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Four essentially independent conceptions of the population problem are visible in current discussions. One is derived from macroeconomics, one from microeconomics, one from the health sciences, and one from ethical concerns about the just relation between man and nature. After describing these conceptions, this paper addresses the population problem principally using the economic definitions. It cites five reasons why discussions of the economic hazards posed by population growth have become markedly less alarmist in the past decade. Failures of highly quantified input-output models to account for human progress are emphasized. The paper presents examples of how technical demography has shed light on the dimensions of and solutions to the population problem and concludes with a brief discussion of contemporary population problems in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores changes in the meaning of privacy. Because individuals’ understandings and experiences of privacy vary by sociohistorical contexts, privacy is difficult to define and even more challenging to measure. Avoiding common obstacles to privacy research, I examine privacy from the standpoint of its invasion. I develop a typology of privacy invasions and use it to analyze discussions of invasions of privacy in U.S. newspapers. I show that the nature of invasions discussed in the news is increasingly covert and continuous and find empirical support for the often-made claim that the concept of privacy is evolving in meaningful ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identity choices of multiracial individuals with Black heritage have traditionally been limited in America by the one-drop rule, which automatically designated them as Black. This paper evaluates the rule’s contemporary influence and argues that, with increasing interracial marriage, options in racial identification are now available to this group. Using the 5% 1990 and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples, I consider how children from Black intermarriages are racially identified by their families and, using 2000 data, evaluate theoretical hypotheses to explain identification processes. The results show that most families with Black intermarriages reject the one-drop rule, but that Black-White families create unique interracial options, the implications of which are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have expressed strong views on corporate influences over science, but most attention has been devoted to broad, Black/White arguments, rather than to actual mechanisms of influence. This paper summarizes an experience where involvement in a lawsuit led to the discovery of an unexpected mechanism: A large corporation facing a multibillion-dollar court judgment quietly provided generous funding to well-known scientists (including at least one Nobel prize winner) who would submit articles to “open,” peer-reviewed journals, so that their “unbiased science” could be cited in an appeal to the Supreme Court. On balance, the corporation’s most effective techniques of influence may have been provided not by overt pressure, but by encouraging scientists to continue thinking of themselves as independent and impartial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to uncover the mytho-symbolic parallels between the social-psychological theories of noted sociologist W.I. Thomas and the vision of moral-religious transformation recorded in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Thomas' emphasis on the "definition of the situation," precise stages of moral development, and the four wishes are seen to be derived from Bunyan's themes of spiritual instruction along Christian's journey, his progress through various stages of sanctification, and the various spiritual polarities established by Bunyan as structuring principles of his text. Thomas is understood to have distorted Bunyan's vision of ultimate transcendence by equating salvation with adoption of the Protestant ethic and its institutional context of the American political and economic status quo.
The present essay attempts to demonstrate that W.I. Thomas' classic analysis of the cultural life of Polish immigrants, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, similarly devalued traditional peasant morality and called for its complete transformation in the direction of middle-class Protestant moral strictures. Furthermore, Thomas' analysis will be seen to have utilized John Bunyan's classic narrative of religious conversion, The Pilgrim's Progress, as its implicit structural myth, adopting specific themes and symbols from The Pilgrim's Progress to characterize the Polish immigrant, like Christian, as abandoning a morally retrograde milieu, undertaking a dangerous journey in search of moral improvement and, according to specific stages of conversion, discovering a morally higher way of life in a new place. As with Watson's behaviorism, Thomas' analysis sought to enhance the moral stature of an increasingly defensive Protestant elite even while denigrating the moral character of the new immigrant life in the new American cities.
In this analysis we have tried to uncover the extensive mytho-symbolic connections between W.I. Thomas' sociology of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over the "community question" has generated several perspectives on the sources of ties to the territorial community in modern society. This paper attempts to empirically assess the utility of each model for predicting the number of ties to the local community and extra-local area, using data on voluntary association memberships in Seattle. Results indicate that the "community of limited liability" perspective is most accurate in predicting the importance of social, economic, and temporal investments for local memberships, and social position for extra-local memberships.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noting that sociology, like other disciplines, usually discusses itself as if its content-its body of knowledge-were created by a wholly intellectual process, I am adopting in this paper the approach of the sociology of knowledge by emphasizing the "existential factors" that influence knowledge. I employ the poorly developed concept of occupation, and argue that in the United States academic disciplines like sociology are best analyzed as professions, which are organized occupations. American professions sustain their present position by the functional differentiation of members into separate administrative, research or scholarship, and practice roles. Practice roles serving lay clients or patrons provide the basic economic support of the profession as a whole. The characteristic practice role of most academic arts and science disciplines is teaching. Using sociology and its special position in the under-graduate curriculum as an example, I suggest that the contingencies of teaching influence what knowledge is used, underlie at least part of the public image of the discipline, and determine some of what becomes part of the published corpus of the discipline's knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the plans of the Regional Science Association in the U.S. to organize a year-long celebration for its 50th anniversary in 2004. Focus of the conference sessions being planned by the association; Advantage of the journal "Papers in Regional Science" over other regional science journals; Topics included in the golden anniversary issue of the journal.

The Regional Science Association was founded 50 years ago in December 1954; however,the institutional origins of the field were much earlier, perhaps when Walter Isard began his graduate studies in economics at Harvard University. This article briefly traces the history of the field of regional science and its association from those beginnings to the present. The focus of the article is the evolution of the association as an institution, and some of its major contributors, and to a much lesser extent, on the scope and scholarly content of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an abstract from the book "Divorce and Remarriage: International studies," edited by C.A. Everett. This book is a reprint of the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage-1997, vol. 26. The collection covers 12 countries in 15 papers. The authors come from behavioral sciences, demography medicine, pastoral psychology, psychology, sociology, social sciences, and social work. There is no unifying theme, nor comparative analysis of divorce and remarriage in any of the articles. Thus, it is an international collection of papers which deals with some aspects of the topic at hand. The editor has a one- paragraph introduction in which he states that "it was not possible to assemble manuscripts under specific themes." The shortest chapter compares divorce rates in Hungary and the United States using 1985 data. The findings are that divorce rates were higher in regions where marriage and suicide rates were higher. An introductory essay, some bridging between topics, and a possible epilogue would have made this book worthwhile.