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This article explores the life and career of sociology writer Ruth Shonle Cavan. Her career is the tale of an extraordinary person seeking and finding congenial outlets for her talents. Her secret seems to be a blend of sound intuition, a probing, inquiring mind, solid preparation, and strong motivation. She combines a clear sense of what is important with a strong drive to understand key issues, to coordinate her insights with others, and finally to fashion the whole into a well crafted book or paper. As a young girl in Tuscola, Illinois, Cavan wrote incessantly. In high school, she wrote for a school literary magazine. In 1916, she entered Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois to become a teacher, but again she was drawn to writing. She enrolled in courses in fiction and expository writing, entered another essay competition, and won first prize. Sociology was more than an outlet for her talents. It provided as well a new way of viewing human beings. She began to see that everyone is subject to vast structural and cultural forces that offer little opportunity for personal control.

This paper offers elaborations on current knowledge about social-movement framing processes and cognitive liberation, especially regarding technical controversies and not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) protest. The social-constructionist lens of the framing perspective also allows refinements in conventional explanations of NIMBY conflicts. Attention is given to the dynamics of emergence, continuity, and change in framing strategies over time in controversy regarding the U.S. Army's chemical-weapons disposal program. I focus specifically on dynamics involved in the development of cognitive liberation, particularly the framing difficulties that occur in the context of cognitive ambiguities produced by an "information haze." These ambiguities create problems for developing and linking the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational elements of collective-action frames. I also attend to frame transformation, explaining how transformation may be both animated and constrained by a movement's opponent. I conclude that NIMBY is only one possible framing and can be transformed as the context of the dispute shifts. Moreover, framing activities in technical disputes may be particularly difficult due to the role of scientific rhetoric and experts in interpreting risks and shaping understandings of the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing recent research and monographs from participants and observers, this paper reports on the underanalyzed Vietnam antiwar movement. Key events are placed in a historical context that help to explain the origins of the movement. Particular attention is given to the various responses of the state to the challengers and the complex interrelationships with the media. As the antiwar movement grew and developed, there were multiple factors that contributed to solidarity and factionalism within the movement. Despite state repressive actions and internal factionalism, the movement was successful in helping to end the war. The effects on U.S. policies were more indirect than direct. The antiwar movement mobilized millions of citizens to public protest. The demonstrations helped to shift public opinion away from supporting the war and activated third parties to question and demand an end to war policies. The political system did respond to the antiwar movement’s demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author argues that United States academic sociology threatens to slip into the limited relevance of scholasticism. Applied sociology and academic sociology are both quite heterogeneous sets of activities. The core of academic sociology consists of teaching, scholarship, and research. There are many different ways to fulfill each function, however: some teach primarily lower-division courses whereas others spend most of their teaching time with graduate students. Indeed, a case can be made that one specialty within sociology is what might be called "LD sociology," i.e., lower-division sociology. Similarly, scholarship and research are also quite heterogeneous. On average, if one counts all sorts of publications, faculty members publish one item every other year, but the median is close to zero, indicating that the average is strongly influenced by a minority who publish very heavily. Cutting across academic activities are the various intellectual styles within so ciology and subject matter specialization.

