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In this paper abridged nuptiality tables for the single population of India have been constructed for the three consecutive decades 1901-1911, 1911-1921 and 1921-1931. No significant time trend has been observed in the nuptiality rates among the single Population of India. The rates are initially small, but increase rapidly until they reach a maximum at ages 25-30 for bachelors and 15-20 for spinsters, following which they gradually decline. During 1901-1931, unlike Western countries, India had not experienced any revolution in marriage habits encompassing traditional child marriages. The distinctive marks of the Indian age patterns of marriage are higher age-specific marriage rates combined with lower ages at marriage and lower proportions of people who never marry with relative stability of marriage habits during the early part of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rampant acceleration of scientific advance and technological change that seems to be required for national viability unfortunately entails a disconcerting human consequence: an explosive increase in cultural complexity bearing ominous possibilities of massive social disruption. Attainment of an adequate rate of cultural adaptation-as an idealized response to this situation-can be predicated only on the basis of deeper comprehension and creative modification of the social-institutional decisionmaking processes that comprise the cognitive modus operandi of civilized society. Recent methodological developments in management science are presented as promising theoretical resources for extending the conventional paradigm of objective rational analysis to incorporate valuative aspects of policy-level decision problems. Initially the emphasis is placed on an extension of structured rationality which constitutes one of the core-advances contributing toward emergence of the policy sciences as a legitimate supradiscipline. With its secondary emphasis on the concept "institutional self-organization," this paper represents an attempt to (1) capitalize early on a particular feature of optimal organization and (2) bring this feature immediately to bear as a consideration in institutional systems design. The concept of a "national administrative research agency" is put forward as an institutional prototype embodying the innovative organizational format needed in order to connect theoretical and practical aspects of social problem solving. The significance of this prototype lies in its implication for achievement of a deliberately self-transforming society, a purposefully adaptive version of the social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several ways of judging whether a discipline has been accepted by society. An empirical means of assessing acceptance is to locate the discipline in evaluation rankings obtained front a representative sample of the population. This article is addressed to an examination and discussion of some consequences of the public's use of sociological concepts. From a sociological perspective, when the phrase culturally deprived is applied to a group, standard definitions are violated. Within this perspective, the phrase might legitimately be used to describe extreme social isolation, such as the case of a child raised in an attic by a deaf-mute, or a case in which institutionalized children are provided little social contact. The interrelationship among lower class, cultural deprivation, and mental retardation is a natural to investigators working in this area because of a consistency of epidemiological evidence several studies report highest prevalence rates of retardation in the lower class.

This article examines the Guatemalan census enumeration for 1950 and 1964 and the vital registration from 1945 to 1969. The examination reveals an inconsistency in the ethnic reporting of Ladino and Maya between the two systems. The evidence indicates census misclassification of the Maya population. An adjustment procedure is presented to revise the Ladino and Mayan populations for the two census years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we agree that social indicators indicate or measure only within the context of a theory of social change, and if we further assume that theories of social change which deal only with social conditions, behavioral interchanges or transactions, and the material environment, are likely to be unsuccessful because they ignore the "mental" side of life, it follows that we will want our theories of social change, and the social indicators associated with them, to incorporate the cultural and group psychological aspects of social behavior. When we look to possible data bases in search of raw material for social indicators of culture and group psychology there are, broadly speaking, two possibilities. Data may be gathered from interviews or from cultural artifacts. But interview response data, because of (a) their reactive character; (b) the difficulty of compiling time-series of responses; (c) the impossibility of making use of historical sources and (d) difficulties of validation against indicators external to the survey research context are, perhaps, less than ideal as a possible basis for social indicator systems. This leaves us with the possibility, and with the problem, of developing group psychological and cultural indicators from an analysis of cultural artifacts: literary documents, films, political speeches and other sources of this sort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of quantitative comparative data Middle Eastern countries report systematically the lowest female participation rates in economic activities outside of agriculture. This behavior represents a deviation from the current experience of other developing nations and from the historical experience of the now-industrialized West. Using comparative data on female employment patterns in Latin American countries which are at roughly a similar stage of economic development, it is shown that the low level and particular character of women's involvement in the work force in the Middle East can be explained by institutional arrangements contingent upon aspects of social structure. Five countries are selected for intensive analysis: Chile, Mexico, Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan. One major aspect of social organization and its cultural adjuncts is emphasized: The interplay between the volitional avoidance by women of certain occupational sectors because of the social stigmatizing aspect and the prohibition of occupational opportunities imposed by males. The combined effects of this tradition of female seclusion and exclusion are confirmed by the detailed analysis of the structure of the non-agricultural labor force: Middle Eastern women are absent systematically from occupational and industrial sectors of employment which involve public activity and presuppose contact with males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article discusses the teaching of sociology in a metropolitan college. A principal bar to the attainment of the rationality of ends and means envisaged in the liberal arts tradition is the easy availability of cultural prescriptions for action. Immersion in a culture provides a substitute for thinking in nearly all aspects of life. Culture acts by eliminating the alternatives for action in a given situation to either a single one or to an oversimplified few. A sociological education can inform students of the nature of social constraint, of the fact that norms, values and beliefs are social in origin rather than biological or physical. It can explain the mechanisms that sustain cultural prescriptions, the relations between culture and personality that result in individuals bearing the culture without consciousness of this fact. Sociological theory implies that what might be good or functional for the group as a whole may not necessarily be in the best interests of individual members of the group, and that individuals may resist group prescriptions and at times be the better off for their resistance. The ultimate goal of a liberal arts education is the making of rational choices between studied alternatives on the basis of considered values.