Kansai Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 2423-9518
Print ISSN : 1347-4057
Volume 11
Displaying 1-15 of 15 articles from this issue
Articles
  • Ei KIN
    2012Volume 11 Pages 3-14
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to reconsider Halbwachs' concept of collective memory. First, we redefine the concept by considering the distinction between "mémoire" and "souvenir", and the distinction between collective memory and history. Collective memory is defined as a current of continuous time which consists of frameworks (language, time, space). We deal with the spatiality which supports the framework of time, by focusing on the concept of "milieu", to which little attention has been paid. Next, by referring to Nora's concept of "lieu de mémoire" and Mauss' essay "The Gift", we deal with the relationship between "milieu" and "lieu", and the oblivion caused by changes of "lieu". We also deal with the relation between individual memory and collective memory, and oblivion and remembering in collective memory from the perspective of "milieu". Our objective is to deal with the importance of "milieu" in collective memory.
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  • Takeshi INOUE
    2012Volume 11 Pages 15-28
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper analyses the emotional management strategies in social interactions of the Free School, focusing largely on staff's emotional experiences or expressions of "empathy for children" from the standpoint of emotional management. We define "empathy for children" as a concept based on educational and psychological professionalism. It is a concept used in formal education, counseling and the free school. But in the free school it is based on "amateurishness", a feeling that rules require "natural" and positive feelings detached from educational and psychological professionalism. It is constructed in the course of interaction. In actual interactions, staff management of their emotional experiences has involved awareness of "friendship", "love of mother or family", and "love of protégé", while interpreting their commitment to children as "amateurishness". It has been employed by the abstraction of the principle of "humanity", and by being disguised as educational and psychological professionalism positioned as practical knowledge. This structure of "empathy for children" is therefore distinctive, and includes emotional management strategies. The "rigid commitments to children are ambiguous commitments formed by introducing a part of educational and psychological professionalism together with an emphasis on "amateurishness" or "humanity".
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  • Haruyo MITANI
    2012Volume 11 Pages 29-40
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper examines the relationship between social stratification and volunteering in Japan. Suzuki (1987) defined volunteering without using "borantia" (a Japanese word adopted from "volunteer") as "caring for people who need aid". He did so because "borantia" has a tendency to be imaged as voluntary actions by elites. Using this definition of volunteering, his research found the "K" pattern indicating that people with highter or lower socioecomic status tend to volunteer more often than middle class. His interpretation was that the K pattern was synthesized from the V pattern (charity by people who have highter socioeconomic status) and the Λ pattern (mutual aid by people who have lower socioeconomic status). His finding is important, but it has not yet been fully explored. This paper therefore reexamines whether the K pattern will be found using a variable such as Suzuki's definition with recent data from a nationwide survey in Japan. The findings are as follows: (1) The relationship between social stratification and volunteering is Λ pattern, indicating that low-income people and less educated people tend to volunteer; and (2) in addition, women, seniors and long-term residents also tend to volunteer, which they are thought to do as a form of mutual aid. These results suggest that long-term residents who live in a lower social stratification play important roles as voluntary carers together with family members and professional caregivers.
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  • Tomoyuki NISHIKAWA
    2012Volume 11 Pages 41-53
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper reports on the process of development of anti-poverty activities in relation to government, markets, social consciousness, and other organizational activities from 2006 to 2011. For that purpose, we adopt the perspective of the synthesizing approach of human ecology of the early Chicago school of sociology. In addition, we apply the theory of counter-public sphere in order to trace the changes in networking. Through these methodologies, it becomes possible to grasp the relationships between spheres in terms of people's zest and consciousness of human nature for the sustainability of activities in time and space. For that purpose, this paper analyzes mainly the qualitative data for this research, collected in several areas in Japan. Through the analysis, chronological changes were found in the anti-poverty activities. There are four stages: 1) disclosure of poverty issues in "the decay of the public sphere"; 2) promotion of "Hakenmura Activities" and of "Counter-public Sphere"; 3) acting out the network-centered movements and cooperation with other spheres; and 4) making the greatest use of ready-made networks and shifting objectives as a result. These processes indicate three points as follows. 1) We can recognize the dynamic process acting on the welfare supplier in the decay of the public sphere. 2) Regarding the social organization process, not only the supporters but also the consulters can secure self-positioning by recognizing their role-flexibility. 3) The significance of activating the tradition and history of sociology is shown. After the experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, many people have been talking about human "lives". Against this background, human ecology according to the early Chicago school of sociology can supply several perspectives to depict the process of networks and social bonds around anti-poverty activities.
