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Several behavioral scientists have contributed to special issues of the "Decision Science" journal. K. MacCrimmon and J. Siu tackled the significant problem of modeling and measuring and individual decision maker's inevitable trade-offs. The authors find that the choice mode consistently exceeds the equivalence mode in its predictive accuracy. R. Duncan's paper examined possible determinants of the structure of decision units within organization. A. Delbecq studied contextual variables affecting decision making in program planning. Lastly, V. Vroom and A. Jago wrote a paper about decision making as a social process.

This article comments on the position papers in the June 1967 issue of Rural Sociology. The author asserts that the papers are a mark of growing maturity of the rural sociology profession. It took years before the state universities and colleges assumed the dominant role of that they have achieved in the development of rural sociology. Contributions of the early sociologists to the applied field are presented to emphasize their historical value.

Rural sociologists are concerned about the present status, the crucial issues, and the future of their group. In 1963, the Committee on the Development of Rural Sociology developed a preliminary list of major issues facing rural sociologists. With the approval of the Council, the members of the committee decided to prepare a set of working papers on some of these major issue areas. These papers would attempt to define more clearly the assumptions, dimensions, and issues, to present different points of view, and to suggest alternative definitions or positions and their probable consequences. Thus, it was hoped that the working papers would provide a structure from which more effective discussion would develop.

The article presents information on several papers related to sociology. In the paper by Odulf Schaeffer, "The Mons Pietatis and the Raiffeisen Credit Union," he an interesting account of the history and structure of the co-operative credit union founded by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen early in the nineteenth I century and of a precursor, the Mons Pietatis, the charitable loan agency promoted by Franciscans in Italian Communes beginning on the eve of the Reformation. The essay concludes with a useful bibliographical note. He emphasizes correctly that the rapacious Italian usurers of the fifteenth century were both Christians — actually, Catholics — and Jews, but by an inadvertence loses sight of this and reproduces uncritically remarks of men of the time who had sought to blame "Jewish financial magnates." In the paper "Sociology in the Contemporary World of Today and Tomorrow," by Howard W. Odum, he indicates the ways in which science can contribute toward the understanding, the direction and the planning of modern society.

This article focuses on the contributions of professor A. R. Radcliffe-Brown to the study of social organization. What Radcliffe-Brown did was to distinguish between the search for historical and evolutionary origins, the preoccupation of ethnology, and the study of the laws of custom and social organization, the province of social anthropology. Those social scientists other than anthropologists who know Radcliffe-Brown's work, tend to pay attention only to his methodological articles. But the vital theoretical contribution lies in his ethnographically centered papers. It is in them that Radcliffe-Brown's adherence to the view that there are laws of social life which can be established by systematic and empirical investigation, is brilliantly justified. These papers are mainly concerned with problems of social organization, or as Radcliffe-Brown now prefers to call it, social structure. Radcliffe-Brown shows that the merging or identification of alternate generations fits in with the widespread concept of the completion of the cycle of the generations in three successive steps, and with the contrasting roles of grandparent and parent in family systems. It is ethnography based on a theoretical discipline, the discipline of structural analysis as first given shape by Radcliffe-Brown.

This article evaluates studies on accounting theory, conducted by a committee of the American Accounting Association in 1973. The most striking feature of the papers is their similarity. They are essentially two versions of the same work. Both preliminary papers consist of two principal sections: the nature of theories in the physical and social sciences; and the classes of accounting theories, as the authors are able to distinguish them. All of the papers survey pertinent works by mathematicians, philosophers and scientists, and conclude that accounting qualifies as an empirical discipline.

The article presents information related to upcoming events on rural sociology. The Program Committee for the Rural Sociological Society announces a call for papers for the annual meeting to be held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from August 25-27, 1972. Submission of papers is required by April 1, 1972. Abstract and text should be sent to Rabel J. Burdge, Program Chairman, Department of Sociology. University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506. A series of workshops is planned on topics of current interests to encourage more active participation in the program. This years program will reduce the number of formal presentations. Papers will be made available for distribution prior to the meeting. Graduate students are asked to submit papers to any session. Sessions organized by graduate students will review papers from all sources. The other information is that J.L. Charlton has directed a study now published by the University of Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. The co-author, Joseph F. Singer, also used the data for a Ph.D. disseration in economics, Charlton is currently directing a study of factors affecting the use of medical services in three subregions of Arkansas.

