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This paper re-examines the sociological study of resistance in light of growing interest in the concept of affect. Recent claims that we are witness to an 'affective turn' and calls for a 'new sociological empiricism' sensitive to affect indicate an emerging paradigm shift in sociology. Yet, mainstream sociological study of resistance tends to have been largely unaffected by this shift. To this end, this paper presents a case for the significance of affect as a lens by which to approach the study of resistance. My claim is not simply that the forms of actions we would normally recognize as resistance have an affective dimension. Rather, it is that the theory of affect broadens 'resistance' beyond the purview of the two dominant modes of analysis in sociology; namely, the study of macropolitical forms, on the one hand, and the micropolitics of everyday resistance on the other. This broadened perspective challenges the persistent assumption that ideological forms of power and resistance are the most pertinent to the contemporary world, suggesting that much power and resistance today is of a more affective nature. In making this argument, it is a Deleuzian reading of affect that is pursued, which opens up to a level of analysis beyond the common understanding of affect as emotion. I argue that an affective approach to resistance would pay attention to those barely perceptible transitions in power and mobilizations of bodily potential that operate below the conscious perceptions and subjective emotions of social actors. These affective transitions constitute a new site at which both power and resistance operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute to the sociology of nations, a literature that is only starting to carve out its place in the social sciences. The paper offers a reconceptualization of 'nations' as 'national cultures', employing an evolutionary perspective and a systemic framework in which 'nations' are understood as cultural systems of a special kind. National cultures are intimately tied to natural languages, and the acquisition of a national culture occurs as part and parcel of the acquisition of a natural language. Acquiring a natural language is a prerequisite for learning other cultural systems (artefactual languages as well as other natural languages). National cultures function as metacultures. They are also the reference cultures for modern states and their citizens, a political dimension of nations that is of paramount importance, though it will only be touched on in this paper. National cultures should be considered as the most fundamental type of cultural system today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics related to sociology.

The articles provides information to prospective authors about the editorial policy, and the kind of articles that are published in the "Journal of Historical Sociology." The "Journal of Historical Sociology" (JHS) was founded in 1988 on the conviction that historical and social studies have a common subject-matter. The journal welcomes articles that contribute to the historically grounded understanding of social and cultural phenomena, whatever their disciplinary provenance or theoretical standpoint. It is open as to topic, period, and place, and seek to be as international as possible in both the content and the authorship of articles. Alongside articles, it carries occasional essays on "Schools and Scholars" and of "Review and Commentary," and shorter pieces in the "Issues and Agendas" section which are designed deliberately to provoke. A typical JHS article will contain little by way of extended literature review, will say something substantial and new about its empirical subject-matter, will be aware of the theoretical implications of its topic without turning into an abstruse discussion of pure theory, and will be of interest to readers beyond a specialist geographical or disciplinary audience.

