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Objects may in the future become enhanced with new digital properties and information-communication capabilities, thus turning them into Hyper-Objects. This paper describes an approach towards defining Hyper-Objects, and examines to what extent their advance affects our existing lifestyle patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most methods currently available for grouping an agency funded projects are well suited for continuous data (e.g., Dalenius and Hodges Cum √f rule) but not for grouping a few projects based on their means. This is because these project means form a set of discrete observations. So, applying Dalenius and Hodges Cum √f rule to such discrete observations generally does not help in forming as homogeneous groups as one would desire. Seeking more homogeneous groups in practice is necessary because often an administrator needs as accurate comparisons among projects as possible (e.g., evaluation of project performances) to make correct decisions about continuation or administration of agency funded projects. Therefore, in this paper an iterative procedure is given to group projects in such a situation. To apply this procedure, the only requirement is that the variable used for stratification is not a categorical or a nominal variable. The iterative procedure is illustrated by three examples. As should be expected, the procedure yields a different and more homogeneous set of strata than the one obtained by the Cum √f rule. For administration of projects, to form as homogeneous a group of projects as possible is important and , therefore, it is advisable to use this procedure to achieve more homogeneous strata for the data at hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a year in which numerous countries are going to the polls, many election-watching scientists are under pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colin Sumner (1994) argued that the sociology of deviance "died" in 1975. This paper critically examines Sumner's argument and finds that it does not mean what it he claims it means. In fact, it is about a decline in the supposed ideological function of the field for the ruling elite and not its declining intellectual vitality. Miller, Wright, and Dannels (2001) claim to test Sumner's argument and find some empirical support for it. This paper finds Wright et al.'s tests flawed and suggests alternative explanations for their findings. Some implications of this issue for the current state of the field are discussed. While the sociology of deviance has declined in theoretical vitality since the 1960s and 1970s, it leaves a legacy of influence in other fields, it remains an ongoing academic enterprise, it still attracts a fair number of students, and its textbooks are cited in the field of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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This paper identifies some deficiencies in the theory of value as found in traditional economics, specifically the fallacy of absolute value and its spurious resolution that treats prices as a priori parameters rather than as variables to be explained. One is a fallacy of omission, the other of commission, which together comprise the epistemological paradox of the modern neoclassical theory of value. This paper advances a different, sociological approach to economic value or market prices as a possible corrective to this paradox. Such an approach has origins in sociological economics or economic sociology, the main premise of which is that social influences in the economy affect the formation of value or price. This paper therefore explores the seldom examined social underpinnings of price formation and of market processes generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of papers published in the journal "Quality and Quantity." The paper "Interrelation of Dependence Coefficients and Influence Coefficients" by Friedrikh Markovich Borodkin reveals the relation between dependence coefficients and influence coefficients. The influence coefficients which are in a sense similar to correlation coefficients, are shown to be the function of a set of dependence coefficients. Another paper says that the process of socioeconomic development, transformation of the countryside and agriculture embrace all kinds of settlements. The effect exercised by migratory movement of population on these processes is not simple. On the one hand cityward migration of the youth with higher level of general educational and special training level reduces "sociodemographic potential" of the contemporary countryside, simultaneously decreasing the total size of population and making its qualitative composition worse. On the other hand, some migrants moving to cities with the aim to raise their educational level and skills come back to the country with a much broader life outlook, higher knowledge, having assimilated urban patterns and values.

The article compares philosopher Talcott Parsons's views with Habermas's theory. The entire basis of Habermas's communicative action banks on the distinctions Parsons made some sixty years previously, namely Habermas's notion of the universal validity claims underlying all speech. The three dimensions corresponding to the three validity claims are the subjective world, the objective world and the social world. This makes sense only in post conventional societies, because prior to that time, persons often drew upon only one world in making claims such as appealing to tradition, the divine right of kings, aesthetics, religion, or whatever. Habermas's penchant for grand, overarching theory was borrowed from Parsons and Parsons himself had been earlier influenced by that unique German brand of theorizing tracing back through Hegel and Marx, Simmel, Weber and Mannheim. In effect, the same logic underlying Habermas's analytic of the three worlds and the three validity claims can be found in the pages of Parsons's Amherst papers.

This article introduces a series of articles on sociology.

