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Networks of citations among the papers on a research topic reflect the structure of scholarship on that topic. Reference-network data for research areas from several disciplines show substantial variation in the structure of scholarship, ranging from the frequent and disproportionate citation of recent work to the frequent and disproportionate citation of foundational documents. The variation is inconsistent with the pattern expected of a simple physical sciences-behavioral sciences-humanities dimension. Citation-context analyses of references in the networks of various fields suggest that variation in network structure is due in part to differences in why authors cite their colleagues' work: Disproportionate citation of foundational documents occurs when authors cite papers as examples of perspectives or general approaches rather than as support for specific points. Differences in use patterns for citations can help us understand other differences among scholarly communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novelty and impact are key characteristics of the scientific enterprise. Classic theories of scientific change distinguish among different types of novelty and emphasize how a new idea interacts with previous work and influences future flows of knowledge. However, even recently developed measures of novelty remain unidimensional, and continued reliance on citation counts captures only the amount, but not the nature, of scientific impact. To better align theoretical and empirical work, we attend to different types of novelty (new results, new theories, and new methods) and whether a scientific offering has a consolidating form of influence (bringing renewed attention to foundational ideas) or a disruptive one (prompting subsequent scholars to overlook them). By integrating data from the Web of Science (to measure the nature of influence) with essays written by authors of Citation Classics (to measure novelty type), and by joining computational text analysis with statistical analyses, we demonstrate clear and robust patterns between type of novelty and the nature of scientific influence. As expected, new methods tend to be more disruptive, whereas new theories tend to be less disruptive. Surprisingly, new results do not have a robust effect on the nature of scientific influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on American Sociological Review (ASR) policies and the philosophical assumptions that underlie them. Most "revise and resubmits" result from our judgment that the problems in the paper have at least a chance of being fixed. If the paper is "marginal" we generally think it is because the author didn't do something that would make the paper better, so we ask for a revision. My personal perception is that ASR is so much in need of interesting papers that we bend over backwards to "bring papers along" if they have a good idea and defensible empirical materials. The most common case, however, is that there are many issues some raised by one reviewer, others raised by a second, still others by the editor or a member of the editorial group. Some issues are clear, others more an expression of uneasiness. Usually, we send the revision of such a paper back to one or two "old" reviewers and also send it to one or two new reviewers. Our experience is that "old" reviewers tend to look at their notes to see if the author has responded.

The authors describe the image of a silhouette of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois which was featured in the cover of the journal. They discuss the reasons that Du Bois's image is a meaningful choice, their deep appreciation for Du Bois's approach to social analysis, and information on a journal's paper and what happens when one submits a paper to the journal.

Has sociology become more socially integrated over the last 30 years? Recent work in the sociology of knowledge demonstrates a direct linkage between social interaction patterns and the structure of ideas, suggesting that scientific collaboration networks affect scientific practice. I test three competing models for sociological collaboration networks and find that a structurally cohesive core that has been growing steadily since the early I960s characterizes the discipline's coauthorship network. The results show that participation in the sociology collaboration network depends on research specialty and that quantitative work is more likely to be coauthored than non-quantitative work However structural embeddedness within the network core given collaboration is largely unrelated to specialty area. This pattern is consistent with a loosely overlapping specialty structure that has potentially integrative implications for theoretical development in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rule evasion by companies is a major driver of change in contemporary market societies. Recent research holds that periods of market instability offer opportunities to bring rule evasion under control because crises expose hidden market practices. Based on original archival evidence from the financial crisis of 1974, this article shows that rule evasion is disclosed not automatically, but strategically and selectively. To explain the ensuing dynamics, the article develops a Goffmanian framework in which regulators learn of a crisis of rule evasion backstage (in their interactions with companies) but use a conventional definition of the situation frontstage (in their presentations to the public). In an as yet unrecognized outcome, the regulators may find themselves caught between frontstage and backstage: their communications to the public limit their room for maneuver against the companies backstage, forcing them to repurpose their extant crisis-management tools. Because regulators publicly pretend to stay within their mandate, this form of crisis response renders re-regulation of rule evasion less likely. The finding contributes a new explanation for a central puzzle in the burgeoning sociology of crises: why periods of instability so rarely lead to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper unifies two strands of theoretical method in sociology. On the one hand, the structuralist or network program of research involves the fundamental rule that basic data and analytic procedures of sociology must focus on social relations. This leads to theories about structural stability or change, for example, although the network approach generally has been stronger on technique than on explanatory theory. An interest in theoretical