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In the social sciences, a direct relationship with societal actors is an extended practice of conducting research, particularly in fields entailing in-depth empirical fieldwork. This paper analyzes the interactive processes observed in knowledge production in social sciences. The aim is to understand how these relationships are constructed between academic and non-academic actors, which is the goal of researchers in approaching social actors in this way, and the scope of these relationships for generating knowledge and addressing societal problems. Given the modalities of social science research, two frameworks are essential to analyzing these processes. On the one hand, there is the notion of knowledge networks. On the other, knowledge mobilization concerns understanding these processes and their linearity or non-linearity. In this paper, integrating both frameworks helps explain interactive social research. Based on recent empirical information about social sciences research in Mexico, this paper analyzes the dimensions of the interactive character of knowledge generation in these disciplines. The purpose of the paper is to document how the interactions between academic and non-academic actors are built during research; the characteristics of such collaborations; how the mobilization of knowledge occurs emphasizing learning processes and trust generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically assesses current architectural research, as represented in a sampling of papers presented at ACSA conferences, through the lens of research typologies related to people-place interactions taken from neighboring fields in the social sciences. Specifically, 253 papers from four ACSA conferences were assessed for methodological approaches to their objects of inquiry. This resulted in a tabulation of all the papers into nine methodological categories, ranging from interpretive approaches to causal-experimental approaches to design projects. These nine categories are critically evaluated in light of extant people-place research frameworks from the social science literature. The paper concludes by suggesting that established social science frameworks can help clarify the architectural research realm, particularly in the "interpretive" range, and that "design" offers a unique venue within which sociological approaches such as critical theory and/or grounded theory can find expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The points raised by professor Delbert C. Miller in his paper about the future direction of industrial sociology are analyzed. The critic agreed with the argument by Miller that industrial sociology needs to be reestablished as a separate discipline--separate from organizational sociology, sociology of occupations and sociology of work. Points in the history of industrial sociology are reviewed to support the grounds of Miller's paper. Along with industrial sociology and economics, sociology has successfully dealt with the central institution of economic life in the United States. Furthermore, industry was the scene of what seemed then to be the most important developments in American society: the rise of the labor movement and the intense conflicts between management and labor.

Measures of association play a central role in the social sciences to quantify the strength of a linear relationship between the variables of interest. In many applications researchers can translate scientific expectations to hypotheses with equality and/or order constraints on these measures of association. In this paper a Bayes factor test is proposed for testing multiple hypotheses with constraints on the measures of association between ordinal and/or continuous variables, possibly after correcting for certain covariates. This test can be used to obtain a direct answer to the research question how much evidence there is in the data for a social science theory relative to competing theories. The stand-alone software package 'BCT' allows users to apply the methodology in an easy manner. The methodology will also be available in the R package 'BFpack'. An empirical application from leisure studies about the associations between life, leisure and relationship satisfaction and an application about the differences about egalitarian justice beliefs across countries are used to illustrate the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a call for papers for the meeting titled "Annual Allied Social Sciences Association Meetings" to be held on January 4-6, 2008 at New Orleans, Louisiana with a theme about inequality, democracy, and the economy. The Association for Social Economics members and nonmembers are encouraged to submit proposals for the New Orleans ASE program. The papers can be send by email of 300 words or less by May 1, 2007 to John Davis of University of Amsterdam and Marquette University. Guide questions are also included.

The article calls the attention of interested individuals to submit article that will be presented during conferences of Associations concerning economics. The organizers of the Seventh Annual Heilbronn Symposium in Economics and the Social Sciences Christian Freiherr von Wolff that will be held on June 22-25,1995 is inviting everyone to submit abstract and correspondence relevant to the theme. Likewise, the organizers of the 22nd Annual Meeting of the History of Economics Society that will be held on June 2-5, 1995 in South Bend, Indiana is calling the same.

