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Although religion once played a central role in sociological inquiry, today it has fallen from prominence and now occupies a marginal space in the field. Sociologists of religion suggest that this neglect can be explained by the unusual irreligiosity of academia. However, some are hopeful that changes to graduate training and other institutional interventions can overcome this propensity and encourage more sociological engagement with religion, one of the most influential forces in contemporary society. Drawing on a new dataset of 473 sociology graduate students in the top 25 departments in the United States, we assess how personal secularity and departmental support for religious inquiry predict sociological engagement with religion. Personal secularity is a strong predictor of the decision to study religion and of the overall perception of the relevance of religion in contemporary society. Coming from a department where religion is discussed and faculty pursue research on religion predicts the perception of religion's relevance for the secular majority. Our findings contribute to the understanding of sociological knowledge creation and how individual and institutional proclivities – together – shape what we deem important enough to study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Putnam introduced his constrict thesis in 2007, many researchers have established that ethnic diversity lowers perceptions of social cohesion, at least in the short term. The connection between ethnic diversity and social behavior, however, is less certain. In this paper we draw on social distance and social identity theories to empirically test if ethnic diversity encourages behaviors linked to social withdrawal. Using data from a longitudinal panel study of urban communities in Australia, we examine the influence of social distance on neighborhood ties, neighborly exchange, and civic engagement and assess if an individual’s social identity (ethnic or civic) strengthens or weakens these relationships. We find individuals that endorse an ethnic identity are more likely to engage in social withdrawal behaviors. Withdrawal is also more likely in neighborhoods where individuals distort the presence of minorities.

This paper provides detailed description of students' access to one critical educational resource, teachers that effectively promote learning. Using large scale administrative data from North Carolina in grades 3-8 and value-added measures of effectiveness, I find disadvantages for poor, American Indian, African American, and Hispanic students, but disparities represent less than 2% of observed achievement gaps. Gaps are driven by differential risks of exposure to especially ineffective teachers, which occur between and within schools. The distribution of teacher-related learning opportunities therefore highlights White and higher SES students' advantaged access to important educational resources as well as apparent limits to those advantages.

The recent flourishing of visual methods is not mirrored in studies of taste. This paper engages with photo elicitation (PE), which Bourdieu applied in Distinction, but never elaborated on. We conducted systematic photo-interviewing in arts, fiction and architecture. After reviewing the relevant literature, we highlight illustrative findings and discuss the potential of PE. In studies of taste, PE helps in bridging "social worlds", and can unveil class-based repertoires for understanding culture. It provides entry to tacit knowledge, and aids comparisons. Importantly, when two methods, PE and oral interviewing, are used in combination, this significantly helps substantiate our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on theories of social movements and environmental sociology, this article considers a frame transformation that is taking place within ecological social movements. This transformation produced a new frame: "total liberation." We explore this phenomenon by analyzing interviews with activists, fieldwork observations, and documents from radical environmental and animal rights movement networks in the United States. Beyond introducing the total liberation frame, the article expands current understandings of how and why frame transformations occur through a consideration of how multiple frames, as well as intra- and intermovement tensions and influences, shape frame transformation. Copyright

Drawing on theories of social movements and environmental sociology, this article considers a frame transformation that is taking place within ecological social movements. This transformation produced a new frame: "total liberation." We explore this phenomenon by analyzing interviews with activists, fieldwork observations, and documents from radical environmental and animal rights movement networks in the United States. Beyond introducing the total liberation frame, the article expands current understandings of how and why frame transformations occur through a consideration of how multiple frames, as well as intra- and intermovement tensions and influences, shape frame transformation. Copyright

Scholars, especially those in the West, often attribute the construction of alternative spirituality to a culture of individualism. Here, we explore how non-religious scientists construct spirituality in different national contexts, focusing on academic physicists and biologists. Two research questions guide our analyses: How do scientists construct an alternative spirituality and to what extent are their constructions conditioned by the contexts in which they live and work? We rely on surveys of 6,470 scientists in four national/regional contexts and on interviews with 65 self-identified spiritual but not-religious scientists. Our findings reveal that alternative spirituality is more prevalent among scientists in Taiwan and France than in the UK and the US. Second, we find that the construction of spirituality redefines the cultural meanings bundled with religion in these respective contexts. Our research helps to explain how the construction of spirituality is changing the face of religion in different societal contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses a puzzle in the history of academic disciplines: Why is Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, once considered a sociological classic, nowadays mostly praised as a classic in political philosophy? Existing approaches emphasize either aspects internal to the text or to the figure of the author, or external factors such as historical contexts and disciplinary dynamics. Our explanation questions the assumption that texts are stable and explores the pragmatic interplay between text-artifact-metaphor. The result is a pragmatic genealogy of the successive material incarnations of Democracy since 1945. This allows us to account for the various meanings that have been associated with Democracy (and Tocqueville) at key historical moments in terms of the cultural work of collectives of agents around the text and its material form so as to make it the icon of certain political and disciplinary projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tells the story forged from a research partnership among the authors and their respective organizations over two decades of partnership, of research practiced in a different key than many who engage in research have chosen. Building on Michael Burawoy's (Burawoy 2005) articulation of public sociology, we present a protocol about a "way" of practicing public sociology, about human qualities by which and through which community-based research can be practiced, and what the authors have come to understand as the "heart and soul" of practicing sociological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociological study of intellectual recognition has tended to focus on highly cited and highly acclaimed authors and perspectives, while reserving some interest for those who are "forgotten." We know much less about the liminal cases: authors who are in-between fame and oblivion. This paper proposes a way to study intellectual recognition, by examining the liminal case of sociologist Charles H. Cooley. Based on a multilayered (quantitative and qualitative) citation analysis of Cooley's classic work, Human Nature and the Social Order (HNSO), we study the role of intellectual deference in accounting for this liminality. Specifically, we identify two distinct deference processes: acknowledgment and involvement. We argue that Cooley has survived intellectual oblivion by standing on the shoulders of citers, as he has received substantial acknowledgment but decreasing involvement. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of our paper for the understanding of the making of sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the first to systematically identify the most recognized scholars in sociology in the 1970s and 2010s by citation counts. This is achieved on the basis of a newly generated text corpus of approximately 49,000 pages, which encompasses various genres of literature (encyclopedias, handbooks, journals, textbooks). Investigations into common characteristics reveal that, in the 1970s, elites typically received their PhD from Columbia University, Harvard University, or the University of Chicago. The contemporary elite is partly European. In general, eminence is short-lived (<40 years). Over time, the elite has remained socially heterogeneous, but becomes more mobile and increasingly moves between universities. Coverage in specialist and generalist journals suggests that elite status in sociology cannot be achieved simply by dominating multiple communities inside sociology; elite sociologists are typically well received in the discipline's core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I examine the factors that influence fifth grade student decisions regarding whether or not to report negative interactions to adults. Data from observations and interviews with students and adults show that there are many factors influencing the reluctance to tell on others. Among them is a school context in which verbal attacks are downplayed and telling is seen as ineffective and stigmatized. This context prevents bystanders from reporting what they have observed and places those with a lack of social support at a significant disadvantage when dealing with negative behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hartmann’s response to the commentaries on his 2016 MSS presidential address from Adia Harvey Wingfield, Annette Lareau, and Vanessa Muñoz. The emphasis is on conflict, different audiences, and the unique role that sociologists in organizations like MSS can play in public engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article outlines how sociologists can and do engage a range of general, nonacademic public audiences, organizations, and interests. It begins with a discussion and critique of the notion of public sociology that emerged from Michael Burawoy’s 2004 American Sociological Association (ASA) presidency and draws upon recent commentaries and classical theories to formulate a more pluralist vision of sociology’s publics. The article concludes by arguing that embracing a multidimensional vision of the relationships between sociology and its publics not only provides a foundation for better public engagement, but also can help renew and revitalize of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses the relationship between identity and activism and discusses implications for social movement persistence. We explain how individuals negotiate opportunities as parents to align and extend an activist identity with a movement's collective expectations. Specifically, we focus on how participants in the U.S. white power movement use parenting as a key role to express commitment to the movement, develop correspondence among competing and potentially conflicting identities, and ultimately sustain their activism. We suggest that parenting may provide unique opportunities for activists in many movements to align personal, social, and collective movement identities and simultaneously affirm their identities as parents and persist as social movement activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although we often believe that nature stands apart