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This section provides information on congresses and conventions related to sociology in 1963 and 1964. The Seventh Latin American Congress of sociology will be held in Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, Colombia on July 14-19, 1964. The congress will be sponsored by the Colombian sociological association. Four specific themes will be discussed: sociology and the national planning; sociology of the agrarian transformations; sociology of the urban and industrial transformations and sociology of education. This section also presents abstracts of papers presented at the Fifty-Eight Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Los Angeles, California on August 26-29, 1963. The papers included were Roman Catholicism and Social Change in Latin America: From Church to Sect, by Ivan A. Vallier, and Religion and Social Change: The Third State in the Application of the Weber Thesis, by Milton Singer. Abstracts of papers delivered at the Twenty-third Annual meeting of the Sociology for the Scientific Study of Religion held in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 25-26, 1963, are also presented in this section. The theme of the annual meeting was New Knowledge on Moral and Mystical Dimensions of Religion.

This paper presents an international bibliography of sociology of religion.

This article presents a list of papers on sociology of religion, that appeared in the August 01, 1962 issue of the periodical "Social Compass." Some of the books mentioned in the list are "The Personal and the Functional Element in Pastoral Care," by W.M.I. Van Den Ende, "Pastoral Care and Clinical Training in America. Report of a Three Months Visit," by H. Faber and "The Variety of City Churches," by F.A. Shippey.

The article presents a bibliography related to sociology. Among the authors whose papers have been mentioned are A.I. Abell, A.M. Adlerstein, P. Alexandre, Herman Feifel, S.S. Felman, Charles Y. Glock, T. Hora, H. Stuart Hughes, P.E. Johnson, T.W. Klink, William T. Lin, Charles Lucier, S.D. Messing, J. Mills, David O. Moberg, Omar K. Moore, Murray H. Sherman, S.W. Spencer, W. Stark, Robert Tully, Ruth Underhill, Howard M. Vollmer, R.P. Vaughan, Joachim Wach, Goodwin Watson, A.M. Willms, and J.M. Yinger.

This paper highlights results of the work accomplished in the documentation of facts concerned with migration and the sources of information that have been explored and judged useful for Catholic planning and research. In conformity with the aims assigned to it by the statutes of the International Catholic Migration Commission (I.C.M.C.), the I.C.M.C. Information Centre was created in Geneva, Switzerland in 1952. More than 150 periodicals from different countries, particularly from immigration countries, were received regularly in 1953. The best publications on population matters including different aspects of migration have been written for the Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques by eminent professors and population specialists, both French and of other nationalities. From the Catholic point of view, population problems have been considerably elucidated by the eminent Australian economist, now in Oxford, England Colin Clark. The agricultural problem in Venezuela has also been examined from different point of views in the publications of the Instituto Agrario Nacional. Only a few studies on European emigration from the national and economic angle have been published. A curious sociological fact has been noted in the Netherlands concerning the religious composition of emigration groups.

This section presents information several reports on socio-religious topics. The article, The Differential Organization of Religious Professionals, by Thomas M. Gannon reports on important differences between religious and diocesan priests. The author is applying the Parsonian social systems approach and focuses on socio-psychological variables as a very efficient and illuminating approach to the understanding of his two main types of religious professionals. The article, Some Characteristics of the Religiosity of Secondary School Attendants, by Stefica Bahtijarevic deals analytically with various religious patterns among young people of the Zagreb Region. In the article, From a Universal Church to a Local Church, Wim J. J. Kusters assesses the position of Catholic Christianity in their present-day life and probes into the efficacy of new ideas, values and behavior under the aspects of polarisation and reconciliation. In the article, A Sociological Reflection on Methodological Problems in the Empirical Study of Secularization, by Roger Creyf attempted to crystallize the major problem of secularization bearing in mind its Christian basis in the famous sense of O'Dea: Religion both needs most and suffers most from institutionalization.

This article focuses on a basic problem in the analysis of myth and symbol in the sociology and anthropology of religion: how to establish an analytical system which is sufficiently regularized to allow replication; sufficiently specific to allow empirical test while maintaining sensitivity to cross-cultural nuance in the ethnographic materials, and sufficiently abstract and comprehensive to allow comparisons across cultures. Aspects of the work of two anthropologists involved in this enterprise are examined to highlight comparabilities and pin-point differences in order to facilitate more applications of their work. The two approaches examined are those of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Victor M. Turner. Both are writing at several levels of generality, both are operating with evident but not always identifiable philosophical presuppositions, and both are using somewhat different kinds of geographical and ethnographic materials for the basis of their arguments. Thus, it is always possible that a comparison or contrast drawn by an analyst of both would be accepted by only one or perhaps neither since a proper match between levels of generality, presuppositions, or ethnographic data was not first established. However, both are drawing conclusions from particular ethnographic studies they suggest their analyses have general application potential. Also, the exercise of comparison is a quite natural one for the practitioner seeking to make sense out of a particular myth segment or set of symbols.

Copyright of Social Compass is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. 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.)

This paper presents a list of books received in the 1970 issue of Social Compass.

This article discusses the factors contributing to the adoption of priesthood in sociological theory. Those organizational and educational developments within the churches have created common patterns of organization which attract the sociologist to study both them and their leaders from a common theoretical perspective. Few sociologists of religion sustain a critical attitude to their subject and of those who do, few are interested in the Roman Catholic Church. Studies of the priesthood tend to be restricted to Roman Catholic sympathizers, who are naturally concerned with the practical issues of problem-solving within their own church. Another reason is the social concern ethos which has rapidly replaced the transcendental in the consciousness of committed teachers and preachers and laity of the Roman church. What is important is that sociologists approaching the study of religious specialization are faced with different church organizations with relatively more in common at a social level with welfare agencies than their historical social and cultural traditions would allow.

