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President of the American Sociological Society Louis Wirth is planning for a Section on Contributed Papers for the next annual meeting that is to be held in New York from December 28 to 30, December, 1947. Although this Section is particularly de- signed for those younger members of the Society, including graduate students, who have not yet had an opportunity to appear on the pro- gram in other sections, contributions from other members of the Society will be welcome. Since this Committee is working closely with the Committee on Research, it is being urged that members who have completed research papers suitable for oral presentation and which do not fall within the scope of other Sections be offered for consideration in the Section on Contributed Papers.

The study presented in this paper takes its point of departure from the working hypothesis that institutional and cultural change can be empirically observed through the growth of a number of selected variables. In his writings, social scientists, F. Stuart Chapin has demonstrated the possibility of studying the successive values of certain strategic institutional variables over a period of time and establishing the law of change by the well-known statistical method of fitting a logistic curve to the time series. Chapin has linked this time series analysis to one type of broad generalization on the cultural and social change in the social group which he calls the cycle of the social process or the societal reaction pattern. An attempt will be made in this paper to summarize some of the findings made in an empirical investigation of a number of quantitative variables related to the organizational growth of ten voluntary associations. Theoretical considerations suggest that these variables are important in understanding the processes of organizational growth and formalization which constitute the topic of this paper.

Christopher Bennett Becker, of Yale University, has written the preface and the annotations Howard Becker's Presidential address. His painstaking and scrupulous preparation of the manuscript provides both the essential substance of the address itself and a felicitous introduction in the spirit of Professor Becker's own work. Howard Becker was deeply and persistently concerned with "the historical process;" his contributions to its analysis include studies of both ancient and modern societies, hut always with a view to more realistic understanding of the present social order and of man's possibilities in shaping the future. This paper illustrates, once more, these interests. Professor Becker would have been heartened, perhaps, by the fact that his paper is one of several on social change included in this issue of the Review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the process wherein persons move from disparate points in space all time one to common location at time two. Theoretical explanations of this phenomenon are reviewed and critically examined. An alternate interpretation is advanced and supported by data from a study of one non-periodic assembling process. A correlation of R =` 67 is obtained between time receipt of assembling instructions, and related a facilities, and the completion of the assembling process. We discuss time implications of these results, and the alternate interpretation for future theory' and research on the assembling process and other aspects of collective behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid changes taking place in the rural areas adjacent to cities are frequently objects of comment by observant citizens as well as by social scientists. The relevant data available regarding these changes in the United States are limited in scope and widely known, local observations are frequently reported in the press. The task of developing theory has not been ignored, although such work has been overshadowed by the accumulation of a great deal of descriptive detail. Indeed, the amount of research and theorizing in recent years makes it imperative that interested persons take time to summarize, evaluate, and synthesize accomplishments to date. This paper represents one such attempt. Attention has been deliberately restricted to ecological and demographic changes taking place in the rural sectors of satellite areas, a generic term used here to encompass all varieties of suburbs, satellite cities, fringe areas, commuters zones, and other areas under the immediate influence of the central city. This restriction results from space limitations rather than any idea that other types of change or other sectors of the satellite area are of lesser importance.

Cultural traits from China have been slowly entering Europe for more than two thousand years. Some of these, such as gunpowder, the compass and paper have been of outstanding importance while others have created but passing fads. It is impossible to identify all of the influences of Chinese origin which have entered European culture during this long period. Even in the case of clearly recognized Chinese traits the records are inadequate as to many of the details of their westward journey. Despite the incompleteness of our knowledge, a brief survey of the existing in formation throws light on some aspects of European cultural history and on some of the mechanisms of diffusion. There were four main periods of contact between China and the West. The first was the era of silk trade with Rome and the ancient Mediterranean world which lasted from the first century B.C. to the middle of the sixth century A.D. The rise of the Arab Empire in the seventh century began a long period of relations between China and the Near East in which the Moslem world acted partially as a barrier but also as an intermediary between China and Europe. The Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made possible brief direct contacts of Europe with China. Modem relations of China and the West began with the Age of Discoveries in the sixteenth century.

