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This article focuses on the future of sociology archive as a discipline. The major U.S. university libraries now go to extraordinary lengths and expense to collect the papers of writers, even many who as yet have not been categorically identified as important. There is a serious lesson in this-one might even say, a vital one-for sociology as it confronts an uncertain future. As everyone of a certain age will recall, the saga of Roots, in book and television formats, single-handedly gave American blacks a collective sense of historical importance that up to that point was absent from mass culture. The new Holocaust Museum in Washington is the most eloquent and emotionally wracking contemporary expression of historical memory for public consumption on a grand scale. Other examples can be found at every juncture of the "culture wars" that have been raging in the United States since the 1960s. Every politically self-aware group is supposed to venerate its real or imagined past, both at individual and collective levels, not only because such joint expressions enhance self-conceptions but also owing to the strategic advantage.

This article introduces a series of articles on the contributions of early women in sociology in the U.S. The initial paper by Patricia Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge describes the social settlement movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in order to analyze settlement workers as practicing sociologists operating within a paradigm of the neighborly relation. Linda Rynbrandt and Mary Jo Deegan focus on Caroline Bartlett Crane, a Progressive Era reformer. In their analysis, the authors develop a characterization of Crane as an ecofeminist and forerunner of contemporary reform movements. They argue further that Crane deserves to been as a founding figure in sociology in the U.S. who associated with recognized pioneers, including Jane Addams and Charles Henderson. Barbara Richardson portrays Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as an applied sociologist with a distinctive emphasis on humanistic oekology. Richards focused on gender issues and the application of scientific methods for the solution of contemporary social problems. The final paper, by Erich Goode, departs from the overall theme and offers a rejoinder to an analysis of the death of the sociology of deviance.

urately measuring a population and its attributes at past, present, and future points in time has been of great interest to demographers. Within discussions of forecast accuracy, demographers have often been criticized for their inaccurate prognostications of the future. Discussions of methods and data are usually at the centre of these criticisms, along with suggestions for providing an idea of forecast uncertainty. The measures used to evaluate the accuracy of forecasts also have received attention and while accuracy is not the only criterion advocated for evaluating demographic forecasts, it is generally acknowledged to be the most important. In this paper, we continue the discussion of measures of forecast accuracy by concentrating on a rescaled version of a measure that is arguably the one used most often in evaluating cross-sectional, subnational forecasts, Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE). The rescaled version, MAPE-R, has not had the benefit of a major empirical test, which is the central focus of this paper. We do this by comparing 10-year population forecasts for U.S. counties to 2000 census counts. We find that the MAPE-R offers a significantly more meaningful representation of average error than MAPE in the presence of substantial outlying errors, and we provide guidelines for its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Charles Tilly's relationship to the schools of thought known as historicism and critical realism. Tilly was committed to a social epistemology that was inherently historicist, and he increasingly called himself a 'historicist.' The 'search for grand laws in human affairs comparable to the laws of Newtonian mechanics,' he argued, was a 'waste of time' and had 'utterly failed.' Tilly's approach was strongly reminiscent of the arguments developed in the first half of the 20th century by Rickert, Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke for a synthesis of particularization and generalization and for a focus on 'historical individuals' rather than abstract universals. Nonetheless, Tilly never openly engaged with this earlier wave of historicist sociology, despite its fruitfulness for and similarity to his own project. The paper explores some of the possible reasons for this missed encounter. The paper argues further that Tilly's program of 'relational realism' resembled critical realism, but with main two differences: Tilly did not fully embrace critical realism's argument that social mechanisms are always co-constituted by social meaning or its normative program of explanatory critique. In order to continue developing Tilly's ideas it is crucial to connect them to the epistemological ideas that governed the first wave of historicist sociology in Weimar Germany and to a version of philosophical realism that is interpretivist and critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1945 Davis and Moore, following an earlier formulation by Davis, proposed a functional theory of stratification that was intended to account for what they contended was the "universal necessity" for social inequality in any social order. Beginning with an article by Tumin in 1953, the Davis-Moore theory elicited regular analysis, commentary, criticism, and debate through the 1970s. Although professional work on the theory has largely ceased since the late 1980s, the Davis-Moore theory remains perhaps the single most widely cited paper in American introductory sociology and stratification textbooks and constitutes "required reading" in hundreds, if not thousands, of undergraduate and graduate courses throughout the United States. The present paper traces the history of the debate and attempts to explain the theory's longevity and vitality in the face of what has amounted to largely negative assessments by other sociologists over the preceding fifty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

