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The article describe the shop steward-training program of the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers which is operated jointly with the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers. Due to the emergence of trade unionism throughout the U.S. industry, new needs and new jobs were created for international unions. The objective of the training of union stewards in the pulp and paper industry is to stimulate activity among the men and women who represent the local union. The activity will depends upon the local union and the location of the community.

The 1946 Committee on Contributed Papers of the American Sociological Society, has several suggestions to offer: If sufficient interest is shown in the Section of the contributed papers published in a section of the periodical "American Sociological Review," the section should be continued, since it gives opportunity for younger men and women to appear on the program and become known to the Society. More- over, it stimulates the interest of the younger sociologists in the meetings. This year 20 papers were submitted; last year there were only 8. An opportunity to appear on the program of the Society, together with the possibility of publication in the periodical apparently is desired, as evidenced not only by the number of papers submitted but by the fact that both years every participant, upon the acceptance of his manuscript, has immediately signified his intention of being present to read his paper. It would be well for the Committee to be appointed early enough for it to get well underway in the spring. During the last two years, the Committee has been handicapped by not getting underway until the summer or fall.

The article reports some trends in the relative emphasis devoted to different specialties within the field of sociology in the U.S. since World War II. According to the author, sociology has grown since World War II in the number of courses taught, the number of people who make their living as sociologist and the amount of research done. The field has expanded so rapidly that virtually all special areas of interest within the field have shared in the general growth. As proportions of the total, however, some areas of specialization have gained at the expense of others. In the article sources of information used to asses trends in sociology include fields of interest listed by members for American Sociological Association directory, papers read at annual meetings of the Association, papers published in the journal "American Sociological Review" and course listings in college catalogs. The author states that in analyzing and interpreting the data, he had to make certain assumptions, which may be debatable. The author makes no ambitious claims for the absolute validity of interpretations.

Information about what wass discussed at the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) meeting that was held in March 1961 is presented. The funds that were made available for the publishing of meetings has increased from 248 to 356 and the contributing institutions went from 69 to 99. With that being noted, the average number of papers per institution has remained constant during the growth, even though the number of papers presented ranged from one to 25 per institution.

President of the American Sociological Society Louis Wirth is planning for a Section on Contributed Papers for the next annual meeting that is to be held in New York from December 28 to 30, December, 1947. Although this Section is particularly de- signed for those younger members of the Society, including graduate students, who have not yet had an opportunity to appear on the pro- gram in other sections, contributions from other members of the Society will be welcome. Since this Committee is working closely with the Committee on Research, it is being urged that members who have completed research papers suitable for oral presentation and which do not fall within the scope of other Sections be offered for consideration in the Section on Contributed Papers.

The article analyzes the grades of several undergraduate term papers from the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences in the U.S. Based from the data gathered, both markings and commentary appeared to be sued merely as a record of achievement symbolized by the letter grade. Under the coding analysis for expressions relating to thinking processes, no paper had less than a total of seven markings. Upon examination of the marks of term papers, one can see that their teaching practices reflect more of a parochializing effect than an encouragement of thoughtfulness.

The article suggests ways on how to improve the quality of college English education in the U.S. According to the author, one way to improve the English classes is through careful selection of student applicants on the part of the admission officers. Another important step toward improving the English of college students is to instruct every faculty member to teach English consciously. The author also suggests that the English department should maintain a clinic to which culprits of badly written English papers may be sent for help.

The Committee on Contributed Papers, consisting of board members Harrington C. Brearley, Otis Dudley Duncan, and Edmund H. Volkart, in collaboration with the Program Committee, is planning to make wide use of contributed papers at the next annual meeting of the society to be held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In addition to the allocation of contributed papers to appropriate sessions, and to scheduling the papers on current research, the committee is considering the feasibility of distributing, at the time of registration, mimeographed abstracts of highly specialized research. Interested persons and groups can then hold informal discussions with the authors of papers at various scheduled times throughout the three-day period. Adequate facilities are available for such specialized discussions. The committee will review all papers sent to the chairman prior to April 1, 1952, and will select those best suited to the general sessions or to the specialized ones. Precedence will be given to reports of recent empirical research, and contributions of this nature prepared by student members and recent doctorates are welcome. Members who wish to submit papers are urged to complete them as soon as possible and to communicate with Edmund H. Volkart, Center for Field Studies, 20 Oxford Street, Cambridge 38, Massachusetts.

