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This paper examines Charles Tilly's relationship to the schools of thought known as historicism and critical realism. Tilly was committed to a social epistemology that was inherently historicist, and he increasingly called himself a 'historicist.' The 'search for grand laws in human affairs comparable to the laws of Newtonian mechanics,' he argued, was a 'waste of time' and had 'utterly failed.' Tilly's approach was strongly reminiscent of the arguments developed in the first half of the 20th century by Rickert, Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke for a synthesis of particularization and generalization and for a focus on 'historical individuals' rather than abstract universals. Nonetheless, Tilly never openly engaged with this earlier wave of historicist sociology, despite its fruitfulness for and similarity to his own project. The paper explores some of the possible reasons for this missed encounter. The paper argues further that Tilly's program of 'relational realism' resembled critical realism, but with main two differences: Tilly did not fully embrace critical realism's argument that social mechanisms are always co-constituted by social meaning or its normative program of explanatory critique. In order to continue developing Tilly's ideas it is crucial to connect them to the epistemological ideas that governed the first wave of historicist sociology in Weimar Germany and to a version of philosophical realism that is interpretivist and critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Using social capital theory (SCT), the purpose of this research is to determine the success of social networking in societies that may be lower in social capital, for example in Poland, versus those which are higher in social capital, such as the USA. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a partial least squares approach with a cross-cultural sample. The complete sample consists of 556 participants for this study across the USA (n = 258) and Poland (n = 298). Findings: Results indicate that social media success is lower in Poland and that this result is related to lower social networking capital in Polish society. However, the proposed model shows that social media functionality can overcome some of the barriers. Research limitations/implications: Limitations include a very specific set of countries rather than a larger set of countries and sample, survey methodology which could be augmented with a mixed methods approach and convenience sampling which ensured homogeneity and matching. Practical implications: Based on this research, media designers should attempt to keep information quality high but even more importantly, they should increase interactivity. For Poland in particular, well-designed interactivity can mitigate societal barriers to success of social media, as it can enhance trust in such platforms. Social implications: Because of Poland's history of more than 40 years of communism, the newer generations may eventually become more adaptive to social networking tools and such acceptance could lead to greater social capital, which is important for Polish society from a business perspective as well. Originality/value: The most important contribution of this research is that it theoretically and empirically establishes the importance of SCT in relation to social networking across two different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the collective fraudulent behaviors taking place during the residential real estate bubble in the United States from 2002 to 2006 and the influence of others' choices on decision making leading to a herd mentality. The antecedents of collective fraud are discussed in terms of the sociological theory behind human herding and the fraudulent behaviors during the real estate bubble are examined. Using archival witness testimony as a primary basis for analysis, this paper argues that without wide-spread collective fraud, the bubble may not have developed and the herd mentality may have dissipated without the consequences of financial disaster. The aim of an analysis of this nature is to offer a plausible explanation of some of the preconditions to the event under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1885 and 1930, as sociology was becoming an academic discipline, sociology was also being practiced intelligently, innovatively, and self-consciously outside the academy in the social settlements that grew up in America's major cities. In this paper, we first define and give a brief overview of the settlement movement in America; second, we show how the settlement workers were sociologists in their self-definition and action and in their relations with other sociologists; third, in the body of the paper, we describe the sociology done by the settlements in terms of the empirical research they undertook and the theory they created. Our argument is that settlement sociologists produced empirical studies that were both substantively significant and methodologically pioneering; that they did so in terms of a coherent social theory unique in its focus on "the neighborly relation"; and that both their research and theory were part of a critical, reflexive, and activist sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a British psychiatrist's personal reflection of the treatment of homeless people in American societies. Drawing upon theories of social distance, exclusion, discrimination and internalised stigma, this reflective piece suggests that homelessness is one price that certain societies pay to invest in the notion of individualised success and self-sufficiency. In reflecting on his own dissonance, the author argues that these societal processes exert a powerful influence on us as individuals, even if we as psychiatrists might think that our understanding confers on us a certain level of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current vision of the profession of social work embodied in its great and little traditions. It advocates incorporating the great and little traditions of our profession in the conceptualization of the educational continuum. It advocates use of a competence-oriented model to define outcomes for each level of the continuum and to design educational programs to meet those outcomes. Finally, it advocates blending the great and little traditions of the profession in the educational designs developed at each