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In 2012, the outstanding student loan balance in the United States surpassed $1 trillion, and between 2005 and 2012, the student loan delinquency rate increased by 77 percent. Simultaneously, by the end of the 2005–2012 time period, the total suicide rate in the United States reached the highest levels in more than a decade. To investigate the recent trends in student loans and suicide, this paper examined the association between state‐level student loan debt, student loan delinquency, and total, age‐, and sex‐specific suicide rates. The study used a hybrid (decompositional) longitudinal regression approach to examine the relationship between student loan debt, delinquency, and suicide rates during the 2005–2012 time period. The results showed student loan delinquency had a positive and significant effect on several of the suicide rates examined within states but had no effect on suicide rates between states net of controls. The results also showed student loan debt had a significant and negative association with suicide for people ages 20–24 and 25–34. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies of workplace inequality have examined why workplace gender segregation still exists and how gender segregation affects workplaces (Cohen, Huffman, and Knauer 2009 Work and Occupations 36(4):318; Huffman, Cohen, and Pearlman 2010 Administrative Science Quarterly 55(2):255). Yet, fewer studies have examined how space might affect gender segregation. In this paper, we investigate two types of space, normative space and industrial space, and their influence on gender workplace segregation within geographic space. We use data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and mixed models to examine how normative and industrial spaces affect workplaces within geographic space. We find that both measures of normative and industrial space predict differing levels of gender segregation within geographic spaces (measured via commuting zones). In addition, the effects normative space (women's share of the labor force) has on gender segregation are mediated by industrial restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are studying social identities within a cross-national framework as they are reflected in values regarding social institutions. We compare value items to infer similarities and differences between Japan and the US, but more importantly we analyze value configurations, using factor analysis, as an expression of underlying cultural expectations. We also argue that the way values are transmitted further defines the distinctive cultural basis of social identities. Using a unique data set, The Generations Survey, we propose to contribute theoretically and methodologically to understanding the role of culture in postmodern societies. Our research, based on identical national surveys collected in 1995, provides a systematic way to compare values in two countries. The research builds on and specifies existing ethnographic case studies and in-depth interviews around a variety of themes that shape social identities such as the link between family and work expectations, the role of ethical values in business, the importance of national identification, and the meaning of community involvement. The paper concludes by suggesting that despite homogenizing trends and surface similarities, cultural distinctiveness persists in the ways values cluster and is transmitted in the family, shaping the social identities of Japanese and US respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major theme in social theory concerns the transformation of social relationships in small communities as a result of modernization. This paper examines changing social relations in some small towns in southeastern Pennsylvania. For several hundred years, the residents of these towns have continuously developed institutions to preserve their local identity and maintain personal relations at the same time that they are incorporated into larger, regional social systems. The same local institutions and relations, however, are replicated in each small town, suggesting that local and particular interests are expressed through regional institutions. Although focused on a few small towns in one region of the United States, this paper examines the local expression of processes which are global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, there is little empirical evidence directly linking a firm's short-term behavior to its top management's career path. This paper attempts to address this gap by examining to what extent firms with Chief Executive Officers who have more professional-type career paths invest less in medium- and long-term corporate strategies. The paper is organized to: (1) briefly examine the general question of why CEOs' characteristics affect corporate outcomes; (2) explore the relation between CEOs' latent identities as professionals/experts or company men and women and the temporal character of their strategic-planning decisions; (3) develop specific hypotheses as to the effect the functional and industry specializations of CEOs have on their firms' capital expenditures and R&D spending; and (4) test the hypotheses using regression analysis on data covering four manufacturing industries in 1989. A general consensus exists that if United States is to remain globally competitive, large investments in research and development are needed. The responsibility for much of this investment will fall on the firm. Several researchers have found that such firm traits as acquisition activity, debt, and stock ownership structure determine how much a firm spends on R&D.