This paper presents several methods of analyzing a time series in conjunction with variables which are available only for census years. Within the framework of diffusion theory, the time series of automobile registrations per capita is examined first in terms of the existence, extent, and pattern of variation over the years 1910 to 1969. By means of simple graphic techniques, measures of central tendency, interannual correlations, and smallest-space analysis, turning-points in temporal variation are established. Cross-sectional path analysis with collateral social and economic variables at these important junctures permits substantive interpretation of the pattern of automobile diffusion in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Department of Sociology, The university of Rochester, October, 1966. The paper was written while the author was on leave of absence from the Department of Sociology, Syracuse University, as a visiting scholar at the Laboratory for Social Research, Stanford University. This investigation was supported in part by a Public Health Service fellowship MH 23,804-01 from the National Institute of Mental health. Much of the background for this paper was obtained while the author was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences, Stanford University (1964-1966) and the Laboratory for Social Research, Stanford University (1966-1967). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article cites a study, which deals with the scientific communication associated with the 1968 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The study reported here is the first in this series for educational research. Presentations at the 1968 annual meeting of AERA constituted a set of core events in relation to which communication was assessed. Three groups of persons having contact with these presentations were included in the study: authors, those who made presentations at the meeting; attendants, those who heard these presentations; and requesters, those who requested copies of the presentations from the authors. All 349 authors who presented papers were sent questionnaires. The questionnaire concerned the inception, nature, and previous as well as planned dissemination of the work they reported; the authors' current activities in those subject areas discussed in their presentations; and the effect upon these activities of scientific information exchanged at the meeting. The study assessed: how much of the program material had been submitted for journal publication during the ensuing year; which journals had been selected; and how many authors had neither submitted nor planned to submit manuscripts to journals based on their meeting presentations.

Building on the work of the United Methodist Task Force on Religious indicators, this paper reviews developments in the field of social indicators and makes some suggestions for religion, in the area of social indicators, brief mention is made of the work of NASA, the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the Social Science Research Council, and several federal agencies, concluding with funding by the National Science Foundation of several research projects. Attention is called to a new interest in the study of religion and to developments in organized religion which may favor work on religious indicators. A progress report on the work of the task force includes a review of several unpublished papers dealing with such topics as social indicators of religion, religious institutions, interfaith indicators, black church, national sample data, psychological factors, and theoretical considerations. Some specific suggestions are made looking toward more adequate religious indicators in the 1970's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a news brief related to research at the University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center in Minnesota, as of July 1, 1972. The research of faculty members Mahmood Zaidi and Mario Bognanno is highlighted. Topics of research at the institute include labor unions, organizational behavior, and personnel management.

The article presents several official reports and proceedings of various societies of the U.S., published in the December 1940 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review." The report of the "American Sociological Society," provides a very good answer to the question of what is possible in the way of making a living by taking sociology. The census of membership has revealed that sociologists who are members of the Society are employed in nearly 250 different types of occupations. Alfred McClung Lee, chairman of "Committee on Public Relations," is anxious that all papers to be given at the annual meetings should be in his hands. The Committee needs these papers early in order to aid newsmen in the proper selection and presentation of material and thus lessen the danger that the society and persons on the program may be presented to the public in a bad light because of hasty, ill-considered or out-of-context reporting. The press is only too happy to cooperate in this matter, but it cannot be done to the best advantage unless the Committee can get copies of the papers early. Every paper read at annual meetings becomes the property of the society, chairmen of divisions and sections should so inform the participants on their programs and collect and turn over to the secretary or editor all papers presented.

By vote of the executive committee of the American Sociological Society, the 1951 Annual Meeting will be held in Chicago on September 5, 6, and 7, 1951. This will overlap, on September 5, with the meeting in the same city of the American Psychological Association. The hotel which will serve as headquarters for the annual meeting has not yet been selected. Those who are interested in presenting papers at the 1951 meeting of the American Sociological Society are invited to make known their interest by following the procedure outlined below. The Committee on Contributed Papers will handle submitted papers in one of two ways. If a paper appears to fall in an area covered by one of the sections of the meeting, it will be forwarded to the chairman of that section for his consideration otherwise it will be considered for inclusion in one of the three sessions of this committee. In general, the Committee on Contributed Papers is interested in research reports which can be read in fifteen minutes.