This article presents reply of the author to comments made by Wilbert E. Moore and Robert A. Feldmesser on his article related to scientific legitimation of fallacy, published in the June 1, 1972 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review." The author says that Moore's comment seems to him to focus on two complaints--firstly, the author did not read one of his books, and secondly on that basis the author unjustly unjustly criticized or misrepresented him. The author says that as the paper was not written with his own general position, but was directed at the assumptions that underlie much work on social change. The author says that Feidmesser's comment is an interesting illustration of some of the points male in the paper. His hypothetical writer assumes the intrinsic trauma of change. The author says that he has argued that no such intrinsic trauma exists. Moreover, to assert that change is normal is not to legitimate or applaud every kind of change. The argument that whatever exists has some useful purpose is a kind of vulgar functionalism, but it is not author's view.

The article presents comment on the article "Biological Models of Social Change," by Kurt W. Back, published in August 1971 issue of the Journal "American Sociological Review." One of the problems with the discipline of sociology is its vulnerability to fads. Ironically, it is often those fads generated from the best seminal ideas that create the most misleading of "pop" sociologies. "Biological Models of Social Change" is just the kind of paper that can feed into this tendency to adopt uncritically the newest and flashiest approaches to difficult problems. Uses of system approach and application of system analysis and biological models make it attractive and seductive. But it fails to acknowledge the existence of many questions that logically precede application of the approach proposed. The definition of system in this raises three crucial untreated questions: it must be shown that a set of elements comprises an entity, because an entity must exist before one can consider whether the set is a system; it must be shown that at some level, elements in an analysis of social change fulfill a definition of a system; and most important because of the choice to concentrate "not on general system characteristics but on distinct processes which have been identified in biological systems," is the extent to which relations between elements in biological systems are similar to relations between elements in societal systems.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science held its 130th annual meeting in Cleveland on December 26-30, 1963. The American Sociological Association participated in many of the activities of the convention, including general sessions, sectional programs and interdisciplinary symposia, as well as the two meetings of the Council of American Association for the Advancement of Science. Kingsley Davis served as chairman of the Section on Social and Economic Sciences and vice-president of American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also arranged a major interdisciplinary symposium on Biological and Sociological Research on the Effects of Human Reproduction Control and gave a paper on Sociological Consequences. The principal program sponsored by the American Sociological Association was on social change. This program was arranged by Robert A. Nisbet, who also presided. The session also consisted of papers by Irene B. Tacuber and Conrad Taeuber, "Migration, Mobility, and the Assimilation of Migrants." Kenneth E. Bock presented paper on, "Mobility and Changeability in Marginal Men" and Robert A. Nisbet on "Mobility and Conflict in Kinship Change".

