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Social Stratification in an Aging Society with Low Fertility: The Case of Japan (Economy and Social Inclusion)
by Sawako ShirahaseThis edited book empirically discusses stratification in contemporary Japanese society. It is unique for its examination of social inequality in relation to declining fertility and an aging population. Japan is the most aged society in the world: according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan, people who are aged 65 and above comprised 29.1% of the country’s total population in 2021. Meanwhile, the fertility rate has continuously declined since the mid-1970s. Japan experienced a dramatic change in its demographic structure in a short period of time. Such fast change could be a major factor that generated social stratification. In her industrialization, Japan was thought to share a pattern of social stratification similar to that of developed European and North American countries but with a low degree of socio-economic inequality and a high degree of homogeneity. There is no clear support for this description of Japan, although the country does share a pattern and degree of social stratification similar to that observed in Europe and North America. The social stratification theory has been developed in close relationship to the labor market; however, it is necessary to further examine the social stratification of very aged societies in which a substantial number of the population—namely, retired persons—no longer have any ties to the labor market. In this book, the contributors explore the pattern of social stratification at three life stages: young, middle-aged, and elderly. Included are discussions of various aspects of stratification such as education, work, wealth, marriage, family, gender, generation, and social attitudes.
Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity
by César García-Díaz Camilo OlayaUniquely reflects an engineering view to social systems in a wide variety of contexts of application Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity brings together a wide variety of application approaches to social systems from an engineering viewpoint. The book defines a social system as any complex system formed by human beings. Focus is given to the importance of systems intervention design for specific and singular settings, the possibilities of engineering thinking and methods, the use of computational models in particular contexts, and the development of portfolios of solutions. Furthermore, this book considers both technical, human and social perspectives, which are crucial to solving complex problems. Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity provides modelling examples to explore the design aspect of social systems. Various applications are explored in a variety of areas, such as urban systems, health care systems, socio-economic systems, and environmental systems. It covers important topics such as organizational design, modelling and intervention in socio-economic systems, participatory and/or community-based modelling, application of systems engineering tools to social problems, applications of computational behavioral modeling, computational modelling and management of complexity, and more. Highlights an engineering view to social systems (as opposed to a “scientific” view) that stresses the importance of systems intervention design for specific and singular settings Divulges works where the design, re-design, and transformation of social systems constitute the main aim, and where joint considerations of both technical and social perspectives are deemed important in solving social problems Features an array of applied cases that illustrate the application of social systems engineering in different domains Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity is an excellent text for academics and graduate students in engineering and social science—specifically, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and management scientists with an interest in finding systematic ways to intervene and improve social systems.
Social Trends in American Life: Findings from the General Social Survey since 1972
by Peter V. MarsdenChanges in American social attitudes and behaviors since the 1970sSocial Trends in American Life assembles a team of leading researchers to provide unparalleled insight into how American social attitudes and behaviors have changed since the 1970s. Drawing on the General Social Survey—a social science project that has tracked demographic and attitudinal trends in the United States since 1972—it offers a window into diverse facets of American life, from intergroup relations to political views and orientations, social affiliations, and perceived well-being.Among the book's many important findings are the greater willingness of ordinary Americans to accord rights of free expression to unpopular groups, to endorse formal racial equality, and to accept nontraditional roles for women in the workplace, politics, and the family. Some, but not all, signs indicate that political conservatism has grown, while a few suggest that Republicans and Democrats are more polarized. Some forms of social connectedness such as neighboring have declined, as has confidence in government, while participation in organized religion has softened. Despite rising standards of living, American happiness levels have changed little, though financial and employment insecurity has risen over three decades.Social Trends in American Life provides an invaluable perspective on how Americans view their lives and their society, and on how these views have changed over the last two generations.
