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Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies
Abstract
Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action.
... Uma terceira escola de pensamento sociológico se diferencia marcadamente das teorias marxistas e weberianas, a escola funcionalista (Davis;Moore, 1945;Howe, 2009 É possível apontar três grandes vertentes que avaliam as classes sociais: a tradição marxista, que avalia as relações de classe como determinadas pelas relações de produção, se constituindo em um sistema social dicotomizado de proprietários e não proprietários; a weberiana, na qual classe é definida segundo recursos diferenciados que no mercado obtêm também recompensas diferenciadas; e a tradição funcionalista ou teoria de status, a qual não reconhece fronteiras de classes e, portanto, as recompensas se dão de acordo com a ideia de realização (achievement) e não de propriedade (Scalon, 1998 (Swidler, 1986). O índice de bem-estar, como todas as outras formas de capital, é um meio de avaliar de maneira empírica o modo a partir do qual a posse de ativos patrimoniais (asset index) atua como uma estrutura associada à esfera econômica, capaz de constranger as oportunidades e os resultados dos indivíduos provenientes das famílias carentes mas, por outro lado, facilitar a vida dos herdeiros das famílias com recursos socioeconômicos. ...
... As estratégias de ação são produtos culturais e estão expressas na experiência simbólica das práticas rituais e cotidianas de um determinado grupo ou sociedade, entretanto, as táticas individuais são influenciadas por fatores estruturais/econômicos (Swidler, 1986). Um grande desafio, neste sentido, é desenvolver um corpo teórico testável a partir do cuidado em perceber àquilo que Anthony Giddens chamou de dualidade estrutural, no sentido da estrutura restringir e, ao mesmo tempo, facilitar a ação individual (Swidler, 1986). ...
... As estratégias de ação são produtos culturais e estão expressas na experiência simbólica das práticas rituais e cotidianas de um determinado grupo ou sociedade, entretanto, as táticas individuais são influenciadas por fatores estruturais/econômicos (Swidler, 1986). Um grande desafio, neste sentido, é desenvolver um corpo teórico testável a partir do cuidado em perceber àquilo que Anthony Giddens chamou de dualidade estrutural, no sentido da estrutura restringir e, ao mesmo tempo, facilitar a ação individual (Swidler, 1986). A novidade deste trabalho é mostrar como a presença/ausência do bem-estar interfere positiva e/ou negativamente na vida dos indivíduos, ao compreender que a estrutura está sobretudo na condição econômica das famílias. ...
Esta tese propõe uma abordagem complementar da estratificação social com foco no bem-estar econômico das famílias. A hipótese central pondera a existência de uma importante reprodução intergeracional das condições sociais; ocorrida, dentre outros motivos, em virtude do investimento em escolarização e da transferência direta de bem-estar econômico entre familiares. Para responder à pergunta sobre a importância complementar e comparativa dos fatores adquiridos (características de mercado) e das características atribuídas (status socioeconômico familiar) são utilizadas diferentes estratégias metodológicas como; análise de componentes principais, útil na construção do índice de bem-estar; análise de trajetórias, competente para mostrar o aspecto multidimensional da desigualdade; regressões lineares; quantílicas; tabelas de contingência e diagramas de dispersão, como estratégias de correlação e visualização. Foi visto que as desigualdades associadas ao mercado de trabalho (desigualdades adquiridas em vida) as “desigualdades de fluxo” são significativas, embora as diferenças históricas entre as famílias (desigualdades atribuídas ou anteriores à vida) as “desigualdades de estoque” sejam mais importantes para a compreensão das desigualdades sociais contemporâneas. O indicador de bem-estar é uma via plausível de análise socioeconômica.
... Uma terceira escola de pensamento sociológico se diferencia marcadamente das teorias marxistas e weberianas, a escola funcionalista (Davis;Moore, 1945;Howe, 2009 É possível apontar três grandes vertentes que avaliam as classes sociais: a tradição marxista, que avalia as relações de classe como determinadas pelas relações de produção, se constituindo em um sistema social dicotomizado de proprietários e não proprietários; a weberiana, na qual classe é definida segundo recursos diferenciados que no mercado obtêm também recompensas diferenciadas; e a tradição funcionalista ou teoria de status, a qual não reconhece fronteiras de classes e, portanto, as recompensas se dão de acordo com a ideia de realização (achievement) e não de propriedade (Scalon, 1998 (Swidler, 1986). O índice de bem-estar, como todas as outras formas de capital, é um meio de avaliar de maneira empírica o modo a partir do qual a posse de ativos patrimoniais (asset index) atua como uma estrutura associada à esfera econômica, capaz de constranger as oportunidades e os resultados dos indivíduos provenientes das famílias carentes mas, por outro lado, facilitar a vida dos herdeiros das famílias com recursos socioeconômicos. ...
... As estratégias de ação são produtos culturais e estão expressas na experiência simbólica das práticas rituais e cotidianas de um determinado grupo ou sociedade, entretanto, as táticas individuais são influenciadas por fatores estruturais/econômicos (Swidler, 1986). Um grande desafio, neste sentido, é desenvolver um corpo teórico testável a partir do cuidado em perceber àquilo que Anthony Giddens chamou de dualidade estrutural, no sentido da estrutura restringir e, ao mesmo tempo, facilitar a ação individual (Swidler, 1986). ...
... As estratégias de ação são produtos culturais e estão expressas na experiência simbólica das práticas rituais e cotidianas de um determinado grupo ou sociedade, entretanto, as táticas individuais são influenciadas por fatores estruturais/econômicos (Swidler, 1986). Um grande desafio, neste sentido, é desenvolver um corpo teórico testável a partir do cuidado em perceber àquilo que Anthony Giddens chamou de dualidade estrutural, no sentido da estrutura restringir e, ao mesmo tempo, facilitar a ação individual (Swidler, 1986). A novidade deste trabalho é mostrar como a presença/ausência do bem-estar interfere positiva e/ou negativamente na vida dos indivíduos, ao compreender que a estrutura está sobretudo na condição econômica das famílias. ...
... So far, we have considered two sources of imprinting with non-complementary effects: graduate business education and banking crisis experience. Cultural sociologists have long held that individuals can internalize multiple cognitive frames and selectively deploy them (Swidler 1986;Corritore, et al., 2020). Similarly, individual attitudes and orientations-including those towards risk-taking-could ref lect multiple environmental imprints, which accumulate under different circumstances and throughout a career (Marquis and Tilcsik 2013). ...
