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The article discusses issues related to subjective powerlessness in the U.S. The paper focuses on changes since 1952 in citizen efficacy or feelings of control over government for various sub-groups in the U.S. population such as blacks, blue collar workers, Southerners, Jews, young and old people. As with most issues in the study of social change, there is widespread disagreement on trends in citizen efficacy for industrial societies such as the U.S. Most theory predicts trends in objective powerlessness, rather than subjective powerlessness, although it is possible that trends in objective powerlessness do not match trends in subjective powerlessness. Within the U.S. at each point of observation, powerlessness does not vary much by stratum, except when education and race are used as indicators. And within the white population, some of the differences are heavily explained by educational differentials. It therefore seems fair to conclude that white subordinate interest groups are not oriented toward government as a result of what would seem to be objective powerlessness but more on the basis of their educational achievement.

The article presents various abstracts related to social change, employment and administration. The first one is "Comparative Theories of Social Change." It is a report on a symposium on comparative social change, organized by the Foundation for Research on Human Behavior and financed by the Agency for International Development. The next one is "Job Enlargement," by Paul A. Stewart, which is a case study of the Maytag Company's experience with job enlargement in blue-collar and managerial positions. "The United States Overseas Executive: His Orientations and Career Patterns," by Richard F. Gonazalez and Anant R. Negandi, is the another abstract which presents a study that was undertaken to characterize the overseas executive's orientation, career pattern, social background, military service, mobility and education in the United States. Some other abstracts are "The Faculty Promotion Process: An Empirical Analysis of the Administration," by Fred Luthans; "Managerial Skill and Knowledge," by Kenneth McLennan and "Empirical Sociology in Poland," edited by Jan Szczepanski.