U.S. labor unions faced sharp membership losses over the last few decades, and some responded by ushering in a new, revitalized model of organizing. Yet we know little about how these forces may be shaping the political activities of the labor movement. Has crisis prompted unions to take aim at public policies inhibiting union vitality, or have unions turned outward to embrace broader social causes? This paper uses an original dataset of union appearances in congressional hearings to analyze unions' legislative advocacy activities. Findings suggest substantial differences between those unions that are likely to appear in hearings on core labor-related topics and those that appear in hearings on broad social issues: AFL- CIO unions are more likely to participate in hearings on core labor issues, while unions commonly cited as 'revitalized' and public sector unions are more likely to appear in hearings on broad social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines racial differences in student loan debt and concurrently assesses the potential payoffs and countervailing risks inherent in reliance on loans in a cohort of black and white first-year college students. Using the 1996-2001 Beginning Postsecondary Student study we find that the use of loans results in greater enrollment persistence and higher odds of college completion, especially for black students. However, black students acquire larger amounts of student loan debt and face a higher risk of default than white students. This is in part due to associated racial differences in family socioeconomic status and type of institution attended. We suggest these findings illuminate the dual-sided nature of college loans that makes them an imperfect, but overall positive, tool for reducing educational inequality. On the one hand, student loans reduce educational inequality that otherwise results from disadvantaged students' struggles to pay for college and complete college in a timely fashion. At the same time, the degree to which loans reduce racial inequality is diminished by black students' higher loan amounts, the large number of black students who borrow but do not finish college, and the large racial difference in the odds of defaulting on a loan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is a variable resource embedded in all social networks. Although the majority of work on social capital describes it as contributing to socially beneficial outcomes, it also contributes to deviant activities. In addition to laying a theoretical basis for understanding the deviant potentials of social capital, this paper argues that a change in social networks results in a change in social capital. Using data collected from adult drug courts in Wyoming, multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses and analyses of personal interviews were used to explore changes in the social capital of drug court participants. However, as a result of deficiencies in available data, questions remain as to the long-term social circumstances of participants after graduating from the programs and differences in social outcomes among minority groups. The results from this project have implications for future research conducted on drug courts and the theory of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic voting, which was frequently described as“Nader trading,” emerged during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election as a way for voters to redefine their participation in the American electoral process. As a movement that emerged online, strategic voting not only presents potential political ramifications, but raises important issues for social movement scholars. In particular, movements that emerge online, which we refer to as“e-movements,” may challenge movement theories based on offline, pre-Internet forms of activism. In this paper, we use detailed data on the forms of strategic voting and the creators of the movement to address the literature on social movement leadership. We find that biography plays a strong role in the generation of strategic voting leaders, but in ways that differ from previous expectations about movement leadership processes. Further, we find that specific characteristics of leaders’ backgrounds also shape the forms of strategic voting implemented by leaders. We suggest a new institutionalist interpretation of this finding, arguing that scripts for appropriate forms of action generate diverse approaches to strategic voting. [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]

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]

