Confronting Consumption

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Conca
Keyword(s):  
Resource Use ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
Commodity Chains ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Work Meaning ◽  
The Social

In affluent societies, evidence suggests that public concern and activism about “the consumption problem” is growing in many corners of everyday life—even in the paragon of the consumer society, the United States. These emerging concerns have an environmental dimension, but also embrace issues of community, work, meaning, freedom, and the overall quality of life. Yet the efforts of individuals, groups, and communities to confront consumption find little guidance or sympathy in policy-making, environmental, or academic circles—arenas dominated, perhaps as never before, by a deeply seated economistic reasoning and a politics of the sanctity of growth. Given our dissatisfaction with fragmentary approaches to consumption and its externalities, we highlight the elements of a provisional framework for confronting consumption in a more integrated fashion. We stress in particular the social embeddedness of consumption, the material and power-based linkages along commodity chains of resource use, and the hidden forms of consumption embedded in all stages of economic activity.

Sport Delivery in a Highly Socialized Environment: A Case Study of Embeddedness

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 574-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Cousens ◽  
Martha L. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Sport Participation ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
Corporate Sponsors

The social embeddedness of economic interaction has emerged at the forefront of economic sociology over the last 15 years. In the context of sport, however, little research has been undertaken to enhance our understanding of how the socialized context surrounding sport organizers, local governments, and corporate sponsors impact decisions affecting sport delivery. Therefore, the purpose of this case study is to explore the social embeddedness of decision makers in sport organizations and the local government that shape sport delivery in one community. An embedded perspective of economic interactions considers the continuity of relationships that generate particular behaviors, norms, and expectations. In-depth interviews with the leaders of this community’s sport organizations and the members of its local government were undertaken to gain insight into the nature of how decisions pertaining to sport delivery were shaped and constrained by the social context in which they were bounded. The results of this research suggest that the informal interaction among community leaders in sport and politics served to inhibit change in the way sport programs were delivered in this community. Further, taken for granted assumptions of city leaders about the type, number, and quality of sports delivered to the residents resulted in fewer opportunities for sport participation, despite an awareness of the limitations of the existing programs.

scholarly journals Social Media Usage and its Effect on Quality of Adolescent Social Relationships

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadie Saltzman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Relationship ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Does the number of social media platforms that an adolescent uses have an effect on the quality of their social relationships? As social media continues to grow and evolve, sociologists have begun to explore its effect on an individual’s everyday life. I propose that the more social media platforms that an adolescent uses, the more they will experience negative effects on their social relationships. Using survey data from 786 respondents living in the United States, ages 13 to 17 and collected by the Pew Research Center in 2014 and 2015, regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between social media usage and its effect on quality of adolescent social relationships, controlling for sex and age. The bivariate results show a statistically significant, positive but weak association between number of social media platforms used and the social relationship experience scale. In the multivariate results, this association was still statistically significant. Additionally, the multivariate results show that the control variables, sex and age, have no significant effect on one’s social relationship experience. Therefore, these results show that the more social media platforms used, the more negative a social relationship experience an adolescent will have. The results support the hypothesis and indicate that adolescents who interact with a higher number of social media platforms will experience an increased negative effect on their social relationships. In future studies, researchers should investigate how specific social media platforms influence social relationships. Additionally, this type of research should not only continue, but should refine its methods as social media continues to quickly grow and evolve.

Health expectancies

2017 ◽  
pp. 63-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marie Robine ◽  
Carol Jagger
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Adult Longevity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Europe 2020 ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Healthy People 2020 ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Health Agenda

In its first section, this chapter describes the ongoing adult longevity revolution, which is now the main reason for assessing the quality of years lived and to complete the calculation of life expectancy by those of health expectancies. Then, it introduces the main health expectancies used in the United States of America (US) to monitor Healthy People 2020, the national health agenda, in Japan to monitor Health Japan 21, the health promotion plan, and in Europe to monitor the social and health targets of Europe 2020, the current strategy of the European Union. Finally, this chapter summarizes recent trends in health expectancies observed in the US, Japan, and Europe, as well as in other parts of the world, and discusses these observations in relation to the theories on population health which have been proposed since the 1980s.

Economic, social and cultural rights and their dependence on the economic growth paradigm: Evidence from the ICESCR system

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Matthias Petel ◽  
Norman Vander Putten
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Growth Models ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Employment Creation ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
The Social

In light of the expanding critical academic literature on the social and ecological limits to a growth-based paradigm, this article investigates the ties between economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) and economic growth in the case law of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). It shows that the CESCR assumes economic growth to generally improve the realisation of ESC rights because it increases States’ financial capacity and leads to employment creation. However, while the Committee deems that growth models should be inclusive, the CESCR never adopts a critical perspective on the possibility or desirability to pursue economic growth indefinitely. Despite recent evidence on the contested possibility to decouple economic activity from resource use, the Committee’s recent ecological turn remains embedded in the growth paradigm. This article argues that the Committee should advocate towards decreasing the dependence of ESC rights on growth, especially when a State has reached a certain level of affluence.

scholarly journals COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES ON SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Lee Swee Poh ◽  
Mohd Mahzan Awang ◽  
Shahlan Surat
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labeling Theory ◽  
Special Needs Children ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
Positive Support

This paper discusses about the perspectives of the local community, family, school and peers on special needs children (or disabled children) schooling under the Special Education Integrated Programme in Bintulu District Education Office, Sarawak, Malaysia. This discussion is done based on the resources of past research conducted in Malaysia as well as overseas such as in the United States, Britain, Italy, and India. Labeling theory and theories of perception are reviewed engaging the social conflicts. Totally 88 respondents from Chinese community had been taken to answer the questionnaire. In general, there is a handful optimistic views that special needs children have their own talent, they are the special gift from God, they can distinguish good or bad things, have influences and roles to play. In addition, community feels sympathy with them, the community likes mingling with them and believe they can make hands activities very well. Due to the environmental impact on the development of individual and social skills of special needs child, the study suggested that Malaysians continue to hold to the principles to provide safe and quality education to special needs children. Efforts need to continue to foster a healthier community awareness and positive support on special needs children so that a gap of discrimination can be reduced because every individual has the right to obtain social development and quality of education.

Criteria for quality in qualitative research and use of freedom of information requests in the social sciences

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 537-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Walby ◽  
Alex Luscombe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Information Requests

Access to information (ATI) and freedom of information (FOI) requests are an under-used means of producing data in the social sciences, especially across Canada and the United States. We use literature on criteria for quality in qualitative inquiry to enhance ongoing debates and developments in ATI/FOI research, and to extend literature on quality in qualitative inquiry. We do this by building on Tracy’s (2010) article on criteria for quality in qualitative inquiry, which advances meaningful terms of reference for qualitative researchers to use in improving the quality of their work; and illustrating these criteria using examples of ATI/FOI research from our own work and from others’ in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. We argue that, when systematically designed and conducted, ATI/FOI research can prove extraordinary in all eight of Tracy’s criteria.

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