Beyond the United States and Japan: Testing Yamagishi's emancipation theory of trust across 31 nations

We examined the relationship between Individualism/Collectivism and generalized social trust across 31 European nations participating in the European Social Survey. Using multi-level regression analyses, the current study provides the first empirical investigation of the effects of cultural norms of Individualism/Collectivism on generalized social trust while accounting for individuals' own cultural orientations within the same analysis. The results provide clear support for Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) emancipation theory of trust, showing a significant and positive relationship between Individualism/Collectivism and generalized social trust, over and above the effect of a country political history of communism and ethnic heterogeneity. Having controlled for individual effects of Individualism/Collectivism it is clear that the results of the current analysis cannot be reduced to an individual-level explanation, but must be interpreted within the context Of macrosocial processes. We conclude by discussing potential mechanisms that could explain why national individualism is more likely to foster trust among people than collectivism.

Generalized social trust across 22 European countries: A multi-level analysis of four competing models

Concern with what can explain variation in generalized social trust has led to an abundance of theoretical models. Defining generalized social trust as a belief in human benevolence, we focus on the emancipation theory and social capital theory as well as the ethnic diversity and economic development models of trust. We then determine which dimensions of individuals’ behavior and attitudes as well as of their national context are the most important predictors. Using data from 20 countries that participated in round one of the European Social Survey, we test these models at their respective level of analysis, individual and/or national. Our analysis revealed that individuals’ own trust in the political system as a moral and competent institution was the most important predictor of generalized social trust at the individual level, while a country’s level of affluence was the most important contextual predictor, indicating that different dimensions are significant at the two levels of analysis. This analysis also raised further questions as to the meaning of social capital at the two levels of analysis and the conceptual equivalence of its civic engagement dimension across cultures.

La emocionalidad en lo público: los dilemas de la indignación como origen de una nueva ética-política

Esta disertación constituye una reflexión acerca de la experiencia contemporánea de la indignación y su potencialidad de convertirse en alternativa para la comprensión y vivencia de lo político. En este sentido, se exploran aquí, las intersecciones de la manifestación social de la indignación con la irrupción de su novedosa realidad discursiva. Para ello, se reflexiona a través de la articulación conceptual de dos corrientes teóricas (las Teorías de la Emancipación y el Liberalismo Crítico) con la reflexión interpretativa de la indignación como experiencia que impacta los esquemas de sentido del hombre en el mundo contemporáneo. Esta perspectiva conduce a comprender que la experiencia de la indignación plantea en el escenario contemporáneo una nueva manera de concebir la condición humana y la acción en el mundo que formula una nueva visión ético-política.

From the demise of theory to its resurgence. A retrospective on the postmodern turn to rethink the 'desire for narrative' and the sublime untimeliness of emancipation

Cultural Marxist Theory, commonly known as theory, enjoyed a moment of extraordinary success in the 1970s, when the works of leading post-war French philosophers were published in English. After relocating to Anglophone academia, however, theory disavowed its original concerns and lost its ambition to understand the world as a whole, becoming the play of heterogeneities associated with postcolonialism, multiculturalism and identity politics, commonly referred to as postmodern theory. This turn, which took place during a period that seemed to have spelt the death of Marxism, the 1990s, induced many of its supporters to engage in an ongoing funeral wake designating the merits of theory and dreaming its resurgence. According to them, had theory been resurrected in historical circumstances completely different from those which had led to its rise, it would have never reacquired the significance that had originally connoted it. This thesis demonstrates how theory has survived its demise and entirely regained its prominence in our socio-political context marked by the effects of the latest crisis of capitalism and by the global threat of terrorisms rooted in messianic eschatologies. In its current form theory does no longer need to show allegiance to certain intellectual stances or political groupings in order to produce important reformulations of the projects it once gave life to. Though less overtly radical and epistemologically bounded, theory remains a necessary form of enquiry justified by the political commitment which originated it in the first place. Its voice continues to speak to us about justice ‘where it is not yet, not yet there, where it is no longer’ (Derrida, 1993, XVIII).

Critical theory and literacy

This handbook chapter explores the relationship between critical theory and seminal studies of literacy which investigate inequities in education. It identifies new research questions to explore the connections between literacy and power, but go beyond promises of emancipation.

Singing Through Struggle: Music as a Mode of Cultural Exchange in African American Border City Churches After Emancipation, 1862-1890

This project investigates how religious music, invested with symbolic and cultural meaning, provided African Americans in border city churches with a way to negotiate conflict, assert individual values, and establish a collective identity in the post- emancipation era. In order to focus on the encounter between former slaves and free Blacks, the dissertation examines black churches that received large numbers of southern migrants during and after the Civil War. Primarily a work of history, the study also employs insights and conceptual frameworks from other disciplines including anthropology and ritual studies, African American studies, aesthetic theory, and musicology. It is a work of historical reconstruction in the tradition of scholarship that some have called "lived religion." Chapter 1 introduces the dissertation topic and explains how it contributes to scholarship. Chapter 2 examines social and religious conditions African Americans faced in Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, DC to show why the Black Church played a key role in African Americans' adjustment to post-emancipation life. Chapter 3 compares religious slave music and free black church music to identify differences and continuities between them, as well as their functions in religious settings. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present case studies on Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Baltimore), Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church (Philadelphia), and St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church (Washington, DC), respectively. Informed by fresh archival materials, the dissertation shows how each congregation used its musical life to uphold values like education and community, to come to terms with a shared experience, and to confront or avert authority when cultural priorities were threatened. By arguing over musical choices or performance practices, or agreeing on mutually appealing musical forms like the gospel songs of the Sunday school movement, African Americans forged lively faith communities and distinctive cultures in otherwise adverse environments. The study concludes that religious music was a crucial form of African American discourse and expression in the post-emancipation era. In the Black Church, it nurtured an atmosphere of exchange, gave structure and voice to conflict, helped create a public sphere, and upheld the values of black people.

A critical analysis on "Active Learning" in the light of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT): Implications to Physics Education and to experimental activities as a particular case.

This is a research paper in which we discuss “active learning” in the light of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), a powerful framework to analyze human activity, including teaching and learning process and the relations between education and wider human dimensions as politics, development, emancipation etc. This framework has its origin in Vygotsky's works in the psychology, supported by a Marxist perspective, but nowadays is a interdisciplinary field encompassing History, Anthropology, Psychology, Education for example.

Feminist Disability Theory: Domestic Violence Against Women with a Disability

Women with a disability continue to experience social oppression and domestic violence as a consequence of gender and disability dimensions. Current explanations of domestic violence and disability inadequately explain several features that lead women who have a disability to experience violent situations. This article incorporates both disability and material feminist theory as an alternative explanation to the dominant approaches (psychological and sociological traditions) of conceptualising domestic violence. This paper is informed by a study which was concerned with examining the nature and perceptions of violence against women with a physical impairment. The emerging analytical framework integrating material feminist interpretations and disability theory provided a basis for exploring gender and disability dimensions. Insight was also provided by the women who identified as having a disability in the study and who explained domestic violence in terms of a gendered and disabling experience. The article argues that material feminist interpretations and disability theory, with their emphasis on gender relations, disablism and poverty, should be used as an alternative tool for exploring the nature and consequences of violence against women with a disability.