If media attention is any indicator of public trends, then the mid- to late 1990s would have been the age of intergroup dialogue in the United States. But as one steps back from all the media attention, it is important to consider more carefully what is meant by the term “intergroup dialogue,” why this work is important for democracy, and in what ways it addresses issues of social justice. Intergroup dialogue is a positive and powerful process in which different groups come together from various walks of life to build a strong democracy. Democracy is a powerful but fragile political arrangement, requiring careful maintenance, regular nurturance, and continuing advancement and improvement in the areas of social justice and equality. This paper presents a framework for thinking conceptually and pragmatically about intergroup dialogue by (1) exploring the place of intergroup dialogue in creating a just and diverse democracy, (2) examining what does and does not constitute intergroup dialogue, and (3) discussing critical issues in approaches to intergroup dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptions of patents have changed significantly over the past two centuries, reflecting broad changes in state structures and the international system. In the late eighteenth century, the creation of democratic states such as the United States and France encouraged the conceptualization of patents as an economic and political right belonging to an individual, rather than to a corporate body such as a guild. A second conception of patents arose in the nineteenth century in which patents become a state-based mechanism for motivating economic growth. In the late twentieth century, patents have become conceptualized as an essential part of the economic infrastructure of a state, for both industrialized and less developed countries. This conceptualization has allowed international development organizations to become central in the diffusion of patent legislation to less developed countries. These changes in conceptions about patents did not always occur smoothly, however. Major controversies over the role and usefulness of patents occurred in each century, implying that the diffusion of patent legislation was by no means inevitable. This paper illustrates these arguments with a historical discussion of patents and a statistical analysis that models the adoption of patent legislation for all countries from 1790–1984. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The substantial number of childless elderly in Canada and the United States raises important concerns about the nature of their family support, as well as their psychological well-being. Although the (mixed) effects of childlessness on the mental health of the elderly are well documented in the literature, little is known about the social distribution of psychological distress and depression within this population: how well the childless elderly live, the status of their mental health, and what factors affect their psychological well-being are all crucial questions that remain unanswered. This paper utilizes Pearlin et al.’s (1981) stress process model to examine psychological distress and depression among the childless elderly. Our empirical analysis uses a nationally representative sample of childless individuals aged 55 and over (N = 2,311) from the 1996-1997 National Population Health Survey (NPHS), and generalized linear model (GLM) techniques. Generally, our results support the stress process model. We find that individual-level stressors exert a strong and consistently negative impact on psychological distress and depression. We also find significant buffering effects of (perceived) social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how spousal preferences and views on interracial couples are affected by racial status inequalities. It has been argued that racial inequality affects those who prefer Whites, those who prefer Asians, those indicating no racial preferences, and those whose preferences changed through the life course. The dynamics of racialized preferences are explained by introducing the concept of racialized relationship capital, specifically the appeal of Euro-American versus ethnic-racial relationship capital. Because the issues of racial inequality and dominant group determination are often sidestepped, researchers in this tradition have attributed the varying rates of outmarriage to the degree of acculturation or to cultural constraints within minority communities. The article concludes by questioning the popular notion that high rates of interracial marriage indicate successful assimilation for groups such as Asian Americans. As such, this paper represents one of the first attempts to examine the subjective perceptions of racial minorities themselves in order to shed light on the complex dynamics of the effect of racial inequality on the private sphere.

This article presents information related to a business meeting. The annual AKD business meeting was held on August 31, 1986, at the New York Hilton. Jerry Michel, scholar at the Memphis State University and AKD President presided the meeting. Those present were: Candace Clark, Helen Clarke, Al Clarke, Ken Davidson, David Demo, Marie Fuller, Rose Helper, Mark Butter, Lyn Lofland, Mike Malec, Betty Maynard, Annabelle Motz, Wayne Seelbach, Don Shoemaker, Jim Skipper, Jim Williams, Kenneth Wilson and Donna Darden. In addition to normal items of business, the following announcements and decisions were made at the meeting. The winners of the 1986 paper competition were as follows First prize: Tracey Watson, Skidmore College, Second prize: Jane Melada, Montclair State and third prize: William Axinn, Cornwell. Watson's paper, "Women Athletes and Athletic Women: The Dilemmas and Contradictions of Managing Incongruent Identities," will be published in the journal "Sociological Inquiry." The Council voted to name Dennis Peck, scholar at the University of Alabama-Bitmingham, as new editor of the journal.

