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Market transition theory implies that increased market competition generates incentives for allocating job resources based on educational credentials and marketable skills, in contrast with traditional patronage systems that allocate employment opportunities through network membership. Yet despite the breakdown of patronage systems, further development of market institutions result in greater uncertainty, job precarity, and competition, which may promote referral hiring and diffusion of job information through social networks. This paper explores the relationship between marketization and access to employment opportunities through social networks (specifically the receipt of unsolicited job leads). Data from the Social Capital China Survey suggest that growing marketization across provinces is positively associated with receipt of unsolicited job leads. In particular, private sector development, factor market development, and legal intermediary proliferation are significantly and positively associated with an individual's chance of receiving unsolicited job leads. The findings help clarify the mechanisms through which marketization facilitates informal exchange of job information, advancing scholarship on how concrete institutional conditions shape the significance of social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) has both revived and advanced strain theory. It has recently been applied to topics ranging from gender differences in delinquency to differences in community crime rates. Tests of GST are now focusing on the intermediate variables that fall between GST and delinquency, such as anger and social support, but these tests have produced varying results. This paper adds to GST literature by empirically analyzing whether social support moderates individuals’ responses to strain and whether this moderating effect varies by gender. Testing is conducted using data from wave six of the National Youth Survey (NYS). Results provide support for GST and suggest that there are gender differences in the types and levels of strain experienced during the late teens. Further, there is evidence to support the hypothesis that social support does moderate females’ responses to certain types of strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study traces the development of union loyalties among community college professors. Assuming that activism is motivated by contextual and ideological factors, the paper analyzes the ways that social networks, collegiate workplaces, and framing practices transform political bystanders into committed union members. Using data from a study of junior college professors in Kentucky ( N = 329), the study finds that union participation is strongly linked to a distrust of campus administrators and having pro-union friends and colleagues. Likewise, perceptions of union efficacy, a liberal identity as well the professor’s education level predicted the actual joining of their campus’ faculty union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas of community and social capital have received much attention in the last decade, but are plagued by a multitude of conceptualizations, definitions, and operationalizations. This confusion is problematic for both researchers and policymakers trying to use these concepts. While numerous efforts have been made to clarify “social capital” and “community,” too often the two are simply conflated. This paper attempts to distinguish between them by looking at the various ways they are related in concrete examples. Drawn largely from the literature, five examples are offered that together describe the complex interactions of place-based communities and social capital networks. These examples also demonstrate distinctions between community and social capital with regard to boundaries, the qualities of social relations and trust in each, instrumentality, the consequences of one for the other, and issues related to multiple communities in a single place. It is hoped that these distinctions will inform the ongoing efforts to develop unique and useful conceptualizations of these two terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from an intensive study of Boston's antebellum black community to demonstrate how sustained social activism is embedded in the formal and informal institutions of the community. The social networks of cooperative institutions were primary factors in this community's ability to mobilize and sustain protest actions and to call attention to social injustice. This examination of antebellum black Boston indicates that the issue of slavery was crucial to social activism. This suggests that the presence of a salient issue which links the everyday lives of participants with a public issue may be an important factor in building a social movement based in a poor, relatively powerless community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I theorize the "financial toolkit" or the repertoires that inform financial decision‐making processes and explain why and what racial differences we should expect. I argue that while prior literature has focused on financial repertoires with large racial differences, we should expect both similar and distinct financial repertoires by race given that social networks and neighborhoods of residences are racially segregated, but mainstream media sources and national narratives create common financial discourses. Using data from the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, I show that while Black, Latinx, and White respondents all draw on social network and media sources for information about finances, that the financial practices they identify as ideal are only similar when articulated as broad, vague practices. Racial differences emerge among specific financial behaviors about how to engage with money. These findings contribute to our understandings of how culture contributes to the racial wealth gap, how institutions contribute to cultural toolkits, and how race informs behavior and decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological explanations of career or intragenerational occupational status mobility generally have not taken into explicit account the effects of labor market structure. Rooted in structural-functionalist sociological theory or neoclassical economic theories of the labor market, models typically misrepresent the process of individual occupational status mobility, primarily by including only individual characteristics. Dual labor market theory is introduced, direct as well as indirect effects of labor market structure on career occupational status mobility are outlined, and a theoretical model is presented. It is hypothesized that labor market structure will have direct effects on opportunities for career occupational status mobility that are independent of the effects of individual characteristics. Additional indirect effects are suggested: through their effects on social network structures, labor markets operate as job opportunity information filters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obtaining employment is one of the most difficult challenges for individuals released from prison. This research explores the strategies recently released male parolees employ in attempting to find work, with specific attention to the role of anticipated stigma from their ex-convict status. Through the use of in-depth longitudinal interviews, this research contributes to our understanding of returning prisoner's experiences in job searching. We find that although a majority of the sample anticipated stigma as a barrier to employment, those who did expressed an extreme self-reliance consistent with defensive individualism. This reluctance to draw on social networks may ultimately be counter-productive to the search for employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research, little is known about the contours of material hardship and how the social processes underlying specific domains of hardship are similar and different. We use qualitative interview data to examine five different domains of material hardship: housing, bill-paying, food, medical, and clothing hardships. While mothers use social program participation, reliance on social networks, and individual strategies to mitigate hardships, the dominance of these strategies and their specific applications differ across hardship domains. These results complement recent research that identifies each domain of hardship as unique and suggest that domain-specific hardship mitigation approaches are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of social trust, examining its various aspects and components. Trust is best understood in a sociological sense by focusing on its important relational characteristic. Following this lead, the article discusses briefly how social trust relates to social capital and examines factors that shape the development of social trust, along with outcomes related to variations in trust, classifying them by analytical level (i.e., individual, community, group, organizational, and societal). The article concludes by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of existing research and by identifying some important questions that have not yet been adequately addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have frequently cited the importance of the local institutional base for bolstering social organization and control, and ultimately reducing crime rates. Local noneconomic institutions may be particularly relevant to controlling urban Black crime rates, because in the face of limited access to the legitimate labor force, access to institutions such as churches and civic organizations helps to extend social networks, increase civic engagement, transmit mainstream norms, and provide a forum from which to address community problems. This analysis examines the links between measures of access to such noneconomic institutions and Black homicide rates for a sample of large urban areas circa 1990. The results indicate that after controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage, racial inequality and various other relevant measures, institutional access is negatively associated with Black homicide rates. However, this violence constraining impact appears to be most dramatic in urban areas where Blacks are most highly segregated from Whites. Implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a study which focused on employment matching processes of formerly undocumented Mexican immigrant workers in the U.S. The study shows that employment characteristics are related to the job tenures of immigrant workers. It specifically analyzes how formerly undocumented Mexican immigrant workers' attributes and social networks influence their job tenures. In general, increases in human capital are associated with shorter job tenure, apparently in an effort to improve employment conditions, while the use of social capital is positively related with job tenure. It appears that acquiring employment is a social process, and those using personal networks find longer lasting jobs. Although prior studies have minimized the role of supply-side characteristics such as employees' skill level and social networks in influencing job tenure, the study confirms the significance of workers and the resources they bring to the labor market. It introduces a shift in the focus of research on job tenure, away from the behavior of employers and the attractiveness of jobs and towards the attributes and actions of employees. It also focuses on Mexican immigrant workers, a group ignored by previous studies on job tenure.

