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The article presents statistical attempts to separate age, period and cohort effects. The great bulk of the literature on cohort analysis is devoted to methods or attempts to separate statistically age, period and cohort effects. The effects are named for the kinds of influences which produce them; age effects are produced by influences associated with the aging process, period effects by influences associated with each period of time and cohort effects by influences associated with membership in each birth cohort. Regardless of how cohort data are examined, two kinds of effects are confounded with one another. Age and cohort effects are confounded in cross-sectional data by age, age and period effects in intra-cohort trend and, period and cohort effects in trend data for each age level. Space limitations preclude the author's dealing with all of the literature reporting statistical attempts or methods to unconfound these effects. The author's caution that their method has limitations, but the cautions are vaguely worded and the most important of them is buried near the middle of the article.

Ten Sections for the next annual meeting of the American Sociological Society have been approved by the Administrative Committee, and the Chairmen for these Sections have been selected. Each Chairman will be responsible for organizing two session meetings for his Section. The total responsibility for all sectional meetings is, according to the custom, in the hands of sectional chairmen. If for any reason any chairman desires to have only one session meeting for his Section, such an arrangement will be possible. It is now contemplated that there will be three general sessions and therefore three general programs during the meeting. The names of the Sections and the names and addresses of the Chairmen are as follows: Social Theory, Louis Wirth, University of Chicago, Chicago. Research Methods And Methodology, Gordon W, Blackwell, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Population, T. J. Woofter, Federal Security Agency, Washington D.C. Educational Sociology, H.C. Brearley, Peabody College, Nashville, Tennyson. The Family, C.C. Zimmerman, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Social Psychology, Clyde W. Hart, Mozart, Washington D.C.

This article focuses on reviews of the symposiums related to National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Some of the reports are: "The Politics of Protest: Violent Aspect of Protest and Confrontation," prepared by Jerome Skolnick; "Law and Order Reconsidered," prepared by James S. Campbell. Given the recently accelerated scholarly attention to social conflict and violence, a systematic codification of current knowledge of empirical patterns and of competing theoretical interpretations would itself be a contribution of very considerable magnitude. No social science discipline is unrepresented in the volumes under review; and there are contributions by representatives of all major psychological perspectives and of several biological sciences. Lawyers have played important roles in the work of the commission. The list of consultants an witnesses includes dozens of the nation's leading figures in government, in industry, in public service agencies, and in the academy. With such an eminent collection of experts and wise elder statesmen, it might seem reasonable to hope for an encyclopedia of violence which could stand as a monument to committed scholarship combined with intelligent public concern.

Viewing diversity as the position of a population along a homogeneity-heterogeneity continuum, a general method is presented for describing diversity within and between groups that are classified by one or more qualitative variables. This method has a wide range of applications, including such phenomena as attitudinal consensus, political cleavage, residential isolation, linguistic communication, cohesion, as well as the general diversity of populations. Diversity is operationally defined as the probability of obtaining unlike characteristics when two persons are randomly paired. Computation of the indexes of diversity within a population, Aw, and between two populations, Ab, is illustrated with data drawn from several substantive areas in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general symbol manipulating capacities of the modern digital computer offer a valuable tool for theory development and verification. Diverse applications of computer models in Social Science are discussed, along with a validation study involving HOMUNCULUS, a Computer model of social behavior. Hypotheses concerning decision making in a role-conflict dilemma Were stated operationally as computer routines compatible with HOMUNCULUS. In computer runs using input data from actual questionnaires, alternative formulations regarding role conflict resolution were tested. Since the data generated by each run represented the logical consequences of the hypotheses operating in that run, it was possible to assess the adequacy of each programmed formulation by comparing the simulated responses with the actual decisions of living respondents. Such flexibility and dynamic capacity are major benefits accruing from testing a social theory through computer simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weber's earliest involvement in empirical social research included three investigation of agricultural and industrial labor conditions, workers' attitudes and work histories, using both questionnaires and direct observation. Weber used a relatively modem statistical approach in his fourth study, concerning psychological aspects of factory work, and in a fifth episode, a critique of another person's study of workers' attitudes, he advocated a quantitative or typological approach to qualitative data. In all his work Weber was explicitly concerned with quantitative techniques and with the notion that the meaning of social relationships can be expressed only in probabilistic terms. Nevertheless he was ambivalent about the value of quantitative methods and about the role of empirical research in sociology. The sources of this ambivalence include two contemporary issues that Weber never resolved in his own work: the debate as to whether sociology and psychology should be sharply distinguished, and the "action-language" then current in German social science as a conceptual device, to be used deductively without reference to empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comments on an article on humanism by American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger. Schlesinger in his article states that, as an aid to the understanding of society and man, quantitative social research is admirable and indispensable. As a guide to the significance of problems, is misleading when it exudes the assumption that only problems acceptable to quantitative solution are important. As a means of explaining human and social behavior, it is powerful but profoundly incomplete. As a source of the theory of human nature and the universe, it is but a new formulation of an ancient romantic myth. According to the author, Schlesinger acknowledges his indebtedness to sociology and modestly expresses his awareness of the epistemological and methodological shortcomings of history. He does not deny that the quantitative method has value. The author criticizes Schlesinger's line of argument in two parts: (1) his sins of commission, and (2) his sins of omission. He suggests that in order to achieve the objectives of science one must strive for predictability along with explanation.