In this article the author addresses the relationship between social death and clinical-biological death during resuscitative efforts in cases of sudden death in Western societies. This paper is based on 112 observations of resuscitative efforts over a fourteen-month period in the emergency departments (EDs) of two Midwestern hospitals: one level-1 and one level-2 trauma center. I focused my observations on medical out-of-hospital resuscitative efforts. This research was approved by the institutional review board of the two hospitals and by the University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. I was paged with the other resuscitation team members whenever a resuscitative effort was needed in these emergency departments. I managed to attend half the resuscitative efforts occurring in the two EDs during the observation period. During resuscitative efforts, I tried to stand at the foot of the patient and take note of the interaction. Occasionally, I would help the staff lift a patient, retrieve drugs or blankets, and serve as a source of information about the precise sequence of drugs in the resuscitative efforts.

The article presents information on employees perspectives on mergers and acquisitions. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the United States economy and many business organizations underwent dramatic changes, often euphemistically referred to as "corporate restructuring." Previously unscathed sectors of the labor market--white-collar workers--suddenly faced corporate downsizing, two-tier labor markets, the increasing use of temporary workers, and outright layoffs. Cohorts of white- collar workers who had learned the mutual benefits of loyalty to a corporation were suddenly faced with shredded promises and shifting rules. These dislocations had occurred much earlier for blue-collar workers, but sociologists who employ a critical perspective suggest that social problems are not thus defined until they impinge on the privileges and status of the middle class. The socioeconomic developments of the 1980s and 1990s have seriously challenged the article of faith that the material lives in the United States inevitably improve year after year. Most significantly for this paper, the experience of job insecurity or downward mobility has perhaps hit hardest for those employees who have traditionally benefited most from a capitalistic economy-white-collar managers and workers. This is not to imply that such downward mobility or shifts in corporate loyalty are equivalent to the experiences of the working poor who face economic hardships, or similar to blue-collar workers who face devastated local economies because of plant closings.

This article focuses on a study, which examines the extent of non-employment among black males across 64 metropolitan areas in 1980, testing social scientist Albert Szymanski's thesis of functional substitutability of women and black workers in the post-World War II period. Evidence is presented to show that black male non-employment is partially the result of increased white female employment. The paper concludes with the suggestion that in the United States labor displacement in the post-World War II economy has worked cross-genderly when race is taken into account. The U.S. economy has changed, moving from the production of goods to the production of services. Many of the job losses associated with this shift have been in the manufacturing sector. However, the decline in manufacturing employment has not proceeded evenly. The shift in manufacturing has reduced employment opportunities for unskilled and semi-skilled white males and has led to a serious erosion of white working class male employment during the 1970's and 1980's. The results indicate that black males have competed with white females for employment during the postwar period, supporting Szymanski's finding of functional substitutability between the two groups, as well as racial variants of labor market que theory.

This paper analyzes the important manifestations of the underclass, outlines some differing positions on its origin and persistence, and lends further support to the argument of its link with the changing United States economy. The processes that produce and maintain the underclass are discussed along with their conflicting and converging interpretations. An analysis of the impact of industrial restructuring in the early 1980s shows that massive job losses affected blacks in the inner city areas much more severely than any other groups. The economic recovery that followed has not benefited this group and, as a consequence, many census tract areas that were predominantly poor have become designated underclass. Consequences of the polarization of the labor force that has contributed to the isolation of inner city blacks from the economy is discussed, and recommendations are offered for solving this national problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing tendency to prohibit smoking in public places is examined in light of awareness of the health effects of smoking. Drawing from the Health Belief Model, this paper investigates the development of proscriptive norms for public smoking in two states. Survey data from Illinois and North Carolina show that while smoking prevalence is similar in the two states, Illinois residents are more likely to consider smoking harmful to the individual engaged in the act. Although no differences by state were observed in perceived effects of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) on health, Illinois respondents were more likely to support legal controls of public smoking. Awareness of the primary effects of smoking on health emerged as more important than awareness of ETS effects on health in predicting support for legal control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of social distance among a sample of immigrants in the process of becoming United