The question of structure of prehistoric communities constitutes an interesting, yet challenging research problem. Most often it is analyzed from the perspective of the equipment of individuals buried it cemeteries. Researchers dealing with the Roman period, largely base their studies on the qualitative and quantitative diversity of funerary material, assume that the richly furnished graves belonged to rich people (elites), and poorly equipped – respectively – to the poor. They take into account the present value of materials of which objects were made (gold, silver), even though they may not have been as significant as they are today. A major problem in the study of social structure turns out to be the poorly preserved bone material which often prevents anthropologists from determining sex and age of the deceased. The solution could be found in the study of fossil DNA, able to answer questions about the possible existence of kinship and family sectors in the cemeteries. What is more, the study of stable isotopes of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon, although not without limitations, can support archeology in finding answers to questions if diet could be related to social status (or dependent on sex, age, wealth, etc.). Finally, in the study of social structure, the research on divisions arising from labor and its distribution according to sex is also used. In the studies of social structure it is crucial to realize that burial is an intentional action, which is influenced by the aspirations of family members of the deceased, grief, emotions related to death, and even current “fashion”. Therefore, asking questions about the social structure and using methods which are to help obtain the answers, what we really ask about is the attitude of the living towards the deceased and death itself, as well as their own idea of the afterlife.
The place of women in the rural social structure in Poland is changing as a result of transformations in the economic, educational, and behavioral spheres of social life. This article takes into account the growing differences in various types of rural communities in Poland. Three localities, each representing a different type of social structure, were studied: the intelligentsia and workers in the Koszalin area; workers in the Myszków area; and farmers in the Lubartów area. Quota samples of 120 households in each area were studied: 360 in all, with 797 individual interviews. The authors compared the social status of men and women, taking into account their level of education, occupational activity, social position, and income and its influence on how women evaluate themselves.
Pakistan has been facing a high level of violence over the decades. Although a paucity of knowledge on this issue in Pakistan is observed, this essay nonetheless outlines the documented patterns of street-youth violence: its causes, perpetrators and the socio-cultural and political constructs of the phenomenon. The wide gap in both the empirical and theoretical knowledge of the ‘North and South’ of the intellectual global world impedes the researchers of the indigenous social problems to construct a comprehensive sociological perspective on the street-youth violence that exists in this region.
PL
W Pakistanie od dziesięcioleci odnotowuje się wysokie wskaźniki przemocy. Brak dostatecznej wiedzy na temat tego zjawiska w Pakistanie. Niemniej jednak niniejsze opracowanie stara się pokazać udokumentowane schematy przemocy ulicznej wśród młodych: jej przyczyny, sprawców a także konstrukty społeczno-kulturowe oraz polityczne tego zjawiska. Głęboki rozziew między wiedzą empiryczną i teoretyczną „Północy i Południa” w zglobalizowanym świecie intelektu stanowi dla badaczy miejscowych problemów społecznych przeszkodę w budowaniu kompleksowego socjologicznego spojrzenia na przemoc uliczną wśród młodych w tym regionie.
The rulers of Scythia left kurgans instead of palaces. We know 17 Scythian kings and 14 of them are associated with the steppes of the Northern Pontic area. The period of active kurgans’ building in the steppe began by the time of the Ariapeith dynasty. About 6 or 7 kings can be related with it. At the same time the number of kurgans, that could be looked at as “candidates” for the Scythian ruler’s tombs, reaches six dozens. We can identify centers of regional structures using these kurgans as bearing points of the spatial structure of Scythia. The political centre of Scythia (5 – 3 c. BC) was located near the rifts of the lower Dnieper river. The importance of this area is emphasized by 4 most famous kurgans, probably tombs of the supreme kings. There are also 3 barrows of the second level, two or three times smaller than the royal ones and 10 graves of the third level, which are dozen times smaller than the giant tombs of the kings. The remaining 40 – 45 barrows could be divided in 11 or 12 local groups apparently marking regional centers of the Herodotus`s and Post-Herodotus`s Scythia.
Objectives This paper sets out to identify the key elements of Polish social structure that are critical to the manpower of the Polish Armed Forces. So far, there has been little discussion, in either the literature or ongoing public polemics, regarding the dependence of the Armed Forces on the shape of the social structure in the context of ensuring state security. Methods This work is predominantly based on the analysis of available literature: scientific articles, legal acts and the results from the survey research conducted by specialised institutions, in particular, Polish Central Statistical Office. Results On the basis of the presented analysis, it appears that it is the current Polish social structure that constitutes the major problem in the context of the insufficient personnel numbers in the Polish Armed Forces. The present state is below the expectations and needs of the Polish Army, mainly due to the lack of young people with special technical education. The earnings in the private sector by far outweigh the remuneration levels offered in the military, which effectively deters young people from undertaking service for the benefit of state security.On the basis of the presented analysis, it appears that it is the current Polish social structure that constitutes the major problem in the context of the insufficient personnel numbers in the Polish Armed Forces. The present state is below the expectations and needs of the Polish Army, mainly due to the lack of young people with special technical education. The earnings in the private sector by far outweigh the remuneration levels offered in the military, which effectively deters young people from undertaking service for the benefit of state security. Conclusions The research material presented in this work reflects on the current state and the aggravation of the important social problem – deficiency of manpower in the Polish Armed Forces. It has been shown that apart from the financial background and the quantities of the personnel appointed to military service, it is its quality – in the aspect of special technical education – that is yet another crucial condition.The research material presented in this work reflects on the current state and the aggravation of the important social problem – deficiency of manpower in the Polish Armed Forces. It has been shown that apart from the financial background and the quantities of the personnel appointed to military service, it is its quality – in the aspect of special technical education – that is yet another crucial condition.
