scholarly journals How origin stories shape children's social reasoning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Foster-Hanson ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Social Reasoning ◽  
Common Mechanism ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Explicit Information ◽  
Origin Stories ◽  
Embedded Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Many

How do we explain the behavior of the many people we meet throughout our lives? Children and adults sometimes consider other people in terms of their social category memberships (e.g., assuming that a girl likes pink because she is a girl), but people view some categories as more informative than others, and which people think of as informative varies across cultural contexts. One type of culturally-embedded knowledge that appears to shape whether people view particular categories as providing explanations for behavior are beliefs about how the category came to be. In the current studies with 4- to 5-year-old children (N = 206), we ask how learning about quasi-scientific or supernatural causal origins of a category shapes young children’s use of categories to predict and explain what category members are like. In Study 1, children more often used a category to explain behavior when they heard the category described as intentionally created by a powerful being than when they heard no explicit information about its origins. In Studies 2 and 3, learning about both quasi-scientific and supernatural causal origins shaped children’s social category beliefs via a common mechanism: by signaling that the category marked a non-arbitrary way of dividing up the social world.

scholarly journals What Do ‘We’ Know That ‘They’ Don’t? Sociologists’ versus Non-Sociologists’ Knowledge

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Mesny
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Public Sociology ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Embedded Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Policy ◽  
The Relationship

This paper attempts to clarify or to reposition some of the controversies generated by Burawoy’s defense of public sociology and by his vision of the mutually stimulating relationship between the different forms of sociology. Before arguing if, why, and how, sociology should or could be more ‘public’, it might be useful to reflect upon what it is we think we, as sociologists, know that ‘lay people’ do not. This paper thus explores the public sociology debate’s epistemological core, namely the issue of the relationship between sociologists’ and non-sociologists’ knowledge of the social world. Four positions regarding the status of sociologists’ knowledge versus lay people’s knowledge are explored: superiority (sociologists’ knowledge of the social world is more accurate, objective and reflexive than lay people’s knowledge, thanks to science’s methods and norms), homology (when they are made explicit, lay theories about the social world often parallel social scientists’ theories), complementarity (lay people’s and social scientists’ knowledge complement one another. The former’s local, embedded knowledge is essential to the latter’s general, disembedded knowledge), and circularity (sociologists’ knowledge continuously infuses commonsensical knowledge, and scientific knowledge about the social world is itself rooted in common sense knowledge. Each form of knowledge feeds the other). For each of these positions, implications are drawn regarding the terms, possibilities and conditions of a dialogue between sociologists and their publics, especially if we are to take the circularity thesis seriously. Conclusions point to the accountability we face towards the people we study, and to the idea that sociology is always performative, a point that has, to some extent, been obscured by Burawoy’s distinctions between professional, critical, policy and public sociologies.

scholarly journals Legal Governing of e-contracts in Georgian Legislation

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tea Edisherashvili
Keyword(s):  
Technical Progress ◽  
Social World ◽  
Civil Code ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Many ◽  
International Conventions

Technical progress has essentially changed the social world of humans. Civil turnover has encompassed the contracts already signed using e-means which saves time, consolidates commercial relations, and increases commercial efficiency. This is one of the many reasons why signing e-contract in recent decades has become popular worldwide and is demanding. Constantly promoting and changing technologies has put law against serious challenges. Aside the international legal acts, it has become necessary to make amendments in national legislation, which together with national characteristics is in harmony with international conventions and directives. The global pandemic in 2020 has resulted to the special need for developing internet commercial infrastructure (Smartloan.ge, 2020). This paper focuses on examining the legislation applicable in Georgia in the field of e-commerce, namely Civil Code (1997), Georgian laws: “About e-communication” (2005), “About e-document and free flow code” (2012),“About e-document and reliable e-service” (2017). Despite the fact that indicated laws (particularly the last two bills adopted recent years) is at certain extent in relevance with the international acts acknowledged internationally, e-commerce which is subject to applicable legislation is not regulated perfectly. The aim of this paper is not only the review of the above mentioned legislation, but it also establishes some recommendations for making Georgian legislation perfect in the field of ecommerce. Georgian legislation applies no regalements for directly signing econtracts, namely the customer, as well as non customer contract governing mechanisms. Certain statements and principles of applicable Georgian Civil Code, in addition to Georgian law about e-document and reliable e-service, at the moment of signing the contract and at pre-contract stage which regulates separate issues that are specific to e-communication does not create legal principles. For the purpose of eradicating the mentioned discrepancies, it is necessary to make exact regalement of e-commerce by adopting e-commerce (applicable in whole range of countries) while considering its specification.

