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This paper reports a content analysis of church sermons in terms of social class distinctions in the memberships of two Southern Baptist churches. The major finding is that there is a relationship between social class and sermon content. The data for this analysis were obtained by the transcription of forty Sunday morning sermons. The results are interpreted as suggesting that lower class church members search for consolation while upper class congregations search for justification for and continuation of their elevated social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine facilitative aspects of field research with deviant Street populations. Based on the authors' research with the homeless and with male Street prostitutes, the facilitative aspects include access to settings, social relationships, acquisition of information, and the maintenance of researcher interest. The authors argue that in each of these aspects street deviants may in some ways be easier to study than other populations. The paper concludes with suggestions for maximizing the efficiency and quality of fieldwork with specific deviant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the causal and explanatory role assigned to intrapersonal (or P-) variables in the recent sociological literature on collective behavior. In Part I emphasis is on the use—or nonuse—of P-variables as factors mediating between collective behavior episodes and their antecedent social and situational determinants. It is suggested that P-variables have been (1) excluded on methodological grounds in favor of more directly observable and/or manipulable behavior, (2) analyzed as dependent variables, defined by and contingent on antecedent social and situational considerations, or (3) introduced as independent variables and therefore significantly figuring in any explanatory account of collective behavior. Part II deals with the conceptually deeper issue concerning the terminology and metaphors employed in the literature regarding collective behavior and its causal antecedents. [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]

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 reviews the literature providing reasons for why battered women“stay” in abusive relationships and examines the emergence of images of battered women as“survivors” in early and contemporary activists’ discourses, drawing on ideas from social constructionist approaches to social problems, identity, and deviance to explore this phenomenon. Most of the early representations of battered women I analyze emphasize their emotionality and their victimization, while the more recent constructions of this collective identity discussed here emphasize their rationality and their agency. Both“victim” and“survivor” typifications provide accounts for why battered women stay in violent relationships, thus providing a vocabulary of motive for this oft-imputed“deviance.” Constructing battered women as survivors, however, may also remediate some of the stigma that can attach to victimization more generally. After situating victim and survivor discourses and considering how the image of a survivor may meet normative expectations that a victim image perhaps violates, I briefly discuss some implications of these alternate collective identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on the idea of a "multi-organizational field" to analyze the multiple targets that influence the creation of a social movement organization's frame and apply these ideas by examining the framing efforts of the SMOs in the religious pro-choice movement from 1967 to 1992. The frame literature identifies two distinct types of frame processes directed toward targets: frame alignment and counter-framing. Frame alignment processes attempt to link the interpretive orientations of the SMO with those of the target group. Secondly, the SMO attempts to undermine their opponents' attempts at frame alignment with contested targets through "counter- framing"--attempts to "rebut, undermine, or neutralize a person's or group's myths, versions of reality, or interpretive framework." If left unchallenged, the SMO's opponents' frames will eventually carry away even the targets in the SMO's alliance system. In the multiorganizational field context then, the alliance and neutral systems of an SMO are targeted through frame alignment processes, and the antagonists in the conflict sector are targeted through counter-framing. For most SMOs these framing efforts toward multiple targets are not sequential but simultaneous.