Between 1885 and 1930, as sociology was becoming an academic discipline, sociology was also being practiced intelligently, innovatively, and self-consciously outside the academy in the social settlements that grew up in America's major cities. In this paper, we first define and give a brief overview of the settlement movement in America; second, we show how the settlement workers were sociologists in their self-definition and action and in their relations with other sociologists; third, in the body of the paper, we describe the sociology done by the settlements in terms of the empirical research they undertook and the theory they created. Our argument is that settlement sociologists produced empirical studies that were both substantively significant and methodologically pioneering; that they did so in terms of a coherent social theory unique in its focus on "the neighborly relation"; and that both their research and theory were part of a critical, reflexive, and activist sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a review of comparable degree productivity among several social and behavioral sciences, this paper concludes that sociology was uniquely affected by forces that lowered both the production of B.A.'s, M.A.'s, and Ph.D.'s and the quality of its graduate students. From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, sociology suffered drastic declines in student numbers and quality. The increased careerism among students apparently accounts for a substantial portion of this decline, but through a very concrete mechanism: the expansion of business programs. The paper suggests that perhaps an absence of a serious commitment to teaching scientific sociology accounts for the loss of quality, since applied sciences have fared much better than has sociology. The recent ASA Task Force recommendations for curriculum redesign are reviewed, and a call is issued for revitalizing the scientific component of undergraduate sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratification in science has received extensive attention from researchers in the sociology of science. The general research strategy involves identifying certain socio-personal characteristics of scientists such as professional age, highest degree, prestige of training and affiliated institutions, and relating these characteristics to the reward systems in science. Two identifiable reward systems in science involve (1) the bestowal of honorary awards, and (2) the access to, and recognition in, the formal communication system in science. These two systems both contribute to the overall stratification of the reward system but differ on at least two counts. This paper attempts to examine the stratification of the formal communication system in American sociology as it is related to the stratification of scientists. It is found that the visible journals in sociology are consistently stratified according to criteria such as rejection rates, articles rejected but eventually published in other sociological journals, order of submission preferences of ASA meeting authors, and cross-citation patterns in articles of the journals.

During the 1973 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the author attended a roundtable discussion chaired by Professor Robert Friedrichs. The whole meeting was devoted to discussing the possibility of sociologist B.F. Skinner's influence emerging in the U.S. sociology, a topic that Friedrichs had explored in a paper he delivered earlier at one of the ASA sessions. In reference to the Skinnerian influence on sociology, the author criticizes sociologist Donald Tarter's article published in the November 1973 issue of the periodical "The American Sociologist," which stated that Friedrichs' eminence in the discipline of sociology and the Skinnerian influence is justified. The author's intention is to point out that Tarter's article is at best naive as regards his misunderstanding of sociology and that the presuppositions underlying his argument suggest an ideological position that can only be repugnant to anyone committed to a society that is as free and open as possible. The author substantiates his indictments by first commenting on what he believes to be Tarter's sociological naivety on the basis of a passage in which Tarter writes "Behavioral complexities never before thought possible have emerged in the form of pigeons playing ping-pong or chimps breaking through the communication barrier to man."

The article presents an introduction to the December 2010 issue of "American Sociologist," which focuses on sociologist Charles Tilly.

