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The article focuses on the awareness of sociology interest in community studies and community development. This set of papers is one of many attempts by the authors to reawaken Sociology's interest in community studies and community development. Community is a group of people who share a common territory or ecology. Communities share a common culture and set of institutions involved in the provision of daily needs. But, by far, the most important component of community is interaction among residents about that ecology, that culture, and those institutions. The implication then is that community is built through the promotion of interaction among residents and the elimination, or at least the reduction, of barriers to such interaction. It is through locally oriented interaction that residents work toward improvement of the local social institutions, culture, and ecology; this is how they alter the social forces that most directly affect them. This growth, however, is not due to tax incentives come manly assumed to affect local business climates and growth. The growth is more likely a response to the quality of life in a place and services they provide The paper makes links between these findings and what is commonly thought of as community development.

This paper assesses the theoretical and policy significance of one of Robert Merton's most influential contributions to modern sociology, the anomie or ‘strain’ theory of deviant behavior. The enduring theoretical significance of strain theory lies in its sociological completeness. Strain theory preserves the interconnection between culture and social structure which is neglected or defined away by cultural and control theories of deviance. In its emphasis on socially structured contradictions in the relations of consumption, strain theory is also broadly consistent with and complements more conflict-oriented theories of crime and deviance. A major weakness of Merton's argument is its failure to clearly distinguish the etiological significance of the distribution of opportunities (mobility) and the distribution of outcomes (equality), which has led to misinterpretations of the policy implications of strain theory. Ironically, these problems are revealed through a kind of self-criticism that applies the basic tools of Mertonian functional analysis to strain theory. The paper concludes that, ambiguities notwithstanding, for purposes of theoretical integration and substantive insight, strain theory remains an important sociological perspective on deviance, especially when set in the context of Merton's broader sociological legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary work on the development of status and power structures is reviewed. It is shown that theorists have conceptualized the relationship between these structures in opposite ways. Some have held that the structures tend toward alignment. Specifically, they have held that persons tend to be equally high or low in both structures. Others have held that the structures tend toward non-alignment. Specifically, they have held that the range of persons statuses tends to be greater than the range of their power. An attempt is made to reconcile the different theories underlying these two conceptions by postulating that one conception is correct under certain conditions and that the other is correct under other conditions. The conditions specified involve an important but somewhat neglected aspect of the overall stratification structure, what is called the secondary stratification structure, and the importance persons assign to this structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts both to ‘bring up to date’ the author's conception of social stratification as set forth in two previous general papers written in 1940 and 1953, and to broaden the field of consideration by giving special attention to the forces pressing toward equality in various respects, as well as the bases of inequality, The position taken is that the erosion of the legitimacy of the traditional bases of inequality has brought to a new level of prominence value-commitment to an essential equality of status of all members of modern societal communities. Inequalities, among units of societal structure which are essential in such fields as economic productivity, authority and power, and culturally based competence, must be justified in terms of their contribution to societal functioning. The balancing of the respects in which all members of the societal community and many of its collective subunits must be held to be equal with the imperatives of inequality constitutes one of the primary foci of the problem of integration in modern society. A few suggestions about the mechanisms by which this integrative process can operate are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Merton presented two, not always clearly differentiated theories in his seminal explorations on the social-structure-and-anomie paradigm: a strain theory and an anomie theory. A one-sided focus on Merton's strain theory in the secondary literature has unnecessarily restricted the power and effectiveness of Merton's anomie theory. For although structural strain is one way to explain why deviance occurs in the context of anomie, it is not the only way. We contend that scholars who are critical of strain theory should not automatically discard Merton's anomie theory, because the perspective of anomie is compatible with several other theories of crime and delinquency. Offering examples of previous integration efforts, we maintain that Merton's theoretical model can benefit from the input of other theories of crime and deviance as much as these other theoretical perspectives can fine-tune their models and explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

This paper examines a central issue in organizational research and addresses a core theoretical problem in historical and political sociology: The conditions under which social actors that share economic interests mobilize, and their capacity to alter dimensions of the social structure that impinge on those interests. The social actors of concern here are capitalist class fractions and state managers. The capital dependence perspective elaborated here suggests that when the institutional environment no longer ensures an adequate rate of capital accumulation, capitalists mobilize to restructure their environment. The specific focus is on how capitalists and state managers experimented with state business policy to change the politico-legal dimension of corporations' institutional environment in the 1970s and 1980s, and how the new business policy was a response to existing constraints on capital accumulation and a perceived solution to those constraints. The first part of this paper develops a theoretical framework that places the modem corporation in its historical and institutional context. The second part examines changes in state business policy in the 1980s that affect the corporate form. The third part identifies crucial characteristics of the emerging subsidiary form. The fourth part examines empirical data on the corporate form and presents several propositions to guide future research on why corporations are changing their form.