scholarly journals Trends in Contemporary Queer Kinship and Family Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 209-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrika Dahl ◽  
Jacqui Gabb
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social World ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Equality Rights ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sex And Sexuality

There have been great advances in socio-legal queer rights in recent years and many of these have clustered around partnership and parenthood. Whilst these rights are seemingly progressive and welcome, they have not come without a cost. Cultural studies and queer theorising have critically engaged with, and effectively critiqued, these advances. However, in many ways empirical research on “same-sex parenthood” has largely glossed over the problematic of contemporary equality rights and focussed instead on the opportunities presented. Research in this vein typically instantiates heteronormative gender and sexuality through insufficient attention to everyday experiences and the ways in which these queer kinship. Geopolitical and socio-cultural contexts are used as scene-setting rather than being operationalised to prise apart the intersections of public/private intimacies. A genealogy imperative is defining families, with queer practices of conception invoked to separate one family from the next. We may now be better able to understand how we relate to and engage with others and the social world around us, but homogeneity simultaneously occludes the specificity of experience. The clustering of sample-defined groups erases within group differences and obscures the structuring factors that underpin academic scholarship. In this piece, therefore, we ask: In these precarious and paradoxically permissive times, whose lives matter in same-sex parenthood research? To what extent have familial discourses shut down sex and sexuality debates in studies of queer kinship? What exactly, if anything, makes same-sex families queer?

The Many Meanings of Non-Affiliation

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-55
Author(s):  
Nancy T. Ammerman
Keyword(s):  
Folk Beliefs ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Many ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Being Religious

This chapter shows that non-affiliation means different things in different cultural contexts and among people with different social resources. Some religious traditions, such as Judaism, do not make affiliation central, so non-affiliation matters less. Similarly, many immigrants come from places where belonging and belief are not typical ways of being religious. Not all “nones” are alike. Nor are less well-off nones like the more privileged non-affiliates often imagined. Using the Faith Matters Survey, this chapter shows that less highly educated nones are more likely to hold religious folk beliefs and less likely to be politically liberal, for example. But most important is that the people who are at the bottom of the status hierarchy are—if they are also unaffiliated—more pessimistic, less trusting, less engaged in their communities, and less empowered. They may even be less healthy. The absence of religious ties exacerbates the effects of being on the social and economic margins.

The Future of the Social Sciences: Between Empiricism and Normativity

2016 ◽  
Vol 71 (03) ◽  
pp. 343-360
Author(s):  
Andrew Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Social World ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Many

This article takes a processualist position to identify the current forces conducive to rapid change in the social sciences, of which the most important is the divergence between their empirical and normative dimensions. It argues that this gap between the many and various empirical ontologies we typically use and the much more restricted normative ontology on which we base our moral judgments is problematic. In fact, the majority of social science depends on a “normative contractarianism.” While this ontology is the most widely used basis for normative judgments in the social sciences, it is not really effective when it comes to capturing the normative problems raised by the particularity and historicity of the social process, nor the astonishing diversity of values in the world. The article closes with a call to establish a truly processual foundation for our analysis of the social world, which must move away from contractualism and imagine new ways of founding the human normative project.

scholarly journals Learning about social category-based obligations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Chalik ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Behaviors ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Learning

Two studies tested how children (N = 196) use a framework theory of the social world to (a) shape their expectations of and (b) guide new learning about social behaviors. In Study 1, when introduced to two novel social groups, children predicted that an agent would preferentially harm members of the other group, be friends with members of their own group, and save members of their own group from harm. In Study 2, 4-year-old children who had been shown evidence of prior inter-group and intra-group interactions predicted that future behaviors would match the evidence they were shown only if the interactions they observed were consistent with their expectations of how members of groups should relate to one another. Thus, children use their framework theory to predict social behaviors and guide new learning about the social world.

