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Doctoral education is often lauded as a site of academic socialization and research training for nascent scholars. However, discussions of socialization seldom problematize the dangers of intellectual imperialism and methodological nationalism inherent in doctoral researcher socialization. As such, the traditional socialization practices for doctoral students in the United States (U.S.) must be interrogated and expanded to move towards equitable practices for research, especially for students conducting international research. Using social and spatial positioning as our conceptual framing, we problematize and question current approaches and practices to doctoral researcher training in the U.S. We use the academic hood, which is granted upon successful completion of doctoral studies, as a metaphor to reconsider how to reflect upon and navigate power dynamics and knowledge production within the U.S. academy.

In the context of the distinction between normative and descriptive approaches to the relationship between science and religion, this article discusses the recent work of the sociologist Elaine Ecklund. It reviews four of her published outputs, summarising her data concerning the views of religious people and professional scientists, including their positions on the relationship between science and religion and on cognate issues, and discusses her attempt to show the relevance of these data in a particular formational context. It seeks to evaluate and extend her work from a multidisciplinary perspective.

In this article we present a framework for interdisciplinary service learning as border pedagogy grounded on Dewey's educational philosophy and critical social theory. The project Stoa Malakopi allowed design and social science students from two universities in the US and Greece to collaborate in a necessity-driven field of inquiry through engagement with local knowledge. Evaluation showed that students embraced polyphony, reflexivity and situational problem solving as conditions for meaningful university-community partnerships.

Background: We outline a case for how the Learning Sciences is at a powerful inflection point where the "real world" needs to be seen as comprised of the political entities and processes in which learning happens. We seek to sharpen the principle that learning is political by elucidating historical and contemporary processes of European and U.S. imperialism that remain foundational to our field and by developing the argument that theories of learning are theories of society. Methods: Through a contrapuntal approach, which emphasizes a critical lens to analyze empire, we juxtapose notions of authentic practice in computing education with scholarship in sociology that brings the lives of tech industry immigrant workers to the fore. Findings: Our analysis reveals how the social construction of disciplinary and professional expertise in computing is intricately interwoven with historically persistent patterns of the appropriation of the lives and labor of "endarkened" people through systems of transnational migration and institutional forms of racial segregation. Contribution: A contrapuntal lens in the Learning Sciences prompts our field to embrace the necessary uncertainties and the theoretical and methodological possibilities that emerge when sites of learning and learning itself are recognized as political and as contestations of empire.

In this article, I discuss the status of teaching as a profession using Gardner and Shulman's framework emerging from their empirical examination of the professions in America and use Bernstein's sociology of knowledge to help explain how recontextualizing agents struggle to dominate the construction and interpretation of professionalism in teaching. I use data from a major cross-national study of university-based teacher education to illustrate efforts to define the professional knowledge needed for teaching and the wide degree of variability in the opportunities provided to teachers to learn such knowledge. The essential role of teacher education in sustaining the teaching profession emerges very clearly from these analyses. I conclude that the education field needs to develop the capacity to ensure teachers' professional learning and that these efforts need to be informed by use-inspired research and an inquiry culture in university-based teacher education programmes.

Sociologists consistently try to activate students' sociological imagination even as they focus on teaching substantive and methodological information and skills. Teaching international development and other global topics pose particular challenges for engaging students actively in the local context while teaching about global and macro processes and outcomes. In this article, we connect international development and object-based learning at a university museum to describe a semester-long project of object analysis of Kuna textiles, the "mola," in a topical seminar course on the sociology of international development. We detail how the approach can be adapted to local and online museum collections. Using student reflections, open-ended questionnaires, discussions, and student projects and analyses, we demonstrate how this active learning approach can provide important grounding and skills for a sociological approach to international development.

