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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]

Copyright of Socioloski Pregled is the property of Srpsko Sociolosko Drustvo 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 discusses the strong criticism by Elias against the nation-state paradigm in sociology. Elias pointed his attention on sociologists of the twentieth century but particularly criticizes the analytical model of Parsons (AGIL), which seems to him an abstract combinatory of variables (pattern variables) without any references in social contexts. The sociology in the twentieth century is an apologetic of nation-state and, in Parsons, of the hegemonic role of the United States in the world. In fact, during the twentieth century many authors (historians and sociologists) tried to overcome the nation-state paradigm in the social sciences. The author of the paper analyses the contribution of Toynbee, Braudel, C. Schmitt, Huntington, Wallerstein and Hard-Negri. These attempts are based on different unit analysis: the civilization and its clash in the case of Toynbee and Huntington, the world economy in the case of Braudel and Wallerstein, and power in the case of C. Schmitt and Negri-Hardt. The author appreciates these attempts but his conclusion is that the concept of global society can better serve as unit analysis for a construction of a new paradigm in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expression “spiritual, but not religious” (SBNR) has gained considerable traction among sociologists of religion and culture, media outlets, and the broader public in recent years. Though the expression itself has achieved wide appeal, few studies have explored what SBNRs believe about God, religion, or spirituality. This paper uses survey data from Wave IV of the Baylor Religion Survey (2014) and draws from the theory of “cultural omnivorousness” to show that SBNRs have significant sociotheological differences when compared to those who are both religious and spiritual (RAS). The expression “spiritual, but not religious” is more than a manifestation of religious deinstitutionalization or “believing without belonging.” Rather, being “spiritual, but not religious” involves sociotheological boundary work that distinguishes SBNRs from traditional monotheists. When compared to RAS respondents, SBNRs are more likely to view God as a higher power or cosmic force instead of a personal being and are more likely to adopt an individualistic ethic as opposed to finding moral authority in God or Scripture. By examining the historical context and sociotheological characteristics of SBNRs, this paper locates a boundary between SBNRs and RAS monotheists and offers theoretical reasons why SBNRs engage in sociotheological boundary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents two reports on the Eleventh World Congress of Sociology, that was organized in New Delhi in August 1986. If there is any unity across cultures among sociologists or others working in this field, it is provided neither by shared theories or concepts, nor by a common choice of topic studied, except in a very loose sense. Rather the international research community in our field is sustained through the sharing of a general perspective on society, a methodology and a more or less common Marxist-leftist political attitude. Political attitude is at least as important as the other two features, and is perhaps the key to a characterization of the events at the Delhi conference. The attitude of socio-political concern and engagement seems to be most productive in research terms when it is a counter-strategy, working in opposition to the dominant economic-political tendencies of a given society. This position was largely absent from the first world research reported. On the other hand, the moment it either becomes part of the political power structure or finds itself paralleling the efforts of the dominating parts it formerly saw as opponents, it faces a crisis. Such positions characterized the first and second world research presented.