Social vulnerability to climate change is increasingly being acknowledged, and proposals to measure and manage it are emerging. Building upon this work, this paper proposes an approach to social vulnerability assessment using new empirical definitions of Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) components and new mechanism to aggregate and account for causal relationships among these components. To develop this index, the authors propose a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, which are all based on local environmental professionals and community members. A means to develop an appropriate primary dataset, through application of a specifically designed household survey questionnaire, is underpinned by the results of a Delphi survey, an in-depth interview and focus group discussions. The data collection and analysis, including calibration and calculation of the SVI, is demonstrated through application in a case study city in central coastal Vietnam. The calculation of SVI at the fine-grained local scale provides high resolution in vulnerability assessment and also obviates the need for secondary data, which may be unavailable or problematic, particularly at the local scale in developing countries. The research reveals inherent limitations of existing SVIs but also indicates the potential for their use in assessing social vulnerability and making decisions associated with responding to climate change at the local scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the non-instrumental dimension of social capital and its effects on subjective well-being. In the first part, we define the characteristics of production and consumption of relational goods. The second section analyses the influence of the different expressions of relational goods and social capital on individual subjective well-being. In the third, we test the explanatory power of this variable on the Easterlin's paradox using the results of a survey on individual social capital in Spain. The main findings from the empirical analysis for Spanish society allow us to strengthen the hypothesis. We found a weak explanatory capacity of income or educational level or instrumental dimensions of social capital (expert mobilization) while a strong link between expressions of relational goods (domestic mobilization, household stability, partnership, trust and security in the environment) was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law & economics scholars claim, among other things, to provide explanations of how law impacts behaviour. The aim of this article is to shed light on the conceptual and methodological difficulties related to analysis of the impact that law has on behaviour. The analysis advanced in the paper takes as its starting point a commentary on Richard Posner's interpretation of Hans Kelsen's pure theory of law. The work of Kelsen is treated as a meta-theoretical analysis that reveals some of the presumptions of theoretical approaches to law that claim to be scientific and, in particular, that claim to scientifically analyse the law's influence on behaviour. The article concludes with a methodological proposal on how to approach the identified methodological challenges and conceptual tensions that law & economics contends with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the measurement of socioeconomic inequality of health between countries and its evolution over time, by means of population-weighted indicators. We show that rank-dependent indicators of inequality can be highly sensitive to small changes in the socioeconomic variable when estimating inequality in samples consisting of countries with large differences in population weights. Since larger countries count more than smaller countries, changes in the former tend to have bigger effects than changes in the latter. When using rank-dependent indicators, however, the sensitivity to small changes in the variable which is used for ranking can be so extreme, that the indicator may suggest trend reversals in inequality which do not really exist. An empirical study shows that this is not a freak case. The use of rank-dependent indicators may therefore produce misleading results when it comes to the measurement of population-weighted between-country inequality. We propose a simple diagnostic test to check how sensitive rank-dependent indices are to small changes in the variable used for ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of contemporary sociological issues in fire safety. The most obviously social aspects of fire safety-those that relate to the socioeconomic distribution of fire casualties and damage-are discussed first. The means that society uses to mitigate fire risks through regulation are treated next; focusing on the shift towards fire engineered solutions and the particular challenges this poses for the social distribution and communication of fire safety knowledge and expertise. Finally, the social construction of fire safety knowledge is discussed, raising questions about whether the confidence in the application of this knowledge by the full range of participants in the fire safety design and approvals process is always justified, given the specific assumptions involved in both the production of the knowledge and its extension to applications significantly removed from the original knowledge production; and the requisite competence that is therefore needed to apply this knowledge. The overarching objective is to argue that the fire safety professions ought to be more reflexive and informed about the nature of the knowledge and expertise that they develop and apply, and to suggest that fire safety scientists and engineers ought to actively collaborate with social scientists in research designed to study the way people interact with fire safety technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the postulation of irreducible, distributed cognitive systems (or group minds as they are also known in the literature) is necessary for the successful explanatory practice of cognitive science and sociology. Towards this end, and with an eye specifically on the phenomenon of distributed cognition, the debate over reductionism versus emergence is examined from the perspective of Dynamical Systems Theory (DST). The motivation for this novel approach is threefold. Firstly, DST is particularly popular amongst cognitive scientists who work on modelling collective behaviors. Secondly, DST can deliver two distinct arguments in support of the claim that the presence of mutual interactions between group members necessitates the postulation of the corresponding group entity. Thirdly, DST can also provide a succinct understanding of the way group entities exert downward causation on their individual members. The outcome is a naturalist account of the emergent, and thereby irreducible, nature of distributed cognitive systems that avoids the reductionists' threat of epiphenomenalism, while being well in line with materialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of papers on epistemology and professional practice of sociology with topics such as the role of the journal "New Zealand Sociology" in creating a national sociology in the country, the concept of culture in contemporary sociology and conflict sociology.

