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Four decades of rising incomes at the top, combined with income stagnation and declining intergenerational social mobility for the majority of American households, have combined to produce what has been widely described as a "new gilded age" in the United States. Yet analyses of the best available survey data reveal little evidence of a proportional increase in policy demands for redistribution over time. What explains this puzzling pattern of non-responsiveness? One classical explanation, revived in recent economic literature, postulates that high and persisting levels of optimism about the chances for advancement and social mobility reduce Americans' willingness to support redistributive public policies. Although seemingly paradoxical in the current economic environment, the "prospect of upward mobility" (POUM) hypothesis is consistent with cross-national survey evidence revealing relatively high levels of support for such beliefs. What about trends over-time? This raises an important and largely unexamined question: Have underlying beliefs about POUM also shaped Americans' attitudes toward redistributive policies during the era of rising inequality? In this paper, we examine the POUM-policy preference link, and how it has changed in recent decades. We find that POUM beliefs have shaped how individuals form policy attitudes toward inequality and taxes, net of partisanship, income, and confidence in government. Study findings provide new and provocative evidence in support of the POUM hypothesis, and we discuss implications for models of inequality attitudes and more generally scholarship on the politics of rising inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to food is one of the most basic human needs, yet undernourishment remains one of the greatest barriers to health and development in the Global South. The entitlement approach to hunger maintains that the real issue is not the overall availability of food, but access to it. This paper specifically highlights the access failures of women by focusing on how gender-based stratification limits command over food, even in light of existing food supply. Going beyond traditionally used indicators of gender inequality, we examine how women’s legal rights affect the depth of hunger in developing countries. In a first-time longitudinal study of its kind, we use the 50 Years of Women’s Legal Rights historical dataset from the World Bank to measure changes in women’s property rights and constitutional rights from 1990 to 2010. A two-way fixed effects regression analysis of 42 low- and middle-income nations demonstrates that improving women’s rights is associated with lower levels of hunger over time, even controlling for the food supply, economic development, and other relevant variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the effects of race, class, and neighborhood on social isolation of the urban poor in the U.S. Members of the urban underclass are socially isolated in that they lack social ties to individuals who participate in mainstream society in the country. Assessing the social isolation thesis requires consideration of the existence of social ties and the social resources inherent in them. Using survey data from households in Atlanta, Georgia, the paper compares poor and non-poor African Americans to non-Hispanic whites on two key dimensions of social integration — the type of social relationship and extent of contact. In examining the type of social relationships, the paper looks for basic connections to other adults through shared housing and close connections to persons who are in the economic mainstream. For the latter group, the paper focuses on individuals outside the household with whom the respondent discusses important matters, so-called discussion partners. The paper measures extent of contact by the presence and number of discussion partners.

This paper examines the emergence of sociopolitics in the United States during the 1980s. The Reagan Administration's drastic budget cuts for social research prompted social scientists to engage in interest-group politics. The newest development in sociopolitics is setting priorities for research. This paper examines the intellectual and political risks of setting priorities. I conclude that sociologists must begin to discuss the objectives and strategies of funding social research, and seek ways of reducing our dependency upon federal funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon insights from the social movement literature as well as leadership experience in a successful social movement organization, this paper suggests aspects of a framework for integrating traditional and contemporary approaches. The case history of JUST (Johnstowners United to Stop another Tragedy) is used to illustrate the interaction of grievances and structures in the career of a social movement organization. In addition to helping fill a lacuna in the literature on the internal dynamics of such organizations, this analysis also demonstrates the importance of the nature of the grievance as well as the target group's structural entrenchment. The paper focuses upon a relatively anomalous case for U.S. social movement organizations: an SMO which was successful despite displacement goals. The final section of the paper includes a summary diagram of the factors involved in JUSTs successful protest effort as well as broader generalizations suggesting the conditions under which grievances or infrastructures are more salient in explaining social movement phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to offer a genealogy of some of the disciplinary practices that constitute the everyday life of contemporary postmodern America. I argue that we are witnessing the emergence of a new economy of illegalities, and with it, an increased tension between exceptional punishment and generalized surveillance. This physics of power is constituted, in part. through a new political technology of the body that directs a gaze of accountability on an individuals "life-style" and is often premised on regulating, probing or, measuring the body's functions, processes, characteristics or movements. In this way, the body is being used as a central clement in the localization of contemporary power. All this. I believe, is made possible by the historical moment of law twentieth-century capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the administration of drug policy and AIDS prevention in San Francisco, California between 1985 and 1990, the period during which the "second wave" of AIDS was spreading among injection drug users (IDU) and their sexual partners. The following socio-historical analysis examines the development and ultimate disintegration of a the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) outreach demonstration AIDS project in San Francisco drawing on Social Worlds or Arena theory. The analysis is able to examine much of what government sponsors like NIDA routinely rely on and take for granted in funding demonstration projects. Efforts in San Francisco to expand AIDS prevention services to IDU from a small-scale pilot project to the entire metropolitan area in I 986. An important part of this effort was the submission of a grant application in response to request for proposals by NIDA to fund demonstration outreach projects. As was required the proposal described both the detailed intervention plan and evidence of collaboration and coordination with appropriate drug abuse, research, community service, and public health agencies. Analysis of the proposal and its aftermath indicates that in the pursuit of governmental funding, research projects, service agencies and community-based organizations may agree "on paper" to certain cooperative arrangements but such agreements can mask many areas of long standing conflict.

Standards for products and procedures shape every facet of contemporary American life. Yet despite their pervasivenes and their centrality to the process of rationalization, standards have been virtually ignored by sociologists. This paper argues that the evolution of standards promulgating organizations and their struggle for control of the standards-making process is a neglected feature of societal rationalization. Specifically, the history of ANSI and other standards-making organizations illustrates how a shift in the engine of organizational rationalization may have taken place and how, as part of that shift, the "power to set premises" was successfully claimed by the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies indicate that about one-third of Korean immigrant families in the United States are engaged in small business. This paper attempts to explain why such a large proportion of Korean immigrants turn to small business. The data are based on personal interviews with 159 randomly selected Korean businessmen in Atlanta. The data analysis shows that neither Korean immigrants' sojourning orientation nor their perception of host discrimination is an important factor in their decision to start a business. It instead indicates that Korean immigrants' perception of disadvantages in nonbusiness occupations, their sense of status inconsistency, and their anticipation of economic mobility through business are three major factors which lead them to small business. The findings are theoretically important since neither the concept of status inconsistency nor that of mobility has been applied to minority small business, while sojourning and host discrimination have been emphasized as explanatory variables for minority members' entry into small business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines explanations of the sharp rise in the birth rate that occurred in the United States during the late 1940s and the 1950s (the so-called "baby boom") in light of recent research on the nature and magnitude of its demographic components. The paper includes a review of the fertility surveys that derived from concern about postwar fertility trends, a discussion of the kind and relative importance of the demographic components constituting the fertility increase of the period, an assessment of explanations of the baby boom, and a reinterpretation of one of the components— the rise in average family size—that was a demographically small, but theoretically significant, part of the upturn in the birth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with a brief critical review of the major perspectives in the debate concerning ownership and control of major corporations. After examination of a new source of data compiled by a Senate committee (pertaining especially to the expansion of stock control by institutional investors and, most importantly, by major commercial banks), we argue that none of these perspectives is strongly supported. In concluding we tentatively outline a perspective which seems to provide a better "fit" to the data. We argue that the dominant force in the overall capitalist economy is now an "intercorporate complex" of major corporations, with banks in a central coordinating position (though short of "control") and an inner group of the "corporate class" providing the human linkage. This form of control is what we call "intercorporate control," based upon the impersonal interests of major, interrelated corporate bureaucracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing an argument of convergence on a sample of employed males in Japan and the United States, this paper compares young (18-24 years) with older (45-55 years) workers within each country on work-related attitudes, education and employment, mobility, interest in the company, characteristics of superiors, and job satisfaction. Comparisons of these attitudes are also made within age-group cross-nationally. Our general finding, which is upheld when company size, type of job, and educational attainment are controlled for, is that cultural diversity is (still) a better explanation than convergence when applied to work-related attitudes. Aging per se seems to have some similar effects in both societies, e.g., a positive relationship between age and work satisfaction. Attitudes affected more by historical changes in work organization, however, exhibit stronger cultural differences than age differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on papers written by the sociologists Michael Aiken, Kenneth Land and James McCartney which are bound by a common thread of being philosophical and practical reflections on the basic objective of sociology. All three writers make broad judgments about whether the evolution of the discipline and profession has resulted in more clearly defined boundaries and whether the expansion of the domains of sociology will strengthen the discipline and profession.