The article examines the flow of messages between the accounting system and other knowledge systems, in particular the information flow between the academic and applied accounting networks. The accounting knowledge system falls within the social science knowledge system and is made up of three subsystems: an academic, a management accounting, and a professional system. This paper is based on the analysis of citations in seventeen accounting journals for the period January 1968 to December 1969. Accounting lies within the social science knowledge system. In this study, the number of messages passed to accounting from the other social sciences and the number of messages passed to accounting from nonsocial science knowledge systems is recorded with a column tabulating the proportion of messages transmitted to accounting from other knowledge systems. The proportion of messages passed to accounting from the other social sciences is similar to the proportion passed to sociology and politics and is greater than the proportion of messages passed to psychology and economics.

The article focuses on the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological society. This is not a new experience, but some of the changes that are taking place in rural sociology programs and in society indicate that the need for discussion is not yet satisfied. This is also one way of reaching the many members, subscribers, and readers who axe unable to attend the Society meetings, and of including them in the circle of discourse. Accordingly, few persons from various sections of the country and one to represent a view of rural sociology as it exists outside the U. S. to offer some of their views on important issues in the future of rural sociology were invited. They were asked to respond briefly and quickly enough for the papers to be presented in the June issue before the 1969 meeting.

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Highlights of the 1971 annual meeting of the Rural Sociology Section of Association of Southern Agricultural Workers; Call for papers for the 1971 annual meeting of the society to be held in Denver, Colorado on August 27 to 29, 1971; Programs and projects of the society.

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Call for papers for the 1969 annual meeting of the society; Tentative session topics; Best dissertations in rural sociology for the years 1967 and 1968.

The paper reviews research findings from various European countries (including the author's own studies in Vienna) on intergenerational relations between parents and their grown-up children. Numerous data disprove certain important features of the classical theory of the isolated nuclear family in industrialized and urbanized society. Although, according to newer data, joint living is a minority pattern, effective interaction (economic support, help in both ways and mutual visiting) is frequent and emotionally important particularly to the elderly. ‘Intimacy—but at a distance—corresponds to wishes of both generations. A special section of the paper is dedicated to propositions for theoretical innovation in the problem area studied including, e.g., a criticism of role theory, a criticism of statements on family cohesion based on findings of help patterns only. The paper postulates an amalgamation of major aspects of social gerontology with a sociology of the family cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on communities often fails to meet two important criteria which permit valid generalizations from the findings. First, studies generally fail to apply the scientific comparative approach and the techniques of multivariate analysis in their design and execution. Second, theory fails to distinguish between properties of communities and properties which are properly classified in other systems. Sociologists who study communities do not share a precise definition of community, nor do they agree how observations about community phenomena are to be incorporated into sociological theory. The discussion that follows will be facilitated, however, if one can make reasonably clear the sense in which this paper deals with the sociological study of community. Community is viewed in this paper as a territorial system. The more comprehensive territorial definitions of community view it as a form of social or ecological organization arising from the fact that people share a common area for their daily activities.

This article presents the research papers published in this issue of the journal "Rural Sociology." The first paper by James H. Copp represents a stage in the maturation of research on farm practice acceptance. It is one of the first attempts to compare the results of studies conducted in different agricultural regions. Using data from Wilkening's study in Wisconsin and from his own study in Kansas, he developed comparable measures of certain personal, social, and economic variables. Another paper by Copp and colleagues deals with the informational aspect of the acceptance of new farm practices. They attempt essentially to specify the function of information sources in the adoption process. By asking a series of questions about the sources of information at various times, from the awareness of a new practice until its adoption, they find that institutionalized sources tend to perform a function separate from that of noninstitutionalized sources. The study by Charles R. Hoffer and Dale Stangland is a worthy attempt to take into account the farmer's value orientations as they affect his adoption of practices.

