Download or read book Social Quality Theory written by Ka Lin and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social quality thinking emerged from a critique of one-sided policies by breaking through the limitations previously set by purely economistic paradigms. By tracing its expansion and presenting different aspects of social quality theory, this volume provides an overview of a more nuanced approach, which assesses societal progress and introduces proposals that are relevant for policy making. Crucially, important components emerge with research by scholars from Asia, particularly China, eastern Europe, and other regions beyond western Europe, the theory’s place of origin. As this volume shows, this rich diversity of approaches and their cross-national comparisons reveal the increasingly important role of social quality theory for informing political debates on development and sustainability.
Download or read book Social Quality written by A. Walker and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection sets out the latest research on the concept of 'social quality', developing its theoretical foundations and applying it to pressing policy issues such as the future of the European Union and sustainable global development.
Download or read book The Social Quality of Europe written by Wolfgang Beck and published by Springer. This book was released on 1997-06-11 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together leading European social scientists to focus on the essential questions concerning the future of the European Union (EU). The Social Quality of Europe contains the most comprehensive and detailed analysis conducted so far of the relationship between EU economic and social dimensions. it introduces an entirely new concept to European discourse-social quality-which will inspire examination and debate from a unique perspective. This work consists of specially commissioned original chapters-from experts in the fields of economics, law, political science, social policy, and sociology-together with critical commentaries and syntheses focusing on employment, social protection, social exclusion, and provision for older people. it provides a unique source of reference on current economic and social policies in the EU and sets the agenda for a new debate about the quality of life aspired to by European citizens. The book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the social sciences; policymakers at local, national, and state-of-the-art assessment of European social and economic policies.
Download or read book Social Theory and the Urban Question written by Peter Saunders and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Society in Action written by Piotr Sztompka and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991-08-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Society in Action, Piotr Sztompka sets forth a highly topical contribution to central theoretical debates of contemporary sociology. Taking the idea and practice of collective mobilization as his theme, Sztompka argues that modern institutions, particularly of late, are characterized by an increasing awareness of collective empowerment. The most obvious concrete expression of this phenomenon, as Sztompka makes clear, is the rise of a diversity of active social movements such as those which dramatically transformed Europe in the 1980s, from the birth of Solidarity in 1980 to the 1989 "Autumn of Nations." Sztompka connects the interpretations of such collective activity to a wider grasp of the nature of social action. The result is a comprehensive and original theory of social change which focuses on the self-transforming influence on society of its members' striving for freedom, autonomy, and self-fulfillment. He develops his theory by means of a general concept of "social becoming," the roots of which he traces to the early romantic and humanist work of Karl Marx and his followers and to two influential sociological schools of today, the theory of agency and historical sociology. Sztompka situates his theory midway between the rigid determinism of social totalities and the unbridled voluntarism of free individuals. Social change, he demonstrates, can be understood neither as the outcome of individual actions taken alone nor as structurally determined actions. Instead, he confers upon social organizations and movements a "self-transcending" quality: they express human agency yet, by virtue of their active character, are quite often able to achieve unpredictable outcomes. Throughout his analysis of social movements and revolutions in history, Sztompka emphasizes the dynamics of spontaneous social change generated from below—a theoretical testimony to the rapid and fundamental social change in Eastern Europe in recent history. Against the fashions of postmodernist malaise, boredom, and disenchantment, his theory of social becoming expresses the possibility of emancipation, of change leading to positive gains. His work registers a belief in progress, not inevitably gained, but its attainment fully dependent upon the creativity and optimism of an active citizenry.
Download or read book Social Welfare in Transitional China written by Keqing Han and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time of significant transformations in Chinese society, this book addresses the key issue of social welfare and the reform of the welfare system in 21st century China. Considering both the theory and policy making across a variety of welfare issues which directly impact on the country’s economic development, it examines the development of civil society, changes in social stratification and in social class structure. It notably considers the key questions of welfare in both urban and rural settings, for different population groups such as children, the elderly and the disabled, addressing topical issues of housing, education, public health, poverty and the restructuring of related welfare policy system to tackle China’s key issues. It also considers the impact of migrant workers in China and their social integration, including within the welfare system. Providing a unique insight into how economic globalization and financial crisis affects Chinese social welfare policies, this book is a key read for scholars worldwide interested in social transformation in Chinese society at a time of significant social and economic transition.
