Even though transgender people continue to experience violence and discrimination in many aspects of life, there has been progressive recognition of their experiences and demands in recent decades. ...This article analyses the process of claiming civil rights and the evolution of health care for transgender people in Spain, from the mid-1970s to the present day, paying particular attention to the narratives of key actors involved. To this end, three socio-historical periods are identified: (1) the travesti period (the mid-1970s to the early 1990s), characterised by strong social and institutional transphobia and resulting self-care practices; (2) the transexual period (mid-1990s to the 2000s), when demands for health care were institutionalised under a pathological medical model; and (3) the transgénero or trans period (2010s until the present) when identity and bodily autonomy have been re-claimed through a socio-cultural prism that has denounced pathologisation. At each stage, political, social and economic factors intervened at both national and international levels to trigger an ongoing negotiation between transgender movements and dominant social institutions, all within a changing universe of social values.
Teilhabeforschung untersucht die Lebenslagen von Menschen mit Beeinträchtigungen und Behinderungen unter den normativen Perspektiven von Inklusion und gleichberechtigter Teilhabe. Sie berücksichtigt, ...dass sich die deutschsprachige Forschung zum komplexen Phänomen der Beeinträchtigung und Behinderung über die Jahre stark ausdifferenziert hat und mittlerweile unterschiedliche Disziplinen und Fachgebiete umfasst. Das vorliegende (Open-Access-) Buch trägt der Notwendigkeit Rechnung, Teilhabeforschung pluralistisch, inter- und transdisziplinär zu konturieren. Es bündelt unterschiedliche theoretische Perspektiven, empirische Methoden und anwendungsorientierte Projekte aus den folgenden Disziplinen und Forschungsfeldern: Bildungs- und Erziehungswissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaften, Rehabilitationswissenschaften, Soziologie, Psychologie, Soziale Arbeit und Disability Studies. ; Teilhabeforschung untersucht die Lebenslagen von Menschen mit Beeinträchtigungen und Behinderungen unter den normativen Perspektiven von Inklusion und gleichberechtigter Teilhabe. Sie berücksichtigt, dass sich die deutschsprachige Forschung zum komplexen Phänomen der Beeinträchtigung und Behinderung über die Jahre stark ausdifferenziert hat und mittlerweile unterschiedliche Disziplinen und Fachgebiete umfasst. Das vorliegende (Open-Access-) Buch trägt der Notwendigkeit Rechnung, Teilhabeforschung pluralistisch, inter- und transdisziplinär zu konturieren. Es bündelt unterschiedliche theoretische Perspektiven, empirische Methoden und anwendungsorientierte Projekte aus den folgenden Disziplinen und Forschungsfeldern: Bildungs- und Erziehungswissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaften, Rehabilitationswissenschaften, Soziologie, Psychologie, Soziale Arbeit und Disability Studies.
Connective action, or individuals networking with each other online to form social movements, rarely leads to lasting change. In this study, we argue that such movements are ultimately ineffective ...because they struggle to sustain themselves over time and identify the reasons behind their transience. Our analysis focuses on Twitter conversations about Aadhaar, a biometric ID project that has raised concerns about data privacy and civil liberty in India, the world's largest democracy. A computational mixed-methods approach incorporating social network analysis, sentiment analysis, and structural topic modeling demonstrates that connective action against Aadhaar failed to produce a sustained discourse of resistance, with people's feelings toward and beliefs about Aadhaar vacillating sharply. The analysis draws attention to the power of brick-and-mortar social institutions, including the state and its agencies, political parties, courts, technology companies, and 'legacy' news media, in shaping and reshaping seemingly bottom-up discourses on digital platforms. It also identifies three interlinked weaknesses of connective action - the individualized nature of mobilization, excessive flexibility of social networks, and a negative emotional culture. We contend that in order to be effective, contemporary social movements need to utilize digital technologies for 'collective' action by forging collective identities that bind participants affectively and cognitively, empower them against structures of social control, and enable them to commit to non-personal and long-term objectives.
