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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]

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]

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]

Using voter turnout to measure conformity, this article examines whether conformity with social norms moderates the crime rate in the United States at the state and county levels. If people are fairly consistent in their response to the perceived local degree of conformity with norms about voting and against crime, analysis predicts a unique quadratic relationship between reported crime rates and voter turnout. A pooled multivariate regression analysis of state crime rates for several index crimes in 1960, 1970, and 1980 confirms the predicted relationship, as do county-level analyses of the violent crime rate in 1985 and 1991. This method might also be used to assess the effect of social conformity on other social choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional content analysis of the 319 last wills probated in Providence, RI, 1985, was used to test eight of Rosenfeld's empirical generalizations about the social characteristics of disinheritances and will contests and his explanation of them in terms of Gouldner's concept of the norm of reciprocity. Many of Rosenfeld's generalizations are applicable to the Providence data, although disinheritance might be "drifting down" into the middle and lower classes and seems to take at least five forms: positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity, positive deviance, negative deviance, and wastage avoidance. Disinheritances might become much more frequent but also multiform, sophisticated, consequential, and controversial in the decades ahead.I expressly omit the remainder of my children because of their lack of affection, care and attention to me during my lifetime.Providence testatorDisinheritance and will contests are deviant components of the inheritance system.... Benefactors who disinherit a son or daughter have deviated from the norm of intergenerational continuity. This decision represents the deviant behavior of the benefactor.Jeffrey Rosenfeld, "Will Contests" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the response of sociologists in the U.S. to the growing call for a global sociology that can address both transnational social phenomena and international scholarly exchanges. Much of the focus of the globalization literature has been on the cultural characteristics of the late twentieth century. Indeed, despite the firm material roots provided by accelerating flows of transnational capital and technology, work on globalization has been especially prominent in the area of cultural studies. As discussion of globalization has proceeded among sociologists, it has, given its theme of ruptures and transcontinental relationships, inexorably led to reappraisals of the institutional as well as conceptual organization of the discipline. This has expanded well beyond the simple demand that greater attention and resources be paid to the world beyond the borders of North America. Most notable are the growing number of voices calling for the internationalization of sociology as a response to the globalization of social and cultural life.

The article focuses on urban imagination of psychologists. In all the writing that has been done by and about the scholars of the Chicago School, the womb of urban sociology in the U.S. and abroad, little has been said of the importance of place to them. But place figures very significantly in their thinking, even though they did not write of it in just those terms. The most obvious demonstration of the importance of place lies in the map that Ernest Burgess and his students devised of Chicago in Illinois, and its pattern of growth and development. Burgess's map was novel in the sense that it described not the physical topography of the city but rather its social topography. The study of places like neighborhoods is the study of real settings peopled by real individuals. Sociology was born in the U.S. out of a desire to help people improve their lives, and surely this spirit of caring and nurturing the newly migrated in Chicago at the turn of the century was very powerful among many social scientists and social workers.

This article presents a critical analysis of the book "The Sociological Imagination," by C. Wright Mills which represented a mid-century rejection of U.S. positivist, functional social theory in favor of a critical sociology of the European Frankfurt version. Although Mills introduced the term postmodern into U.S. sociology, his work is distinctly modernist in thrust, and hence unsuited to the problems confronting sociology. The book asked of sociologists trained during the 1960s a politically informed sociology, methodologically sensitive to human experience and based on the work of the classical social theorists Mills admired. It challenged them to develop a sociological imagination that would nurture a form of self-consciousness capable of comprehending biography, history, world politicsm and particular societies as intertwined totalities. In the book, Mills constructed images and pictures of society, men, and history real only within his ten chapters. The interplay of three conversations and four texts structures the work. The former comprise Mill's interactions with himself and with the influential theorists who guided him, and the discourse between the reader and Mill's book. The latter includes Mill's biographical history with himself as a sociologist, as well as his interpretations of the texts of his sociological contemporaries, of the texts of the classical social theorists he emulates, and of the text of American society he hopes to understand.

