Qualitative Sociology Review
type: channel
description: Qualitative Sociology Review is the journal of Symbolic Interactionism, Grounded Theories, Social Worlds/Arenas Studies, Action Studies, Biographical Analysis, Conversation Analysis, Collaborative Social Research, Content Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Deconstructivism, Ethnography, Ethnoscience, Ethnomethodology, Evaluation Social Research, Hermeneutics, Holistic Ethnography, Institutional Ethnography, Phenomenology, Phenomenography, Narrative Studies, Naturalistic Studies, Social Anthropology, Qualitative Case Studies and other qualitative orientations within social sciences.
publisher: Faculty of Economics and Sociology of the University of Lodz
language: en
publication name: Qualitative Sociology Review
issn: 1733-8077
items: Emotions and Relationships in Polish Citizenship Education: Mapping Opportunities and Change Through an Analysis of Secondary School Core Curricula
items: Manipulation from the Perspective of Academic Teachers
items: Between Enslavement and Empowerment. The Idea of Empowerment in the Work of a Polish Academic Teacher
items: Acquiescence to Criticism: The Meaning of Emotions in the Multidimensional Evaluation of an Academic Teacher’s Work
items: Engagement and Exhaustion as (Un)Expected Consequences of Academic Teachers’ Emotional Labor: Affective Injustice in Higher Education
items: Emotions, Interactions, Experiences: Educational Contexts
items: State and Civil Society Response to the 2024 Floods in Southern Poland: A Critical Review
items: Reviewing the Stigma: A Critical Analysis of Conspiracy Belief in Social Science Research
items: Choosing a School, Imagining a Childhood. Emotional, Moral, and Social Dimensions of School Choice in Denmark
items: “It Looked Like I Was Going Through a Breakup”: Extinction-Based Sleep Training and the Cultural Dilemmas of Mothering
items: Two Decades of Reflection and Critique. The Continuous Fear of Replacement—The Renaissance of Feeling and Intuition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence in Qualitative Sociology Review (2005–2025)
items: Emotional Framing of Emotional Deviants as a Political Strategy for Strengthening Collective Emotional Resilience
items: “Care Work” in Facilitative Mediation: Interactional Techniques for Emotional Support in the Context of Conflict Resolution
items: Too Little, Too Late: Consent Education, Sexual Practice, and Institutional Power in College Life
items: Selling Sleep: A Qualitative Study of Infant Sleep Coaching in Western Canada
items: Is There a Sociologist in the Room? Raising the Sociological Voice in Educational Spaces
items: The Experience of Everyday Life Alongside Virtual Companions. A Case Study of Human-Chatbot Encounters
items: COVID-19 as a Family Stressor: A Life Course Exploration of Family Stress Among Rural Grandparents and Their Adult Children in Upstate New York
items: The Sociality and Liminality of Bangkok’s Cannabis Cafés
items: Recording Solo: Managing Long-Distance Data Collection within Audio Diary Research with Healthcare Professionals
items: Labor of Care and Contracts: A Study of Surrogacy after the Transnational Ban in India
items: Ethical Processes and Dilemmas during Research with Youth on Cyber-Risk
items: Work, Identity, and Paradoxes. The Intertwining of New Technologies, Algorithm Logic, and Individual Experiences
items: Disruptive Masculinities? Male Workers Challenging Gender(ed) Norms in Technology Startup Organizations
items: The Biographical Experience of Being a Stay-at-Home Mother of a Large Family Versus Online Activity. A Case Study
items: Can You Make Money from Being Queer? Commodification of Queerness on Social Media as Biographical Experience
items: Navigating Recognition: The Symbolic Struggles in the Biographies of Young Polish Internet Content Creators
items: Affective Governmentality in Food Delivery Platforms: A Study of Bolt Food Riga Push Notifications
items: Aspirations and Networks of Italian Migrants to Bogota. A Typology
items: Sing A Song for Home: How Displaced Iranian Song-Writers in LA Conceive of Home and Homeland

Emotions and Relationships in Polish Citizenship Education: Mapping Opportunities and Change Through an Analysis of Secondary School Core Curricula
type: item
description: Is there room in school-based citizenship education to shape citizenship identity as an emotional and relational experience of community membership? Given the importance of school core curricula in many European countries, this paper analyses the core curricula in Poland to identify the provisions that facilitate the recognition of the concept of lived citizenship. The data comprise two core curricula (from 2018 and 2025) for citizenship education in Polish secondary schools, which were created in different political conditions. The aim is to identify, at the curriculum level, potential opportunities to include the affective dimension and to recognise the changes in this area resulting from the curriculum reform. The results demonstrate that both curricula reveal such potential. However, the 2025 reform offers a significantly better representation of categories that appear vital to grasping the affective dimension of citizenship.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Emotions
  topic: keywords
subject: Lived Citizenship
  topic: keywords
subject: School Core Curriculum
  topic: keywords
subject: Citizenship Education
  topic: keywords
subject: Poland
  topic: keywords
creator: Violetta Kopińska
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-08-31
publication date: 2026-08-31
starting page: 84
ending page: 102
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.3.06