This paper discusses whether and to what extent the field of the sociology of deviance is "dead," relevant to sociology generally, or intellectually vital, and, if it is less vital than it once was, how and why it declined in vigor, and what might be done to return it to its glory days. It also addresses the implications of the election of 2004 for the field of deviance studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores article production by the entire population of US undergraduate sociology departments. The available literature suggests that undergraduate programs publish little, that this is concentrated among relatively few mainly liberal arts-departments, and that publication rates are increasing. We argue There are reason* to expect that social economic presence, reward policies, student quality, and faculty quality, si/e. and workload will affect productivity. Tracing publication of articles across the 1990s. few undergraduate departments are represented in 30 journals deemed important on the bases of reputation and citation rates Liberal arts schools do not predominate Ceteris paribus, public schools outpublished private schools Publication rates have not increased. Social economic presence, and student and faculty quality affect publishing, but salary, tenure structure, and workload do not Finally, faculty size suppresses per capita publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Schutz's influence on American sociologists and sociology in the 1960s and 1970s is traced through the examination of the work of two of his students, Helmut Wagner and Peter Berger, and of Harold Garfinkel with whom he met and corresponded over a number of years. The circumstances of Schutz's own academic situation, particularly the short period of his academic career in the United States and his location at the New School, are examined to consider how and in what ways he was constrained from exerting an even wider influence. The two major areas of influence in American sociology that are examined are the sociology of knowledge and the early development of ethnomethodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using articles drawn from the years 1996-1999, this paper updates and expands Jack Niemonen's 1997 TAS analysis of the articles dealing with race and ethnicity in the four core sociology journals. We found a greater rate of publication and several new substantive areas incorporating race and ethnicity, but many of the patterns Niemonen identified remain in place. These articles are highly quantitative, rely heavily on U.S. Census categories, tend to explain racial and ethnic phenomenon as by-products of broader social forces (such as class-based stratification), and subsume these analyses under the headings of alternative subfields. Niemonen used these findings to offer a powerful critique of the status of race and ethnicity in sociology, the under-development of the racial and ethnic relations "problematic," and its marginalization within the discipline as a whole. To reassess these interpretations and conclusions, we examined the relationships between methodology and substance, and compared the main sample with a subset of more specialized articles focused on race and ethnicity. We found a close connection between quantitative methods and the use of Census definitions of race and ethnicity, but surprisingly few differences between the race and ethnic subset and the more inclusive main sample appeared. These findings allow us to offer support and some important qualifications to Niemonen's original conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section introduces the articles featured in the spring 2002 issue of The American Sociologist. The half-dozen articles here, along with Brym's engaging introductory essay, help us regain a sense of sociology as an unfolding international movement and also of the distinctive experiences of sociologists in particular national contexts. Rather ironically, in light of the sweep of the paradigms and macro-level theories that are sociology's coin of the realm, there are strong parochial tendencies in the field. In the United States, for instance, many departments of sociology tend to relegate international and cross-cultural matters to anthropologists, and many textbook writers produce analyses that focus overwhelmingly on their home country. One consequence of such tendencies is to speak as though formulas that fit one context have a general or universal applicability. As the papers here inform us time and again, sociology in Canada has struggled with the Anglo-French division of society and culture, which has generated two separate and largely unengaged spheres, and has segregated even the respective social sciences. Meanwhile, Canadian sociologists have worked to develop a voice of their own that is not distorted by the influence of sociology produced in the United States or in Europe.

The article introduces as series of articles dealing in a variety of ways with critical theorists and critical theory. The first three papers offer insightful analyses of the work of several critical thinkers Erich Fromm, David Riesman, C. Wright Mills and Leo Strauss. Neil McLaughlin examines David's Riesman's synthesis of the German critical tradition and U.S. pragmatism in his best known work, The Lonely Crowd. In McLaughlin's view, Riesman's classic analysis of U.S. society in 1950 bears a strong resemblance to many postmodern writings, particularly since Riesman self-consciously assumed the mantle of the public intellectual. James Abbott examines the thought of political philosopher Leo Strauss, with particular attention to its relevance for contemporary controversies concerning facts and values. Abbott is drawn to Strauss's analysis of the crises of modern liberalism and of twentieth century social science, and brings this to bear on the contemporary paradox of a sociology that simultaneously advocates visions of the good society while denying the possibility of trans-historical standards that would validate such visions. Joel Best offers incisive reflections on sociology's status in the academic world. Ironically, despite its image as a minor field, sociology has arguably been among the most influential of disciplines and has spawned a series of specialties that migrated to independence.

How will sociology fare in the twenty-first century? We love what we do. The problem seems to be in communicating the value of what we do to lay people outside the discipline. Sociology's future in part will be dependent upon its practitioners demonstrating its utility in the marketplace of everyday life, assessment and decision making. This paper offers a twenty-year perspective of one sociology department's work in a rural Appalachian region. While providing a brief overview of a series of initiatives, it explains in depth our involvement and contributions to a community-based health project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is taken from Chapter 6 of the publication A Lucky Journey: The Sociological Enterprise, 1931-1980, which reflects on the progress of the American Sociological Review (ASR) as a publication from 1958 to 1960. The local editorial staff of the publication began with a contingent of ten scholars. These ten scholars included representatives of various sub-fields in sociology and of related discipline as well as specialists on Soviet Russia, Africa, India and Japan. Most of the day-to-day labor on the Review was done by editorial secretary Betty Vogel, Michael Olmsted, and their nominal boss. Michael Olmsted was more than a first-rate book review editor, he evaluated papers in his special fields with sagacity and designed an attractive cover to replace what had long been the dismal front of the publication. Solicitation of papers by prominent sociologists helped to upgrade ASR as a scholarly journal. Another change was the introduction of a division of the Review on the Profession which included not merely the obituaries or communications pertaining to the sociological guild, but both solicited submitted articles on the occupation itself. This innovation, according to the author, was consistent with his own growing interest in the sociology of sociology.

