U.S./Canada

This article examines whether the content of the International Human Rights Covenants and the costs associated with their ratification influence the decision of countries to join. The author evaluates three theoretical perspectives-rationalism, world polity institutionalism, and the clash of civilizations-with data for more than 130 countries between 1966 and 1999. Rationalists contend that treaty ratification is tightly coupled with internal sovereignty arrangements, human rights practices, and ideological commitments, all of which become more important as treaty enforcement strengthens.

This article aims at drawing on sociological insights into reconciliation processes which emerge out of ethnic, national and state conflicts. First, the concept of reconciliation is interrogated as an instrument for sociological enquiry. The article locates the concept’s lexical origins in western/northern Christian traditions and identifies the usages of religious connotations in secularised strands of conflict resolution theory and praxis.

This article explores the dilemmas of the sociology of human rights – a growing field of academic research. Sociologists are increasingly conceptualizing poverty, global economic inequality, and social inequalities of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation not as social problems, but rather as human rights abuses. The shift of emphasis from the social problems perspective to the human rights perspective demands a different set of remedies from IGOs, national governments, and local authorities.

This paper examines sociologists' current interest in the topics of human rights and globalization. Some describe a world where everyone has rights (or at least a modicum of rights), because we are all human, and we all interact and communicate with one another in a global environment which will (it is argued), result in greater toleration and recognition of differences.

This study of the Mississippi civil rights movement and the War on Poverty examines the relationship between social movements and policy implementation. A "movement infrastructure" model is developed that focuses on organizational structure, resources, and leadership to account for the impact of social movements on policy implementation.

The world's peoples face daunting challenges in the twenty-first century. While apologists herald the globalization of capitalism, many people on our planet experience recurring economic exploitation, immiseration, and environmental crises linked to capitalism's spread. Across the globe social movements continue to raise the issues of social justice and democracy.

I examine the current movement for children's rights in the United States in terms of the history of child saving, and of the recent events concerning human rights. I stress the conflicts between the salvation and liberation of children, especially in the areas of education and justice. I also consider various approaches to children's rights to define the current movement, and review recent concerns so that I may clarify future needs and strategies.

Sociologists have long studied the ways people resist oppression but have devoted far less empirical attention to the ways people resign to it. As a result, researchers have neglected the mechanisms of resignation and how people narrate their lived experiences. Drawing on 81 interviews with parents with past child protective services cases, this article provides an empirical account of resignation in an institutional setting, documenting how parents understand relinquishing their rights as a process of personalization, calculation, or socialization.

This paper aims to explore and develop a theoretical approach for children’s rights research in education formed through an encounter between the sociology of childhood and John Dewey’s educational theory. The interest is mainly methodological, in the sense that the primary ambition of the investigation is to suggest a fruitful and useful theoretical base for formulating research problems and undertaking research in children’s rights in education.

The ability to decide if, when, and how often to reproduce is a human right and a biomedical and sociopolitical goal. Infertility impinges upon this right by restricting the ability of individuals and couples to meet their reproductive desires. While biomedical interventions to address infertility have proliferated recently, their distribution has been inequitable; inequalities in rates of infertility, infertility-specific distress, and access to reproductive healthcare to address infertility abound.