Explanation and Essence in The Rules of Sociological Method and The Division of Labor in Society

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warren Schmaus

In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim tried to remove the ambiguity of The Division of Labor in Society that arose from his essentialist model of explanation, in which causes and effects are both necessary and sufficient conditions of each other. The resulting confusion of effects with causes made possible the materialist interpretation of the latter work, in which increasing population density was mistaken for the cause rather than the sign of changes in the social environment associated with an increase in specialization. The Rules tried to defeat this misinterpretation through clarifying such key concepts as cause, function, and social environment Durkheim's readers had failed to see that he had provided only a functional and not a causal explanation of the division of labor, which he took to be an adaptation to, not a result of, factors in the social rather than the physical environment.

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 283
Author(s):  
Alejandra Martínez Ibarra ◽  
Jorge Ibarra Salazar

En este artículo analizamos los determinantes de la satisfacción residencial en México a partir de los resultados de la Encuesta de Satisfacción Residencial 2013. Los datos están agregados en 512 conjuntos habitacionales. Estimamos diferentes especificaciones por mínimos cuadrados generalizados para relacionar el índice de satisfacción residencial con variables independientes agrupadas en: características personales, aspectos económicos de la vivienda, medio ambiente físico, medio ambiente social, características de la vivienda, y localización y proximidad. Encontramos que las variables relacionadas con el medio ambiente físico y el medio ambiente social ayudan a explicar las variaciones en la satisfacción residencial promedio entre los conjuntos habitacionales en México. Estos hallazgos indican áreas de oportunidad para la política de vivienda que pueden mejorar el bienestar de los residentes.AbstractIn this paper, we analyze the determinants of residential satisfaction in Mexico on the basis of the results of the Residential Satisfaction Survey 2013. The data are aggregated into 512 housing complexes. We estimate different specifications generalized by least squares to link the rate of residential satisfaction to independent variables grouped into personal characteristics, economic aspects of the dwelling, physical environment, social environment, housing characteristics and location and proximity. We found that the variables related to the physical environment and the social environment account for the variations in average residential satisfaction in housing complexes in Mexico. These findings indicate areas of opportunity for housing policy that could improve residents’ well-being.


Author(s):  
Camilla Aparecida Silva de Oliveira ◽  
Andréa Maria Duarte Vargas ◽  
Fernanda de Morais Ferreira ◽  
Efigênia Ferreira e Ferreira

(1) Objective: To understand the perception of Brazilian children about the Quality of Life (QoL) considering their living environment. (2) Methods: This is a qualitative study conducted with children aged 6–10 years, from a medium-sized Brazilian municipality, recruited from public and private schools. An adaptation of the “draw, write, and say” method was used to collect data. At first, all children (n = 252) drew a “neighborhood with QoL”. On the same day, the researcher analyzed the graphic elements of the representations and intentionally selected the two best-detailed drawings from each class (n = 49) and the children were invited to narrate them. The narratives were analyzed through content analysis. (3) Results: Two major themes emerged from the content analysis, namely, the physical environment and social environment. The first included the needs to live in a community, such as housing, places of leisure, essential services, and natural elements. The second was relationships with family and friends. (4) Conclusion: The children presented the meaning of an environment with QoL, pointing out essential items to have this ideal environment. The social environment and the physical environment were perceived interdependently; that is, any change in one of these aspects may affect children’s QoL.


Author(s):  
Luc J. Martin ◽  
David J. Hancock ◽  
Jean Côté

Talent development in sport is achieved through years of preparation and requires constant interaction between personal and contextual resources. Accordingly, extensive research has been dedicated to understanding factors that contribute to sport performance. Literature suggests the factors influencing athletic development can be classified in terms of the physical environment, the social environment, and engaging learning activities. Investigations pertaining to the physical environment suggest the importance of appropriate settings, which can relate to the sport organization or the larger community. Researchers must also cogitate the activities in which athletes take part. These considerations involve the maturational status of athletes, the volume of deliberate practice and play, and early specialization versus diversification. Finally, the salience of the social environment in relation to sport performance cannot be overlooked. Not surprisingly, the relations established with social agents (i.e., coaches, peers/teammates, parents) can facilitate or impede the developmental process. Consequently, the development of athletes in the context of sport and performance psychology extends past the individual and is influenced by several factors that must be discussed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieven Tack

