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Diffusion studies of the "adoption of innovation" can potentially provide a basis for a quantitative, empirically-based theory of social change. However, before significant advances can be made in this direction, rigorous attention must be directed toward clarifying the meaning of the principal concepts of diffusion studies and toward increasing consistency in the use of standardized terms from one writer to another. Also, theoretical concepts from diffusion research need to be linked to more general sociological theory, insofar as this is available. The present paper suggests possible ways in which these tasks can be undertaken. It makes use of mass communication data on the diffusion of the major media through the American society to illustrate the advantages of the conceptual framework which it proposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the belief of many who have read George Homans' recent works, he is not the first sociologist to make explicit use of the concept of exchange. From 1883 to 1885 Albert Chavannes published in The Sociologist a series of papers titled "Studies in Sociology" which treated "The Law of Exchange" and three other social laws. Chavannes' use of the exchange concept was very similar to Homans'. Also, Chavannes emphasized the importance of a systematic empirical sociology but did not contribute to it as Homans has done. This comparison of the two men fills a gap in the history of American sociology and puts Homans' recent contributions in historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sections planned for the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society in December 1945 are Social Research, Social Theory, Social Psychology, Population Sociometry, Community and Ecology, Family Criminology, Political Sociology, Educational Sociology, and General Sessions. In addition to these formal sections, members may submit papers for possible inclusion under a special category, "Contributed Papers." The membership the Committee to be in charge and the final date for submitting proposed papers will be announced in a subsequent issue of the journal "American Sociological Review."

This paper analyzes the manner in which ethnicity has affected the course of American and Canadian party politics. Specifically, the paper tries to demonstrate that although the social processes involved in the migration of large numbers of ethnics have been relatively similar in both societies, the manner in which the social reality of ethnicity has affected the political structures therein has been quite different. Thus, although successive immigrant groups became the chief political resource of the great American urban party machines, they were able to use the existing political structures for their own purposes. Ethnic groups have derived psychological and more tangible benefits, such as public and party office positions, and have strongly affected the foreign and domestic policy positions of the two major parties. In contrast, Canadian party leaden historically have been able to exploit ethnic cleavages, but rarely have had to play the game of ethnic politics in the maimer of their American counterparts. In fact, ethnicity continues to strongly affect American political structures even as it moves into the realm of an index of more important social facts, while Canadian political structures have remained relatively impervious to ethnic groups despite the fact that ethnicity continues to be a factor of major importance in Canadian social organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a paper that offers an alternative explanation for the purported inability to make better use of the expanded productive capability which provides the base for an "affluent" life style. It is suggested that inability to understand the ethical questions raised by a high rate of economic growth and failure to make the institutional adjustments that would humanize the contemporary economic process derive in part from neglected but critical developments in economic thought and social philosophy. Now according to those who are critical of the life style of affluent America, it is obvious that economic activity as carried out in contemporary society does not achieve that ideal terminus which, according to the philosophic presuppositions of classical economics, ought to be the end result of such activity. As a matter of historical fact, the economy seems to have been forced into a developmental path which permits economic activity to escape its proper subordination to the "good life" of man. Theologically, one might argue that this tendency for economic activity to degenerate into a process which degrades man is but part of that tragic train of events which entered human history as the consequence of sin.

This paper attempts to outline the development of sociologist Albion Woodbury Small's sociological theory, a development which had its roots in the benevolent idealism of the last century and reached its peak in the scientific objectivism which A.W. Small has bequeathed to the present generation. The interdependence of the sociological and the social reform movements has received sufficient recognition to be considered a fact. More than one pioneer in sociology has traced his career to a sympathetic insight into the melioristic literature and activities of the last century. Not that the founders of sociology started out invariably as reformers. Small's career at any rate is not a case in point. Small's attitude was essentially that of a scholar; and his efforts were focused not upon meliorative work as such but on the possibility of building up a science basic to social reform. Accordingly, Small sought inspiration alike in the social movements of the eighties and in the theories of the English economists and the continental social scientists. As the scope of his interests widened, he included also the several types of sociology afloat in Europe and the United States at the time.