Abstract: This paper offers a defence of sociology through an engagement with Actor Network Theory (ANT) and particularly the critique of ‘critical’ and politically engaged social science developed by Bruno Latour. It argues that ANT identifies some weaknesses in more conventional sociology and social theory, and suggests that ‘critical’ and ‘public’ orientated sociologists can learn from the analytical precision and ethnographic sensibilities that characterize ANT as a framework of analysis and a research programme. It argues, however, that Latour et al. have too hastily dispensed with ‘critique’ in favour of a value neutral descriptive sociology, and that the symmetrical and horizontalist approach adopted in ANT is particularly ill‐suited to the development of scientific knowledge about social structures. It argues that a more straightforwardly realist sociology would share many of the strengths of ANT whilst being better able to interrogate, empirically and normatively, the centres of contemporary social power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Field theorists have long insisted that research needs to pay attention to the particular properties of each field studied. But while much field‐theoretical research is comparative, either explicitly or implicitly, scholars have only begun to develop the language for describing the dimensions along which fields can be similar to and different from each other. In this context, this paper articulates an agenda for the analysis of variable properties of fields. It discusses variation in the degree but also in the kind of field autonomy. It discusses different dimensions of variation in field structure: fields can be more or less contested, and more or less hierarchical. The structure of symbolic oppositions in a field may take different forms. Lastly, it analyses the dimensions of variation highlighted by research on fields on the sub‐ and transnational scale. Post‐national analysis allows us to ask how fields relate to fields of the same kind on different scales, and how fields relate to fields on the same scale in other national contexts. It allows us to ask about the role resources from other scales play in structuring symbolic oppositions within fields. A more fine‐tuned vocabulary for field variation can help us better describe particular fields and it is a precondition for generating hypotheses about the conditions under which we can expect to observe fields with specified characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on several abstracts on sociology. "Ontology matters: The relational materiality of nature and agro-food studies," by David Goodman examines This paper examines the question of ontological choice in agro-food studies, and emphasizes that such choices are consequential, determining analytical points of entry, arenas of theory and praxis, and normative positioning. These questions are explored by examining the privileged place of the labor process in the development of agro-food studies and, as a more specific illustration, in analyses of agro-biotechnology. It is suggested that the modernist ontological priorities embedded in the unreconstructed conceptualization of the labor process not only have been ignored but also have found an unexamined place in post-structuralist agrarian political economy. The discussion closes by reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of actor-network theory as an alternative avenue of critical engagement with the new bio-politics of agro-food networks. "A matter of life and death? Men, masculinities and staying behind in rural Ireland," by Caitriona Ni Laoire is set within the context of a growing interest in the gendered nature of rurality and of rural life, and in particular in the context of an emerging literature on rural masculinities. It focuses on rural men and in particular on the phenomenon of rising male rural suicide rates.

Military occupations are continually evolving in relation to the geopolitical changes of societies, their conflicts and conflict management strategies, and technological developments in military hardware and software. Military occupations studies undertaken by the academy have been key to informing government strategy towards the maintenance of functioning armed forces. Since the 1950s, such studies have prioritised 'top-down' quantitative sociological methodologies. This paper reviews these studies and the role of the dominant Institutional/Occupational model. The paper then considers less influential 'bottom up' interpretive methodological studies of military occupations. It is suggested that the reliance on 'top down' modelling approaches has led to the paucity of studies describing the range and experiential detail of military occupations. The Military-Academy nexus, and the priorities of the discipline of sociology are suggested as reasons for this emphasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents guidelines for authors who wish to contribute articles to the coming issues of "The Journal of Historical Sociology." Four copies of the manuscript should be sent to the responsible editor. All contributions should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 100 words, and a brief biographical note including institutional affiliation. These should each be typed on separate sheets. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be returned. Submissions are first read by responsible editors, and may be rejected without further review. Those wished to consider further will then be sent to external referees. The journal aims to give authors a decision within fours months, though people cannot guarantee always to do so. That decision may be a conditional or unconditional acceptance, a rejection, or an invitation to revise and resubmit. Once a paper has been accepted for publication, one must provide a final text that strictly conforms to the guidelines. Papers that do not meet these guidelines will be returned to authors for correction.

