Living with diversity or living with difference? International perspectives on everyday perceptions of the social composition of diverse neighbourhoods

Divercities ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 211-234
Author(s):  
Katrin Großmann ◽  
Georgia Alexandri ◽  
Maria Budnik ◽  
Annegret Haase ◽  
Christian Haid ◽  
...  

This chapter analyses which categories are mobilised by residents to describe the social groups in their area and which normative assessments are attached to those descriptions. This intersectionality approach allows one to see social stratification at work in how inhabitants of diverse neighbourhoods in Leipzig, Paris, and Athens perceive, describe, and judge their social environment. The three cities that are analysed represent different histories of diversification, and all three of them have experienced societal disruptions and change. The residents' own positionality shapes how they categorise other residents and judge their social environment. Moreover, the construction of social groups in diverse neighbourhoods in these cities draws on a variety of rather classic social categories and is influenced by national discourses. Stigmatisation often occurs at the intersections of these categories. Also, neighbourhood change is an important factor in the construction of social groups.

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.


Author(s):  
Sigita Kušnere

Taking into account the research conclusions in social and natural sciences, gastropoetics as a research method allows to examine a literary text in-depth revealing the causal relationships and nuances of the psychological portrayal of characters, as well as analyse semantic pluralism providing more diverse interpretation opportunities of a literary text. In Andrejs Upīts’s novel “Bread” (Maize, 1914) the portrayed passengers of the third class train wagon are a micromodel of Western society, where food, sharing the food or its denial precisely reveal the hierarchic structure of community and the differences in social stratification, as well as human behavioural principles, which are based on the tradition that has evolved over thousands of years and can also be cross-compared with the behavioural principles observable among animals. Other aspects include the social undermining of certain social groups, for instance, older people, children, foreigners, as well as the marginalisation of these groups denying them the freedom of choice or action, equal rights, etc. Upīts in his novel constructs a social situation of a small community, accurately revealing the hierarchic structure, as well as collaboration and relationship models of the community.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Schult

AbstractThe article addresses the social differentiation among industrial workforces in two Yugoslav motor-vehicle factories in the period between 1965 and 1985. Along which lines did social inequalities, which were negated in official communist ideology manifest and how were they articulated? How were they dealt with in the complex environments of self-managed enterprises in respect to the official doctrine? Based on archival material from factory archives, the League of Communists and the socialist mass organisations and on published sources such as factory newspapers, the industrial workforces are described as heterogeneous with shifting affiliations between its sub-groups. Three dividing factors (1. blue-collar vs. white collar workers, 2. gender and 3. profession) are examined. Intersectional entanglements can be found, which systematically accumulated social advantages for certain social groups. Serbian and Slovene enterprises demonstrate many comparable tendencies. In reaction, official ideology attempted to detract attention from social stratification, employing symbolic recognition and calls for greater implementation of the principles of self-management.


Author(s):  
Senkiv Z ◽  

The article attempts to outline the phenomenon of spatial segregation in Lviv. It highlights the historical aspects of this phenomenon, and their impact on the current situation. Also is outlined the own classification of the social groups which have developed at present city is considering the degree of their mutual isolation. It was found that in the historical aspect of spatial segregation in Lviv can be divided into three periods: - medieval (when it was discriminatory), Soviet (when it was a privilege marking of politically "trustworthy"), and modern (associated with property stratification). Each of these segregation stages has left its mark on the spatial character of the city, albeit to varying degrees. Thus, the medieval discriminatory segregation of space is now practically inactive; the Soviet partially changed its direction and lost its original meaning, the modern one is at the stage of active development and deepening. Eight social categories have been identified in modern Lviv, in relation to which the process of spatial segregation is taking place. Accordingly, an assessment of the phenomenon of spatial segregation is given, which should take into account the following factors: a) the frequency of intersection of social groups of different categories; b) the place where this intersection takes place (for example citywide holidays); c) territorial distribution of spatially segregated groups. Preliminarily assessed the isolation level of different social groups, which also has a urban dimension.


Author(s):  
Raj Kollmorgen

Social inequality means the existence of social status groups and, therefore, a normatively embedded structure of social stratification. This chapter deals with social inequalities and their dynamics as conditional and causal factors and as results of processes of radical change. Concerning the first aspect, the chapter discusses social class inequalities and dynamics of (absolute) impoverishment, relative deprivation, and rising expectations among certain social groups that may determine ‘transformative’ pressure or even revolutionary situations. Regarding the impact of social transformations on social inequalities, the chapter suggests that the more radical and complex the social transformations, the greater are their effects on social structures and regimes of social inequality. This thesis is underpinned by providing empirical findings on social mobility and income inequality in different historical waves and (sub-)types of transformation. Finally, the chapter identifies seven crucial bundles of factors determining the extent of income inequality as an outcome of current societal transformations and their characteristics.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Anastasia KONTOGIANNOPOULOU

The notion of “demos/demes” (people/circus factions) has been a favorite subject in the modern research and various opinions have been formulated with regard to their organisation and the role they played in the political developments. In the modern bibliography referred to the period under examination (13th-15th c.) the term “demos” denotes generally the lower strata of the urban population. However, through the systematic study of that period’s sources thinner nuances can be detected in the meaning of the term “demos”, which apart from the lower social stratum, it also seems to include members of the the middle social class and to denote a larger group that contains the two social categories mentioned above. This study intends to examine the concept of “demos” and similar expressions, the social composition of this body and its role in the political life of the era. The research is based primarily on narrative sources of the late byzantine period (13th-15th c.). The fragmentary material extracted from these sources is complemented by information come from the monastery archives, the lives of saints, the correspondence and other literary sources of the era.