from social life, our experience of nature is profoundly social. This paper unpacks this paradox in order to (1) explain sociology's neglect of the environment and (2) introduce the articles in this special issue on 'the sociology of nature.' I argue that sociology's disinterest in the biophysical world is a legacy of its classical concern with tracing society's 'Great Transformation' from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft: while early anthropologists studied 'primitive' societies that allegedly had not yet completed 'the passage from nature to culture' (Lévi-Strauss : 99), pioneering sociologists presumed that industrialization and urbanization liberated 'modern' society from nature and therefore focused their attention on 'urbanism as a way of life' (Wirth 1938). As exemplified by the articles in this symposium, environmental sociology critiques the nature-culture and town-country dualisms. One of environmental sociology's core contributions has been demonstrating that nature is just as much a social construction as race or gender; however, its more profound challenge to the discipline lies in its refutation of the sociological axiom that social facts can be explained purely through reference to other social facts. 'Environmental facts' are a constitutive feature of social life, not merely an effect of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the postmodernist approach to family experience which considers the actor's use of discourse rather than external sociocultural forces as primordial in constituting domestic reality has become an intellectual stream which sociologists can hardly ignore. Using the Gubrium-Holstein model as an exemplar for a 'more sophisticated' postmodernist approach to constructing family experience, this article attempts to outline a critique of radical constructionism which overemphasizes the discourse of actors as artfully producing reality as featured in the notions of 'doing things with words' and 'talking reality into being.' The critique is mainly based on the works of Schutz and Garfinkel, of which Gubrium and Holstein claim their own model share 'abiding concern,' and is further supplemented by the work of Bourdieu. This article carries a commitment to rebuking the postmodernist emphasis on the discursive by highlighting that the prepredicative structure of the lifeworld-which is nondiscursive in nature-constitutes the primordial, albeit insufficient, basis of the nomos pertaining to experience as constituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a response to an essay written by Wing-Chung Ho entitled "The Limits of the Discursive," which relates to radical social constructionism. The author discusses the concept discursive practices and the work of sociologists Jaber Gubrium and James Holstein, main themes of Ho's essay. He questions Ho's objectivism and arguments related to philosophical foundationalism, which, the author asserts, contrasts with Gubrium and Holstein's works. Ho's theories regarding common sense and science are also contested.

This special section of The Sociological Quarterly explores research on 'surveillance as cultural practice,' which indicates an orientation to surveillance that views it as embedded within, brought about by, and generative of social practices in specific cultural contexts. Such an approach is more likely to include elements of popular culture, media, art, and narrative; it is also more likely to try to comprehend people's engagement with surveillance on their own terms, stressing the production of emic over etic forms of knowledge. This introduction sketches some key developments in this area and discusses their implications for the field of 'surveillance studies' as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the emergence of 'exit chains'-temporal clusters in attrition, which are expected but rarely documented. Studying attrition in an industry peer network (IPN), we compare the three modes of leaving: as an initial exit in a chain ('leader'), a subsequent exit in a chain ('follower'), and a stand-alone exit ('loner'). Combining regression and simulation techniques, the analysis affirms the role interdependence between leader and followers, whose rationales for leaving are distinct but complementary, one internal based on exchange imbalances, the other external based on exposure to peer influence. Exit chains are depicted as a by-product of social embeddedness and the inherently high costs of relationship termination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we better conceptualize attitudes about difference in an increasingly diverse, multicultural United States? This article uses data from a recent, nationally representative telephone survey with oversamples of African Americans and Hispanics to analyze attitudes about two prominent sources of distinction in the United States. Race and religion were selected because they tend to be understood in very different ways-race as a social problem, religion as an individual choice and collective good. To assess the utility of these contrasting emphases built into common survey measures, we constructed a battery of questions that included parallel items for both. Our findings indicate that, with some notable exceptions, Americans' attitudes tend to be more similar than different, such that respondents see comparable (rather than contrasting) positive and negative aspects of race and religion in the United States. Based upon these results, we argue for a more multifaceted approach to the conceptualization, measurement, and analysis of race and religion, with implications for how we generally approach difference, diversity, and multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this adaptation of my Presidential Address I celebrate the sociology inspired by the tradition of progressive social reform. The focus on civic engagement that instigated inquiry into the causes and reasons for social problems remains an important resource for learning. I describe how my own journey from social investigator, witness, and activist not only shaped how and what I studied, but how and what I taught. Three student tales illustrate