Manipulation from the Perspective of Academic Teachers
type: item
description: The following text concerns manifestations of manipulation that occur within academic practice. Here, manipulation is understood as forms of influence grounded in a complex mechanism that underlies a covert method of influencing and controlling people. The study was situated within the interpretive-critical paradigm, and the article is based on the findings of qualitative research conducted through unstructured interviews with academic teachers. Manipulative mechanisms were conceptualized based on descriptions of academic teachers’ experiences, and analysis of the interview data identified examples of phenomena and procedures whose characteristics correspond to those of manipulation understood as a method of exerting influence on individuals. These findings are discussed from three perspectives: the macro perspective, encompassing decisions and procedures implemented within educational policy and their consequences; the meso perspective, referring to the university as an institution with hierarchical relationships based on the abuse of power; and the micro perspective, concerning interpersonal relations among academic teachers. These considerations are grounded in an understanding of the academic community that treats the autonomy and agency of all members of this community as essential conditions for the community’s authentic development and for strengthening academic teachers’ professional identity.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Academic Teachers’ Experiences
  topic: keywords
subject: Manipulation
  topic: keywords
subject: Symbolic Violence
  topic: keywords
subject: Academic Practice
  topic: keywords
creator: Alina Wróbel
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-08-31
publication date: 2026-08-31
starting page: 66
ending page: 82
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.3.05

Between Enslavement and Empowerment. The Idea of Empowerment in the Work of a Polish Academic Teacher
type: item
description: Reflecting on the concept, meaning, and properties of empowerment prompted an analysis of selected forms and areas of academic teachers’ activities. The author examines the factors that support and limit academic teacher empowerment, as well as its various dimensions. Depending on the emotional states that accompany the actions undertaken by the respondents, a sense of agency or enslavement appears. The research is situated within the interpretive paradigm, and the article is based on the findings of qualitative research conducted using unstructured interviews with academic teachers.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Empowerment
  topic: keywords
subject: Enslavement
  topic: keywords
subject: Academic Teacher
  topic: keywords
subject: Interpretive Paradigm
  topic: keywords
creator: Małgorzata Kosiorek
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-08-31
publication date: 2026-08-31
starting page: 50
ending page: 64
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.3.04

Acquiescence to Criticism: The Meaning of Emotions in the Multidimensional Evaluation of an Academic Teacher’s Work
type: item
description: Emotions play a central role in the professional work of every employee, shaping interactions and cooperation. In the work of an academic teacher, they can build motivation to work and influence the perceived satisfaction and self-esteem (pride), although they can also strongly contribute to burnout and demotivation (shame, fear). Interactional situations in which an academic teacher finds themselves arouse certain emotions and create the need to manage them. The work of an academic teacher is constantly assessed, which influences self-assessment. Strong rivalry and competitiveness make it necessary to develop mechanisms for managing emotions to deal with criticism, work through failures, and adjust the level of one’s own ambitions to institutional requirements. The article is based on qualitative research embedded in the interpretative paradigm, conducted with academic teachers. It presents their self-protection strategies developed in response to the continuous criticism and evaluation of their work, demonstrating that the idea that performance evaluation does not hold in contemporary realities. Employee evaluation, along with excessive bureaucratization and a neoliberal mode of management, contributes to the demotivation of academic staff.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Academic Teachers
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotions
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotional Labour
  topic: keywords
subject: Acquiescence to Criticism
  topic: keywords
subject: Assessment
  topic: keywords
creator: Beata Pawłowska
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-08-31
publication date: 2026-08-31
starting page: 28
ending page: 48
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.3.03

Engagement and Exhaustion as (Un)Expected Consequences of Academic Teachers’ Emotional Labor: Affective Injustice in Higher Education
type: item
description: The aim of this article is to reconstruct the emotional experiences of academic teachers, specifically how they relate to identity and power relations. I assume that the experience of emotions is embedded in the context of socio-political needs and interests. The theoretical background consists of research from the philosophy of emotions, specifically the conceptualizations of emotional labor by Shiloh Whitney, along with studies and analyses on affective injustice, such as those by Francisco Gallegos, Katie Stockdale, Alfred Archer, and Georgina Mills. Based on these concepts, I argue that working in contemporary, neoliberally managed academia has important consequences for the development of subjectivity, both positive and constructive, as well as negative, destructive, and degrading. Emotional labor can serve as a tool for self(trans)formation and (self)reflection; at the same time, it can affectively marginalize teachers’ subjectivity and decrease their sense of agency. This provides the theoretical context for research grounded in a qualitative framework. The reconstruction of academic teachers’ experiences was based on qualitative semi-structured interviews. The research results indicate that the emotional labor of academics is a response to the emotional culture of a university governed by neoliberalism. The findings indicate that academia is an alienating and emotionally exploitative space for workers, where various manifestations of affective injustice are evident, primarily as a loss of emotional well-being and a diminishment of agency among academic teachers. By situating the emotional experiences of university staff in the context of affective injustice, the article proposes that educational research on academia should open up a space for discussion on more equitable and inclusive institutional practices in higher education.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Affective Injustice
  topic: keywords
subject: Affect
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotional Labor
  topic: keywords
subject: Academia
  topic: keywords
subject: Academic Teacher
  topic: keywords
creator: Renata Góralska
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-08-31
publication date: 2026-08-31
starting page: 12
ending page: 26
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.3.02

Emotions, Interactions, Experiences: Educational Contexts
type: item
subject: Other
  topic: section
creator: Renata Góralska
creator: Beata Pawłowska
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-08-31
publication date: 2026-08-31
starting page: 6
ending page: 11
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.3.01

