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The introduction of "replacement teams" into the social world of NFL football during the 1987 strike stimulated a laminated language, a language that transformed traditional meanings by linking varying social definitions to one another. Emergent content analysis of extensive newspaper, sport magazine and newsmagazine, and live television and radio accounts was used to inductively study this language. Power, media, and social structure impacted on the various language terms that Here created. Laminated language protected, rejected, accepted, satirically extended, and integrated definitions. Various ways in which the recognition of laminated language may be used to enhance the use of Goffman's framing concepts and leads in the sociological study of everyday life are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses resources in relation to the individual, using the symbolic interactionist perspective to systematize the view that resources are symbols and cannot be understood apart from social worlds. According to the article, resources have no intrinsic meaning; they are defined, and redefined, by individuals in society and by those who study them. U.S. citizens now notice things that previously went unnoticed. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current energy crisis. Economists must now think in terms of production and consumption as having adverse rather than positive effects. For example, there is concern that the manufacture of nitrogen may destroy the ozone in the earth's upper atmosphere. In a similar vein, land is now thought of in terms of political, economic, and psychological terms. It is this symbolic construction of reality that is the focus of this article. Environmental scholars have not sufficiently emphasized the role of symbols in the individual's relation to the environment. While the energy- producing qualities of resources are important, the authors contend that at least equal attention should be given to the way resources are defined and the way individuals act on these definitions.

Presents information on a study conducted at the Sherrard High School to gauge the reactions of the community to AIDS infected student, Jeff Proctor. Hurdles involved in carrying out study; Methods used to gather data; Process used by school board to acclimate community to Jeff; Attraction of case to the local media; Process of reduction of fear and ambiguity; How education can be used to eliminate fears related to the AIDS disease.

The symbolic interactionist perspective is used to demonstrate that the substantive area of sport can be conceptually elevated to a more formal level. Becker's formulation of identity as a commitment mechanism is: (1) conceptually extended to include more active, diverse, and complex lines of activity, and (2) applied to sport behavior. Sport commitment appears to be an effective tool for the recasting of sport. Directives for future investigations of: (1) sport as side bet and (2) identity as a commitment process are delineated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of "replacement" teams for the first time in the NFL provided an opportunity to investigate how controversial social definitions and the meaning of such frames emerge within a modern social world. Seven processes were identified; disrupting social worlds, experiencing social ambiguity, interpreting disruption institutionally, socially constructing laminations, disattending problematics of laminations, culturally adapting to anomaly, and negating collective protest. Conclusions are based on an emergent content analysis of extensive newspaper, sport and newsmagazine, and five television and radio accounts. The value of Goffman's framing ideas for symbolic interactionism is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the author Raymond L. Schmitt's observations from a social informal group, which supports sociologist George C. Homans hypotheses. Homans' two significant hypotheses concerning the existence of direct relationships between rank and the tendency to originate interaction, and rank and conformity to the group norms were upheld by Schmitt's observations. Schmit's first elaboration concerns Homans' hypothesized direct relationship between rank and range of interactions. His second elaboration involves the relationship of the subgroup to the total group. The author, Schmit observed the activities of an informal group of three men. They had worked with one another at one time on the same job. Although they were now working at different locations, they still interacted with one another outside of working hours. The author established that the group possessed a leadership structure. Interestingly, the leader had completely dominated the situation when he was present.

In response to criticisms that the small-group researcher is often not able to put meaning into an experimental situation, attempts have been made in some of the conformity studies to intensify the subject's emotional investment in the stimulus. One way in which this has been accomplished is via the assumption of a correspondence between the value of the stimulus for the subject and his own personal values. The author has conducted an Asch type experiment using a modification of this approach. The stimulus in the experiment consisted of three critical religious items and three critical nonreligious items. The research involved the assumption that these two types of items would be viewed from different perspectives by Catholic subjects. The premise was that they would have more of an emotional investment in the religious items. It is the author's opinion that this approach might prove useful to other investigators who are conducting research of this type.

The central theme of this study is that a relationship exists between an individual's role changes and self changes. This is not a new idea. Lindesmith and Strauss discuss the effects of status changes on personality. Kuhn, building on the work of Mead, Cooley, and others, theoretically implies this. Sarbin cites a considerable body of empirical evidence in support of the statement that role enactments are related to four types of psychological changes, somatic changes, changes in performance, changes in preferences for attention deployment, and changes in cognitive dispositions, attitudes, values, opinions, and beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stacking emerged within the context of "desegregated" sport and has been focused on by sport sociologists. Although previous studies lacked controls, stacking is usually attributed to America's stratification system. This multivariate investigation of stacking within three major college football conferences reveals that race was related to position allocation, while football alignment produced an interaction effect consistent with the matching explanation. It is suggested that sociologists of different persuasions and other social scientists should study position allocation as a joint act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]