Intermarriage among heterogeneous social groups has often been studied as a process of assimilation. The present paper extends this research through a unique application of macro-structural propositions of intermarriage (Blau et al., 1982) to a nineteenth century American frontier population. Variants of these propositions are presented, used to address age patterns of nuptiality, and tested through a longitudinal application. Results support the utility of macro-structural theories in analyses encompassing initial community formation as well as assimilation of later arriving immigrants. Analyses illustrate both the assimilation of initially arriving immigrant groups on the frontier and the initial emergence of new heterogeneities in the established native population and later arriving immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unidimensional conceptions of socioeconomic status require that alternative indicators of one's position in the stratification system have similar elects upon the consequences of socioeconomic level. We show herein that different indicators of social participation and psychological well-being are in fact associated with different indicators of socioeconomic status. Thus, any attempt to combine these indicators—educational attainment, occupational pursuit, family income, or occupational origins—into a single index of socio- economic status will prove unsatisfactory because its component parts have different consequences for the same variable. We also show in this paper precisely how certain formulations of the effects of inconsistency and mobility are wholly redundant and only represent a logically possible way of interpreting the linearly additive effects of the variables used to define inconsistency and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript lays the groundwork for considering racial threat as a collective emotion. Although sociologists regularly study racial threat, a disconnect exists between Blumer's theoretical framework (1958) and modern empirical measurement. Research has largely measured racial threat as perceptions of competition or increases in racism. Neither, however, squarely fits the symbolic interactionist framework that Blumer championed. This manuscript frames racial threat as an affective group response that is generated through sustained interaction with social groups and group representations. After showing how Blumer's threat conceptualization fits the parameters of a collective emotion, I demonstrate how quantitative measurement and experimental research design can be used to capture threat as Blumer outlines it. Then, using factor analyses and regression, I illustrate that collective threat is distinct from other collective emotions and operates according to Blumer's theoretical predictions. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of how ongoing attempts to measure collective threat and the evolution of racism in the United States highlight the continued relevance of Blumer's work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines membership and participation in neighborhood improvement associations. Individual-level and contextual-level structural variables associated with the community of limited liability model are important for the decision to join associations but not to participate in them. Also, social ties in the community are more important than psychological attachment for both membership and participation. However, neither social ties nor attachment serve as intervening variables in the relationship between structural variables and membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on culture identity and dress. The sociology of dress is a vibrant field, exploring intriguing theoretical, methodological, and empirical domains. During the mid-twentieth century, clothing scholars began investigating the sociological and psychological implications of dress and appearance. In 1989, a group met to discuss the direction of the analysis of dress. The published papers from that meeting considered a wide range of topics, including identity, social psychology, cultural anthropology and sociology, semiotics, affect and cognition, social construction of gender, literary analysis, as well as qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Recent textbooks in the area continue to thaw from sociology and other fields to refine theories of dress and human behavior. Related to the misperception that dress only applies to the psychology of the self is the notion that dress is trivial both substantively and theoretically. Perhaps sociologists' neglect of dress might also be linked to a misperception that it is nonrational behavior similar to other actions that do not lend themselves to systematic analysis. Again these articles provide a contrasting view. In organizational and institutional settings, such as greedy organizations, total institutions, and mass media, dress and all it symbolizes are debated and discussed in ways that can be studied scientifically. Further, all of the articles have identified patterns in how dress is used in identity embracing and distancing that can be incorporated into broader theoretical frameworks.

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]

Since the end of the Cold War era, Western capitalist countries have experienced increased immigration of highly trained professionals from former socialist Eastern European countries and from socialist countries such as China and Cuba. In studies of the determinants of international migration, the focus has repeatedly been on demographic, economic, social network, and political explanations. This study addresses the migration of highly trained professionals from the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the United States of America (USA). Logistic regression analyses of longitudinal data collected between mid-1988 and the beginning of 1992 show that, in addition to the explanatory power of the above predictors, transvaluation—theshift emphasesfrom the socialist collectivist and interdependent ideological orientations to individualistic, independent, and competitive ideological orientations contribute to the migration decisions of the Chinese intellectuals. The results of field interviews and longitudinal comparisons suggest that the academics who come from an oppressed bourgeois-class origin, and who experience more independent and competitive lifestyles in China, are more likely to acquire individualistic and independent ideologies than those who come from privileged and working-class origins in China. The transvaluation is thus argued as adeterminantof international migration, rather than as thepost facto justificationorthe assimilationeffect that was argued in previous migration studies. The modest erosion of the socialist-collectivist and interdependent orientations among Chinese academics in the 1988 to 1992 three-and-half-year time frame further enhanced their migration decisions. The longitudinal analyses suggest that the modifications of the individual ideological orientations among the Chinese academics may have occurredbeforethe migration movement, rather thanafter. This finding thus challenges previous research regarding the determinants of international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we suggest that the difficulty in defining, locating, and measuring social capital is at core a philosophical confusion of language, and not just a consequence of excessively wide application. The term "capital" refers to resources for investment. Financial capital consists of specific quantities of assets. Human capital, a metaphorical extension of financial capital, also consists of specific quantities of assets, in the form of skills or credentials. However, social capital, a third metaphorical construction, does not consist of resources that are held by individuals or by groups but of processes of social interaction leading to constructive outcomes. Therefore, we argue, social capital is not located at any one level of analysis: it emerges across levels of analysis. The confusion over the meaning of this term, then, is a consequence of a metaphorical confusion of a substantive quantity (capital) and a process that takes place through stages (embedded, goal-directed social relations). Locating and defining social capital is further complicated by the variability, contextuality, and conditionality of the process. Stages of social relations that lead to constructive outcomes for one group of people or in one situation may not lead to constructive outcomes for another group or in another situation. To illustrate empirically how social capital may be thought of as a process consisting of stages and to demonstrate why the concept is inherently problematic, we employ data from the 1995 interviews of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). These data enable us to examine connections among the stages of the social capital process found in the literature and to look at predictors of academic achievement, a central topic in research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on several issues related to sociological theory. The argument advanced here suggests that the meaning of theoretical diversity has been misread by many of sociology's practitioners. Sociologist Jonathan H. Turner's reading of the situation, to reiterate one example, is that sociologists are allowed to do their thing in their own way, to a very real detriment of the discipline. More to the point, diversity is seen as reflecting a lack of social control in the sociological enterprise. As contended here, however, Turner and other integrationists might have the direction of their causal reasoning all wrong; sociology's organizational and theoretical differentiation are in part responses to too much social control in the discipline, as well as responses to the existence and experiences of various groups within a surrounding society. From a perspective that anchors itself in ontology, theoretical and organizational diversity are not problems to be eradicated, but preferred. They signal the voices of human variety that struggle to be heard despite efforts to the contrary. Fortunately, they have yet to be silenced. The current interregnum is to be praised, for it provides the preconditions for a less exclusive, more relevant, and more humanistic sociological project.

