Edizioni FrancoAngeli - Last issue of SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE (99/2012)

Per Franco Leonardi

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

On Understanding the Sciences of the Spirit: Notes on the Beginning of "Truth and Method" by Hans-George Gadamer

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Simòn Royo Hernández
This article is a hermeneutic commentary of the introduction to "Truth and Method" by Hans-Georg Gadamer. Here, the reference to Rilke’s poem allows us to take on the beginning opus. But ending and beginning are the same from a hermeneutic point of view, and this work has a circular form. In this essay, Gadamer’s hermeneutics are explored with a particular focus on some of the basic concepts of his philosophy.

An Integrated and Multilevel Survey. The Forgotten Lessons of the Columbia School

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Sergio Mauceri
The main idea expressed in this article refers to - and elaborates on - the contributions of the Bureau of Applied Social Research and of its mentor and founder Paul Lazarsfeld. It underlines the importance of how, in social research, it is necessary to develop and maintain a multilevel and integrated approach to surveys. Using sociometry and contextual analysis in the design of surveys, enables us to connect three levels of observation/study - individual, relational and contextual - which are often kept isolated and separate in social research. A standard approach to surveys creates casual samples of individuals, as if they were isolated units living in social emptiness, and limits itself to conduct data analysis that creates relations between individual variables. This integrated multilevel approach is instead the solution proposed to overcome the atomism and micro-sociological reductionism of this standard approach to surveys.

On the Interplay between Extortion and Punishment. An Agent Based Model of "Camorra"

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Barbara Sonzogni, Federico Cecconi, Rosaria Conte
This paper presents an Agent-Based Model aimed to reproduce the demographics, economic and employment variables of a Southern Italian region (Campania) where one specific variant of Extortion Racketeering Systems (Erss), camorra, is highly active and prosperous. Preliminary results of a set of simulations show the effects of varying levels of extortion and punishment on the rates of inactivity, employment, etc. of a population of agents endowed with social learning mechanisms

A Regional Perspective on Dimensions and Lines of Socio-economic Change from 1951 to the Present Day

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Domenico Maddaloni, Fiorenzo Parziale
In this study we go back to examine the economic and sociological changes throughout the local contexts and divisions of our country. The instrument used is a research strategy that combines a two-phase principal component analysis developed by Di Franco and Marradi with multiple linear regression. From data inherent to four key moments in the recent history of Southern Italy and the whole country - 1951, 1971, 1991 and 2007 - we obtain four «photographs» of dimensions that clarify the structure of the selected variables. We then propose two models of path analysis that underline the causal links between the factors emerged from the PCA, in order to reconstruct the socio-economic changes in the Italian provinces from 1951 to 2007.

Social Innovation and Local Development: Social Cooperatives and Local Welfare in Rome

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Eugenia De Rosa
The social innovation paradigm recognizes enterprise’ innovative and progressive potential to create new and sustainable solutions to the needs and challenges of modern age (ageing population and the changing nature of gender roles, poverty, migration processes, unemployment of the younger generations, the diffusion of flexible and precarious work, and guarantee equal rights). This article proposes a framework for analyzing the processes and changes generated through the interaction of organizations of social economy (service providers), local public institutions and civil society. This is achieved by integrating a critical analysis of literature with the results of a case study conducted on social cooperation in the city of Rome. The aim is placing "social welfare innovations" and social development into the social innovation paradigm providing a model of the paradigm of social innovation according to a social economy and human rights perspective

Apology in Honor of Franco Ferrarotti

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Mario Aldo Toscano
Starting from one of Franco Ferrarotti’s latest publications Atman. Il respiro del bosco (Ed. Empiria, Rome, 2012), this essay develops on the basis of the considerations in the last sections of the text, to which we refer. The interpretation key to this note, purposefully hermeneutic though unveiled in its conclusions, relates to the return to nature. The transition from culture to nature and to the nature of the trees is not seen, in the long trajectory described by Franco Ferrarotti, as a «regression», but rather as the achievement of a wisdom able to contemplate sine ira ac studio (without anger or concern) the enormous shortfallings and decline of the public and private life in our country. The solitude of the «naturalized» thought brings a glimpse of hope, in that memory resumes its course no more towards the past but towards the future. Ferrarotti’s "lessons» interpret the dramatic sequences of our history, remain in the atmospheres of thought, and are «received» as such, fertile sources of underground action.

Abstracts / Instructions for authors

Tue, 15 Apr 2013 8:00:00 GMT