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The article presents information on various developments in the field of sociology. For the 1970 national meetings of the American Sociological Association, special efforts are being made to expand and enlarge the seminar sessions. These sessions are an experiment in seeking to make available a new format at the convention in order to overcome fragmented sessions and to permit discussion in depth. The luncheon roundtables at the Annual Meeting continue to be highly successful and more than 100 are being scheduled for the 1970 meeting. Herbert L. Costner of the University of Washington will replace Edgar F. Borgatta as editor of Sociological Methodology as of January 1, 1970. Papers will be accepted for review for Sociological Methodology: 1971 from January, 1970, through September 1970. They will be accepted or rejected as soon as sufficient editorial review is available, usually in 6 to 12 weeks. Papers accepted early in the year will be available for any necessary revision before the publisher's deadline, and hence early submission is encouraged.

The process of evaluating papers for journal publication is a measurement process, similar to the other measurement processes of qualitative material in the social sciences. A good qualitative measurement technique rarely has a reliability coefficient of more than about 0.50 i.e., a correlation of 0.50 of one measurement with another measurement by the same technique. The square root of the reliability of a measure is the upper limit of its validity. If it is assumed that journal editing as a measurement process is as good as good qualitative measurement can possibly be, given this experience in the social sciences it would estimate the validity of a judgment of article quality to be about 0.70. The two major journals in Sociology accept about 16 per cent of the papers submitted to them. If the quality of papers judged is approximately normal, then one can say that papers judged to be 1 standard deviation or more above the mean of papers submitted will be accepted. Assuming a correlation of 0.70 between the true quality of the paper and the judged quality, one can estimate the proportion of acceptances of papers of different quality.

The article presents a sociological view of the press coverage of a sociological convention. The coverage is based on observations carried out by five newsmen-observers who attended the August 1965 American Sociological Association (ASA) meetings in Chicago, Illinois. The general conclusion of this study of the convention was that the confrontation of the sociologist with the representative of the news media was overwhelmingly inadvertent, disconcerting and only partially successful to either party. In terms of efficiency in social communication, it leaves much to be desired and strongly entices one to prescribe therapy. Few suggestions are made in advance of Florida sessions in order to get sociologist into communication with the Miami Press. It is suggested to issue a handbook in advance of the convention to all members of the ASA and once the convention has started, to maintain a special message board near the newsroom which offers a chance for newsmen to indicate their wish to contact writers of papers. It is also suggested the president of the ASA assemble a small, informal committee which would hold daily news briefings alerting them to persons or topics originating outside or inside the formal program of the convention.

The article presents information on the 63rd Annual Meeting of the ASA, which will be held in Boston, Massachusetts between August 26-29, 1968. The Program Committee, consisting of Philip M. Hauser, William J. Goode, Robin M. Williams, O.D. Duncan, and Gerhard E. Lenski, is planning sessions on the central theme of "On The Gap Between Sociology and Social Policy." The total program will include four subdivisions, Thematic Sessions, Regular Sessions, Seminar Sessions and Luncheon Roundtable Discussions. ASA policy on participation in the program will apply to the three types of sessions but not to the Luncheon Roundtables: each author is limited to a single paper on the program unless he is a joint author of two papers: a sole author or a co-author of one paper may also serve as chairman, discussant or panel member of the same or one other session on the program: a person not listed as author or co-author of a paper may serve as a chairman, a discussant or a panel member of two sessions.

One of the characteristic features of Polish sociology is its constant interest in the methodological foundations of the social sciences, as regards both the methodological premises of social research techniques and the methodological structure of theoretical thinking in sociology. It might be perhaps more fruitful to study the methodological structure of much more specific theories, i.e. theory of reference group, or theory of minority relations, theory of discrepancy of social status, etc. These theories seldom correspond to methodological postulates of theoretical orientations but their formulation is usually guided by the postulate of adequate explanation or prediction of phenomena of a certain category. It would be interesting to analyse their methodological features. Finally one could plan a very interesting conference on theory construction in the social sciences, based upon the problem formulation characteristic for the general philosophy of science. A clear presentation of assumptions, structure and implications of theoretical orientations usually shows that the different approaches are rather complementary than contradictory to each other.

The article presents abstracts of two articles published in the September 1, 1974, issue of the periodical "Quality and Quantity." One article focuses on structural models of voluntaristics social action. Using a broad characterization of recent liberal, pluralistic, social science research interests defined in terms of Parsonian social theory, this article reviews recent developments in social science statistical practices. These developments are seen as converging toward a cross-disciplinary synthesis of rigorous "structural" or "causal" modeling approaches. The major negative thesis of the paper is the frequent inadequacy in empirical practice of simply specified, statistically manipulable structural models. The other article focuses on change and unreliability. The analysis is concentrated on the dichotomous case, two observations, and two response classes. Using a latent structural approach, two true latent classes are analytically separated from two manifest response categories.