Yolŋu Aboriginal people's knowledge about water ("gapu") and its governance has strong cultural significance and meaning in East Arnhem Land Aboriginal worlds in northern Australia. This study used transdisciplinary research methods to explore the ways in which Yolŋu Aboriginal gapu and Western science hydrological knowledge can work together and contribute towards water management on Milingimbi Island, a small, resource-constrained, bedrock island. Transcending disciplinary boundaries is distinctly different to an interdisciplinary, socio-hydrological perspective, which can pose a risk to hybridizing Aboriginal knowledge and Western science. Community engagement activities and workshops were conducted as part of a three-year research project to bring together the incommensurable knowledge communities. A participatory three-dimensional mapping exercise created a shared space, facilitating an open-dialogue exchange of insight and knowledge among Aboriginal knowledge authorities, hydrologists, public servants, and academic researchers. This paper prompts readers to reconsider the ways water can be perceived and conserved in a decolonizing way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore and address complex water-related issues, true collaborative, interdisciplinary research at the interface of hydrology and social science is necessary. Accordingly, hydrologists are increasingly working with social sciences and becoming involved in fieldwork with participants. With the overarching aim of facilitating collaboration and interdisciplinary water research, here we discuss important considerations and guiding principles for hydrologists, both those new to and those already familiar with interdisciplinary research, who are: (i) involved in fieldwork with participants; and (ii) working more collaboratively with social scientists. Drawing on first-hand experiences, this paper combines theory and experience from hydrologists and social scientists from their various interdisciplinary research projects to better understand key ethical, theoretical and practical considerations when working with participants. Complementary to this, we discuss the barriers and opportunities in collaborative interdisciplinary research. Facilitating these practices and understandings for hydrologists is essential to strengthen collaboration and to develop more holistic, successful research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Reproductive Health Working Group (RHWG) was established in 1988 in Cairo to advance research in the Arab countries and Turkey on the health of women, broadly defined. The paper considers the ways in which the group contributed to global health conversations through three examples of interdisciplinary research that, in privileging local contexts, modified or even challenged prevailing approaches to health and often raised entirely new issues for consideration. The three examples cited in the paper are: (i) the network’s early research on reproductive morbidity; (ii) a broad set of ongoing studies on childbirth/maternal health; and (iii) emerging research on health and conflict. The paper discusses how the RHWG has strengthened research capability in the region, and explores the reasons for the longevity of this research network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Adaptation is a key concept in long‐term human adjustments to climate change. Despite the centrality of human decisions and actions in adaptation, much of the climate change literature is thin on humanities and social science which are the primary approaches for understanding human activity. This situation is particularly pronounced in Louisiana's discussions about its disappearing coast line where research has concentrated in understanding biophysical processes and solutions prioritize short‐term adaptations. This paper reviews the relationship of adaptation and long‐term transitions in the global change discussion and traces how disjointed adaptations in coastal Louisiana have contributed to a perilous environmental situation there. It proposes a shift from discrete adaptations to efforts that incorporate interrelated biophysical and human adaptations that can sustain long‐term transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experts are often called on to inform decision makers with subjective estimates of uncertain events. Their judgment serves as the basis for policy-related decision-making. This paper analyzes survey results used to collect experts' opinions of the likely cost to bring genome edited crops to market. We also examine the effect of expertise (scientific experts versus social scientists in plant biotechnology) and possible knowledge mis-calibration, both in terms of overconfidence (i.e., when subjective knowledge is inflated) and under-confidence (i.e., when subjective knowledge is deflated), on the estimation of cost involved in the development and commercial release of genome edited crops. We found that the expected costs of genome edited crops are case specific and depend on whether crops will likely be regulated as genetically modified or accepted as conventional varieties and not subject to any regulatory oversight by federal regulators. While cost evaluation of genome edited crops did not vary among scientific and social experts, it did vary among domains of knowledge. Hence, expert's performance can be described as task-specific in the context of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in understanding the social impact of publicly funded science research is growing globally. However, practical examples demonstrating how the social impacts of research for development are measured are negligible. This paper illustrates the utility of Impact Assessment (IA), Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in particular to measure and articulate the social dimensions of research