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C. Wright Mills' The Sociological Imagination (1959) represents one of the most influential texts of postwar American sociology. The title has become a catchphrase that stands for a style of thought that transcends both theoretical dogma and the constraints of mere methodological rule following. This article sets out to show that Mills' vision of the sociological imagination had more in common with the then dominant lines of scholarship than his broadside against Parsonian grand theory and Lazarsfeldian abstracted empiricism in the main part of the book would suggest. Among the tools that Mills introduced as fostering the sociological imagination were 2 × 2 tables. The article traces the use of such tables over time and across scholarly communities and shows that, contrary to Mills' own estimate, these tables describe a common nexus between his own work and that of Parsons and Lazarsfeld. All three scholars made ample use of this formal tool to construct sociological arguments at central places of their oeuvre. Given its shared use across otherwise divergent schools, the 2 × 2 table is a prime example for what historians of science have called paper tools, i.e. statistical formulas, algorithms, tables, diagrams, graphs, etc., that structure scientific research across different schools of thought and theoretical approaches. Drawing on the notion of paper tools, the article advances a post-Kuhnian perspective on the history of sociology that shifts the research focus from substantive ideas to formal tools and demonstrates elements of commensurability among presumably incommensurable schools of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a step-by-step guide for the undergraduate instructor in how to launch a student journal. The authors describe their experiences over the past four years in publishing the student journal at Wayne County Community College in Detroit, Michigan. Though there were some problems and pitfalls, the authors concluded that it was a rewarding educational experience and strongly recommend its replication at other undergraduate institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political sociologists have spent more time investigating how charismatic leaders gain support than how they lose it. Which factors drive voters to abandon a charismatic leader? Is defection associated with social and political identity, economic circumstances, democratic commitments, interactions between these, or other factors? In this paper, I use the case of Juan "Evo" Morales and Bolivia to explore how support for a charismatic leader erodes. A mixed-methods approach enables a descriptive portrait of loyalists and defectors from nationally representative survey data, along with an analysis of how voters describe their political allegiances from in-depth interviews across two summers of fieldwork in La Paz. The study finds that in the case of Evo and Bolivia, loyalty to and defection from a charismatic leader are affected by education, ethnic identity, and sex. Using these findings, the paper shows how responses to charismatic counter-roles are shaped by voter positionality. Differences in voters' interpretation of a given situation depend partly on identity. Support for a charismatic leader is not necessarily support for charisma, and voters defect for various reasons, including some cited by other voters as grounds for their persistent loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors views on the effects of social changes on sports in the U.S. The article refers three papers on this subject. These paper includes sociologist August Cornte's concern for the social changes in the early portion of the 19th century. Comte viewed societies in terms of their statistics and dynamics. It is apparent in the article that scholars have approached the study of social change in society and sport from diverse perspectives and hold differing views as to its outcomes for society in general and sport in particular. The papers referred to here, explore diverse aspects of social change in sports. The first paper, criticizes the discipline of sociology of sport for its lack of attention to social change in play, sport, and leisure contexts. Arguing that social change is ubiquitous and deserving of our attention, she provides an overview of theoretical frameworks for the analysis of social change, including cyclic theories, a variety of developmental formulations in sociology and anthropology, and structural functionalism. The second paper provides an excellent case study of social change in a nation state and its influence on sport.

