In this article, the city and the urban space shall be understood as a political platform, where identities and powers are bargained, and as a screen on which they are projected. In this context, I will reflect on the strategies of identity management ‘from below’ employed by Tatar young people in Kazan and on their attempt to build a ‘Tatar urban youth culture’. These identity strategies are mainly oriented against the ‘Russian other’, a decadent consumerist West and (...) an ignorant rural Tatar culture and their main issue is the ‘repossessing’ of Kazan and the Tatarisation of the city. Such strategies namely include the use of the Tatar language in predominantly Russophone public spheres, the introduction of Tatar folkloristic elements in music and fashion as well as the appeal to a (lost) Tatar urban culture associated with an enlightened approach to Islam and to the pre-revolutionary Tatar intelligentsia. Tatar youth scenes thus use ethnicity as a resource in the linguistic, religious, historic and cultural (re)appropriation of the urban space, which in turn has to be understood as a symbolic political act in a specific historical as well as ‘glocal’ context. Thus, this article can be seen as a contribution to a critical approach towards cosmopolitanism introducing alternative concepts to reflect relationships, norms and values in urban life. (shrink)

Social justice needs a home, a place where it can be found, especially for young people growing up in fragmented and increasingly inequitable societies. Community youth arts organizations have secured a certain prominence in this context over the past three decades and are now part of the urban infrastructures that shape connected learning networks in highly industrialized nations. In this capacity, youth arts organizations regularly engage a language and aesthetics of authenticity and trust as part of how (...) they call out, represent and make a home for children and youth. This paper examines how authenticity in youth culture and youth cultural expression is negotiated by arts organizations and how organizations locate their own trustworthiness as allies of young people through the curation of online media archives. The analysis draws on the internet media archives of two youth arts organizations in Canada’s largest English-speaking cities. The Oasis Skateboard Factory in Toronto, ON is an extension program of the Toronto District School Board that enables participants to create their own brands and learn to run a skateboard or professional design business. ReelYouth started in Vancouver in 2005 as a community media empowerment project, and now delivers programs across Canada and internationally.The claims to youth authenticity articulated in each media archive reveal how authenticity and trust are negotiated ideologically by each organization and how organizations mark their ontological status, as a home from which young people can think and respond to an unjust world. I examine how youth authenticity is produced by analyzing how discourses of youth identity, connection and trust are deployed across each archive. Whilst showcasing how authenticity is negotiated by each group, I show how the production of authenticity discourses by OSF and ReelYouth simultaneously convey a deeper reality: the way youth arts groups operate as care structures that offer ontological security, and places of increasing “awareness of previously unnoticed interconnections” for youth. In this way, they operate as sites of border work, places of routing from which the work of social justice can be borne. (shrink)

Linked by the connection of feminism, sociology, and cultural studies, Changing Cultures assesses feminist theory, its transformations, and its ability to highlight issues and practices. This controversial yet stimulating volume explores the complex relationship between these three subjects, conceptual approaches, their political implications and their historical context. Nava analyzes utopianism of feminist thought on the family; sexuality and sexual differences in youth service provision; and the symbolic resonance of the urban and domestic education of girls. She also (...) investigates the relationship of child sexual abuse to problems of interpretation and the politics of media representation, and different theories of consumerism and advertising and their implications for our understanding of youth and identity. Controversial yet accessible, Changing Cultures will attract a wide range of readers, from women's studies to interpersonal violence, youth/adolescent studies to cultural studies. "This is a lively and stimulating collection, a series of essays which spans the recent history of feminism and cultural studies and which draws together the pleasures and the pain of these encounters with clarity and theoretical fluency." --Angela McRobbie, Thames Valley University "This is a collection of previously published articles which were well worth gathering together, and which I'm pleased to have on my bookshelf." --Chartist "The essays are interesting, provocative, and theoretical in nature. . . . Excellent references are given throughout. If seeking a political, historical, and theoretical evaluation of the topics discussed, one can find a brief summary and excellent references. . . . [The book] provides food for thought and intellectual stimulation." --Journal of Consumer Affairs. (shrink)

This study assesses how variations in heteronormative culture in high schools affect the well-being of same-sex-attracted youth. The authors focus on the stigmatization of same-sex attraction to better understand how heteronormativity may marginalize a wide range of youth. Specifically, the authors use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine how variation across schools in football participation, religious attendance, and urban locale affects same-sex-attracted adolescents' depressive symptoms, self-esteem, fighting, and academic failure. The results suggest (...) that though same-sex-attracted youth are at greater risk for decreased well-being, these youth are at higher risk in nonurban schools and in schools where football and religion have a larger presence. Results vary for boys and girls: The urban locale of a school has a larger impact for boys, while school religiosity has a greater impact for girls. (shrink)

This article explores the dynamic between Black youth and their teachers through an exploration of an approach to teaching and learning embedded in the complex cultural knowledge(s) of this population. It interrogates the concepts of ratchedemics and reality pedagogy as both philosophy and practice for moving past the framing of particular populations as dystopian and non-academic in the pursuit of the mirage of urban educational utopia.