This paper reviews the studies of Japanese society and culture undertaken by Hong Kong-based sociologists and scholars in related disciplines. It presents information on research projects funded by the Research Grants Council, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) journal articles, authored and edited books, book chapters, non-SSCI and non-A&HCI journal articles, as well as master and doctoral theses written by scholars and graduate students associated with Hong Kong's major universities. It is found that the main topics of research are Japan's capitalist development and corporate growth, meanings and social ramifications of traditional and popular culture, education, gender, and marriage, as well as aspects of work and employment, whereas the major research methods include document analysis, ethnography, and in-depth interviews. The limited amount of research and the preoccupation with economic development and popular culture reflect in part Hong Kong's unique political conditions and the government's indifference to the pursuit of social and political policy analysis. In recent years, the growth of academic exchanges between scholars in Hong Kong, Japan, and other East Asian regions and the heightened emphasis by university administrators on academic research will hopefully bring about advancements in such academic endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In some forms of sociology, "culture" has come to replace "society" as the central object of study. This has encouraged an epistemological relativism that overrides a proper engagement with human ontology, while it has also allowed for the development of forms of reductionism where culture turns out to be determined by something deemed more fundamental, such as technology. Some influential contemporary accounts of the "information age" exhibit both these characteristics. The argument of this paper is that these do not offer a productive route forward for sociology in general, or for sociologists of religion in particular. It is argued that Durkheim's social realism not only helps to illuminate the inadequacy of those theories that ignore the human and religious dimensions of contemporary life in their intoxication with machine-mediated flows of information, but can also point towards a more productive way forward for the analysis of contemporary social and cultural realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the practical implications of Wallerstein's call for the substitution of an existing culture of sociology by a culture of social science for the future of the sociological project in South Africa. South African sociology is examined in terms of Therborn's three spaces of identity in which sociology is located: a space of discipline, a space of everyday practice and a space of imagination and investigation. The paper argues that sociology in South Africa is responding creatively to the challenges of our society. In order to maintain this response we need to strengthen our discipline through institutional and intellectual engagement. In conclusion it is argued that sociology is distinctive through its sociological imagination, its emphasis on unmasking deceptions and illusions and its commitment to improving the world we live in. Analytical knowledge, technical know-how and the well-being of human beings are the heart and soul of sociology. Our contribution is best made not as social scientists but first and foremost as sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selected writings from Reuel Denney's work as a social analyst are reviewed in order to establish and highlight his often-overlooked contributions to sociology. Denney's cultural studies of Americans at play, with specific reference to his writings on the subcultures of football and hot-rodding, and on television and the electronic media, advertising and architecture, are reviewed in examining some major themes emphasized in his sociology. These writings are discussed against the backdrop of Denney's early life experiences drawn from his autobiography to better enable readers to gain an appreciation of his sociological thinking. The beginnings of a Denney postmodern are sketched as a conclusion to this paper's major contention that Denney anticipated much of today's sociology as cultural studies. As one of Reuel's students, nearly forty years ago, I hope that this article serves not only to highlight Denney's contributions and place within the discipline of sociology, but also that my personal recollections will serve to reveal the strong attachments we students felt toward him as our teacher, mentor, and friend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a few notable exceptions, Alexis de Tocqueville's contributions to the formation of the sociological canon have been ignored. Most sociologists are likely to recognize him as a key source for current work on social capital and the civil society. But, in this paper I argue that Tocqueville's importance for sociology extends far beyond those uses. Tocqueville is the author of a sophisticated and powerful theory of culture that solves the key problem of reconciling culture with the claims of methodological individualism. He does so by shunning the disciplinary boundaries that have sprung up after him, integrating political, historical, institutional and psychological building blocks of culture in a subtle yet powerful analytical framework. He thus avoids many of the pitfalls that plague other theories of culture, which makes his contribution to the sociological canon equal to that of many other canon-forming writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnomethodologists (or at least many of them) have been reticent about their theoretical sources and methodological principles. It frequently falls to others to make such matters explicit. In this paper I discuss this silence about theory, but rather than entering the breach by specifying a set of implicit assumptions and principles, I suggest that the reticence is consistent with ethnomethodology‘s distinctive research ‘program‘. The main part of the paper describes the pedagogical exercises and forms of apprenticeship