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The article introduces the theme of the articles featured in the issue. The main topics in all the papers presented in the issue revolve around study of various aspects of voluntary associations. The study of voluntary associations involves three separate theoretical concerns. The first, and perhaps oldest of these, focuses on the nature and structure of society, especially industrial society. A second theoretical interest in voluntary associations is social psychological in emphasis; here voluntary associations are examined for what they can tell us about the nature of the person in contemporary society. Finally, voluntary associations may be studied within the framework of organizational theory with a focus upon associations as the units to be studied. Four of the papers in this issue are directly concerned with the problem of the contribution of voluntary associations to the society in which they exist. Most studies of voluntary associations implicitly suggest that such groups are integrative.

Voluntary organizations have long been believed to have important effects on the attitudes of their members, but the relatively few attempts to investigate such effects have produced inconsistent results. This paper uses a statewide proportional sample to investigate relationships between (a) membership and participation in ten types of voluntary organizations and (b) two types of attitudes about the community. After individual and community characteristics were controlled, experience with voluntary organizations was found to explain about five percent of the variance in respondents' perceptions of their ability to influence community affairs, but relationships with willingness to leave the community were considerably weaker. Somewhat stronger relationships were found when the analysis was confined to respondents for whom voluntary organizations or community participation was particularly salient. Overall, this paper indicates that the impact of voluntary organizations on community attitudes is weaker than earlier theoretical statements have suggested. However, it also shows that the relationship varies according to type of organization, salience of participation for the respondent, respondents' sociodemographic characteristics, and the specific community attitude being investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents comparison between the associations of British and American voluntary associations. The development of postwar research on the structure and functioning of voluntary associations has been uneven, and there have been marked differences between British and American research in this field. This paper offers a narrow definition of voluntary associations. It defines voluntary associations as groups in which membership is in no sense obligatory, which have a formal constitution, but which do not have paid officials at the local level. The next section of this paper places the subsequent analysis in context by pointing briefly to the very substantial similarities between research in Great Britain and the U.S. The third section discusses differences in the research environments of the two countries, and suggests their relevance to the main problem. The fourth section assesses the differences in research orientations between the two countries, as it has influenced the study of voluntary associations. The final section considers the effect of these differences upon the functional analyses that have been made.

The paper presents an integrative analysis of voluntary associational leadership and reputational influence. It is noted that the degree to which leadership in voluntary organizations contributes to reputational influence patterns in the general community is not an easily predictable phenomenon. It becomes clear that no "a priori" assumptions can be made about the role of voluntary groups in the general leadership of any given community. There is a need, however, to distinguish the "organizational community" from the community in which formal voluntary groups are of considerably less significance. The study results of the overlap of reputational influentials and formal leaders in four towns are given in tabular form. The factors are number of reputational individuals, number of formal leaders, maximum possible overlap, actual overlap and percentage overlap. From the point of view of influence structures, it was discovered that the larger the town the greater the number of persons who receive a given proportion of nominations as an influential. The results of the study presented in this paper justify the trend toward the use of a combination of the positional and reputational methods of identifying leaders.

The article describes the outcome of a research on various aspects of participation in voluntary organizations. Although there have been periodic discussions of the criteria for the category "voluntary associations," the term primarily designates a set of interests and questions rather than a special kind of organization. In addition, the literature on voluntary associations deals either with the question of participation or with the question of community function. This paper discusses participation in "voluntary associations" from an organizational analysis point of view. The research has focused on a single community of about 30,000 population. The data collected include two sample surveys, membership lists, basic identification data on most associations in the community, and full descriptive data on the associations. The aim of the paper is to report on a significant by-product of the research that may have considerable relevance for organizational analysis as well as for voluntary association interests.