Social and Economic Networks
by Matthew O. JacksonNetworks of relationships help determine the careers that people choose, the jobs they obtain, the products they buy, and how they vote. The many aspects of our lives that are governed by social networks make it critical to understand how they impact behavior, which network structures are likely to emerge in a society, and why we organize ourselves as we do. In Social and Economic Networks, Matthew Jackson offers a comprehensive introduction to social and economic networks, drawing on the latest findings in economics, sociology, computer science, physics, and mathematics. He provides empirical background on networks and the regularities that they exhibit, and discusses random graph-based models and strategic models of network formation. He helps readers to understand behavior in networked societies, with a detailed analysis of learning and diffusion in networks, decision making by individuals who are influenced by their social neighbors, game theory and markets on networks, and a host of related subjects. Jackson also describes the varied statistical and modeling techniques used to analyze social networks. Each chapter includes exercises to aid students in their analysis of how networks function. This book is an indispensable resource for students and researchers in economics, mathematics, physics, sociology, and business.
Social and Economic Stimulating Development Strategies for China’s Ethnic Minority Areas
by Yanzhong Wang Sai DingThis book gathers the outcomes of various, extensive research efforts on building a moderately prosperous society in minority areas, which would allow China’s poor and poverty-stricken areas to comprehensively join the rest of society. Offering an essential reference guide, the book will help readers understand the process, achievements, problems, and future development with regard to building a moderately prosperous society in the new era.
Social and Political Dimensions of Mathematics Education
by Elizabeth De Freitas Murad Jurdak Renuka Vithal Peter Gates David KolloscheThis book examines the current thinking on five critical social and political areas in mathematics education. It focuses on material conditions in teaching and learning, and details features of social life and their influence on mathematics teaching, learning and achievement. Following an introduction, the first section addresses equitable access and participation in quality mathematics education. It explores this issue in different contexts and from different ideological perspectives. The second section traces the emergence and development of the notion of activism in mathematics education in theory, in the literature, in research and in practice. The third section then moves on to explore current research on the political forces at work in identity, subjectivity and (dis)ability within mathematics education, showing how emphasis on language and discourse provides information for this research, and how new directions are being pursued to address the diverse material conditions that shape learning experiences in mathematics education. Economic factors behind mathematics achievement form the topic of section four, which examines the political dimensions of mathematics education through the influence of national and global economic structures. The final section addresses distribution of power and cultural regimes of truth, based on the premise that although often deemed apolitical, mathematics and mathematics education are highly political institutions in our society. The book concludes with a summary and recommendations for the future.
Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling: 17th International Conference, SBP-BRiMS 2024, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, September 18–20, 2024, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14972)
by Robert Thomson Scott Renshaw Aryn Pyke Samer Al-Khateeb Annetta Burger Patrick Park Aravind HariharanThis book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling, SBP-BRiMS 2024, which was held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, during September 18–20, 2024. The 24 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 54 submissions. They are grouped into the following topics: advancements in tools and theory; data-driven approaches.
Social-Emotional Learning Through STEAM Projects, Grades 4-5
by Season MusseySocial-Emotional Learning Through STEAM Projects, Grades 4–5 helps educators target the development of social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies for high-ability learners through interdisciplinary, project-based inquiry. Aligned with STEAM content standards, each of the nine projects introduces students to a real-world problem through essential questions and the presentation of a primary source document. Both the content and the inquiry process support SEL competency development, from self-awareness to selfmanagement, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. As students work to understand and pose solutions to each problem, they gain the knowledge and practical skills needed to become more socially and emotionally competent individuals in their classroom communities.
Sociality, Hierarchy, Health: Comparative Biodemography
by Maxine WeinsteinSociality, Hierarchy, Health: Comparative Biodemography is a collection of papers that examine cross-species comparisons of social environments with a focus on social behaviors along with social hierarchies and connections, to examine their effects on health, longevity, and life histories. This report covers a broad spectrum of nonhuman animals, exploring a variety of measures of position in social hierarchies and social networks, drawing links among these factors to health outcomes and trajectories, and comparing them to those in humans. Sociality, Hierarchy, Health revisits both the theoretical underpinnings of biodemography and the empirical findings that have emerged over the past two decades.
Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (Synthesis Lectures on Computer Science)
by Carlo LipizziThis book goes beyond the current hype of expectations generated by the news on artificial intelligence and machine learning by analyzing realistic expectations for society, its limitations, and possible future scenarios for the use of this technology in our current society. Artificial Intelligence is one of the top topics today and is inflating expectations beyond what the technology can do in the foreseeable future. The future cannot be predicted, but the future of some elements of our society, such as technology, can be estimated. This book merges the modeling of human reasoning with the power of AI technology allowing readers to make more informed decisions about their personal or financial decisions or just being more educated on current technologies. This book presents a model that sketches potential future scenarios based on a discussion of the expectations today, the analysis of the current gap in the literature, and a view of possible futures in terms of technology and use cases. Specifically, this book merges literature on the technology aspects, the sociological impacts, and philosophical aspects.
Socio-Inspired Optimization Methods for Advanced Manufacturing Processes (Springer Series in Advanced Manufacturing)
by Anand J. Kulkarni Apoorva Shastri Aniket NargundkarThis book discusses comprehensively the advanced manufacturing processes, including illustrative examples of the processes, mathematical modeling, and the need to optimize associated parameter problems. In addition, it describes in detail the cohort intelligence methodology and its variants along with illustrations, to help readers gain a better understanding of the framework. The theoretical and statistical rigor is validated by comparing the solutions with evolutionary algorithms, simulation annealing, response surface methodology, the firefly algorithm, and experimental work. Lastly, the book critically reviews several socio-inspired optimization methods.
Socio-Spatial Dynamics in Mediterranean Europe: Exploring Metropolitan Structural Processes and Short-term Change (Spatial Demography Book Series #3)
by José María Feria-Toribio Ricardo Iglesias-Pascual Federico BenassiThis book analyses the most recent socio-territorial trends that are developing in the Spanish metropolitan space. The first part focuses on the most recent metropolitan dynamics and demographic changes in Southern Europe. The second part discusses the most important processes in metropolitan areas: the problems of increasing social and residential vulnerability and the problems of diversity management. The third part analyses some concrete cases of the main changes and complexity in the spatial dynamics of metropolitan areas in Southern Europe. Finally, the fourth and last part provides an overview on the instruments and the resources put in place by some Southern European cities for the development of governance and citizen participation as an instrument of reaction to the social, economic and COVID crisis. By discussing the main changes and uncertainties derived from the social scenarios after the pandemic, the dynamics of social dualisation of the city, as well as the necessaryinstruments for its analysis and the main challenges in urban governance with special attention of Southern European context, this book provides an interesting read for spatial demographers, human geographers, social scientists and spatial planners.
Socio-cultural Inspired Metaheuristics (Studies in Computational Intelligence #828)
by Kang Tai Suresh Chandra Satapathy Anand J. Kulkarni Pramod Kumar Singh Ali Husseinzadeh KashanThis book presents the latest insights and developments in the field of socio-cultural inspired algorithms. Akin to evolutionary and swarm-based optimization algorithms, socio-cultural algorithms belong to the category of metaheuristics (problem-independent computational methods) and are inspired by natural and social tendencies observed in humans by which they learn from one another through social interactions. This book is an interesting read for engineers, scientists, and students studying/working in the optimization, evolutionary computation, artificial intelligence (AI) and computational intelligence fields.
