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The article presents a sociological view of the press coverage of a sociological convention. The coverage is based on observations carried out by five newsmen-observers who attended the August 1965 American Sociological Association (ASA) meetings in Chicago, Illinois. The general conclusion of this study of the convention was that the confrontation of the sociologist with the representative of the news media was overwhelmingly inadvertent, disconcerting and only partially successful to either party. In terms of efficiency in social communication, it leaves much to be desired and strongly entices one to prescribe therapy. Few suggestions are made in advance of Florida sessions in order to get sociologist into communication with the Miami Press. It is suggested to issue a handbook in advance of the convention to all members of the ASA and once the convention has started, to maintain a special message board near the newsroom which offers a chance for newsmen to indicate their wish to contact writers of papers. It is also suggested the president of the ASA assemble a small, informal committee which would hold daily news briefings alerting them to persons or topics originating outside or inside the formal program of the convention.

This article focuses on the future of sociology archive as a discipline. The major U.S. university libraries now go to extraordinary lengths and expense to collect the papers of writers, even many who as yet have not been categorically identified as important. There is a serious lesson in this-one might even say, a vital one-for sociology as it confronts an uncertain future. As everyone of a certain age will recall, the saga of Roots, in book and television formats, single-handedly gave American blacks a collective sense of historical importance that up to that point was absent from mass culture. The new Holocaust Museum in Washington is the most eloquent and emotionally wracking contemporary expression of historical memory for public consumption on a grand scale. Other examples can be found at every juncture of the "culture wars" that have been raging in the United States since the 1960s. Every politically self-aware group is supposed to venerate its real or imagined past, both at individual and collective levels, not only because such joint expressions enhance self-conceptions but also owing to the strategic advantage.

This article introduces a series of articles on the contributions of early women in sociology in the U.S. The initial paper by Patricia Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge describes the social settlement movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in order to analyze settlement workers as practicing sociologists operating within a paradigm of the neighborly relation. Linda Rynbrandt and Mary Jo Deegan focus on Caroline Bartlett Crane, a Progressive Era reformer. In their analysis, the authors develop a characterization of Crane as an ecofeminist and forerunner of contemporary reform movements. They argue further that Crane deserves to been as a founding figure in sociology in the U.S. who associated with recognized pioneers, including Jane Addams and Charles Henderson. Barbara Richardson portrays Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as an applied sociologist with a distinctive emphasis on humanistic oekology. Richards focused on gender issues and the application of scientific methods for the solution of contemporary social problems. The final paper, by Erich Goode, departs from the overall theme and offers a rejoinder to an analysis of the death of the sociology of deviance.

This paper examines Charles Tilly's relationship to the schools of thought known as historicism and critical realism. Tilly was committed to a social epistemology that was inherently historicist, and he increasingly called himself a 'historicist.' The 'search for grand laws in human affairs comparable to the laws of Newtonian mechanics,' he argued, was a 'waste of time' and had 'utterly failed.' Tilly's approach was strongly reminiscent of the arguments developed in the first half of the 20th century by Rickert, Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke for a synthesis of particularization and generalization and for a focus on 'historical individuals' rather than abstract universals. Nonetheless, Tilly never openly engaged with this earlier wave of historicist sociology, despite its fruitfulness for and similarity to his own project. The paper explores some of the possible reasons for this missed encounter. The paper argues further that Tilly's program of 'relational realism' resembled critical realism, but with main two differences: Tilly did not fully embrace critical realism's argument that social mechanisms are always co-constituted by social meaning or its normative program of explanatory critique. In order to continue developing Tilly's ideas it is crucial to connect them to the epistemological ideas that governed the first wave of historicist sociology in Weimar Germany and to a version of philosophical realism that is interpretivist and critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1945 Davis and Moore, following an earlier formulation by Davis, proposed a functional theory of stratification that was intended to account for what they contended was the "universal necessity" for social inequality in any social order. Beginning with an article by Tumin in 1953, the Davis-Moore theory elicited regular analysis, commentary, criticism, and debate through the 1970s. Although professional work on the theory has largely ceased since the late 1980s, the Davis-Moore theory remains perhaps the single most widely cited paper in American introductory sociology and stratification textbooks and constitutes "required reading" in hundreds, if not thousands, of undergraduate and graduate courses throughout the United States. The present paper traces the history of the debate and attempts to explain the theory's longevity and vitality in the face of what has amounted to largely negative assessments by other sociologists over the preceding fifty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the program of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association to be held from August 26-29, 1968. It will be held in Boston, Massachusetts. The Program Committee, consisting of Chairman Philip M. Hauser, William J. Goode, Robin M. Williams. Jr., O.D. Duncan, and Gerhard E. Lenski is planning sessions on the central theme of "On the Gap Between Sociology and Social Policy". The session topics are as follows: 1) Plenary sessions: Sociology and the Negro Revolt, Sociology and Social Accounting; 2) Thematic Sessions: Conformity and Social Control, Law and the Administration of Criminal Justice, Socialization and Education, Population and Population Control, Sociology and Environmental Planning, The Polity and the Academy, Sociology and Social Development, Sociology and Systems Analysis, Sociology and Socialist Countries, 3) Regular Sessions: The New Sociometrics, Theory Building. In order to broaden member participation in the Annual Meeting, the 1968 Program Committee is planning a limited number of sessions utilizing a Seminar format. Papers contributed by members apart from those scheduled for organized sessions, will be screened and grouped under appropriate subject headings.

