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The changing demographic landscape of the United States calls for a reassessment of the societal impacts and consequences of so called "natural" and technological disasters. An increasing trend towards greater demographic and socio-economic diversity (in part due to high rates of international immigration), combined with mounting disaster losses, have brought about a more serious focus among scholars on how changing population patterns shape the vulnerability and resiliency of social systems. Recent disasters, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004) and Hurricane Katrina (2005), point to the differential impacts of disasters on certain communities, particularly those that do not have the necessary resources to cope with and recover from such events. This paper interprets these impacts within the context of economic, cultural, and social capital, as well as broader human ecological forces. The paper also makes important contributions to the social science disaster research literature by examining population growth, composition, and distribution in the context of disaster risk and vulnerability. Population dynamics (e.g., population growth, migration, and urbanization) are perhaps one of the most important factors that have increased our exposure to disasters and have contributed to the devastating impacts of these events, as the case of Hurricane Katrina illustrates. Nevertheless, the scientific literature exploring these issues is quite limited. We argue that if we fail to acknowledge and act on the mounting evidence regarding population composition, migration, inequality, and disaster vulnerability, we will continue to experience disasters with greater regularity and intensity. (Contains 8 figures and 2 notes.)

Research into immigration has for many years focused most of its attention on the issue of how immigrants adapt to host societies. This tendency is especially true in the work of sociologists. Yet if we acknowledge the growing ethnic diversity today in the United States and elsewhere, the most interesting questions arise as to how immigrants influence the host society--not how they adapt to it. This paper proposes a sociological theory to account for such influence. For evidence it draws on a variety of empirical examples from research on ethnic communities in the United States.

Stratification and inequality are among the most central concepts in sociology, and although related, they are fundamentally distinct: inequality refers to the extent to which resources are distributed unevenly across individuals or between population subgroups, whereas stratification refers to the extent to which population subgroups occupy distinct hierarchical layers within an overall resource distribution. Despite the centrality of stratification in theories of class structure, prior empirical studies have focused exclusively on measures of inequality, which do not accurately capture the degree of class stratification and suffer from a variety of methodological limitations. In this paper, we employ a novel rank-based index of stratification to measure the degree to which occupational classes inhabit distinct, non-overlapping, and hierarchically arranged layers in the distribution of personal market income. The stratification index is nonparametric, both scale and translation invariant, and independent of the level of inequality. Based on this index, our results show that the US income distribution is highly stratified by occupational class and that the degree of class stratification increased substantially from 1980 to 2016. Moreover, we find that this trend is almost entirely due to growing stratification among aggregate occupational classes rather than among the disaggregate occupations nested within them. Finally, a set of counterfactual analyses indicate that the rise of occupational class stratification is driven by increases in the income returns to education, deunionization, and deindustrialization, although the relative importance of these factors varies by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recently developed hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) models, inferential questions arise: How can one assess or judge the significance of estimates of individual cohort and period effects in such models? And how does one assess the overall statistical significance of the cohort and/or the period effects? Beyond statistical significance is the question of substantive significance. This paper addresses these questions. In the context of empirical applications of linear and generalized linear mixed-model specifications of HAPC models using data on verbal test scores and voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections, respectively, we describe a two-step approach and a set of guidelines for assessing statistical significance. The guidelines include assessments of patterns of effects and statistical tests both for the effects of individual cohorts and time periods as well as for entire sets of cohorts and periods. The empirical applications show strong evidence that trends in verbal test scores are primarily cohort driven, while voter turnout is primarily a period phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While W. E. B. Du Bois is widely recognized for his contributions to the sociology of race, his contributions to the foundations of sociology are largely ignored. His sociology is based on African American reformism, a version of pragmatism, and a contingent historicism. The basic view of sociology is one that emphasizes the role of chance and will as opposed to law and certainty. He called sociology “the science of free will.” His view of society is one that focuses on the historical contingency of the structure of society, the malleability of society, and the fundamental feature of American society: a society built around the “color line” or “veil.” This view of society is not merely an interesting historical anomaly, but has significant implications for the understanding of and development of contemporary sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite their longstanding interest in race, American sociologists have conducted little empirical research on sociodemographic patterns or longitudinal trends in "racial conceptualization"- that is, notions of what race is, how races differ, and the origins of race. This article outlines key empirical, methodological and theoretical considerations for a research agenda on racial conceptualization. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than 50 college students, I describe the variety of race concepts among respondents, illustrate the importance of using multiple measures of conceptualization, and demonstrate the malleability of conceptualization, linking it to demographic context and thereby raising the question of its future evolution in the changing United States of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the puzzle of diverging trajectories of immigrant citizenship in the United States and Canada to build a new approach to the study of citizenship and political incorporation. I consider three existing models of citizenship: an approach that considers citizenship adoption as the product of cost/benefit calculations; an approach that understands individuals and groups to be differentially endowed with the skills, resources and interests necessary to acquire citizenship; and an approach that believes countries adopt citizenship regimes which either include or shut out immigrants. I then offer an alternative model of structured mobilization which views political incorporation as a social process of mobilization by friends, family, community organizations and local leaders that is embedded in an institutional context shaped by government policies of diversity and newcomer settlement. The material and symbolic resources provided by government shape the ability and interest of "social helpers" to assist with and mobilize around citizenship. The article concludes by considering the implications of structured mobilization for various debates in immigration and political sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the competitive processes in the hotel industry in Manhattan, New York City from 1989 to 1990. Density-dependence theory cannot account for the widely observed pattern of proliferation and concentration in organizational populations. Although density dependence provides an explanation for initial proliferation, it cannot explain subsequent concentration because it does not allow some organizations to become dominant competitors. The article enriches understanding of the influence of competitive processes on the evolutionary trajectories of organizational populations by combining density dependence with ideas from complementary models of ecological competition that allow different-sized organizations to generate and experience competition of different strengths. Organizational size, arguably the dominant variable in organizational sociology, is the most notable organizational characteristic affecting competitive processes neglected by density-dependent explanations for population, dynamics. Mass dependence, size-localized, and resource partitioning models of ecological competition each address different aspects of the role of organizational size in competitive dynamics.