This paper offers a sociological perspective on data protection regulation and its relevance to design. From this perspective, proposed regulation in Europe and the USA seeks to create a new economic actor-the consumer as personal data trader-through new legal frameworks that shift the locus of agency and control in data processing towards the individual consumer or 'data subject'. The sociological perspective on proposed data regulation recognises the reflexive relationship between law and the social order, and the commensurate needs to balance the demand for compliance with the design of computational tools that enable this new economic actor. We present the Databox model as a means of providing data protection and allowing the individual to exploit personal data to become an active player in the emerging data economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Submitting articles to journals has become a difficult and time-consuming process, as has reviewing and re-reviewing articles that too often get the dreaded R&R letter. The underlying problem here is as old as the discipline, particularly in American sociology. Very different criteria are used in producing scholarship and reviewing its merits for publication; and current ways of editing journals aggravate this fundamental problem. The Big Divide in sociology is between a discipline that seeks to be a science and one that does not; and there is no easy reconciliation among those on either side of this divide. In this paper, the effects of this divide on journal publishing are reviewed in terms of the consequences of the Big Divide for the discipline. A simple but radical proposal is offered at the end for how sociologists can be put out over their misery in having to deal with the consequences of this Big Divide in their departments, in professional meetings, and most importantly, in publishing their intellectual products in journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a response to the comments made by Jay Corzine on the paper Conspiracy, Paranoia, and the Problem of Knowledge, by Charles W. Lidz. Corzine seems to want to define Lemert's empirical assertions and methods. My objections, however, are not primarily directed to either of these but to Lemert's approach to knowing the phenomenon, to his epistemology. Thus, Corzine objects to one of the two ways in which I suggest that one might go about assessing the objective existence of a conspiracy, namely, to use as a criterion the intentions of the actors involved. I proposed this only as one of the ways Lemert might have meant to assess the objective reality of the conspiracy, since it is a frequent criterion in interactionist sociology. My own position is clearly that it is a mistake to separate existence of a conspiracy from the way it is known, something required by any objective determination of whether or not a conspiracy is real. However, suppose for a moment, that I am wrong about what Lemert means and Corzine is right in every detail. Then it is hard to see why the paper is so widely thought to be important. Corzine's Lemert discovered only that sometimes people unite against people who are labelled paranoid but that this has no causal significance in the production of paranoia. Since Corzine's Lemert believes that conspiracy is a frequent occurrence in U.S. Organizations, there is no reason to believe it occurs more often to people labelled paranoid than to those who are not. While this position can argue that the paranoid has grounds for his feelings of persecution, so does just about everyone else. Corzine defends Lemert by condemning him to triviality.

An introduction to articles in the issue is presented including essays in honor of Professor Dorothy Pawluch, an essay on the state of sociology in India, and an article on the relevance of the concept of profession in building theories of contemporary complex socieities.