for development. We employed substantive aspects of SIA to assess the social impacts of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) funded fisheries research projects across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island Countries. Data were collected through a survey, in-depth interviews, and case studies. Results illustrate that SIA can offer a nuanced understanding of the contribution of research for development to changes in culture, community health and wellbeing, livelihood and economy, and governance and politics, among others. We suggest that researchers, policymakers and research for development organisations consider incorporating SIA in their projects not only as a tool to assess impact but also as a process to manage and understand the social dimensions of science research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our understanding of knowledge in the field of library and information studies and its development is guided by a notion of consensus and accepted ways of working. Research findings make incremental changes to our knowledge and we have become used to acknowledging the constructivist underpinnings of scholarly knowledge by expecting differences in information behaviour and practices by people situated in different contexts and recognising the need for varied approaches to information provision to match these practices. Research thus can be seen to take a ‘business as usual’ model, as the ways of creating new knowledge are well established both in the consensus of the field and in the rigour of research methods. The purpose of this paper is to explore this notion of ‘business as usual’ in research in library and information studies, consider how it constrains the development of new understandings and to propose how the communal understanding, the consensus, can be revised. The paper concludes that moving away from a ‘business as usual’ model will potentially require acts of heroism, including the ability to see the creation of new knowledge as an imaginative process of discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the fiftieth volume of the periodical "Canadian Slavonic Papers". The author ackowledges all the editors and contributors of the issue referred to as a milestone, a testimonial piece that depicts the periodical's contribution in history, language, literature, and social sciences in Canada and across the globe.

Missing data is a ubiquitous problem in medical and social sciences. It is well known that inferences based only on the complete data may not only lose efficiency, but may also lead to biased results if the data is not missing completely at random (MCAR). The inverse-probability weighting method proposed by Horvitz and Thompson (1952) is a popular alternative when the data is not MCAR. The Horvitz-Thompson method, however, is sensitive to the inverse weights and may suffer from loss of efficiency. In this paper, we propose a unified empirical likelihood approach to missing data problems and explore the use of empirical likelihood to effectively combine unbiased estimating equations when the number of estimating equations is greater than the number of unknown parameters. One important feature of this approach is the separation of the complete data unbiased estimating equations from the incomplete data unbiased estimating equations. The proposed method can achieve semiparametric efficiency if the probability of missingness is correctly specified. Simulation results show that the proposed method has better finite sample performance than its competitors. Supplemental materials for this paper, including proofs of the main theoretical results and the R code used for the NHANES example, are available online on the journal website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Albanian case represents the most dramatic instance of post-communist migration: about one million Albanians, a quarter of the country's total population, are now living abroad, most of them in Greece and Italy, with the UK becoming increasingly popular since the late 1990s. This paper draws on three research projects based on fieldwork in Italy, Greece, the UK and Albania. These projects have involved in-depth interviews with Albanian migrants in several cities, as well as with migrant-sending households in different parts of Albania. In this paper we draw out those findings which shed light on the intersections of gender and generations in three aspects of the migration process: the emigration itself, the sending and receiving of remittances, and the care of family members (mainly the migrants' elderly parents) who remain in Albania. Theoretically, we draw on the notion of ‘gendered geographies of power’ and on how spatial change and separation through migration reshapes gender and generational relations. We find that, at all stages of the migration, Albanian migrants are faced with conflicting and confusing models of gender, behavioural and generational norms, as well as unresolved questions about their legal status and the likely economic, social and political developments in Albania, which make their future life plans uncertain. Legal barriers often prevent migrants and their families from enjoying the kinds of transnational family lives they would like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international take-up and rapid development of environmental assessment (EA) systems has been driven by the introduction of EA legal requirements and by the advancement of methodological aspects published in the EA literature. However, despite the existence of common legal frameworks and methodological guidelines, the way in which EA is practised and conceived within a multidisciplinary context varies. There are a range of interpretations defining the way in which EA should be used and how EA fits within different disciplines; in Europe, this variation is reflected