Search

Profiles William G. McLoughlin. Education; Works in American history of religion and the Cherokee Nation; Awards, fellowships and grants received; Membership in historical organizations; Teaching career; Services to the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island; Role in the American Civil Liberties Union; Credo.

The problem of attaining conformity to a set of distinctive normative family values in a rapidly changing, pluralistic society is related to the normal functioning of such a social system as it moves toward a workable equilibrium, inasmuch as family norms tend to be modified in terms of dominant cultural beliefs, while related elements in the culture are adjusted accordingly. This statement implies that an enduring society has functional prerequisites, that one element of a culture requires others, and that there exists a close interrelationship between the family and other relevant institutions. Finally, it is suggested that members of the American Catholic minority are facing additional problems in achieving conformity because of their increased mobility and outmoded system of religious indoctrination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

flue of the expressed purposes of The American Catholic Sociological Society is to present the sociological implication of Catholic thought. This aim assumes the existence of a set of sociologically revelant conceptions of an identifiably Catholic derivation. An analysis of social and religious systems indicates that these conceptions are related to a distinctive Catholic definition of the human agent and supply the ultimate premises of values or social goals which a system should strive to achieve. By studying the social means required to implement en t these goals, sociologists throw considerable light on the social nature of man and on the junctional exigencies of his essential social needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author presents his findings on the active membership of one association in the U.S. organized to promote the interests of the Catholic family, the Cana Conference of Chicago. His objective is to stimulate more adequate studies of the characteristics of those who engage in such voluntary associations. It attempts to offer some insight into the types of couples who are attracted to active participation in the Cana movement. The author begins with a brief description of the family movement of which the Chicago Conference forms a part. The Cana Conference represents one of the major contemporary family movements in the U.S. The conference is an all-day or half-day meeting of married couples at which the various means of making marriage and family life a success are developed and discussed under the guidance of a trained director. The conferences generally cover the basic' principles of family life, the sacramental nature of marriage, the statuses and roles of husband and wife, the physical, psychological, and spiritual characteristics of family relationships, parent education, domestic economics, and various other related subjects. The author concludes by making several suggestions on the basis of his findings.

This article discusses the trends in the study of the family and addresses the major issues in contemporary family theory and research. It is convenient to distinguish three main periods in American sociological writing on the family, the period from 1895 to 1914, from 1915 to 1926 and from 1927 to the present. During the first period, interest was centered on the origin and evolution of the family and its forms in primitive and historic society, an evaluation of family changes since the industrial revolution and contemporary problems of the family. Sociologists stressed the institutional aspects of the family and much of their writing was concerned with family problems and social legislation. The second period was characterized by an increasing use of statistical methods to produce quantitative studies of divorce, birth rates and family size, continued interest in the primitive family, and prolonged discussion of the changing status of women. During this period the traditional moral code regulating sex was seriously questioned and there was evidence that the concept of the relativity of the mores had finally entered sociological thinking. The chief characteristic of the third period is the shift from the institutional to the interactional and processual approach.