bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Microbial Contamination of Shellfish: Prevalence, Risk to Human Health, and Control Strategies
Authors: Wittman R. J. , Flick G. J.
Published: July 2003

There has been significant concern in recent times about the safety of molluscan shellfish for human consumption. Despite extensive efforts to assure a safe supply of molluscan shellfish, the number of cases of disease and death are still great enough to cause concern among the public. The number of cases of illness and death associated with the ingestion of shellfish falls in the lower end of the range of other similar microbial pathogen-related foodborne disease. Disease and deaths due to viruses and naturally occurring bacteria are now of greatest concern because they are the most often cited casusative agents. The greatest risk of disease or death due to shellfish consumption is among the population with underlying health conditions who choose to consume raw shellfish. Control strategies to limit shellfish-borne disease should focus upon disease and death caused by viruses and naturally occurring bacteria among at-risk populations.
The Status of Health Assessment 1994
Authors: Ware John E.
Published: July 2003

General health status and a broader concept of quality of life are discussed and methods of widely used surveys are reviewed. A consensus regarding the inclusion of measures of physical, mental, social, and role functioning and general health perceptions is noted for comprehensive assessments of health. A schematic of relationships among condition-specific and generic measures is presented along with results expected for objective and subjective measures of physical and mental dimensions of health. Suggestions are offered for the labeling of disease-specific and generic measures and ways to avoid confounding of content. Applications of health surveys in general population monitoring, health policy evaluation, clinical trials of alternative treatments, monitoring and improving of health care outcomes, and in everyday clinical practice are exemplified and discussed. A unified measurement strategy is proposed and arguments in favor of standardizing the content of health surveys across applications are offered.
Incidence, Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies for Work-Related Assault Injuries: A Review of What Is Known, What Needs To Be Known, and Countermeasures for Intervention
Authors: Kraus Jess F. , Blander Bonnie , McArthur David L.
Published: July 2003

This review organizes available data to address current epidemiological understanding of injuries from workplace assaults. We describe the incidence and general populations at risk for fatal and nonfatal work-related injury, and assess available information on risk factors and countermeasures considered important in reducing injury occurrence. Overall rates of occurrence of workrelated homicides and nonfatal injuries are estimated, and those factors that appear to be consistent across studies are explored.

Much of what is known about occupations at high risk for assaults and injuries comes from a small number of documents and special studies within subsets of workplaces. Unfortunately, the potency of specific countermeasures for prevention of violence-related injury in work settings continues to be largely unknown. Numerous fundamental questions remain to be answered: Critical is a full assessment of risk, identification of situations and circumstances amenable to intervention, and evaluations to demonstrate effectiveness.
Nonfinancial Barriers to Care for Children and Youth
Authors: Halfon Neal , Inkelas Moira , Wood David
Published: July 2003

Public health and medical care interventions have produced dramatic changes in the health of children in the United States. Emerging new morbidities such as behavioral and learning disorders, and child abuse and neglect, highlight the lack of an integrated system of health. Children's developmental vulnerability, dependency, and unique morbidities have been underemphasized in the organization and delivery of health care. The Andersen and Aday model of health care utilization is used to describe financial and nonfinancial barriers to care for children that include family characteristics and organizational characteristics of the health system. Case studies of immunization delivery, children with chronic illness, and mobile populations of children reveal the mismatch between the health care system and children's basic health needs. Integrated service models for high-risk populations of children represent an essential mechanism for coordinating the delivery of medical, developmental, educational, and social services needed by children and families. Universal, coordinated public health and medical services of adequate scope and quality should be assured for children through market and health system reform.
Medicaid Managed Care: Contribution to Issues of Health Reform
Authors: Freund Deborah A. , Hurley Robert E.
Published: July 2003

This chapter examines the emergence of managed care in Medicaid from an alternative to the mainstream delivery system for many beneficiaries. It offers a definition that encompasses the broad spectrum of program manifestations, and presents a brief historical perspective on the major eras of managed care in Medicaid, The major program prototypes are described and their contribution to enrollment growth is discussed. Research evidence is examined to address both operational issues and program impacts. Finally, we conclude with an appraisal of contemporary issues of importance and speculation on the next generation of Medicaid managed care programs with an eye to how federal and state health care reform proposals will shape this future.
Disability as a Public Health Outcome in the Aging Population
Authors: Guralnik Jack M. , Fried Linda P. , Salive Marcel E.
Published: July 2003