level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion studies of the "adoption of innovation" can potentially provide a basis for a quantitative, empirically-based theory of social change. However, before significant advances can be made in this direction, rigorous attention must be directed toward clarifying the meaning of the principal concepts of diffusion studies and toward increasing consistency in the use of standardized terms from one writer to another. Also, theoretical concepts from diffusion research need to be linked to more general sociological theory, insofar as this is available. The present paper suggests possible ways in which these tasks can be undertaken. It makes use of mass communication data on the diffusion of the major media through the American society to illustrate the advantages of the conceptual framework which it proposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the belief of many who have read George Homans' recent works, he is not the first sociologist to make explicit use of the concept of exchange. From 1883 to 1885 Albert Chavannes published in The Sociologist a series of papers titled "Studies in Sociology" which treated "The Law of Exchange" and three other social laws. Chavannes' use of the exchange concept was very similar to Homans'. Also, Chavannes emphasized the importance of a systematic empirical sociology but did not contribute to it as Homans has done. This comparison of the two men fills a gap in the history of American sociology and puts Homans' recent contributions in historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sections planned for the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society in December 1945 are Social Research, Social Theory, Social Psychology, Population Sociometry, Community and Ecology, Family Criminology, Political Sociology, Educational Sociology, and General Sessions. In addition to these formal sections, members may submit papers for possible inclusion under a special category, "Contributed Papers." The membership the Committee to be in charge and the final date for submitting proposed papers will be announced in a subsequent issue of the journal "American Sociological Review."

The author argues that play always occurs within a social context and in relation to the various cultures that coexist within the classroom and the school setting. She uses Vygotsky’s definition of play as dramatic or make-believe play for preschool children, and she applies Vygotskian and post-Vygotskian theories, including Daniil Elkonin’s categories of play, to examine mature and immature play among preschool children. She describes case studies of duallanguage learners (DLLs) and English-only (EO) preschoolers (who need more time and scaffolding to acquire mature, make-believe play) along with those of reluctant players. She also promotes Bodrova and Leong’s observation and assessment measure, PRoPELS, for teachers and researchers seeking to help children reach a mature level of play in early childhood classrooms. She concludes with suggestions for supporting such mature play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has several objectives. First, it demonstrates the utility of employing an array of metatheoretical tools (paradigm, paradigm bridging micro -- macro, integrated paradigm, theoretical syntheses) to analyze the recent history of mainstream American sociological theory. Second, it shows that we have moved through three rather well defined epochs in sociological theory over the last three decades and are entering a fourth. Third, it demonstrates that the trend in recent years has been away from theoretical separatism and exclusivity, and toward theoretical synthesis and integration. Finally, and relatedly, the integrated sociological paradigm that I sketched a decade ago, or at least something very much like it, it shown to be now much closer to being a reality, perhaps even a defining reality, in sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the manner in which ethnicity has affected the course of American and Canadian party politics. Specifically, the paper tries to demonstrate that although the social processes involved in the migration of large numbers of ethnics have been relatively similar in both societies, the manner in which the social reality of ethnicity has affected the political structures therein has been quite different. Thus, although successive immigrant groups became the chief political resource of the great American urban party machines, they were able to use the existing political structures for their own purposes. Ethnic groups have derived psychological and more tangible benefits, such as public and party office positions, and have strongly affected the foreign and domestic policy positions of the two major parties. In contrast, Canadian party leaden historically have been able to exploit ethnic cleavages, but rarely have had to play the game of ethnic politics in the maimer of their American counterparts. In fact, ethnicity continues to strongly affect American political structures even as it moves into the realm of an index of more important social facts, while Canadian political structures have remained relatively impervious to ethnic groups despite the fact that ethnicity continues to be a factor of major importance in Canadian social organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy PointsCountries have adopted different strategies to support aging populations, which are broadly reflected in social, economic, and contextual environments. Referred to as "societal adaptation to aging," these factors affect countries' capacity to support older adults.Results from our study show that countries with more robust societal adaptation to aging had lower depression prevalence. Reductions in depression prevalence occurred among every investigated sociodemographic group and were most pronounced among the old‐old.Findings suggest that societal factors have an underacknowledged role in shaping depression risk. Policies that improve societal approaches to aging may reduce depression prevalence among older adults. Context: Countries have adopted various formal and informal approaches to support older adults, which are broadly reflected in different policies, programs, and social environments. These contextual environments, broadly referred to as "societal adaptation to aging," may affect population health. Methods: We used a new theory‐based