in the formative and educational programmes offered by universities in EU Member States. This paper identifies existing trends in EA education by providing an overview of the ways in which EA is taught in Europe. A comparative analysis of 64 EA-related Master programmes representing nine EU Member States is conducted. Furthermore, the paper aims to set the basis for a discussion on the different social science and physical science understandings of EA revealed by the research findings. We recommend that interlinkages between these two understandings be improved and suggest that this could occur through the introduction of formal EA education, enhanced collaboration between different types of departments, and holistic approaches to teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from twenty-one online and in-person qualitative interviews to examine the meaning and use of chat rooms located on men for men (M4M) websites from the perspectives of men seeking men on the Internet. This research is inspired by recent public health and social sciences literature on gay websites and chat rooms. The data indicate that these online sites help expedite learning about sex and sexuality and, for men who are shy or geographically isolated, to interact with metropolitan gay communities. There is, however, a measure of stigma associated with use of these chat rooms, particularly by men who are older or in coupled relationships. Using these data, the paper argues that M4M chat rooms play a vital role in fostering the sexual autonomy of many men who frequent these venues and that sociologists should devote more study to the complexity of online social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 'crisis years' in Solomon Islands from 1998-2003, Guadalcanal militants and the Guadalcanal provincial government showed resentment to the 'foreign' Solomon Islanders, mainly Malaitans, who lived there and forcefully claimed that the indigenous people of Guadalcanal suffered economic disadvantage on their own island. Malaitan counter-justification related to the need to protect their families in Honiara and stabilise the crumbling central government. This paper looks at the historical reasons why Malaitans left their island in the first place. The answer involves complex causes going back to the 1870s. Because Malaita has always been heavily populated, it drew labour recruiters from Queensland, Fiji and within the Protectorate, but for various reasons never attracted traders or planters. Unthinkingly encouraged by the British Protectorate administration and all post-independence governments, a pattern developed of 'Malaitan muscle for hire'. Malaitan males became primarily a labour force for development projects elsewhere, and little attempt was made to introduce similar projects on Malaita. The paper also explores issues relating to resource development in Malaita Province and concludes that the problems there are no more difficult than on other large Melanesian islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a framework for reviewing developments in thinking about social capital over the last decade and for assessing future prospects. It argues for giving particular value to social capital as a phenomenon (conceptual and empirical) which is most effective when viewed in interaction with other elements of analysis or policy. Two forms of interaction are addressed: between bonding and bridging social capital; and between human and social capital. The paper then tracks some of the developments in the policy research debate in order to illustrate the dilemmas involved in the deployment of the concept. The fourth section poses some methodological questions and possible future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the socio-legal consequences of the competition between different transnational actors for the opportunity to implement their respective legal standards in a plural legal constellation in rural Morocco. The empirical data presented here refer to a rural community located in the centre of the Souss region in South West Morocco. The thesis in this paper is that focussing on the competition between global players for local control reveals that competition accelerates the dynamics of transnational-state-local interaction. Moreover, it seems that transnational-local interaction in a four-way constellation composed of two opposing types of competing global players, the state, and local actors, is much more complex than in a constellation with just one isolated transnational actor. It is argued that the rising degree of legal cross-referencing serves to boost the legal agency of local actors. Neither a revitalisation of tradition nor a strict rejection of interaction with external interveners has evolved, but rather, this interaction has had far reaching consequences for local power constellations and the way in which social conditions are reflected by the law. Thus, the socio-legal consequences of transnational intervention in the rural legal arena are examined along the different comparative axes reflected in these discourses: the potential for conflict and violent action; the impact on local identity; and the intention to link the local legal arena with transnational standardisation. Subsequently, the paper goes on to develop a concept of 'empowered legal agency' achieved by an emphasis on socio-legal identity and local culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines an information literacy collaborative research project at the University of Otago between a sociology lecturer and a subject specialist librarian. The research project was undertaken to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of embedding information literacy skills into academic assessment requirements in a first and a third year sociology course. Using focus group interviews and whole class surveys the research