This article unravels the complex dynamic that had led to the September 2008 financial collapse and to the subsequent and continuing global economic downturn. Taking a longer historical perspective it argues for the need to go beyond the immediate causes that are most often cited, by academics and non-academics alike, as the main reason behind the crash. The essay is first focused on the evolution of societal values within a democratic society, with a specific focus on the United States, the quintessential Western democracy. It shows how the puritan values of social responsibility, hard work and prudence came to be replaced by the ‘me first culture’ characterised by self-realisation and instant gratification. The article also examines the various policies democratic leaders the world over have been implementing in an effort to meet the growing societal aspirations brought on by the normative changes.
The paper is part of the interdisciplinary considerations on the management of organisations and the participation of women in these processes. The presented approach combines the science of management with the sociology of education. It allows the analysis of macro-social aspects of women’s functioning and micro-social aspects related to the functioning of women at the top of corporate power. The article is based on a management survey published in 2019, which concerns issues of mutual relations between education, socialisation, and the place of women in the social structure or the selection of co-workers. It is qualitative research that does not allow for the generalisation of conclusions to the entire population of Polish managers (or, more precisely, managers working in Poland), but the representativeness of a typological nature has been preserved. It means that the interviewees represented distinguished types of managers, mainly due to the industry and the type of position. The study concerned the highest-ranking company managers, Chief Executive Directors (CEO), and members of the company’s boards with various academic diplomas.
In the paper the finds of the Corded Ware culture cemeteries on the Sokal Perch and the Kańczuga Upland are discussed. Data obtained during the excavations there can be used in studies social structure of various groups of the culture in question. Detailed analyses of assemblages from graves of the Corded Ware culture on territories between the Vistula, Bug, and Dniester Rivers indicate the existence of various relations between people from different regions but also those living on the same area. However, the question of the character of these relations remains open.
Recent studies have taken advantage of newly available, large-scale, cross-linguistic data and new statistical techniques to look at the relationship between language structure and social structure. These ‘nomothetic’ approaches contrast with more traditional approaches and a tension is observed between proponents of each method. We review some nomothetic studies and point out some challenges that must be overcome. However, we argue that nomothetic approaches can contribute to our understanding of the links between social structure and language structure if they address these challenges and are taken as part of a body of mutually supporting evidence. Nomothetic studies are a powerful tool for generating hypotheses that can go on to be corroborated and tested with experimental and theoretical approaches. These studies are highlighting the effect of interaction on language.
Article present results of analysis of lithics from Late Palaeolithic Hamburgian site Mirkowice 33 located in the eastern part of Greater Poland. Analysis was conduct with the use of refitting method. Results show technological differences in lithic production and spatial structuring of the camp. It also presents the relations between particular zones of the camp and groups of products manufactured by the knappers with different lithic processing skills. Integrated technological and spatial aspects allow to study the social dimension of flint knapping at the site.
Th e Youth: A Troublesome Sociological CategoryTh e youth is a sociological category which usually causes trouble for the adults due toyoung people’s contestation of the social order and value systems. Young people havealways been among potential and actual revolutionaries. It can be concluded that theyouth constitute some kind of threat to the existing state of society. Young peoplecompete with adults, not only in the sphere of values, but also on the job market forthe best posts and, as a consequence, for positions in the social structure. Since thisis a kind of an emerging category, just entering an adult life, its position has beenusually worse. Th us the youth additionally has to experience (oft en negative) consequencesof social change and its impact for individual biographies of youngsters. Th eyouth also causes trouble as an object of sociological study. Firstly, there are problemshow to determine precisely the scope and content (meaning) of this concept.Secondly, youth research led usually to the conclusions that were quickly challengedby the social practice. Th irdly, there are various ideas how to determine its role insociety. Th e purpose of this paper is to analyze these issues in the context of the socialchanges taking place in the modern globalized society.
The purpose of this article is to explain why the communities of the Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures occupying Wielkopolska in the broadly-defined Roman period used two different types of cremation urns for burying their dead. The paper provides a description of both types of urns. Type I comprises thin walled, carefully made and burnished vase shaped vessels and situlas. Type II groups carefully made vessels with rough or roughened outside surface: pots, vase-shaped vessels and even cups. This paper provides an overview of previous ideas and interpretations of the phenomenon and examines the construction, grave goods and location of selected graves from two cemeteries of the Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures in Wielkopolska: Kuny and Kowalewko. A hypothesis explaining the presence of two urn types at that time in Wielkopolska is then proposed along with some research postulates and questions that will enable and guide further discussion on this intriguing issue.