This article introduces a collection of papers comprising the special issue, "Competing interests: Parents, Schools and Nation States." Drawing on the seven papers in the collection, and situating them in recent developments in the sociological field, the article discusses globally shifting relations between families, schools and the state across a range of nations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Australia, Germany, India, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA). The article proposes that the school is a crucial site for relations between family and state, and argues that a significant focus of the material and occupational investment of contemporary parents is the formal education of their children, re-shaping not only the relationship between parents and schools but also the nature of parenthood itself. In the contemporary context of global neoliberal education reform, parents are analysed both as local actors in schools and as subjects of national and international policy regimes.

Bullying is increasingly considered to be an important moral, political, and social issue within modern society. Academic research on this issue has mostly been examined through a psychological lens, often using questionnaire data to examine and explain the prevalence of different types of bullying. In this position statement, we apply a figurational sociological perspective to examine issues of school-based bullying in physical education. We critically reflect on attempts to position bullying amongst young people as a "social justice" issue and argue that core figurational principles might potentially help researchers strive toward a more reality-congruent means of conceptualizing the power-relationships that are inherent within bullying. We further maintain that the development of a more detached understanding of issues relating to bullying might provide a more adequate basis to contribute to future ongoing policy development.

This paper presents an analysis of my experiences with a teaching activity that engages students in publishing in Wikipedia on issues relating to globalization. It begins with a short overview of some of the current debates revolving around teaching globalization, which lay ground for the assignment. I discuss how this teaching tool fits with a number of dimensions related to teaching globalization, particularly with an international service learning approach. Finally, I present assessment data from a series of surveys I conducted from 2008 to 2016 on the effectiveness of the assignment.

In most places in the world, teachers might be concerned that skateboarding will take students out of school rather than keep them in. Outside Afghanistan, skateboarding has long had an aura of rebellion. Rose and Strike labeled skateboarding as "dangerous" and "rebellious." Atencio, Beal, and Wilson call attention to its "non-conformity" and embrace the "risk." A T-shirt from the 1990s protested, "Skateboarding Is Not A Crime," but even "The New York Times" has called the skateboard "a talisman of youthful rebellion." These are discomfiting words to describe an activity shared by several million people in the United States, many of whom sit, perhaps disinterestedly, in middle and high school classrooms. What makes a skateboarder, really? Do skaters' teachers and peers understand? And if not, how can they begin to? This study focused on the process of socialization created by skateboarders, in addition to the actualization of skate boarders' position within the skateboarding culture and its various communities. While skateboarding serves as one of the oldest examples of skate sports still exercised today, many people's understanding of the sport (and of those who identify with it) is filled with ambiguity and misconceptions. A lesson plan is included with a hand out.

Twenty years ago, Pescosolido and Milkie (1995) reported that 50 percent of U.S. and Canadian sociology graduate programs offered formal teacher training. Despite pronouncements that offerings have increased substantially, no similarly thorough and direct investigation has been published since. In this time of dramatic change and increasing scrutiny of higher education, graduate teacher training is arguably more important than ever before. Thus, we seek to provide a new baseline of teacher training in the discipline. Using a 2013 survey of U.S. and Canadian sociology graduate programs (N = 173), we find that 94 percent involve graduate students in teaching, almost 68 percent provide formal training for graduate student instructors, and 54 percent provide formal training for teaching assistants. We discuss the kinds and frequency of teacher training, as well as the type of graduate programs most likely to offer teacher training, and we provide suggestions for future research.

The triad of cooperation, international exchange, and integration among institutions of higher education has become the new norm in the global experience of learning and academic training. The goal of improving and standardising the academic experience across countries is now typically also associated with fostering cultural and political ties and complementing processes of cultural integration and economic growth. Behind the rhetoric of many new initiatives, however, is a competition of geopolitical proportions, in which various national or regional systems of higher education try to shore up their positions or conquer new territory. In this paper we assess these discursive and material battles over institutional hegemony in Southeast Asian higher education by drawing on the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse. We critically address the competitive negotiation over higher education taking place between international and Southeast Asian educational players, asking whether these contribute more to integration than reinforcing dominant higher education domains.