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  • Rie TAKAMATSU
    2012Volume 11 Pages 54-65
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Many studies based on U.S. data have shown that the female-dominated occupations generally make lower wages than the male-dominated occupations, through exploring a mechanism between gender segregation and the wage gap by controlling skills and credentials. In contrast, there are a few corresponding studies in Japan, which have shown that occupational gender segregation directly affects the wage gap, though they do not properly include all occupations and skills. This paper examines how occupational gender segregation affects female wages in Japan using JGSS data sets from 2006 and 2008, by controlling various aspects of skills both in the Japanese employment system and in the professional credential system. Based on OLS analysis, the major findings are as follows: First, the analysis shows that the female-dominated occupations earn higher wages than the gender-mixed occupations. Second, "skills with things" account for the wage gap between the female-dominated occupations and the gender-mixed occupations. Third, the professional occupational system and "skills with people", not the Japanese employment system, account for the wage gap between female-dominated occupations and gender-mixed occupations. In conclusion, the female-dominated occupations can raise wages through the professional credential system, in contradiction to previous research on gender segregation and the wage gap in Japan.
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Special Section I New Sociological Perspective for Understanding Capitalism Today: in Search of another Economy and Society
  • Masahiro OGINO
    2012Volume 11 Pages 67-69
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Toshiyuki MASAMURA
    2012Volume 11 Pages 70-80
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The global financial crisis which stemmed from the U.S. subprime problem has been called the greatest crisis since the Great Depression which started in 1929. This crisis cannot be reduced to the periodicity peculiar to capitalism. Capitalism changed after 1980s. The fundamental cause of the current crisis lies in the global influence of the neoliberalist policy which gained power after the 1970s. Neoliberalism, characterized by deregulation and privatization, brought about two major changes to capitalism. First, the predominance of finance over production was established by the liberalization of capital and financial transactions. Second, the market mechanism as a principle of competition permeated social domains such as education, science, welfare, and medical care. The relation between functionally differentiated systems changed with penetration of the market mechanism. As a result, capitalism is tending to become post-industrial capitalism.
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  • Teruhito USHIRO
    2012Volume 11 Pages 81-89
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper examines the historical process by which salaried employment formed in France, in order to consider the tendencies of contemporary capitalism, which can be characterized by the generalization and precarization of salaried employment. To focus on its characteristics from a historical and theoretical point of view, the main issues addressed in the paper are as follows. 1) How the salarization of work realized social mobility inside the société salariale with the help of Social Security in the latter half of the 20^<th> century, which paradoxically presages the precarization of life and labor today, in the sense that workers are made immobile and stagnant in the homogeneous social space without help from strong primary communities. 2) How the genesis of the contrat de travail in late 19^<th> and early 20^<th> century France led to problematic changes in salaried work, especially labor relations (subordination of the employee to the employer) and the combination of effort, time, and reward (diagram of "abstract labor" according to Marx). 3) How salaried employment is, in contemporary society, so to speak, "commercialized" and/or "domesticated", in other words irregularized as industrial capitalism has declined, promoting the service industry (from domestic service to creative and knowledge work), in the sense that the service industry requires a radically different management, communication and staff maintenance model, and that abstract labor is divided into heterogeneous kinds of tasks and relations.
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  • Takao MAMADA
    2012Volume 11 Pages 90-99
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Consumer societies are now so complicated that it is difficult to understand them without the premise of their autonomic direction of development. In order to understand the dynamics of consumer culture, I formulate a three-phase theory of consumption, and three ideal types of consumer culture. The first consumer culture is oriented to rationalism, pursuing efficiency and the increase or expansion of goods. The second is characterized by other-oriented and anti-rational consumption. The third is composed of consumption seeking cultural values and that with social responsibility. These three cultures are currently coexisting, but I believe the third consumer culture is the most active now, will be more active from now on, and should be the most active under the present situation of consumer societies. This third consumer culture will probably vitalize small enterprises to some extent, and may even have some effect on the state of cities, work and employment, the global economy and others.
