While distinguishing himself as a vanguard of postmodern symbolic interaction, Norm Denzin remained loyal to his roots as an empiricist and theorist of the self. He displayed such…
Abstract
While distinguishing himself as a vanguard of postmodern symbolic interaction, Norm Denzin remained loyal to his roots as an empiricist and theorist of the self. He displayed such loyalty to the examination of social relationships, involving the complex process of self-lodging, and significantly, the examination and analysis of alcoholics. This focus on lodging and the alcoholic introduced a paradoxical agency in which one's choices to act create obdurate constraints that limit choices. His particular focus on the recovering alcoholic not only involved comprehensive observations of recovery in situ (e.g., in Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings) but also in cinematic representations. Denzin also merged his ethnographic observations and cinematic readings while merging the perspectives associated with pragmatism, interactionism, and dramaturgy. In effect, by engaging in the worlds of alcoholics, alcoholics in recovery, and their images and portrayals in films, Denzin emphasized the importance of talking about the self (via internal conversations and relationships with external others). In doing so, he provided a theory of the self while straddling the symbolic line between a postmodernist imagination and a modernist commitment to realism.
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Almost all historical accounts of psychological work related to the self-concept begin with the pioneering work of William James (e.g., Harter, 1996; Pajares & Schunk, 2002, 2005;…
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Almost all historical accounts of psychological work related to the self-concept begin with the pioneering work of William James (e.g., Harter, 1996; Pajares & Schunk, 2002, 2005; Roeser et al., 2006). James' distinction between the self as knower and agent (the I-self) and the self as known and object (the Me-self), in the famous Chap. 10, on self-consciousness, in his Principles of Psychology (1890), undoubtedly informs much subsequent work on the self-concept (a term that James never used himself). In particular, the general idea that the self is made up of different constituents (e.g., the Me-self contains material, social, and spiritual selves) arranged hierarchically is still very much a basic structural assumption in many contemporary theories of the self-concept, just as James' assumption that the I-self can create and monitor a variety of Me-selves anchors much self-concept methodology and process theorizing. With respect to the general aims of self-concept research, James' framing of self-esteem (a term he did use) also has been extremely influential on subsequent generations of both self-esteem and self-concept researchers. For James, self-esteem is a feeling that “depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do” (James, 1981, p. 310), a feeling that depends on the success with which we achieve those things we set out to achieve.2
My main point is that the 1920s Chicago School got its scholastic or school-like quality primarily from its notion of what a human being is, from its social psychology, and only…
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My main point is that the 1920s Chicago School got its scholastic or school-like quality primarily from its notion of what a human being is, from its social psychology, and only secondarily from its sociology. These sociologists developed the novel idea that humans are constituted by symbolic or cultural elements, not biological forces or instincts. They applied Franz Boas's discovery of culture to human nature and the self. In particular, they showed that ethnic groups and their subcultures are not biologically determined or driven by fixed instincts. In the 1910s and 1920s, the Americanization movement held that ethnic groups could be ranked on how intelligent, how criminal, and therefore how fit for democracy they were. This powerful movement, the extreme wing of which was lead by the Northern Ku Klux Klan, advocated different levels of citizenship for different ethnic groups. The Chicago sociologists spear-headed the idea that humans have a universal nature, are all the same ontologically, and therefore all the same morally and legally. In this way, they strengthened the foundations of civil liberties. The Chicago professors advanced their position in a quiet, low-keyed manner, the avoidance of open political controversy being the academic style of the time. Their position was nevertheless quite potent and effective. The actual sociology of the school, also quite important, was largely an expression of the democratic social psychology. In addition, the sociology was dignified and elevated by the moral capital of their theory of human nature.
This chapter in honor of Bernard N. Meltzer briefly reflects on what are the basic assumptions, foundational issues, and seminal concepts of symbolic interactionism (SI), a topic…
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This chapter in honor of Bernard N. Meltzer briefly reflects on what are the basic assumptions, foundational issues, and seminal concepts of symbolic interactionism (SI), a topic that Bernie and I discussed for nearly two decades. It reviews those concerns, but makes no attempt to survey the many varieties of SI. I center the rise of SI as one response to the nature-nurture controversy between 1870 and 1940. SI's response to that controversy emphasized the interaction of structure and agency through which humans are constructed by society as they are in the process of constructing it. A number of concerns defines the essentials of SI: behaviorism versus minded behavior; antideterminism, structure, and agency; chance and emergence: ontological and methodological implications; selves, language, and role-taking; and symbols, meaning, and transformation. I conclude with a comment on Meltzer's role in developing Central Michigan University as a regional center of SI.
The purpose of this study is to determine if an earnings forecasting model based on factors hypothesised to result in differential profits across firms (industries) reduces model…
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The purpose of this study is to determine if an earnings forecasting model based on factors hypothesised to result in differential profits across firms (industries) reduces model error relative to the model developed by Ou (1990). Initial research attempting to forecast earnings found that the random walk model, where current year's earnings are the prediction for next year, provides the best forecast of annual earnings (Ball and Watts 1972; Foster 1973; Beaver, Kettler, and Scholes 1970; Albrecht, Lookabill, and McKeown 1977; Brealey 1969). Ou (1990) developed an earnings forecasting model using financial statement information beyond prior years' earnings as the explanatory variables that outperformed the random walk model in predicting annual earnings.