measure that captured societal adaptation to aging, the Aging Society Index (ASI), which we linked with harmonized individual‐level data from 89,111 older adults from 20 countries. Using multi‐levels models that accounted for differences in the population composition across countries, we estimated the association between country‐level ASI scores and depression prevalence. We also tested if associations were stronger among the old‐old and among sociodemographic groups that experience more disadvantage (i.e., women, those with lower educational attainment, unmarried adults). Findings: We found that countries with higher ASI scores, indicating more comprehensive approaches to supporting older adults, had lower depression prevalence. We found especially strong reductions in depression prevalence among the oldest adults in our sample. However, we did not find stronger reductions among sociodemographic groups who may experience more disadvantage. Conclusions: Country‐level strategies to support older adults may affect depression prevalence. Such strategies may become increasingly important as adults grow older. These results offer promising evidence that improvements in societal adaptation to aging—such as through adoption of more comprehensive policies and programs targeting older adults—may be one avenue to improve population mental health. Future research could investigate observed associations using longitudinal and quasi‐experimental study designs, offering additional information regarding a potential causal relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following contribution analyzes the controversies surrounding the so-called cancel culture, which arose within the "culture wars" in the United States. These wars pit ultraconservative and anti-liberal movements, which support religious fundamentalism, xenophobia, and extreme nationalism, against movements that fight for social justice and minority rights. Cancel culture is part of this struggle and involves the practice of canceling, revising, or inventing aspects of the past to support dominant views in the present. This struggle is based on identity politics, interpreting social justice based on belonging to specific social groups, such as race, gender, and sexual orientation, often ignoring social class. The "third wave" of social justice movements develops in a context where equal rights are widely recognized, and anti-racism and inequality ideologies are hegemonic. This has transformed the nature and strategies of the movements, which now focus on symbolic and communicative actions, fueling political correctness in a more invasive way. The most wellknown cases of cancel culture also fuel conservative propaganda and provide them with the opportunity to present themselves as defenders of free speech. From the perspective of social sciences and anthropology, the phenomenon of cancel culture raises two aspects of interest: the first concerns the influence of activism on social theory and research methodology, which can lead to ideological caricatures; the second concerns the creation of an atmosphere of suspicion, accusations, and confessions in public spheres, which connects to the Puritan roots of Anglo-American culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout my childhood and adolescence relocating was a common event for my family and me. Moving around influenced my perceptions of the world around me and views of myself in numerous ways. The fact that my family and I lived predominantly outside of the United States added an additional layer to my experiences. Eventually, I learned that there was a term for my nomadic lifestyle and that people all over the world shared relatively similar experiences. These experiences included culture shock in one's own county and only relative notions of home. "Third culture kids" are individuals who have spent a significant portion of their lives outside of their country of origin. In this paper, using previous research on Third Culture Kids (TCKs), my own experiences transitioning up overseas and moving back to the United States, and micro and macro sociological theories, I explore my perceptions of self and my relationships, as well as my broad view of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I reflect on the ways elements of Robin M. Williams Jr.’s research agenda might be carried forth in a meaningful way to sociological studies of twenty-first-century phenomena—in particular identifying the ways in which the facts of human interaction, of human expectation, and of human influence shapes outcomes of significance for our present, our future, and, therefore, our past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I propose a generational model of continuity and change in social movements. Building on political generation and cohort replacement theories, I offer three propositions about generational processes in social movements: (1) The collective identity of an activist cohort remains consistent over time, contributing to movement continuity; (2) cohorts construct different collective identities based on the external contexts and internal conditions of the movement at the time they enter; (3) cohort replacement contributes to change in social movements. These three generational processes interact with organizational factors and political opportunity structures to shape movement continuity and change. I illustrate these propositions by drawing on an in-depth case study of the women's movement from 1969 to 1992 in Columbus, Ohio, and I suggest key questions about generational processes in other cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to uncover the mytho-symbolic parallels between the social-psychological theories of noted sociologist W.I. Thomas and the vision of moral-religious transformation recorded in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Thomas' emphasis on the "definition of the situation," precise stages of moral development, and the four wishes are seen to be derived from Bunyan's themes of spiritual instruction along Christian's journey, his progress through various stages of sanctification, and the various spiritual polarities established by Bunyan as structuring principles of his text. Thomas is understood to have distorted Bunyan's vision of ultimate transcendence by equating salvation with adoption of the Protestant ethic and its institutional context of the American political and economic status quo.