Christian Smith's paper 'The Incoherence of 'Culture' in American Sociology' is a valuable provocation that can prompt us to reflect on the role of concepts and on the role of agreement on the definition of concepts in scientific research. In this comment paper, I raise questions about Smith's empirical expectation that sociologists should agree on a concept of culture based on debates in the sociology of science. I also suggest that in terms of the future agenda for the sociology of culture, we should distinguish between dialogue and clarification on the one hand, which I agree is needed, and standardization on the other hand, which seems incompatible with open-minded empirical research. Rather than work on agreement on what culture is, we might work on clarifying relevant distinctions among dimensions of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides insights on the contemporary relevance of Talcott Parsons's writings by analyzing 20 textbooks from Austria, Germany, Great Britain and the United States, published in 1999–2019. Whether having knowledge of Parsons is helpful to today's students and other interested readers, and what knowledge, deserves consideration. Therefore , the paper asks: Which future gains of readers did textbook authors envision when they chose, in their own present, to discuss (or not) sociological writings from long ago? In order to understand what future opportunities authors wanted to create for readers, as well as how they chose to discuss Parsons to this end, the paper draws on Niklas Luhmann's notion of memory. The analysis reveals several key competencies that student and other interested readers might acquire through having knowledge of Parsons' writings and its critiques. These potentials would have gone unnoticed if authors had assessed Parsons's relevance only according to whether he adequately considered conflict or not, as has been done in many debates about his work until today. Moreover, through analyzing how authors remembered Parsons, I distilled two key selective criteria: First, what must be remembered in order to enable readers to acquire those competencies? Second, which memories would be impeding for readers and thus be better left out? These criteria are relevant for research, as well. Looking at the future, it would be desirable that sociologists let Parsons assist them in their research in many different ways, if possible. As a result, we might see a revival of Parsons that enables genuine advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1915 and the late 1930s W.I. Thomas developed a theory of human motivation steering a middle course between determinism (biological or social) and unfettered free will. The theory of the four wishes posited that all human beings, across time and place, are driven by a set of connected wishes mediated by the social and physical environment. These are the wish for new experience, the wish for security, the wish for recognition, and the wish for response. Between 1917 when Thomas first published the wishes and the early 1930s when the wishes fell out of use, they were the dominant micro theory of motivation invoked by sociologists in the United States (particularly those associated with the Chicago School). This paper explores the rise and fall of Thomas's wishes in the context of the sociology of ideas, with particular emphasis on fluctuations in Thomas's professional status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the future of sociology archive as a discipline. The major U.S. university libraries now go to extraordinary lengths and expense to collect the papers of writers, even many who as yet have not been categorically identified as important. There is a serious lesson in this-one might even say, a vital one-for sociology as it confronts an uncertain future. As everyone of a certain age will recall, the saga of Roots, in book and television formats, single-handedly gave American blacks a collective sense of historical importance that up to that point was absent from mass culture. The new Holocaust Museum in Washington is the most eloquent and emotionally wracking contemporary expression of historical memory for public consumption on a grand scale. Other examples can be found at every juncture of the "culture wars" that have been raging in the United States since the 1960s. Every politically self-aware group is supposed to venerate its real or imagined past, both at individual and collective levels, not only because such joint expressions enhance self-conceptions but also owing to the strategic advantage.

This paper tracks Mead's induction into the sociological canon, focusing in particular on American sociologists who made a concerted effort to reconstruct Mead as a systematic social theorist and apply his ideas to empirical research. It distinguishes two interpretive strategies of framing the classic and constructing the canon -- the politics of orthodoxy and politics of the open canon. The politics of orthodoxy aims to ascertain the original meaning and close the textual canon, creating a template relative to which alternative interpretations are judged incomplete, unorthodox, or wrongheaded. The politics of the open canon proceeds on the assumption that the classic text lends itself to conflicting interpretations, that room for the honest difference of opinion must be safeguarded, and that the capacity to further productive inquiry rather than the adherence to an orthodox view recommends a particular construal as viable and canon-worhty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erving Goffman's written legacy bears on sociology as a whole, or so he argued in his Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association (Goffman, 1983). However, while being celebrated as important to the discipline, his work is also interpreted in inconsistent ways, often downplayed or marginalized, and even neglected. This paper claims that Goffman's "well known aversion to self-disclosure" (Shalin, 2013) does not justify overlooking his trajectory, from the unknown "margins" of a Canadian small town to the elusive "center" of American sociology—and much less does it justify still circulating assessments of his personality, crafted while overlooking his life experiences—and, especially, his writings. Anecdotal evidence of his "enigmatic" personality (Lemert, 2003), or "bad-boy outrageousness" (Berger, 1986), works as a derailing tactic, leading to unwarranted appraisals of Goffman's personality—and, more importantly, to the neglect of crucial aspects of his work. From a theoretical standpoint, Simmel's treatment of "the stranger" as a social relationship, and Merton's concept of "moral alchemy", are used here to try to make some sense of the mixture of celebration and neglect still surrounding "Goffman". Historical data was gathered in part from the "Erving Goffman Archives'' (Shalin, 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article documents the writings of sociologist Samuel Wilson Blizzard. Some of them are "The Attitudes of Rural and Urban High School Students Toward the Values of Rural Livings" published in 1946. "The Value of Man," published in February 1948. "Problems in Meeting Religious Needs in the Rural-Urban Fringe" an address given at the National Presbyterian Town and Country Conference, Champaign, Illinois. "Social Participation Patterns of Husbands and Wives Who Are Migrants in the City" published in 1952, "The Church and the Community: A Discussion Guide for Christian Action; and an Instructor's Manual," published in 1952, "The Rural Church and its Community Relations," a paper presented at the Rural Leadership Institute, University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture and Home Economics, Lexington, April 1953, "The Place of the Social Sciences in Theological Training for Rural Ministers, The Christian Mission in the Rural Social Process," (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., Department of Town and Country Church), October 1955; and many others.

