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Robert N. Bellah turns 80 early next year, and Duke University Press is honoring him with "The Robert Bellah Reader," edited by Bellah, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, and Steven M. Tipton, a professor of sociology at Emory University. The book, just published, presents a selection of Bellah's work over the last 50 years, along with a new introductory essay he has written about his career. Long one of sociology's most influential scholars, Bellah helped revive the study of religion in his discipline; provided a way to think about "civil religion" and the sacred beliefs that Americans, regardless of their particular religious affiliation, hold about their nation; and challenged them, in "Habits of the Heart" and "The Good Society," written with Tipton and several colleagues, to rise above the isolation of individualism and focus on what makes them a community. This article presents a selection from the introduction to the reader and comments from three noted scholars (Alan Wolfe, Wilfred M. McClay, and Jean Bethke Elshtain) that indicate Bellah's work continues to evolve, and it continues to spark interest and debate.

The Berkeley Department of Sociology has a distinctive training program that encourages the student to pursue an independent course of inquiry. While clearly still within the U.S. orbit, when arrayed along a continuum, the program leans more toward the European than the American tradition of postgraduate education. The Berkeley doctoral student substantially creates his or her own mix and is also most likely the principal architect of the research design and the sole collector of primary data for the dissertation. This article briefly explains the history and describes the current program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictive policing is a research field whose principal aim is to develop machines for predicting crimes, drawing on machine learning algorithms and the growing availability of a diversity of data. This paper deals with the case of the algorithm of PredPol, the best-known startup in predictive policing. The mathematicians behind it took their inspiration from an algorithm created by a French seismologist, a professor in earth sciences at the University of Savoie. As the source code of the PredPol platform is kept inaccessible as a trade secret, the author contacted the seismologist directly in order to try to understand the predictions of the company's algorithm. Using the same method of calculation on the same data, the seismologist arrived at a different, more cautious interpretation of the algorithm's capacity to predict crime. How were these predictive analyses formed on the two sides of the Atlantic? How do predictive algorithms come to exist differently in these different contexts? How and why is it that predictive machines can foretell a crime that is yet to be committed in a California laboratory, and yet no longer work in another laboratory in Chambéry? In answering these questions, I found that machine learning researchers have a moral vision of their own activity that can be understood by analyzing the values and material consequences involved in the evaluation tests that are used to create the predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the congress of American Sociological Association in San Francisco, California, in August 2004. To reflect on congresses and exhibitions is a sociological work since, in addition to the information that they provide on the development of the profession of sociologist, they have a symbolic considerable impact. Already before the globalization, several professional North American affiliations turn into the international affiliations of the discipline. What is discussed in the San Francisco congress has so many relevancy for Spain as the Eighth Spanish Congress of Sociology, in September, 2004 in Alicante, Spain. The majority of the specialties coincide. Some papers and debates are similar. The methodological problems are also common in both the congresses. The ideas that they discuss in the world, fortunately, already do not diminish to a geographical national ambience. Almost two hundred specific sessions with written communications have been distributed.

In the article, the author discusses the change in the field of sociology. He suggests that a larger proportion of sociologists are now being drawn from background, with relatively high socio-econoimc status. This makes them less Iikely to be threatened by events which may lower the status of the profession. Within this group, those who are most confident and secure of their position within the profession will lead the attack on a role conception which offers protection from a threat they do not feel. As an example, the author discusses the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association held in San Francisco, California in 1967. The hippie influences and political activities in San Francisco are discussed. A significant number of younger sociologists and sociology graduate students embrace a conception of their professional role that differs in at least two important respects from earlier and still dominant conceptions in the profession. The author describes the newer conception to identify the underlying premises which make it differ from the more traditional view.

The article presents supplementary information guide to graduate departments of sociology. The California State College is situated at Long Beach, California. The chairman of the Sociology and Social Welfare Department is George W. Korber. Here masters' degrees are offered in sociology. The City College of the City University of New York is situated in New York, New York. The Chairman of its Department of Sociology and Anthropology is William Howton. Here degrees are offered in sociology in M.A. Ph.D. is offered by City University with City College participating. The 6th World Congress of Sociology was held in Evian, France from September 4th to 11th, 1966.

