Sociologie Românească (Romanian Sociology Review)
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Bucovina - spiritul occidental în spațiul românesc; o perspectivă sociologică: Bucovina. The Western Spirit of a Romanian Province
No full textThe current study is a first step toward concluding a project which focuses on Bukovina and its population consisting of forty oral history interviews. This project had set out to enact a form of social pedagogy, to lead to a moral restoration and to lay the groundwork for possible exercises in the sociology of history. The following essay is one such exercise which tries to define Bukovina as an exponent of enduring Western influence within Romanian territory. What strikes the reader when first perusing these interviews is the fact that all of the interviewees have a very specific and unmistakable adhesion to what Bukovina is and represents. From these extensive interviews an image of this region’s Volksgeist emerges: a specific kind of juridical-philosophical individual, characterized by his entrepreneurial behavior, an ethos defined by multiculturalism, ethnic tolerance and, last but not least, a state of discipline and righteousness which is imposed by disciplinary mechanisms. This human and social reality is the product of three forms of modernization: a. the economic modernization represented by money and the market; b. the political modernization, which focuses on governance; c. the social modernization, which concerns solidarity. These three mediums of modernization converge in order to transform the various ethnic communities (or people) in a homogenous population. They are also transforming the individual into a citizen, by defining him as an economical and political subject who shares the same values and principles with the other members of society, be they Romanian or not
The ”Urban Personality” of the Contemporary Romanian Society. Case Study: Bucharest
No full textThe study of the city from a sociological perspective was developed at the beginning of the 20th century, in Germany and the USA. Louis Wirth was one of the members of the Chicago School, together with Burgess, Park, Drake and Clayton. Wirth (1938) relates, from a theoretical point of view, the physical space of the city to the way of life of its inhabitants. Through his work, he develops the theory of the “urban personality”, which presents the modern urban way of life as being fundamentally different from the rural one. The differences mentioned by him were related to the number of inhabitants of the city, the social heterogeneity and density of the population. These are the three components that distinguish the “urban way of life”. Starting from this theory of the “urban personality”, through this article, we seek to define the urban personality of Bucharest, the Capital of Romania, in the context of the contemporary mega-trends: globalization, increased mobility, environmental issues and the technological developments. Our research started from the urban personality, defined during the 1930s, by both Louis Wirth (Chicago School of Sociology) and Cincinat Sfinţescu (Romania). In the intent of bringing this concept into the contemporary post-modern society, we seek to understand its interwar significance and to update it by overlapping the layers that belong to the post-modern society, globalization, mobility, technology development and environmental issues, which made the concept of urban personality a more fluid one in comparison with the significance it had at the beginning of the 20th century. The article treats the “urban personality” throughout the 20th and 21st century, by applying it to the specific case of Bucharest, a city that suffered many transformations, sociologically and architecturally
“Learnt Time across Fairy Tales – Kindergarteners’ Sense of Temporality, Futures Planning and Time Socialisation”
Get PDFThe current study concerns a phenomenological approach based on the meaning-making processes that accompany time socialisation, or how hurry, time pressure and busyness are passed down in early childhood by implicit learning involved in fairy tales. Face-to-face, in-depth interviews were carried out with a total of 61 kindergarten participants from nuclear, dual-earner families of Bucharest suburbs enrolled in state education. The narrative ethno-theoretical approach highlights how time use styles based on busyness, hurriedness, acceleration and time squeeze are constructed subjectively by young children, who reinterpret fairy tale assumptions and time use practices that they observe. Results suggest that time perspectives related to tangible time and polychronicity can be inferred by means of verbal cues and streams of meaning that circulate by means of fairy tales as socio-linguistic vehicles. Time socialisation mechanisms are deciphered using the language (partly shared, partly incongruent) of children’s expectations and fairy tales (more subtle or more evident) time implications. The study opens up to a prospect of plausible landmarks for the emerging conceptual model of time use lifestyle and early time socialisation, by stressing the impact of early childhood settings focused on fairy tales read through a time-oriented paradigm. The study questions latent messages which fairy tales launch, sometimes unintendedly, most often as peripheral cue, yet powerful twist that children resonate to regarding time conceptions. Children’s sensitiveness to pedagogical messages elicited indirectly by fairytales means that they tend to build discursive time identities based on temporal coordinates configured by storytelling, in a subtle interplay of sensification and lived experiences
Selected Manifestations of Social Deviance in Organizational Culture
Get PDFThe objective of this paper is to contribute to the discourse about the issues of trust in management, authority and meaningfulness of human labour, which are inseparably connected with effectiveness, productivity, competitiveness of companies, organizations and the whole society as well. The authors want to provide a conceptual theoretical framework for further studies of social deviance in organizational culture, and that is why it has a form of a theoretical study providing a platform for future empirical researches. This study is opened with defining the concept of social deviance as a deviation from the normality and by reminding of difficulties related to determination of normality. The organizational culture is defined as a coherent set of values, norms and patterns of behaviour that determine the manners and forms of behaviour of employees, their relationships inside (but also outside) the social system of the organization. Further, the paper is focused on selected social deviances, which undermine the effectiveness of organizational structures to fulfil their objectives and missions. Based on the empirical analyses, the attention is paid particularly to nepotism, clientelism and cronyism as tools for reaching latent goals of individuals and groups in the organization. The issue is set in the contemporary society and solved from the view of social psychological mechanisms of human behaviour in the group. The authors also remind the issue of responsibility, conscience and the negative effects of conformity, group thinking, obedience and the authoritarian leadership, which is even more obvious when the employees are under the pressure (e.g. economic sanctions). In conclusion are outlined the tools of control of clientelism and similar phenomena, and possibilities of applications of Weber’s socio-analytical model of bureaucracy in organizations