Regression analysis is an important aspect of most introductory statistics courses in sociology but is often presented in contexts divorced from the central concerns that bring students into the discipline. Consequently, we present five lesson ideas that emerge from a regression analysis of income inequality and mortality in the USA and Canada.

Despite being a decade into the 21st century, sociological theory continues to be taught at the undergraduate and graduate level in nearly every program in the United States as if it were still 1970. 40 years ago, it made sense to dichotomize theory into two courses--"classical" and "contemporary"--because the latter of the two only covered theory from about the 1930s to the "present." Today a literal and figurative "time crunch" has emerged that makes teaching theory difficult and at times, arbitrary based on the professor's training, mentor, ideological/epistemological biases, and structural factors like textbook choice and number of academic weeks allotted per course. That is, we spend a large amount of time debating who should be in or out, and not enough time preparing our students for the application of theory towards the ultimate goal: knowledge about the social world. Students, then, leave confused at how one uses theory, what theory actually is, and, often times, disengaged from theory because of the density with which some theories approach the social world. In the paper below, the "time crunch" and its tendency to produce a "lost generation" of theorists is examined. After elucidating how the "time crunch" constrains sociology, four possible solutions are presented. This list of solutions is neither definitive nor exhaustive, and is meant to generate a rich discussion about the direction the discipline should head in the new century.

This article documents the experiences of two American professors who have taught in China and describes the similarities and differences between their students at home and abroad. Brian Coppola, who taught organic chemistry at Peking University (PKU), observes how the strengths in science preparation that Chinese students achieve in their precollege schooling are not exploited at the university, while the structure of US higher education seems to make up for the weaker preparation of US students relative to their Chinese counterparts. Keith Kerr taught sociology at Ningxia University, which is located in an isolated region of northwest China. He describes how Chinese students, who in some ways appear strikingly similar to their American counterparts, also reflect the distinctly communal and traditional aspects of their culture. (Contains 1 table and a list of resources.)

This study presents an experiential exercise designed to heighten students' awareness of overconsumption in the United States and allow them to see how their own consumption habits are linked to larger social factors. Students engaged in the "Not Buying It" project--which involved refraining from purchasing all but essentials for a set number of days--as part of a broader lesson on consumerism. Qualitative and quantitative data, gathered from students enrolled in three sections of Introductory Sociology, suggest that the exercise was effective in enhancing students' sociological imaginations by helping students see how their own consumption habits are shaped by larger social forces and how they, along with most Americans, tend toward overconsumption. To a more limited extent, it may help enhance cognitive understanding of consumption. Teaching about consumption in general, and the Not Buying It project in particular, offers instructors an excellent pedagogical means by which students can acquire a sociological imagination, reinforces key sociological principles, and links to broader goals within the discipline. (Contains 4 figures, 2 tables, and 2 notes.)

Previous research on capstones in sociology and psychology has suggested that there is a typical capstone experience required by three quarters of all four-year colleges and universities in the United States. This article reports results from a national survey that confirm that sociology and psychology capstone courses conform generally to a common format. The findings further indicate that factors related to student limits and time limits predominate with respect to those variables that produce less successful course outcomes. A review of the social science capstone literature and the pedagogical best practices literature suggests that student limitations and time limitations can be attenuated by curricular, structural, and resource-allocation changes. (Contains 7 notes and 5 tables.)