The term "relevant" within the context of a small-groups course in sociology seemed to mean participating in ongoing groups and observing and gathering data on small groups. Teaching by having students engage in research has also been advocated by articles in "The American Sociologist." The research approach is especially applicable for courses in small groups. But there are too many difficulties in having students carry out research to make research the central feature of a course. In most cases students would not be sufficiently knowledgeable to design and conduct meaningful small-group experiments. This causes problems too difficult for an untrained instructor to handle. The second reason was that while attracted to the learn-by-doing element in such a course, it was equally important to devote class time to covering theoretical concepts, research techniques, and general substantive material. According to the author, the ideal course would expose students to diverse theoretical approaches to small groups while meeting their demand for relevance in the form of group participation and involvement in research.

This paper looks at the social role played by community colleges, the students they serve, and some of the current challenges they face. Community colleges have always been multi-mission institutions and in recent decades have been leaders in enrolling students from diverse family backgrounds. 'Nontraditional' students make up the majority of community college students. This paper looks at the diversity of students in terms of race and ethnicity, first-generation college-goers, and students who are academically underprepared. The paper concludes with a discussion of the strengths of the community college experience for students coming from diverse backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

This paper considers the possibility that early sociological interest in the integrative role of mass communication may have been undermined (1) by the short-run study of media “campaigns,” and the declaration that such persuasive efforts have only “limited effect”; (2) by the wrangling over theories of “mass society”; and (3) by a quasi-journalistic emphasis on “media events.” In spite of the theoretical basis for reconciling these traditions, the rift over the academic locus of communications research has not been repaired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the place and contributions of women at the Institute for Research in Social Science from 1925 to 1945. Founded by Howard Odum at the Unviersity of North Carolina in 1924, the Institute provided an environment in which women could pursue social scientific work free from the gender discrimination found at most universities during the period. Research and publications by the women made important contributions to sociology and related fields while fulfilling the Institute's primary mission of promoting regional understanding and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1885 and 1930, as sociology was becoming an academic discipline, sociology was also being practiced intelligently, innovatively, and self-consciously outside the academy in the social settlements that grew up in America's major cities. In this paper, we first define and give a brief overview of the settlement movement in America; second, we show how the settlement workers were sociologists in their self-definition and action and in their relations with other sociologists; third, in the body of the paper, we describe the sociology done by the settlements in terms of the empirical research they undertook and the theory they created. Our argument is that settlement sociologists produced empirical studies that were both substantively significant and methodologically pioneering; that they did so in terms of a coherent social theory unique in its focus on "the neighborly relation"; and that both their research and theory were part of a critical, reflexive, and activist sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the success of The Sociological Quarterly in becoming more than a regional journal in the U.S. from 1960 to 1970. The journal Midwest Sociologist was an official semiannual publication of the Midwest Sociological Society. In the late 1950s, the need for revamping the form and content of the journal in order to accommodate a flow of papers became increasingly important. Accordingly, in 1960 the Midwest Sociologist became The Sociological Quarterly. The name chosen for the renovated journal was important for two reasons. First, the transition from a semiannual to a quarterly provided a publication outlet for qualified manuscripts that had been delayed or rejected due to space limitations. Second, the adoption of the title The Sociological Quarterly signified an attempt to avoid the regional connotations of the term Midwest and to initiate a journal of general interest and utility to sociologists of varying professional persuasions from all sections of the country. During the decade, the journal has been consistently publishing manuscripts from all parts of the country and can no longer be considered merely a regional journal of limited geographical scope. Data regarding the geographical sources of published papers indicate a steady tendency toward extraregionalism.