... Similarities between past and present conditions may enable individuals to redeploy skills and routines developed at a formative time, offering these individuals a clear blueprint for a rapid response (Beyer and Hannah 2002). Scholarship on culture and institutional plurality also implies that individuals can internalize multiple, even conf licting, cognitive frames and selectively deploy them in response to significant environmental cues (Swidler 1986;Hallett and Ventresca 2006;Besharov and Smith 2014). When financial turmoil and market uncertainty in the 2008 crisis hit a nerve for veteran bankers who experienced similar past crisis events, these bankers were more likely to draw from lessons learned under these conditions, including those related to brokered deposits. ...
Understanding the causes and consequences of corporate risk-taking has remained a crucial topic for organizational scholars. Using the case of U.S. banks and one dimension of their risk-taking behavior around the 2008 financial crisis, we offer a theory of how the diverse experiences of corporate leaders can shape their risk-taking behavior. Building on the imprinting literature, we theorize how different types of experiences that bank CEOs had in the past interact to shape current risk-taking behavior, resulting in risk moderation under crisis conditions. We focus on two imprinting experiences with particular relevance for bank CEOs’ risk-taking behavior—MBA education and past crisis experience. We argue that the latter played a pronounced role during the crisis because of greater imprint-environment fit. Our analysis using data from 170 large banks between 2001 and 2019 shows that bank CEOs’ firsthand experience of a prior banking crisis not only directly tempered bank risk-taking but also did so indirectly by limiting the risk-taking tendencies of CEOs with an MBA, particularly during the crisis period. Our study contributes to the sociological literature about organizational risk-taking by emphasizing the crucial role of organizational leaders’ biographies and exploring how earlier institutional conditions shape their risk-taking behavior later.
... Once they become an effective way of dealing with the problems that the postdocs are confronted with, they stabilize as cultural repertoires. Despite framing the sense of agency as being a solution to a problem (Swidler 1986) because it provides the postdocs with a sense of self in the face of uncertainty, it should not be confused with a normatively positive evaluation of this coping strategy. We know from the scarce literature on the mental health of postdocs that dissatisfaction with their academic future are among the primary factors detrimental to their psychological wellbeing (Van der Weijdn 2023), which in turn causes many to consider leaving academia (Woolston 2020). ...
... While some interviewees considered other national labor markets and rarely perceived them as more viable, our insights into this comparison lack sufficient data to make any claims beyond the case of Germany. Finally, it must be emphasized that our contribution is to identify and specify different toolkits available to the inhabitants of different disciplinary environments (Swidler 1986: 277) but our approach is unfit to predict when individual postdocs ultimately decide to exit academia. ...
Academic careers between the completion of a PhD and the acquisition of tenure are characterized by short term contracts, high levels of competition, and future uncertainty. Existing research indicates that uncertainty is a primary cause for postdocs in all disciplines to constantly question the continuation of their career. Despite this commonality between disciplines, we argue that future imaginations, coping strategies and ultimately the decision-making practices to exit or remain in academia differ in each discipline. Drawing from 60 qualitative interviews with physicists and historians, we compared imaginations of the labor market inside and outside of academia, as well as narratives on how they perceive their agency to exit or remain. Our data shows that imaginations of the labor market outside of academia, have considerable consequences for their sense of precarity and planning of career paths. We propose that the uniform concept of future uncertainty must be separated into ‘existential uncertainty’ and ‘secured uncertainty’, which more accurately reflect the problems postdocs are confronted with and the resulting coping strategies. While those who consider their uncertainty as existential either evoke narratives of survival to continue in adverse conditions or begin parallel careers as added security. Those who perceive their future as uncertain but generally secured rely either on their ability to decide when necessary or postpone the question indefinitely. These differences that correlate with our chosen disciplines have important implications for research quality as well as mental-health hazards and further our understanding of self-exploitation and precarity in academia.
... This phase is also characterized by sexual exploration and experimentation (Hawkins et al. 2011;Olmstead 2020), which may occur in the context of a romantic relationship or in a hookup (Mollborn 2017; Wade 2017). As a result, young people rely on a combination of discursive norms to which they are exposed and their own personal experiences when developing their attitudes-a cultural toolkit that may directly shape their behavioral decisions or may be responsive to those decisions (Swidler 1986(Swidler , 2001. Unlike earlier stages, young adulthood often unfolds without the oversight of parental or adult figures who may enforce rules and norms about a young person's behavior or the company they keep (Allison 2016;Arnett 2016;van de Bongardt et al. 2017). ...
... Together, these findings indicate that attitudes about premarital sex do not follow a consistent trajectory that corresponds to cultural stability or change for all women (Kiley and Vaisey 2020; Vaisey 2009). Instead, women likely draw on distinct cultural repertoires in response to their behavior, which could have consequential effects on their future behavior, identity, and overall well-being (Swidler 1986(Swidler , 2001). ...
Sociologists have long been puzzled by whether attitudes inform behaviors or vice versa. Accurately assessing both possibilities requires panel data collected at relatively short intervals. In this study, I leverage intensive panel data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life Study to assess the case of young women’s premarital sexual attitudes and behavior. Through a series of descriptive analyses and cross-lagged panel models, I show that opposition to premarital sex in young adulthood is only sometimes associated with subsequent sexual behavior and that premarital sex is negatively associated with later opposition to premarital sex. Young women are especially likely to reduce their opposition following first sex relative to sex reported at any time. Thus, initial behavioral experiences may result in outsized shocks to attitudes, following an active updating model. That subsequent sex is associated with less attitudinal change suggests that young women initially update their attitudes before settling into them. This study nuances long-standing debates on the malleability of attitudes within a person over time and with respect to behavior and has implications for how people approach behavior according to their attitudes across a wide spectrum of social phenomena.
... Subsequently, higher SES parents are more likely to support progressive gender attitudes (Davis & Greenstein, 2009), and research indicates that parents' gender schemas have a moderate impact on youth's attitudes and behaviors, including their own gender self-concept and gender attitudes toward others (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002). Higher SES parents are also more open to seeking out new understandings of gender (Rahilly, 2018), which likely increases the ability for adolescents within higher SES families to experience verification and validation of diverse gender identities: middle-and upper-class parents, due to greater financial resources and to higher levels of dominant cultural capital-or middle-class skills, habits, and ways of viewing the world (Sewell, 1992;Swidler, 1986)-are more likely to seek professional advice on parenting and to modify their parenting on the basis of that advice. This advice is typically grounded in more progressive narratives of gender and parenting, including an understanding and acceptance of the diversity of gender that goes beyond the gender binary (Ehrensaft, 2016;Rahilly, 2018). ...
