■ Aim Pubs are focal stages of sociability. This article investigates the identifications and distinctions between us and them, made by young Finns talking about their own behaviour in pubs, and the pubs they like and dislike. ■ Data & Method The data consists of 117 interviews with 23 to 35-year-old young Finnish adults who work in business or administration. The method applies classification analysis and is influenced by the structuralist, semiotic, and rhetoric traditions. ■ Results The analysis shows that many of the interviewees' classifications involve distancing themselves from those people that go to ‘superficial' pubs. The interviewees distinguish themselves from those frequenting superficial places by classifying the interactions there as false and stiff, and contrary to a genuine and relaxed sociability. With these distinctions the interviewees do not aim to distinguish themselves as above' others. Instead, they define themselves as ordinary people by separating themselves from people who are fake, pretentious, or too faddish. ■ Conclusions [This] opposition to superficiality and the emphasis on authenticity is reminiscent of Rousseau's criticism of trivial needs. The interviewees seem to define sociability in pubs in a way that valorises the virtues of ordinariness and modesty.
In the article we examine the management of social emotions and friendship bonds by analysing the young adults’ pub and drinking diaries. We assume that emotions that are embodied in the management of friendship ties can be reduced to the emotions of pride and shame. According to Scheff, as primary social emotions, they are present in all communication and action. They express for the participants of interaction the actual “temperature” of social relations. Pride refers to a strong and safe involvement in interaction, in which individuals feel themselves fine and respectful. In a shameful state, individuals, in turn, experience themselves negatively in the eyes of others, which imply that social bonds are intimidated. The analysis of drinking experiences from the viewpoint of pride and shame brings expressively forth how drinking strengthens or weakens different kinds of social relations and dynamics and how actors try to attach to them or secede from them. In the diary narratives, the pride and shame of drinking is most strongly associated with reinforcement and bonding efforts of ties of friendship that are considered laid-back and like-minded. In relation to them the status, competition, the emphasis of one's self and indulging in love affairs occur in the narratives considerably more seldom, and if they occur, they rather contribute to shameful experiences or remain subordinate to friendship.
This paper reports on a study of the dynamics of social emotions and social bonds between students and class teachers by analysing the narratives of students receiving intensive special support in the Finnish vocational education and training (VET) system. Pride refers to a strong and safe involvement in interaction, and shame implies intimidated social bonds. The analysis is based on abductive content analysis for which Greimas' actant model worked as an analysis tool. We found some students showing high respect to their teachers who acted as senders setting the objects for students' studying. Pride is based on the students' experiences in achieving the objects, thereby pleasing their teachers and secondly on their ability to see positive development in their social belonging. The students who experienced feelings of shame did not perceive themselves as being subjects of positive development, but their special needs overshadowed their social relationships. They found it difficult to see approving and benevolent senders and receivers which could be interpreted as an explicit source of shame. The results concern not only individual teachers' pedagogical practices and ways of interaction, but also the whole VET system which addresses competence and effective individual study paths rather than social belonging and communality.
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