This article presents information on various books related to sociology. The book "The Citizen Volunteer: His Responsibility, Role, and Opportunity in Modern Society," edited by Nathan E. Cohen, is a useful volume of information and inspiration, sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women to celebrate its sixty-filth anniversary, directed primarily to those social agency executives and others interested in volunteer work. This book will serve a purpose beyond the one for which it is intended if it inspires some of our graduate students and colleagues to work in this field of sociological and moral importance. The book "Motivation for Child Psychiatry Treatment," by Philip Lichtenberg, Robert Kohrman, and Helen MacGregor, focuses on motivation for treatment and reports the findings of a research study involving 30 families who initiated contact with the child psychiatry clinic of the Michael Reese Hospital. The writers regard motivation for treatment as a complex process of sociological and attitudinal factors and the study represents a fairly comprehensive analysis of motivational determinants.

The basic characteristics differentiating suburban areas from the central city, as developed in current literature, are related through a theory of social organization. This approach derives spatially-based social organization from population type and the social consequences of spatial aggregation. The social-political structure of suburbia is conceptualized at three organizational levels, concentric in scope: the neighborhood, the local residential community, the municipality. From their differential relations with structures at the first two levels, empirically and conceptually defined types of "local actors" are developed. Their relative involvement in the local political process is specified. A series of hypotheses deduced from the general argument specifies the relations between (1) population type, (2) household type, (3) participational type, and (4) political behavior in the local system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents developments related to several associations and societies. The annual meeting of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama will be held at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel, New York City during April 27-29, 1960. Contributions of books and journals published after 1945 or "standard authors" published earlier, are needed to assist Asian countries to further their educational programs, both on the secondary and college levels. The Asia Foundation will pay transportation costs. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences' committee on Monograph Prizes announces that the program inaugurated last year to award prizes of 1,000 dollars to authors of especially meritorious unpublished monographs in the humanities, social sciences and physical and biological sciences is being continued for 1960. The final date for receipt of manuscripts is October 1. A new Inter-American Program for Advanced Training in Applied Social Sciences is being sponsored with the cooperation of government of Mexico, the Instituto Nacional Indigenista de Mexico and other official organizations.

Professor Hannan C. Selvin marshals several reasons against the use of significance tests in sociological research. These are divided into two categories which he calls problems of design and problems of interpretation. The principal problems of design are, first, that randomization usually is impossible in the assignment of subjects to experimental and control groups in social research and, second, that sociologists often have no stimulus or set of treatments to be administered to one group and withheld from the other. The second of these two reasons for disallowing statistical tests in social research is actually very little different from the first. It refers to the fact that subjects are assigned by "nature" to classes of most variables which interest sociologists. Its importance evidently rests in the fact that this natural assignment prevents the investigator from randomizing. The critical problem for sociologists, then, in Selvin's view, rests in the fact that the experimental procedure of randomization is impossible in most of their research.