In sociology today, as in other sciences, the professional journals serve as major channels for the dissemination of ideas and information. The papers presented in the principal periodicals reach a wide audience among sociologists, are acknowledged as the best work, and stand as models for all who aspire to success. The present writers have selected for analysis a sample of contributions to two prestigious journals, the "American Sociological Review" and the "American Journal of Sociology." Included in this survey are the 202 articles published in the two periodicals during 1965 and 1966, and the 200 papers published in 1940 and 1941. The term "substantive research" is employed to refer both to studies presenting empirical data on social phenomena and to papers reviewing past research or proposing new direct lions for inquiry. Classed under methodology are all, articles dealing with the basic assumptions of science, with the limitations and potentialities of specific methods, with the development, validity, and reliability of specific scales and measures, and with various statistical and mathematical devices and techniques.

The article focuses on dogmatic trends in marxist sociology. In this paper marxist sociology will be discussed. First the article tries to demonstrate that certain theses of marxist sociologists have the consequence that a critique of marxist sociology becomes impossible. Second, the paper tries to show some difficulties of such a dogmatization. The starting point is the book "Historischer Materialismus und marxistische Soziologie," by Erich Hahn. This seems legitimate because Hahn proposes theses which are widely accepted by German-speaking marxist sociologists. Thus, Hahn's book represents at least one influential branch of marxist sociology. The discussion implies in no way that there are no strategies to immunize theories against critique in nonmarxist sociology; rather the contrary is correct. The exact kind of relation between marxist sociology and historical materialism, however, remains unclear. There may be a logical relation between marxist sociology and historical materialism, i.e. marxist sociology is a system of sentences which can be deduced from another system of sentences. Because a confrontation of marxist and nonmarxist theories is a certain kind of criticism, it follows that marxist and nonmarxist theories should be confronted and thus may be parts of explanations.

The article presents information on various meetings of the American Sociological Association (ASA) to be held in the year 1969. The 64th Annual Meeting of ASA will be held in Chicago, Illinois, August 25-28, 1969. The Program Committee, consisting of Ralph H. Turner, Chairman, Irwin Deutscher, Hirman J. Friedsam, Harold L. Sheppard, James F. Short, Sheldon Stryker and Robin M. Williams is planning the program to include a group of sessions on "Group Conflict and Mutual Acceptance." Regular sessions of the association on various topics are held from time to time. The session on Aging by the Department of Sociology, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana; the session on Collective Behavior by the Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City; on Sociology of Development by the Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, California; on Deviance by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; on Sociology of Education, by the Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada.

The article presents the program of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association to be held from August 26-29, 1968. It will be held in Boston, Massachusetts. The Program Committee, consisting of Chairman Philip M. Hauser, William J. Goode, Robin M. Williams. Jr., O.D. Duncan, and Gerhard E. Lenski is planning sessions on the central theme of "On the Gap Between Sociology and Social Policy". The session topics are as follows: 1) Plenary sessions: Sociology and the Negro Revolt, Sociology and Social Accounting; 2) Thematic Sessions: Conformity and Social Control, Law and the Administration of Criminal Justice, Socialization and Education, Population and Population Control, Sociology and Environmental Planning, The Polity and the Academy, Sociology and Social Development, Sociology and Systems Analysis, Sociology and Socialist Countries, 3) Regular Sessions: The New Sociometrics, Theory Building. In order to broaden member participation in the Annual Meeting, the 1968 Program Committee is planning a limited number of sessions utilizing a Seminar format. Papers contributed by members apart from those scheduled for organized sessions, will be screened and grouped under appropriate subject headings.

The article deals with some of the social problems and with some possibilities to apply the experimental method in the social sciences more effectively than has been done in the past. As the concept of experiment has different meanings it seems useful first to specify what will be understood by an experiment in this paper. If a researcher actually manipulates all the variables the effect of which he tries to find out--the independent variables--or if the independent variables are not manipulated (in so-called natural experiments), and if the researcher eliminates the different effects of all other variables of his test populations. According to the definition of experiment in this paper it is not necessary that the relation between the dependent and independent variable is a "causal" one--whatever may be understood by this concept. Speaking of the "effect" of the "independent" variable means that if the value of one variable changes, the value of at least one other variable changes too.