As a confluence of unique values and activities, the collective practice of community psychology is difficult to characterize in a simple way. Increasingly, however, professional contexts are laden with pressure to define any practice-from library work to medical interventions-in the orderly, compact language of traditional science. This trend has historically been resisted in the field by those sensing a fundamental lack of fit between the fluid, emergent aspects of community psychological practice and the fixed, precise language of classic science. In response to this “language-practice gap,” some have attempted to adapt the traditional language of science to better fit the field’s practice, while others have explored alternative languages of practice seemingly more indigenous to the messy “swamp” of actual communities. While the former effort leaves some theoretical contradictions intact, the latter tends to discount scientific identity entirely. This paper proposes a potential step forward by resituating questions of disciplinary language and identity within a current philosophical discourse where the nature of social science itself remains sharply contested. This suggests shifting attention away from “should webe a science?” to “what kindof science might we be after all?”; in turn, alternative languages may be re-cast as legitimate contributors to a kind of science more authentic to human communities-even a viable “science in the swamp.” One such language-philosophical hermeneutics-is presented as a particularly valuable supplement to traditional science. Illustrations highlight ways that hermeneutics may advance the formal language of the field towards a closer fit of what actually happens in practice, while preserving and even bolstering the empirical rigor and scientific identity of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests that the state is subject to assessment according to principles of social justice because state institutions or practices exercise forms of power over which no particular person has control. This rationale for assessment of social justice equally applies to legally optional or informal social practices. But it does not apply to individual conduct. Indeed, it follows that principles of social justice cannot provide a basis for the assessment and guidance of individual choice. The paper develops this practice-based conception of the subject of justice by rejoining G. A. Cohen's influential critique of Rawls’ focus on the“basic structure” of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT:This paper is a re-examination of the issue of objectivity in sociology. Though it begins from the premise that objectivity is a necessary precondition for a minimally scientific sociology, it sides with subjectivists who claim that values are ever present in investigation. Values are shown to exist along a continuum in investigation. The paper develops the argument that objectivity is a value itself and is nested in other values that will take on a contextual character dependent upon disciplines. Two brief research examples are used to illustrate the way in which objectivity is transferred (or fails to get transferred) through three different levels in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Wright Mills's arguments in The Sociological Imagination are very popular and this paper focuses on the biographical context in which his programmatic statements were occasioned. This breaks new ground by locating The Sociological Imagination and earlier programmatic statements in the professional and personal travails that motivated them. This approach is adopted in order to display the intersection between biography and sociology in Mills's life and career, a feature that he made a central part of sociology's promise. The paper utilizes this approach to reflect on the reasons why The Sociological Imagination became so popular and was able to transcend Mills's general unpopularity at the time of his death: and as part of the explanation of why the dismissal of the book on its publication contrasts with the contemporary view, enabling it to transpose successfully to a time significantly different than at its writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper examines some of the major topics that legal psychology began to focus on at the end of the last century.Aim: The purpose is to contend that such topics (the reliability of ear-witness testimony, the conducting of identification parades/line ups, the interviewing of suspects, the interviewing of vulnerable witnesses/victims) are deserving of greater attention in this new century.Conclusions: Legal psychologists should be brave enough to research with methodological rigour complex, real-world topics of importance to society and to advise relevant professional groups on how to improve their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reveals contemporary transformations of the interaction between Islam and secular states from opposition to engagement. In-depth ethnographic evidence challenges the predominant juxtaposition of Islam against the secular state. Following micro-sites of interaction between the Gülen movement and the state from Turkey to Kazakhstan, my fieldwork revealed a continuum of engagements between them. The paper analyses the engagements ranging from contestation and negotiation to co-operation. The case illustrates the extent to which scholarly interest in opposition and clash has left a wide-ranging variety of state-Islam interaction understudied with regard to civil society. It also reveals the conditions under which effective Islamic horizontal organizations have provided the platforms of vertical engagements with the secular states. The major argument of the paper is that both civil and uncivil outcomes in the Muslim world are primarily shaped by the nature of state—Islam interaction. The evidence suggests that the key to understanding the relationship between Islam and civil society is the state.

In this era of reflexive sociology it is commonplace that subjectivity is of great sociological concern, and that the comprehension by social researchers of their own subject position is essential. Still, old habits die hard. Focusing on selected texts in the sociology of the Australian family, this paper traces the effects of failing to focus the sociological gaze on subjectivity and its variation across society. Highlighted are some patterns of analytic misconstruction of subjectivity, especially the substitution of measurement for a theory of practice, and the projection by sociologists of their own class-specific subjectivity onto society at large. Ultimately, this misconstruction turns works like those discussed in this paper into a powerful denial of alternative subjectivities, and a reinforcement of the socially dominant perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comments on that article "Sociology and political arithmetic: some principles of a new policy science," by Hugh Lauder, Phillip Brown and A.H Halsey in this issue of "The British Journal of Sociology." The article's main point is that sociology is more open than the other social sciences and therefore more suited to open democratic public debate At the same time the authors argue that openness must not be confused with epistemological relativism because that simply produces argument without any basis for closure except by exhaustion. What is welcome is the argument that policy debates need to engage the wider public The authors' ideal of "political arithmetic" has a democratic pedigree that can hardly be gainsaid.