team generated both qualitative and quantitative data relating to students' acquisition of information literacy skills and to their evaluation of the embedding approach. This paper discusses the initial stages of the project and concludes with a brief outline of preliminary analysis of data from the first year course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the social sciences, the dominant “thin” reading of monetary exchange that views it as universally market-like and motivated by monetary gain is being challenged by a “thicker” reading that seeks to unpack the complex and messy characters and logics of monetised transactions. Until now, this re-reading has occurred by studying small alternative economic spaces (e.g., car boot sales, local currency schemes) that can be easily explained away as peripheral or even superfluous to an understanding of mainstream monetised exchange. To provide a more forceful challenge, therefore, this paper interrogates a form of work often seen as an exemplar of market-like work undertaken for the purpose of monetary gain, namely the underground sector. Reporting empirical evidence that unravels the heterogeneous and embedded characters and logics underpinning this work, this paper calls for those promulgating a thicker reading to be bolder and interrogate the meanings of monetary transactions in more mainstream spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores physical education (PE) teachers' views of the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in PE from a figurational sociological perspective. Starting from the premise that teachers' views cannot be adequately explained by studying the concept of inclusion or the teacher in isolation, it is argued that we can only begin to make sense of such views by locating teachers within the figurations of which they are a part and by exploring two particularly salient features of those figurations: namely, teachers' habituses and contexts. In doing so, the paper focuses upon the training teachers receive, the constraints imposed upon them by their colleagues and pupils, and, most importantly, the suitability of the National Curriculum for meeting the needs of pupils with SEN. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the unintended consequences of the inclusion of pupils with SEN in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present a short analysis of the change in the power of the state. By using the category of the captive state and a few examples from the Polish economy, I will try to show the process of the deep and strong redefinition of the state's functions. The paper will also relate to the concept of the network structure and the efficiency of the state within such a structure. Inevitably, in the context of such a perspective, the problem of the influence of globalization and the role of the state within it will occur. Although it is Poland that appears in the title, it must be considered here only as an example of a more universal process, not as a unique case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a non-territorial reading of a politics of place. Focusing on the politics of contemporary regionalism, it argues that globalisation and the general rise of a society of transnational flows and networks no longer allow a conceptualisation of place politics in terms of spatially bound processes and institutions. The second part of the paper outlines an alternative politics of place that works with the varied distanciated geographies that cut across a given region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the somewhat neglected topic of envy and its relationship to education and social inequality in Britain. Drawing on the work of Rawls, Runciman and Crosland, the paper proposes a distinction between envy as a vice and ‘justified resentment’ aroused by perceived injustices in the social distribution of primary goods, including education. Various pejorative uses of the term ‘the politics of envy’ in UK politics are examined. The conditions necessary for a politics of justified resentment are then analysed. Current developments in higher education in the UK are discussed with reference to signs of the emergence of new social resentments among the relatively highly educated. Prospects for a wider politics of justified resentment are assessed in relation to a range of emergent policies and priorities of New Labour in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from an examination of an epistemological framework that underpins practice in particular educational contexts. It examines work-based knowledge, relating this to practitioner research and evidence informed practice. This is followed by an exploration of arguments that call for increased rigour in educational research as well as the use of systematic reviews. The paper examines tensions within educational research located in particular institutional contexts which draw upon ‘post-modern’ conceptualisations of practice, setting these against research concerned with generalisability that veers towards traditional positivist claims. The paper concludes by suggesting that such arguments readily fold back into a conservative empiricism and a more appropriate position should be based upon dialogue across a range of constituents. However, such a notion needs to recognise social antagonism as well as aspirations towards the deepening of notions of social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a two-tier concept of rationality which broadens the orthodox notion of instrumental rationality in economics. In the first section, I conceive the idea of "background rationality" to consist in the ability to act normally, i.e., according to social conventions appropriate to the context. Background rationality is a necessary condition for the exercise of its instrumental counterpart. Implications and applications