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In order to determine the directions which the field of sociology of occupations has taken in recent years, a content analysis of articles on work and occupations in four general sociological journals and two specialized journals was completed for the years of 1976 to early 1982. Not surprisingly, there has been a rapid increase in the number of papers dealing with status and income attainment. Very surprisingly, there has been a near demise of papers on the professions. Another dominant thrust has been the large number of articles on women and sex roles. Satisfaction and alienation at work and attempts at job redesign have also received increasing attention. Papers on other topics have received less concentrated attention. Moving beyond the results of the content analysis, the present work discusses unresolved theoretical issues and potential new directions for the content areas. It is suggested that even for sociologists who do not identify themselves as specialists in occupations, the occupational variable remains a dominant one in sociological analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the corporate class fractured or it is able to transcend individual interest in favor of a collective interest? I address this debate through a unique application – how large corporations respond to social movement demands. Through a statistical examination of an original database of protests, I find mechanisms still exist that unify the interests of firms targeted by movements. Specifically, policy-planning groups shape and unify firm strategies over whether to concede to or resist protest demands. In addition, I find the impact of these networks is not limited to narrow industry logics, but transcends the broader business community. Together, these findings suggests that when it comes to shaping their politics in response to social movement challengers, large firms do not respond as atomistic actors but are able to draw on their social networks, fostering a broad collective interest. In asking how the social relations of large firms shape protest outcomes, this paper bridges broad questions in organizational, social movement, and class analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the notion that blue-collar workers have been converting from working-class to middle-class orientations as a consequence of gains m income and education over the past few decades. Cross-sectional analysis of survey data for white workers and spouses reveals that a considerable manual-nonmanual subjective class schism persists when remaining differences in income and education are taken into account. The gap is maintained both by an adherence to working-class identification among blue-collar workers at all socioeconomic levels and by a weaker tendency for these workers, compared with white-collar workers, to use income and educational status as criteria for self-placement in the class system. Longitudinal analysis further indicates that embourgeoisement among blue-collar workers has been slight and suggests that the manual-nonmanual gap in class orientations is widening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theoretical and empirical stance towards careers and professional socialization as subjective experience. Focusing on the problematic features of mobility, entrapment, and organizational commitment in the orchestra world, it shows how the analysis of career concerns in the "minor leagues" of organizational sets can reveal the meaning of status passage, definitions of time, and experiential turning points. Some adaptations to failure and the process of making commitments are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analytical framework is proposed for the systematic study of occupations in their social environments. This paper explores the ways in which occupations influence and are influenced by specific social contexts, taking into account both subjective and factual elements of the environment. Drawing upon past research on social stratification and current social developments, the framework is systematically illustrated, with emphasis on the dynamic nature of the connective relationships between occupations and publics. Neglected areas of research and theory are derived using the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of occupational status and income for suicide is not clear. One study indicates a positive relationship; five reveal a negative relationship; two show a higher suicide rate for very high- and very low-status occupations than for middle-status occupations; and the combined results of a study of three English cities are inconsistent. Although evidence is strongest for a negative relationship, no definitive conclusion can be made. Very likely, the relationship varies depending upon other conditions. In particular, it may vary with employment status; income may be directly related to suicide under conditions of unemployment, but inversely related under conditions of employment, or vice versa. In this paper an attempt will be made to determine whether and in what way employment status may influence the effects of income. In addition, effort will be made to determine whether unemployment is related to suicide at all income levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is clear then that the achievement orientation that currently permeates the organization of legal education in all probability does not extend to the organization of the legal profession. Mechanisms for coping with this institutional hiatus in recruitment and allocation on the basis of performance criteria operate at two levels. First, when the recruiter for the large firm is unable to find the "right" man, the need to ensure organizational survival by hiring technically competent professionals may induce the firm to recruit the requisite legal talent and overlook the absence of preferred social attributes. Smigel indicates that this occasionally does happen among the Wall Street firms. And, second, social barriers to professional recruitment grounded solely in performance criteria should influence student conceptions concerning the practice of law and the expected organizational context for future employment. National Opinion Research Center's longitudinal survey of career development. These data should permit an assessment of how future lawyers adapt to the organization of a profession that emphasizes nonintellectual factors in distributing the neophyte professionals among the various sectors that comprise the legal labor market. The data are derived from mail questionnaires that were employed to gather information on the students' educational plans, career preferences, social origins, and the like. The survey, initiated in Spring, 1961, is comprised of a weighted sample of some 40,000 June, 1961, graduating seniors including a group of 1,797 male graduating seniors who reported a long-mn career preference for Law. One year later, 1,179 men in this group (66 per