through which Garfinkel and Sacks aimed to develop ethnomethodology as a practice. These efforts were not entirely successful, partly because ethnomethodological ‘practice‘ required an engagement with other fully-fledged practices. Aside from the difficulties of mastering such practices, it was unclear what an ethnomethodological study would add to, or take from, them. Whether successful or not, ethnomethodological research points to the specificity of discourse and action in any given practice which a general theory is bound to misconstrue. Current disputes about cultural constructivist versions of natural science illustrate the problems that arise when the terms of a general theory are used to describe and evaluate specific domains of practice. The paper concludes by recommending ethnomethodology as a way to dissolve an unbridgeable gap between cultural theories and socially located practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concern of this paper is to locate certain troubles and contradictions within Lucien Goldinann's avowedly sociological programme for the investigation of culture. It will be seen that these turn, generally, upon Goldmann's insistence on maintaining a central methodological position for the category of the subject and, more particularly, upon his conception of the subject as individual (rather than collective) subject. Part of these methodological troubles is seen to be connected with Goldmann's use of a metaphor connecting Piaget's individual/environment distinction with the distinction between social groups and history. To this degree, the paper is generally concerned with the severance of sociological studies of culture from psychologistic and belletrist preoccupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, sociologists have lamented the fact that interdisciplinary exchange regarding Culture and Cognition has been largely asymmetrical. However, to date, no sociologist has empirically established the degree of interdisciplinary diffusion of Culture and Cognition scholarship. We add empirical detail to these discussions through a bibliographic analysis of 16 key Culture and Cognition articles, analyzing their citation patterns both within and beyond Sociology. Within Sociology, we find that citations of Culture and Cognition scholarship tend to cluster within culture, generalist, and theory journals. In terms of interdisciplinary diffusion, we find that while engagement with Culture and Cognition scholarship is indeed concentrated within sociology, almost half of the citations of this work come from other disciplines. This suggests that, while not entirely incorrect, the characterizations of Culture and Cognition's interdisciplinary uptake have been somewhat exaggerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the life and career of the prominent sociologist Werner Stark (1909–1985), born and raised in Marienbad, Bohemia, and after 1918 in the multi-ethnic state of Czechoslovakia. As a prolific and wide-ranging scholar whose many works failed to find an enduring place in American sociology, Stark is a prime example of academic marginalisation. The authors analyse Stark’s major contributions from the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge. They argue that his ideas regarding human nature, the need for social discipline, and the desirability of community were rooted in a pervasive biographical marginality that found resolution in his conversion to Catholicism. In turn, these ideas reinforced the marginality from which they emerged. The reception of Stark’s work in the United States was governed by a perceived incompatibility of his outlook with the assumptions and goals of his American audience. In particular, Stark offered an explicitly value-directed sociology, one which asserted the importance of social order, individual discipline, and universal community, at a time (the 1960s and 1970s) when the field sought to maintain its credibility as an objective scientific discipline in the face of growing challenges from sociologists and non-sociologists alike. Stark’s American colleagues focused on aspects of his work that were incompatible with their own cultural and disciplinary orientations and this obscured the full range of his achievements, especially his analyses which anticipated contemporary sociological work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, a burgeoning literature finds cultural sociologists incorporating ideas from the cognitive sciences—cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and philosophy——and significantly reshaping sociologists' approach to culture, both theoretically and methodologically. Elsewhere, we have reviewed the cognitive turn in cultural sociology (Cerulo, Leschziner and Shepherd, 2021). But in this special issue, authors capitalize on new directions in culture and cognition, providing 12 original articles that forward new theoretical ideas, offer novel methodologies, provide exciting empirical tests of current theories, and suggest possible applications of the culture and cognition lens to other sub‐disciplines in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to trigger a process of extracting biological phenomena so as to solicit a new and divergent interest toward the systematic elaboration and investigation of the relationship between biological and social-cultural factors. The analysis that follows makes reference to some of the most salient theories within the sociological tradition of the 20th century. In addition to Durkheim, Weber, Parsons, Goffman, Berger and Luckmann, there is also no lack of involvement of other equally important theorists in the search for a correct interpretation of the subject matter. Starting from the epistemological choice made by Durkheirn, who places the constitutive elements encompassed by biology outside of the pertinent sociological domain, arid passing by Weber's apparent concurrence with the position of the Alsatian sociologist, the intent is to pave the way leading to the recovery of the biological component of the object of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology 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.)