The article presents various research activities undertaken by various organizations from around the world. The Institute for Scientific Research in Central Africa, a Belgian research organization, was established in 1947 to promote and coordinate research in the physical, biological, and social sciences in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi. The organization has been particularly concerned with problems resulting from rapid changes and developments in Africa. Five research centers have been built up at a total cost of $4,000,000. These centers are open to Belgian and foreign scientists. The International Council for Research in the Sociology of Cooperation held its first general assembly on September 4-5, 1954 in Paris, France. The National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council's Committee on Disaster Studies is interested in effects of disaster upon individuals, groups, communities, and societies, human response to the threat and impact of disaster, ranging from the individual to the national level, human aspects of such problems as communications, warning organization, rescue, welfare, medical care, evacuation, and logistics, and long-term effects and recovery problems of disaster.

One of the most important national developments since World War II has been the expanding program of the Federal Government in support of scientific research and development. Total obligations by Federal agencies for scientific research and development activities have exceeded two billion dollars per year. Only small proportions of both the total Federal expenditures for science and the amounts spent by Federal agencies at nonprofit institutions are devoted to social science research. As a result of these considerations, the U.S. National Science Foundation undertook, in March of this year, a systematic and continuing study of the present scientific status of the social sciences and of the role of the National Science Foundation with respect to social science research. The current activities of the Foundation with respect to the social sciences are confined almost exclusively to the area of study of the status and needs of the social sciences. Some thought has been given to undertaking studies of the impact of research on industrial development. There are, however, no immediate plans to extend research grants or fellowships to the social sciences. Such plans must obviously await the results of the study of social science needs.

The article discusses sociology in Finland. Before World War II, scientific sociology in Finland was very meager and undeveloped. An economically poor country, with her population long accustomed to harsh climatic and topographic conditions, Finland has for centuries been isolated by geography and linguistic barriers. Her economic and cultural elite has been of Swedish stock since the twelfth century. Alter living under the domain of the Russian Czar from 1809 until the First World War(1914-1918), the Finns became independent as a nation in 1917. A great impetus was given to industrial, agricultural, and educational efforts, but academic sociology per remained as dormant as it was in Britain at that time. Since World War II(1939-1945), the misconception of Finland as an "Iron Curtain" country, together with the fact that few scholars visiting Scandinavia cross the intervening Baltic, has still tended to maintain the relative isolation of her culture from that of Western Europe and North America. The historical background of Finnish Sociology, consisting almost entirely of anthropological, folklorist and ethical-historical studies, is important for an understanding of the present trends.

The contemporary social problems may be regarded as the result of an inadequate degree of organic integration in the larger social units which today attempt to function as independent societies. That is to say, present societies are inadequately integrated and organized for the environment in which they have to live. One of the principal characteristics and values of science is the general applicability of its concepts. The great value of such terms as mass, force, and energy, is that they are defined in terms which apply with equal validity to widely disparate particular cases. Economists, in turn, have found that in describing the phenomenon of interpersonal behavior of human beings in the exchange of commodities and services, measurable forces of supply and demand differential and opposite forces of human desire maintain a certain moving equilibrium in economic transactions. There is no longer any argument as to whether, under these circumstances, the use of the word "equilibrium" in biology, economics, or sociology is "figurative," and is illegitimately based on analogy. One of the essentials for a society's successful functioning in the social world today is an adequate technique of delayed response, the capacity to take into consideration aspects of the environment relatively remote in time and space.

The article presents author's views industrial sociology. Regarding the area of "Industrial Organization," the author is most concerned about what he believe to be some of the difficulties involved in the application of the Weberian theory of bureaucracy. It sometimes appears that Weber's theory of bureaucracy is used as a finished tool rather than as a set of hypotheses which, while suggestive as guides to research, must be happily subordinated to actual findings. While concurring wholeheartedly with professor Wilbert E. Moore's entreaty that research must be oriented to theoretically significant problems, it seems important to affectively remember that theory may be modified by serendipity component of research. Weber characterizes the ideal type bureaucracy as possessing hierarchically arranged, continuously operating offices, the behavior of whose occupants is channeled and circumscribed by general rules. Bureaucratic authority is said to reside in the office, not in the occupant, while official activity is separated from private life.