The relationship between unions and their members is an important, yet neglected, subject in recent studies of the sociology of work. This study develops and tests a theory of union satisfaction and participation that combines recent research in the sociology of work with previous explanations of union satisfaction and participation provided by industrial relations researchers, in an attempt to understand the relationship between unions, plants, jobs, and workers in U.S. manufacturing industries. This theory predicts that union members will be satisfied with their unions and participate more in them if there are extensive ties between workers, employers, and unions. These ties stem from the focus of labor/management relations in particular, and class struggles in general, on market outcomes and the historical linkage of union membership with employment in the United States. The theory also predicts that unions themselves act as ties to specific work settings and that union participation is a forum for voicing dissatisfaction with specific characteristics of workers' jobs. Testing these predictions is complicated by the contradictory nature of the structure and organization of work in advanced industrial societies. The analysis provides qualified support for this theory, with data drawn from more unions, plants, and union members than have been used to date. In addition to discussing modifications to the theory and analysis presented here, the study includes a discussion of its implications for the future of unionization and the organization of work, in light of declines in union membership, increased efforts to decertify unions and resist union organizing efforts, and deindustrialization in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During his life, the work of Saul D. Alinsky may have been distorted by his confrontational style and outspoken manner. His lasting contribution lies in his understanding of community, organization, and power. Alinsky's intuitive grasp of the complex and multifaceted character of urban social structure, his masterful mobilization of community resources and strategies for building organizations, and his commitment to democratic pluralism and instrumental community action provide the framework for interpreting his actions. The United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) and the Organization of the North East (ONE) provide two case studies of contemporary community organizations that demonstrate the ongoing practical utility of Alinsky's orientation for community organization, as well as suggest the theoretical implications of his work for contemporary sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology as an academic discipline has always undergone change and modification in theory, method and substance. This article addresses some of the changes in many substantive area of sociology. Some special aspects that have characterized American sociology was discussed. The diversity in styles of sociological work was recognized. In order to provide a broader context for sociological work, it is necessary to go back to the turn of the century,a period of marked social change in America. There are two major influence on how academic sociology would respond to change the development of pragmatism in American philosophy and sociologists' belief in empiricism.There are some similarities between the concerns of European sociologists of the last century and the American sociologists of the early decades of the century.

Postwar literature reveals that sociologists disagree on the composition of the working class and neglect to specify relationships among its manual, clerical, and service workers. Contrary to Marxist thought, evidence on the deskilling of working-class occupations is inconclusive. Marxist and non-Marxists agree that management has not succeeded in dictating the control of work. The literature fails to locate connections between technology, work alienation, job dissatisfaction, and the societal alienation of workers. Weakest theory and research deal with the political mobilization of the working class, which is hampered by its internal stratification and cleavages. Paradoxically, labor unions are more effective in promoting consumer interests than those of their members or other workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the findings of the study sponsored by the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils on the quality of graduate programs in the United States. Evaluation of graduate sociology departments; Relationship between the resources of a department and its power to attract faculty, students or additional resources.

All chief political executives face the management problem of controlling their subordinates in order to direct the activity of the state. The author argues that the presidential staff emerged in this country as a strategy of control because of expanding state functions and an increasingly entrenched officialdom—the same conditions that gave rise to personal staffs in patrimonial administrations. The presidential staff's organization structure underlies its distinctive capabilities for centralizing and extending the personal control of the executive. The author compares dimensions of staff organization with dimensions of bureaucratic structure. She suggests why an important personal political staff emerged in the United States in this century but in no other advanced western democracy. [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]

