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In school systems around the world, countless reform strategies have focused on school and teacher accountability—the process of evaluating schools' performance on the basis of student measures. Policy and education research has been dominated by debates on its effectiveness, where advocates highlight the positive effects on achievement while critics emphasize the negative consequences on pressure, morale, and autonomy. Yet the question is not so much whether to have accountability, but what form it should take. To answer this, sociologists contribute through their study of accountability's organizational and ecological dynamics—key facets that are sidelined when researchers only focus on quantitative program evaluation. An organizational perspective highlights the meaning‐making school actors and the general public have of the policy, viewing it through technical‐rationalist and institutional‐performative lenses. An ecological perspective highlights how the form of accountability is a negotiated outcome of larger macrosocial forces, and how accountability is itself contributive to larger social changes. This review suggests a broader conceptualization of accountability regimes, and the unique contribution of critical, organizational, and sociological perspectives to the study of public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on disenchantment, sociology undertheorizes wonder. Our analysis of 30 interviews is the first sociological study of Americans' wonder experiences. Contrary to Weber's theorization of disenchantment, this study shows people experience wonder that is transformative and try to cultivate states of mind open to wonder experiences. Our study shows wonder follows from particularity, difference, and encounters with the mysterious; wonder connects people to expansive concerns; people experience acute self‐awareness during wonder encounters; and people seek wonder experiences. Wonder communities influence wonder experiences, but stages of wonder experiences are similar outside communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology subdisciplines are notorious for being siloed in their respective fields of study. This is sometimes more noticeable in those arenas that surprisingly (to some) do not make sense, as there are bound to be greater sociological insights gleamed from an intra‐subdisciplinary approach that allow for better synthesis of theory(ies) or even epistemology(ies). In this piece, we issue a challenge to the need for more sociological engagement that weaves together the cultural, those structured stories that render our lives and the order of those lives meaningful, and the racial, those storied structures of white supremacy that give rise to that order of our lives and undergird our identities and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can buildings be racist? In the study of racism, there is extensive literature on racist popular culture. However, buildings and architecture, as potentially racist cultural products, are understudied. This article examines Spanish‐Colonial Revival architecture in Southern California as an example of urban placemaking with racist origins and legacies. This article relies on archival research to examine how buildings can be just as, if not more, racist than other forms of visual culture. The built environment physically structures human activities and movements, but it operates in the background. This invisibility of the built environment as "culture" allows architects, builders, and other social actors to design structures that enforce racial boundaries both symbolically and physically. This article concludes with a discussion of how architecture and the built environment can be foregrounded in sociological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I Sociology Saves the Planet i , guides readers through various perspectives regarding socioecological thinking and practice. In this context, readers who would best understand the theories used by Macias to make his case are those who have a basic knowledge of sociology, such as that presented in an Introduction to Sociology course. [Extracted from the article]

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]

Several influential sociologists have questioned the wisdom of criminology's departure from sociology. Omitted from these reflections are the rationale explaining the schism. The present work grants a historical account to fill that absence. Oral histories with 17 leading criminologists, 13 of whom trained as sociologists, have been collected and analyzed. Two domains are explored, professional/organizational and informal/intellectual. First, the departments evidence different hiring patterns, journal content preferences, and journal structures over the past half‐century. Second, there are contrasts regarding ideology; sociology trends leftward. Criminological research concentrates on a dependent variable; sociology links to a unifying orientation. There are concerns that the field's training and research may be too narrow and that the lure of influencing policy could undermine its opportunity to offer critical commentary. Criminology's focus on addressing crime as a practical concern serves some advantages. However, many respondents were conflicted over the loss of an abiding identity. If the field fails to confront its preference for multitheoretical, policy‐driven discussion, it risks being pruned or subsumed without a more fixed sense of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W.E.B. Du Bois discussed key aspects of the new field of sociology in his early writings. This article presents Du Bois’ conception of the developing field and his sociological perspective based on nine of his key original sociological writings. Rather than generating theoretical formulations and studying abstract concepts, Du Bois insisted that sociology be an empirical science adhering to the methods utilized by the physical sciences. Sociology's major objectives are to study the “deeds of men” and to provide a science of human action. Sociological research seeks the discovery of “truth” which can form the basis of social policy. Noting that the regularity of human behavior is evidence of laws and acknowledging that human behavior is also subject to chance factors, sociology must seek to determine the limits of each. Du Bois’ research methods, based on methodological triangulation, were formulated to provide the “truths” which he eagerly sought. Du Bois was convinced that these truths were worth knowing and that sociology had the promise of becoming one of the “greatest sciences.” Attention directed toward Du Bois’ key sociological writings within sociology curricula will introduce current and future readers to the groundbreaking sociological work of the pioneer sociologist. [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]

