Social Problems

Abstract

This book is theoretical, in which the relevant parts of sociological and anthropological specialist literature on football and social processes were synthetically summarized. I focused only on the theories that were relevant to me, excluding popular literature dealing with the strategic-tactical connections of soccer as a physical game, the bibliography presenting the practice of the physical training and nutrition of the body, as well as the rich storehouse of related psychological and pedagogical writings and that of the literature referring to the economic and financial, marketing and promotion component of the issue. The biographical books of famous football players are not discussed, either. In the introductory part the sociological literature of football is delineated, making reference to the themes and questions raised, explanatory models, paradigmatic viewpoints, which characterize the „sociology of football”, as a specialized branch with a scientific status, recognized as such by the academic field. In fact, the possible taxonomy, the possible spectrum of the questions raised is examined. By a small detour the social role of sports, and the connections between the mass media and sports, particularly football are discussed, and references are provided on how soccer can indeed be a social issue. Football is seen as a rite, a postmodern deep play as a legitimacy and political-manipulative instrument, about the phenomena of violence, hooliganism and the ultras, about the relationship between soccer and criminality, inequality, racism, anti-Semitism, or masculinity, identity and modernization. We primarily relied on English language, mostly British and American specialized literature, as the largest part of the specialist literature was produced there. (This reflects well the English origins of modern age football, “they invented it” and spread it across the globe. Then they were the ones to write the most about it).

So, the Sociology of Football is an encompassing synthesis of the sociology of football; it also contains illustrations and talkative examples from Romanian football and changing social reality.

On this first level, I have presented the literature on the following issues: violence in football as the most prominent topic in the sociology of football; the role of football as a producer of identity, collective consciousness, and as laic ritual of postmodern society; the relationship between soccer and masculinity. In this last respect, I argue that highly mediated star players can define patterns of normative masculinity as sex symbols and as integral parts of a culture of celebrity. Thus, the way media presents football in general and players in particular, characterizing them and describing their expectations, is in fact the method they build normative patterns of masculinity strongly and closely related to national character. It relates to the way an imagined community looks on itself: it represents outer (aesthetics, the way it looks like) and inner (moral, the way it behaves) characteristics, the here and now of valid characters of masculinity, traits blend with qualities of national ones. I have also looked at the symbiotic relation between football and political power, since power structures football (playing style, economic, political, and logistic conditions, legitimate goals football may express and institute). However, soccer feeds back on politics, shapes to a certain extent the behaviour of political elites (for example legitimizes certain decisions, raises questions, or represents a context in which certain problems can be formulated). The relation between football and media is another important subject treated here: football is highly mediated and has become a TV show on its own, the practice of football, and the logic of media institutions are closely related. Media “produce” football because it needs football and thus football can be perceived as a commoditized popular culture product. In the current era of global media, entertainment industry produces this good.

ABSTRACT." Over the past three decades, Arab society in Israel has been undergoing processes of transition. These processes are mani-fested by changes in the economy, education, the status of women, family structure, and by socio-culturat changes and transformations in patterns ...

En el desarrollo de un proyecto de enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales en un aula de 4o de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria en un centro escolar de Sevilla, se investiga la evolución de las concepciones de los alumnos y se constata una progresión en los aprendizajes desde formulaciones más simples del conocimiento hacia concepciones más complejas. Se concluye que la metodología didáctica utilizada, el trabajo en torno a problemas sociales, en distintas escalas, tiene una influencia decisiva en esta evolución.

Food security is “the right of every individual to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.”[1][1] Despite the well-known association between food insecurity and type 2 diabetes, hypertension

The term "street children" includes a diverse group of inner-city youth dislocated to varying extents from family school and community. Most of these children are from rural areas intent on earning money to send home to their families or to support themselves. Once on the street the behavior of these children tends to become standardized in response to the organization of street life. Sex drugs and crime are the primary economic channels. In South Africa most street children are Black or Colored boys around 13 years of age. They sleep in small groups for protection and adhere to territorial demarcations. The longer the children remain on the streets the more issues of survival come to predominate. Given the immediacy of food and shelter concerns HIV prevention is generally a low priority. Current behavioral intervention models based on assumptions of individual autonomy and empowerment have limited utility with this population. They have little personal control over the most frequent forms of sexual activity: rape prostitution survival sex and sex among themselves. Unprotected penetrative sex is the norm. Condom use is perceived as unacceptable and even if condom distribution programs were to be initiated youth would probably sell rather than use them. Drug and alcohol use interacts with these high-risk practices to increase the HIV risk. Required is attention to the social conditions and poverty that place street children at risk of HIV.