of this for economic phenomena are investigated in Section II. The third section draws parallels between the approach to rationality developed in this paper and Thorstein Veblen's notion "habits of thought". I argue that a viable concept of rationality must itself be subject to explanatory scrutiny and justification and not merely posited as given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the scope of Basil Bernstein's sociology, indicating some of the research that his ideas have inspired, shaped or provoked. Although it takes a roughly chronological approach to the development of his ideas, the paper emphasizes how consistently he explored the making of societies and social classes, and the structuring of social interaction. The title of the paper reflects how successfully Bernstein met Wright Mills' criterion for a true sociological imagination—that it seeks to grasp the extent to which 'personal troubles' are 'public issues' arising from the changing forms of social inequalities as these are produced from generation to generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not uncommon in educational research and social science in general either to eschew the word truth or to put it in scare quotes in order to signify scepticism about it. After the initial wave of relativism in the philosophy of natural science, a second wave has developed in social science with the rise of postmodernism and poststructuralism. The tendency here is to relativise truth or to bracket out questions of truth. In contradistinction, this paper revindicates the metaphysical nature of truth. Truth is a transcendental precondition of educational inquiry and is best understood as a formal, regulative norm. Realism about truth enjoins a defence of the correspondence theory, which is provided here. At the same time, however, the development of realism in the social sciences has ironically followed the postmodernists in its scepticism about truth and its rejection of the correspondence theory. This paper critically appraises such recent developments, since all research is unintelligible without realism about the social world and whether our substantive knowledge-claims correspond with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using critical discourse analysis, this paper draws on the narratives of a number of African Canadian high-school students who discuss the relevancy of the Social Studies curriculum as presented in the classroom. In particular, these students indicate that the curriculum distorts and excludes their histories, contributions, and lived experiences. For them, the meaning of being African Canadians extends beyond the geographical socio-political boundaries of Canada. Furthermore, it is the impression of these students that teachers and school programmes reinforce this process of marginalization by ignoring alternative pedagogies and worldviews. The paper indicates the nuanced insights into curriculum, power and knowledge that can be gained from critical analysis of students' narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper distinguishes between epistemological naturalism, which it supports, and ontological naturalism, which it opposes. It sketches the emergence of anti-naturalist social theory among nineteenth-century African-American intellectuals and its refinement by twentieth-century feminists. These movements challenged ontological naturalism in the social sciences by substituting social constructionist concepts of race and gender for naturalist ones. Economics awaits a similar liberation. The paper identifies four naturalist concepts-atomism, determinism and biologically determined race and gender differences--as structuring mainstream economic theory. It concludes that ontological naturalism is inconsistent with the application of the epistemology of the natural sciences to the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconsiders the status of profit-making in neoclassical economics. This reconsideration is based on a social-economic perspective as distinguished from the "pure" economic approach used by neoclassical theory. This paper argues that this perspective is more adequate, since it endeavors to do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon. While the economic approach views profit-making as a purely economic activity insulated from the social framework, the social-economic sees it as an "ideal type" of social action and thus situates it within this framework. In contrast to the former approach that treats profit-making as driven exclusively by rational factors, the latter conceptualizes it as being induced by a myriad of variables, rational and non-rational ones. The paper elaborates these differences between the two approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing interest of geographers in the sociology of science, no work has been done on the structure analysis of a community of geographers engaged in a particular research specialty. The paper sketches the set-theoretic foundations for such work and reviews the literature on research specialties. Particular attention is focused upon the descriptions of social and cognitive structures yielded from citation analysis. Citations are used to explore the structure of one research specialty, spatial diffusion modeling, this is accomplished using multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Q-analysis. The graphical description yielded by MDS does not prove illuminating, but the algebraic, structural description provided by Q-analysis, whereby both citing and cited papers are considered, offers a more useful interpretation. Q-analysis is suggested as a natural language in which to investigate further the structure and dynamics of research specialties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the social and cultural importance of photography in modem societies, photographic