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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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Utilizing recent research and monographs from participants and observers, this paper reports on the underanalyzed Vietnam antiwar movement. Key events are placed in a historical context that help to explain the origins of the movement. Particular attention is given to the various responses of the state to the challengers and the complex interrelationships with the media. As the antiwar movement grew and developed, there were multiple factors that contributed to solidarity and factionalism within the movement. Despite state repressive actions and internal factionalism, the movement was successful in helping to end the war. The effects on U.S. policies were more indirect than direct. The antiwar movement mobilized millions of citizens to public protest. The demonstrations helped to shift public opinion away from supporting the war and activated third parties to question and demand an end to war policies. The political system did respond to the antiwar movement’s demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers elaborations on current knowledge about social-movement framing processes and cognitive liberation, especially regarding technical controversies and not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) protest. The social-constructionist lens of the framing perspective also allows refinements in conventional explanations of NIMBY conflicts. Attention is given to the dynamics of emergence, continuity, and change in framing strategies over time in controversy regarding the U.S. Army's chemical-weapons disposal program. I focus specifically on dynamics involved in the development of cognitive liberation, particularly the framing difficulties that occur in the context of cognitive ambiguities produced by an "information haze." These ambiguities create problems for developing and linking the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational elements of collective-action frames. I also attend to frame transformation, explaining how transformation may be both animated and constrained by a movement's opponent. I conclude that NIMBY is only one possible framing and can be transformed as the context of the dispute shifts. Moreover, framing activities in technical disputes may be particularly difficult due to the role of scientific rhetoric and experts in interpreting risks and shaping understandings of the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 presents information two surveys on sociology. The first survey that was conducted in 1968 ported the ratings of fifty-three eminent sociologists, past presidents of the American Sociological Association (ASA), members and heads of standing committees of the Executive Council and advisory editors of the periodicals "American Sociological Review" (ASR) and the "American Journal of Sociology" (AJS) as to how much work was being done in the then thirty-eight official subfields in sociology and which three specialties they considered most important, least important, were currently concentrating on and would recommend to an able graduate student. In the second survey that was conducted in 1996, respondents were asked to evaluate all thirty-six of the current "official subfields" within sociology by the same criteria. During the survey, questionnaires were set to the current and immediate past officers of the American Sociological Association, members of the council, editors and advisory editors of the periodicals "American Sociological Review," "American Journal of Sociology," and "Contemporary Sociology," and to the heads of the leading sociology departments.

This article discusses the state of United States sociology and expressions of alarm over problems in the field during the last 30 years. Indeed, much has changed since the late 1960s. In the decades that followed, even the striving for some approximation of impartiality has become suspect for many, as not merely unrealistic but also undesirable. Sociology became an instrument of political partisanship, to be deployed in the political battles of the times to deal mortal blows to the corrupt social order. The massive waves of social criticism issuing from that period produced a generation fully convinced that U.S. society has been the most evil, hypocritical, and corrupt that ever existed. More recently, with the rise of multiculturalism, this belief came to be extended to Western society and its heritage of ideas as a whole, denigrated as singular repositories of repression and injustice. The ideological preoccupation with victim groups inflicts considerable intellectual damage on the discipline by removing from attention a broad range of problems, topics, and questions and by imposing a narrow theoretical-conceptual perspective. For example, if one approaches crime with the single-minded conviction that it is nothing but a predictable response to socioeconomic deprivation or racism, many aspects of it will not be examined and understood; if all political phenomena in the United States are seen as determined by who has the most money for campaign financing or bribes, a rather narrow view of political conflict and competition will emerge; if it remains the received wisdom that all racial tensions and problems results.

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.

In this article the author argues that United States academic sociology threatens to slip into the limited relevance of scholasticism. Applied sociology and academic sociology are both quite heterogeneous sets of activities. The core of academic sociology consists of teaching, scholarship, and research. There are many different ways to fulfill each function, however: some teach primarily lower-division courses whereas others spend most of their teaching time with graduate students. Indeed, a case can be made that one specialty within sociology is what might be called "LD sociology," i.e., lower-division sociology. Similarly, scholarship and research are also quite heterogeneous. On average, if one counts all sorts of publications, faculty members publish one item every other year, but the median is close to zero, indicating that the average is strongly influenced by a minority who publish very heavily. Cutting across academic activities are the various intellectual styles within so ciology and subject matter specialization.