State and Civil Society Response to the 2024 Floods in Southern Poland: A Critical Review
type: item
description: This article presents a secondary analysis of research findings on the responses of state institutions and civil society to the September 2024 flood in southern Poland. The study selectively examines results from individual and group interviews regarding flood preparedness, the mobilization of social actors during the crisis, and organizational transformations necessary to enhance state resilience. The primary research objective is to analyze the interfaces between governmental, local, and civil society institutions, conceptualized herein as “crush zones.” The original contribution of this paper lies in operationalizing these zones to evaluate how inter-institutional friction impacts societal resilience. Furthermore, the conclusions of the source report are subjected to a critical evaluation within the context of the existing literature on resilience, with attention to its potential to mask institutional power asymmetries.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Crush Zones
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Resilience
  topic: keywords
subject: Crisis Management
  topic: keywords
subject: Local Government
  topic: keywords
subject: Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
  topic: keywords
subject: Relational Capital
  topic: keywords
subject: Crisis Communication
  topic: keywords
creator: Konrad Kubala
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-26
publication date: 2026-05-26
starting page: 80
ending page: 97
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.2.04

Reviewing the Stigma: A Critical Analysis of Conspiracy Belief in Social Science Research
type: item
description: The analysis shows that empirical social science studies examining psychological and social characteristics of conspiracy belief are characterized by a persistent deficit orientation, with a strong tendency to pathologize or stigmatize individuals. The core of this research is an empirical content analysis of 25 social sciences studies published between 2020 and 2025. The analysis identifies a set of recurring patterns in the academic representation of conspiracy believers, including associations with cognitive, social, and psychological deficits, emotional instability, and maladaptive personality traits. The dynamics of marginalization become particularly evident through the examination of discursive practices of delegitimization, which are further sustained by the selective interpretation of research findings. While some studies acknowledge structural or societal factors that may foster conspiracy beliefs, the narrative remains predominantly individualizing and negative. The findings highlight an ambivalence in the scholarly discourse: although conspiracy beliefs are recognized as complex, multidimensional, and sometimes rooted in legitimate grievances, they are frequently reduced to markers of irrationality or deviance. This suggests the need for greater reflexivity within the scientific community, particularly regarding language, methodological choices, and the balance between critique and stigmatization.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Conspiracy Theories
  topic: keywords
subject: Conspiracy Belief
  topic: keywords
subject: Content Analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: Qualitative Research
  topic: keywords
subject: Stigmatization
  topic: keywords
subject: Pathologization
  topic: keywords
subject: Marginalization
  topic: keywords
subject: Sociology of Knowledge
  topic: keywords
creator: Annika Barzen
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-26
publication date: 2026-05-26
starting page: 48
ending page: 79
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.2.03

Choosing a School, Imagining a Childhood. Emotional, Moral, and Social Dimensions of School Choice in Denmark
type: item
description: International studies have shown that concerns about children’s academic outcomes and future educational opportunities shape parents’ choice of primary school. In Denmark, such concerns are manifested differently due to a less competitive educational system that generally offers broad, flexible pathways. Even so, many Danish parents carefully consider which school will best support their child. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with 38 parents, this article examines parents’ reflections and concerns regarding school choice. A cultural analytical approach that focuses on understanding how parents make choices and set priorities is used to show that, regardless of social class, their primary concern is ensuring their children’s well-being and psychological development rather than academic outcomes. However, this emphasis implies awareness of other parents’ parenting practices, subtly reflecting but also helping to construct and maintain social distinctions and moral boundaries despite egalitarian ideals and efforts prevalent in Danish society.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: School Choice
  topic: keywords
subject: Concerned Parenthood
  topic: keywords
subject: Children’s Well- Being
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Distinctions
  topic: keywords
subject: Moral Boundaries
  topic: keywords
creator: Eva Gulløv
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-26
publication date: 2026-05-26
starting page: 26
ending page: 46
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.2.02

“It Looked Like I Was Going Through a Breakup”: Extinction-Based Sleep Training and the Cultural Dilemmas of Mothering
type: item
description: This article explores extinction-based sleep training as a case study of the lived tensions of contemporary motherhood in the United States. Extinction-based sleep training is an umbrella term for techniques used to teach an infant or young child to sleep without parental intervention, often by ignoring a child’s cries. On the one hand, extinction-based sleep training is sanctioned by medical institutions and has been commonly cited in parenting advice over the last century. On the other hand, mothering today is influenced by a culture that heralds “attachment” or “responsive” parenting as the best forms of mothering, often contradicting the very practice of extinction-based sleep training. Drawing on 30 interviews with mothers of children under the age of five, this research explores how mothers who engage in extinction-based sleep training grapple with this tension. First, mothers engage in emotion work to abide by the feeling rules of innate responsiveness. Second, mothers professionalize their sleep decisions, using expert permission, scientific language, and personal qualifications to justify their choices. Finally, mothers engage in a highly rationalized approach to sleep training, in which the practice is measurable and quantifiable.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Sleep Training
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotion Work
  topic: keywords
subject: Mothering
  topic: keywords
creator: Emily Ruehs-Navarro
creator: Maya Kosiarek
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-26
publication date: 2026-05-26
starting page: 6
ending page: 24
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.2.01

