The paper deals with powerlessness as one of the possible meanings of alienation, and presents Neal’s Powerlessness Scale as a means for measuring this concept. The aim of this research is to find out if it is possible to adopt the Neal’s research technique, developed in the context of the American culture in the late 1950s, to empirical sociological research in the Czech Republic. This issue is important because there is at present no standard attitudinal instrument for measuring a persons’ perception of their power to exert influence over socio-political events. An initial test of the reliability and internal and external validity of Neal’s scale is undertaken using a non-representative sample of the Czech population. Results of this quantitative analysis suggest that a subset of nine items from the original twelve item scale is the most reliable and valid measure of a person’s sense of control over the socio-political events within the Czech cultural milieu. Importantly, the process of data collection reveals several problematic features of Neal’s powerlessness scale, and it is recommended that certain alterations before its further use in the Czech context.
The number of children in shared custody has been growing slowly in the CR. Today shared custody presents about 8 % of divorce cases with dependent children decided by courts. Despite this trend, there is a lack of research on how shared custody is practiced and experienced by Czech parents. The aim of this paper is to partially fill this gap. In the paper I ask how shared custody is related to the disruption of traditional gender ideology and performance of paternal and maternal roles and gender inequalities between partners. The analysis is based on 13 in-depth interviews with couples (mothers and fathers separately) who have shared custody. The analysis indicated that even if shared custody may be considered to be a tool for disrupting gender stereotypes and gender inequality between parents, it proved to be associated both with the confirmation and disruption of gender stereotypes associated with fatherhood and motherhood. While certain aspects of the practices and culture of shared custody are associated with “undoing gender”(especially regarding fatherhood), in other aspects it enhances and reproduces the gender power inequality between ex-partners and traditional expectations associated with parental roles.
The aim of this study is to find out which characteristics affect the age identity of individuals. The main question is: What determines whether the people in the Czech Republic find themselves young, middle aged or old? Two alternative hypotheses were tested: a) the age identity is mainly influenced by person’s family and working roles; b) the age identity is primarily a function of person’s chronological age and his health. While the second hypothesis understands the age identity as an ordinal variable, the first hypothesis views values of youth, middle age and old age as three different nominal constructs. The question is answered by analysis of quantitative data from European Social Survey Round 4. The sample contains 1864 respondents aged 20-95. Author uses binary logistic regression to find models for adopting age identities in different age categories. The second hypothesis of age identity being primarily an effect of age and health is proved. The influence of some family and working roles on age identity are, however, also discussed.
This article examines the reliability of statistical models that use visualization of word distances using computer-assisted text analysis. This study looks at the choice of parameters in the COOA - software for word co-occurrence analysis. The word co-occurrence analysis enables visualization of text structure through the exploration of the number of co-occurrences of words. The data visualization provided by a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) procedure is susceptible to a particular form of error. The nonlinear relationship between words with significantly different frequencies lies at the root of this problem where words with higher frequencies are placed in the middle of a two-dimensional MDS map visualization. Words with lower frequency, on the other hand, are forced by the MDS estimator to the edge of the two-dimensional map and their estimated spatial positions are unstable. These two processes are potentially a major source of error in making inferences. One solution for reducing this source of error is to (a) reduce the number of words in a model or (b) increase of the number of model dimensions. This article, however, suggests that a detailed investigation of the word structure and a thorough analysis of the error sources and their meaningful interpretation may be a better solution.
This article summarizes methodological procedures and data sources that are typically used in investigating the effects of family structure on the life chances of children. This study shows how these tools have developed over time and it is argued that the prevailing practice in Czech surveys is inadequate for stratification research because it does not reflect contemporary population trends; and can lead to seriously biased estimates. We propose new measurement tools that are appropriate for stratification research, and we appeal for their wider use in future surveys.
The purpose of this article is to introduce multi-agent modelling as an area of research that has developed rapidly in sociology over the last fifteen years. This article starts by outlining some characteristics of multi-agent modelling and then covers the history of sociological component of complexity science. In the following part, the fundamental concepts used in multi-agent modelling such as model, agent, environment and emergence are defined. Thereafter, the article focuses on the application of multi-agent modelling in sociology and identifies specific areas where it might be used productively. An illustrative example of a multi-agent model called ‘Slumulation’ that explores how slums emerge in the city is described. Finally, the advantages and limits of this approach are summarized.
Based on ISSP 2012 Family and Health, this paper focuses on informal caregiving for elderly, sick or disabled family members in the Czech Republic. Specifically, it investigates the socio-demographic characteristics of family caregivers. The findings show that the carers are more likely to be female of a productive age; and thus they often have to combine childcare, care for other family member and employment. Findings from this study also demonstrate that in case of women partnership status also influences care involvement. However, socioeconomic status measured by education does not have an effect on the provision of informal care because the institutional context in which private formal care is not widespread.
This paper examines the variation in personal values and attitudes towards family and marriage in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czech and Slovak societies have been characterized by an intensive transformation process since 1989. The political and economic transformation was followed by intensive demographic changes (some even talk about a second demographic transition) that was similar in both societies. Here it is assumed that values are independent variables that have an impact on behaviour, and it is argued that demographic changes have been brought about by changes in values and attitudes concerning the family, marriage and children. Therefore, this article examines if the trends in value observed between 1991 and 2008 were accompanied by similar demographic changes. Data from three waves of the European Value Study (EVS) are used together with official vital demographic statistics.
Sociology and sociological theory have been effective in analyzing societal and institutional conflict and violence, but less so in analyzing the specifics of interpersonal violence. This article examines the sociological significance of domestic violence. This relationship, or sometimes its neglect, is underlain by several tensions and paradoxes, which in turn have broader implications for sociology, sociological theory and social theory. These matters are examined through: the possible paradox of violence and intimacy in the phenomenon of domestic violence; the importance of the naming and framing of such violence; explanation, responsibility and agency; and gender, hegemony and discourse in men’s violence to known women, as part of a multi-faceted power approach.
Based on qualitative research of women that cared in the past or care now for their frail elderly mothers, this article aims to describe and explain some of the factors leading to the predominance of women in informal care for the elderly. The article builds on Sandra Harding’s and Joan W. Scott’s concept of gender. Their concept defines gender as a category operating at multiple interconnected levels. Based on the analysis of interviews with biographical components, we show the impact of cultural and structural factors on women’s decisions to take care, and how these factors are gender structured. Among cultural factors we focus on the process of socialization; we analyse the effect of gender norms of care and the issue of cultural taboos in intimate care. Among structural factors we focus on paid work, the gender division of labour in the family and non/availability of formal care services. On the basis of caregivers’ stories we show how these factors coherently and simultaneously strengthen the connection between women and providing hands-on care. We also identify emerging disruptions in this gender-conservative model of informal care.