This article reports on an Irish study that examines the teaching of large, introductory-level sociology courses at a research-intensive university. The study's aim was to ameliorate some of the problems associated with large classes by applying key lessons from the U.S. literature to an Irish setting. Overall, the initiative was successful; attendance improved, student evaluations were positive, and the numbers of students continuing with sociology increased. The study illustrates that these lessons can be applied successfully in countries with a broadly similar sociology curriculum and suggests that there is scope to extend what Howard (2010) calls "the teaching and learning movement in sociology" beyond the United States. The results indicate that simple changes lead to gains in student learning. There is therefore a value in sociologists exploring the transferability of other techniques that may be applicable to the Irish classroom. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This monograph examines the philanthropic contributions of individuals through the existing literature and proposes future philanthropic and fundraising research that can help fill the theoretical void in the literature, thereby improving future research and fundraising in higher education. It covers the major approaches, topics, and theories regarding philanthropy and fundraising from individuals to postsecondary education in the United States. Students, practitioners, and researchers are introduced to several key points, among them the centrality of private giving in shaping the development and diversity of U.S. higher education; the role of donors as an external force shaping research, campus intellectual life, and culture; the role of philanthropy in access; and leading philanthropic theories from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and economics. This monograph is organized into nine chapters. The chapter "The Influence of Philanthropy on American Higher Education" provides examples that show how individual philanthropy has influenced American higher education. It discusses how private support affects what is taught and researched and who gained access to higher education. "Who Is Philanthropic? Philanthropy by Nontraditional Donors" explores the emerging literature on the philanthropic traditions of groups that have historically been seen as "takers" but actually have long been civically responsible citizens and residents who "give back." "Women and Philanthropy" looks at women's giving. "What Guides the Study of Philanthropy and Fundraising?" explores the theoretical underpinnings, interpretive frameworks, and motivations for philanthropic action. This chapter reviews the most prominent theories from the disciplines of economics, psychology, and sociology in the philanthropic literature as applied to higher education. "Engaging Students and Young Alumni: The Importance of Cultivating the Next Generation of Donors" looks at the process of engaging these groups in prosocial behavior. This chapter looks at the scholarship that investigates how institutions might instill a culture of giving among their students, their future alumni donors. The importance of engaging students in fundraising programs and even as donors early in their careers is explored. "Who Gives?" looks critically at philanthropy, in particular giving to higher education. With the creation of Ph.D. and bachelor's degree programs in philanthropic studies and with more researchers looking at philanthropy from a critical perspective, the research is expanding. The final chapter, "Conclusion and Challenges for Future Research," recommends future research and practice. Two appendices conclude the monograph, the first covering the mechanics of fundraising and the second resources for philanthropic research. (Contains 2 exhibits, 1 figure, 8 notes, and name and subject indexes.)

Through his early studies of the character of adult schools and community colleges in California, Burton Clark launched a set of ideas, sociological and educational, that served as baseline concepts in the study and practice of American higher education. His book "The Open Door College" ranks among the classic accounts of a type of organisation--the public two-year college--which came to prominence throughout the United States in the post-war period. Its consideration of the roles played by such institutions in the larger education structure and society has been at the centre of international, theoretical and empirical debates for half a century. Foremost among its arguments was the cooling-out function, a conception that enjoyed wide circulation over many decades. Rather less attention has been paid to its analysis of organisational determinacy and the special problems of institutions that straddle secondary and higher education. These are the mass enterprises that do much of the dirty work of higher education. Unlike in the Clark corpus, they do not always receive the seriousness of scholarly treatment accorded to other kinds of educational organisation.

Talk of the rise of a global war for talent and emergence of a new global meritocracy has spread from the literature on human resource management to shape nation-state discourse on managed migration and immigration reform. This article examines the implications that the global war for talent have for education policy. Given that this talent war is a product of neoliberalism, it raises many of the same concerns for educators as neoliberalism in general: the embrace and promotion of social, economic and educational inequality; and a narrow, market-based conception of education, skill and talent. This article argues, however, that the global war for talent represents a new phase in neoliberalism, as it seeks to liberalise the global movement not just of capital and commodities, but of high skill labour as well. In this, it threatens to undercut some of the founding assumptions and goals that have shaped national education policy in OECD countries throughout the post-World War II period, and raises serious concerns for how we are to think about and pursue equality, inclusion and fairness in and through education in the future.