Climate and weather have been linked to criminal activity. The connection between climatological conditions and crime is of growing importance as we seek to understand the societal implications of climate change. This study describes the mechanisms theorized to link annual variations in climate to crime in California and examines the effect of drought on statewide crime rates from 2011–2015. California has suffered severe drought since 2011, resulting in intensely dry winters and several of the hottest days on record. It is likely that the drought increased economic stress and shifted routine activities of the population, potentially increasing the likelihood of crime. We used a synthetic control method to estimate the impact of California’s drought on both property and violent crimes. We found a significant increase in property crimes during the drought, but no effect on violent crimes. This result was robust to several sensitivity analyses, including a negative control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding the 1963 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. The meeting will be held in Los Angeles, California on August 26 to 29. August 26 will be devoted to meetings arranged by the Sections of the Association. Communications on contributions to the program for that day should be addressed directly to the chairmen of the sections. The regular sessions on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of August will be arranged by chairmen appointed by the president of the Association and the 1963 Program Committee except that in those fields where there is a Section, the Committee has collaborated with the Section Chairman. Besides the sessions and chairmen listed in this article, there will be four plenary sessions devoted to the discussion of intellectual and scientific frontiers of sociology and to its contribution to social life. The regular sessions are in general charge of Leonard Broom while Lewis Coser will have general charge of the plenary sessions.

Background: Tobacco retailers are key players in the ongoing tobacco epidemic. Tobacco outlet density is linked to a greater likelihood of youth and adult smoking and greater difficulty quitting. While public policy efforts to address the tobacco problem at the retail level have been limited, some retailers have voluntarily ended tobacco sales. A previous pilot study examined this phenomenon in California, a state with a strong tobacco program focused on denormalizing smoking and the tobacco industry. We sought to learn what motivated retailers in other states to end tobacco sales and how the public and media responded. Methods: We conducted interviews with owners, managers, or representatives of six grocery stores in New York and Ohio that had voluntarily ended tobacco sales since 2007. We also conducted unobtrusive observations at stores and analyzed media coverage of each retailer’s decision. Results: Grocery store owners ended tobacco sales for two reasons, alone or in combination: health or ethics-related, including a desire to send a consistent health message to employees and customers, and business-related, including declining tobacco sales or poor fit with the store’s image. The decision to end sales often appeared to resolve troubling contradictions between retailers’ values and selling deadly products. New York retailers attributed declining sales to high state tobacco taxes. All reported largely positive customer reactions and most received media coverage. Forty-one percent of news items were letters to the editor or editorials; most (69%) supported the decision. Conclusion: Voluntary decisions by retailers to abandon tobacco sales may lay the groundwork for mandatory policies and further denormalize tobacco. Our study also suggests that high tobacco taxes may have both direct and indirect effects on tobacco use. Highlighting the contradictions between being a responsible business and selling deadly products may support voluntary decisions by retailers to end tobacco sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research on gay and other men who have sex with men's (G/MSM) preferences for sexual healthcare services focuses largely on HIV testing and to some extent on sexually transmitted infections (STI). This research illustrates the frequency and location of where G/MSM interface with the healthcare system, but it does not speak to why men seek care in those locations. As HIV and STI prevention strategies evolve, evidence about G/MSM's motivations and decision-making can inform future plans to optimize models of HIV/STI prevention and primary care. Methods: We conducted a phenomenological study of gay men's sexual health seeking experiences, which included 32 in-depth interviews with gay and bisexual men. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and entered into Atlas.ti. We conducted a Framework Analysis. Findings: We identified a continuum of sexual healthcare seeking practices and their associated drivers. Men differed in their preferences for separating sexual healthcare from other forms of healthcare (“fragmentation”) versus combining all care into one location (“consolidation”). Fragmentation drivers included: fear of being monitored by insurance companies, a desire to seek non-judgmental providers with expertise in sexual health, a desire for rapid HIV testing, perceiving sexual health services as more convenient than primary care services, and a lack of healthcare coverage. Consolidation drivers included: a comfortable and trusting relationship with a provider, a desire for one provider to oversee overall health and those with access to public or private health insurance. Conclusions: Men in this study were likely to separate sexual healthcare from primary care. Based on this finding, we recommend placing new combination HIV/STI prevention interventions within sexual health clinics. Furthermore, given the evolution of the financing and delivery of healthcare services and in HIV prevention, policymakers and clinicians should consider including more primary care services within sexual healthcare settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study advances the sociological inquiry on social categories by synthesizing two lines of research in economic and organizational sociology--studies of industrial categories in market dynamics and neo-institutional analyses of social categories. It compares the classificatory schemes and structures in the California and French wine industries and investigates the impact of institutionalized categories on social evaluation via the lens of determinants of wine price. Empirical findings show that under distinct classification systems, similar categories and wine attributes have different significances and affect wine price differently. These findings shed light on the profound consequences of the organizations and structures of categories in classification systems. They also enrich the institutional analyses by demonstrating that institutional categories systematically differentiate market products and create social differences and hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the role of migration in the identity of Los Angeles, California. Description of Los Angeles as a city in which "everybody is from somewhere else"; Categorization of differences in types of human movement; Decentering of the nation within migration studies.

Focuses on the evolution of the city of Compton, California. Unexceptional nature of the city in the 1920s; Development of racial tension and transition; Contemporary demographic reality.