The tendency for neighborhood patterns of association to localize the exchange of farm information on a person-to-person basis is demonstrated in this paper by the analysis of two types of interpersonal relationships. Conditions which help to explain this relationship are examined and evaluated, and the relationship of neighborhood residence to the evaluation of sources of farm information is considered. Although consideration of the relative influence of neighborhood and clique patterns of association is beyond the scope of this study, the data show that clique members are more likely to live outside neighborhoods than inside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between formal and informal participation of individuals in three Pennsylvania rural communities. Data concerning the range and intensity of informal activities were used to test the hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between formal and informal participation of individuals in rural society. In general, this hypothesis was substantiated by the evidence on eighteen selected types of informal activities. However, more research is needed, not only on the roles played within various informal groups but also on participation in other areas of informal activities than those reported in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a normative model of social processes for decision making was presented. This model represented a slightly elaborated and refined version of a model presented in Vroom and Yetton. We share the previous authors' view that such models are far from perfect but can serve a useful function in stimulating research which, in time, will be reflected in better models. The latter half of this paper was devoted to questions related to how managers do select decision processes—to the factors which influence the degree to which they share their decision-making power with their subordinates. In pursuing these questions, we also relied heavily on the previous work of Vroom and Yetton by using a set of standardized cases selected in accordance with an experimental design. Each case depicted a leader faced with a problem to solve, and subjects were asked to assume his role and to select from a specified list of decision processes the one they would employ. The major difference from Vroom and Yetton was in the nature of the experimental design used in the construction of the "problem set." Whereas Vroom and Yetton's design utilized 30 "group problems" and five decision processes, the design used here provided for seven decision processes and 24 group and 24 individual problems. This design permitted the additional exploration of relationships between behavior on each kind of problem, and of the consistency of the behavior on the latter with the normative model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an index of various literature on rural sociology.

Presents minutes of the Council Meeting on August 26, 1973. Attendees; Speakers; Balance sheet for the 1973-1974 proposed budget.

The sociological analysis of factions has been developing rapidly in sociological research. According to the definition, a faction is stipulated to be an ephemeral group which emerges in order to operate in the interest of a specific aim or conflict. The criteria of recruitment of members to the different factions in the community are based on upon personal aspirations which are involved in the acute cause of rivalry or conflict and not upon any pre-existing connection among its members such as kinship ties, religious affiliations, common caste membership etc. By this definition, it follows that when a faction develops into a more stable group based on some permanent criteria of membership, it is no longer a faction. The paper discusses the phenomenon of factions in communities of immigrants. It presents findings of a research project in Israel which tried to reconstruct and analyze the history and conditions under which factions first emerged and then disappeared in some newly created communities of immigrants in the course of ten years. It attempts to develop further analysis about the conditions under which factions may arise, some possible variations they may display in their composition and structure and most importantly, the function that they possibly perform in the process of adjustment of immigrants to the new social, political and economic conditions.

The sociological analysis of factions has been developing rapidly in sociological research. According to the definition, a faction is stipulated to be an ephemeral group which emerges in order to operate in the interest of a specific aim or conflict. The criteria of recruitment of members to the different factions in the community are based on upon personal aspirations which are involved in the acute cause of rivalry or conflict and not upon any pre-existing connection among its members such as kinship ties, religious affiliations, common caste membership etc. By this definition, it follows that when a faction develops into a more stable group based on some permanent criteria of membership, it is no longer a faction. The paper discusses the phenomenon of factions in communities of immigrants. It presents findings of a research project in Israel which tried to reconstruct and analyze the history and conditions under which factions first emerged and then disappeared in some newly created communities of immigrants in the course of ten years. It attempts to develop further analysis about the conditions under which factions may arise, some possible variations they may display in their composition and structure and most importantly, the function that they possibly perform in the process of adjustment of immigrants to the new social, political and economic conditions.

The article presents comments of the author on his article "Profiting from a Comprehensive School," published in the "British Journal of Sociology," to draw attention to the sociological study of comprehensive schools. Author defends his article on two grounds presentation and analysis, and conclusions. Any inadequacies on presentation are probably determined by the limitations of the article-intended as a research note and not a fully developed paper. The criticism in conclusions seems largely directed at presentation. The conclusions are in fact valid on the basis of the findings of the research itself. The same applies to statistical techniques employed. In short it would seem that no valid critique of the conclusions themselves is presented. However, here is a point-by-point reply. The tables present the most outstanding deviations in keeping with the summary nature of the article. They are condensations of tables in the thesis. Thus class categories are included or omitted in accordance with the importance of variations.