This article presents a study which, proposes that significant others and conscience both function as agents of social control to deter illicit behavior in a manner similar to that provided by the law and more formal organizations. The data for this study were derived from a nonrandom convenience sample of adult undergraduate students enrolled in all upper-division sociology classes at the University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman, Oklahoma during the spring of 1993. Despite the limitations associated with such sampling designs, it is been felt that the sample is sufficiently representative to permit cautious generalizations. All students at OU were required to take twelve hours of upper-division electives. Because most upper-division sociology courses at OU, unlike other courses in the College of Arts and Sciences, did not have any prerequisites, these courses were open to any students needing to fulfill their upper-division elective requirement. This fact, and the fact that these courses address highly relevant social issues such as marriage and family, crime and justice, or race and gender, made them especially appealing to a large proportion of the student body. This sample is fairly representative of undergraduate juniors and seniors within the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. Minorities and females are slightly overrepresented, however. The sample is 52.2 percent female, 23.9 percent minority, and 57.8 percent junior or senior status.

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.

The article presents information about the challenges of environmental sociology. Three kinds of environmental sociology have developed along the way: the sociology of environmental movements, the sociology of science and technology, and the sociology of environmental issues. Developing social theory has not been high on the agenda, but that may be changing. Scholar Timmons Roberts uses world system theory to investigate the structural conditions that explain state environmentalism. He asks what predisposes nation-states to accept, reject, or ignore international eco-treaties. Here the relevant political economy is global, with the legacy of an individual nation's history determining current options in the world economy as well as its capability to be "environmental." Scholar Robert Brulle concentrates on the United States and the history of its environmental movement. He argues that identifiable environmental discourses define moments in history and that these discourses get embodied in environmental organizations that form around different social meanings given to the physical environment. Scholar Glynis Daniels concerns herself with cultural connotations of the environment with her focus on forest images in textbooks in U.S. schools.

The article attempts to overcome several weaknesses of earlier field studies of the effect of international migration on sending communities by trying to provide a better study to address this sociological phenomenon. In general, these studies fail to employ representative samples of migrants, specify theoretical models of decision-making, or control for a variety of individual and household characteristics likely to affect how migrants dispose of their earnings, including sample selectivity. Representative samples of Mexican migrants from four sending communities are used to estimate a theoretical model that controls for a variety of individual, family, and trip characteristics. The findings suggest that migrant decision-making is strongly and consistently determined by social capital and community membership, with other variables playing ancillary roles in different decision processes. The propensities to save, remit, and invest productively generally rose as ties to the United States increased, and were generally higher in communities with well-developed local economies. During the postwar era, international migration emerged as a major political, social, and economic issue throughout the world. Limited resources in sending nations have restricted their ability to support systematic research on the consequences of this international movement, however. Most research has been supported by developed countries and has focused on receiving country effects.

The life and work of Laud Humphreys is reviewed in an attempt to assess their effect on American sociology. We focus on the intersections between biography and professional contributions as they emerged from Humphreys' graduate work at Washington University, St. Louis through his years at Pitzer College. The commentary is couched in the theoretical traditions of C. Wright Mills, the sociology of knowledge, and the sociology of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

C. Wright Mills was a radical, critical of United States society and of sociology as practiced in this country. His criticisms were especially provocative given the ideological atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s. His writings on stratification were very influential, with several of them having a mass readership. Mills viewed the United States as a society dominated by irresponsible elites and alienated masses. Sociology, he felt, had abdicated its responsibility for showing how later social forces shape individual lives. While pessimistic about the possibility of fundamental social changes, Mills nevertheless urged intellectuals to use their skills to bring about a society where reason and democracy would prevail. Though marginalized within the profession during his life, he helped inspire the development of a critical perspective within sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human beings have a dualistic relationship with the environment, being subject to physical and biological limits and yet being unique in the capacity for culture and symbolic communication. Sociology reflects this context and adds another dualism, drawing heavily from the concepts and perspectives of biological ecology, but reacting almost violently against ‘reductionism’ of any sort, specifically including social Darwinism and environmental determinism. During much of the twentieth century, the predominant trend within sociology was for scholars to downplay or even ignore the importance of the environment, particularly in the United States. This trend was ultimately counterbalanced by sociological responses to the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and by the efforts of selected sociologists—particularly Riley Dunlap and William Cation—who helped bring together the field of ‘environmental sociology’ Given the finite nature of many natural resources and the ways in which human activities depend upon and affect the environment, the field of environmental sociology is likely to be an increasingly important one in the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles August B. Hollingshead, a sociologist from Lyman, Wyoming. He was born on April 15, 1907. It provides information about his academic career. Hollingshead's initial interest was in human ecology. He published a series of articles on ecology and social control. His dissertation completed in 1935 was a study of ecological and institutional processes in 34 Southeastern Nebraska communities. By 1941, his interests had shifted beyond ecological aspects of the community to social stratification. In the same year he was awarded a postdoctoral research training fellowship. His research culminated in the classic study "Elmtown's Youth," in which his approach to understanding the social world is very clear. In the early 1950s, Hollingshead took a leadership role in the establishment of an informal Committee on Medical Sociology that provided a forum and newsletter for the exchange of information on the research and teaching experiences of a rapidly growing body of sociologists who were assuming the medical sub-specialty.

