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The article presents a reply to the comments made by sociologists Pat Lauderdale and Gerald Larson on their paper discussing the Marxian conflict and the sociology of law. The authors express their discontent on the comments and clarify that their paper primarily reviewed the conflict-consensus debate and the Marxian perspective on crime and law that has emerged. Lauderdale and Larson are concerned with the conclusion that the version of the Marxian perspective examined in the paper is (1) prone to logical errors, (2) largely unconfirmed, (3) often unconformable and (4) possibly quite frequently false. They argue that the charge that the perspective is unconformable raises the thorny issue of what are considered testable hypotheses within the perspective. It is opined that rather than presenting evidence on this issue, Lauderdale and Larson simply ignore it. Further, in their comments on the paper, Lauderdale and Larson are concerned that the paper has confused the external and internal validity of sociologist Anthony Platt's findings. However, it is Platt, if anyone, who confuses the issue of internal and external validity.

The most comprehensive review of modern Polish sociology written in English is probably Eileen Markley Znaniecki's paper, published in Twentieth Century Sociology. The present note adds to the meager knowledge of Polish sociology by summarizing and discussing briefly the 1957 and 1958 volumes of the Polish Sociological Review. On the whole, the 1957 volume is historical and discursive rather than sociological. The discussion articles mostly interpret ideas of other authors, quoting them frequently. Three of the ten articles are concerned with problems of education. The 1958 volume, containing nine papers plus reviews and news, is predominantly sociological, although several articles may be regarded as more historical than sociological. These papers give little information about the methodology used, and in none is there any indication that statistical analysis was employed. Finally, this paper also describes the careers of students who attended special preparatory courses and later pursued technical college curricula.

The article comments on a paper exploring the notion that nighttime social life in urban areas resembles social life on former land frontiers, published in one of the previous issues of the journal. The paper was authored by sociologist Murray Melvin. The author of the article objects the use of historical materials and evidences to test the hypothesis that nighttime urban social organization parallels frontier social organization. It is opined that Melvin exhibits a cavalier expediency with regard to historical data which both weakens a potentially useful argument as well as nullifies any test of relationships. Further, the importance of accurate archival data to Melbin's argument cannot be overlooked. This archival evidence as presented, is no more than introductory sociology term paper tactics. The use of historical materials cannot be taken lightly. The utility of this approach is to observe concepts and variables in a context of closure and control. While there is inevitable error in these sources, the strength of the context which provides closure, control, and no recurrent input gives yet another framework with which to understand the dynamics of society.

Some of the most persistently observed relationships within social science are those between certain social (or demographic) factors and the occurrence and outcome of psychological disorder. While it is widely assumed that there is an important theoretical message to be found in these linkages, a serious debate has developed concerning the nature of this message. This paper brings data to bear upon the question of the meaning of the well-known relationships of marital status, social class position, and work performance to psychiatric outcome as measured by time spent in hospital. The results suggest that these relationships are secondary associations deriving largely from social selection processes. More specifically, our findings indicate that marital status, social class, and probably work performance, appear to matter for outcome largely because, varying statuses on these factors reflect important differences in social competence. Some of the implications of these results with respect to competing explanatory perspectives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets forth a framework for analyzing the role of organization-environment relations in defining the classification-disposition functions of people-processing organizations. People processing organizations are defined as attempting to achieve changes in their clients not by altering basic personal attributes, but by conferring on them a public status and relocating them in a new set of social circumstances. The paper's basic proposition is that people-processing organizations employ classification-disposition systems that reflect, in part, organizational adaptations to the constraints of their exchange relations with various market units receiving the processed clients. Using a power-dependence paradigm, variables which increase or decrease the organization's dependence on its market units are identified. The consequences of these exchange relations on the organization's classification-disposition system are then explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents news updates from the field of sociology. Raymond E. Bassett, professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, died on December 5, 1956. Charles Spurgeon Johnson was born in Bristol, Virginia, on July 24, 1893 and died in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 27, 1956. After receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1918, he pursued graduate studies in sociology under Robert E. Park, Albion W. Small, W.I. Thomas, and later Ellsworth Fans. M.W. Hodges, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in Great Britain, has been appointed for two years to Great Britain's Scientific Mission in Washington for liaison duties in the field of industrial management and social science research. The Fourth Interamerican Congress of Psychology by the Interarnerican Society of Psychology was held at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, from December 26-30, 1956. Luigi Sturzo Institute is holding a contest and offering a prize for a paper on sociology which the judges consider an effective contribution to this field of study both from the point of view of serious research and maturity of thought.