Controversies over busing to achieve racial integration of schools result front the intersection of social trends and prevailing values. The movement to expand the civil rights of blacks conflicts with the tradition of neighborhood schools and the residential segregation of neighborhoods. This paper examines the receptiveness of whites to school and neighborhood integration and explores the economic potential for residential integration. We find the receptiveness of whites to having black neighbors or having their children attend schools with Negroes has increased, and now a majority of whites endorse such integration. Data from the Census of 1970 reveal that economic factors account for little of the concentration of blacks within central cities, their absence front suburbia or the residential segregation of blacks from whites in either cities or suburbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicare was bitterly opposed by the medical profession before it became law in 1965. This paper examines how individual physicians reacted, in their behavior and in their thinking, to Medicare after it became law. The more general issue is the role of law as an instrument of social change. Interviews with a sample of New York State physicians before the law was passed and reinterviews at two points in time after the law was passed-once before the program went into effect and again about six months after it had gone into effect-make it possible to separate the direct effects of the law itself on attitudes from the effects of short-term experience with the program. There has been no evidence of a physicians' boycott of Medicare. With respect to their attitudes, the proportion of physicians in favor of the main part of Medicare, the hospitalization program for the elderly (Title 18, Part A), jumped from 38% before the law was passed to 70% ten months after it was passed, even before it was implemented, and again to 81% six months after it was implemented. Some laws, according to these results, may influence attitudes without first changing behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to re-evaluate the evolutionary perspective in sociology by analyzing the concept of "stages" of societies or institutional systems as measured by the extent of social differentiation. An evolutionary perspective makes sense only so far as at least some of the changes that are inherent in the very nature of any social system bring about institutionalization of more differentiated cultural and social spheres, and in this way extend the range of a society's environment and its adaptability to it. Recognition of this relation between change and institutionalization is tempered by several systematic considerations. First, not all processes of social change necessarily give rise to changes in overall institutional systems. Second, systemic changes that do increase the scope of differentiation within the major spheres of a society do not necessarily assure the institutionalization of a more differentiated system. Third, even when structural differentiation is institutionalized, each new institutional system evinces different potentialities for further change, for stagnation, breakdown or development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical, and indeed evolutionary, dimension is a fundamental element in alt of Durkheim's sociological work. The resent paper argues that this fact should be neither ignored nor explained away as a mere survival of outmoded nineteenth century thought. Rather, Durkheim's practice in this respect, as in others, provides an important pointer for current sociology. The historical dimension had a prominent place in Durkheim's discussion of method in sociology, especially in his insistence on comparison and on structural taxonomy. In Durkheim's analysis of social causes, both morphological and representational, the historical and evolutionary dimension provided a fundamental axis. Various aspects of his work-for example, his sociology of the family, of individuation, and of religion-are cited to illustrate the significance of history in Durkheim's thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the differential class behavior in Denmark. Social class is here conceived of as a stratum or layer of society differentiated in terms of scalar social status. The basic status variable is conceived in terms of the differential deference allotted to a person by his fellow group members. Sensitivity to status differences was found to be positively related to respondents' own status. This was documented by prestige rating of 75 occupations in which respondents of higher status exhibited considerably less variation in rating than low status groups; number of social classes reported to exist in Denmark; and asserted ability to place people socially by just looking at them or listening to their speech. Although all strata showed majority agreement in asserting this ability, the percentages of asserters increased with social status. A regular and statistically significant increase was observed in percentages possessing the characteristics with increasing social status; interest in theater, painting, classical music and politics, familiarity with modern Danish literature and knowledge of foreign languages.

Sociologists of religion have devoted considerable attention to studying the relationship between the social policy of the church and the prevailing values of the secular community towards the social, economic, and political institutions of a society. Church policy on social issues is seen almost invariably as an adaptation to or compromise with the dominant secular point of view. The church seldom acts to foster social change but rather functions to preserve the status quo. Such general conceptualizations invite attempts at documentation and refinement. In a modest way, this is the intention of the present paper. The major concern of the author is the relationship between what the church has adopted as its official policy on a number of social, economic, and political issues and the prevailing climate of opinion on these same issues among the membership of the church. At the same time, we are interested in examining the position of the clergy, particularly on those issues where there is conflict between official church policy and parishioner sentiment.

Because names are symbols used by society in the assignment of statuses and roles to individuals and groups, name changing, with a concomitant greater or lesser change of identity, affords social scientists insight into such phenomena as mobility, acculturation, group identification, and self-definition. This paper is the introduction to an analysis of the significant social data on the petitions of a sample of name changers. An attempt is made to derive hypotheses about the differential valuation of certain categories of names and the social setting in which name changing takes place. This study is an analysis of certain social aspects of a sample of legal name changers and utilizes data included on petitions for the name change. Through the comparison of the characteristics of the name changers with those of the general population and the comparison of non-Jewish and Jewish petitioners, an attempt is made to derive hypotheses about the differential valuation of certain categories of names and the social setting in which name changing takes place.

Neither of the two previous papers in this series devoted any attention to the question of discrepancies between scores on St and on the various conventional indices of status which were employed. A set of personality items was previously derived each of which reliably predicted scores on objective status inventories, and which, when considered as a scale, correlated approximately .50 with such inventories in test samples. Because of the nature of these items, in distinction to the content of conventional status inventories, it was felt that all deviations between personality status and objective status measurements were not merely errors, but were, on the contrary, to some extent meaningful deviations predictive of potential changes in status position. A number of comparisons and inquiries did tend to substantiate this hypothesis. The relationship of objective-subjective status discrepancy scores, obtained by subtracting personality status from objective status T-scores, to a number of other variables was also investigated.

