scholarly journals The micro-politics of organisational change in professional youth football: Towards an understanding of “actions, strategies and professional interests”

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Gibson ◽  
Ryan Groom
Keyword(s):  
Organisational Change ◽  
Staff Turnover ◽  
Professional Football ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Team Meetings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Political Literacy ◽  
Political Actions

Employment within professional football is characterised by high levels of staff turnover, uncertainty, vulnerability and insecurity. This paper aims to investigate the experiences of James, Head of Foundation Phase within an English professional youth academy, during a period of organisational change. Data were collected through field notes, informal observations and meetings, formal academy team meetings, co-worker interviews and four semi-structured in-depth participant interviews, which were subjected to an iterative process of inductive and deductive analysis. Theorising regarding the influence of professional self-interests upon the actions and strategies of the social actors was utilised to make sense of James' narrative. The findings highlighted how James strategically managed his relationships with others to further his own professional self-interests. Finally, following the findings of this study, we propose that the ability to develop micro-political literacy and a repertoire of micro-political actions and strategies would benefit coaches working within professional football during such periods of instability and change.

Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

«Имперский синдром»: концепция османского халифата на Ближнем Востоке и в Южной Азии (первая четверть XX в.)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A. Kirillina ◽  
A.L. Safronova ◽  
V.V. Orlov
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Aspect Interaction ◽  
Muhammad Rashid Rida ◽  
Political Actions

Аннотация В статье изучены общие и специфические черты идейных воззрений, пропагандистской риторики и политических действий представителей халифатистского движения на Ближнем Востоке и в Южной Азии. В ретроспективном ключе прослеживается эволюция представлений о сущности и необходимости возрождения института халифата в трудах исламских идеологов, реформаторов и политиков Джамал ад-Дина ал-Афгани, Абд ар-Рахмана ал-Кавакиби, Мухаммада Рашида Риды, Абул Калама Азада. Внимание авторов сосредоточено на общественно-политических дискуссиях 2030-х годов XX столетия, а также на повестке дня халифатистских конгрессов и конференций этого периода. На них вырабатывались первые представления современников о пост-османском формате мусульманского единства и идейно-политической роли будущего халифата. Авторы демонстрируют различие между моделями реакции мусульман Ближнего Востока и Южной Азии на упразднение османского халифата республиканским руководством Турции. Установлена многоаспектная взаимосвязь между халифатистскими ценностями, проосманскими настроениями и формами самоотождествления, которые сложились в арабских и южноазиатских обществах. Отдельно намечено соотношение между подъемом халифатистских настроений и радикализацией антиколониальных действий мусульман Индостана.Abstract The article deals with analysis of common and specific features of ideas, propaganda, rhetoric and political actions taken by representatives of the movement for defense of the Caliphate in the Middle East and South Asia. The retrospection showing the transformation of conception of the Caliphate and the necessity of its revival in the works of eminent ideologists and politicians of the Muslim world Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad, is also given in the article. The authors also focus on the social and political discussions of the 1920s 1930s, as well as on the agenda of Caliphatist congresses and conferences of this period. They helped to elaborate the early representations of post-Ottoman pattern of the Muslim unity and the ideological and political role of the future Caliphate. The authors demonstrate the difference between the forms of reaction of Muslims in the Middle East and South Asia to the repudiation of the Caliphate by the Republican leaders of Turkey. The article establishes a multi-aspect interaction between the Caliphatist values and forms of self-identification, emerged in Arab and South Asian societies. The correlation between the rise of Caliphatist attitudes and radicalization of anti-colonial actions of South Asian Muslims is also outlined.

scholarly journals The Meaning of the Matrix: Towards a Cybernetic Critical Theory of Capitalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Shay Hershkovitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Operational Logic

