A Reorientation of Niche Theory in Human Ecology

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia A. Broussard ◽  
Gerald L. Young
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Human Ecology ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Niche Theory ◽  
Species Problem ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Symptomatic of social forces is the character of the relationship between the individual and society; study of that relationship is central to sociology, a part-whole problem shared with other social sciences. A number of sociological concepts have been developed at least in part to examine this relationship. In the past couple of decades, sociologists and other social scientists have borrowed from niche theory in biological ecology, applying niche in a number of ways. In this article, the Hutchinsonian revolution in niche theory is stressed to establish that adaptations of niche into sociological human ecology are based on misleading analogies and are derived from a failure to recognize the implications of changes in niche theory. The difficulties issue in part from “the species problem” and from unclear differentiation between niche and more established sociological concepts, particularly role and status. These differences are specified and clarified prior to a radical reorientation of niche in human ecology. The reorientation resolves the species problem, updates and reinforces ties with biological ecology, and enlarges the potential for study of the linkages between individual and society and between micro and macro in complex systems.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

scholarly journals Has fertility increased at very high levels of development?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hampton Gray Gaddy
Keyword(s):  
Human Development Index ◽  
National Level ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Clear Relationship ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Very High

Increasing development is historically associated with fertility declines. However, demographic paradigms disagree about whether that relationship should hold at very high levels of development. Using national-level data through 2005, Myrskylä, Kohler, and Billari (2009) found that very high levels of the Human Development Index (HDI) were associated with increasing total fertility rates (TFR). This paper updates that finding with data up to 2017. It investigates whether the observed association has continued to hold for the countries originally studied and whether it holds for countries that have more recently reached very high HDI. For countries that reached HDI ≥ 0.8 in 2000 or before (n=27), the data indicate no clear relationship between changes in HDI and TFR at HDI ≥ 0.8. There is also no clear relationship for countries that reached HDI ≥ 0.8 between 2001 and 2010 (n=13). For countries that reached HDI ≥ 0.8 in 2000 or before, there appear to have been notable increases in TFR between 2000 and 2010, but those gains appear to have completely reversed between 2010 and 2017. The past finding of TFR increases at very high levels of development has not borne out in recent years. In fact, TFRs declined markedly in very high development countries between 2010 and 2017. This paper contributes to the debate over the relationship between development and fertility. That debate has an important bearing on how low fertility is conceived by social scientists and policymakers.

scholarly journals Evolution of the Concept of Citizenship in the Islamic Thought: An Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Osama Sami AL-Nsour
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

The concept of citizenship is one of the pillars upon which the modern civil state was built. The concept of citizenship can be considered as the basic guarantee for both the government and individuals to clarify the relationship between them, since under this right individuals can acquire and apply their rights freely and also based on this right the state can regulate how society members perform the duties imposed on them, which will contributes to the development of the state and society .The term citizenship has been used in a wider perspective, itimplies the nationality of the State where the citizen obtains his civil, political, economic, social, cultural and religious rights and is free to exercise these rights in accordance with the Constitution of the State and the laws governing thereof and without prejudice to the interest. In return, he has an obligation to perform duties vis-à-vis the state so that the state can give him his rights that have been agreed and contracted.This paper seeks to explore firstly, the modern connotation of citizenship where it is based on the idea of rights and duties. Thus the modern ideal of citizenship is based on the relationship between the individual and the state. The Islamic civilization was spanned over fourteen centuries and there were certain laws and regulations governing the relationship between the citizens and the state, this research will try to discover the main differences between the classical concept of citizenship and the modern one, also this research will show us the results of this change in this concept . The research concludes that the new concept of citizenship is correct one and the one that can fit to our contemporary life and the past concept was appropriate for their time but the changes in the world force us to apply and to rethink again about this concept.

scholarly journals Dystopian literature and the sociological imagination

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Seeger ◽  
Daniel Davison-Vecchione
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Utopian Literature ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Dystopian Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This article argues that sociologists have much to gain from a fuller engagement with dystopian literature. This is because (i) the speculation in dystopian literature tends to be more grounded in empirical social reality than in the case of utopian literature, and (ii) the literary conventions of the dystopia more readily illustrate the relationship between the inner life of the individual and the greater whole of social-historical reality. These conventional features mean dystopian literature is especially attuned to how historically-conditioned social forces shape the inner life and personal experience of the individual, and how acts of individuals can, in turn, shape the social structures in which they are situated. In other words, dystopian literature is a potent exercise of what C. Wright Mills famously termed ‘the sociological imagination’.

scholarly journals Fear, Institutionalized Racism, and Empathy: The Underlying Dimensions of Whites’ Racial Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. DeSante ◽  
Candis Watts Smith
Keyword(s):  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cognitive Beliefs ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTFor nearly 75 years, scholars of American public opinion have sought to measure whites’ attitudes toward blacks: social scientists have invented and revised ways to measure what we could refer to as “racial prejudice.” With each revision, scholars who believe they have captured new forms of racial animus are met with opposition from those who believe that old-fashioned anti-black affect is a thing of the past. We directly answer these claims by collecting a surfeit of attitudinal measures to simultaneously estimate the relationship between cognitive beliefs about the racial status quo and emotional reactions to racism. First, we uncover that two higher-order dimensions undergird whites’ racial attitudes. Second, we validate a four-item version of our new battery using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study.