Sociologists widely agree that poverty is the effect of structural factors; however, understanding the ways in which poverty is experienced and constructed with reference to culture remains a compelling area of scholarship. In a society where culture of poverty ideas retain popularity, attributing meanings and behavior to people in poverty is complicated and contentious. Many scholars adroitly navigate these waters, but we lack clear guidelines on how to examine the behavior and perceptions of people in poverty without misrepresenting and potentially stigmatizing research subjects. I argue that to avoid problems of overgeneralization and what I call "unacknowledged comparison," we must engage with multiple points of observation and empirical comparisons. In addition, it makes sense to center sets of circumstances that affect behavior rather than generalizing the behavior or the culture that influences that behavior. Finally, I argue that the unit of analysis should be at the relational level rather than the individual level. The implications of failing to attend to these issues include continued misunderstanding of and unwarranted stigmatization of people in poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When theorizing differences in action between structurally unequal groups, sociologists often disagree over the roles that structure, culture, and resources play. It is not uncommon for debates to arise in which structural explanations for unequal outcomes are pitted against cultural ones, with the former pointing to group resource disparities and the latter emphasizing differences in how groups think and do things. In this article, we develop a theoretical approach that conceptualizes culture as an element of social structure and draws on Sewell's multiplicity of structures and Bourdieu's habitus to theorize group differences in action as structural. This approach, we argue, advances a structural sociology of stratification that helps counter the tendency for U.S. individualism to promote interpretations of group differences/disparities as having individual-level rather than structural-level sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most important impacts of social movements are often cultural, but the sheer variety of potential cultural impacts—from shifts in public opinion to new portrayals of a group on television to the metrics guiding funding in a federal agency—presents unique challenges to scholars. Rather than treating culture as a social sphere separate from politics and the economy, we conceptualize it as the ideas, values, and assumptions underpinning policies and practices in all spheres. We review recent research on movements' impacts on public opinion and everyday behavior; the media and popular culture; nonpolitical institutions such as science, medicine, and education; and politics. We focus on cultural impacts that have mattered for movements' constituencies and address why movements have had those impacts. We conclude with an agenda for future research, seeking greater connection between the literatures on movements and the literatures on the institutions that matter to movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps the development of the sociology of culture in the Soviet Union and Russia from pre-Soviet to post-Soviet times. The analysis highlights the effects of two groups of factors – one cultural, the other structural – the combination of which brought about various patterns at each stage of the discipline’s development. Because of the political environment within which they worked, Soviet researchers of culture had to employ strategies of resistance to survive. The three most common were: finding niches in related, ideologically neutral disciplines; doing purely empirical work; or, in contrast, critiquing ‘bourgeois social theories’. They also opted to work in the modes of reading rather than writing, oral discussions rather than publishing, and communication with like-minded colleagues rather than debates with opponents. Contemporary Russian sociology of culture displays this inheritance in being structured by the opposition between isolation and international integration, as well as the tension between an elitist vision of culture and the economically centered worldview which has been dominant since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his contribution to this issue, Smith argues that sociology's house of culture is built on a foundation of sand. In my brief response to Smith, I dispute the claim that culture is in trouble and question the methods and motives behind Smith's critique. I then indicate the common ground characterizing the work of contemporary culture scholars. Drawing upon my fieldnotes and observations of culture in action, I define culture as a suprasubjective system of signification creating intersubjective senses or ideas that are distinct from the materiality, function, immediacy, or face value of any particular people, objects, words, thoughts, and actions. I argue that this culture concept, which I see as theoretically consistent with the work of most cultural sociologists and sociologists of culture, satisfies many of Smith's requirement that an acceptable culture concept specify culture's location, powers, limits, and relationship to subjectivity, and clearly theorize meaning and its relationship to culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of religion is not well known for exporting theory to other subdisciplines, for which the author suggests three causes: a lack of interest in religion from other sociologists, a focus on “normal science” rather than exportable theory, and an insistence that religion is a sui generis analytic category. The author then suggests how this third cause can be remedied by no longer thinking of religion as an analytic category but rather as a site though which religious actors can