Download or read book Social Work and Social Theory written by Paul Michael Garrett and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to work effectively, social workers need to understand theoretical concepts and develop critical theory. In Social Work and Social Theory, Paul Michael Garrett seeks to bring the profession into dialogue with the anticapitalist movement and encourages a new engagement with theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu, and Nancy Fraser. It provides an accessible and exhilarating introduction for practitioners, students, and social work academics interested in social theory and critical social policy. It will be a vital resource aiding anyone intent on creating a more radical social work and a useful teaching tool to spark lively classroom discussion.
Download or read book Social Quality A Vision for Europe written by Laurent Van der Maesen and published by Kluwer Law International B.V.. This book was released on 2001-01-31 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents the outcome of two years of intensive debate about the future of Europe. It aims to provide the European Union with a vision: one that will unite all of its citizens and help to create the democratic legitimacy that the EU currently lacks. It builds on the first book on social quality, The Social Quality of Europe, which introduced the concept and which has been enthusiastically received by both the scientific and policy communities. The book develops three crucial elements of social quality: the theoretical validity of the concept, its practical application, and its identity or `genetic code'. It establishes an independent identity for social quality, with a unique focus on the quality of the social, which enables it to act as the rationale for economic, social, and cultural policies and, therefore, an escape route from the dominance of narrow economic thinking in policy making.
Download or read book Social Capital Theory written by Julia Häuberer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-10-27 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of social capital still lacks a recognized general theory. Accordingly, various and sometimes inappropriate measurements are used for it. Julia Häuberer contributes to filling in this gap and provides progress towards the creation of a formalized social capital theory based on the founding concepts of social capital of Bourdieu (1983) and Coleman (1988), and current concepts of Putnam (2000), Burt (1992) and Lin (2001). The second part of the monograph focuses on the quality of measurements of the more general concept of social capital derived in the first part. Therefore, the telephone survey “Social Relationships among Czech Citizens” conducted as a test-retest experiment is analyzed. This book is valuable reading for academics in Sociology and Political Science.
Download or read book Investigating Quality of Urban Life written by Robert W. Marans and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-31 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of quality of urban life involves both an objective approach to analysis using spatially aggregated secondary data and a subjective approach using unit record survey data whereby people provide subjective evaluations of QOL domains. This book provides a comprehensive overview of theoretical perspectives on QOUL and methodological approaches to research design to investigate QOUL and measure QOL dimensions. It incorporates empirical investigations into QOUL in a range of cities across the world.
Download or read book Social Quality Looking for a Global Social Policy written by Peter Herrmann and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2009 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menschenrechtsdiskussionen, globale (Sozial-) Politik und die Bemühungen der UN für Menschliche Entwicklung ("Human Development") und Menschliche Sicherheit ("Human Security") geraten in zwei grundsätzliche "Sackgassen" Zum einen wird ein bestimmtes Mo-dell von existierenden "entwickelten Staaten", d.h. mit hoch entwickeltem Kapitalismus, als einziges Ideal vorgestellt, ohne dass andere fortschrittliche Modelle ernsthaft berücksichtigt werden. Eine mögliche denkbare Alternative ist höchstens die romantisierende Vorstellung einer "guten" Gesellschaft, welche sich in vielen Fällen auf eine Art naive "Güte" einer indi-genen Lebensweise bezieht. Zum anderen wird - nicht fern der erwähnten Alternativen - auf abstrakte Konzepte von Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit etc. hingewiesen, auf moralische Aussa-gen, die jedoch zur Trennung von systematischem sozioökonomischem ebenso wie politisch-rechtlichem Denken führen. Der vorliegende Band versucht, aus sozial-philosophischer Perspektive die politische Öko-nomie und das Sozialrecht zusammenzuführen, um ein Verständnis von allgemeiner Verant-wortlichkeit für soziale Qualität weltweit zu entwickeln. Besondere Beiträge sind eine Einfüh-rung in den theoretischen Ansatz der sozialen Qualität, ein Exkurs über islamische Gesell-schaften und ein Exkurs hinsichtlich asiatischer Sichtweisen. Das Buch "Social Quality - Looking for a Global Social Policy" mit dem Untertitel "Attemp-ting an Approximation to the Analysis of Distances of Social Systems" ist der zweite Band der Serie "Studien zu vergleichender Sozialpädagogik und internationaler Sozialarbeit und Sozialpolitik", welche eine Fortsetzung der fast gleichnamigen Serie ist, die von Franz Ham-burger beim Schäuble Verlag, Rheinfelden herausgegeben wurde. Die Serie thematisiert problemorientiert sozialpädagogischen Theorien und die Arbeit sozialer Strukturen im internatio-nalen Rahmen und Vergleich. Dabei wird die Serie als ein Forum für Diskussionen und Ver-öffentlichungen begriffen,
