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This article presents a step-by-step guide for the undergraduate instructor in how to launch a student journal. The authors describe their experiences over the past four years in publishing the student journal at Wayne County Community College in Detroit, Michigan. Though there were some problems and pitfalls, the authors concluded that it was a rewarding educational experience and strongly recommend its replication at other undergraduate institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comments on the works of sociologist Robert F. Winch regarding permanence and change in the American family. The author suggests that there may be two significant aspects of a network of extended kin in a nuclear family. One is the literality of kin contacts and other is the presence or absence of formal kin groupings.

This article focuses on the future of sociology archive as a discipline. The major U.S. university libraries now go to extraordinary lengths and expense to collect the papers of writers, even many who as yet have not been categorically identified as important. There is a serious lesson in this-one might even say, a vital one-for sociology as it confronts an uncertain future. As everyone of a certain age will recall, the saga of Roots, in book and television formats, single-handedly gave American blacks a collective sense of historical importance that up to that point was absent from mass culture. The new Holocaust Museum in Washington is the most eloquent and emotionally wracking contemporary expression of historical memory for public consumption on a grand scale. Other examples can be found at every juncture of the "culture wars" that have been raging in the United States since the 1960s. Every politically self-aware group is supposed to venerate its real or imagined past, both at individual and collective levels, not only because such joint expressions enhance self-conceptions but also owing to the strategic advantage.

The article documents the writings of sociologist Samuel Wilson Blizzard. Some of them are "The Attitudes of Rural and Urban High School Students Toward the Values of Rural Livings" published in 1946. "The Value of Man," published in February 1948. "Problems in Meeting Religious Needs in the Rural-Urban Fringe" an address given at the National Presbyterian Town and Country Conference, Champaign, Illinois. "Social Participation Patterns of Husbands and Wives Who Are Migrants in the City" published in 1952, "The Church and the Community: A Discussion Guide for Christian Action; and an Instructor's Manual," published in 1952, "The Rural Church and its Community Relations," a paper presented at the Rural Leadership Institute, University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture and Home Economics, Lexington, April 1953, "The Place of the Social Sciences in Theological Training for Rural Ministers, The Christian Mission in the Rural Social Process," (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., Department of Town and Country Church), October 1955; and many others.

In this article the author presents various topics published in the Winter 1952-53 issue of the journal "Public Opinion Quarterly." In the first paper published in the issue, Paul F. Lazarsfeld expresses the hope of American sociologists that international communications research can help to fill certain methodological and substantive gaps which have not yet been successfully bridged in the domestic sphere. He stresses particularly the opportunities open in this new field for bringing social researchers and policy makers closer together in their endeavors in the area of social progress. The reader may look at this paper as an expression of mature speculation about the opportunities, hopes, and dangers in the new field. In the next two sections, the author moves into the work-a-day realm, encountering the people who, in spite of all the handicaps of an ill-defined field, unproven methods, and shortage of trained personnel, have gone ahead and contributed substantively to international communications research. In the section on "Techniques" some very pertinent problems of methodology are frankly stated. The issue is concluded by a short report on the first meeting of the Committee on International Communications Research, which took place during the last annual convention of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

In 1945 Davis and Moore, following an earlier formulation by Davis, proposed a functional theory of stratification that was intended to account for what they contended was the "universal necessity" for social inequality in any social order. Beginning with an article by Tumin in 1953, the Davis-Moore theory elicited regular analysis, commentary, criticism, and debate through the 1970s. Although professional work on the theory has largely ceased since the late 1980s, the Davis-Moore theory remains perhaps the single most widely cited paper in American introductory sociology and stratification textbooks and constitutes "required reading" in hundreds, if not thousands, of undergraduate and graduate courses throughout the United States. The present paper traces the history of the debate and attempts to explain the theory's longevity and vitality in the face of what has amounted to largely negative assessments by other sociologists over the preceding fifty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the activities of various sociological organizations and departments of sociology in universities in the U.S. "Rural Sociology," a new journal to be published quarterly, is being established this year by the Section on Rural Sociology of the American Sociological Society. The managing editor of this journal, which is to be published by The Louisiana State University Press, is T. Lynn Smith of Louisiana State University. The annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Conference will be held on April 18 and 19 in New Haven, Connecticut. The central topic of the Conference will be Social Theory and the Social Order. The annual Spring meeting of the Ohio Sociological Society will be held in Columbus, Ohio, April 24 and 25, 1936. The Pacific Sociological Society held its Seventh Conference, together with Coast Economists, at Mills College in Oakland, California, December 27-28. In September 1935, E. D. Tetreau, formerly analyst with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at Ohio State University, accepted a position at the University of Arizona as rural sociologist on The Experiment Station staff.