After a review of comparable degree productivity among several social and behavioral sciences, this paper concludes that sociology was uniquely affected by forces that lowered both the production of B.A.'s, M.A.'s, and Ph.D.'s and the quality of its graduate students. From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, sociology suffered drastic declines in student numbers and quality. The increased careerism among students apparently accounts for a substantial portion of this decline, but through a very concrete mechanism: the expansion of business programs. The paper suggests that perhaps an absence of a serious commitment to teaching scientific sociology accounts for the loss of quality, since applied sciences have fared much better than has sociology. The recent ASA Task Force recommendations for curriculum redesign are reviewed, and a call is issued for revitalizing the scientific component of undergraduate sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden, a model welfare state, and the United States, with its ethos of rugged individualism, have institutionalized ethical systems for protecting the research subject's right to privacy. The ethical concerns driving these "codes" of ethics are similar across the two societies, but the institutional systems for protecting privacy, indeed the very definitions of privacy, are different, reflecting variant value systems. The Swedes have an open government but are vigilant and effective guardians of the privacy of individual files. In contrast, the Americans keep their government relatively closed but allow relatively easy access to individual files. Regardless of this basic difference, researchers in both countries are struggling to rethink their ethical systems in the face of rapid development of communications technology in what has emerged as the age of disclosure. This paper begins with the cultural concepts of privacy in Sweden and the United States. Privacy was chosen as the focus of this paper because it stands at the center of deception and disclosure in research, a pressing ethical problem facing sociologists today. Next is a comparison of the institutionalized systems for protecting the individual's right to privacy in the two countries, followed by a discussion of the social pressures confronting the two systems. The paper concludes with a comparison of the ethical principles utilized by both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratification in science has received extensive attention from researchers in the sociology of science. The general research strategy involves identifying certain socio-personal characteristics of scientists such as professional age, highest degree, prestige of training and affiliated institutions, and relating these characteristics to the reward systems in science. Two identifiable reward systems in science involve (1) the bestowal of honorary awards, and (2) the access to, and recognition in, the formal communication system in science. These two systems both contribute to the overall stratification of the reward system but differ on at least two counts. This paper attempts to examine the stratification of the formal communication system in American sociology as it is related to the stratification of scientists. It is found that the visible journals in sociology are consistently stratified according to criteria such as rejection rates, articles rejected but eventually published in other sociological journals, order of submission preferences of ASA meeting authors, and cross-citation patterns in articles of the journals.

This article presents news briefs concerning the American Sociological Association (ASA), as of August 1972. The recent election has resulted in the following officers for 1973, Andrew Billingsley as chairman, Clark E. Vincent as chairman-elect; Alice S. Rossi as secretary, and Jesse Bernard, William F. Fenkel, Rose Somerville, Jacqueline Wiseman, Paul C. Glick and Constantina Safilios-Rothschild as members of the association's council. In its current revitalization, the Section has three efforts underway. First, under the chairmanship of Nancy St. John, a nominating committee has prepared election slates composed of persons in the field who can offer effective leadership for the Section during the next few years. Second, a three-part program has been prepared for Section Day on August 28, 1972, at the New Orleans, Louisiana meetings that includes a panel discussion of the sociology of classroom reform, organized by Sarane Boocock; a panel discussion of the sociology to the proposed National Institute of Education, organized by John Meyer. This program involves the Section in pressing matters of reform, where sociological perspectives have often been underutilized, as well as in expanding research of comparative analysis. Third, the chairman of the Section has concentrated his own efforts on the possibility of developing a special role for the Section as a bridge between the field of sociology and the National Institute of Education.

During the 1973 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the author attended a roundtable discussion chaired by Professor Robert Friedrichs. The whole meeting was devoted to discussing the possibility of sociologist B.F. Skinner's influence emerging in the U.S. sociology, a topic that Friedrichs had explored in a paper he delivered earlier at one of the ASA sessions. In reference to the Skinnerian influence on sociology, the author criticizes sociologist Donald Tarter's article published in the November 1973 issue of the periodical "The American Sociologist," which stated that Friedrichs' eminence in the discipline of sociology and the Skinnerian influence is justified. The author's intention is to point out that Tarter's article is at best naive as regards his misunderstanding of sociology and that the presuppositions underlying his argument suggest an ideological position that can only be repugnant to anyone committed to a society that is as free and open as possible. The author substantiates his indictments by first commenting on what he believes to be Tarter's sociological naivety on the basis of a passage in which Tarter writes "Behavioral complexities never before thought possible have emerged in the form of pigeons playing ping-pong or chimps breaking through the communication barrier to man."

