Documents sociology 237 results

"Une partie de la littérature sociologique admet que les groupes comme les personnes sont dotés de volonté, de conscience et cherchent à promouvoir leurs intérêts, entrent en conflit, ont des stratégies bien définies. Selon Olson, c'est se rendre la vie trop facile que de supposer la logique de l'action collective réductible à la logique de l'action individuelle. La proposition impertinente qu'il cherche à promouvoir est qu'un groupe inorganisé de personnes ayant un intérêt commun, conscientes de cet intérêt et ayant des moyens de le réaliser ne fera dans des conditions générales rien pour le promouvoir. La communauté d'intérêt ne suffit pas à provoquer, contrairement à ce qu'affirme Marx, l'action commune permettant de promouvoir l'intérêt de tous. En dehors de ses possibilités d'application et de l'interprétation nouvelle qu'elle offre de nombreux phénomènes sociaux et politiques (syndicats, partis politiques, groupes de pression...), la théorie d'Olson ouvre une voie à la réinterprétation d'auteurs classiques comme Rousseau, Marx et Durkheim."

This booklet describes the method used by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health to investigate occupational stress. The method involves an examination of perceived occupational stress factors, stress reactions of individuals, and the possibilities of the individual and of the work organization to influence occupational stress. The objectives and application of the Occupational Stress Questionnaire are described, along with data analysis and utilization of the questionnaire findings. Abridged and comprehensive versions of the questionnaire are included.

"The devastating effects of climate change are undeniable. Fires rage and waters rise in every corner of the globe. In light of these changes to our planet, the issue of social and environmental wellbeing has gained prominent attention from both academia and policy makers. Scholarly research on the interaction between social and employment policy domains has flourished. Academics now reflect on the different aspects of environmental and social protection, ecological and social risks, and the costs of climate change, sustainable welfare and new social movements prompted by green transitions. This book provides a vital contribution to the emerging research agenda. It brings together scholars from interconnected disciplines to discuss the eco-social debate, providing a critical overview on extant scholarship and reflecting on future research pathways on the eco-social nexus from a variety of analytical perspectives."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"Anticipating risks has become an obsession of the early twenty-first century. Private and public sector organisations increasingly devote resources to risk prevention and contingency planning to manage risk events should they occur. This 2010 book shows how we can organise our social, organisational and regulatory policy systems to cope better with the array of local and transnational risks we regularly encounter. Contributors from a range of disciplines - including finance, history, law, management, political science, social psychology, sociology and disaster studies - consider threats, vulnerabilities and insecurities alongside social and organisational sources of resilience and security. These issues are introduced and discussed through a fascinating and diverse set of topics, including myxomatosis, the 2012 Olympic Games, gene therapy and the financial crisis. This is an important book for academics and policy makers who wish to understand the dilemmas generated in the anticipation and management of risks."

"Objectives The main purpose of this study was to demonstrate the relevance of testing indices concerning the psychosocial work environment by item bias or differential item functioning (DIF) analysis. Especially when the work environment for different groups is compared, this kind of construct validation is important. As exogenous variables gender, age, and occupational group were selected.Methods Data were taken from a cross-sectional study of Danish employees aged 19-59 years (N=5940). The study was carried out in 1990 and followed-up in 1995.Results Item bias was demonstrated in all indices when analyzed in relation to gender, age, and occupational groups of the total population. Item bias was much weaker or disappeared as the population was divided into main occupational groups and analyzed in relation to the same exogenous variables.Conclusion For a heterogeneous group of employees, gender, age, and occupational status are significant determinants of the response pattern in relation to indices of the psychosocial work environment. It was concluded that, if the psychosocial work environment for different groups is to be compared, indices should always be tested for item bias in relation to the exogenous variables included in the final analyses. Indices should only be used if there is no item bias. If such indices cannot be constructed, it is suggested that researchers either concentrate on constructing indices that are valid in subgroups or report results based on single-item analyses."

