| Description |
As different as they might also manifest themselves, group conflicts and their related processes have fundamental structural similarities. Although they are to be explained from structural characteristics of the concerned society, reducing them to the rivalry for economic power chances and thus to class conflicts is neglecting conflict aspects, which today play a very dominant role.
Ethnic, sectarian, tribal, nationalist, party, migration, generational and gender conflicts would be obvious examples of that. Although competing for economic power chances in most cases, a social model that explains all the power and status differentials from the different access to economic power sources would not reflect the reality.
As an alternative theoretical model of such conflict potentials, we will discuss first the exemplary community investigation, developed by Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson. This model represents the development of a very specific social structure which possesses a paradigmatic character for a vast number of various developments of social inequalities. By emphasizing the emotional aspects of social inequality, this model put the self-value-relationships of the people involved in the focus, which play increasingly an important role with the reduction in intra-and inter-state power differentials. During the seminar we will also discuss the theoretical framework of possible empirical studies of students.
The willingness to accept the supervision of a seminar session in a group is preconditioned. |
eG