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

The history of innovation as a category is dominated by economists and by the contribution of J. A. Schumpeter. This paper documents the contribution of a neglected but influential author, the American sociologist William F. Ogburn. Over a period of more than 30 years, Ogburn developed pioneering ideas on three dimensions of technological innovation: origins, diffusion, and effects. He also developed the first conceptual framework for innovation studies-based on the concept of cultural lags-which led to studying and forecasting the impacts of technological innovation on society. All in all, Ogburn has been as important to the sociology of technology as Robert K. Merton has been to the sociology of science and Schumpeter to the economics of technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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 article examines the success of The Sociological Quarterly in becoming more than a regional journal in the U.S. from 1960 to 1970. The journal Midwest Sociologist was an official semiannual publication of the Midwest Sociological Society. In the late 1950s, the need for revamping the form and content of the journal in order to accommodate a flow of papers became increasingly important. Accordingly, in 1960 the Midwest Sociologist became The Sociological Quarterly. The name chosen for the renovated journal was important for two reasons. First, the transition from a semiannual to a quarterly provided a publication outlet for qualified manuscripts that had been delayed or rejected due to space limitations. Second, the adoption of the title The Sociological Quarterly signified an attempt to avoid the regional connotations of the term Midwest and to initiate a journal of general interest and utility to sociologists of varying professional persuasions from all sections of the country. During the decade, the journal has been consistently publishing manuscripts from all parts of the country and can no longer be considered merely a regional journal of limited geographical scope. Data regarding the geographical sources of published papers indicate a steady tendency toward extraregionalism.

Tolbert H. Kennedy was an administrator and professor at Washington State University. 1944-1965. During that time this university reached rank three on the all-time list of schools producing doctoral-level black sociologists. Only the University of Chicago and Ohio State were more successful than Washington State in that respect. This paper contends Kennedy's is humanitarian interest in practical race relations, conditioned by his southern upbringing, led him to work privately in the production of potential leaders who would press for human equality. In so doing he showed teaching to be a relationship which enables teacher and learner to he mutually fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a paper on the three levels of value-judgment in sociology. The three levels are--value-judgments as objects of sociological research, value-judgments as postulates of sociology, and metasociological value-judgments. It is evident that the sociologist cannot avoid making metasociological value-judgments. Whoever carries on a sociological investigation makes the metasociological value-judgment that the problem he studies is worth studying. Whoever constructs a sociological system makes the metasociological value-judgment that this particular approach is worth while and significant. A little reflection will show that these value-judgments belong in an entirely different category from those which have been discussed. Those discussed previously ascribed some value to the phenomena which sociology studies to the present condition of race relations in the U.S., for example while metasociological value-judgments ascribe some value to sociology itself, to sociology in general or to some particular approach or application of sociology.

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]

The article presents information on "International Congress of Sociology," D. Gusti, President of the 14th International Congress of Sociology, urged American sociologists to participate as actively as possible in the Congress. If they can not attend it personally, he asked them to send their papers to be read at the Congress and to be published in the volume of the Proceedings of the Congress. He indicates that so far the number of American papers is much smaller than that from European countries.

During the 1973 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the author attended a roundtable discussion chaired by Professor Robert Friedrichs. The whole meeting was devoted to discussing the possibility of sociologist B.F. Skinner's influence emerging in the U.S. sociology, a topic that Friedrichs had explored in a paper he delivered earlier at one of the ASA sessions. In reference to the Skinnerian influence on sociology, the author criticizes sociologist Donald Tarter's article published in the November 1973 issue of the periodical "The American Sociologist," which stated that Friedrichs' eminence in the discipline of sociology and the Skinnerian influence is justified. The author's intention is to point out that Tarter's article is at best naive as regards his misunderstanding of sociology and that the presuppositions underlying his argument suggest an ideological position that can only be repugnant to anyone committed to a society that is as free and open as possible. The author substantiates his indictments by first commenting on what he believes to be Tarter's sociological naivety on the basis of a passage in which Tarter writes "Behavioral complexities never before thought possible have emerged in the form of pigeons playing ping-pong or chimps breaking through the communication barrier to man."