Improvements in life expectancy in the twentieth century have resulted from major declines in mortality at younger ages, but it is less well recognized that mortality declines at older ages have also played a substantial role in prolonging expectation of life. A person reaching age 65 in 1900 could expect to live an additional 11.9 years. Life expectancy at age 65 rose to 14.4 years by 1960 and then increased by about three years in the next three decades, reaching 17.5 years in 1992 (56, 70). As a greater proportion of the population survives to very old ages, the public health impact of the burden of disease and disability and related utilization of medical care and need for supportive and long-term care has become an important concern. In particular, the ability of the older person to function independently in the community is a critically important public health issue. A growing body of research in the last decade has addressed the measurement of disability, factors related to its onset, consequences of disability, and the potential for preventive interventions. This article summarizes the state of the art in these areas and discusses their public health relevance.
Epidemiology and Prevention of Breast Cancer
Authors: Kelsey Jennifer L. , Bernstein Leslie
Published: July 2003

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, accounting for 32% of all newly diagnosed cancers. Demographic characteristics associated with an increased risk include increasing age, birth in North America or northern Europe, high socioeconomic status, never having been married, and, for breast cancer diagnosed after 45 years of age, the white race. Early age at menarche, late age at menopause, late age at first full-term pregnancy, and low parity increase risk, while removal of the ovaries at an early age is protective. Obesity increases risk in postmenopausal women. Having a first degree relative with breast cancer confers an increased risk, especially if both a mother and a sister have had breast cancer at an early age. Mutations in the BRCAl and BRCA2 genes are associated with an inherited susceptibility to breast cancer at an early age. Other markers of increased risk include atypical and hyperplastic epithelial cells in nipple aspirate fluid, nodular densities on mammogram, and biopsy-confirmed benign proliferative breast disease. Little can be done at present to reduce breast cancer risk through primary prevention, but secondary prevention by mammographic screening in women of age 50 and older reduces mortality from breast cancer.
Public Health in the Twentieth Century: Advances and Challenges
Authors: Fielding Jonathan E.
Published: July 2003

▪ Abstract  Substantial advances in public health methods, practice, and the health of the public have occurred in the twentieth century. Some of the contributions most notable for their impact on mortality and longevity are vaccine development and widespread use, smallpox eradication, large reductions in communicable disease epidemics, and the rise and decline of several serious chronic diseases. Many methodological advances have facilitated better understanding of disease processes and opportunities for control. Epidemiological methods have advanced, but studies often ignore the determinants of health at the community level and above, leading to simplistic formulations of multiple risk factors contributing to chronic and other diseases and injuries. Occupational and environmental health developed as disciplines in this century, making significant contributions to current and future population health. The health care system became more organized, technologically sophisticated, and costly. New tools to assess health and the burden of ill health, to improve the effectiveness of interventions, and to measure economic effects of alternative investments promise greater efficiency and effectiveness for public health. An increasingly fragmented public health infrastructure must confront unprecedented challenges including dramatic global population growth, increased aging of the population associated with enhanced longevity, and possible irreversible changes in key environmental health determinants.
Public Health, GIS, and the Internet
Authors: Croner Charles M.
Published: July 2003

▪ Abstract  Internet access and use of georeferenced public health information for GIS application will be an important and exciting development for the nation's Department of Health and Human Services and other health agencies in this new millennium. Technological progress toward public health geospatial data integration, analysis, and visualization of space-time events using the Web portends eventual robust use of GIS by public health and other sectors of the economy. Increasing Web resources from distributed spatial data portals and global geospatial libraries, and a growing suite of Web integration tools, will provide new opportunities to advance disease surveillance, control, and prevention, and insure public access and community empowerment in public health decision making. Emerging supercomputing, data mining, compression, and transmission technologies will play increasingly critical roles in national emergency, catastrophic planning and response, and risk management. Web-enabled public health GIS will be guided by Federal Geographic Data Committee spatial metadata, OpenGIS Web interoperability, and GML/XML geospatial Web content standards. Public health will become a responsive and integral part of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.
Health Issues of Air Travel
Authors: DeHart Roy L.
Published: July 2003

▪ Abstract  Every day in the United States the airline industry boards over 1.7 million passengers for a total of 600 million passengers per year. As these passengers enter the cabin of their aircraft few are aware of the artificial environment that will protect them from the hazards of flight. Passengers are exposed to reduced atmospheric pressure, reduced available oxygen, noise, vibration, and are subject to below zero temperatures that are only a quarter inch away—the thickness of the aircraft's skin. Over the past decade there have been both technical and lay articles written on the perception of poor cabin air quality. Studies have, in part, supported some of those concerns, but, in general, the air quality exceeds that found in most enclosed spaces on terra firma.