In this paper an evaluation of Giddens' theory of structuration is focused on two related issues: first, the degree to which Giddens provides a theory of action which transcends the structure/agency dualism and, second, whether such a transcendence is possible. In the first instance, it is demonstrated that Giddens exaggerates the powers of agents at the expense of structural constraints. Second, it is argued that transcendence of structure/agency dualism and the specification of a definitive ontology of action is not possible and that the merit of structuration theory lies in its use as a sensitizing device for empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how authority can be maintained by structuring reality through continuous violent conflict. Using Lewis Coser's reformulation of Simmers propositions on fostering continuous conflict as a raison d'ètre in sect-like struggle groups as a general frame of analysis, the Stalinist case is then examined in order to evaluate systematically these propositions in a societal context and to specify the morphology of violence as a method of conflict. By examining a societal context, it is noted that instability in the social structure not only can be a condition for the legitimacy of a problematic political leadership and system, but also simultaneously be a consequence of a form of preventive punitive sanctioning, whereby potential threats, both persons and alternative courses of action, are eliminated before they become present dangers. In turn, an official definition of reality, justifying leadership and system, is constructed through the public documentation of a conspiracy, which employs invented categories to demonstrate ideological continuity and fabricates pseudo events to demonstrate indispensability in fulfilling necessary functions. This public documentation of a conspiracy is then used as a facade for a larger plan of social prophylaxis that implicates the public as well as the police in ferreting out tangible and visible enemies to fill the invented categories in the pseudo events. As public complicity conjoins with the official definition of reality, commitment to the leadership and system is acquired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of schedules in social life. It first explains why both the schedule and the clock were introduced to the West through the Benedictine monasteries. Then it brings into locus the main principle underlying the schedule, namely temporal regularity, which involves the standardization of the temporal locations of events and activities and of their rates of recurrence, as well as the rigidification of their durations and sequential structures. Following a discussion of the constraints as well as the conveniences involved in using the schedule, it also examines two other implications of its introduction to the West—an abstract conception and a utilitarian philosophy of time. It ends with a discussion of the role of the schedule in enhancing both mechanical and organic solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether one looks at concerns expressed in response to surveys or at the allocation of effort on a day to day basis, teachers and administrators give order a high priority. Order dominates attention because the fundamental character of schools as organizations makes disorder always an imminent possibility. In the first part of this paper, I will consider the reasons that order is consistently problematic in public secondary schools. I will then analyze varying policies for pursuing order in four junior high schools, indicating why different strategies were chosen and with what effects they were practiced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential members of the urban planning profession have developed certain ideas about new town design, including notions such as self-containment, social balance, and the neighborhood unit. These parallel, to some extent, concepts that have emerged from the field of community sociology. Efforts to put these ideas into practice have fallen Jar short of the mark. Without more sophisticated implementation mechanisms, better theories of social interaction at the neighborhood level, and new approaches to citizen participation, efforts to build new towns are likely to remain severely crippled. The aim of this paper is to summarize past efforts to translate implicit theories of social organization into actual new town designs. The possibilities of closing the gap between theory and practice through the use of more explicit forms of social experimentation are discussed in the context of the fledgling new towns program in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the current state of knowledge about the effects of industrialization upon systems of social stratification. Taking societies as the unit of observation, we consider the relationships between level of industrialization and (I) the distribution of status characteristics in the population (the structure of stratification) ; (2) the pattern of interrelations among status characteristics (the process of stratification); and (3) the form of linkages between status characteristics and other aspects of social behavior (the consequences of stratification). A set of propositions is specified, a few of which are empirically well established but most of which yet require empirical testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to clarify some of the perspectives of the discipline of sociology, to identify radical viewpoints and how they have evolved and converged, and to indicate some of the consequences of a radical sociology and its prospects. A radical sociology calls for a radical perspective, namely, a structural perspective. Such a perspective requires uncovering economic and political realities in the attempt to understand social structure. Intellectual relevance should not merely be cloaked in terms of efficacy demands which derive from state welfarism and militarism, but should be the extension of a radical and structuralist perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents some directions for research in sociolinguistics. The term sociolinguistics is frequently confused with the activity of anthropologists engaged in traditional ethnographic work; with the new linguistics of transformational grammars; or with work in psycholinguistics. However, sociolinguistic study attends to those reflections of social structure which are revealed in language, particularly in speech usages and is concerned neither with motivation nor with conscious behavior. Sociolinguistic can help in solving sociological problems, but there are obvious problems in adapting linguistic techniques to sociological problems. Sociologists have much to gain and nothing to lose by attempting resolution of these problems. Thus far sociologists simply have not exploited the great potential of a substantively rich, methodologically rigorous, and theoretically suggestive body of work. At the very least, the trained linguist can facilitate research by giving new dimensions to those of more traditional variety. There are many ways in which the technical apparatuses of linguistics can be brought to bear on sociological problems, just as there are areas of research design and data handling in which sociologists may have something to offer linguists.