This paper advances the position that sociology needs to develop an approach to research which focuses on fundamental social problems. In doing so it shares many of the intellectual values and goals of political arithmetic while seeking to move methodologically beyond it. Since such problems are complex they will require, typically, interdisciplinary input and a concomitant approach to the development and appraisal of theories. We are not, therefore, advocating the primacy of sociology but arguing that it has a distinctive part to play in addressing the fundamental problems of the twenty-first century. However, a policy-oriented sociology has also to take up the task, so clearly defined by the tradition of political arithmetic, which is to hold governments to account. Consequently a central principle of a new policy science is that it should contribute to democratic debate about policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists appear to have abandoned the study of serious mental illness. This paper argues that the work of the disability theorists provides new directions for an analysis of the plight of people suffering from serious mental illness. Disability theory, revolving around a 'social approach to disability', redirects analysis from the individual to processes of social oppression, discrimination and exclusion. The application of the ideas of disability theorists to the study of mental ill health will orient research and theoretical development towards an analysis of the complexity and multiplicity of the social restrictions faced by people diagnosed as 'mentally ill', and the social disadvantage and oppression they face. A number of vigorous debates within the disability theory literature are examined. One debate addresses the political and theoretical implications of identifying the differences that exist between people with disabilities. A second debate examines the relative importance of including an analysis of impairment in the social approach to disability. Finally, the paper discusses the critique of medical sociology, linking illness with disability, which is advanced by some disability theorists. This debate is particularly concerned with the linking of illness with disability and the ideological and conceptual disadvantages of a focus on illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a conundrum that merits scholarly attention--why social scientists' ability to generate high quality research has outpaced their ability to disseminate research into the policymaking process. The paper describes Family Impact Seminars, a series of seminars, briefing reports, and follow-up activities that provide up-to-date, solution-oriented information to state policymakers. In support of the proposed "three-communities" theory, the utilization of research in policymaking appears to depend upon several pragmatic practices and procedures, ten which are detailed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent challenge of Dynamical Systems Theory (also known as ComplexityTheory or Chaos Theory) to the social sciences, is based largely on the beliefthat processes in the social arena can be considered as analogous to those of the natural world, and that in consequence general theoretical advances in explaining the latter might with advantage be applied to the former. This paper aims to show that claims for Dynamical Systems Theory with respect to the understanding or measurement of social processes would be premature; the reasons for this lying not only in the unfamiliarity and operational difficulties of Dynamical Systems Theory in itself, but also in the problematic nature and history of our usage of the term 'social process'. Reviewing some examples of such usage from Sociology and Social Psychology, it is concluded that Dynamical Systems Theory might serve as a catalyst for a re-examination of existing orthodoxies and major concepts, but that progress would be retarded by the uncritical application of it's terminology, concepts, and techniques of mathematical modelling, without this prior and demanding first step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Significant changes have occurred to the way in which children in the society are perceived. Such changing environment has both impacted upon and been influenced by social researchers. Today, researchers have recognized the significance of directly recording children's own perspectives. Social researchers are more likely to be engaged in research with children rather than just research on children. Meanwhile, experience in listening to and involving children in research is still relatively new and raises a number of vital ethical and methodological questions. It is the significance, relevance and the complexity of these questions that has prompted the June 1996 issue of the periodical "Children & Society."

The article focuses on stereotypes about gender differences in emotional communication or expression, as opposed to emotional experience or recognition. Expressiveness includes measurable changes in either the use of words, the facial and vocal characteristics associated with emotion, physiological arousal, or behaviors such as aggression or crying. The possibility that gender differences in emotional expression may be specific to certain situations is often ignored. For example, a series of recent widely cited papers have suggested that while females express dysphoric emotions more in words and facial expressions, males express these emotions more through physiological responses, as measured by increased heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure. Several papers are based on studies of couples' physiological responses, monitored during conflict situations in which wives confront husbands with feelings of marital dissatisfaction. In these conflict-laden interactions, husbands often show increased physiological arousal, while wives do not.