Two Decades of Reflection and Critique. The Continuous Fear of Replacement—The Renaissance of Feeling and Intuition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence in Qualitative Sociology Review (2005–2025)
type: item
description: On the twentieth anniversary of Qualitative Sociology Review (QSR), this article offers a critical and autoethnographic reflection on how qualitative sociology has responded to technological innovation over the past two decades. I argue that the recurring fear of replacement, first by online publishing, then by CAQDAS software, and now by Artificial Intelligence (AI), reveals a persistent disciplinary anxiety. Anxiety that qualitative sociologists are being reduced to merely instrumental analytical roles. Drawing on personal recollections as a QSR co-founder and a review of global debates, I demonstrate how these fears have shaped our collective identity. Using the example of precariat research, I highlight the impor tance of the intellectualization of qualitative research, underscoring how qualitative researchers have become replaceable by technology. While AI now threatens to take over many tasks once considered the province of our expertise, it also highlights what remains uniquely human in our field: resonance, empathy, intuition, and ontological courage. I propose a competency profile for future qualitative sociol ogists that integrates digital literacy and AI collaboration with a renewed emphasis on embodied and empathetic inquiry. My conclusion presents AI not as the end of qualitative sociology, but as a catalyst for its renewal.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Qualitative Research Methodology
  topic: keywords
subject: Autoethnography
  topic: keywords
subject: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  topic: keywords
subject: Computer- Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS)
  topic: keywords
subject: Precarity
  topic: keywords
subject: Resonance
  topic: keywords
subject: Empathy
  topic: keywords
subject: Intuition
  topic: keywords
creator: Lukasz Marciniak
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-28
publication date: 2026-02-28
starting page: 6
ending page: 22
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.1.01

Emotional Framing of Emotional Deviants as a Political Strategy for Strengthening Collective Emotional Resilience
type: item
description: This article examines how leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom used rhet oric to frame emotional deviants and strengthen collective emotional resilience during two crises in 2024. Drawing on emotion management theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA), we analyze House Speaker Mike Johnson’s response to the Columbia University protests and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s address during the Southport riots. Both leaders framed dissenters as emotional deviants, deployed emo tional dichotomies, and constructed “others” to consolidate solidarity. We demonstrate that emotional framing functions as a political strategy used to foster cohesion within the dominant group, suppress dissent, and narrow the boundaries of legitimate political expression. Our comparative design reveals cross-case convergence in the use of discursive mechanisms (feeling rules, othering, and surface/deep acting) despite divergent institutional roles and rhetorical situations. This convergence underscores the structural nature of emotional framing and reveals that it is part of the governance toolkit that leaders use in mass-mediated democracies. We contribute to political sociology by showing that collective emo tional resilience is not only discursively constructed to facilitate cohesion but is also employed as an exclusionary practice that marginalizes dissent and reinforces existing power hierarchies. In doing so, we highlight the ethical dilemmas of emotional governance, including the risks of inequality, alienation, and the foreclosure of authentic political expression.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Emotional Framing
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotional Deviants
  topic: keywords
subject: Collective Emotional Resilience
  topic: keywords
subject: Critical Discourse Analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: USA
  topic: keywords
subject: UK
  topic: keywords
creator: Aleksandra Zubrzycka-Czarnecka
creator: Gregory Neddenriep
creator: Krzysztof Śliwiński
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-28
publication date: 2026-02-28
starting page: 24
ending page: 52
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.1.02

“Care Work” in Facilitative Mediation: Interactional Techniques for Emotional Support in the Context of Conflict Resolution
type: item
description: This paper investigates how facilitative mediators use “care work” techniques when participants display emotional or relational concerns during the session. Conversation analysis is used to analyze a pre-existing dataset of video-recorded small claims and divorce mediation sessions. Techniques the mediators used to do care work include reflection, topic refocusing, complimenting, role modeling, and coaching. The analysis shows how the trajectory of the talk in the mediation session is impacted by care work. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the mediator’s role and the effectiveness of the interaction for the conflict resolution process in mediation.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Mediation
  topic: keywords
subject: Care Work
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotion
  topic: keywords
subject: Conflict Resolution
  topic: keywords
subject: Conversation Analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: Interaction
  topic: keywords
creator: Angela Cora Garcia
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-28
publication date: 2026-02-28
starting page: 54
ending page: 74
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.1.03

Too Little, Too Late: Consent Education, Sexual Practice, and Institutional Power in College Life
type: item
description: Despite widespread efforts to address sexual assault on US college campuses through consent education, understanding and practicing consent remains a complex and under-researched area. Consent, defined as clear, continuous, and voluntary communication, is often emphasized as a preventive measure against sexual assault. However, high rates of sexual assault, particularly among college students, highlight the limitations of current educational approaches. Our study examines college students’ conceptualizations of consent, their application of consent in sexual relationships, and their views on the effectiveness of consent education. Findings indicate that many students harbor concerns about consent education, particularly regarding best practices, the influence of alcohol, and individual interpretations of consent. Notably, students report that their educational experiences have a limited impact on their understanding of and practices regarding consent, and they often struggle to apply these concepts effectively in real-world contexts. These findings underscore the need for more nuanced and impactful educational consent strategies that address the complexities of consent in intimate relationships and provide clearer guidance on managing factors like alcohol. This research aims to inform more effective approaches for activists and educational institutions in reducing campus sexual assault.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Consent Education
  topic: keywords
subject: College Students
  topic: keywords
subject: Sexual Assault Prevention
  topic: keywords
subject: Consent
  topic: keywords
creator: Allison Dayton
creator: Alecea Standlee
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-28
publication date: 2026-02-28
starting page: 76
ending page: 93
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.22.1.04