This article examines the relative impact of sociologists from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) on the discipline in U.S. and, in particular, in the South. I explore measures of HBCU' sociologists' participation in the Southern Sociological Society annual meetings and publication in Social Forces. 1 suggest that it may be plausible to consider the existence of a core and a penpheral sociology, reflecting historically white and historically black institutions respectively. Internal and external HBCU factors contributing to this likelihood are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper joins central concerns in the sociology of work and the sociology of aging. Age differences in work commitment and work values are examined, as well as their work and nonwork determinants, using data from 4,567 American and 3,735 Japanese employees. Our results show that older men are more committed to work than younger men in both Japan and the United States. This pattern also holds for American women, but there are no age differences in work commitment among Japanese women. Moreover, there are greater age differences among the Japanese in the importance placed on good pay. This is consistent with the view that there has been greater cultural change in recent years in Japan than in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper explores the connection between employment trends and state mental hospital admissions first presented by Brenner in Mental Illness and the Economy The analysis is based on employment data for the Buffalo SMSA and admissions to the SMSAs only major public psychiatric hospital for the years 1914 to 1955. We employ a series of specifications in time-series analyses. Our findings contrast with Brenner's; unlike his analysis, ours indicates that employment is positively related to admissions. Consistent with other previous research, hospital capacity is also found to be important in predicting admissions. We offer a number of interpretations for the results, in particular noting the need for the examination of the stressful effects of work itself, not merely its loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT American sociology has been dominated by an individualist, psychologistic perspective. This dominance has been so pervasive that American sociologists are generally unfamiliar with a sociological apprehension of social phenomena. That is, American sociologists are largely unfamiliar with the structuralist (sociological) view of social phenomena. The two approaches are so far apart and employ such different terminologies and definitions that they would be more accurately conceived as two entirely different fields of study. This essay attempts to draw out some of the differences between the structuralist and the individualist perspectives and to offer a criticism of the individualist position. The critical aspects of the essay are intended to clarify for individualist sociologists just why structuralists regard individualism not only as a dead end, but, indeed, not even as sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines bias toward status-similarity in adult friendships in Detroit and a West German city. Principles of meeting and "mating," by which strangers are converted to acquaintances and acquaintances to friend, are stated. One of these, the proximity principle, claims that the more similar people are, the more likely they will meet and become friends. This principle is tested in matrices of friendship choice for twelve social characteristics. Two statistical measures of bias are used and their properties discussed. Compared to a random-choice model, adult friendships show strong bias toward status similarity for all social characteristics. Bias is strongest for "edge" categories of ranked statuses and for "best friends. The less similar two people are in social characids, the less likely they are to be close friends. Demographic characteristics tend to show more bias toward homogeneous choices than other characteristics. Most studies of friendship choice involve children or young adults, often college students. There are relatively few reports of friendship choice by adults.

