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This article analyzes the strategy and rhetoric of the National Federation of Settlements' 1928 project on unemployment. During the Hoover years, settlement workers assembled an extensive catalog of case studies, which offer a glimpse into the home life of the jobless and their families at the beginning of the Great Depression. From their research, the NFS Committee on Unemployment published a series of books and articles that depicted the unemployed as the undeserving victims of economic change and called for policies to protect them. Throughout, settlement workers focused on the families of the unemployed, drawing on gendered notions of work and family and supporting policies that protected male-breadwinner households. Thus, settlement leaders recast unemployment as a social, rather than an economic, problem. In all, settlement research, writing, and reception presented a skeptical voting public with a palatable argument for social insurance that brought the experiences of the jobless to the voting public and policymakers, demonstrating a process of "policymaking from the middle." In so doing, they redeemed the newly unemployed and the insurance plans intended to protect them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although colonial Americans had long valued frugality and had limited their consumption, actual demand for material comforts and imported consumer goods grew vigorously during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The nonimportation movement, primarily a politically motivated boycott of British manufactures intended to force repeal of distasteful tax laws, also reaffirmed traditional values and attempted to improve the image of products made in America. Following a discussion of the colonial market and nonimportation, this article examines conflicts between old values backed by patriotic appeals and emerging buyer preferences. The concluding section draws a few implications for understanding present-day consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the emergence of Oklahoma's Office of Inter-agency Coordination (OIC)--an organization that one exposé dubbed the "Sooner CIA" (Central Intelligence Agency). The article sets the OIC within the context of a growing national culture of surveillance, driven in part by fears of race riots and widespread unrest during the Vietnam War Era. Examining the connection between the OIC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and the Army spy scandal illustrates that Oklahoma's surveillance activities and civil disorder planning were part of a larger nationwide erosion of civil liberties [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response is offered to several articles in the issue on the topic of the poetics of U.S. national securitization, or the increase of national security, during the 21st century. Topics, including African American bodies, the politics of catastrophe, liberal concepts of private property rights, neoliberalism and mass surveillance in the U.S., are discussed.