how service learning combines insight and action to foster social understanding that inspires practical reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donald Black insists that sociology must be purged of its psychological elements in order to become a genuinely distinct and scientific discipline. But such “purification” is simultaneously unnecessary, undesirable, and unattainable. It is unnecessary because the scientific shortcomings of sociology are indigenous and have nothing to do with psychologism. Indeed, a more scientific sociology would look more, not less, like psychology. Purity is undesirable in that it is not only not a scientific virtue, but is antithetical to the very scientific values that Black invokes to justify it. His systems are neither theories nor laws, but heuristics, more akin to common sense than to scientific theory. Finally, purity is unattainable because though society is indeed discontinuous with the individuals who make it up, it and all theorizing about it, are ontologically and conceptually dependent upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Douglas Marshall's critique of Donald Black states the essential issues with Black's “theory.” This article is concerned with the philosophy of science background to the issues with Black's claims, and presents the core issues as they have been normally and historically understood. These include the following: that the theory is literally false, and is not defensible as an approximation; that the magnitudes to which his “geometry” refers are not magnitudes according to standard measurement theory: that the form of the theory precludes testing by correlational evidence. Moreover, the phenomena are better accounted for by cognitive rather than “pure” sociological explainers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marshall's (2008 ) critique of Black's (1995, 2000a, 2000b ) pure sociology paradigm reveals his preference for studying the psychological properties of individuals, rather than developing a genuinely sociological framework for studying “social life.” The current rejoinder concentrates on four main issues, starting with a discussion of the ontological status of social life as a reality sui generis. The second section deals with the scientific status of pure sociology and clarifies the underlying logic of the explanatory approach. The third part considers the scientific adequacy or validity of pure sociology. Where the intellectual stakes are highest—the theoretical validity of “pure sociology”—Marshall's critique falls flattest: the available evidence overwhelmingly supports the theoretical claims of pure sociologists. By the same token, Marshall fails to demonstrate the utility of psychologizing social life, or how the imputation of psychological variables enhances the explanatory power of purely sociological models. The paper then reveals the hypocrisy of particular aspects of Marshall's critique, as the evidence indicates that he has used some similar elements of theory construction for which he has criticized Black and the pure sociology framework. The conclusion reminds readers of the excitement of pure sociology's mission beyond the futility of irresolvable philosophical quibbles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michalski's (2008 ) critique of Marshall (2008 ) is rebutted. It is demonstrated that Michalski's response largely fails to address the substance of Marshall's argument, and instead deploys a number of characteristically Blackian rhetorical strategies to obscure the field. These include an inconsistent and opportunistic rejection of philosophical argument, the lamentation of an imaginary victimization, a reliance on reassertion over reasoning, the use of misleading examples, an attempt to turn to the critique against the critic, and the exaggeration of empirical evidence. As a result, his critique is not only unconvincing, but further substantiates Marshall's case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If life history research is ever to truly fulfill the promise of the sociological imagination, it will need to engage insights from agency-structure theory that have hitherto been neglected. Relatively few life history researchers have explicitly interpreted their subject matter in terms of agency-structure theory, and those who do rarely go beyond Giddens' initial formulation to incorporate more recent theoretical developments. This article attempts to fill this gap, offering an exemplar theorized life history that frames an actor's experience in terms of agency-structure theory. More specifically, I examine the life history of a former urban gang member who was shot and paralyzed and subsequently became a world-class wheelchair athlete. I interpret the life history in terms of the iterative, projective, and practical-evaluative agentive processes that were operative—sometimes simultaneously—at different points in time; and show how this individual's adaptation to disability was influenced by enabling structural conditions that facilitated his agentive actions and by prior experiences he was able to transpose to his new circumstances. In doing so, I also indicate how the body is an essential part of social experience and the vehicle through which agency and structure are enacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influenced by the new literary movement and postmodernism, in the 1990s sociologists began to reflexively examine their writings as texts, looking critically at the way they shape reality and articulate their descriptions and conceptualizations. Advancing this thread, in our presidential address we offer an overarching analysis of ethnographic writing, identifying four current genres and deconstructing their rhetoric: classical, mainstream, postmodern, and public ethnography. We focus on the differences in their epistemological, organizational, locational, and stylistic self-presentations with an eye toward better understanding how these speak to their intended audiences, both within and outside of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An index of authors in the current issue of the journal is presented.