Social scientists are displaying increasing interest in social stratification. Since the concept is very broad, much progress cannot be made in analyzing it unless the different factors upon which it is based are singled out and their interrelations then noted. Although this has been theoretically recognized,further studies in specific areas of stratification are needed to refine stratification theory. This paper describes the status or prestige structure of a planned community and proposes an empirical method of finding the factors upon which status is built. These have been purported objects of several studies. Most of them focus, however, on small, old, stable, and integrated localities or groups. Also, they confuse general stratification with other types of stratification, or they concentrate on general "social" stratification without regarding the elements that make it up. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that many similarities are found not only in the outlines of status structures but also in the factors underlying them, such as wealth, ancestry, length of residence, occupation, ethnic factors, style of living, and so forth.

The peasant family in Mexico often has been characterized as "patriarchal." The roles of members are strictly defined by the pervasive folk culture. The concepts of acceptable family behavior are at first retained when Mexican migrants settle in Detroit, Michigan. There, however, like those of other immigrants, these concepts and the behavior correlative to them undergo transformation. It is the contention of this paper that the changes in the structure of the family, under the impact of a new social and cultural environment, constitute a highly sensitized index of the process of acculturation. The decline in status of the father, due to his failure to provide adequately for the family, was so gradual, both in the eyes of the wife and the children, that a lessening of respect was not accompanied by overt family conflict. The extent to which the father has continued to command respect is largely determined by the degree of assimilation of the non-patriarchal American culture by the wife and children. A second facet of the father's role which has undergone change in Detroit is that concerned with the exercise of moral protection over the wife and female children. The protection of girls is a function the father shares with his wife, but he alone must see that no conceivable advances are made toward his mate. No man can talk to another's wife in what passes for a suspicious manner without invoking wrath on the part of her husband.

Researcher Francesca Cancian's paper on "Functional Analysis of Change," published in the December 1960 issue of the periodical "American Sociological Review," proposes that "functional analysis" be identified with a certain logical structure or judgment of causal argument. The logical structure is that some "state G" can be maintained by either of two causal variables, and that when it is not maintained by one variable then it tends to be maintained by another. The article questions this logic of judgment as an exercise in social theory. To elaborate this argument, it compares substantive sociological results of this logical exercise with results of a work which gets rather short shrift in the paper, that of sociologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. Radcliffe-Brown's theory of "G states" is more powerful and based on real conditions under which lineage systems develop. The development of the discipline depends more on the development of such elegant, powerful, and economical theories, which explain a wide range of data, than on fitting these theories into various logical structures.

The International Sociological Association held its Third World Congress of Sociology in Amsterdam from August 22 to 29, 1956. There were 524 sociologists present from 54 countries, making this the largest international gathering of sociologists ever held. The general topic was "Problems of Social Change in the Twentieth Century." Special sessions were organized in the fields of economic organization, social stratification, the family, and education. In addition, there were meetings on sociological theory and research, and the teaching of sociology. The papers presented were published in seven volumes in advance of the Congress so that no papers were read, the time being given to discussion. A final supplementary volume containing summaries of the discussions has just been published. UNESCO, the Netherlands government, the city of Amsterdam, and the Ford Foundation all contributed to the success of the Congress by their generosity. The opening session was addressed by representatives of the Netherlands government and the city of Amsterdam and by the Director-General of UNESCO, Luther Evans.