The Latin Americanization thesis posits that the racial hierarchy in the United States is now composed of Whites, Honorary Whites, and Collective Blacks, with skin tone being the primary determinant of one's placement within this tripartite system of social status. Extant research mostly examines this approach at the macro level; relatively little is known about the thesis at the micro level. By examining goal-oriented task groups, our experiment tests whether Whites exhibit transitive levels of influence, a behavioral indicator of social status, in a manner consistent with this three-tier system. Furthermore, with applications of graph-theoretic models from status characteristics and status cue theories, we assess the social psychological mechanisms buttressing the proposed racial hierarchy by comparing propositions from four theories put forth by scholars of race/ethnicity (we translate their propositions into graphs and mathematical calculations). In so doing, we pose the question: In our experimental setting, which matters more, skin tone or ethnic background, or do both have equal effects on behavior? Our results support the purported racial hierarchy of the Latin Americanization thesis. On average, Whites were influenced the most by White confederates; Whites were influenced less by their light-skinned Latino/a confederates, and even less by dark-skinned Latino/a confederates. Model fit statistics for the propositions translated into graphs and values demonstrate that ethnic distinctions and skin tone are independent stratifiers in the form of status characteristics. This finding supports the notion that skin tone and ethnic background have the equivalent capacity to invoke processes to create the tripartite system of racial/ethnic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High rates of Hispanic fertility raise an important question: Do Hispanic newborn babies start life's race behind the starting line, poor and disadvantaged? To address this question, we link the newborn infants identified with the new fertility question in the 2006-2010 American Community Survey (ACS) to the poverty status of mothers. Our results document the disproportionately large share (40 percent) of Hispanic babies who are born into poverty. The prospect of poverty is especially high in new Hispanic destinations, especially those in rural areas. For Hispanic newborn babies, poverty cannot be reduced to supply-side explanations that emphasize maladaptive behavioral decisionmaking of parents, that is, nonmarital or teen childbearing, low educational attainment, acquisition of English language skills, or other dimensions of human capital. Hispanics in new destinations often start well behind the starting line--in poverty and with limited opportunities for upward mobility and an inadequate welfare safety net. The recent concentration of Hispanic poverty in new immigrant destinations portends continuing intergenerational inequality as today's newborn infants make their way to productive adult roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the types of neighborhoods that black and white homebuyers have secured loans in during the recent housing boom and subsequent bust. We expand upon and refine previous research on locational attainment using loan-level data from the 1992-2010 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) combined with tract- and metropolitan-level data from the 1990, 2000, and 2010 Census and the American Community Survey. Multilevel models show that black homebuyers are moving into considerably more racially segregated neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that their access to "whiter" neighborhoods did not expand during the housing boom, even after controlling for the racial composition of the metropolitan area and other key ecological factors. Conversely, new white homebuyers have been moving into neighborhoods with greater percent black residents, which may be a contributing factor in observed declines in segregation during the past few decades. Additionally, black homebuyers in metropolitan areas with greater suburban growth were on average accessing homes in more integrated neighborhoods. Finally, the models explained considerably more of the variation in the neighborhood racial composition of whites compared to blacks. These findings are suggestive of a dual housing market, one in which the experiences of blacks are still systematically different than those of whites, despite expanded access to homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducts a nationwide, locally comparative analysis of the extent to which natural hazards contribute to residential mobility in the United States and how this influence varies for racial and ethnic minorities. Analyses combine census data on households with data from thousands of recorded natural hazards during the late 1990s. Findings affirm that natural hazards are common throughout the country; that associated property damage correlates positively with increases in residential mobility for all groups; that these increases are particularly noticeable among racial and ethnic minorities because of preexisting inequalities in mobility; and that areas with more costly damage tend to pull as well as push migrants, especially Latinos and Asians. Implications for existing theory, methods, and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class confers a bundle of capabilities, practices, and beliefs that are conventionally assumed to be hierarchical, rigid, and self-perpetuating. However, this framework often belies the fact that these qualities needn't be necessarily or exhaustively advantageous. In particular, social change may render obsolete class-linked characteristics that were advantageous in previous periods. Drawing on interviews with homeowners at risk of foreclosure and a yearlong ethnography of a housing counseling organization, I find that although the housing crisis of the “Great Recession” affected both working- and middle-class homeowners alike, the practices of working-class borrowers better positioned them to exploit a number of informational advantages in the rapidly changing mortgage modification setting. My findings are a departure from existing research that treats middle-class capabilities and practices as intrinsically advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We extend existing research on police use of coercive mechanisms of social control against racial/ethnic minority populations by testing three structural hypotheses regarding excessive force. The minority threat hypothesis maintains that the greater the proportion of minority residents in a city, the greater the use of coercive crime control mechanisms. The place hypothesis argues that spatially segregated minority populations are the primary targets of coercive control. The community accountability hypothesis maintains that organizational characteristics of police departments promote the use of excessive force against minorities. Combining data from several sources for cities with populations of 100,000 or more, we include the key variables of these theoretical models in analyses of sustained excessive force complaints. Findings provide support for the minority threat hypothesis but indicate that place effects are contingent on the existence of a very high degree of racial/ethnic segregation. They offer little support for the community accountability hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends United States–European Union (EU) comparative research to the area of grants-in-aid by comparing the evolution of federally funded “city welfare” in the two political systems in light of an original institutionalist theory. I show that while the United States and the EU adopted similar early programs—Model Cities and URBAN—these schemes’ instability and their different politico-constitutional setting led to divergence shortly after their inception. In the United States, where the Department of Housing and Urban Development safeguarded city welfare, Model Cities was replaced with the durable Community Development Block Grant. In the EU, where no such institutional anchor existed, URBAN’s demise ended urban policy altogether. The article contributes to the broader scholarship on federalism by highlighting the relevance of institutions and time for understanding grants-in-aid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the connection between American voters' subjective class identity and their objective class position, focusing on presidential elections from 1972 to 2004. The authors highlight a tendency for most Americans to identify themselves as belonging to the middle class, and special attention is paid to the voting behavior of Americans with inflated and deflated perceptions of their class position. The effects of sociodemographic factors such as race, education, and religion on subjective class identity and voting behavior are addressed.