Despite the close resemblances evident in their major works, their critical stance and their politics, C. Wright Mills and Alvin Gouldner have received strikingly different responses from their sociological peers, and they now occupy very different places in the collective memory of the discipline. This intriguing discrepancy provides the basis here for a comparative case study that examines both ongoing commemorative practices and historical evidence. This paper shows how the sociological community has frequently and approvingly commemorated Mills through introductory textbooks, as well as reading lists for doctoral comprehensive examinations, awards in Mills' honor and biographies of Mills, while doing much less to preserve and promote the memory of Gouldner and his contributions to the field. In an effort to attain a better understanding of such differences, I compare the prescriptions that each advocated for the discipline, especially as these are expressed in Mills' Sociological Imagination and Gouldner's Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. The analysis emphasizes how Mills explicitly sought to move beyond sociology, in a narrow academic sense, and called for well-honed empirical endeavors with relevance for a variety of publics, whereas Gouldner proceeded largely as an academic theorist who demanded sociological-theoretical reform. Unlike Mills, he did not breach the gap between academia and the general public. These findings illustrate an apparent paradox, namely, that American sociology in the twenty-first century may reserve its most esteemed positions for internal critics who advocate movement beyond its contemporary confines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to his 1922 emigration to Europe and thence to the United States, Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin had an exceptional intellectual and political career in Russia and the Soviet Union (Sorokin , ; Johnston ; Krotov ). Indeed, he was among the early founders of the science of sociology in his native land, where, according to a relatively recent bibliography (Sorokin ), he produced 162 Russian-language publications between the ages of 21 and 33. This listing includes not only book reviews and journal articles, but also substantial monographs and a two-volume theoretical treatise. While still a relatively young man, Sorokin had thus gained widespread recognition as a scholar of the first rank. He was also the initial chairperson (from 1919 to 1922) of a fledgling department of sociology at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), an elected member of the national Constituent Assembly and an appointed staff member of the 1917 Provisional Government, the first democratic regime in Russia. This much would have sufficed for an entry in a sociological encyclopedia, and Sorokin's political career has few parallels in the history of the field, other than the involvement of Emile Durkheim in French educational policy and the participation of Max Weber in creating the Weimar Republic in Germany. Nevertheless sociologists in the United States and most western historians of the field have not yet appreciated the full influence of the formative period, especially from 1905 to 1922. Lacking familiarity with Russian culture of that era and knowing little about the larger Russian socio-historical milieu, its intellectual discourse and collective memory, they have not been able to comprehend Sorokin's outlook, behavior and professional output in the United States in relation to these earlier contextual factors. This is arguably a fundamental reason why many U.S. sociologists have tended to see Sorokin, especially since 1937, as a marginal figure and to regard his works largely as deviations from accepted social scientific practice. This paper will argue that a more adequate appreciation of Sorokin's background and early adult life illumines both stylistic features of his works in America and also places into proper perspective several of his substantive foci that did not accord with contemporary 'normal science' (Kuhn ). In short, despite his overall assimilation into American society and higher education, including his appointment at Harvard University and his election as president of the American Sociological Association, Sorokin should be understood in large measure as a life-long Russian intellectual. His was a Russian-born sensibility and consciousness-indeed a 'Russian soul'-so deeply ingrained that it stamped his entire professional career in the United States, including his published researches, his popular sociology and his university teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has found that there is a good deal of stability in departmental prestige, but has not considered its long-term dynamics. This paper investigates a hypothesis implied by some accounts in the sociology of science and organizational theory: that there will be a permanent component of prestige associated with the department or university. The data are the ratings of graduate departments of sociology between 1965 and 2007 using a measure of prestige constructed from hiring patterns. There is no evidence of a permanent component for individual departments, but there is evidence of a permanent difference between departments in 'elite' universities and those in other universities. Despite change in rankings within each group, the difference between the groups remained constant over the period. That is, there appear to be enduring barriers that limit the mobility of individual departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an introduction to the December 2010 issue of "American Sociologist," which focuses on sociologist Charles Tilly.

This paper discusses whether and to what extent the field of the sociology of deviance is "dead," relevant to sociology generally, or intellectually vital, and, if it is less vital than it once was, how and why it declined in vigor, and what might be done to return it to its glory days. It also addresses the implications of the election of 2004 for the field of deviance studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores article production by the entire population of US undergraduate sociology departments. The available literature suggests that undergraduate programs publish little, that this is concentrated among relatively few mainly liberal arts-departments, and that publication rates are increasing. We argue There are reason* to expect that social economic presence, reward policies, student quality, and faculty quality, si/e. and workload will affect productivity. Tracing publication of articles across the 1990s. few undergraduate departments are represented in 30 journals deemed important on the bases of reputation and citation rates Liberal arts schools do not predominate Ceteris paribus, public schools outpublished private schools Publication rates have not increased. Social economic presence, and student and faculty quality affect publishing, but salary, tenure structure, and workload do not Finally, faculty size suppresses per capita publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using articles drawn from the years 1996-1999, this paper updates and expands Jack Niemonen's 1997 TAS analysis of the articles dealing with race and ethnicity in the four core sociology journals. We found a greater rate of publication and several new substantive areas incorporating race and ethnicity, but many of the patterns Niemonen identified remain in place. These articles are highly quantitative, rely heavily on U.S. Census categories, tend to explain racial and ethnic phenomenon as by-products of broader social forces (such as class-based stratification), and subsume these analyses under the headings of alternative subfields. Niemonen used these findings to offer a powerful critique of the status of race and ethnicity in sociology, the under-development of the racial and ethnic relations "problematic," and its marginalization within the discipline as a whole. To reassess these interpretations and conclusions, we examined the relationships between methodology and substance, and compared the main sample with a subset of more specialized articles focused on race and ethnicity. We found a close connection between quantitative methods and the use of Census definitions of race and ethnicity, but surprisingly few differences between the race and ethnic subset and the more inclusive main sample appeared. These findings allow us to offer support and some important qualifications to Niemonen's original conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section introduces the articles featured in the spring 2002 issue of The American Sociologist. The half-dozen articles here, along with Brym's engaging introductory essay, help us regain a sense of sociology as an unfolding international movement and also of the distinctive experiences of sociologists in particular national contexts. Rather ironically, in light of the sweep of the paradigms and macro-level theories that are sociology's coin of the realm, there are strong parochial tendencies in the field. In the United States, for instance, many departments of sociology tend to relegate international and cross-cultural matters to anthropologists, and many textbook writers produce analyses that focus overwhelmingly on their home country. One consequence of such tendencies is to speak as though formulas that fit one context have a general or universal applicability. As the papers here inform us time and again, sociology in Canada has struggled with the Anglo-French division of society and culture, which has generated two separate and largely unengaged spheres, and has segregated even the respective social sciences. Meanwhile, Canadian sociologists have worked to develop a voice of their own that is not distorted by the influence of sociology produced in the United States or in Europe.

