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Merton proposed middle range theories, not as ends in themselves, but as bases for a consolidation to explain broader phenomenon. More than a half century has passed since Merton's consolidation proposal and in that time a number of experimentally tested middle range theories have been developed. Certainly, the next step should be a consolidation. Yet, to our knowledge, no one has previously offered a consolidation of experimentally tested theories and applied it for explanation. This paper offers a consolidation of middle range theories formulated to explain the rise of the pristine state. Two theories of this consolidation, Status Characteristics Theory and Elementary Theory, form the core of what Analytic Sociologists have called a toolbox of theories. Our toolbox forms an integrated consolidation in two ways. First, the social structures modeled by the theories form a path-dependent process of increasing benefits gained by the elites of the structures. Second, the end conditions of each step of the process are the initial conditions of the next. Whereas the theories in our toolbox have previously been seen as applying exclusively to microstructures, we have encountered no difficulties in scaling them up to apply to macrostructures. While we hope the consolidation has validity in explaining the occurrence of pristine states, this paper's significance lies in its demonstration that today social theories can be consolidated and applied for explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the interplay between social structure of accumulation theory and labor process theory, this paper is to specify the particular mechanism that labor institutions take in accomplishing China’s rapid capital accumulation in the reform era. The paper starts by proposing a framework to understand the relation among overtime work, labor process, and the wage gap and presents the puzzling contradiction between low wages and the need to sustain the reproduction of labor power for Chinese workers. The paper then details the bi-directional determination between the subordination of labor in the workplace and the wage gap, and further analyzes the critical conditions for the stability of the current labor institutions and sustaining capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raikas are the largest group of nomadic pastoralists of India. Each year after the rains, hundreds and thousands of shepherds embark in collective camps on migratory journeys that can span distance of up to 1200 kms and last up to nine months. The present paper is an attempt to study the social structure among Raika. Fieldwork has been done in two villages predominantly inhabitated by Raikas, Raika Ki Dhani and Manpur Bakdi in Pali Sirohi Belt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of performance studies in the last three decades has been accompanied by an increasing dissatisfaction with the functional interpretation of ritual, and in this context Émile Durkheim's work on ritual and religion has been the target of much criticism. The paper argues that a closer consideration of Durkheim's interpretation of commemorative rites could be incorporated effectively into performance theory, as one of its neglected sources. The paper reviews current analytic approaches to ritual theory, and then analyses Durkheim's argument with regards to two themes: the social organization of time and memory, and the reenactment of the past as a source of aesthetic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws its inspiration from the provocation which Merton offered sociology both to engage with empirical data and to perform analyses adequate to guide intervention beyond the particular case. Whilst contemporary STS is very different both in its models of theory and its forms of methodology, this paper suggests Merton's concerns with engagement and adequacy provide a useful way to interrogate current approaches. Specifically, the paper explores some recent anthropological conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork that have provided potent models for the study of scientific and technological cultures. These multi-sited approaches have also provided the opportunity to develop new notions of intervention and explore alternative ways of making contributions to development of theory and practice. In the process of pursuing the goals of engagement and adequacy notions of ethnography have however become stretched. This sense of detachment from methodological canons accentuates the need for methodological debate and skill-sharing in STS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proportional hazards models are powerful methods for the analysis of dynamic social processes and are widely used in sociology to estimate the effects of covariates on event timing (e.g., time to arrest, birth, marriage). The proper statistical modeling of failure time data is an important analytical issue in sociology, but to date the field has largely neglected the application of these models to multiple failure time data in which the conventional assumption of the independence of failure times is not tenable. This paper critically describes a class of models known as variance-corrected proportional hazards models that have been developed by statisticians to take into account a lack of independence among failure times. The purpose is to provide an exposition and comparison for sociologists of several such models and associated methods for handling multiple failure time data that can be readily estimated in commonly available statistical software packages. We pay special attention to the data requirements necessary for estimation of the models. The paper concludes with an illustrative application of the models to analyze the arrest patterns of a sample of California Youth Authority parolees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task essayed in this paper is a discussion of problems encountered, and solutions arrived at, during the course of the project.