This study found that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality decreased steadily during the twentieth century. It examined trends in age-specific adult mortality rates for employed men and infants in a number of social classes based on occupation in England and Wales and for black, white, and immigrant nationality groups of men, women, and infants in the United States. Both countries experienced continuing decreases in mortality rates and narrowing of SES differences in mortality rates from 1920 to the end of the century. Most of the decrease and narrowing in England and Wales occurred before the establishment of the National Health Service and the unprecedented improvements in clinical and preventive medicine after midcentury. Current cancer mortality rates in both countries show no consistent relationship with SES. The very low mortality rates of some low SES immigrant nationality groups in the United States throughout the century demonstrate that other social factors can have a greater effect on health than SES. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In January 1907, Louis Tewanima, from the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, enrolled at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. While at Carlisle, Tewanima joined the school's cross-country team. He won numerous races and earned the opportunity to compete in the 1908 and 1912 Summer Olympic Games. Tewanima's story represents his ability to redefine Hopi running in the twentieth century and shows how he maneuvered within American and European perceptions of Natives and sports. His participation in running events recalls a time when white Americans situated indigenous people on the fringes of U.S. society but embraced them when they brought honors to the country by representing the nation in athletic competitions at home and abroad. Furthermore, Tewanima's involvement in marathons and Olympic races demonstrates the ways Americans used his success to advance the ideals of U.S. nationalism, as he simultaneously continued the long tradition of running among his people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the ways in which increased U.S. government and societal dedication to the humanities would help promote the U.S. national interest, with the books "The Humanities and the Dream of America," by Geoffrey Galt Harpham, and "The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University," by Louis Menand, providing a background to the discussion. The increased importance of humanities to research universities following World War II is examined along with government policy on the subject and a subsequent lack of dedication to the subject in the late 20th century. The author argues that knowledge of the humanities strengthens U.S. civic life.

The article discusses race, segregation and concentrated poverty in the U.S. through an examination of the country's geography, including cities, suburbs and rural small towns. The impact that the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 had on the socioeconomic conditions of ethnic and racial minority neighborhoods is discussed. An overview of the relationship between spatial inequality, which is also referred to as the "geography of inequality," socioeconomic mobility and access to labor markets, is discussed.

The article discusses masculinity, masculine codes, and facial hair, particularly mustaches, in the U.S. during the early 20th century. It discusses the social role of mustaches in U.S. politics and the entertainment industry, the decline of popularity of facial hair at the beginning of the 20th century, and the significance of the advertising of shaving products. The article also discusses the importance that U.S. employers placed on clean-shaven men, the idealization of youth and the appearance of youth, and the mustache as a symbol of manliness in popular culture. It discusses the public perception of the facial hair of U.S. actor Clark Gable and U.S. politician Thomas E. Dewey, particularly the social aspects of Dewey's campaign for the U.S. presidency in 1948.

The article discusses the cultural significance of deliberate car crash exhibitions and demolition derbies for entertainment in the U.S. from 1922 to 1965. It attempts to explain the logic behind the purposeful destruction of automobiles despite the high esteem in which Americans held automobiles. It also attempts to examine the capitalistic concept of product obsolescence and regeneration characterized by the automobile industry, the privatization of traffic accident problems during the early-to-mid-20th century in the U.S., and safety concerns and issues surrounding destruction derbies.

The article discusses the effect of violent crime on residential mobility among racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S., and the impact of crime rates on the racial and ethnic composition of neighborhoods. The author asserts that racial and ethnic transformation of a neighborhood is caused by the mobility of whites leaving high-crime neighborhoods, as well as whites being less likely to move into housing units located in neighborhoods with increasing rates of violent crime. The author also suggests that African Americans and Hispanic Americans are more likely to enter neighborhoods with more violent crime.

The United States’ 1996 welfare reforms are often interpreted as a historical break in transitioning from supporting motherhood to commodifiying women's labor. However, this cannot account for welfare reform's emphasis upon heterosexual marriage and fatherhood promotion. The paper traces continuities and shifts in over a century of familial regulation through American welfare policy, specifying the place of marriage promotion within welfare policy. Up until 1996, families were key sites of intervention through which the American welfare state was erected, especially through single women as mothers—not wives. However, as of the 1960s, concern with African American men's “failed” familial commitments turned policymakers toward concern over marriage promotion for women and men. While marriage “disincentives” for aid recipients were lifted in the 1960s, the 1996 reforms structured a new form of nuclear family governance actively promoting marriage rooted in, but distinct from, the previous. Given the historical absence of welfare policies available to poor men, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families’ (TANF) marriage promotion policies have positioned poor women as nodes connecting the state to poor men, simultaneously structuring poor women as breadwinners, mothers, and wives. Recent welfare reform has also started to target poor men directly, especially in fatherhood and marriage promotion initiatives. The article highlights how, in addition to workfare policies, marriage promotion is a neoliberal policy shifting risk to the shoulders of the poor, aiming to produce “strong families” for the purposes of social security. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the history of dieting in the U.S. by focusing on how British attitudes towards weight and social class were embraced by American men during the post-bellum period of the nineteenth century and were eventually adopted by women in an effort to garner social power and status in the 1890s. Some other subjects considered include social mobility, nationalistic attitudes regarding American empire, social attitudes towards overweight people of the lower classes, and the historiography of dieting.