Despite the close resemblances evident in their major works, their critical stance and their politics, C. Wright Mills and Alvin Gouldner have received strikingly different responses from their sociological peers, and they now occupy very different places in the collective memory of the discipline. This intriguing discrepancy provides the basis here for a comparative case study that examines both ongoing commemorative practices and historical evidence. This paper shows how the sociological community has frequently and approvingly commemorated Mills through introductory textbooks, as well as reading lists for doctoral comprehensive examinations, awards in Mills' honor and biographies of Mills, while doing much less to preserve and promote the memory of Gouldner and his contributions to the field. In an effort to attain a better understanding of such differences, I compare the prescriptions that each advocated for the discipline, especially as these are expressed in Mills' Sociological Imagination and Gouldner's Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. The analysis emphasizes how Mills explicitly sought to move beyond sociology, in a narrow academic sense, and called for well-honed empirical endeavors with relevance for a variety of publics, whereas Gouldner proceeded largely as an academic theorist who demanded sociological-theoretical reform. Unlike Mills, he did not breach the gap between academia and the general public. These findings illustrate an apparent paradox, namely, that American sociology in the twenty-first century may reserve its most esteemed positions for internal critics who advocate movement beyond its contemporary confines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to his 1922 emigration to Europe and thence to the United States, Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin had an exceptional intellectual and political career in Russia and the Soviet Union (Sorokin , ; Johnston ; Krotov ). Indeed, he was among the early founders of the science of sociology in his native land, where, according to a relatively recent bibliography (Sorokin ), he produced 162 Russian-language publications between the ages of 21 and 33. This listing includes not only book reviews and journal articles, but also substantial monographs and a two-volume theoretical treatise. While still a relatively young man, Sorokin had thus gained widespread recognition as a scholar of the first rank. He was also the initial chairperson (from 1919 to 1922) of a fledgling department of sociology at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), an elected member of the national Constituent Assembly and an appointed staff member of the 1917 Provisional Government, the first democratic regime in Russia. This much would have sufficed for an entry in a sociological encyclopedia, and Sorokin's political career has few parallels in the history of the field, other than the involvement of Emile Durkheim in French educational policy and the participation of Max Weber in creating the Weimar Republic in Germany. Nevertheless sociologists in the United States and most western historians of the field have not yet appreciated the full influence of the formative period, especially from 1905 to 1922. Lacking familiarity with Russian culture of that era and knowing little about the larger Russian socio-historical milieu, its intellectual discourse and collective memory, they have not been able to comprehend Sorokin's outlook, behavior and professional output in the United States in relation to these earlier contextual factors. This is arguably a fundamental reason why many U.S. sociologists have tended to see Sorokin, especially since 1937, as a marginal figure and to regard his works largely as deviations from accepted social scientific practice. This paper will argue that a more adequate appreciation of Sorokin's background and early adult life illumines both stylistic features of his works in America and also places into proper perspective several of his substantive foci that did not accord with contemporary 'normal science' (Kuhn ). In short, despite his overall assimilation into American society and higher education, including his appointment at Harvard University and his election as president of the American Sociological Association, Sorokin should be understood in large measure as a life-long Russian intellectual. His was a Russian-born sensibility and consciousness-indeed a 'Russian soul'-so deeply ingrained that it stamped his entire professional career in the United States, including his published researches, his popular sociology and his university teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an introduction to the December 2010 issue of "American Sociologist," which focuses on sociologist Charles Tilly.