Framing this paper is the question: what research problem and hypotheses suggested by symbolic interaction theory give promise, if pursued, of significantly advancing the sociology of the family? The problem delineated revolves around the concepts of identity and commitment. After explication of a set of premises and needed refinements in concepts basic to symbolic interaction theory, a number of hypotheses are offered. These purport to account for the position of identities in a salience hierarchy and tie identity salience to role performance. Finally, it is noted that these hypotheses could profitably be studied in the research setting of responses to first pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the participation of members in the affairs of the Rural Sociological Society. The data analyzed by the author was drawn from the membership records of the Society and questionnaires sent to individual members. The three classes of membership used in the analysis of this study are associates, students and professionals. In the measurement of the members' participation, the author arrived with a conclusion that participation in the annual meeting was the most frequent form of involvement and in here little regional variation occurred. It was also concluded that professional members with agriculture experiment station appointments had greater proportions active than those without such appointments and, despite the relatively small number of appointees, they were the major participants in the Society.

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Professional opportunities abroad; Announcements of events; Career developments of sociology professionals; Theses and dissertations.

The article presents information about several projects, programs, and personalities in the field of sociology. The "Community Mental Health Journal" has been founded to facilitate communication among professionals in the field. The first issue will be published early in 1965. It will contain articles on research and evaluation, program development, and theoretical issues. According to another information, the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Illinois is holding a workshop-seminar in rural sociology from December 2-4, 1964. The theme of the seminar is "Rural Sociology: Its Development, Problems, Substantive Significance, and Contributions in University Programs." Major papers will be contributed by Paul A. Miller, president of West Virginia University; Olaf F. Larson, Cornell University; and George M. Beal, Iowa State University. The article also contains information about some personalities in the field of sociology. William B. Baker, director of Centre for Community Studies, University of Saskatchewan, was awarded an honorary doctorate in May by North Dakota State University.

This paper examines and describes patterns of migration, changes in birth rates, and the relationship of these two factors for the rural and urban population in state economic areas of 13 North Central States, 1940–1950. Analysis of the data clearly shows the concentration of population through net in-migration in the rural parts of metropolitan areas, and especially in the older and larger metropolitan areas. The 64 state economic areas of net in-migration had gains of 19, 36, and 14 per cent in total, rural, and urban population, respectively. The 109 areas of net out-migration maintained a stationary total population, lost 5 per cent in rural population, and gained 10 per cent in urban population. Areas of net in-migration showed a numerical increase of 7.2 births per 1,000 population, 1940–1950, and those of net out-migration an increase of only 4.6. Areas showing the rural-in, urban-out migration pattern had the largest increase, 7.5, while the rural-out, urban-out areas had the least increase, 3.8. The data point up the need for expanded study of the various demographic, social, and economic factors affecting migration and fertility and their relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to what might be regarded as a basic postulate in sociology, when a number of persons are in interaction over a period of time, mutual expectations and norms develop concerning the behavior of the persons involved, and the individual's actions are not independent of these norms and expectations. the postulate is the basis of the hypothesis that relationships among neighbors affect many of the individual operator's decisions concerning the farm business. The author of this paper seeks to test the hypothesis that the extent to which farm operators adopt recommended farm practices is, in part, a function of the operator's neighborhood of residence.

This paper reports on the nature of the health research in progress at Ohio State University. The concern of the paper is with mental health. It discusses the reasons for undertaking health research, the objectives of such research, and the methods used. Studies completed and in process are likewise reported.

This paper reports on the nature of the health research in progress at the University of Missouri. The concern of the paper is with physical health. It discusses the reasons for undertaking health research, the objectives of such research, and the methods used. Studies completed and in process are likewise reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the nature of the health research in progress at Michigan State University. The concern of the paper is with physical health. It discusses the reasons for undertaking health research, the objectives of such research, and the methods used. Studies completed and in process are likewise reported.