The term "relevant" within the context of a small-groups course in sociology seemed to mean participating in ongoing groups and observing and gathering data on small groups. Teaching by having students engage in research has also been advocated by articles in "The American Sociologist." The research approach is especially applicable for courses in small groups. But there are too many difficulties in having students carry out research to make research the central feature of a course. In most cases students would not be sufficiently knowledgeable to design and conduct meaningful small-group experiments. This causes problems too difficult for an untrained instructor to handle. The second reason was that while attracted to the learn-by-doing element in such a course, it was equally important to devote class time to covering theoretical concepts, research techniques, and general substantive material. According to the author, the ideal course would expose students to diverse theoretical approaches to small groups while meeting their demand for relevance in the form of group participation and involvement in research.

This article examines the success of The Sociological Quarterly in becoming more than a regional journal in the U.S. from 1960 to 1970. The journal Midwest Sociologist was an official semiannual publication of the Midwest Sociological Society. In the late 1950s, the need for revamping the form and content of the journal in order to accommodate a flow of papers became increasingly important. Accordingly, in 1960 the Midwest Sociologist became The Sociological Quarterly. The name chosen for the renovated journal was important for two reasons. First, the transition from a semiannual to a quarterly provided a publication outlet for qualified manuscripts that had been delayed or rejected due to space limitations. Second, the adoption of the title The Sociological Quarterly signified an attempt to avoid the regional connotations of the term Midwest and to initiate a journal of general interest and utility to sociologists of varying professional persuasions from all sections of the country. During the decade, the journal has been consistently publishing manuscripts from all parts of the country and can no longer be considered merely a regional journal of limited geographical scope. Data regarding the geographical sources of published papers indicate a steady tendency toward extraregionalism.

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.

This article presents news briefs concerning the American Sociological Association (ASA), as of August 1972. The recent election has resulted in the following officers for 1973, Andrew Billingsley as chairman, Clark E. Vincent as chairman-elect; Alice S. Rossi as secretary, and Jesse Bernard, William F. Fenkel, Rose Somerville, Jacqueline Wiseman, Paul C. Glick and Constantina Safilios-Rothschild as members of the association's council. In its current revitalization, the Section has three efforts underway. First, under the chairmanship of Nancy St. John, a nominating committee has prepared election slates composed of persons in the field who can offer effective leadership for the Section during the next few years. Second, a three-part program has been prepared for Section Day on August 28, 1972, at the New Orleans, Louisiana meetings that includes a panel discussion of the sociology of classroom reform, organized by Sarane Boocock; a panel discussion of the sociology to the proposed National Institute of Education, organized by John Meyer. This program involves the Section in pressing matters of reform, where sociological perspectives have often been underutilized, as well as in expanding research of comparative analysis. Third, the chairman of the Section has concentrated his own efforts on the possibility of developing a special role for the Section as a bridge between the field of sociology and the National Institute of Education.

The present paper forms another part of a long-term project, inspired by authors' aim to contribute to a more precise delimitation of a conceptual framework which would rationally reproduce the main dimensions of the global system and help in elaborating the program of empirical research into the dynamic structure of this system. The authors believe that the theory of dependence has a significant place within the framework of reference of both Marxian sociology and methodology. The aim of this paper is not to call attention to the model of the global system, but only to suggest the basic taxonomy, the minimum set of conceptual tools, to formulate some propositions and to present some methodical impulses for working out possible cybernetic expressions conveying some of these concepts and relations. First of all, the article briefly recapitulates some ideas which have already been discussed elsewhere. The general theory of dependence proceeds from the hypothesis that dependence represents a basic property of all relations existing among both living and non-living systems. The physicists in their inquiries into mechanical systems, for example, into the solar system, were troubled by the question of how to explain inertia.

The article discusses theoretical considerations and simulation models related to the method of scholars J.A. Sonquist and J.N. Morgan. The raw material for Sonquist and Morgan's data analysis method is a population of individuals i that are characterized each by a set of independent variables and a dependent variable yi. The tree-structure from the application of this method reveals some interactive properties of the independent variables related to their influence on the dependent variable. The raw material, that is, this distribution of values of the variables on the population can itself be considered as the result of a process P. This paper shows that the same distribution can be generated by quite different processes that the method of Sonquist and Morgan succeeds in revealing some aspects of these processes; and that, on the other hand, it is not possible on the grounds of this method to decide, from which process the raw material originated. In this paper, two different processes, that generate raw material for a Sonquist and Morgan-type analysis, are described. Both processes can be considered as simulation procedures and are suited for computer application. Both processes also reflect some theoretical conceptions, which are known from the literature on social science.