Since the events of September 11th, passengers have not only been exposed to the physical stress of flight, but also to social and emotional stress preceding departure. There has been a significant increase in air rage on board aircraft, which poses a threat to flight safety and a fear of harm to passengers and crew. The phrase “economy class syndrome” has received popular press attention and refers to the possibility of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in the tight confines of an aircraft cabin. Studies have been conducted that demonstrate DVT can occur in flight just as it occurs in other modes of transportation or with prolonged sitting.

In part, because of the stress related to commercial flight it is not a mode of transportation for everyone. Certain cardiovascular, pulmonary, and neuropsychiatric conditions are best left on the ground. Although medical problems and death are rare in flight, they do occur, and one major airline reported 1.52 medical diversions per billion revenue passenger miles flown. To provide medical support at 36,000 ft (11,000 m) most airlines now carry on-board medical kits as well as automatic external defibrillators. A recent survey conducted by a major airline revealed that there was at least one physician on 85% of all its flights.

Both passenger and cargo aircraft have proven to be vectors of disease in that they transport humans, mosquitoes, and other insects and animals who, in turn, transmit disease. Transmission to other passengers has occurred with tuberculosis and influenza. Vectors for yellow fever, malaria, and dengue have been identified on aircraft. Although there are numerous health issues associated with air travel they pale in comparison to the enormous benefits to the traveler, to commerce, to international affairs, and to the public's health.
Plant Pathology and Biotechnology: Choosing Your Weapons
Authors: Day P. R.
Published: July 2003

In this chapter I trace some threads of personal history and comment on the nature of host resistance and pathogen virulence, aspects of plant pathology that have interested me for most of my career. Basic research in plant pathology is more fashionable, and certainly more fundable, than in the days when practical considerations of disease control dominated the work of most plant pathologists. There is still a great deal of this basic research to do. Satisfying your curiosity is fun, but if you can do something useful for society at the same time it is even more rewarding.
The Sociology of Values
Authors: Spates James L.
Published: July 2003

The history of the concept of values is reviewed from its beginnings in the 19th century to the present. Work on values rose to preeminence under Talcott Parsons and his associates during 1950-1965, Nevertheless, the theory they produced was flawed: It lacked sophisticated empirical support, imposed preordained categories on reality, and was formulated at an unresearchable level of abstraction. Alternative theories of values fared only somewhat better. More vibrant is the long tradition of (nonParsonian) empirical studies in various subject areas (e.g. achievement, religion). This body of work, however, is ad hoc in nature: The data produced are essentially noncomparable and do not advance the concerns of value theory. The recent work of Kohn (on class and values) and Rokeach (on general value systems) has begun to remedy the situation. It is suggested that value analysis of the future can only solve past ditficulties if (a) it develops grounded theory and research methods—i.e, hypotheses and techniques tied, from the outset, to the values of real populations; (b) it undertakes simultaneous multitechnique observations of the same population; and (c) it carefully tests some of the important hypotheses from value theory abandoned since the 1960s
Changing Family and Household: Contemporary Lessons from Historical Research
Authors: Cherlin Andrew
Published: July 2003

This essay examines the recent historical research on the family with the objective of identifying useful lessons for students of the contemporary family. The following themes in the historical research are discussed: household and family structure, production and reproduction, life course transitions, the emotional content of family life, and the distinctiveness of the 1950s. The essay concludes with a discussion of theoretical and methodological issues in historical research on the family.
Change in Military Organization
Authors: Segal David R. , Segal Mady Wechsler
Published: July 2003

Recent literature in military sociology is reviewed in the context of theories regarding increasing rationality on the part of societies, organizations, and individuals. Models that emphasize individualistic orientations to military service are compared with models that assume a more collectivistic orientation. Attention is paid to the shift from a mobilization-based armed force to a force in being, and to the convergence between military and civilian organizations. Several consequences of the rationalization of the military are considered, including potential changes in willingness to fight, military unionization, changes in professionalism, the substitution of management for leadership, increased utilization of women, and dependence on research, including social science research.
Dying and the Meanings of Death: Sociological Inquiries
Authors: Riley John W.
Published: July 2003

