300078 From heterogeneities to social inequalities. The mechanismen approach (S) (WiSe 2011/2012)

Heterogeneities, initially, connote mere difference among members of society: ascriptive characteristics such as physical differences between persons, gender, age, nationality, and ethnicity; cultural preferences, life forms, life styles, attitudes, orientations, and world views; competences, qualifications, and capacities which are viewed as socially legitimated mechanisms of attributing life chances or are at least discussed as such, including the differentiation of activities in the context of the societal division of labour.
Inequalities should be conceived in the plural as a multidimensional phenomenon, including not only different dimensions of inequality and social structural distributions but also the perception, interpretation, and appraisal of different inequalities and positions of inequalities.
The causal linkages that turn mere heterogeneities into social inequalities are conceptualised as social mechanisms. Relevant for this perspective are both the synchronic perspective of parallel realms of life as well as the diachronic view of the life course.
Social mechanisms can first be conceived of as being the very concrete-substantive processes at work in various types of interactions, networks, organisations, and societies: How are in all these social settings heterogeneities dealt in a way that they become the basis of social inequalities? An additional question is the question of homologies of these mechanisms across the differing heterogeneities, locations, and periods of production of inequalities. Looking for such homologies means the effort to contribute to a possible overarching typology of abstract-theoretical social mechanisms.

Siehe auch Zusammenfassung des Arbeitsprogramms in der Dokumentenablage