In this paper, the implications for sociological research of adopting a probabilistic model to describe the relationships among several variables, a problem presently analyzed by causal models, is explored. A mathematical statistician, then presented with the problem of determining the effect on the dependent variable of an independent variable, both directly and through an intermediate variable, would usually look at the interaction effect between an intermediate variable and an independent variable on dependent variable. Why, then, does the sociologist or economist construct a "causal chain" using linear, no-interaction models at each step, in an attempt to respond to the same problem? And what is the relationship between these two approaches? These questions will be considered in the probabilistic framework in the second half of this paper, using an example taken from research presently in progress. Before discussing in detail the problem of inter-related variables from the probabilistic viewpoint, it is necessary to inspect the various approaches currently being made to the problem in sociology, in order to determine precisely what is meant by path and chain. These approaches are, as scholar H.M. Blalock states, "mathematically equivalent." But, the methods are far from being probabilistically equivalent.

This article is reprint of a paper published originally in Russian in a 1971 Russian journal Voprosy Filosofi; translated to English by Michael Cernea. This paper remarks on the Seventh World Congress of Sociology held September 1970 in Varna, Bulgaria. The Congress was a mosaic of almost thirty-five hundred people involved in more than one thousand papers presented during the fifty workshops and research sessions over more than six full days of meetings, not to mention innumerable discussions in the corridors. The congress revealed in the most convincing way the qualitative change in the distribution of forces in the world science of sociology during the last years, namely, a sharp increase in the weight of Marxist sociology and the sociology of socialist countries. Scholars from the socialist countries took over in Varna not merely in the quantity of their representatives but through their skill in participating in the work of the congress. Suffice it to say that they represented 40 percent of all the papers. Besides the Marxist sociologists, there are three basic groups of delegates that might be categorized by their attitudes toward Marxism, their level of professional training and their number; the professional sociologists; social philosopher sociologists; and beginners.

While causes underlying the current unrest on college and university campuses are multiple and complex, it is at least partially grounded in students' justified discontent with the irrelevance of much of their formal course work and the lack of concern and skill with which they are taught. The basic premise of this paper, and of the course to be described, is that sociologists are the members of the academic community best qualified to deal with these aspects of student discontent. Not only does the substantive content of sociology, in particular the analysis of social problems and their proposed solutions, encompass the kinds of things that students perceive as relevant, but sociological knowledge about the functioning of social groups could if intelligently applied to the classroom situation, raise the level of intellectual productivity among college students. This article describes the development of a course in urban sociology. The first objective in developing the course was to communicate some feeling for the operation of the city as a large social system and some tools for analyzing particular urban institutions and processes.

The article discusses about the official reports of the American Sociological Association. The Committee on Nominations in full conformance with the procedures set forth wishes to present its slate of nominees for the American Sociological Association, 1970- 1971. The Councilmen at-Large in full conformance with the procedures set forth wish to present their slate of nominees for the 1971 Committee on Nominations of the American Sociological Association. Four major issues already under consideration by committees of the Association were named, as follows: Creation and implementation of a code of ethics; Relations with the federal government in connection with research support; The nature and functions of Sections in the ASA; and Relations with international sociological associations. Systematic exploration of student and junior faculty participation in the Association's affairs and reconsideration of all aspects of annual meeting format are projected. Several ASA committees are now concerned with problems of teaching sociology. But the principal attention of the Council was devoted to the issue of ASA and public policy. On February 2, 1969, Council devoted the entire day to a wide-ranging discussion of the question, starting from a background paper prepared by Daniel Bell.

This article presents a report of the editor of Sociology of Education, a scholarly journal published by the American Sociological Association, as of August 1972. During the 1971-1972, there was little change of editorial policy of activities. Although the larger number of pages in the current volume are devoted to research reports, these are complemented by critical reviews of research, theoretical articles, and bibliographic essays. A symposium on the state of the field will appear shortly, and work is well advanced on a special issue about university faculty, for which Donald Light of Princeton University serves as editorial consultant. Although it has been our intention to publish occasional discussions of education policy or practice, few such manuscripts are sent to the journal, and none has appeared in the current volume. Since June 1, 1971, 236 papers have been received, in comparison with 266 in the preceding year. Of these, 30 were accepted, 13 without revision, 13 with one revision, and four with two or more revisions. One hundred fifty-three manuscripts were rejected and three were withdrawn. As of May 31, 50 papers were awaiting decision. Thus for the current year, the acceptance rate, articles still must wait about twelve months to be published. Because of the hardworking editorial board, editorial action has been quite fast. The modal, and mean, decision time during the year was eight weeks; and for about a quarter of the papers on which action was taken, decision were reached in three to five weeks.

Presents a letter about graduate training in sociology.

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."