The qualifications are necessary at the outset. Firstly, the demands of the 'problem and solution' approach encourage the deployment of the 'chronological lie'. Some, even much of what I discuss was only perceived in terms of problem and solution after the event. Secondly, there are many research situations where, one might say, a kind of 'principle of complementarity' obtains--that is where, when a solution to one sort of problem is approached closely, another sort of problem inevitably increases in magnitude. In the latter part of the paper certain problems will be discussed in these terms. That discussion looks at ways of optimizing the inevitably approximate fit between an external reality and what is observed. However, it should be noted that other interpretations of these observational problems are possible? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research on integration and regulation in organizations is based upon concerns we share about the way organizations adapt or, rather, fail to adapt in our society. We have observed situations in many kinds of organizations where most people are aware that values are not being served, concerns are not being met and issues are not being resolved, but where either no action is taken or, if it is, it fails to achieve desired results. We call these situations social deadlocks and our long-term normative interest is to see whether they can be broken.[1] Although this paper is addressed to methodological aspects of our work, we hope to demonstrate how the design of our research project and the concepts and methods we use are guided by these concerns. Starting with a very brief outline of three of the cases, we then identify a number of common themes and concepts as the key research interests. Some of the problems of pursuing these interests are raised in terms of problems of definition, the collection of evidence and of inference. We argue that attempts to deal with these problems lead us to adopt a particular focus, design and approach for research. The paper then moves to a description of our methods and to some of the problems of analysis and explanation associated with the contextualist style of research we have adopted. Finally, we go back to the cases to demonstrate how our concepts and theories are refined by the research process, which is essentially a dialectic between emergent and imposed frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the integration of a greater awareness of reproductive conduct into sociological theory and research. Instead of conceiving the relationship between demography and sociology as one where sociological concepts are used to illuminate demographic concerns, the paper works towards the development of a demographic perspective in sociological understandings of modern society and its historical development. The argument will be for the notion of the 'reproductive self', with a greater emphasis on understanding human identity as stretching over time and generations, rather than as self-contained, timeless and autonomous. The paper will show that such a conception of human identity enables us to improve our understanding of a range of theoretical issues, including the relation between social structure and action and the rationality of human action, as well as revealing the historical roots of a number of long-term trends which are usually treated as changes typical of the second half of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reacts to Ian Craib' response to papers by Stevi Jackson and by Jean Duncombe and Dennis Marsden devoted to emotions in the May 1993 issue of Sociology. First, Craib suggests that sociological commentary on the emotions is as crass and insensitive as psychoanalytic discussions of society, and that a sociology of emotions might restrict rather than extend people's understanding of emotional life. Secondly, the present authors relate that although they recognize that Craib's main charge is directed at the two specific papers mentioned, he is nonetheless in danger of treating these as representative of the sociology of emotions more generally. They note that Craib is guilty of a methodological sin: namely that one cannot simply generalize from two case studies to the field as a whole. The present authors' next point concerns the issue of stereotypes--a criticism which is especially directed at Duncombe and Marsden's paper. The present authors relate that on the one hand they agree with Craib that stereotypes are not particularly helpful in characterizing (post)modern social life. Fourthly, Craib asserts that whilst sociological concepts such as work, power or equality might be extremely useful for thinking about the economy, or political or social structures, it still has to be established that they are appropriate for talking about emotional life.

This paper attempts to present, by means of a case study, a method for the study of cultural phenomena--in particular the drama, It is not concerned with the purposes or functions of the drama in general or of particular dramas, nor is it an enquiry into the ultimate status of the arts in society. The paper is simply concerned to demonstrate how it was that one form of drama was eclipsed and superseded by an entirely new one.