explanation is the basis of the second theoretical method, which is drawn from the expectation states theoretical research program: namely, the idea of a dynamic co-causal process involving an unobservable relational construct termed an expectation state and an observable form of social behavior. The paper outlines the basic ideas of each of these two theoretical methods. It then proposes a new theoretical method which synthesizes the two and whose function is to provide a procedure for constructing explanatory models of social structural stability and change. This new method is termed "E-state structuralism." An extended example is provided of how the method is used to construct a theory, first presenting the theory in axiomatic form and then empirically testing it. The subject matter of the theory is the over-time transformation in the structure of dominance relations among a small group of animals. The paper concludes with a review of how the generic method was exemplified in the particular theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using block modeling of data from a sociometric questionnaire, we analyze the patterns of social structure shown by authors of two highly cocited clusters of biological science papers. Analyses of anecdotal data, background information, and data oh citations support the findings from the block models. The density of contacts and the patterns of sociometric and citation data show that the authors of papers in the clusters form social groups. Each group has a center- periphery pattern, and the two groups show structural differences that appear to reflect differences in the timing and diffusion of their respective major research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents comments on an article by Karl E. Taeuber and Alma F. Taeuber. Since the Taeubers disagree that the objections to the customary uses of the index of dissimilarity are major and since they reduce to the level of tinkering, the author's efforts to refine the index, one obviously has not made their points as clearly as necessary. The author claimed no ownership of the objections to the index of dissimilarity that was outlined in the original paper. These objections have been with the author since the beginning and an excellent summary of the issues were provided by the Taeubers more than ten years ago. The Taeubers acknowledge encountering persons who do not accept the idea of evenness but prefer information on deviation from randomness. Beyond questions of preference for one or the other, a real issue is that, given a small proportion of the minority, evenness may be impossible. It is odd that a practitioner's perspective would not take this into account.

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss topics including peer review processes, sociology methodology, and turn-around time for publishing time-sensitive articles.

This paper argues that the efficiency of the price-setting process in the stock market is contingent on the coherence of a stock's position in the industry-based classificatory structure that guides valuation. While this structure helps investors interpret ambiguous economic news, it is imperfect because stocks vary in the extent to which they are coherently classified, as revealed by the stocks 'position in the network of coverage by securities analysts. The main hypotheses are that incoherent stocks are traded more often because such stocks are more likely to be subject to differences in the interpretive models used to understand material information; and that both volume and volatility are higher for incoherent stocks because convergence on a common interpretation relies more heavily on self-recursive market dynamics. These hypotheses are validated via analyses of market activity in the aftermath of first-quarter earnings announcements for U.S.- based firms from 1995 to 2001. The results help reorient research away from debates as to whether financial-market activity is excessive and toward the mechanisms that underlie such activity. More generally the approach advanced in this paper illustrates how structural sociology may illuminate the structural bounds on market efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article asserts that mainstream sociology, or more specifically the nonproblematic sociology found in introductory sociology textbooks treats gender, race and class in profoundly unequal ways. Inequalities of Race, Class and Gender are quantified in Introductory Sociology Textbooks. By the mid-1990s, sociology textbook authors were no longer de-emphasizing gender in comparison to race and class. Discussion of the role of socialization in relation to group differentiation is more common for gender and is discussed in more detail than for either class. While there is on average almost one page more of aggregate cross-societal text on class than on gender, the proportion of texts including a significant amount is identical for class and gender. Thus, the overriding impression about mainstream sociology conveyed by the F&H paper fails to capture the growing impact of feminist questions on research agendas in the field of social stratification in general as well as on introductory textbook authors.

This article narrates the author's comments on editing, reviewing and publishing articles in the American Sociological Review (ASR). Some people complained that the ASR had been unsympathetic to their kind of sociology and that a special issue was the only sure way to remedy the situation. So far, my own appraisal is that neither their diagnosis nor their proposed cure is appropriate. In both the previous and the current editorial regimes the Deputy Editors have been responsible for assigning all reviewers. The Deputy Editors have varied scholarly histories, preferences and prejudices. However, they generally make reviewer assignments and about which they are most familiar and about which they tend to be positive. In any case they are usually do desperate to find appropriate, skilled and conscientious reviewers that they do not have enough degrees of freedom to be able to choose individuals whose prejudices they know. Even if the review process were discriminatory I think that special issues would be a dangerous and costly remedy. The ASR should be a journal that publishes the best papers available regardless of topic or research style. It is important that readers know that when a paper is published in the ASR it is not because of politics or fashion but because a reasonable, fair and rigorous peer review process has selected it on the basis of quality.