Social change often takes the form of many small units, like persons or families, changing from "old-style" to "new-style" behavior, creating a behavioral trend. The rate of change is very important for the further effects. If middle-aged and old people are less likely to change, we get differences between birth cohorts at any given time and, for the population as a whole, delayed response to new conditions. Studies of rigidity and age generally support a fixation model of cohort behavior, and so do data on mobility and age. A tentative model of cohort effects is developed on this basis and the corresponding lag function shown; it implies a pattern of smooth oscillations in the behavioral time series with an average "period" of 25 years or more. The result has nothing to do with the distance between generations as customarily understood, i.e., from birth to marriage and child-bearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apologetic attitude of sociologists on the subject of social change is unwarranted. Both empirical generalizations and theoretical derivations are available. For theoretical derivation, however, various modifications are necessary in the usual models of society employed by functionalists. Such modifications permit the identification of the sources of change in all societies. Various non-social causes and social determinisms have been rejected but other dynamic factors remain. These include both flexibilities and strains inherent in the structure of societies. it is suggested that a "pure" theory of social change, independent of substantive identification of the patterns undergoing transformation, would be uninteresting. Rather, social change can be integrated with standard theory around the very structural topics already in use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrepancies between currently experienced and desired distributions of power in society indicate a preference to alter or accept a change in social arrangements. Such dispositions, even, when consciously and intensely experienced, are not necessarily incipient pressures for social change. This article reports a study of one possible determinant of preference for change in the distribution of power in the society of the U.S., the degree of status consistency. There is some support for the hypothesis of an inverse relationship between the degree of status consistency and preference for change in the distribution of power. The relationship appears to be related directly to stratum position. Two lines of interpretation of this finding are suggested in the article. One stresses the possibility that mobility or other modes of adjustment to status inconsistency may account for the variation in the relationship. The other suggests that the measurement of status consistency did not take into account the simultaneous salience of status characteristics.

Sociologists B. W. Aginsky and E. G. Aginsky established the Social Sciences Field Laboratory in 1939 under the auspices of New York University, New York City, New York. The Laboratory was located in a northern California community. The Laboratory has three general aims. The first is to make a long-term study of a culture from the points of view of all of the social sciences. This involves the historical reconstruction of the past and an historical study of the future, that is, a careful analysis of culture change and culture integration as these are taking place. It will include all aspects of the area under study from the standpoint of the various disciplines, such as sociology, social work, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, economics, law, medicine, political science, and history. The second aim is to provide supervised training in fieldwork and research at the predoctoral level, and facilities for professional social scientists. Third, the Laboratory aims to test established techniques, methods, theories, and conclusions, with the possibility of refining and developing them, and arriving at new ones.

This article comments on the article "The Scientific Legitimation of Fallacy: Neutrilizing Social Change Theory," by Robert H. Lauer, published in October 1971 issue of the journal "American Social Review." The author says that Lauer's is distinctive only in that he levies the charge not merely at functionalism but even more broadly at much sociological thought. Labeling the assumptions of nonchange theory as fallacies, Lauer calls for a different set of theoretical premises--that change is normal; that change carries with it no intrinsic trauma; that diverse patterns of change and a range of future alternatives are open to any society; and that whether one assumes change or persistence as the basic reality has both theoretical and practical consequences of import. The author says that obsolescence must be built into roles and institutions as well as into products if commercial forces are to hold sway as they do at present. Thus, the actor in this society must be immunized against future shock; he must be socialized into the beliefs that change is normal and not traumatic and that the future holds open a range of alternatives for more satisfying conditions than those he now enjoys.

The article presents a reply of the author to the critique of his article on social change, by researcher Arthur L. Stinchcombe, published in the December 1961 issue of the periodical "American Sociological Review." The author agrees with Stinchcombe that the development of sociological research depends on the development of elegant, powerful, and economical theories, which explain a wide range of data. Many types of work are essential to constructing a valid theory; specification of fruitful theoretical assumptions, logical relations among them, and the manner of making deductions from them; identification of classes of empirical data which fit respective theoretical concepts; collection and analysis of data; and development of research techniques. However, the author argues that much confusion over the functional analysis of social change can be overruled by examining logical implications of a precise, formal definition of functional analysis. Logical relations involved in any theory must be carefully examined, specially in a theory that deals with complex relationships concerned with functionalism.

The article presents the authors comment on sociologist Wilbert E. Moore's revisitation of the functional theory of social differentiation. According to the author some of Moore's statements perpetuate the competitive fallacy of the original Davis-Moore theory. This theory is supposed to apply to certain features found in most, if not all societies, but in doing so it appeals to concepts appropriate to the atypical case: the competitive-achievement syndrome of contemporary industrialized societies. Moore points out, this theory rests essentially on two propositions: the unequal functional importance of positions" in any society, and the unequal supply of talents for filling in any society. Moore leans heavily on the proposition that social differentiation which is a universal and necessary fact of social existence. But he also notes that this proposition entails no inference whatsoever concerning social classes, strain, conflict, and change. Moore is subscribing to the popular theory of the myth of social classes.