Copyright of Rural Sociology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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 presents information about the 12th International Conference on the Sociology of Religion. The general theme of the conference "Contemporary Metamorphoses of Religion," was interpreted more as dealing with organizational change, including the emergence of "new" religious movements and attitude changes, than with any basic transformation in the current conceptions of the nature of religion or of religious faith. The plenary sessions were carefully planned and conducted in a very formal way marked by procedures of protocol, written requests for "interventions," like questions and comments by others than the announced participants. The only free wheeling spontaneous participation of the sort familiar to us occurred in the much smaller contributed papers sessions. Spontaneity was, unfortunately, limited even in these sessions by linguistic factors. There was one area, according to several European scholars, in which the conference may have presented a somewhat misleading picture of European academic life to the North American participants. Very little attention was paid to the debate between the Marxists and the non Marxists which is so much a part of daily European academicia.

In his challenging paper, in June 1972 sociologist Joseph Fichter asks social scientists to redefine man as an "authentic human being" and to put this human being "in the center of social studies." As a proponent of Weberian sociology, the author agrees with these objectives and endorses the critique of the physicalist determinism of behaviorist psychologists and positivist sociologists. Neither the thesis of the emergence of "human nature" nor the theory of the development of the conception of "self" in an individual have to be subjected to determinist interpretations. Man is not merely but also an organism and social scientists concerned with `human nature,' have to take account of this basic fact. Attempting this, in itself, does not deny Man's fundamental humanity which is embedded in his original potentialities. But it takes not simply physical care but love, attention, and "training" by others to bring these potentialities to their realization. Fichter argues that "a human baby, raised in a family of monkeys," would not "become nonhuman."

This article presents several books related to sociology. "Hacia una sociologia del surco: Resultados del Sexto Congreso Nacional de Sociologia de Morelia," by Roberto Agramonte. In this small volume the distinguished professor of sociology and director of the Department of Cultural Interchange at the University of Havana summarizes succinctly the program of Mexico's Sixth National Sociological Congress and appraises with keen insight most of the major papers presented at it. "El hombre y Ia tierra en Boyacd: Bases socio-históricas para una ref orma agraria," by Orlando Fals Borda. This volume contains an intensive study of the institutionalized relations between man and the land in the Department of Boyacá, Colombia. The study was done with the aid of a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the English version was presented as a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Florida. "Migraciones internas en Costa Rica," by Wilburg Jimenez Castro. Based largely upon materials gathered in the 1950 census of population, this volume contains the results of one of the most thorough going studies of rural-urban and interregional migration ever done in Latin America.

This paper focuses on celibate priest, author and sociologist Andrew M. Greeley's contributions to theory in the sociology of religion, one of two substantive areas in which Greeley has chosen to write extensively on. The other being the sociology of ethnic groups in the United States. The author has discerned and chosen to discuss four substantive themes in Greeley's writings, roughly in chronological order research in the "Protestant Ethics," the sociology of Roman Catholicism, the secularization thesis and denominational membership in society. As early as 1964, Greeley felt justified in calling for a moratorium on the Protestant Ethic research in society. In need achievement, occupational success, income levels and educational attainments, Protestant-Catholic differences were either unproven, insignificant, or in some instances, slightly reversed from the conventional hypotheses. This overall judgment has been sustained by subsequent researchers. Besides clarifying the impact of Catholic elementary, high school and college education on specific Catholic adult religious behavior, Greeley has contributed seven books and numerous articles on the Catholic Church itself. According to the author Greeley is much more convincing as an applied sociologist analyzing critical problems in the changing church than he is as a theorist of Catholic higher education.

The article focuses on a structural perspective towards a sociological theory of development. Perhaps no single word has been more widely and frequently used by such a large number of people in so many countries of the world today than the term "development." The term frequently refers to economic development as it has been a central concern to the majority of nations and citizens living there. The author also describes the reasons why sociology has been a latecomer in this endeavor may be found in the insistence on a value-free or ideologically neutral science of society. The author further says that his paper builds its argument on the following basic premises: 1) development is a value concept; 2) development is a social structural change; 3) the aspect of social structure that is most salient to development is that of resource allocation or the distributive system of society; and 4) the pivotal factor that can either promote or cripple the development process is political leadership. This article also presents a comprehensive study of human values which was previously not existing.