This paper focuses on the early stages of a social movement--the development of a militant faculty union. It is a socio-historical analysts of the major internal and external factors and the interaction between them that determined the course of the movement's development. Although the analysts is limited to one state university system, the structural and procedural characteristics are relevant to other universities faced with collective bargaining choices.
This research examines a faculty union as an insurgent group. An insurgent group is a movement organization which attempts to bring about structural change by thrusting new interests into the decision-making process (Jenkins and Perrow, 1977). The paper will analyze the key issues and events that enabled a small, rag-tag army to march into legitimate power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that the formulation and testing of hypotheses relating the functional role of cities in a society to other urban structure and process variables might be facilitated by substituting a continous variable approach to the functional system for the prevailing discrete typologies. Using variables indexing the scope of economic activities in U.S. communities at two points in time, we elaborate a technique for identifying the dimensions underlying an existing typology, and the 56 largest SMSA's are ranked along these dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the American Catholic Sociological Review approached, the leadership of the Association for the Sociology of Religion decided to dedicate the last issue of Volume Fifty of Sociological Analysis to analyzing the various scholarly concerns involved in the change from the American Catholic Sociological Society into the Association for the Sociology of Religion. The special issue contained not only four major articles but also seven notes by former presidents that dealt with the sociological aspects of this transformation. With the exception of an article by Peter Kivisto, all of the analyses, explicitly or implicitly, endorsed the organizational move and its intellectual implications. The paper is an effort to provide some balance to the historical record as portrayed in the special issue and to make a contribution to a renewed attempt to construct a Catholic sociology as well as an association of Catholic sociologists. While the concerns that are found within the anniversary issue deserve a full-length treatment, what can be realistically offered here are only a short historical background and a few reactions to the arguments of its contributors.

Research on the effects of restrictive voter registration laws has been largely passé for nearly a decade, apparently due to the widespread acceptance of Wolflnger and Rosenstone's (1980) study of voter turnout. Wolfinger and Rosenstone's research indicates that fully liberalized registration laws would produce a larger voting population, which would differ only marginally in its composition from the existing electorate. But their analysis only addresses turnout, not registration itself, and is based on a single sample of the American electorate, 1972. This paper focuses on the impact of restrictive laws on registration and turnout in presidential and nonpresidential election years during the period 1972-1982, relying on data from both the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Surveys and the National Election Studies. The results of the analyses do mark important points of difference from Woffinger and Rosenstone's findings. Ultimately, however, there is no escaping their conclusion that the implications of liberalized voter registration laws on the composition of the electorate would be relatively minor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a model of turnout that extends the Biker and Ordeshook (1968) model to account for the purchase of new information for assessing outcome-contingent benefits and that seeks to integrate the various institutional, sociological, psychological. and economic factors that have been advanced to account for turnout in American presidential elections. Personal and institutional data from the 1972 and 1976 ICPSR NES Panel Study and Vote Validation Survey are used to test the model. The results suggest that a variety of factors are important in influencing the turnout decision, including the perceived difference between the candidates (in 1976), sense of social duty, sense of attachment to relevant groups, political efficacy, resource constraints, residence, and the costs of registering (in 1976). Closeness of the election also seemed to have a significant impact in 1976. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines multiple characteristics of belief systems among people at different levels in the policy process using the same measures in the same time period. More specifically, it analyzes belief systems concerning the environment among the general public, several attentive publics, and state legislators in Idaho. The following belief system characteristics are probed: horizontal constraint among specific issue beliefs, and between general environmental orientations and party and ideology; vertical constraint between the general environmental orientation and specific issue beliefs; and the role of general orientations in screening incoming information. Legislators are more likely to connect their environmental beliefs to partisan and ideological orientations. However, attentive and general public respondents do exhibit substantial constraint within the environmental issue domain; individual self-placement on a preservationist-developmentalist dimension appears to provide a cohering force in orientations to the environment. While legislators exhibit greater belief connections with general political orientations, the results also suggest an order in the public's beliefs about the environment and in the nature of conflict over the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces issues and topics discussed in the Winter 2002 issue of The American Sociologist. Bill Du Bois and R. Dean Wright begin with a broad-gauge discussion of the meaning of humanist sociology. Chet Ballard then contributes a description of the early years of humanism as a movement, including the first annual conferences of what became the Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS). Jerold Starr offers a personal account of the attractions of the emerging movement and the distinctive feel of AHS conferences. Jill Bystydzienski provides a perspective on both humanism and feminism, and addresses the tensions between those movements, based on her own participation in both. Art Jipson discusses how a commitment to humanism has affected his approach to undergraduate teaching. Hal Pepinsky offers an autobiographical essay on his development as a humanist criminologist. Lloyd Klein and Shela R. Van Ness trace the development of humanist criminology. Alan Spector examines the divergence and convergence of humanism and Marxist sociology, against based on personal experience within both movements. The final paper by Severyn T. Bruyn celebrates the humanist commitment of the late William F. Whyte.