In this paper, we adopt Bernstein's notion of the pedagogic device to serve as a framework for explaining conflict and change in the field of literacy education across the past few decades, particularly in England, the USA and Australia. Following an overview of the pedagogic device and related constructs, we examine the relationship between the field of knowledge production and how this has been recontextualised into curriculum policy, firstly in the period when "progressivist" pedagogy was in the ascendant, exemplified by the whole language movement, and then when a more "skills" orientation took sway, with phonics as its touchstone. We argue that the pedagogic device provides a useful context for exploring how ideology operates both within fields and at the interfaces between fields. In particular, the sets of binary oppositions proposed by Bernstein can be used in crude form to describe the entrenched polarisations experienced in the field of literacy education--or they can be used in a more nuanced way to open up new possibilities for change. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)

The sociological literature on teaching and learning includes a number of discussions devoted to the importance of multicultural education. Much of this literature encourages educators to revise the curriculum and shows how the experience of multicultural education can stimulate student's sociological imaginations. To this end, some scholars have focused on transforming the curriculum as a whole, while others have hoped to improve it through the development of specific activities to promote multicultural awareness. The authors collected data from two small introduction to sociology classes in Saudi Arabia to use in their large enrollment introduction to sociology class lecture sessions. In this teaching note, the authors describe how they use these data to facilitate a classroom discussion of norms, values and cultural practices, to reveal the interaction among age and gender and the importance of sex segregation rules in Saudi Arabia. Through formal and informal assessment, they find that the activity and ensuing discussion helps students gain insight into the importance of culture while providing them with the opportunity to do so in an interesting and fun way. (Contains 2 tables and 3 footnotes.)

Here I emphasize the applicability of the sociological imagination to an international audience by sharing my journey of teaching sociology in Japan. I found my own sociological imagination helpful in critically evaluating the literature on Japanese higher education and the construction of the Japanese student as a form of Orientalism. As I embraced international students' unique, context-specific capacities for learning, I relied on the illuminating power of C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination to heighten their understandings of themselves and others. Despite the characterization of Japanese students as passive learners, I discovered an engaged and responsive student body who developed a keen sociological imagination through storytelling. Employing a pedagogy of storytelling, I helped my students successfully explore gender and ethnic troubles as public issues in a global context. The insight gained abroad has led me to expand my pedagogy at home beyond active learning strategies to incorporate stories to enhance U.S. students' sociological imaginations.

This article examines mathematics education as both the site and object of transformation for a youth PAR project in which students researched and evaluated their urban high school in Oakland, California. These youth researchers were trained as part of a sociology course as well as a mathematics class designed to both remediate gaps in math preparation and accelerate students into higher-order math literacy. This study differs from and extends other studies that describe mathematics as a tool for social critique. It considers youth research in and through mathematics as a more ideologically open endeavor in that youth do not simply reproduce predetermined criticisms of social inequality. Thus, this project translates extensive work in critical literacy, new media literacy, and youth participatory action research to a mathematics context. (Contains 6 figures, 1 table and 35 notes.)

The changing demographic landscape of the United States calls for a reassessment of the societal impacts and consequences of so called "natural" and technological disasters. An increasing trend towards greater demographic and socio-economic diversity (in part due to high rates of international immigration), combined with mounting disaster losses, have brought about a more serious focus among scholars on how changing population patterns shape the vulnerability and resiliency of social systems. Recent disasters, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004) and Hurricane Katrina (2005), point to the differential impacts of disasters on certain communities, particularly those that do not have the necessary resources to cope with and recover from such events. This paper interprets these impacts within the context of economic, cultural, and social capital, as well as broader human ecological forces. The paper also makes important contributions to the social science disaster research literature by examining population growth, composition, and distribution in the context of disaster risk and vulnerability. Population dynamics (e.g., population growth, migration, and urbanization) are perhaps one of the most important factors that have increased our exposure to disasters and have contributed to the devastating impacts of these events, as the case of Hurricane Katrina illustrates. Nevertheless, the scientific literature exploring these issues is quite limited. We argue that if we fail to acknowledge and act on the mounting evidence regarding population composition, migration, inequality, and disaster vulnerability, we will continue to experience disasters with greater regularity and intensity. (Contains 8 figures and 2 notes.)