The article is an excursion into the heart of what many risk assessors consider the most frightening territory imaginable. It deals with two kinds of dread. The first is dread expressed by the general public toward certain kinds of facilities and technologies— the second is the dread in the scientific and technical community that proposed facilities or development plans will inspire just such reactions. The article is divided into four main sections. The first provides an overview of the growing literature on public perceptions of risks, emphasizing the three often-implicit but dramatically different models of public rationality that are revealed therein - models of ignorance/irrationality, of selfishness, and of prudence. The second section presents a close look at the available evidence for each of the three perspectives. The third section takes note of the dramatically differing policy ramifications of the three competing perspectives and explores the implications of an observation that is a theme throughout the paper-that there seems to have been a greater influence of policy discussions on empirical research than vice versa. The fourth section sketches the outlines of alternative approaches that appear to hold promise for increasing the relative influence of empirical findings in the future.

This paper brings together recently developed perspectives m science studies and the historical sociology of state formation. It focuses on how scientific and government practices together construct the relationalities, identities, natures, and material environments of the bodies that constitute the modern state. The paper argues that the modem state is an effect of these practices, a techno- scientific political formation in which political government and scientific practice are woven together in a heterogeneous yet definitive network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the sociology of moral panic, this paper argues that the media will shift from alarming to reassuring coverage when a `hot crisis' portends a possible grass root panic. To determine whether this moderation effect follows from dread-inspiring events that are developing in unpredictable and potentially threatening ways, the paper compares newspaper and magazine coverage of emerging diseases with their coverage of Ebola Zaire. The results reveal that the mutation-contagion package, with its frightful account of emerging diseases, was quickly abandoned and subverted during the Ebola epidemic. In its place, the media fashion a containment package that uses a strategy of 'othering' to allay the fear. The conclusion discusses the flexibility in the tool kits used by the media to frame events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the career of the concept scientific community through three discernible stages. The formative stages is presented by Ludwik Fleck's Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. It was learned that one of the early expositions of the theme that scientific knowledge is socially conditioned, Fleck's work revolves around the correlative concepts of thought collective and thought style. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was discussed. Stage three in the career of the concept scientific community is marked by criticism and the development of alternative models. During the 1960s and 70s, the view prevailed among metascientists that scientific knowledge is produced by communities of specialists. In the works of leading contemporary philosophers of science, as in many historical studies, the existence of scientific communities was assumed without question or argument. Kuhn's paper represents a watershed in the histories of both the concept itself and the entire discipline of sociology of science. Social integration in science was considered a result of a consensus about strategic norms or standards. Findings on the examination of the concept scientific community through the related works of Kuhn and Fleck, the Polish scientist and scientist knowledge, was presented.

This paper offers an analysis of the continuing crisis in sociology that is different from those that have appeared in the literature. In contrast to the ideological and technical readings, it suggests that the origins of the crisis are to be found in the hermeneutic challenge that has resulted from the linguistic and multicultural turns. Both of these developments have given rise to new discourses within the academy that are competing with subfields such as the sociology of the arts and race/ethnic relations. The nature and impact of this new competition is examined in greater detail through the case of the sociology of race. The analysis reveals that these competitive challenges are hermeneutic in nature and not primarily technical or ideological. The paper concludes with some suggestions for crisis resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on R.E. Pahl's paper on the use of class theory in urban and regional research. The title of Pahl's paper refers to the adequacy of sociological theory in urban and regional research, the paper is usually a critical discussion of the adequacy of social class as an explanatory concept. More specifically, it is a criticism of an approach within sociology which first takes the employment structure to represent classes and then proceeds to derive explanations and interpretations of social behavior from this class structure. Some of his criticisms of some aspects of class analysis are valid, they do not justify the rejection of class analysis in its entirety. An extensive range of topics and different approaches are encompassed within sociological discussions of social class and Pahl's discussion does not always make clear which aspect he is concerned to reject. Pahl may have criticized class analysis for failing to specify the links in the chain, but there are some very important missing links in his own argument.

