The Interview as a Technology for Understanding the Social World: The Case of Interviews About Race

2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110540
Author(s):  
Brigette A. Herron ◽  
Kathryn Roulston
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Social World ◽  
Design Studies ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Interviews ◽  
Forsyth County ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Support Research

The interview is a technology used all over the world to learn about others’ lives, disseminate opinions, and construct narratives concerning the social world. While formerly a province of elite members of society prior to the 19th century, the interview became accessible to ordinary people everywhere over the past 150 years. In this article, we explore how the interview as a technology, although promising in its democratic possibilities, can marginalize, exclude, and misrepresent people. We examine interviews conducted in relation to one particular context in the United States: Forsyth County, Georgia. Through our examination of interviews conducted about race in public media over the last 50 years, we found that sometimes the ways interviewees were selected, interviewed, and represented reproduced and reified existing stereotypes and discourses surrounding the question of “why Forsyth County continued to be an all-White county” for much of the 20th century. Furthermore, when information sought focused solely on interviewees’ opinions and perspectives, critical dialogue did not occur. We argue that for research interviews on sensitive topics such as “race” to fulfill their democratic promise, researchers must intentionally design studies in ways that support research for social justice.

Teaching Race (Bioculturally) Matters: A Visual Approach for College Biology Courses

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (7) ◽  
pp. 516-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelia R. Hubbard
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
College Biology ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Regional University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Visual Approach ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Biological Race

Race and racism are considered standard subject matter in introductory college courses in the social sciences, but remain relatively absent in biological science courses (Donovan, 2015; Morning, 2011). Given a resurgence of biologically deterministic racial science (e.g., Risch et al., 2002; Shiao et al., 2012) and ongoing racial tensions in the United States, it is imperative that biology professors actively engage students in introductory and upper-level courses. This paper presents a tested approach used in an introductory natural science course (for undergraduate, non-science majors) at a mid-sized regional university. A biocultural focus is advocated for teaching about the fallacies (i.e., biological race concept) and realities of race (i.e., racism) (e.g., see Gravlee, 2009; Thompson, 2006). Further, an emphasis is placed on using a visual approach for relaying these complex and sensitive topics.

scholarly journals Putting graphic elicitation into practice: tools and typologies for the use of participant-led diagrams in qualitative research interviews

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 506-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Bravington ◽  
Nigel King
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social World ◽  
Visual Methods ◽  
Common Elements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Interviews ◽  
The Common ◽  
Year 2000

The use of diagrams to stimulate dialogue in research interviews, a technique known as graphic elicitation, has burgeoned since the year 2000. Reviews of the graphic elicitation literature have relied on the inconsistent terminology currently used to index visual methods, and have so far drawn only a partial picture of their use. Individual diagrams are seen as stand-alone tools, often linked to particular disciplines, rather than as images created from a toolbox of common elements which can be customized to suit a research study. There is a need to examine participant-led diagramming with a view to matching the common elements of diagrams with the objectives of a research project. This article aims to provide an overview of diagramming techniques used in qualitative data collection with individual participants, to relate the features of diagrams to the aspects of the social world they represent, and to suggest how to choose a technique to suit a research question.

Beat Journalism and Reporting

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Magin ◽  
Peter Maurer
Keyword(s):  
News Coverage ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Journalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Data Journalism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