be studied. Doing so would shift religion to a pragmatic, native category, thereby allowing an easier export of concepts discovered while studying religious groups, in the tradition of sociological classics like taboo and charismatic authority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fifty years ago, Robin M. Williams Jr. described eight notable changes in U.S. sociology, one of which was the “widespread diffusion of a relatively clear and sophisticated conception of the place of values in sociological study, as an object of research, as a factor in behavior, and as an element to be controlled in the prosecution of research” (Williams, 1958:621). In this essay, I ask what has become of that rising interest in the sociological study of values? I follow three distinct trajectories of sociological research on values, briefly describing the contributions of each, and identifying several lines of inquiry that strike me as particularly important and promising for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I point to contradictions in American individualism not unlike those suggested by Robin M. Williams Jr. I go on to suggest how twenty-first-century sociologists might better understand this aspect of American exceptionalism: not as an egoistic, asocial individualism, but as a covenantal, social voluntarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the reason for the exclusion of Ibn Khaldūn, a Muslim sociologist, from the study of the historical sociology. One explanation is the failure of sociological literature to take into consideration the works of non-Western sociologists in their assessments of works related to sociology. The author points out the significance of considering multicultural sources of sociological thought and theory. Some western scholars recognize Khaldūn as the founder of sociology. Others assume that this Muslim sociologist influenced Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim.

In this article, the author takes a look at some aspects of sociologist Talcott Parsons's comparative and evolutionary analysis focusing on the analysis of dynamics of social change, evolution, and of comparative institutions, and above all on the analysis of modernity, of the modern social order, a subject central to his evolutionary analysis--from the point of view of "Multiple Modernities." Such an analysis will also enable one to examine critically some of Parsons's contributions to the problem of the relation between culture and social structure; or of the place of cultural components in the structure of social action. These contributions developed on several levels. The first and most general and crucially important such level was the emphasis that culture does not constitute a distinct "entity" but rather a central analytical component dimension of any action and social interaction. The second level was the analysis of the relations between the cultural and structural dimensions of social action in terms of the major pattern variables espoused above all in the book "Towards a General Theory of Action"--as well as later in "Social System."

In this article, we assess how the concept of cultural capital has been imported into the English language, focusing on educational research. We argue that a dominant interpretation of cultural capital has coalesced with two central premises. First, cultural capital denotes knowledge of or facility with “highbrow” aesthetic culture. Secondly, cultural capital is analytically and causally distinct from other important forms of knowledge or competence (termed “technical skills,” “human capital,” etc.). We then review Bourdieu’s educational writings to demonstrate that neither of these premises is essential to his understanding of cultural capital. In the third section, we discuss a set of English-language studies that draw on the concept of cultural capital, but eschew the dominant interpretation. These serve as the point of departure for an alternative definition. Our definition emphasizes Bourdieu’s reference to the capacity of a social class to “impose” advantageous standards of evaluation on the educational institution. We discuss the empirical requirements that adherence to such a definition entails for researchers, and provide a brief illustration of the intersection of institutionalized evaluative standards and the educational practices of families belonging to different social classes. Using ethnographic data from a study of social class differences in family-school relationships, we show how an African-American middle-class family exhibits cultural capital in a way that an African-American family below the poverty level does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the concept of habitus given by sociologist P. Bourdieu that appears to have little to offer educational research. This proposition is considered in a critical evaluation of the origin of habitus in Bourdieu's work and its ability to fulfill its theoretical functions. Sociologist J. Tooley and D. Darby are not the first to have reached the conclusion the Bourdieu's approach of sociology and particularly the concept of habitus has little to offer educational research. They are not so much concerned with Bourdieu as with the value of his concepts for educational research, and their critique is directed specifically to sociologist D. Reay's work on habitus in the classroom. Tooley and Darby's view that the substantive weakness they identified are due to an "uncritical adulation" of Bourdieu and, more generally, to demonstrate the worthlessness of their approach as a means to reach their substantive conclusion. On the basis of Reay's account of habitus, Tooley and Darby included their study as an instance of the poor-quality educational research they believe to be caused by the willingness of many academics to attach themselves to the coal-tails of some major theorist.