Research into immigration has for many years focused most of its attention on the issue of how immigrants adapt to host societies. This tendency is especially true in the work of sociologists. Yet if we acknowledge the growing ethnic diversity today in the United States and elsewhere, the most interesting questions arise as to how immigrants influence the host society -- not how they adapt to it. This paper proposes a sociological theory to account for such influence. For evidence it draws on a variety of empirical examples from research on ethnic communities in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Schutz's influence on American sociologists and sociology in the 1960s and 1970s is traced through the examination of the work of two of his students, Helmut Wagner and Peter Berger, and of Harold Garfinkel with whom he met and corresponded over a number of years. The circumstances of Schutz's own academic situation, particularly the short period of his academic career in the United States and his location at the New School, are examined to consider how and in what ways he was constrained from exerting an even wider influence. The two major areas of influence in American sociology that are examined are the sociology of knowledge and the early development of ethnomethodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is taken from Chapter 6 of the publication A Lucky Journey: The Sociological Enterprise, 1931-1980, which reflects on the progress of the American Sociological Review (ASR) as a publication from 1958 to 1960. The local editorial staff of the publication began with a contingent of ten scholars. These ten scholars included representatives of various sub-fields in sociology and of related discipline as well as specialists on Soviet Russia, Africa, India and Japan. Most of the day-to-day labor on the Review was done by editorial secretary Betty Vogel, Michael Olmsted, and their nominal boss. Michael Olmsted was more than a first-rate book review editor, he evaluated papers in his special fields with sagacity and designed an attractive cover to replace what had long been the dismal front of the publication. Solicitation of papers by prominent sociologists helped to upgrade ASR as a scholarly journal. Another change was the introduction of a division of the Review on the Profession which included not merely the obituaries or communications pertaining to the sociological guild, but both solicited submitted articles on the occupation itself. This innovation, according to the author, was consistent with his own growing interest in the sociology of sociology.

This paper discusses what a researcher can expect when doing qualitative research in an American Indian community. Despite an attempt to adequately prepare for fieldwork the author found that the research process differed in important respects from the qualitative methods literature. The paper chronicles key differences concerning gatekeepers and the research bargain, establishing rapport and gaining acceptance, the roles assigned to the researcher, the role of key informants and brokers, and several uniquely Indian processes the author experienced. The paper concludes with a summary of salient characteristics of research among American Indians and argues that such research takes longer, the research bargain is a matter of constant negotiation, gatekeepers are ubiquitous within the community, and the researcher needs to be prepared to make some accommodations to his or her hosts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T. Lynn Smith analysed the rural class structure in America on the basis of 1959 census data. This paper correlates the proportion of lower class population with the prevalence of corporate farming, based upon an analyses of the proposition of total state agricultural production accounted for by the 31,000 largest farms (r = .76%). The implications of these data are that, with progressive expansion of large scale agriculture, the American rural population will develop into what Smith identifies as the two-class system. Note is also taken of some regional variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American civil religion has been the subject of recent scholarly interest among American sociologists of religion, leading to a sociological debate. This paper examines the sociological literature concerning American civil religion in an attempt to order the literature into a coherent, comprehensive, and logical set of definitions and assumptions open to empirical investigation. Four basic propositions adapted from the work of John A. Coleman are framed to address the crucial questions most often asked by contemporary sociologists of American civil religion: (a) American civil religion is the religious symbol system which relates the citizen's role and American society's place in space, time, and history to the conditions of ultimate existence and meaning; (b) American civil religion is structurally differentiated from both the political community and the religious community; (c) American civil religion performs specialized religious functions performed neither by church nor state; and (d) the differentiation of American civil religion follows the general direction of cultural evolution. Review of the American civil religion literature reveals sufficient logical and empirical support for these propositions to recommend that they be used to guide further scientific inquiry.
This paper has attempted to trace the intellectual development of the concept, "American civil religion," and to organize theory and research about it into a set of testable propositions. A survey of the literature reveals that the current state of knowledge is primarily theoretical.
Probably the best-known sociological treatments of American civil religion (Robert Bellah, 1967, 1975), has stimulated the greatest amount of empirical research, but the best empirical test of the American civil religion propositions may not come from traditional modes of civil religion research. Symbolic studies, individual belief studies, and content analyses have typically been limited to a single... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on anthropological writings on Chicano studies between 1970 to 1984. Anthropologist Octavio Romano, and a sociologist, published a series of papers on the characteristics of Chicano studies which appeared in "El Grito," the Chicano journal they founded. The stance that has become prevalent in anthropological works on Chicanos faces two directions: looking inward toward the academic discipline itself, and looking out outward toward Anglo American society. Researchers have developed broad sketches of the characteristics and boundaries of regions and subregions within the area inhabited by people of Mexican ancestry.