On Technology, Magic and Changing the World

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Kravets
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many

Robert Lusch (2015) astutely observes that humans are “massive creators of tools and we need to start understanding that.” In my commentary, I seek to complicate and extend this statement on tools or technology by drawing attention to the magic of technology, and how it simultaneously obscures the view of things and invites a fetishistic belief in technological efficacy to change the world. I argue that we must deepen our discussion of technology and start questioning the many ways that today’s technology orders the social world and humans.

Some Reflections on the German System of Sanctions

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 223-233
Author(s):  
Heike Jung
Keyword(s):  
Justice System ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Cultural Orientation ◽  
Social World ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Social ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Cultural Pattern ◽  
German System ◽  
The Many

Comparisons within the field of sanctions have a long established tradition. Yet, at the same time, they are of a particular difficulty. In our search for the standards governing the system of sanctions we are referred to the general standards of civilization and culture. Perhaps, more than anything else in the criminal justice system, sanctions form part of the cultural pattern of society and, in turn, help creating or reinforcing a particular social pattern. As Garland puts it: “Punishment is one of the many institutions which help construct and support the social world by producing the shared categories and authoritative classifications through which individuals understand each other and themselves”. The particular cultural orientation and ambiance of sanctions do not allow for the light-handed transplant of elements of the system of sanctions from one jurisdiction to another. On the other hand, within a field of law which is, to put it mildly, not exactly characterized by an overflow of solutions and categories, an international and cross-cultural exchange of information has always been considered indispensable for the development of one's own system. Moreover, the concept of Human Rights has come to operate as a cross-cultural yardstick of comparison despite continuing discussion about its universalizability. Notwithstanding existing cross-cultural and individual differences, the measure of pain which States may impose on an individual in reaction to an offence is a matter of universal concern.

De onderzoeker in een responsieve complexiteitsbenaderingVoor commentaar op eerdere versies van dit artikel dank ik Erica Baarends, Fijgje de Boer en Adri Smaling.

KWALON ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frits Simon
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social World ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
The Many ◽  
Analytic Stance ◽  
Dualistic Approach

The position of the researcher in a responsive complexity approach Frits Simon Working from a complexity perspective within social sciences demands that the researcher has a different attitude. The complex responsive process approach as developed by Stacey c.s. puts forward ideas for this different attitude. A researcher needs to embody complexity instead of taking a distant, analytic stance. Stacey c.s. departs from a non-dualistic approach in which a researcher unavoidably takes part in a dynamic and unpredictable social world. There is no possibility to step out of this world, because the social world emerges through the many human interactions. Conducting research and taking up the perspective that Stacey c.s. offers means reflecting auto-ethnographically upon one’s experiences because research consists of actions in the social world with others. Therefore, the validation of the research will also have to take place responsively. Embodying complexity in doing research leads to accepting uncertainty, being modest and frank, acting ethically and being aware of the performative consequences of the research.

scholarly journals How do Saudi Children and Their Mothers Evaluate Religion-Based Exclusion?

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1353-1369
Author(s):  
Munirah Alsimah ◽  
Harriet R. Tenenbaum ◽  
Patrice Rusconi
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Social Reasoning ◽  
Development Model ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk

AbstractThis study focuses on Saudi mothers’ and their children’s judgments and reasoning about exclusion based on religion. Sixty Saudi children and their mothers residing in Saudi Arabia and 58 Saudi children and their mothers residing in the United Kingdom were interviewed. They were read vignettes depicting episodes of exclusion based on the targets’ religion ordered by peers or a father. Participants were asked to judge the acceptability of exclusion and justify their judgments. Both groups rated the religious-based exclusion of children from peer interactions as unacceptable. Saudi children and mothers residing in the UK were less accepting of exclusion than were children and mothers residing in Saudi Arabia. In addition, children and mothers residing in the UK were more likely to evaluate exclusion as a moral issue and less likely as a social conventional issue than were children and mothers residing in Saudi Arabia. Mothers in the UK were also less likely to invoke psychological reasons than were mothers in Saudi Arabia. Children’s judgments about exclusion were predicted by mothers’ judgments about exclusion. In addition, the number of times children used moral or social conventional reasons across the vignettes was positively correlated with mothers’ use of these categories. The findings, which support the Social Reasoning Development model, are discussed in relation to how mothers and immersion in socio-cultural contexts are related to children’s judgments and reasoning about social exclusion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document