The study investigates how the territorial community can influence the individual and social well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual youth and especially the recognition of their feelings and the construction of their own identity as well as their needs to be socially recognized. This research focuses on the experiences of 30 LGB individuals, with a mean age of 25.07 years, living in urban and rural areas of Southern Italy. Focalized open interviews were conducted, and the Grounded Theory Methodology, supported (...) by the Atlas.ti 8.0 software, was used for data analysis. The textual material was first coded, and then codes were grouped into five macro-categories: Freedom of identity expression in the urban and rural context, identity construction and acceptance process, need of aggregation and identification with the LGB community, role of the interpersonal relationship in the process of identity acceptance, socio-cultural context, and LGB psychological well-being. The results showed a condition common to the two contexts that we can define as “ghettoization.” The young LGB is alone in the rural area due to a lack of places and people to identify with and greater social isolation. On the contrary, although there are more opportunities in the urban area, young people feel stigmatized and ghettoized because “their places” are frequented exclusively by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer community. The work will extensively discuss the limitations of the research, future proposals, and the practical implications of the results. (shrink)

This article explores some of the key dynamics of the UK fashion sector as an example of a post-industrial, urban based, cultural economy comprising of a largely youthful female workforce. It argues that the small scale, independent activities which formed the backbone of the success of British fashion design as an internationally recognized phenomenon from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, represented a form of female self-generated work giving rise to collaborative possibilities and co-operation. However without an effective (...) lobby or association (despite the expansion of the fashion media) and under conditions of rapid individualization and in an increasingly harsh climate of neo-liberalization, this creative economy has been overtaken and virtually demolished by the joint forces of a re-vitalized high street fashion culture and the aggressive presence of corporate fashion (‘Prada-ization’). While the UK government celebrates the growth of the cultural economy, it also overlooks the processes making the livelihoods of its predominantly female workforce either untenable or else requiring de-specialization and ‘multi-tasking’. (shrink)

Human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted infections significantly burden youth 13–24 years of age in the United States. Directly engaging youth in sexual health research is a public health priority and urgently needed to develop targeted, youth-friendly, and culturally relevant HIV/sti prevention interventions. Controversies arise, however, regarding informed assent and consent, parental permission or consent, and the definition of “child”/“minor” as it relates to medical, legal, and ethical issues. In this article, we describe challenges in the (...) human subjects review processes that were undertaken before beginning an HIV/sti prevention research project with sexually active youth in an urban setting. These findings provide important contextual information to facilitate youth sexual health research and care, and Institutional Review Board approval processes with fewer delays. (shrink)

__Schooling for Critical Consciousness_ addresses how schools can help Black and Latinx youth resist the negative effects of racial injustice and challenge its root causes._ Scott Seider and Daren Graves draw on a four-year longitudinal study examining how five different mission-driven urban high schools foster critical consciousness among their students. The book presents vivid portraits of the schools as they implement various programs and practices, and traces the impact of these approaches on the students themselves. The authors make (...) a unique contribution to the existing scholarship on critical consciousness and culturally responsive teaching by comparing the roles of different schooling models in fostering various dimensions of critical consciousness and identifying specific programming and practices that contributed to this work. Through their research with more than 300 hundred students of color, Seider and Graves aim to help educators strengthen their capacity to support young people in learning to analyze, navigate, and challenge racial injustice. _Schooling for Critical Consciousness_ provides school leaders and educators with specific programming and practices they can incorporate into their own school contexts to support the critical consciousness development of the youth they serve. (shrink)