The present essay attempts to demonstrate that W.I. Thomas' classic analysis of the cultural life of Polish immigrants, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, similarly devalued traditional peasant morality and called for its complete transformation in the direction of middle-class Protestant moral strictures. Furthermore, Thomas' analysis will be seen to have utilized John Bunyan's classic narrative of religious conversion, The Pilgrim's Progress, as its implicit structural myth, adopting specific themes and symbols from The Pilgrim's Progress to characterize the Polish immigrant, like Christian, as abandoning a morally retrograde milieu, undertaking a dangerous journey in search of moral improvement and, according to specific stages of conversion, discovering a morally higher way of life in a new place. As with Watson's behaviorism, Thomas' analysis sought to enhance the moral stature of an increasingly defensive Protestant elite even while denigrating the moral character of the new immigrant life in the new American cities.
In this analysis we have tried to uncover the extensive mytho-symbolic connections between W.I. Thomas' sociology of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a paper that offers an alternative explanation for the purported inability to make better use of the expanded productive capability which provides the base for an "affluent" life style. It is suggested that inability to understand the ethical questions raised by a high rate of economic growth and failure to make the institutional adjustments that would humanize the contemporary economic process derive in part from neglected but critical developments in economic thought and social philosophy. Now according to those who are critical of the life style of affluent America, it is obvious that economic activity as carried out in contemporary society does not achieve that ideal terminus which, according to the philosophic presuppositions of classical economics, ought to be the end result of such activity. As a matter of historical fact, the economy seems to have been forced into a developmental path which permits economic activity to escape its proper subordination to the "good life" of man. Theologically, one might argue that this tendency for economic activity to degenerate into a process which degrades man is but part of that tragic train of events which entered human history as the consequence of sin.

In the U.S. sociological theory is the most popular course that majority of students in sociology, take as undergraduates. The central reason being that many students perceive theory as what a "medicinal" class--one that must be taken, and it usually carries the vague promise that in the future this will make them better sociologists. However, it is ironic that in a discipline that generally exhorts its members to understand the subjective worlds of concrete actors, little attempt is made to understand the meaning of a given course from the students' perspective. But this can actually work to the theory teacher's advantage. The students' levels of expectation about the class will be quite low at first. This means that any victory in generating interest is amplified. Furthermore being carefully attentive to the students' increasing participation, one can usually notice small signs of pride of accomplishment during the class. At this point, students can begin to form an intersubjective relationship, not only with their classroom peers and the teacher, but with the text itself.

This article introduces the December 1, 1973 issue of the journal Law & Society Review. The article titled "Toward a Comparative Theory of the Dispute Process," by professor Richard Abel, reflects the concern of people with the search for comprehensive social theories of law. Abel's paper seems to be the most ambitious attempt so far to provide a theoretical framework for the study of dispute processing, a term which comprehends much of the legal process. It provides a challenging agenda for research on dispute processing institutions and an example of comparative theory that may be richly suggestive for the study of other aspects of legal process. Edward Belier's article "The Rhode Island Supreme Court" offers a rare close-up of workings of an appellate court at the upper end of the U.S. legal system. Lynn Mather's account of a public defender's office provides with a picture of the criminal process at the field level. Each combines attention to the distinctive characteristics of the institution under study with sensitivity to the range of variation among other institutions.

Cultural differences between Japanese and American managers are frequently cited as a major cause of problems in Japanese-American joint ventures. Further clarification of this widespread belief is obtained by focusing upon the epistemological foundation of each culture. Problems are discussed which affect selection of partners, negotiation of contract, and daily operation of the venture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the topics discussed in the journal about governmental programs and their relationships to the structure and functions of the family in the U.S. Each article gives serious attention to current government programs and their historical antecedents, philosophies of the programs and issues in their development and direction, impact of changes in family life on the programs, and impact of the programs on family life. Each author selected the topic he considered the most significant legislation in a specific area and the issues which he considered important and relevant.