The article throws light on the hypothesis and attempted synthesis of the "minimum equation" as a unifying social principle. The basic postulate of the hypothesis of the minimum equation, as far as this article is concerned, is that work is always minimized in human behavior. Next, it defines a human social system as a population of persons who inhabit a large terrain and who co-operate in obtaining like quantities and qualities of goods (and services) for themselves by the expenditure of equivalent rates of work according to rules of conduct that apply to all members of the population. The structure of such a system, including the dispersion of the population, will clearly be subject both to the givens of the terrain (including climate) and to the diversity of raw materials and processes that are used in the production of its goods. The article, thus, outlines the hypothesis of the minimum equation according to which the sum of the products of all masses moved, when multiplied by their work-distances will be minimum. Furthermore, it has elaborated the hypothesis in terms of an analogue in which certain assumptions were made. On the basis of these assumptions, some equations were deduced about the number and diversity of manufacturing and distributing activities.

The thesis of this paper is that if sociology is to develop into a useful discipline it must combine the type of knowledge and understanding which is derived by use of the most rigid technique of science and by the type of knowledge that is known among practical men as common sense. The combined knowledge derived from these two sources will not, and cannot be pure science, but it will not lack the validity of science in that it will be trustworthy in both its capacity to validate its findings and to predict social behavior. Its genius is that it is largely qualitative and adaptive. In some cases scientists are able to arrange this same knowledge into logical constructs and even reduce it to quantitative symbols of expression and convert it into precise scientific generalizations. Such generalizations do not, however, completely convert common sense into science because the generalizations are almost certain to be so abstract as to leave out some of the subtle arid useful understanding contained in the adaptive knowledge of common sense. This is due to no technical shortcoming on the part of the social scientist. It is due to the nature of the phenomena with which sociological generalizations deal and the necessity of abstraction in arriving at generalizations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop some suggestions regarding the sociocultural interpretation of American sociology. It is further recognized that the definition of "American sociology," would raise the difficult question of the classification and analysis of American sociology as an intellectual product or process. In the present context, however, any referent of "American sociology" which the reader may have in mind will suffice. And what follows will itself raise questions regarding some characteristics of American sociology and thus, indirectly, questions regarding its definition. It is proposed to consider American sociology not exclusively as a science or as a discipline striving to become scientific but as an orientation, an outlook, a culture. The consideration of American sociology which points to its character as an orientation or outlook has to do with its contentual aspects, as witness both the attempts to assemble contentual "principles" on which American sociologists can agree and to gather contents once adhered to but subsequently discarded.

The article presents news related to various meetings and announcements of various sociological associations etc. that appeared in the 1941 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review." The American Economic Association held its Fifty-third Annual Meeting at New Orleans, Louisiana, from December 27-30, 1940, jointly with the Southern Economic Association. The Eastern Sociological Society will hold its annual conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, on April 9 and April 20, 1941. The program will include sections on Personality and Culture, Sociology and National Defense, the Motivation of Research, and Professional Practices Affecting Teachers of Sociology. The centennial of the birth of sociologist Lester F. Ward will be recognized. Iowa Association of Economists and Sociologists, under the presidency of J. H. Ennis, met in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 8, 1940, and discussed the general question of teaching the social studies in high school together with the college training of such teachers.