Understandings of urban foodways in Zimbabwe and other African countries have been dominated by food security frameworks. The focus on material scarcity and measurable health outcomes within these frameworks has often obscured the socio-cultural dimension of foodways and the historical and political structures that have shaped, and continue to shape, everyday relationships with food among different groups of urban residents in cities. Addressing these often-overlooked aspects, this paper looks at intergenerational contestations over foodways in a midsized high-density Zimbabwean (...) town. Presenting results of 6-months ethnographic fieldwork involving participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the paper explores meanings and practices of food in a postcolonial urban setting using three generational groups as a point of departure. These groups are youth (aged 15 to 25 years old), a post-independence generation (aged 26 to 43) and a pre-independence middle-aged generation (aged 43 to 65). Findings show that foodways of the three generations, each having experienced Zimbabwe’s (post-)colonial political economy in different ways, are negotiated through postcolonial socio-ecological relations, urban–rural connections and social hierarchies articulated through urban and rural space. The paper concludes that to understand urban food security in a postcolonial setting, urbanites’ generation-specific life experiences and intergenerational negotiations around historically situated spatial and socio-ecological relations should be considered. The findings could inform urban food security policy to make it more targeted towards the needs of different generational groups as well as more attuned to urbanites’ dynamic socio-cultural foodways and the socio-ecological relations that shape these. (shrink)

Explore the aftermath of traumatic stress as it affects various populations, including therapists themselves! This book will educate you about the aftermath of traumatic stress as it impacts people in a variety of settings. It explores the factors that lead to increased or reduced vulnerability to the effects of traumatic stress, emphasizing the impact of cumulative/multiple trauma rather than the effects of a single traumatic incident, to help you design and implement effective prevention and intervention programs. The specific populations and (...) groups addressed in this important book include: adolescent girls involved in armed conflict in Colombia’s guerilla war urban African-American youth—a theoretical model for risk and resiliency people with strong spiritual/religious beliefs—how spirituality can affect a person’s reaction to traumatic stress women in recovery in a community aftercare shelter female trauma therapists—factors affecting vicarious traumatization of helping professionals college students with histories of abuse Providing a framework for understanding traumatic stress-related issues based on a variety of methodologies and measures, Traumatic Stress and Its Aftermath addresses important questions, such as: What is the relationship between the experiences of trauma or other stressful life events, and subsequent traumatic stress? What are the protective factors that can buffer or ameliorate the development of traumatic stress in the face of adverse life experiences, trauma, or other stressful events? How do these questions evolve in different cultural or community contexts, and with different populations? What are the implications for interventions for community institutions and mental health workers? What roles do self-esteem and spirituality play in a person’s reaction to traumatic stress? How do reactions to traumatic stress differ between women who have been sexually abused as children and women who have not? From editor Sandra S. Lee: “Contemporary developments in the study of traumatic stress are shifting. This book reflects an emphasis on the study of traumatic stress in normal community, cultural, or college student populations and groups, while other literature has focused on individuals specifically diagnosed with PTSD. In addition, Traumatic Stress and Its Aftermath: Cultural, Community, and Professional Contexts emphasizes the search for risk and protective factors and factors that can buffer the relationship between trauma exposure and subsequent distress.”. (shrink)

Purpose: A cursory look at the lives of most people living in the rural areas of Ghana suggests that they are poor as compared to their counterparts living in the urban areas. The study aimed at investigating into the culture, philosophy, lifestyles and factors that have impacted negatively on the socio-economic situation that make the people living in the rural areas poor. Methodology: In order to obtain data on the causes of poverty among the rural people, the qualitative research (...) approach was used for the study in which the observation method was employed to collect information from the elderly, youth, farmers, women, men, workers, illegal miners, traders, market women, etc. in some villages on their social lifestyles and economic activities. For effective and reliable outcome, unstructured interviews, surveys and investigations were used as tools to gather data. The use of unstructured interviews and conversations enabled majority of the sampled population who could not read nor write offer useful information. Findings: The study revealed that rural poverty is on the ascendency because most of the youth who serve as the work force migrate to the urban areas in search of jobs and better living conditions while a fraction of those who remained engage in illegal mining. The effect of this illegal activities has led to the degradation of arable lands, destruction of millions of acreages of cash/food crops and river bodies making agriculture, which is the backbone of the economy, very unsustainable. The attitude of majority of Ghanaians to time and work, especially in the public sector, leaves much to be desired. As a result, a lot of man-hours is rendered unproductive due to unpunctuality, religious and cultural activities. Unique contribution to theory and Practice and Policy: The outcome re-echoes the need for a policy direction on education that focuses on skill development and hands on experience to enable school leavers enter into entrepreneurship and be self-reliant so they will not be dependent on the limited government work. It will also make people come to the realization that only few people benefit from illegal mining but the harmful effects are universal and back government effort in fighting/curbing it. Government, Municipal/District Assemblies will see the need to provide amenities that rural communities lack, initiate intervention programmes for youth employment especially, in the rural areas to curtail rural-urban migration. (shrink)