This article presents Paul Kay's reaction to several comments on his paper which appeared in a previous issue of The American Sociologist, which addressed the nonacademic employment among doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. On the whole, according to Kay, there seems to be agreement among the commenters (a) that social science generally is facing an oversupply of doctor of philosophy degree holders and (b) that there is substantial adherence in some quarters to the claim that the glut can be alleviated by expanding nonacademic employment. Similarly, although some commenters express doubt regarding the degree to which what Kay describes for anthropology applies to sociology, most state or assume that the current employment situations of the two disciplines are essentially the same. That is, the consensus of the comments is that his argument is either right for both disciplines or wrong for both disciplines, but probably not right for one and wrong for the other. Several commenters are worried by the lack of statistical report. Kay admits that his paper presented no statistics. According to him, reliable data in this area are hard to come by especially on the demand side.

This study examines course catalogs of 850 community colleges in each of the fifty states in order to explore the sociology curriculum offered. As part of the study, a content analysis of introductory sociology course descriptions was also examined. Findings suggest there are some State differences in course offerings and also suggest that state-wide articulation agreements may play a role in explaining sociology courses offerings. In examining course descriptions for introductory courses, the authors note that in many ways course descriptions do not coincide with previous research on what should be taught in an introductory sociology course. Overall, findings suggest there is a strong need for further research on sociology within the community college context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the status of women and feminism in the Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS) in the U.S. from 1976 to 2002. The author's perspective is that of a feminist sociologist trained in the 1960s and 1970s, rooted in a radical feminism and embracing a transformational, international feminism. Women had constituted a minority in terms of numbers as well as intellectual recognition within the AHS. The author claims that according to his experience and that of other feminist involved in AHS, although the association had been from the beginning much more welcoming of women and their contributions than other sociological organizations, the relationship between feminism and humanist sociology has not always been an easy one. However, humanist sociology, as its is practiced in the AHS, has changed over time and has become increasingly accepting of feminism. The author attributes this to grassroots efforts among feminist members of the association to better integrate women and feminism, and the increasing numbers of women in the AHS, as well as a growing awareness among both humanist sociologists and feminists of the great human variety of positionalities, identities, and experiences.

The Detroit Area Study (DAS) has served for 25 years as one model of how a sociology faculty can combine productive research and graduate training within a single small unit. This paper outlines the current structure and costs of DAS, describes its math advantages and limitations, and suggests several ways in which other universities might develop units that are similar but not identical to DAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes briefly the formal relationship between the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the seven regional sociological societies, suggests that little has resulted from the affiliation, and recommends (1) the ASA Committee on Regional Affairs be terminated, and (2) four other ways of linking the national and regional societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the conventional academic wisdom that supports the "publish or perish" doctrine. Employing a theoretical framework derived from Berger and Luckmann (1966), other sources of legitimation are analyzed. While the doctrine is related to themes in the larger culture (i.e., a high mass production/consumption economy), this does not fully explain why research and publication receive such determined support from faculty, particularly since alternative means of evaluation exist. An explanation of the publish or perish doctrine is offered in terms of the use of esoteric knowledge (its product) to enhance and preserve professional authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I would like to try to sort out the conflict of two ways of knowing: on the one hand there are folk methods for constituting positive knowledge and on the other hand there are scientific methods of acquiring accurate, positive knowledge. Both methods try to solve the problem of subjectivity: privately, individually held states of knowing and understanding. In this endeavor, the very existence of social reality is at stake. If persons have, internally, states of understanding that are different from each other in any persistent and significant way, their behavior will be at cross purpose or to no human purpose and gradually behavior will drift irreconcilably apart. There are, of course, social controls by which to resynchronize behavior but in these, too, folk methods are challenged by scientific methods. I wish to emphasize that the human project requires both folk methods and scientific methods of knowledge constitution. The former could ensure collective praxis; the latter could contribute to the authentic self-knowledge of a social life world. Together they could reunite the alienated divisions of the knowledge process. I suggest some canons in the last section that may promote such reunification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the history and accomplishments of the American Sociological Association. The most astonishing activity of the ASA is an annual production, the extravaganza called the national meetings. In the 1940s and 1950s the national convention was sometimes criticized for being a market fair at which young academics were forced to kowtow to the mighty for jobs, rather than being able to take delight in truly intellectual discourse. Over the decades, the business meetings of the ASA have remained unchanged in one important way. They always have been poorly attended, except for a few times in the late 1960s. This intense apathy is characteristic of a well run learned society. First it shows the good sense of sociologists, for there is little worth capturing at the business meeting. Second, most of the time the Council and the national staff have succeeded in attaining harmony with the vibrations of their constituents, and thus, they often have made entirely independent decisions that pleased the others anyway. Even in the high drama of business meetings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it should be noted, established sociology was the main target. In response to the sociologist's usual preference for egalitarian policy, the 1960's charges of elitism, and the sheer growth of research money, the number of papers or presentations has grown, certainly faster than the membership.

