Download or read book The Logic of Social Hierarchies written by Edward O. Laumann and published by Markham. This book was released on 1970 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Logics of Social Structure written by Kyriakos M. Kontopoulos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-23 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the author proposes a fundamental new approach to the study of one of the most central concepts in social analysis, that of social structure. He critiques the leading models and argues that each is inadequate to the task of explaining the complexity of structures that make up society and the processes by which these structures are formed and are interlinked. A new conceptualization of the processes of societal formation is then presented, drawing on recent developments in the physical, biological and cognitive sciences. This new conceptualization allows for the multiplicity of processes of structuration, which the author refers to as logics, some of which function at the individual or "micro" level, others of which function at the organizational or "meso" level, and still others of which function at the society-wide, or "macro" level. The author terms this new conceptualization a theory of heterarchy, and it is the first truly comprehensive theory of societal structuration.
Download or read book Self Social Structure and Beliefs written by Jeffrey C. Alexander and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-09-20 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an exploration of the creative work done by leading sociologists who were inspired by the scholarship of Neil Smelser.
Download or read book The Logic of Social Research written by Arthur L. Stinchcombe and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-07-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arthur L. Stinchcombe has earned a reputation as a leading practitioner of methodology in sociology and related disciplines. Throughout his distinguished career he has championed the idea that to be an effective sociologist, one must use many methods. This incisive work introduces students to the logic of those methods. The Logic of Social Research orients students to a set of logical problems that all methods must address to study social causation. Almost all sociological theory asserts that some social conditions produce other social conditions, but the theoretical links between causes and effects are not easily supported by observation. Observations cannot directly show causation, but they can reject or support causal theories with different degrees of credibility. As a result, sociologists have created four main types of methods that Stinchcombe terms quantitative, historical, ethnographic, and experimental to support their theories. Each method has value, and each has its uses for different research purposes. Accessible and astute, The Logic of Social Research offers an image of what sociology is, what it's all about, and what the craft of the sociologist consists of.
Download or read book Just Hierarchy written by Daniel A. Bell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms.
Download or read book The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure written by Brian Skyrms and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brian Skyrms, author of the successful Evolution of the Social Contract (which won the prestigious Lakatos Award) has written a sequel. The book is a study of ideas of cooperation and collective action. The point of departure is a prototypical story found in Rousseau's A Discourse on Inequality. Rousseau contrasts the pay-off of hunting hare where the risk of non-cooperation is small but the reward is equally small, against the pay-off of hunting the stag where maximum cooperation is required but where the reward is so much greater. Thus, rational agents are pulled in one direction by considerations of risk and in another by considerations of mutual benefit. Written with Skyrms's characteristic clarity and verve, this intriguing book will be eagerly sought out by students and professionals in philosophy, political science, economics, sociology and evolutionary biology.
Download or read book The Logics of Social Structure written by Kyriakos M. Kontopoulos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-06-25 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new approach to the study of social structure, drawing on recent developments in the physical, biological and cognitive sciences.
Download or read book The Logic of Social Inquiry written by Scott A. Greer and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Social Dominance written by Jim Sidanius and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-12 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on two questions: why do people from one social group oppress and discriminate against people from other groups? and why is this oppression so mind numbingly difficult to eliminate? The answers to these questions are framed using the conceptual framework of social dominance theory. Social dominance theory argues that the major forms of intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism and patriarchy, are all basically derived from the basic human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization. In essence, social dominance theory presumes that, beneath major and sometimes profound difference between different human societies, there is also a basic grammar of social power shared by all societies in common. We use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.
Download or read book Lifestyle and Social Structure written by Michael E. Sobel and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lifestyle and Social Structure: Concepts, Definitions, Analyses is devoted the relationship between lifestyle and social structure. The book begins by constructing a meaningful concept of lifestyle in order to understand and model this relationship. The general formulation of the concept hinges on the descriptive word style, defined as ""any distinctive, and therefore recognizable way in which an act is performed or an artifact made or ought to be performed and made."" After developing the implications of the definition, lifestyle is defined, by analogy, as ""any distinctive, and therefore recognizable mode of living."" The notion of social structure is then introduced, arguing that structural differentiation engenders lifestyle differentiation. The remainder of the work is concerned primarily with the modeling of this relationship using data from the 1972-1973 Survey of Consumer Expenditures, and with the concept of stylistic unity. Key topics discussed include the relationship between the theory of lifestyle differentiation and modern economic utility theory; psychographic notions of lifestyle; and the relationships between lifestyle and other key sociological concepts (stratification, alienation). The concept of lifestyle should be of interest to a broad range of applied and theoretical researchers.
Download or read book The Logic of Social Enquiry written by Quentin Gibson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive set introduces the fundamental principles of Sociology as propounded by such great figures as Gerth and Mills, Schlesinger, and Homans. Containing classic works of social theory and empirical research, volumes in this set bring together the British, European and American traditions. The whole body of sociological theory is presented in such a way that is valuable and accessible to both students and teachers of Sociology, Political Theory and Geography.