Any evaluation of sociology as a discipline ought to focus hot only on the way sociology is produced, but also on how it is consumed. In this article, we examine the degree to which sociological concepts have been incorporated into the vernacular of American society, the impact of sociological techniques and methods on politics and society, and the relationship between sociology and public policy. While sociologists often point to the problems caused by a certain alienation from the general culture--for example the notion that sociology is written in an obtuse language that the public cannot comprehend--we point to the problems that develop when sociology is too readily incorporated into American culture and society. The danger is that the more popular sociology is, the less likely it will be to maintain the sharp intellectual edge that made its incorporation possible in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that individual objects themselves can serve as material for a more inclusive sociology of culture without abandoning the particular concerns that sociologists bring to their study of cultural production. The first section of this article discusses both the advantages and limits of generic treatments of objects, and the potential of an approach that looks within genres to overcome these limits. In brief, by conceiving of genres as sets of alternative forms, the author points out that one can extract information from the production of one possibility out of this set rather than others. The author illustrates this potential with an analysis of a group of sculptures produced by a state workshop in eighty-century Japan for a temple called the Sangatsu-dõ, to show that individual objects can serve as an important source of clues and evidence for the social context in which they are produced. The particular objects discussed by the author, for example, when set in the context of a range of alternative forms, clearly reveal the importance of competing religious claims in shaping the nascent Japanese state's effort to use Buddhism to shore up its legitimacy among the peasantry.

The analytic framework that guides research and analysis is often value-laden and conforms to a hegemonic culture or struggling counter-culture. I discuss five kinds of framework decisions: the sociopolitical boundaries of the collectivity under investigation, the historical periodization of the society, the terminology used to characterize sociological processes and phenomena, the way the research problem is posed, and the subjects deemed appropriate for investigation. In a case study of Israel, I show that the Palestinian minority and Jewish-Arab conflict were characterized by mainstream Israeli sociologists in accordance with dominant Zionist perspectives. Cultural commitments, perceived existential needs, and class, ethnic, and national interests, have shaped the way Israeli sociologists portray the basic features of Israeli society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A coherent structure underlies the diverse topics that sociologists study. I model this structure by examining the pattern of shared membership linking specialties in American sociology in 1990. Cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling reveal seven coherent clusters focusing on deviance and control, setting and context, political and macrosociology, theory and culture, numbers, stratification and work, and social psychology/gender/medical sociology. The hierarchy of clustering reveals convergences, divergences, and potential influences among them. Centrality in the field corresponds to size of specialty, while dimensions of differentiation reflect shared substantive content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of and variations in processes of cultural valorization are of increasing interest to sociologists. In the case of high-culture literary texts, the central evaluation process takes place through canon formation. We explore the mechanisms of canon formation and of cultural valorization processes more generally by analyzing the critical history of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Published in 1937 to lukewarm reviews, the novel is currently considered a core canonical text. We specify three processes involved in the reconstruction of Hurston's novel and in the establishment of the African American literary canon: (1) the application of new evaluative criteria, (2) the reconstruction of textual meaning through newly available interpretative strategies, and (3) changes in the institutional and organizational environment that allowed new claims on high-status critical positions to be made by those previously outside the literary hierarchy. The implications of this study for theoretical models of cultural valorization in sociology are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of social structure is crucial in social analysis, yet sociologists' use of the term is often ambiguous and misleading. Contributing to the ambiguity is a tendency to imply the meaning of "social structure" either by opposing it to agency or by contrasting it to culture, thus reducing "structure" to pure constraint and suggesting that "culture" is not structured. Even more damaging is the tendency to conflate these two contrasts To add to the confusion, these contrasts are often mapped inappropriately onto other dichotomies prevalent in social