The article presents information on the work of sociologist George Simmel in relation to American sociology. The history of sociology is in need of a new historical narrative, a story that reflects and reinforces the contemporary transition in sociological thought from a celebration of scientific autonomy to a demonstration of social relevance. Whether they are accomplished through critical analysis of sociological discourse, historical analysis of sociology's changing publics, or pragmatic proposals for change, sociology's aspirations to professional and intellectual self-sufficiency have been pronounced a failure. This article reexamines the American Simmel reception in light of the conception of sociology as a conversation on America rather than a conversation sociologists have with themselves. It views sociologists as creative figures, like poets and novelists who help to shape America's future by molding how people think about it. To recognize this feature of the American reception of Simmel's work is not to deny that there were, intellectual reasons for an interest in Simmel. One can and must examine the historical and contemporary interest in Simmel from both points of view. Indeed, it is probably an error to consider theoretical reason and practical life as polar terms. A pragmatic and phenomenologically informed study of social theory, its production and reception, would the links between lifeworld and social thought.

The elucidation of explanatory relationships between individuated life experience and articulated thought is perhaps the least precise of all scholarly endeavors. It is the most susceptible to the subjective loadings of the explicator and the most likely to be exploited for non-scholarly ends. Scholarship on Thorstein Veblen is rife with examples. David Riesman, who relied uncritically on Dorfman for the biographical elements that informed his infelicitous foray into psychohistory, carried the search for a psychological explanation of Thorstein Veblen's irreverent assault on the mores and mechanisms of power and wealth to its height. Even while protesting that "it does not help determine the truth of a doctrine to penetrate into its personal and psychological sources in its originator," Riesman proceeds with great determination to do precisely that; to reduce Thorstein Veblen to emotionally crippling origins on the margins of Yankee society, which, despite genuflexions to Veblen's intellectual stature, in effect seeks to neutralize his most penetrating criticisms of the prevailing societal order.

This article provides information on the topics that will discussed in the "American Sociologist" journal, including constructions of the sociological tradition, life in academic departments, sociology and spirituality, social, business and economics and sociology and public policy.

Sociological associations in the U.S. are generally viewed as existing on two levels: national and regional. A third level, however, does exist: the intra-regional. Even though sociologists know very little about organizing at this level, intra-regional associations may become increasingly important to the discipline because of labor market pressures, broader participation in the profession by teaching sociologists, the influence of revenue sharing on research funding and the energy crisis. Intra-regional associations are frequently referred to as state associations; however, the data indicate the former classification is more valid. The purpose of this article is to describe the organization of sociology on the intra-regional level. How little sociologists know about this level was demonstrated early in the research. A roster of intra-regional associations was not available from the national or the regional levels. Consequently, a letter was sent to the sociology department chairman at a university in each state. A questionnaire was sent to each association and it was filled out by one or more current and/or recent officers. Attitudes expressed by the respondents should be considered their own and not representative of the total membership.