The article introduces as series of articles dealing in a variety of ways with critical theorists and critical theory. The first three papers offer insightful analyses of the work of several critical thinkers Erich Fromm, David Riesman, C. Wright Mills and Leo Strauss. Neil McLaughlin examines David's Riesman's synthesis of the German critical tradition and U.S. pragmatism in his best known work, The Lonely Crowd. In McLaughlin's view, Riesman's classic analysis of U.S. society in 1950 bears a strong resemblance to many postmodern writings, particularly since Riesman self-consciously assumed the mantle of the public intellectual. James Abbott examines the thought of political philosopher Leo Strauss, with particular attention to its relevance for contemporary controversies concerning facts and values. Abbott is drawn to Strauss's analysis of the crises of modern liberalism and of twentieth century social science, and brings this to bear on the contemporary paradox of a sociology that simultaneously advocates visions of the good society while denying the possibility of trans-historical standards that would validate such visions. Joel Best offers incisive reflections on sociology's status in the academic world. Ironically, despite its image as a minor field, sociology has arguably been among the most influential of disciplines and has spawned a series of specialties that migrated to independence.

How will sociology fare in the twenty-first century? We love what we do. The problem seems to be in communicating the value of what we do to lay people outside the discipline. Sociology's future in part will be dependent upon its practitioners demonstrating its utility in the marketplace of everyday life, assessment and decision making. This paper offers a twenty-year perspective of one sociology department's work in a rural Appalachian region. While providing a brief overview of a series of initiatives, it explains in depth our involvement and contributions to a community-based health project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U S environmental law requires that environmental impact statements make "integrated use" of the social sciences in identifying the impacts of certain new developments, and requires that decisionmakers give "appropriate consideration" to the impacts which are identified. Despite this fact, sociological expertise is severely underrepresented in the impact statement process--not only in the final decisions, but in the impact statements themselves. This paper draws attention to the existing situation, and offers several suggestions for improving the sociological content of impact statements in the future. The paper's final section examines potential implications of increased sociological involvement in impact assessments, it concludes that there is a good deal that could be promising about improved (and genuinely "social") impact assessments. Not only could they exert an increased influence on policy outcomes, but they hold the potential to contribute to baste sociology as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is taken from Chapter 6 of the publication A Lucky Journey: The Sociological Enterprise, 1931-1980, which reflects on the progress of the American Sociological Review (ASR) as a publication from 1958 to 1960. The local editorial staff of the publication began with a contingent of ten scholars. These ten scholars included representatives of various sub-fields in sociology and of related discipline as well as specialists on Soviet Russia, Africa, India and Japan. Most of the day-to-day labor on the Review was done by editorial secretary Betty Vogel, Michael Olmsted, and their nominal boss. Michael Olmsted was more than a first-rate book review editor, he evaluated papers in his special fields with sagacity and designed an attractive cover to replace what had long been the dismal front of the publication. Solicitation of papers by prominent sociologists helped to upgrade ASR as a scholarly journal. Another change was the introduction of a division of the Review on the Profession which included not merely the obituaries or communications pertaining to the sociological guild, but both solicited submitted articles on the occupation itself. This innovation, according to the author, was consistent with his own growing interest in the sociology of sociology.

