Critical or Positive Theory? A Comment on the Status of Anthony Giddens' Social Theory

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor McLennan
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Positive Theory ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
The Status

scholarly journals Recepcja idei postmodernizmu w pedagogice radykalnej Petera McLarena

Chowanna ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Wojciech Kruszelnicki
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
General Level ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Radical Pedagogy ◽  
Postmodern Theory ◽  
Social Struggle ◽  
The Status

The aim of this paper is to comprehensively reconstruct the reception of postmodernism in Peter McLaren’s critical/radical pedagogy. On a more general level, the article discusses the pedagogical perils of uncriticalinfatuation with poststructuralist and postmodernist principles of dismantling grand metanarratives and debunking the notions of truth, totality, and universalism and replacing them with the notions of pluralism and perspectivism. The author seeks to verify the statement that McLaren’s response to postmodern developments in philosophy and social theory is in as much similar to that of Henry Giroux’s that it produces a project of education informed by postmodern ideas. The thesis – advanced in the mid 1990s by Tomasz Szkudlarek – is refuted on the basis of thorough a analysis of both earlier and more contemporary texts of McLaren where the main tenets of postmodern theory are severely criticized. The argument about the evolution of McLaren’s thought from a cautious appropriation of some elements of postmodernism to its downright condemnation is supported by the theory of its increasing radicalization under the influence of Marxism. The alternative to the illusory radicality of postmodernism – denounced as affirming the status-quo – is “pedagogy of revolution,” which emerges as strictly political, interventionist praxis whose aim is no longer discourse analysis but concrete social struggle against the oppressive capitalist class relations.

The political significance of data visualization: Four key perspectives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torgeir Uberg Nærland
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Progressive Change ◽  
The Status ◽  
Data Visualizations

Practitioners and scholars alike assume that data visualization can have political significance—as vehicle for progressive change, manipulation, or maintaining the status quo. There are, however, a variety of ways in which we can think of data visualization as politically significant. These perspectives imply differing notions of both ‘politics’ and ‘significance’. Drawing upon political and social theory, this chapter identifies and outlines four key perspectives: data visualization and 1) public deliberation, 2) ideology, 3) citizenship, and 4) as a political-administrative steering tool. The aim of this chapter is thus to provide a framework that helps clarify the various contexts, processes, and capacities through which data visualizations attain political significance.

Economic Theories of Discrimination

2018 ◽  
pp. 369-392
Author(s):  
Richard H. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Positive Theory ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Status Competition ◽  
Normative Economic ◽  
Antidiscrimination Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Status Theory

This paper examines the relationship between positive and normative economic theories of discrimination, that is, what discrimination is and why law should prohibit it. Prior economic scholarship has modelled discrimination as the result of (a) a taste for non-association; (b) statistically rational generalizations; and (c) group-based status competition. I examine these theories along with the psychological theory of implicit bias and other types of irrational stereotypes. For each positive theory, I explore the normative implications. The taste-based and statistical theories do not match well with antidiscrimination law, though the status theory potentially does.

Complex societies and social theory

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrián Scribano
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Identity Transformation ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anthony Giddens

A central issue in the social sciences today is the analysis of complex society, and topics like globalization, identity and self-identity, transformation of self and collective action become more and more important in social theory. This article intends to show (a) how the diagnosis of complexity affects the constitution of the topics at the heart of social theory and (b) what its major implications are from a theoretical and epistemic standpoint. Alberto Melucci and Anthony Giddens being among the most representative social scientists in this field, I examine each one's approaches and argue that we are in the presence of an “existential turn” in social theory.

Nilotic Women: a Diachronic Perspective

1982 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Burton
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Southern Sudan ◽  
The Status ◽  
Traditional Societies

The pastoral Nilotic-speaking peoples of the Southern Sudan have been observed by missionaries, merchants, and casual travellers for more than a century. Significant advances in social theory have been formulated on the basis of Nilotic ethnography. In the light of the voluminous literature recorded by these and other authorities, it may now be of value to draw into clearer relief the nature of the status and authority of the women in these ‘traditional’ societies, which are increasingly drawn into and irrevocably changed by exogenous sources.

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