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades of his life, Talcott Parsons was often indicted as conservative. More recently, his analyses of contemporary society have been perceived as obsolete. In the present paper, I argue that both these accounts are wrong. Parsons's biographical and intellectual profile is clearly – and rather consistently – that of a New Deal liberal. His "ate" works, moreover, articulate an original view of the integrative processes in modern societies that is still both theoretically compelling and politically relevant. Parsons's view of modernity has made possible the development of a sophisticated theory of societal pluralism, able to deal analytically with the astonishing variety of structural strains (and resources) arising from an increasingly diverse – in racial, religious, ethnic, sexual and moral terms - membership in contemporary societies. His sociological enthusiasm for inclusion has never been blind to the likelihood of backlashes and the strength of discontent such inclusion may bring. His work provides thus some important directions in the current storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to explain an intrinsic clue in Mills's empirical study of American society and the epistemological proposal of social sciences. In his stratification trilogy, which consists of New Men of Power: America's Labor Leaders (1948), White Collar: The American Middle Class (1951), and Men of Power (1956), Mills depicted a grey picture of the mass society, where the power was concentrated in the hands of small groups of elites while the labor and white collar were powerless and indifferent. The Sociological Imagination, which was published after the trilogy, inherited the substantive analysis of the mass society in the trilogy and further raised the problem of human nature in the mass society, namely, the problem of so?called "happy robot." On the other hand, it discussed what stance, position, and intervention intellectuals and social researchers should take when facing such a mass society in formation. In particular, Mills proposed how to use the sociological imagination to pursue the ideal of a democratic society. Thus, the trace from the "mass society" to "the sociological imagination" constitutes an intrinsic clue to an understanding of Mills. On this basis, the paper further discusses the two main issues in Mills' sociological writings, namely, to explore the possibility of social change, and to care about the human meaning in modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a sociological approach to the study of art and literature and demonstrates its value as a methodological intervention in the field of comics studies. Known as the 'production of culture' perspective, this approach argues that all artistic work - including comics - is the product of collective, often routinized, human activity. Therefore, it is not sufficient merely to study the text and/or the artist to whom the work is directly attributed. Rather, to fully understand any artistic work, one must also study the larger social and organizational context of its production and dissemination. In the first part of the paper, I will provide an overview of the production of culture approach, discussing some of its foundational theorists and their respective intellectual contributions. Sociologists covered will include Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu, and Richard A. Peterson. In the second part of the paper, I will present an example of how this approach may be applied in scholarly practice. Using the transnational comics publishing industry in Japan and the United States as a case study, I will show how the conditions and mode of production help to determine the particular sorts of texts that are actually created. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of the limitations of the production of culture approach and possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1945 Davis and Moore, following an earlier formulation by Davis, proposed a functional theory of stratification that was intended to account for what they contended was the "universal necessity" for social inequality in any social order. Beginning with an article by Tumin in 1953, the Davis-Moore theory elicited regular analysis, commentary, criticism, and debate through the 1970s. Although professional work on the theory has largely ceased since the late 1980s, the Davis-Moore theory remains perhaps the single most widely cited paper in American introductory sociology and stratification textbooks and constitutes "required reading" in hundreds, if not thousands, of undergraduate and graduate courses throughout the United States. The present paper traces the history of the debate and attempts to explain the theory's longevity and vitality in the face of what has amounted to largely negative assessments by other sociologists over the preceding fifty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a brief overview of the growth and development of the North American Society for Sociology of Sport, beginning with its formation at the Second CIC Symposium on Sociology of Sport at Minneapolis in 1978. Although the organization's maturation and success may not be highly correlated with the development of the subdiscipline itself, consistent interest in sport sociology topics and the absence of a forum for exchange are viewed as important factors that led to its formation. Historically, the organization has consisted of diverse perspectives which have been viewed as an organizational strength. Recently, however, a form of subtle intolerance seems to be promoting a separate identification for various scholarly perspectives. A cau- tionary warning is issued against the possible rise of elitism that could evolve from the creation of false cleavages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the concern expressed by many within the