The term 'microaggression' has experienced a lively existence in the field of psychology since its introduction in 1970s. Sociology has recently come to study microaggressions, yet serious gaps remain in the study of microaggressions. In particular, sociological analysis has not taken into account how exposure to microaggressive interactions may affect racial attitudes, how variations in microaggressive interactions have different effects, and what racial and gender positions render one more or less likely to engage in, or fail to oppose, microaggressions. Based on a GSS-based survey and an experimental vignette design, we address the following two questions: First, how might the presence of racial microaggressions affect racial attitudes? Second, what is the power of specific types of interactional microaggression? Results indicate that both exposure to microaggressions and the type of microaggressions are correlated with changes in specific racial attitudes associated with the marginalization, problematization, and symbolic and physical repression of people of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the sociological study of disasters, such as 2005's Hurricane Katrina. According to the author, disasters allow researchers a unique glimpse into the social conditions of a place and time. It is suggested that the challenges disasters present can reveal important information about organizations, social institutions, and individuals. Details on the motivations and methodologies of sociologists specializing in disaster research are also presented.

An introduction is presented which discusses various reports within the issue on topics including Hurricane Katrina of 2005, the sociological study of disasters, and displacement.

This paper is a case study analysis of the sociological phenomena of forgiveness occurring in an ongoing two-decade war in northern Uganda. Building on a long-term relationship with the region and utilizing the methods of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and a qualitative questionnaire, I identify two especially important social mechanisms that correlate with the prevalence of forgiveness discourse amongst the Acholi people of northern Uganda: (1) a communal sense of war fatigue and (2) a sense of Acholi collective identity, which the religious and cultural leaders have emphasized to promote a pervasive public dialogue of forgiveness. While recognizing that forgiveness in northern Uganda is contested, findings from my study point to how forgiveness opens a space for some Acholi to assert power and express agency in their lives after years of being portrayed largely as victims. Furthermore, forgiveness also offers the opportunity for some Acholi to experience interpersonal empowerment by maintaining a locus of control through meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the guest editor discusses the articles "The Stratification of Emotions: Some Preliminary Generalizations," by Jonathan Turner, "Theorizing New Media: Reflexivity, Knowledge, and the Web 2.0," by Sam Han, and "Problems of Knowledge and Problems of Order," by Linda Derksen.

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]

The author discusses the report "Kai's Response to Howard, Hana, Ben, and Dorothy" by Kai Erickson, in which Erickson describes his own special brand of sociological writing as it pertains to the works of sociologists and authors such as Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. The author analyzes Erickson's works in terms of landscape, form of reality, his patterns and consistencies, and his use of metaphors. The article compares Erickson's works with those of philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Jeff Alexander, and discusses his use of the term institutional ethnography as defined by sociologists Marie Campbell and Frances Gregor.

Immigration continues to change the social, economic, and political landscapes of urban America. Consequently, scholars, as well as the general public, are interested in the internal migration patterns of immigrants. In this research, we identify and explain the characteristics of metropolitan areas that have the strongest effects on the percentage change in the foreign-born population between 1990 and 2000. Using lagged independent variables and a sample of 150 metropolitan areas, we find that settlement patterns among immigrants are diverging from traditional patterns. That is, those metropolitan areas that had moderately high levels of globalization and lower costs of living as well as lower disadvantage indicators (e.g., percentage poverty) in 1990, had larger increases in percentage foreign-born between 1990 and 2000 compared to areas with lower levels of globalization and higher costs of living and disadvantage. These trends suggest the increasing importance of second-tier metropolises such as Atlanta, Phoenix, and Las Vegas in understanding where immigrants settle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers discussion about reports published within the periodical and about how sociologists offers lose their ability to write creatively because of the emphasis placed on writing fellowship applications. In writing for sociology, students are taught to write logically rather that freely. The author relates how sociology writers utilize narrative, structure, and story telling to make writing fresh and alive. The author states that writers should never write as a habit or as a reflex, two processes which will produce stale composition.

