incorporation of a variety of statistical controls reduced this association, it remained negative and significant. Beyond variation in the availability of substances to misuse, our findings underscore the importance of considering institutional decline and broader social conditions as deeply relevant for contemporary drug death trends.

scholarly journals Becoming a Lady: Learning to be “Classy” in Polish Adaptations of Reality Shows

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Borys
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Reality Show ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Class Habitus

Given the lineup across much of our current television landscape, we could be forgiven for thinking that the medium is utterly obsessed with class struggle. One of the most popular TV genres to exploit class difference for dramatic purposes is the reality show. This essay examines Polish adaptations of three foreign reality show formats that rely on “clash of two worlds”-type tropes to drive their narratives. The shows in question are: Projekt Lady (prod. TVN, first aired in 2016), Damy i wieśniaczki (prod. TTV, first aired in 2016), and Rolnik szuka żony (prod. TVP, first aired in 2014). Drawing on sociological concepts of class as the embodiment of a specific collection of attributes and habits (Pierre Bourdieu), the author treats the shows in question as a particular sub-type of image designed to impart lessons in class. Calling on scholarship interpreting reality show programming as a neoliberal formula that gives weight to the middle-class habitus (Beverley Skeggs, Helen Wood), this analysis considers the specific nature of the Polish social structure, and interprets the relationship between class and gender in the analyzed programs. The inquiry elucidates what could be called the Polish strain of upward mobility, which compels reality show contestants to blend attributes associated with both the lower (“peasants”) and middle classes (“ladies”).

Structural Aspects of Phonological Development

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen E. Pollock ◽  
Richard G. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Management ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Phonological Disorders ◽  
Syllabic Structure ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Structural Aspects ◽  
Target Words

The relationship between syllabic structure and segmental development was examined longitudinally in a child with a severe phonological disorder. Six speech samples were collected over a 4-year period (3:5 to 7:3). Analyses revealed gradual increases in the complexity and diversity of the syllable structures produced, and positional preferences for sounds within these forms. With a strong preference for [d] and [n] at the beginning of syllables, other consonants appeared first at the end of syllables. Implications for clinical management of phonological disorders include the need to consider both structural position and structural complexity in assessing segmental skills and in choosing target words for intervention.

The Right to Dream: Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Naoise Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Class Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Aristocratic Culture ◽  
Modern Form

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.

The Working and Middle Class Disparities in Sports Participation among Girls Students of Hyderabad Disdtrict

10.26524/1516 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Yasmeen Iqbal ◽  
Soniha Aslam ◽  
Aslam Ghouri ◽  
Shahzaman Khan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Sports Participation

The Non-Causal Character of Renormalization Group Explanations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Renormalization Group ◽  
Dynamical Systems ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Mathematical Explanation ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Structural Aspects

After reviewing some of the recent literature on non-causal and mathematical explanation, this chapter develops an argument as to why renormalization group (RG) methods should be seen as providing non-causal, yet physical, information about certain kinds of systems/phenomena. The argument centres on the structural character of RG explanations and the relationship between RG and probability theory. These features are crucial for the claim that the non-causal status of RG explanations involves something different from simply ignoring or “averaging over” microphysical details—the kind of explanations common to statistical mechanics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of RG in treating dynamical systems and how that role exemplifies the structural aspects of RG explanations which in turn exemplifies the non-causal features.

scholarly journals Do Spousal Intimate Relationships Affect Fertility Intentions and Preferences?

2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2110160
Author(s):  
Amir Erfani ◽  
Roya Jahanbakhsh
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Mate Selection ◽  
Risk Profile ◽  
Fertility Intentions ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Ideal Number ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship

The fertility influence of spousal intimate relationships is unknown. Drawing on the Giddens’s theory of transformation of intimacy, this study proposed a hypothesis that couples supporting egalitarian intimate relationships, with a greater risk profile attached to the relationship, and having less attachments to the external normative pressures shaping marital relations, are more likely to have low-fertility intentions and preferences. Using data from a self-administered pilot survey ( n = 375 prospective grooms and brides) designed by the authors, and employing multivariate regression models, we found that the lower attachment to external social forces in mate selection was associated with the lower ideal number of children, and those with a greater spousal relational egalitarianism and a higher risk profile attached to their relationships preferred lower number of children and were less likely to intend to have children after marriage. The study sheds new light on the determinants of low fertility.

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