This review takes off from the remarkable decline in mortality as one of the most striking features of the social history of the past century. Most deaths now occur not among the young but among the old. Death, thus postponed, is taking on new meanings for both the individual and society. Three lines of sociological inquiry over the past two decades, together with an extensive bibliography, are critically reviewed. First, the literature on dying and the self includes dying as a social process, dying trajectories, attitudes toward death, and the potentially mortal impact of such social stressors as retirement, residential relocation, and economic change. Second, a broad and often confusing literature deals with bereavement, grief, and the meaning of loss by death to surviving significant others, touching upon such topics as the “broken heart syndrome,” widowhood, types of death and bereavement, and anticipatory grief. Third, sociological inquiries examine the norms and social structures found in all societies for defining and managing dying and the consequences of death.

Although no satisfactory “sociology of death” has yet been written, four influential theories of death-in-society are noted: by Parsons, Blauner, Marshall, and Fox. On balance, the review sees a promising future for sociological inquiries on death and dying and concludes that the meanings of death are in a process of continuing transformation. Some of the key questions yet to be answered are: Will socialization for death become a recognized reality? Will dying persons seek to maintain an even greater sense of autonomy? Will passive euthanasia create fewer moral dilemmas? Will suicide continue as “the final alternative” for increasing numbers of older people? Will new patterns of bereavement emerge for the future population of widows? Will new caring environments for the terminally ill be institutionalized? Will the concept of a “good” death gain wider acceptance? An agenda for continued sociological inquiry appears to be in hand.
Middletown III: Problems of Replication, Longitudinal Measurement, and Triangulation
Authors: Bahr Howard M. , Caplow Theodore , Chadwick Bruce A.
Published: July 2003

This paper considers the present state of replication in the social sciences with special reference to a subtype of replication, longitudinal research as it applies to community research. Opportunities and pitfalls in replication are illustrated in the experience of the Middletown III Project, a 50-year follow-up of Robert and Helen Lynd's study of the same community in 1924-1925. Replication is defined as research undertaken with reference to a particular baseline study, and a replication may differ from the baseline study in any of its major features. A typology of replicative studies is offered based on four properties of research: time, location, subjects, and method. Longitudinal research is defined as a subtype of replication, and growing interest in and practice of longitudinal research are noted. Community research, which may involve mUltiple replications within a single local context, is contrasted with the usual longitudinal studies that trace specific individuals over time and through a variety of community contexts. Five guidelines for replications are offered: (a) clearly establish the baseline to be replicated; (b) resist the temptation to expand the replication to include topics absent in the baseline study; (c) where extensions are justified, try to include longitudinal linkages using techniques of retrospective or life-history reconstruction; (d) control the urge to update the datacollection instruments; and (e)pay close attention to the interplay between community-level variables and data on individual attitudes and experiences.
Toward Integration in the Social Psychology of Emotions
Authors: Scheff Thomas J.
Published: July 2003

Contemporary research on emotions has been increasingly demarcated into four self-contained segments: the cultural, biological, inner, and outer aspects of emotional processes. A parallel trend is the increasing hegemony of the perspective of those who study only the cultural and outside segments. Research on cultural variation, the causation of emotional states, and cultural universals is reviewed and evaluated. This review suggests that the evidence does not support the exclusion of cultural universals from research designs. It is proposed that integration of these four approaches is urgently needed if we are to understand the interactions between culture and biology, between inner and outer, and therefore what is distinctively human about human beings. Some research that integrates these elements into single designs is described as pointing the way for future exploration.
Social Control Through Deterrence: Drinking-and-Driving Laws
Authors: Ross H. Laurence
Published: July 2003

