ESA Research Network Sociology of Culture, Midterm conference

ASK Research Center

Università Bocconi, Milan, Italy

Call for Papers

  October 7-9, 2010

  “Culture and the Making of Worlds”

The conference aims to explore the role of culture–the symbolic context in which choices and actions acquire shared meanings -as a medium for building “worlds.”  Cultures are analyzed in terms of their capacity to help shape the pasts and futures of contemporary societies. They are both ends and means in the society-building process. They establish the terms of engaging injustice, articulating multicultural and multireligional issues, and providing new paths for conflict resolution and peace.  They frame our very experience of space and the place in everyday life, as well as individual and collective identities.   They provide material for new products, new markets, and new ways of life.

This aim of the conference necessitates an interplay among cultural, economic, political and social analyses.  Therefore, the conference will be characterized by an emphasis on interdisciplinarity, to include contributions from economics, political and management science, anthropology, and cultural studies, as well as sociology per se.

The conference will be attended by scholars from all over Europe and the United States. The papers will be evaluated through a blind review by the scientific committee of the conference.

The conference will be comprised of the following sessions:

How culture matters

Contemporary societies are characterized by a high degree of complexity, due to several factors, such as the information and communication overload, the extensive migration of people among different countries, the impact of technologies on the organization of everyday life and social interactions, the possibility of rapid travel across the world. For each citizen the probability of getting in touch with “cultural otherness” has become much greater than before. However the “otherness” might be not only a resource, but also a threat. The “stranger”, as Alfred Schutz pointed out, can be the vehicle of innovations and creativity, but also the “natural” source of conflicts. In order to face “otherness” in our complex everyday life we need a cultural frame of analysis. We need to respect the autonomy and uniqueness of each culture in itself. Cultures are reluctant to be domesticated, they need to be interpreted.

In this context the study of culture becomes an important resource for conflict resolution, for articulating issues of justice and human rights, for shaping state-building processes, for driving social and economic development, for understanding controversies raised by multireligiosity. Cultures shape the public knowledge of the past, and the public expectations for the future. They shape individual and collective identities. They affect the impact of innovations and social change in communities and institutions, they construct the social meanings of technologies. On the other hand, they create also new “boundaries”, new forms of social exclusion and marginality. Cultures are active, and in their active nature they are always ambivalent and ambiguous.

•  1) Globalization
• 2) Culture, peace and conflict resolution
• 3) Culture and public memory
• 4) Culture, justice and human rights
• 5) Culture and state-building processes
• 6) Multiculturalism and multireligiosity
• 7) Material Culture and identities
  
• 8) Culture, the quotidien, and axial change
• 9) Arts and cultural heritage
• 10) Cultural critique /critical cultures
• 11) Trading zones of scholarship regarding culture
• 12) Cultural boundaries, marginality, and élites
• 13) Culture and gender
• 14) New products, new markets, and new lifestyles
• 15) The cultures of unsustainability
• 16) Cultures and discourses within organizations
• 17) Culture and power
• 18) Culture and development

How the culture system changes

Cultures are not only “means” in the society building processes. They are also ends in themselves. How does the culture system change in contemporary societies? We are witnessing important transformations due to the increasing impact of new technologies, the increasing role of the media system, which affect the ways in which cultural artefacts can be produced and can acquire their own meanings and values. The creative process undergoes new patterns of production, recognition, distribution and reception. Creative industries acquire a new leading role, both in economics and civil society. The culture and arts systems are affected by new forms of articulation of public discourse, both in different national contexts and in the global arena.  In contemporary societies a strong focus on images characterized different forms of cultural production and deeply change the way in which we are conceiving the world.  The sessions related to this topic are the following:

• (19) Transformations of arts and cultural production systems 
• (20) New trends in cultural consumption
• (21) Fearing the Media
• (22) New media and participative culture
• (23) Media dynamics : genres, channels , audiences
  
• (24) Conspiracy cultures
  
• (25) Applied arts and community arts
• (26) Photos that matter
• (27) Arts and fashion
• (28) Culture, fashion and beauty
• (29) Cultural malaise
• (30) Culture and politics
• (31) Intellectual property management and cultural industries innovation
• (32) The future of communication
• (33) Creativity and creative industries
• (34) Cultural industries, districts and urban development
  
• (35) Cultural innovations and subcultures
• (36) Styles, innovation and design management

Culture, space and time

There is an interplay among culture, space and time.  The way in which we make experience of the world is culturally and historically determined. Space and time are culturally shaped. Several researches in different countries have documented to what extent the definition of space can differ. The articulation of the space typical of contemporary society is the urban agglomeration, the city. From New York to Tokyo, from Paris to Berlin, from Rome to Milan: these are the forms of the space that “we have in mind” when we think at “our places”. Obviously there are many other forms, which do not correspond to the urban conception of space, but they are not hegemonic, especially in the European context. Also the time is conceived very differently across cultures. The linear definition of time, which links the past to the future, and requires to remember controversial pasts in order to avoid their coming back is indeed a specific conception of time, shared by only a part of the world population. The sessions related to this topic are the following:

• (37) Spaces and meanings in contemporary urban agglomerations
• (38) The city: representing and represented
• (39) Urban planning and branding
• (40) The aesthetization of space
• (41) Time and culture
• (42) Cultural heritage and local development
• (43) Art, identitỳ, culture in transit: Roma people

(44, 45) Culture at the frontier  - PhD. Sessions

Sessions organized in cooperation with the Section

“Processi e Istituzioni Culturali” of the Italian Sociological Association

•  (46) Social networks and new forms of sociability
• (47) Media, public communication and citizenship
• (48) Visualising culture: culture, the visual and everyday life

We invite papers that address the topics listed in the sessions. Please, before submitting an abstract, visit the website of the conference www.esaculturebocconi2010.org, where you can find a detailed description of each session. We invite abstracts of 250 words by April 20, 2010. Please include in your abstract information about the theoretical framework of the research, the methodology employed, and the contribution of the paper. Please indicate to which session the paper is submitted. Abstracts should be sent via the submission form on the conference website. Acceptance will be communicated by May 28th. Early bird inscriptions will be accepted until June 20th. For any other information regarding registration, payment of the conference fee, deadlines, accommodation and travel, please visit the conference website. Queries can be made on the conference website. They will be answered by email.

For the website of the research network Sociology of Culture please visit: http://www.europeansociology.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=29

For the website of ASK Research Center please visit: www.ask.unibocconi.it

Looking forward to seeing you all in Milan!

Coordinators

Anna Lisa Tota ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Stefano Baia Curioni ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Further members of the Scientific Committee

Pertti Alasuutari, Tia De Nora, Paola Dubini, Thomas S. Eberle, Dick Houtman, Hubert Knoblauch, David Inglis, Mark Jacobs, Rudi Laermans, , Zannie Giraud Voss

Organizing Committee

Stefano Baia Curioni, Anna Lisa Tota, Paola Dubini, Ilaria Morganti, Lia Luchetti, Patrizia Minoia

EXTENDED DEADLINE TO SUBMIT ABSTRACTS UP TO MARCH FIRST 2010!!!!

Call for papers for the interim meeting of the European Sociological Association (ESA) research network “Sociology of Family and Intimate Lives”, to be held in Wiesbaden (Germany), on September 16-18, 2010. The meeting is organized by Norbert F. Schneider, Federal Institute for Population Research Germany and Eric D. Widmer, University of Geneva.

Geographical mobility and family life: How to (re-)think family in a mobile world?

organized by
Norbert F. Schneider, Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany
and
Eric D. Widmer, University of Geneva

The ESA research network on Sociology of Family and Intimate Lives organizes an interim meeting in Wiesbaden, Germany, on September 16-18, 2010. The meeting titled “Geographical mobility and family life: How to (re-)think family in a mobile world?” will address the topical issues of family research related to the interactions between geographical mobility and family processes and interactions. The main objective is to discuss empirical results linking social processes associated with globalization with changing family forms (new living arrangements, multicultural families, etc.).

In a changing Europe within a changing world, taking the spatial dimensions of family life into account is necessary. There is evidence to suggest that demands for spatial mobility have increased in Europe during the last decades. Recent research shows that form and extent of mobility are likely to affect family development. On the other hand family processes may shape the disposition to become geographically mobile. The aim of the conference is to highlight the interdependence between spatial mobilities and family lives.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:

In the fields of spatial mobility…
- Spatial mobility due to job-related reasons
- Multilocality of family lives
- Cross-border and within migration
- Mobility in life course perspective
- Commuting
- Studying spatial mobility and family: methods and theory

…and concerning family and intimate lives:
- family development
- living arrangements and family forms
- family relations
- everyday routines
- gender equality
- balance of work and family life
- network of interpersonal relationships
- homogamous vs. heterogamous families

Papers mixing family life issues with job mobility issues are especially welcome. All abstracts should be completed in English. They should include four distinct sections, in the following order:

1) Title + authors (including mail+ email address)
2) Content: A description in a maximum of 2000 words of the theoretical framework, the main hypotheses that are tested, some of the findings and their relation with the literature.
3) Method: A description in a maximum of 1000 words of the data and the methods (either qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods) that are used.
4) Keywords: Five to six keywords describing the main contributions of the paper should be included.

No contribution will be accepted unless it fills the four sections. Individuals should not be the first author (i.e. the presenter) of more than one paper but may submit a maximum of two abstracts to the conference. The abstract should be limited to 2500 characters. You are also given the opportunity to submit up to 5 key words for your abstract. Tables, figures and references should not be included in your abstract.