... Importantly, these findings help us broaden our understanding of how socioeconomic status-a key aspect of external social structure-is associated with gender identification, especially nonbinary gender identification, and the ways in which socioeconomic status potentially stratifies gender identification in the U.S. through access to class-based cultural schemas and resources in local contexts. While we cautiously interpret the association between 9 th grade math test score and a nonbinary gender identification and suggest this association needs further study, one possibility is that 9th grade math test score (and other achievement measures) represent the ability to internalize middle-and upper-class cultural schemas and resources, which might be associated with greater opportunity to validate and verify a nonbinary gender identity, including through greater capacity to navigate middle-class institutions and to advocate for one's needs (Lareau, 2003;Swidler, 1986). We suggest that test scores, as distinct from grades, are more deeply impacted by family SES, and are better at capturing financial and cultural resources within one's home and school than grades are. ...
This study contributes to research exploring social factors shaping gender identification. Informed by structural symbolic interactionism, social identity theory, and Levitt’s psychosocial theory of gender, we explore how a key aspect of external social structure—adolescent family socioeconomic status—is associated with gender identification in emerging adulthood. We examine whether correlates of family socioeconomic status, including adolescent family and educational experiences and friend and high school characteristics, are associated with a cisgender, binary transgender, nonbinary, or gender unsure identification. Using data from High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), we find a positive association between adolescent family socioeconomic status and a nonbinary gender identification. Analyses indicate that educational and family experiences account for the largest percentage of the association between adolescent family socioeconomic status and nonbinary gender identification, potentially representing higher SES youths’ heightened access to middle- and upper-class cultural schemas and resources.
... Currently, various academic perspectives explain the formation of humanistic spatial patterns, including social ontology [36], geographical determinism [37] etc.. Examining the development and transformation process of CNIAHS, its spatial hotspots show a trend from dispersed to concentrated, shifting from northwest to southeast, with distinct regional typological characteristics. From the dispersed pattern of primitive agriculture in the Stone Age to the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, the development of slave society advanced agricultural progress. ...
As one of the pioneering nations to heed the Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) initiative, China has implemented a comprehensive evaluation and protection framework for China’s Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (CNIAHS). This research concentrated on 188 CNIAHS sites, utilizing methodologies including spatial information entropy, kernel density estimation and hotspot analysis to scrutinize the spatial configurations and evolutionary trajectories of CNIAHS throughout six historical epochs; combined with the history of agriculture in different periods, the laws of the formation of CNIAHS spatial distribution are discovered, and a foundation for the construction of CNIAHS protection system under the background of national spatial planning are provided. The results disclose: (1) CNIAHS manifests a clustered spatial distribution, predominantly situated in the southeastern sector of China’s Yangtze River Basin, with Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi provinces emerging as significant hotspot areas; (2) concerning spatial pattern evolution, heritage sites experienced a phased transitional process, migrating from western frontier areas to the central Yellow River Basin, subsequently concentrating in the southeastern Yangtze River Basin, and then redistributing back to frontier regions. This progression has cumulatively formed a spatial pattern mainly concentrated in southeastern China; (3) pertaining to typological patterns, high-value crop and spice systems exhibit a clustered spatial distribution, whereas other types display uniform or dispersed configurations; and (4) the complexity of spatial patterns in various regions increased over different periods, with the number of heritage sites demonstrating cumulative characteristics. The spatial patterns indicated weakly correlated transitional shifts, signifying a non-linear progression in the spatial patterns of CNIAHS. (5) The subsequent excavation of CNIAHS should fan out from point to area to promote the exploration of various types of CNIAHS in northeast and southwest China; and the excavation of marine heritage in the southeast China. These insights provide substantial references for the future exploration and preservation of CNIAHS.
... To sum up, Adam mobilizes different parts of his cultural toolkit (Swidler 1986) in this interaction. Initially, he offers the Polish nationalist narrative appropriate to an in-group member but then switches to the more liberal and international narrative required for a critical interviewer. ...
This article uses a dialogue between memory studies (MS) and ethnographic and interactional sociolinguistics (EIS) to explore the dynamics of interdisciplinarity. MS focuses on the social remembering of high-profile and often traumatic events, and this is relevant to EIS's growing interest in (in)securitization. MS is increasingly keen to explore everyday practices of remembering in interscalar analyses, and EIS’ expertise in the study of mundane communication can provide essential support. But there are major differences in their focal concerns and analytical cultures, as well as in their approaches to interdisciplinarity. This generates asymmetries in their exchange, which we illustrate with studies from Oświęcim/Auschwitz (MS) and Cyprus (EIS). By mapping these differences and highlighting collaborative data sessions as a practical arena for building relationships, the article seeks to deepen our understanding of interdisciplinarity and facilitate its practice. (Everyday practice, cultural memory, (in)securitisation, Mode 1 and Mode 2 interdisciplinarity)
... Masculine disinvestment has been documented primarily among groups of men who occupy other positions of privilege. Bridges and Pascoe (2014) explain that privileged men are often afforded more "flexibility of identity" through being equipped with cultural advantages or "tools" (Swidler, 1986) that allow them to assimilate subordinated identity elements without meaningfully disrupting intersecting systems of power and inequality that continue to benefit them. In addition, privileged men might also be more likely to occupy social relational contexts that allow for or even demand distance from traditional hegemonic masculinity (e.g., in educational or occupational contexts that incorporate gender egalitarian ideologies and highlight issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion). ...
Research on men and masculinities is increasingly concerned with contemporary transformations in the way men understand and “do” gender. In particular, burgeoning paradigms like the hybrid masculinities framework have called attention to diverse patterns of practice among men that are seemingly at odds with traditional iterations of hegemonic masculinity. We conceptualize one
component of this practice as a concerted process of “strategic masculine disinvestment.” Using new, nationally representative survey data pertaining to men living in the United States, we ask two novel questions about this phenomenon that have not been addressed at the population level. First, who disinvests from traditional masculinity? While masculine distancing tends to be observed among privileged men in qualitative studies, a comprehensive view of which men engage in this practice within the general population is absent from the literature. Secondly, how are contemporary transformations of gender like strategic masculine disinvestment associated with psychosocial functioning? Findings suggest that strategic masculine disinvestment is more common among young and college educated men, but is not necessarily unique to unilaterally privileged men. In fact, men experiencing financial strain are especially likely to disinvest from masculinity. We also observe that strategic masculine disinvestment is consistently associated
with poorer psychosocial functioning, including lower levels of mastery and higher levels of anger, anxiety, depression, and non-specific psychological distress. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for studies of men and masculinities and of contemporary transformations of gender more generally.
... People in a society share the same beliefs, values, habits, and ways of doing things, which are collectively known as culture. 28 These cultural factors have a big impact on how people act as consumers because they set rules and expectations about what people should buy. 29 In collectivist cultures, like those in East Asia, the health of the community, the needs of the family, and the peace of the community are often given the most attention. ...