Effectively teaching college students about social class stratification is a difficult challenge. Explanations for this difficulty tend to focus on the students who often react with resistance, paralysis, or rage. Sociologists have been using games and simulations as alternative methods for several decades to teach about these sensitive subjects. This article uses the game "USA Stratified Monopoly" to demonstrate social class stratification, integrating issues of individualism and social change. "USA Stratified Monopoly" is a flexible, dynamic simulation game that effectively teaches students about social class stratification. This game successfully meets its learning objectives and can be a very powerful educational tool. It is well suited for classrooms with up to 60 students and can be played successfully in 50-minute class sessions. However, teachers must be aware of the emotional risks to students before using this game. "USA Stratified Monopoly" can bring out some intense emotions and reactions from students, and it is their responsibility to safely facilitate their learning experiences. (Contains 4 tables.)

The paper approaches the issue of school choice in an indirect manner by investigating the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries selected from the PISA 2000 survey for this purpose. In a multilevel approach we estimate these sector effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools and students', and principals' perception of the climate of their schools. The main explanation of the gross differences in mathematical achievement is the better social composition of private schools, both government-dependent and independent, which is a clear consequence of school choice. But our analysis also reveals that private independent schools are less effective than public schools with the same students, parents, and social composition, while private dependent schools are more effective than comparable public schools. The explanation of these remaining net differences in mathematical achievement seems to be the better school climate of private dependent schools. The comparison concludes that these net differences in mathematical achievement between public and private school sectors are equal across nations, despite the historical and legal variations in their educational systems and school choice approaches. (Contains 4 tables and 36 notes.)

The author explores the advantages and disadvantages of integrated curriculum in the middle school setting. She reviews several models for integrated curriculum and guidelines for creating a successful integrated curriculum. A ready-to-use middle school unit on the American Revolution is also presented. Nine complete lessons are provided for teachers to implement in their classrooms. Interactive, hands-on lessons are included for math, science, language arts, religion, art, physical education, music, sociology, and geography. These lessons can be used to turn an ordinary social studies unit on the American Revolution into a cross-curricular experience students will enjoy and remember. The lessons include basic instructions and Internet sites to supplement teaching. The author also presents results from a field test of the integrated unit.

Academic sociologists have recently increased their focus on improving high school sociology. Reform efforts include networking between teachers and universities, improving curriculum, and enhancing teacher training. I propose that this list be expanded to include setting curricular standards. Current trends in educational reform center on standards-based education, and although many social science disciplines have adapted to this trend, sociology's focus on standards is limited to undergraduate education. I analyze the existing state sociology standards by measuring them against the American Sociological Association's (ASA) Advanced Placement Sociology course, the National Council for Social Studies standards, and the sample learning goals from "Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major Updated" (McKinney et al. 2005). The results indicate that there are some substantial differences in the learning goals set forth by the ASA and those set forth by the states. I suggest that since the academic sociological community is in an ideal position to address high school social studies content in a variety of disciplines, we should expand our efforts in this area. (Contains 1 table.)

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.

Social stratification may be one of the most difficult topics covered in sociology classes. This article describes an interactive learning exercise, using a modified version of the game Monopoly, intended to stress the structural nature of social inequality and to stimulate student reflection and class discussion on social stratification in the United States. The primary focus of this exercise is to help students experience different levels of social stratification and to challenge the idea that individual talents or aspirations are enough to overcome structural barriers to upward class mobility. Student reactions to the experience suggest that it is an effective tool for demonstrating the structural nature of social inequality in the United States and for stimulating discussion on social inequality and related topics. This exercise has worked well in introductory sociology, social problems, and social inequality classes. (Contains 4 tables.)