Download or read book Hierarchy and Organisation written by Thomas Diefenbach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people take the conditions they work and live in as a given, believing it to be normal that societies are stratified and that organisations are hierarchical. Many even think that this is the way it should be - and are neither willing nor able to think that it could be otherwise. This book raises the awareness of hierarchy, its complexity and longevity. It focuses on a single but fundamental problem of social systems such as dyads, groups, organisations and whole societies: Why and how does hierarchical social order persist over time? In order to investigate the question, author Thomas Diefenbach develops a general theory of the persistence of hierarchical social order. This theory interrogates the problem of the persistence of hierarchical social order from very different angles, in multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary ways. Even more crucially, it traces the very causes of the phenomenon, the reasons and interests behind hierarchy as well as the various mechanisms which keep it going. This is the first time such a theory is attempted. With the help of the theory developed in this book, it is possible to interrogate systematically, comprehensively and in detail how mindsets and behaviours as well as societal and organisational structures enable the continuation of hierarchy
Download or read book Human Hierarchies written by Melvyn L. Fein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human beings are hierarchical animals. Always and everywhere, people have developed social ranking systems. These differ dramatically in how they are organized, but the underlying causal mechanisms that create and sustain them are the same. Whether they are on the top or bottom of the heap, people attempt to be superior to some other persons or group. This is the root of Melvyn L. Fein's thesis presented in Human Hierarchies: A General Theory. Fein traces the development of changes from hunter-gatherer times to our own techno-commercial society. In moving from small to large communities, humans went from face-to-face contests for superiority to more anonymous and symbolic ones. Societies evolved from hunting bands where the parties knew each other through big-men societies, chieftainships, agrarian empires, patronage chains, caste societies, estate systems, and market-oriented democracies. Where once small groupings were organized primarily by strong forces such as personal relationships, the now standard large groupings are more dependent on weaker forces such as those provided by social roles. Bureaucracies and professional roles have become prominent. Bureaucracies allow large-scale organizations to maintain control of people by limiting the potential destructiveness of unregulated tests of strength and by clarifying chains of command. Their rigidity and unresponsiveness requires that they be supplemented by professional roles. At the same time, a proliferation of self-motivated experts delegate authority downward, thereby introducing a more flexible decentralization. This analysis is a unique and significant advance in both the sociology and anthropology of stratification among humans.
Download or read book The Logic of Social Science written by James Mahoney and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking logic-based approach to bridging the scientific-constructivist divide in social science The Logic of Social Science offers new principles for designing and conducting social science research. James Mahoney uses set-theoretic analysis to develop a fresh scientific constructivist approach that avoids essentialist biases in the production of knowledge. This approach recognizes that social categories depend on collective understandings for their existence, but it insists that this recognition need not hinder the use of explicit procedures for the rational assessment of truth. Mahoney shows why set-theoretic analysis enables scholars to avoid the pitfalls of essentialism and produce findings that rest on a firm scientific foundation. Extending his previous work and incorporating new material, Mahoney presents specific tools for formulating and evaluating theories in the social sciences. Chapters include discussions of models of causality, procedures for testing propositions, tools for conducting counterfactual and sequence analysis, and principles for knowledge accumulation. Equal focus is placed on theory building and explanatory tools, including principles for working with general theoretical orientations and normative frameworks in scientific research. Mahoney brings a novel perspective to understanding the relationship among actors, social rules, and social resources, and he offers original ideas for the analysis of temporality, critical events, and path dependence. Bridging the rift between those who take a scientific approach and those who take a constructivist one, The Logic of Social Science forges an ambitious way forward for social science researchers.
Download or read book Social Hierarchies written by Patricia R. Barchas and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1984-06-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors of the essays presented in this collection use selected animal and human models to inquire into the dynamics of hierarchical behavior. The collection begins with a review of the biological parameters of human behavior and suggests that a biological basis can be found in association with general strategies for organizing human behavior. Barchas has organized the essays proceeding from an evolutionary contextual frame through contributions that illuminate the regulation of hierarchical structures, to the final essays that implicate the brain's attentional system as a chief mediator between an individual's position in the group structure and behavior. This provocative volume presents strategies for thinking about some of the issues that necessarily arise when the impact of social behavior, physiology, and evolution on hierarchical behavior is considered.
Download or read book The Social Construction of Reality written by Peter L. Berger and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2011-04-26 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.
Download or read book Alternatives to hierarchies written by Ph.G. Herbst and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giving on occasions a talk on the subject of this book, one of the queries raised was, 'surely, what you mean are flat hierarchies'. This, I think, gives an indication of how difficult it can be to conceive of organizations which do not have a hierarchical structure. A rather similar response was obtained when, in the 1950's, an account was given to a manager of the British Coal Board of an autonomous composite team of more than 40 miners, who had taken over complete responsibility for a three-shift cycle, and divided the income obtained among themselves. His comment was that this could not possibly work. The new mode of work organization which had been evolved by the miners in several pits in the Durham coal fields was, at the time, well ahead of the prevailing concepts and philosophy of both management and the Trade Union. It did not help matters very much that the detailed accounts were presented in an academic and scientific form (Trist et aI. , 1963; Herbst, 1962). I think that we felt that all the backing of systematic research and data analysis would be needed to present the case for modes of organization, which deviated from conventional practice. However, something was learned from this experience. When at the beginning of the 1960's the Norwegian Work Democratization Project was started, a number of demonstration sites were set up which people could look at, and which could function as centers for diffusion.
