Sociological Theory from Dialogic Democracy

Abstract

Despite the long dialogical tradition both in Eastern and Western societies, in recent years the social dialogical turn is more and more evident in many domains of life. Citizens increasingly demand to have a saying in the seeking of solutions for their problematics, and advocate for a more democratic approach to science that fosters the inclusion of all voices and enhances the agency of citizens in social transformation. Therefore, global scientific research is progressively more oriented towards co-creation as a means to ensure social impact. In this context, social theory can provide the theoretical foundations to better address the societal challenges of concern, as well as the mechanisms to properly design research oriented to produce social impact, such as communicative methodology, and to monitor and evaluate such impact. Social theory would then serve its ultimate goal: to contribute to the improvement of societies. Sociology was born as part of the democracies to provide citizens with elements of analysis that would make it possible for them to make their decisions with the prior evidence of the consequences of each option. After a process of democratization, we return to the original sense, but now in a more democratic situation.

Fostering Social Project Impact with Twitter: Current Usage and Perspectives

“…Above all, if we wish to generate impact in science, all tweets must be supported by scientific evidence. This contribution is in line with other authors who highlight the relevance of participation and co-creation of knowledge [33] and dialogic evidence-based policies to achieve impact [34].…”

Adults With Special Educational Needs Participating in Interactive Learning Environments in Adult Education: Educational, Social, and Personal Improvements. A Case Study

“…In this dialogue, international scientific evidence is contrasted with the participants' everyday experiences, which allows for the construction of new scientific knowledge that is useful for transforming the analysed realities (Flecha, 2014 ; Flecha and Soler, 2014 ). This methodology contributes to providing solutions to the problems faced by citizens in different social areas, including education and social inclusion (Soler and Gómez, 2020 ; Torras-Gómez et al, 2019 ).…”

Changes in Tongue Kissing in Hook-Ups after COVID-19

“…This study has been carried out following a qualitative method with communicative approach [33,34], which is oriented towards the analysis of reality as a means to transform it. Through this methodology both researchers and participants share an egalitarian dialogue in order to cocreate scientific knowledge on the object of research and make it more democratic [35]. Following the communicative approach, which includes participants' voices throughout the whole research process [33,34], once the study results were written, they were sent to each participant whose response has been included in the study, so that they could give their consent and agreement to publish such results.…”