Sociocultural Research on Mathematics Education: An International Perspective
by Bill Atweh Helen Forgasz Ben NebresThis volume--the first to bring together research on sociocultural aspects of mathematics education--presents contemporary and international perspectives on social justice and equity issues that impact mathematics education. In particular, it highlights the importance of three interacting and powerful factors--gender, social, and cultural dimensions. Sociocultural Research on Mathematics Education: An International Perspective is distinguished in several ways: * It is research based. Chapters report on significant research projects; present a comprehensive and critical summary of the research findings; and offer a critical discussion of research methods and theoretical perspectives undertaken in the area. * It is future oriented, presenting recommendations for practice and policy and identifying areas for further research. * It deals with all aspects of formal and informal mathematics education and applications and all levels of formal schooling. As the context of mathematics education rapidly changes-- with an increased demand for mathematically literate citizenship; an increased awareness of issues of equity, inclusivity, and accountability; and increased efforts for globalization of curriculum development and research-- questions are being raised more than ever before about the problems of teaching and learning mathematics from a non-cognitive science perspective. This book contributes significantly to addressing such issues and answering such questions. It is especially relevant for researchers, graduate students, and policymakers in the field of mathematics education.
Sociodemographic Questionnaire Modules for Comparative Social Surveys (SpringerBriefs in Population Studies)
by Uwe Warner Jürgen H.P. Hoffmeyer-ZlotnikAbove all, this book focuses on the application of sociodemographic survey questions. Based on theoretical foundations, it addresses the operationalization of variables and presents socio-demographic questionnaire modules for within- and across-country comparative survey research. The book pursues three main objectives: to provide a thorough and comprehensive overview of the survey instruments currently available for the measurement of sociodemographic variables in cross-national comparative research; to offer the reader a set of harmonized international demographic standards; and to show how these standards can be implemented by the various parties involved in international comparative surveys – from the central project coordinators, to the researchers on the national survey teams, to the fieldwork agencies and their interviewers, to respondents, and eventually, to the data processing experts preparing the datasets for comparative analysis. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners and students actively involved in producing and analyzing sociodemographic survey data. The typical readers will be social science researchers, qualified consultants and professionals interested in the field of (comparative) survey research. The book can also serve as a useful supplement to introductory textbooks on survey methodology and is suitable for Bachelor and Master students of the social sciences.
Sociodynamics: A Systematic Approach to Mathematical Modelling in the Social Sciences (Dover Books on Mathematics)
by Wolfgang Weidlich"Highly recommended. . . . This is an important book in putting the burgeoning field of sociodynamics on a solid footing."--Journal of Artificial Societies and Social SimulationThis text deals with general modelling concepts in the social sciences, their applications, and their mathematical methods. The author's well-organized approach offers a clear, coherent introduction to terminology, approaches, and goals in modelling. Appropriate for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, it requires a solid background in algebra and calculus.The three-part treatment begins by addressing general modelling concepts, the second part provides applications, and the third discusses mathematical method. Topics include population dynamics, group interaction, political transitions, evolutionary economics, and urbanization. Guiding students through a series of practical applications that illustrate the methods' potential scope, the text concludes with a detailed look at mathematical methods.
Socioeconomic Inequality and Educational Outcomes: Evidence from Twenty Years of TIMSS (IEA Research for Education #5)
by Markus Broer Yifan Bai Frank FonsecaThis open access book focuses on trends in educational inequality using twenty years of grade 8 student data collected from 13 education systems by the IEA’s Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) between 1995 and 2015. While the overall positive association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and student achievement is well documented in the literature, the magnitude of this relationship is contingent on social contexts and is expected to vary by education system. Research on how such associations differ across societies and how the strength of these relationships has changed over time is limited. This study, therefore, addresses an important research and policy question by examining changes in the inequality of educational outcomes due to SES over this 20-year period, and also examines the extent to which the performance of students from disadvantaged backgrounds has improved over time in each education system. Education systems generally aim to narrow the achievement gap between low- and high-SES students and to improve the performance of disadvantaged students. However, the lack of quantifiable and comprehensible measures makes it difficult to assess and monitor the effect of such efforts. In this study, a novel measure of SES that is consistent across all TIMSS cycles allows students to be categorized into different socioeconomic groups. This measure of SES may also contribute to future research using TIMSS trend data. Readers will gain new insight into how educational inequality has changed in the education systems studied and how such change may relate to the more complex picture of macroeconomic changes in those societies.