A list of reviewers who contributed to the journal is presented.

Social capital is generally recognized as the positive outcome of sociability and social connection and, more specifically, as the capacity to realize economic benefits through social connections. Limited attention has been paid to understanding the potential of social capital at the intersection of socioeconomic disadvantage. The first part of the article examines assumptions of class and gender in the theoretical literature on social capital. The second part explores the influence of class and gender contexts on social networks among women living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Victoria, Australia. The analysis reveals the ways in which social network assets are conditional on socioeconomic and gender circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, relatively little is known about the prosocial values of adolescents. Research has shown that females attach more importance to certain prosocial values than males do in late adolescence but has not considered whether this gender difference is evident across stages of adolescence and whether it varies by race. We examine values that focus on doing things for others, using data from a nationwide survey of 12- to 17-year-olds. We find that girls place more importance on these prosocial values than boys at younger ages. However, we also find important patterns in this gender difference across racial groups as well as across age. White boys appear to attach less importance to prosocial values than other race and gender groups. Furthermore, the gender gap in prosocial values is larger at older ages, with older adolescent boys placing less importance on prosocial values than younger ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article we presented an integrated typology in which we categorized deviance based on both norms and evaluations. Cross-classifying normative expectations and societal evaluations identifies four types of deviance. Negative deviance implies negatively evaluated underconformity (or nonconformity); rate busting depicts negatively appraised overconformity; deviance admiration designates positively reacted to underconformity (or nonconformity); and positive deviance signifies positively sanctioned overconformity. To assess the efficacy of this typology in relation to a system of norms, ten middle-class norms-previously defined as the predominant ones in the United States by Tittle and Paternoster (2000)-were evaluated in relation to our integrated typology. Those norms are: loyalty, privacy, prudence, conventionality, responsibility, participation, moderation, honesty, peacefulness, and courtesy. Each potentiality is identified; for example, regarding the norm of loyalty, apostasy is the negative deviance form (negative deviance has already been outlined in relation to all ten norms); rebellion is the deviance admiration type; fanaticism is the rate busting scenario; and altruism is the positive deviance kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how the theoretical frameworks of Hegel, Marx, and Freud inform Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and it highlights the novel's exploration of sociological concepts such as alienation, freedom, and the unconscious. I will consider Ellison's emergence as a writer and explore how the formal and the thematic variations of the novel are informed by the concepts of dialectics, being, and labor (Hegel and Marx), and psychic structure, Eros, and Ananke (Freud). I will conclude by considering how Ellison's project resonates with the tenets of feminism and postmodernism and how literature can be conceptualized for sociological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops an interactive, theoretical model of emotional feedback and amplification. Whereas the sociology of emotions typically examines how affect arises, this article focuses on the aftermath of an evoked emotion as it evolves in ongoing interaction. I argue that interactions serve as a stimulus to evoke emotional responses, but as interactions continue, these interactions provide an additional stimulus that feeds back into the initial emotion, amplifying it. I articulate two modes of emotional feedback and amplification: spontaneous and managed. Spontaneous amplification is a by-product of unplanned but continuous interactions. In contrast, managed amplification results from purposeful interactions and can be initiated through either surface acting or deep acting. The process of feedback and amplification is more likely under structural and cultural conditions that facilitate ongoing interactions. An empirical elaboration of the model is drawn from an ethnographic study of "TD's Restaurant." Examining how feedback and amplification occur in different settings is an ongoing task for sociologists interested in emotions, work and occupations, mental health, and social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the social organization of "living alone" using both the narratives of elderly women and the academic, professional, and popular cultural textual discourses in which ideological practices are organized about this manner of living and housing. Using institutional ethnography, we examine the organizing practices of living alone through an analysis of the gender and class relations in the institution of housing. We argue that housing regimes are the work of those involved: ordinary people, builders, developers, bankers, psychologists, gerontologists, social workers, foundations, federal employees, demographers, and magazine publishers. The work activities are ordered, successfully or not, by culturally standard idealizations of old age relevant to the ideologies of the various participants in the housing regime. Such practices make women's own knowledge invisible and authorize the housing regime to define and ameliorate the situation of living alone, especially with respect to the maintenance of "independence" under contemporary capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I recommend pragmatic conventions, combining G. H. Mead's philosophy of meaning and ongoing reconstruction of the self with