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Combining theoretical and empirical materials, this paper outlines why definitions of the situation are an important vehicle for analyzing the conditions under which communications are viewed as authoritative by subordinates in complex work organizations. It investigates an exemplary process of collective action—making orchestra music—as a means of understanding the development as well as the demise of consensually validated expertise. Evaluations of conductors as focal participants arise from musicians' conceptions of appropriate work roles and what they construe as information and knowledge which allow them to engage in lines of concerted action. Finally, the results are discussed with regard to their implications for the study of organizational dynamics generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to papers related to sociology that appear in the December 1974 issue of the journal "Social Science Quarterly."

This paper presents a list of books received in the 1970 issue of Social Compass.

The article comments on sociologist James W. Loewen's research paper "Action and Sociology." Sociologists will recognize Loewen's statement for what it is worth, a polemic by presumably a "radical sociologist" someone on a continuum between a social reformer and a revolutionary in the disguise of a sociologist. The Marxist rhetors with whom Loewen apparently identifies will undoubtedly find much to please them in his piece. They will undoubtedly appreciate its these characteristics: his version of the New Left catechism, implicit and explicit; his artful exegetical distortion of what sociologist Philip M. Hauser have written; his moral fervor and righteousness; his "1984" version of the status of sociology, of the American Sociological Association, and of the sociological literature; his apotheosis of sociologist Karl Marx; his self-donned cloak of martyrdom.

This paper reports that at the VIIth World Congress of Sociology, held in Varna, Bulgaria from September 14-19, 1970, a new executive was elected for the Sociology of Religion Research Committee. Professor Norman Birnbaum, Amherst College, Department of Anthropology-Sociology, Amherst, Massachusetts, was elected to succeed the late Professor Le Bras. The section decided to recruit membership as now required under the new Statutes of the International Sociological Association and to plan a conference for September 1972. It was also decided to invite representatives from each country on the committee.

This paper presents the journal Social Compass, a bimonthly review devoted to sociology, sociography, social psychology and statistics issued by appointment of the International Catholic Institute for Social-Ecclesiastical Research in Geneva, Switzerland.