Recent research suggests that the relationship between migration and labor allocation has changed in two ways: (1) fewer migrations are job-related; and (2) more of the remaining job-related migrations are job transfers instead of purely market-induced mobility. Data from the 1973-77 U.S. Annual Housing Surveys are used to compare characteristics of market-induced and job-transfer migrants. Both forms of migration occur among all income, education, and age groups. However, the income attainment processes for these migrants suggest that relocations are over represented among those primary jobs described by dual labor market theory. Since many of the benefits of primary jobs are age-related, both the increasing frequency of occupational relocations and weakening of the American economic position suggest that the benefits expected by those relocated may be difficult to provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A theoretical formulation is presented that represents an abstract and parsimonious conception of public policy adoption at the subnational level. The formulation consists of two components: the principle that social phenomena exist in contexts with which they are compatible, and several distinguishing attributes of subnational collectivities and public policies. Taken together, these statements lead to the conclusion: if there is a match between attributes of a policy and those of a collectivity, then the probability increases that the policy will be adopted by the collectivity. General hypotheses derived from the formulation appear generally consistent with findings of previous research. Specific hypotheses derived from the formulation regarding city adoption of War on Poverty and National Flood Insurance programs are tested with crosssectional data for a sample of U.S. cities. Results of an ordinary least-squares regression analysis reveal support for derived hypotheses. It is concluded that the explanatory and predictive powers of the theoretical formulation are high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The population ecology model of formal organizations is used to study how adaptive maneuvers enable organizations to maintain themselves in a distribution of like organizations and, ultimately, to understand how the process of selection leads to survival and reproduction of certain types of organization and attrition of other types of organizations. Selection is readily affected by organization innovation, whether administrative or technological. This research dealt with how the steel rail may have affected the survival of 214 railroads in a fourteen-state area of the U.S. from 1860 to 1890. The findings indicate that two organizational characteristics, age of railroad and size of a rail operation, contributed more to rail survival than did technological innovation. Several methodological and theoretical issues are discussed which surround the choice of the population ecology model and the conduct of this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leading sociologists have warned that sociology in the United States faces an internal crisis of diversity. Diversity is defined as the splintering of sociology into a multitude of theories, specialities and interest groups. While many professional associatinos remain viable, they have been described as suffering from 'intellectual paralysis.' The author takes issue with the assumption that diversity weakens sociology. He believes that diverse viewpoints among sociologists can serve them well in light of increasingly complicated social arrangements. Therefore he posits that it is shortsighted to argue that sociologists ought to abandon this diversity and adopt a single point of view.

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]

Four mobility and attainment propositions are extracted from a theoretical discussion relating class mobility and attainment processes to the development of capitalism. These propositions are evaluated empirically using United States Labor Statistics, General Social Survey data, and primary data collected from a SMSA. The first proposition maintains that paralleling the development of capitalism will be a structural decrease in the relative size of the capital-owning classes resulting in mobility. In the second proposition, it is asserted that with the development of capitalism, the likelihood of downward mobility will be significantly greater than the probability of upward mobility. The third proposition stated that in advanced capitalist societies, circulation class mobility will be substantially constrained by structural change. Lastly, it is proposed that in advanced capitalist societies, attained class positions will depend significantly on an unmediated (by educational attainment) origin class effect. Empirical support is uncovered for all propositions. [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]

Causal models of initial occupational rewards for black and white males are developed from the responses of first-year workers in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. A comparison of the black and white models shows that while blacks have experienced considerable upward mobility, their income and prestige remain far behind their white counterparts. Two explanations for this racial gap are indicated by the data: (1) blacks begin work with lower levels of key background variables, and (2) racial discrimination in the labor market. Our measurement of racial discrimination in labor market entry accounts for only a small proportion of the gap between black and white levels of rewards; and when compared with earlier research, the data indicate a national trend of decreasing racial discrimination in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier conceptualizations suggest a socially integrative civil religion in the United States and define it as not infringing upon church and state separation. No published empirical evidence exists, however, of the alleged compatibility of these two beliefs in the minds of the citizenry. Because the idea of civil religion rests largely upon such an assumption, the relationship between civil religion and church-state separatism is tested in an analysis of data from over 3000 respondents to a state survey. The findings indicate no conflict between the two belief systems. Institutional and organizational implications of civil religion in relation to the legalistic notion of separatism are 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 cyclical interest in local units of the urban community has failed to provide cumulative knowledge about the varieties, functions and ethnic distribution of types of neighborhoods. Research in Detroit, involving 16 black and 12 white neighborhoods, provides sufficient quantitative data to formulate multivariate distinctions of neighborhood type and function. Among the most important findings was the extent to which residents of given types of neighborhoods used informal and formal services. The total utilization of neighbor and formal agency services was also tied to neighborhood type. The present research suggests a more comprehensive typology for describing the character of local neighborhoods and for devising strategies of intervention where the prime unit is a local neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nagging doubts continue on the utility of the mail questionnaire, although advances in this technique provide response rates of 70 percent or higher. Return bias, a factor in attacks on the mail questionnaire, has been depicted as a necessary evil of such magnitude that the technique should be abandoned. But few studies using mail questionnaires have examined the impact of interim response on variable relationships. To test for return bias, data are reported from 931 residents of five small Iowa communities. Four mail requests elicited a 78.2 percent completion rate; interviews were attempted with terminal mail nonrespondents, yielding a final response rate of 92.8 percent. In a statistical sense, only minor differences are evident on correlation coefficients and unstandardized regression coefficients for the first and second response waves compared with data accumulated for all respondents. But when substantive conclusions are examined, the impact of interim response does not subside until the first three response waves are accumulated. Thus, attention must be given to the potential influence of return bias in mail-questionnaire studies, but calls for discontinuing use of the technique are unwarranted. [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]