When the notion that Quebec is a distinct society within Canada became the chief object of discord during the Meech Lake constitutional debate, sociologists were offered a golden opportunity to participate in shaping the evolving understandings that Canadians have of their country. But this opportunity was not grasped. This paper evaluates some of the discursive conditions that have produced the apparent indifference of Anglo-Canadian sociologists to this most crucial of sociological questions as it applies to their own country: what is a society? Of particular interest are the general underconceptualization in sociology of "society," and the conceptual confusion that links "society" to "nation," "state," and "country." Canada's political-economic autonomy relative to the United States is quite limited, and Canadian "sense of society" is vague and is challenged from within.

American society has moved away from the two societies, black and white, separate and unequal that highlighted the 1967 Presidential Commission Report -- evolving instead into a profusion of worlds reflecting various combinations of races, ethnicities and classes. This paper analyzes two groups -- the black middle class and the white underclass -- that emerged and grew after the report and defy much of the theorizing sociologists have produced on race and class. It argues that the black middle class and the white underclass reflect "interlocking categories of experience" that are unfamiliar. It encourages a new understanding that captures the reality of these race/class groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sociologists assert that community sentiments and community evaluations are important reflections of a society's social order. This paper examines the impact of personal and social attributes of urban dwellers, their perceptions of neighborhood characteristics, and their neighborhood-based social networks, as well as objective characteristics of their neighborhoods, on these two dimensions of people's local community. Using regression analysis on data collected in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, I find that locally-based social networks and perceptions of the neighborhood help explain community sentiments, whereas objective community characteristics and neighborhood perceptions are useful for explaining community evaluation. Differences between the Indianapolis and Pittsburgh analyses are used to suggest possible lines of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic employment depends on student enrollment. The bull market in higher education in the U.S. that ran from the mid-thirties to the present has passed its crest. In fact, it appears from a recent release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that, while college enrollments did not drop absolutely until just this year, they began to recede relatively four years ago. The proportion of white high school graduates who entered college reached 57 percent in 1968, then began to fall, until by September of 1972 it had dropped to 49 percent. This paper was specifically commissioned to suggest some changes in the training of sociologists designed to increase sociological opportunities. Another way of stating the article's purpose is to answer the question on the difference between the training for non-academic positions and training for academic positions. Far from presenting temptations to dilute academic training for sociological research, preparation for the role of non-academic sociologist would take for granted all usable benefits that conventional research training has to offer, then add to it in a number of important respects. The activities in which sociologists have hitherto been employed within non-academic institutions have been primarily in research and research will figure heavily in their activity in the future-with certain qualifications. The article, therefore, focuses on just those types and methods of research which are relevant and important to these institutions, in preparation for which current academic training needs to be substantially supplemented.

The possibility that institutional participation at the American Sociological Association meetings could serve as an index of the quality of graduate sociology departments is explored in this article. It seems reasonable to anticipate some degree of positive association between these variables because participation at this level is informally recognized by sociologists as "some" measure of individual prestige within the profession, session participation generally involves a competitive element, and session chairpersons and moderators are often among the more experienced, recognized, and productive members of the profession. Most of the studies that have been concerned with the quality of graduate sociology departments have utilized productivity and prestige indices that are time consuming to calculate and that assume the index has a history. But institutional representation at the national meeting is much easier to determine, a recurrent event, and not as dependent upon past performance.

There are five regional sociological societies in the United States which draw their memberships from the sociologists of every state except West Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan. These regional societies are the logical result of social, economic, and political changes which have been taking place in recent decades. The developments which have produced the region are by no means characteristic of the United States alone, but are evident throughout Western Europe, though there is much variation in form and manifestation in different countries. This paper attempts to focus one's knowledge of American regionalism upon the regional sociological society, its natural place and functions. The increase in mobility and the growth in the size of population agglomerations, with all that implies in the way of individual anonymity, has broken down the peculiar contacts that once made the community, the neighborhood, and other primary groups pertinent social units with areal extent. In fact, it is difficult to limit local communities. Cities expand into metropolitan areas and these merge into a region.

The article presents a paper concerned with the cultural factors involved in the life and death struggle of the Afro-American family to maintain itself as a socio-economic unit in an urban area of economic blight. The anthropological concept of culture has provided the sociologist with valuable insights and opened up a rich field of investigation. Consequently it was decided to use the cultural approach to a deeper understanding of the social problems of the present group. It is the writer's opinion, based on field experience with both immigrant and Afro-American groups, that many of the findings on cultural disorganization of the immigrant apply as well to particular Afro-American groups in the large city, but as yet there has been little systematic application of this knowledge to the problems of these groups. Both the recent or new immigrants and the Afro-Americans migrating from the South, were for the most part rural people forced to adjust to the complex life of the modern city. Both were forced by economic pressure and ethnocentric prejudice to settle in the transitional areas of the city.