Marxist criticism is most discernible; despite the oft-repeated claim that it is now irrelevant, belonging to an age now past. This essay assumes that criticism originating in the Marxist school of thought continue to be relevant also in this present time; though it may need to be further developed and improved by integrating newer critical approaches into the classic Marxist discourse. This essay therefore integrates basic Marxist ideas with key concepts from ‘social systems theory’; especially the theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann's. In this light, capitalism is conceptualized here as a ‘super (social) system’: a meaning-creating social entity, in which social actors, behaviors and structures are realized. This theoretical concept and terminology emphasizes the social construction of control and stability, when discussing the operational logic of capitalism.

scholarly journals Anti-migrant Islamophobia in Europe. Social roots, mechanisms and actors

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (53) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Fabio Perocco
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mass Media

Abstract During the last two decades of rising anti-migrant racism in Europe, Islamophobia has proven to be the highest, most acute, and widely spread form of racism. The article shows how anti-migrant Islamophobia is a structural phenomenon in European societies and how its internal structure has specific social roots and mechanisms of functioning. Such an articulate and interdependent set of key themes, policies, practices, discourses, and social actors it is intended to inferiorise and marginalise Muslim immigrants while legitimising and reproducing social inequalities affecting the majority of them. The article examines the social origins of anti-migrant Islamophobia and the modes and mechanisms through which it naturalises inequalities; it focuses on the main social actors involved in its production, specifically on the role of some collective subjects as anti-Muslim organizations and movements, far-right parties, best-selling authors, and the mass-media.

scholarly journals Sociology’s Role in the Teaching of Organizational Behavior in Higher Education. The Case of Hospitality Management

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Ferraz
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Hospitality Management ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Structuring ◽  
Hospitality Organizations ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Productivity Gains

Teaching in universities, especially in management schools, is today orientated to solving-problems and operational skills’ development, short-term productivity gains and to a vocational perspective. This represents an impoverishment of a deeper learning, an obstacle to the development of competences in a broader and integrative sense and the absence of a critical thinking practice. These are important tools to enhance in students and future managers, as specific social actors, abilities to act in a conscious, autonomous and long-term efficacious manner in society. This essay’s objective is to problematize the role that sociology could assume in the overcoming of that impoverishment, namely within the curricular unit of organizational behavior in two ways. First, teaching the social and macro dimensions that contribute to explain organizational structuring and behavior. Secondly, enhancing reflexivity and contextualization on the practices and discourses of all social actors involved and disassembling the dominant ideological, naturalized and simplistic individualized view on the reality of labor, employment and organizations. This is especially relevant in hospitality management studies because the dominant discourse about hospitality organizations hide, under a hegemonic paradigm of naturalized and individualized explanations, the macro-social dimensions of its organizational culture, work conditions, employees’ behaviors, management styles and market labor.

scholarly journals Thai Gender Ideology: A View from Representations of Social Actors in Crime News Headlines

MANUSYA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Phennapha Klaisingto ◽  
Wirote Aroonmanakun
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Crime News ◽  
Study Power ◽  
News Headlines

This study examines the linguistic structure used for uncovering gender ideologies through crime news headlines. It’s based on the idea that languages represent reality and different linguistic choices indicate different points of view of reality. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough 1990,VanDijk 1995, Simpson 1993) is used in this study. The main objectives of the study are 1) to study the differences of representation between male and female social actors (Van Leeuwan 2008) in crime news headlines and 2) to study power relations, gender identities and the reproduction of patriarchal society through crime news headlines. Samples of 1,815 crime news headlines are analyzed in this study. The result shows that Thai crime news constructs gender identities based on gender ideology. Thai crime news headlines convey a variety of linguistic meanings which allow for varying forms of representation of social actors, including exclusion and inclusion of social actors. The exclusion of male social actors in headlines may be ideologically motivated by obscuring the responsibility of male actors for negative actions, whereas the exclusion of female social actors does not have the same effect because their referents can be inferred from the headline context. In addition, the inclusion of social actors varies according to the social actor’s sex. Male actors are usually referred to using a functionalization form or an appraisement form, whereas female actors are usually referred to using an identification form. These representations reflect the role of masculinity and femininity among men and women in the society.