This paper explores the correlates of religiosity among blacks and whites, asking two questions: (1) Is the relationship between SES and religious attendance the same for both races? (2) What factors best predict church attendance among both races? The findings show that (1) SES is positively related to religious participation among whites; (2) the best non-religious predictors of attendance across all denominations and churches studied are SES and age; (3) including a measure of religious belief greatly increases the explanatory power of a predictive model; but (4) the relationship between SES and attendance varies by denomination and church among blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general inverse relationship between marital disruption (separation and divorce) and educational status, commonly assumed by family sociologists, is demonstrated for both men and women using the 1/1000 sample of the 1970 United States Census. A minor, but interesting exception to this generally inverse relationship is noted for males with six or more years of college. This paper, however, focuses on a more dramatic and particularly significant deviation from the general pattern. Specifically, highly educated females—those with five or more years of college—have an especially high disruption rate compared to women with only four years of college. In fact, the disruption rate for women with five or more years of college exceeds that for women at every educational level except those who did not finish high school. The objective of this study was to see if those factors which differentiate women with four years of college from those with five or more are the same factors that differentiate between the "never disrupted" and the "ever disrupted" women with five or more years of college. The findings reveal that three variables—race, employment outside the home, and income—are associated with the likelihood that highly educated women will divorce or separate. These same variables also distinguish them from baccalaureate-level women. Four possible explanations, unrelated to the data analysis presented, are suggested for why a woman who enters graduate school significantly increases her probability of marital disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of subjective anomie assume that all individuals have the same goals, and they explain anomie in terms of differences in the means to achieve goals. This paper examines the effect of variations in the goal of success on anomie. Data are from a Harris survey of 3,001 adults in the continental United States. A multiple regression of anomie on success orientation, plus six social status variables, revealed that success orientation has a significant positive effect on anomie and that, next to education, it is the best predictor of anomie. This finding helps explain both intraclass variations in anomie and the increase in anomie from the 1950s to 1971 found by Fischer(1974). The social status variables did not explain much of the variation in success orientation, and the effect of success orientation on anomie was not mediated by education and income. The relevance of these findings to Durkheim's theory of anomie is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of ethnic background on organizational status attainment. The data are taken from a national sample of 2,755 Roman Catholic diocesan priests and bishops. The sample is divided into seven ethnic categories: Irish, German, French, Italian, Anglo-Saxon, Polish, and other. Controlling for the overall distribution of status positions within the diocese and the individual's age/seniority, a "non-preferential" model of status attainment is constructed. Average expected status on the basis of this non-preferential model for these ethnic groups in seven different regions of the country is compared to average actual status. Although we found three isolated cases of particular ethnic groups in specific regions doing significantly poorer in status attainment than predicted by the non-preferential model, the only consistent effect of ethnicity found across the entire sample is a slight advantage enjoyed by Irish clergy. No significant effect was associated with belonging to the largest ethnic group in a diocese. The very small advantage enjoyed by the Irish suggests that Irish domination of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States is maintained less by selective promotion within the ranks of the clergy and more by a disproportionate recruitment of Irish priests at the entrance levels of the organization. Disproportionate recruitment and preferential promotion are discussed as alternative mechanisms of domination within organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The merits of two competing views of newspaper bias are evaluated using the New York Times' coverage of racial controversies in New York City between 1960 and July 1964. The idea that the news is biased receives only limited support. Minority actors were not prohibited successfully from presenting their case to the public, were seen as initiating a variety of actions and received similar placement in the paper for their activities as more powerful political adversaries received. The conditions under which information derived from newspaper stories can be treated as a reliable and valid record of conflicts are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of a comparative study of the factors which inhibited or facilitated the development of the issue of community control of schools in fiftyseven cities in the United States. The