W. I. Thomas,behaviorist ethnologist

Over the course of his academic career in the anthropology wing of the University of Chicago's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, W. I. Thomas rejected the influence of Herbert Spencer, became skeptical of the instinctual explanations for human behavior, and became increasingly Boasian. His study of Polish peasant acculturation to American cities is Boasian in its focus on texts and on culture. After his dismissal by the University of Chicago in 1918 Thomas was influenced by John B. Watson. In the national interdisciplinary conferences of the 1920s, Thomas was an advocate for behaviorism and critical of Freudian doctrines and other subjectivist approaches to human science. Recalling Thomas's behaviorism and his long-running interest in comparing cross-cultural data should call into question the enlistment of Thomas as a father of subjectivist traditions of symbolic interactionism.     

Divine Infinity in Thomas Aquinas: I. Philosophico-Theological Background

A reassessment of Aquinas's doctrine of divine infinity, particularly in the light of the previous history of the concept within Western philosophy and theology. From the critical perspective provided by this history the central place which has been claimed for it in Aquinas's thinking is questioned, as are also its originality and coherence. The notion that the doctrine of divine infinity was introduced to Western thought by Judaeo-Christianity is rejected; from Anaximander onwards it had been a central concept in Greek philosophy. Aristotle however had rejected it so effectively that, for several centuries afterwards, it seems to have led an 'underground' existence until it finally surfaces again in 'Gnostic' and related currents of thought. It is from these circles that it finally, and after some resistance, patchily entered orthodox Christian thinking. Likewise Plotinus was not the source of the doctrine, as some have claimed; historical precedence must be given to the Gnostics. Neoplatonism never, despite the prestige of Plotinus, fully accepted the doctrine; in Proclus it is a subordinate emanation from the One, which is beyond Infinity and Infinitude. Nor, because of the influence of Aristotle, does Islamic Neoplatonized Aristotelianism endorse the doctrine. Aquinas's commitment to it seems to stem from the impact of John of Damascus's stress upon the doctrine, the translation of whose work greatly influenced Western theology from the late twelfth century onward, together with his need to distance himself from the restrictions of the divine power and freedom found in the Arabic Aristotelian philosophers, whom, in general, he regarded as philosophical authorities. But his position on the doctrine is flawed by equivocation and self-contradiction, flowing from his attempt to reconcile Christian personalist theism with Neoplatonized Aristotleain necessitarian monism.     

Career transitions in times of social change. His and her story

Drawing on data collected from two longitudinal Cohort Studies following the lives of over 20,000 individuals born in the United Kingdom 12 years apart in 1958 and 1970, respectively, this paper examines antecedents and outcomes of educational and occupational aspirations of young men and women, covering the transition from dependent childhood into independent adulthood. Two analytical models, a Social Reproduction Model and a Developmental-Contextual Model are tested to assess the processes by which family background and the wider socio-historical context influence work and family related careers. The findings demonstrate the persistent role of gender, social origin and individual agency processes as well as the influence of a changing socio-historical context on career development. Results are interpreted with regard to biographical agency processes linking individual lives with social contexts across the life course.     

The effortful citizen: Discursive social psychology and welfare reform

The present study applies a broadly discursive approach to the representation of welfare reform and unemployment through an analysis of the deployment of an interpretative repertoire of effortfulness in posts to an internet discussion forum. It is argued that when posters construct versions of unemployed people or welfare recipients as characterized by ‘laziness’ or lack of ‘effort’ the attribution of responsibility for unemployment is frequently not the only piece of discursive business being attended to. In addition, posters attend to issues of their own accountability and, significantly, the accountability of the government or welfare system itself for the extent to which welfare recipients are formally held to account. It is argued that this approach extends previous social psychological work on the explanation of unemployment insofar as it pays attention to the context‐specific functions performed by such explanations. Moreover, in orienting to the welfare system as having a responsibility to hold welfare recipients to account, posters are drawing on a set of discursive resources which essentially treat the government of individual psychology as a legitimate function of the welfare system. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.