The term "formalization," as used in this paper, means the observance of a conventional set of rules in order to make explicit the logic of scientific proof. If a science is presented in this way, it is said to be "formalized," otherwise it is "unformalized." The advantage of formalization is that it makes it easier to judge the quality of proofs offered. An incident from the life of political thinker Thomas Hobbes illustrates this. One day in a gentleman's library the philosopher noticed a copy of Euclid's Elements lying open at a certain theorem. Reading it, he exclaimed with an oath, "This is impossible!" but his curiosity led him to read the proof which referred him back to other propositions and these, to others again. He continued until he saw clearly the whole logical ground for the proposition that had originally attracted his attention and he had to admit that the demonstration was sound. The incident had a profound effect on the thought of Hobbes. For present purposes the point of the story is that formalized demonstrations can convince even a skeptical reader because their logical ground is displayed systematically and explicitly.

This article presents a report of the Committee on Training and Professional Standards. Two years ago the Committee on Training and Professional Standards was created. The purpose of this Committee, as specified by the 1950 Reorganization Committee of the American Sociological Society, is to "continuously investigate and consider the question of standards for the profession as a whole." Furthermore, "the Committee should begin by studying current standards of professional training and research, with a view to the later development of recommended minimal standards." The Committee recommends that its successor devote the coming year in formulating a prospectus and in developing a specific research design for a Survey of Training and Professional Standards in Sociology with a view to seeking financial support from some outside source in the near future for conducting such a survey. The Committee feels that the time is ripe to ascertain in a thorough and objective manner what kind of training professional sociologists receive, and on the basis of a careful evaluation of the facts, formulate a program for improvement. A survey such as has been pro- posed may be regarded as a comprehensive fact- finding phase of planning for the progressive development of the profession of sociology.

This article presents a report of the Representative to the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The American Sociological Association cooperated in the 129th annual meeting of A.A.A.S. through the participation of its members in the general sessions, the programs of the various sections, the invited sessions, and the contributed papers sessions. An Interdisciplinary Symposium in the Social Sciences, sponsored by Sections. Of the many committee activities of A.A.A.S. on which council members receive reports, the one which touched on problems most directly of interest to sociologists was a one-day conference sponsored by the Board of Directors in which ten past presidents participated. The topic under consideration was the directions in which the activities of A.A.A.S. might most usefully be extended. It was agreed that considerably more attention should be given to the way science is taught in high schools and colleges, the problems of training students from less well-developed countries, the flow of talent through the educational system, the public understanding of science, international exchange of scientists and scientific information, the proper use of grants from Federal agencies, relationships between universities and Federal agencies, and the role of scientific academies.

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.

We make only one point in this article. Every quantitative study must be able to answer the question: what is your estimand? The estimand is the target quantity—the purpose of the statistical analysis. Much attention is already placed on how to do estimation; a similar degree of care should be given to defining the thing we are estimating. We advocate that authors state the central quantity of each analysis—the theoretical estimand—in precise terms that exist outside of any statistical model. In our framework, researchers do three things: (1) set a theoretical estimand, clearly connecting this quantity to theory; (2) link to an empirical estimand, which is informative about the theoretical estimand under some identification assumptions; and (3) learn from data. Adding precise estimands to research practice expands the space of theoretical questions, clarifies how evidence can speak to those questions, and unlocks new tools for estimation. By grounding all three steps in a precise statement of the target quantity, our framework connects statistical evidence to theory. [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]

Social participation, despite its important conceptual position in sociology, has been measured inadequately in past research. Beginning with Chapin's social participation scale, this paper applies recent developments in confirmatory factor analysis in consideration of an appropriate measurement model for this concept. Using data from a sample of voluntary association members, the analysis indicates that Chapin's scale can be extended to include an additional dimension, that the con generic measurement model is the most appropriate description of the relationships of true score variance to underlying dimensions, and of true score and error variances, and that the existence of correlations among measurement errors in the indicators of participation does not seriously impact conclusions concerning the approriate measurement model of participation. [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]

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]

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 article comments on a paper discussing Marxian conflict and the sociology of law, published in one of the previous issues of the journal. It is opined that although the authors of the paper address an important issue, their analysis is misleading on both empirical and theoretical grounds. The first problem with the paper is that its test of sociologist Anthony Platt's "Marxist" account of the origin of delinquency legislation and its subsequent ramifications is essentially inappropriate. The paper argues that it is the Marxian perspective which led to the production of logical errors, notably those of argumentuin ad hominem and affirmation of the consequences. While their charge is lodged against the perspective, they fail to specify anything in the perspective which makes it prone to the production of these errors. Moreover, the conclusions that are drawn from the test of Platt's hypothesis is one-sided. Also, it is opined that the direct link that is drawn between conflict theory and the Marxist perspective is too simplified, as are many of the interpretations of Marxist concepts.