Selling Sleep: A Qualitative Study of Infant Sleep Coaching in Western Canada
type: item
description: This article theorizes the experience of using a coach to assist with a baby or young child’s sleep “training” as occurring at the intersection of three broader phenomena: the increasing use of paid experts to advise on intimate life; the porosity of the domestic sphere; and ideologies of mothering that impact sleep. It draws on the vernacular of a growing critical literature on children’s sleep, which understands its practice and representation as symptomatic of culturally and historically specific demands on the organization of space and time, as well as understandings of the child as a site of future potential and human capital. To do so, it draws on a qualitative study of sleep coaches and the mothers who hire them. The authors conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with thirty women in Western Canada. The interview data revealed that the sleep deprivation entailed in having a new baby is both a dramatic (and often under-estimated) feature of human facticity and a socially mediated crisis. Paradoxically, the overabundance of expert advice on children’s sleep made mothers more likely to recruit a coach for customized support. The advice coaches provided, and how mothers interpreted it, balanced the pragmatic and the ideological, among other things, revealing poorly evidenced but pervasive anxieties about attachment, independence, mental health, and future well-being.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Sleep
  topic: keywords
subject: Mothering
  topic: keywords
subject: Intimate Life
  topic: keywords
subject: Coaching
  topic: keywords
subject: Gender Norms
  topic: keywords
subject: Public/ Private
  topic: keywords
subject: Family Health
  topic: keywords
subject: Childcare
  topic: keywords
creator: Cressida J. Heyes
creator: Jeanique Tucker
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-10-31
publication date: 2025-10-31
starting page: 6
ending page: 25
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.4.01

Is There a Sociologist in the Room? Raising the Sociological Voice in Educational Spaces
type: item
description: Educational spaces are both material and human sites. While people design and build the physical space of educational institutions, these spaces also shape human behavior, interaction, and thought, playing a crucial role in the articulation of discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in educational research tends to rely primarily on document and text analysis, often overlooking the spatial dimensions of discourse and how social actors interpret the spaces they inhabit. This article presents the use of semiotic codes analysis of educational spaces as a methodological tool for studying discourse in institutions where ethnographic access is limited. Drawing on a qualitative study conducted in twelve Israeli state schools, this article examines how global discourses of entrepreneurialism and aspiration, which promote an ideal of a future-oriented and self-managing individual, are expressed and interpreted in everyday school settings. Through observations, walking interviews, and semiotic analysis, the study demonstrates how spatial articulations, wall texts, and visual displays work together with educators’ interpretations to shape and sometimes contest dominant ideals. The analysis merges critical spatial semiotics with a pragmatic approach to everyday meaning-making, offering a methodologically innovative and reflexive approach to discourse analysis in education.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Sociological Research
  topic: keywords
subject: Discourse Analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: Education
  topic: keywords
subject: Space
  topic: keywords
subject: Qualitative Research
  topic: keywords
creator: Sari R. Alfi-Nissan
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-10-31
publication date: 2025-10-31
starting page: 26
ending page: 47
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.4.02

The Experience of Everyday Life Alongside Virtual Companions. A Case Study of Human-Chatbot Encounters
type: item
description: This article a nalyses i nteractions between a human and a virtual entity, namely, a chatbot. These encounters are considered in the context of cyberspace, understood as a specific social interactional space. They are also examined in the context of an individual’s experiences, which are intertwined with ongoing social and cultural changes. This text engages with research on chatbots, complementing their findings with an in-depth study of the user perspective. The analysis is based on data from an in-depth interview with Laura, conducted as part of a research project on human interactions and relationships with chatbots. The case study of Laura’s experiences explores her perception of interacting with a chatbot, focusing on the meanings humans assign to such interactions, concerning the interviewee’s emic perspective. The article examines how a human interlocutor perceives chatbots and the role they can play in an individual’s life. In addition, the reflection in the text touches on the theme of humans seeing themselves in the responses of a chatbot, which lacks self-awareness and cannot understand the content it produces in the same way a human can. The article deepens understanding of chatbots as everyday companions, virtual friends, and social actors, encounters with whom are part of today’s reality.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Human-Chatbot Interaction
  topic: keywords
subject: Human-Chatbot Relation
  topic: keywords
subject: Chatbots
  topic: keywords
subject: User Experience
  topic: keywords
subject: Virtual Companions
  topic: keywords
subject: Case Study
  topic: keywords
creator: Joanna Wygnańska
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-10-31
publication date: 2025-10-31
starting page: 48
ending page: 71
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.4.03

COVID-19 as a Family Stressor: A Life Course Exploration of Family Stress Among Rural Grandparents and Their Adult Children in Upstate New York
type: item
description: COVID-19 has brought about many changes for rural families, affecting their family roles, childcare responsibilities, financial status, and experiences of family stress. In this study, I examine (1) how rural grandparents and their adult children perceive family stress related to their family roles and responsibilities during COVID-19 and (2) how rural grandparents and their adult children have coped with the stress of family roles and responsibilities during COVID-19. Data comes from 44 in-depth interviews. The findings of this study suggest that COVID-19, a family stressor, has been the source of stress among rural grandparents and their adult children. The findings suggest that families adapted through a range of improvised strategies such as relocating, abstaining from employment, taking on additional childcare, and adjusting personal identities to maintain stability during uncertainty. These adaptations were not merely practical but often guided by moral and faith-based reasoning, allowing participants to maintain agency despite constraints. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, grandparents played a significant role in childcare, sometimes to the point of being the primary childcare providers (Harrington Meyer 2014). COVID-19 has further complicated the roles and responsibilities of rural grandparents and their adult children. COVID-19 brought changes to rural families, particularly in the areas of their employment, family roles and relationships, childcare responsibilities, and sense of hope.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Family Stress
  topic: keywords
subject: Rural Families
  topic: keywords
subject: COVID-19 Pandemic
  topic: keywords
subject: The Life Course
  topic: keywords
subject: Intergenerational Caregiving
  topic: keywords
creator: Laura Obernesser
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-10-31
publication date: 2025-10-31
starting page: 72
ending page: 96
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.4.04