This section presents abstracts of several papers on family and marriage. In his article The Necessity of Group Therapy in Marriage Guidance Clinics, which appeared in the November 1953 issue of International Journal of Sexology, Conrad Van Emde Boas attempts to show that group-therapy is an indispensable part of marriage guidance work because of the shortage of psychotherapists in Holland. The educational form of group-therapy proved valuable especially in those cases where the married couple were not fighting against each other, but together to overcome some problem. The paper Sex Instruction in the Norwegian Culture, by Thomas D. Eliot, which appeared in the October 1953 issue of the journal Social Problems, is a review of sex education in Norway since the first World War. It emphasizes the struggle of educators to introduce sex education into the public schools in opposition to religious groups and to a mythical public opinion. The article The Effect of Residential Propinquity on Marriage Selection, by Joseph R. Marches and Gus Turbeville, which appeared in the May 1953 issue of the American Journal of Sociology, provides information on a study which employed Bossard's method of studying the relationship of residential propinquity to mate selection. The authors studied marriage applications dated from November 1951 until April 1952 of 300 couples residing in Duluth, Minnesota.

The study of religious experience provides an example of those strange discontinuities which seem to beset the social sciences. The present paper Is intended as a beginning of this conceptual task. There is an attempt to develop some basic sub-types and ordering dimensions for organizing the variety of experiences to which men attach religious definitions. The conceptual scheme has been informed by data from a sample of Protestant and Roman Catholic church members residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. These data include both quantifiable and qualitative information on the religious experiences of respondents. Where appropriate, these data will be introduced both to indicate the relative frequency of different forms of religious experience and to illustrate how people perceive such experiences. Following many previous writers, it has been suggested that the essential element characterizing religious experience, and distinguishing it from all other human experience, is some sense of contact with a supernatural agency.

All organizations are faced with choices of reward system design. In order to make intelligent choices of compensation systems, promotions, supervisory styles and job content a model of human behavior is needed. The model must be at a level of abstraction which will generalize to the entire work force. This paper presents such a model, indicates its relation to reward system choices, and indicates a research strategy to test the hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on comparative sociology. The purpose of this paper is in part to explain this apparently paradoxical situation by looking at the historical development of comparative sociology, but more important, it tries to assess the role of comparison and the inter-relationship of theory and method in the generation of social theory, through a discussion of the methodological problems inherent in comparative analysis. The association of evolutionism with comparison was a major reason for the comparative method being devalued, if not discredited. Unfortunately comparison has also been linked with functionalism, a link which is not inevitable, and is certainly undesirable. Sampling is another attempt at solving the central problem of how one compares a potentially vast quantity of social facts. Choice of unit or level, specification, quantification, and randomization are all attempts to handle this basic dilemma, while controlling against the chance of generalizing from the atypical.

The paper attempts to outline some of the major problems and opportunities involved in efforts to apply sociology to social work training. Social work, along with other professional disciplines, is becoming increasingly interested in the application of sociological theory and research to its particular field of activity. Social workers have been encouraged to investigate the social factors surrounding the social and psychological causalities whom they have attempted to help. Social workers' interest in social factors has met, however, some formidable obstacles which have generally prevented them until recently from developing this interest into a fuller exercise of the sociological imagination, an exercise which demands a sound appreciation of sociological theory. The areas of social work research are closely linked and should provide eventually interlocking analyses giving an overall picture of social work practice, for the study of the professional development of social work students leads inevitably to the study of social work practice in its organizational and wider sociocultural setting. The sociology of social work, based as it must be upon theoretical analysis and empirical research can provide for the sociologist a new field of investigation and for the social worker an important part of professional training.