Presents an introduction to the April 1983 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review."

This paper investigates the direction and magnitude of the effects of personal, kinship, market, and contextual attributes of visa applicants on their desirability as immigrants to the United States, as judged by members of the professional staff of the U.S. Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. Two classic sociological questions underlie this politically relevant topic: how do societies choose their members? and how do societies allocate scarce benefits? Using the factorial survey pioneered by P.H. Rossi, we obtained from the Commission staff, numerical ratings of the desirability as immigrants of fictitious visa applicants embodying the full range of potentially relevant characteristics discussed in the political arena. Although the ratings were obtained by a number-assignment technique believed to generate a continuous variable, we accommodate the variable's possible ordinality by performing all analyses twice- using both ordinary-least-squares techniques and maximum-likelihood ordered. response techniques. The results are unambiguous: although a lawful and coherent set of rules guides each respondent's ratings, leading to a personal point system for the selection of immigrants, no two staff members' point systems are alike, not even qualitatively. In the complex weave of agreements and disagreements, three conclusions emerge. First, there is unanimous support for granting preference to visa applicants who have a job offer or a United States-citizen sibling. Second, there is severe disagreement by applicant's region of origin. Third, there is a range of disagreement on other attributes, for example, on whether the United States should favor the immigration, ceteris paribus, of older versus younger applicants or of male versus female applicants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology faces a peculiar paradox: Every general sociological proposition is both true and false. On the one hand, one can easily find exceptions to most of the propositions which are advanced as genera! sociological principles. Yet, there are many instances in which genera! sociological principles are supported by empirical findings. As a consequence, it is not clear when some sociological principle is to be counted as false. This paper argues that a proper assessment of the state of sociological knowledge and the possibility of cumulative growth in sociology depends on resolving the true-false paradox. We argue that the paradox can be resolved if sociologists make the scope of their theories explicit. We offer a formulation of scope restrictions, demonstrate how the formulation resolves the true-false paradox, and illustrate the differences between the method proposed here and other strategies for making sociological theories conditional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sampling has long been central in discussions of sociological research methods. Yet, with few exceptions, recent developments on the nature of sampling bias have not filtered into sociological practice. This neglect represents a major oversight with potentially dramatic consequences since internal as well as external validity is threatened. In response, this paper undertakes a brief review of recent advances in the diagnosis of and corrections for "sample selection bias." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the question of whether city differences in racial occupational inequality are of sufficient magnitude to warrant sustained empirical and theoretical analysis. Using both direct measures of racial occupational inequality and log-linear techniques, we find ample evidence to support the conclusion that city differences in racial occupational inequality are pronounced and merit investigation by social scientists. Thus, we reaffirm the longstanding research tradition investigating city differences in racial occupational inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis of cumulative advantage is widely accepted in the sociology of science, but empirical tests have been few and equivocal. One approach, originated by Allison and Stewart (1974), is to see whether inequality of productivity and recognition increases as a cohort of scientists ages. This paper extends their work by examining true cohorts of biochemists and chemists rather than synthetic cohorts. Increasing inequality is observed for counts of publications but not for counts of citations to all previous publications. It is also shown that a mathematical model of cumulative advantage does not imply increasing inequality. When the model is modified to allow for heterogeneity in the rate of cumulative advantage, however, increasing inequality is implied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes reorienting sociology so as to give special attention to the, discovery, description, and evaluation of social inventions. The significance of this focus is illustrated with cases of social inventions found in the Mondragén system of worker industrial cooperatives in `Spain and in new models for, agricultural research and development in Central America. The paper concludes with reflections on the implications of a social inventions focus for research methods, for social theory, and for applied sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author draws out the conceptual implications of technical procedures which he employed in an analysis published in this journal (Hope, 1971). He defends an earlier statement of status-inconsistency theory (Lenski 1954; 1956) against attacks on its coherence, and he provides a model which accurately represents the theory (and an equivalent theory of mobility effects) and may be. used to test it. By contrast with this "diamond" model, he shows that the usual "square-additive" model cannot test for the