Pacific Sociological Association in recent years that their regional organization is increasingly seen by Research I University sociologists as no longer meeting their professional needs, thus leading to (a) decreasing rates of membership and participation within, (b) a decline in the amount of high quality professional work associated with, and (c) a diminishment of the professional status of, the PSA. Using data gained from a membership survey of sociologists at the 29 Research I Universities in the Western Region of the United States and Canada, the empirical basis of these claims is examined, and their possible implications explored. The results of this investigation suggest that although PSA membership among faculty members at PhD-granting institutions may have declined somewhat over time, this has occurred for a number of very comprehendible reasons, some associated with but others external to the Pacific Sociological Association as a professional organization. In light of these findings, it is the main recommendation of this paper that the PSA should continue to approach this issue in a careful and reasoned manner, doing what it reasonably can to try to meet the professional needs of Research I University sociologists in the 21st century, but being mindful not to jeopardize what has made the PSA important and attractive to its growing number of other constituencies in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of the South, as a substantive area research interest, emerged during the 1800s as a means to rationalize and preserve the cultural norms of slavery era whites who would soon experience seismic social shocks including the Civil War and emancipation of enslaved blacks. The person singularly cited as the architect of this area of study is Howard W. Odum. Although Odum is identified as the person most responsible for the development of this field, archival data indicate that W. E. B. Du Bois and the men and women of the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory were its first practitioners. In this paper evidence is offered to show that Du Bois's Atlanta University efforts predated Odum's North Carolina research program. Additionally, an explanation for Du Bois's marginalization in the existing sociology of the South literature is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

The history of innovation as a category is dominated by economists and by the contribution of J. A. Schumpeter. This paper documents the contribution of a neglected but influential author, the American sociologist William F. Ogburn. Over a period of more than 30 years, Ogburn developed pioneering ideas on three dimensions of technological innovation: origins, diffusion, and effects. He also developed the first conceptual framework for innovation studies-based on the concept of cultural lags-which led to studying and forecasting the impacts of technological innovation on society. All in all, Ogburn has been as important to the sociology of technology as Robert K. Merton has been to the sociology of science and Schumpeter to the economics of technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Aposta is the property of Aposta 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.)

This paper argues that Charles Sanders Peirce contributed significantly to the founding of American sociology, doing so at the level of philosophical presuppositions or meta-sociology. I emphasize two of his ideas. One is semiotics, which is virtually the same as the anthropologists' concept of culture. This latter concept in turn was essential to clarifying the sociologists' idea of the social or society. Peirce also created the modern theory of the dialogical self, which explained the symbolic character of human beings and proved foundational for social psychology. Politically Peirce was a right-wing conservative, but his ideas eventually contributed to the egalitarian views of cultures and sub-cultures. In addition his ideas contributed, by way of unanticipated consequences, to the 20th-century human rights revolutions in the American legal system. Thus he was both a founder of sociology and a founder of American political liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1885 and 1930, as sociology was becoming an academic discipline, sociology was also being practiced intelligently, innovatively, and self-consciously outside the academy in the social settlements that grew up in America's major cities. In this paper, we first define and give a brief overview of the settlement movement in America; second, we show how the settlement workers were sociologists in their self-definition and action and in their relations with other sociologists; third, in the body of the paper, we describe the sociology done by the settlements in terms of the empirical research they undertook and the theory they created. Our argument is that settlement sociologists produced empirical studies that were both substantively significant and methodologically pioneering; that they did so in terms of a coherent social theory unique in its focus on "the neighborly relation"; and that both their research and theory were part of a critical, reflexive, and activist sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the issue which gives emphasis on both the plenary and the presidential addresses presented at the 1985 annual meeting of the Mid-South Sociological Association held in Little Rock, Arkansas. The success of the meeting was made even more so by these two extremely timely and thought provoking papers from Bill Catton and Marsha McGee. Both not only reflect the introspective nature of sociology and sociologists at this time, but also provide direction for the discipline. Hence, it is hoped that the quality of both the 1985 plenary address and the 1985 presidential address serves as an encouragement to those who would like to attend the 1986 annual meeting in Jackson, Mississippi.