The ethnic community and compensatory theories of Black social participation are compared by analyzing affective correlates (political efficacy and self-esteem) of participation for 712 residents of Nashville, Tennessee in 1969. The instrumental-expressive typology of participation is utilized in addition to total participation. Participation and the affective variables are significantly correlated for Blacks, but only weakly correlated for Anglos, lending support to both theories. The relationship between participation, the affective variables, and the controlled background factors is briefly discussed, and problems and directions for future research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reviews the background of the relatively recent phenomenon of black Catholicism in America and the empirical studies which have explored possible connections between Catholic affiliation among blacks and their changing patterns of secular status. The problem addressed is whether the tendency for Catholicism to be associated with high socioeconomic status among black Americans can be interpreted as the operation of a religious factor in a classic Weberian sense. By comparing black Catholicism to the historical case of Protestantism, it is shown that Catholicism may well have some implications for character structure, social disengagement, and mobility which warrant its designation as a religious factor in the black American experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of status inconsistency, while having rich potential as an explanatory variable, has been beset with methodological problems and conflicting findings. Nelson has argued that the use of objective and subjective components of status inconsistency will allow for a more accurate test of its usefulness (1973). The present study, using a sample of 1971 male college graduates interviewed in 1974, analyzed the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of one type of status inconsistency (under-rewarded) incorporating objective and subjective techniques. The tentative conclusions were: (1) the use of subjective measures of inconsistency validates this phenomenon as an explanatory variable; (2) the use of subjective measures minimizes the methodological criticisms of the objective approach; and (3) both objective and subjective measures of status inconsistency should be incorporated in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between behavior and interpersonal evaluation is examined from the perspective of role theory. We hypothesize that others' evaluation of a role actor—his or her status—is related to the actor's conformity to their norms. Students in 50 university classes were asked (a) to indicate their expectations for a "typical university instructor" by filling out a 55-item questionnaire which incorporates Jackson's Return Potential Model for measuring normative role phenomena, or (b) to judge the frequency of the class instructor's behavior on the same 55 items. An index was constructed which indicates the degree to which each instructor's behaviors conform to students' expectations for a typical instructor. This index correlated with students' mean evaluation of each instructor: his or her status (r=.64, p<.001). We demonstrate, however, that this relationship between conformity and status holds more strongly for intense, powerful norms, and only for instructors with a moderate rather than a relatively high reputation, that is, estimated status. [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]