This paper suggests the need for sociologists to think objectively and scientifically. According to the author, sociologists possess a certain methodology, a certain well-tried scientific technique for distinguishing between truth and falsehood in the studies they make. This method is characterized by objectivity. The author begins by describing the characteristics of scientific social thought and of what sociologists may call folk social thought. He aims to analyze and contrast the two methodologies. Next, the author tries to inquire why trained and competent social scientists lapse so frequently into folk thinking. He notes that there exists a very large and articulate group of U.S. sociologists who may be appropriately named the positivists. These men share a common faith in certain articles of belief such as determinism, the non-existence of moral absolutes, and the impossibility of revealed religion. The author notes that while sociologists recognize the perverse folk thinking of the positivistic sociologists, they should be on their guard lest they fall into the same error themselves. According to the author, sociologists have a special obligation to think objectively and scientifically in time of war.

This paper discusses the problem of multi-dimensionality in building an opinionnaire to scale the friendliness or unfriendliness of certain experiences which white people have toward African Americans. These so-called experience scales are tools created for the purpose of analyzing more objectively the background of this large something which sociologists are calling social attitude. In this case, social attitude of whites toward African Americans has been specified. The article proceeds upon the theory, made explicit elsewhere, that attitude may best be conceived as a high-level abstraction containing many aspects or dimensions. As a parallel case, the author mentions the contemporary efforts of psychologists in breaking the lump-mass "intelligence" into primary abilities or parts. In the case of attitude toward the African Americans, or tendency to act toward the African Americans, it is hypothesized that a person's paper-and-pencil reaction to an opinionnaire may not be closely related to other overt manifestations of his attitude toward that object, nor to his past experiences with the African Americans, either actually or as revealed by a paper-and-pencil test of experience.

The article highlights the contribution of Louis Wirth in the field of sociology specially the related to the African-Americans and other minorities in the U.S. The article further reports the current discussion of the undermining of sociology by the "military-industrial complex" bent on the maintenance of its privileged position to the detriment of the emerging minorities, notably the African-Americans with the inference that sociology has thereby surrendered its capacity to tell the truth. When Louis Wirth came to University of Chicago, Illinois, he was already antagonistic toward religion and the sort of commerce engendered by an unbridled capitalism. He was captivated by its largely pro-Russian political climate. Under the influence of Albion Small, he saw in sociology the possibility of bringing to fruition a Marxist-Leninist version of social equality. Though his prevailing skepticism ultimately rejected such a solution, the commitment to sociology as a mechanism for action as well as generalization was born in this environment and continued to his death. His major volume, "The Ghetto" in 1928 and the paper for which he is best known, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," 1964 are also given.

This paper examines the life and career of the prominent sociologist Werner Stark (1909–1985), born and raised in Marienbad, Bohemia, and after 1918 in the multi-ethnic state of Czechoslovakia. As a prolific and wide-ranging scholar whose many works failed to find an enduring place in American sociology, Stark is a prime example of academic marginalisation. The authors analyse Stark’s major contributions from the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge. They argue that his ideas regarding human nature, the need for social discipline, and the desirability of community were rooted in a pervasive biographical marginality that found resolution in his conversion to Catholicism. In turn, these ideas reinforced the marginality from which they emerged. The reception of Stark’s work in the United States was governed by a perceived incompatibility of his outlook with the assumptions and goals of his American audience. In particular, Stark offered an explicitly value-directed sociology, one which asserted the importance of social order, individual discipline, and universal community, at a time (the 1960s and 1970s) when the field sought to maintain its credibility as an objective scientific discipline in the face of growing challenges from sociologists and non-sociologists alike. Stark’s American colleagues focused on aspects of his work that were incompatible with their own cultural and disciplinary orientations and this obscured the full range of his achievements, especially his analyses which anticipated contemporary sociological work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plans are well advanced for the Fifth World Congress of Sociology to be held in Washington D.C. from September 2-8, 1962, immediately following the annual session of the American Sociological Association (ASA). A joint session of the two Associations, ASA and International Sociological Association, will deal with the topic, "The Sociologists, the Policy-Makers and the Public." A working group will be established for further discussion of this topic. Other main topics for the session are: "The Sociology of Development" and "The Nature and Problems of Sociological Theory." The discussions of development will deal with the early stages of growth, the maintenance of growth, the break with traditionalism, the role of religion in development, changes in rural and urban areas, citizenship and political authority, and traditional and modem elites. The sessions on theory will give particular attention to historical and comparative studies, functionalism, Marxism and models, and the formulation of theories. The papers offered for the conference will be published in several volumes of the journal "Transactions." Special arrangements were made to facilitate the participation of younger members of the profession in the Congress.