should be recognised that there exist presently close limits to what a sociologist is able to say concerning such phenomena as the drama, dependent upon his particular theoretical posture. A neo-Durkheimian such as J. S. R. Goodlad[1] is, fairly predictably, concerned to demonstrate that the popular drama is a device for the explication of the social structure, the inculcation of morality, the expression of emotion at repressed items in culture (catharsis), and the reproduction and consideration of conflicts inherent in society. The Marxist, Lucien Goldmann[2], however, stresses the determinacy of the class-moment and the status of a valid work as the expression of a world view. 'Simationalisms' of considerably less subtlety than the Lukacs-Goldmann tradition exist, which usually tend toward nominalism.[3]
But whether we take the drama to be pulled into being by the weight of need the social organism has of it, or to be thrust up from the bowels of the substructure, it seems possible to discuss the drama, its form, and the relation of its form to the agencies producing it, in such a way as to be its mechanic rather than its philosopher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the theoretical framework developed in the first paper ('Unfulfilled Systemic Functions of Social Mobility: A Theoretical Scheme'), we analyse the Polish case. We argue that the contribution of collective mobility to politico-revolutionary legitimation processes has been minimal and the contribution of individual mobility to the economic development and to economico-reformist legitimation processes has also been negligible. Our research strategy has been to demonstrate that many aspects of mobility processes taking place in Poland are incompatible with conditions that we have listed in the first paper as conducive to the formation of legitimation beliefs and the sustenance of economic efficiency. Specifically we demonstrate that (1) because collective mobility of the working class and the peasantry encompassed several changes in their economic and cultural positions but did not include major changes in their political position, it could not contribute to the politico-revolutionary legitimation and (2), because individual mobility did not occur according to the qualificational/occupational principle of allocation, promotion and remuneration, it could not contribute to the economico-reformist legitimation nor could it sustain effective utilisation of human resources in economic development. We conclude that the chance to use mobility for the systems's benefit has been wasted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a small set of interlocking definitions, this paper presents a generally applicable conceptualization of social structure developed from recollections of Merton's late-1950s formulation. A brief review of the literature supports the view that the proposed conceptualization provides sociological researchers with a relatively simple and logically consistent overall framework, generally continuous with past theorizing, in which to place their own findings. The paper pays particular attention to how social structures are related causally and epistemologically to more micro-level psychological and more macrolevel sociocultural phenomena. Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence suggest a decrease in the likelihood and speed of change as we move from psychological- to social structural- to sociocultural-level phenomena. Although they require proof in each instance, these postulated differences in the relative speed with which psychological-, social structural-, and sociocultural-level phenomena tend to affect each other provide a new and potentially useful tool for unraveling the knotted causal connections among these different-level phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that organizations with a particular social network structure are more effective than most organizations in responding to crises. Further, it is argued that the effective structure does not occur naturally, but must be designed consciously and carefully. A theory is developed based on well-founded principles of social science, most notably work on formal structure, conflict, friendships, and organizational crises. The paper concludes with an experimental test of one of the four propositions deduced from the theory. Six trials of the experiment found significant support for this proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the papers published as a symposium on postmodernism in the Fall 1991 issue of the journal "Sociological Theory." It argues that postmodernism as a rhetoric and postmodernism as a methodology often diverge among theorists. Further, it contends that theorists' professional locations, including their relative disengagement from undergraduates, may help to account for their attraction to postmodern rhetoric and meta-theoretical gesticulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper unifies two strands of theoretical method in sociology. On the one hand, the structuralist or network program of research involves the fundamental rule that basic data and analytic procedures of sociology must focus on social relations. This leads to theories about structural stability or change, for example, although the network approach generally has been stronger on technique than on explanatory theory. An interest in theoretical explanation is the basis of the second theoretical method, which is drawn from the expectation states theoretical research program: namely, the idea of a dynamic co-causal process involving an unobservable relational construct termed an expectation state and an observable form of social behavior. The paper outlines the basic ideas of each of these two theoretical methods. It then proposes a new theoretical method which synthesizes the two and whose function is to provide a procedure for constructing explanatory models of social structural stability and change. This new method is termed "E-state structuralism." An extended example is provided of how the method is used to construct a theory, first presenting the theory in axiomatic form and then empirically testing it. The subject matter of the theory is the over-time transformation in the structure of dominance relations among a small group of animals. The paper concludes with a review of how the generic method was exemplified