The essay explores the profound nature and consequences of subjectivity struggles in everyday life. W. E. B. Du Bois's concept of double consciousness and its constituent concepts…
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The essay explores the profound nature and consequences of subjectivity struggles in everyday life. W. E. B. Du Bois's concept of double consciousness and its constituent concepts of the veil, twoness, and second sight illuminate the process of racialized self-formation. Racialized self-formation contributes to understanding the cultural reproduction of domination and subjugation, the two primary concerns of radical interactionists. Double consciousness, long ignored by symbolic interactionists, cannot be neglected by radical interactionists if they are to articulate a comprehensive account of self-formation in a white-supremacist culture. Reflections on racialization, meritocracy, and subjectivity struggles in contemporary everyday life conclude the essay.
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David Schweingruber and David W. Wahl
The interactionist minded self (IMS), the package of cognitive processes, including the internal conversation, that the classic pragmatist philosophers and early interactionist…
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The interactionist minded self (IMS), the package of cognitive processes, including the internal conversation, that the classic pragmatist philosophers and early interactionist sociologists claimed were important for understanding self and action, has been underinvestigated. These conceptions of the self have tended to be treated as a set of hermeneutical devices rather than as testable propositions about how people think. The authors identify several empirical claims about the IMS, discuss the diversity of minded activity (including the claim that some people don't have internal conversations), summarize some of the findings from our research on internal conversations, provide a set of topics related to the IMS that we believe should be researched, and discuss methods for researching these and other topics related to the IMS.
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Ronan Fox, James Cooley and Manfred Hauswirth
The purpose of this paper is to identify the gap that currently exists between enterprise and consumer‐focused mashup tools in terms of personalized, trusted collaboration. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the gap that currently exists between enterprise and consumer‐focused mashup tools in terms of personalized, trusted collaboration. The authors describe how Sqwelch, a semantically enabled mashup maker, addresses this gap during the design of mashups and in their execution.
Design/methodology/approach
Sqwelch enables the composition of mashups based on the concept of trust explicitly specified by users through a visual interface. Taxonomies are used to enable lightweight mediation of payloads delivered through a publish/subscribe mechanism.
Findings
The authors demonstrate the use of Sqwelch as a proof of concept in the remote delivery of healthcare, and how Sqwelch has been used to address areas of trust and collaboration in the delivery of telehealth services.
Originality/value
Integrating trust and collaboration across the boundaries of enterprises is required where sensitive data are transferred across those boundaries in the expectation of the delivery of a service. Across these boundaries, the authors find variations in users' skills, their expectations, and their responsibilities. The prototype described here enables users to discover, compose, share and collaborate in the day‐to‐day use of systems that match personalized requirements.
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Childhood sociology as it has evolved from explicit critique of socialization sciences has developed two central concepts: “The child as (competent) actor” and the notion of…
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Childhood sociology as it has evolved from explicit critique of socialization sciences has developed two central concepts: “The child as (competent) actor” and the notion of “generational order.” It is above all the second concept that has not yet been fully dealt with within its sociological context. The term “generational order” is not just supposed to refer to ordered relations between (socially defined) age groups and their members, but also to a social order in general, as it is achieved by the ordered arrangement of age groups. From a historical perspective one can see that those efforts that aim at a disciplined society with small social control expenses do at the latest from the 19th century onwards concentrate on education and a well organized family and thus on a well ordered arrangement of age groups. It is an ordering process towards self-control, towards self-government as the most dense as well as discrete way of government. Until just some years ago such development appeared as an indispensable prerequisite of social order to those sociologists dealing with questions of childhood and growing up – at least as long as they assumed the perspective of socialization theory and sciences. Only the absence or deficiency of such a generational order had any chance to become an important scientific question.
The controversy about performance ethnography and other new modes of sociological reporting in the US tends to be highly partisan and often uninformed. Toscano, one of a handful…
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The controversy about performance ethnography and other new modes of sociological reporting in the US tends to be highly partisan and often uninformed. Toscano, one of a handful of symbolic interactionists in Italy, places new modes of reporting, which he calls “artistic performances,” in the proper historical and contextual perspective. He points out that the boundaries between art and everyday life and art and science are changing and can no longer be viewed as dichotomous and it is time to redefine the fluid relation between these different realms.Toscano identifies C. Wright Mills as the first sociologist to stress the relationship between the arts and sociology to the point of referring to his work as a “sociological poem.” Not coincidentally Norman Denzin and other supporters of new mode of sociological reporting invoke a return to C. Wright Mills, not only for his poetics of expression but for his quest and passion to help the downtrodden.Toscano analyzes the artistic productions of Goffman, Denzin, and others, focusing on the production of new sociologies that are no longer mere “texts” but become “performances.” He realizes that performance can only partially communicate the emotional struggle of those we study. Yet with its pathos and its passion performance can begin to melt the crystal palace of modernistic meta-theoretical sociology. Andrea Fontana; University of Nevada, Las Vegas