According to this narrative review, cultural values, social influences, and cognitive biases play a big role in decisions made by people. Behavioral economics research from the past few years shows that consumers, especially those making decisions about their health, can be affected by biases such as loss aversion, anchoring, and present bias. Furthermore, it explores how religious and cultural factors significantly affect how people in various societies behave as consumers. Furthermore, the review emphasizes the importance of nudging and other culturally sensitive interventions for helping people make better decisions about their health and finances. It says that clear knowledge of these factors is necessary for making smart choices about marketing, public policy, and health promotion. Beyond proving that these interventions work in different cultural settings, the ultimate goal of future research into them should be to improve consumer welfare and public health outcomes.
... Rather, culture enables us to justify and make sense of actions and constraints. This understanding of the role of culture is what characterized the cultural turn in sociology three decades ago (DiMaggio 1997;Swidler 1986). ...
The use that agents do of cultural knowledge to navigate institutions is a major explanation of inequalities. Nevertheless, the difficulties accessing culture knowledge have led sociologists of education to often rely on declarative forms of culture to gauge explanations on inequalities. Based on the case of Chile, this study contributes to educational inequality research by using factorial survey experiments to assess the stratification of evaluative principles of educational quality or what is termed "judgments of the game." Different teaching and school resources features were experimentally manipulated and presented to representative and probabilistic samples of parents and primary school students to measure their evaluative principles of educational quality. Findings show that socially advantaged parents and students, and from private schools, tend to evaluate educational quality more critically and attribute stronger effects to vignette features, suggesting cultural knowledge stratification. Thus, this study contributes to cultural sociology, sociology of education, and stratification research by testing one of the central theoretical propositions on the explanations of educational inequalities.
... Znaniecki believed that only modernity fully reveals the natural variability of values and patterns (Znaniecki 2018, 37-38). Swidler (1986) made a significant step toward an instrumentalist understanding of culture by defining it as a 'toolbox' whose resources can be used differently depending on the 'strategy of action'. According to Swidler, this flexibility is prominent during 'periods of instability', when political ideologists use cultural resources to create new strategies, unlike 'stable periods' when such events do not occur (Swidler 1986, 280-282). ...
Contemporary ontological constructivism often rests on the belief that social reality emerges from tacit agreements, underpinning mutual expectations and trust. In social theory, the concept of agreement has evolved from explicit social contracts to normative consensus and the idea of tacit knowledge that subtly binds social actors. This article challenges this prevailing approach by dissecting various constructivist positions and exposing the implications of agreement‐based ontological constructivism on our understanding of culture, norms, and society. The author revisits an alternative perspective, claiming that human society is equally a structure of disagreement. Emphasizing disagreement advocates for a realistic social theory and highlights the vital role of fiction in shaping social life.
... Some admitted that in times of need they turned to the Jewish ritual toolbox and to popular practices of lived Judaism, such as reading tehilim (psalms) and hanging a mezuzah (Ochs 2007). The Jewish tradition provides them with cultural tools that help them to construct strategies of action and coping (Swidler 1986). ...
This article examines narratives of coping strategies and worldviews adopted by Jewish Israeli atheists (JIA) during times of emotional turmoil. Through qualitative interviews with 30 participants, we demonstrate how they navigate between rational disbelief in God, Jewish identity, and their need for comfort. While valuing rational thinking, they find it insufficient for emotional solace. To cope, they create alternative ‘just-world’ cosmologies, use coded prayers, and draw on Jewish rituals, both revisiting and personalizing them. While the study of atheism often poses a binary logic that pits religious believers against atheists, religion against science and belief against doubt, our study reveals that for JIA these boundaries are far blurrier. Thus, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on lived atheism, highlighting the nuanced and often contradictory ways in which atheists engage with religious and spiritual concepts.
... Cultural capital is defined as nonfinancial assets that promote a person's social mobility beyond economic means. Cultural capital can be thought of as using one's symbolic toolboxand knowing how to (consciously and subconsciously) use language and behavior in different, complex social settings (Swidler, 1986). These are the main definitions of economic, social, and cultural capital that I used in my 2018 research. ...
How can we promote the learning and well-being of all students, especially those who come from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds? Anindya Kundu argues that we can fight against deeply rooted inequalities in the American educational system by harnessing student agency―each person’s unique capacity for positive change. To make his case, Kundu draws powerful narratives from a population of individuals who beat the odds to become academically and professionally successful. These strivers have overcome challenges such as broken families, homelessness, unexpected pregnancies, forms of abuse, incarceration, and more, to make it in the world. But it wasn’t simply individualism, tenacity, resilience, or grit that helped them. Rather, as Kundu illustrates, it was a combination of social and cultural supports that paved the path towards their dreams, harnessing the inherent power of their agency.
... The traditional perspective, exemplified by DiMaggio (1982) and Dumais (2002), focuses on high-culture activities, such as attending the opera or reading classical literature, and their impact on academic success, often linking cultural capital to the dominant social group. In contrast, Swidler (1986) introduced a broader view, treating culture as a toolkit of skills and behaviors used to navigate various environments, which she termed "strategies of action." Proponents of this inclusive stance argue that cultural capital remains relevant even in settings where the influence of elitism on education is less pronounced (Bodovski et al., 2017). ...
This study examines the relative impact of conscientiousness and cultural capital on academic achievement among university students in Hong Kong, within the broader East Asian educational landscape. Focusing on objectified, embodied, and institutionalized forms of cultural capital, we use fixed-effect hierarchical regression analysis to assess their influence on students' GPA, while controlling for academic effort, attitude, and socioeconomic background. The findings reveal that objectified and embodied cultural capital have limited effects on academic success, indicating that traditional cultural assets such as classical literature or highbrow cultural practices play a minor role in this context. Conversely, institutionalized cultural capital, including recognized qualifications, shows a modest positive association with GPA, though its significance diminishes when other factors are considered. Most notably, the study underscores the dominant role of conscientiousness-reflected in students' academic effort and attitude-as a stronger predictor of academic achievement. These results challenge conventional views on the primacy of cultural capital in education and advocate for policies that prioritize the cultivation of personal attributes like conscientiousness alongside cultural knowledge to enhance academic outcomes in East Asia.
... This regards collective movements as cognitive praxis and underlines the importance of culture as a 'tool kit', a set of instruments through which people shape both reality and their own experience. Culture is seen as a set of rituals, symbols, stories, and world views (Swidler 1986). It performs reality and guides individuals in collective action. ...