We use the National Violence against Women (and Men) Survey to examine the effects of region and race on the tendency to carry weapons for protection. We find that Southern and Western whites are much more likely than Northern whites to carry guns for self-protection, controlling for their risk of victimization. The difference between Southern and Northern whites is particularly strong for women. We do not find much evidence for regional/race differences in carrying knives or mace. These findings provide support for the idea that regional differences in weapon carrying reflect a gun culture rather than an honor culture. We see more evidence of an honor culture among blacks: they are more likely than whites to carry knives as well as guns, controlling for their risk of victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion of the religious and psychological treatment of scruples throughout the 20th century in Great Britain and the United States. Details are given highlighting the prevalence of over-attentive religiosity driven by anxiety in both societies, particularly within Roman Catholic piety. Discussion is offered outlining how addressing the issue moved from the domain of the ecclesiastical to the psychological. The development of theological psychopathology and Roman Catholic psychiatry in response to this trend are also mentioned.

The author discusses the act of witnessing, particularly as it relates to political resistance and how the author approaches the issue in the classes she teaches. Dr. Martin King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is a text that the author uses often in the courses she teaches. She also shares her experiences during the protest movements of the 1960s and how she became an activist, demonstrating against racial discrimination in the U.S. The author was the biographer of Dr. Benjamin Spock and she relates how the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had "bugged" telephones and Spock's office.

Moral panics are conventionally associated with the interpretations of youthful action imposed by powerful state or media forces. However, the concept is also useful in understanding more generally how social problems are constructed and presented. In this paper, we consider how a vague term such as 'organized crime' has emerged as a vehicle for exclusionary rhetorics in both the United States and Britain. While the origins of the organized crime moral panic in the United States can be located amongst moral entrepreneurs, the British version is marked by the outpourings of a right-wing media, and the influence of American foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the popularity and controversy involving Baby Shows in the 19th-century, particularly the first show in Ohio in 1854. Details are given highlighting various responses to the practice, noting its popularity across the nation and its distinct connections to American culture, but also citing controversy against it. Questions are raised regarding whether judging babies on display was an act of cherishing or degradation. Broader implications are drawn concerning the display of the human body in general. Additional mention is given relating how the prominence of the baby show fit within the golden age of the dime museum and country fair culture of the 19th-century.

This article examines America's history of mob violence and gambling. The author contends societies' reaction to gambling was a manifestation of the socioeconomic fears generated by capitalism. Throughout the antebellum period mob violence plagued many parts of the United States and was often initiated by the upper classes who considered themselves moral guardians of the community. One incident in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1835 is described and analyzed as both unique and representative of the general social unease of the era.

An article about actress and abolitionist Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble Butler, generally known as Fanny Kemble, author of the "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation" is presented. The author focuses on the writing style of letters and diary entries primarily written in the 1830s after her arrival in the U.S. from Great Britain in 1832. The writings focus on her views and observations of America during a period of expansionism noted for its social and political unrest.

In what way do movements move? What do we mean by the movement of movements? While still a rather unconventional stance, I advance the argument that social movements are, at root, culture production agents. Regardless of whatever else they may accomplish, movements produce new cultural forms in the course of struggle; they often change and augment cultural stock in the process, and sometimes live on for generations in collective memory. My answer to the query follows a movement-centered production and circulation of culture template organized around several major moments of culture moves: moving across space, moving emotions, moving social-cultural conditions and moving through memory. I illustrate culture moves in these four moments using sociological and historical studies of the long civil rights movement, suggesting a variety of research agendas along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the intellectual history of progressivism, eugenics, and social work in the late 19th-century, specifically focusing on the work of settlement houses in the U.S. Details are given mapping the integral role which evolutionary thought played in the ideology of social reform workers of the era, highlighting goals of social preservation through guarding against social or genetic degeneracy. The application of neo-Lamarkian social scientific theory to urban charities is particularly explored.

