As digital games have become increasingly significant in the entertainment media landscape, the terms “casual” and “hardcore” have become the primary ways to describe gaming audiences, genres, and gameplay. However, these terms are saturated with outdated stereotypes involving gender, age, and class. Focusing on industrial discourse, this thesis examines this dichotomy, emphasizing areas of discontinuity and overlap to question why these terms have become so ubiquitous in gaming discourse and what functions they fulfill for a variety of groups including the industry, advertisers, and audience members. Ultimately, I suggest that these terms need to be replaced in order to move beyond restrictive stereotypes, proposing a new framework for digital games that takes into consideration user motivation, personal investment, and historical specificity.

Ce mémoire propose une étude du parcours de vie de Marcel Rioux qui cherche à saisir les conditions qui l’ont amené à incarner la figure de l’intellectuel au Québec à son époque. En effet, cette étude propose l’analyse de l’itinéraire social, tel que le suggère Bernard Lahire dans sa biographie sociologique, à l’origine de dispositions mentales et sociales, puis de ressources — héritées ou acquises au fil de l’itinéraire biographique de Rioux —, qui lui confère une position privilégiée dans la société; position en vertu de laquelle se forment l’autonomie et la liberté d’expression propres à l’engagement social et politique digne de lui conférer la qualité d’être intellectuel. C’est sur la base de la mobilisation de dispositions et de ressources particulières, qui prend la forme d’un rapport habitus et capital chez Pierre Bourdieu, propre à générer l’autonomie nécessaire à faire exister l’intellectuel dans son orbite et apte à légitimer sa position sur la scène publique, qu’il sera démontré en termes théoriques que n’est pas intellectuel qui veut. / This present master’s thesis proposes a study of the route of Marcel Rioux’s life in order to seize the conditions which lead him to embody the intellectual’s figure in Quebec in his time. Indeed, this study proposes the analysis of the social route, such as suggests Bernard Lahire in his sociological biography, at the origin of mental and social capacities, then of resources — inherited or acquired in the course of the bibliographic route of Rioux —, which confers him this privileged position in society; position by virtue of which form the autonomy and the freedom of expression for the social and political commitment conferring him the quality to be intellectual. On the basis of the mobilization of capacities and particular resources, which takes the combined shape of habitus and capital for Pierre Bourdieu, appropriate to generate the autonomy needed to make the intellectual exist in his orbit and capable of legitimizing his position on the public scene, it will be demonstrated in theoretical terms that is not intellectual whoever wants to be.

Over the past twenty years, the idea that planning and development practices should be ‘sustainable’ has become a key tenet of discourses characterising the field of planning and development. As part of the agenda to balance and integrate economic, environmental and social interests, democratic participatory governance arrangements are frequently purported to be necessary to achieve ‘sustainable development’ at both local and global levels. Despite the theoretical disjuncture between ideas of democratic civic participation, on the one hand, and civic participation as a means to achieve pre-determined sustainability goals on the other, notions of civic participation for sustainability have become integral features of sustainable development discourses. Underpinned by a conceptual and methodological intent to perform an epistemological ‘break’ with notions of civic participation for sustainability, this thesis explicates how citizens are enrolled in the sustainable development agenda in the discourse of policy. More specifically, it examines how assumptions about civic participation in sustainable development policy discourses operate, and unpacks some discursive strategies through which policy language ‘enrols’ citizens in the same set of assumptions around their normative requirement for participation in sustainable development. Focussing in on a case study sustainable development policy document – a draft regional plan representing a case of ‘enrolling the citizen in sustainability’ - it employs three sociological perspectives/methods that progressively highlight some of the ways that the policy language enjoins citizens as active participants in ‘sustainable’ regional planning. As a thesis-by-publication, the application of each perspective/method is reported in the form of an article prepared for publication in an academic journal. In a departure from common-sense understandings of civic participation for sustainability, the first article examines the governmentality of sustainable development policy. Specifically, this article explores