cent) were attending 124 of the 151 available accredited and unaccredited law schools offering professional preparation in the United States. With the exception of Lortie's work, the literature on the legal profession is lacking in documentation on the molding of expectations of law students for one rather than another context for the practice of law. There is little that indicates whether such preferences and expectations are altered in the course of professional training of whether these orientations have a role in channeling the neophyte lawyer into solo practice, professional partnership, corporations, or government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between the Philadelphia elite and upper class in 1914. Much of this study is a historical replication of Baltzell's (1958) empirical analysis of the Philadelphia elite and upper class in 1940. Data on the occupations, educational attainments and affiliations, club memberships, and religious affiliations of upper-class and non-upper-class members of the Philadelphia elite in 1914 generally are comparable to those presented by Baltzell for 1940. These and other data suggest that a caste-like, socially exclusive, upper class had emerged in Philadelphia by approximately 1914. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Parnes data, the author analyzes how the differentiation of higher education into sectors affects current occupational status among a homogeneous age population. The sample consists of young men and women ten years after high school graduation. Past studies analyzing correlations between educational level and occupational status virtually ignore the effects of community college attendance. Most earlier work defines school quality solely in terms of per-pupil expenditures, but these studies fail to account for the complexity of the higher educational system in the United States today. My research shows that the type of first college entered is a significant variable in analyzing differences in occupational status, even when holding constant variations in ability, socioeconomic background, and college goal. The average status of four-year college entrants' jobs is almost 12 points higher on the Duncan scale than the status of community college entrants' jobs. Community college entrants suffer an occupational penalty, compared to four-year college entrants, even when controlling for years of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "occupational origin" has traditionally been measured by father's occupation only, especially in studies of occupational mobility. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the occupations of other family members are additional components of men's occupational origins. Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Mature Men, the traditional father-son mobility table was expanded to include paternal grandfathers' occupations and mothers' occupations. Log-linear analyses of these expanded mobility tables showed that paternal grandfathers' and mothers' occupations have significant associations with sons' occupations, controlling for level of fathers' occupations. The association between grandfathers' and sons' occupations is stronger than that between mothers' and sons' occupations. It was concluded that, while father's occupation is the main component, it does not fully capture the impact of occupational origin. Consequently, intergenerational mobility may be less frequent than is indicated in traditional father-son mobility analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study represents an attempt to examine the nature and sources of self-estrangement in work. The concept is defined using a discrepancy approach. Questionnaire data were collected from 1,313 employees representing seven occupational groups. The results suggest that individual work values interact with perceptions of the work situation to produce different levels of self-estrangement within each occupational group. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis indicates that job conditions are significantly more important than background factors for explaining feelings of selfestrangement. In particular, lack of control over task activities (powerlessness) and lack of meaningful work (meaninglessness) are found to be the most powerful predictors across all occupational groups. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of occupations and professions manifests a clear tendency toward the use of theoretical perspectives which emphasize considerations of power, social control and negotiation. This is most clearly articulated in several substantive areas within the field, notably occupational expansionism, intra-occupational relations, and the environmental context of occupations. A survey of research in these areas suggests some tentative generalizations. Emerging out of this perspective is a view of occupational roles as dynamic and shifting, responding to external groups, and at the same time exhibiting enough flexibility to permit individuals the opportunity to negotiate the parameters of their roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through long suggested, subjective indicators of status inconsistency have seen little empirical use. Data from a sample survey with controls for additive status variables are used to compare objective and subjective status inconsistency with these conclusions: (1) Individuals in an "objective" state of educational-occupational inconsistency are no more likely to feel inconsistent than those whose objective statuses are aligned. (2) When considered in conjunction with vertical status dimensions, neither objective nor subjective status inconsistency is independently associated with measures of social participation; only the subjective measure is independently associated with powerlessness. (3) The joint use of subjective and objective status inconsistency concepts in future work must be carefully justified and must take into account well-substantiated but frequently ignored methodological problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occupational structure of science is conceptualized as consisting of four sectors within which the career patterns of two cohorts of sociologists are examined. Using an origin criterion, receipt of the Ph.D. from an American university, to define the cohorts, we analyze the effects of various factors on sectoral immobility—which has been the norm for three decades—and mobility. In general, structural factors supersede individual differences in explaining observed movement. Moreover, the evidence underscores the "university bias" that has dominated studies of stratification in science. This suggests that the prestige of sociological work and the sectoral contexts in which it is performed be reevaluated, particularly in view of the current glut of the academic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A description and analysis of the work of the cocktail waitress as an example of low status occupations are