This paper focuses on industrialization, development or modernization. The author will start with the division of individual societies into functional sub-systems evolved by various researchers. This is an attempt to categorize aspects of social interaction in terms of the four functional imperatives which, it is postulated, all viable social systems must cater for. In sum, the decade after the end of World War II may be taken as a peak in the prestige-standing of economics. Economists were accorded considerable deference, largely because of the functional emphasis on economic problems in the post-war world; whilst at the same time the strategic status of the economist helped to sustain the narrow economic perspectives of national elites. Some of the most significant early inroads into the domination of economics can be located not so much in existing dissatisfaction with the policy tools of governments as in the academic sphere. The priority of changing emphasis was to a large extent in the hands of academic critics. Notable breaks with the dominance of almost exclusively economic interpretations of the problems of deprived nations occurred during the 1950's.

This paper discusses a problem which lies on the borderline of economics where the economist reaches the limits of his competence and the sociologist or social anthropologist may be interested to take over. In the post-war years, the impact of full employment on managerial policy was particularly marked. British management was confronted with an acute shortage of labour, made worse by what management considered particularly low standards of effort. Many firms found that action was urgently required to deal with the problem of the shortage of labour. Under increasing pressures they tried payment by results as a solution. It appears that in most firms the use of incentive schemes rests on faith in, rather than proof of, the effectiveness of financial incentives, the results expected from payment by results have acquired the status of achieved results in spite of the lack of factual proof of the achievement. Implicit in the belief in the supremacy of the financial motive is the assumption that the worker is always interested in earning more money than he is getting on time-rates. The recurrent wage-claims of the post-war years have helped to strengthen this belief nevertheless in many situations it may be unwarranted.

This article discusses the concepts of cybernetics and social science. Cybernetics is the analytic study of the isomorphisms of communication structure in mechanisms, organisms and societies. On the other hand, the development of science as a social enterprise is a function of the growth of certain new kinds of communication and their formalization into patterns of behaviour. The immediate origin of cybernetics is to be found in the development of calculating machines, of guided missiles and of the anatomy and physiology of the brain. The problems of the sociology of scientific organization are intrinsically interesting and of contemporary concern. One of the major problems of sociology is the difficulty of knowing when a prediction is fulfilled or falsified. This paper will also deal on the status and sociological relevance of cybernetics itself. There is, however, a fundamental weakness in the whole of the cybernetic analysis of purpose. Purposive behaviour in cybernetics is a consequence of an overt change in the milieu. There may be no new science of cybernetics but there is at least a stimulus for a large number of already existing disciplines.

This paper surveys the recently emerging fields of marital and family therapy in terms of their developments in research, theory and clinical practice. The parallel, but unrelated, developments of these two fields are described. A system framework was developed for categorizing the various clinical approaches in marital and family therapy. Neither field has yet developed a solid theoretical base nor tested their major assumptions or principles. However, both fields have recently become more concerned about conceptual and methodological issues. Several ways of bridging the professional gap between therapists and researchers are suggested. Recommendations for interdisciplinary borrowing are indicated and exemplary projects giving new direction to the fields are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implications of how American families choose to utilize their time must be recognized by family-life workers. This paper raises the critical issue of the time factor in family life by highlighting some of the time pressures felt by family members. Presence of such pressure in society behooves all in the family-life field to be better prepared to teach and to counsel more constructively in this important area. A special plea to help responsible families to understand the importance of using some of their free time to work for the kind of tomorrow they want adds a program dimension to this exploration of an underdeveloped area of social concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DEVELOPMENT AS AN APPLIED DISCIPLINE calls for something more than a culling of insights from the established disciplines. It requires a new synthesis in problem-stating that incorporates diagnosis of the broader range of social conditions and related sets of applied measures to advance growth or development in economic, social, or political contexts. Acceptance of the field as an applied discipline in its own right is an important first step toward a meaningful body of knowledge. It will also help eliminate debilitating rivalries among the established disciplines. The analogy to medicine has been purposely stressed in this paper. As a practitioner's science, the research orientation to develop new knowledge in the field is different than in biology or political science. In development, as in medicine, theoretical concepts drawn from the natural or social sciences should be chosen with this special view toward diagnosis and cure. Otherwise the field will remain an agglomeration of fragmented insights footnoted in the journals of the basic sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an index of books and related references on sociology, which appeared in the June 1970 issue of "Rural Sociology." Population, labor force, migration; Ecology, use of physical and natural resources; Social organization, community institutions.