presence of status inconsistency or mobility effects, whether these are defined additively or interactively. The technique of "design matrix regression analysis" is introduced as a means for exploring the relations between models in order to grasp their structure and implications before they are fitted to data. The square-additive model is criticized for its conceptual vagueness, but a theoretical position is suggested which incorporates the main positive feature of the model while constituting a worthy rival to inconsistency theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that a school tracking system can be a good context for studying the effects of stratification on socialization. In addition, the study designed to overcome limitations of previous research on the effect: of tracking on cognitive skills (notably the work of Jencks). In a quantitative analysis of the school records of a socially homogeneous school with a highly stratified track system, the study finds that tracking has marked influence on changes of JQ scores between eighth and tenth grades, even after controlling for initial ability, sex, and social class. Furthermore, it finds that tracking has a pronounced influence on the dispersion of IQ scores. This finding suggests that different socialization processes occur in the upper and lower tracks, a differentiating process in the former and a homogenizing process in the latter. The paper concludes with some speculations on the relationship of stratification to socialization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests the fruitfulness, for studies of verbal participation in discussions, of shifting from studying participation per se to studying the interpersonal control of participation. Focusing first on the nature of the data to be analyzed, the paper then analyzes the data and reconciles it with ocher findings in the literature to develop the concept of a hierarchical structure of communication. In this concept, leadership roles and levels of participation are seen as coincidental, arising out of interpersonal interchanges ultimately directed toward achieving coordination and consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on Sociology: Proscience or Antiscience, a position paper written by Randall Collins. Randall Collins' (1989) recent position paper seeks to defend sociology proper from disparate attacks questioning its status as a science. Interestingly, Collins's citations supporting the premise of external attack on sociology are actually quite limited. His single extensive example involves more the quest of sociobiologists to legitimate themselves through a general critique of all social science rather than a focused assault on sociology itself. Singled out specifically by Collins are approaches that deviate from his version of sociological theory, rather than from the scientific project of sociology per se. In Collins's discussion, Michael Foucault's complex ideas are homogenized and described by a nominalist label that has no basis in his work. Collins characterizes Foucault as a discourse theorist who reduces society to a text and social action to the field of discourse. Collins simply has displaced by Foucault's emphasis on the field of power. Collins reduces the complex work of important theorists to misleading and nominalist labels that compartmentalize and trivialize serious thought. Discourse analysis cannot replace the investigation of, and theorizing about, social action and societal structures. If the above comments are instructive, however, then there is a place for textual analysis when confronted by the obfuscating metatheoretical discussions and the biblical exegesis of the classics that passes for much of sociological theory today.

In medical consultations, court examination, and other such institutional interactions, claims, reports, and accounts may be questioned or challenged by showing that they are insufficiently precise. So too, in ordinary interaction participants may apply standards of relevant precision. In conversation, speakers commonly make extreme, hyperbolic, or exaggerated claims in the service of some local interactional task or contingency (e.g., to strengthen or dramatize a claim). Although there is considerable tolerance in conversation for extreme or hyperbolic claims (as in, "I have no money," "everybody has to lie"), some such claims are treated as having been overstated, and the speaker subsequently modifies them to be more precise, and to avoid misunderstanding. This paper examines how some claims are revealed as having been overstated, as exaggerations, and how they are repaired. The distinctive conversational practices identified here, through which exaggerations come to be revised, contribute to the sociological understanding of how the maintenance of intersubjectivity is a constant and central concern in social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ethnographic technique of the focused revisit -- rare in sociology but common in anthropology -- when an ethnographer returns to the site of a previous study. Discrepancies between earlier and later accounts can be attributed to differences in: (1) the relation of observer to participant, (2) theory brought to the field by the ethnographer, (3) internal processes within the field site itself, or (4) forces external to the field site. Focused revisits tend to settle on one or another of these four explanations, giving rise to four types of focused revisits. Using examples, the limits of each type of focused revisit are explored with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches. The principles of the focused revisit are then extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits. In centering attention on ethnography-as-revisit sociologists directly confront the dilemmas of participating in the world they study -- a world that undergoes (real) historical