The article presents authors' reply to David F. Sly and Robert H. Weller. The authors have categorized their comments on two areas: theoretical considerations; and methodological and technical considerations. The authors says that the model discusses in their paper, derives from a long-standing sociological tradition, the data used, are standard, the use of indicators is conventional, and the interpretation flows rather naturally from the preceding elements. Sly and Weller indicate a remarkable unawareness of the massive pertinent literature of this tradition of analysis. They base their case on reified separation of behavioral and cultural aspects of social behavior from institutional and structural aspects. Within the context of action theory, the notion of the social system is a powerful ordering construct in sociology. When analyzing social systems, it is necessary to assume an intellectual construct of social system. This construct, when applied to particular real life systems, must assume that the operation of the system being analyzed is affected only by specifiable conditions previously established in the environment and by relations among the system's elements obtaining at the time of the analysis. In their paper, the authors specified the conterminous United States as a social system and the "Confederate" South as a sub-system for purposes of comparison and analysis.

Population study and sociology have shown a tendency toward convergence. From separate origins the fields have moved towards an increasing interdependence. All too seldom, however, has the relevance of sociological theory for demographic analysis been verified. Probably one of the more crucial questions in this connection is the relation between population characteristics and processes on the one hand and social values on the other. It is the task of this paper to indicate such a relationship and to reach this goal through an explanation of some observed demographic differentials by means of a particular sociological theory. This paper attempts to show by empirical and theoretical demonstration that the hypothesis is tenable for at least one city. Racial differentials constitute an important focus of this paper, but explaining an entire pattern of race relations represents a broader and more complex approach than that employed here. The data for the study are taken from an extensive demographic investigation of the Negroes of New Orleans.

This paper reports part of a study of social participation conducted in San Francisco in the spring of 1953. The investigation rested upon two main notions: First, that the major an individual occupies regulate the amount and nature of his participation in society. Second, that the social type of neighborhood in which an urbanite lives is an efficient indicator of his social participation and may be a significant factor in its own right in shaping his social participation. This paper is limited to an examination of the relationship between amount of formal association participation and certain of the individual status and neighborhood differences. Using the census tract scores, four census tracts were selected in San Francisco in which the study of social participation was conducted. Findings revealed that, men living in the high economic status neighborhoods belong to the greater number of associations, attend more frequently, and hold office more than men living in low economic status neighborhoods. Comparing the two high economic status neighborhoods, the low family status neighborhood contains relatively more men who belong to no formal associations, who never attend meetings if they do belong, and who do not. hold office than does the high family status neighborhood.

The article presents information about the journal "American Sociological Review." The Editorial Board, at its meeting in Philadelphia, December 27, 1939, decided that any member of the Society who is engaged in scholarly work may quote any material published in the Review, up to 500 words, without asking permission of the editor, provided that the user is not trying to make personal profit out of the author's or publisher's property, or to pass off as his own, work which is really that of another. Since all material in the Review is copyrighted, it is the property of the Society and its agent. The Editorial Board has the legal right to grant or withhold such permission. All members should encourage students to take advantage of the student subscription rate of $2.50. Letters from persons who are not actually members of the Society will not be printed. A number of matters were discussed at the Editorial Board meeting held in Philadelphia. For the benefit of the newer members of the Society, and as a reminder to others, it is perhaps advisable to make a statement regarding publication procedure and policy.

The article presents information on the preliminary program of the thirty-third annual meeting of the American Sociological Society to be held at Hotel Book Cadillac, Detroit, Michigan, from December 28-30, 1938. Papers to be presented on 28th include: "European Expansion and the Historical Process," by Robert E. Park, University of Chicago; and "The Negro in the State of Bahia, Brazil," by Donald Pierson, Fisk University. Papers to be presented on 29th include: "Social Participation and Social Intelligence," by F. Stuart Chapin, University of Minnesota; "Motivation of Human Actions in the Light of Time-Budget Data," by Pitirim A. Sorokin, Harvard University; and "Some Phases of Personality Development in Communities of White-Indian-Negro Mixture," by Guy B. Johnson, University of North Carolina. Papers to be presented on 30th include: "Objective Social Conditions, Social Status, and Corporate Organization," by Edward A. Shils, University of Chicago, and Herbert Goldhamer, Stanford University: and "The Professions and Social Structure," by Talcott Parsons, Harvard University.