The anti-drunk-driving movement has resulted in a profusion of deterrence-based legislation, providing the opportunity to test the deterrence proposition via quasi-experiments employing high-quality data series. Considerable evidence bearing on this proposition has accumulated to date. Efforts directed mainly at increasing potential drunk drivers’ perceived certainty of punishment frequently have a deterrent effect in the short run. In the long run, however, i.e. over several months or a few years, indexes of drunk driving return to prior levels. This phenomenon may be explained by the very low actual probability of punishment. Efforts directed principally at increasing the perceived severity of punishment have not had the desired deterrent effects, perhaps because of the low levels of certainty that these punishments will be applied. The utility of deterrence-based laws appears to be limited owing to the cost of raising the actual likelihood of punishment to a point that would support a perception of reasonable certainty. Alternative policies based on changing institutions in the fields of recreation and transportation are more promising, though politically problematical. Most promising, in terms of feasibility and effectiveness, are technological measures that prevent driver errors from resulting in crashes or that reduce the forces experienced in those crashes that do occur.
Organizational Perspectives on Stratification
Authors: Baron James N.
Published: July 2003

This essay reviews recent theory and research on organizations and social stratification, focusing on two dimensions of inequality that are affected by organizations and their environments: (a) how rewards and opportunities vary as a function of organizational attributes and (b) how enterprises differ in their criteria for matching workers and jobs. The effects of reward structures and sorting processes on workers, organizational performance, and interorganizational relations are also considered briefly. Since many hypotheses about labor markets concern links between organizations and socioeconomic achievement, there is a need for comparative organizational research to complement analyses at the individual and aggregate levels. Moreover, the interdependence of career outcomes within and among enterprises is widely recognized but requires explicit study. Future research will benefit immeasurably from the development and testing of hypotheses about how organizations and environments influence labor market processes.
The Economy and Social Pathology
Authors: Horwitz Allan V.
Published: July 2003

This review assesses the research of the past decade on how economic deprivation, prosperity, and change influence social pathology. Absolute economic deprivation is associated with high levels of psychological distress, some forms of psychoses, and interpersonal violence, although not with relatively minor forms of crime and neurosis. The mechanisms through which these disorders arise have not been isolated, however. Economic loss, particularly as a result of unemployment, is related to high rates of psychological distress and suicide but not to elevated amounts of psychoses or crime. Some research associates long-term rates of economic growth with rising levels of alcohol consumption, increased utilization of mental health facilities, and higher crime and imprisonment rates, but the reasons for these associations have not been established either. Finally, there is no reliable correlation between absolute rates of economic change and the incidence of any form of pathology. Studies suggest that the relationship between the economy and social pathology is mediated by a number of factors including the stage of the life cycle, gender, social class, levels of social support, and personality. Several promising directions for further research are indicated.
Class Conflict and Social Change in Historical Perspective
Authors: Roy William G.
Published: July 2003

This paper reviews recent sociological and historical work on the relationship between historical change and collective action. This type of work has enjoyed a renaissance within sociology since the publication of E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class, Barrington Moore’s The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and Charles Tilly’s The Vendée, which are summarized here. The epistemological roots of these and related works are treated in discussions of “history from the bottom up,” the nature of historical contingency (vs determinacy), and the role of evidence and empirical verification. Several substantive issues are reviewed: (a) the rise of capitalism in the West, including proletarianization, the formation of classes and class segments, (b) the social roots of collective action, and (c) recent historical treatments of ideology, especially the relationship between popular and dominant ideologies.
Effects of Sibling Number on Child Outcome
Authors: Heer David M.
Published: July 2003

This article reviews studies concerning the impact of sibling number on a selected series of outcomes including IQ, educational attainment, status of current job, and current earnings, Sibling number is a variable over time and cannot be properly measured unless data are available on the number and timing of all births and the age at which each child in the family ceases to be dependent. Unfortunately, existing research is too much based on secondary analysis of data sets for which all of the requisite information is not available. Controversies surround the question whether there is a causal impact of sibling number on IQ and, if so, how it can be explained; these are reviewed in detail. Research on the impact of sibling number on the other three dependent variables is reviewed, particularly where it contributes to our knowledge of the impact on educational attainment net of IQ, on job status net of education attainment, and on current earnings net of job status. It is concluded that decisions on the number and spacing of children are among the most important decisions parents can make. Therefore the large amounts of funds needed for data collection will be funds well spent.
Sociology of Mass Communication
Authors: McQuail Denis
Published: July 2003