This paper focuses on the early stages of a social movement--the development of a militant faculty union. It is a socio-historical analysts of the major internal and external factors and the interaction between them that determined the course of the movement's development. Although the analysts is limited to one state university system, the structural and procedural characteristics are relevant to other universities faced with collective bargaining choices.
This research examines a faculty union as an insurgent group. An insurgent group is a movement organization which attempts to bring about structural change by thrusting new interests into the decision-making process (Jenkins and Perrow, 1977). The paper will analyze the key issues and events that enabled a small, rag-tag army to march into legitimate power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes our involvement as jury consultants in one of the most notorious criminal trials in history-the McMartin child-molestation trial in Los Angeles. The McMartin trial was the longest and costliest criminal trial in American history. The prosecution spent $15 million and took nearly six years in making a criminal case against day-care workers, only to have the jurors declare them not guilty. The defendants in the McMartin trial were charged with molesting young children at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles County, California. In 1987, we had performed scientific defense voir dire jury selection to choose the most impartial jurors to try the two defendants, Raymond Buckey and Peggy Buckey McMartin. In performing scientific jury selection, both a community survey and pre-voir dire questionnaires served as an important empirical foundation to assess jurors' attitudinal, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics to develop the effective juror profiles for the trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opposition to collectivism from both libertarians who challenged totalitarianism and laissez faire conservatives who opposed controlling collective institutions led to a celebration of individualism. However, this movement to individualism in America has undercut the legitimacy of the community and of the public realm. This paper examines the extreme historical positions of individualist (Whigs) and collectivists (Tories), and argues for a synthesis between the two that invests rights in both the person and society, and views individuals and their union as both commanding primary status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her article "Reverse Discrimination in Hiring in Sociology Departments," sociologist Barbara R. Lorch argues that portions of the HEW Affirmative Action Program guidelines in the U.S. have brought some reverse discrimination into sociology and threaten to bring more. In the first part of her article she contends that labor force utilization guidelines for determining the existence of discrimination and affirmative action search and hiring procedures are color conscious in ways which inherently discriminate in favor of minorities and women. In the remainder of her paper she presents a survey of department chairpersons' perceptions of coercion brought against them to hire minorities and women over more qualified white males as proof of the existence of reverse discrimination. Lorch's concerns are legitimate, but the author finds her arguments specious and misleading, dependent to a large extent upon a benign neglect of the complexities of past and present prejudice and discrimination for their persuasive thrust. This response to Lorch follows the order in which she presented her argument. The author finds that the Affirmative Action Program guidelines as written, though color and sex conscious, do not threaten group discrimination against whites, males, or white males, instead, such color and sex conscious criteria appear to be a necessary component in any method for identifying and countering past discrimination.

Academic employment depends on student enrollment. The bull market in higher education in the U.S. that ran from the mid-thirties to the present has passed its crest. In fact, it appears from a recent release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that, while college enrollments did not drop absolutely until just this year, they began to recede relatively four years ago. The proportion of white high school graduates who entered college reached 57 percent in 1968, then began to fall, until by September of 1972 it had dropped to 49 percent. This paper was specifically commissioned to suggest some changes in the training of sociologists designed to increase sociological opportunities. Another way of stating the article's purpose is to answer the question on the difference between the training for non-academic positions and training for academic positions. Far from presenting temptations to dilute academic training for sociological research, preparation for the role of non-academic sociologist would take for granted all usable benefits that conventional research training has to offer, then add to it in a number of important respects. The activities in which sociologists have hitherto been employed within non-academic institutions have been primarily in research and research will figure heavily in their activity in the future-with certain qualifications. The article, therefore, focuses on just those types and methods of research which are relevant and important to these institutions, in preparation for which current academic training needs to be substantially supplemented.

The possibility that institutional participation at the American Sociological Association meetings could serve as an index of the quality of graduate sociology departments is explored in this article. It seems reasonable to anticipate some degree of positive association between these variables because participation at this level is informally recognized by sociologists as "some" measure of individual prestige within the profession, session participation generally involves a competitive element, and session chairpersons and moderators are often among the more experienced, recognized, and productive members of the profession. Most of the studies that have been concerned with the quality of graduate sociology departments have utilized productivity and prestige indices that are time consuming to calculate and that assume the index has a history. But institutional representation at the national meeting is much easier to determine, a recurrent event, and not as dependent upon past performance.

This section presents an overview of the 1972 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association which will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana, from August 28-31, 1972. The Preliminary Program consists of 180 sessions, including six didactic seminars, requiring pre-registration, 42 regular seminars and 13 contributed paper sessions. The last two will be discussions only, papers should be read beforehand. In addition, 97 luncheon roundtable discussions have been scheduled. Forms for ordering papers, reserving tickets for luncheons, registering for the didactic seminars, making hotel reservations and pre-registering for the Meeting will be enclosed in the Preliminary Program. Section Programs will be interspersed with regular sessions throughout the four days of the Meeting. The Program will give full details on Section activities. A Dutch Treat Party will follow the Presidential Address. An additional social event is still in the planning stage, a jazz evening, when members of the Society of Musical Sociologists will join with some of the great local talent.