Papers by Cutright and Jackman test the hypothesis that democratization reduces inequality in national societies. Cutright finds a negative effect of democratization on inequality, while Jackman finds no effect. In this paper, we reanalyze and extend these analyses. We consider five issues and our findings are the following: (1) the two different indexes of democratization used are not the likely cause of the discrepant findings; (2) the different samples are not the likely cause; (3) the probable cause of the different results seems to be in the data used or coding procedures that Cutright and Jackman employed in constructing their measure of sectoral income inequality; (4) substituting personal income for sectoral income in the analysis, we find that both the Cutright and Jackman indexes have negative effects on inequality; (5) we test the alternative specification which hypothesizes that inequality has a negative effect on democratization, and then test these two different hypotheses. This analysis supports the hypothesis that inequality has a negative effect on democratization, but there is less empirical support for the original hypothesis that democratization negatively affects inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents author's comments on the research paper "Casual Chain Models for the Socioeconomic Career," by Jonathan Kelly. The author argues that Kelley has not specified correctly the model of the process. Also, errors in measurement are mis-specified, and insufficient justification is offered for the appropriateness of the estimates of error. He suggests that with so many over-identifying restrictions in the dual-chain model, it would have been prudent for Kelley to estimate errors and their correlation from the model itself before deciding to accept the credibility of his mis-specified formulation. He further states that elements of Kelley's theory are not grounded in substance. Post-factum explanations for the presence of certain time-one and time-two lagged effects can be offered for the Princeton Fertility Study data. Finally, he comments that taken together these observations imply that Kelley's work is suggestive but not definitive.

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.

The aim of this paper is to examine critically the scheme of sociological analysis which seeks to reduce human group life to variables and their relations. The paper shall refer to this scheme, henceforth, as "variable analysis." This scheme is widespread and is growing in acceptance. It seems to be becoming the norm of proper sociological analysis. Its sophisticated forms are becoming the model of correct research procedure. Because of the influence which it is exercising in our discipline, it is desirable to note the more serious of its shortcomings in actual use and to consider certain limits to its effective application. The first part of the paper will deal with the current shortcomings and the second part with the more serious question of the limits to its adequacy. The study of human group life calls for a wide range of variables. However, there is a conspicuous absence of rules, guides, limitations and prohibitions to govern the choice of variables. Relevant rules are not provided even in the thoughtful regulations that accompany sophisticated schemes of variable analysis.

This article presents developments in the fields related to psychology and sociology. The annual meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society will be held in Madison on April 15-17, 1954, at the Loraine Hotel. The sectional program will be built around contributed papers. The sections which are tentatively scheduled are the following: Social Disorganization and Crime; Social Psychology; Research Methodology; Marriage and the Family; The Community; Social Structure; The Teaching of Sociology; Population and Human Ecology; and Race and Ethnic Relations. Robert Cuba Jones, from the United Nations, has gone to Mexico to engage in the private practice of technical assistance in the economic and social field. The American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama announces an award to be granted in the year 1953-1954 for the best paper dealing with research, theory, or experience, in or pertinent to Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. Announcement has been made of the election of Meyer F. Nimkoff as Editor, and of James H.S. Bossard as Chairman of the Editorial Board of Marriage and Family Living, official journal of the National Council on Family Relations.

It is the first objective of this paper to examine critically solutions to two major problems of design in social science experiments. Of these, the first problem is to find a method of obtaining experimental and control groups which are alike in all relevant aspects and each of which is truly representative of the common parental population. The second problem is to preserve this initial alikeness and representativeness during the period of time of the experiment. After examining current solutions to these two problems, an experimental design will be suggested which should tend to minimize apparent shortcomings of its predecessors. For purposes of simplicity and clarity this paper is focused on projected experiments only. The function of an experimental design is to provide a structure and pattern of procedure within whose outline may be tested the correctness of a hypothesis of causal relationship between two factors. The hypothesis of relationship about which the experiment is built generally predicts that a given causal factor will result in a given reaction.