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]

This article talks about John Ronald Seeley, a sociologist. No one who knows him at all well could doubt its accuracy, its sincerity, or its relevance to the vision Seeley has maintained throughout his career. Although Seeley is best known for his work as senior author of "Crestwood Heights," which, after twenty years, remains the most penetrating study ever made of the life and values and, especially, the education, of a suburban community. In TAMOTU, Seeley often expresses his trust in the untrustworthy in the course of a masterful piece of social analysis which fully demonstrates that he knows better. does not mince words. Seeley is no courtier, but rather the contrary, a perceptive psychotherapist, tactfully but firmly letting the patient know that though his ruses have been detected, the therapist's faith in his basic goodness and capacity for growth remains intact. The relationship between social institutions and those on whom they bear has entered a new and harsher phase in which the role of the social scientist as mediator is no longer accepted-for reasons explicit in Seeley's text.

Although differential ranking in science is not readily visible to lay observers, American science is, in fact, sharply graded. Rewards and facilities for research are concentrated among relatively few investigators and organizations. This distinctive pattern of stratification, at odds with the egalitarian ethos of science, is not solely attributable to the distribution of talent in the scientific community. There is however a high correlation between assessed contributions to science and investigators' scientific standing. The present pattern of stratification is the outcome of processes of allocation of men and resources among various sectors of science which include selective recruitment and socialization of young investigators, differential access to publication and research facilities, and differential recognition of scientists' contributions through citations to their work and honorific awards. In a time when the legitimacy of reward systems in many social institutions is routinely challenged, scientists are apt to accept their own as just and correct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents some comments on theories and research of group delinquency. The author states that one of the traditional concerns of sociological theories of deliquency has been to avoid what sociologists have viewed as the overly simple ideas of some extreme psychologistic and psychiatric positions which see delinquency as a response to stresses produced by experience in the family. These "psychic disturbance" viewpoints have emphasized the high levels of tension underlying delinquency with the tension arising primarily from experiences in the family. Current sociological thinking seems willing to accept the view of delinquency as a stress reaction providing only that the source of stress is the class structure and not the family. Thus researcher Albert K. Cohen declares that "the family is not the world" and reduces family experience to its role as a source of conflict with middle class dominated institutions. Researchers Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin ignore the family almost completely. Researcher Walter Miller, alone of the three, hypothesizes that the family in lower class culture can be in itself a source of stress and tension the resolution of which is part of the etiological process.