The article focuses on research into the translation of social science theory into field action using fluoridation of water as an example. It states that despite the preventative abilities that water fluoridation has on dental caries, many American communities resist having it implemented as of 1966. It examines the relationship between implementing fluoridation and on translating social science, theory, and concept to practice in public health.

This article introduces the December 1, 1973 issue of the journal Law & Society Review. The article titled "Toward a Comparative Theory of the Dispute Process," by professor Richard Abel, reflects the concern of people with the search for comprehensive social theories of law. Abel's paper seems to be the most ambitious attempt so far to provide a theoretical framework for the study of dispute processing, a term which comprehends much of the legal process. It provides a challenging agenda for research on dispute processing institutions and an example of comparative theory that may be richly suggestive for the study of other aspects of legal process. Edward Belier's article "The Rhode Island Supreme Court" offers a rare close-up of workings of an appellate court at the upper end of the U.S. legal system. Lynn Mather's account of a public defender's office provides with a picture of the criminal process at the field level. Each combines attention to the distinctive characteristics of the institution under study with sensitivity to the range of variation among other institutions.

The article provides an overview of the topics discussed in the journal about governmental programs and their relationships to the structure and functions of the family in the U.S. Each article gives serious attention to current government programs and their historical antecedents, philosophies of the programs and issues in their development and direction, impact of changes in family life on the programs, and impact of the programs on family life. Each author selected the topic he considered the most significant legislation in a specific area and the issues which he considered important and relevant.

The article presents a report of the Section on Theoretical Sociology, a committee of the American Sociological Association of the U.S. The Section has confined its activities to the presentation of programs at the Annual Meeting. For the 1970 meetings John McKinney developed two sessions: one on "New Perspectives on Max Weber" was chaired by Talcott Parsons and involved the contributions of Benjamin Nelson, Vatro Murvar, Thomas Burger, and Vytautas Kavolis; the other on "Problems of the Interface Between Theory and Methodology" was chaired by John McKinney and consisted of presentations by Karl Schuessler, Edgar Borgatta, Norman Denzin, and Frank Young. For the 1971 meetings Peter Blau has organized two sessions. The first will be a panel discussion on "Contrasting Approaches to Social Theorizing." The other session comprises four invited papers on the general topic "Social Theory and Research." The contributors will be Richard Emerson, Hubert Blalock, Morris Zelditch, and Peter Park. The issue of what activities other than annual program sessions should be undertaken by the Section will in great likelihood rise again at the next Council Meeting and at the Business Meeting.

The seventh annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Conference was held in New Haven, Connecticut., April 18th and 19th, with over a hundred persons in attendance. The central topic of the Conference was Social Theory and the Social Order. The majority of the sessions centered around a discussion of Capitalism, Fascism, Socialism, and Communism as divergent social orders. Among others who read papers dealing with this general question were Theodore Abel, Joseph Folsom, Scott Nearing, H.A. Miller, Harry Ladler, and Roger Baldwin. Additional sections were devoted to social economics, religion and the social order, social work, the nature of sociology, and education in relation to the social order. At the annual banquet addresses were delivered by James W. Woodward, the retiring president, on "Some Implications from Sociology for the Social Order," and Harry Elmer Barnes, "History and the Problem of the Social Order."

This article focuses on the teaching of sociological methodology in the U.S. Methodology is the science of procedures used in empirical research. The nature of undergraduate counts in methodology, indeed, their very existence, largely depends on the educational philosophy of the institution. Methodology often vacillates between a watered-down philosophy of science and a set of cookbook rules for conducting research. The social science departments have generally argued that introductory statistics is as much a matter of learning to apply statistical thinking to the peculiar subject matter of each field as of mastering statistical theory and that no unified course can provide this as well as the separate courses. Teaching the abstract and systematic parts of a methodology course poses no special pedagogical problems. The one element in the introductory methodology course that departs from the traditional form and the most important part of the course for the student is training in the organizational conduct of research.