findings suggest that the degree to which blacks and the poor were mobilized for political action and the political characteristics of the city were important in determining whether or not the issue entered the political arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their most essential respects, the immigrant communities of American Jews (and the total American Jewish community) were a direct continuation of those which appeared in East Europe, prior to 1914. Using archives, government reports, and texts (primary and secondary) this paper reconstructs the sociohistorical environment in which they appeared. The extensive communal organization which characterized both settings, actually served the interests of societal demands. These institutions provided needed (often emergency) services to the community, but they also supported the out-group's status, as determined by the larger society. A clear picture emerges of the impact on the collective Jewish, and individual Jew's, adaptation to society within a highly developed and organized community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the importance of identifying the environmental context in which organizations function. The relationship between an organization and those other groups and individuals constituting its environment is specified in terms of linkages. Two key dimensions of linkage are identified: strength and breadth. The former refers to how intimately the organization is connected with any other group while the latter refers to how extensive is the support. These linkages' dimensions are viewed from a "resource mobilization" perspective, i.e., as the means by which resources are brought into an organization. A study of linkages sustained by the NAACP during 1961-69 illustrates how the dimensions of linkage strength and breadth can be operationalized and applied. New avenues of research then are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effectiveness of the use of constraints (e.g., direct action tactics and violence) by protest groups. It is suggested that the development of theoretical understanding of protest movements requires that scholars turn their attention away from the question, "How effective is the use of constraints by protesters?" and instead address the more refined question, "Under what conditions is the use of constraints by protesters both most effective and least effective?" In pursuit of answers to this latter question, hypotheses are developed suggesting that the effectiveness of constraint utilization depends on the degree and direction of public (third party) involvement in the protest incident. An examination of 212 protests targeted at elected officials and public administrators in American cities during the period between 1960 and 1971 provides support for the following propositions. Constraint utilization will be most effective when third parties are either uninvolved in the protest or when they are involved and unsupportive of protester demands. Under these conditions, constraints may be effective resources enabling protesters to coerce targets into being responsive to their demands. Constraint utilization will be least effective when third parties are involved and supportive of protester demands or are attentive but initially neutral or divided in their support of the protesters. Under these conditions, the use of constraints may alienate those third parties who might otherwise be influential allies of the protesters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the basic model of Blau and Duncan, this paper explores the process of stratification among Chinese immigrants in Chicago, and examines the effects of kinship assistance on the career cycle. It was found that while kinship assistance is an important resource to some immigrants during and after migration, it frequently obligates the immigrants to remain in the ethnic business, and thereby hinders their upward mobility. This study suggests the usefulness as well as the limitations of kinship assistance in the stratification process of ethnic minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first reviews the descriptions and structural explanations for variations, in urban population densities in the United States over several decades. The research reviewed focuses on shifts in the technology and economics of travel as being the major influences on urban density distributions. These variables appear to be somewhat less adequate as explanations of the process in recent decades. After reviewing these findings and suggesting several research questions, we attempt to assess the evidence relating variations in population density to several other aspects of human behavior. A review of the research relating high population densities to various "social pathologies" indicates that little of the variance in rates of these pathologies can be attributed to density independently of other social structural variables. Some important consequences of population density have been reported, however, and possible research directions are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note outlines the type of papers which the U.S. periodical "The Sociological Quarterly" wishes to publish. The periodical is a general sociological journal, and as such does not place any quotas on the number of papers it shall publish in any specific area. It nearly always considers scholarly sociological research and writing done by sociologists as being within the journal's acceptable limits. The note airs a special call for articles on the teaching of sociology as well.