Tolbert H. Kennedy was an administrator and professor at Washington State University. 1944-1965. During that time this university reached rank three on the all-time list of schools producing doctoral-level black sociologists. Only the University of Chicago and Ohio State were more successful than Washington State in that respect. This paper contends Kennedy's is humanitarian interest in practical race relations, conditioned by his southern upbringing, led him to work privately in the production of potential leaders who would press for human equality. In so doing he showed teaching to be a relationship which enables teacher and learner to he mutually fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing accounts of American sociology’s founding years during the early twentieth century assume that the discipline was ‘metrocentric.’ They assume that it was only interested in processes occurring within the United States; that American sociologists fell prey to state-centrist thought; and that, therefore, contextualizing America sociology’s emergence necessitates understanding relations, events, and processes within the confines of US territorial boundaries. By contrast, this paper shows the imperial and hence global aspects of early American sociological thought. Early American sociologists were interested in imperialism and, therefore, in cross-societal, transnational, and global processes and relations. Implicitly or explicitly they approached imperialism as a process by which social groups, not least ‘races,’ interacted and conflicted. They also saw it as a route towards new global forms. Early American sociology thus articulated a sociological imagination that looked beyond American society and to the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Decyzje is the property of Decyzje 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.)

Despite the close resemblances evident in their major works, their critical stance and their politics, C. Wright Mills and Alvin Gouldner have received strikingly different responses from their sociological peers, and they now occupy very different places in the collective memory of the discipline. This intriguing discrepancy provides the basis here for a comparative case study that examines both ongoing commemorative practices and historical evidence. This paper shows how the sociological community has frequently and approvingly commemorated Mills through introductory textbooks, as well as reading lists for doctoral comprehensive examinations, awards in Mills' honor and biographies of Mills, while doing much less to preserve and promote the memory of Gouldner and his contributions to the field. In an effort to attain a better understanding of such differences, I compare the prescriptions that each advocated for the discipline, especially as these are expressed in Mills' Sociological Imagination and Gouldner's Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. The analysis emphasizes how Mills explicitly sought to move beyond sociology, in a narrow academic sense, and called for well-honed empirical endeavors with relevance for a variety of publics, whereas Gouldner proceeded largely as an academic theorist who demanded sociological-theoretical reform. Unlike Mills, he did not breach the gap between academia and the general public. These findings illustrate an apparent paradox, namely, that American sociology in the twenty-first century may reserve its most esteemed positions for internal critics who advocate movement beyond its contemporary confines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to his 1922 emigration to Europe and thence to the United States, Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin had an exceptional intellectual and political career in Russia and the Soviet Union (Sorokin , ; Johnston ; Krotov ). Indeed, he was among the early founders of the science of sociology in his native land, where, according to a relatively recent bibliography (Sorokin ), he produced 162 Russian-language publications between the ages of 21 and 33. This listing includes not only book reviews and journal articles, but also substantial monographs and a two-volume theoretical treatise. While still a relatively young man, Sorokin had thus gained widespread recognition as a scholar of the first rank. He was also the initial chairperson (from 1919 to 1922) of a fledgling department of sociology at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), an elected member of the national Constituent Assembly and an appointed staff member of the 1917 Provisional Government, the first democratic regime in Russia. This much would have sufficed for an entry in a sociological encyclopedia, and Sorokin's political career has few parallels in the history of the field, other than the involvement of Emile Durkheim in French educational policy and the participation of Max Weber in creating the Weimar Republic in Germany. Nevertheless sociologists in the United States and most western historians of the field have not yet appreciated the full influence of the formative period, especially from 1905 to 1922. Lacking familiarity with Russian culture of that era and knowing little about the larger Russian socio-historical milieu, its intellectual discourse and collective memory, they have not been able to comprehend Sorokin's outlook, behavior and professional output in the United States in relation to these earlier contextual factors. This is arguably a fundamental reason why many U.S. sociologists have tended to see Sorokin, especially since 1937, as a marginal figure and to regard his works largely as deviations from accepted social scientific practice. This paper will argue that a more adequate appreciation of Sorokin's background and early adult life illumines both stylistic features of his works in America and also places into proper perspective several of his substantive foci that did not accord with contemporary 'normal science' (Kuhn ). In short, despite his overall assimilation into American society and higher education, including his appointment at Harvard University and his election as president of the American Sociological Association, Sorokin should be understood in large measure as a life-long Russian intellectual. His was a Russian-born sensibility and consciousness-indeed a 'Russian soul'-so deeply ingrained that it stamped his entire professional career in the United States, including his published researches, his popular sociology and his university teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harry Alpert (1912-1977), the US sociologist, is best-known for his directorship of the National Science Foundation's social science programme in the 1950s. This study extends our understanding of Alpert in two main ways: first, by examining the earlier development of his views and career. Beginning with his 1939 biography of Emile Durkheim, we explore the early development of Alpert's views about foundational questions concerning the scientific status of sociology and social science more generally, proper social science methodology, the practical value of social science, the academic institutionalisation of sociology, and the unity-of-science viewpoint. Second, this paper illuminates Alpert's complex involvement with certain tensions in mid-century US social science that were themselves linked to major transformations in national science policy, public patronage, and unequal relations between the social and natural sciences. We show that Alpert's views about the intellectual foundations, practical relevance, and institutional standing of the social sciences were, in some important respects, at odds with his NSF policy work. Although remembered as a quantitative evangelist and advocate for the unity-of-science viewpoint, Alpert was in fact an urbane critic of natural-science envy, social scientific certainty, and what he saw as excessive devotion to quantitative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an introduction to the December 2010 issue of "American Sociologist," which focuses on sociologist Charles Tilly.