States citizens. Using the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, a positive relationship was found between the degree of social distance and the likelihood of becoming a citizen. Social distance also serves as an important indicator of severity of initiation; the findings suggest that severity of initiation had a positive influence on reported satisfaction with life in America for those who became U. S. citizens. For those who did not become citizens, however, social distance had an inverse affect on satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes socio-economic attainment patterns of foreign-born Egyptians in the United States, as tabulated in the 1980 U. S. Census. This is achieved first through an examination of their earnings, followed by an analysis of the rate at which their human capital characteristics are converted into wages. The findings suggest that this more recent immigrant group has likely attained higher earnings largely because of their skills and educational levels. Thus, while assimilation theory posits the crucial importance of time as a linkage to higher socio-economic attainment, this may not necessarily be the case for these immigrant men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors identify and develop the contribution of pragmatic thought to the sociology of knowledge The argument presented here elucidates the pragmatist position on several controversial issues currently confronting the sociology of knowledge, namely; the issues of rationality, relativism, subjectivism, objectivity, language, truth, and the nature of theory and explanation. The paper concludes that the corpus of pragmatic thought resolves these issues in a timely, relevant, and significant way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 examines the strategies developed by female correctional officers to circumvent interactional and organizational barriers to advancement in the traditionally-male work organization of the men's prison. Data for the analysis are drawn from interviews with female officers and other staff in a state department of corrections located in the western United States. In a dramaturgical-like fashion, female officers seeking to advance must moderate—strike a balance—between a series of countervailing negative sex role stereotypes. However, regardless of their success in presenting a ‘balanced’ image at work, female officers experienced stress from their responsibility of accommodating to this predominantly male work environment. [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]

A recent and extensive review of research concluded that worker age -- viewed both chronologically and in terms of career stage -- was a decisive determinant of work attitudes including turnover intention, i.e., intention to remain in an occupation or to leave it. This paper reports a study of work attitudes among 732 American, British, and Spanish students undergoing training as merchant marine engineering officers. All were of the same age and were at the same point in their careers. Wide differences were shown in terms of attitudes toward the occupation including turnover intention. The single most important variable was the national context in which training was taking place: The Americans exhibited the most negative work attitudes and the higher turnover intention; the Spanish had the most positive attitudes and the lowest turnover intention; the British tended to fall in the middle. Social class origin had some, though irregular, effects. The national differences are explained in terms of the training environments existing in the schools as well as structural features surrounding the merchant marine industry and the organization of training for the occupation in each country. Hence, though age may be a decisive element in work attitudes, this study suggests that the social organization within which age factors are located may determine the scope and forms of its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the literature considered for issues pertaining to gender in the 1950s is David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd (1950), John Seeley, et al., Crestwood Heights (1956), William H. Whyte, Jr., The Organization Man (1956), Jules Henry, Culture against Man, and essays by Talcott Parsons on the family. The paper shows how the authors apparently document the modernization of gender and the family by ignoring or downplaying conventional and conservative factors. In fact, they were more sanguine than even their own evidence warranted, although they seemed unaware of this. By seeing only progressive indicators they neglected the constraints on women, often identified as the "feminine mystique." Three gender and family issues are considered for actual evidence about what was happening in the 1950s but also for contradictions in the authors' work that yield insights as well. These are whether feminine and masculine sex roles were converging in modern America, the development of companionship marriage, and the issue of "maternal overinvolvement" (or the domineering mother) in childrearing. The work under consideration suggests contradictory gender messages and developments in the postwar period, indicating a period in which possibilities for equality between the sexes were being both created and denied to women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the structural determinants of the achievement behavior of over 1,300 American women whose lives collectively span three centuries of American history, 1607–1950. Of particular importance is the investigation of the relative effects of historical birth cohort, religion, sibling placement, social class background, and region of birth upon the career patterns of women involved in the professions, the arts, and social reform. A major conclusion of this study is that denomination and importance of religion are major factors accounting