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Following criticism leveled at sociologists by Chris Rojek and Bryan Turner in “Decorative Sociology: A Critique of the Cultural Turn,” this article identifies a troubling absence of systematic contextualization in sport sociology. In addressing this issue, I begin by describing the role of history and context in sociology and conclude that the discipline should take history more seriously, not least by giving context greater due. I then engage the debate as to whether radical contextual cultural studies or social history offers the best explanation of context. Here I argue for the latter. In justifying my position, I adapt a model employed by the conservative social historian Arthur Marwick in “The sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c. 1958-c. 1974,” to contextualize a contemporary cultural phenomenon, the female boarder (i.e., the female surfboard rider, skateboarder, and snowboarder). Ultimately, this paper illustrates that the systematic and transhistorical tools developed by social historians have the potential to facilitate a more all-encompassing contextualization of cultural phenomena, to examine multiple historical conjunctures, and to help sociologists take time and change more seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of "a sport sociology that matters" requires sport sociologists to confront and make fundamental decisions about major imperatives and challenges that implicitly or explicitly can be found in recent work in the field. Five major imperatives are discussed: the relevance imperative, the cultural interpretive imperative, the critical imperative, the engagement imperative, and the application imperative. While the list is not assumed to be exhaustive or definitive, these imperatives are believed to be sufficiently provocative to pose significant challenges to conventional approaches to sport sociology and perhaps general sociology as well. The imperatives are discussed in relation to two major recent controversies in and about sport sociology, concerning the need for a cultural studies approach and the need for a more applied sociology of sport. The implications and risks of accepting the challenges implied or stated in the imperatives are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the contemporary examinations on prophetic passages which aim to bring reflection to the readers. Such discussions include the material-cultural study of peasantry, archaeology and iconography, and sociology of official and popular religion. It presents Judah's social studies which are under the Assyrian domination which show the refinement of labour coercion mechanism under the authority of Hezekiah and Manasseh. It says that religion sociologists have determined the reciprocality between popular and official religion. It concludes that the divine title of Boshet, as it occurred in Hebrew chant, could be denounced by the goddess and royal administration.

Abstract: Since the 1990s cross-cultural studies of academic genres are becoming increasingly relevant. One genre that has recently attracted cross-cultural attention is the academic book review. The aim of the present paper is to provide insight into what is expected in terms of overall critical attitude towards the books under review when writing in this academic genre for international journals by comparison to what is conventional in journals of smaller discourse communities. Based on two comparable corpora of 20 academic book reviews of literature in English and 20 in peninsular Spanish, the study compares how much and what kind of critical attitude (positive vs. negative) is typically displayed by expert L1 writers of such texts. Critical attitude is defined in terms of ‘critical acts,’ which are identified and measured in a way that takes the co-text and the context into account. The results show that the peninsular Spanish writers of literary academic book reviews are much less critical in general and show a much lower tendency to evaluate the book negatively than their Anglo-American counterparts. Results are discussed in the light of information provided by informants. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The subcultural theory associated with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) has received numerous and wide-ranging critiques. Debate has been particularly prevalent within sociological work on youth, music, and style, a context in which some commentators have rejected the idea of subculture, favoring more fleeting, transient socialites. However, these debates have rarely been considered within the context of the study of sporting subcultures. In this article, the author reviews the post-CCCS oeuvre, exploring the implications for the study of sporting subcultures, questions of individuality, difference, and collective identity, and the possibility and nature of cultural or subcultural resistance. The author evaluates Atkinson and Wilson's proposition that bodily experiences or performances can resist constraints imposed by mainstream culture, illustrating this in the context of lifestyle sport culture. Thus, this article contributes to a revised agenda for the study of subcultures in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past twenty-five years, the literature on consumption has gained analytic power by positioning itself against the consumer critics of the twentieth century (Veblen, Adorno and Horkheimer, Galbraith, Baudrillard), arguing that these accounts were totalizing, theorized consumers as too passive, and simplified motives. The literature moved to micro-level, interpretive studies that are often depoliticized and lack a critical approach to the subject matter. The author argues that developments such as the emergence of a global production system, ecological degradation, and new findings on well-being warrant a reengagement with the critical tradition and macro-level critiques. This article considers three traditions—Veblenian accounts of status seeking, the Frankfurt School, and Galbraith and the economic approach to consumer demand—arguing that the flaws of these models are not necessarily fatal and that the debate about producer versus consumer sovereignty should be revisited in light of the changing political power of transnational corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author historically situates and discusses the transdisciplinarity of visual cultural studies and its relevance to and promise for research in education, sociology, psychology, curriculum studies, the arts, and semiotics (among other disciplines). The author argues that visual cultural studies not only must sustain a serious commitment to social justice, democracy, and critiques of manipulative consumptive performances but also that it should be more attentive to issues of human rights, the (in)equitable distribution of cultural significance, and the embodied sexualized subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response on Meaghan Morris's article on cultural studies which appeared in the previous issue of "Continuum: Journal of Media and Culture Studies." Morris criticized the cannon of cultural studies for failing to address issues that affect social life. The author points out the importance of the cultural studies and recommends that cultural studies should be motivated by an ethical concern to answer the challenges posed by Morris. He suggest that old depersonalization such as mass culture discourse are to be abandoned and developed a more subtle form of cultural description.