The article explores gender and justice in three lynchings in Maryland that occurred between 1886 and 1896, a period which encompassed the peak year of lynching nationally. It discusses whether intraracial lynchings have received less attention because such events occurred less frequently, or perhaps also because white-on-white violence challenged the assumption that race provided the most significant motivation for the killings. Other major factors which emerged in shaping community response to violent crime such as gender and community honor are addressed through the lynchings of Joseph Cocking, Marshall Price and David Johnson.

The article presents an exploration into the history of electrolysis hair removal in U.S. medical care and presents extensions into the intersections of technology and social history, the commodification of medicine in U.S. society, and social constructions of beauty. The emergence and rise of electrolysis as a cosmetic medical practice from the late 19th century is described, highlighting the level of complexity involved in the early treatments. Further discussion is given noting the social impact of electricity in U.S. society in general.

This article examines how the growth of northern urban centers in the U.S. coincided with the first major fuel crisis in American history. The author explores how firewood shortages impacted individuals living in the cities of Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New York City. Poor individuals living in these cities were impacted more severely by sudden increases in the price of firewood due to supply shortages. The author examines the efforts of several organizations that attempted to combat fuel shortages by urging U.S. citizens to adopt coal as a heating source. The author discusses how the fuel market provided information on the consumption patterns of Americans and also exposed class differences in the country.

This paper traces the discursive constructions through which refugees were produced as particular kinds of subjects in US social work discourse in the first half of the twentieth century. Prior to the onset of the Second World War, the refugee ideal was valorized in social work discourse to both exhort and contest immigration restrictions. In the war years, actual refugees became framed, instead, as the most troublesome immigrants. The many anti-restrictionists among social work's leaders persistently and prolifically opposed problematized constructions of refugees. But through its uncritical uses of the same unstable measures of fitness through which the problematized identities were constructed, the liberal, anti-restrictionist discourse of social work re-inscribed the discourses it sought to counter. As a study of the disciplinary construction of a particularly vulnerable identity, and a methodological exemplar for examining key constructs, this analysis has broad implication for study of the many categories of identity (e.g. child, client, etc.) upon which social work builds its practice models and explanatory theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about the works and ideas of James Saunders Redding, focusing on those works that concerns with Negro new liberalism and other issues that has relevance to social sciences. According to the article, Redding, a literary critic and English professor wanted to publish a second book that shall redeem and become a highlight of his career. The book was printed under the publishing house Harpers. It was said that Redding also had resented his place as an African American who rose during the time when racial and class politics were dominant.

The article discusses about the philosophies of Immanuel Kant that is relevant to the what is happening in the United States especially during the time of economic depression which was said to have affected a lot of people most especially African Americans. According to the article, the cosmopolitan defense of modernity presented by Kant provides a reliable mechanism for negotiating clashing value claims and a method of creating a cultural pluralism coherent with a structured obedience to truth and justice which was lacking in previous literary studies.

The article discusses about the different musical accompaniments and instruments during the era of 1888. The article explores the social conditions in the United States during the early times and provides a description of the different apparatuses that provides sound to the people. According to the article, for a subscription charge, live telharmonic concerts would be broadcasted in public places such as parks, hospitals and restaurants and subsequently, these are also played in private homes in certain areas.

This article presents an exploration into the views of the church historian Philip Schaff and the transatlantic comparative influences of religion in cultural conflict. Schaff's pioneering influence in the field of transatlantic comparative religious history is outlined. The religious and cultural differences between European and American identity are reviewed. The effect of puritanism and a primarily protestant ideal in American society's formation is also analyzed.

The article focuses on the assessment of the historical perspectives regarding the role of the westward expansion to the social history of the U.S. The author pointed out that the return the West to the world begins with the acknowledgment of the contested origins in what Americans call the colonial era. The expansionist schemes to the west were a complex conflicts between European rivals as well as between the Indians and the Americans. The Indians were the victims of European colonialism and American expansionism. The Indian population has decline due to various circumstances brought about by the increasing American population and emigration. Significantly, the history of the West has influenced popular culture.

The article explains the reason for the high rate of homicide in the U.S., making the country exceptional among industrialized countries. Homicide rates in Western Europe have consistently declined since the early modern era and continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The present homicide rate in the U.S. is at the level of homicide rate in developing countries. The decline of homicide rate contradicts conventional wisdom which predicts the rise of crime alongside industrialization and urbanization. The experience of the U.S. poses a challenge to historians and social scientists. The underlying cause of this exceptional status of the U.S. must be known.