ABSTRACT Metropolitan communities in the United States are interdependent. Each metropolis serves the economy through its key functions while at the same time it depends on other metropolises and systems for some of its own needs. Using 1960 data for SMSAs, this paper demonstrates that a community's position in this differentiated system influences the characteristics of its population. Two perspectives for determining a metropolitan community's key functions are used: one considers economic activities one at a time; the other considers the entire configuration of these activities at once. These two procedures are compared in their ability to identify groups of communities having distinctive social structures, as indicated by occupational and educational composition, income level, age and sex structure, and ability to attract and hold migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT How adequate is Weber's world-historical Sociology of Religion in relation to ongoing secularization, especially the rise of quasi-religious political movements and ideologies? It is historical developments for both analytical and historical reasons. The essay distinguishes between Weber's developmental theory of modem revolutionary beliefs and his sociology of ideological virtuosi and of social marginality. The model of revolutionary religious virtuosity is applied to the Catholic opposition against church and state in the United States. The essay concludes with some observations on the counterculture in the light of Weber's developmental theory and sociohistorical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This is an exploratory paper using unobtrusive measures to study regularities in the American practice of using Jr. and numerical suffixes to indicate patrilateral name inheritance. The practice is shown to be more common on the eastern seaboard than elsewhere in the country. Over the present century it is shown to have increased rapidly and then to have declined. This changing incidence over time is paralleled by a changing distribution in the social structure: originally practiced by the white property-owning and professional class, it has spread to the white working class and to the black population. This practice is usefully considered as a property of the status system and its changing distribution can be understood as status usurpation through the operation of the "trickle effect." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular imagery and various social science theories argue that urban life generates a sense of despair or malaise. While Americans tend to express preferences for small communities, secondary analysis of several American and foreign surveys fails to indicate that community size fosters personal unhappiness. If any result is substantial, it is that the effect, worldwide, is of rural malaise. American and French data do reveal, however, that, after controls for covariates, there is a small trend for the largest metropolises to be disproportionately places of malaise. Breaking down the samples by migration history suggests that this is owing to the ability of some to move to idealized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speaking of a "balance of sexes," sociologists imply that parity is desirable and useful. They start from the Western supposition of a monogamous civilization. Slightly unsettled by the legality of re-marriages and the more or less polygamous practice of real life, the rule ordains that one adult male should be mated with one female. Any grave disorder in this equipoise must produce personal conflicts and social disorders. It is one of the cases in sociology where numerical disproportions tend to turn into pathogenic conditions, and quantity becomes a qualitative issue. It is doubtful whether we are allowed to apply the balance standard to Africa or Asia, parts of the globe that do not adhere to the institution of monogamy. The refining process could be carried on. Sociologists would even be justified to speak of a sex ratio in complex psychological relations, as in homosexuality. Their suggestion is that the "unsquared" sex ratio should be revised. The subject is full of mental adventure and promise. A new improved formula may lead to new and significant conclusions.

The literature of social anthropology and sociology in the U.S. furnishes statements of opposite views on the propriety of applying the term caste to designate Negro-white social relationships in the United States. Some analysts have concluded that Negroes and whites are, in the southern society, separate castes. Others object, some with emphasis, to this application of the term. The article deals (1) with the principles that might be applied in the process of defining the term, (2) with an appraisal of how these principles have been either applied or disregarded in the controversy under discussion, and (3) with the conclusions on the pertinence of the term caste to a specific situation such as that of Negroes and whites in the United States. Every analyst has the freedom to select his own conceptual tools and to use for them any designating terms he wishes. A person can arbitrarily decide to use the term caste for any concept he thinks appropriate. To facilitate communication, however, there should be the widest possible agreement on the meaning associated with a term. If it can be discovered that a consensus of reputable opinion has already become established concerning the definition of caste, it would appear to be an economy of effort to accept that and work toward its increasing exactness rather than to deny its validity.

This article explores tentatively the utility of sociological insight for analyzing conflict between large social systems. Since a main concern of sociology is the institutional frame of a society, it seems reasonable to look to a sociologist for a realistic conceptual focus of economic, political, and other aspects of international conflict. As a step toward this goal, the Soviet Union-U.S. case is outlined. Generalized laws explaining stress and change in social systems must await much research by teams of social scientists. A political aspect of Soviet-U.S. conflict is the relatively extreme readjustment in the international balance of power. Polarization, a second facet of Soviet-U.S. politics, seems to deepen the conflict. Alliances with other major powers are no longer possible for the rivals, satellites can hardly offer the security of the pre-war ententes. Soviet-U.S. conflict operates in the historical context of the industrializing process, proceeding so rapidly and pervasively in many peasant societies as to constitute a social revolution. Without a sense of the historical context and direction of change, understanding conflict between social systems is impossible. This particular conflict can be viewed as one between an earlier phase and a later emergence of industrialism.