scholarly journals Gyöngyi Szabó Földesi as Scientist and University Teacher in Hungarian and International Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-69
Author(s):  
Gyöngyi Szabó Földesi ◽  
Jerzy Kosiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Third ◽  
Bibliographic Data ◽  
World Class ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Individual

Abstract This is the third article of the cycle of portraits of the members of the Editorial Board and Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research, who are eminent social scientists researching the issue of sport. Among them, there are many world-class professors, rectors and deans of excellent universities, founders, presidents and secretaries-general of continental and international scientific societies and editors of high-scoring journals related to social sciences focusing on sport. The journal Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research started its activities in 2008 and gathered many readers, distinguished authors and outstanding reviewers. It is worth taking a moment to present the profiles of the individual editors, thanks to whom the journal keeps getting better and better. The journal is increasingly appreciated internationally particular among the scientists from the humanist and social areas of investigations. The rapidly increasing number of its readers and its surprisingly wide reception, indicated by the number of visits and downloads in English-speaking countries, including hundreds of universities (up to 791 were interested in the content of issue 62 of our magazine), research institutes and related libraries, as well as academics, researchers and students, should be celebrated. These data are derived only from one bibliographic data base (EBSCO). It must be noted that the journal is indexed in 41 bases.

scholarly journals ANALYSIS OF COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH IN ARCHITECTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LATE TWENTIETH-EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Articult ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 137-148
Author(s):  
Evgenia I. Vinogradova ◽  
◽  
Evgeny V. Kilimnik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Research ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The article analyzes the work of Western and Russian scientists, conducted in the past three decades, on the relationship of psychology and architecture. It is shown that in the West, the neuropsychological aspects of the relationship of psychology and architecture are studied thanks to modern neurobiological equipment, while in Russia there is a clear gap between the representatives of neuroscience, their technical support, and the architectural scientific community. As a result of the analysis conducted in the article, it is concluded that two research blocks can be distinguished. The first of them highlights the relationship between the psyche of the viewer and architecture. This may include research, both revealing the features of the perception of objects, and the influence of an architectural object on the viewer. Another block of research is connected with the psyche of the architect: and here the features of the design process itself are examined, as well as the influence of the personality of the architect on the features of the architectural object. It is concluded that the topic of reflecting the individual or individually-typological psychological characteristics of the personality of an architect in a specific architectural work remains undeveloped both in the West and in Russia, although it is extremely relevant today.

scholarly journals Between Individual Memory and Social Memory. What Do People in Poland Remember About 1989?

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Aneta Ostaszewska
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Memory ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

30 years have passed since the events of 1989 that led to the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. In the paper the themes of social memory of political transformation in Poland in 1989 are discussed. The content of online statements collected from popular Polish news portals are analysed. When asking the question what events and experiences do Poles bring back when they think of 1989, I am interested in the relationship between the individual (biographical) memory and collective memory – the socially reconstructed knowledge of the past.

scholarly journals Madness vs. Culture in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (41) ◽  
pp. 636-650
Author(s):  
Maysaloon Khalid Ali
Keyword(s):  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Behavioral Patterns ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Individual Values ◽  
The Past ◽  
Normal Life ◽  
Inner World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Relationship

       The purpose of this research is to explain the relationship between madness and the culture of societies, where madness is closely related to cultures. Madness is defined as a group of behaviors characterized by abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Culture has a tremendous influence on the individual values framework of a society as it is a set of traditional beliefs, rituals, customs and values transmitted and shared in a particular society. Anyone who deviates from these rules will be considered insane.     Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that expresses her perceptions of the idea of madness throughout history; especially since the writer herself was diagnosed as mentally ill. In this novel, the writer chooses the character of Septimus and his relationship with the outside world. Septimus was responsible, obedient, and loved by his employer, yet his inner world was separated from the outside one. It was exacerbated by the fact that he was distanced from the daily habits of the masses and became a stranger and unfit for normal life. Trapped between the past and the present, he failed to leap over a painful memory, and he gradually fell into a state of madness.

History and Social Science in the West

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Passmore
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
External Force ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The West ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Academic History ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter analyzes the relationship between history and various disciplines within the social sciences. Historians and social scientists shared two related sets of assumptions. The first supposition was of a world-historical shift from a traditional, hierarchical, religious society to a modern egalitarian, rational one. Second, history and social science assumed that progress occurred within nations possessed of unique ‘characters’, and that patriotism provided the social cement without which society could not function. Nevertheless, academic history seemingly differed from social science in that it was untheoretical and predominantly political. Yet historians focused on the nation’s attainment of self-consciousness, homogeneity, and independence through struggle against internal and external enemies—a history in which great men were prominent. Historians and sociologists unwittingly shared versions of grand theory, in which change was an external ‘force’ driven by the functional needs of the system, and in which meaning derived from measurement against theory, rather than from protagonists’ actions and beliefs.

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