We kindly request authors to send their abstracts and intends of participation no later than March the first, 2010 to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with email subject reading “ESA Wiesbaden 2010”. Authors will be warned about acceptance of their papers on March 1st 2010. The conference organizers cannot pay for travel expenses but the attendance is free of charge and beverage will be provided in coffee breaks. The conference can accommodate 20 papers at the maximum. No parallel session will be hold. Each paper will be granted 30 minutes. The contributions are planned to be published in a book in an international series.

Educational stratification in contemporary societies:
Selection, sorting and detracking features, processes and outcomes

Sociology of Education Research Network
European Sociological Association
Midterm Conference 2010

In cooperation with the Department of Sociology
Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece
30 September – 1 October 2010

Call for Papers

In industrialized societies today, education is related more closely to labour as schools play a central role in the process of providing training, but also selecting, sorting and allocating people to jobs. During the twentieth century in Europe and the United States, the expansion of schooling was closely connected to the fundamental changes in the occupational structure and the increasing incentives for the investment in education. Obtaining higher degrees became the way to get the better jobs in society and one of the goals of mass education became the awarding of credentials that would help people to get work. These educational credentials replace the stratifying role family resources or social background once played.

As part of selection and sorting processes, in many countries around the world there has been a long tradition of educational stratification that relies among other things on grouping students according to their ability level at learning. It is assumed that it is easier and far more efficient to teach a group of students that is fairly homogeneous in terms of ability, so that teachers do not have to worry about losing the slowest learners or boring the fastest ones. In addition it is claimed that, by grouping students, education can be tailored to be most beneficial for students with different labour market trajectories. Students are offered distinctive, internally coherent programs of study and training congruent with their academic interests and competencies and fitted to their anticipated educational and vocational needs.

In secondary education, students’ ability grouping at learning is organised in a myriad of ways. Some of them such as ‘tracking’ or ‘streaming’ refer to a situation in which students are taught an entirely different curriculum depending on their ability group, while ‘setting’ or ‘banding’ refer to a situation in which students are taught the same curriculum but differentiated for specific subjects in different ability groups. In each country, the secondary educational system is characterised by a history of introducing structures that abolish or re-introduce diverse systems of ability grouping. From the second half of the twentieth century on, and especially in the late 1970s and early 1980s, concerns about the inequality following from selective tracking systems led to “detracking” and the creation of comprehensive educational systems. However, in the 1990s, in part due to concerns about ‘raising attainment’, social policy makers and educationalist implemented and emphasised the importance of selecting students and allocate them in different ability groups.

The aim of this conference is to bring together and discuss both theoretical development as well as results of empirical research dealing with different aspects of stratification in education. Subjects that could be addressed, but by no means limited to, refer to:

• social context of educational stratification and the role of education as a sorting and selection system
  
• different stratifying criteria in different educational systems
• comparison between different systems of ability grouping
  
• advantages and disadvantages of ability grouping
• outcome of ability grouping at school level (e.g. for teachers and pupils) but also broader connotations
• issues related to the role of vocational training in educational stratification.
  
• aspects of equality of opportunity and meritocracy, and
• relation of educational stratification to social stratification
  

We welcome paper proposals as well as session proposals, and empirical research as well as theoretical discussions. We particularly encourage presentations and discussions of research projects that examine issues and aspects of educational stratification from less taken-for-granted perspectives.

Scientific Committee:

Bernadette Brereton (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Christian Imdorf (University of Basel, Switzerland) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Piotr Mikiewicz (University of Lower Silesia, Poland) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Mieke Van Houtte (Ghent University, Belgium) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Local Organising Committee:

Vasiliki Kantzara (Panteion University) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Foteini Kougioumoutzaki (Panteion University) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Petros Iosifidis (Panteion University) This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Key Dates:

March 31, 2010: abstract submission (500 words)
May 15, 2010: notice of acceptance
June 14, 2010: Early Registration
June 30, 2010: Final Registration deadline
(attention: number of participants is limited)
September 30 -1 October 2010: Midterm conference in Athens, Greece.

Conference Fee*: 100 Euro (early registration); 150 Euro (late registration)
(Note: organising committee offers 10 places with a reduced fee for Ph.D students with none or very limited institutional financial aid).

*The fee includes: conference materials, coffee/tea, lunches, and (1) conference dinner. 

Send abstracts and requests for information to:
Vasiliki Kantzara This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

City guide:
http://athens.touristic.gr

For a regular update, please visit:
-Sociology of education Research Network site (www.soern-esa.ning.com)
-ESA website (www.europeansociology.org)

Women in Science and Technology

ISBN: 9 789536 218417 

Edited by
Katarina Prpic 
Luisa Oliveira
Sven Hemlin