The article presents information on a survey within the eleven Southeastern States of the introductory sociology course in U.S. The purpose of the study was twofold: (1) to provide a general factual description of the situation of the introductory sociology course within the Southeastern states and (2) to provide a technique for stimulating interest in one's common problems as teachers. This paper briefly presents the results of the survey. A general social science course is available to freshmen or sophomores in 41 percent of Southeastern institutions. Of these, only two-fifths require that the course be taken by all students in the college. This indicates that the burden of responsibility of the introductory course by no means has shifted to the general social science course. The survey presented 18 objectives of the course for the respondents to rate along a three-point continuum, as very important, of some significance, or as unimportant. One respondent demonstrated the logical interrelation of all 18 objectives, showing that all comprise the fundamental aim of "understanding the society in which the student lives" and that by implication all are involved in the learning process.

The article presents information on the teacher of sociology in the Afro-American college. 56 institutions reportedly employed a total of 140 teachers of sociology. Of the total, 121 were employed in 45 colleges and universities, making an average of slightly less than three teachers per institution. If this average holds true for the 71 colleges and universities, one estimate that there are at present 199 teachers of sociology in this class of Afro-American institutions. These schools have a total of 13, or nearly two teachers per institution. If this ratio is correct for the 12 teachers colleges and normal schools in the country, one estimates that there are 23 additional teachers of sociology in these institutions. Four of the 56 reporting institutions are junior colleges. These schools reported a total of six teachers, or 1.5 per school. According to this ratio, there should be 27 teachers of sociology in the 18 junior colleges of the country. In the aggregate, these estimates comprise a grand total of 249 teachers of sociology in the country's 101 Afro-American institutions of higher learning. This means that there are, on the average, about two and a half teachers of sociology per institution. That is, sociology departments in the Afro-American institutions of higher learning are not very large, but this is a far cry from the time when no teachers were employed and no courses given in many institutions.

The article focuses on a social science course at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. This course deals with six societies. The Eskimo, the Navajo, and the Baganda of East Africa are treated during the first semester, while the Chinese Peasant, the Cotton South, and the English Midlands are taken up at the second semester. These societies, representing a careful selection, provide for the student several types of habitat, differing degrees of social complexity, and varying rates of social and cultural change. In the Eskimo society there is a small community, a small family group, and an indefinite tribe. Among the Navajo the matrilineal clan is closely allied with a well-developed property system. The Baganda, in addition to the clan, have an elaborate governmental structure of long standing. The Chinese Peasant, representing the majority of the world's population, which is peasant, shows a mystic attachment to the soil and is strongly familistic.

American colleges and their curricula are now undergoing careful scrutiny and revaluation. It is natural that sociologists should take part in any attempt to devise a program of education more adequate to the demands of present-day living. They are cultural products of the sociology of past years, plus the special interests and fancies of present and past staff members. The needs of these groups of students can be seen more clearly in terms of the main subject matters which people think the sociology curriculum should contain. These are: knowledge of changing contemporary U.S. society as a whole, knowledge of certain specific areas of the society, understanding of the structure and functioning of society, methods and techniques of sociological research. Budding sociologists, however, and to some extent pre-social work students, should be required to take courses in which they can acquire the conceptual and methodological tools of the trade. The professional major should select, in addition, subject matter courses giving specialization in some institutional field or other aspect of society.

The article focuses on a list of German scholars who had been dismissed from the faculties of several German universities. The reason for dismissal were Jewish ancestry and political unreliability. Such lists were to appear with alarming frequency during the subsequent years. After that scholars of the Allied Nations denounced, with varying degrees of intensity and awareness, all such practices of the Nazi government, and created agencies which could offer these refugee scholars a minimum of security and hope. Many American scholars, especially those of the older generations, had received all or a part of their training at German universities. This study, in part, represents an attempt to determine, within certain methodological limits, something of the character of German sociology during the Hitlerian regime.

Around the turn of the present century what might be called the first industrial revolution already shaken Europe and was mounting steadily in the U.S. The building of factories and railroads, the mining of coal and iron ore, the cutting of forests, the demands for food and the transportation of raw and finished goods combines to make this a land of opportunity. When people first became aware of the changes which were taking place they were shocked and reacted emotionally. Numerous charity agencies and corrective programs came into being under the leadership of humanitarian and religious reformers. The sketchy review of the development and present status of community organization has many implications for sociology. There is some evidence that sociologists are not aware of the dangers of their discoveries and the need for more research concerning the use of what is known. Community organization is a means of collective action to achieve some end or purpose assumed to be worthwhile.