An introduction is presented to several articles published in the December 2008 issue of "American Sociologist" including Intellectual Integration and Articles in Core Sociology Journals, 1960–2000," by Mark Oromaner, "Collaborative Research in Sociology: Trends and Contributing Factors," by Laura Hunter and Erin Leahey, and "The Impact of Gender Characteristics on Mentoring in Graduate Departments of Sociology," by Priya Dua.

This article reflects on the progress of the American Sociological Association (ASA) from 1905 to 1980. The author relates that when she took office elate in 1949, there were approximately 2,700 members on the Society's roles. Ten years later there were 7,000. With the Reorganization Committee of 1950 anticipating the potential, certain goals for the Association were set early in the decade. There were eight goals that the society was determined to accomplish. It is a matter of record that considerable progress was made during the decade of the 1950s in moving toward these goals especially the first six Constitutional changes were affected. membership participation was broadened. An executive office was organized. Several new publications were started. Membership services generally were expanded. All the annual meeting, over 300 papers were presented in 1960 in contrast to 77 in 1950. In two important respects, however, the mid-century ASA was somewhat less effective in performing its supportive role in expanding the uses of sociology and in aiding the development of the discipline. For example, responding to indications that sociologists were needed in a variety of practicing professions, ASA together with Russell Sage Foundation, undertook a series of bulletins on the fields of sociological application.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Paul Kay in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which analyzed the growth of a mythical enthusiasm for nonacademic employment in anthropology and other disciplines in the U.S. Kay proposes three tests for labeling this as an ideology, that it is demonstrably false and it serves to maintain the status quo. According to the commenter, he has seen very little evidence that the field of sociology is suffused with a growing enthusiasm about prospects for jobs outside academia. The American Sociological Association's (ASA) Expanding Employment Opportunities Committee's attempts to define the problem and to suggest useful steps to be taken to deal with it have hardly struck fire either at the grays roots or at the ASA Council level. Skepticism has been expressed as to whether the problem of a declining academic job market is not simply temporary, and thus not deserving of curriculum revision, recruiting cutbacks or some other organized response. Kay defends his second point, that the belief is false, mainly by referring to the competitive disadvantage of anthropologists in seeking to supplant others now holding nonacademic jobs or when offering their services at the same time as others displaced by the same market forces.

This article presents Robert A. Stebbins' reaction to several comments on his paper which appeared in a previous issue of The American Sociologist, which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. Stebbins states that he wishes only to offer a single clarification of a poorly communicated passage that caught Althauser's attention. It concerns the four conditions that encourage the emergence and persistence of an avocational interest in science. According to Stebbins, when he wrote the passage, he had Kuhn's concept of normal science in mind. Amateurism takes root in those sciences or areas of sciences that lack a dominant paradigm as the exclusive grade to scholarly research. These fields are in a preparadigm stage of development in which several schools of thought compete. Why then, is there no amateur sociology? Among the answers to this question, according to Stebbins, are that sociologists lack a tradition of amateurism, a vision that amateurs could help professionals with some of their research interests, and a willingness to organize nonprofessional assistance on any basis other than temporary. The same conclusions could likely be reached for other sciences.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Robert A. Stebbins in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. Amateur sociology was the parent professional, the child Park was a professional writer, an amateur sociologist. He did join the sociological fraternity, to that extent he became professional. Sumner wrote a book it got adopted by sociologists. Sumner accepted the adoption very unwillingly, and made no change in his writing or thinking. At present, sociology has a professional structure, and can control what is published as sociology, but the commenter is grateful that people cannot control what is written on sociological matters or in the sociological mood. The commenter cites that unless sociologists get much more bureaucratized, it will always be possible for people to be writers of sociology. At present, sociology has a professional structure, and can control what is published as sociology. There is no virtue in being amateur. Researchers, professional or not should not try to publish their reports in the regular journals. In this way new lines of thought and research will reach the widest audience of interested readers.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Robert A. Stebbins in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. Stebbins' account of professional and amateur sociology unearths a set of boxes nesting in one another that according to the commenter, contain issues going to the foundations of current social science, conceptually and institutionally. The most encompassing issue is embedded in Stebbins' assertion throughout that the discipline and profession of sociology exists, has definable and agreed aims, and is thereby a special stream in science as well as within social science. He presumes that there is some accurate version of sociology into which laypeople can and should be indoctrinated. The commenter relates that many institutional structures support this version of the division of scientific labor, a version based more on professionalism and careerism than on ideas about the unity of science. Skepticism, is missing from this account of sociology. The proposal mostly takes up issues of craft, unrelated however to the research questions for which the particular tactic of volunteer sociologists would be more useful than another.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Robert A. Stebbins in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. The British organization, Mass Observation existed in a relatively nonintrusive society with (as compared to the U.S.) greater concern for one's own and other people's privacy. Canada and Great Britain may in this respect have more built-in defenses against the risks of some kinds of amateur sociology that the U.S. would have. However, according to the commenter, Stebbins already anticipates this objection by requiring amateurs to be supervised and to start with a certain amount of instruction and proper cautionary comments. By engaging primarily in the use of unobtrusive measures and observations, the amateur will avoid the risks of harm to which Stebbins is already sensitive. The commenter relates that one of the public areas in which he has encouraged such unobtrusive observations is in churches, where the observer in outward appearance is similar to the congregation and hence not seen as an intruder. According to him, he has had a fair amount of experience with undergraduate amateurs of the sort described.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Paul Kay in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which addressed the growing number of unemployed and underemployed doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. According to the commenter, he sees little evidence of a burgeoning enthusiasm for nonacademic employment among sociologists. Nor he sees any substantial evidence that the scholarly emphasis of most doctor of philosophy programs in sociology is giving way to practical training and applied programs. To be sure, a number of sociologists have counseled such a shift, but their ranks are relatively small. With respect to the likelihood of any massive proportionate increase in nonacademic job opportunities for sociologists, the commenter explains that he comes to pretty much the same point that Kay makes for anthropologists. The estimates suggest that possibly one out of every five sociologists is employed in a nonacademic setting, and that this ratio has not varied much over the past quarter century. According to the commenter, this is not to say however that the number of nonacademic positions for sociologists will not continue to increase as it has for the past twenty-odd years.