The Sociality and Liminality of Bangkok’s Cannabis Cafés
type: item
description: In June 2022, Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis, only to face opposition from conservative political forces that are now attempting to pass policies that will recriminalize its recreational use. My qualitative study conducted between summer 2022 and the conclusion of 2024 examines the sociality of 45 cannabis cafés in the capital Bangkok despite these developments, enhanced by my status as having grown up in the city and speaking the Thai language and local Chinese dialects. Employing urban sociological concepts such as Ray Oldenburg’s third places and Lyn Lofland’s notion of the urban experience as characterized by interactions with strangers, I describe Bangkok’s cannabis cafés as third places that reduce the status of the stranger, and thus destress the actor in its lifeworld. These dynamics are argued to counter Bangkok’s over-stimuli and stressor-filled experiences, now challenged by policy developments that place the continuing operations of cannabis cafés in a liminal state.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Bangkok
  topic: keywords
subject: Marijuana
  topic: keywords
subject: Cannabis
  topic: keywords
subject: Decriminalization
  topic: keywords
subject: Ethnography
  topic: keywords
creator: Jack Fong
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-31
publication date: 2025-07-31
starting page: 6
ending page: 28
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.3.01

Recording Solo: Managing Long-Distance Data Collection within Audio Diary Research with Healthcare Professionals
type: item
description: This paper explores the methodological and reflexive implications of using audio diaries in remote qualitative research with healthcare professionals. Drawing on a three-month study involving 18 participants who submitted audio recordings weekly, complemented by follow-up interviews, the article examines how this method enables the collection of rich, emotionally nuanced, and temporally proximate narratives. The audio diary format proved particularly effective for engaging professionals under high emotional and organizational pressure, offering a flexible and participant-led space for reflection. The study also sheds light on the challenges of sustaining participation over time, the importance of ethical responsiveness, and the role of the researcher in supporting engagement at a distance. Ultimately, the paper proposes the concept of long-distance reflexivity to describe how both participants and researchers negotiate meaning, presence, and vulnerability in fully remote research settings.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Audio-Diary
  topic: keywords
subject: Remote Social Research
  topic: keywords
subject: Healthcare Professionals
  topic: keywords
subject: Long-Distance Reflexivity
  topic: keywords
creator: Veronica Moretti
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-31
publication date: 2025-07-31
starting page: 72
ending page: 90
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.3.04

Labor of Care and Contracts: A Study of Surrogacy after the Transnational Ban in India
type: item
description: Characterized by the interplay of care and contracts, surrogacy is an exclusive form of gendered work. The paper is based on a micro-level ethnographic study exploring the lived and embodied challenges of commercial gestational surrogates in Gujarat, India, who were undertaking surrogacy work after the ban on transnational surrogacy. The experiential accounts collected through in-depth, face-to-face interviews bear the challenges, stigma, and shame involved in surrogacy work. Not only is surrogacy work devalued, deprived of dignity, and shrouded in secrecy, but it is also corrupted by contracts, complicated by alienation and relinquishment of the gestated child. Surrogates disguise their work and stay in surrogacy hostels. Poverty in India compels many women to engage in surrogacy to eke out a living and improve their living conditions. Surrogate mothers are poorly paid, deprived of health benefits and legal security, they receive only twenty percent of the total cost of the surrogacy arrangement, and are also treated as fungible and disposable. The paper adopts the ethics of care perspective to analyze surrogacy arrangements. Such a perspective is directed toward promoting a responsible and humane attitude toward commercial surrogates. It is motivated by the need to uphold the dignity of the surrogates, their legal rights, and the social recognition of their work. The application of care ethics can alleviate the neglect and oppression of surrogates.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Commercial Surrogacy
  topic: keywords
subject: Ethics of Care
  topic: keywords
subject: Mothers
  topic: keywords
subject: Contracts
  topic: keywords
subject: Stigma
  topic: keywords
subject: Secrecy
  topic: keywords
creator: Ruby Bhardwaj
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-31
publication date: 2025-07-31
starting page: 30
ending page: 47
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.3.02