"During the last 30 years or so, different theoretical and empirical perspectives have come to see economies as embedded in institutional, social and cultural structures. Such perspectives developed in contrast to the neoclassical economic paradigm of a rational actor isolated from his/her social and cultural context, as well as to sociological functionalism, which sees economic action as heavily determined by values and social–structural factors. The general idea behind these perspectives is that economic action is always shaped by institutions rooted in history, and by the structures of social relationships in which economic actors are embedded; with the consequence that the former cannot be explained without including the latter in the explanation. This article shows how this perspective is shared by the ‘comparative political economy' approach, which developed starting in the 1970s especially in Western Europe, and the ‘new economic sociology' approach, which developed a decade later in the United States.After reviewing the main features of both approaches, the article shows how Italian economic sociology has built a relevant research tradition. More specifically, it reviews the main contributions that this ‘school' has given to our understanding of how modern capitalist societies work, especially regarding labour markets, welfare systems, local economies and industrial relations. The lack of a strong dominant and unifying paradigm has often been seen as a weakness of Italian economic sociology, as well as of economic sociology tout court. Yet this weakness has to some extent been turned into an advantage, since Italian economic sociologists have been more willing to cooperate with scholars in other disciplines and sub-disciplines and have also been more interested in entering new territories, from both a theoretical and a substantive point of view."

"The diversity of approaches within modern economics is often overlooked by economic sociology focusing on the neoclassical orthodoxy. At the time of the dispute over methods there had been mutual influences between Max Weber and the Austrian version of neoclassical theory, but in the later approaches of economic sociology the special features of Austrian economics, which has developed from being one of the neoclassical schools into a strand of thought with unique characteristics, have not been recognized. Modern Austrian economics emphasizes time, uncertainty, knowledge and dynamic market processes, which are themes of importance for economic sociology. Moreover, the conceptions of individual action and social order in Austrian economics can be of relevance for a socio-economic perspective with regard to overcoming the division between social and economic factors."

"This article discusses changing social perspectives on knowledge, from the old sociology of knowledge to current post-colonial debates. The authors propose an approach that sees knowledge not as an abstract social construction but as the product of specific forms of social labour, showing the ontoformativity of social practice that creates reality through historical time. Research in three southern-tier countries examines knowledge workers and their labour process, knowledge institutions including workplaces and communication systems, economic strategies and the resourcing of knowledge work and workforces. This research shows in detail the contested hegemony of the global metropole in domains of knowledge. It reveals forms of negotiation that reshape knowledge production, and shows the importance for knowledge workers of the dynamics of global change."

"Après le succès d' Éloge du carburateur, qui mettait en évidence le rôle fondamental du travail manuel, Matthew B. Crawford, philosophe-mécanicien, s'interroge sur la fragmentation de notre vie mentale. Ombres errantes dans la caverne du virtuel, hédonistes abstraits fuyant les aspérités du monde, nous dérivons à la recherche d'un confort désincarné et d'une autonomie infantile qui nous met à la merci des exploiteurs de " temps de cerveau disponible ".

Décrivant l'évolution des dessins animés ou les innovations terrifiantes de l'industrie du jeu à Las Vegas, Matthew B. Crawford illustre par des exemples frappants l'idée que notre civilisation connaît une véritable " crise de l'attention ", qu'il explore sous toutes les coutures et avec humour, recourant aussi bien à l'analyse philosophique qu'à des récits d'expérience vécue. Il met ainsi au jour les racines culturelles d'une conception abstraite et réductrice de la liberté qui facilite la manipulation marchande de nos choix et appauvrit notre rapport au monde.

Puisant chez Descartes, Locke, Kant, Heidegger, James ou Merleau?Ponty, il revisite avec subtilité les relations entre l'esprit et la chair, la perception et l'action, et montre que les processus mentaux et la virtuosité des cuisiniers, des joueurs de hockey sur glace, des pilotes de course ou des facteurs d'orgues sont des écoles de sagesse et d'épanouissement. Contre un individualisme sans individus authentiques et une prétendue liberté sans puissance d'agir, il plaide avec brio pour un nouvel engagement avec le réel qui prenne en compte le caractère " incarné " de notre existence, et nous réconcilie avec le monde."