The article presents informs about announcements and meetings held in the year 1940. American Council of Learned Societies offers a limited number of grants-in-aid (not to exceed $300) for actual expenses of research. Applicants must have a doctor's degree or its equivalent, and be a citizen of the United States or Canada, or be permanently employed or domiciled therein. The grants may be used for travel, technical, or secretarial assistance, or material (but not books). The Catholic Anthropological Conference held its fifteenth annual meeting at Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois, March 26, 1940, sponsored by the department of sociology and social work, under the direction of Sister Mary Henry. A spring meeting of the Central New York Sociologists was held at Cornell University on April 19, when George A. Lundberg addressed the Cornell Sociology Club on "Measurement in Sociology." This was followed by a dinner at Willard Straight Hall, after which the discussion of Lundberg's address and matters concerning the organization of the American Sociological Society ensued. About 40 were present representing nine universities and colleges in Central New York.

The article discusses issues related to operationally defined sociological concepts. The working hypothesis is that a scientific definition of a sociological concept should be more than synonyms, description, constituent elements, or differentiae. It should be an operational definition, i.e., it should state the procedure and the materials to be used to obtain, or to be sure one has obtained, the entity defined, just as a kitchen recipe defines a cake or a Binet manual defines a mental age. Situations may be analyzed into at least four classes of components. Time and space are two fundamental components in any science. The human population is a third component which is common to all classes of human social phenomena, and thus marks off the social sciences. The fourth component is defined as all the residue, i.e., everything in a situation which is not time, space, or the number of people. The fourth component includes all characteristics of people or of their environment. Subclassifying the vast field of characteristics yields different social sciences and concepts within them. Temporal, spatial, and populational components can be operationally defined by clocks, meter sticks, and census procedures.

Sociologists attempt to extend the ritual of natural science into fields of human experience which heretofore have been regarded as not amenable to such treatment. Sociologists are simply trying to deal scientifically with the phenomena of social systems. These phenomena exist indubitably, whether they can be described scientifically remains to be seen. Sociologists think so, many physicists, biologists, priests, and politicians doubt it, or even assert that it cannot be done. Sociologists observe that this doubt, or assertion, itself is a kind of repetitive regularity in the behavior of man. Sociologists have good grounds for thinking a societal science is possible, though as yet they have not done enough scientific work, they have talked too much. However, they have produced more valid science than most of his scientific and lay brethren recognize or will admit. They themselves are not discouraged because they know that an established science is a cultural phenomenon of slow, accretionary growth.

The interchange of letters between Lester F. Ward and E. A. Ross, which began in 1891 and continued until 1912, affords a rich source of enlightenment on the backgrounds, ideas and attitudes of two founders of American sociology. This first group contains the correspondence of the years 1891 through 1896. During these years, Lester F. Ward, who had published Dynamic Sociology in 1883, was engaged in geological and paleobotanical work for the U. S. Geological Survey. In the initial letter here published, we find him occupying his first college teaching position at Indiana University, and through the successive letters, the author follows his aspirations and his activities as he goes to Cornell and thereafter to Leland Stanford University. These letters, moreover, show the patterns of American sociology in the making. They reflect the struggle of early sociology for recognition from economists and give interesting evidence on the theoretical differences and personal rivalries among the founders. They are the living documents of a period from which sociology has emerged, but the history of which can give insights to contemporary sociologists.

The article presents information about several current happening related to sociology in the U.S. According to information the American Council of Learned Societies is prepared to extend assistance in publishing a limited number of meritorious works in the field of the humanities written by American scholars. It invites its constituent societies to propose books they deem suitable for assistance, but reserves the right to consider works submitted by others if the executive committee has accepted them for consideration. Works proposed for publication must be complete in themselves, preferably the results of constructive research presented in the form of volumes of conventional size. The other information is that the seventh annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Conference was held in from April 18-19, with over a hundred persons in attendance. The central topic of the Conference was social theory, and social order. The majority of sessions centered around a discussion of capitalism, fascism, socialism, and communism as divergent social orders.

The Washington meeting of the 1957 Council was called to order on August 26, 1957, by president Robert K. Merton. On recommendations of Committees and Representatives the principle was approved that the American Sociological Society would send one member to a Joint Committee on Public Health and the Behavioral Sciences to be established within the structure of the American Public Health Association. The present ad hoc Committee from the Society was dismissed with thanks. The recommendation was made to the incoming president that the membership of the Liaison Committee on Sociology in Education be retained in substantially its present form. Following the suggestion of the Chairman of the Selection Committee on the MacIver Award, the terms of the award are to be reviewed by the Executive Committee. A resolution from the Ohio Valley Sociological Society was received with thanks and assigned to the Committee on Program and Organization together with the task of exploring broad questions concerning professional interests of sociologists and means of furthering such interests.