This paper gives an overview of the Elementary Theory, a theory which infers interests from conditions of social structure and uses that information to predict interaction outcomes. It also reviews how the theory models social structure and the seven conditions of structure (i.e. exclusion, inclusion, null, inclusion-null, inclusion-exclusion, hierarchy/mobility and ordering) known to affect one type of human activity, the exercise of power. This paper ends up with a brief presentation of the recent theoretical developments of the Elementary Theory.
Sustainable consumption in Iran needs serious attention. The present study, using the qualitative approach, studies the status of sustainable consumption among Urmia citizens as well as the incentives and inhibitors affecting this behavior. The data was collected through semi-structured deep interviews. Data analysis showed that the simultaneous effect of incentives and inhibitors of consumer behavior has led to the emergenceof a “Paradoxical Sustainable Consumption” among the informants. It means that on one hand, individuals with health-oriented, economy-oriented, and nature-oriented incentives which are incentives of sustainable behavior show sustainable consumption behavior, but on the other hand due to informants’ dissatisfaction with institutional and social structures that have a deterrent role in the formation of the sustainable consumption behavior they show an unsustainable consumption pattern.
Based on data from three group interviews conducted with groups of “workers” and “professionals”, this article focuses on ways that interviews participants choose in their attempts to cope with sociologists’ demands to describe social structure of the contemporary Czech society. The key category adopted from the interviewers’ questions around which the arguments of participants were centered is the category of “success“. The author analyses measures of success mentioned by participants, its presuppositions, who is regarded as successful by them and which criteria of success they adopt. Also analyzed is the self-positioning of the interview participants and the social group they identify with in the notions of social structure presented by them in the course of the interviews.
The study deals with exploration of the origin and development of the British social anthropology. The author has defined its four principal features, which he considers to be, as follows: primarily deductive orientation, focus on the research into non-European societies, emphasis on applied anthropology and absence of standardized textbooks in the branch. The study aims at major schools and paradigms; simultaneously, the author deals with the analysis of key conceptions in the discipline, which include function and social structure in the British social anthropology. He also illustrates three dominating attitudes, which emerged in the discipline, by selected male and female representatives of the British anthropology. In particular, these include the diachronous (evolutionism, diffusionism), the synchronous (functionalism, structural functionalism) and the processual (Manchester School) attitude. He also demonstrates the narrow connection between the fieldwork concept and the dominating paradigm. In the conclusion of the study, the recent trends in the British social anthropology and its current situation are addressed.
The paper deals with the concept of social capital. The author tries to show the phenomena and processes that the concept expresses. The paper adopts a critical attitude towards the social capital concept. The author argues that social capital, through its complexity and extremely synthetic character, requires to be divided into narrower and more specific concepts that directly refer to the important phenomena and processes of the modern world: education, culture, and economy.
Black Death, global plague of the 14th century deeply changed the society of Medieval Europe. This unexpected catastrophe killed from 30 to 60 per cent of the continent’s population remaining the most deadly of all known wars, epidemics or natural disasters up to date1. It was an impulse to a profound transformation of European society, religiosity and art that opened doors for the Renaissance. Time of the catastrophe had a clearly liminal character, well described in Boccaccio’s Decameron. It is far too early to predict the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the world in long-time perspective, as we know little about how and when the disaster will end, but mechanisms of the liminal period are already to be seen and can be described, so is the influence of the virus on global economy, mobility, culture. There are similarities even in human reactions – from the hostility towards Asians (pogroms of Jews as a reaction to the Black Death) to ‘corona-parties’ (similar to the plays described by Boccaccio).
Article attempts to discuss the significance of individual consciousness, people’s motivation to pursuit their ends and the extent of their freedom from exterior influences, while focusing on relationship between migration processes and belongings among diasporic groups. It draws on insight from the indepth interviews with migrants who are a part of Slovene and Irish transnational diaspora, and thus aims to represent certain transformations in social reality embraced by the ideas of individualisation, while being simultaneously aware of particular weaknesses of those ideas. The focus is on their conceptualisations and perceptions of home, as a useful concept in considering individualisation that undermines the traditional meanings of tradition, family relations, ethnical and national belongings. What seems to be important is that in the era of increased individualisation, traditional social categories remain salient although contested and social forces still represent influential components inmigrants’ negotiation of the selves and the others. The conceptual lens, which could capture the contested relation between agency and structure in migrants’ live, is that of transnational social fields.
The paper addresses the educational, cultural and economic differences of Japan in relation to Polandas a country representing the values of the Old Continent. In particular, selected aspects of educationand parenthood in the Land of the Cherry Blossom were analyzed, as well as partnerships as wellas the labor market and organizations. The authors emphasize that their goal is to look for culturaldifferences, but also for generalizable similarities. Research issues undertaken as part of empiricalcomparative research focused on the various aspects of social life in both countries are revealed.
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