in the particular theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the research on masculinity in Ireland stresses the influences of family, work and education in the construction of gender (Ferguson, 1998; Ferguson and Synott, 1995; Ferguson and Reynolds, 2001; McKeown et al., 1998, Owens, 2000). Although the impact of the entertainment media is regularly alluded to, there is a dearth of empirical work in this area. While it is generally agreed that mediated images play a highly influential role in young people's lives, both the nature and the scope of this influence remain unclear in the absence of concrete ethnographies of reception. This paper discusses the findings of a quantitative and qualitative investigation into Irish male teenagers' consumption and reception of a broad range of media texts and discusses these findings in relation to the relevant literature. It points to the shortcomings of both `hypodermic needle' theories, which claim direct media influence, and of some active audience theories, which posit consumers as impervious to ideological influence. Contrary to popular discourses which frame the media as an autonomous, regressive force that lags behind a more progressive reality, the findings presented here suggest that mediated fictions are part of wider `gender scripts' (Nixon, 1996) that both inform and are informed by the social structures within which (male) viewers are immersed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of mental health focuses on the epidemiology, etiology, correlates, and consequences of mental health (i.e., psychiatric disorder and symptoms, psychological distress, and subjective well-being) in an attempt to describe and explain how social structure influences an individual's psychological health. Critical race theory describes and explains iterative ways in which race is socially constructed across micro- and macro-levels, and how it determines life chances implicating the mundane and extraordinary in the continuance of racial stratification (i.e., racism). This paper invoked critical race theory to inform the sociology of mental health's approach to studying race and mental health by conceptualizing five hypothetical mental health problems that could exist because of racial stratification. These problems were: (1) nihilistic tendencies, (2) anti-self issues, (3) suppressed anger expression, (4) delusional denial tendencies, and (5) extreme racial paranoia. Mental health problems such as these and undocumented others can only be recognized given awareness of the social and personal implications of racial stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes criteria for distinguishing those types of social forms that are susceptible to lawlike explanation from those that are susceptible to interpretive accounts. The main criterion concerns the rankability of choice alternatives. The choice process is modeled as having two subprocesses. The first subprocess is a rational one in which unacceptable decision alternatives are eliminated, reducing the universe of alternatives to the set of interchangeably acceptable options, termed the admissible set. In the second subprocess, an arbitrary choice is made from the admissible set. In rational-choice settings, the admissible set consists of just one element, the optimum. However, this is clearly not the only possibility, as the example of language, with its plurality of interchangeable phonemic options, bears witness. The fundamental concept: At one extreme—the extreme of language—the admissible set is large and the arbitrary-choice subprocess dominates the rational-choice subprocess. At the other extreme—the extreme of rational-choice theory—the admissible set consists of a single element and the rational-choice subprocess dominates the arbitrary-choice subprocess. Social law has its proper home in those territories of human activity where the admissible set is small; social interpretation has its proper home in those regions where the admissible set is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new “epistemological” theory of culture that explains how individuals enhance their sense of security in the world by creating and maintaining culture as knowledge of the world. Using cognitive and affective processes previously ignored by culture theorists, the theory posits three dimensions of cultural production: we articulate, typify, and orient our experiences to make them meaningful. The theory asserts that we produce culture because it allows us to feel as if we understand our world, and to perceive it as ordered; this in turn triggers an aesthetic response of knowledge-based affect. The theory explains how cultural production is motivated by the pursuit of meaningfulness as well as material interests. The theory describes how an oppressive culture can be reproduced unintentionally, even by the groups it oppresses. The theory also identifies connections between social structure and culture where conditions of ambiguity or control have implications for how meaning can be created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author presents a response to the article "The body in Sociology," by Alexandra Howson and David Inglis, published in this issue of the journal "The Sociological Review." According to the author, Howson and Inglis' paper is both timely and thought provoking. However, the author's contention is that their argument, made through five claims, is fundamentally flawed. The first two concern the emergence of sociological interest in "the body," which, according to the author, are sound. The third is that the work of M. Merleau-Ponty, which has been central to many forms of "corporeal sociology," lacks an account of social structure and is insufficiently sociological in focus to be of use to sociology. The fourth suggests that the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which might be deemed a corrective to Merleau-Ponty, cannot serve this purpose without generating a form of social structural determinism which would undermine the benefits of Merleau-Ponty's contribution. The fifth speculates on whether cultural studies might not provide a more fruitful avenue for those who wish either to avoid determinism or to rejoin Merleau-Ponty. The author's contention is with the third and fourth of these claims, though his view also necessarily has implications for the fifth.

