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This article focuses on political tolerance and presents comments on an article "Origin of Tolerance," by J.A. Williams. The continued scalability of a set of attitude items used in national sample surveys separated by 19 years is a remarkable and useful result. In a discipline lacking valid measures of socially important attitudes, such an outcome merits close study and wide dissemination. To illustrate the conceptual barrenness of their analysis, the author focuses on their treatment of education, which both he considers the most important single source of political tolerance in the U.S. When the issue of Communism as it might affect political tolerance is considered, the strong impact of political climate on tolerance is disclosed. A twofold conclusion seems prudent: at a given level of threat, a more highly educated population will be more politically tolerant than a less-educated population; at the same time, increases in the educational level of a population will not produce sharp increases in political tolerance if the perception of internal danger (as, for example, from Communism) among the population is widespread."

This paper has examined effects on mobility of education level, social class background, and strength of achievement motive. The attainment of some college education is shown to enhance greatly the likelihood of upward mobility and reduce the likelihood of downward mobility. However, much mobility is not attributable to the factor of education. Strength of achievement motive is shown to exert noticeable influence, on upward mobility especially, among persons who lack any college training. An analysis of the interaction of factors associated with social class background, strength of achievement motive, and level of education in the determination of mobility is offered; the analysis rationalizes both the absence of expected relationships between strength of achievement motive and mobility among persons from upper middle-class backgrounds, and the presence of such relationships among persons from the other social class groups. The correctness of this latter analysis will, of course, turn upon the results of future research in which more refined measures of social class variables are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the influence of friends on the speech of an individual. It has been stated that friends are more similar in speech than people who simply are fellow residents of a community. Groups of friends may have shared or may be currently sharing similar experiences which affect their speech, hence friends influence one another's speech. Two traits of speech have been dealt in the report. The pronunciation of postvocalic "r" and the pronunciation of the present-participle ending, "ing." The term postvocalic r refers to etymological r's which follow vowels but do not precede them in words. This trait is regarded as diagnostic in American dialect geography, pronouncing these r's with little or no constriction. In uttering present participles, many people vary, sometimes pronouncing the endings of these words to rhyme with sing when using the velar nasal and sometimes pronouncing the endings of these words to rhyme with sin when not using a velar nasal. The pronunciation of the respondents has been characterized by using the r-scores and ing-scores.

This article presents results of a study that was conducted to analyze the speech variation and social structure in a North Carolina Piedmont community. In this study, only one linguistic variable is considered which is the pronunciation of postvocalic "r." The sample for the study, was restricted to white residents of the community. Each of the 1,121 dwelling units normally occupied by white residents was located; a random sample of 400 units was selected from among these. The sample was evaluated by comparing respondents interviewed early (during August) to those interviewed later with respect to social and demographic characteristics and by comparing respondents to nonrespondents. It was noted that rates at which "r" was pronounced are not normally distributed about a single central value but tend to be bimodal. Moreover, such bimodality is most pronounced among the higher status residents of the community. A study of transcriber reliability shows that perception of "r" in postvocalic position, in at least one sense of the term perception, is influenced by the speech habits of transcribers as well as syllable structure.

Analysis of 1957 national sample data indicates several religious differences in occupational achievement: (1) Protestants are more likely than Catholics of the same occupational origin to enter high-status nonmanual occupations; (2) Catholics are more likely than Protestants of the same origin to enter low-status nonmanual occupations; (3) Protestants are more often sharply up-mobile, and Catholics are more often sharply down-mobile. These differences are small but are not diminished by controls for ethnicity, region in which reared, age, generation, and size of community in which reared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of strength of achievement motive on intergenerational occupational mobility in the United States. Atkinson's theory Of achievement motivation, shown to be relevant to the study of occupational mobility, predicts that strength of achievement motive-among persons sharing equal opportunity-will be positively associated with upward occupational mobility and negatively associated with downward occupational mobility. In the national sample studied, the expected results are clearly obtained with regard to upward mobility among persons reared in the lower social strata, but predicted relationships are not found among persons reared in the middle and upper social strata. The hypothesis concerning strength of achievement motive and downward mobility is not supported. The results indicate the fruitfulness of considering personality variables in conjunction with social structural variables in the study of occupational mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New data concerning relations between change in religious affiliation and family stability are examined, disclosing results highly similar to those obtained in a previous study. Religious homogeneity between spouses is shown to be similarly related to family stability among both Catholic and Protestant couples. Results for couples who achieve a common religious affiliation in adulthood are virtually the same as those for couples who have always been religiously homogeneous. The continuity of results over two studies suggests that more intensive research, particularly longitudinal in design, is in order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between change in religious affiliation and family stability are examined using a sample of wives in highly stable marriages. Hypotheses regarding the stabilizing effect of common religious affiliation are largely supported. As predicted, change to a common religious affiliation is most frequently toward the affiliation of the spouse having the greater amount of education. These findings indicate the reciprocal nature of influence between religious and secular variables-an obvious point sometimes forgotten by scholars. Initial religious difference between spouses is considerably greater than is indicated in the literature. The usefulness of studying interdenominational as well as interfaith marriages is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author presents a critical appreciation of the article "Socialization, n Achievement, and Achievement Values," by John Scanzoni, published in the June 1967 issue of the journal "American Sociological Review (ASC)." Scanzoni has been concerned to test Joseph A. Kahl's, a sociologist, hypothesis in his article "Some Measurement of Achievement Orientation," that n Achievement is distinct from occupational Achievement values. However, this key hypothesis was advanced by Bernard C. Rosen in a research report "The Achievement Syndrome: A Psychocultural Dimension of Social Stratification," much earlier than Kahl, which was published in the 1965 issue of the ASC. The author asserts that no researcher has studied "socialization, n Achievement and achievement values" in as sustained, systematic and fruitful a fashion as has Rosen. Yet not a single reference to Rosen's work appears in Scanzoni's paper. The author has presented his opinion on the mischief that this gross omission has permitted.