The article talks about the study of courtship patterns as a social institution in the U.S. in years 1930 to 1945. Studies about courtship offer the possibility of contributing to a better understanding of human interaction and the opportunities of studying the sociological aspects of human interaction such as social change, social control, and diffusion. The studies showed that courtship patterns develop into a social institution which centers on the young people's need of more knowledge about courtship, the need to adapt the drive for sexual stimulation and satisfaction to the changing culture, and the need for direction in selecting a partner.

The approach to planned land use is often considered mainly economic. Yet confessedly the economic use and control of land are hardly the only aspects of the problem. In the first place, it is from the social point of view desirable and necessary in planning land use to attempt to stabilize land-use patterns. Land-use problems must be viewed in their setting of human ecology. Man is an ecological factor, like all other animals. One outstanding human distinction from other members of a given "biome" is that he succeeds usually in upsetting, more than does any other ecological factor, the balance of climate and climax, of nature and numbers, of scarcity and satisfaction. Yet man strives for a balance with nature. Certainly he does not survive long in a condition of imbalance. Continuous and tenuous imbalance terminates, unless restored, in an impoverished and impossible social existence. Stability in a balanced ecological interaction is a prerequisite to continuity and expression of all the human arts.

Sociologists are like meteorologists and volcanologists. They can't experiment. They set up observatories and patiently wait for nature to provide them for the occasions when they can test their hunches and add to their scientific lore. And they pray for the chance of being on the spot when a real catastrophe, in their field of observation, a hurricane, an eruption, occurs, that rarest of opportunities for seeing at first hand those events which suggest, prove, modify and disprove their theories. December 7, 1941, in Hawaii marked such a catastrophe in the sociologist's area of observation. To the fortunate sociologists who were on the spot, it marked the "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to test their theories in the light of inexorable events. At the University of Hawaii the sociology department had for about twenty years already maintained what might, in the light of the above analogy, be called an observatory. The day-by-day changes in race relations constituted the problem upon which the sociologists concentrated.

The article presents an inquiry into the range and role of research by social scientists in the southern region of the U.S. The social scientist can rarely escape the pressure of a double obligation in all his work. The need for valid generalization is so great in his field that emphasis upon fundamental topics and scientific methodology can never be forgotten, but at the same time the material which he studies tends to exert upon him pressure to select subjects of investigation relevant to the immediate needs and the recognized aspirations of men. The fundamental research which precedes the application, the rigorous training of the scientific worker, and, most important of all, the applicability of the logic and objectivity of science to all phases of life -- these provide only a dim background for the magical drama in which all attention is focused on the end result, the thing produced. The extent of research, as indicated by the figures, represents tremendous expansion in a relatively short period of time, chiefly between the two great wars of the twentieth century.

The article focuses on the ways in which certain theoretical aspects of regionalism and folk sociology in the early 1940s have developed from beginnings in community studies of race and folk culture in the early 1900s. In so far as they have a bearing upon social research and planning, as applied to the regional quality and balance of tee U.S., there are a number of assumptions. The definitive culture to be studied through the region is the folk-regional society, in the study of which folk sociology may assume the new dynamics of a functional sociology as a natural-cultural science which combines the cultural and statistical methods of study. The earlier community inquiries into race relations, to which we refer, were concrete studies of African Americans in southern towns, begun in Mississippi and Georgia in 1905. When the Institute for Research in Social Science was established at the University of North Carolina, with the specific keystone of its program that of Regional Research and Study, immediately the African Americans and the folk life became a first unit. One of the first steps was to rework and publish some of the earlier collections of African Americans folk songs and to recapture as much as possible of their vividness and appeal at that time as well as to revive the interest in the older African American songs and to introduce the African Americans workaday song.

This article focuses on sociologist Patrick Geddes' works related to "the making of the future." Appropriate to the trends in American sociology to reemphasize sound theory as growing out of realistic research and to bridge the distance between such theory and "practical" problems, is the publication of a long needed volume on Patrick Geddes, the naturalist, the regionalist, and the planner. Lewis Mumford in his Introduction, and Philip Boardman in his text, have characterized Geddes as prophet and maker of the future. This wording was based partly upon Geddes' own series of inquiries into the making of the future but the main characterization has been based upon the wide and deep- running intellectual power of the scholar, the daring exploration and survey of the pioneer, and the actual contributions made by him in scientific publication, conference, and planning. There has been too often the tendency among each generation of scholars either to reject or to overlook major contributions of the elder scholars and statesmen. This has been partly due to pure negligence and ignorance of what their contributions have been, interpreted in terms of enduring reality, and partly due to the fact that manifestly some of the contributions of the great masters did not stand the test of changing science and reality.