The Dual Filial Piety Model offers a universally applicable framework for understanding essential aspects of intergenerational relations across diverse cultural contexts. The current research aimed to examine two important issues concerning this model that have lacked investigation: the roles of parental socialization and social ecologies in the development of reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety attitudes. To this end, a two-wave short-term longitudinal survey study was conducted among 850 early adolescents residing in urban and rural China, who completed questionnaires twice, (...) 6 months apart, in the spring semester of grade 7 and the fall semester of grade 8. Multigroup path analyses revealed bidirectional associations over time between perceived parenting styles and adolescents’ filial piety attitudes, with both similarities and differences in these associations between urban and rural China. In both settings, perceived authoritative parenting predicted increased reciprocal filial piety 6 months later, whereas perceived authoritarian parenting predicted reduced reciprocal filial piety among urban adolescents over time. Moreover, in both settings, reciprocal filial piety predicted higher levels of perceived authoritative parenting and lower levels of perceived authoritarian parenting 6 months later, with the latter effect being stronger among urban adolescents. Adolescents’ perceived parenting styles did not predict their authoritarian filial piety over time; however, authoritarian filial piety predicted higher levels of perceived authoritative parenting 6 months later in both settings. The findings highlight the roles of transactional socialization processes between parents and youth as well as social ecologies in the development of filial piety, thus advancing the understanding of how the universal human motivations underlying filial piety may function developmentally across different socioeconomic and sociocultural settings. (shrink)

Representations of urban youth and its cultures of display have become an increasing focus of attention for contemporary cinema. The film La Haine (1995) received critical acclaim for its raw depiction of `ghetto life' for alienated `minority' youth in France. In this article, we use this text as a way of exploring the cultural politics of such filmic practices. La Haine's aesthetic strategies of an affective `hyper-realism' and postmodern authenticity are scrutinized for their racialized politics of (...) representation. The discussion focuses on the film's reflexive presentation of racialized youth and their musical cultures. We argue that while the film lucidly captures the intensity of an urban existence, its aesthetic strategies and self-reflexivity belie a deeper unacknowledged ethico-political relation to racialized Otherness. (shrink)

In the contemporary times, we observe that the called post-modern culture enabled the youth culture to do the own constructions and choices, including religion. This research tried to understand how occurred the cultural and religious construction of youth urban tribes, here represented for headbangers from Caverna de Adulão Community. In this community, the rock was used as an instrument of socialization among the youth. The hypothesis of this research consists in observing that the religious practicing can (...) be affected for cultural changes. While some religious institutions resist changes, others take advantage of it. We could observe that the adaptations of some evangelical churches to the necessities of youth and their cultural practicing can be what attract them to Caverna de Adulão Community, where the rock was allied to religious practicing. At the first part of the paper we described the strategies used to promote the community of youth that are in most varied urban tribes, participants of Caverna de Adulão Community. We tried to identify the motivation of youth that seek to become part of evangelical groups. In the second part we presented how the music and the service, contextualized to youth, as the case of rock, can be attractive to the urban tribes and how this phenomenon open a dialog between religion and the youth culture. At the end we analyzed how occurs the socialization among evangelical youth from urban tribes with rock, both culturally and religiously, in order to understand how the construction of the religious phenomenon happens in Caverna de Adulão Community. The methodology used was established through the bibliographic research and field research with socio-anthropological-ethnographic studying, through participant observation and discussions in focal group. We verified, at the end of the paper, that our hypothesis was partially proved when we observe that rock exerted, in the studied community, the socializing role among the members. However, today rock has moved away from the center of sociability and other elements come into its place, which has given the community greater cultural diversity. (shrink)

Contemporary Chinese society has witnessed ongoing complex institutional and cultural reconfiguration, driven by the transition from the socialist planned economy to marketization and later its deep engagement in globalization and neoliberalism. In this reshaping of Chinese society, tradition and modernity, the resurgence of patriarchal Confucian tradition, the socialist version of modernity, the capitalist version of modernity, and the socialist heritage intermingle, and all seem to define a mosaic temporality.Facing the increasing uncertainties of the market, family members in post-reform China have (...) to stick together as an economic safety net, emotional harbor and spiritual fortress. Chinese parents heavily invest in their children and continue to support them in their adulthood; whereas, the youth is under great obligation to providing old age care for their parents; and parents may regard this heavily-invested offspring as their private product. This resurgent but modified familialism, is not an exact replication of traditional familialism, but is definitely different from the family modes featured by individualism in Western contexts. Mosaic familialism is characterized by a sequential symbiosis between parents and children facing financial constraints and unforeseeable uncertainties with a lack of a social safety net. At the same time, patriarchal Confucianism is rejuvenated to a certain degree, women’s traditional wife and mother role is once again stressed, if not glorified; and the neoliberal discourse articulating personal choice and responsibility, but not individual right, stands by seamlessly. Parents and children, husband and wife are dependent on each other in the intimate family, following a clearly gendered pattern. (shrink)