An important strand of feminist practice has been the reconstruction of women’s experience historically, using auto/biographical sources. This process has gone under the metaphorical banner of retrieving the hidden from history, bringing the invisible into visibility, giving voices to the silenced. One social mechanism that has been significant as a first stage towards remembering individuals has been the publication of an obituary on their death. A particularly influential form of collective memory is derived from these literary memorials. Yet, despite their appearance as a mere series of individual portraits, the written texts of the obituary possess a certain authority and their subjects receive from such accolades the stamp of legitimacy. Indeed, this social order of remembrance appears only to offer an anticipated bestowal of dignity on those who are in any case ‘naturally’ distinguished. Such an apparently obligatory social order allows us to see in the newspaper obituary something of the character of modern invented traditions.

Classical Studies and Cultural Studies are often regarded as incompatible endeavours. This does not have to be so, however; instead, the two fields of inquiry have much to offer each other. The writer discusses the prospects of dialogue between the two by looking at the thematic issue of Parallax (Issue 29, December 2003), which is devoted to this question. Such dialogue would help both Classical Studies and Cultural Studies to interrogate the politics of their production of their own cultural objects as well as their disciplinary investment in the past and the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the use of the popular thought figure of the sleeper as a methodological tool to get an angle on the cultural analysis of majority-minority relations in Europe. Reference to the autobiographical essay of Nazneen Khan, who considers the theoretical possibility that she too might have become a terrorist; Argument on regarding the populist ideas in Europe as sleepers.