In this article the author propose to examine an hypothesis derived from the field of so-called primitive peoples. It seems to the authors that if they can demonstrate the validity of the continuum in a modem setting the authors shall have made some contribution to any elaboration of the entire theory. The research from which the authors have derived their central hypothesis has been done among so-called primitive societies. It should be noted that the change from a folk to an urban type is essentially analogous to the change from a self-sufficient to a dependent rural community. The essential analogy lodges in the fact that both are changing from more to less homogeneity. As an incident to this study, the authors entertain the hope that the following purposes may be served: a specific understanding of historical process in southern Illinois, a contribution to folk-urban theory, a concrete demonstration of the feasibility of general law in the field of society, whether primitive or modern and a greater rapprochement between the disciplines of anthropology and sociology.

The article focuses on the role of the U.S. Commission on Interracial Cooperation in racial cooperation in war and peace. Many of its efforts have been in the field of education, specifically functioning in the attempt to change traditional racial attitudes, to improve interracial cooperation, and to increase understanding between races. These areas of knowledge and endeavor do not lend themselves readily to scientific measurement or objective appraisal. The entire culture of a people ties in so closely in shaping attitudes and in influencing action patterns that it is very difficult to segregate and to examine the influence of any single agency or institution from that of other institutions or the mass impact of the total culture. Irrespective of these limitations, this article attempts to appraise as carefully as possible the work of the Commission. This has been done through interviews and correspondence with some 300 persons, most of whom have observed or participated in the work of the Commission, have served on state or local interracial committees, or have shown an interest one way or another in race problems or southern problems. In addition, there has been consultation with Commission personnel and a somewhat detailed scrutiny of the publications and official minutes of the Commission.

Mass data on numbers, places, and kinds of people, and particularly of their movements in space and time, accumulate in the U.S. at an accelerating rate, and demographers have achieved high competence in their analysis of large-scale observations. There is available much objective and statistical material about the populations of states, regions, and nations. The accessibility of this material makes possible the single argument of this paper, which is, to use analogy, that the U.S. population information is like an unfinished painting. This article presents a running sketch of proposals for socio-demographic research with one further comment on the implied conditions of investigation. The search to which each study relates insofar as population analysis is concerned, is two-fold. On the one hand, it is for clusters of factors that operate as patterns within a migration or fertility trend. On the other, it is a search for the of elements which are capable of independent variation.

The controversy over the predominance of society at large or the school, in other words, the question of who is the first stimulant in the social process, the school or the social forces outside the school, could be greatly lessened by pointing out that both are determined by the principal objective stated for society as a whole. The Jesuit school system was a compromise aiming to imbue the colonial merchant with the anti-speculative spirit of the artisan. The colonial merchant revolted, however, against this attempt to reconcile the educational means of the artisan with his, the merchant's, social objective. The outgrowth of this rebellion was the establishment of the sovereign secular order of the monarchy. The American common school became the expression of the liberalistic order of American society. In the discussion of the role of the school, and in particular its higher type in America, the view has often been expressed that education for the sake of education is to be considered the social goal.

The article focuses on plight and trial of the migrants in the U.S. People have always migrated and perhaps always shall, because migration is a natural phenomenon of life. It is only lately, however, that sufficient interest has been aroused to accelerate the formulation of plans for the care of unemployed persons on the road. Figures obtained from the Federal Transient Program indicate the problem is of minor extent, but it looms larger because of the emotional reaction of the local communities. During the existence of the Federal Transient Bureau, the number of transients under care reached a peak of slightly over 300,000 persons in February 1935. The migrant is not considered a problem until he applies for assistance. There is no hesitancy in allowing the migrant other community services but the problem arises from the elimination of this group from relief because of their lack of residence. The communities' rulings in regard to relief for migrants in need create this problem, and not the persons on the move.

The article presents information on technicways in American civilization. This report is an exercise in the methodology of sociological research, intended to show how a student adopts a general frame of reference related to his own knowledge and interests, delimits the field of study, states his problem, locates sources, and chooses a method. The study in folk sociology used to illustrate this process was designed to work out a simple quantitative method of describing the growth pattern of the technicways and locating their point of origin in time. By a discussion of the logical assumptions underlying the growth curve used to describe the pattern of change for our data we try to show how a more precise quantitative study may help to interpret cumulative processes of cultural change in terms of sociological meaning. For the rising generation in America the difference between technicways and folkways may seem to be an academic one, because for most of them at least the change from the old ways of doing things to the new behavior patterns is just a matter of history.