By the end of the 1960's, there had accumulated a vast sociological literature concerned with the American working class. The purpose of this piece is to examine the historical development of the related fields in American sociology, which have focused on workers, and to assess the theoretical directions in the discipline after reviewing the thematic concerns in recent American sociology of the blue-collar worker. In contrast to the situation in many other countries where there is an established and growing sociological tradition with few empirical studies of workers, there is such a voluminous quantity of materials in the United States that it should be clear that this effort will by no means be comprehensive of the existing literature, but will attempt to indicate the major thrusts in the field of sociology and to portray the present state of research, with some speculation about future projections. The article examines the relationship between the sociology of the American worker and working class and general sociological theory. After reviewing five major thematic concerns in worker sociology, it was argued that studies of workers have provided an important avenue of research for the testing of general social theory. The total contributions, which the sociology of the American working class has made to sociological theory, were also very briefly illustrated.

This article discusses the growth of private power in American society. This is a strong appeal, and the people of the U.S. will resist it only as long as their own economic institutions command their respect and their own social philosophy holds their faith. This means that American capitalism, as an economic system, must continue to work. It also means that American political and economic leadership must continue to command moral authority and respect. There has been some disagreement among economists about the effects of industrial concentration and the decline of competition. The processes of concentration and consolidation were set in motion by transport innovations which broke down local monopolies on a small scale and which made possible regional, national, and even international markets. Innovations in advertising and merchandising turned these potential continental geographic areas into actual mass markets, and innovations in the productive process made the large-scale firm, with all the economies of scale, a practicability.

In contemporary American sociology, there exists no unified and comprehensive theoretical system that could serve as an instrument for coordinating and integrating existing sociological knowledge. Present-day American sociology represents a multiverse of theories and approaches. For the purpose of bringing at least some external order into a rather chaotic situation, the author suggests a classificatory system that distinguishes three main categories of sociological theory on the basis of general methodological criteria: positive or natural-science theories; interpretative sociologies treating sociology as a science sui generis, and non-scientific or evaluative social theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In advocating suitably vitalized sociological theory as a remedy for the perennial ailments of sociology, those people committed to the theoretical enterprise run the risk of being likened to the Tennessee mountain physician. Differences between sociologists in the amount of attention that they pay to procedures and techniques of investigation, on the other hand, are easy to see. Some of them known primarily as sociological theorists have for decades deplored such differences, particularly where what they regard as undue concentration on measurement is concerned. Now it may be granted that in American sociology, at least, there has been, is, and will be much measurement faddism. Indeed, the assertion may be risked that one of the conspicuous characteristics as a people is a yen for gadgets, and some measurement devices unquestionably are handled by the more fad-obsessed American sociologists as though they were gadgets or even gimmicks. But after all, scientists other than sociologists and peoples other than Americans demonstrably generate crazes about trick devices of one kind or another. Consequently, dealing directly or by imputation with the more obviously irrational aspects of measurement-mania as topics for sociology of knowledge analysis of American sociology only would represent a sadly limited perspective. The focus should take in at least several other contemporary societies in various parts of the world that are also secularizing rapidly.

This article focuses on the impact of sociological theory in public opinion and attitude studies. Opinion and attitude studies have become a sizable element in industrial, distributive and political planning in the U.S. Industrialists have learned that "attitudes" have something to do with personnel morale, efficiency and productivity and with the ways in which present and potential employees are likely to react in crisis situations. Consumer acceptance tests have helped distributors of items packaged and advertised for retail sale to select more effective labels, cartons and advertisements. The relative accuracy of poll predictions of elections has filled politicians and business men with respect for all poll reports. Public relations counselors once proved their worth to clients with bulging scrapbooks. Now they entrust their fate to interpretations of opinion polls. And as opinion and attitude studies have thus grown in commercial importance, they have begun to absorb more and more of the energies of leading social science departments in colleges and universities.