The article discusses a previously-published essay from "The Yale Review" which was presented at a symposium on social sciences in which the author attempted to define his version of the social science sociology, which includes discussions of terms such as institutional ethnography, and the sociological views of writers and scholars such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Hana Brown, and Immanuel Wallenstein. The author describes institutional ethnography as our everyday doings which are coordinated with those of others, of which we are mostly unaware. He discusses Ben Agger's theory of sociology which includes multiculturalism, the Frankfurt School of thinking, and postmodernism.

The author of the article discusses sociological writing and how the prose used in that field must stand up to the criticism of any English professor. The article discusses the book "Modern English Usage" by H. W. Fowler and the way Fowler defined sociological writing as one that utilizes complicated and pretentious words. The author points out that some criticism drawn by their field's writers is justified, and uses examples drawn from the works of sociologists Henry F. Graff, Jacques Barzun, and Everett Wilson, to show how sociologists often use language germane only to their own field of science.

The author of the article discusses anti-intellectualism, and how this movement has badly affected the advancement of the writing of philosophical prose, postmodernism, and technical sociology. The works of the sociologist Jacques Derrida are discussed, particularly his writings concerning deconstruction, as well as those of Theodore Adorno, who helped develop the Frankfurt School of Sociology. The author agrees with the works of sociology writer Russell Jacoby who stated in his book "The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in an Age of Academe," that the academization of post-World War II schools harmed intellectual discourse. The author discusses his own book "Decline of Discourse."

A preface for the August 2008 issue of the journal "Sociological Inquiry" is presented.

In this article, the author examines pragmatic philosophy as a tool to open a richer dialogue between modern and postmodern depictions of reality. Exploring the pragmatic influences in the thoughts of G. H. Mead and Emile Durkheim (as well as C. Wright Mills and others), the author argues that ideas found in these theorist's writings, as they are informed by American Pragmatism, can act as a metaphorical bridge in linking modern and postmodern thought. In this context, the author shows that the functionalists and structuralists wrongly depict Durkheim and Mead as disciples of and inheritors of the Enlightenment project. Conversely, the postmodernists simply ignore them because they are wrongly perceived to be part of the totalizing, “enemy” camp of the Enlightenment tradition. The author asserts that a more accurate read of Durkheim and Mead finds a nuanced, middle ground in regards to opposition to versus submission to the Enlightenment project, and hence Durkheim and Mead (due in large part to American Pragmatism's influence in their writings) offer a way for modern and postmodern theory to enter into more fruitful dialogue with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the first version of a new, standardized data tool that can be used to test models of global income allocation, the Standardized Income Distribution Database (SIDD). It is based on a comprehensive collection of income distribution data compiled by the United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER 2000 ). International and intertemporal inconsistencies in these data have historically limited its use. We estimate adjustment factors for different scopes of coverage, income definitions, and reference units which, when applied to the raw data, bring all data to a common standard based on national coverage, gross income, and household per capita inequality. Criterion validity checks confirm that these adjustments boost the correlation between measured income inequality and national social indicators. The SIDD is also clean, free of duplicates, and easy to access. The SIDD will be useful both to students reading income inequality and to those conducting broad cross-national research on the relationship between income inequality and a range of important outcomes, such as health, criminality, and social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the socioeconomic attainments of second-generation Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans. Using 2000 Census data, we focus on education, wages, and managerial/professional employment relative to African Americans and whites. The second-generation Vietnamese stand out as having extraordinarily high average values on these indicators. By contrast, the socioeconomic attainments of second-generation Cambodians, Hmong, and Laotians tend to be closer to those of African Americans except among those second-generation Southeast Asians who are clearly part of the earlier (i. e. , Wave 1) immigration stream that tended to have somewhat higher socioeconomic origins. The most disadvantaged groups are non-Wave 1 second-generation Laotians and Cambodian women, particularly in terms of the process of educational attainment. The results are interpreted as indicating the importance of class origins and immigrant selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is the transition to parenthood constructed in a context in which fatherhood and motherhood are therapeutically defined? Relying on ethnographic observations of 66 expectant and new parent couples assigned to 13 different parent educator-led groups, we show how, with the arrival of a baby, a sense of transition is crafted and often amplified. Our analysis suggests that just as the overall life course is constructed through language and meaningful gesture, so also the transition to parenthood is constructed through verbal and nonverbal signification. Using a vocabulary of contrast and change, parent educators and expectant and new parents create a collective feeling that they are witnessing a transformation of major proportions. By emphasizing the idea that things are no longer the same, parent educators also establish themselves as authorities whose job it is to steer fathers and mothers through unfamiliar terrain. For their part, expectant and new parents not only listen to but often also replicate the parent educators’ vocabularies and, in so doing, further magnify distinctions between before parenthood and after, and between one stage of parenthood and another. Childbirth stands uncomfortably at the junction of the two worlds of nature and culture. Like death and disease it is a biological event, but the defining feature of biological events in human life is their social character. Ann Oakley (1980:7) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1957 Sykes and Matza introduced Neutralization Theory as a response to the prevailing criminological wisdom that offenders engage in crime because they adhere to an oppositional subcultural rule set that values law breaking and violence. Sykes and Matza rejected this perspective arguing that, despite their involvement with offending, delinquents maintain a strong bond to conventional society and want to perceive themselves as “good.” To resolve their contemplated law breaking with this desired self-identity, they employ neutralization techniques designed to assuage anticipated guilt. Subsequent research indicates that the original formulation of the theory is limited to explaining the behavior of conventionally attached individuals and fails to address the decision-making processes of nonconventionally oriented individuals such as criminally embedded street offenders. The current paper argues that, for a core group of such offenders, guilt is not an issue at all because their crimes are not only considered acceptable, but attractive and desirable. In-depth, semistructured interviews conducted with 191 active, noninstitutionalized “hardcore” street offenders indicate they discount guilt not through neutralizations but by attaching normative definitions to their crimes (as either mundane, inevitable, or enjoyable) that preclude them from eliciting guilt in the first place. In addition, these interviews detail the manner in which such outlooks develop among hardcore offenders and how they are maintained in a manner that supports further offending. [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]