The article characterizes post-folklore as a cultural phenomenon of the network society and defines various aspects of its functioning − sociocommunicative, cultural and psychological. The research methodology consisted of a set of basic approaches, principles and methods of scientific research. To achieve the goal, a set of general scientific and special methods was used, including the methods of logical analysis, problemchronological, generalization, synthesis, induction, and analogy.Research results. It has been proven that post-folkloric creativity is important for the development of social (...) communications, as it promotes the exchange of information between users of social networks, conveys people’s knowledge, moods, feelings, and emotions. In the cultural aspect, the works of post-folklore appear as cultural heritage of modern urbanized society and are represented by various types and genres. From the point of view of psychology, post-folklore has an impact on individual and social consciousness, on the development of cognitive processes, etc. The emergence of post-folklore in the field of education is separately mentioned, which indicates its important importance for the formation of the worldview of school youth.Conclusions. Today post-folklore is the subject of scientific research as a phenomenon of mass culture and network society, as a means of social communication, as a phenomenon that has an impact on public and individual consciousness and is gradually being established in the field of education. In the era of accelerated development of information and communication technologies, everyone has the opportunity to become a collector or author of post-folkloric creativity. Further research is planned to be carried out in the direction of studying the prospects for the development of post-folklore in Ukrainian and foreign cultures. (shrink)

Socio-cultural changes in the pattern of development of a group of people often occur when there is an introduction of foreign cultures. The annexation of Gold Coast brought the Asante Empire under British rule, and from the beginning of the twentieth century Gold Coast witnessed a total transformation of the economy from it subsistence nature to a cash economy. Economic changes associated with diversification and rapid expansion of Gold Coast export mitigated for a demand in labour force. However, the (...) research focused on the people of Kumasi and using the Winick theory of alcohol dependency sought to unveil the socio-cultural changes that occurred within the period under review. Furthermore, with the use of qualitative narrative, interviews, secondary and primary data, the research was undertaken and findings revealed some changes in customs, values, and lifestyle of individuals in the community. It further indicated the role played by colonial influence and administration’s reliance on imported alcohol coupled with the introduction of a new kind of local gin (akpeteshie). It was also discovered that, European influence contributed greatly to changes that occurred in the social and cultural uses of distilled liquor in Kumasi. European liquor came to be identified with modernity and European lifestyle. Furthermore, the introduction of railway transport, road transport and creation of urbanization by colonial government policies promoted a new form of social drinking notable among the youth which was devoid of any form of restrain by elders and chiefs. In addition, there was the emergence of social classes who appreciated the European way of life and drinking because it depicted prestige wealth. On the other hand, the emergence of akpeteshie promoted social disorder and the decline in palm wine. (shrink)

This volume presents the theory of culture of the Russian‑born German Jewish social philosopher David Koigen (1879-1933). Heir to Hermann Cohen's neo‑Kantian interpretation of Judaism, he transforms the religion of reason into an ethical Intimitätsreligion. He draws upon a great variety of intellectual currents, among them, Max Scheler's philosophy of values, the historical sociology of Max Weber, the sociology of religion of Émile Durkheim, Ernst Troeltsch and Georg Simmel and American pragmatism. Influenced by his personal experience of marginality in German (...) academia yet the same time unconstrained by the dictates of the German Jewish discourse, Koigen shapes these theoretical strands into an original argument which unfolds along two trajectories: theodicy of culture and ethos. Distinguished from ethics, ethos identifies the non-formal factors that foster a group's sense of collective identity as it adapts to continuous change. From a Jewish perspective, ethos is grounded in the biblical covenant as the paradigm of a social contract and corporate liability. Although the normative content of the covenantal ethos is subject to gradual secularization, its metaphysical and existential assumptions, Koigen argues, continue to inform Jewish self-understanding. The concept of ethos identifies the dialectic of tradition as it shapes Jewish religious consciousness, and, in turn, is shaped by the evolving cultural and axiological sensibilities. In consonance, Jewish identity cannot be reduced to ethnicity or a purely secular culture. Urban develops these fragmentary and inchoate theories into a sociology of religious knowledge and suggests to read Koigen not just as a Jewish sociologist but as the first sociologist of Judaism who proposes to overcome the dogmatic anti-metaphysical stance of European sociology. (shrink)