Using the framing process of “partial-birth” abortion (PBA) as an exemplifying case, this paper proposes a dialogic model of framing in which meaning is created and recreated through an iterative, discursive process. Materials developed by six social movement organizations that lead the PBA framing process were analyzed to chronicle the evolution of the PBA frame, as well as factors that influenced this evolution. Movement and countermovement actors attempted to imbue PBA with meaning in such a manner as to motivate and direct action to support their overarching political goals. Rather than two distinct parallel frames battling against each other, this process is better conceptualized as the evolution of a single frame, created in interaction with the framing of one's opponents. A dialectic model of framing provides a framework for examining the process by which cultural meanings are contested and how these meanings are transformed through collective action. Such a model also potentially expands the definition of successful frame and better illuminates the symbiotic relationship between movements and countermovements actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research presented here examines the social construction of local school violence threats in the context of national claims-making about school violence, particularly school shootings. In light of the news media glare surrounding other school shootings, school and police officials in Burlington, Wisconsin assessed the threat posed by five high-school youth who allegedly plotted to carry out a school attack in November 1998. Social constructionist scholarship has shown that claims made about a problem and the way it is framed in the news media and other informational contexts shape an audience's perception of a social problem's seriousness, prevalence, setting, and causes. But as William Gamson and others have pointed out, “readers” are not passive recipients of media messages; rather, they actively interact with those messages to construct meaning. This research project involved two components: (1) content analysis of the print media (in two periods 1992–1993 and 1997–1998) and law enforcement and school administrator publications and conference materials; and (2) in-depth, semistructured interviews with 13 respondents, including the 11 Burlington school and police officials who assessed and acted on this case. In this paper, I examine how the (Racine) Journal Times and professional organizations constructed (and reconstructed) school violence and how local decision-makers interpreted their own school violence threat in the context of the news media's and professional organizations’ constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the literature on formal voluntary organizations in the urban community. The theoretical approaches that guided much of the research in this area are identified as social structural, social psychological, and organizational. Basic findings suggest that formal participation, including church membership, is a characteristic of urban life. Population characteristics, attitudes, informal interaction, and community involvement are all related to formal membership. Moreover, formal organizations attempt to integrate individuals with the larger community, and such groups, in urbanizing areas, facilitate modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the rhetoric found in the referral pamphlets distributed by military academies and homes for the mentally retarded. The material is analyzed from a perspective which views value exchange between client and organization as an initial means of institutionalizing the relations between the person and the service organization. Discussion centers around the heuristic value of economic models in sociological analysis, with particular reference to that non-institutionalized sphere of the division of labor that encompasses service organizations which lack viable client referral mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the voluntary associations of adolescents. It focuses on three main issues. First, on the extent to which middle-and working-class adolescents are affiliated with and involved in formal organizations; Second, on affiliation as a family-linked characteristic; and third, on whether involvement by an individual in children's associations is related to subsequent membership in formal groups as an adolescent. Data for the study were collected from a sample of 456 students enrolled in high school population of a small city, which is situated 20 miles from Omaha, Nebraska. A very high proportion of middle-class and working-class students in the study were affiliated with groups. The data show that while middle-class students were more likely to be affiliated than working-class students, the differences were not great. Similarly, no important differences along class lines were observed when attendance at meetings were considered. Membership in voluntary groups did indeed prove to be family linked. Students were more likely to join youth associations if a parent belonged to a voluntary association than where this was not the case.

This paper presents a study on the nature of influence in regional sociological associations in the U.S. It compares and contrasts organizations and extends an earlier study of three national societies. Data were collected and analyzed which pertained to several characteristics of association presidents. Data about each president were collected for a period of ten years prior to his election. It is noted that as membership in the national associations has become greater, the smaller coteries of specialized interests have developed to delineate members who share a common language. Moreover, the presidency of an organization, as it is occupied by a sequence of incumbents, renders visible the norms and values of members. Information was gathered from news reported in the "American Journal of Sociology" and the "American Sociological Review," from private correspondence, and from association records. The study concerned the six regional societies which are affiliated with the American Sociological Association.

The purpose of the research reported in this paper is to assess the usefulness of the instrumental-expressive typology in the study of voluntary associations using data provided by university students. The hypotheses center around two basic considerations. The first one extents to which members of the two types of associations differ according to a number of significant sociological variables (e.g., the degree of involvement in friendship networks outside the association). The second consideration is the possible differences in the ways new members are incorporated into instrumental and expressive associations. The three criteria determining the differentiation between the instrumental and expressive association are given. It also discusses personal influence and associational membership. Instrumental and expressive scores of nine associations are presented in tabular form. In conclusion, the instrumental and expressive dimensions represent a sociologically significant way of classifying associations. This distinction may be more useful in some sociological research than the more common systems of classification that are not directly related to sociological theory.

This is the first issue of the newsletter of the Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) International Sociology Honor Society. This issue presents the names of the newly elected representatives of the National Council of the AKD for 1984. This issue also presented the results of the first AKD Student Paper Contest. New institutional members for 1984 were also listed in this issue. It reported on discussion at the council meeting that centered on the proposal to change the requirements for institutional memberships. The proposed change would reduce the number of sociologists required on the institution's faculty from three to two, to enable some of the smaller colleges to establish chapters. No decision was reached, but the Council will act on the proposal at next year's meeting pending further study. A call has been announced for manuscripts and book proposals. Manuscripts and proposals for annotated bibliographies, handbooks, and sourcebooks in specific branches of sociology and on issues of contemporary interest are solicited.