This thesis examines the organisational principles, repertoires of contention, practices, and the political culture of the Centro Sociale Occupato Rivolta as an expression of the Disobedient movement. The study, which is based on 42 interviews, participant observation and original documents, discusses the main theories on social movements which combine different theoretical perspectives, namely resource mobilisation, new social movements and the theory of political opportunity structure. Providing a definition of CSO as a convenient name to indicate a number of profoundly heterogeneous experiences that rely on illegal occupations of empty buildings and the principle of self-management, the study interprets the Rivolta as a proactive subject and political entrepreneur. These two concepts refer to the attempt of the Rivolta to overcome their identity as a new-left organisation, its ability of mobilising symbolic and material resources and to its continuous change and development. The case of the Rivolta shows that a movement actor has to continually 'destroy' old conditions and create new ones in order to survive and expand. The combination of different theoretical approaches and the analysis of the Rivolta has allowed the research to highlight some specific issues. Firstly, this movement area has overcome the dichotomy between conflict for recognition and for socio-economic resource distribution. While the Rivolta is an actor that mobilises resources, it also aims to promote its autonomous cultural identity and to extend social and political rights in society. Secondly, the relations between local and national institutions and the Disobedient movement area, far from being linear, either in terms of conflict or dialogue, are changeable and discontinuous. The study shows that the extra-institutional advocacy of this movement network still persists and has been combined with institutional participation. Finally, the thesis shows that the movement area to which the Rivolta belongs, in exploiting the opportunities offered by the general context, has set its struggles, claims and protests both at the local and the global dimension, marginalising national issues and targets.
... Culture can be defined as the symbols expressing meaning, including beliefs, values, lived experiences that can create joint outlooks and behaviours to strategize and respond to problems (Swidler, 1986;Hays, 1994). Jacob Bronowski a Polish-British mathematician and historian observed that humans are the only species who aren't locked in the environment and can accept or change it through their imagination, reason, emotions, etc. (Bronowski, 1973). ...
... The environment pressures professionals, compelling them to imprint institutional logics-the socially constructed practices, values, cultural perspectives, beliefs, and rules (Friedland & Alford, 1991;Thornton, Ocasio & Lounsbury, 2012)-that characterize it. Through practice, professionals learn from these "cultural toolkits" (Swidler, 1986) how to reproduce and reinforce the preexisting social structures, appropriate mannerisms, and social rituals (Bourdieu, 1977;Van Maanen & Schein, 1977). This socialization into specific professional logics provides a sense of stability and perception of legitimacy to organizational members, as strongly institutionalized beliefs and values define professionalism and provide the normative expectations for how professionals are supposed to behave (Chreim et al., 2007). ...
As social organizations hybridize by adopting business strategies, their professional staff face the challenge of forging a new professional role identity. Hampered by a lack of preparation, knowledge, and guidance, professionals in these hybrid organizations often struggle to establish a coherent professional identity while attending to market and social-welfare logics. Over 47 months, we conducted ethnographic research, following social sector professionals from 20 organizations participating in a business school program aimed at facilitating reflection and capacity-building to support hybridization. We reveal the program’s transformative impact on participants’ collective professional role identity, through a deliberate process of (un)learning as participants systematically loosen entrenched cognitive schemas, dismantle ideological biases, and discard ineffective or outdated practices. Participants acquire a new professional language and a range of management capabilities while developing and launching social businesses. The program exposes them to disruptive ideas, fostering an entrepreneurial mindset and a renewed sense of self-assurance in their work. Interactions with peers break down social sector silos and foster the development of a sentient community. Our work contributes to ongoing discussions of business schools as spaces for identity work and play, and the constructivist aspects of learning a new professional role identity during a process of hybridization.
... This growing body of research demonstrates the valuable insights scholars can gain by studying this "unsettled time" in U.S. higher education (Swidler 1986). Although such studies ostensibly focus on pandemic-related disruptions, they illuminate enduring social processes. ...
How do seemingly nonracial organizational processes reproduce racial inequality? This study examines how “the
Pact,” an ostensibly race-neutral COVID-19 behavioral policy implemented at a predominantly White U.S. liberal arts
college, undermined social connection and belonging among students of color. Analyzing three waves of interviews
with 30 undergraduates (N = 75 interviews), we document disparities in four domains of campus life: (1) social
isolation in residence halls, (2) access to “safe” forms of rule breaking, (3) visibility and surveillance, and (4) stakes
of violation. We identify three underlying mechanisms—unequal resource allocation, uneven rule enforcement, and
color-blind decision-making—and demonstrate how distinct institutional conditions facilitated these processes. This
analysis advances theoretical understandings of racialized organizational processes in higher education by connecting
previously theorized mechanisms to specific university characteristics and practices
... Ennek ellentéte jellemző a nem megállapodott társadalmakra, amelyeknél változások következtében ezek a rendszerek és struktúrák vagy nincsenek jelen, vagy nem állnak biztos lábakon. Az egyén így nem tudja ehhez illeszteni a viselkedését és biztos stratégiát sem képes kialakítani (Swidler, 1986). A magyar társadalomtörténetben a különböző rendszerek folyamatosan váltották egymást, ha csak az elmúlt száz év eseményeit nézzük. ...
Tanulmányunkban új megközelítésben vizsgáljuk a magyar társadalom közügyekhez való viszonyát, civil-politikai cselekvését. Ennek a megközelítésnek két eleme van. Elméleti szempontból amellett érvelünk, hogy az alapvetően nyugati társadalmakban megfogalmazott elméleti keretekben a politikai cselekvés értelmezése az adott társadalmak mintázatain alapul. Álláspontunk szerint ez az elméleti keret nem vesz figyelembe a politikai cselekvésre jelentőst hatást gyakorló, sajátos kelet-közép-európai tényezőket, így a magyar történelmi múlt és a jelen politikai rendszer hatásait. Ezért korlátozottan alkalmas arra, hogy az egyén politikai-civil viselkedésének, közügyek gyakorlásában való részvételének minden olyan dimenzióját magába foglalja, amelyek kifejezetten Magyarországon relevánsak lennének. Módszertani szempontból pedig kvalitatív módon – narratív interjús technikával – vizsgáljuk a kérdést. Ez a kettős szempontváltás közelebb vihet minket annak megértéséhez, hogy a magyarok hogyan viszonyulnak a közügyeikhez. A tanulmányban bemutatott empirikus elemzés legfontosabb következtetése, hogy a látszólag, hagyományos elméleti értelmezési keretben politikailag passzív interjúalanyok többségénél is megjelennek a közéleti kérdésekre vonatkozó reflexiók, nem tekinthetőek apolitikusnak.