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]

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]

Using ethnographic research, this paper explores the experiences of elite women athletes on a Division-I college soccer team. I draw on existing literature in the sociology of sport, sociology of the body, and interactionism to inform my analysis. With this approach, I illustrate the complicated relationship women athletes have with their bodies in relation to physical competition and dominant notions of femininity today. Key reference groups influenced the players’ self-perceptions and encouraged the women to closely monitor their own appearances and actions. While undoubtedly affected by these inter-actions as well as their place in the gender hierarchy, many women athletes subtly resisted notions of idealized bodies and constructed their own meanings about their bodies and experiences. Investigating the day-to-day body awareness and negotiations of women athletes reveals the gendered nuances of sport and the complicated relationship between cultural ideals and female embodiment. [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]

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]

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

This article takes up the concept of gender as a specific case in point of spontaneous sociology. The contributory aim is to set forth a multidimensional framework for addressing gender in research. I summarize key developments in gender theory, tease out their implications for research design, and outline four interlocking strategies for how the conventional “gender=male/female” variable might be reconfigured. The first strategy involves shifting from a biological foundationalist paradigm of gender to a social constructionist one, and is the precondition upon which the other strategies are based. Second, research designs must address gender as multilayered and multivariable, not as a single, simple attribute. Third, more attention needs to be given to gender as active and as an outcome of social forces. Fourth is the suggestion to reconfigure the standard gender variable to one reflecting a continuum of positions. A possible terminological reconfiguration of the standard variable is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends the understanding of the relationship between religious homogeneity, that is, the extent to which formal religious groups are concentrated at the county level, and the rate of persons currently divorced in those counties. Linking the research question to Durkheimian precepts of religion as an integrative force in social life, the essential question is, “At the county level, does the rate of currently divorced vary inversely with more concentrated affiliation with formal religious organizations?” We investigate this relationship using data from the 1990 U.S. Census and from the Glenmary Research Center that encompasses 621 counties in the U.S., that is, a 20 percent random sample of counties from each state. As hypothesized, the divorced rate is inversely related to religious homogeneity, even after controlling for a series of factors that have been shown to be correlated with divorce in other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the causes of organizational adoption of new practices often vary across social contexts, organizational theories seldom recognize this fact. One of the few contextual theories on adoption views the causes of adoption as varying according to the timing of adoption: Economic causes should govern early adoption and institutional causes should govern later adoption. Tests of this theory generally have focused on gradual adoption among noneconomic organizations. Recognizing the need to expand our understanding of the timing of organizational adoption, I examine rapid adoption among economic organizations. More specifically, I focus on the adoption of downsizing programs among Fortune 100 firms and report that economic and institutional factors have affected downsizing throughout the downsizing era. Interpretation of these findings sheds light on the genesis and continuation of the downsizing era and on the impact that the rise of investor capitalism has had on shifts in the specific causes of early and later downsizings. I conclude by stressing the theoretical and practical utility of investigating how new practices spread across organizations in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding police violence is important in part because police violence, if generally tolerated, could transform a society based on law into one governed by political and personal whim. This research asks whether the conflict perspective can explain which groups are more likely to approve of police use of force, and whether several dimensions of power are at issue or just a few. Previous studies have found that race is the most important factor in determining approval of police use of