reported using an interactionist framework. A processual view of continuance commitment is employed to account for persons remaining in occupations with few, if any, intrinsic rewards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A source of social movement transformation which has been relatively neglected by researchers involves the effect of factors in the pre-movement environment which reemerge sporadically throughout the careers of social movements. Their reemergence may account for the direction of the transformation process and, specifically, for the differential transformations which characterize some movements at various points in their careers. A case study illustrating this effect is presented, followed by a more general consideration of when this phenomenon may be expected to occur and what movement-related factors facilitate its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report is a review of the recent literature (mostly since the mid 60s) of the sociology of occupations. The notion of measuring professionalism, especially as represented by the attribute approach, has failed to deal with crucial sociological issues. The sociology of occupations has been criticized for being without an overall theory, but the search for such a theory may not be a justified goal. Work in this field has produced many interesting and useful generalizations of a more limited range. Studies of this field are numerous, but they are distributed unevenly over the range of occupations and work issues. The strong point is the numerous detailed case studies of occupations. However, there are also some good examples of efforts to relate occupational behavior to a larger societal perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most common theoretical approach to career has been objective in nature, working within the framework of either the career pattern or the individual-objective career. The widespread inclusion of subjective data and discussion in studies and discourses on career suggests that a clearer statement of this idea and its integration with the objective approaches is desirable. Thus, working from the assumption that any personal view of one's career has predispositional qualifies in it, we set out to explore the nature of the subjective career and to relate it to the traditional objective notions. Career as predisposition, it was hypothesized, involves recognition and interpretation of certain features of a career line and an individualobjective career that results in a particular kind of knowledge and a particular view of the world. When activated in an ongoing social situation, the personal view of one's career influences behavior through this perspective and simultaneously heightens one's awareness of it. Several ways are suggested in which the subjective career might be activated, thereby stimulating awareness of it: experiencing contingencies, terminating a career, comparing our progress with that of others, bargaining over status passage, integrating our several concurrently functioning careers, and formulating and implementing career strategies. Phenomenally, the subjective career overlaps in scope with its career line and individual-objective career. Theoretically, it is exclusive of these other approaches; it is a personal extension and amplification of the individual's view of these more objective manifestations of career. The subjective career is composed of both the more private meanings of such phenomena as stages, timing and direction of movement, alter- native career lines, recruitment, contingencies and so forth, and of meanings not represented in the objective stances. The explanatory utility of subjective career becomes apparent when personal interpretation enters the picture and modifies behavior from what would be predicted on the basis of the objective approaches. As a predisposition it may be seen as part of the set of factors which influences a person's definition of the situation. The strength of this approach lies in the fact that it enables us to study the personal evaluation of the elements of career life and its associated meanings at the situational level. All three perspectives on career, the career line, the individualobjective career, and the subjective career, can be generalized beyond their traditional field of application, the sociology of occupations. In some areas like deviance, beginning and end points and career stages may not, upon further study, turn out to be as clear as in other areas. The subjective career assumes even greater importance here since it enables us to gain a sense of career in spite of this lack of clarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses that the career aspirations in nursing are related to nurses' conception of the nursing role. Each type of role conception engenders specific career expectations or goals. A professional conception of the nursing role leads to a definition of career "success" different from a personal-servant type of role conception. In establishing career goals, the type of role conception also affects motivation. Certainty with which the role conception is held is positively associated with self-assurance. Uncertainty may create dissatisfaction with the present role and so motivate persons to strive for less ambiguous situations. The discrepancy between ideal goals and perceived achievement constitutes the dynamic aspect of career aspiration. Frustration of career expectations at times leads to readjustment of career goals, while at other times it increases the intensity of current aspiration. Nursing is undergoing a transition phase. Professional self-conceptions of degree nurses are increasingly threatened by requirements of the bureaucratic role. The knowledge of a person's internalized role conception provides some understanding of his career aspirations.

The article discusses the influence of primary group on vocational choice among adolescent girl. Most of adolescents and adults in the United States have some general image of nursing. For the female adolescent, the image of the nursing profession may have crucial import for her vocational choice. If the image held is a strongly negative one, the occupation will probably be rejected without being given serious consideration. On the other hand, if the image held includes many desirable attributes, nursing will at least be in competition in the choice process with other similarly evaluated occupations. The adolescent girl derives her image of nursing from two potentially important sources of primary groups--the family and friendship groups. An adolescent girl's image of nursing is shaped by the views of that field held by members of her family and close friends. If such primary group members have a negative image of nursing, the expectation would be that the adolescent girl would come to adopt a negative image also. The vocational choice of the girls are influence by the image of the profession held by those persons with whom the girl had close primary relations.