education is an area that has inspired very little in the way of academic research Photographic education is generally perceived in very narrow tows, as an area of technical training, lacking any broader intellectual significance It is the argument of this paper that in his/her many guises the photographer is an important figure in contemporary culture, and that the impoverished, or total lack of, understanding of photographic education is a significant omission The aim of the paper is to begin to address this gap through a qualitative look at the way in which professional photography students talk about their practice It is argued that photographic education has its own professionalised discourse, which students are encouraged to adopt, thereby excluding alternative perspectives I discuss examples of students' talk about practice as evidence oft/as discourse In the final section of the paper I consider some alternative approaches that have been developed outside the context of mainstream photographic education, and the possibilities they offer for rethinking what it means to teach photography [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issues related to social work education. The author believes that one reason is that many authors seem to have the impression that a paper that is meant for social work education must be quantitatively oriented and empirically based to be published. To many this means con- ducting studies on fairly narrow questions that may be of interest to a limited audience. Junior faculty especially, he has found, often believe that tenure and pro- motion committees are much more interested in published papers filled with statistical analyses and tables than in theoretical or conceptually oriented essays. The author has heard many junior faculty comments that they would prefer to write about the latter but feel pressured to churn out the former. The concludes that one need to take a hard look at the "market forces" that are pressuring so many faculty to conduct research and write papers on topics that do not attract. It is essential that social work educators engage in thoughtful discourse about these matters, because they do matter. Finally the author concludes that reach on these issues have a great deal to do with the character of this noble profession.

This paper examines the emergence of sociopolitics in the United States during the 1980s. The Reagan Administration's drastic budget cuts for social research prompted social scientists to engage in interest-group politics. The newest development in sociopolitics is setting priorities for research. This paper examines the intellectual and political risks of setting priorities. I conclude that sociologists must begin to discuss the objectives and strategies of funding social research, and seek ways of reducing our dependency upon federal funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the stress rule (a temporary role assumed by actors experiencing unusual or critical stress) is developed in this paper. It is hypothesized that the stress role is a patterned, regularly occurring set of rights, obligations, and expectations which accords special latitude to stressed actors, specifies appropriate behavior toward the stressed, and releases the actors from culpability for atypical role performances during the stressful period. The stress role and similar disabling, adjective-type roles are proposed as examples of "role riders." This paper identities the stress role norms and outlines the process by which one acquires, occupies, and relinquishes the role. The legitimacy of assuming the stress role is addressed and the timetables, or containment norms, of the stress role are developed. Finally, the functions of the stress role for the actor and for society are discussed. The propositions and concepts introduced here are based on data from in-depth interviews with a random sample of reentry university women, as well as from the growing body of stress and social-support research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent increase in American divorce rates has aroused a great deal of media publicity, popular discussion, and social science research. Several recent works have begun to reexamine the origins, trends, and implications of divorce in American history. This paper presents systematic data concerning the extent of divorce in three North Central states for the 1810-60 period. The findings establish the incidence of mass divorce for a considerable period prior to official divorce statistics. Major patterns are analyzed and compared to late 19th-century data from the first governmental studies of divorce for the 1870-1900 decades. While some urban-rural differences are found, changing laws and norms played the principal role in the increase in divorce rates during the 1800s. The final part of the paper discusses the implications of these findings for understanding marital disruption in social-historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arguments presented by Professor Delbert C. Miller in his paper about the future direction of industrial sociology are examined. The paper manifests the espousal of applied interests. Miller has shown his desire to bring industrial sociology back to the glories of its past by raising the fundamental issues of what sociology is and is to become, which are issues at the heart of the contrast between the pure and the applied orientations. In one sense, it is a question of what kind of knowledge and theory is wanted. Applied interests, no matter how much they rely on deductive theory, are always single-case interests, the case that is here and now. Despite certain disclaimers, Miller sees industrial sociology as oriented toward the interests and problems of those who run industrial organizations and those whose job it is to keep the environment stable for such organizations.