The article presents announcements related to the field of sociology. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) offers an annual prize, Socio-Psychological Prize, of $1,000 for a theoretical and experimental essay that furthers understanding of the psychological-social-cultural behavior of human beings. Entries should present a completed analysis of a problem, the relevant data, and an interpretation of the data in terms of the postulates with which the study began. The National Institute of Social and Behavioral Science will hold its regular sessions for contributed papers at the 137th annual meeting of the AAAS, December 26-31, 1970, in Chicago. The National Institute of Mental Health is accepting applications for a new one-year interdisciplinary graduate training program in sociology. The British Council for Rehabilitation of the Disabled announces that the Fourth International Study Course Seminar will take place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from June 28 to July 3, 1971. Peace Research Abstracts Journal is soliciting volunteers to replenish its pool of abstractors.

The article examines the problems in American secondary education. There are several structural deficiencies in the organization of schools as learning environments. The most fundamental defect, which has been suggested here, is that most teaching is not useful for understanding day-to-day problems. Moreover, the rapidity of social change induces uncertainty as to whether the skills a student is acquiring, will ever be relevant. One reason discussed for the low level of motivation among students is that students see little need to focus their energies upon skills of uncertain value. Various problems have been discussed such as the rigid reward system that depends upon the performance of restrictive assignments and the passing of tests with fixed standards. There is little opportunity for students themselves to initiate learning activity. The teacher's role has been criticized and it is felt that he has a dual role: teaching and evaluating. Repeated tests appear to be rituals that permit little time for discovery and self-motivated learning. Teachers, as well as students, have become captives of the evaluation process. It asks for more innovative approach towards course structure.

The February issue of "The American Sociologist," carried the announcement that the 1969 Annual Meeting would be held in San Francisco, California. "Careers in Sociology," has been distributed recently to ASA members. Additional copies are available on request from the Executive Office. "Guide to Graduate Departments of Sociology, 1969," is now ready for distribution. "Sociological Methodology," 1969 may be ordered from Jossey-Bass, Inc., San Francisco. "Issues and Trends in Sociology," a new series of readers, will he devoted to topics of salient theoretical or substantive interest and, to the extent feasible, papers will be drawn from ASA publications. The American Sociological Association recognizes the important contributions that the National Institute of Mental Health has made to sociological training and research through its Training Grant and Social Science research programs. The Association expresses its full support of these efforts, and urges that the programs he expanded with full financial support to continue to meet the growing needs of sociological knowledge in the United States.

The article focuses on emerging nations and the ideologies of American social scientists. Confronting the rapidly expanding literature on political and social change in emerging nations, one finds it difficult not to ask the old question, never satisfactorily resolved, of the value implications of social science. The purpose of the author in this paper is to do just that by inquiring about some of the assumptions of American social scientists who have been studying political and social modernization in the world's new states and older poorer nations. These assumptions, though not usually stated as such are ideological in their implications in the sense that they involve normative views of the social order. Many discussions of the politics of emerging nations contain a redefinition of political democracy so as to include political systems within the term that by customary standards would be regarded as authoritarian regimes. Given the cultural heterogeneity and economic backwardness of the new states, non-democratic political systems are in some sense an inevitable outcome. Another characteristic is the denigration of the motives behind the nationalist or revolutionary movements occurring in the underdeveloped world. To the disadvantage of the emerging nations, invidious comparisons are drawn between their current strivings and the earlier ideologies of the West.

This article introduces issues and topics discussed in the Winter 2002 issue of The American Sociologist. Bill Du Bois and R. Dean Wright begin with a broad-gauge discussion of the meaning of humanist sociology. Chet Ballard then contributes a description of the early years of humanism as a movement, including the first annual conferences of what became the Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS). Jerold Starr offers a personal account of the attractions of the emerging movement and the distinctive feel of AHS conferences. Jill Bystydzienski provides a perspective on both humanism and feminism, and addresses the tensions between those movements, based on her own participation in both. Art Jipson discusses how a commitment to humanism has affected his approach to undergraduate teaching. Hal Pepinsky offers an autobiographical essay on his development as a humanist criminologist. Lloyd Klein and Shela R. Van Ness trace the development of humanist criminology. Alan Spector examines the divergence and convergence of humanism and Marxist sociology, against based on personal experience within both movements. The final paper by Severyn T. Bruyn celebrates the humanist commitment of the late William F. Whyte.

This section introduces a series of articles on financing sociological research. The late Alvin Gouldner presented us with a fundamental paradox that those who supply the greatest resources for the institutional development of sociology are precisely those who most distort its quest for knowledge. The problem of financing sociological research is not the burden of individual researchers, it is the challenge to a discipline and a profession that must take account of a shifting cultural-political climate and be accountable to a restive public. The paper by Martin Bulmer examines the unique role of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, under the directorship of Breadsley Ruml, in distributing relatively large amounts of money for social research during the 1920s. Highlighting the entry of more direct federal government support for basic social science research, Roberta Balstand Miller's paper, The Social Sciences and the Politics of Science: the 1940s, examines the debate about the inclusion of the social sciences in the legislation that established the National Science Foundation.