We report on a participant‐observation study of baseball ticket scalpers at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. Ours is a study of the market behavior of individuals working in clans. We focus on the social organization of clans and, particularly, how scalpers establish territories and engage in cooperative behavior while, at the same, time competing aggressively. The clans govern transactions not according to straightforward economic exchange or by formal rules and regulation emanating from legitimate authority, but rather through shared goals and shared values, with behavior expectations grounded in familiarity, common history, and mutual trust. During conversations with scalpers, we determined that a few of them, but not the majority, consult StubHub on a real‐time basis to help them determine their spot market ticket prices. Conclusion: The rise of Internet secondary markets for tickets may ultimately have adverse consequences for street vendors, but at present, it seems more advantageous than disadvantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from human ecology, the present study sheds light on the ways in which urbanization drives changes in forest cover at the local level across the continental United States. Using county-level data from the National Land Cover Database and other US governmental sources, the area of forest cover lost in the construction of the built environment between 2001 and 2006 is regressed on the size, density, and social organization of a locality. Controlling for several other factors, estimates from spatial regression models with two-way fixed effects show that increasing density slowed down deforestation, while variables representing size and social organization had the opposite effect. Based on these results, urbanization is framed as a multidimensional human ecological process with countervailing impacts on the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist Standpoint Theory identifies knowledge as a social product developed from a specific social position. We apply this theory to explore the dominant standpoint informing the social organization of Western art via an institution we call art/criticism. We find that the assumptions, values, and analytic strategies informing mainstream art and art criticism express the standpoint of privileged men. As a test of our argument, we consider the case of an artist who is often hailed as a feminist artist and yet is one of the most successful woman artists today: Cindy Sherman. We find that while Sherman is working with some fertile possibilities for feminist analysis, her work ends up re-directing this potential into a disempowering play with images. We conclude that rather than countering our argument, the celebration of Sherman's work as feminist reveals the workings, as well as the limits, of the privileged male standpoint in art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have frequently cited the importance of the local institutional base for bolstering social organization and control, and ultimately reducing crime rates. Local noneconomic institutions may be particularly relevant to controlling urban Black crime rates, because in the face of limited access to the legitimate labor force, access to institutions such as churches and civic organizations helps to extend social networks, increase civic engagement, transmit mainstream norms, and provide a forum from which to address community problems. This analysis examines the links between measures of access to such noneconomic institutions and Black homicide rates for a sample of large urban areas circa 1990. The results indicate that after controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage, racial inequality and various other relevant measures, institutional access is negatively associated with Black homicide rates. However, this violence constraining impact appears to be most dramatic in urban areas where Blacks are most highly segregated from Whites. Implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the relationship between the position of the artist in a social relations structure and the concept of art critics. This study uses network analysis to examine the correspondence, based on Bourdieu's theory of cultural production, between artists positions in a structure of social relations and the critics conceptions of their work. Shared gallery memberships among fine art photographers yield person-by-person matrices that are partitioned into structurally equivalent blocks. Three types of actors emerge: "stars" who have large loose-knit networks of bridge ties, "invisible collegians" who inhabit small dense cliques, and "strugglers" who have difficulty maintaining any sort of foothold in the network. Critical reviews of the photographers in the population are then analyzed for stylistic references, and the photographers are matched to stylistic categories. Interpretation gives us clues as to the views of the others with regard to this positioning in the social world--congregation and individuation. By placing an artist within a stylistic category, the outside observer is also placing the artist within a mental topography.

This article examines the male batterer's view of the self and others in domestic violence in the U.S. For more than twenty years, survey data, police reports, and emergency room records have pointed to the seriousness of male violence against women in the U.S. Although a large research literature has examined the accounts of abuse offered by survivors of male violence, little is known about the batterer's perception of himself and others in domestic violence. The authors here use symbolic interactionism as a framework for organizing and interpreting their analysis of indepth interviews related to the subject. Most research on battery has been conducted from feminist, psychological and social structural perspectives. These perspectives have provided valuable insight to the problem of domestic violence, such as the feminist perspective's critical view of taken for granted assumptions about domestic violence research and practice, the psychological perspective's identification of characteristics associated with abusive behavior, and the social structuralist perspective's explication of the cultural and organizational constraints influencing this problem.

The article examines the social dimensions of interpersonal dispute resolution. Although the concept of social control is a primary concern of sociologists, it is rarely considered as a dependent variable. Instead, researchers and theorists alike generally attempt to describe the functions and relative merits of the various forms of social control in terms of such constructs as efficiency or effectiveness. By framing the research question in these terms, variation in the construct of interest, social control, is not explained. There are several problems with the existing dominant approach. First, most studies evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of various forms of formal and informal social control. A large body of literature addresses the issue of deterrence. General deterrence studies usually evaluate whether the presence of police, a high arrest rate, or a high crime clearance rate drives down the subsequent rate of crime. A second problem with the existing paradigm is that its focus is often on explaining rates of crime or victimization at the aggregate level. The most serious problem with this is that definitions of crime vary both across time and across social space.