This paper reports that at the VIIth World Congress of Sociology, held in Varna, Bulgaria from September 14-19, 1970, a new executive was elected for the Sociology of Religion Research Committee. Professor Norman Birnbaum, Amherst College, Department of Anthropology-Sociology, Amherst, Massachusetts, was elected to succeed the late Professor Le Bras. The section decided to recruit membership as now required under the new Statutes of the International Sociological Association and to plan a conference for September 1972. It was also decided to invite representatives from each country on the committee.

This paper presents the journal Social Compass, a bimonthly review devoted to sociology, sociography, social psychology and statistics issued by appointment of the International Catholic Institute for Social-Ecclesiastical Research in Geneva, Switzerland.

This section presents an international bibliography of books about the sociology of religion.

This article examines whether the key concepts and measurements most often used in empirical studies of religion correspond to the social facts they are intended to reflect. Religion may be broadly defined as an institution comprising a believing community's organized, integrated, and culturally conditioned patterns of interaction with a superhuman Being or beings postulated as relevant to their existence. Meanwhile, most of the studies, apart from abandoning the more systemic theoretical concerns of the sociological tradition in the study of religion, seem to assume that beliefs have a concrete, in contrast to analytic, status and function of their own identifiable as such in spatial reality. Moreover, few studies give evidence of seriously confronting on a systematic and empirical level. This article concludes that if the sociology of religion is constructively to engage in controlled observation, interpretation, and judgment about the sources and consequences of the social facts it purports to treat, it is then important to submit to critical review every element of the frame of reference regarding the interrelationship of religious and social systems and the contemporary modalities of social needs and trends that affect this relationship. To do this requires clarifying both the factual and theoretical assumptions and stating these assumptions explicitly.

This article is directed at improving the sociological study of religion in British society. The discussion presented in this article has been directed at rectifying the major deficiencies in the study of religion in British society. The authors have in effect advocated an overall strategy of what might be called co-ordinated eclecticism, a strategy which would combine relatively reactive and relatively non-reactive techniques in both historical and contemporary contexts. It is important to mitigate the liabilities of the official, received religious-cultural approach to the study of religion. To be sure, a number of sociologists of religion have argued in similar ways about the pitfalls of this approach. On the other hand sociologists have not as yet pursued alternatives in terms of empirical research, as opposed to speculation. It is also important to develop more interest in the study of societal religious systems. The concentration on doctrinal traditions has kept the present analysis within the very narrow confines. It is also vital to know more about the historical profile of religion in single societies. In this way, one can begin to comprehend the overall dynamics and logical of categories of thought, symbiotic cognitive patterns, and so on.

This section presents a list of books on the sociology of religion.

This article presents an update on socio-religious activities in the Roman Catholic Church in Europe as of 1970. Socio-religious research activities in Europe linked with the Roman Catholic Church are almost entirely carried out on the national level. International cooperation between socio-religious institutes has hardly developed. Socio-religious institutes, if compared with agencies in the field of market research, are relatively small and have only moderate resources. The annual output of approximately 60 reports by these institutes forms only a very small segment of all sociological activities in Europe. It is a fair assumption that this observation remains valid even if all other socio-religious research activities not investigated are taken into consideration. Of all activities in the field of socio-religious research in Europe, the main part is carried out by institutes or individuals linked in one way or the other with ecclesiastical institutions. One may conclude, therefore, that public and academic interest in activities of this kind is comparatively small. During the last ten years, higher scientific standards have been introduced in most institutes working in the field of socio-religious research in Europe. There is a tendency, however, among well qualified sociologists working in such institutes to look for better jobs in other sociological fields.

This section presents an international bibliography of sociology of religion.

This article reports on some trends in the sociology of religion in the U.S. as of May 1966. The sociology of religion has expanded greatly in the U.S. since World War II. This is evident in the increasing number of organizations and centers concerned with research as well as in the production of publications. The expansion of the sociology of religion in the U.S. since 1945 is very likely a result of several factors. The general resurgence of interest in religion in the entire American culture was perhaps one of the most important. Social scientists had sometimes claimed that religion was about to die and become obsolete in the new scientific age, but to their surprise this prediction did not materialize. The important role of religion or at least religious institutions, in modern social life is increasingly acknowledged by social scientists. Research is thus helping to build the sociology of religion into a recognized and respected sub-discipline of sociology. The popularity of science has made church administrators desire scientific studies to help resolve their problems. In other words, the sociology of religion has been stimulated by developments in the total American culture, in sociology and related disciplines, and the churches.

This article discusses an assumption wherein the pressure of events and of social requirements may be considered a cause of change, but so also may be the reaction to this pressure, and indeed, may be occasioned by the movement of ideas rather than come into existence merely as the consequences of social trends and tensions. One concern has been to show that any sociological generalization that relates to it must also relate to the world of ideas as well as things, if it has to have any meaning or significance for human affairs. This is particularly so if one accepts to any great extent a sense of responsibility to play one's part in reducing tensions and relaying the foundations of the tragically disturbed societies whose destiny it is to have to find a solution for the problem of race relations. Values, including those associated with religious belief, are regarded by sociologists with a so-called scientific cast of mind as epiphenomena, as superficial manifestations of forces, influences, and tendencies that are more profound, more compelling, and enduring. Those who accept values as an essential part of man's social experiences may be supposed to have adopted pre-scientific categories of thought, and to be content to allow appearances to prevent the way to the study of realities.

This sections presents an international bibliography of sociology of religions for 1963.

Copyright of Social Compass is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. 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.)

This section presents a list of books about the sociology of religion.