This article presents two reports on the Eleventh World Congress of Sociology, that was organized in New Delhi in August 1986. If there is any unity across cultures among sociologists or others working in this field, it is provided neither by shared theories or concepts, nor by a common choice of topic studied, except in a very loose sense. Rather the international research community in our field is sustained through the sharing of a general perspective on society, a methodology and a more or less common Marxist-leftist political attitude. Political attitude is at least as important as the other two features, and is perhaps the key to a characterization of the events at the Delhi conference. The attitude of socio-political concern and engagement seems to be most productive in research terms when it is a counter-strategy, working in opposition to the dominant economic-political tendencies of a given society. This position was largely absent from the first world research reported. On the other hand, the moment it either becomes part of the political power structure or finds itself paralleling the efforts of the dominating parts it formerly saw as opponents, it faces a crisis. Such positions characterized the first and second world research presented.

Rural Sociology began and continues as a medium of intellectual exchange for scholars concerned with rural issues. For fifty years editors have tried to publish articles that make social science useful, that bring the most relevant theory and methods of a particular time to bear on rural problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an index of various literature on rural sociology.

Presents minutes of the Council Meeting on August 26, 1973. Attendees; Speakers; Balance sheet for the 1973-1974 proposed budget.

Because women are the majority sex, it has been easy to avoid seeing gender discrimination as an example of prejudice. As men and women are in constant contact with each other, it has been possible to avoid viewing the problems of discrimination in a vein similar to those of racial discrimination. Yet if we refer to Allport's 1954 contact hypothesis, we see that he said, "Prejudice . . . may be reduced by equal-status contact between majority and minority groups in the pursuit of common goals. The effect is greatly enhanced if this contact is sanctioned by institutional supports . . . and if it is of a sort that leads to the perception of common interests and a common humanity between members of two groups" (p. 281). The essay on which I have been asked to comment (Capshew & Laszio, 1986) includes clear examples of how the contact between male and female psychologists during World War II was far from "equal-status." Therefore we should not be surprised that it did nothing to integrate female psychologists into a presumed egalitarian profession. In all examples given in the paper, it is clear that both the males and the females involved perceived the males as having a dominant, as well as a dominating, role. There was little of the "perception of common interests," nor even of the "common humanity" Allport felt was necessary for the intergroup contact to lessen prejudice.

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According to its critics, the "old" secularization paradigm has been tried, convicted, and executed by recent scholarship in the social sciences of religion, and is being replaced by a "new" (postsecularization) paradigm which highlights the continued vitality of religion in modern societies. This paper argues that claims to have definitively refuted secularization theory are exaggerated. It mounts a defense of a neosecularization paradigm which retains the core insights of the old paradigm while incorporating criticisms leveled against the hubris and laziness of some deployments of the concept of "secularization." Following Chaves (1994), this paper argues that the core of neosecularization theory is the proposition that secularization means not the decline of religion but the declining scope of religious authority at the individual, organizational, and societal levels of analysis. Three exemplars of this perspective in the area of religion and politics are highlighted: the work of Hertzke (1988), Demerath and Williams (1992), and Casanova (1994). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the belief in and reverence for superhuman beings cannot be understood as the chief distinguishing characteristic of religious phenomena. The consideration of Buddhism has always been central to the discussion of what religion is, and this paper focuses on the limitations of the human-superhuman dichotomy as it might be used to apply to Buddhist traditions. The argument makes three points: a) There are important sects of Buddhism that do not rely on reverence for superhuman beings, and the concept "superhuman" is difficult (if not impossible) to use in cross-cultural studies because of cultural variations in what it means to be human; b) the insistence that "philosophies" should be systematically distinguished from "religions" is arbitrary and culturally biased; and c) Buddhist doctrines that assert that reality is ultimately "nondual" provide the conceptual context for understanding superhuman beings in Mahayana, and this conceptuality is not consonant with superhuman definitions of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine facilitative aspects of field research with deviant Street populations. Based on the authors' research with the homeless and with male Street prostitutes, the facilitative aspects include access to settings, social relationships, acquisition of information, and the maintenance of researcher interest. The authors argue that in each of these aspects street deviants may in some ways be easier to study than other populations. The paper concludes with suggestions for maximizing the efficiency and quality of fieldwork with specific deviant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an historical survey of problems arising in German mathematics during the rise and rule of National Socialism. Underlying this effort is the goal of developing a theoretical understanding of the social history of scientific disciplines in modern societies. The first part of the paper gives a brief description of the social system of mathematics and the characteristics of National Socialism. Second, an analysis of the background and structure of the attempt to construct a ‘German’ mathematics related to Nazi-ideology is given. This appears as an anti-modernist movement prompted by the rise of mathematical formalism. The basic relations between mathematical and political thought are analyzed and the reasons for the failure of the ‘German’ movement discussed. The third section examines the integration of mathematics into Nazi-German society, focusing on the twin processes of adaptation and resistance by professional societies. It is argued that social differentiation within the system of mathematics, as well as its modern cognitive and social universality, were preconditions of adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