During the past year the Committee on Translating and Abstracting Scientific Publications in Foreign Languages has reviewed the complex problem of acquainting the U.S. sociologists with the results of sociological works that are currently available only in languages other than English, French or German. The Committee was stimulated in its task by the information that the Office of Scientific Information of National Science Foundation is able to support programs of abstracting and translating of foreign material as well as review-of-the-literature papers on foreign scientific activities. It had been recognized that the task of providing information on foreign-language works is carried on at several different levels. In respect to many other languages, the Committee members felt that there was insufficient information to recommend now an abstracting or translation program. These include: Italian, Danish, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian and Greek. Current literature reviews do not provide a sufficient basis for judgment using the criteria listed above. The Committee has prepared a preliminary list of names of persons who might undertake this task.

Edward Shils began as a sociologist under the close mentorship of Louis Wirth, with whom he collaborated on the translation of Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia. After 1940, however, Shils' career, which had been focused on topics in sociology, notably the class and occupational structure of cities and on German Sociological Theory, took an apparent turn, which in 1946 led him into a relationship with Michael Polanyi, a half-time appointment at the London School of Economics, and a new intellectual direction. Part of the biographical background to this was personal: his relationship with Wirth ended, and with it his expectation of a Ph.D. and his role in the Sociology Department. Yet his new direction had Chicago roots in his work on Mannheim, and his relation to Frank Knight and the planning disputes of the 1930s and 40s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melvin Pollner was a teacher, scholar, and astute academician. He was also a seeker regarding the nature of humanity. As a seeker, he saw past the relative certainty demanded of academic publishing, a point reflected in his final deliberations published for the first time in this volume, where he interrogates Harold Garfinkel, ethnomethodology, and Formal Analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the status of women and feminism in the Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS) in the U.S. from 1976 to 2002. The author's perspective is that of a feminist sociologist trained in the 1960s and 1970s, rooted in a radical feminism and embracing a transformational, international feminism. Women had constituted a minority in terms of numbers as well as intellectual recognition within the AHS. The author claims that according to his experience and that of other feminist involved in AHS, although the association had been from the beginning much more welcoming of women and their contributions than other sociological organizations, the relationship between feminism and humanist sociology has not always been an easy one. However, humanist sociology, as its is practiced in the AHS, has changed over time and has become increasingly accepting of feminism. The author attributes this to grassroots efforts among feminist members of the association to better integrate women and feminism, and the increasing numbers of women in the AHS, as well as a growing awareness among both humanist sociologists and feminists of the great human variety of positionalities, identities, and experiences.

The article focuses on the sociological research opportunities that can be found in Canada. The Canadian case offers a veritable cornucopia of research opportunities for the American sociologist. Although Canada is similar in many ways to the U.S., it also differs in significant respects. Given that many important variables can be held more or less constant, opportunities for theoretically meaningful research abound. Likewise, implications for policy are plentiful. The rapidly evolving nature of race relations in Canada might well inform discussions in the U.S. Until as late as 1975, Canada's racial minorities were a minuscule proportion of the overall population. After a change in immigration policy, the percentage reached 6.3 percent in 1986; and 11.2 percent in 1996. In the Canadian census, as well as in standard academic discussions, aboriginals are not included with visible minorities. While there is variation in the situation of visible minorities--some are quite prosperous--the situation vis-a-vis aboriginals is otherwise. The figures on poverty, unemployment, life expectancy, incarceration, murder, and so forth are extreme and show only modest signs of improvement. Canada has always been bilingual. Canada is also a bi-religious country. It used to be that Protestants outnumbered Catholics in a pattern somewhat similar to that in the U.S.

