Even as rational choice theory is increasingly used in sociology, ¢nding its way into such diverse subdisciplines as the sociology of the family, religion, gender, crime, race, strati¢cation, and economic sociology, it remains hotly contested. It has spurred a rancorous debate that, at its worst, ‘‘degenerates into a caricatured contrast between a cold and calculating egoist engaged at the brea...

Growing up in a political as well as an intellectual environment, Max Weber not only sought to comprehend the world but also to change it. Arguably, he took Karl Marx’s 11th. Thesis on Feuerbach that “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it,” far more seriously than its author. Marx, after all, did not reflect, in any systematic fashion...

In discussing the sociology of newswork, much attention has been given to aspects such as the journalist’s background, work routines, and the influence of media ownership. Media production studies have covered empricial and conceptual ground investigating the myriad influences on editorial decision-making processes in journalism. Yet such studies (with few exceptions) have focused mainly on mai...

This article is an overview of the contributions of photography to sociology and a discussion of potential uses of photography in sociological research. Visual sociology, after contributing to several studies in the early decades of American sociology, disappeared to reemerge during the 1960s. In the meantime, the use of visual methods in ethnographic description, the study of social processes ...

contemporary sociology in many ways still depends on the classical theories. the emergence of new phenomena and their increasing importance in the modern society requires new explanations. the qualitative and quantitative growth of sciences, especially humanities, in the last hundred years has made various scientific disciplines dependent on each other. this is what makes the work of contempora...

There have been two broad theories of inflation, namely the demand-pull theory of inflation (that is nowadays mainly the monetary theory of inflation) and the cost-push theory of inflation. The mainstream macroeconomics views inflation as a monetary phenomenon in the long run. Iran has experienced double-digit rates of inflation for about four decades. Our main aim is an explanation for the lon...