force. Gender, age, class, and other variables have shown mixed results. Using a national sample (1998 General Social Survey), this paper contributes a more comprehensive examination of this issue to the small body of literature in this area. We look at approval of police use of force in five scenarios. Our findings show that minorities and women are more likely to disapprove of police use of force. Supporting a narrow application of conflict theory, other dimensions of power appear not to affect attitudes toward police hitting citizens. Context of violence matters too. When situations are not actively threatening for officers, by near consensus, violence is unacceptable. Disagreement comes from less clear-cut circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project provides a sociological perspective on self-injury by assessing whether cutting is a learned behavior and whether practitioners use stigma management techniques. In-depth interviews via e-mail with self-reported self-injurers indicate cutting is learned from the self or from outside sources. Interviewees also discussed the stigma management techniques they use and whether they choose to disclose their behavior. The findings point to a potential increase in learned cutting from outside sources, and the potential for outside sources to help cutters maintain their behavior by providing each other with support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media, in the sociology of natural disasters, are mainly viewed as management tools used to influence people's preparedness and response to natural disasters. As a consequence, research in this area has been limited to the warning, preparedness, and recovery phases. Through interviews with residents of eight communities in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, impacted by Hurricane Georges in 1998, this paper shows that through integrating mass communication research to disaster theory we can obtain a more accurate picture of the media–audience relationship during natural disasters. In addition to the manifest functions of providing information, the media also have latent functions in disasters, which consist of emotional support and companionship. The media also help isolated individuals to feel connected with the “outside world.” These functions are most salient in the impact phase of disasters. These functions are also particularly crucial as they have been shown to reduce the negative effects of stressful life events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant studies have shown academic misconduct, that is, cheating, to be a pervasive problem among college students. A number of avenues have been explored in order to determine those factors related to this type of deviant behavior. This study looks at a variety of traditional theoretical factors, including constructs representing social bond, self-control, social strain, and differential association theories, using data from a stratified random sample of 674 undergraduates at a Southwestern university. We also enter into the equations a host of other factors that have been found to be related to academic misconduct in previous studies. Separate equations were estimated for each theory, and in the full model all theoretical variables were included for a total of six equations. In the full model, the data did not support strain or social bond theories, and moderate support was found for self-control theory; however, strong support was found for differential association theory. The final equation accounted for 53.2 percent of the variance in academic misconduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written to explain the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Little attention, however, has been paid to understanding why post-1991 Russia has maintained stability despite continued economic and political turmoil throughout the 1990s. This paper attempts to answer this question by applying an integrated model of territorial disintegration to examine the political, economic, demographic, and geopolitical changes in the pre-1991 Soviet Union and post-1991 Russia. The integrated model is constructed by synthesizing Goldstone’s demographic-structural model, Skocpol’s and Collins’ geopolitical model, and a modified version of Collins’ argument of the destabilizing potential brought about by rapid market development as three alternative routes to territorial disintegration. It is found that improvement in Russia’s geopolitical condition after 1991 is largely responsible for the decline in disintegrative potential. Slower population growth also rendered the demographic route less disintegrative during the 1990s. More effective taxation and the availability of foreign loans enabled the Russian state to handle its financial crises, thereby curbing the development of destabilizing forces through the dynamics proposed by Collins. [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]

