bourdieu’s sociological theory contains all the elements necessary to form a political theory. through reviewing the works of bourdieu attempts have been made in the present paper to discuss those elements and also to reconstruct a political theory by combining them in a theoretical framework. this is a new attempt and has not been yet accomplished. therefore, in the present paper attempts have...

This paper introduces the Focused Stochastic Diffusion Network as a novel method of self-localisation for an autonomous wheelchair in a busy, complex environment. The space of possible positions is explored in parallel by a set of cells searching in a competitive co-operative manner for the most likely position of the wheelchair in its environment. Trials of the SENARIO autonomous wheelchair pr...

Although rational choice theory has made considerable advances in other social sciences, its progress in sociology has been limited. Some sociologists’ reservations about rational choice arise from a misunderstanding of the theory. The first part of this essay therefore introduces rational choice as a general theoretical perspective, or family of theories, which explains social outcomes by cons...

Rational choice or action theory may be understood as one possible interpretation of Weber's program, though it must be said a rather special one in that it invites us to adopt the least complex conception of social action that we can analytically get away with in arriving at a "causal explanation of its course and effects." It thus departs from many post-Weberian (and for that matter pre-Weber...

The main challenge, I think, to sociological theory or to social theory more broadly remains that of bridging the gap between what Mills (1959), nearly 60 years ago, called " grand theory " and " abstracted empiricism. " Over 200 years ago, Kant (1781) formulated a similar conception, that " thoughts without content are empty and perceptions without concepts are blind " (Gedanken ohne Inhalt si...

Includes bibliographical references and index.

We examine the role of age, gender, and work experience on the propensity to buy, share, and use pirated software. These demographics are key properties of the cognitive-developmental, gender socialization, and occupational socialization theories. We find the overall level of reported buying is low, while the level of sharing and use is high. From the perspective of socialization, we find diffe...

This paper presents the interpretations of sociological science fundamental categories conceptual and structural explanations of the sociological theory and sociological paradigm, as well as the examples of their classification. Ritzer's definition of sociological theory was approved. He considers it a form of scientific theory by which smaller or greater systems of scientific laws and hypothes...