how civic community – particularly community rights and responsibilities – are deployed in the policy discourse as techniques of government that shape and regulate the conduct of subjects. In this respect, rather than seeing civic community as a specific ‘thing’ and participation as corresponding to particular types of ‘activities’, this paper demonstrates how notions of civic participation are constructed and mobilised in the language of sustainable development policy in ways that facilitate government ‘at a distance’. The second article begs another kind of question of the policy – one concerned more specifically with how the everyday practices of subjects become aligned with the principles of sustainable development. This paper, therefore, investigates the role of pedagogy in establishing governance relations in which citizens are called to participate as part of the problematic of sustainability. The analysis suggests that viewing the case study policy in terms of relationships of informal pedagogy provided insights into the positioning of the citizen as an ‘acquirer’ of sustainability principles. In this instance, the pedagogic values of the text provide for low levels of discretion in how citizens could position themselves in the moral order of the discourse. This results in a strong injunction for citizens to subscribe to sustainability principles in a participatory spirit coupled with the requirement for citizens to delegate to the experts to carry out these principles. The third article represents a further breakdown of the ways in which citizens become enrolled in ‘sustainable’ regional planning within the language of the case study policy. Applying an ethnomethodological perspective, specifically Membership Categorization Analysis, this article examines the way ‘the citizen’ and ‘civic values and obligations’ are produced in the interactional context of the text. This study shows how the generation of a substantive moral order that ties the citizen to sustainable values and obligations with respect to the region, is underpinned by a normative morality associated with the production of orderliness in ‘text-in-interaction’. As such, it demonstrates how the production and positioning of ‘the citizen’ in relation to the institutional authors of the policy, and the region more generally, are practical accomplishments that orient the reader to identify him/herself as a ‘citizen’ and embrace the ‘civic values and obligations’ to which he/she is bound. Together, the different conceptual and methodological approaches applied in the thesis provide a more holistic picture of the different ways in which citizens are discursively enrolled in the sustainability agenda. At the substantive level, each analysis reveals a different dimension of how the active citizen is mobilised as a responsible agent for sustainable development. In this respect, civic participation for sustainability is actualised and reproduced through the realms of language, not necessarily through applied occasions of civic participation in the ‘taken-for-granted’ sense. Furthermore, at the conceptual and methodological level, the thesis makes a significant contribution to sociological inquiry into relationships of governance. Rather than residing within the boundaries of a specific sociological perspective, it shows how different approaches that would traditionally be applied in a mutually exclusive manner, can complement each other to advance understanding of how governance discourses operate. In this respect, it provides a rigorous conceptual and methodological platform for further investigations into how citizens become enrolled in programmes of government.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:38:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2052.pdf: 1260356 bytes, checksum: 3f7b033d55aa796715678e6178211c4f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-07 / The research aimed at analyzing the conditioning factors that motivate technical high school students to seek this kind of education and at understanding the meaning of this schooling to them as well as their expectations and future aspirations as regard to education and labor. The study, based on Pierre Bourdieu and collaborators sociological perspective, was developed based on the educational and professional trajectories analysis of students at a technical high school in São Paulo state. The analysis was preceded by a bibliographical study about the historical context of the professional education in Brazil, which had as a backdrop its main target public throughout the years, as well as the considerations concerning professionalization in the context of productive restructuring. The propensity to the technical education was analyzed based on the students social status and their internalized dispositions, designated habitus. It was observed that the inclination to the technical education is supported on a disposition that emphasizes the work instead of long studies. That trend establishes a contradiction lived