theorizing, including material versus ideal, external versus internal, static versus active, and objective versus subjective, to produce a conceptual prism in which structure, agency, and culture are all poorly understood. This article attempts to disentangle these concepts from the aforementioned system of contrasts, to specify the connections between structure and agency, and to make a case for the inclusion of culture in the sociological conception of social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a critical comment on the manuscript "The Inadequacy of the Monolithic Model of the Family," written by Margrit Eichler. It is difficult to know in what sense Eichler uses the term model. There are essentially two most common non-technical uses of the word, as in model ships or model child. A model ship is a three-dimensional replica, a model child is a norm or ideal. Presumably Eichler thinks she has presented the replica of family constructed by dominant sociologists. Unfortunately, as a replica of the presumed sociological model, her construction lacks the first requirement, technically called isomorphism, which means a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of the model and the elements of the thing of which it is the model. The ideal type and the constructed type are the tools of a sociologist. The actors' model of family, which falls under the rubric of a normative or folk type, is more like the model boy than the model ship or train. Since it represents the cultural ideals or institutionalized beliefs and norms, many sociologists incorporate the normative type into their constructed types. Had Eichler used a different syntax in her description of the model she attributes to dominant sociology, she would have more accurately been specifying selected features of this type encountered in North American culture. The abbreviated, selective, and mystified form of the normative type is the stereotype of family, or the nuclear family.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology 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 represents the prevailing methodological position regarding the relationship of national identification and the development of sociological knowledge in Canada. Canadian sociology cannot be content to investigate the factors that have contributed to the sheer survival of the nation, but must go on to discover the complex web of economic, political, and cultural domination which has aborted the birth of an independent Canadian nation. It would appear that functionalism continues to influence a good number of sociologists in Canada. In the Canadian context functional theory easily translates into some form of the now familiar ideology of continentalism. in this view, Canada and the United States are by history and culture joined in a mutually beneficial arrangement that enables both countries to achieve high levels of industrial prosperity. The other wing of the "old" sociology, abstracted empiricism, has also been an inhibiting force on Canadian social science. It is today easy to denounce blatant empiricism as a hindrance to Canadian sociology since it is abrogated, if unofficially, in many professional circles on both sides of the border.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology 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 Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology 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 Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology 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 essay presents a method for integrating visual representations of social and cultural realities into sociological analysis. It unites strategies of documentary photography with those of grounded theory-based field research and demonstrates the consonant interactionist and interrogatory stance of the visual sociologist. The documentary photographic method of using “shooting scripts” to structure the visual field project is shown to have a complementary relationship to a grounded theory method, and both, together, offer the visual sociologist a structured way of initiating and sustaining photographic field work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on prioritizing sociological perspective over concepts. According to the author, the solution to this problem is to blame the victim. These students simply missed the mark. They did not internalize the eternal varieties of the discipline they were taught. Sociologists radically challenge the taken-for-granted psychological perspective when they claim that culture, group behavior, and social structure cannot be reduced to individual actions. Sociologists consistently teach that psychology is of limited value if one is concerned with social interaction. According to the author, when challenged by the sociological perspective, students have three options, leave sociology for the safer confines of psychology, abandon the psychological orientation and convert to a sociological perspective, and stay in sociology but reformulate the discipline in a manner compatible with psychology. For the past 20 years, it has been the author's contention that one cannot understand the sociological perspective apart from the language of the discipline. He realizes that disciplinary vocabulary is a necessary, but not sufficient, cause for understanding the sociological perspective.