This paper describes a short method of computing the intrinsic growth rate which yields more accurate estimates than other methods which have similar information requirements. The procedure is recommended when hand or desk calculation of the intrinsic growth rate is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genesis of this paper is specific personal experience, best described as a dialectical confrontation between the thought patterns of a gray-whiskered sociologist and those of younger colleagues who see the world and sociology differently. One sees that the lecturer will spend some time on the inadequacies, methodological, theoretical, and ideological, of traditional sociology, with functionalism in particular being reserved for yet another drubbing. It takes little imagination to predict that the present status of American family will turn out to be pretty awful when subjected to searching scrutiny. Since this is radical sociology and thus not content to describe but under powerful moral constraints to prescribe, alternatives such as group marriage will receive their long neglected due. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had something to say on the family, to be sure, but scarcely enough to provide substance for a semester course.

Measuring the quality of research has become a major concern in the sociology of science. Assessing one's contributions to the advancement of knowledge in a discipline or specialty has moved beyond a tally of publications to a counting of bibliographic references or citations. Increasingly, the source of these data has been the Science Citation Index (SCI). Scholars A. Bayer and J. Folger, J. Cole and S. Cole and D. Crane were among the first to explore correlates of this citation measure. Cole and Cole alerted to problems inherent in the SCI format, but demonstrated the validity of the index on a sample of physicists. Today, the accessibility of data in the SCI makes it an attractive research tool in social science. Yet Coles caution that many scientists do not appear in the SCI and the modal number of citations to the work of men who do appear is one. Before sociologists begin investing confidence in SCI data which lists citations only in the name of senior authors, it would seem advisable that an inquiry into properties of the raw data be conducted.

This article presents an update on organizations related to sociology as of November 1972. The Institute for Community Development and the Center on Human Policy call for papers for the Third Annual Symposium on Current Issues in Community Psychology from April 12-14, 1973. Papers should relate to alternatives to total institutional structures for people of all ages having special needs, including the emotionally disturbed, retarded, delinquent and criminal. The Southern Anthropological Society announced the annual James Mooney Award of $1,000 for the book-length manuscript that best describes and interprets the people or culture of a distinctive New World population. The Institute for European Health Services Research was created at Leuven University in Belgium to contribute to the improvement of European health and other social welfare services through research and to organization financing and administration, and through the professional growth of those who develop and implement public welfare at all levels.

Copyright of Demography (Springer Nature) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Demography (Springer Nature) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents information about sociology, history and the abstract perspective. In a recent paper, professor Kai Erikson has compared several implicit assumptions which prevail in the work of contemporary sociologists with those of contemporary historians. He concludes from his analysis that sociologists could avoid certain kinds of problems if they were to become more conscious of their immersion in historical processes and were to adopt certain of the perspectives of historians. With Erikson's diagnosis of the shortcomings of current sociological research one is in considerable agreement. Nevertheless, it is not clear that the adoption of Erikson's recommendations would do much to alter what he identifies as problematic in sociology. Indeed, one has a sense of foreboding that should his prescriptions be taken too seriously, the development of sociological knowledge would be still more thwarted than it is by the problems he locates. After restating several points in Erikson's argument, one will outline a point of view which is somewhat at variance with his and attempt to demonstrate ways in which it is responsive to the issues he raises. This point of view may be of some general interest also because it arises not from the concreteness of history, but from the abstraction of philosophy and mathematics.

This article outlines a cognitive system approach to methodology, with special emphasis on the system's with special emphasis on the system's hierarchical properties, and with the detail provided by various empirical works on response processes, simulation modeling of cognition, belief systems, and artificial intelligence, and then further elaborates it in commenting on a recent paper by G. Marwell and J. Hage. The approach taken here is thus also in accord with a strategy frequently argued by measurement theorists, e.g. D.A.S. Fraser, that a black box strategy should re discarded in favour of attempts at constructing more comprehensive models, J.L. Zinnes, that the distinction between measurement models and substantive theoretical models should be abolished, or P. Abeli, attempting to construe measurement within the fabric of social science theory and not merely as a methodological addendum, to take some recent examples. The cognitive structure or memory is, assumed to be an internal representation, a model, of the world, including the person himself and of course also the social structure of which he is a part.

This article presents information regarding social immobility and inequality measurement. Starting from the probably best instrument devised up to now to analyze a mobility table from this point of view, i.e. Yasuda's Y, the article shows that the given index in the article could be considered as a particular element of a family of indices. In this family, a particularly important other member is X, which have been called an index of inequality. An illustrative example shows that X and Y may lead to different conclusions on the meaning of a mobility table or of a set of mobility tables. At a more general level, the present paper shows that the idea of a best mobility measure is probably a false and also dangerous idea. The problem is rather to make explicit the implicit ideas or assumptions used in the construction of any index. The article ignores the numerous methodological difficulties raised by a table. In general, intergenerational mobility tables are drawn from reports of a sample of sons on the occupation of their father. This procedure leads of course to all kinds of biases. In particular, the differential fertility of the social. classes will introduce a bias in the occupational distribution of the group of "fathers."

