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Alternative societies
A distinctive characteristic of sociology is that it’s a critical discipline. But a question that criticisms of society imply is - what’s the alternative? This lecture will look at alternative societies implied by criticisms of existing ones. What is the role of utopianism? After the collapse of socialism in the late 20th century and the spread of capitalism and liberalism, is communism an alternative? Can we envisage a world with much less work, or no borders in the way of free movement? What alternative types of living are possible, economically, socially, educationally, politically, ecologically and that overcome divisions of class, gender and race
Recommendations for Organizers of Meetings and Conferences
[Excerpt] Planning and organizing a conference, a meeting or any other event is a complex task, often involving numerous different people. The objective should always be to make the event as beneficial as possible for all participants.
Increasingly, also people with intellectual disabilities actively participate in events together with many other participants. This shows the growing inclusion of this group of people in our societies and should be much more promoted. Of course, these participants are often very disappointed when they cannot follow and participate in an event because some basic guidelines for accessibility have not been followed.
As organizer of an event, you are in the critical position to include considerations about its accessibility from the beginning of the planning process. Taking care of these issues from the beginning has proven to be most effective and avoids costly changes to programmes and venues
Governing Pluralistic Societies
Societies can be held together in many ways. Historically, many groups were linked by a common history, common ethnicity, and common religious and social values. These societies shared a unified set of norms dictating right and wrong. Other groups have been held together by charismatic leaders who present a unifying vision, but modern pluralistic society, uniquely, accepts a diversity of views about what is appropriate and reasonable, which makes these forms of authority difficult to enact. The form of authority emerging in western democratic states has been, instead, authority based upon the processes of government: people recognize democratic procedures as legitimate and defer to authorities because of the manner in which they manage. Here, Tyler discusses several social-psychological contributions in managing ethnic diversity
Recommendations For Speakers in Meetings and Conferences
[Excerpt] It is not easy for a speaker to prepare documents and presentations especially when speaking to diverse audiences, i.e. when people have different languages, different backgrounds, different level of knowledge or include people with intellectual disabilities. Sometimes, speakers do not know how they can transmit information to people with intellectual disability
Conference on youth affairs entitled "The way ahead"
Information document on the conference held at The Inverness Court Hotel, London, on 21 November 1981
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Best Practices of Honor Societies
Academic honor societies are widely available within
university communities. These student organizations can
fill valuable roles within engineering departments. The
inception of engineering-related honor societies followed
the establishment of engineering education within
American universities. Honor societies with their student
focus grew as complementary organizations to the
professional societies for engineering disciplines. The
national or international structure of honor societies
generally provides considerable resources for professional
education, leadership training, and service activity. For
departments, an honor society chapter can provide
engagement with students, alumni, community, etc.
However, the existence of an honor society chapter at an
institution does not necessarily mean that the chapter is
effectively serving the host department(s) and its
engineering students. This paper describes commonalities
among engineering honor societies, the possible roles of an
honor society within an engineering department, and some
best practices for effective honor society chapters. Specific
examples from the operation of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu
(IEEE-HKN), the honor society of the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), are given.Cockrell School of Engineerin
Opinion Formation in Laggard Societies
We introduce a statistical physics model for opinion dynamics on random
networks where agents adopt the opinion held by the majority of their direct
neighbors only if the fraction of these neighbors exceeds a certain threshold,
p_u. We find a transition from total final consensus to a mixed phase where
opinions coexist amongst the agents. The relevant parameters are the relative
sizes in the initial opinion distribution within the population and the
connectivity of the underlying network. As the order parameter we define the
asymptotic state of opinions. In the phase diagram we find regions of total
consensus and a mixed phase. As the 'laggard parameter' p_u increases the
regions of consensus shrink. In addition we introduce rewiring of the
underlying network during the opinion formation process and discuss the
resulting consequences in the phase diagram.Comment: 5 pages, eps fig
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