Symbols are everywhere in politics. Yet, they tended to be overlooked in the study of public policy. This book shows how they play an important role in the policy process, in shaping citizens' representations thanks to their ability to combine meanings and to stimulate emotional reactions. We use crisis management as a lens through which we analyse this symbolic dimension, and we focus on two case studies (governmental responses to the Covid-19 crisis in Europe in 2020 and to terrorist attacks in France in 2015). We show how the symbolic enables leaders to claim legitimacy for themselves and their decisions, and foster feelings of reassurance, solidarity and belonging. All politicians use the symbolic, whether consciously or otherwise, but what they choose to do varies and is affected by timing, the existence of national repertoires of symbolic actions and the personas of leaders.
Como a memória coletiva em torno da Vala de Perus é apropriada pelos movimentos sociais, como a militância petista paulistana e os familiares de desaparecidos? Com base na lente teórica da sociologia cultural e da memória, e por meio de incursões etnográficas no Cemitério Dom Bosco e na Câmara Municipal de São Paulo em 2023, verificamos que a Vala de Perus figura um trauma cultural, construindo uma ponte transgeracional pela luta por memória, verdade e justiça entre militantes mais idosos e mais jovens. Valendo-se das performances culturais como operador analítico, o evento adquire propriedades de ritual, produzindo uma experiência comum entre os participantes para se entenderem e se reconfigurarem como grupo. A eficácia do ritual é posta à prova pelas falas dissonantes de pessoas presentes no evento, associadas às suas origens sociais, demonstrando um perfil específico das mortes rememoradas. Tal fato se torna um indicador relevante das disputas constantes pela identidade do Partido e dos familiares.
In November 2020, category 4 Hurricane Iota devastated Old Providence and Santa Catalina (OPSC), small islands located in the Colombian Western Caribbean and home of the Raizal people, an African-descendent ethnic group bearing their own culture and language. Despite the chaotic governmental response, the local community has responded to the situation by adapting and reorganizing their ways of life. In this chapter, I present a reflection on how OPSC people have used culture in different ways to prepare, adapt, and resist during the disaster and post-disaster periods, in the context of increasing climate change, creating new ways to relate to their islands and community that play an important role in their future. To do this, I use some concepts drawn from cultural perspectives on disasters, climate change, and resilience. As I will try to show, the OPSC community has demonstrated a strong cultural resilience through its capacity to recover and its ability to learn from experience and adapt to new situations. This is not an easy process, as the current context exacerbates vulnerabilities. However, cultural resilience and community processes are a source of hope for islanders to continue to inhabit their land and seascapes with well-being and autonomy.
Speaking from the intersections of curriculum theory and sound studies, the purpose of this paper is to think critically about the sociohistorical, political, and cultural assemblages that form and inform what I am calling a “critical consent curriculum.” This is at once a call for curriculum theorizing to become central to all teacher education programs in terms of how consent is discussed in schools and across systems of schooling, while thinking about the many ways that consent (and,
relatedly, refusal) are enmeshed with one’s relations and relationships (Gilbert, 2018; Gilbert et al., 2011; Glissant, 1990; Hunter & Cowan, 2007).
This book offers a comprehensive examination of trust and its relationship with mental illness and wellbeing. Engaging with a broad range of mental health research, theory, and practice through various transdisciplinary theoretical models of trust, this book highlights the social and family contexts surrounding the making and breaking of trust and mental health. It examines various sociological conceptual and theoretical frameworks of risk and trust while also engaging with evolutionary perspectives on the human need for cooperation and trust. The author describes how, in a world of
constant connectivity, the drawing of boundaries assigns some people as strangers, using stigma as a form of power. The book concludes by considering the future of mental health and where trust-building may be possible. Each chapter is interspersed
with observations and insights from the author’s personal research covering many populations, communities, and issues over several decades. Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary literature, the book will be of interest to mental health practitioners, researchers, and scholars interested in the psychosocial aspects of mental illness and stigma.
‘Professor Leavey’s book throws light on a far too long neglected factor with a powerful impact on structures of society and the management of problems ranging from care for people with diseases to the continuation of war or the maintenance of peace’.
– Professor Norman Sartorius (MD, PhD, FRCPsych) is a leading
international expert in psychiatry. He has been the President of the World Psychiatric Association and of the European Psychiatric Association, and Director of the Mental health Division of the World Health Organization
‘This remarkable book takes the concepts of trust and mental health and moves them around each other as if they were reciprocal moons of our planetary existence. Trust is a concept perfectly central to individuals, families, communities and society. For almost a thousand years the idea of ‘trust’ has grown from the ancient roots of meaning that include: integrity, alliance, faithful, steadfast, shelter, safety,
hope, and consolation. This book is a fascinating tour-de-force which gazes at trust and hope, and their inversions, from multiple perspectives, and asks how we can strengthen trust and hope and mental health in the future’.
– Sir Graham Thornicroft is Emeritus Professor of Community Psychiatry at King’s College London. He was Knighted in 2017 for services to mental health; Graham has authored over 30 books and written over 670 peer-reviewed scientific papers, shaping global mental health policies.
In today’s “knowledge society,” education is understood as highly instrumentally valuable, and institutional theorists have highlighted its immense cultural importance. What escapes commentary is the nearly universal moral reverence with which education is held. Since families are increasingly expected to participate in children’s schooling, a family’s moral virtue is partially established through offspring’s school success. I explore this using in-depth interviews with two American populations on the margin of college-going: beginning community college students and adult undergraduates. I discuss how respondents present support for education as evidence of caretakers’ status as loving and responsible parents. I then elaborate on how families create moral worthiness in relation to familial educational trajectories. I locate three narratives—maintaining the tradition, the rising family, and educational redemption. What narrative families deploy seems related to their location in social space, and each tacitly reflects the deep moral valuation of education that pervades modern culture.
This article examines the repeal of prison pay-to-stay policies in the United States. We process-trace reform efforts in Illinois drawing from novel data retrieved through multiple FOIA requests to state agencies and public records searches. Our analysis reveals how lawmakers who advocated for reforming the shadow carceral state in 2016 and 2019 through repealing prison pay-to-stay repurposed penal logics they had once used punitively in the 1980s and 1990s to enact the same policy—such as protecting taxpayers, fiscal efficiency, and rehabilitation. Our findings advance existing research by suggesting that penal logics are open to interpretation depending on the socioeconomic and historical moment. These contextual factors are also crucial to determining how lawmakers and institutions re-interpret long held penal logics when reforming the shadow carceral state. We argue the ways in which lawmakers strategically operationalize penal logics exemplifies their cultural durability as a resonant means to a political end.