The spread of Covid-19 has made facemask a critical artifact for people all over the world. Mediating between (non-)wearers and their environment, facemask makes people aware of a set of morally ...relevant distinctions and sometimes forces decisions on them. In fact, the semiotics of "facemask in use" largely shapes the parameters for human practice and experience in the epidemic. Drawing on the techno-moral mediation concept Verbeek, 2008. "Obstetric Ultrasound and the Technological Mediation of Morality: A Postphenomenological Analysis." Human Studies 31 (1): 11-26, we explore how anti-epidemic promotional videos released by Chinese authorities build facemask-related narratives in the Covid-19 epidemic. Findings reveal that "facemask in use" links people's "smaller love" for family to a "bigger love" for Chinese people in general; transforms an individual to member of a large group of commoner-turned-protectors; or marks the military's loyalty and obedience to the Party-State, which makes possible the "Chinese speed" in saving lives. We add to extant literature by unraveling an entanglement between the moralization of facemask-wearing and China's traditional values, social institutions and media newsroom culture about disaster coverage. This scrutiny into the "face-masking morality in the making" implies that the power to frame the cultural significance of facemask induces an alternative mode of techno-moral change, which may outlast the epidemic itself.
While research in the United States reveals favorable associations between religiosity and well-being during childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, whether childhood religiosity improves flourishing ...among U.S. adults remains unclear. Following a life-course approach, we examine whether childhood religiosity, measured in terms of the importance of religion growing up, associates with improved midlife flourishing. Drawing on national longitudinal data from the United States (1995–2014 MIDUS study), we find significant and large associations between childhood religiosity and midlife flourishing, measured in terms of overall and domain-specific flourishing. Its effect size was on par with key demographic predictors. However, in line with the deeply interlinked nature of family and religion, childhood religiosity was linked to midlife flourishing only in the presence of a favorable mother–child relationship growing up. Men raised in religious homes with high maternal warmth reported nearly three-quarters of a standard deviation higher flourishing than those with low maternal warmth. Further analysis confirmed that this combination of religion and family among men in particular increases the odds of adult religiosity, as men seem more susceptible to “losing their religion” when experiencing strained maternal relationships. Analysis of 20-year follow-up data collected in 2005 and 2014 finds continued associations between childhood religiosity and later-life flourishing, suggesting a beneficial trajectory carrying into old age. Overall, we conclude that any robust effects of religion on well-being across the life course are likely to be interwoven with family, gender, and other social institutions, perhaps tracing in part to the distinctive, personalized culture of American religion.
Veiling is an ancient cultural practice endorsed by religion, social institutions, and laws. Recently, there have been adaptive arguments to explain its function and existence. Specifically, it is ...argued that veiling women is a form of male mate guarding strategy, which aims to increase sexual fidelity by decreasing overt displays of his mate’s physical attractiveness, thereby helping to secure his reproductive success. Furthermore, it is suggested that such mate retention strategies (veiling) should be more important when child survival is more precarious, as cues to sexual fidelity support higher paternal investment. Using publicly available data from the PEW Research Center encompassing 26,282 individuals from 25 countries, we tested the hypotheses that men should be more supportive of women’s veiling and this support should be more important in harsher environments, particularly those with poor health and high mortality rates, where paternal care is presumably more important. Our results show that men were more supportive of veiling than women, and this support increased as the environments became harsher. Overall, these findings support the male mate retention argument as well as the idea that the practice of veiling is sensitive to environmental differences.
Institutions are established patterns of recurrent social relationships playing a fundamental part in all our lives. The family is the best-known institution, but other 'total' institutions serve as ...organisations directly affecting the lives of many individuals in the healthcare sector.