The article discusses liberty and slavery in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. During the period, some people's liberty depended upon the denial of liberty to others. The liberty that offered prosperity to Southern white men consequently had an oppressive effect on the Native American people, whose vast lands white men have assumed from them, and to African Americans whose labor converted these lands to profitable plantations. The events explain why the South has been excluded in discussions on market revolution. But in reality, the South has figured prominently in the broader history of the capitalist development of the U.S. And slavery was a major component to this economic progress. It is an unfortunate fact that slaves, through slaveholders, made up a market that involved a form of human commodification or the buying and selling of human beings.

Discusses the political and economic transformations brought about by World War II in the United States. Attitudes of Americans towards the transformations; Military and economic growth in U.S. during the war; Emergence of historical revisionism in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.

Traces the rise, evolution and decline of the nervous breakdown in the United States in the 20th century. Meanings of nervous breakdown; Major symptoms of change, suggesting a reduction in the salience of nervous breakdown in the popular American lexicon; Conclusion.

Examines the political and social implications of diversity in the United States. Comparison of the American experience of diversity with countries that have experienced a similar albeit lesser degree of diversity; Discussion on the common notion of Euro-Americans on racial diversity; Analysis on the views from notable writers on the ideas of multiculturalism and ethnic relations.

This article examines intergenerational changes in the construction and reconstruction of Indian identity. It further links those changes to changes in social, political, economic and cultural contexts. Interviews with Navajo women revealed distinct patterns in their self-identification as Navajo and as Indian. Women who were born prior to the self-determination movements of the 1960s and who grew up in the context of Navajo communities distanced themselves from, and actively disrupted, negative and stereotypic representations of Indians, drawing on their specific tribal identities to do so. Women born after 1960 were less likely to distance themselves from Indian identity, but also reframed the meanings associated with that identity. Social constructionist perspectives emphasize the influence of social and historical factors in shaping both the process and the content or meanings of collective and self identities. Building on the work of symbolic interactionists and cultural anthropologists, social constructionists challenge the notion that ethnic or other group identifications are either natural or biological, or that they are solely constructed through individual action.

Abstract Denominational and attendance differences in attitudes toward a broad range of family issues are examined using NORC data for whites (N of about 11,000) for 11 polls conducted between 1972 and 1984. Findings are presented with and without controls for sex, age, income, education, and region. Protestant fundamentalists along with Baptists and Catholics were most conservative; Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians were moderates; and Episcopalians, Jews, and nones were most liberal. Approximate rank orders of the nine groups were consistent across family issues; however, no group was found to be consistently conservative, as the level of conservatism varied with the content of the issues. Attendance was found to be positively related to conservatism for all eight religious bodies (and unrelated for nones) with the degree of relationship varying directly with the degree of relative conservatism of the denominations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Using data from the November 1979 Current Population Survey on ethnic ancestry, this paper examines the strength and patterns of ethnic intermarriage in the United States, investigating some of the implications of rising intermarriage rates. After noting the infrequency of marriages across the dividing line of European/non-European ancestry, we focus on marriages between individuals of European (or American Indian) ancestry. Employing a log-linear modeling strategy, we identify several major influences on intermarriage: group size; type of ancestry, that is, mixed versus single; and degree of ethnic relatedness. These findings illuminate one key dynamic behind rising intermarriage among white ethnics. Namely, even though persons of unmixed ancestry still exhibit fairly strong tendencies to marry endogamously, a shift in the relative frequency of mixed versus unmixed ancestry is reducing the sizes of the categories with the strongest in-marriage tendencies and increasing the sizes of those with weaker such tendencies. We suggest that these findings offer a possible partial resolution of the debate over the role of ethnicity in American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looks at a dramatic change in the mobility of the American public in terms of when, how and why it occurred. Effects of the long-term mortgage; Changes after World War II; Sociological studies; Problems in studying residential mobility; Study sample; Structural changes in the economy; New Deal housing programs.

Opinion. Comments on the endangerment of Afro-Americans resulting from the cycle of violent behaviors and victimization. Extent of violent in the African American community; Institutional racism; Policy issues; Proposed model for activism; Implications for social work action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion. Comments on the social work and community development practice of empowerment of low-income populations in the United States. Association with liberal reformers; Applications of empowerment by various policymakers; Views of community change; Kemp ownership initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]