In Turkish universities, the humanities and social sciences have for years been at the bottom of the academic pecking order, and academicians in general have been expected to stay out of politics. Given Its base in humanities and social sciences and Its overt political engagement, cultural studies would not at first seem destined for a brilliant future In Turkey. The academic climate Is changing, in particular with the recent establishment of several private universities. Yet students show little Inclination to take a course of study that, to their eyes, does not lead to a career. This article addresses the pragmatic Issues of both persuading students that cultural studies is relevant (yes, and useful) and deciding which courses will make a coherent program of study. It argues that cultural studies' involvement with the 'real world' might stimulate a renewed interest in the humanities and social sciences — and, along the way, perhaps reinject some politics back into academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the relationship between sociology and cultural studies, arguing that sociological cultural studies represent an important transdisciplinary platform. The discussion highlights the work of a number of under-valued authors, positing, in a provisional way, that where sociology remains drawn to an ethos of 'explanatory' causal reasoning, cultural studies typically occupies a register of evocative and engaged social 'description'. Despite the heuristic value of this schema, which casts light on more recent theoretical initiatives (such as'the method of articulation') as well as 'canonical' figures, the distinction between explanation and description is shown to be ultimately difficult to sustain. This reinforces the overall theme of the paper that whilst there are sometimes very different emphases at work within sociology and cultural studies, they need to be seen as complementary discourses operating within the same intellectual field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While 'cultural studies is caught in a traffic jam', at the same time the seemingly global crisis of cultural studies coincides with the late reception and high popularity of cultural studies in the German-speaking countries after the 'cultural' and the 'linguistic turns'. Yet, the political and academic history and the contexts of the emergence of cultural studies and 'Kulturwissenschaften', as well as their by now established academic traditions and the manifold relations to current developments, are rarely defined and scrutinized. In this paper,we will relate some theoretical and historical perspectives concerning the relationship between cultural studies and the historical disciplines in the German-speaking context. We shall try to trace the potential of mutual benefits between cultural studies and history by foregrounding the political commitment of academic work that still seems to be one of the most important traits of CS as much as the necessity of a stronger notion of the contextualization that history and historiographical methodology provides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK we have recently witnessed a series of attacks on the overall project of cultural studies, both in the popular press and, within the academy, by scholars associated with the more established disciplines of sociology and anthropology. The critiques variously argue that cultural studies has led us into a political ‘dead end’ (in particular, in its emphasis on the study of cultural consumption); has abandoned ‘politics’ altogether (at least, in one definition of the term); has done little more than reinvent (in ignorance) the old (and indeed outmoded) theoretical wheels of an earlier intellectual tradition, and/or that, in general, the ‘excesses’ of its project have only confirmed the worst fears of those who were opposed to it in the first place. In these critiques it is argued that it is (somehow) both time to move ‘beyond’ cultural studies altogether, and time to return to the more secure disciplinary foundations and rigorous methodological procedures of sociology, and/or political economy and anthropology. This article considers the theoretical and political occasions of this interesting (hyper?) critical phenomenon, and considers whether, notwithstanding the very real current problems and divisions within cultural studies itself, the contributions of cultural studies over the last twenty years have now so transformed our field of study that the critics' proposed return to ‘The Good Old Ways’ may simply no longer be possible (even if it were desirable). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is proposed that cross-cultural studies of leadership style have failed to distinguish adequately between global characterizations of style and the specific behaviours which leaders need to use in a given culture if a particular style is to be attributed to them. A study is reported of perceptions of electronics plant supervisors m Britain, the USA, Japan and Hong Kong, derived from Misumi's PM leadership theory. The findings indicate that characterizations of P(Performance) and M(Maintenance) leader style have a similar factor structure in each culture. However, the specific behaviours associated with those styles differ markedly, in ways which are comprehensible within the cultural norms of each setting. The study illustrates how a series of emic correlations within each culture sample may be used to test the validity of etic models of leader style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although controversial, science studies has emerged in the 1990s as a significant culture area within anthropology. Various histories inform the cultural analysis of science, both outside and within anthropology. A shift from the study of gender to the study of science, the influence of postcolonial critiques of the discipline, and the impact of cultural studies are discussed in terms of their influence upon the cultural analysis of science. New ethnographic methods, the question of "ethnosciences" and multiculturalism, and the implosion of informatics and biomedicine all comprise fields of recent scholarship in the anthropology of science. Debates over modernism and postmodernism, globalization and environment, and the status of the natural inform many of these discussions. The work of Escobar, Hess, Haraway, Martin, Rabinow, Rapp, and Strathem are used to highlight new directions within anthropology concerning both cultures of science and science as culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a brief review of cross-cultural human sexuality and the concerns anthropologists have highlighted in the study of sexual practices. The paper is divided into a discussion of the topics heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior. Focus is given on cross-cultural studies of sexual practice that attempt to deal with human sexual arousal, attraction, and customary means of dealing with sexuality in non-Western cultures. The paper excluded discussions of human biology and evolution, reproductive health and hygiene, gender role and status, the psychodynamic approach to understanding human sexual behavior, and historical surveys of Western sexual practice.

This articles looks into the fate of the popular culture movement. The investigation of popular culture do not require social scientists to break with their disciplines. It is true that the realization that not only primitive tribes but one's own society could be the target of anthropological investigations was momentarily startling to individuals, but for social sciences themselves, focusing of their methodologies on the phenomena of popular culture required no radical re-orientation, no paradigm shift. Where the study of popular culture was truly novel and met real resistance was in the humanities, in disciplines like literature, traditionally committed to studying and holding up for admiration not all cultural artifacts but only, in Matthew Arnold's phrase, the best that is known and thought. If the humanistic tradition is abandoned, the study of popular culture will no longer be controversial. It will have been absorbed by the social sciences and by the new theorists for whom literature, the humanities and individual judgment are all outmoded concepts. In the contemporary world popular culture reveals the face of modern humanity, yet it is rarely studied for what it can teach us about the conduct of private life and the governance of the state, the enjoyment of beauty and the contemplation of truth.

The article states that in academic circles in the U.S. the emotions are a hot topic, a rapidly growing and far-flung industry that has over the last 15 years attracted people from different disciplines in ever accelerating numbers, many of whom have been working unknown to one another in parallel lines of research. Thus far scholars in the fields of philosophy, anthropology, and sociology have contributed the most to such research, but in history, literary studies, and cultural studies too work has recently app eared that signals an increasingly common interest in the emotions.