In the present paper the assessment of the current level of research in the sociology of education is undertaken through a systematic analysis of a sample of published research papers. Three journals were judged to represent the largest number and the most rigorously reported of researches in the sociology of education during the period 1940-1950. The field of sociology of education itself has only one journal, the "Journal of Educational Sociology". Full evaluation of the production in any science demands some sort of assessment of the people making the contributions. Is the field of research in the sociology of education dominated by a few or are the contributions widely dispersed? What are the professional qualifications of the researchers? Another data concerning the authors which is available in the journals and in the direction of the professional organizations is the place of employment. The vast majority of authors were found to be associated with colleges and universities. The rest were distributed among public schools and state agencies.

The books, papers, studies, and investigations currently nearing completion in the field of sociological theory exhibit an impressive range. The heterogeneity of these studies introduces special difficulties into their classification. In spite of certain deficiencies in taxonomic rigor, it is presented in the following categories general sociological theory, the history of sociology, historical sociology, methodology, the sociology of knowledge, political sociology, value studies and social control. Author Howard Becker is currently drawing out the theoretical implications of several substantive studies and building on the foundations laid in his book "Through Values to Social Interpretation." The first of these studies, a long-term project, will be called Mind on the Looms of Greece. This work will have solid relevance not only to general sociological theory but also to the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, and the sociological analysis of historical change. Sociologist Read Bain has developed a theory of communication as the basic factor in society and is considering the manner in which it affects the definition of both sociological and social problems. The five topics which will appear most prominently in his book are reading and writing, art and science, mind and body, race and class, and war and peace.

Previous paper reported a study of questionnaire versus interview methods in a study of human love relationships. This article is concerned with the study of the same methods when categorized questions were employed. Subjects in this investigation were those used in the previous study— sixty-nine college girls who first appeared for a face-to-face interview on their love family relationships and who responded to an anonymous questionnaire, which included some of the same questions that were contained in the interview. Six questions requiring uncategorized responses were included on both the interview and questionnaire presentations. The article concludes that for the purpose of studying love and family relationships of college subjects, the questionnaire method of gathering data seems to be as satisfactory as the interview method and may indeed produce more sell-revelatory information than the interview method. At the same time, the similarity of the data obtained by interview and questionnaire techniques is as conspicuous and important as the obtained differences.

Drawing on interviews with peer-review panelists from five multidisciplinary fellowship competitions, this paper analyzes one of the main criteria used to evaluate scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences: originality. Whereas the literature in the sociology of science focuses on the natural sciences and defines originality as the production of new findings and new theories, we show that in the context of fellowship competitions, peer reviewers in the social sciences and humanities define originality much more broadly: as using a new approach, theory, method, or data; studying a new topic; doing research in an understudied area; or producing new findings. Whereas the literature has not considered disciplinary variation in the definition of originality, we identified significant differences. Humanists and historians clearly privilege originality in approach, and humanists also emphasize originality in the data used. Social scientists most often mention originality in method, but they also appreciate a more diverse range of types of originality. Whereas the literature tends to equate originality with substantive innovation and to consider the personal attributes of the researcher as irrelevant to the evaluation process, we show that panelists often view the originality of a proposal as an indication of the researcher's moral character especially of his/her authenticity and integrity. These contributions constitute a new approach to the study of peer review and originality that focuses on the meaning of criteria of evaluation and their distribution across clusters of disciplines. [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]

Rising inequalities in rich countries have led to concerns that the economic ladder is getting harder to climb. Yet, research on trends in intergenerational income mobility finds conflicting results. To better understand this variation, we adopt a multiverse approach that estimates trends over 82,944 different definitions of income mobility, varying how and for whom income is measured. Our analysis draws on comprehensive register data for Swedish cohorts born 1958 to 1977 and their parents. We find that income mobility has declined, but for reasons neglected by previous research: improved gender equality in the labor market raises intergenerational persistence in women's earnings and the household incomes of both men and women. Dominant theories that focus on childhood investments have blinded researchers to this development. Methodologically, we show how multiverse analysis can be used with abduction—inference to the best explanation—to improve theory-building in social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a reply by the author to his critics Karl L. Alexander, Thomas W. Reilly and James Fennessey on his article related to "instrumental variables analysis." According to the author, it is clearly stated in his article that strong theory and proper model specification are essential in quantitative research. The necessity of good theory does not mean that all other considerations are trivial or irrelevant, and it is not improper to write about other considerations. Theoretical problems of specification and identification in nonrecursive models are widely discussed in texts and research reports and are well-kown to practitioners. Although the critics strongly emphasize the theoretical aspects of nonrecursive models, it is clear that they do not entirely disregard the statistical aspects. If theory is strong, then each model in a sensitivity analysis must be misspecified and the results are misleading. In the author's paper, sensitivity tests were justified on the grounds that the underlying theory, although adequately discussed, is not terribly strong.