The article presents a report of the Section on Theoretical Sociology, a committee of the American Sociological Association of the U.S. The Section has confined its activities to the presentation of programs at the Annual Meeting. For the 1970 meetings John McKinney developed two sessions: one on "New Perspectives on Max Weber" was chaired by Talcott Parsons and involved the contributions of Benjamin Nelson, Vatro Murvar, Thomas Burger, and Vytautas Kavolis; the other on "Problems of the Interface Between Theory and Methodology" was chaired by John McKinney and consisted of presentations by Karl Schuessler, Edgar Borgatta, Norman Denzin, and Frank Young. For the 1971 meetings Peter Blau has organized two sessions. The first will be a panel discussion on "Contrasting Approaches to Social Theorizing." The other session comprises four invited papers on the general topic "Social Theory and Research." The contributors will be Richard Emerson, Hubert Blalock, Morris Zelditch, and Peter Park. The issue of what activities other than annual program sessions should be undertaken by the Section will in great likelihood rise again at the next Council Meeting and at the Business Meeting.

The seventh annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Conference was held in New Haven, Connecticut., April 18th and 19th, with over a hundred persons in attendance. The central topic of the Conference was Social Theory and the Social Order. The majority of the sessions centered around a discussion of Capitalism, Fascism, Socialism, and Communism as divergent social orders. Among others who read papers dealing with this general question were Theodore Abel, Joseph Folsom, Scott Nearing, H.A. Miller, Harry Ladler, and Roger Baldwin. Additional sections were devoted to social economics, religion and the social order, social work, the nature of sociology, and education in relation to the social order. At the annual banquet addresses were delivered by James W. Woodward, the retiring president, on "Some Implications from Sociology for the Social Order," and Harry Elmer Barnes, "History and the Problem of the Social Order."

Land cover maps reasonably depict areas that are strongly converted by human activities, but typically are unable to resolve low-density but widespread development patterns. Data products specifically designed to resolve land uses complement land cover datasets and likely improve our ability to understand the extent and complexity of human modification. Methods for developing a comprehensive land use classification system are described, and a map of land use for the conterminous United States is presented to reveal what we are doing on the land. The comprehensive, detailed and high-resolution dataset was developed through spatial analysis of nearly two-dozen publicly-available, national spatial datasets – predominately based on census housing, employment, and infrastructure, as well as land cover from satellite imagery. This effort resulted in 79 land use classes that fit within five main land use groups: built-up, production, recreation, conservation, and water. Key findings from this study are that built-up areas occupy 13.6% of mainland US, but that the majority of this occurs as low-density exurban/rural residential (9.1% of the US), while more intensive built-up land uses occupy 4.5%. For every acre of urban and suburban residential land, there are 0.13 commercial, 0.07 industrial, 0.48 institutional, and 0.29 acres of interstates/highways. This database can be used to address a variety of natural resource applications, and I provide three examples here: an entropy index of the diversity of land uses for smart-growth planning, a power-law scaling of metropolitan area population to developed footprint, and identifying potential conflict areas by delineating the urban interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctrinally, a precedent is a case of the same or higher court that furnishes an authoritative rule for the determination of the case at hand, either because the facts are alike, or, if the facts are different, because the principle that governed the first case is applicable to the different facts. In this article I try to free precedent form the dominant doctrinal view by offering a more intuitive conception: that to be precedent means to be treated as precedent. Put differently, I attempt to see precedent not as descriptive of a previous decision or rule but as the aggregate effect of responses to one or a series of court decisions in the legal community. I illustrate this viewpoint by developing a version of a response-dependent concept that incorporates our intuitive grasp of how precedent works. In the pursuit of this task I rely on the basic philosophical premises of response-dependence theory and on one paradigmatic response-dependent concept-the quality of being 'funny.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Tilly's work on repertoires of contention and social mechanisms was pathbreaking. In this article, I argue that his understanding of both concepts overlaps with social-theoretical work informed by the philosophical tradition of classical American pragmatism. There is no evidence that Tilly was influenced by pragmatism, but I argue that the overlap is substantial enough that large portions of his oeuvre can serve as illustrations of the explanatory power of pragmatist social science-and that Tilly's theorization of mechanisms in particular would have been even stronger had he engaged pragmatism directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the skills needed in teaching prison abolition to students in the U.S. The capability of the community to access on healthcare services, decent living and education are some ways to eliminate prison within the society. It highlights the importance of including prison abolition in the curricula in order to create a healthy and productive society. However, teachers must work with ambivalence in school and must analyze the emotions of good and bad students to efficiently teach abolition in the classroom.