by the families between the ideal the school longevity and the necessary the work. That internalized and durable disposition tends to determine the studies extension which, according to them, must be associated to the professional insertion. However, the education is assimilated as primordial for social mobility and the students internalize the idea that is necessary to continue studying. In this direction, the technical education, currently organized as a quickly course, is considered as a possibility for obtaining the studies extension, since other ways for that are uncertain or financially unfeasible. In most cases analyzed, the technical education has an instrumental meaning, as a way to aid in the self-subsistence for a future maintenance in the higher education, as a way to help to get better professions. On both cases, this education is assimilated as a form to enhance competition and not necessarily the obtention of work in the technical formation area. / A pesquisa visou analisar os condicionantes que motivaram alunos do ensino técnico de nível médio a buscar uma formação nesta modalidade de ensino, compreender o significado desta escolaridade para eles, bem como as expectativas e aspirações futuras no tocante à educação e ao trabalho. O estudo foi desenvolvido a partir da análise de trajetórias escolares e profissionais de estudantes de uma escola técnica do Estado de São Paulo e foi pautado na perspectiva sociológica de Pierre Bourdieu e colaboradores. As análises foram precedidas por um estudo bibliográfico sobre o histórico do ensino profissional no Brasil, tendo como pano de fundo a clientela deste ensino ao longo dos anos, assim como por considerações acerca da profissionalização no atual contexto de reestruturação produtiva. As orientações para o ensino técnico foram analisadas tendo por base a posição social dos estudantes e as disposições interiorizadas, denominadas habitus. Verificou-se que o direcionamento ao ensino técnico tem por base uma disposição que privilegia o trabalho em detrimento de longos estudos e integra uma contradição vivida pelas famílias entre o ideal a longevidade escolar e o necessário o trabalho. Esta disposição interiorizada e durável tende a condicionar que o prolongamento dos estudos esteja atrelado à inserção profissional. Não obstante, a educação é assimilada como primordial para a ascensão social e os alunos interiorizam a idéia de que é preciso continuar estudando. Nesse sentido, o ensino técnico, organizado na atualidade como um curso aligeirado, é assimilado como possibilidade de prolongar a escolaridade, já que outros meios para tanto são incertos ou financeiramente inviáveis. Na maioria dos casos analisados, o ensino técnico possui um significado instrumental, seja como forma de auxiliar na auto-subsistência para uma futura manutenção no ensino superior, seja para ajudar a obter melhores trabalhos. Em ambos os casos, este ensino é visto como uma maneira de auxiliar na concorrência e não necessariamente na obtenção de um trabalho na área de formação técnica.

This study explores the manner in which Anne Michaels uses figurative language, particularly metaphor, in her poetry and prose. In her first novel, Fugitive Pieces, and in certain of her poems, Michaels demonstrates the powers of language to destroy and to recuperate. For her, metaphor is not simply a literary device; it is an essential mechanism in the creation of an authentic story or poem. Moreover, in contrast to other figurative language such as euphemism, which she feels can be used to conceal the truth and make moral that which is immoral, metaphor in her view can be used to gain access to the truth and is therefore moral. Thus, as this study demonstrates, Michaels proposes as well as utilises the moral power of language. The ideas of four language theorists provide the basis of this study, and prove highly useful in application to Michaels’s work. With the aid of Certeau and Bourdieu, we examine Michaels’s participation in and literary presentation of the relationship of domination and subordination in which people seem to interact and which takes place partly through language. In the light of Ricoeur’s explication of the precise functions of metaphor, we discuss Fugitive Pieces as a novel whose engagement with the topic of the Holocaust in intensely emotive and figurative language makes it controversial in terms of what may or may not constitute the appropriate manner of Holocaust literary representation. Klemperer’s meticulous, first-hand study of the Nazis’ use of the German language during the period of the Third Reich proves illuminating in our exploration of the works of Michaels that feature themes of oppression and dispossession. In certain of her poems, Michaels stands in for real people and speaks in their voices. This is also a form of metaphor, this study suggests, as for the duration of each poem Michaels requires us to imagine that she is the real-life person who expresses him- or herself in the first person singular, which she patently is not. We could see this as appropriation and misrepresentation of those people’s lives and thoughts; however, with the aid of the notion of empathic identification we learn that Michaels’s approach is always empathic – she imaginatively places herself in various situations and people’s positions without ever losing her sense of individuality and separate identity, and her portrayal of their stories is always respectful and carefully considered. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / English / unrestricted