change that can only be grasped using a (constructed) theoretical lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does one identify a phenomenon as radically new or "unprecedented"? Do, in fact, "unprecedented" phenomena exist at all, as presumably some degree of continuity marks every state of affairs? If however, the idea of continuity is taken too far, are we not at risk of domesticating a radical tendency by conceptually transmuting it into something that is already known? These questions are of pressing importance since September 11th, as commentators warn that America and its allies face radically new enemies in the guise of "rogue" states, movements, and terrorist organizations. Yet sociology has had to grapple with similar issues before. In the 1930s and 1940s, the consolidation of fascist and Nazi movements also taxed sociological understanding and competence to the maximum. This article describes aspects of American sociology's response to that earlier challenge, contrasting it with the approach of Hannah Arendt, who condemned the discipline for systematically failing to appreciate the uniqueness, enormity, and gravity of the events that assailed the epoch. Arendt's critique of sociological methods is followed by a case study--Theodore Abel's investigation into National Socialism--that lends some credence to her misgivings. The work of other sociologists of this period--notably, Talcott Parsons's--is also briefly considered. The concluding section of the paper examines the theoretical problems involved in seeking to conceptualize an "unprecedented" event (movement, institution). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many concepts in sociology are difficult or impossible to objectively measure. This limitation forces a reliance on subjective measures that typically contain both systematic and random measurement errors. Systematic errors, or "biases," are the focus of this paper Campbell and Fiske's (1959) multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) research design is the best known social scientific procedure for uncovering systematic errors, but the data requirements for classical MTMM designs are too demanding for many areas of sociology in which secondary data are the norm. We show that the benefits of the MTMM design are available under more relaxed conditions. In addition, we illustrate how researchers can examine the determinants of systematic errors and gain insights into the potential for confounding or spurious effects caused by systematic errors. We demonstrate the usefulness of these methods using the subjective measures of liberal democracy used in several recent ASR papers and provide additional examples, including measures of the reputational quality of graduate programs and job evaluations for comparable-worth investigations. We conclude that sociologists can do far more to understand the systematic error present in their subjective variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Easterlin's cohort-size hypothesis suggests that crime rates fluctuate according to the relative size of the birth cohort. We examine the hypothesis using arrest statistics from the Uniform Crime Reports for the years 1953 through 1989. This paper extends an earlier ASR article (Steffensmeier et al. 1987) and tests three hypotheses derived from the Easterlin framework: (1) whether cohort size is positively related to age-period-specific crime rates, net of age and period effects; (2) whether the effect of cohort size is stronger for property crimes than for violent crimes; and (3) whether the effect of cohort size is stronger for young adults than for older adults or is consistently additive across the life course. Results using two different procedures to assess the cohort-size effect generally contradict the hypotheses, leading us to question the usefulness of cohort size as an explanation of periodicity in crime rates and possibly in other social phenomena as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theory linking choice processes with the experience of transitory emotion and the development of enduring affective attachments to nested collectivities, i.e., subgroups within a larger group, organization, or society. According to the theory, persons become emotionally attached to groups that strengthen their generalized sense of control. The underlying propositions are that: (1) choice processes that foster a high sense of control produce positive emotion (happiness, pride, gratitude); (2) such positive emotion strengthens affective attachments to groups perceived as most responsible for the choice opportunity; and (3) such positive emotion strengthens attachments to proximal subgroups more than to larger, more encompassing collectivities. Complementary predictions obtain for lack of choice, negative emotion (sadness, shame, hostility), and the weakening of collective attachments. The theory explicates a subtle social process important to individual/group relations, and suggests conditions likely to produce behavior directed at the collective welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simplistic either/or notions of "culture versus social structure" have impeded the development of a broader theoretical context from which to examine questions raised by the continuing debate on the "ghetto underclass." In this paper I present a framework that integrates social structural and cultural arguments. I hope elaboration of this framework can move social scientists beyond the narrow confines of the underclass debate in two ways: (1) by outlining empirical and theoretical issues that guide further research, and (2) by suggesting variables that have to be taken into account to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of one of the most important domestic problems in the last quarter of the twentieth century--the rise of social dislocations in inner-city ghettos.