This article presents information on the next annual meeting of the American Sociological Society. The next Annual Meeting will convene at Atlantic City, New Jersey during December 28-31, in co-operation with the other Social Sciences. Responsibility for naming participants rests with the chairmen of the Divisions and Sections in co-operation with the President. The Committee on Social Research sends to each chairman a list of research in progress as gathered in the annual census. While this is the chief source of program material, yet suggestions and advice on subjects or speakers will be welcomed, in the interest of a strong program. The executive committee has authorized the appointment of a Membership Committee, whose important function it is to strengthen the society by enlarging membership and the chairman has been chosen. Attention is called to the rule against two papers being read by any one member. Chairmen should make this clear in issuing invitations and members are supposed to decline to appear twice, though this should not necessarily apply to invitations to participate in the discussions which follow the reading of formal papers.

This article presents information on the activities of various sociological organizations and departments of sociology in universities in the U.S. "Rural Sociology," a new journal to be published quarterly, is being established this year by the Section on Rural Sociology of the American Sociological Society. The managing editor of this journal, which is to be published by The Louisiana State University Press, is T. Lynn Smith of Louisiana State University. The annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Conference will be held on April 18 and 19 in New Haven, Connecticut. The central topic of the Conference will be Social Theory and the Social Order. The annual Spring meeting of the Ohio Sociological Society will be held in Columbus, Ohio, April 24 and 25, 1936. The Pacific Sociological Society held its Seventh Conference, together with Coast Economists, at Mills College in Oakland, California, December 27-28. In September 1935, E. D. Tetreau, formerly analyst with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at Ohio State University, accepted a position at the University of Arizona as rural sociologist on The Experiment Station staff.

This paper examines the potential of the church as an effective force in community decision-making. Community leaders in 14 small, southern Ohio communities were identified. Data gathered from them indicated that the church has a great potential for influencing local decision-making. Over 90 per cent of the community influential: identified themselves as church members and over two-thirds attend two-thirds or more of the services. Many indicated the church was the organization which provided them with the greatest personal satisfaction. However, the influential: did not perceive the church as presently being very important in local decision-making. Less than one-half said the church was very important when compared with other community organizations. Church leaders and change agents should be made aware of this potential and help churches be- come more active in local decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a bibliography of publications on early childhood education in the U.S. including a collection of papers entitled "AAIB National Conference on Preschool Services for Visually Handicapped Children and Their Families," "Language and Learning Disorders of Pre-Academic Child: With Curriculum Guide," by Tina E. Bangs, "Temporal Learning: Dimensions in Early Learning Series," by Barbara D. Bateman, "An Outline of Piaget's Developmental Psychology for Students and Teachers," by Ruth M. Beard and "How to Raise a Brighter Child: The Case for Early Learning," by Joan Beck.

This article examines wage differences in the U.S. newspaper industry. This industry is composed of separated markets but homogeneous in most other characteristics. In his analysis, the author utilizes an intra-industry test. The article finds that lower wage levels in the industry are associated with market concentration. The article also finds that the influence of monopoly power in the product market is outweighed by monopsony in the labor market although product-market structure may also affect wage-rate levels.

The article reports on recommendations from the Federal Bar Council Committee on Labor Law concerning sweetheart contracts. Sweetheart arrangements, which can also take the form of "paper locals," are a threat to legitimate collective bargaining and union movements. There is a discussion of Title 29, United States Code, section 186, which was enacted as section 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 and is linked to the Taft-Hartley Act. State court injunctions and sweetheart unions are mentioned, as well as how to attack sweetheart contracts.

The article discusses a project entitled "The Causes of Industrial Peace Under Collective Bargaining," which was published by the U.S. National Planning Association between 1948 and 1953 in order to prove that industrial peace would result from collective bargaining. A total number of twelve case studies and eighteen companies were surveyed during the process. There are nine causes of industrial peace and these include the acceptance of the collective bargaining process by the management, the acceptance of private ownership by the union, etc.