The article explores the role of social networks in channeling involvement of individuals in local activism. It presents an analysis on sustained movement participation and variations between competition and mutualism in a local multiorganizational field. The effect of external affiliations on participation level of individual and organizations have also been discussed. Variation in individual participation simply corresponds to varying attributes of members, either through differential interest in the group goals or differential availability for participation in the group. The second explanation, in line with recent social movement theory, focuses on strong and weak ties between individuals as conduits of social influence. The third posits that memberships in other groups may limit actors' structural availability, to the extent that those organizations compete for their budgeted resources. The partial specification of micromobilization processes considers both the structure of interpersonal relations and an implicit ecology of organizations.

This article presents a theory that explains the survival of minority students in United States colleges. It has been estimated that over 60 percent of all students who started college in 1993 will not earn a college degree. For the past twenty years, the dropout rate has remained relatively high, especially among first-year minority students. In fact, recent national studies on minorities in higher education continue to reveal an alarming picture of under-representation, a high attrition rate, and low participation in many disciplines. Data from the 1992 American College Testing Program indicate that about 27 percent of all entering students at four-year institutions did not return for their second year. The dropout rates after the first year at the institution of one of the authors ranged from 20 percent for Asian-Americans to 54 percent for Native Americans. The rates for African-Americans and Hispanics fell between these two extremes. In recent years, major programs on cultural diversity have addressed the problems of racial conflicts and discrimination on college campuses-in the classroom, in student housing, in faculty-student interactions, and in student social life. Even so, issues such as how cultural and racial climates on campus affect minority students have not received a great deal of attention in educational research.

The relationship between male peer support and premarital woman abuse is evaluated by integrating three bodies of knowledge, namely, woman abuse, social support, and reference others. Using data from a convenience sample of male undergraduate students, this study tests four hypotheses derived from a male peer support model. The findings support the model relating male peer group dynamics and woman abuse in university dating relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]