The 'participatory turn' in science and technology governance has resulted in the growth of initiatives designed to engage lay people in consultation and decision-making on controversial matters. Almost from the start there has been both enthusiasm and serious critique of these exercises, from scholars and activists. The gaps and challenges are well known. In this paper we indicate the limitations of deliberative mechanisms as regards how they cope with familiar forms of people's engagement with a given matter. We examine how this phenomenon unfolded at the Barcelona Citizen Conference on the Digitalization of Society; a participatory exercise inspired by the model of consensus conferences that took place in 2014 in Barcelona. Our perspective on the topic is inspired by Sociology of Engagements. Focusing on how participants and organizers deal with individual anecdotes, worries and testimonies reported during the conference, the analysis shows how these formats are ignored, externalized, banned and re-formed during deliberations. This phenomenon is seen as supporting a civic-liberal regime of engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that, if the performance of the economy is independent of the identities of individuals, then many welfare criteria yield sets of optimal social states that are equal to the Pareto optimal set. This result is proved for income distributions and extended to more general social choice problems. If the independence condition holds, then the set of optimal states is invariant to the adoption of an anonymity axiom, and to the utility information available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consider the case where one obtains maximum-likelihood estimates of regression coefficients for the respective populations from which each of two large independent samples is drawn. A question sometimes asked about the results of such an analysis is whether there is a difference between a coefficient in one population, θa, and the same coefficient in another population, θb. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of two test statistics that have been used to address this problem. Our results suggest that one statistic produces valid conclusions, while the other fails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dutch social protection system has been under reconstruction since the early 1980s. After describing the structure of the current system and addressing recent developments as to the treatment of families and individuals, this paper presents three scenarios that could develop in future years. In full individualization, benefits and conditions are attuned to individual citizens without considering their care for others and the financial means of others in their household. In a mini-system, statutory benefits are restricted to some minimum level. In further differentiation of the social minimum by household size, benefits are better attuned to the composition and size of household types. These three scenarios are evaluated based on four criteria. The differentiation scenario appears to meet nearly all criteria and seems to offer a new solution for the problem of the weak income position of households with children relative to other household types on the minimum income level. (JEL H55) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human interaction and communication involve space in multiple ways. This paper examines the spatial and interactional order of a covertly video-taped police interrogation. When the participants enter the interrogation room and become engaged in the interrogation process, the room itself is a constraint and a resource for interaction. While interacting within a built environment, the participants appropriate their material surroundings in ways that constitute a spatial order and make possible certain arguments. This paper examines how the physical structure of the interrogation room is differentially appropriated, used, and filled in by the participants‘ territorial and postural manoeuvers over the course of their interaction; and how the spatial structures thus created by the bodily appropriation of the physical locale are subsequently formulated by talk and thereby used as a metaphorical resource to frame the participants‘ situated experience. Through this embedded process, the interrogators move the suspect toward confession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German phenomenologist Alfred Schutz had a Japanese fellow scholar, Tomoo Otaka, to whom he expressed his deep gratitude in his book, "Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt." Though several Japanese philosophers had known German phenomenologists in the 1920-30s, it is very few who referred to Schutz's thought extensively in Japanese social scientists' circle of that time except for Otaka. This paper deals with a brief bibliographical history of the reception of Schutz's phenomenology in Japan in the period after the end of World War II. In the postwar period, theoretical sociology in Japan was increasingly influenced by American sociology, which took the place of German sociology of knowledge or German formal sociology which had been central in the prewar times. Many sociologists of the young generation supported the structural-functionalism of T. Parsons and his theory of the social system was most prominent in the 1960s. Then, spear-headed by students, a political, counter-cultural movement against the established authorities in universities and the academic circles had developed. Radical questions were directed toward the academies.

This article is concerned with the fixation of "evidence" or of "sense data", which are factors constructing facts from output and hypotheses of experiments and theories. Sense data tell us whether a particular theory is likely to be correct or not. The point is that just as scientific facts are the end product of complex processes of belief fixation, so visual "sense data," just what it is scientists see when they look at the outcome of an experiment, are the end product of socially organized procedures of evidence fixation. The data presented in the article is derived from an ongoing laboratory study of molecular genetics. The process first involves techniques of manual and instrumental enhancement, second, the visual inspection through an "autoradiograph film", and the third set of practices revolves around "evidence" by which the data actually included in the scientific papers. The autoradiograph film study involves a sequential steps as opening sequence, information-gathering, evaluation and finally the performance recommendation.

This paper, a personal phenomenological investigation of the life-world, is a contribution to the sociological study of everyday reality. The set of events that provide a way to phenomenology was the experience of being the victim of a violent crime. German philosopher Edmund Husserl conceived of the life-world as the world of lived-experience, that is, the taken-for-granted world of everyday social life. He also suggested that it is this assumed, intersubjective reality that provides the grounding or foundation for the individual's practical activities in ordinary life. This aspect of Husserl's philosophical phenomenology became the major element of the phenomenological sociology of sociologist Alfred Schutz. Schutz argues that the consciousness of everyday life is characterized by a naive acceptance of the intersubjective nature of the ordinary social world. Doubt is suspended concerning the reality of social life and the other egos that share it with people. That is, the life-world is intended and experienced as an intersubjective reality.