The article presents comment of the author on an article titled "The Social Effects of Aviation," by sociologist Wilham F. Ogburn's, published in the June 1948 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review." The author states that Ogburn's believes that best predictions in social trends can be achieved by breaking down a problem into its constituent elements, then making quantitative studies of trends within these constituent elements and finally attempting the soundest combination of these trends for predictive purposes. This same general method is usual in attempting to predict future population figures, by studying trends of birthrates, death rates and migration rates and by calculating what population totals will result from the combination of the most likely values for each of these constituent factors. In contrast with this approach, the present author has been exploring leads provided by such sociologists as Raymond Pearl, Simon Kuznets, Alice Davis and Stuart Chaplin. All of them have pointed out the fact that social change has shown marked tendencies to conform to two types of mathematical trends namely, logistic surges and continuously accelerating curves.

This article presents a report of the Committee on Nomination to the Society. It coverers the election of officers for the Society for 1948 and other matters for which the Committee was given responsibility. As a preliminary to selecting the nominees for the official ballot, the Committee conducted a poll of a ten per cent random sample of members. This sample was selected from a membership list arranged alphabetically by states and alphabetically by cities within each state. Envelopes addressed to members of the sample were supplied by the Secretary of the Society to the Chairman of the Committee on Nominations.

Some seventy to eighty delegates from colleges, universities, institutes, and schools of social work throughout India, as well as several foreign observers, assembled on February 6-8, 1958 for the Third Indian Sociological Conference at Agra University's Institute of Social Sciences. Although the third of its kind since 1955, it was the first conference to be held in the newly-born institute, impressive both for its architecture and atmosphere of scholarship. In the opening session, the spotlight was focussed upon the sociologist of India, exposing the gravity of his responsibilities against a backdrop of rapid social change. His role was delineated as a composite of "social critic" and "social engineer," dedicated to the development of "precise and scientific procedures that will yield stable empirical results." This orientation, linked to pride in the fact that sociological thinking has its roots in ancient India, combines a realistic insight into the immediate with a sensitivity for historical continuity, that should distinguish future sociology in India.

The article focuses on some problems in social structural role analysis. Role analysis is said to obscure and neglect the importance of individuality. Role conformity and stability have been over-emphasized and, conversely, that deviation, malintegration and social change have been minimized or neglected. Psychological variables role analysis more actively, as additional independent variables, increases the explanatory power of the model to account for observed social behavior. Many sociologists have recognized that role strain may be a source of social change. However, the overriding interest of writers on role conflict has been in mechanisms that hold conflict in check. There is no escaping the familiar lament that the problem of social change has been neglected. This article singled out two issues of contemporary polemics, which, having originated in the general field of sociology. Stated in the form of criticisms of existing orientations, the first referred to the alleged neglect of individuality in role analysis and, the second, to a similar neglect of malintegration and social change.