This section presents a speech by Herbert J. Gans, president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), delivered at the annual meeting of the ASA in 1988. Sociology has established a presence in many kinds of policy analysis and is moving into large numbers of other practice areas, even if sociologists' ideas continue to be largely absent from U.S. political thinking. Too many people still dislike sociology or are not interested in it. Many sociologists find nothing wrong with this state of affairs. The author believes that these feelings are mistaken. Maintaining some relationship with the American public is part of sociologists as members of society and as recipients of its funds, public or private. This essay has three major parts. The first describes some of the research needed to analyze sociology's roles in the U.S. The second part discusses some ways in which sociologists can improve relations with the public. In the last part of the paper, the focus is sociology itself, offering some ideas on what sociologists can do better for themselves even as they do better by the public.

This paper addresses the lack of theoretical work on young children in sociology by presenting an interpretive approach to childhood socialization. This approach extends traditional views of human development by demonstrating that socialization is a collective process that occurs in a social, rather than in a private, realm. To illustrate the interpretive approach, we present a multilayered analysis of two phases of a lengthy verbal routine (discussione) among Italian nursery school children. The analysis demonstrates how (1) the routine of discussione is. produced sociolinguistically; (2) the production of the routine builds on, and extends shared knowledge basic to peer culture; and (3) the children, in the course of producing the routine, attempt to deal with aspects of the world they do not fully grasp and, thereby, move closer toward appropriating certain elements of the adult culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many theories address the problem of how a social structure affects the experiences and behaviors of its members This paper offers a network-exchange theory to solve this problem. Previous research has shown that the nature and outcomes of negotiations among individual or corporate actors can be inferred from their network positions. The impact of this research has been limited because its theory does not enable the researcher to locate power positions in the networks. We offer a theory that is both consistent with all previously reported experimental research and is generalized to conditions not considered by other formulations. In addition to supporting derived hypotheses pertaining to network-based power, our experiments demonstrate, among other things, that certain unstable networks break down to form stable substructures and that some networks contain overlapping but autonomous domains of power and exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents a recurring but often overlooked pattern in adult socialization and proposes the mechanism that produces this regularity in role assimilation. Three broad stages (Expectancy, Disillusionment and Reconciliation) produce a curvilinear pattern over time in the adoption of "ideal-typical" role attitudes, beliefs and values. The migration of individuals to and from urban areas and their medical care preferences provide a unique case for the illustration of two crucial, organizational elements of the socialization process: context and networks. Data from Taiwan (1970, N=618) indicate that for both in-migrants and out-migrants, preferences for western as opposed to indigenous medical care parallel proposed changes in initiate networks. The pattern is neither smooth nor unidimensional nor the same between contexts. Additional analyses that incorporate Granovetter's (1973) "strength of weak ties" idea are consistent with the network explanation. The concluding discussion focuses on factors that might influence the duration of and fluctuation between socialization stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes several ways in which the transformation of Hungarian social structure between 1938 and 1973 constrained changes in rates of Intergenerational social mobility. Three concepts of ways in which shifts in the distributions of social origins and destinations can result in changes. in the total rate of mobility-"discrepancy effects," "concentration effects," and "composition effects" -are discussed and shown to be represented in a multiplicative model commonly applied to mobility tables. By observing the changes in the expected percentage mobile when various constraints are added to this multiplicative model, the relative impact of each aspect of structural change becomes more apparent Most of the change in Hungary, particularly between 1953 and 1973, is attributable to changes in structural constraints. Most of the change in mobility across economic classes was associated with changing origin-destination discrepancy effects, as were large portions of the changes in mobility across socioeconomic status levels and broad social strata. Changing concentration effects were less important, and mostly affected mobility across SES levels. Detailed composition effects were most important in conjunction with monotonic increases in mobility across SES levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blau's (1977) theory uses properties of macro social structure to deduce properties of micro social structure, the network of observed social relations among individuals. This paper continues the work of Fararo (1981) in providing a formal linkage between these two levels using the concepts of biased net theory. The application provides versions of Blau's major theorems that uncover implications not readily apparent from his - verbal presentation, permits the extension of his theory beyond characteristics along which preferences for in group association exist to ones along which preferences for outgroup association may exist (and ones even stranger where both preference types may exist), demonstrates the theoretical basis for some negative results of recent research (Blau et al., 1982), and offers a rigorous basis for a general formal theory of social structure's influences on people's associations with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a "working consensus" through negotiation between social actors in a situation of ambiguous normative expectations has been described as a cybernetic process. The present paper reports a study of the dynamics specific to one kind of negotiation, that of defining relational control. The data fit a model of a third-order Markov process, implying that the control direction of a given speech depends on the three speeches before it. A digraph