The article focuses on the field research as asymmetrical relation. In this paper, sociology is viewed as an undertaking concerned with the rational and systematic study of social life in all its manifestations. This is a statement of methodological principle, that is, it pertains to the reasoning and the procedures of sociologists. It should be read neither as an ontological statement, asserting that social conduct is rational, nor as the claim that sociology is a science in the traditional sense. Within the framework of the subjective approach to sociology, the first of the three conditions is met, basically, by the methodological device of the ideal type as introduced by Max Weber and developed by Alfred Schutz. This formulation of the preconditions of research in the vein of a sociology of understanding has brought into the open an usually hidden and ignored characteristic of the subjective sociological approach: the subjectivity involved is not merely that of motives and objectives, and knowledge of pertinent conditions and the command of interactional skills on the part of the observed actors; it is as much the subjectivity of the researcher.

The central argument of this paper has been that the epistemic structure of science cannot be adequately captured, let alone sufficiently understood, independently of its social, political, and institutional aspects. The argument has also been that for the most part, the major traditions of science studies have tried to isolate and to study the system of science in a reductionistic and piecemeal fashion. This situation will not be corrected by merely developing more new hybrid disciplines, although this too is called for. Neither will this situation be corrected by developing specific and detailed research hypotheses from models outlined in this paper. What is called for is a far greater sense of awareness and appreciation of the fact that science is, above all, a holistic phenomenon. Unless one is first aware and appreciative of this, it is unlikely that one will frame the kind of research hypotheses necessary to search for the interaction effects in the first place.

This paper attempts to offer, through a reading of hedonism, an analytic conception of the difference which one author has referred to as the dialectic of speech and silence. In addressing the form of life of hedonism as one version of otherness and difference, the author seek not only to display an alternative conception of life and inquiry than that of hedonism, but also to show the authority or grounds of this papers possibility - even if such a showing inevitably and necessarily remains incomplete. The first section begins to make available authors understanding of hedonism as one theory of desire and difference through a presentation and consideration of two contemporary expressions of it. The Second section provides the theory, through a consideration of classical hedonism, for the practices encountered in the prior section.

