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Four identities were explored in terms of salience, frequency, and valence: gender, religion, family, and peer. For both males and females in Latin and Anglo cultures, gender emerged as the most prominent identity. Social and cultural differences between the two cultures were considered as explanations for variations in adolescent identity structures. (Authors)

Using 42 in-depth interviews with rural, Southern whites in Mississippi, I examine the intra-racial boundary work respondents use to construct their regional and racial identities in relation to other whites in their communities, particularly rednecks . I find that rednecks are defined and categorized in multiple ways based on the respondents' conceptions of Southerners, social statuses (i.e., age, gender, class and residential history), and intra-racial comparisons around these social characteristics. Primarily, they draw intra-racial distinctions to separate themselves from negative characterizations and to claim positive associations with being rural, Southern whites. Nonetheless, the multi-faceted intra-racial boundary work around redneck maintains the general hegemony of whiteness by marginalizing "lesser whites" and forms of whiteness and claiming an ideal type of whiteness that is considered untainted, normative and superior.

In spite of the fact that more than 10 percent of Americans claim no religion, academic investigations of the "nones" represent an underdeveloped area in the sociology of religion. We find that people with religiously unaffiliated parents and those who attended religious services less as a child are more likely to claim no religion. In addition, we find a strong association between having a spouse and peer group that are non-religious and claiming no religion.

This paper examines how internal processes of ethnic identification influence external processes of ethnic classification. To do so, it uses survey data from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Russia, which contain information for ethnic majorities and selected ethnic minorities (Roma (Gypsies) in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania; Hungarians in Romania; and Ukrainians in Russia). Respondents’ self-identification of ethnicity exemplifies internal identification, while interviewers’ assessments of ethnicity are used as examples of external classification. Logistic regressions, with interviewers’ classifications of ethnicity as the dependent variable, show how these classifiers use respondents’ self-identification of ethnicity, as well as other social markers (parents’ ethnicity, language, geographical concentration, economic status, household size, and education), to assess ethnicity. The results show that although interviewers are strongly influenced by respondents’ self-identification, they also override it. Interviewers use negative social characteristics (e.g. poverty, low education) to classify respondents as Roma who did not self-identify as such. For the ethnic majority groups in each country, as well as Hungarians in Romania, and Ukrainians in Russia, these variables had the opposite effect or had little influence, though ancestry and language had a strong effect for all groups. Interviewers more often classified respondents as ethnic majorities when the latter claimed to be non-Roma ethnic minorities. The results illustrate how ethnic classification processes differ fundamentally for a racialized group, the Roma, for whom classifications are external and exclusionary, as opposed to other ethnic groups, for whom social classifications are optional and generally inclusive.

This paper investigates the effects of individual, family, social and demographic characteristics on the maintenance of Spanish among English-speaking Latino youth. This research finds effects of generation, gender, race, parent's English proficiency, single-parent status, parental income, and neighborhood concentration of co-ethnics as well as combined effects of race and gender on Spanish oral proficiency. The findings presented here suggest support for elements of the assimilation and the segmented assimilation theoretical perspectives as well as the race-gender experience theory. The author suggests that Spanish-speaking proficiency may be associated with opportunities to speak Spanish that are structured differently, not only by family and neighborhood contexts that allow for greater or lesser contact with Spanish, but also by gender and race.

important to harmonious intergenerational family relationships. Our data support the theory of homogamy in mate selection13 and further suggest that in-group marriage is related to the continuity of friendly relationships between generational families. It has been demonstrated in other studies14 that bonds of affection and interdependence between family members tend to be weakened by urban industrialism of contemporary society, the prolonged schooling of children, and the increasing number of other institutional memberships which parents and children have apart from each other. Also, the family's loss of productive functions and its sharing of other functions with institutions in the society have reduced its former solidarity as a work group and thus the dependence that family members have upon it. As a consequence of these developments the family has been weakened by the instability of marriage ties, demonstrated by high divorce rates, economic insecurity, individualization of family members with reduced emphasis on familism. In view of this situation, maintenance of continued friendly intergenerational family associations is desirable whenever possible. Our data suggest that when parents have positive roles in the mate choices and courtships of their children the objective of family continuity is most likely to be achieved. 13 E. W. Burgess and Paul Wallin, "Homogamy in Social Characteristics," loc. cit.; A. B. Hollingshead, "Cultural Factors in Selection of Marriage Mates," loc. cit. 14 See R. E. L. Faris, "Interactions of Generations and Family Stability," American Sociological Review, 12 (1947), pp. 159-164; Talcott Parsons, "The Social Structure of the Family," in R. Anshen (ed.), The Family; Its Function and Destiny (New York: Harper & Bros., 1949); A. Tomars, Hutman Relations in Changing Society (New York: New York Society for Ethical Culture, 1949); W. F. Ogburn and C. Tibbitts, "The Family and Its Functions," in Recent Social Trends in the United States, Report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (New York: McGrawHill Book Co., Inc., 1933); M. A. Elliott and F. E. Merrill, Social Disorganization (New York: Harper and Bros., 1950), chaps. 15-17.

