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This article outlines a long-term research agenda on immigrant assimilation by calling on scholars to be more explicit about how we model and measure assimilation, and to move away from previously aspatial approaches to the topic. After briefly overviewing the field, I draw on original qualitative data from a new immigrant destination region to highlight several places where I believe we scholars can better clarify definitions of and assumptions about assimilation, as well as choices about and interpretations of our data, to foster transparency and facilitate scholarly discovery. I conclude by arguing that scholars working in new immigrant destinations are well poised to examine how legal status--a key structural feature of the context of reception in a host society or locale--shapes assimilation processes and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite skepticism about the common good, the idea has both theoretical content and practical utility. It rests on important features of human life, such as inherently social goods, social linkages, and joint occupation of various commons. It reflects the outcome for bargaining for mutual advantage, subject to a fairness test. And it is particularized through a community's adherence to certain goods as objects of joint endeavor. In the context of the United States, these goods are set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution-in general language, subject to political contestation, for a people who have agreed to live together in a united political community. While the Preamble states the ends of the union, the body of the Constitution establishes the institutional means for achieving them. So these institutions are part of the common good as well. These are the enduring commonalities-the elements of a shared good- that ceaseless democratic conflict often obscures but that reemerge in times of crisis and civic ritual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on racial and social disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Topics include criminal victimization, the relationship between imprisonment and public safety, and imprisonment rates in the U.S. The causes of crime in young people are discussed, including poor education, child abuse, and unemployment. The author discusses race relations in the U.S. and the social implications of the high rate of imprisonment of African American males. He argues that mass incarceration and the racial inequalities perpetuated by the administration of criminal justice are unfair because they prevent minorities from influencing the criminal justice system.

The article compares intergenerational occupational mobility in the United States and France during the 19th and 20th centuries in order to see how it changed in both countries over time. Each country instituted different forms of redistributive polices during these years, but intergenerational mobility followed similar paths in both France and the U.S. The role of industrialization in impacting societal changes in France resulted in an increase in the urban middle class population and a drop in the rural peasantry. The role of various socioeconomic factors on social mobility in both countries is discussed.

Focuses on the issue regarding the changes in the system of racial classification in the U.S. Impact of multiracial recognition on the issue; Introduction of multiracial category bills in five additional states; Marital status and living arrangements of all black-white intermarriages.

Reports on the origin of Latin American multiracialism in the U.S. Statistical evidence of racial discrimination; Socioeconomic indicators to measure the extent of economic stratification by race; Mechanism for accepting indigenous Brazilians.

Reports on the recent data regarding the race and ethnicity from the U.S. Census Bureau. Definition and origin of ethnicity; Usages of race and ethnicity concepts; Reduction of disparities in disease risk or treatment efficacy between groups.

Reports on the establishment of the Statistical Policy Directive 15 promulgated by the Office of Management and Budget as a means of standardizing the racial and ethnic classification in the U.S. Impact of the passage of several civil rights laws on politics; Central component of the civil rights agenda; Difference between race and ethnicity.

Reports on the projections of the U.S. Bureau of the Census on the resident population by race. Allocation of political representation along racial lines; Percentage of the white population in 2020; Factors that influenced the declining percentage of whites.

Reports on the treatment of the Supreme Court on race cases in the U.S. Basis of the decision of the Supreme Court regarding the Dred Scott case; Details of the Fourteenth Amendment; Application of 1875 Civil Rights Act.

Reports on the role of the principle of hypodescent and the recognition of mixed race identity in the U.S. Overviews of the development of panethnicity; Impact of the combination of miscegenation laws with the principle of hypodescent on low-class positions of African Americans; Public reactions on the one hate rule issue.

Reports on the issues concerning racial measurement and classification in the U.S. Details of the premises held by the government concerning the issues; Factors that influenced racial categories; Revision of the Office of Management and Budget standards for racial classification.

Explains social factors attributed to the growing schism in civil-military relations in the United States from 1976 to 1996. End of military conscription in 1973 and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s causing the third wave of questions about civil-military relations; Evidence about changes and strains in the relations; Party and ideological identification of military and civilian leaders.

Analyzes the historical decline of the popularity of voluntary associations in the United States by understanding the regional, political, and institutional sources of associational vigor and character of communities where association building were successful. Rapid growth of associations relative to population; Consistent weakness of associational activity in large urban areas.

Focuses on justice as a social determinant of health inequalities in the United States. Relationship between social inequalities and health inequalities; Views of researchers Margaret Whitehead and Goran Dahlgren on health inequities; Theories on justice as fairness; Social policies on reducing socioeconomic disparities in health.

Discusses the results of a study done on the social conditions involving child mortality in the southwestern states of the United States. Results of an individual study on rural Texas; Statistics on the study.

Focuses on the institutional patterns and shared cultural values of the society in the United States. Institutional framework of liberty and justice; Conflict and coherence; Homogenizing power of American culture; Discontentment of the American civilization.

Examines the observations by Yale College President Timothy Dwight on changes in the United States in the 18th century. Increase of the U.S. in both size and prosperity; Influence of the U.S. in the affairs of mankind; Meaning of changes in the U.S. to New England's elite; Dwight's placement of landscape at the center of his sermons, poems and narratives; Observations in his "Travels in New England and New York"; Dwight's views on the spiritual influence of natural resources.

Examines the educational conditions in the U.S. as an aging society. Role of education in society; Association of education to the mass industrial economy; Response of higher education to the demographic change.

Focuses on the mysteries of social life in the southern part of the U.S. Consideration of slavery as the original cause of the Southern distinctiveness; Problems suffered by the small and medium-sized towns as victims of economic progress in the South; Effect of religion on the lives of both whites and blacks.

The article discusses the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, with a particular focus on the protesters' experience of communitarian living. According to the authors, the protesters' creation of a self-contained, functional community centered on an ethic of care was deeply threatening to the U.S. police state. It is suggested that U.S. society has become self destructive in its competitive nature and its reliance on consumption. Details on the role of debt in the protest movement are also presented.