This paper evaluates Kieran Healy's recent contribution to the structure-agency debate. Supervenience, I argue, has multiple uses, it entails different ontological perspectives depending on which entities it is applied to and which conditions are placed upon subvening and supervening entities. Healy's use of supervenience is unclear. On the one hand, applied to individual--society relations it does nothing more than restate the trivial truth: no people -- no society. On the other hand, if supervenience is to be applied to structure-agent relations the consequence is extreme voluntarism. In either case it simply fails to address Healy's key concern: conceptualising social constraint. I then argue that an alternative way of grasping structural constraint in the present might be to view past-tense 'activity dependence' as 'Cambridge events'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of a fourfold typology referring to different definitions of the social-structure concept, and of a critique of Giddens's and Bourdieu's strategies for transcending the divide between objectivist and subjectivist sociologies, this paper argues that rapprochement rather than transcendence is the way to overcome the existing fragmentation and for bringing closer together structural/structuralist and interpretative paradigms in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article asserts that mainstream sociology, or more specifically the nonproblematic sociology found in introductory sociology textbooks treats gender, race and class in profoundly unequal ways. Inequalities of Race, Class and Gender are quantified in Introductory Sociology Textbooks. By the mid-1990s, sociology textbook authors were no longer de-emphasizing gender in comparison to race and class. Discussion of the role of socialization in relation to group differentiation is more common for gender and is discussed in more detail than for either class. While there is on average almost one page more of aggregate cross-societal text on class than on gender, the proportion of texts including a significant amount is identical for class and gender. Thus, the overriding impression about mainstream sociology conveyed by the F&H paper fails to capture the growing impact of feminist questions on research agendas in the field of social stratification in general as well as on introductory textbook authors.

This article comments on Sociology: Proscience or Antiscience, a position paper written by Randall Collins. Randall Collins' (1989) recent position paper seeks to defend sociology proper from disparate attacks questioning its status as a science. Interestingly, Collins's citations supporting the premise of external attack on sociology are actually quite limited. His single extensive example involves more the quest of sociobiologists to legitimate themselves through a general critique of all social science rather than a focused assault on sociology itself. Singled out specifically by Collins are approaches that deviate from his version of sociological theory, rather than from the scientific project of sociology per se. In Collins's discussion, Michael Foucault's complex ideas are homogenized and described by a nominalist label that has no basis in his work. Collins characterizes Foucault as a discourse theorist who reduces society to a text and social action to the field of discourse. Collins simply has displaced by Foucault's emphasis on the field of power. Collins reduces the complex work of important theorists to misleading and nominalist labels that compartmentalize and trivialize serious thought. Discourse analysis cannot replace the investigation of, and theorizing about, social action and societal structures. If the above comments are instructive, however, then there is a place for textual analysis when confronted by the obfuscating metatheoretical discussions and the biblical exegesis of the classics that passes for much of sociological theory today.

This paper outlines and evaluates recent contributions by Nicos Mouzelis and Margaret Archer to the structure-agency debate. Mouzelis offers an internal reconstruction of Giddens's structuration theory; Archer an external alternative. I show that, although representing an advance on Giddens's position, Mouzelis's account fails because he relies on the former's definition of structure as comprising rules and resources. I then examine Archer's solution to the problem. I argue that her definition of activity-dependence makes her account of the relationship between agents and structures unclear. I outline an alternative account in terms of supervenience, and argue that it contains the minimum ontological claim necessary for a realist understanding of the structure-agent relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As rational choice theory has moved from economics into political science and sociology, it has been dramatically transformed. The intellectual diffusion of agency theory illustrates this process. Agency theory is a general model of social relations involving the delegation of authority, and generally resulting in problems of control, which has been applied to a broad range of substantive contexts. This paper analyzes applications of agency theory to state policy implementation in economics, political science, and sociology. After documenting variations in the theory across disciplinary contexts, the strengths and weaknesses of these different varieties of agency theory are assessed. Sociological versions of agency theory, incorporating both broader microfoundations and richer models of social structure, are in many respects the most promising. This type of agency theory illustrates the potential of an emerging sociological version of rational choice theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During its eighty-year history, the sociology of youth has provided a succession of partial explanations of the circumstances and responses of the young. The paper critically reviews this history and defines the challenge currently faced by sociologists: to develop a conceptual framework for understanding both the transitions young people pass through as they become adult, and the differential experiences of young people from different social groups. It is argued that such a framework requires the integration of the concepts of process and structure Secondary analysis of existing large data sets is suggested as an available means of meeting the challenge, since such data sets can provide both large representative samples which allow inter-group comparisons, and wide-ranging longitudinal data which allows the study of processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though necessarily selective, I want to present a biography of the research which principally focusses on 24 families with an epileptic child, to illustrate changing perspectives, emergent problems and some of the solutions, or attempted solutions, to overcome them, indicating my position then as it was; and