The article features sports participation as a factor for social change. Physical educators and sociologists have been almost unanimous in their claim that participation in sports will result in more positive attitudes and improved relations between culturally diverse players. The goals of the Olympic Movement are to promote the development of fine physical and moral qualities and to bring the athletes of the world together in a great quadrennial festival of sports, thereby creating international respect and goodwill and thus helping to construct a better and more peaceful world. Today, countries like the United States, Russia, and East Germany view success at the Games primarily as a justification of the superiority of their political and economic systems.

Although there is a thriving industry of classical sociology within the discipline of sociology, not much attention has been focused on the early American sociologists. This paper offers a six-fold typology of the uses of the classics within sociology, and argues that the neglect of early American sociology among contemporary sociologists requires correction. For reasons delineated, Lester F. Ward is the overlooked early American sociologist most deserving of renewed attention and study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of a social (or general) mind was prevalent in early American sociology from the 1880s through about the 1910s. As a concept, the social mind served as a proxy for what would later be defined and understood as culture and other collective phenomena such as social movements, crowd behavior, organizational behavior (e.g. ‘corporate actors’), and so forth. In the early stages of the development of sociology in America, sociologists such as Lester F. Ward and Franklin H. Giddings (1855-1931) were struggling to establish sociology as a legitimate science, and they needed to ground this new science of society in an object or reality that existed above the level of the individual members of society (for not doing so would bring the charge that sociology was nothing more than a watered-down version of psychology). In this paper I examine specifically Giddings' writings on the social mind, for they illustrate how subjectivist or idealist elements can be incorporated into an overtly positivistic or naturalistic theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into immigration has for many years focused most of its attention on the issue of how immigrants adapt to host societies. This tendency is especially true in the work of sociologists. Yet if we acknowledge the growing ethnic diversity today in the United States and elsewhere, the most interesting questions arise as to how immigrants influence the host society -- not how they adapt to it. This paper proposes a sociological theory to account for such influence. For evidence it draws on a variety of empirical examples from research on ethnic communities in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Schutz's influence on American sociologists and sociology in the 1960s and 1970s is traced through the examination of the work of two of his students, Helmut Wagner and Peter Berger, and of Harold Garfinkel with whom he met and corresponded over a number of years. The circumstances of Schutz's own academic situation, particularly the short period of his academic career in the United States and his location at the New School, are examined to consider how and in what ways he was constrained from exerting an even wider influence. The two major areas of influence in American sociology that are examined are the sociology of knowledge and the early development of ethnomethodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sociology we have recently witnessed a move towards a stronger emphasis on temporality and narrative analysis. The paper discusses the so-called narrative positivism proposed by the American sociologist Andrew Abbott as one of the first, most original and wide-ranging attempt to construct a narrative sociology. In particular, through a focus on both his interpretation of the Chicago legacy and his research on temporality, the paper addresses Abbot's criticism of mainstream sociological methodology and his developing social theory of spatial and temporal contexts. In the final section, four motives are given to closely consider Abbott's theoretical pursuits although still in progress and far from systematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a short paper written in the early 19MM, 'The representation of death in the American cinema', Roger Caillois theorized the representation of the afterlife in America through the Hollywood cinema of the late 1930s and 1940s. Caillois maintained that the American afterlife is fundamentally bureaucratic and represents a prolongation of the world of the living. This prolongation is understood as a negation of the separation of the sacred and the profane domains in favour of a desacralized, profane pan-bureaucracy. Caillois's essay is read in the context of a sociology of the sacred in the tradition of the College de sociologie, with special attention given to his descriptions of how the sacred tends to wane in ordinary life and to his hybrid methodological strategies. The films Caillois used as evidence are critically reviewed and the Hollywood invasion of French film markets in the 1940s and 1950s is developed as a critical historical context for grounding Caillois's claims about American 'originality'; the negation of the sacred dimension of the afterlife, the power of cinema to replace oral tradition in collective life, and the consequences of a powerful, 'exported' mythology that negates the sacred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social mattering is the extent to which an individual feels important and valued by others. While some previous studies have assessed the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and mattering, the association between relationship status and mattering