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]

The idea that certain types of corporate crime are caused by a squeeze on firm profits is a common theme in the current criminological literature. This.. paper, drawn from a study of 52 "survivor" firms over 55 years of economic and criminal activity, extends this literature in several ways. First, the sources of firm profit-squeeze are expanded beyond the traditional categories of firm and industry to include macro economic influences. Second, a longitudinal design allows the estimation of changes in the extent and nature of corporate crime as a function of economic and structural changes over time. Third, the typically broad corporate crime typologies which are used to categorize illegal activities are eschewed in favor of greater conceptual and empirical refinement. Antitrust crime is decomposed into specific crime types and predicted by a multilevel economic model of profit-squeeze. The findings suggest that only certain forms of antitrust criminality are related to profit-squeeze; others occur within a munificent environment while some are unrelated to economic conditions. The implications of these findings are discussed as well as directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of social indicators is valuable for understanding the role that the social sciences play in the political arena. One common pattern is for a particular social indicator to become frozen in place once it takes on political significance, and this can result in ironic consequences. This study traces out the case of indicators of aggregate productivity trends in the United States. These measures were initially developed as part of an underconsumptionist argument that was linked to the political left, but there was considerable debate over different measurement schemes. Over time, one particular measure of trends in aggregate productivity became central for wage negotiations and for government policy. This created a context in which the slower rates of growth of this measure of productivity in the 1970s helped to validate the views of those on the political right who saw the need for greater restrictions on wage gains and government civilian spending. The paper raises questions about the value of this particular measure and ends by emphasizing the problems of locking in place an "objective" social indicator when the reality being measured is in continua! flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interfaces between pragmatism and interactionist sociology. Four tenets central to social interactionism have been selected for this study: the philosophical perspective on reality as being in the state of flux, the sociological view of social structure as emergent process, the methodological preference for participatory modes of research, and the ideological commitment to ongoing social reconstruction as a goal of sociological practice. It is argued that from the start interactionist sociologists were concerned with the problem of social order and sought new ways of conceptualizing social structure. Special emphasis is placed on the interactionists' predilection for a logic of inquiry sensitive to the objective indeterminacy of the situation. An argument is made that the failure of interactionist sociologists to address head-on the issues of power and inequality reflects not so much their uncritical reliance on pragmatism as their failure to follow consistently pragmatist tenets and to fulfill the political commitments of pragmatist philosophers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relation of parents' status to their children's home ownership. Home ownership by parents increases the probability of a child's home ownership. Parents' income is positively associated with the value of children's homes among owners, though it has no effect on probability of ownership. The effect of parents' income on home value is mediated by the level of gifts among black households and by parents' home value among whites. It is argued that gifts may measure direct aid and parental home value may measure a young person's expectations concerning appropriate housing standards. Data are from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of adult development is in need of theoretical reformulation. It is suggested that the paradigm of scientific inquiry that underlies the dominant mode of studying adult development, the ontogenetic model, is not an appropriate foundation for its subject matter because it tends to treat the individual as a self-contained entity and fails to recognize the profoundly interactive nature of self-society relations and the complexity and variability of social environments. Major lines of developmental theory that employ the ontogenetic model are critiqued, and it is argued that sociological applications of developmental work that do not recognize the inherent