how, in the light of an examination o[ the data, revisions in procedures and interpretations were required. In particular, the paper focusses on the problems of making sense of extensive data, much of which is biographical, collected on one of these families. Analysis of these accounts suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using existing critiques as a constructive foundation, the purpose of this paper is to extend analyses of the malaise in sport socialization by suggesting two alternative approaches that may revive interest in this important research topic. One, more representative of a functionalist integration, attempts to shift to more macro considerations by conceptualizing sport socialization as a mechanism of social and cultural reproduction; the nature and role of social structure is examined with respect to learning, interaction, and communication. Viewing such a synthesis as inadequate to rejuvenate the topic, however, we endorse a cultural studies approach which attempts to contextualize socialization within the broader framework of power, hegemony and ideology. Inherent in both alternatives, however, is a challenge to rethink underlying assumptions and fundamental elements upon which previous sport socialization research has been based. Although fundamentally different in approach, both require a new or different way of understanding how sport socialization is accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological reconceptualisations of the structure/agency divide have motivated important theoretical advances in the discipline, and the development of 'structuration theories' and 'analytical dualism' has promoted fresh thought about dominant views of the human agent. These approaches have sought to release sociology from any residual reliance on the oversocialised conception of the individual that formed part of the legacy of Parsonian sociology. It is the argument of this paper, however, that while structuration theory and analytical dualism focus on the creative powers of human reflexivity, as part of their rejection of the 'oversocialised agent', the theoretical weight they place on consciousness neglects the socially shaped somatic bases of action and structure, and results in an undersocialised view of the embodied agent. If the relationship between socialisation and agency needs analysing in terms of embodiment as much as in terms of the cognitive internalisation of norms and values, however, there are good reasons for structuration theory and analytical dualism rejecting attempts to ground subsequent notions of the embodied agent they may develop in dominant, static notions of the habitus. These minimise creativity and make it difficult to analyse social change. An important challenge for future reconceptualisations of the structure/agency divide, then, is to construct a sociology which recognises the significance for human agency of a socially shaped form of embodiment, yet which refuses to make the embodied actor a mere product of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the development of social network analysis, tracing its origins in classical sociology and its more recent formulation in social scientific and mathematical work. It is argued that the concept of social network provides a powerful model for social structure, and that a number of important formal methods of social network analysis can be discerned. Social network analysis has been used in studies of kinship structure, social mobility, science citations, contacts among members of deviant groups, corporate power, international trade exploitation, class structure, and many other areas. A review of the formal models proposed in graph theory, multidimensional scaling, and algebraic topology is followed by extended illustrations of social network analysis in the study of community structure and interlocking directorships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the contours of current, practical explanatory problems in stratification theory showing the similarity of issues in apparently diverse approaches, both Marxist and non- Marxist. There are two related purposes. The first is to show the specific nature of the current crisis, locating paninular explanatory failures. The second is to illustrate the more general issue of the way in which the central epistemology of self-conscious social science derives from and describes failures in social scientific practice. This is well illustrated in the response to current problems. Both purposes are served by Laying bare the procedures by which attempts are made to convert the contradictions inherent in explanatory failures into contradictory features of social experience which could be explained by consistent theories. Contradiction is thus, apparently, removed from its role in specifying the need for theoretical development, to encapsulating the processes by which current social arrangements are reproduced. However, we show that despite initial plausibility such attempts merely displace explanatory contradictions rather than solve them. The attempts are justified by an explicit or implicit action frame of reference which, though it is central to abstract discussions of the nature of social science, is invoked in practical social science only in circumstances of explanatory failure in an unproductive attempt to insulate the theories from the consequences of their failure. Productive social science is the resolution of contradictions in the transformation of theoretical objects and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the sociological importance of popular class imagery has gained considerable attention in recent years, much empirical research continues to interpret class identifications and conceptions of class structure as evidence of fundamental class perspectives. This paper challenges the underlying assumptions of this position by directly examining popular sentiments about class and inequality. The results show that neither nominal class affiliations, nor conceptions of class structure, encompass ideologically homogeneous perspectives. Working and, especially, middle class identifications embrace diverse class sentiments, and these discrepancies within class affiliations are reinforced by differences in political preferences. Similarly, conceptions of a dichotomous class structure are not inevitably associated with particular class sentiments any more so than are conceptions of society as a graded hierarchy. In modem societies, where many traditional, ascriptive class barriers, distinctions and privileges have been eroded, class assumes a more fluid and indefinite meaning in social consciousness, diluting the links between class affiliations, conceptions of social structure, and class sentiments proper. In essence, class sentiments cannot be taken for granted, and require systematic investigation in their own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article commences