International Sociology: Global Dialogue

The International Sociological Association recently published the third issue of its Global Dialogue newsletter, which is now available in seven languages: English, French, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Arabic. There are lots of great papers worth checking out.

The full version of Global Dialogue is available here. I especially enjoyed reading about the challenges that Chinese sociology is facing due to rapid economic development, as well as an interesting article on how the UN is dealing with organised crime. I was also taken by an excellent discussion about the global digital divide between sociologists in different parts of the world, although the article was largely focused on this problem as it relates to academics. As I was reading this paper, I was struck by the idea that the digital divide would be likely to be compounded for applied sociologists who work for NGOs and community organisations, as they may have even larger challenges accessing technological resources. If you’re a junior sociologist, check out how the Polish Sociological Association set up a ‘Scientific Circles‘ group for students which led to a leadership training program for junior sociologists. What a great idea, and one that is close to my heart!