Abstract At which level of analysis (descriptivist, empirical, epistemological), and along which perspective (sociological, linguistical, communicative), should we locate the distinctive criteria for the definition of translation? In other words, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions which constitute the object « translation,» exclusively this object and not any other object? This is the general question of this article. It will be developped in two steps. First, we shall try to demonstrate that the perspective adopted by translatology, in defining translation by its semantical and fonctional equivalence relation with a source text, is congenetically determined by the discursive exclusion of the theorisation of that which is the very condition of possibility of each translation: the disrupture and distancing by which humans structure their social relation. Consequently, it is by the critique of communication theory, where a large part of translatology has drawn its scientific foundations, that we can deliver sound arguments for the assessing of translation in the structure of social relations. A second step consists in the formulation of a working hypothesis: if translation may be caused by the social dialectics of distancing and negociation of meaning, it is not sufficiently specified by this logic. It could be hypothesized that translation finds its specificity in the hybridity of the linguistic referential relation it instaures with the mute universe to be conceptualized on the one hand, and with the source text to be reformulated on the other.


2002 ◽  
Vol 91 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1177-1182 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Carmen Hidalgo ◽  
Bernardo Hernández

Social relationships had been important in explanation and prediction of attachment to places. Although some have asserted the importance of physical aspects of the environment in the formation of attachment ties to a place, the social environment is required for the formation of bonds to a place, although strong emphasis on the social aspect has been questioned and the importance of the physical environment noted. The present objective in two studies was to test whether college students ( ns = 30 and 27) show a preference for a place they know, independently of the social interactions developed in them. Results confirmed the hypothesis, i.e., after a very brief stay in a certain place with nobody else there, these college students preferred that place to another with which they had not had previous contact.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-264
Author(s):  
Milan Tanic ◽  
Danica Stankovic ◽  
Vojislav Nikolic ◽  
Aleksandra Kostic

The paper discusses the implications of the social environment on the modern pedagogical process and their interdependence with the physical environment. The initial assumption is that pedagogical processes form certain types of social activities which encourage the development of the appropriate physical environment. Different patterns of social environment are defined by the typological analysis of social activities in the pedagogical process. In addition, the basic research framework implies the cooperation of various forms of social environment and the influencing factors on the organization of the physical environment in terms of contextual changes in the pedagogical process. Defined qualitative properties suggest the creation of a polyvalent physical environment that offers a whole range of intermediate forms for the implementation of various forms of social activities in the pedagogical process.


Author(s):  
Gary Goertz ◽  
James Mahoney

This chapter considers some key ideas from logic and set theory as they relate to qualitative research in the social sciences, including ideas concerning necessary and sufficient conditions. It also highlights a major contrast between qualitative and quantitative research: whereas quantitative research draws on mathematical tools associated with statistics and probability theory, qualitative research is often based on set theory and logic. The chapter first compares the natural language of logic in the qualitative culture with the language of probability and statistics in the quantitative culture. It then considers the necessary conditions and sufficient conditions as basis for qualitative methods, focusing on set theory and Venn diagrams, two-by-two tables, and truth tables. It also discusses the use of qualitative and quantitative aggregation techniques and concludes by explaining the criteria for assessing the “fit” of the model or the “importance” of a given causal factor.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bear F. Braumoeller

Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) has become one of the most prominent methods in the social sciences for capturing causal complexity, especially for scholars with small- and medium- N data sets. This research note explores two key assumptions in fsQCA’s methodology for testing for necessary and sufficient conditions—the cumulation assumption and the triangular data assumption—and argues that, in combination, they produce a form of aggregation bias that has not been recognized in the fsQCA literature. It also offers a straightforward test to help researchers answer the question of whether their findings are plausibly the result of aggregation bias.


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