Beat reporting refers to thematic specialization and routines (places to go, people to see) in journalism. The term reflects the distinction between general assignment reporters and specialized (beat) reporters covering a specific area (beat) as well as the subject-matter or geographic divisions between areas of reporting by which media organizations seek to structure the social environment they cover. Beat reporting marks the beginning of modern journalism. It was invented at the end of the 19th century in the United States with the aim to increase the efficiency of journalistic work. Thus it relates to the professionalization and rationalization of newspaper journalism and the transformation of newspapers into a mass product. In everyday work, beat reporting has undeniable advantages. It saves resources since beat reporters are very experienced on their beat and know well where and how to get exactly the information they need. Due to their long-term relationship of trust with relevant sources, beat reporters obtain exclusive, trustworthy, and newsworthy information. Along with this specialization come, however, several challenges; for example, the diversity of views represented in a beat might be limited, which can also affect the diversity of news coverage. At the extreme, this can even lead to pack journalism as a form of groupthink. Concerning the reporter–source relationship, there are three risks of losing professional distance: (a) If beat reporters become too loyal toward their sources, they can be instrumentalized; (b) being too adversarial toward their sources might entail a loss of trust and an increasing cynicism of the audience; (c) if beat reporters start feeling like advocates of their own interests, they might behave as activists rather than detached observers. Most recently, online journalism has changed the understanding of beat journalism (e.g., data journalism, local online beat) compared to the traditional understanding. Research on beat journalism has so far focused on stable, high-income democracies and on the political beat as the most fundamental and prominent beat.

Another Killer Industry: A Review of Fake Silk by Paul Blanc

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-411
Author(s):  
Daniel Berman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Carbon Disulfide ◽  
The United States ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Worker Exposure ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Essential Input ◽  
The 19Th Century

Rayon, a shiny artificial fabric with the flashy allure of silk, constitutes no danger to consumers. But worker exposure to carbon disulfide, an essential input in rayon manufacture, can drive workers insane and kill them as well. The dangers of carbon disulfide have been known since the middle of the 19th century. Professor Paul Blanc’s book traces the social amnesia about the dangers of making rayon and how its production has shifted from wealthy countries in Europe, the United States, and Japan to poorer countries like South Korea and the People’s Republic of China. The history of the rayon industry constitutes a metaphor for the lives of millions of people who toil unnoticed at dangerous jobs to support their families and help make life possible and even pleasurable for the luckier ooernes.

American Exceptionalism and the Naturalization of “America”

Prospects ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Maria Irene Ramalho de Sousa Santos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peculiar Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Poets ◽  
Social Recovery ◽  
The 19Th Century

American exceptionalism, Joyce Appleby has recently reminded us, is “America's peculiar form of Eurocentrism.” Now that the multicultural history of the United States is finally being written, nothing would justify another look at American exceptionalism, except perhaps the need to examine the intellectual ways that have hidden American historical and social diversity for so long. In this essay I basically argue that a certain appropriation of the 18th-Century conception of nature as “what is” played a role also in the development of American exceptionalism. The naturalist rhetoric in American discourse in the 19th Century, I further argue, ran parallel to the most savage depredations of nature ever performed by humankind. I am particularly interested in foregrounding the discrepancy between the steady construction of that greatest of modern artifacts, the American nation, and its concomitant self-justification as a thing of nature. The other side of the commodification of America is its naturalization, an idea that I find is supported, whether critically or uncritically, by many American poets and artists. In recent times we have witnessed a number of ecological attempts at the social recovery of nature in the most advanced capitalist countries, including, of course, the United States. I am not concerned here with these developments, of which ecofeminism is arguably one of the most interesting ones.

The Social World of Self-Actualizing People: Reflections by Maslow’s Biographer

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 908-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social World ◽  
Humanistic Psychology ◽  
Intellectual Style ◽  
Counseling Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Love Marriage ◽  
Future Theory

Maslow’s concept of self-actualization has been a bulwark of humanistic psychology for more than 50 years, and has increasingly gained international appeal beyond its original nexus within the United States. His description of the high achieving characteristics of self-actualizing men and women has influenced theorists and practitioners in such fields as counseling, education, health care, management, and organizational psychology. Through these same decades, Maslow’s formulation has also been criticized as promoting a hyperindividualistic, even narcissistic, orientation to personality growth. Because Maslow by temperament and intellectual style expressed himself in an ever-evolving set of speeches and writings that were seldom explicit about interpersonal relations, his actual outlook on the social world of self-actualizers has remained elusive. The focus of this article, therefore, is how Maslow depicted self-actualizing people with regard to five major interpersonal dimensions of life: friendship, romantic love, marriage and lasting intimacy, parenthood, and communal service. By pulling together Maslow’s comments primarily in his published works, and secondarily in his unpublished works-in-progress, it is possible to explicate his tacit viewpoint. Doing so will not only help dispel the misconception that Maslow depicted self-actualizers as loners or even hermits but also guide future theory and research on personality growth.