The purpose of this paper is the analysis of the interactional patterns of Wisconsin farm couples with their parents. Step-wise multiple regression analysis provides a technique to solve a sequence of one or more multiple linear models by step-wise application of the least sum-of-squares method. The predictor variables used in this analysis include: distance, husband's age, stage in the family life-cycle, husband's education, wife's education, gross farm income, agricultural training of the husband, productive-man-work-units, and level of living. The results showed that distance is an important factor in the interaction between generations in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main leaders of a large rural county were identified and classed into visible, symbolic, and concealed leader-types by Bonjean's technique. The composition of each type was summarized. The leadership pattern in this county was found to be distinctly different from the leadership pattern of places previously studied. Leaders were more visible and had stronger anchorage to public offices. Little variation existed in the locations of the leader-types in the generalized social structure of the community. The typology was, nonetheless, useful. It served as a good index for the factional and clique memberships of the leaders, which were recognized as crucial in the decision-making structure of the county. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events of the decade of the 1960's that have led us all here to a symposium on urban confrontations—in their cumulative significance and in their direct implications for the structure of democracy in America—are of unique historical force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, several authors have shown that over the past two or three decades the status of Catholics in America has risen more rapidly than that of Protestants (see Greeley, 1963; Bressler and Westoff, 1963; Mack et al., 1956; Vaughn et al., 1966; and Lipset and Bendix, 1959). A recent and well-documented article by Glenn and Hyland (1967) demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that Catholics are now of higher average status than Protestants as a category. Several other studies in the recent past (Lenski, 1961; Pope, 1955; and Hollingshead and Redlich, 1958) have shown that Catholics were, until recently, of lower average status than Protestants as a category, and lower than most large individual Protestant denominations. If this was in fact the case, then the higher current status of Catholics necessarily means Catholics have been more mobile than Protestants. Among the more commonly-accepted reasons for the apparent "mobility advantage" of Catholics are those expressed by Glenn and Hyland (1967). They say: "The more favorable distribution of Catholics by region and community size could mask a religiously-based handicap, and there are reasons to believe that it does." They argue that since Catholics are more urban and more concentrated in the non-southern regions than are Protestants, and status and mobility in these areas are higher than in the country generally, these facts explain the nationwide Catholic advantage in status. Curiously, Glenn and Hyland claim that their data support Greeley's (1963) finding that Catholics have no mobility disadvantage, but hold that Lenski (1961) and Lipset and Bendix (1959) were right in their conclusions that Protestants were more mobile than Catholics. Glenn and Hyland suggest that there is little reason to further explore Protestant-Catholic status and mobility questions, since the differences were (or are) probably minimal, and other kinds of questions are more important. Among such questions, they cite research into dif- ferences among various Protestant denominations as a possible area of inquiry. And clearly there is a need for more good research into areas such as the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consumption of beverage alcohol in American society has always been surrounded by a sharp ambivalence. Even during the colonial era moderate use of non-distilled beverages, such as beer, wine, ale, was expected and fully approved, but drunkenness, usually viewed as a moral defect indicating weak self-control, was frowned upon and often punished. During the Revolution and post-revolutionary period, this ambivalent attitude was fostered and alcohol was viewed, on the one hand, as a temporary desirable release from relentless reality and, on the other hand, as a major cause of poverty, crime, divorce and deviancy. The wet-dry controversy was climaxed, of course, by the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1917. After a long struggle, the "wet" forces were able to obtain the repeal of this amendment in 1933. The impact of this struggle is still felt in contemporary American society. Organized religion, as has been true within the larger society itself, has been divided into several opposing views on the subject of alcohol use. Several of the more fundamentalist groups view the use of alcohol as a moral issue and see total abstinence as the desirable, if not the only acceptable, mode of behavior. On the other hand, Roman Catholics, Jews and Episcopalians are officially unopposed to moderate use of alcohol, although drunkenness is certainly frowned upon. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of organized religion as it affects the use of alcohol among a sample of teenagers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Twenty Statement Test (TST) was first reported by Kuhn and McPartland (1954) as a valid instrument for identifying and measuring self-attitudes as they are defined in the self theory of C. H. Cooley, G. H. Mead, H. S. Sullivan, T. Newcomb, and others. Since 1954 the TST has been used in studies of the general adult population, businessmen, students, the professions, and other populations in order to learn how self-conceptions vary and how they are related to changes in age, the reference set, and other social variables. Although this instrument and its associated theory have been assessed in several ways (see Wylie, 1961; Kuhn, 1964; Kemper, 1966), it has not been assessed in terms of its cross-cultural adequacy in eliciting self-conceptions. Yet, this evaluation is quite important both because self theory is not viewed as having subcultural or cultural boundaries and because the users of the TST implicitly suggest its rather general applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine the ecological bases of party competition. For over a decade there has been a continuing controversy among social scientists over the nature of the relationship between various forms of ecological structure and the structure of electoral competition between the two major political parties in the United States. The cumulative results of the major studies done in this area are unfortunately not only inconclusive but contradictory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the internal structure of sociology has assumed an imperialistic disposition and that such a structural characteristic may be problematic for the substantive and scientific quality of the field in the future. By sociological imperialism is meant the proliferation of sociological knowledge into the domains of other social sciences and the advocacy of the functional utility of the sociological perspective of the other sciences. Twentieth-century United States saw sociology emerge as an all encompassing, synthesizing, generalizing, and perhaps a dominant social science. The consequences if sociological imperialism continues and becomes firmly embedded within the total social science milieu is discussed. The representative of some consequences which are not mutually exclusive but a higher liver of abstraction can be seen to be confusing and misleading independent variables in sociological and other forms of inquiry.