Mass communication has always been an object of interdisciplinary study, but it is currently gaining a greater degree of autonomy. The paradigm that is emerging has probably been more influenced by sociology than by any other discipline. This review deals with literature, mainly published during the last five years, chosen according to the significance or representativeness of the main themes. Among thesc is media theory, where the field has proved very sensitive to wider debates within the social sciences, especially those provoked by the advocacy of more critical theory and research and by attacks on positivism. The cultural studies approach has gained ground, and there has been more interchange between humanistic and scientific approaches. The question of media power has remained very much at the center of debate. The critical-cultural developments mentioned have made some contribution to a reconceptualization of the problem and to the adoption of new research strategies that pay more attention to long-term, institutional effects of media. The range of social issues associated with the study of mass communication has widened, with special attention given to questions of women in society, international communication, and the social consequences of new information technology.
Ethnicity
Authors: Yinger J. Milton
Published: July 2003

The near universality of multiethnicity in contemporary states, the persistence—culturally and structurally—of the ethnic factor, contradicting modernization and Marxist theories, and the strong public interest in ethnic phenomena have stimulated a great deal of research in sociology and other social sciences. This review examines the wide diversity of definitions and interpretations in that research. The demography of ethnic groups, the sources of ethnic survival and revival (primordial attachments, political and economic interests, and estrangement from the larger society), and the major themes in the literature on ethnicity are examined. Three themes are emphasized: 1) the relationship of ethnicity to social stratification and discrimination-in particular with reference to internal colonialism, split labor markets, and resource mobilization; 2) ethnicity as culture, illustrated by reference to studies of family and religion; and 3) the connections between ethnicity and politics in developing states, in developed states, and in the armed forces and police of many societies.
The Political Attitudes of Professionals
Authors: Brint Steven
Published: July 2003

In the 1960s and 1970s, political events and polling data indicated a significant rise in liberal and dissenting political attitudes among American professionals. These data seem to run counter to the historically typical connection between social privilege and conservative politics. The major purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive portrait of the politics of professionals since 1960, through a review of American survey research. Business executives and nonprofessional workers are used as the principal comparison categories. Professionals are conservative on most economic policy issues and on commitments to American “core values.” Like business executives, they are comparatively liberal on civil rights and civil liberties issues. Like nonprofessional workers, they are comparatively liberal on welfare state and business support issues. They are more liberal than either business executives or nonprofessional workers on personal morality and military force issues. Within the professional stratum, important lines of political cleavage exist by occupational category, cohort, and type of employing organization. The anomaly of relatively high levels of liberalism in this high status group is explained with reference to two factors: (1) The rise and fall of issue-based political coalitions; and (2) cumulative changes in the occupational and class structure.
Social Control of Occupations and Work
Authors: Simpson Richard L.
Published: July 2003

Three largely separate literatures—on organizations, on professions, and on manual and clerical work settings—have treated the social control of work. From these writings we identify five modes of control over work: simple, technical, bureaucratic, occupational, and worker self-control. We discuss findings on conditions that underlie the occurrence of different controls. Contingency and resource dependence organization theories help explain the degree of bureaucratic control and the power of work groups within organizations. Literature on occupations and work groups suggests four categories of variables related to modes of control. These pertain to (a) the nature of tasks, particularly their degree of uncertainty, (b) relations between segments of occupation, (c) how an occupation fits into a division of labor, and (d) relations of an occupation to elements of its environment such as clients, markets, or government. Findings on professionals and those on lower-status workers are often similar although stated differently. Some findings of the sociology of work are subsumable under theories about organizations.
Popular Culture
Authors: Mukerji Chandra , Schudson Michael
Published: July 2003

Popular culture studies have until recently been treated as more or less unworthy of serious scholarly attention. But developments in anthropology, history, communication, American studies, and literary criticism have given the study of popular culture new analytic tools and legitimacy. This article reviews some of the more noteworthy contributions to this body of scholarship. Interpretive anthropology by Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, and others, historical work influenced by the Annales school, studies of mass media, and the work of structuralists and post-structuralists from many disciplines are all discussed. This work, as well as sociological analyses of leisure, art, and mass culture are shown to have provided rich and vital insights into the social power and forms of popular culture.
Recent Developments in Role Theory
Authors: Biddle B. J.
Published: July 2003