The Liaison Committee of the American Sociological Society has been moderately active during the recent year. Its accomplishments and failures are as follows. Failed to interest anyone in the publication of anything related to relationships between Sociology and the Teaching of the Social Studies in the school. Arranged an open meeting of the Liaison Committee with two outstanding teachers of the Social Studies in Illinois as guest consultants for September 8, 1954 in connection with the current meetings of the American Sociological Society. The committee has arranged two meetings dealing with sociology and its application to the teaching of the social studies at the meetings of the National Council for the Social Studies to be held at Indianapolis, November 26, 1954. It is to the interests of the American Sociological Society to be concerned with the nature and quality of the teaching of Sociology on all educational levels. The discipline is faced with the problem of communicating its body of fact and theory to the American public by all appropriate means.

This article provides information related to the forty-second annual meeting held by American Academy of Political and Social Science, a grant received by American Association of Schools of Social Work from Rockefeller Foundation, meeting of Catholic Sociological Society , meeting of Eastern Sociological Society, meeting of Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, meeting of International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, a course offered by the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia University, social science abstracts for the period 1929-1932 offered by Social Science Research Council, fourth conference on "Education and the Exceptional Child" held by The Woods Schools and, a course for archivists offered by the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia University.

The article presents the view of the author on articles written by Kenneth A. Bollen, Kenney H. Barb and Henry Frank on the topic related to the effects of categorization on the estimated correlation between two continuous underlying variables. The rank category measurement procedure "suffers" from the problem of categorization error as well as the fact that the assigned category scores do not reproduce exactly the underlying metric. Contrary to Bollen and Barb O'Brien does not consider "collapsed" or categorized variables, but instead deals exclusively with rank order measures of underlying scores. If there are 10 underlying scores, they are represented from lowest to highest value. The article focuses on a more commonly used measurement strategy in the social sciences rank category measurement of underlying continuous variables. When the number of categories increases, the distortion decreases. The degree of distortion, , is much greater for the skewed distributions than it is for either the uniform or normal distributions and is affected by the marginal distribution of cases in the categories and by the scoring system used to assign values to the categories.

The article discusses the features of "differential equation models" as given by social researchers, Francois Nielson and Rachel A. Rosenfeld. Nielsen and Rosenfeld argue that "substantive interpretations of dynamic models should focus on the parameteres that describe the trajectory, generated by the underlying model of the rate of change, rather than directly on the coefficients of the differential equation." However, the major objection to Nielsen and Rosenfeld's proposal to limit substantive interpretations to the solutions of differential equations is that it eliminates what is perhaps the most important application of differential equations in the description of empirical phenomena. A differential equation can be used to represent a causal process that operates, not on the dependent variable directly, but instead on the rate of change of the dependent variable. The central issue, which Nielsen and Rosenfeld recognize at several points, is that choosing the form of a model that displays the causal structure is fundamentally a substantive matter.

The article presents comment on the paper of G. Edward Stephan to tests of the size-density hypothesis and argues that such tests are inconclusive with respect to the hypothesis. Stephan advances a theory of segmental growth based on Durkheim in an explanation of county size variation. The latter argues that as populations move into previously unexploited areas, factors of governmental efficiency force the creation of new political units of smaller area. Thus the size of political units during expansion should correspond inversely to population density. Data were presented to support the hypothesis. In later articles, Stephan and Tedrow tested the one-time correspondence of population density and geopolitical unit size. Data will be advanced to demonstrate a false-positive affirmation of the size-density hypothesis. Stephan recognizes the inconclusiveness of the tests on the basis of causal direction and the lack of "population potential" measures. In explanation of population distributions by segmentary growth, the sociological perspective assumes that population moves into relatively featureless landscapes.