Drawing upon insights from the social movement literature as well as leadership experience in a successful social movement organization, this paper suggests aspects of a framework for integrating traditional and contemporary approaches. The case history of JUST (Johnstowners United to Stop another Tragedy) is used to illustrate the interaction of grievances and structures in the career of a social movement organization. In addition to helping fill a lacuna in the literature on the internal dynamics of such organizations, this analysis also demonstrates the importance of the nature of the grievance as well as the target group's structural entrenchment. The paper focuses upon a relatively anomalous case for U.S. social movement organizations: an SMO which was successful despite displacement goals. The final section of the paper includes a summary diagram of the factors involved in JUSTs successful protest effort as well as broader generalizations suggesting the conditions under which grievances or infrastructures are more salient in explaining social movement phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The Program Chair for the 1981 MSS meetings in Minneapolis, President-Elect Hans O. Mauksch, asked Joan Huber to organize a thematic session on the program theme, Boundaries and Bridges: The Domains of Sociology. Professor Huber invited Michael Aiken, Kenneth Land, and James McCartney to prepare papers on the general theme, and she asked Matra Tienda to discuss the ideas presented. The following papers are from that thematic session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the importance of race and racial attitudes among sociologists by attempting to document the existence of what has been called a "black insiders doctrine" and showing that black sociologists are more likely than their white counterparts to subscribe to this doctrine. Data in this paper are based on a survey questionnaire administered during the winter of 1978. The findings show that: (1) race is a strong predictor in determining how sociologists perceive the role and characteristics of black sociologists and (2) black sociologists do not think highly of whites who study race relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between sociology and Marxism and attempts to delineate the fundamental components of sociology within the framework of Marxist theory as presented in the voluminous writings of Gramsci. After reviewing Gramsci's systematic critique of positivist sociology and that brand of Marxism which accepts any positivist canon of analysis, the paper focuses on certain Gramscian concepts hermencutically useful for a macro-sociology of social structures. Of great importance is the concept of catharsis, that is the development of a given fundamental social group from a mere economic to an hegemonic entity, entailing a process of transformation of the structure of a given historical bloc and the nature and functions of intellectuals in the organization of the ideological, juridical, and political superstructure. The paper concludes that Gramsci's sociology contains specific sociohistorical criteria very useful in understanding how dominant hegemonic systems disintegrate and new ones are formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the career of Maurice F. Parmelee, sociologist, government official, nudist, and author of thirteen books, including the first American criminology text (1918). The contents of the latter are examined and contrasts with contemporary textbooks are noted. Parmelee's career is an anomoly, for although he published abundantly, he faded into sociological obscurity. Some conjecture is offered about scholarly career paths generally, drawn out of the Parmelee case. Finally, the paper argues that historical accounts of the development of American criminology are incomplete, for they fail to mention a number of early figures, including Parmelee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of Popper's thinking on propensities from his writings on probability during the 1950s through to his 1990 book, A World of Propensities. It is argued that there are significant commonalities between the views expressed in this (his last) book and the metaphysics and methodological implications of Critical Realism. The paper concludes with some consequences for Popperian falsificationism, situational determinism and Popper's later view that propensities may be interpreted as causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several papers related developments in economics as realist social theory. According to the author, social theory expressly committed to work out the nature of social being, and, or how people access social reality is going through something of a revival in economics. The papers presented, provide numerous results, arguments, conjectures, and critiques have been produced in recent years, and aim to take some of these specific developments further. Context of the papers and basic ideas and results are presented.

Historical demography as a separate discipline came into existence when family reconstruction was first developed for the analysis of a pre-transition population. This paper assesses the significant achievements made in this field of population studies since then. Attention is also paid to equally significant findings obtained from aggregative analysis based on back projection, and to a large body of research results for the period of the demographic transition. In the last part of the paper, new research directions are discussed. Data issues as well as methodological ones are raised. Special attention is given to newly emerging Asian historical demography where different source materials require different methods and techniques, which in turn are expected to broaden the scope of the so far disproportionality fertility-oriented field. Finally, discussions are extended to economic, cultural and institutional aspects of the subject, with a plea not to isolate demographic analysis from other branches of historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]