Factors of Pursuing Higher Education in the Hungarian-Romanian Cross-Border Region
Get PDFOne of the main challenges and tasks for young people is that they have to reflect and define their most important goals, hopes and expectations regarding their future. These decisions include pursuing higher education. In this paper, the decision to continue studies was analyzed as a landmark in the quest for status and as a consequence of the expansion of higher education, highlighting the influence of different variables such as the type and personal motivations, value systems and dimensions of attitudes towards learning, in addition to the social context of the individual. The decision to continue education is inextricably linked to young people’s desire to build a career, to the future direction of social mobility. Becoming an intellectual is one possible solution to obtain a social status and upward social mobility, graduating from a higher graduation institution is often considered as a guarantee for a successful future. The aim of this paper is to analyze the motives behind the decision to pursue higher education, in correlation with the individual and social motivational context. The source of the data used in the research is the result of the crossstudy carried out wihtin the HERD project in 2012; a sub-sample of undergraduate students from five higher education institutions from the Romania-Hungary cross-border area was selected (N = 2,120)
Ieşirea din tranziţie: Spre o nouă teorie a tranziţiei: Existing Transition: Towards a New Theory of Transition
No full textSociologists, with few exceptions (Vladimir Pasti, Ștefan Buzărnescu, Elena Zamfir, Vasile Dâncu and others), have paid marginal attention to the overall transition process in Romania. We failed to explain how Romanian society is and why it is so. Until yet there is no articulated theory of Romanian society undergoing transition. Transition ideology that dominates public discourse is focused on the strategy behind the whole process. But this view is not able to explain the strong negative processes that characterized the transition, mainly the collapse of the economy and the explosion of corruption. The theory we expose here examines two strategic options on which the Romanian transition was based: immediate privatization carried out “anyhow”, even if enterprises were sold for just a penny, and the “small currency” strategy. These two policy options that have characterized the entire political transition explain a wide range of characteristics of the Romanian society in the last 25 years. They must be included in a powerful explanatory theory of Romania undergoing transition
The Romanian American Dream: Permanent Migration, Identity and Integration of Romanian Immigrants in the United States
Get PDFInternational migration is one of the most spectacular social changes that affected post-communist Romania. Despite a growing body of research on Romanian migration to Europe, there is a huge gap in the literature on Romanian immigration to the United States. In this paper, we reveal the dynamics of permanent migration to the US, how does the American dream look like for the Romanian immigrants, what are their motives for migration and their process of acculturation in the US. Two sets of theories were used. The first one focuses on the push and pull factors that contribute to Romanian migration to the United States, and the second one looks at Berry’s (1997) four stages of acculturation. Based on in-depth interviews with 33 Romanian immigrants in the United States and hundreds of hours of participant observation of Romanian communities in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the findings emphasize Romanians’ choice for integration in American society and the long term and achievement orientation for their migration. The study results also stress the positive influence of English proficiency, strong community support, young age at arrival, and length of residence on Romanian immigrants’ integration in the US. The Romanian American dream, grounded on career success and family stability, is the symbol used to describe the complex equation of high education, high-skill occupational status and low divorce that contributes to the successful integration of Romanian immigrants into the American society
Şase tipuri de conflict într-o comunitate virtuală: Six Types of Conflict in a Virtual Community
No full textNew parents are typically concerned about the well-being of their children. As a result, parents seek to inform themselves about the best choices they can make in terms of diet – including but not limited to age and type of weaning –, skin care products, toys, parenting style, healthcare, education and other kinds of services addressed to children and families. This is true especially for parents with higher formal education and the habit of questioning and researching topics that interest them. As they look for information online, they build virtual communities or join established ones. This is a virtual ethnographic research of a virtual community of parents, mainly mothers, brought together by principles of natural parenting and healthy living. The research involved analyzing blogs, forums and discussions on Facebook groups, as well as the social network analysis of the network of Facebook pages belonging to the community. The main focus of the research is the impact conflict has on community social capital, as conflict has been fairly neglected in the study of virtual communities. I identified six types of conflict and analyzed their implications for the social capital of the community in terms of trust, types of relationships – bridging vs. bonding –, and social networks. The main finding is that a smaller, rather exclusive virtual community develops features very similar to closed small local communities when it comes to managing internal conflict
Mihai Dinu Gheorghiu şi Monique de Saint Martin (coordonatori), Benedicte de Montvalon, Educaţie şi frontiere sociale. Franţa, România, Brazilia, Suedia, Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 2011, 262 p.
No full textComments on Adina Mihǎilescu, The Minimum Cost of Living, an Instrument in Social Policy, Romanian Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 2014, 107 p.
Get PDFThe aim of the article is to discuss poverty estimates based on the minimum income that different household types would need to acquire the minimum consumption basket. The article reviews Adina Mihăilescu’s book presenting her main results: the minimum wage and the minimum pension are not set high enough to lift people out of poverty, the unemployment benefit and the minimum income guaranteed do not cover the basic costs of living, having more children increases the risk of poverty, since children’s allowance does not offset the cost