Download or read book From Anthropology to Social Theory written by Arpad Szakolczai and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a ground-breaking revitalization of contemporary social theory, this book revisits the rise of the modern world to reopen the dialogue between anthropology and sociology. Using concepts developed by a series of 'maverick' anthropologists who were systematically marginalised as their ideas fell outside the standard academic canon, such as Arnold van Gennep, Marcel Mauss, Paul Radin, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and Gregory Bateson, the authors argue that such concepts are necessary for understanding better the rise and dynamics of the modern world, including the development of the social sciences, in particular sociology and anthropology. Concepts discussed include liminality, imitation, schismogenesis and trickster, which provide an anthropological 'toolkit' for readers to develop innovative understandings of the underlying power mechanisms of globalized modernity. Aimed at graduate students and researchers, the book is clearly structured. Part I introduces the 'maverick' anthropologists, while Part II applies the maverick tool-kit to revisit the history of sociological thought and the question of modernity.
Download or read book Quality of Life written by David Phillips and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-02-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quality of life is one of the most important issues facing the world today and is central to the development of social policy. This innovative book discusses this crucial topic, assessing the criteria for judging attempts to raise quality of life, including the satisfaction of basic and social needs, autonomy to enjoy life and social connectivity. It considers key topics such as: individual well-being and health-related quality of life human needs - living fulfilling and flourishing lives poverty and social exclusion social solidarity, altruism and trust within communities. Quality of Life is the first systematic presentation of this subject from both individual and collective perspectives. It provides a powerful overview of a concept which is becoming increasingly prominent in the social sciences and is essential reading for students of social policy, sociology and health studies.
Download or read book The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory written by Kenneth C. Bausch and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Emerging Consensus of Social Systems Theory Bausch summarizes the works of over 30 major systemic theorists. He then goes on to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standing thinkers. Bausch categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking as falling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems, the structure of the social world, communication, cognition and epistemology. These five areas are foundational for a theoretic and practical systemic synthesis. They were topics of contention in a historic debate between Habermas and Luhmann in the early 1970's. They continue to be contentious topics within the study of social philosophy. Since the 1970's, systemic thinking has taken great strides in the areas of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. This book presents a spectrum of those theoretical advances. It synthesizes what various strains of contemporary systems science have to say about social processes and assesses the quality of the resulting integrated explanations. Bausch gives a detailed study of the works of many present-day systems theorists, both in general terms, and with regard to social processes. He then creates and validates integrated representations of their thoughts with respect to his own thematic classifications. He provides a background of systemic thinking from an historical context, as well as detailed studies of developments in sociological, cognitive and evolutionary theory. This book presents a coherent, dynamic model of a self-organizing world. It proposes a creative and ethical method of decision-making and design. It makes explicit the relations between structure and process in the realms of knowledge and being. The new methodology that evolves in this book allows us to deal with enormous complexity, and to relate ideas so as to draw out previously unsuspected conclusions and syntheses. Therein lies the elegance and utility of this model.