This article discusses different approaches to the measurement of social differentiation of the Czechoslovak socialist society. At Evian, at the Sixth World Congress of Sociology, the sociological public was acquainted with the project of an empirical macro-investigation which was carried out by the end of 1967 in Czechoslovakia. The entire investigation is the result of the efforts of a 20-member collective of workers from both the Czech countries and Slovakia. The report presented here must be viewed as an information on the basic results of this collective work, in which the author of this paper took part. The author calls attention to the fact that some theoretical postulates and interpretations of the empirical data obtained by this macro-investigation are now subject to theoretical discussions in Czechoslovakia and will undoubtedly be submitted to further critical analysis. The conclusions presented so far may, therefore, be conceived as an introductory opening of a broad problem area from the Marxist positions, rather than as some final word of Marxist sociology in the research of the social structure of the socialist societies.

This article discusses two methods for making a sociological theory untestable. The term theory stands for the symbolic dimension of experience, as opposed to the apprehension of brute fact. However, not only do theories go beyond fact but they do so by virtue of their use of universal categories. Scientific theories are a special type of theory defined in terms of a set of normative criteria to which scientists seek to conform and in terms of which their theories are evaluated. Central among these is the principle that scientific theories should be empirical. That is, they should have an empirical referent and be capable of being tested by experience. Because scientific statements are universal and empirical observations are of particular events, if a theory is to be refutable there must be some agreement whereby theoretical statements can be linked to ordinary propositions about empirical particulars. The first method for making sociological theory untestable, that is for making it unscientific, make certain that no empirically refutable statements can be deduced from the theory. A second method for making theory untestable is to ensure that the theory is internally inconsistent. That is, to take steps to ensure that one's theory does not take form a deductive system where all the propositions of the theory can be deduced from a set of axioms.

The article presents announcements related to the field of sociology. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) offers an annual prize, Socio-Psychological Prize, of $1,000 for a theoretical and experimental essay that furthers understanding of the psychological-social-cultural behavior of human beings. Entries should present a completed analysis of a problem, the relevant data, and an interpretation of the data in terms of the postulates with which the study began. The National Institute of Social and Behavioral Science will hold its regular sessions for contributed papers at the 137th annual meeting of the AAAS, December 26-31, 1970, in Chicago. The National Institute of Mental Health is accepting applications for a new one-year interdisciplinary graduate training program in sociology. The British Council for Rehabilitation of the Disabled announces that the Fourth International Study Course Seminar will take place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from June 28 to July 3, 1971. Peace Research Abstracts Journal is soliciting volunteers to replenish its pool of abstractors.

This section presents updates on issues concerning the American Sociological Association (ASA) as of May 1970. ASA Council at its November 1969 meeting directed Secretary Rossi to write Robert Finch, Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare about ASA concern as to the existence of blacklists within the department. Also, in view of the increasing role in and concern with matters of public policy on the part of the ASA and its members. Council has authorized the editor of The American Sociologist to solicit a series of papers dealing with the relationship between research and the making and execution of public policy. In a separate news, friends of the late John Madge, head of Political and Economic Planning in London, England and sometime teacher and research consultant in the U.S., have established a major memorial trust for training in urban planning. In another news, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announces a special program for urban and regional studies of developing areas to provide an opportunity for a small number of persons to spend a year at MIT studying the problems of urban and regional change within a broad context of national development.

This paper builds on the assertion that there is an essential moral dimension in all human social relations. Morality, in the dramaturgical sense, is a question of identity and identity management. A scientist, in order to retain his identity must announce himself as a carrier of unbiased truth buttressed by intersubjective evidence of the stated condition of reality. A scientist qua scientist says only what is an knows why it is. A rhetorician, on the other hand, announces himself as a carrier of biased truth armed with logical and emotional symbolic weapons aimed at persuading another person that he should act or think differently. A rhetorician qua rhetorician says whatever he wants, and knows why he says it. If a sociologist practices rhetoric, but identifies himself as a scientist, he renders his rhetoric immoral, the immoral rhetoric of identity deception. Sociology, when worn by some practitioners, appears as scientific. The purveyors in sociology of the scientific method look to the physical sciences for the ideal word and practice. If the physical sciences provide the prime exemplar for understanding scientific sociology, then the documentation of a necessary social dimension in the physical sciences is a fortiori applicable to sociology.