T HIS is a study of the personal and social characteristics of the rural Negro minister. It includes 141 ministers who attended the Summer School for Ministers at Virginia State College from 1943-1946.' Ninety ministers pastored rural churches only, 15 pastored urban churches only; 27 pastored both rural and urban churches; and nine were not pastoring. The 132 ministers pastoring churches served 305 churches in as many communities located in 60 counties, representing every significant subregion in the State in which Negroes comprise a significant part of the population.

T HE concept of dominance as it has developed and been used within the field of ecology has culminated in the formulation of the metropolitan region. The basis of the metropolitan region hinges on two concepts. The first is the center, the metropolitan community, and the second is the hinterland which is necessary for the metropolitan center to serve and by which it is in turn served.1 The proponents of this position emphasised one aspect of this principle of dominance-the function of the center-and have ignored the secondthe hinterland. They have taken Gras's statement of the relationship of the two and have failed to consider the broader implications of his writings.2 Gras points out the necessity of a hinterland for the existence of a metropolitan center, but at the same time he insists that you cannot reify one at the expense of the other. Indeed, implied in the writing is the injunction that extent and degree of functional integration imposed on the hinterland by the metropolitan center is an empirical question waiting to be demonstrated rather than an ad hoc assumption to be treated as a reality. Thus, the ecologist finds himself in the position of stating dominance exists because metropolitan centers exist ipso facto; and the concept of the hinterland is dragged along behind, not because they exist, but because it is obvious that each metropolitan center must have a hinterland. Following this reasoning, it is not difficult to take the next step and allocate the entire land area of the United States to one of the "n" number of metropolitan centers. As Lewis W. Jones points out, the concept of hinterland is left lacking in the development of the concept of dominance and he calls attention to an obvious deficiency and suggests three types of hinterlands with a characterization of each.3 The purpose of this paper is not to deny the principle of dominance as developed in the literature, but rather to question the pervasiveness of its influence in the United States. Rather than use the principle of dominance as an explanatory concept, let us use it as an analytical variable to test the relative importance of dominance on a part or the entire land area of the United States. In this context, the principle of dominance can be a heuristic device to analyze the relative influence of the metropolitan center on the surrounding hinterland. Paralleling the development of the concept of dominance have been the many studies oriented around the concept of the homogeneous region, the rural region, and rural society, which have stressed either social characteristics or have stressed a composite region including social and economic indices. One of the most extensive studies into the composite homogeneous region has been done by the late Howard W. Odum4 and his associates at the University of North Carolina. Just as the accusation of reification of the concept of dominance can be raised for the present proponents of the metropolitan concept, the accusation of environment-cultural determinist has been leveled at the studies of homogeneous regions. In comparing the two positions, there are two points in common. First, they both encompass the idea of spatial orientation. Second, they both stress the non-random distribution of certain attributes in space. The homogeneous region stresses the non-random distribution as represented by the clustering of attributes into compact contiguous subregions. The metropolitan community stresses the non-random distribution of attributes along a continuum of distance from the central city. By using these two common features, it is possible to use the definition given by Bogue and at the same time propose a statistical model which can be used to test the relative importance of these two concepts in space as well as through time.

W E E EXAMINE herein the social background of those persons who are intimately connected with entertainment in American societv. Such data shed considerable light on the nature of the entertainment field, and are highly significant for sociologists concerned with social mobility and stratification.' Although entertainers as a group may not be important in terms of sheer numbers, they are of crucial symbolic significance in American society. Moreover, functional interrelationships appear to exist between the social mobility and personal instability of entertainers which help to explain the character of the popular arts in America.