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Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mathematics is used for a number of different purposes in sociological research. This report will emphasize the use of mathematics for the development of sociological concepts and theory, and de-emphasize the use of mathematics in the development of all-purpose measurement models, in the development of estimation techniques, and for other methodological purposes. This reflects a conception of the field that seems widely shared by mathematical sociologists. However, the field is so recently institutionalized that there is no firm consensus about its nature, objectives and boundaries. In this article, the author will first discuss some of the various conceptions that exist about the field, then briefly review its history, and finally give an account of how the field has been delineated for purposes of the present report. Using an analogy to the development of the natural sciences and economics, mathematical sociologists have often claimed that the use of mathematics is essential for the development of sociology as a whole. This claim has been objected to by some who argue that mathematical sociology is impossible, or, at best, that it is a very specialized and rather esoteric activity. That mathematical sociology is possible needs no elaborate justification.

Copyright of Current Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In its founding generations, sociology was greatly concerned with gender, as part of its theorizing of the world of colonialism and empire. Sociology then focused on the global metropole, so its analysis of gender in the decades since the Women’s Liberation movement has been developed in a Northern container. This can now change, if the extraversion of sociology around the global South can be overcome. The thematics of gender analyses in the periphery highlight historical processes of the formation and disruption of gender orders, dealing with issues of violence and land. The work of a number of gender theorists and researchers from the South is discussed. The material conditions of knowledge formation in developing countries have to be recognized, as well as the differing ways intellectuals in the South handle influences from the metropole. New issues have emerged in the sociology of gender as a neoliberal world order has taken shape, producing new patterns of masculinized power as well as pathways of change for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses theory and analysis in macro-sociology. It describes the development of macro-sociological analysis and explores the major problems of sociological problems. It explains the structural-functional approach to macro-societal analysis. It discusses how studies of modernization and development renewed focus on macro-societal and comparatives studies. It analyzes trends and shifts in the theoretical assumptions of macro-sociological and sociological analysis. It identifies the theoretical bases of the criticisms of studies of modernization and of institutional convergence.