his paper examines the claim that positivism and humanism are mutually exclusive alternatives to the study and amelioration of human society. In the first part of the paper, eight theses normally associated with twentieth-century positivism are documented and explicated at length, ranging from the verification doctrine and the unified-language thesis to an emphasis on the nomological-deductive model of explanation and the fact-value distinction. In the second part the claims associated with a humanistic sociology are then examined, particularly those concerning scientism, the value-laden character of all scientific inquiry, and the relation between science and human emancipation. In the third part of the paper a distinction is between those claims which were definitive of positivism and those which were either peripheral or later amended by the leading positivists. It is then argued that a number of the criticisms leveled against positivism such as the latter's supposed affirmation of strict determinism, of scientism, and that normative considerations, being nondescriptive in character, are of little consequence, are entirely unfounded criticisms. Such claims were never an explicit part of the positivist program. On the contrary, it is argued that both contemporary positivism and humanism are motivated by parallel ideals of enlightenment-through-science, by a concern with reliable social knowledge as the basis for rational public policies, and—to quote Hempel—with ‘the broadening of our (moral) horizons.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ social action with reference to recent research in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Evidence is presented in support of the proposal that a taken for granted model of conversational interaction is used by analysts, both lay and professional, as a comparative reference point against which certain actions are categorized as ‘formal’. Such a procedure, it is suggested, results in evaluative interpretations which fail to address the question of how such interactions may be operating to produce orderliness in the settings where they are found. This theme is developed mainly in relation to the way a number of recurrent features of multiparty interaction may provide practical solutions to a general problem which appears to be common to all such settings, namely that of how to create and preserve the conditions for sustaining the shared attentiveness of all co-present parties to the proceedings at hand. The general themes are also briefly considered with reference to small-scale interactions that are likely to be regarded as ‘formal’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of Basil Bernstein's work on language in relation to education and child rearing is widely recognized, but his contributions to the sociology of the school are less well-known. It is not the purpose of this article to make an extended critique of the theoretical and other propositions made in Bernstein's series of writings, but to report an attempt to put some of them to the empirical test. The results of the investigation give only limited support for some of the propositions made by Bernstein about the sociology of the school. This statement must be qualified by a number of reservations. Firstly, the variables used to test the propositions were not constructed for this specific purpose, and may not therefore represent the best use of the concepts involved. Secondly, they do not cover all the examples suggested by Bernstein. Thirdly, the schools to which the measures apply are secondary schools. With these reservations, the results suggest that Bernstein's explanation of the relationship between the different aspects of the school should be reconsidered. The explanations appear to be based upon an adaptive view of education, in which its form and change are determined by, or closely related to, the nature of and changes in superordinate sectors of society.