Human beings have a dualistic relationship with the environment, being subject to physical and biological limits and yet being unique in the capacity for culture and symbolic communication. Sociology reflects this context and adds another dualism, drawing heavily from the concepts and perspectives of biological ecology, but reacting almost violently against ‘reductionism’ of any sort, specifically including social Darwinism and environmental determinism. During much of the twentieth century, the predominant trend within sociology was for scholars to downplay or even ignore the importance of the environment, particularly in the United States. This trend was ultimately counterbalanced by sociological responses to the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and by the efforts of selected sociologists—particularly Riley Dunlap and William Cation—who helped bring together the field of ‘environmental sociology’ Given the finite nature of many natural resources and the ways in which human activities depend upon and affect the environment, the field of environmental sociology is likely to be an increasingly important one in the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although numerous studies have confirmed the separate effects of economic and cultural capital on arts participation, research focusing on the cumulative and interactive effects of economic and cultural capital through the creation of taste publics is limited. Using data from the United States (Survey of Public Participation in the Arts [1982–2012]), this research integrates economic and cultural capital—measured as income and education—into the analysis of taste, creates taste publics, and examines their association with highbrow arts participation over time. We find that the effects of economic and cultural capital on highbrow arts participation decreased between 1982 and 2012, and American publics seem to have converged across both types of capital. Implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our goal with this special issue is to expand currently untapped ideas about racial microaggressions from a sociological point of view. As noted, research on this issue comes largely out of psychiatry, psychology, and education-disciplines that tend to place less emphasis on structural and institutional causes of racism. There is a need for more sociologically guided research to examine how subtle, covert, and non-apparent forms of racism affect minorities physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally-and how these micronooses can best be understood in a larger context of structural racism. Examination of racial microaggressions from a sociological point of view promises additional insight to help understand the complexities of contemporary race and racism in America and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article retrieves part of our historical past to address two omissions in American feminist sociology on the subject of global imperialism. The first section addresses the inadequate attention feminist sociologists have paid to how major leaders of the women's movement responded to U.S. overseas expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It documents how these early feminists had both progressive and reactionary responses to the anti-imperialist struggles of their era. Particular emphasis is given to how issues of race, class, and gender were interwoven in their discourses on imperialism. The second section focuses on how the writings of the most famous woman theorist and critic of imperialism during this era—Rosa Luxemburg—are virtually ignored in U.S. portrayals of feminist sociology and women founders of sociology. To address this omission, Luxemburg's theory of imperialism is examined, as well as how it has influenced contemporary global feminist works. A critical analysis of these Luxemburg-inspired works considers their implications for understanding global imperialism today. In this way, the past is used to clarify the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his popular introductory sociology text, Stark identifies W. E. B. Du Bois and Albion Small as important cornerstones of the U.S. sociological tradition. While the work of the “Chicago School” is well known in sociological circles, Du Bois’ sociological legacy is not. The Philadelphia Negro ([1899] 1996) is a classic empirical sociological study that is rarely included in discussions of the development of scientific sociology. Likewise, The Negro Church ([1903b] 2003) represents one of the first empirically based sociological studies of a religious institution. Sociologists of religion routinely discuss the contributions of Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel while virtually ignoring Du Bois. This is ironic because Du Bois’ work on religion was based on ethnographic data, field interviews, surveys, and census data. This article provides an overview of Du Bois’ sociological study of the Black Church in the United States by identifying some of the main themes developed in The Philadelphia Negro ([1899] 1996), The Souls of Black Folk ([1903a] 1994), and The Negro Church ([1903b] 2003). These studies reveal that Du Bois was a pioneer in the areas of evaluation research, public sociology, service learning, and congregational studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One persistent problem that many small rural towns face is housing adequacy, which encompasses interior and exterior structural conditions; assessments of heating, cooling, and sanitation systems; and residence size relative to space needs. The creation and reproduction of vibrant rural communities is grounded in the capacity of citizens to solve local housing problems. We posit that towns with strong norms of mutuality, high information flows, and inclusive behaviors have a civic structure that produces the capacity to frame and resolve housing concerns. We find that perceptions of civic structure are a significant factor in explaining the variation in rural housing adequacy, net of income, age, and tenure. This implies that the social and political environment is an important influence on the quality of housing stock found in rural places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a contribution to the uses of life histories and the dialogue regarding the "standards" for their use. Through a meta-analysis of life histories in the United States since the publication of "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America," in 1918, the article develops a typology to critically evaluate their methodological/theoretical practices in sociology. It has been argued that life history is experiencing a renaissance in a wide variety of disciplines in the United States, particularly in fields where "post-positivist methodologies and epistemologies" have dislodged the notion of a single truth. While the oral history technique has long been valued as a method for investigating historical phenomena in the absence of already existing textual materials, contemporary scholars argue that the epistemological and ontological bases of life history approaches provide additional benefits. A materialist sociology of knowledge approach has been used to evaluate the transforming effects that life history methods have had on sociology by examining its practice in actual research. It has been concluded that life history methods have not had the transformative effect on sociology that they have had in other disciplines. By and large, the actual production of life histories continues to be ahistorical, to be characterized by abstract empiricism, to extinguish subjects, and to ignore the link between biography and history.

This article presents a study which, proposes that significant others and conscience both function as agents of social control to deter illicit behavior in a manner similar to that provided by the law and more formal organizations. The data for this study were derived from a nonrandom convenience sample of adult undergraduate students enrolled in all upper-division sociology classes at the University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman, Oklahoma during the spring of 1993. Despite the limitations associated with such sampling designs, it is been felt that the sample is sufficiently representative to permit cautious generalizations. All students at OU were required to take twelve hours of upper-division electives. Because most upper-division sociology courses at OU, unlike other courses in the College of Arts and Sciences, did not have any prerequisites, these courses were open to any students needing to fulfill their upper-division elective requirement. This fact, and the fact that these courses address highly relevant social issues such as marriage and family, crime and justice, or race and gender, made them especially appealing to a large proportion of the student body. This sample is fairly representative of undergraduate juniors and seniors within the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. Minorities and females are slightly overrepresented, however. The sample is 52.2 percent female, 23.9 percent minority, and 57.8 percent junior or senior status.

The life and work of Laud Humphreys is reviewed in an attempt to assess their effect on American sociology. We focus on the intersections between biography and professional contributions as they emerged from Humphreys' graduate work at Washington University, St. Louis through his years at Pitzer College. The commentary is couched in the theoretical traditions of C. Wright Mills, the sociology of knowledge, and the sociology of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social-anthropological studies of ‘Yankee City’ by W. Lloyd Warner are reconsidered, with concentration on his taxonomy of symbolic activities. Several of Warner's central analytic loci are reviewed and applied to a modern context. The American Revolution Bicentennial is characterized as a societal-level symbolic observance, directly analogous to civil ceremonies in Yankee City. Three major themes from Warner's studies of that community's symbolic life—types of symbolis m, socializational effects of symbolism, and rhetorical persuasion—are analyzed with regard to the Bicentennial observance. Illustrative data provide some conceptual and empirical support for the generalizability of Warner's taxonomy to other civil religious phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a preface by the editor. As, this would be the last issue that the editor would be responsible for; he acknowledges the support of various individuals and reviewers. He appreciated the educational institutions that provided financial support -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He notes that it was through their contribution that the "state of inquiry" has become what it is today. He relates that, ultimately, what does and does not appear in a professional journal is the editor's decision. He implies that he has striven for objectivity, although no one denies that editor's biases are reflected in the choice of subjects. Specially in the selection of subjects for the four special issues -- 53/2-3, 1983, "Sociology of the Environment"; 54/2, 1984, "Issues of Interest to the Profession"; 56/1, 1986, "Gender Roles and Women's Issues"; and 57/2, 1987, "Comparative/Historical Sociology of Science." He construes that journal editors act as gatekeepers by exercising control over the flow of scientific and/or scholarly knowledge. They also play a significant role in people's career. The editor says that he wrote letters to deans and/or chairpersons on behalf of sociologists being considered for promotion and/or tenure to the effect that their manuscripts were scheduled for publication.