has been vastly understudied. And while sociologists of religion have recognized the importance of religiosity for mattering, this link has not been studied alongside demographic patterns in mattering. To overcome these limitations, we draw on data from Wave 6 of the 2021 Baylor Religion Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults living in the United States (N = 1,248) collected roughly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. We test our hypotheses with OLS regression models. Our findings suggest that single/never married and divorced/separated respondents report lower perceptions of mattering than the married/cohabiting group. While we observed no significant association between religious attendance and mattering, results suggest that regular (weekly) religious attendance weakened the association between being single/never married and divorced/separated and lower mattering. Single/never married respondents and divorced/separated persons who attend religious services weekly report the highest mattering scores, even relative to married weekly attenders. We also offer several important directions for future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is taken from Chapter 6 of the publication A Lucky Journey: The Sociological Enterprise, 1931-1980, which reflects on the progress of the American Sociological Review (ASR) as a publication from 1958 to 1960. The local editorial staff of the publication began with a contingent of ten scholars. These ten scholars included representatives of various sub-fields in sociology and of related discipline as well as specialists on Soviet Russia, Africa, India and Japan. Most of the day-to-day labor on the Review was done by editorial secretary Betty Vogel, Michael Olmsted, and their nominal boss. Michael Olmsted was more than a first-rate book review editor, he evaluated papers in his special fields with sagacity and designed an attractive cover to replace what had long been the dismal front of the publication. Solicitation of papers by prominent sociologists helped to upgrade ASR as a scholarly journal. Another change was the introduction of a division of the Review on the Profession which included not merely the obituaries or communications pertaining to the sociological guild, but both solicited submitted articles on the occupation itself. This innovation, according to the author, was consistent with his own growing interest in the sociology of sociology.

This paper discusses what a researcher can expect when doing qualitative research in an American Indian community. Despite an attempt to adequately prepare for fieldwork the author found that the research process differed in important respects from the qualitative methods literature. The paper chronicles key differences concerning gatekeepers and the research bargain, establishing rapport and gaining acceptance, the roles assigned to the researcher, the role of key informants and brokers, and several uniquely Indian processes the author experienced. The paper concludes with a summary of salient characteristics of research among American Indians and argues that such research takes longer, the research bargain is a matter of constant negotiation, gatekeepers are ubiquitous within the community, and the researcher needs to be prepared to make some accommodations to his or her hosts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No methodological critique should be seen as an attack on an existing study. Rather such critiques should be seen as a call to a community of scholars to re- examine or reassess work that may have seemed "finished." In view of the relatively low esteem accorded to sport sociology (at least in the United States) it may be proper to emphasize that the problems discussed above are by no means limited to the area of sport sociology indeed, they are to be found in the most respectable literature of fields more in the "mainstream" of sociology (see Deutscher, 1973; Hirsehi and Selvin, 1967). Hopefully, a continuing concern for better methodology among sport sociologists will help us to draw on the methodological wisdom of `general sociology" and other related fields without repeating the errors that have been made by scholars in those fields. A number of recent papers and exchanges in this journal and elsewhere have marked an apparent growth of interest in methodological issues among sport sociologists (e.g.. Loy and Seagrave, 1974; Albonico and Pfister-Binz, 1971; McPherson, 1975: WohI, 1975). This trend, especially the emergence of exchanges and discussions regarding the relative merit of different methodological approaches (ef. Wohl, 1975 and McPherson, 1975; Lenk and Lüschen, 1975), may be seen as a sign of maturation of sport sociology as a field of inquiry. Given the nature of sport Sociology such exchanges also provide an opportunity fox' cross-national and cross-disciplinary communication that is, perhaps, unparallelled in any other social science field. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the more significant works in the field in terms of certain methodological problems they present. it should be noted at this time that this review could not be comprehensive given the extensive Literature that exists. The material selected is characterized by two general criteria: 1) it is important in terms of its substantive or theoretical content; 2) it represents interesting methodological problem. Hopefully this paper will contribute to the apparent growth in consciousness of methodological issues among sport sociologists - and, perhaps further exchanges as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T. Lynn Smith analysed the rural class structure in America on the basis of 1959 census data. This paper correlates the proportion of lower class population with the prevalence of corporate farming, based upon an analyses of the proposition of total state agricultural production accounted for by the 31,000 largest farms (r = .76%). The implications of