The article presents a discussion of the 1969 sociological work "Black Awakening in Capitalist America," by Robert L. Allen, outlining its intellectual history and influence. Details are first given overviewing the book's' major thesis of internal colonialism theory. Comments are provided situating the book's socio-political assertions within the older tradition African American intellectual ideology since the early to mid-19th century. Discussion of the book's reception and continuing influence into the 21st century is then addressed.

The article examines the conceptions of American philosopher George Herbert Mead of internationalism and the international mind that he applies in his works including "The Psychological Bases of Internationalism," his 1917 Chicago Herald columns defending U.S. entry into the war, and his essay, "National-Mindedness and International Mindedness." It explores how the terms internationalism and the international mind rose within conversations among Anglo-American thinkers. It is inferred that Mead uses his conceptions in his own philosophical and sociological theorizing, which place him among the conservative internationalists during his time. It discusses the association of scholars Mitchell Aboulafia and Hans Joas with Mead's discussions of internationalism as historical context.

Nearly all of sociology's top graduate training programs require their students to complete one or two courses on sociological theory. The instructors for these courses have an extraordinary opportunity to affect the perspectives and practices of future generations of scholars. This study assesses the backgrounds, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of those instructors regarding different approaches to theorizing, with particular attention paid to topics related to science and to theory construction. Sociologists who teach required theory courses in the discipline's top fifty graduate training programs were asked a series of questions pertaining to their own training and to the courses they were teaching: attitudes toward different kinds of theorizing, perceptions of the role that theory plays in sociology and in science, and views on the nature of science. Results indicate a strong consensus on the most important classical theorists (Marx, Weber, and Durkheim). However, attitudes and practices varied widely in regard to other classical theorists, contemporary sociological theory, and the role of scientific standards in the development of sociological knowledge. The author explores some of the implications of these attitudes and practices. Keywords: theory; theory construction; theory training; science [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues for a paradigm shift in what counts as learning and literacy education for youth. Two related constructs are emphasized: collective Third Space and sociocritical literacy. The construct of a collective Third Space builds on an existing body of research and can be viewed as a particular kind of zone of proximal development. The perspective taken here challenges some current definitions of the zone of proximal development. A sociocritical literacy historicizes everyday and institutional literacy practices and texts and reframes them as powerful tools oriented toward critical social thought. The theoretical constructs described in this article derive from an empirical case study of the Migrant Student Leadership Institute (MSLI) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Within the learning ecology of the MSLI, a collective Third Space is interactionally constituted, in which traditional conceptions of academic literacy and instruction for students from nondominant communities are contested and replaced with forms of literacy that privilege and are contingent upon students' sociohistorical lives, both proximally and distally. Within the MSLI, hybrid language practices; the conscious use of social theory, play, and imagination; and historicizing literacy practices link the past, the present, and an imagined future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent discussions of the separation between economics and sociology in the United States highlight the way Talcott Parsons used Vilfredo Pareto's Trattato di Sociologia Generale to propose that economics study logical actions and sociology study nonlogical actions. This article argues instead that in Pareto's treatise: (1) sociology is a synthetic discipline concerned with the study of human society in general; (2) human behavior is nearly always logical from a subjective point of view; and (3) sociology studies both logical and nonlogical behavior judged from an objective viewpoint. Thus, Pareto is an important intellectual ancestor for economic sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay challenges those strains of contemporary social theory that regard romantic/sexual intimacy as a premier site of detraditionalization in the late modern era. Striking changes have occurred in intimacy and family life over the last half-century, but the notion of detraditionalization as currently formulated does not capture them very well. With the goal of achieving a more refined understanding, the article proposes a distinction between “regulative” and “meaning-constitutive” traditions. The former involve threats of exclusion from various moral communities; the latter involve linguistic and cultural frameworks within which sense is made of the world. Focusing on the U.S. case and marshaling various kinds of empirical evidence, the article argues that while the regulative tradition of what it terms lifelong, internally stratified marriage has declined in strength in recent years, the image of the form of couplehood inscribed in this regulative tradition continues to function as a hegemonic ideal in many American intimate relationships. Intimacy in the United States also remains beholden to the tradition of romantic love. That these meaning-constitutive traditions continue to play a central role in structuring contemporary intimacy suggests that detraditionalization involves the relative decline only of certain regulative traditions, a point that calls into question some of the normative assessments that often accompany the detraditionalization thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Since the 1960s, a variety of new ways of addressing