An attempt is made to analyze the effects of the Teen Challenge program in the self-esteem of rehabilitants, and to determine if, indeed, any relationship exists. The importance of self-esteem as a psycho-social concept has emerged in recognition of man's needs for feelings of self-worth. Central to this concept are the seminal formulations of White, Cooley, Coopersmith, Goffmann, and Harris. Additionally, Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" brings this concept into focus. Cooley notes that self-concept emerges as a result of a series of interactions and appraisals of other people. The self-concept, as it relates to self-esteem, is also of major concern to the Teen Challenge program, the subject of this research. Teen Challenge is a therapeutic community seeking the resocialization of drug addicts, criminals, juvenile delinquents, prostitutes, alcoholics and other deviant types. This program is a three-phase (orientation; training; re-entry), one-year residential program which uses the soteriological approach (conversation-catharsis) as the starter-mechanism to resocialization. According to a recent, federally funded, follow-up study, 86 per cent of those who graduated from this program seven years previously had not recidivated. If indeed these statistics are valid, this would merit further research to determine variables significant to the resocialization process. This research assumes that self-esteem is one such variable, though perhaps only one of many. It is further assumed that this would be low upon entry, and would progress consistently in a positive direction throughout one's stay in the program. Data was collected from centers in six different countries for a cross-cultural comparison. To avoid contamination, all residents immediately upon entry into the Teen Challenge program in 1975 were tested using the Rosenberg "Self-Esteem Scale." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a cross-cultural study of career plans of farm reared boys. The purpose of this paper is to explore the occupational and educational career plans of farm reared youth from a cross-national perspective. The research attention focuses on rural young people in Germany, Norway and the United States. The authors are especially interested in pursuing those conditions that lead a farmer's son toward becoming a farmer himself. In an effort to better understand and interpret the effects of a farm background in each society, the career plans of the farm based study populations will be compared with young people from other residential and occupational backgrounds. By examining the manner by which and through which farm youth in these societies are sorted out for work roles, either farm-related or non-farm related, one hopes to better understand the nature of contextual variations on an inter-societal level and the relationship between social context and specified structural determinants of the career choosing sequence.

The article focuses on the aim to select titles that illustrate theoretical and research trends in studies of mythology and folk in the U.S. The terms mythology and folklore are often linked together in both lay and academic discourse. Mythology is an independent study devoted to Greek and Roman myths which had broadened to cover myths of people but had lost its status as a separate branch of learning and become an adjunct to several subdivisions of the humanities and social sciences. The sign of the coming of age of folklore studies is the appearance of historical and biographical explorations.

This article discusses the status of sociology in the U.S. and its regional aspect. In conformity with the concept of regionalism as the new science of the region-a region existing only as a constituent part of a totality-it may be assumed that sociology of the South shall be discussed only as an integral and constituent part of all American sociology, and not as separate from it. For, in general, sociology for the South must be the same as sociology for any other region. Science is no respecter of locality or region, except in so far as that region is a laboratory, nor can any locality or region be adequately served by any limited science or discipline short of its complete range and methodology. However, it is well known that emphasis upon regional laboratories and regional phenomena, so far from limiting a sociological program or sociological study, will require a broader background in anthropology, economics, historical and cultural studies than does general theoretical sociology, which would specialize upon concepts, general history, and theory of society.

This article presents the author's thoughts on subsequent book reviews. As a sociologist, he does not understand the phrase 'sociology of culture,' which many of his peers use. He believes all sociology is of culture, in so much as people are forever immersed in culture. However, the books reviewed offer valuable insight into cultural analysis. He also offers his praise of the reviewer James Jasper, who, he believes, was able to connect the books together in a comprehensive overview of the sociology of culture.

The article presents information on authors of articles published in the 2006 issue of the periodical "The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies." Alan Cribb is a professor of bioethics and education at King's College in London, England while Mario Di Paolantonio has a postdoctoral research fellowship financed by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Karen Espiritu is a candidate for a doctorate degree in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Canada. The work of Queens University Professor Dina Georgis engages with Canadian diasporic. She is completing a manuscript titled "Diaspora's Stories: Narrative, Loss and Cultural Histories." The research interests of Sharon Gewirtz are in the sociology of education and education policy, with particular focus on social justice. Michael A. Peters has adjunct appointments as professor at the University of Glasgow and the Auckland University of Technology. Anwar Tlili is a postdoctoral research associate at King's College in London.

This article discusses the plans taken to broaden the scope of the journal "Sociology of Education" and to attract papers from the international as well as the national community. These will appear in special issues of October 1984 and January 1985. The January 1985 issue, guest edited by Philip Wexier, presents international studies in the new sociology of education. The "second generation" of critical sociology of education has gone beyond calls for critique and the assertion of metatheoretical orientations. The primary function of these special issues, unlike the April/July 1982 special issue on private and public schools, is to demonstrate to researchers in sociology of education that the journal welcomes the kinds of research highlighted in these issues. Though we do not plan another special issue with this intention in the near future, there are still important areas of study that are rarely published in the journal. Among these are comparative and cross-cultural studies in sociology of education and studies of human social development.