limitations risk an "ontogenetic fallacy." Drawing on findings and insights from various strands of social research, some essential elements of a "sociogenic paradigm" are identified. The paper ends with a brief illustration of how a sociogenic perspective can lead to a reinterpretation of findings that have been interpreted developmentally by sociologists interested in change in adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the works of Emile Durkheim, a number of scholars have claimed that, for a given society over time and in the absence of major societal upheavals, the proportion of people subjected to punishment by the state closely approximates a constant. In this paper, we address the "Stability of Punishment Hypothesis" with data from California for the period from the opening of the prison system in 1851 to 1970. The Stability of Punishment Hypothesis is formulated through recent modeling developments in macroeconomics, with which the presence of equilibrating tendencies can be explicitly represented, and for the first time direct tests are undertaken. No evidence for the hypothesis is found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the theoretical validity of the confluence model in explaining the effects of sibship size and birth order on intelligence. Using a nationally representative sample the effects of age, sex, marital disruption, socioeconomic status, race, and other potentially confounding variables, unincorporated in other studies, are controlled. The results suggest that (a) the inverse relation between sibship size and IQ lessens for the economically advantaged, (b) the only child breaks the otherwise consistent linear decline between sibship size and IQ in the below-poverty condition only, (c) the nonteacher handicap for only children is questionable, and (d) close spacing, as Zajonc defines it, may have detrimental consequences for children irrespective of birth order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern behaviorism has made significant progress in analyzing private behavior: cognition and emotion. The behavioral distinction between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior establishes a starting point for analyzing tacit (subjective, private) knowledge and explicit (objective, public) knowledge. The present paper extends this analysis to include the issues of verstehen and erklären. One subset of tacit knowledge is verstehen. Behavioral analysis (1) describes the special qualities of this type of tacit knowledge and (2) delineates the circumstances under which verstehen will occur and produce valid understanding. Modern behaviorism makes it possible to carry out a scientific analysis of the socialization experiences through which people learn to attach meaning to their thoughts, actions and emotions. Thus, modern behaviorism can generate an erklärte understanding of the topic usually reserved for verstehen. Neither tacit nor explicit knowledge can replace the other, nor can verstehen and erklären. Both are needed and natural components of human behavior. Since both are frequently intermeshed, rarely does one encounter a pure form of either. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key problem in sociology, as in economics, is explaining why some workers earn more money than others. Sociological models of earnings have stressed the role ofa worker's occupation and have tended to ignore the conditions of the labor market in which he finds work. Economic models have stressed labor market functioning at the expense of considering the role of a worker's occupation in determining his wages. In this paper, I attempt to combine sociological models of earnings with (a) economic models of earnings and (b) concepts and findings from the sociology of occupations and professions. I argue theoretically and empirically that some similar conclusions about the processes governing Individual earnings attainment can be drawn by examining occupations in terms of labor markets and by analysis of labor markets from the standpoint of occupations. These conclusions are: (a) that labor markets tend to be fragmented along occupational lines, (b) that the processes governing wage attainment vary from one occupation to another and (c) that occupational differences in these processes can be predicted from and explained in terms of the forces which lead to occupational segmentation of labor markets. I discuss some useful implications of my analyses for the study of the relationship between worker age and worker earnings, and I perform some empirical and theoretical analyses of occupational differences in the age-wage relationship. Aim are drawn from the (IS. Censuses of 1960 and 1970 and from publications of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [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 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.