Socioeconomic Segregation and Educational Inequality: Evidence from International Assessments (IEA Research for Education #15)
by Nathan A. Burroughs Jacqueline A. Gardner Dirk F. Zuschlag Craig Joseph Van VlietThis open access book uses multiple IEA Assessments to examine the relationship between socioeconomic segregation between classrooms and student outcomes. By examining Socioeconomic status (SES) segregation between classrooms as well as between schools, it produces a more accurate estimate of student sorting. Further, this study examines the differential impact of student sorting across subject areas and grades in order to explore whether school structure’s relationship to educational inequality exhibits content and longitudinal heterogeneity. This study employs time series, fixed-effect, random-effects, and synthetic-cohort methods to comprehensively investigate the robustness of the relationship between SES segregation and achievement inequalities. This project makes an important contribution to researchers’ understanding of student sorting’s impact using a comparative lens, while also providing important information to policymakers on the role of schools in mediating social inequalities.
Sociological Foundations of Computational Social Science (Translational Systems Sciences #40)
by Yoshimichi Sato Hiroki TakikawaThis book provides solid sociological foundations to computational social science (CSS). CSS is an emerging research field, and many books with those words in the title are on the market. However, CSS has not become mainstream in sociology, for which there are two reasons. First, CSS does not necessarily solve major research questions in sociology. Second, its sociological foundations are weak. These two reasons are interrelated—that is, CSS cannot solve major research questions because its sociological foundations are weak. Thus, even if it tries to solve those questions, its approaches seem to mainstream sociologists to miss the point. To resolve that shortcoming, this book fills the gap between CSS and sociology, shows that CSS can solve major research questions in sociology, and advances sociology by introducing to it theories and methodologies of CSS.
Sociology and Statistics in Britain, 1833–1979
by Plamena PanayotovaAt the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain stood at the forefront of science and statistics and had a long and respected tradition of social investigation and reform. But it still did not yet have a ‘science of society.’ When, in the early 1900s, a small band of enthusiasts got together to address this situation, the scene was set for a grand synthesis. No such synthesis ever took place and, instead, British sociology has followed a resolutely non-statistical path. Sociology and Statistics in Britain, 1833-1979 investigates how this curious situation came about and attempts to explain it from an historical perspective. It uncovers the prevalence of a deep and instinctive distrust within British sociology of the statistical methodology and mindset, resulting in a mix of quiet indifference and active hostility, which has persisted from its beginnings right up to the present day. While British sociology has thrived institutionally since the post-war expansion of higher education, this book asks whether or not it is poorer for having failed to recognise that statistics provides the foundations for the scientific study of society and for having missed opportunities to build upon those foundations. Ultimately, this important, revealing and timely book is about British sociology’s refusal to come to grips with a modern scientific way of thinking which no discipline that aspires to an effective study of society can afford to ignore.
Sociology as a Population Science
by John H. GoldthorpeJohn Goldthorpe is one of Britain's most eminent sociologists and a strong advocate of quantitative sociology. In this concise and accessible book, he provides a new rationale for recent developments in sociology which focus on establishing and explaining probabilistic regularities in human populations. Through these developments, Goldthorpe shows how sociology has become more securely placed within the 'probabilistic revolution' that has occurred over the last century in the natural and social sciences alike. The central arguments of the book are illustrated with examples from different areas of sociology, ranging from social stratification and the sociology of the family to the sociology of revolutions. He concludes by considering the implications of these arguments for the proper boundaries of sociology, for its relations with other disciplines, and for its public role.