Ethical Processes and Dilemmas during Research with Youth on Cyber-Risk
type: item
description: In this article, we reflect on the ethical processes and dilemmas we encountered in almost a decade of qualitative research with teenagers about digital technologies and cyber-risk. Our research underscores both the opportunities and challenges of teenagers’ engagements with digital technologies, including cyberbullying and image-based sexual harassment and abuse (i.e., non-consensual sexting), on popular social media platforms. Our current research explores teenagers’ experiences with cyber-risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, including managing homeschooling (due to lockdowns), online addiction, mental health challenges, and encounters with disinformation and misinformation. We discuss our experiences with focus group facilitation and one-to-one semi-structured interviews, specifically our reflections on ethical processes encountered in the field, such as fostering rapport with young participants given the significant age gaps and our lack of knowledge at times, regarding digital technologies or topics like image-based sexual abuse. We also discuss our experiences conducting research with teenagers under the new capacity to consent ethical framework, which positions children and youth as often having agency to consent to research independently from their parents or legal guardians. Here, we detail reflections on navigating a new approach and highlight some of the considerations arising from ascertaining assent and consent. Centralizing issues of developing rapport, trust, and ethical processes related to interactional dynamics during interviews, the paper provides insights and possible strategies for those conducting research with children and youth.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Youth Research
  topic: keywords
subject: Research Ethics
  topic: keywords
subject: Focus Groups
  topic: keywords
subject: Qualitative Methodology
  topic: keywords
subject: Cyber-Risk
  topic: keywords
creator: Jay Cavanagh
creator: Michael Adorjan
creator: Rosemary Ricciardelli
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-31
publication date: 2025-07-31
starting page: 48
ending page: 70
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.3.03

Work, Identity, and Paradoxes. The Intertwining of New Technologies, Algorithm Logic, and Individual Experiences
type: item
subject: Other
  topic: section
creator: Joanna Wygnańska
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-04-30
publication date: 2025-04-30
starting page: 6
ending page: 15
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.01

Disruptive Masculinities? Male Workers Challenging Gender(ed) Norms in Technology Startup Organizations
type: item
description: The tech industry is one of the most influential and profitable sectors of the new economy, with startup organizations playing a significant role within it. Existing research highlights that these emerging companies remain male-dominated—structurally, normatively, and symbolically. However, researchers rarely consider how norms and gender inequalities, which privilege men and masculinities, might be questioned and negotiated by male employees, especially those in positions of privilege. This article examines how men occupying different roles in tech startups contest, transgress, or redefine dominant gender(ed) norms in their workplaces. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023 with 43 male and female startup employees—as part of a broader study funded by the Polish National Science Centre (grant no. 2020/37/N/HS6/03913)—this analysis demonstrates how men engaging in emotional labor (on individual and collective levels), actively reconfigure the gender regime and “disrupt” the reproduction of normative models of masculinity within their companies.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Masculinity
  topic: keywords
subject: Startup Organizations
  topic: keywords
subject: Tech Workplaces
  topic: keywords
subject: Challenging Masculine Norms
  topic: keywords
subject: Tech Industry
  topic: keywords
creator: Edyta Tobiasiewicz
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-04-30
publication date: 2025-04-30
starting page: 16
ending page: 33
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.02

The Biographical Experience of Being a Stay-at-Home Mother of a Large Family Versus Online Activity. A Case Study
type: item
description: The article presents the analysis of two cases of women reconstructed based on autobiographical narrative interviews. They are mothers of many children and are active online, having accounts on Instagram and creating content. Most research focused on the activities of online creators is based on an analysis of their web content. Due to the type of research data, autobiographical narratives and the interpretations of one’s biographical experiences and actions are the main frame of this analysis. Both narrators represent contemporary modern women, combining opposing patterns of tradition and modernity, which are often presented in public discourses as contradictory or mutually excluding. Internet activity seems to remedy the accompanying experience of tension and supports women’s biographical work. What stands out is the identity work undertaken by the two narrators, whose frame of reference is the tension between the planned and voluntary entry into traditionally understood motherhood and the plan for one’s development inscribed in the identity of an educated modern woman socialized in a culture of individualism. In this respect, their online activity appears to have a compensatory function in their biographies.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Motherhood
  topic: keywords
subject: Large Family
  topic: keywords
subject: Online Creator
  topic: keywords
subject: Autobiographical Narrative
  topic: keywords
creator: Kaja Kaźmierska
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-04-30
publication date: 2025-04-30
starting page: 34
ending page: 55
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.03

Can You Make Money from Being Queer? Commodification of Queerness on Social Media as Biographical Experience
type: item
description: The article presents a case study of an autobiographical narrative interview with Adam—a young influencer who creates books-related content. Special attention is given to Adam’s relationship with his audience and how it influences his self-perception. Of significant importance to the influencer’s biography are Adam’s non-heteronormative sexual orientation and the stigma associated with it. Using the sociolinguistic tools of Fritz Schütze’s biographical approach and its process structures, Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma, and Anselm Strauss’s concept of social worlds, I attempt to reconstruct the processes related to influencer activity on social media. The analysis reveals tensions between the ideological vision of one’s duties and the necessity to meet the expectations of the audience, including in the context of accusations related to the commodification of queerness. The text attempts to capture the possible biographical meanings of being an influencer and the identity-related entanglements of this role. It also highlights potential disruptions to biographical work caused by activities within social media.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Case Study
  topic: keywords
subject: Biographical Analysis
  topic: keywords
subject: Influencers
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Media
  topic: keywords
subject: Biographical Work
  topic: keywords
subject: Queer
  topic: keywords
creator: Aleksandra Drążczyk
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-04-30
publication date: 2025-04-30
starting page: 56
ending page: 73
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.04