This article explores the life and career of sociology writer Ruth Shonle Cavan. Her career is the tale of an extraordinary person seeking and finding congenial outlets for her talents. Her secret seems to be a blend of sound intuition, a probing, inquiring mind, solid preparation, and strong motivation. She combines a clear sense of what is important with a strong drive to understand key issues, to coordinate her insights with others, and finally to fashion the whole into a well crafted book or paper. As a young girl in Tuscola, Illinois, Cavan wrote incessantly. In high school, she wrote for a school literary magazine. In 1916, she entered Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois to become a teacher, but again she was drawn to writing. She enrolled in courses in fiction and expository writing, entered another essay competition, and won first prize. Sociology was more than an outlet for her talents. It provided as well a new way of viewing human beings. She began to see that everyone is subject to vast structural and cultural forces that offer little opportunity for personal control.

A comparison is made of the interrelationship between theoretical orientations and research methods of authors publishing in major U.S. journals, with those publishing in Sosiologia, the major Finnish journal. Based on a content analysis of 1,808 articles, similarities are found cross-culturally concerning the tendency for authors with a realist theoretical orientation to use comparative historical data-gathering techniques and for nominalists to employ data-gathering procedures more amenable to quantification (e.g. surveys and experimental methods). These data also document the often conjectured tendency for European sociologists to emphasize a more collectivist, organic, and hence realist theoretical posture. Similarities and differences between U.S. and Finnish sociology are discussed in the context of various cultural, historical, and political differences in the maturation of sociology in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social-anthropological studies of ‘Yankee City’ by W. Lloyd Warner are reconsidered, with concentration on his taxonomy of symbolic activities. Several of Warner's central analytic loci are reviewed and applied to a modern context. The American Revolution Bicentennial is characterized as a societal-level symbolic observance, directly analogous to civil ceremonies in Yankee City. Three major themes from Warner's studies of that community's symbolic life—types of symbolis m, socializational effects of symbolism, and rhetorical persuasion—are analyzed with regard to the Bicentennial observance. Illustrative data provide some conceptual and empirical support for the generalizability of Warner's taxonomy to other civil religious phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1930 and 1945 the sociological profession suffered an identity crisis. Its origin and resolution were compounded of both academic realpolitik and theoretical dilemmas: generational conflicts and university power blocs on the one hand, and persisting intellectual obsessions on the other. Contemporary sociologists may find our current situation to be both derivative and parallel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response is the article within the issue by author Coleman Romalis on the topic of sociology, democracy, political sociology, political science and ideology. An overview of the political left, liberalism and the Democratic political party in mid 20th century U.S. politics, including Democrats' role in the Vietnam War, is provided.

This article presents information on the approach to the study of community power. The purpose of this study did not require delineation of the local power structure. Nevertheless, for reasons not relevant here, a series of questions typical of reputational power structure studies were asked. The particular item of concern requested each respondent to name the seven most important people in the city. Obviously, in giving a large sample as many as seven choices to apply to what could have been for them an almost infinite pool, the researcher Joel Smith and Thomas Hood should expect a considerable list of names if no common factors guide individual choices, they did, in fact, remark upon the sheer magnitude of the actual list that resulted, for it reminded them the so-called reputational method has two major forms. The first takes nominations from only a relatively small panel of respondents chosen on the assumption that they are insiders who must know who gets his way or who must be considered. The second, probably with considerably less rationale, subjects a cross-sectional sample of an area population to approximately the same type of question.