This paper reports the results of a survey undertaken in the spring of 1969 on the status of women as students, faculty, and research personnel in graduate departments of sociology, during the academic year 1968-1969. The study was undertaken in, preparation for the meetings of the Women's Caucus at the San Francisco, California convention of the American Sociological Association. Both the survey and the women's caucus were planned to meet a growing concern among graduate students and young faculty women about their future careers in sociology. The anxiety experienced by contemporary young graduate women is similar to that experienced by preceding generations of women seeking careers in predominantly masculine fields. What may be new is a greater tendency today to externalize the problem and to seek solutions through concerted political means. Young women in sociology today no longer accept the old stereotype of the neurotic career woman, nor do they wallow in self-doubt, more of them analyze their career problems in social-structural terms and actively seek political solutions through change in social institutions.

Some years ago the author rejected out of hand a sociologist colleague's argument that the use of analogies or models is characteristic of insecure individuals operating in immature disciplines. This paper essays an explanation that justifies a reversal of judgment concerning the utility of analogies in sociology and social psychology. It is well to recognize, before continuing with the case against analogical analysis of sociological data, that only an extremist would argue that the very persistence of a conceptual scheme is an argument for its functional nature. The reality of these rewards makes it difficult for those employing an analogy to discern whether it has actual heuristic pedagogical value or its continued use is merely a function of rationalization designed to preserve these subjective rewards. Although not unknown in earlier periods of time, mechanistic models or analogies became much more prevalent in the seventeenth century in response to the remarkable gains of the period in mechanics, physics, and mathematics.

The February issue of "The American Sociologist," carried the announcement that the 1969 Annual Meeting would be held in San Francisco, California. "Careers in Sociology," has been distributed recently to ASA members. Additional copies are available on request from the Executive Office. "Guide to Graduate Departments of Sociology, 1969," is now ready for distribution. "Sociological Methodology," 1969 may be ordered from Jossey-Bass, Inc., San Francisco. "Issues and Trends in Sociology," a new series of readers, will he devoted to topics of salient theoretical or substantive interest and, to the extent feasible, papers will be drawn from ASA publications. The American Sociological Association recognizes the important contributions that the National Institute of Mental Health has made to sociological training and research through its Training Grant and Social Science research programs. The Association expresses its full support of these efforts, and urges that the programs he expanded with full financial support to continue to meet the growing needs of sociological knowledge in the United States.

Because highly technical expositions of significance tests are readily available, sociologists will proceed from an elementary and non-technical statement that emphasizes the meaning and interpretation of the tests. First and foremost, a test of significance is a formal procedure for making a decision between two hypotheses about some characteristic of a population parameter on the basis of knowledge obtained from a sample statistic of that population. Either the null hypothesis or the alternative hypothesis may be derived from the substantive theory in question, though it is conventional that the theory being tested that is, the researcher's hunch, or the possibility he thinks most interesting is identified with the alternative hypothesis. This means that null hypotheses are usually set up for the express purpose of seeing if there is empirical warrant for their rejection or nullification so that the alternative hypothesis can be accepted hence the term null hypothesis. Testing for significance involves a comparison of the difference between the sample statistic and the parameter specified by the null hypothesis with a theoretically determined sampling distribution. This comparison allows estimation of how often such a difference would occur if difference were due to random errors in the sample selection process sample error.

At the Sixth World Congress of Sociology in Evian, France, September 1966, the first international sessions on the sociology of the military, war and revolution were held. The author had the privilege to be chairman of a working group on "Militarism and the Professional Military Man," which brought together representatives from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and the United States, South America and the Far East. The actualities of war or revolution in the developing nations did not block out the implications of militarism in advanced societies. The sociological aspects of militarism in West Germany were realistically and soberly assessed by Wido Mosen from the University of Frankfurt. Examination of the fundamental issues of militarism quickly transcended old fashioned notions of militarism and military dictatorship and focused on the real problems of controlling the military profession under a variety of social and political systems. Social recruitment must he linked to prestige in the effort to explore the socio-political position of the military in contemporary society. Data presented at the conference confirmed the decline in prestige of the military profession in recent years in advanced industrialized societies.