This article focuses on the relationship between sociological theory and race relations. The sociological theories of the founders of American sociology as an academic discipline were only implicitly related to the concrete problems of race relations. Their theories concerning race relations were derived from European scholars who were concerned with the universal phenomenon of race contact. Sociological theories relating to the concrete problems of race relations in the U.S. were implicit in the sociological analysis of the Negro problem as a social problem. The analysis of the Negro problem was based upon several fairly clear assumptions, that the Negro is an inferior race because of either biological or social heredity or both, that the Negro because of his physical character cannot be assimilated and that physical amalgamation is bad and undesirable. The sociological theories implicit in the studies of the Negro problem were developed during the period when the nation held that the attempt to make the Negro a citizen was a mistake and a new accommodation of the races was being achieved in the South under a system of segregation.

The success and usefulness of the American Sociological Society depend first upon the members and second upon the committees and their chairmen. In planning the program for the annual meeting, which is of course the principal activity of the Society, it is very important that all the members should be fully informed as early as possible with reference to the character and scope of the meeting, and that as many of them as possible should participate in the plans, at least through suggestions as to different items of the program. So, the author inform that the next annual meeting will be held in Chicago, Illinois from December 28-to 30 inclusive. Professor Thomas D. Eliot is chairman of the sociology group, which is cooperating with representatives of the allied societies in planning the local arrangements. The general topic of the session is "The Applications of Sociological Theory." This theme has been chosen in recognition of the outstanding importance of the relation between sociological theory and the disturbed and highly dynamic character of social relations the world over, and particularly in accordance with the vote passed at the last annual meeting, that special attention should be given to some aspects of the present depression.

The article presents the presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the American Catholic Sociological Society, Washington D.C. The evolution of the American Catholic Sociological Society is a consequence of variations in the manner in which the relation of religion and sociology has been viewed by American Catholic sociologists. These views have been themselves related to changes taking place in American sociology and in the Catholic Church in America. A sociological study of this evolution represents a case study in the interplay between science and religion. The Presidential addresses fall into five categories according to their primary themes: Assertions of a Catholic sociology; Explanations of the relationship of sociology to theology, social philosophy, or social action; Explanations or exhortations to scientific sociology; Studies in an aspect of the sociology of Catholicism; Examinations of the character of the American Catholic Sociological Society. American sociology was not particularly congenial to those with religious commitments.

The article presents information on workshops and announcements related to rural sociology. The Saskatchewan Centre for Community Studies has been incorporated as Canadien Centre for Community Studies-Centre Canadian d'Etudes Communautaires. It is now an independent, nonprofit, research organization with headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario. The Saskatchewan Centre will continue as the Prairie Region Office. Four distinguished speakers, each an outstanding authority in social theory and social action, will lead a two-day Colloquium as one event marking the 50th anniversary of Western Reserve University School of Applied Social Sciences. The Colioqulum will be held in Cleveland on September 29 and 30, 1966. A grant of $20,000 from the University of Illinois Graduate Research Board has been awarded to study the impact of industrialization on a rural area in Illinois. Herbert F. Lionberger has been awarded a grant by the Agricultural Development Council to study the development and dissemination of scientific farm information in Taiwan, assisted by H. C. Chang, Research Assistant in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri.