Contemporary views on the nature of science and technology describe them as symmetrically interdependent subcultures, in contrast to the older view of technology as applied science. On closer inspection, however, these accounts provide two distinct descriptions. The first, that of "distinct subcultures," sees science and technology as distinguishable based on their products, sectoral locations, or objectives. The second, that of a "holistic research system," denies that any single dimension delivers the ideal typical constructs that have long been used to characterize science and technology. On balance, social studies of the research process would do well to dispense with the terms, except insofar as their use constitutes an explanatory project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines aspects of a major research tradition in sociology which developed from Seeman's classic work on the meanings of alienation. It argues that the Powerlessness Scale contains an unintended, latent ideological content (one that was excluded in Seeman's delineation of alienation's meanings through his translation of alienation theory into the language of Rotter's social learning theory). However, the Powerlessness Scale that was developed from Seeman's conceptual analysis drew on the person's perception of the nation-state, its functions and legitimacy, thus re- introducing both polemical and political content into the empirical assessment of alienation. Using a panel of expert judges we tested the hypothesis that high-powerlessness statements on this scale are associated with critical perceptions of the nation-state and its functioning while low-powerlessness statements tend to reflect a more conformist perspective (the former being similar to the theoretical assertions of ‘power elite’ theory and the latter to the ‘pluralist’ form of political theory). The data provided by the expert judges are in general agreement with the hypothesis. A critical interpretation of the Powerlessness Scale is suggested in terms of O'Connor's model of the state and its modern functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frame analysis has been severely criticized for its reliance on fictive and newspaper domains and its static portrayal of social behavior. Published and refereed studies, many of the participant observer vintage, are examined to investigate these charges. Conclusions include: (1) transformations are significant occurrences in Americans' daily lives, (2) societal definitions cannot be validly depicted apart from the emergent aspects of personal and interpersonal histories, (3) a new form of keying, negative keying, a not-reality, is conceptualized, (4) the relationship between Goffma's transformations and Glaser's and Strauss' awareness contexts is delineated. Recommendations for the future study of layered definitions are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings and speculations about the effects of physical design on social behavior in planned residential settings have accumulated without the benefit of any explicit theoretical models (Newman, 1972, 1973; Cooper, Day, and Levine, 1972; Cooper, 1975). Recent research about urban neighborhoods has included the formulation and estimation of models of community attachment, but these models do not incorporate any physical design features (Kasarda and Janowitz, 1974.; Hunter, 1975). I attempt here to connect these two areas of research by developing and estimating a model of community attachment that includes the effects of physical design. The sites for the research are federally assisted, moderate income housing developments. Both physical and social features of the sites prove to have significant effects on the level of community attachment in these settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 300 years the members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) have been making group decisions without voting. Their method is to find a ‘sense of the meeting’ which represents a consensus of those involved. Ideally this consensus is not simply ‘unanimity,’ or an opinion on which all members happen to agree, but a ‘unity’: a higher truth which grows from the consideration of divergent opinions and unites them all. Friends can ‘unite’ in support of action which shows due consideration to the individuality of each member and to their corporate concerns. As an illustration of this method, we will analyze in some detail the group process of a Quaker committee as it worked with a difficult social problem over a period of one year. Before beginning the analysis, we will summarize some of the main points in the process of reaching the ‘sense of the meeting’ as it has been described by Friends and others. Also we will review the functional theory of social interaction which will provide the basis for theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional small group concepts have been derived from experimental decision-making groups. Encounter groups not only locus on functional problem-solving but also attempt to facilitate participants' spontaneous and open expression of their authentic emotions in-situ. Through this emphasis the encounter group leader attempts to provide an antidote to role-oriented everyday societal transactions. The complex nature of encounter group interactions defy standard codification by a non-participant researcher. Recently certain small group researchers have become participants in their groups under study as a way of capturing more dynamic processes of group interaction. The small group researcher as participant and encounter group leader/researcher have become united through their use of empathic identification as an artful method in linking up abstract theoretical concepts with observed group happenings. An ethnography of a Youth Encounter Group (that I lead) is presented to illustrate the complex features of leadership in an encounter group. Through an analysis of my ethnography I attempt to show (1) how both small group researchers and encounter group researchers have presented idealizations of group process divorced from the practical features that organize and sustain the on-going group interactions and (2) how both the small group researcher as participant and encounter group leader/researcher have used the process of empathic identification as an unexplicated resource that has obscured and masked the interpretive work carried on by participants—lay and professional—during the encounter group and by researchers in their professional reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the occupational prestige in the Negro subculture. It is noted that in the study of occupational prestige it is well established that within a given country there are no sizeable subgroups of the population which hold radically differing views of the occupational prestige hierarchy. This agreement seems to contradict the notion that job discrimination and ghetto life have produced a distinct black subculture which includes occupational evaluations radically different from those of the modal society. Part of the observed Negro-white difference in socioeconomic achievements is to be attributed to the fact that for any particular status characteristic, Negroes have, on the average, less of each of the factors which cause it than do whites. Thus, for example, part of the average difference between Negro and white average incomes can be attributed to the generally poorer standing of Negroes in occupation, education, and social background, and the color-blind process of stratification. But in addition to these differences due to stratification, for any particular status dimension, Negroes get less than do whites with the same levels of the causal characteristics, because of discrimination.