The article presents news and notes related to industrial and labor relations in the U.S. as of July 1964. A major development at the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California in Berkeley, California has been the preparation of plans for a substantial expansion of the off-campus program. The scope of the research program reflects the impact of several significant developments within the last few years, particularly the formation of the Research and Training Program in Comparative Developmental Studies and the large grant from the Ford Foundation for a program of research and policy evaluation on Unemployment and the American Economy. In other news, the Community Service division of the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California in Los Angeles has expanded its staff and the scope of its activity. In response to suggestions from the California labor movement that the Institute could be of more service by providing facilities for action-oriented research in non-adversary areas, Fred Schmidt has been added to the staff.

The article presents a reply to the comments made by Herbert Hill on the paper, Unions and the Negro Community, published in the January 1964 issue of the "Industrial and Labor Relations Review." According to the author of the paper, the commentary has taken issues with three points: First there is the issue of whether or not Hill was stopped by committee members from testifying before the U.S. House subcommittee. Second, whether or not the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's effort to secure de-certification of anti-Negro trade unions failed. Third, whether or not the charge by Ernest Holmes that the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) barred him from membership and followed a policy of limiting the number of Negroes admitted to membership was withdrawn on the basis of a joint stipulation where the union agreed to continue its nondiscrimination policies. The author states that he has no disagreement with Hill on the question of decertifying criminatory unions. Hill claims that the stipulation ordered the ILGWU to do precisely what an investigation commissioner had ordered it to do earlier, but his quotation from the New York Times on July 2, 1962 does not support his contention.

This paper reexamines the changes in wages, unemployment, and prices in the post-World War II period .and considers the effects of unions on the relation between, wages and unemployment. Using a simple, linear model to predict changes in wages, from changes in unemployment rates, the author, shows that quarterly data and observations are more desirable than annual data, that average hourly earnings are more reliable wage 'measures than wage rates, and that during the Korean War period the Wage Stabilization Program reduced the closeness of the relationship between wage changes and unemployment rates. Evidence based upon a comparison of union wage rates mad of average hourly earnings of nonunion and union workers indicates that, in response to unemployment changes, the wage behavior of union labor markets can be distinguished from the wage response of non-union markets. The speed of adjustment of the market to Variations in unemployment is reduced and' a more erratic pattern of wage responses to changes in unemployment is introduced, presumably through non-economic forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the research paper by professor Harold Vatter published in an issue of the journal "Industrial and Labor Relations Review" which argues that three neglected influences on hours of work have impaired the conceptual validity of the short-run, backward-sloping supply curve of labor, at least for operationally significant wage levels in the U.S. economy. Overtime rates implies a much weaker income effect than straight-time rates, therefore the willingness to work longer hours for an overtime premium is perfectly consistent with a preference for shorter hours at higher straight-time rates.

As our provisions for economic security expand to cover more risks and more people, the American social security "system" grows increasingly complex. Much has been written on the relationships — actual and theoretical — between public and private pension programs, but only scanty information is available on the relationships between private health, welfare, and pension plans and our oldest social security program, workmen's compensation insurance. There are good reasons for this lack of information. Workmen's compensation has well-developed traditions of separatism. It functions under the aegis and direction of insurance companies, physicians, and attorneys. Until recently, compensation issues have received limited consideration from economists, political scientists, and industrial relations specialists. This paper, therefore, proposes to do two things: (1) It will describe and analyze some of the private plan provisions which are supplementing, duplicating, or perhaps undercutting state workmen's compensation plans and benefits. (2) It will discuss the implications these private provisions may have for the future of workmen's compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatively little work has been done on the contributions made to the American trade union movement by specific religious or ethnic groups. In the past we have published several papers dealing with the Catholic trade union movement in the United States. In this article the author analyzes the cultural, political, and ideological factors in the Jewish labor unions and other workers' organizations and their impact on the American scene generally, In the October issues a second article by the author will present an analysis of the history from World War I to our own day. This study was made possible by a grant from the American Jewish Committee and is published in this Review with the permission of the committee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The separation of the Conciliation Service from the U.S. Department of Labor, pursuant to the provisions of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, after 34 years in that Department, marked a turning point in the administration of the labormanagement relations policy. This paper is designed as a partial statement of the record of achievement of the Service while in the Department of Labor. It happens that the two years the writer spent as Director of the Service coincide with two landmark dates—V-J Day and the effective date of the Labor-Management Relations Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on recent developments related to people with disabilities in the U.S. Any person or group wishing to present a paper or make some sort of formal presentation at the 1973 Annual ACLD Conference, which will be held from March 15-17, 1972, in Detroit, Michigan, is invited to submit abstracts to the program chairman for the meeting. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words in length and must include sufficient information to judge adequately the contribution. For example, research papers must include a statement of the problem, procedures used, results, relevant implications, and so forth. Recordings of speeches by leading educators such as Dr. William Glasser on "Creating a School Without Failure," Dr. Sidney Simon on "Values in Teaching," and Dr. Dwight Allen on "Working to Make the Future of Education Less Certain," which were taped live at the recent Ohio Catholic Education Convention are being made available at moderate prices though Creative Sights & Sounds Inc.