Navigating Recognition: The Symbolic Struggles in the Biographies of Young Polish Internet Content Creators
type: item
description: This paper aims to examine the symbolic struggles embedded in the biographies of internet content creators. Pursuing a relatively new profession that lacks symbolic legitimization necessitates both explanatory and emotional labor to justify a “biographical action scheme” that does not align with existing “institutionalized schedules for organizing biographies,” in Fritz Schütze’s sense. Drawing on interviews with young Polish internet content creators, I analyze these struggles through the lens of Axel Honneth’s concept of the “struggle for recognition” and Michèle Lamont’s notion of “symbolic boundaries.” The empirical analysis suggests that the initial struggle involves proving their worth to close family and friends, who may question the legitimacy of being an influencer compared to a stable 9-to-5 job. This tension is particularly pronounced in intergenerational relationships, such as between children and their parents. The second struggle occurs between content creators and their audiences. Here, the challenge is defending oneself against justified or unjustified accusations and hate speech. The third struggle is inherent to those operating at the intersection of various social fields. For these influencers, who build their content on popular science, the lack of recognition or hostility from the academic community is another serious biographical problem. The necessity to engage in constant power struggles, which demand considerable skill, challenges the widespread perception of internet influencing as a “childish” profession—one that offers an enjoyable job paired with undeservedly high earnings.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Recognition
  topic: keywords
subject: Symbolic Struggle
  topic: keywords
subject: Internet Content Creators
  topic: keywords
subject: Hate Speech
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Field
  topic: keywords
creator: Kamil Łuczaj
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-04-30
publication date: 2025-04-30
starting page: 74
ending page: 92
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.05

Affective Governmentality in Food Delivery Platforms: A Study of Bolt Food Riga Push Notifications
type: item
description: The paper uses a governmentality perspective to discuss the issue of control in food delivery platforms through analysis of 4083 push notifications sent by the Bolt Food platform to its couriers in Riga from 2020 to 2023. It examines intensity, rationalization, subjectification, and the use of emojis in push notifications and demonstrates affective governmentality technology to control labor mobility. The analysis contributes to the literature on algorithmic management that focuses predominantly on the control embedded in the platform application. Suppose a platform application is viewed as an algorithmic panopticon in which a worker is free to enter or exit by signing on or off. In that case, other semi-automated control technologies, such as push notifications, are affective persuasive tools for bringing workers into the panopticon that limits workers’ autonomy and control.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: On-Demand Labor
  topic: keywords
subject: Algorithmic Management
  topic: keywords
subject: Affective Governmentality
  topic: keywords
subject: Asymmetry of Power
  topic: keywords
creator: Maija Spuriņa
creator: Iveta Ķešāne
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-04-30
publication date: 2025-04-30
starting page: 94
ending page: 112
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.06

Aspirations and Networks of Italian Migrants to Bogota. A Typology
type: item
description: This paper aims to understand the individual and relational motives supporting migration from Italy to Bogota. Our concern is to achieve a nuanced understanding of how aspirations, on the one hand, and social networks, on the other, shape migratory decisions and structure in broader migration patterns. To do this, we chose a qualitative approach based on narrative interviews with Italians living in Bogota, which were selected through snowball sampling. As a result, we produced a typology of five different migration pathways: globetrotters aspiring to international mobility with no mediators supporting their process of continuous migration; careerists who accept moving on demand of their company for advancing their career supported by professional mediators; risk-takers aspiring to professional independence and supported in their entrepreneurial project by weak ties; tied migrants aspiring to better family quality of life and supported by strong familial ties; and exiled migrants who find a refuge from the difficulties they encounter in Italy and supported by strong professional ties.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Aspirations
  topic: keywords
subject: Mediators
  topic: keywords
subject: Migration
  topic: keywords
subject: Italy
  topic: keywords
subject: Bogota
  topic: keywords
subject: Typology
  topic: keywords
creator: Angela Delli Paoli
creator: Domenico Maddaloni
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-01-31
publication date: 2025-01-31
starting page: 6
ending page: 26
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.1.01

Sing A Song for Home: How Displaced Iranian Song-Writers in LA Conceive of Home and Homeland
type: item
description: We ask how being apart from home impacts the very definition of home. We conducted a content analysis of songs produced by Iranians who have left their first “home” in Iran and resettled in Los Angeles. Our findings suggest that distance from one’s home expands the definition and image of home from a structure where one dwells and calls home, to an imagined community at the personal (home family), local (hometown), and regional (homeland) levels. The 1979 revolution in Iran caused many people, including singers and songwriters, to immigrate. Many of them moved to Europe and North America. We analyzed songs from 1979 to 1999, produced in Los Angeles, as the heart of Iranian pop music after the revolution, focusing on the concept of “home.” Four main themes emerged: the “body of the home,” which includes windows, niches, and gardens; “homeland as home;” “home and family;” “home as a heaven to remember and a haven for return,” which involves home as a place for making memories and recalling them and home as a retreat. We explain how these themes are related to Iran’s situation post-revolution, the image of the Iranian home, and the singers’ situation in Los Angeles after the revolution. The most significant finding is the relationship between home and homeland. Songs use home as a metaphor for the homeland, even when describing the body of the home. The sadness about the destroyed home, hope to return to home, and the tendency to come back to their mother (or motherland) point to the singers’ emotions about their homeland. The distance from home has changed the conceptualization of “home.” The borders of home are not around the songwriters’ houses or intimate families anymore, but they are around the homeland.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Home
  topic: keywords
subject: Diaspora
  topic: keywords
subject: Music
  topic: keywords
subject: Iran
  topic: keywords
subject: Ethnographic Content Analysis
  topic: keywords
creator: Pouya Morshedi
creator: Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-01-31
publication date: 2025-01-31
starting page: 28
ending page: 45
doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.21.1.02