The article presents information about cooperative rural research in the U.S. Although formal cooperation in rural sociological research in the U.S. may be said to have developed during the last to years, apparently some degree of cooperation has occurred from the very beginning of systematic research in this field. The early monographic studies of scholars J.M. Williams, Warren H. Wilson and N.L. Sims were detailed studies of small local areas. The authors conducted them, in person, with a minimum of financial and technical resources. Yet these studies were made by graduate students under the general supervision of Franklin H. Giddings of Columbia University. Informal cooperation in all these studies is therefore indicated. In the case of the survey of a rural township in southern Minnesota, scholar C.G. Thompson stresses the fact that the good will and cooperation of the local people were essential to the success achieved. This early period of rural sociological research was characterized, therefore, by small pioneer surveys of local areas. Extensive resources were unnecessary, and although cooperation occurred, individual effort was the key to success. Cooperation tended to be informal and occurred mostly between research and non-research agencies.

Preparation for professional practice which is common both to public and private social work has been profoundly affected by the expansion in the scope of the public social services and by the demand for a personnel equipped to meet new responsibilities which these services have occasioned. For a brief period of 19 years the American Association of Schools of Social Work has united the schools of social work in one organization where a close relationship to the field of practice has been maintained and where experience has been shared in an effort to develop educational objectives germane to professional practice. Pre-requisites for admission to the schools of social work, while of interest since the early development of professional curricula, became a subject of increasing importance as the trend toward university affiliation and toward professional education at the graduate level became definite and accepted in the field. The professional curriculum at the graduate level with which the American Association of Schools of Social Work is primarily concerned includes two academic years of professional study leading to a professional degree.

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze some of the sociological factors involved in the mass movement of population during the January 1937 floods of Louisville, Kentucky. There are certain elements which are found in all crises. In the first place, a crisis comes suddenly, without much if any advance warning, and hence little or no preparations are made beforehand to meet it. Partly because of this fact, a crisis usually results in a breakdown of the general organization of the community. New problems are faced, new needs arise, and the every-day system of organization fails to meet the new situation. There is need for the rapid creation of a new organization under emergency conditions, and hence a great deal of confusion is likely to exist for a time. Louisville was experiencing its most disastrous flood and within less than two weeks more than two hundred thousand people were moved from their flood-endangered homes by boat, truck, automobile, railroad, and on foot, and scattered over a half a dozen states.

This article focuses on research activities of the state welfare departments in the eleven states in the U.S. included within the Southeastern region and discusses how the social statistics and social work data are needed for the states to share the results of their social experimentation with their neighbors. The situation in these states is not very satisfactory, however, because even the most recently published reports included material two or three years old, and several of the state welfare departments have been established or reorganized so recently that they have issued no formal reports. Largely due to the participation of the Federal government, first in the relief program and more recently in social security, the social horizon is no longer limited to the narrow boundaries of county and state, but has been enlarged to include the region and the nation. Increasingly social workers, teachers of sociology, and related professional groups are becoming interested in what other states besides their own are going in collecting social statistics, and conducing social surveys and special studies. There is at present, however, no adequate clearing house of information either on a regional or a national basis with regard to social problems.

This article discusses the status of sociology in the U.S. and its regional aspect. In conformity with the concept of regionalism as the new science of the region-a region existing only as a constituent part of a totality-it may be assumed that sociology of the South shall be discussed only as an integral and constituent part of all American sociology, and not as separate from it. For, in general, sociology for the South must be the same as sociology for any other region. Science is no respecter of locality or region, except in so far as that region is a laboratory, nor can any locality or region be adequately served by any limited science or discipline short of its complete range and methodology. However, it is well known that emphasis upon regional laboratories and regional phenomena, so far from limiting a sociological program or sociological study, will require a broader background in anthropology, economics, historical and cultural studies than does general theoretical sociology, which would specialize upon concepts, general history, and theory of society.

The term "propaganda," as a perusal of the titles in the "Readers Guide to Periodical Literature" under that head will quickly demonstrate, during the World War underwent a modification of meaning so drastic as to leave it almost unrecognizable. Propaganda," for most people who speak American or English, rapidly lost its connotations and came to mean a sinister, subtle influence, diabolically inspired, directed toward the ends. Apparently as an unintentional by-product of the artful but assiduous practices of Allied specialists in the manipulation of public opinion, the powerful negative emotional charge which was acquired by such words as "German," "Bolshevik," and "enemy" generally, through incessant juxtaposition, came to be borne also by "propaganda." The strictly comparable, though vastly more efficient, practices of the British, the French, and later the Americans, never suffered seriously through designation by the odious terms.