This article presents a commentary on a paper by Paul Kay in a previous issue of The American Sociologist which addressed the growing number of unemployed and underemployed doctor of philosophy degree holders in the U.S. Kay implies that traditional training for academic employment is not ideological but rational in character. The commenters disagree with this idea. According to them, it is important to raise this issue because, in spite of very modest changes in employment patterns the vast majority of social scientists, even throughout the lean 1970s, did hold academic jobs. Training for research in graduate school regularly takes precedence over training for teaching, and yet most college faculty rarely if ever publish the fruits of their scholarship, while presumably all teach. Their lack of fit between training and work experience will increase as more and more doctor of philosophy degree holders bump down within academe from sociology to non-sociology departments, and/or from research to teaching institutions where they may find some rewards for competent teaching, but weak institutional and even interpersonal support for their research interests. However, according to the commenters, this is certainly not to say that training for critical analysis and scholarship ought to be abandoned, but rather that graduate education should include attention to the shifting realities of academic employment.

Community colleges are playing an increasingly important and visible role in higher education in the United States. However, the additional attention to community colleges has not produced the same degree of recognition regarding the importance and needs of the faculty within those institutions, who make up about 27 percent of all faculty members nation-wide. This article examines factors influencing the professional status of community college faculty. We argue that understanding the position of community college faculty in higher education today depends upon understanding that professional status is a dynamic and contested terrain, rather than a series of static characteristics. Following Abbott's () analysis of the efforts of librarians to achieve professional status, we consider how the changing structure of higher education in the United States may impact community college faculty as professionals, both positively and negatively. As one example of community college faculty raising their issues within a discipline-wide professional organization, we examine the current state of community college faculty with the American Sociological Association (ASA). We consider potential status changes for community college faculty in sociology within the context of the broad threats to the professional status of faculty across the higher education landscape. Paradoxically, these threats might result in an opening for efforts by community college faculty to improve their professional status, perhaps in coalition with faculty in other sectors of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a contribution to the ongoing efforts to interpret the significant contribution to American sociology of Talcott Parsons (1902-1979). The author corrects an implication of his previous article in this journal by drawing attention to the profound impact of evolutionary cosmology upon Parsons' theoretical presuppositions. This ensured an inner and continuing complexity in his theory of the 'social system' from what we can identify as its earliest conceptual beginnings when Parsons was an under-graduate student at Amherst College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reveals the emergence of the idea of development in the sociological study of Latin America in the United States as a specific product of history. We show how in the 1960s, it was the result of interaction between the economic, political, military, and scientific fields generated by the mobilization of resources based on their respective rules. We criticize the idea that sociology had clearly-defined goals during this period. Our research demonstrates, for instance, how the research conducted on Latin America during that period was rooted in 'topical tropism'. Our investigation is based on the analysis of empirical data including institutional information, journal articles and historical archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]