This Element discusses how pervasive cronyism and restricted suffrage are destroying democratic capitalism as a national ideal and offers suggestions on how the promise of US-style democratic capitalism can be restored. To this end, the author draws on the work of political philosopher and democracy advocate Danielle Allen in calling attention to the principle of political equality, as well as the two related sub-principles of reciprocity and power sharing, as essential guides. Based on these ideas, a series of practical steps is suggested to make economic and political markets more democratic by curbing cronyism and expanding citizens' access to the political processes governing the nation. The author also discusses how private corporations can become more 'democracy supporting.' The Element ends with some reflections on the moral culture required to restore and sustain public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism as a system of economic and political governance.
Introduction
Investigations of drinking practices often rely on cross‐country comparisons of population averages in beverage preferences, drinking volumes and frequencies. Here, we investigate within‐culture patterns and variations in where, why and how people drink, answering the research question: how does engagement in drinking practices vary by sex, age and household income?
Methods
We conducted a cross‐sectional analysis examining the societal distribution (by age, sex, household income) of 12 drinking practices: four off‐trade practices (in‐home consumption; e.g., evening at home with partner) and eight on‐trade practices (licensed‐venue consumption, e.g., family meal, big night out). Practices were identified in previous analyses of 2019 British event‐level diary data (14,742 drinkers aged 18+ reporting 26,220 off‐trade and 8768 on‐trade occasions).
Results
The level of engagement in practices varied by sex, age and income. In the on‐trade sector, men, particularly those in low‐income groups, engaged in traditional pub‐drinking, while women, especially older women, engaged in sociable drinking occasions with family and friends which commonly involved food. Young men and women were similarly likely to engage in heavier on‐trade practices, which remained commonplace into midlife. Drinking while socialising with friends, both inside and outside the home, was common among younger age groups across all income bands. From midlife, home drinking often involved a partner, especially for higher income groups.
Discussion and Conclusions
Most drinking practices were shared across the whole population, but level of engagement in them is strongly patterned by age, household income and, particularly in the on‐trade sector, sex.
This paper addresses the challenge of navigating irreducible outcomes, where predicting future patterns proves futile despite understanding the underlying rules. It advocates for G.L.S. Shackle's imagination‐focused decision approach as a partial solution. Integrating the concept of the extended mind, I argue that modern technological advances such as Virtual Reality (VR) further enhance Shackle's approach, rather than compromising its subjective nature. In light of the challenges in applying reductivist tools to the outcomes of VR, I propose Shackle's framework as a promising framework for integrating such outcomes into decision‐making processes. Via this framework, decision‐makers capitalize on large` gains and hedge against large losses, despite not fully overcoming irreducibility.
This article introduces and applies a situational, interactional, and processual theoretical framework to explore how folk theories of journalism shape people’s news use and trust decisions in specific, real-life circumstances. Following the “episode method”, 48 semi-structured interviews conducted with Austrian young adults revealed that objectivity and impartiality are regarded as the two cornerstones of journalism, aligning with Austria’s traditional journalistic culture. Thus, for Austrian young adults, informing oneself is a search for the ultimate truth. Whether objectivity and impartiality are thought to be actually found in journalism shapes (dis)engagement with it. Different news consumption and trust decisions emerged from interviewees who believe that journalists manage to be impartial and objective versus ones believing that journalists cannot or do not want to. Whereas the former recalled using and trusting information sources that they regarded as reputable, the situation is more nuanced for the latter. They showcased trust decisions ranging from reliance on external information sources to reliance on oneself to discern the truth. Those findings suggest that despite the emergence of new forms of journalistic actors and work, traditional journalistic values and norms remain central in audiences’ news use and trust decisions.
Why do different kinds of people like different kinds of culture? Two answers to this question are formally analyzed and empirically tested: the homophily model and the distancing model. Computer simulation demonstrates that these models are alternative explanations for the finding that different cultural tastes and practices are concentrated within different sociodemographic segments of society. Conflicting implications of the two models are identified. Although both models predict that cultural forms compete for people (i.e., people are a scarce resource on which cultural forms depend), the distancing model differs from the homophily model in that the distancing model predicts a dual ecology: Not only do cultural forms compete for people, but people compete for cultural forms. According to the distancing model, the larger the segment of society in which a cultural form is liked, the smaller is the proportion of people in that segment of society who like that cultural form. The homophily model predicts that people do not compete for cultural forms. Instead, it predicts a local bandwagon effect: The larger the segment of society in which a cultural form is liked, the larger is the proportion of people in that segment of society who like that cultural form. An empirical test using 1993 General Social Survey data supports the prediction of both models that cultural forms compete for people. The analysis also reveals a local bandwagon effect, yielding further empirical support for the homophily model and disconfirming the distancing model's prediction of a dual ecology.
This paper explores the evidence culture in one of the key global knowledge institutions—the World Bank. Framing itself as a “Knowledge Ban,” the World Bank is a leading organization in data and evidence provision around poverty and inequalities, and as such, it shapes the broader evidentiary standards and knowledge infrastructures around the world. Drawing on a rich qualitative study of 46 semistructured interviews with experts working on poverty knowledge as well as document analysis of the key reports and strategic documents, this paper explores the manner in which the calculative evidence culture of the World Bank mediates the production of evidence and expertise within the institution. This paper explores the collectively formulated interpretative lenses that guide formative questions such as what counts as (good) evidence, how it is used in decision-making, and how to deal with uncertainty with data and evidence. By doing so, this paper makes two contributions to the literature on evidence-based policymaking. First, it provides a cultural lens to the production and use of evidence in policymaking, a lens that is significantly underdeveloped in the existing scholarship. Second, it addresses the question of evolving evidentiary standards and learning within knowledge organizations. By exploring how institutions “change their mind,” this paper provides a dynamic account of the evolving politics of knowledge within organizations.
Existing literature sees attitudinal support for liberal democratic values as a crucial way to prevent the success of illiberal actors and their policies. But recent studies show that democratic support can coexist with lack of punishment for backsliding practices. To reconcile these findings, I argue that social norms generate incentives to declare that one opposes illiberal actors even if one does not—what I call staged democrats. Staged democrats are not a stable safeguard against illiberal politicians, because information shocks can reveal that they do not sincerely oppose illiberalism. Studying Switzerland, where referendums provide information on the sincere preferences of citizens, I collect data on referendum results, public opinion surveys, and party positions. My analyses show that if referendums reveal that the positions of far-right parties are more popular than expected, those parties become more exclusionary. Attitudes only prevent illiberal policy if they are sincerely held.