William R. Tonso has chosen an issue that he knows something about to examine how sociology textbooks address controversy. Appealing for gun control is fashionable, but it is at odds with a fondness that ordinary Americans have for their firearms--one that is supported by a growing body of research on deterrence to crime. There are two sides to the issue, but Tonso shows that in a large sample of texts, the sociology establishment predictably shades, omits, and distorts the politically incorrect position that citizens should not be compelled to relinquish responsibility for the security of their families and property. (Contains 54 notes.)

This article presents the author's acceptance address for receiving the Peter Shaw award. In this address, the author, an immigrant sociologist, tells how this award helps to resolve questions and uncertainties he has as to the degree to which he can or should consider himself an American--about the extent to which he has become a part, a member of the society. It represents a token of acceptance and appreciation by a group of fellow intellectuals with whom he has much in common and who stand for authentic American values and beliefs. The author's attraction to these values--and the institutions protecting them--contributed greatly to his living in the United States. In conclusion, the author suggests that one doesn't have to be a former refugee from a communist country in order to subscribe to the values and convictions that brought NAS into existence. The members of this organization and the millions of Americans who support what NAS stands for without knowing that it exists, prove that being critical of orthodoxies, conformity, double standards, and self-righteous intolerance need not be a by-product of growing up in a highly repressive and openly intolerant society. (Contains 1 note.)

Discusses three characteristics of educational systems that have been used to explain social stratification processes: stratification, standardization, and vocational specificity. Describes how these characteristics affect the movement of students through school and into the labor force in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. (CAJ)

Explores the development of videotex in Great Britain, west Germany, France, and the United States from 1968-90. Using the Social Construction of Technology framework, the interaction of social groups, problems, solutions, and technological artifacts in videotex development is discussed. Transmission, display, standards, and marketing problems are examined from this perspective. (45 references) (LRW)

This article features Robert Merton, who died recently at age 92. Merton came into this world as a Jewish baby named Meyer Schkolnick. He lived in South Philly where his parents wrenched a living as blue-collar workers. Merton chose an Anglicized name to move into the Yankee dominated America of the 20's and 30's. At Harvard, he studied under Sorokin and Parsons. The rest of his life he spent briefly at Tulane University and then remainder at Columbia University. There he rose to the very top of the field of sociology. With 20 books and 200 articles, many in the field read him and most college frosh were introduced to "Merton's Paradigm." His paradigm applied both to groups and later Inciardi individualized it so that applications could be made at the personal level. Merton was the first sociologist to be invited to the National Academy of Sciences. He won a Guggenheim, Parson prize and National Medal of Sciences. He became the president of the American Sociological Society. He would have been a recipient of the Nobel, but it is not given to sociologists. His passing ends the generation that saw the peak of sociology and all the cultural wars that surrounded it, here in the United States of America. America was good to Merton and some day will realize that he dearly repaid his country. (Contains 3 resources.)

College students, particularly those in the United States, exhibit individualistic, isolationist world views. Students in Great Britain display these isolationist tendencies to a lesser degree. The reasons are discussed. To help students develop a world view, sociology teachers should make a more conscientious use of Mills's "sociological imagination" and Berger's "cosmopolitan motif." (Author/RM)

This study investigated how literary elites in three different cultures interpreted a group of novels written by George Lamming, a writer from the Caribbean area whose novels were read, discussed, and interpreted over a span of 20 years beginning in the 1950s. Concludes that cultural differences influenced the readers' interpretations. (JDH)

Presents the results of a study which examined the existence of regional groupings of states. The study used a Q-factor analysis of 84 socioeconomic, political, and policy variables taken primarily from the 1960 and 1980 census data. Analysis of the 1980 data revealed five categories: Southern, Northeast Industrial, Midwest Industrial, Plains, and Growth. (Author/JDJ)