In this paper, I reflect on the life and work of Everett Hughes. I discuss the similarities and differences between his writings and those of Robert Park; I describe his biographical influences and the use he made of marginality; I consider the relevance of his professional commitments for contemporary sociology and his unique vision of sociology's mission. I conclude by calling for renewed interest in his concepts and principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflexive predictions are self-defeating or self-fulfilling. However, it was shown that in most cases of self-defeating public predictions of social events conceptually at least one correct prediction exists. Unfortunately the term "reflexive prediction" is applied in the literature to quite distinct phenomena. A. Grünbaum, moreover, argued that reflexive prediction occurs also in the natural sciences using as example the fire-control system which "obeys only natural laws." The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, it clarifies the terminological confusion Second, it argues that every man-made tool (fire-control systems are tools) obeys natural laws and so does the person. The question of a person's higher functions, such as expectation and decision is only acknowledged. The conclusions are (1) that there is a fundamental difference between reaction to public (predictive) utterances and reaction to discriminatory behavior based on private prediction. (2) The reflexivity of public prediction is a phenomenon characteristic of the social sciences. … at least as long as these disciplines are set apart from the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framing this paper is the question: what research problem and hypotheses suggested by symbolic interaction theory give promise, if pursued, of significantly advancing the sociology of the family? The problem delineated revolves around the concepts of identity and commitment. After explication of a set of premises and needed refinements in concepts basic to symbolic interaction theory, a number of hypotheses are offered. These purport to account for the position of identities in a salience hierarchy and tie identity salience to role performance. Finally, it is noted that these hypotheses could profitably be studied in the research setting of responses to first pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Professional opportunities abroad; Announcements of events; Career developments of sociology professionals; Theses and dissertations.

This paper examines and describes patterns of migration, changes in birth rates, and the relationship of these two factors for the rural and urban population in state economic areas of 13 North Central States, 1940–1950. Analysis of the data clearly shows the concentration of population through net in-migration in the rural parts of metropolitan areas, and especially in the older and larger metropolitan areas. The 64 state economic areas of net in-migration had gains of 19, 36, and 14 per cent in total, rural, and urban population, respectively. The 109 areas of net out-migration maintained a stationary total population, lost 5 per cent in rural population, and gained 10 per cent in urban population. Areas of net in-migration showed a numerical increase of 7.2 births per 1,000 population, 1940–1950, and those of net out-migration an increase of only 4.6. Areas showing the rural-in, urban-out migration pattern had the largest increase, 7.5, while the rural-out, urban-out areas had the least increase, 3.8. The data point up the need for expanded study of the various demographic, social, and economic factors affecting migration and fertility and their relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to what might be regarded as a basic postulate in sociology, when a number of persons are in interaction over a period of time, mutual expectations and norms develop concerning the behavior of the persons involved, and the individual's actions are not independent of these norms and expectations. the postulate is the basis of the hypothesis that relationships among neighbors affect many of the individual operator's decisions concerning the farm business. The author of this paper seeks to test the hypothesis that the extent to which farm operators adopt recommended farm practices is, in part, a function of the operator's neighborhood of residence.

In this article, the author describes how Leo Pfeffer, the author of the paper entitled, "Issues That Divide," has contributed among other things a unique, highly useful, and systematic cataloguing of the principal issues around which Catholic-non-Catholic tensions and conflicts have developed and exist in America today. This brief postscript to his paper is intended to highlight some of the sociological and social psychological implications of what he has to say on this subject. As it is implied, the essential nature of Catholic-non-Catholic conflict makes it unlikely that such conflict will disappear in the natural course of events in the foreseeable future. Its control requires a more adequate understanding of its process than the social sciences can supply at present.

This article presents Peter M. Hall's response to Rosabeth Moss Kanter's comments toward his article "A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of Politics," published in the 1972 issue of "Sociological Inquiry." The author concludes that Kanter misunderstands his perspective by subsuming it under American liberalism. If there is anything that he is not, it is an American liberal, and if there is anything he is criticizing in American sociology, political sociology, and symbolic interaction, it is consensual, pluralistic, and liberal bias. Hall also does not deny the need to see the totality of the society, its interdependencies, feedbacks, and impacts, in short, society as a system. To settle misconceptions, Hall emphasized that his paper had a special focus and set limits as to its goals and coverage. It was not intended to be a complete analysis of politics nor a complete analysis of American politics.