Pierre Bourdieu, the ‘cultural turn’ and the practice of international history

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER JACKSON
Keyword(s):  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
International History ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Cultural Orientations ◽  
Structural Environment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Actors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Turn

AbstractThe rise of the ‘cultural turn’ has breathed new life into the practice of international history over the past few decades. Cultural approaches have both broadened and deepened interpretations of the history of international relations. This article focuses on the use of culture as an explanatory methodology in the study of international history. It outlines the two central criticisms often made of this approach. The first is that it suffers from a lack of analytical rigour in both defining what culture is and understanding how it shapes individual and collective policy decisions. The second is that it too often leads to a tendency to exaggerate the importance of the cultural predispositions of individual or collective actors at the expense of the wider structures within which policymaking takes place. The article provides a brief outline of the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu – which focuses on the interaction between the cultural orientations of social actors and the structural environment that conditions their strategies and decisions. It then argues that Bourdieu’s conceptual framework can provide the basis for a more systematic approach to understanding the cultural roots of policymaking and that international historians would benefit from engagement with his approach.

Family Participation in Challenger Baseball: Critical Theory Perspectives

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lupe Castañ ◽  
Claudine Sherrill
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Physical Disabilities ◽  
Head Coach ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Field Notes

The purpose was to analyze the social construction of Challenger baseball opportunities in a selected community. Participants were 10 boys and 6 girls with mental and/or physical disabilities (ages 7 to 16 years, M = 11.31), their families, and the head coach. Data were collected through interviews in the homes with all family members, participant observation at practices and games, and field notes. The research design was qualitative, and critical theory guided interpretation. Analytical induction revealed five outcomes that were particularly meaningful as families and coach socially constructed Challenger baseball: (a) fun and enjoyment, (b) positive affect related to equal opportunity and feelings of “normalcy,” (c) social networking/emotional support for families, (d) baseball knowledge and skills, and (e) social interactions with peers.

Alcohol norms and their enforcement: an assessment from a socio-legal perspective

2010 ◽  
pp. 92-112
Author(s):  
Franco Prina
Keyword(s):  
Implementation Process ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Protection Time ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alcoholic Drinks ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Relationship

The socio-legal perspective on the alcohol legislation, including the norms concerned with the relationship between individuals and alcoholic drinks, helps answering some essentials questions: what was/is the "social construction" of the alcohol problem in different eras and different cultures and, consequently, which objectives are deemed to be worthy of pursuit through the creation or amendment of legislation? Which social actors have the ability, in a given period of time, to inscribe the relevance of innovative alcohol legislation on the political agenda and what kind of dialectic is used among those who champion points of view, competences and above all, different interests? Which interests and values would appear to meet with legislatory protection time after time? What tools, of the ample range available, are chosen to achieve the aims set out? To what extent is legislation implemented (or not implemented), and why? Which aspects of the implementation process prove to be most significant, i.e. define the actual content of the legislation "in force", and are therefore tangibly experienced by the law's end target? How much of an impact does legislation have on behavior which is subject to regulation or on problems which stem from such behavior?

scholarly journals Humour in Sports Coaching: ‘It’s a Funny Old Game’

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 744-762 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Nicholas Edwards ◽  
Robyn L Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Ethnographic Film ◽  
The Social ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Sports Coaching

The primary purpose of this article was to investigate the use and manifestation of humour within sports coaching. This was particularly in light of the social significance of humour as a critical component in cultural creation and negotiation. Data were gathered from a 10-month ethnographic study that tracked the players and coaches of Senghenydd City Football Club (a pseudonym) over the course of a full season. Precise methods of data collection included participant observation, reflective personal field notes, and ethnographic film. The results demonstrated the dominating presence of both ‘inclusionary putdowns’ and ‘disciplinary humour’, particularly in relation to how they contributed to the production and maintenance of the social order. Finally, a reflective conclusion discusses the temporal nature of the collective understanding evident among the group at Senghenydd, and its effect on the humour evident. In doing so, the work contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the social role of humour within sports coaching.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document