Sociology of Aging and Death (International Perspectives on Aging #35)
by Jason PowellThis book presents a critical analysis and examination of the major theories and social issues in the social construction of aging and death. It is concerned with the impact of death and places how our experiences of death are transformed by the roles that truth and discourse about aging play in everyday life. A major element of the book is an examination of the way in which groups and individuals employ specific representations of mortality in order to construct meaning and purpose for life and death. To accentuate this, the book provides an investigation into the social construction of death practices across time and space. Special attention is given to the notion of death as a socially accomplished phenomenon grounded in a unique sociological introduction to the meaning of death throughout history to the present. The purpose of this book is to critically inform debates concerning the abstract and empirical features of death examined through the lens of sociological perspectives. This book explores the emergent biomedical dominance relating to ageing and death. An alternative is advocated which re-interprets ageing for Graduate schools. This innovative book explores the concept, history and theory of aging and its relationship to death. Traditionally, many books have focused on older people dying of 'natural causes', a biomedical explanatory framework. This book looks at alternative social theories and experiences with aging and relate to death in different countries, victims, crime, imprisonment and institutional care. Are these deaths avoidable? If so, what are the solutions the book addresses. This is one of the first books that re-interprets aging and its relationship of examples of death. It will be of essential reading for graduate students and researchers in understanding these different examples of aging and death across the globe.
Sociophysics
by Serge GalamDo humans behave much like atoms? Sociophysics, which uses tools and concepts from the physics of disordered matter to describe some aspects of social and political behavior, answers in the affirmative. But advocating the use of models from the physical sciences to understand human behavior could be perceived as tantamount to dismissing the existence of human free will and also enabling those seeking manipulative skills . This thought-provoking book argues it is just the contrary. Indeed, future developments and evaluation will either show sociophysics to be inadequate, thus supporting the hypothesis that people can primarily be considered to be free agents, or valid, thus opening the path to a radically different vision of society and personal responsibility. This book attempts to explain why and how humans behave much like atoms, at least in some aspects of their collective lives, and then proposes how this knowledge can serve as a unique key to a dramatic leap forwards in achieving more social freedom in the real world. At heart, sociophysics and this book are about better comprehending the richness and potential of our social interaction, and so distancing ourselves from inanimate atoms.
Sociophysics Approach to Epidemics (Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science #23)
by Jun TanimotoThis book presents the fundamentals of evolutionary game theory and applies them to the analysis of epidemics, which is of paramount importance in the aftermath of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objective of this monograph is to deliver a powerful tool to model and analyze the spread of an infectious disease during a pandemic as well as the human decision dynamics. The book employs a variant of the “vaccination game,” in which a mathematical epidemiological model dovetails with evolutionary game theory. From a social physics standpoint, this book introduces an extended concept of the vaccination game starting from the fundamental issues and touching on the newest practical applications.The book first outlines the fundamental basis of evolutionary game theory, in which a two-player and two-strategy game, the so-called 2 × 2 game, and a multi-player game are concisely introduced, and the important issue of how social dilemmas are quantified is highlighted. Subsequently, the book discusses various recent applications of the extended concept of the vaccination game so as to quantitatively evaluate provisions other than vaccination, including practical intermediate protective measures such as mask-wearing, efficiency of quarantine compared with that of isolation policies for suppressing epidemics, efficiency of preemptive versus late vaccination, and optimal subsidy policies for vaccination.
Sociopolitical Dimensions of Mathematics Education
by Murad Jurdak Renuka VithalThis book documents and expands on the diverse social and political dimensions of mathematics education issues, concerns, perspectives, contexts, and approaches presented in Topic Study Group 34 of the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-13). The book also argues for and promotes the mainstreaming of the sociopolitical dimensions of mathematics education through an ongoing critique and inquiry into content, policies, practices and theories. Accordingly, the main theme throughout the book is captured and illuminated by bringing voices from the margin to the mainstream. In this respect it is both aspirational and a reality, as evidenced by the increasing references to the sociopolitical dimensions in other areas of mathematics education—for example, in several of the plenary presentations at the ICME-13. The authors have reflected on their ideas with a view to orienting and enhancing research in the sociopolitical dimensions of mathematics education that is grounded in current education systems within their specific sociocultural contexts.