Lewis's model of conventions, as a frame for sociological theory. Convention can be understood as a formal model of negotiated order. The frame is evaluated in terms of its consistency with neurophysiological evidence. Giddens's claim to have eliminated the tension between agency and social structure in his structuration theory is disputed. Elements of structuration theory are found to be inconsistent with empirical evidence and to be unintelligible as a result of crucial internal contradictions. Implications of the argument for rational choice theory are briefly indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the perspective of "sociological miniaturism," proposed by Stolte, Fine, and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in order to examine the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure. Through the examination of the routine, the unexamined, and the commonplace, we hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its "smallness," provides a window through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis. Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to issues of gender, work, political economy, and nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from a 1992 survey (N = 2,377) of the population of Taiwan show that class identification is rooted in the objective stratification system: the higher one's education, occupational status, power, and income, the more likely one is to identify with the middle or upper classes rather than the working or lower classes. Class interest theory predicts that the higher a person's objective position and subjective class identification, the more likely s/he is to hold a conservative ideology concerning class issues (e.g., do large firms have too much power? Should employees protest against their employer's personnel practices, and go on strike?). Multiple regression analysis provides only partial confirmation for class interest theory. The finding that the most educated and those in professional and technical occupations are the least conservative on class issues is interpreted as supporting a "new class" form of class interest theory. While the Taiwan respondents are not generally conservative on these class issues, their class identification appears to have little to do with whether they are conservative or nonconservative, either before or after objective position in the stratification system is held constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a representative sample of adults age eighteen to fifty-five who reside in Toronto, Canada, and are employed in the paid labor force, this study asks: Are the health benefits of education, income, job autonomy, and nonroutinized work different for women and men? If so, do mastery and self-esteem contribute to those differences? Results show that women and men derive different personal benefits from socioeconomic status and job qualities: (1) education, job autonomy, and nonroutinized work are associated more positively with the sense of mastery among women, (2) job autonomy is associated more positively with self-esteem among women, (3) education, job autonomy, and nonroutinized work are associated more negatively with depressive symptoms among women, and (4) job autonomy and nonroutinized work are associated more positively with global health among women. Moreover, the patterns in (1) and (2) explain the gender-contingent effects in (3) and (4). In addition, unexpected suppression effects reveal that, among men, education is associated negatively with mastery and self-esteem—but only after adjustment for job conditions. I interpret the findings in the context of the disadvantaged status thesis and speculate about status-related social comparison processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature on master frames has drawn attention to the crucial role of ideas in cycles of protest, reliance on the creation of frame resonance to account for the success or failure of a social movement within a cycle can be problematic. Applying propositions adapted from McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald (1996), this article traces how political opportunities interacted with framing processes during the emergence and development of the Åland Islands secessionist movement of the post-WWI period. The Ålanders aligned their claims with early representations of the "selfdetermination master frame" that underlay the cycle of protest that emerged after the war in a way that resonated with the Allied leaders adjudicating their case. Shifts in political conditions, however, helped to foster an intense "framing contest" among contenders that in the end undermined the Ålanders' representation of the master frame and their ability to achieve desired ends. Although the case reveals certain shortcomings in the propositions, they nevertheless provide a useful starting point when documenting the complex interplay of political conditions and framing processes in an instance of collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a great deal of research has documented the role of perceived efficacy in the decision to participate in collective action, less attention has been paid to these perceptions beyond the onset of protest activity. This article uses qualitative data from fieldwork with members of an animal rights group engaged in four different protest campaigns to examine activists' sense of their accomplishments in the context of ongoing activism. Despite feeling quite pessimistic about their chances for success in some of the campaigns, these activists strove to evaluate their efforts positively, using a number of "fortifying strategies" to identify and celebrate their successes—even in the face of apparent defeat. These findings suggest that perceived efficacy is necessary not only for initial participation in protest but must also be maintained for longterm activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how ideologically opposed social movement organizations, the National Organization for Women (NOW) and Concerned Women for America (CWA), get media coverage during critical moments of the abortion debate. I analyze how organizational