Modernization literature uses the criteria of ascription and achievement to distinguish pre- and post-industrial stratification systems. Analysts usually consider the development of systems of mass education and changes in the division of labor as the chief structural sources of such changes. However, sequences of such change do not necessarily recapitulate these contrasts. If the study of sequences is placed in the forefront of social change research, the life cycle point appropriate for the distinction between ascription and achievement becomes problematic. Moreover, the emphasis on temporal order derived from the stress on sequence suggests that situationally anchored cohort studies of intra-generation mobility are better for studying certain aspects of these processes than inter-generational mobility studies. A series of propositions are advanced contrasting socio-historical and biological explanations for changing mobility streams associated with education. The propositions are then applied to the experiences of three cohorts in Puerto Rican development. We conclude by noting the following. (1) Certain education related changes increase ascriptive characteristics by transferring sonic work promotion criteria out of the workplace into the classroom. (2) Like all dichotomies, the contrast between ascription and achievement is much too simple. It does not incorporate the multiple sequences of change, nor consider their direction problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of an industrial city on rural migrant family structure and the socialization of boys is analyzed in an observational study of family interaction in 167 lower class Brazilian families. Four groups of families were selected to represent points on a rural-urban continuum, ranging from peasants on plantations, to recent rural migrants to the city, to rural migrants who have established, a place for themselves in the city, and, finally, native urban dwellers. The study employs a theoretical which stress the ways in which experiences in the city change the personality and behavior of rural migrants, increasing their feelings of efficacy and altering perceptions and taints. Observation of family interaction revealed that with a longer period of residence in the city, migrant families become more egalitarian, family relations become more open and responsive, and parents place greater emphasis on achievement and independence for their sons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AU sociological work has underlying assumptions, which are more or less explicit. Developments in the theory of social change have been hampered by assumptions which are fallacious in the sense that they have been treated as matters of scientific fact, as a priori bases upon which the researcher interprets his data and the theorist constructs his framework Four such fallacies are identified-the fallacy of deviance, the fallacy of trauma, the fallacy of unidirectionality and utopia apprehended, and the fallacy of semantic illusion-and their consequences for the understanding of social change are briefly noted. It is concluded that a converse set of assumptions will prove fruitful for both empirical and theoretical work in the area of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social theory embraced early in its history primitive evolutionism, and the indiscriminate application of this theory in social Darwinism has brought this analogy to biological models into disrepute. Modern biological theory does not assume the ruthless unidirectional change which the primitive interpretation of, Darwinism postulated, but investigates mechanisms through which changes in the adaptive system occur. In addition, other mechanisms have been identified which show the possibility of adaptation for varying ranges. From short to long, they are: perception, learning, immunity, maturation, heredity, and evolution. By identifying the essential properties of each process, types of mechanisms can be proposed which relate to different problems of change within any system, including the social system. Those indicating the ways in which mechanisms of this kind could work in social systems can help in locating and understanding these processes in social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "dialectic" is troublesome for sociologists, as for others. A dialectical bent has been discernible in significant sociological work for two centuries. What is meant by such a bent is indicated in an array of seven meaning-clusters. These have to do with (1) unanticipated consequences; (2) goal shifts; (3) adaptations that, once made, inhibit more effective ones; (4) development through conflict; (5) phenomena of the type of contradiction, paradox, negation; (6) the "contradictory logic of passion" in particular; (7) dissolution of conflict in coalescense of opposites. These clusters suggest uses of dialectic in analyzing social change, illuminating certain distinctive statements and sharpening the sense of scientific notions that sociologists have found helpful in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correlates of political complexity in a geographically representative sample of 38 pre-industrial societies are analyzed. The results show that the degree of political complexity is more strongly related to degree of social differentiation than to size and concentration of population. The relationships are stronger for 28 societies not facing a great threat of external attack. Neither pervasiveness of the kinship organization nor degree of socio-economic development is found to be independently related to political complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of social change as reviewed in the literature has either emphasized an evolutionary mode of analysis or a structural-functional mode of analysis. Using a Guttman scaling technique applied to fifty contemporary societies, the utility of combining these two major orientations is demonstrated. Empirical confirmation for Talcott Parsons' recent essay, "Evolutionary Universals in Societies", is resented. However, some modifications in Parsons' conceptualization are suggested when it is viewed from a more particular level. Several possible extensions for future investigations are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society persists despite the mortality of its individual members, through Processes of demographic metabolism and particularly the annual infusion of birth cohorts. These may pose a threat to stability but they also provide the opportunity for societal transformation. Each birth cohort acquires coherence and continuity from the distinctive development of its constituents and from its own persistent macroanalyic feaures. Successive cohorts are differentiated by the changing content of formal education, by peer-group socialization, and by idiosyncratic historical experience. Young adults are prominent in war, revolution, immigration, urbanization and technological change. Since cohorts are used to achieve structural transformation and since they manifest its consequences in characteristic ways, it is proposed that research be designed to capitalize on the congruence of social change and cohort identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-as an explanatory factor, a causal link between other variables, a quantitative measure of them, and a qualitative measure of their interplay---is central to models of social change. Its use by 11 theorists suggests how time may relate to current research into the what, how, when, and why of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]