This article reviews scholarship concerned with the ways in which morality shapes organizational practice on the frontlines of the state: how bureaucrats, who draw on, contest, and apply moral schemas while delegating rights, resources, and punishments on behalf of the state to discrete subjects, manage the reality of being on the frontlines. A central focus of this scholarship is on situations characterized by tensions between agency-codified regulations and moral values; in such situations, moral categorizations once relegated to the background of consciousness become visible and subject to debate and, in turn, shed important light on how morality informs organizational practice. Current theorizing on the interrelations between morality and organizational practice in client-serving bureaucracies could nonetheless be improved by greater scholarly attention to bureaucrats’ perceptions of moral incongruence, and to the micro-dynamic processes through which they seek to actualize their aspirations for moral resolution.
Interest in adjustment issues Veterans face following incarceration has grown rapidly in response to the prevalence of stress-related disorders as well as the physical, social, and occupational challenges when reintegrating into communities. While reintegration may be a positive event that includes the reunification of family, friends, and a return to civilian life, transition can also involve a wide range of difficulties and crises impacting readjustment. Veteran reintegration has been understood as a complex process influenced by different levels, such as at the individual, interactional, and socio-cultural level. This article takes a Veteran standpoint to explore how Veterans’ lived experiences are a basis to understand their transition readiness. Specifically, identity work clarifies the empirical self-constructions of Veterans’ standpoint and their everyday strategies used for post-incarceration transition efficacy.
My strategy is to define the ‘dark side’ of law by contrast, starting from its ‘light side’. It seems to me that the latter can only be defined from what has been called the ‘logicist-positivist paradigm’ that identifies the clarity of law with the certainty of the judicial decision deduced from norms, assumed to have a clear meaning. This paradigm is based on the identity between normative text and norm, which has been commonly considered implausible by legal philosophers, but perhaps we could say by jurists, over the last seventy years. Nevertheless, the paradigm continues to be handed down and considered the framework for reflections on law. I argue, referring to Kuhn’s conception of a paradigm, that this is because the legal-philosophical thought of recent decades has been unable to develop an alternative paradigm, and I suggest that this is because the logicist-positivist paradigm appears inextricably linked to the liberal-democratic structuring of our legal systems: a law-making judge fundamentally denies the rule of the people through the legislature. As a starting point for the elaboration of a new paradigm, I propose a conception of law that is no longer regulative of people’s behaviour, but of public power. In it, the judiciary emerges as the interlocutor to whom one turns to transform the private troubles of marginalised and socially abandoned citizens into legal problems. I argue that this conception is able to recover, in the current context, the fundamental values of ‘democratic societies’.
Large language models (LLMs) and dialogue agents represent a significant shift in artificial intelligence (AI) research, particularly with the recent release of the GPT family of models. ChatGPT's generative capabilities and versatility across technical and creative domains led to its widespread adoption, marking a departure from more limited deployments of previous AI systems. While society grapples with the emerging cultural impacts of this new societal-scale technology, critiques of ChatGPT's impact within machine learning research communities have coalesced around its performance or other conventional safety evaluations relating to bias, toxicity, and “hallucination.” We argue that these critiques draw heavily on a particular conceptualization of the “human-centered” framework, which tends to cast atomized individuals as the key recipients of technology's benefits and detriments. In this article, we direct attention to another dimension of LLMs and dialogue agents’ impact: their effects on social groups, institutions, and accompanying norms and practices. By analyzing ChatGPT's social impact through a social-centered framework, we challenge individualistic approaches in AI development and contribute to ongoing debates around the ethical and responsible deployment of AI systems. We hope this effort will call attention to more comprehensive and longitudinal evaluation tools (e.g., including more ethnographic analyses and participatory approaches) and compel technologists to complement human-centered thinking with social-centered approaches.
Small states play a critical role in the operation of the Global Wealth Chains, storing capital assets and funnelling financial flows. However, the knowledge of how such practices of financial transit emerge remains scant. Focussing on the 1990s as the formative decade of post-Soviet capitalism, the article focuses on the variegated financial internationalization in the Baltics, as Latvia developed a vibrant offshore banking sector, whereas Estonia pursued complete Westernization in bank ownership. Challenging the literature that relates the emergence of Baltic offshore finance with right-wing politics, and existing trade and cultural links with Russia, the article argues that the varieties of financial internationalization in the Baltics were due to ‘economic statecraft’ by the Central Banks (CBs). Drawing upon a survey of CB reports, parliamentary speeches, press archives, memoirs, and elite interviews, the article argues that the Baltic CBs’ path-setting decisions shaped the two distinct financial internationalization paths through three interventions: currency reforms, agenda setting, and banking regulation. Drawing on the literature on social embeddedness of CBs, the article attributes the differences in the two CB approaches to their informal alliances with broader society – domestic financiers in Latvia and the government in Estonia.
This chapter presents three case studies of community health intervention from an ongoing ethnographic research collaboration in Brazos County, Texas, and explores how novel health interventions can be facilitated by research design and methodology. Each case study was motivated by undergraduate student involvement in the broader research collaboration and represents a strength of the collaborative model. Specifically, the emphasis on intersectional, ethical, and reflexive epistemology can create an environment in which researchers are able to expand their impact and role freely, rather than be limited by traditional research parameters.
Consequences of food insecurity include illness, poor cognitive development, and increased behavioral problems. Policies put in place on a macro-community level, including the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act, were enacted to increase food security, but have fallen short due to the lack of lucidity and promotion to businesses. A more influential approach could be focused on analysis at the community level. Research also shows community gardens are beneficial in promoting food security, diversifying dietary consumption and for greater self-sufficiency in food. The purpose of this research is to identify how hard and soft resources, or lack thereof, interact creating new resources, restraints, and barriers. In doing this we seek to uncover how interactions differ depending on life-stage, e.g., how these differing resources relate to food production and positionality in food climate. Auto-ethnographic data was analyzed using holistic content analysis from three different researchers at the undergraduate, early career Ph.D., and tenured Ph.D. levels. Researchers recorded interactions with food from a garden. Holistic content analysis was used to allow everyone’s experience to be viewed for commonalities, life stage impact comparisons, and other interpretations of common experiences. This research found five major trends: guilt; consumer; time constraints; food processing comfort; and culinary knowledge level. Findings from this study can be used to understand how to best modify the Everybody Eats research collaborative community resources and interventions, as well as broader recommendations for community outreach.
Tally's Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men Boston: Little, Brown. McLoughlin, William G. 1978. Revivals, Awak-enings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America
- American Sociological
- Liebow
- Elliot
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW Liebow, Elliot. 1977. Tally's Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men. Boston: Little, Brown. McLoughlin, William G. 1978. Revivals, Awak-enings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strategic Styles: Coping in the Inner City
- Mancini
- Janet
Mancini, Janet K. 1980. Strategic Styles: Coping in the Inner City. Hanover, NH: University Press of