the challenges of diversity in American society have coalesced around the term“multiculturalism.” In this article, we impose some clarity on the theoretical debates that surround divergent visions of difference. Rethinking multiculturalism from a sociological point of view, we propose a model that distinguishes between the social (associational) and cultural (moral) bases for social cohesion in the context of diversity. The framework allows us to identify three distinct types of multiculturalism and situate them in relation to assimilationism, the traditional American response to difference. We discuss the sociological parameters and characteristics of each of these forms, attending to the strength of social boundaries as well as to the source of social ties. We then use our model to clarify a number of conceptual tensions in the existing scholarly literature and offer some observations about the politics of recognition and redistribution, and the recent revival of assimilationist thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case studies and “small-N comparisons” have been attacked from two directions, positivist and incommensurabilist. At the same time, some authors have defended small-N comparisons as allowing qualitative researchers to attain a degree of scientificity, yet they also have rejected the case study as merely “idiographic.” Practitioners of the case study sometimes agree with these critics, disavowing all claims to scientificity. A related set of disagreements concerns the role and nature of social theory in sociology, which sometimes is described as useless and parasitic and other times as evolving in splendid isolation from empirical research. These three forms of sociological activity—comparative analysis, studies of individual cases, and social theory—are defended here from the standpoint of critical realism. In this article I first reconstruct, in very broad strokes, the dominant epistemological and ontological framework of postwar U.S. sociology. The next two sections discuss several positivist and incommensurabilist criticisms of comparison and case studies. The last two sections propose an understanding of comparison as operating along two dimensions, events and structures, and offer an illustration of the difference and relationship between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Second Vatican Council (1965), Catholic marital annulments have risen dramatically, especially in the United States. A comparison of American and international rates demonstrates that, consistent with supply-side theories of religion, annulment rates have risen only in countries where the Church competes with other religious institutions. However, supply-side theory cannot explain why the American rate is double that of other countries with competitive religious economies. Historical analysis suggests that the growing number, estrangement, organization, and mobilization of divorced American Catholics motivated the American Church to engage in more intense marketing of annulments. I therefore argue that another variable that incorporates these "qualities of the target market" should be considered in future analyses of religious marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is continued frustration over the failure of established social theory to be altered despite dramatic developments in women's lives and feminist theory. I argue that this process has been blocked by an overly static conception of society and gender itself. Close examination of the actual circumstances of African American and white women in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States reveals the relationship between gender and economic and political development has been a dynamic historical one, culminating recently in a radical transformation of women's lives and work. I develop the implications of this argument for older analytic divisions between work and home, or productive and reproductive labor, and for recent shifts in theory. Coherent grasp of the events currently altering women's lives provides a clear way to join gender with earlier theoretical concerns, as another moment of social transformation brought about by a still-unfolding process of economic and political development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edward Shils was a widely recognized but misunderstood thinker. The original contexts of his thought are not well understood and greatly distorted by associating him with the concerns of Parsons. Shils provides a fully comparable alternative to the thought of Habermas and Foucault, with essentially similar roots: practice theory, the dissolution of Marxism in the twenties, and Carl Schmitt. Though Shils was indebted to the American sociological tradition, with respect to these issues his sources were outside it: in Hendrik de Man, T. S. Eliot, and Michael Polanyi. It is shown how Shils responded to Schmitt's argument about the inherent conflict between democracy and liberalism in terms o fan account of civility and tradition, and how this argument results in a critique of Foucault, Habermas, and collectivistic liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within one decade of this moment, three dramatic examples of a social phenomenon assumed to reflect a breakdown of social order have occurred. The author wants to use those episodes, all of which have been described as forms of panic, to make some points about social order and its breakdown, the general theme of these meetings, about theories of collective behavior, and briefly about sociology as well. On Memorial Day weekend of 1977, just 10 years ago, more than 160 people died fleeing a fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club. On the plaza outside Riverfront Coliseum, just a few blocks distant, 11 young people were killed in December 1979 as part of a surge into a rock concert. And just two years ago, in March 1985, anxious depositors precipitated a statewide bank run by queuing outside the branches of Home State Savings Bank in Cincinnati Ohio, to withdraw funds threatened by the bank's reported losses. This article summarizes the author's studies of the three events, subjecting the popular myths and the social theory to the test of a confrontation with data. The author goes from these case studies to a more general discussion of social organization in such gatherings.