for social reform careers, while the absence of religion combined with being the first child is related most importantly to career choices in the professions and the arts. Historical birth cohort was found to be of some importance along with social class. However, region of birth proved to be the least important influence affecting achievement patterns. The data for this study are a quantitative archive established by the author on the basis of a detailed coding of all the biographies included in the three-volume reference set, Notable American Women (James, James, and Boyer, 1971). Information concerning 302 variables relevant to a study of achievement behavior was coded on a standardized form, keypunched, and transferred to magnetic tape suitable for computer and statistical analysis. The techniques used in this research are discriminant analysis and cross tabular analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which acceptance of dominant social beliefs and conflicting environmental beliefs by individuals helps to explain inconsistencies among environmental attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, it is hypothesized that individuals who demonstrate consistency in their acceptance of key social and environmental beliefs will also demonstrate greater consistency in their environmental attitudes and behaviors. Data from a mall survey of Washington state residents are used to examine this issue. The results suggest modest support for the hypothesis as higher correlations among environmental attitudes and behavior occur for groups who evidence greater integration of important social and environmental beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing survey data for demonstrators at a national antinuclear rally (N=420), as well as a thematic review of the antinuclear literature, this paper examines ideological consensus and diversity evident in the national protest over nuclear power. Our findings reveal a significant amount of overlap between the ideological themes of the movement and the individual beliefs of antinuclear demonstrators. While the demonstrators display a diversity of opinion in their reasons for opposing nuclear power, there is a consensus of belief that future solutions entail shutting down nuclear plants and replacing them with alternative energy sources and conservation programs. Moreover, there is a consensus of belief among demonstrators regarding the values underlying their rationale for movement participation, values that both challenge and incorporate larger dominant beliefs of American society. The implications of these findings for movement theories are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data on the siting of solid waste facilities in one of the nation's fastest growing cities, Houston, Texas. The findings reveal that solid waste sites were not randomly scattered over the Houston landscape but were likely to be found in predominantly black neighborhoods and near black schools. Institutionalized discrimination in the housing market, lack of zoning, and decisions by public officials over the past fifty years are major factors that have contributed to Houston's black neighborhoods becoming the ‘dumping ground’ for the area's solid waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that the emergence of shop-floor worker participation projects in many of the largest corporations in the United States has major theoretical interest because it points to a shift in the structure of American management from Taylorist forms of organization toward ‘post-Taylorist’ systems based on ‘relative worker autonomy’ and limited democratic organization on the shop floor. The postulated shift toward ‘relative worker autonomy’ is explored, first, in terms of the contradictions and failures of Taylorism—specifically its failure to integrate workers or bind them effectively, either psychologically or ideologically, to their jobs and firms. While the costs of worker dis-integration have led management to initiate post­Taylorist labor control systems, an analysis of participative experiments suggests that these new systems produce new contradictions engendering worker expectations and entitlements for democracy in the workplace. The analysis suggests the need for a reformulation of current theories of the capitalist labor process that can explain both the emergence of ‘integrative’ labor systems based on participation and democratic legitimations and also the new forms of contestation they produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sufficient impressionistic evidence exists in the previous literature to warrant a detailed consideration of the voting behavior of working-class and minority groups in relation to radical third parties. The present paper is concerned with analyzing some of the sources of support for radical third parties in Illinois from 1880 to 1924. We find that a coalition between a rural proletariat and the urban working class appeared to be a potentially viable source of support for the Socialist Party of America, since the groups involved were both numerically large and potentially crucial in determining the outcome of any election. Yet the Socialists were never able to capture more than a very modest fraction of the total vote, and even among their potential backers, the electoral enthusiasm for the Socialists was fractionalized and unstable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the contemporary culture of heroin addiction in the United States, using a revised portion of the general theory of action. The concept of a cultural action system is introduced and somewhat reformulated. The micro evolution of heroin culture from its generating conditions in inner-city street youth culture is reviewed. An LIGA analysis of the system of heroin culture is presented. There is a summary with concluding remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]