Urban youth marginalisation became a key consideration in scholarly and policy literature in the 1990s. This entailed a shift from an emphasis on youth in relation to activism in the struggle to overcome colonial racism - popularly known as 'the struggle against apartheid' - to an emphasis on youth as the object of social inquiry and social welfare programmes. Irrespective of how we evaluate this shift, the question in this article is how urban faith communities (...) and youth ministry research are to respond to the agency of youth as dialogue partners - with a focus on social cohesion. This article explores this shift in scholarship on urban youth movements, especially for the period since 1994. It draws from the perspectives of my recent doctoral studies in constructing a creative dialogue with youth movements. The ultimate aim of this article is to provide a grounded basis for constructing a methodology for a postcolonial urban theology. In addition, it aims to inform the ongoing Youth at the Margins comparative study on the contribution of faith-based organisations to social cohesion in South Africa and Nordic Europe, with the Riverlea community, in Johannesburg, as one of the case studies. (shrink)

The studies of urban popular culture in modern China in recent years have attracted wide attention from scholars in China and abroad. The symposium, which is composed by Ma Min’s “Injecting vitality into the studies of urban cultural history,” Jiang Jin’s “Issues in the studies of urban popular culture in modern China,” Wang Di’s “The microcosm of Chinese cities: The perspective and methodology of studying urban popular culture from the case of teahouses in Chengdu,” Joseph W. (...) Esherick’s “Remaking the Chinese city: Urban space and urban culture” and Lu Hanchao’s “From elites to common people: The downward trend in the studies of Chinese urban history in the United States,” provide valuable insights on the perspective, trend, and methodology of the studies. (shrink)

In recent years many essays have been made public and various opinions have been advanced on youth. I would like to conceive one of the salient characteristics in the consciousness and the behavior pattern of today's youth as “play-orientedness” and center my discussion on that particular inclination. “Play-orientedness” here is not intended to mean merely “activeness in sports and hobbies,” nor is it synonymous with “pleasure-orientedness.” It is a broader term and is rather close in meaning to what (...) is commonly called “the spirit of play.” We might perhaps define it as “play as a way of life,” or an inclination to introduce elements of “play” into one's daily life and make his actual life “play-like.”. (shrink)

If effective anti-aging interventions were achieved, they would likely bring about profound alterations in the experiences of individual and collective life. What if modern scientists could find the modern equivalent to the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon sought? This book addresses this question by exploring the ramifications of possible anti-aging interventions on both individual and collective life. Through a series of essays, it examines the biomedical goal of prolongevity from cultural, scientific, religious, and ethical perspectives, offering a (...) sweeping view into the future of aging. (shrink)

Many contexts shape and limit moral thinking in philosophy and life. Human conditions of vulnerability and interdependency, of limited awareness and control, of imperfect insight into ourselves and others are inevitable contexts that neither moral thought nor theory should forget. To be truly reflective, moral thinking and moral philosophy must become aware of the contexts that bind our thinking about how to live. This collection of essays by Margaret Urban Walker seek to show how to do this, and why (...) it makes a difference. Contingent and changeable contexts that shape moral thinking include our individual histories, our social positions, and institutional roles, relationships, cultural settings, and social arrangements, and the specific moral idioms we pick up along the way. The paradigms and specialized language of ethical theory are contexts, too; they shape how moral theory looks and what or whom it looks at. Ethical theory and practice are meaningless without these Moral Contexts. (shrink)