"Is assimilation dead?" (Glazer, 1993). One group of sociologists argues that the classical assimilation model no longer, if it ever did, serves to facilitate our understanding of immigrant incorporation into American society. Another group contends that it remains a powerful tool. In this paper I test these two alternatives through an analyses of changing patterns of Cuban American nuptiality behavior throughout the 1970-90 period. Based predominantly on PUMS of the 1970, 1980 and 1990 U.S. censuses, I find support for the conjecture that the classical assimilation model, with some modifications, continues to provide us with a viable tool to study contemporary immigrant incorporation in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay provides information on the translations of books or articles, reviews published by the main French journals about U.S. work in sociology, as well as quotations from and references to U.S. texts which are all indications of U.S. influence on French sociology. The focus of this essay is U.S. texts translated into French or reviewed in French, in other words, texts available to a wide audience of non-English readers. Other channels of exchange and direct quotations from original texts deserves analysis, but many French sociologists are unlikely to read the original works in English. The bulk of this essay is limited in scope to translations of books over a very long period. Then the range of our observations will be broadened to reviews of U.S. books and articles by U.S. sociologists published in a selection of main nonspecialized French journals over the last two decades. While books often reach a wider lay audience, these journals are mainly meant for specialists. Selecting such a corpus implies determining who is a U.S. sociologist. In this paper, United States refers to the author's usual place of residence, a criterion sometimes difficult to apply, whether because of lack of information because some sociologists are often on the move. The choices made also imply defining sociology, and that is a more difficult issue; social and cultural anthropology are included whenever fieldwork takes place in industrialized societies; historical sociology is excluded when its main concern is about societies in the past. Approximately one hundred first translations of sociology books can be listed over the 1880-1998 period. The risk of omissions in listing these books is higher for years before 1970, since computerized library catalogues are of little help before that date. The median delay between original and French publication is nine years. The number of translated books reached its peak in the early 1970s.

ABSTRACT: Anselm Strauss was interested in the sociology of work in every sense and used his grounded theory method to observe and analyze everything he encountered, including his own "medical work." Drawing on the reflections of his students, this introduction briefly examines Strauss's everyday work mode using grounded theory. The eight articles in this special issue honor Strauss by using his theories and methods for studying varieties of work in very different settings. The final article in this collection provides selected statements from graduates who had the opportunity to study with Strauss. Their voices reveal how Anselm Strauss influenced their lives and work and speak for the many sociologists he trained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contrasts the use of ethnographic research procedures in the study of schools in Great Britain and the U.S. It also reflects on differences between the anthropology and the sociology of education. In the course of this exploration the authors also hope to draw together much of the literature from the respective countries and disciplinary fields. There is an obvious and striking difference between British and U.S. school ethnography. Whereas the U.S. research on schools and classrooms has been conducted primarily by applied anthropologists, that in Great Britain has been done overwhelmingly by researchers who see themselves as sociologists. It is noticeable that several researchers working as sociologists were trained as anthropologists or began work in anthropology departments. Where British research has looked to North America it has been to U.S. sociology in genera--especially symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. The article also attempts to establish that the Atlantic really does divide school ethnographers into differing traditions. It establishes the truth of the authors' claim that school and classroom ethnography in the U.S. and Canada is predominantly anthropological in orientation, while that in Great Britain is more sociological.

The article presents information on the work of sociologist George Simmel in relation to American sociology. The history of sociology is in need of a new historical narrative, a story that reflects and reinforces the contemporary transition in sociological thought from a celebration of scientific autonomy to a demonstration of social relevance. Whether they are accomplished through critical analysis of sociological discourse, historical analysis of sociology's changing publics, or pragmatic proposals for change, sociology's aspirations to professional and intellectual self-sufficiency have been pronounced a failure. This article reexamines the American Simmel reception in light of the conception of sociology as a conversation on America rather than a conversation sociologists have with themselves. It views sociologists as creative figures, like poets and novelists who help to shape America's future by molding how people think about it. To recognize this feature of the American reception of Simmel's work is not to deny that there were, intellectual reasons for an interest in Simmel. One can and must examine the historical and contemporary interest in Simmel from both points of view. Indeed, it is probably an error to consider theoretical reason and practical life as polar terms. A pragmatic and phenomenologically informed study of social theory, its production and reception, would the links between lifeworld and social thought.