with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the `sociology of sociology' enterprise. It is argued that a careful use of the approach can be illuminating in so far as it relates perceived internal contradiction in a given work to the wider intellectual milieux. The first section deals with the way in which some writers have depicted the strains between individuals and their worlds. I then go on to examine the way in which George Brown and his co-workers have chosen to explain the relationship between the `social structure' and the aetiology of depression in women. There then follow two sections dealing with the ambivalent relationship between two strands in Brown's work a the impulse of `romanticism' and the constraint of `classicism'. This ambivalence it is argued, derives from his assumptions regarding the nature of man and scientific method. The paper concludes with an examination of the way in which an adherence to a `scientific' methodology negates the `romantic', political implications he claims for his work. 1 do not offer any alternative research strategies, but simply point out that a more self-consciously `political' theory is required with a lesser dependence on clinical classification, if we are to understand the social nature of mental illnesses such as depression in the hope of finding socio-political remedies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his discussion of the peace movement, Artur Meier (International Sociology 3: 77-87) put forward a number of interesting sociological arguments and outlined a programme for future research. Using CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) as a case study and drawing upon an accumulation of British research, this paper follows Meier's research recommendations and attempts to answer some of Meier's questions. It is shown that, contrary to Meier's beliefs, CND is a remarkably homogeneous and class-bound mass social movement. It is argued that a focus on the component parts of the peace movement necessarily leads to the political sociology of nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment in different industries and sectors of the economy influences the socio-economic status, occupational prestige, income and social mobility of individuals irrespective of characteristics such as class, education, gender, social background etc. In order to prove this claim, the paper places social mobility, class structure transformations and socio-economic achievement in their economic context characterised by the industrial and sectoral composition. The consequences of an individual's location in a so defined economic setting constitute the main topic of the analysis. The addition of a structural economic dimension increases our ability to explain these processes. Thus, the economic structure, defined in terms of industries and sectors, has to be interpreted as an additional dimension of social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt to conceptualize social structure must ultimately confront the dilemma posed by the problem of agency. The emerging consensus among sociologists is that society consists of both powerful, determining structures and actors that possess a degree of efficacy, freedom, and creative independence. This paper is an attempt to aid in developing an approach to role theory that is more versatile and more capable of addressing the agency-structure duality. First, a definition of role as a "cultural object" is proposed. This new conceptualization views roles as resources in the production of both agency and structure. Second, two dimensions of role variance are introduced: role type and role use. It is argued that this distinction between the types of resources and the uses of resources can serve as a theory of the middle range, directing and enhancing empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural explanations of the production of inequality in organizations often mimic economics in their choice of both variables and theoretical accounts. The "new structuralism" typically has neglected important social psychological processes such as social comparison categorization, and interpersonal attraction and affiliation. This paper illustrates how some basic social psychological tenets can substantially enrich the analysis of the division of labor in organizations, the assignment of wages to positions, and the process through which individuals are matched with work roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that people are aware of who is affiliated with whom in their immediate social world. Their perceptions of the patterning of affiliation, however, do not correspond to the patterning actually displayed by interacting humans. Affiliation is not categorical; perceptions of affiliation are, however. On the basis of experimental evidence about errors in learning simple social structures, a theory that accounts for this discrepancy is proposed. This theory suggests that people impose a categorical form on noncategorical affiliation patterns by a process of "filling in the blanks" in their experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using as data videotapes of conversation in natural settings, this paper investigates (1) how displaying uncertainty is organized as interactive activity, (2) how this activity can be used to modify the participation framework of the moment, (3) the consequences this has for subsequent interaction and (4) how such events can invoke larger social identities in the midst of moment to moment interaction. Alternative syntactic and paralinguistic techniques for displaying uncertainty make relevant different types of responses from recipients. Such structure provides speakers with resources for shaping emerging interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier attempts to define visual sociology have acknowledged that there is no real need to define visual sociology other than for bureaucratic legitimization: heads of departments want to see on paper what their staff members are teaching and what their students are studying; chairmen of research committees want to feel comfortable that research money is well spent. In a world of words, visual sociologists can do their work only to the extent that visual sociology is recognized by men of letters. This description is at least imaginative, but it limits the label of visual sociologists to those interested in photography. Michael Hill takes a broader view. He accentuates the relationship between sociologists and the visual arts, by defining the field as: "Exploration of the reflexive relationships between social structures, on the one hand, and the choice, apprehension, perception, cognition, and creation of visual imagery, on the other." There is no doubt that many other definitions and descriptions can be formulated and will be formulated in the future. It should be clear, however,that definitions, besides being instrumental in the communication between scholars, may also have a stultifying effect.