This article presents views of the author on an article on social theory by sociologist Theodore Abel, that appeared in the April 1952 issue of the periodical "American Sociological Review." According to the author, Abel is well aware that his view of theory is uncommon and unpopular within a discipline now marked by a preponderant interest in specific empirical investigations where conceptualization is admitted only in the full-dress uniform of the "heuristic device" or the timid hypothesis bordering on a tautological statement about trivia. Respect is due the courage with which he undertakes a defense of theory in the "grand style." Abel's practical point of departure seems to lie in the observation that while current research interests are dictated largely by basic ideas inherited from several sociologists, insufficient attention is paid to the kind of theoretical activity in which such men were engaged and to the need for a continuation of that activity. While the debt to them is acknowledged, researchers fail to recognize their responsibilities in carrying on the kind of work they did.

A Conference on "The Social Sciences in German Universities" was held at seeshaupt in Bavaria in March 1948. German scholars and allied occupation officials participated. Quarterly journal Revue de l'Institute de Sociologie is recommencing publication after eight years. Eastern Sociological Society. The eighteenth annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society was held at Asbury Park on April 24th and 25th. The third national conference of the Psychodramatic Institute will be held in September 1948 at Beacon, New York. The theme of the conference is "Training in Human Relations." A day each will be devoted to psychodrama, sociodrama, and sociometry and group psychotherapy. An Institute of Delaware History and Culture has been established at the University of Delaware for the purpose of stimulating, coordinating and supporting historical, sociological, anthropological, and humanistic studies in the field of Delaware history and culture. Pacific Sociological Society held its annual meeting at Santa Barbara, California, on April 30 and May 1.

In light of ongoing concerns about the relevance of scholarly activities, we ask, what are public ideas and how do they come to be? More specifically, how do journalists and other mediators between the academy and the public use social science ideas? How do the various uses of these ideas develop over time and shape the public careers of these ideas? How do these processes help us understand public ideas and identify their various types? In addressing these questions, we make the case for a sociology of public social science. Using data from newspaper articles that engage with seven of the most publicly prominent social science ideas over the past 30 years, we make three contributions. First, we advance a pragmatic, cultural approach to understanding public ideas, one that emphasizes fit-making processes and applicative flexibility. Second, we define public ideas: social science ideas become public ideas when they are used as objects of interest (being the news), are used as interpretants (making sense of the news), and ebb and flow between these uses as part of an unfolding career. Third, we construct a typology of public ideas that provides an architecture for future research on public social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During February of 1958 arrangements were completed with the Edgewater Beach Hotel, Chicago, Illinois for the 1959 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society. The meetings are scheduled for Thursday, September 3 through Saturday, September 5, 1959. Flat rates for single room is $9.75, for double room flat rates is $16.00, and for dormitory rooms, twin bedded with connecting bath for 4 persons has the tag of $16.00. The Edgewater Beach Hotel, one of Chicago's finest, is located on the lakefront, has a cabana club and swimming pool, and a summer theater in addition to usual hotel accommodations. It is relatively far removed from the downtown district and should afford the Society excellent accommodations in every respect. Information received from the Chicago Convention Bureau indicates that typing and other services will be made available only on a fee basis as follows: badge typists at $10.00 per eight-hour day; stencil typists at $12.00 to $14.00. The Bureau will make available gratis bulletins on "Chicago, Host City to the Nation" listing all of the interesting places to see and pertinent facts about the city; and also "Headline Events in Chicago" which will cover the month of September.

Anthropology is beholden to sociology for teaching positions and generally occupies a subsidiary position within sociology departments. This is not healthy for either subject. In many institutions sociology is a subsidiary section under economics, history, government or philosophy. The writer's own department became independent only three years ago. Nevertheless there has been a steady trend toward independent status for sociology. One main reason for this may be suggested. Sociology began with grandiose claims to everything in society, reaching into all the social sciences. It was grudgingly accorded a subordinate place within one or another of the established subjects. Sociology has attained independence in proportion as it has abandoned these claims, relinquishing much as extraneous, redefining and concentrating itself about specific problem areas peculiarly its own. Whatever place sociology has made for itself, it has earned that place by gradually marking off its separate field. Anthropology's problem may well be similar.