2019 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 00011
Author(s):  
Nadezhda Kotelnikova ◽  
Elena Bakumova

The purpose of the article is to consider newly-emerging Chinese nominations of social groups, largely reflecting the development trends of modern Chinese urban society. The investigation is done from the perspective of urban communication studies. The social structure of the modern Chinese urban space is a self-developing system, the transformation processes of which are determined by many social and economic factors. Consequently, the dynamic social modernization of Chinese megacities is undoubtedly reflected in the vocabulary, the most susceptible to any changes in the life of society. This is manifested in a significant expansion of the semantic class of words associated with social stratification. The material for this study was neologisms, which denote social groups differentiated according to their life style. As a result, recent appearance of a large number of such neologisms in Chinese speaks about the dynamics of changes in modern Chinese urban society, about diversifying the lifestyles of citizens. All of the neologisms under consideration, having first emerged in the Internet, became widespread in Chinese society due to their active use of the media, which are the first to respond to changes in the development of society, contribute to the assessment of the surrounding reality, introduce new concepts and names of phenomena into a wide circulation. The new nominations of social groups are distinguished on the basis of the life-style criterion reflect transformations in the lifestyle of modern citizens, based on changes not only in socio-economic conditions, but also in mentality, as well as value orientations. The study of these lexical units allows us to trace the influence of the processes of globalization, modernization and urbanization on modern Chinese urban society, to identify the main trends in its development.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Carpenter ◽  
Daniel Preotiuc-Pietro ◽  
Lucie Flekova ◽  
Salvatore Giorgi ◽  
Courtney Hagan ◽  
...  

People associate certain behaviors with certain social groups. These stereotypical beliefs consist of both accurate and inaccurate associations. Using large-scale, data-driven methods with social media as a context, we isolate stereotypes by using verbal expression. Across four social categories—gender, age, education level, and political orientation—we identify words and phrases that lead people to incorrectly guess the social category of the writer. Although raters often correctly categorize authors, they overestimate the importance of some stereotype-congruent signal. Findings suggest that data-driven approaches might be a valuable and ecologically valid tool for identifying even subtle aspects of stereotypes and highlighting the facets that are exaggerated or misapplied.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Scholl ◽  
Kai Sassenberg

BACKGROUND Official contact tracing apps have been implemented and recommended for use across nations to track and contain the spread of COVID-19. Such apps can be effective if people are <i>willing</i> to use them. Accordingly, many attempts are being made to motivate citizens to make use of the officially recommended apps. OBJECTIVE The aim of this research was to contribute to an understanding of the preconditions under which people are willing to use a COVID-19 contact tracing app (ie, their use intentions and use). To go beyond personal motives in favor of app use, it is important to take people’s social relationships into account, under the hypothesis that the more people identify with the <i>beneficiaries</i> of app use (ie, people living close by in their social environment) and with the <i>source</i> recommending the app (ie, members of the government), the more likely they will be to accept the officially recommended contact tracing app. METHODS Before, right after, and 5 months after the official contact tracing app was launched in Germany, a total of 1044 people participated in three separate surveys. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses, examining the same model in all studies at these critical points in time. RESULTS Across the three surveys, both identification with the beneficiaries (people living in their social environment) and with the source recommending the app (members of the government) predicted greater intention to use and use (installation) of the official contact tracing app. Trust in the source (members of the government) served as a mediator. Other types of identification (with people in Germany or people around the world) did not explain the observed results. The findings were highly consistent across the three surveys. CONCLUSIONS Attempts to motivate people to use new health technology (or potentially new measures more generally) not only for their personal benefit but also for collective benefits should take the social context into account (ie, the social groups people belong to and identify with). The more important the beneficiaries and the sources of such measures are to people’s sense of the self, the more willing they will likely be to adhere to and support such measures.


Author(s):  
Alexandre Avdeev ◽  
Irina Troitskaya ◽  
Galina Ulianova

During the last few decades, ideas about household structures in the territories lying east of the Hajnal line have changed considerably. Not only has the line itself been transformed into a fairly wide ‘transitional’ zone and its location on the European map been changed, but the variety of family forms found behind the generalised characteristics of the “Eastern” territories has made scholars re-examine certain theoretical concepts and findings. The new concepts are based on the growing number of micro-studies covering the territories of Central and Eastern Europe and provide very detailed information on family size and structures. For Russia, which has always been considered a model of the Eastern type of household organisation, new data have appeared as well, making it possible to re-examine the theories concerning Russian households. However, scholars more often pay attention to geographic rather than social stratification of household types. The majority of studies are devoted to the social group of peasants, especially of peasant serfs, while household structures in other social groups are less explored. In this article, we seek to fill this gap by providing a comparison of household structures in two social groups, namely of Moscow merchants and of serfs who lived near Moscow in the middle of the 19th century. The household structures in the two groups were entirely different: one in two merchant families was a nuclear one consisting of a couple with or without children, or a single parent with children, while in the peasant population multiple households, including several nuclear families, predominated (60% of the total number of households). The most likely explanation for this is the two groups’ different obligations to the state.


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