structure and identity facilitate or constrain a social movement organization's ability to get mainstream media coverage. Specifically, I use the social movement framing literature to analyze how the organizations strategically construct media frames and packages in response to opposition, the tactics they use to get media coverage, and the relative success of each organization's efforts in mass media outlets. The analysis suggests that an organization's media strategy matters, but that organizational structure and organizational identity color these strategies. One of the best ways to develop press relations is to know how a particular newspaper or broadcast station operates. Make friends with reporters or newscasters who are sympathetic to the issues. They can be strong allies. Remember, publicity means "information with news value" issued as a means of gaining public attention, recognition, understanding or support for a person, an organization, an institution or a cause. National Organization for Women Records (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University) Conservative groups did not understand media or its importance then [ten years ago] as much as they do now. [Now they understand that] media is the name of the game and whoever frames the issue wins the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the article authors' response over various comments and views on an essay by him, and he presents his own views regarding aforesaid article. The risk for a social scientist in mixing fact and fiction is that some readers will assume that the situations described are real in the literal sense, rather than being real in the ideal typical sense of representations of things in the world. At the other extreme, some readers will dismiss it all precisely because it isn't "real" as in literal. In describing Tom (the character of the essay), the author emphasized the bizarre and atypical to surface and highlight the issues. However, Tom's extreme behavior and responses are at one end of a continuum. Tom illuminates potential uses of the new technologies and the lack of adequate formal or mannerly protections against violation. Whatever Tom's distinctive psychology, he reflects elements of culture and conflicts within it. Tom reminds us that the social and ethical issues around information technology do not just involve large organizations and their treatment of individuals, or their organizational rivals, but also the behavior of individuals toward each other. In offering Tom as satirical fiction, the author doesn't wish to detract from the mundane and omnipresent reality of the topic nor from its seriousness.

This article presents a reader's comments on an essay by sociologist Gary T. Marx. In this essay, readers are constantly confronted with doubles, others that are and are not Tom (the character of the essay) and readers themselves. The essay as a body swims in a pool of others. Various streams, about the relationship between copies and doubles, are rooted in the idea that body, self, and person should be integral. Yet, all assume that surface and reality are different. Each overvalues the power and authority of external definitions on self. Each of these streams is a product of Platonic thinking-that behind the surface is a reality, the true, the person, the embodied person and further an embodied present person, the comforting notion that a presence lies under or behind speech. The rich texture of modern life makes these distinctions less valuable than they once were in considering these streams and their connection to Marx's essay, one may overlook the crux of the matter of the relationship between self, other, and others. The essay draws on the problematic voice, genre-play, and intertextuality. One text, a critical sociological allegory, is presented as a "clinical report." It is formatted as a case file, and includes a reference to an insurance company.

This article discusses various issues related to individual behavior, surveillance and society with a specific reference to an essay by sociologist Gary T. Marx. In his invocation of Erving Goffman's sociology as a framework for overcoming both empiricist reductionism and affective solipsism, Marx offers grounds for moral judgment as well as epistemological critique. In recognizing that these personal yet socially constructed boundaries are sacred and central to human dignity, Marx circumvents the failure of moral relativism and identity politics to protect one's right to privacy. Marx replaces the unfair outcomes of discriminatory laws and inconsistent social meanings with the universal principle of the performed self. It is the application of this standard that protects Tom's (the subject of Marx's essay) right to maintain personal fantasies and simultaneously, provides one with reasonable, equitable, and defensible criteria to judge when his actions constitute an invasion of privacy. Tom's actions are reprehensible when his imaginary world depends on his violation of another individual's personal borders.

In this article, the authors are exchanging their views regarding an essay by Gary T. Marx, a sociologist, which was published in the periodical " The Sociological Quarterly." Gary presents a variety of gazes for authors to consider in his little parable. Some of them are framed as "legitimate" gazes (e.g., video monitors to prevent shoplifting) set against Tom's (the character of Gary's essay) "illegitimate" gazes that somehow manage to cross an ill-defined line into the realm of "creepy." And Marx has even brought authors gaze into the mix as authors peruse Tom's supposed "confidential file." By doing so, Marx has made authors confederates with Tom; authors are drawn into his voyeuristic world and need to construct for themselves their own justification for their sociological gaze. Marx, it seems, wants authors to consider the basis upon which these distinctions are constructed and clearly he sees them as capricious at best. By using this "misunderstood" male character, it seems that, on the surface, Marx is trying to make the larger point about how politicized and possibly absurd some social and cultural distinctions are.