The article presents information on the 1965 issue of the journal "Sociological Inquiry." The 1954 and 1955 Supreme Court decisions on desegregation are the force that set in motion vast changes that are restructuring the very nature of race relations in the United States. This volume contain recent developments relating to race relations in the United States. Its nine essays touch on several of the major areas in which change occurs or in which old blemishes remain. The paper by Robin Williams, with which this issue begins attempts an overview of what has happened in the last two decades. Most of the papers in this set are themselves reports of research appropriate to Williams' contention that intergroup relations are part of the basic dynamics of modem social systems. Richard Lamanna's doctoral dissertation is concerned in part with the response of the Negro public school teacher to desegregation. Lewis Killian turns his attention to the negotiations between representatives of the white and Negro communities.

The purpose of this article is to deal with four main topics pertaining to the past two decades of the history of intergroup relations in the United States. First, changes in group structures and social identities, social structure and prejudice, thirdly, the base of organized protest and finally, processes of conflict and conflict resolution. great changes have occurred in the internal structures of and the relations among racial, ethnic and religious collection. As cultural differences associated with national origins and language have been reduced as a consequence both of greatly reduced immigration and of extensive acculturation, racial distinctions have moved into a more central position in the total societal structure. Racial prejudice, both as a sense of group position and as a belief in the "difference" and inferiority of subordinates is a major norm in American society today. In the case of Negro-white relations in recent times, the conflict has been centered upon pressure for change from Negroes, versus the resistance to change from white partisans of the status quo ante.

The article discusses the social sources of criminology. The author states that as a synthetic discipline utilizing the knowledge of separate branches of study, the content of criminology has been shaped to a large degree by the nature of relationships between those disciplines that provide food for criminological thought. Some of those relationships and their effects are the subject of the first part of this article. As a practical discipline oriented to applied results, the content of criminology has also changed with changes in the broader society and its mode of response to criminals, as mediated by occupational groups whose members are charged with the prevention, processing and control of crime. Relationships between the society and its agents on the one hand and social scientists on the other, can be seen in changes that have occurred in specific areas of crime studies. Some of those changes are reviewed in the second part of the article. The author points out in the U.S. the study of crime has been intimately linked with the growth of sociology. As the field was conceived in its early years in this country, sociology was to be in large part a science of social problems, devoted to the study of all those forces bringing misery to industrial man. Study of such problems occupied the center of sociological concerns.

The article presents a preface by the editor. As, this would be the last issue that the editor would be responsible for; he acknowledges the support of various individuals and reviewers. He appreciated the educational institutions that provided financial support -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He notes that it was through their contribution that the "state of inquiry" has become what it is today. He relates that, ultimately, what does and does not appear in a professional journal is the editor's decision. He implies that he has striven for objectivity, although no one denies that editor's biases are reflected in the choice of subjects. Specially in the selection of subjects for the four special issues -- 53/2-3, 1983, "Sociology of the Environment"; 54/2, 1984, "Issues of Interest to the Profession"; 56/1, 1986, "Gender Roles and Women's Issues"; and 57/2, 1987, "Comparative/Historical Sociology of Science." He construes that journal editors act as gatekeepers by exercising control over the flow of scientific and/or scholarly knowledge. They also play a significant role in people's career. The editor says that he wrote letters to deans and/or chairpersons on behalf of sociologists being considered for promotion and/or tenure to the effect that their manuscripts were scheduled for publication.

The article reports developments related to sociology as of January 1978. Ben Nelson was professor of sociology and history at the New School for Social Research, who died on September 17, 1977. He had held posts at the University of Chicago, Minnesota, Hofstra College and SUNY at Oyster Bay and Stony Brook. The article also invites suggestions and topics connected with sociologist Max Weber. For example Weber's intellectual predecessors, religious ideological legitimation of power structures, charisma and revolution, nationhood, law and economics, Islam, India, China, Japan, Weber's epistemological impact. Contact information is given, for any sociology department interested in becoming a chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta, the national honor society in sociology in the U.S.

The article focuses on the establishment of four new chapters of Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) National Sociology Honor Society, during 1961-62. These four chapters are in New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and Iowa. Under action made possible by the recent change in the constitution and by-laws of AKD, Grinnell College became the first undergraduate institution to establish a chapter. Two chapters, Zeta of New York, University of Buffalo, and Delta of Illinois, Southern Illinois University, are now instituting reactivation programs. At present there are 94 chapters in 40 states and the District of Columbia.