XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

979

Risk, Uncertainty and Potentialities in Learning Contexts

TG04 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty (host committee)

Language: English

This session explores themes related to the ways that risk is learned in multiple varieties of contexts by individuals, organizations, institutions, and through shared understandings and policy making across national borders.  For individuals, a central goal of becoming a responsible adult involves attempts to secure qualifications and stable employment potentialities, while for institutions a central goal is to establish and maintain a secure position in the hierarchy of similar institutions.  In both cases, risk is defined and used to create scenarios which will counter the possibilities of failure.  Policy making, in regard to education and human development (or human capital) at the national level is similarly driven by the need to confront and stabilize risk and uncertainty.  This session invites papers that explore the ways in which the potentials for learning both in formal education and other fields related to learning are defined, analyzed, constructed, and confronted by groups, nations, regions, as well as imagined beyond (and with) borders through international standardization methods. In formal educational settings these are exemplified by testing, rankings, and exchanges, while in other learning contexts, such analysis takes the form of scenarios, planning, and imaging potential futures.  Such potentials are expressed in and through rational, hyper-rational, and in some cases irrational decisions, methods, and policies, and papers which examine the mutual constitution of knowledge and risk through the lens of rationality are especially welcome.