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Special Section II Survey Research and Data Archives
  • Makoto TODOROKI
    2012Volume 11 Pages 101-102
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Hiroki SATO
    2012Volume 11 Pages 103-112
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Whilst the basic function of data archives is to collect, store, and provide micro-data, a more important function is to provide researchers with an opportunity to 'reproduce' analysis of past empirical research through secondary analysis. Japan produces a large number of social surveys, which are carried out not only by academics but also by various organisations such as newspaper companies and government agencies. Despite the country's being a 'social survey giant', data often disappeared after the publication of papers and reports. Until recently, there was no system which acquired, curated, and stored data, or provided data for secondary analysis. This article illustrates the social importance of depositing data for those who wish to conduct secondary analysis, and the role of data archives, focusing in particular on the aims and goals of the Social Sciences Japan Data Archive (SSJDA) managed by the Center for Social Research and Data Archives, Institute for Social Science, University of Tokyo.
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  • Akira KAWABATA
    2012Volume 11 Pages 113-121
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    More than ten years have passed since the term "data archive" came to be heard among sociologists. Although data archives have been used relatively frequently for research studies, they have so far been little used for education. This report shows the necessary requirements of data archives for education. The four requirements are as follows: 1) a data archive should be usable not only in undergraduate education but also in liberal arts and even high school education; 2) data should be accessible on the Web without downloading and distributing it to students; 3) data archives should contain large-scale, random sampling survey data and come with data transformation functions such as recoding of values, and have analysis functions such as triple cross tabulation and multiple regression on the Web, to enable the study of how to use control variables; and 4) students should be able to study at any time using a data archive. Next, this report introduces the SRDQ data archive which fulfills these requirements, and also a textbook that makes use of the SRDQ archive. After reading an article which features an excellent example of data analysis and gaining a thorough understanding of its academic significance via the description in the textbook, a student can then easily trace the data analysis performed in that article on SRDQ while referring to the textbook. Students need to be given enough time to go through a process of trial and error in learning about data transformation and analysis. As a result, the student's interest in social research data analysis increases after the student becomes capable of performing analysis as only he/she can perform it. Finally, this report points out that it is our responsibility to increase the amount of teaching material that can be used for this kind of education through researchers' data deposit.
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  • Noriko IWAI
    2012Volume 11 Pages 122-131
    Published: May 26, 2012
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Since 2000, JGSS Research Center at Osaka University of Commerce has conducted nine nationwide surveys, involving thousands of respondents, which purport to promote the understanding of a current picture of Japanese society and its changes. JGSS has publicly called for research proposals targeting researchers in wide-ranging fields of social sciences. In 2003, JGSS also started a joint research project called the "East Asian Social Survey" (EASS) with South Korea, Taiwan, and China, each of which had already been conducting GSS-type surveys. The four teams collaborate to conduct nationwide surveys comprising the same questions for each country and region. Since 2006, JGSS has conducted a nationwide survey every two years. It takes more than 4 years to prepare for each survey, to finalize both Japanese and English versions of the data, and to deposit them in Japanese and international data archives. Thus, JGSS Research Center is simultaneously working on different surveys at various stages. This article reviews their typical workflow to explain the work and the issues at each stage. JGSS public data have been used by universities and research institutions inside and outside Japan. The total number of users amounted to more than 25,000 by the end of January 2012. JGSS public data are utilized in diverse fields, including sociology, economics, demography, statistics, political science, psychology, pedagogy, linguistics, geography, public health, and agriculture. The data have been utilized to produce over 700 publications and contributed to research and education in Japan and abroad. This article also describes the research manner requested from research proposal applicants as well as from the users of public data. JGSS needs considerable support from the academic community to secure stable funding for continuing large-scale social surveys.
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