When external groups accuse a business organization of unethical practices, managers of the accused organization usually offer a communicative response to attempt to protect their organization's public image. Even though many researchers readily concur that analysis of these communicative responses is important to our understanding of business and society conflict, few investigations have focused on developing a theoretical framework for analyzing these communicative strategies used by managers. In addition, research in this area has suffered from a lack of empirical investigation. In this paper we address both of these weaknesses in the existing literature. First, we explicate Impression Management Theory as an appropriate framework for studying organizational communicative responses, paying particular attention to the concept of "accounts." Second, we critique previous investigations of organizational accounts and discuss the major contributions of our study. Third, we propose a coding system and content analyze the accounts offered by managers from 21 organizations that were recently the targets of consumer boycotts. Finally, we report the results of our empirical investigation and discuss ethical issues related to organizational accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows analytically how (a) the long-run growth rate and (b) the long-run proportional distribution of an interregional population system with a time-homogeneous structural matrix are affected by small changes or errors in (a) the natural growth rates of individual regions and (b) the interregional migration rates. Furthermore, the analytic results are applied to an eight-region Canadian population system. Finally, it is claimed that the method introduced here can be easily applied to sensitivity analysis of both the intrinsic growth rate and the "stable" age-composition of the Leslie model with respect to changes in age-specific birth and survival rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many situations that exist in science and technology where the performance of a set of subjects that are in competition with one another is evaluated in some way by a set of evaluators who act as judges. This paper presents a methodology by which these judges themselves can be evaluated in a manner that describes the relative standards they use in the evaluation process, their consistency, and how well they compare to a hypothetical ideal judge. The methodology is computationally simple, can be justified in a theoretical manner, and is easy to apply across a wide range of problem types. It can also be used in a predictive manner to indicate how absent judges would have most likely evaluated subjects if they were able to make such an evaluation. A number of empirical examples which fully describe the methodology are discussed in this paper along with the results of applying it to a sizeable real-world problem. The methodology is applicable to a number of areas of physical and social sciences and can be extended, as presented in this manuscript, in a manner which can be applied to other diverse problems in mathematical sociology, computer engineering, and graph theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although 'utility' has been the central concept in economics, economists have paid relatively little attention to its measurement. Generally, utility is measured indirectly via the revealed preference approach. We discuss problems with this approach and next introduce alternative 'direct' measurement methods. The direct measurement methods are seen to spawn a so-called theory of preference formation, which explains differences in utility functions of different individuals. The similarities of this theory with related theories in sociology and psychology, and various sorts of empirical evidence, are reviewed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for economic theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even a cursory perusal of the social science literature suffices to show the prevalence of dichotomous thinking. Many of these dichotomies deal with some aspect of the "conceptual versus empirical" distinction. This paper shows that while dichotomies predominate for some reason, the actual research process that they are designed to represent deals minimally with three separate and necessary levels. We term these the conceptual level (X), the empirical level (X'), and the operational or indicator level (X"). This minimal three level model is applied to an analysis of philosophical foundations of measurement, specifically the formulations of Northrop and Bridgman. It is shown that both these formulations are essentially dichotomous, while the phenomena they deal with are trichotomous. For example, Northrop's "concepts by postulation" and "concepts by intuition" are purportedly separate levels connected by an epistemic correlation. Application of the three level model reveals that both are true concepts, and thus belong on the same level of analysis (X). Similarly, application of the three level model to Brigman's formulation shows that both mental and physical concepts belong on the same level (X). Brigman's formulation is valuable in pointing out that operations are not restricted to one level of analysis, and in fact we see them to be crucial on all three levels. The three level model is not a panacea, but does provide an efficacious framework for the difficult but important task of analyzing the philosophical underpinning of measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various research papers regarding occupational mobility. There has been a resurgence of interest in the analysis of occupational mobility tables. One of the more exciting models which has been proposed is the structural model of researcher R.M. Hauser. Two research papers acknowledging Hauser's work have sought to develop such models further. The argument of this article, however, is that the interpretative claims made for Hauser's structural model cannot be sustained, and that accordingly analyses based upon it are misleading. The argument proceeds by initially accepting the proferred interpretation and applying the model to a set of data. This application generates a conflict. Various resolutions are explored. It is argued that were there a resolution it would have to lie with the substantive interpretability of the model, but it is further argued that the model cannot support such interpretations. The article ends by discussing the source of the indeterminacy, and suggesting an analysis strategy which would retain the odds-ratio structure of the table, as the structural model also does, but would avoid fraught decompositions.

The article presents information on primary schools. The complexity of sociological phenomena creates a perpetual problem in the conceptualization and analysis of sociological variables. Here, an example will be given illustrating the importance of using simple well-defined variables, which have a clear interpretation. The necessity of studying the structure of each variable, especially how the values of the variable are distributed through the population, will be emphasized. To this end, simple statistical models should initially be constructed using few variables at a time, say two or three, and all of the implications of such models drawn before proceeding to develop more complicated models. Since the more complex models usually employed almost invariably are based upon the normal distribution, it is important, while still working with the simple models, to explore the possibility that the assumptions of the normal model are not justified. Although this paper will be essentially methodological, the analysis of the example chosen to illustrate the three points just outlined will lead to interesting sociological conclusions. One important factor, which appears to increase the cost of education in underdeveloped countries, is that children do not proceed through school even approximately as a cohort. In every grade, one finds many children well over the age, which would be considered normal. This may arise from three principal factors: late entrance to schooling, high absentee rates producing missed years, and an inability to fulfill the requirements to pass from one grade to another, even given satisfactory attendance.

The article presents information on social inference. The purpose of this paper is to argue that cross-level inference is logically equivalent to any other kind of social inference. Cross-level inference shares with "cross-time and cross-unit" inferences the logic of "proximity" in "real" and/or "analytical" space: the closer any two or more objects are, the more likely their properties are co-determined or causal. The arguments will be general, discursive and illustrative rather than formal. If the point is soundly argued, then, in principle at least, proofs are possible. Indeed, one such formal proof is clearly indicated for cross-time and cross-level aggregative analysis in a recent work. Cross-level, "ecological" inference, or aggregative analysis has a relatively clear and circumscribed history in sociology and political science. This in part is due to the rather narrow analytical scope of the problem and to relatively clear "in principle" solutions to it. In at least one case, inferring properties and relationships about individuals from information about aggregates - the classical formulation of the "ecological fallacy" - the problem takes on the character of a puzzle in that it is possible to know the relationships at the individual level and then to design logical structures to estimate the "right" answer from limited information on social aggregates.