of the transition probabilities from speeches at t, t+1, and t+2, to the speech at t+3 shows that interaction tends toward competitive symmetry (a series of speeches asserting control) or equivalent symmetry (a series of speeches which neither assert nor give up control). Assertive speeches lead to competitive symmetry, as, do submissive speeches. In contrast, neutral speeches decrease the competitive quality of the interaction. The methodology and findings in the present work have implications for the emerging structural and interactionist approaches in micro-sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past explanations of violence have characteristically paid more attention to the issues of social conditions and psychocultural stimuli than to the issue of timing. Timing is the focus of this paper in which a differential equation model of the temporal diffusion of violence is developed. This model is derived from behavioral generalizations which indicate that aggression is both instigated and inhibited via direct and vicarious learning. The parameters of the model provide measures of the instigation and inhibition processes that take place throughout an outbreak. Twenty-five data sets representing a wide variety of collective outbreaks of violence are used to test the empirical fit and to evaluate the credibility of the assumptions of the model. The model describes the overtime distribution of incidents quite accurately and the assumptions and implications of the derivation appear to be consistent with the cultural conditions surrounding the outbreaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a Marxian social historical approach to the study of legal evolution. The emergence of the Marxian perspective and the logic of its premises are reviewed. Using Canadian delinquency legislation as an historical example, it is found that the Marxian perspective assumes a great deal that is unconfirmed (e.g., that this legislation serves the teleologically inferred "basic interests" of an ambiguously identified "ruling class"), asserts other things that are wrong or misleading (that this legislation increased imprisonment, "invented" new categories of youthful misbehavior, created a "specialized labor market" and increased "industrial discipline"), and ignores much that an organizational analysis helps to reveal (that the emergence of probation work as an organizational concern was the prime factor in the development of Canadian delinquency legislation), implications of these findings are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main thesis of this paper is that Parsons' claim that the works of .Durkheim end Weber substantively converged on a voluntaristic theory of action is inaccurate and that his alleged demonstration of such convergence is grounded in serious distortions of the Durkheimian and Weberian positions. We first examine basic differences between Durkheim and We her and then consider Parsons' claim in the light of those differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the logic of interpreting recursive causal theories in sociology. We review the distinction between associations and effects and. discuss the decomposition of effects into direct and indirect components. We then describe a general method for decomposing effects into their components by the systematic application of ordinary least squares regression. The method involves successive computation of reduced-form equations, beginning with an equation containing only exogenous variables, then computing equations which add intervening variables in sequence from cause to effect. This generates all the information required to decompose effects into their various direct and indirect parts. This method is a substitute for the often more cumbersome computation of indirect effects from the structural coefficients (direct effects) of the causal model. Finally, we present a way of summarizing this information in tabular form and illustrate the procedures using an empirical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces, defines, and discussion a new concept, the disclaimer. The disclaimer is an interactional tactic employed by actors faced with upcoming events or acts which threaten to disrupt emergent meanings or discredit cathected situational identities its function is to predefine such problematic events for others in a manner which reduces their salience as interactional cues. Like "accounts" and "quasi-theories," the disclaimer belongs to a class of events, here called "aligning actions," which routinely serve to preserve situational definitions in the face of disruptive lines of conduct. At a broader level, it is suggested that cultural continuity rests in large part upon such aligning action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national index of crime published annually by the FBI is one of the most commonly used social indicators. Many authors have criticized the FBI's index, an unweighted sum of the reported "index crimes" for failing to account for the differing seriousness of the heterogeneous crimes in, the index. Sellin and Wolfgang (1962) provide a procedure fop developing crime-seriousness weights. An intense public debate has raged over which of these is "correct." This paper compares the FBI and the Sellin-Wolfgang indexes for reported crimes in the U.S. over the 1960-72 period, and finds that the two have been almost perfectly linearly related, Thus, the Sellin-Wolfgang index, even though conceptually correct and of value for other purposes, contributes no significant information to a national crime index. Other crime indexes are explored, and conclusions generalized for other social indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the poor quality of article reviews received by the American Sociological Review (ASR). The staff have been disappointed in the overall quality of reviewing at ASR. It seems that too many reviewers do not seem to know what they need to do to write a good review, and it is time the discipline do something about the problem. A good place to start might be by reconsidering a widely held assumption about reviewing--the notion that anyone with a Ph.D. is able to review scholarly work in his or her specialty. This assumption is positive, supportive, democratic, and politically correct within the profession. But our empirical experience is that it is too often false. The fact is that our graduate programs train us to criticize works that have already been published--works that have already gone through the generally complex and chastening process of review and editing. One way to train a reviewer is to adopt a graduate student and involve him or her in your review process. The American Sociological Association should also offer a workshop on reviewing at the annual meetings where anyone could attend the workshop.