Smoking has become a major public health problem in Latin America, and its scope varies from country to country. Despite difficulties in obtaining methodologically consistent data for the region, we analyzed the results from prevalence surveys in 14 Latin American countries. Smoking prevalence among men varied from 24.1% (Paraguay) to 66.3% (Dominican Republic) and among women from 5.5% (Paraguay) to 26,6% (Uruguay). By applying point prevalence data to the stage model of the tobacco epidemic in developed countries, we concluded that the Latin American countries are in stage 2, i.e., with a clearly rising prevalence among men, a prevalence for women that is beginning to increase, and mortality attributable to smoking among men still not reflecting peak prevalence. None of the countries analyzed appeared to have reached stage 3, in which one observes a downward trend in prevalence of smoking among men and peak prevalence among women, with broad impact on tobacco-related mortality. Th...

This article addresses the problems of racism, prejudice, and bigotry and how they restrain academic achievement in minority students and the need for leadership to confront and reverse these effects. Politics (suburban/urban differences in funding), technology (computer gap), and family income are three factors that impact differentially upon the nature of prejudice as experienced in today's schools. A strategy is presented for dealing with prejudice in the classroom and school life that takes into account these larger social factors. The various stages of this strategy are examined starting with the need for an analysis of the situation, acceptance by the school community of the data once it reaches the public, creation of a strategic plan of action based on this data, coordination of a response, and the institutionalization of that response. The issues of racism and prejudice have never been greater and that the school, which is a powerful factor for realigning social forces ...

The 1990s saw the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania change from centrally planned to more market oriented economies with associated societal transformations. Profound changes such as these create uncertainty and social instability that can lead to social problems including increased rates of crime and disorder. We report and comment upon Police recorded crime data that shows numbers of acquisitive and drug related crimes in the three states from 1993 to 2000. However the scale of economic change including the mediating effects of social institutions may vary from place to place within each state. Acquisitive crime is a phenomenon typical of urban or densely populated regions in the Baltic countries. Analysing regional variation in crime rates provides an opportunity to test whether negative socio-economic change impacts on rates for these crimes. Findings show weak evidence of the effect of social change on crime. Spatial statistical techniques and GIS (Geographical Information Systems) underpin the methodology employed.

This case study of recent efforts to deconcentrate poverty within the Skid Row area of Los Angeles examines processes of ‘weak-center ’ gentrification as it applies to a ‘service dependent ghetto, ’ thus filling two key gaps in prior scholarship. We document the collaboration between the government, business and development interests, and certain non-profit agencies in this process and identify two key mechanisms of poverty deconcentration: housing/service displacement and the criminalization of low income residents. Following Harvey, we argue that these efforts are driven by pressures to find a ‘spatial fix ’ for capital accumulation through Downtown redevelopment. This process has been hotly contested, however, illustrating the strength of counter-pressures to gentrification/poverty deconcentration within ‘weak-center ’ urban areas.

The career of the third Viscount Palmerston as foreign secretary and prime minister has been thoroughly studied, but few are aware that he was one of the first Irish landlords to finance the emigration of starving tenants during the great Irish famine. Although the first boatloads of emigrants were well outfitted, by the end of 1847 Palmerston stood accused of cruelly mistreating his departing tenants. One Canadian official compared conditions on the vessels he chartered to those of the slave trade. Given the tremendous detail with which historians have scrutinized Palmerston's long career, it is surprising that no thorough account of either the management of his Irish estate or of his emigration scheme has ever been written. An examination of the programme under which 2,000 residents of Palmerston's Sligo estate fled to America in 1847 adds significantly to our understanding of the career of one of Britain's most important nineteenth-century statesmen, the complicated m...

Title: The historic perspective of the Science-Technology-Society relations and its role in science teaching. Abstract: STS teaching approach is perhaps one of most powerful and original in the field of science education. With this perspective, full programs of science courses have been designed. However, the basic objectives of this approach can be reached by means of a not so ambitious

... The video-making process The producers of It all began with poverty – six women, Thandi, Lizzie, Bongi, Nokukhanya, Thengi, Mavis, and one man, Sipho (all ... Melodrama is a very popular performance genre within the Zulu culture of the women who produced the video. ...

There is an ongoing American policy debate about the appropriate legal status for psychoactive drugs. Prohibition, decriminalization, and legalization positions are all premised on assumptions about the behavioral effects of drug laws. What is actually known and not known about these effects is reviewed. Rational-choice models of legal compliance suggest that criminalization reduces use through restricted drug availability, increased drug