Role theory concerns one of the most important features of social life, characteristic behavior patterns or roles. It explains roles by presuming that persons are members of social positions and hold expectations for their own behaviors and those of other persons. Its vocabulary and concerns are popular among social scientists and practitioners, and role concepts have generated a lot of research. At least five perspectives may be discriminated in recent work within the field: functional, symbolic interactionist, structural, organizational, and cognitive role theory. Much of role research reflects practical concerns and derived concepts, and research on four such concepts is reviewed: consensus, conformity, role conflict, and role taking. Recent developments suggest both centrifugal and integrative forces within the role field. The former reflect differing perspectival commitments of scholars, confusions and disagreements over use of role concepts, and the fact that role theory is used to analyze various forms of social system. The latter reflect the shared, basic concerns of the field and efforts by role theorists to seek a broad version of the field that will accommodate a wide range of interests.
States and Social Policies
Authors: Skocpol Theda , Amenta Edwin
Published: July 2003

Comparative social scientists have developed various arguments about the determinants of social policies, especially those connected with twentieth-century “welfare states.” Structure-functionalists argue that the social policies of modern nations necessarily converge due to an underlying logic of industrialism, while neo-Marxists treat such policies as state responses to the social reproduction requirements of advanced capitalism. Yet most students of social policies are more attuned to history and politics. Concentrating on two dozen or fewer industrial capitalist democracies, many scholars have explored the alternative ways in which democratic political processes have helped to create programs and expand social expenditures. For a fuller range of nations past and present, scholars have also asked how ties to the world-economy, patterns of geopolitical competition, and processes of transnational cultural modelling have influenced social policies. Finally, there is now considerable interest in the independent impact of states on social policymaking. States may be sites of autonomous official initiatives, and their institutional structures may help to shape the political processes from which social policies emerge. In turn, social policies, once enacted and implemented, themselves transform politics. Consequently, the study over time of “policy feedbacks” has become one of the most fruitful current areas of research on states and social policies.
Efficiency and Social Institutions: Uses and Misuses of Economic Reasoning in Sociology
Authors: Oberschall Anthony , Leifer Eric M.
Published: July 2003

We review recent applications of the “new institutional economics” to a variety of social institutions. The applications use the idea of efficiency to account for the emergence and persistence of institutions such as the family, sharing groups, private property, discrimination, and the norm of reciprocity. Efficiency entails eliminating costly externalities with the least possible transaction costs (i.e. costs involved in negotiating, writing, and enforcing agreements). Our critique of efficiency shows how power relations, goal ambiguity. and the institutional relativism of choice render efficiency problematic. The sociological criterion of reproducibility may be more relevant where these features hold. If efficiency analysis is used, the sociologist should insist that it allow the identification of inefficiencies and that institutional participants welcome suggested improvements in efficiency.
Arab Sociology Today: A View from Within
Authors: Sabagh Georges , Ghazalla Iman
Published: July 2003

Some of the accomplishments and shortcomings of Arab sociology during the last few years are assessed from the perspective of Arab sociologists. This assessment of Arab sociology from the insiders' perspective involves (a) reviewing selected papers presented at one of the most recent Arab sociology conferences, (b) analyzing the results of a survey of 36 Arab sociologists, and (c) describing in detail the major contributions of Arab sociologists and social scientists to the study of Islam, with particular reference to Islamic social movements. Recent socioeconomic changes and political events in the Arab world help explain the rising interest in sociology. Arab sociologists view their discipline as still in process of becoming and in a state of crisis. The sociopolitical and disciplinary aspects of this crisis and the solution suggested to remedy it are described. Arab sociological studies of Islamic social movements have the following features: (a) an emphasis on the diversity, complexity, and historical specificity, of these movements, (b) a recognition of the need for an interdisciplinary approach, (c) a focus on the sociological characteristics of leaders and followers, (d) analyses of the origin of the movements, and (e) an emphasis on the need for a methodology more personal and subjective than the one used in the West. This research, as well as the survey of Arab sociologists, indicates that there is a noticeable trend toward the substantive indigenization of Arab sociology and that Arab sociologists are aware of the need to be innovative and flexible in their selection and use of research methods. These also show that there has been little theoretical indigenization of Arab sociology. This may explain, in part, the sense of crisis felt by Arab sociologists.
Toward A Structural Criminology: Method and Theory in Criminological Research
Authors: Hagan John , Palloni Alberto
Published: July 2003