The article presents the author's opinion on the relationship of Alvin Gouldner with the Marxist tradition as a radical social theorist in America. To the extent that he employed Marxism as his own method, Gouldner resisted draping himself in the mantle of science; although, as we will note shortly, he was not entirely hostile to the scientific strain in Marxism, he saw himself as a reflexive Marxist not a scientific one. But the most fundamental and typically American absence at the heart of Gouldner's Marxism was his lack of faith in a concrete class, movement or party capable of revolutionizing society. In his controversial 1971 essay on The Politics of the Mind, published in expanded form in For Sociology, he distinguished between partisanship defined as attachment to a party or part of the larger interest and commitment, which meant an attachment to the larger interest itself. Although Gouldner always warned against any form of anti-intellectualism, there was a streak of characteristic American populist wariness about intellectual pretension in his work. Instead, Gouldner played Marxism off against the more academic tradition of sociology that dominated American mainstream social theory.

A dynamic, global, technology-driven economy is altering all facets of life including governments, families, and communities and even the ecosystems within which we live. Some trends, such as the aging of America, are well known but much of the future is very uncertain. Will new inventions, for example, radically alter the patterns of employment? One thing is certain: the environments of public organizations are replete with paradoxes. Administrators and practitioners of OD who are aware of the paradoxes might contribute to societal transformation by undergirding the "social philosophy" of democratic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of standardizing concepts in sociology is not new, but we have made little progress, despite the early hopes of such theorists as Durkheim and Weber. This article refutes the arguments of some who contend that we do not need standard concepts, we cannot make standard concepts, social phenomena are too complex and changeful sociologists are too individualistic and sociological concepts are too context-dependent. The author proposes that the American Sociological Association appoint a Committee on Basic Sociological Concepts to investigate and recommend the official adoption of a basic conceptual language in American sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents several letters to the editor about social theory. Criticism of the idea developed in an article about American automobiles; Defense of the criticism of his article about American automobiles; Applaud of an article about the debunking of ideology and conventional thinking by sociologists.

The article focuses on the fact that with regards to both China and 17th century Europe, the crucial feature of crises of modernization is their distinctive combination of eroding traditional institutional structures and disintegrating traditional philosophical rationalizations for social order. In part this combination is a result of men rejecting immunities and constraints set by traditionalism, in favor of their own vision and their own self-discipline. But such men are equally as much the product as cause of crises of modernization, since it is only when traditional institutions and rationales for them are undermined that the need is felt for new kinds of rigid self-control. Among both Chinese and American scientists, conception of science and its methods were shaped by and worked out on the site of concrete social conflicts and changes. In the U.S., these conflicts and changes were not part of the crises of modernization, but instead were a product of industrialization. The articulation of American image of science was important part of processes whereby the social roles of scientist and engineers were sharply altered in the direction of increasing professionalism.

The republication of Steven Cord's Henry George: Dreamer or Realist? makes available once more a work which dealt with insight and depth of analysis with the misconceptions, factual inaccuracies and offhand dismissals of the American economist and social philosopher's theories. Although he alienated many in the academic community, George attracted many leading scholars in it to significant research on basic problems of our times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]