Every social scientist knows that it would be a mistake to treat a sample of journal articles as a true representation of the phenomenon at hand. Yet the group of eight articles that have been selected for the July 1, 1997, issue of "Qualitative Sociology," strikes the author as providing windows on some of the key changes that are now occurring in American families. Every single paper addresses some new aspect or recent development in family life, ranging from new family forms to egalitarian gender roles and new ways for families to relate to the wider community. At the same time that they raise new issues in new family settings, all of these articles contain a common theme. They reveal a fresh understanding of how feminism actually works in family life. The papers intertwine two contrasting themes, on the one hand, an exploration of how new family forms can liberate women from traditional ascriptive bonds that are imposed by the familiar gender system, and on the other hand, a discovery that traditional and particularistic solutions crop up in many aspects of child rearing and family life.

Presents an introduction to the December 1985 issue of the journal Qualitative Sociology.

This paper examines the central problems that affected a team research effort in a study of professional socialization. The researchers draw the reader's attention to the unanticipated difficulties they encountered in conducting the research--difficulties which, they suspect, are widely shared, but infrequently reported, in the discipline. The authors focus the analysis and discussion around the theme of competing commitments which affected the pace and direction of the research and created strains in team relations, leading eventually to the reconstitution of the team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to identify some features of conference life that merit further study. The data derive mainly from conferences in the social sciences--sociology, criminology, anthropology, psychology--as well as social work and law. Criminology conferences supply the main data-set. As long as governments, foundations and research councils retain their touching faith that the crime problem can be solved by getting people together in hotels to talk about it, these will be rich sources for replication research. The findings are presented in the form of a guide--using guide both in the analytical and normative sense. No one believes anymore that observations are uncontaminated by the interests of the observer. So, this is like a tourist guide: what is there to be seen and how to extract the maximum benefits from the experience. Following the standard sociological distinction, we might divide benefit into its expressive and instrumental dimensions. The conference has two main expressive functions. First, there is the social need for regular gatherings to meet old friends, colleagues, students, research assistants, teachers and lovers--as well as find new ones. Second, there is the purely individual pleasures of travel, good hotels, gourmet food, exotic tourist sights and being away from family and work commitments.

The article presents information on a study that focuses on the impact of electronic data interchange on sociology. This study aims to understand an area of social life undergoing social change at least at rapid and dramatic that seems destined to be sustained over several more decades. Also, it includes studies of the impact of computers on society, the manner in which computers are used by people, and substantive sociological issues applied to computing, ranging from community to inequality to interaction processes. In the beginning, the article discusses the theories of social change. Thereupon, it analyzes community, normative culture, and social control. Sociology in computing is the application of sociological perspectives, methods, and theories to the field of computing. This includes studies of how people interact with computers to help improve the human-computer interface and work identifying ways in which sociologists can contribute to improving the design and implementation of information systems.

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]

The social dimensions of risk have been neglected by the sciences and professions concerned with risk. Recent debates demonstrate deep concern, much disagreement, and misunderstanding within the risk analysis community regarding issues requiring sociological analysis. The "'people role" in risk analysis is not simply a matter of individual cognition and perception, important as these are. This paper reviews recent developments bearing on the policy implications of risk analysis which are of special interest to sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst offers a unique graduate program. The program is demanding but collegial, with faculty and students working together to produce mutually authored articles, monographs, and books. Many students concentrate their doctoral dissertations on applied topics, that is, social policy and evaluation research. These students are trained in theory and methods of sociology; their graduate training is the same as all other students in the program. Graduates have been well placed in the academy and in other occupational sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This collective effort (the order of authors is purely alphabetical) explores our particular Sociological perspective, explains the harriers we tire encountering in developing that perspective. and describes the strategies we are employing to create a participatory conditional environment. Our paper concludes that our alienation has decreased as our participation has increased. Now - three months after the paper went to the printer, developments in our department have to sonic extent reversed the sense of community and participation tee discuss below. Our task is larger than we first thought, though we still hope to succeed. [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.