This article presents Paul Kay's reaction to several comments on his paper which appeared in a previous issue of The American Sociologist, which addressed the nonacademic employment among doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. On the whole, according to Kay, there seems to be agreement among the commenters (a) that social science generally is facing an oversupply of doctor of philosophy degree holders and (b) that there is substantial adherence in some quarters to the claim that the glut can be alleviated by expanding nonacademic employment. Similarly, although some commenters express doubt regarding the degree to which what Kay describes for anthropology applies to sociology, most state or assume that the current employment situations of the two disciplines are essentially the same. That is, the consensus of the comments is that his argument is either right for both disciplines or wrong for both disciplines, but probably not right for one and wrong for the other. Several commenters are worried by the lack of statistical report. Kay admits that his paper presented no statistics. According to him, reliable data in this area are hard to come by especially on the demand side.

The article highlights the contribution of Louis Wirth in the field of sociology specially the related to the African-Americans and other minorities in the U.S. The article further reports the current discussion of the undermining of sociology by the "military-industrial complex" bent on the maintenance of its privileged position to the detriment of the emerging minorities, notably the African-Americans with the inference that sociology has thereby surrendered its capacity to tell the truth. When Louis Wirth came to University of Chicago, Illinois, he was already antagonistic toward religion and the sort of commerce engendered by an unbridled capitalism. He was captivated by its largely pro-Russian political climate. Under the influence of Albion Small, he saw in sociology the possibility of bringing to fruition a Marxist-Leninist version of social equality. Though his prevailing skepticism ultimately rejected such a solution, the commitment to sociology as a mechanism for action as well as generalization was born in this environment and continued to his death. His major volume, "The Ghetto" in 1928 and the paper for which he is best known, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," 1964 are also given.

The article presents information on rankings of sociology departments. Recently the American Council on Education published a volume containing a rating of the quality of the graduate faculty of 30 academic disciplines. The ranking of departments has attracted a great deal of attention. For many sociologists, particularly those who have studied the methodology of social stratification, there is the nagging question of how closely the subjective ranking of a phenomenon approximates its objective ranking. If people respond in terms of subjective rankings, or if such rankings fairly reflect a more objective measurement of a phenomenon, then they are valuable. If, on the other hand, prestige rankings lack a universality, then they are mostly relevant to those who hold them. In order to determine how much credence can be placed in the prestige rank of the 17 sociology departments that were rated distinguished or strong in the American Council on Education's report, an examination is made in this paper of how productive the doctoral graduates and the faculty of these departments are; the former is intended to reflect effectiveness of graduate training and the latter to reflect quality of faculty.

This article presents news briefs about U.S. minorities and women related to sociology as of November 1972. Fellowships (preferably in sociology) are available for 1973-1974 to Puerto Rican graduate students for research on social problems. Fellows are required to write a paper on research dealing with Puerto Ricans in the U.S. The U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities announces fellowships for historical social or cultural studies of U.S. ethnic minorities to young scholars and teachers who have just completed graduate work or professional training or expect to complete it before September 1973. The Council of the American Sociological Association has approved a recommendation of the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession instructing the executive Specialist to collect vitae of sociologists from minority groups who wish their vitae to be on file for professional and employment reference. Current records of various national and regional sociological organizations indicate that the following women sociologists have been elected to positions of top leadership: Mirra Komarovsky as president of the American Sociological Association; Dorothy K. Newman as president of the D.C. Sociological Society; and Gertrude J. Selznick as president of the Pacific Sociological Association.

This column provides some illustrations on questions and answers from the titles of papers in the annual meeting of American Sociological Association in New Orleans, Louisiana.

This article announces the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 28-31, 1972. The Preliminary Program includes 176 sessions plus 97 luncheon round-tables. There are 949 listed participants laboring to produce some 515 papers. The most noteworthy among these papers is the Presidential Address of William J. Goode on the topic Force and Force-Threat in Human Society. Despite many requests, including those from Goode, the address will be delivered in the main ballroom of the Marriott Hotel and not in a back room of Galatoire's Restaurant.

This article focuses on the appointment of a Panel on Social Experimentation to be directed by Alice M. Rivlin of the Brookings economics staff in 1972, in an attempt to explore the uses and limitations of the technique for learning how to deliver social services more effectively. The first major social experiment launched by the U.S. government, the New Jersey income maintenance experiment, was designed to estimate what effect various income maintenance programs for the working poor would have on their earnings and work effort. The results of that experiment are being analyzed and several other experiments are being designed or carried out to evaluate alternative income maintenance systems, housing allowances, health insurance plans, health maintenance organizations and various innovations in education. While the technique has great potential value if used skillfully, it also raises difficult problems. Ethical issues surround experiments with human beings. This group will meet several times a year for three years to review papers commissioned for it and to attempt to evolve a strategy for social experimentation. It will assess what current experiment teach about pitfalls to be avoided and techniques that succeed.