_Purpose._ This article seeks to analyze the transformation of culture and social relations in cities amidst the digital transformations of space and everyday practices. _Theoretical basis._ The research is anchored in the theoretical foundations provided by Manuel Castells and Marshall McLuhan, both of whom delve deeply into the intricacies of the information society and the interactions between humans and technologies. Our analysis also relies on contributions from urbanists and experts in the "Smart Cities" domain, augmenting our study with practical facets (...) of how digital innovations influence the urban milieu. We endeavor to understand how the interplay between humans and technologies within urban environments reconfigures one’s self-perception, their place in the world, and their interactions with their surroundings. _Originality._ The study evaluates the impact of digital transformations on urban settings, drawing from the theoretical notions of Manuel Castells and Marshall McLuhan, modern urbanistic principles, and empirical analysis of the urban environment. We emphasize that digitalization reconfigures concepts of time, space, and interpersonal interactions in cities, culminating in the emergence of a distinct social identity that manifests within a globalized and digitized urban existence. We illustrate the effects of digital innovations on social and cultural practices, and underscore the significance of striking a balance between individual freedom and technological control in urban landscapes. _Conclusions._ Our findings indicate that digital transformation, which bridges the tangible and the virtual, reshapes the identities and daily experiences of urban inhabitants. They engage in an existential struggle to preserve their sociocultural essence. In a networked society where the local and global intermingle, novel social practices arise that obscure boundaries between the individual and collective, and between the tangible and virtual. The urban milieu becomes a crucible for experiments in the social, economic, and cultural realms, with technologies introducing both conveniences and challenges. Digital transformation modifies societal interactions and has profound implications for the sociocultural fabric. (shrink)

Whereas some of the critics of Hermann Cohen's strictly rational foundation of religious consciousness promoted a turn to subjectivism, others endorsed an ethicotheology while seeking to revise the "Religion of Reason." Among the latter was the Ukrainian-born social philosopher David Koigen (1877-1933), author of Der moralische Gott. Eine Abhandlung über die Beziehungen zwischen Kultur und Religion/The Moral God: An essay on the relations between culture and religion (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1922). This article examines Koigen's reevaluation of Jewish monotheism as a (...) culture-forming religion (Kulturreligion) grounded in a religious ethos which integrates the rational will, ethics and emotion. (shrink)

Gay neighborhoods across the United States are de-concentrating in today’s so-called “post-gay” era as sexual minorities assimilate into the mainstream and disperse across the city. This context creates a problem of measurement. If by “culture” we mean to say a particular way of life of a group or subgroup of people like sexual minorities, and if that way of life is blending with other aspects of the metropolis, then how can we detect distinct urban sexual cultures? In this (...) article, I use 125 interviews with Chicago residents to propose a two-pronged strategy. First, gay neighborhoods continue to house anchor institutions, despite ongoing residential out-migrations. These are the primary engines of community building, and they locate the material culture of a group in a specific place. Commemorations serve as a second indicator for a culture, and they too put meanings into form. Although it is a fact of city life that all neighborhoods change, anchors and commemorations are analytic devices that scholars can use to observe urban sexual cultures. More generally, they provide a framework for how to measure the shifting geographic profile of a historically stigmatized group as it experiences positive change in public opinion. (shrink)

Background: Informal coercion, that is, situations where caregivers use subtle coercive measures to impose their will on patients, is common in adult psychiatric inpatient care. It has been described as ‘a necessary evil’, confronting nurses with an ethical dilemma where they need to balance between a wish to do good, and the risk of violating patients’ dignity and autonomy. Aim: To describe nurses’ experiences of being involved in informal coercion in adult psychiatric inpatient care. Research design: The study has a (...) qualitative, inductive design. Participants and research context: Semi-structured interviews with 10 Swedish psychiatric nurses were analysed with qualitative content analysis. Ethical considerations: The study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. In line with the Swedish Ethical Review Act, it was also subject to ethical procedures at the university. Findings: Four domains comprise informal coercion as a process over time. These domains contain 11 categories focusing on different experiences involved in the process: Striving to connect, involving others, adjusting to the caring culture, dealing with laws, justifying coercion, waiting for the patient, persuading the patient, negotiating with the patient, using professional power, scrutinizing one’s actions and learning together. Discussion: Informal coercion is associated with moral stress as nurses might find themselves torn between a wish to do good for the patient, general practices and ‘house rules’ in the caring culture. In addition, nurses need to be aware of the asymmetry of the caring relationship, in order to avoid compliance becoming a consequence of patients subordinating to nurse power, rather than a result of mutual understanding. Reflections are thus necessary through the process to promote mutual learning and to avoid violations of patients’ dignity and autonomy. Conclusion: If there is a need for coercion, that is, if the coercion is found to be an ‘unpleasant good’, rather than ‘necessary evil’ considering the consequences for the patient, it should be subject to reflecting and learning together with the patient. (shrink)

Se analizan algunas de las trayectorias de configuración de nuevas prácticas políticas juveniles en Brasil y considerar los acontecimientos estético-culturales como lugares posibles de constitución de acciones políticas en la contemporaneidad. A partir de un recorte histórico "marcos y acontecimient..