scholarly journals Teaching Economic Reasoning to Children

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark C. Schug
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social World ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Classroom Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Reasoning ◽  
Future Consequences ◽  
Economic Thinking

The author discusses the differing perspectives which the social sciences offer to young people to analyse problems. Perspectives from history, political science and geography are briefly discussed. The author stresses that the child's perspective of the social world differs from the ones offered by social scientists. Following a summary of the economic thinking of children and adolescents, the author stresses that economics also presents students with an important perspective through the application of economic principles involving choice, costs, incentives, rules, trade, and future consequences. These economic principles are explained by reference to an example of why the buffalo population in the United States nearly became extinct and why it is now recovering. The author concludes with suggestions for how teachers can bring an economic perspective into the classroom. Readers are provided with three ‘economic mysteries' as examples of classroom activities.

Feminism and Suffragism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Jovanovich-Kelley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Social Theorist ◽  
The Social ◽  
Oxford Dictionary ◽  
Charles Fourier ◽  
Temperance Movements ◽  
The 19Th Century

Originating from the French word féminisme, feminism’s first appearance in 1837 is attributed to the social theorist Charles Fourier (1772–1837). Denoting a principle that argues for the rights of women and the equality of the sexes, it grew increasingly popular as a term in the second half of the 19th century, and first appeared in the Oxford Dictionary of English in 1895. As a reform movement with a network of activists comprising both sexes across the Americas and Europe, the championing of political, financial, and social equality for women had its roots in abolitionist and temperance movements of the early 19th century. Roughly divided into three waves, the first began in the mid-1800s and peaked in the United States and Europe between 1890 and 1920. The second took place from the late 1960s to the 1980s, and was followed by a third in the mid-1990s.

Natural Environment as Refuge, Nurturer, Catalyst

Not Just Play ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Meryl Nadel
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Jane Addams ◽  
The Social ◽  
Country Life ◽  
Key Events ◽  
The 19Th Century

“Natural Environment as Refuge, Nurturer, Catalyst” places the notion of the summer camp in the broader context of societal ideas about people and nature, helping lay the groundwork for the social work profession’s involvement. Selected key events, concepts, and people impacting Americans’ view of the natural environment are highlighted. During the 19th century, as the United States became increasingly urban, writers and visual artists introduced Americans to the virtues of country life for health benefits, solace, and renewal. In the early 20th century, adherents of the conservation, back-to-nature, and antimodernism movements reacted to industrialization and urbanization. John Dewey and Jane Addams are referenced. Since the mid-20th century, a number of thinkers—scientists, historians, theologians, journalists—have turned their attention to issues related to people and the environment. Increasingly, social workers have examined the physical and natural environments as necessary components for understanding people holistically.

Populism and the yearning for closure: From economic to cultural fragility

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-492
Author(s):  
Sibylle van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Western Democracies

Since the Brexit-vote and the election of a far-right businessman as President of the United States, the social sciences have been struggling to explain the societal conditions that nourish the increasing appeal of far-right parties and leaders in the Western world. The article’s main thesis is that the currently leading sociological paradigm, the theory of globalization losers, is not sufficient to understand the social dynamics in question. Starting from a discussion of the recent work of German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer, it is argued that the best insight in far-right voter’s motivations and emotions can be found in the work of Margaret Canovan. The article shows further that a sociological investigation into the socio-psychological dynamics of the rise of the far-right should take into account broader cultural transformations that have been weakening the social world of Western democracies in the past 30 years, namely individualization, acceleration and demographic decline. In times of crisis (the ‘modernization’ of Eastern Europe and the financial crisis of 2007), these transformations become manifest as a general crisis of advanced capitalism.

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