Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 11:00 - 12:30
PAPER SESSION 2
or styles that have been found to be problematic, as well as some that have employed innovative methods of
teaching.
Religion as Social Capital in Britain: Its Sociodemographic Characteristics and Implications to Integration
Huang, Y., Li, Y.
(The University of Manchester)
As a powerful mechanism that generates social network, altruism, and shared norms, religious participation appears
to be an incubator for social capital. In multicultural societies, involvement in Sunday services and para-church
activities may also generate 'identity-bridging' religious social capital which spans culturally defined differences and
bring the minorities closer to the society (Wuthnow 2002). In Britain, although much evidence has shown a numerical
decline of believers in the past decade, whether there is a spontaneous change in the social consequences of
religious participation to be explored. This research examines the long-neglected role of religious social capital in
British society.
Using pooled 2007-11 Citizenship Surveys, this paper firstly attempts to measure and identify different types of
religious involvement. It then analyses the sociodemographic characteristics of each type and assess how they can be
translated into social capital on the individual level. In the final section, we catty out multivariate analysis to examine
whether religious social capital can serve as a rubric for a mechanism that shapes cultural distinctiveness between
individuals and ameliorate their relationship with other people. Preliminary findings suggest that patterns of religious
involvement vary sharply across different social groups, especially between white British and British ethnic minorities.
More importantly, it appears plausible that religious social capital plays an important role bridging different cultures in
Britain.
Theory
W323, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
SOCIOLOGICAL AMNESIA
Sociological Amnesia: Cross-currents in Disciplinary History
Lybeck, E., Law, A.
(University of Cambridge)
The history of sociology overwhelmingly focuses on 'the winners'. Sociologists from the past most routinely recognised
today belong to the Trinitarian 'canon' of classical sociologists, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, sometimes supported by
other bit players like Comte or Simmel. More contemporary additions to the canon emerge typically out of a dialogue
with 'the classics', either to synthesise, revise or even abandon that legacy. This process of successively restricting
sociology to the winners impoverishes sociology's claim to be a form of historically reflexive knowledge. In this sense
sociology can be considered 'amnesia' insofar as the discipline's self-knowledge avoids reconstruction of its own
history and modes of thought past and present. The overall field of the history of sociology results in an eternal
dialogue with these most famous precursors, these heroes. In so doing, the processes and struggles of sociology's
own making as a form of disciplinary knowledge is obscured and largely forgotten.
This presentation introduces the findings in our edited book, 'Sociological Amnesia: Cross-currents in Disciplinary
History', which pushes in the opposite direction. Its unique focus is on sociologists who are largely forgotten today,
alongside the revival of formerly obscure sociologists. By looking at obscure figures who were often significant in their
own time and previously obscure but now revived figures, new insights are opened up into not only individual
sociologists themselves, but also our understanding of the discipline of sociology itself – its trajectories, forgotten
promises and dead ends.
Olive Schreiner, Sociology and the Company She Kept
Stanley, L.
(University of Edinburgh)
The feminist writer and social theorist Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) became one of the world's most famous people
(www.oliveschreiner.org). Living in Britain and Europe as well as South Africa, a succession of best-selling
publications including novels, political essays, a major work of feminist theory and a volume of essays analysing the
racial dynamics of South Africa's polity and economy put her firmly on the intellectual map. Following her death,
BSA Annual Conference 2015 108
Glasgow Caledonian University