The article focuses on news and announcements related to colleges and universities. The American University has appointed Preston S. Abbott, as director of the Center for Research in Social Systems (CRESS), succeeding T.R. Valiance who is now serving as chief of the NIMH office of planning. The University of Chicago has established an advanced postdoctoral training program in population genetics and demography, under a grant from the National Science Foundation. This program will provide fellowships for a small group of demographers and population geneticists interested in learning each other's disciplines and techniques: the program is under the auspices of the University Committee on Population and work will be directed by P.M. Hauser, N. Keyfitz, K. C. Lewontin, T. Park, and other members of the Committee. Lehigh University has appointed Robert C. Williamson, professor of sociology and chairman of the department of social relations, to a 6 month lectureship in Chile, where he will teach at the University of Chile.

This article discusses the rise and decline of areas of specialization in sociology. There are two predominant explanations for the choice of persistence of professional interests in the scientific community. The first explanation is the more prominent and may be referred to as professionalization. This term commonly implies a shift in values in which the professional becomes less concerned with the opinions of laymen and more concerned with the opinions of his tutors and peers. The second explanation for the choice and persistence of professional interests in less deterministic and provides for an interchange of forces in the process of professionalization. In this case the novice, is both actor and reactor, initiating and negotiating change. The dialectical process of professionalization is more applicable to the current academic scenario that is the indocrination-conformity model of professional socialization for two reasons. First, change in society is evident and is having an impact on sociology. Second, evidence of change within sociology seems to be mounting. The basic question in this paper is to ascertain how sociologists currently define their own professional interests and to what extent they have changed their interests over time.

Certain reciprocal relationships of the affluence, influence, and congruence phenomena in the sciences have become fairly commonplace topics in discussions of the sociology of social sciences. This paper proposes the suggestion that a yet more completely integrated view of these three aspects of the state of a science may contribute to both epistemological and empirical classification. In discussions of the relations of the economic support received by sociology and directions scientific developments in this field have taken, sociologists suggest that sociology: has suffered from a double handicap, so that it has received low and possibly economically suboptimal allocations of resources In some measure, this derives: from the economic disadvantage that sociology shares with other sciences in that their product-knowledge-is essentially a public or common good rather than distributive commodity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on rankings of sociology departments. Recently the American Council on Education published a volume containing a rating of the quality of the graduate faculty of 30 academic disciplines. The ranking of departments has attracted a great deal of attention. For many sociologists, particularly those who have studied the methodology of social stratification, there is the nagging question of how closely the subjective ranking of a phenomenon approximates its objective ranking. If people respond in terms of subjective rankings, or if such rankings fairly reflect a more objective measurement of a phenomenon, then they are valuable. If, on the other hand, prestige rankings lack a universality, then they are mostly relevant to those who hold them. In order to determine how much credence can be placed in the prestige rank of the 17 sociology departments that were rated distinguished or strong in the American Council on Education's report, an examination is made in this paper of how productive the doctoral graduates and the faculty of these departments are; the former is intended to reflect effectiveness of graduate training and the latter to reflect quality of faculty.

The article presents suggestions to students in systematic interpretation and analysis of empirical sociological journal presentations. A general set of instructions are those which will best serve as guides for the student who has some knowledge of research methods, statistics, and theory, but who is not especially familiar with the literature contained in the discipline's research journals. Thus, this paper is intended to (1) orient the student to orthodox methods and organization of research presentations, and (2) to aid him in understanding the content of specific articles which interest him. Several prerequisites to journal comprehension include (1) knowledge of the professional vocabulary, (2) knowledge of standard research methods, and (3) knowledge from the body of theory which gives guidance to each research study. A conscientious effort should be made by the student to improve himself in the area of his deficiency. To benefit most from the presentations the reader should first read the abstract when such is provided, and the first few paragraphs of the article so that a general understanding of the research area is obtained. Then a quick glance at the middle pages will tell the reader the kinds of data which are used as proof for the author's purpose. The student will benefit most by a conscientious and systematic study of the articles in the sociological journals.

This article presents news briefs about U.S. minorities and women related to sociology as of November 1972. Fellowships (preferably in sociology) are available for 1973-1974 to Puerto Rican graduate students for research on social problems. Fellows are required to write a paper on research dealing with Puerto Ricans in the U.S. The U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities announces fellowships for historical social or cultural studies of U.S. ethnic minorities to young scholars and teachers who have just completed graduate work or professional training or expect to complete it before September 1973. The Council of the American Sociological Association has approved a recommendation of the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession instructing the executive Specialist to collect vitae of sociologists from minority groups who wish their vitae to be on file for professional and employment reference. Current records of various national and regional sociological organizations indicate that the following women sociologists have been elected to positions of top leadership: Mirra Komarovsky as president of the American Sociological Association; Dorothy K. Newman as president of the D.C. Sociological Society; and Gertrude J. Selznick as president of the Pacific Sociological Association.

Presents a letter to the editor concerning the interest of women in the discipline of sociology.