People differ in their personal commitment to fighting climate change and protecting the environment. The question is, can we validly measure people’s commitment by what they say and what they claim they do in opinion polls? In our research, we demonstrate that opinions and reports of past behavior can be aggregated into comparable depictions of people’s personal commitment to fighting climate change and protecting the environment. In contrast to the commonly used operational scaling approaches, we ground our measure of people’s (...) environmental attitudes in a mathematically formalized psychological theory of the response process—the Campbell paradigm. This theory of the response process has already been extensively validated, and its relevance for manifest behavior has repeatedly been shown as well. In our secondary analysis of Eurobarometer data from 28 European countries, we apply the Campbell paradigm to a set of indicators that was not originally collected to be aggregated into a single scale. With our research, we propose a distinct way to measure behavior-relevant environmental attitudes that can be used even with a set of indicators that was originally atheoretically compiled. Overall, our study suggests that the Campbell paradigm provides a sound psychological measurement theory that can be applied to cross-cultural comparisons in the environmental protection domain. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Neste texto analisamos blogs da Internet como espaços educativos nos quais se produzem/constroem as identidades juvenis de indivíduos que buscam se inserir no grupo cultural conhecido como nerd/geek. Inseridos nos Estudos Culturais, na sua vertente pós-moderna e pós-estruturalista, valemo-nos da noção de Representação Cultural para analisar como as identidades são constituídas com a escrita/leitura de blogs disponibilizados na web. Destacamos que a forma como se dá o agrupamento dos jovens que escrevem/leem os blogs é efêmera e espontânea, baseada no prazer (...) de estar junto, no consumo de alguns itens e no estabelecimento de alguns laços afetivos momentâneos. Tal compartilhamento tem semelhança com outras “tribos” urbanas deste início de século XXI. Destacamos, também, que não estamos associando a juventude a uma faixa etária particular, mas, isto sim, a um estilo de vida fortemente ligado ao lazer e ao consumo. Os blogs analisados, ao colocarem em circulação representações de identidades nerd/geek, contribuem para a produção discursiva dessas mesmas identidades em função dos modos como os/as integrantes desse grupo partilham formas de apropriar-se de saberes diversos, de utilizar equipamentos tecnológicos, de consumir produtos comerciais e textos midiáticos. (shrink)

The free association method is often employed in marketing research to investigate perceptions of a particular product or brand in different socio-cultural groups of customers. In our research, international and domestic students produced free associations in response to photographs of outdoor billboards from two different locations in one city (city centre and outskirts). The results indicate that free associations can depict qualitative aspects of outdoor billboards like poor quality (relating to the categories of amateurish and fake), problematic content (relating to (...) female stereotypes, gender stereotypes and cultural differences), and that they have the potential to capture the general atmosphere of the neighbourhood (categories of decay, depression, danger and past). (shrink)

Naturalized bioethics represents a revolutionary change in how health care ethics is practised. It calls for bioethicists to give up their dependence on utilitarianism and other ideal moral theories and instead to move toward a self-reflexive, socially inquisitive, politically critical, and inclusive ethics. Wary of idealisations that bypass social realities, the naturalism in ethics that is developed in this volume is empirically nourished and acutely aware that ethical theory is the practice of particular people in particular times, places, cultures, (...) and professional environments. These essays situate the bioethicist within the clinical or research context, take seriously the web of relationships in which all human beings are nested, and explore a number of the different kinds of power relations that inform health care encounters. Naturalized Bioethics aims to help bioethicists, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, disability studies scholars, medical researchers, and other health professionals address the ethical issues surrounding health care. (shrink)

School violence is a burning issue these days. This book provides an in-depth analysis of violence prevention programs and an assessment of their effectiveness, using data from observations, individual interviews, and focus groups, as well as published data from the schools. It is distinguished by its focus on the cultural and structural context of school violence and violence prevention efforts. Where most other researchers use quantitative measures, such as surveys, to assess the effectiveness of violence prevention programs, the authors of (...) this book use qualitative research and ethnography to study the environment where such programs take place. Thus, this work--one of only a few ethnographic studies of violence prevention programs in schools--links previous quantitative research on the topic and critical ethnography. _Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy_: *includes voices of school students, accused of practicing violence, who have been participants in violence prevention programs; *analyzes a citywide peer mediation program ; *examines the kinds of violence recognized in schools and the ways schools themselves may perpetuate violence; and *describes a violence prevention program for students at an alternative school. _Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy_ is highly relevant for students in courses on urban education, foundations of education, education and social policy, youth and the law, and qualitative research, and for teachers, administrators, and other professionals, such as school psychologists and guidance counselors, at the middle and high school levels. (shrink)