The annual meeting of the American Sociological Society will be held in Denver, Colorado, from September 7-9, 1950. The program will be planned with an emphasis on the applications of social-psychological history and method to a variety of substantive fields in sociology. This means that a considerable number of traditional sections will be recognized in the program and the chairmen asked to assemble papers with the emphasis indicated. Sections to be included in the program are: Theory, Methods, The Family, Criminology, Population. Rural Sociology, Industrial Sociology. Community, Sociology and Psychiatry, Race and Culture. Educational Sociology, Communication and Public Opinion, Sociology and Social Work, and two section meetings of contributed papers.

This article presents the annual report of the secretary of the American Sociological Society. The Administration Committee voted to make avail able to the Secretaries of the Societies affiliated with the American Council of Learned Societies the Report submitted by the Committee on Public Relations at 1943 meetings, voted its approval of the Sections as published in the February 1944, issue of the journal American Sociological Review for inclusion in the 1944 Program, and for a joint session with the American Anthropological Association, and voted to postpone the annual audit until November 30, 1944, in view of the vote of the Executive Committee at 1943 meetings which changed the fiscal year to December 1 through November 30. In June the Executive Committee voted on a list of 100 books for submission to the American Library Association's Board on International Relations. In October 1943 the Committee voted to cancel the 1944 Annual Meeting. It also voted publication of an enlarged issue of the Review to include most papers prepared for meetings.

The article presents information about the 1966 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, which will be held at the Hotel Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, Florida from August 29 to September 1, 1966. It states that August 29, 1966 will be devoted to meetings arranged by sections of the association. Session Organizers appointed by the President of the meeting and the 1966 Program Committee will arrange the regular sessions from August 30 to September 1, 1966. For each field in which the association has a section, the President of the meeting and the Program Committee in consultation with the Section Chairman have appointed a Session Organizer. The final list of Topics and Session Organizers and deadlines for submission of papers will appear in the November 1965 issue of the journal "The American Sociologist." Members may submit papers directly to Session Organizers, or if in doubt about the appropriate session, to the Program Committee. Papers should not exceed 1,500 words in length. Questions regarding the program should be sent to the 1966 Program Committee.