To fully comprehend changes in the process of educational attainment in a Society, we must acknowledge changes in the social structure. This paper examines changes in the Dutch educational attainment process over a 25-year period. We compare the attainment levels of two generations of students, those born around 1940 and those born around 1965. The analysis is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, we use a variant of multiple correspondence analysis to determine whether changes in the Dutch systems of labor, welfare, and education have affected levels of attainment. In the second stage, we measure changes in the attainment process using a simple version of the Wisconsin model. Results of the first analysis show that changes in Dutch society have affected the educational attainment of certain groups. For example, the modernization of agriculture has had a positive effect on the attainment of farmer's children, and the extension of the welfare system has had a negative effect on the attainment of children from welfare families. The results of the second analysis show that there has been considerable change in the attainment process. The effect of achievement score on selection into secondary school has increased, and the effects of sex and residence have decreased. However, this increase in meritocratic selection has been offset by an increase in the effect of social class on achievement score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores in particular the source of the feelings expressed in sport contexts and the processes of their amplification. Sport activities acquire their significance as collective representations through which people represent to themselves in symbolic form the power of the social groups in which they live, their structures and their moral codes. In so doing, they help to create and sustain and, at the same time, become subject to the influence of the social arrangements to which such symbolic structures relate. The emotions engendered may be amplified through processes of ritual and taboo and the excitement generated by sport encounters, thus leading to an experience of sport as sacred and radically separate from the flow of profane or 'normal' life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simplistic either/or notions of "culture versus social structure" have impeded the development of a broader theoretical context from which to examine questions raised by the continuing debate on the "ghetto underclass." In this paper I present a framework that integrates social structural and cultural arguments. I hope elaboration of this framework can move social scientists beyond the narrow confines of the underclass debate in two ways: (1) by outlining empirical and theoretical issues that guide further research, and (2) by suggesting variables that have to be taken into account to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of one of the most important domestic problems in the last quarter of the twentieth century--the rise of social dislocations in inner-city ghettos.

Many theories address the problem of how a social structure affects the experiences and behaviors of its members This paper offers a network-exchange theory to solve this problem. Previous research has shown that the nature and outcomes of negotiations among individual or corporate actors can be inferred from their network positions. The impact of this research has been limited because its theory does not enable the researcher to locate power positions in the networks. We offer a theory that is both consistent with all previously reported experimental research and is generalized to conditions not considered by other formulations. In addition to supporting derived hypotheses pertaining to network-based power, our experiments demonstrate, among other things, that certain unstable networks break down to form stable substructures and that some networks contain overlapping but autonomous domains of power and exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article throws light on William H. Sewell, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, the Recipient of the 1988 Cooley-Mead Award. The Cooley-Mead Award is given annually by the Section on Social Psychology of the American Sociological Association; it is made on the basis of lifetime contributions to social psychology, recognizing distinguished long-term contributions to the intellectual and scientific advancement of social psychology. Sewell has made his primary research and scholarly contributions in the study of socialization, social structure and personality, and the role of social psychological factors in social stratification and inequality, as well as in the application of empirical quantitative methods of research. One of Sewell's earliest and most significant contributions to the understanding of socialization processes occurred with the publication of his 1952 paper, "Infant Training and the Personality of the Child," published in the American Journal of Sociology and later reprinted in six or more books of readings or sourcebooks on the sociology of the family.