The article examines the extent to which the structure of Russian organizations is similar to that observed among organizations in the West. Data had been obtained in 1995 from a sample of organizations in the greater Moscow area by means of a structured interview schedule administered to the chief executive officer within each organization. The interview schedule contained measures developed by the Aston Group which have been used widely in previous research. The structure of Russian organizations was evaluated in terms of a causal model based upon consistent findings of previous research in this area. The results suggest that the structure of Russian organizations differs in important ways from the type of structure observed in most Western organizations. The major differences are that size, specialization and formalization are positively associated with centralization in Russian organizations. It has been suggested that the historical tradition of centralized rule in Russia and the criminal environment of current Russian organizations are, in part, responsible for this difference.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Victor Lidz on the analysis of moral complex and the role of law and another by Dean Gerstein regarding the treatment of Emile Durkheim's sociology.

This study examines the youth society which was created in the lycées and collèges of France in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using literary and social-historical records the personal and social experiences of youth in this milieu are delineated. A literary ethnography is constructed that presents a composite portrait of these actors' lives and society. In addition to certain beliefs, practices, and rules, authoritarian/coercive relations and hierarchical social structures are found to characterize this youth society. Attention is directed to the importance of explaining the emergence of this historical instance of a youth society within an elite school system in a way which identifies important structural processes operating in this setting and the larger societal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frederick L. Bates' career has been characterized by a single quest, the creation of an internally consistent theoretical model through which sociologists can conceptualize and analyze social structure from the simplest group structures to complex networks of groups and organizations. The basic elements of this model of social structure are examined and the model's theoretical foundations, assumptions and applications are discussed. Included are perspectives on structural modeling, self-referential systems theory and the concepts of social structure, social organization, culture, norms, and society as a non-system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media constructions of social problems usually rework the claims of activists and other primary claimsmakers. However, the news media acted as primary claimsmakers in discovering and reporting the 1987 Los Angeles freeway violence problem. The press drew upon cultural resources in constructing this problem, applying a conventional template for social problems stories and using familiar imagery to depict freeway shootings. The social organization of claimsmaking, as well as contingencies in the histories of individual campaigns, affect the choice of cultural resources used to construct social problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors argue that leisure should be considered a primary institution in advanced industrial societies. The increasingly organized nature of contemporary leisure and the prominence of leisure activities in the search for communal bonds are viewed as the primary factors contributing to the emergence of leisure as a major social institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the structural and situational approaches to social action by analyzing the effects of roles, action, and situations on people's perceptions of others. College students were given questionnaires containing short descriptions of interaction between an adult and on adolescent boy. These questionnaires were designed to examine the effects of roles (male-female and employer-parent), actions, and several concrete situations on two dependent variables: (1) behavior predictions for the adult in each hypothetical situation, and (2) ratings of the adults on expressive and instrumental attributes. The results support both structural and situational approaches. The parent role has a strong effect on how the adults are predicted to behave and the situation has little effect. But the respondents' rating of the adults is determined primarily by actions not roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Metalinguistic expressions. Because human languages can be used to talk about virtually anything, individuals conversing with one another have available an infinite number of topics about which they can talk. Language can be used to talk about itself, that is, it can serve as its own meta-language. Although this is a universal of human language, the task of identifying those elements used by a particular language as its own meta-language is often difficult. Meta-linguistic referents, operators, and verbs are all embedded in a linguistic context that provides them with talk on which to focus. Meta-linguistic clauses indicating the boundaries of a discourse unit are discourse brackets. Bracketing devices function as part of the organizational apparatus not only of discourse but of social life and social organization. Bracketing devices also work at different levels of the organization of talk: brackets that begin their lives as part of the organizational apparatus of discourse.

The analysis of Durkheim in The Structure of Social Action is integral to Parsons's discussion of the utilitarian-positivist tradition and the emergence of a voluntaristic theory of action from it. The four ‘stages’ of theoretical argument in Durkheim can be related directly to the four defining elements of the ‘utilitarian dilemma,’ namely empiricism, rationality, atomism, and the randomness of ends. The most questionable aspect of Parsons's argument is the alleged stubbornness of Durkheim's empiricism. On the other hand, much of the criticism of Parsons's argument, by Pope in particular, although also by Scott and Warner, is either misdirected or itself questionable. The development and conclusions of Durkheim's moral sociology are as Parsons claims, and form a viable basis for a non-positivist theory of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of law in different moral complexes. It discusses the nature of law as categories or index, phenomenon and as an element. It mentions the views of sociologist Wilhelm Dilthey on law as a universal form of human efforts along with religion, science, art, economy and philosophy. It explains the universal nature of the law and mentions that the modes of law for achieving social order and managing social actions are present everywhere. It also discusses Dilthey's illustration of functional problems and social structures as the essential concepts of the law. Also analyzed is the interaction between different levels of the social structure.