This paper shows that suicides increase immediately after a suicide story has been publicized in the news papers in Britain and in the United States, 1947-1968. The more publicity devoted to a suicide story, the larger the rise in suicides thereafter. The rise in suicides after a story is restricted mainly to the area in which the story was publicized. Alternative explanations of these findings are examined; the evidence indicates that the rise in suicides is due to the influence of suggestion on suicide, an influence not previously demonstrated on the national level of suicides. The substantive, theoretical, and methodological implications of these findings are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the social context in which gang violence occurs in a Mexican American community. We argue that gang violence arises in situations where one party impugns the honor of his adversary. This sort of conduct violates the norms of interpersonal etiquette and constitutes, in Goffman's terminology, a violation of "personal space." Gang members fluctuate uneasily between conventional and honor bound responses to these kinds of insults. The paper outlines a theory of normative ambiguity that deals with this movement between two antithetical codes for conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pluralist and interest-group (or modified Marxian) views of society offer two competing sets of hypotheses concerning the relationship between objective and subjective social status and the role of other variables in this relations/tip. Using a 1964 national sample survey of the United States, this paper specifies and examines these hypotheses more fully. Starting with a series of simple formulations, and building up to a fuller multivariate recursive system, the paper concludes that the data are more consistent with the interest-group approach than they are with the pluralist approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely assumed that the sociology of religion is methodologically underdeveloped in relation to the rest of sociology. This paper reports on research undertaken to account for this underdevelopment. The theoretical model used to interpret this relationship is borrowed from the works of Ben-David, and Parsons and Platt. It is a role differentiation model. Essentially, it is contended that the specialty did not fully develop in the United States because a very large proportion of those working in the area have been torn between their scientific and religious commitments. Data are based on a content analysis of articles dealing with religion in nine journals of sociology from 1895 to 1970 and show a general decline in the participation of religionists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newspaper endorsements played an important and measurable role in determining the outcome of the 1964 Illinois at-large election for state representatives. In this election, it was possible to vote for 177 candidates. To help the electorate cope with this major voting task, newspapers throughout Illinois provided information generally not available elsewhere, as well as recommendations which could be used compatibly with party loyalties. Localism and the endorsements of civic and special interest groups also affected voting in this election, but less so than newspaper endorsements. Aggregate statistics provide the basic and most appropriate data source for these conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was supported by funds provided through Contract No. 1410 between the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Institute for Educational Development and Contract 66-1 between the Institute for Educational Development and the Child Development Evaluation and Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a contract with the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Contract OE 5-10-292. The author is grateful to Professors Hubert M. Blalock, Jr., David Elesh, and David Heise for comments on an earlier version of this paper. However, the author takes full responsibility for errors that remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is popularly believed that upwardly mobile American men are more conservative than those born into the middle class. This paper reviews the evidence for the belief and concludes that, if anything, upwardly mobile American men are less conservative than their stable ,middle class compatriots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the empirical utility of consensual and conflictual theories in explaining the social cohesion of the liberal democracies of Britain and the United States. After clarifying conceptual problems of value consensus theory and Marxist theory, it examines the forms and extent of value-commitment in these countries. The conclusion is that both theories grossly overstate the amount of both value consensus between individuals and value consistency within individuals that actually exists. Cohesion in liberal democracy depends rather on the lack of consistent commitment to general values of any sort and on the "pragmatic acceptance" by subordinate classes of their limited roles in society. Suggestive evidence is also found for the existence of some "false consciousness" among subordinate classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American political life, both historically and at present, has proven unusually resistant to economic interpretation, either by the Classical Liberal or the Marxist versions of economic determinism. Instead, political scholars have placed heavy reliance on a variety of non-economic factors, the most recent being those of alienation, mass society and status Protest. However, in this paper we argue that a great deal of American political life can be explained economically, in terms of class conflict, if revisions are made in class theory. Accordingly, a multi-dimensional theory of class conflict, based on the work of Max Weber, is presented, using the dimensions of the credit and commodity markets along with the usual dimension of the labor market. This theory is then applied to three political problems: (1) the relation between agrarian and labor protest in the 19th century; (2) the contemporary radical right; and (3) the current Negro protest movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While individuals may at times lose touch with reality as their culture defines it, whole communities ordinarily do not. Yet instances are on record when this has very nearly happened: people in Mattoon, Illinois, believed for a few days in September 1945 that a "phantom anesthetist" was prowling their town; and a Martian invasion took place in the minds of many persons in the New York City area on October 30, 1938. Russia's Sputniks may be expected to give rise to a wide variety of mass hallucinatory phenomena similar to those that followed our first H-bomb explosions in March, 1954. This paper analyzes one such reaction: the windshield pitting epidemic that broke out in Seattle, Washington, in the Spring of 1954. Most commonly, the damage reportedly, windshelds consisted of pitting marks that grew into bubbles in the glass of about size of a thumbnail. On the evening of the 15th, the Mayor of Seattle declared the damage was no longer a police matter and made an emergency appeal to the Government for help. Many persons covered their windshields with mats or newspaper; others simply kept their automobiles garaged.

The rapid changes taking place in the rural areas adjacent to cities are frequently objects of comment by observant citizens as well as by social scientists. The relevant data available regarding these changes in the United States are limited in scope and widely known, local observations are frequently reported in the press. The task of developing theory has not been ignored, although such work has been overshadowed by the accumulation of a great deal of descriptive detail. Indeed, the amount of research and theorizing in recent years makes it imperative that interested persons take time to summarize, evaluate, and synthesize accomplishments to date. This paper represents one such attempt. Attention has been deliberately restricted to ecological and demographic changes taking place in the rural sectors of satellite areas, a generic term used here to encompass all varieties of suburbs, satellite cities, fringe areas, commuters zones, and other areas under the immediate influence of the central city. This restriction results from space limitations rather than any idea that other types of change or other sectors of the satellite area are of lesser importance.