This paper examines the sociological theory of institutionalisation as applied to individuals admitted to aged-care facilities, where the complete life-rounds of inmates occur within clearly defined limits. The study provides a framework to enable general practitioners, nurses and healthcare professionals to better appreciate the processes involved as individuals adapt to their new environment.
Sociology provides valuable insights for healthcare providers in understanding how individuals adapt to their loss of independent living and find themselves subjected to intimate regulation in the total institution. The biopsychosocial model of healthcare delivery is better understood when we as health professionals have greater insights to appreciate the competing processes at work.
Examinations of the effectiveness of diplomacy in conflict resolution generally focus on official political institutions and the roles that they play. This article takes a different tack and focuses ...on the social institutions and groups that exist in and are affected by a conflict environment. This article argues that conflict resilience— which we define here as the ability to resist and recover from conflict — and its ability to contribute to social cohesion are key dimensions of the ability to manage conflict in the types of conflicts that are prevalent in the world today. We examine several different definitions and examples of conflict resilience, and identify actions that outside actors can take to support resilient institutions and groups, particularly in the areas of supporting effective domestic institutions, promoting inclusion and encouraging good leadership.
Helping to encourage resilience and social cohesion requires a deep understanding of the society in question, but also requires some of the very same elements that are found in resilient societies: trust and cooperation, an ability to think outside of traditional confines, a capacity for flexibility, and a talent for creating informal networks and other ties among the different parts of the social environment.
Abstract
Objectives:
This study evaluated the successful aging model by assessing the impact of two forms of productive engagement—working and volunteering—as potential interventions in the process ...of disablement.
Method:
The Health and Retirement Study was used to (a) estimate two-stage selection equations of (i) currently working part time and full time and (ii) currently volunteering less than 100 hours and volunteering 100 hours or more per year (net of chronic health problems) and (b) assess whether, net of selection, working, and volunteering moderate the association between chronic conditions and subsequent functional limitations.
Results:
Chronic conditions were associated with elevated levels of subsequent functional limitations, whereas both working and volunteering were associated with lower levels of subsequent functional limitations. Moreover, workers and volunteers of less than 100 hours per year experienced a reduction in the association of chronic conditions on subsequent functional limitations.
Discussion:
This research highlights the role of productive engagement as a key element in successful aging. Not only do work and volunteering have direct associations with health outcomes themselves, but they also act as potential interventions in the process of disablement by attenuating the way in which chronic conditions are translated into subsequent functional limitations. This suggests that (a) future research should apply successful aging models to health processes as well as health outcomes and (b) policy makers should support social institutions that foster late-life productive engagement.
Over the past two decades, the sociology of education has addressed the reproduction of inequalities created by for-profit universities in several countries. Despite their contributions, these ...analyses do not always consider the role of and strategies employed by educational entrepreneurs in social processes. In contrast with approaches that understand the university business as a mere reflection of neoliberal institutionality and those that celebrate profit as the vital element in the renewal of higher education in Latin America an analysis inspired by the literature on social movements and examination of business strategies, institutions, and negotiations in the commodification of Peruvian higher education provides an account of the transformations in the structure of opportunities, resources, and framing processes developed by entrepreneurs during two moments: 1992–2000 and 2001–2012.
En las últimas dos décadas, la sociología de la educación ha abordado la reproducción de las desigualdades generada en varios países por las universidades con fines de lucro. Independientemente de sus aportes, estos análisis no siempre consideran el papel y las estrategias de los emprendedores educativos en los procesos sociales. A diferencia de los enfoques que entienden la empresa universitaria como un mero reflejo de la institucionalidad neoliberal, al igual que aquellos que celebran el lucro como el elemento vital en la renovación de la educación superior en América Latina, un análisis basado en la literatura sobre movimientos sociales de las estrategias empresariales, instituciones, y negociaciones en la mercantilización de la educación superior peruana da cuenta de las transformaciones en la estructura de oportunidades, recursos y procesos delimitantes desarrollados por los empresarios durante dos periodos, 1992–2000 y 2001–2012.
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