This article focuses on theoretical perspectives concerning the nature and functions of law. Many terms are available for the normative aspect of "social structure." Some writers prefer a definition of "law" broad enough to apply to at least some of the normative structure in any society. Other writers prefer a more restrictive definition, such that one might be able to say that some societies do not have "law" or that they have it only in embryonic form. The cultural value system that is maintained through the spending of generalized value commitments of individuals and collectivities, has some kind of "religious" basis. In highly evolved cases, however, codes of law are "secularized," in the sense of being differentiated from religion, even though religion may and typically does provide indirect support for secularized legal systems. The fundamental distinction between internal and external problems is referred to as the "horizontal" axis of differentiation because it can be conceived graphically and metaphorically as a line dividing the internal subsystems "above" from the external subsystems "below."

An analysis of the social organization of time, done through the main institutions and processes that govern the temporal regulation of social life, namely timetables and scheduling. The conventional basis of our standard time orientation is discussed along with the social order underlying regular patterns relating to the fundamental temporal features of social events (duration, sequence, timing, tempo), and issues concerning scheduling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Action theory's substantive image of social organization, theory building strategy, and methodological tenets are compared with those of interactionism. Despite polemics to the contrary, action and interaction concepts denote a similar image of social organization and personality. As is argued, the principle difference between the two perspectives revolves around the issue of the most appropriate theory building and methodological strategy. The ontological implications of this fact are examined and found not to justify the continued partitioning of social theory into antagonistic metaphysical camps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utopian communities—an alternative community form—vary flora large, comprehensive settlements in which most aspects of life are collectively organized to small informal households low on comprehensiveness and collectivization, like many contemporary communes. The initial stages, organizational problems, politics, and economic organization of both highly-structured large communes and minimally-structured small communes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of urban politics is vast and rapidly increasing. Students of a number of disciplines with a plethora of specific interests work within its hazy boundaries. The purpose of this essay is to attempt a contemporary synthesis of the field by linking a set of social structural changes to a variety of patterned political outcomes. Concretely a number of trends affecting urban social organization are summarized with three dimensions. Next the political consequences of change along each of these dimensions are discussed in some detail. Finally, the variable effects produced by the interplay among dimensions are dealt with in a way that gives rise to some data-based speculation about the future of urban politics. In addition to advancing a number of researchable hypotheses, it is hoped that the essay will sensitize the reader to some of the more fundamental issues that loom ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of social welfare arena by utilizing AGIL within a theoretical framework of organization change and development. The application of the Parsonian AGIL schema to various social structures and problems has yielded rich results as it provides a common framework for the analysis of diverse data. Three developmental stages in the life cycle of a social agency have been identified as self-interest, professionalism and social interest. The application of AGIL is in this developmental context as each of the three stages selectively focuses approximately on the functional requisites as follows: sell-interest- L; professionalism-A and I; social interest-G. The first stage of self-interest focuses on the development of a distinctive organizational identity and crystallization of basic commitment. The shift to the second stage results from new external conditions that affect the developmental character of the agency. The third stage is again simulated by a change in the causal environment with the resurgence of a related social problem and in order to achieve this stage, social interest, the agency must move from an internally oriented posture back to an externally directed one.