Individuals ordinarily have considerable information about voluntary associations even before they seriously think about joining a group. In becoming affiliated, members usually rely on personal networks and often several persons are consulted. When mass media sources are utilized in the affiliation process, they serve as a stimulus or catalyst (not one respondent in the sample joined an organization solely on the basis of mass media sources of information). Those with an extensive network of friends and relatives often become members through informal leaders. Moreover, they are sought out and encouraged to join. Individuals who have fewer primary-group resources frequently become members through formal leaders and themselves initiate the contact which results in membership. Finally, personal influence networks are more likely to play an important role for those joining expressive rather than instrumental voluntary associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of small group. Recent advances in social psychological theory have made it possible to reduce the number of dimensions necessary to describe interaction in small groups. Earlier analyses had often used category syste

This article presents information on time-space relationship in socio cultural development. The meaning and value attaching to social space is once again intimately associated with the possibilities and probabilities of achieving a spectrum of purely social purposes which accrue to enhanced status positions in the group or society. For status has associated with it the right to command scarce resources whether material or wholly symbolic, or both. The achievement of many purposes is contingent upon the command of such scarce resources. It follows that the achievement of many of the purposes which enhanced status makes possible have essentially nothing to do with physical survival, they may have much to do, however, with the achievement of certain social rewards and privileges. Thus, if an individual desires, say, a professional status or a reputation as a celebrity of some kind, the achievement of such pure poses involves primarily an investment of time, energy, and willingness to engage in competition with other contenders. In such instances the probability of success or failure is not immediately determined by ownership and or control of physical space in the farm of real property.

This article presents an analysis of social relation within groups of members. By group it is meant any plural within which observable interaction (mutual stimulation and response) is present among the members. Any namable set of people is a plural, it becomes a group to the extent that its members behave in ways that influence one another. Groups are characterized by relations among members and social relations are a type of product, rather than a sum, as this discussion will show. Sociologists with quantitative inclinations will not find much that is surprising or instructive in this mathematically simple thesis. But many who study groups are unaware of the appropriate use of products rather than sums when considering a set of indices or variables. Much of what will be said is well known to statisticians, but it is now presented in everyday language in order to reach a wider audience. One can think first of a product of two all-or-none kinds of things which logicians call a "logical product" or "intersect" of sets in the new mathematics.

The article presents a discussion on the role of voluntary associations as integrative forces in urban society. A basic distinction in the conceptualization of integration has been suggested, and a number of significant factors pertinent to the social-psychological and sociological levels of analysis have been explored. The article revolves around study of role played by voluntary organizations for the participants and the place of these groups in the community, or the interrelationships between associations. It further discusses the social psychology of affiliation. Where sub-issues like extent of affiliation,involvement in organization,type of association,age and life cycle,organization locus are discussed. Then it discusses the sociology of associations, which describes organizational function, size and formalization,neighborhood stability, organizational prevalence, community size and ecology of associations. It has been emphasized that most students of associations have neglected to explore the complexity of integration and the role voluntary groups play in the process.

This article focuses on the concept of mental health and religious socialization given by sociologist Emile Durkheim. It seeks an alternative explanation, one which is couched at the socio-psychological level. Its method of approach is an analysis of religious socialization. In the analysis which blows, stress is placed upon differences in the content and function of the mythological reference group structure, i.e., the inventory of both divine and demonic personalities, with whom the religious confessant develops relationships. Such mythological reference groups may be thought of as independent of, but supplemental to, the real worldly reference groups to which the individual relates. The analysis proceeds from a conception of the ideal-typical rather than the modal form of the conscience manifest in New World Catholics and Protestants, specifically those raised in the Calvinistic tradition prevalent throughout English-speaking North America. The focus of this article, moreover, is with the type of conscience produced in members of the two respective religious communities during the historical period beginning in the Renaissance-Reformation.