Denna masteravhandling är en undersökning av min professionsidentitet som administratör vid en konstnärlig högskola, där jag utforskar vilka handlingsutrymmen som finns för mina erfarenheter och mitt omdöme som statlig tjänsteman. Mitt syfte är att undersöka vad som formar och styr medarbetares roller och positioner på en konstnärlig högskola, både för de som verkar inom verksamhetsstödet och de som verkar inom kärnverksamheten. Hur uppfattar de sin egen och andras professionsidentitet och uppdrag? Finns det andra faktorer, än yrkeskategori, som påverkar medarbetarnas omdöme och handling och vad kan det i så fall utgöras av? Finns det sociala strukturer på såväl makroplan som inom individuella professionsidentiteter som påverkar den enskildes uppfattning av lojalitet och plikt inom sitt statliga uppdrag på en konstnärlig högskola? Vilka möjligheter och handlingsutrymmen har den enskilde medarbetaren att tillföra sina egna erfarenheter och omdömen?   I min masteravhandling framgår att en diskrepans kan uppstå mellan uppdraget och de egna föreställningarna om yrkesidentiteten. Det är faktorer som kan upplevas som en outtalad maktkamp, ett spänningsfält, mellan framför allt den konstnärliga kärnverksamheten och det förvaltande verksamhetsstödet. De teoretiker jag använder mig av i analysen är framförallt Hannah Arendt och Pierre Bourdieu. I min analys lyfter jag fram vikten av att utrymme ges för den kritiska reflektionen i den enskilda medarbetarens yrkesutövning. / This master's thesis is a study of my professional identity as an administrator at an art college, where I explore the scope for action for my experiences and my judgment as a government official. My purpose is to investigate what shapes and governs employees' roles and positions at an artistic university, both for those who work in business support and those who work in core business. How do they perceive their own and others' professional identity and mission? Are there factors other than occupational category that affect employees' judgment and action, and if so, what do they consist of? Are there social structures on a macro level, as well as within individual professional identities, that affect the individual's perception of loyalty and duty within his or her state assignment at an artistic university? What opportunities and scope for action does the individual employee have to add their own experiences and assessments? In my master's dissertation it appears that a discrepancy can arise between the assignment and one's own ideas about professional identity. These are factors that can be experienced as an unspoken power struggle, a field of tension, between the artistic core business and the administrative business support, above all. The theorists I refer to in the analysis are mainly Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu. In my analysis, I highlight the importance of providing space for the critical reflection in the individual employee's professional practice. / <p>Författaren är anställd som Utbildningsadministratör vid Institutionen för scenkonst. Stockholms konstnärliga högskola.</p>

This study explores the relationship between literature and society against the background of the emergence in the 1930s and 1940s in South Africa of a form of Afrikaner nationalism that was spearheaded by members of the Afrikaner petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia and a subsequent expansion in Afrikaans literary production. It addresses problems of explanation in Afrikaner nationalism by focusing attention on the question of culture, the field of imagination and the domain of everyday life. In particular, the study examines the Keurboslaan series - a series of schoolboy stories aimed at juvenile readers - by Stella Blakemore, and traces the production, circulation and critical reception of the twenty titles in the series. The first title in this series was published in 1941 and the series has been reprinted several times over a number of decades and as recently as 1997. Drawing on the work of Benedict Anderson, this study illuminates the link between the emergence of print capitalism and the production of popular fiction on the one hand and nationalism on the other. Whilst this is a link that is not often explored, an analysis of the Keurboslaan series illustrates that the study of popular fiction can illuminate the practices through which nationalism gains popular support. It is argued that the Keurboslaan series produced a narrative of the Afrikaner ‘nation’ in popular fiction, but that this narrative was not authenticated by the intelligentsia and petty bourgeoisie who were the driving forces behind Afrikaner nationalism and its contents. It is further argued that this ‘narrative of nation’ circulated alongside more official narratives of the ‘nation’ espoused in discourses of religion, science and literature published in Afrikaans. The narrative of ‘nation’ in Keurboslaan – whilst sharing many similarities with official narratives in other discourses – but also differs from those discourses in important respects. It is argued that the popular series was influential precisely because it imagined the Afrikaner ‘nation’ in very different ways and on different terms from those discourses. Moreover, the form in which this narrative was produced, that is popular youth literature, appealed to readers of Afrikaans who were in search of escapist fiction. For these readers, the Keurboslaan series helped to give shape to and created new possibilities for interpreting the world that they inhabited. Reading the school as a corollary of the ‘nation’, it is argued that the narrative of the nation in Keurboslaan series explores the boundaries between the self and the other and posits the self as a danger to the self, resulting in an emphasis on the need to discipline the self. This kind of analysis also creates the space for examining in what ways ideas and identities about ‘race’, gender, sexuality, class and ‘nation’ are constructed in the texts. Yet, the study maintains that whilst the Keurboslaan series contributed to creating a space in which a particular understanding of the self and the world becomes possible, and whereas the reader is not conceived of as a completely free agent that can derive simply any meaning from the text, the study and its theoretical underpinnings do not fully account for individual readers’ engagement with popular texts and the ways in which reading strategies and habits can generate different, ambiguous or inconclusive meanings for readers. It is suggested that a study of popular texts and Afrikaner nationalism employing theories of reading and the reader will complement this analysis. / Thesis (DLitt (Literary Theory))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Afrikaans / unrestricted

Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague Institute of Sociological Studies, Department of Sociology Bc. Richard Lukáš Obstacles of improvement in pre-graduate teacher education: qualitative case study of faculty of education (Master Thesis) Consultant: doc. PhDr. Arnošt Veselý, Ph.D. Prague 2016 Abstract Institutional and organizational context of teacher training on faculties of education is not sociologically well developed topic, even though it is essential topic for the future of society. The goal of this work is to explore where are obstacles of improvement of teacher training on faculties of education in Czech Republic. I answer this question through the case study of a selected Czech faculty of education. I discovered several obstacles of improvement of teacher training by realizing interviews with faculty heads; analyzing the frames, which they use for framing their experiences with the obstacles; and analyzing the institutional context of teacher training on the selected faculty (intervention heuristic investigation). In the institutional view, the main obstacles are several external factors (e.g. state funding, role of Accreditation Commission etc.); specific history of teacher training in Czech Republic; structure of the faulty and organization of the studies there; and the...

Männliche Herrschaft ist ein soziologisches Konzept von Pierre Bourdieu zur Untersuchung der sozialen und symbolischen Kräfteverhältnisse zwischen den Geschlechtern. Das Konzept entwickelt Bourdieu auf der Grundlage ethnologischer Studien zur kabylischen Gesellschaft, die er in den 1960er Jahren in Algerien durchführte. Bourdieu zeigt dabei, wie der Habitus vergeschlechtlichte Konstruktionen der Welt und des Körpers erzeugt, indem er als Speicher von vergeschlechtlichten Wahrnehmungs- und Bewertungskategorien und Schemata fungiert. Mit dem Konzept der Männlichen Herrschaft hat Bourdieu einen analytischen Schwerpunkt auf das Zusammenspiel von Habitus und symbolischer Ordnung gelegt, dessen Resultat die scheinbar binäre und natürliche Geschlechtereinteilung ist.

Ähnlich wie in den Sozialwissenschaften blieben Männlichkeiten lange Zeit ein blinder Fleck innerhalb einer Gender-orientierten Literaturwissenschaft und die Konstruktionsmechanismen literarischer Männlichkeit im Dunklen. Erforscht wurden zunächst herausragende Modelle von Männlichkeit(en): einerseits dominante Leitbilder, andererseits deviante Alternativen, etwa der Dandy, der Homosexuelle, der Cross-Dresser. Mittlerweile liegt in nahezu allen Philologien eine Fülle von Einzelstudien zur Darstellung von Männlichkeit innerhalb bestimmter Epochen oder Autoren-Oeuvres vor, wiewohl der Stand der theoretischen Reflexion unterschiedlich ausgeprägt ist.