Ethnic stratification is compared with other forms of stratification, particularly those based on economic class. Using ‘ethnic’ in its broadest sense, it is clear that such groups are most likely to move toward creation of their own separate nation-state. As a consequence, there are certain outcomes of ethnic stratification that cannot be accounted for in a general theory of stratification or one based solely on economic dimensions. An ethnic stratification system will also affect other forms of stratification in tire society. For example, class alliances will be weaker if a given economic level is occupied by different ethnic strata. The added proliferation of statuses in a society with ethnic stratification compounds the political process. Other ways are also considered in which the presence of an ethnic hierarchy in the nation interacts with and affects age, sex, and economic stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on the emergence and stabilization of stratification in small groups is reviewed. The work on emergence points to three basic conditions underlying the development of stratification in small groups and raises the question as to what mechanism substitutes for some of these conditions in larger systems. Several theories are shown to offer possible solutions. The work on stabilization raises questions as to the nature of the social-psychological processes involved. The relevance of various reinforcement and cognitive consistency theories is considered. Finally, a number of theories concerning the ways stability may be achieved in small groups and larger systems are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents response to sociologist Amitai Etzioni about political power and the Great Society. Instead of analyzing power in the U.S., Etzioni merely reasserts the dubious assumptions he should be subjecting to critical observation. Strangely, he himself raises the basis for such a critique but then ignores it. Although he admits that a power differential is the deciding factor in the struggle between competing interest groups, although he admits that "important segments of the citizenry are more or less locked out of the political process," he still concludes that power functions pluralistically in the U.S. and that all people need now is a consensus-producing mechanism. In summary, the fundamental flaw in Etzioni's model of power in American society is that it fails to assess the nature of this power from the point of view of the social structure as a whole. Focusing only on the more privileged segments of that structure, his model describes a plurality of competing interests and uses this as evidence for the essential openness and flexibility of the political system.

The American military exercises social control at home as well as abroad, by non-violent as well as violent means. Especially significant is its use of differential co-optative appeals to control potentially revolutionary strata of youth. Through an examination of military recruiting literature it is possible to discover that different inducements for enlistment, ranging from professionalism to patriotism are offered to women, intellectuals, minority and working class youth. Further, through selectively granting deferments as part of the channeling process, the Selective Service System reinforces the American social structure. Such reinforcement is necessary for the preservation of American corporate liberalism, but simultaneously contributes to the radicalization of youth as a class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes, from the viewpoint of the sociology of knowledge, the dominant trends in the field, and second, to outline an alternative approach that the author Albert Szymanski feel sociology must take if it is to regain its relevance to the understanding of man and society. Following the analysis of sociologist Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy in "Monopoly Capital" and John Kenneth Galbraith in "The New industrial State," it is Szymanski's view that American society can best be categorized as corporate capitalism. Private corporations are the dominant institution in contemporary Western society, and their functional needs for security, control, and expansion determine the broad outlines of the social structure, government policy, beliefs, and values. Sociology provides information on how to reduce racial tensions and control racial outbreaks, how to recruit and advance the most suited people in its organizational structure, how to alleviate the most glaring aspects of poverty, how to increase the health of the populations, and how to control and manipulate popular attitudes on everything from milk consumption to the War in Vietnam and identification with the system in general.

While ‘ascription’ occupies a central place in Parsons' scheme, some of its positive functions in a highly differentiated system have been underemphasized. Because of its economical use of established social arrangements, ascription contributes to the performance of all of the system functions—pattern maintenance, integration, goal-attainment and adaptation. This helps to explain the prevalence of residual ascriptive elements in modern societies. The institutionalization of mass education and civil rights breaks down some ascription, but, at the same time, increases for the larger society the useability of the internal organization of its ascriptively defined groupings. Hence, ascriptive ties permeate the organization of the differentiated institutional sectors of modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the definition and scope of the sociology of knowledge; brief discussion of the contributions made by sociologist Karl Marx and, finally, indication of the prospects for the sociology of knowledge in relation to social theory and social research. The sociology of knowledge is engaged in the investigation of relationships and correspondences between ideas and the social structure in which they emerge. It is both a theoretical framework and an analytical tool for approaching ideas and social situations. The sociology of knowledge rests upon the following basic premises: that all mental and intellectual products must be examined and understood within the context of socio-cultural situations in which they emerge; that the genesis of much of people's intellectual and mental product can be traced to socio-cultural factors; that epistemological consequences of some truth-claims are inexorably bound with the socio-economic locations of the thinkers; that some criteria for ascertaining the validity of such truthclaims must beset up.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the Barnard-Simon model with reference to its usefulness in providing theoretical insights into participation in community action organizations. The article is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the Barnard-Simon model and its theoretical relevance for community action organizations. The second part explores several theoretical ideas about participation, organizational viability, and the relative importance of certain classes of variables in community action organizations. The actual development of an organization is the source of data for that discussion. The third part is devoted to the discussion of general implications. The community action organization is rooted in many of the human failings of formal social organizations. The Barnard-Simon model has more immediate and direct behavioral implications, therefore, for this type of organization. The Barnard-Simon model postulates an organization as a coalition of participants or group of participants.