Complete sets of Social Science Abstracts for the four years from 1929 to 1932, inclusive, during which it was published, may be obtained from the Social Science Research Council upon payment of express and handling charges. These charges, to be paid at the time the request is made, amount to $ 1.00 anywhere in the United States except California, Oregon and Washington, where the amount will be $1.50. For Canada, the charge will be $3.00, and for other foreign countries, $4.00.

This paper is critical of some uses made of the "ideal type" and of the fruitless efforts to grasp the significance of this basic tool of science through the work of Max Wetter. Weber, a genius in many respects, did not have a scientifically mature grasp of the class of logical devices to which the ideal type belongs, namely, idealizations, which in the older sciences represent an inevitable, almost commonplace, research strategy. idealization; we suggest, may conveniently be thought of as falling along a continuum between the propaedeatic and the theoretical. Most of Weber's types and most others used in sociology either do violence to the basic strategy of idealizations or fall close to the propoedeutic extreme of the continuum. However, a few idealizations which remarkably approximate the purely theoretical ones found in physical science are available in the discipline, although they are not recognised as such. Several of these are herein singled out and briefly discussed. Sociology, we plead, must snake a special effort to recognize the theoretically fertile strategy of the idealization. A roper and deliberate use of this device helps avoid fruitless squabbles about extra-scientific aspects of theories and enhances our chance of getting down to the serious business of theory construction with a focused sense of purpose and a cumulative orientation. Finally, in order to avoid past difficulties, we suggest that the term "ideal type" be dropped altogether from our vocabulary in favor of its less troublesome relation, idealization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering a cross-classification table that describes an aspect of social mobility (the relation between origin status and destination status) for a population of individuals, this paper shows that the usual indices of mobility (or immobility), which are based upon a comparison of the observed frequencies in the mobility table with the corresponding expected frequencies estimated under the assumption of "perfect mobility," are defective in an important respect. A different index is introduced which is not defective in this respect. For those individuals whose origins are in a given status category, the new index measures the degree to which an individual's status of origin "persists" from his origin to his destination. This index can be used to compare the different status categories of origin with respect to their degree of status persistence, and it can also be used for other comparative purposes. Calculating this index of persistence for the data in the classical studies of inter generation social mobility in Britain and in Denmark, we find, for example, that (1) its magnitude is negative for those whose origins are in the middle (M) status category (i.e., there is, in a certain sense, an "exodus" from the middle status category); (2) its magnitude is positive for those whose origins are in the upper (U) or lower (L) status categories; (3) it is greater for those whose origins are in the U status category than for those whose origins are in the L status category; and (4) the magnitudes of the index for the different status categories of origin differ from each other in statistically significant ways. The index of persistence introduced here can serve to supplement and extend some of the methods developed in the author's earlier work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore the ramifications of charismatic sensitivity, i.e., the propensity to impute charismatic qualities to actions, persons, institutions and cultural objects. My analysis takes its point of departure in Max Weber's analysis of charismatic authority, in trying to analyze charismatic authority more systematically than Weber was able to do, I have concluded that he was dealing with one particular variant of the charismatic propensity, which has more far-reaching, more permeative manifestations than his analysis has hitherto led us to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the science of the forum and functions of human groups, sociology is predicated on the assumption that different social groups occupy different positions within the social structure. Social structure may be conceived as a form of n-dimensional space in which each group occupies a given position. The dimensions delineating such a structure, and the positions occupied by the various social groups within it, are definable only for a set of specified group attributes. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate multiple discriminant analysis, a technique that permits the sociologist to study empirically the configuration of social groups across multiple criteria in n-dimensional social space. The discriminant function was originally proposed by sociologist R.A. Fisher and was designed to aid in the classification of an individual observation into one of two groups. The two-group discriminant function served as an excellent substitute for multiple regression techniques when no clear criterion existed other than group membership by which to evaluate or classify a single observation.

The article presents news updates from the field of sociology. Fellowship Program in Business Administration, 1963-1964—Faculty or Doctoral dissertation, for social science research on business (sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, statistics). The American Society of Criminology will hold its annual meeting jointly with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 29 and 30, 1962. Among the participants in the five sessions on the theme, "Interdisciplinary Approach to the Problems of Crime and Delinquency," was Peter Lejins, president-elect of the American Correctional Association. A session organized by the American Sociological Association jointly with the Population Association of America by Charles F. Westoff for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was held on December 26-31, 1962, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Indonesian Association for Social Sciences has been established as a means of communication for scholars and interested laymen in the various branches of the social sciences.

The thesis of this paper is that sociologists have been in error when they speak of population study as lacking in theory. On the contrary, as an attempt to classify population theories reveals, population study is rich in theoretical formulations. These theories deal with three kinds of problems and phenomena: the impact of population on productivity and economic growth; the "population problem;" and demographic phenomena per se. The theories exhibit different degrees of comprehensiveness and are expressed at various levels of abstraction. It is suggested that the claim of some sociologists that demography lacks theory is a consequence of the particular definition of theory that has become fashionable in sociology, a definition that should be replaced by a pluralistic conception of theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on several books related to social science. The book "The World of Islam," by Xavier de Planhol focuses on the differences between Moslem communities deep within Africa, paradoxes of the structured yet disorderly Moslem cities, the contrary effects of law and custom on agriculture and landholding, the nature of the heretical groups that have taken refuge in mountains or desert. In "Monasteries and Culture Change in Inner Mongolia," Robert James Miller, an anthropologist trained in Far Eastern studies, outlines the functional interrelationship between the Lama religion and the cultural, economic, and political aspects of the social structure of Inner Mongolia in the 16th to 19th centuries. The Japanese family is about to undergo drastic changes if the attitudes of youths surveyed in the book "Youth Looks at Marriage and the Family: A Study of Changing Japanese Attitudes," by Ray E. Baber are any indication of how they will behave as adults.