For many years sociologists have done research on race relations in the United States, especially between Negroes and whites. In the past decade, hospitals and the health professions have also been popular objects of sociological inquiry. But thus far, there has been relatively little study of race relations in health organizations. Although some attention has been paid to the contribution of low-status hospital workers to the therapeutic process, the extent to which the race of the low-status worker may influence the contribution has not been studied. This paper presents some data contrasting patient perceptions of subprofessional low-status Negro hospital workers with patient perceptions of the professional high-status white hospital staff. The data suggest that from the patient's point of view (1) Negro aides, orderlies, housekeepers, food service personnel, etc. are more effective in meeting the patients' needs for expressive care than white nurses and physicians; and (2) these individuals' low status, Negro race, and sub-professional affiliation directly contribute to their effectiveness. If supported by further research, these hypotheses would have important implications for the sociology of race relations and for professional practice in patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three procedures are generally used for the identification of community leaders. Leaders may be assessed by criteria of position, by criteria of participation, and by criteria of reputation. Most researchers have relied on the latter two procedures and have made assessments exclusively on the basis of participation or on the basis of reputation. In the few studies in which both procedures have been used together, they have appeared to yield listings of community leaders of varying degrees of similarity. D'Antonio and Form, for example, report in their El Paso study that 71 to 93 per cent of the key decision-makers in one or more of the six issues they studied were also reputed leaders. In contrast, Freeman and his associates in their Syracuse study report only a 39 per cent overlap in two independently derived lists of the leading participants and the most frequently nominated leaders. To be sure, the methodologies of the El Paso and Syracuse reports are not directly comparable. However, this is equally true of all of the leadership study comparisons. The problem of establishing empirically meaningful criteria for such comparisons is unresolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing belief among family sociologists that the concept of the "isolated" nuclear family is misleading when used to typify the contemporary urban family in the United States. In a comprehensive article on the kin family network in modern urban society, Sussman and Burchinal refer to the lag between apparently antiquated family theory and empirical reality as an "academic cultural lag." They point out that the still dominant family theory "stresses the social isolation and social mobility of the nuclear family while findings from empirical studies reveal an existing and functioning extended kin family system closely integrated within a network of relationships and mutual assistance along bilateral kinship lines and encompassing several generations." The direct purpose of this article is to analyze data from a research project on the dropout in terms of a specific facet of family background; indirectly, and perhaps more important, the article appraises the conceptualization of the "isolated nuclear family" when applied to the contemporary lower-class urban family. We may cite four ideal types of family structure and functioning that emerge from the current literature on the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Shils has pointed out, the study of the life of immigrants was one of the original justifications for the existence of American sociology. The earlier widespread sociological concern with immigrants and ethnic groups is confirmed by the voluminous literature, both analytical and descriptive, produced on these subjects. Since 1935 and particularly after World War II, however, the attention of sociologists to these subjects has continually been declining, as can be evidenced by comparative statistics on the "race and ethnic relations" specialty of the members of the American Sociological Association (while before 1955, 8.2 per cent had listed this field as their specialty, the percentage declined to 8.4 per cent in 1959); and by a decline in the scope and number of sociological publications on immigrants and ethnic groups. In contrast, it should be noted that a comparable decline of interest does not prevail among historians and anthropologists. The historians appear even to have increased their interest in recent years, as we note in the works of Handlin, Bjork, Hoglund, Jones, and Govorchin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the address given by the author during the general session of the Midwest Sociological Society's 25th anniversary meeting on April 13, 1962, in Des Moines, Iowa. It discusses the author's experience with the society and his participation in its previous annual conferences. During his term as secretary of the society he has observed the changes in the structure and the functions of the society since its reorganization in 1937. The most important phenomenon having implications for a regional society is the decline in regionalism of American sociology. Regionalism, in the sense that it existed in 1937 has disappeared. The birth of the society have a significant impact on the origins of modern American sociology. The educational institutions established by notable members of the society have contributed to the production of doctor of philosophy degree in sociology.

Peter F. Korsching has argued that my research on technological innovations and organization survival and population ecology study of 19th century American railroads is subject to interpretative consistencies that are created by a superficial grounding of the unique historical and social factors of that era. He uses this reason to question any operationalization of survivorship status. He claims that my indicator of merger cannot constitute a business failure when it involved 'a profitable, solvent railroad merged into another for the purpose of increasing profits,' or when a merger failed to occur 'after bankruptcy proceedings.' I would tend to agree with the criticism if my research had used another conceptual orientation, such as the resource-dependent model rather than the population ecology model.

In the use of historical data for sociological analysis there is always the danger of misinterpretation or interpretation out of context. This may be a particular problem when familiarity with the subject that is being researched is limited. "Technological Innovation and Organization Survival: A Population Ecology Study of Nineteenth-Century American Railroads," by David Marple suffers from this problem. Generally, the article is theoretically and methodologically sound. However, the author's knowledge of the empirical subject of the research--the growth and development of American railroads--has some important limitations.