The article reports that the Administration Committee has cancelled the meeting of the American Sociological Association which was to have been held in Cleveland, Ohio on December 29-31, 1948, in view of the urgent pleas of the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) that civilian travel be curtailed between December 18 and January 10. Similar action has been taken by most of the other Social Science Societies which were planning to meet. Last summer ODT encouraged the association to go ahead with its meetings, but the transportation situation has now changed radically. ODT has issued a request to all Federal agencies asking that they cancel leaves involving travel from December 18 to January 10, and asking that no meetings be called by government agencies during that period. This would seriously interfere with the program and the attendance of government employees at the meeting.

Drawing on Bayesian probability theory, we propose a generalization of affect control theory (BayesACT) that better accounts for the dynamic fluctuation of identity meanings for self and other during interactions, elucidates how people infer and adjust meanings through social experience, and shows how stable patterns of interaction can emerge from individuals’ uncertain perceptions of identities. Using simulations, we illustrate how this generalization offers a resolution to several issues of theoretical significance within sociology and social psychology by balancing cultural consensus with individual deviations from shared meanings, balancing meaning verification with the learning processes reflective of change, and accounting for noise in communicating identity. We also show how the model speaks to debates about core features of the self, which can be understood as stable and yet malleable, coherent and yet composed of multiple identities that may carry competing meanings. We discuss applications of the model in different areas of sociology, implications for understanding identity and social interaction, as well as the theoretical grounding of computational models of social behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the research paper "The Causes of Racial Disturbances: A Comparison of Alternative Explanations," by Seymour Spilerman. Spilerman emphasizes the independent causal effects of black population size and percent of city population black in the occurrence of disorders. He observes that, in addition to the greater frequency of potential "precipitating incidents" and the greater sense of security that large numbers bring, a large black population is causative of disorders because all blacks are equally frustrated with white society. But Spilerman does not have empirical justification for rejecting the "expectational factors" because their relationship to disorders disappears when size of black population is controlled. Despite a strong zero-order correlation between population per councilman and disorders, Spilerman rejects the possibility of causal significance of unresponsive political structures for riots because the relationship does not seem to exist when black population size is controlled.

This article presents author's reply to the criticism of his paper by sociologist Werner J. Cahnman. The author says that most of Cahnman's puzzled outrage stems from his unfathomable expectation that scientific problems should be set before a dialectical deus ex machin, hence, his feeling that the absence of a synthesis is a priori a fatal flaw, his self-imposed task of searching for a non-existent thesis, and finally, the diagnosis that the antithesis is suffering not from an empirically demonstrated inaccuracy, but from a deformity. Cahnman has pointed to the right disease, but in the wrong patient. And he might have picked up one clue to this case of mistaken identity at that point where he had to invent a straw-mannish straw man. The author says that to refute his hypothesis, one would have to address himself to the tests he devised to demonstrate it. He says this, in turn, involves at least keeping in mind his criteria of relevance. For example, if the explicandum is the exceptional rise of lower-status mass migrants as opposed to their non-Jewish status peers, then the omission of the accomplishments of transplanted European elites is irrelevant.

The focal point of the activities of the American Prison Association is the annual congress, which took place last year in Biloxi, Mississippi, on October 21-26 and was attended by the author. The program is made up of contributions not only of the American Prison Association, but of a whole group of affiliated organizations, such as the National Probation and Parole Association, Medical Correctional Association, National Conference of Juvenile Agencies, Correctional Service Associates, etc. Thus it represents the major yearly event in the correctional field of the U.S. The participation of the American Sociological Society through its representative was duly recognized. A detailed analysis of the sessions of the congress is not intended in this purposely brief report. However, few major items should perhaps be brought out. sociological criminology, which has made outstanding contributions in the past to the development of the correctional attitude and practices in crime and delinquency control in the U.S. should continue to do so in the future.