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]

Differential participation after recruitment remains a black box in the social-movement and voluntary-association literatures. This paper identifies several dimensions of membership participation in a professional social-movement organization (SMO) with a national membership and analyzes the determinants of differential involvement in these forms. In general, members’ ideological beliefs, social and organizational ties, perceptions about their SMO, and communication with SMO officials all predict participation across the various forms. Our findings extend previous work on differential participation in three ways. First, we statistically isolate cultural dimensions of postrecruitment participation and, in so doing, complement recent ethnographic research. Second, our findings suggest that the distinct dimensions of external and internal participation found by Knoke (1988) in a national sample of voluntary associations may not generalize to national SMOs studied individually. Third, our results indicate that models combining ideological and microstructural factors should explain the multiple forms of participation in SMOs lacking these distinct dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acknowledging the wide-ranging possibilities for diversity in commercial and retail environments, researchers and scholars have long asked the familiar questions of "public for whom" and "public for what," understanding how much social tolerance in public space is commonly and informally negotiated by its users. Private interests have long played a strong role in controlling behavior in publicly used commercial spaces, and one of the most visible forms of such control has been the appearance of posted signs and notices throughout America's marketplaces that exhort people to be nice and to act appropriately--to clean up after themselves, to give (or not give) donations or tips, to not solicit, or to refrain from loitering. Such civility proxies have the potential to circumvent the public, face-to-face responsibility for and engagement with civility, and may likewise subvert the mutual trust and presumption of equality that civility can promote. Tolerance of diversity in public, therefore, may be impeded when the policing of civility is usurped by entities that are not direct public space participants. This article proposes that when public civility is dictated by signs-as-proxies instead of by the general public, the public realm's civility negotiation process that promotes social tolerance can be undermined by private interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the effects of familial strain on the antisocial behavior of Filipino children. Criminologists have long recognized the salient role of the family in explaining delinquency. However, explanations using family measures have been derived mostly from the paradigms of differential association and social control. This paper uses Agnew's General Strain Theory to examine two types of familial strain: witnessing interparental violence and direct parent-to-child violence, specifically its impact on children's antisocial behaviors. These two family measures are then juxtaposed against traditional explanations of delinquency and antisocial behavior. The salience of the family in explaining deviant behavior has had a long tradition in sociology. Its inclusion in models predicting delinquency or criminal behavior is ubiquitous in criminological literature and remains an enduring feature in many explanations of deviance and crime . However, empirical studies that examined the impact of family measures on delinquent behavior have mostly conceptualized family within the paradigms of social control and differential association. Measures derived from these paradigms would typically account for the degrees by which parents and other family members transfer favorable definitions of delinquency to other family members, in the case of differential association, or effectively socialize individuals to conventional norms, in the case of social control.

The article lists manuscript reviewers for the scholarly periodical "Sociological Inquiry" including scholars Sophia Acord, Marina Adler, and Kyle Albert.

This article focuses on the future of sociology in the United States. In the last few decades, the fortunes have risen and fallen, sometimes at the same time. During the sixties and seventies, a period when the U.S. and the world seemed unswervingly committed to social transformation, sociology emerged from an academic ghetto where it was patronized by the classical forms of learning and the modern forms of applied science. Suddenly, sociologists were exactly the ones needed to comment and contribute, as the world tried to remake itself. Grants increased in size and number, sociologists were sought out as consultants, and students flocked to programs because of their relevance and critical insight, not because of their easy concepts and lurid subject matter. But as the revolution ended and the conservative counterrevolution began, as the U.S. became pessimistic about the possibilities for change and amelioration, sociology lost that cachet. When the going gets tough, to paraphrase the adage, the tough major in economics. It was surely no coincidence that the new federal administrations of the eighties and early nineties had no use for the social sciences, especially sociology, because they recognized that the perspectives did not produce citizens who voted for them.

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.