The article informs that in any discussion dealing with the ideas of John Dewey, a basic assumption is that the enterprise of philosophy is not outside and above human activities, but that, like science, religion, and the arts, it is an integral part of human culture. A second assumption, neither so elementary nor possibly so acceptable can be added: that philosophy is not only an integral part of a culture but also that it reflects certain conflicts and deformations in that culture. In over-simple language, the cultural conflict between morals and technology is the fundamental setting for a cultural emergent such as philosophy. Conversely, the resolution of that conflict would be indicated as a major orientation of philosophic effort to restore integration between man's beliefs about the world and his beliefs about how to live in that world. Continuity "excludes complete rupture on one side and mere repetition of identities on the other; it precludes reduction of the 'higher' to the 'lower' just as it precludes complete breaks and gaps. The growth and development of any living organism from seed to maturity illustrates the meaning of continuity."

The article focuses on the growth of an indigenous social philosophy in the U.S. From the Mayflower compact to the Atlantic Charter men of a common tongue have spoken and written words of conviction in their day which have piloted their people on a voyage of social and political discovery slowly unfolding a better way of living together. Well into a fourth century historians, biographers and analysts have recorded and interpreted what has been done under the gradual broadening and deepening of the concepts of democracy. That is the wellspring which has now been tapped. Out of this crystal clear reservoir of the very words of the prophets of the U.S., some of their own hour and some of years beyond themselves, Francis W. Coker, Alfred Cowles Professor of Government at Yale University, has drawn the water of a nation's life. Much of it has long since gone over the dam of finite time, although it miraculously retains the freshness of its ripple in the suns of yesterday.

This article presents information on the working of the U.S. government in relation to sociology and social progress. In political theory one thinks of the state as a sovereign unity, voicing itself through organized government in accordance with the law of the land. This law is itself supposed to be in harmony with the will of the people, who through law seek to enhance the general welfare. The essence of the whole matter is conveyed in the term general welfare. That is why sociology with its prevision of social betterment inclines always towards a republic; why it favors democracy because of the hope that the people really may determine the law of the land; and why the state is assumed to have sovereign power, under the supposition that government will be so organized that it may be the supreme arbiter in the determination of what, among many clashing interests, will prove to be in the long run pro bono publico. In other words there is no absolute science of the state capable of being thought out entirely apart from social situations or teachings. All political laws and principles have meaning only as they reflect the larger teachings of social philosophy. Politics and political theory can be appreciated only to the extent that their relations to sociology are clearly comprehended. Lacking this, the most logical possible explanation of political principles would likely prove to be one more system, to be buried in the limbo of worthless philosophies.

The article focuses on the social thought among Catholics in the U.S. in the colonial period. During the colonial period there were few attempts by Catholics or others to present social theories in a systematic way. Social and political opinions in the country were developed without much theoretical refinement, at least until the decade preceding the Revolution. Hence the historian and the sociologist must depend for primary data upon the records of the activities of men of all social classes, and must seek to discover the assumptions implicit in customs, laws, and social institutions. American Catholicism began as a transplantation from England, for its juridical establishment was in the Maryland plantation of 1634. The original Maryland colonists and their descendants constituted the nucleus of the main body of the faithful during the whole colonial period and down to the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Until the appointment of John Carroll as prefect-apostolic in 1784, the colonies were an English mission served by priests who were, with few exceptions, English Jesuits.

The article presents information on several books related to society and behavior. "Man in Contemporary Society," has been prepared for courses in contemporary civilization. This is an excellent pair of source volumes in modern social thought. Almost every major figure in the 20th century social science and social philosophy is represented. "Sexual Behavior in American Society," by J. Himehoch and Sylvia F. Fava, includes 38 articles of comment and criticism and a bibliography of 260 items about the two Kinsey reports. All but three of the articles have been published previously, 10 of them in a 1954 issue of the journal "Social Problems" which served as a forerunner to the book. "From Custodial to Therapeutic Patient Care in Mental Hospitals: Explorations in Social Treatment," by M. Greenblatt, R.H. York and E.L. Brown is the first extended report of a project sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation in collaboration with the staffs of a group of psychiatric hospitals. The focus of the project was on the importance to institutionalized patients of the social environment within the hospital and its basic objective was to demonstrate the therapeutic value of certain changes in this environment.