Sociologists have identified many ways that childhood inequalities promote social reproduction. These inequalities are not always explicitly linked to what children are taught about their position and direction in the world, what I term their social station. Extant case studies find that social station socialization has meritocratic underpinnings (e.g., elite boarding schoolers are taught they are the "best of the best"). But societal changes, including increased emphasis on identity in educational institutions' and employers' evaluative practices, raise the prospect of similar changes in childhood socialization. I conducted three years of observations in two racially diverse elementary schools—one upper-middle class, the other working class—supplemented by interviews with 101 students, teachers, and parents. Students were taught markedly different lessons about their social station, but neither school predicated this on meritocratic achievement narratives. Overall, children at the upper-middle-class school were taught to see themselves as always-already special because of their internal qualities. Children at the working-class school were taught to see themselves as conditionally good if they adhered to external rules. Variations were visible for Asian American girls at the upper-middle-class school and poor students and Black students at the working-class school. I discuss the importance of school socialization and the implications of discrimination, identity rhetoric, and individualism for social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on cornerstone traditions in historical sociology, as well as work in environmental sociology and political-economic sociology, we theorize and investigate with moderation analysis how and why national militaries shape the effect of economic growth on carbon pollution. Militaries exert a substantial influence on the production and consumption patterns of economies, and the environmental demands required to support their evolving infrastructure. As far-reaching and distinct characteristics of contemporary militarization, we suggest that both the size and capital intensiveness of the world's militaries enlarge the effect of economic growth on nations' carbon emissions. In particular, we posit that each increases the extent to which the other amplifies the effect of economic growth on carbon pollution. To test our arguments, we estimate longitudinal models of emissions for 106 nations from 1990 to 2016. Across various model specifications, robustness checks, a range of sensitivity analyses, and counterfactual analysis, the findings consistently support our propositions. Beyond advancing the environment and economic growth literature in sociology, this study makes significant contributions to sociological research on climate change and the climate crisis, and it underscores the importance of considering the military in scholarship across the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What conditions enable novel intellectual contributions to diffuse and become integrated into later scientific work? Prior work tends to focus on whole cultural products, such as patents and articles, and emphasizes external social factors as important. This article focuses on concepts as reflections of ideas, and we identify the combined influence that social factors and internal intellectual structures have on ideational diffusion. To develop this perspective, we use computational techniques to identify nearly 60,000 new ideas introduced over two decades (1993 to 2016) in the Web of Science and follow their diffusion across 38 million later publications. We find new ideas diffuse more widely when they socially and intellectually resonate. New ideas become core concepts of science when they reach expansive networks of unrelated authors, achieve consistent intellectual usage, are associated with other prominent ideas, and fit with extant research traditions. These ecological conditions play an increasingly decisive role later in an idea's career, after their relations with the environment are established. This work advances the systematic study of scientific ideas by moving beyond products to focus on the content of ideas themselves and applies a relational perspective that takes seriously the contingency of their success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this presidential address, I argue for the importance of state-created categories and classification systems that determine eligibility for tangible and intangible resources. Through classification systems based on rules and regulations that reflect powerful interests and ideologies, bureaucracies maintain entrenched inequality systems that include, exclude, and neglect. I propose adopting a critical perspective when using formalized categories in our work, which would acknowledge the constructed nature of those categories, their naturalization through everyday practices, and their misalignments with lived experiences. This lens can reveal the systemic structures that engender both enduring patterns of inequality and state classification systems, and reframe questions about the people the state sorts into the categories we use. I end with a brief discussion of the benefits that can accrue from expanding our theoretical repertoires by including knowledge produced in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]