these data are that, with progressive expansion of large scale agriculture, the American rural population will develop into what Smith identifies as the two-class system. Note is also taken of some regional variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about a southern "ethos" and a Jewish "ethos," even about a southern "mystique" and a Jewish "mystique." Sociologists have documented the existence of a southern "subculture" and of a Jewish "subculture." The purpose of this paper is to delineate some values basic to each group to examine the past interaction of the two and how it affected individuals who are members of both, and to raise questions about the future thrust and shape of this interaction. The Anglo-Saxon background of the South is one of its strongest characteristics. The United States, throughout its colonial period and early years, was heavily influenced by the power and predominance of the Anglo-Saxon values it "was in this atmosphere that the South developed. As Anglo-Saxonism and fundamentalist Protestantism catalytically intensified each other, so these heightened values spread beyond nonfundamentalists influencing the entire region. The southern subculture is deeply concerned with "good manners" and with hospitality--a concern with "helpfulness, courtesy, and amicable relations," with even rejection being" covered by gentility, good manners, and smiles.

It is claimed that most sociological studies of U.S. scientists tend to disregard black Americans. This paper seeks to provide some necessary demographic data on black U.S. scientists on which future studies may build. A sample of 557 black scientists responded to a questionnaire designed to provide demographic data. The results show that the typical black U.S. scientist is a male who grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in a lower middle-class family. After graduating in the top quartile of a predominantly black public high school, he enrolled in a predominantly black college where his academic achievement was above average. When the decision was made to pursue the Ph.D. degree, the preference was a university located in the Midwest. After completing the doctorate the pattern was to return to the South to pursue a career in a predominantly black college.

American civil religion has been the subject of recent scholarly interest among American sociologists of religion, leading to a sociological debate. This paper examines the sociological literature concerning American civil religion in an attempt to order the literature into a coherent, comprehensive, and logical set of definitions and assumptions open to empirical investigation. Four basic propositions adapted from the work of John A. Coleman are framed to address the crucial questions most often asked by contemporary sociologists of American civil religion: (a) American civil religion is the religious symbol system which relates the citizen's role and American society's place in space, time, and history to the conditions of ultimate existence and meaning; (b) American civil religion is structurally differentiated from both the political community and the religious community; (c) American civil religion performs specialized religious functions performed neither by church nor state; and (d) the differentiation of American civil religion follows the general direction of cultural evolution. Review of the American civil religion literature reveals sufficient logical and empirical support for these propositions to recommend that they be used to guide further scientific inquiry.
This paper has attempted to trace the intellectual development of the concept, "American civil religion," and to organize theory and research about it into a set of testable propositions. A survey of the literature reveals that the current state of knowledge is primarily theoretical.
Probably the best-known sociological treatments of American civil religion (Robert Bellah, 1967, 1975), has stimulated the greatest amount of empirical research, but the best empirical test of the American civil religion propositions may not come from traditional modes of civil religion research. Symbolic studies, individual belief studies, and content analyses have typically been limited to a single... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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American society has moved away from the two societies, black and white, separate and unequal that highlighted the 1967 Presidential Commission Report -- evolving instead into a profusion of worlds reflecting various combinations of races, ethnicities and classes. This paper analyzes two groups -- the black middle class and the white underclass -- that emerged and grew after the report and defy much of the theorizing sociologists have produced on race and class. It argues that the black middle class and the white underclass reflect "interlocking categories of experience" that are unfamiliar. It encourages a new understanding that captures the reality of these race/class groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sociologists assert that community sentiments and community evaluations are important reflections of a society's social order. This paper examines the impact of personal and social attributes of urban dwellers, their perceptions of neighborhood characteristics, and their neighborhood-based social networks, as well as objective characteristics of their neighborhoods, on these two dimensions of people's local community. Using regression analysis on data collected in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, I find that locally-based social networks and perceptions of the neighborhood help explain community sentiments, whereas objective community characteristics and neighborhood perceptions are useful for explaining community evaluation. Differences between the Indianapolis and Pittsburgh analyses are used to suggest possible lines of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]