Download or read book Cancer and Chronic Conditions written by Bogda Koczwara and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-02 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the growing problem of multimorbidity in cancer patients and survivors with the focus on how to best integrate the effective cancer care with the care of multiple chronic conditions. As cancer is more prevalent in older individuals, many patients with cancer also suffer from other chronic conditions that impact on the uptake, tolerance and outcomes of cancer treatment and their long term mortality and morbidity. In addition, cancer and its treatment increase the risk of future chronic conditions. Readers will examine the prevalence and predictors of chronic conditions in cancer, impact of chronic conditions on screening and treatment, evidence for preventative strategies that address both cancer and chronic conditions, emerging management and care integration strategies and directions for management of multimorbidity in special cancer populations – the very young, the very old and those at the end of life. Authored by clinicians and researchers from diverse expertise including epidemiology, sociology, hematology, medical oncology, palliative care, pharmacy and representing Australia, New Zealand, US, Canada and the Netherlands, the book brings an international perspective to a problem that affects all cancer settings. The book is going to be of interest to diverse professionals interested in cancer control including epidemiologists, public health researchers, policy makers as well as clinicians dealing with cancer patients within specialist cancer and non-cancer and primary care settings.
Download or read book Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research written by Vern L. Bengtson and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2005 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback for classroom use!"This comprehensive text provides a rich source of perspectives on theorising about the family for scholars, researchers, and students. Another of the book′s strengths is the emphasis on multimethod approaches in family research. The book covers an impressive range of topics and issues - marital happiness, adjustment of children in divorce marriages, gay marriage, sibling ties, ethnic families of colour, stepfamilies, aggression culture, work and family, religion, and social policy, to name a few. In summary, this superb volume is highly recommended and amply reflects the many contemporary perspectives on the family." --Philip Siebler, Monash University, VictoriaSponsored by the National Council on Family Relations, the Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research is the reference work on theory and methods for family scholars and students around the world. This volume provides a diverse, eclectic, and paradoxically mature approach to theorizing and demonstrates how the development of theory is crucial to the future of family research. The Sourcebook reflects an interactive approach that focuses on the process of theory building and designing research, thereby engaging readers in "doing" theory rather than simply reading about it. An accompanying website offers additional participation and interaction in the process of doing theory and making science. Editors Vern L. Bengtson, Alan C. Acock, Katherine R. Allen, Peggye Dilworth-Anderson, and David M. Klein have brought together a prominent group of diverse contributors ranging in race and ethnicity, age and seniority, and gender and sexual orientation. The Sourcebook begins with a section that sets the context for future family research. The subsequent sections explore changing family patterns, changing family interactions within and across generations, and families and larger social forces. A concluding section discusses issues of teaching family theories and research.Key Features Focuses on the process rather than the outcomes of family theory and research methods Emphasizes the value of multi-methods approaches in family research by integrating theory development with the development of research methods Differs from many other publications on family research by describing the development of new ideas rather than just summarizing existing findings The interactive Web site and the special feature boxes within the chapters engage readers with theory and methodology. Boxed features include Case Studies, Spotlights on Theory, Spotlights on Methods, and a Discussion and Extension sections. Represents a "Who′s Who" of family researchers with contributions from many of the best researchers in the family realm The Sourcebook will be an excellent addition to any academic library. It is an authoritative reference for scholars and researchers in Human Development and Family Studies, Sociology, Social Work, and Psychology. In addition, the Sourcebook can also be used in graduate courses on family theory and methodology.
Download or read book Social Policy in Context written by Peter Herrmann and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2014-07-10 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social policy is widely accepted as scientific discipline – and this includes that it accepts for itself another meaning of this status, one which is usually not considered: the subject is disciplined, i.e. regimented. One important point in this context is that social policy is focused and thereby forgets systematic economic determinants and the historical perspective on its own existence. The present book recalls some fundamental issues – such as the partial liberation of human decision making from extramundane powers – and as well as topics that are being discussed in contemporary settings. The volume brings different dimensions together in an insightful way and is a stimulating read for those who are ready to engage with the complexity of political questions, are looking for instruments for an analysis that reaches beyond “yesterday’s solutions for the problems we don’t really know anyway”.