This study examines Salvadoran immigrants' views of both their participation in the church and the role the church plays in their lives. The focus is on Catholic and Evangelical churches among Salvadoran immigrants in three locations — San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Phoenix, an approach that allows the examination of the effects of receiving communities on the role religious institutions play in immigrant life. Data come from qualitative field research conducted in the 1990s and 100 in-depth interviews, complemented with interviews of religious leaders and community workers. Catholic and Evangelical churches, following distinct religious teachings, provide different avenues for immigrants to achieve their goals — collective and individual — and enrich the immigrants' lives and their surrounding communities, an outcome that seems independent of the specific receiving community. Although both churches provide assistance, the approach they take (and the religious teachings that shape how assistance is provided) may influence the immigrants' long-term integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis that job insecurity, engendered by the oversupply of labor, is a predictor of seeking help for psychological problems is derived from concepts drawn from sociology, management science, and psychology. The hypothesis is tested with data describing approximately 3,850 principal wage earners interviewed over a four-year period in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area. Results suggest that job insecurity increases the likelihood of considering seeking help and of actually seeking help. The effect withstands controlling for most known person-level predictors of help-seeking including symptoms of psychological distress and social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a discipline in which departments are often characterized by Irreconcilable controversies and factional disputes, UCLA'S department stands out as a pluralistic communication that fosters interaction, communication, and mutual understanding. At UCLA the micro and macro meet: leading ethnograpbers and survey researchers work side by side; noted Marxists, functionalists and phenomenologists participate in the same colloquia, and persons with a variety of outlooks share membership on the same student committees. Ambitious students committed to obtaining the Ph.D. experience a stimulating educational career in a department that prides itself on diversity, but whose faculty understands that its program must be structured and coherent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the meeting of the 1973 American Sociological Association Council in San Francisco, California on December 2 to 3, 1972. The site of the meeting was selected partly because of the economy afforded when some council and staff members were also scheduled to attend a conference in Carmel, California, a few days after the council meeting. Of the 12 at-large members of the council, 4 reside on the West Coast, 4 on the East Coast and 4 in the Mid-West. The timing of the meeting also signals an innovation in the governance of the association. This meeting was the first of a set of quarterly sessions planned by the 1973 council. With more frequent meetings, the council hopes to reduce the pressure of business at the annual meeting so the council can interact with the membership and participate in the general sessions.

The following consists of the recorded program of the luncheon meeting in Berkeley, California, August 30, 1953. At the invitation of President Samuel A. Stouffer, each living ex-president of the Society recorded a brief message. These were assembled on a single record, which was played for the first time at the above session. The program is unaltered, except that the brief introduction of each speaker by Stouffer is omitted. Fellow sociologists, here in California today at the 1953 annual meeting of the American Sociological Society, it is about to hear the recorded voice of each of the living former presidents of the Society. Sociologists operate in three zones, teaching, research and public service. One should consider the apportionment of one's time between the three and which shall have priority when a choice must be made, as for instance between science and social action, on the basis if either time or principle. A monastic vow to science means, though, not being tempted away by the indulgence of emotional bias, by the sweet applause of public service, or by the fun of intellectual activity without the work of verification. Avoid being a sociological hermit by being scientific only part of one's time, always in laboratory and seminar, often in publication, when necessary in classroom, occasionally on a public commission but never in the room.

The article reports on cross-cultural analysis of the United States. The study of governmental agencies, as instruments that have induced or failed to induce socioeconomic and cultural integration among rural populations, has long been of interest to social scientists. A study which focuses on the goals and structures of agencies concludes in analyzing agencies as if they existed in isolation of their cultural and societal context. The greater success of the Mexican agencies has been heavily influenced by factors related to the extent of the dominant-subordinate cleavage in the two local societies the author studied in Sinaloa and California.

The article presents the program of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) to be held from August 28-31,1967 in San Francisco, California. The program is as follows: Monday, August 28 will be devoted to the Sections of the ASA with each Section holding a council and business meeting and sponsoring a program session. Tuesday, August 29: Two sessions will be held jointly with the Rural Sociological Society. The Society for the Study of Social Problems will also co-sponsor numerous sessions, as indicated in the program. Wednesday, August 30: At 10:30 a.m. all members are urged to attend the first of two annual business meetings. A second series of luncheon roundtable discussions is scheduled at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, August 31 is a full day of sessions including some of the most interesting on the program. The second ASA business meeting is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. and the third series of luncheon roundtables at 11:30 a.m. The Pacific Telephone Company will provide a telephone message center during the meetings. The California State Employment Service will conduct a placement center from August 26 to August 31. Application and order forms were mailed with the preliminary program. Forms for hotel reservations, luncheon reservations, and advance registration were printed in the February 1967 issue of "The American Sociologist," and are also available in the preliminary program mailing to all members.