The most complete internationalism so far achieved by mankind is the internationalism of knowledge. Nations may differ widely on questions of religion, trade, and politics; their interests may clash over colonies, territories, boundaries, and markets; their opinions may diverge on policies of migrations and tariffs but when it comes to developments in science, the emergence of theories of philosophy, or the enrichments of literature and the arts, the possessions of one nation quickly become the possessions of all. This article is intended to deal with some contrasting phases of sociology as it is developed today in Europe and U.S. If its title seems to imply that Europe is a homogeneous whole with respect to this subject, the impression should be corrected. Each country that has developed any considerable body of sociological writing has, of course, within the larger unity above mentioned, developed distinctive characteristics of its own; and there is room for an extended discussion of contrasting phases of sociology among the several European countries themselves.

Although studies of Afro-American migration of the past two decades have pointed out the fact that every large exodus of Afro-Americans from the south has contained a number whose destination was the mining fields of West Virginia no sociological study has appeared of Afro-Americans in this area. Here Afro-Americans occupy a unique position; more miners work in the coal mines of West Virginia than in those of any other state. Although they formed only 6.6 per cent of the population of the state in 1930 they constituted 21.8 per cent of all miners. The purpose of the study, of which this article is a brief summary, is to provide sociological data concerning this group, first, by discussion of the origin, development, and present status of the Afro-American miners of West Virginia, and, second, by describing in some detail certain aspects of the Afro-American culture in the mining fields. Information was obtained by personal interviews with employers, miners, Afro-American teachers, preachers, and other persons who could furnish factual material concerning the Afro-Americans in the mining fields.

The United States is confronted with the necessity of formulating and adopting national policies with reference to certain social aspects of medicine. These policies should not be projected without careful study of the experience of countries that have applied them over a period of years. It is desirable that the American people should discover and know the facts in regard to the conditions in the United States that will be affected by such policies. Thus, to make possible the social and medical research prerequisite to the intelligent construction of sound policies in social medicine and related fields, it is imperative that pertinent source materials be systematically collected and made accessible. In setting up a program for the provision of these vital materials, the medical and social science research worker and the librarian would do well to cooperate in the formulation of: (1) a definite statement of those categories of source materials relating to the social aspects of medicine which deserve more attention than they have hitherto received in the collecting activities of libraries; (2) a national plan for the systematic collection of these materials in strategic geographical and scholarly centers; (3) a program of social and medical research.

This discussion concerning the relation of extension teaching in rural sociology to research in the same field is incomplete and non-conclusive but it is designed to stimulate coordinated effort in the two aspects of the same field rather than to give any final statements. Author is taking two positions which are somewhat opportune; first, that the justification for research in rural sociology today in the state colleges of agriculture is to collect the facts by which rural problems may be solved; and second, that it is the obligation of the extension rural sociologist to assist in the solution of rural social problems by using the accumulated knowledge. An elaboration of this position falls under three topics: (1) the subject matter of rural sociology; (2) the present activities of rural sociological extension; and (3) opportunities for extension based upon present knowledge and possible expansion of both the extension and research activities. Rural sociology arose as a result of the attention focused on the problems of rural life following the report of the American Country Life Commission in 1909. American rural society was showing tendencies towards disintegration; farm youth were going to the cities, rural churches were declining, farm children did not have equal opportunities with those in the cities in education and health care, and farm tenancy was on the increase.

The article discusses the socio-economic aspects of territorial planning, with special reference to the Mississippi Valley plan. The socio-economic approach to the planning of the Mississippi Valley Region--an area that has been characterized as the bread-basket of the U.S.--would seemingly focus primarily upon the social significance of the U.S. agricultural economy. Apart from the curtailment in world markets for the U.S. agricultural exports, the future of farming in the U.S. is affected by the possibilities inherent in the mechanization of agriculture. In spite of the trend toward the concentration of capital, there is, nevertheless, a pronounced trend toward the decentralization of industry, and these trends have a vital bearing on the community life in the localities affected. The social implications of industrial decentralization are portentous. Bringing factories nearer farms will affect the future of agriculture as well as industry, and in turn the educational and general social organizational policies of the communities concerned.

This article presents the author's views on the issue of sociological factors in old age dependency in the U.S. The problem of the care and support of the more than 3,000,000 aged persons in the United States and the sociological factors underlying old age dependency is increasing concern to both public and private social agencies. In New York State alone there are approximately 396,000 men and women 70 years of age, or over, many of whom have been deprived of the means of making a living because of the prolonged economic depression. Moreover, this proportion of aged persons has been mounting steadily due to such factors as decreasing birth and death rates, restrictions of immigration and the general increase in population. Their plight has been still further intensified because of modern industry's preference for youth and a tendency to eliminate the older age groups from hazardous occupations for the purpose of minimizing the cost of compensation. Such a critical situation confronting these unfortunate individuals points to the need of a continued study of the extent of the problem and the various factors involved in old age dependency for the purpose of determining the methods of care that will effect the best possible adjustments.