This paper calls for a structural criminology that is distinguished by its attention to power relations and by the priority it assigns them in addressing criminological issues. Dominant criminological paradigms both imply and deny what structural criminology requires. That is, our theories often imply that crime is a product of power relations, but our methodologies commonly ignore this premise. We make this point first with a preliminary review of prominent sociological theories of crime and then by a more systematic review of three research literatures: on class and criminality, on criminal sentencing, and on the family and delinquency. The paper concludes with an argument that a new focus on the relationship between gender and crime can provide a new starting point in the development of a structural criminology that is a more sociological criminology as well.
Social Impact Assessment
Authors: Freudenburg William R.
Published: July 2003

This article reviews the large and growing literature on social or socioeconomic impact assessment (SIA). Sociologists and other social scientists have been examining various “impacts” or consequences for decades, but the field of SIA emerged during the 1970s as a response to new environmental legislation. Both in its origins and its contributions, SIA is thus a hybrid, a field of social science and a component of the policy-making process. SIAs are generally anticipatory—efforts to project likely impacts before they occur-but empirical SIA work has looked at a broad range of social consequences. The largest subset of empirical SIA work has focused on relatively specific construction projects, particularly large-scale energy development projects in rural areas. Important advances have taken place in documenting economic/demographic and also social and cultural impacts. Further developments in findings, theory, and techniques will be necessary to meet the challenges of the future. The field is showing increasing consensus on a number of earlier controversies, e.g. on the need for SIAs to cross the usual disciplinary boundaries and to develop original data where “available” data are not sufficient. The main issue on which consensus has not yet emerged involves the question of how best to incorporate scientific input in what will remain largely political decisions. The field's efforts to deal with this fundamental and perhaps enduring question, however, may provide useful guidance for other efforts to include scientific input in political decision-making-efforts that may take on growing importance as society begins to deal with the increasingly complex risks posed by technological developments.
On the Degradation of Skills
Authors: Form William
Published: July 2003

Although social scientists have long believed that mechanization degrades skills, they disagree on the meaning and measurement of skills. A dominant view stresses that capitalists simplify skills to increase efficiency and profits; another, that managers deskill jobs to increase control over workers and work organization. Although case studies document the disappearance of many crafts during the industrial transformation of Britain and the United States, they do not show that skills as a whole declined. Recent historical studies reveal that industrialization may have created as many new skills as it destroyed, that early manufacturing used many traditional skills, and that new industrial skills were genuine. They also show that scientific management deskilled workers slightly and that management successfully wrested control of work organization from the traditional crafts. Twentieth-century census data reveal little aggregate compositional change in the skill distribution of major occupations. Short-term studies of individual occupational skills show little or no aggregate change. Finally, case studies of automation suggest that its deskilling effects vary greatly by occupation and industry. Firm conclusions about skill degradation must await time-series analysis of national surveys that measure components of occupational skills in different industries.
Time Budgets and Their Uses
Authors: Andorka Rudolf
Published: July 2003

The paper summarizes the state of the art of time budget surveys and analyses. It first treats the new methodological developments, than reviews the different fields of utilization of time budget data: mass media contact, demand for cultural and other leisure goods and services, urban planning, consumer behavior, needs of elderly persons and of children, the sexual division of labor, the informal economy and household economics, social accounting, social indicators, quality of life, way of life, social structure. It deals also with the lessons from intertemporal and international comparisons of the results of time budget surveys.
Parenthood and Psychological Well-Being
Authors: McLanahan Sara , Adams Julia
Published: July 2003

Recent studies suggest that parenthood may have negative consequences for the psychological well-being of adults. Adults with children at home report that they are less happy and less satisfied with their lives than other groups. They also appear to worry more and to experience higher levels of anxiety and depression. The overall difference between parents and nonparents appears to be small, although it has increased during the past two decades. Differences between parents and nonparents stem from economic and time constraints, which in turn arise from general social trends such as the increase in women’s labor force participation and the increase in marital disruption and single parenthood. We expect these trends to continue in the near future, reducing the desire for children and increasing gender conflict over the division of parental obligations. Parental strain might be alleviated by some form of state-supported childcare or child allowance.
Research on Stepfamilies
Authors: Ihinger-Tallman Marilyn
Published: July 2003

This paper identifies and elaborates the unique conditions that differentiate stepfamilies from first families and evaluates and critiques the theory and methods used to study stepfamilies. The paper begins with a summary of past and current demographic trends, followed by a discussion of children and their custodial arrangements, the factor that most profoundly distinguishes a stepfamily from a first family. Next, the difficulties associated with stepmother, stepfather, and stepchild positions are reviewed. Certain processes (e.g. commitment, cohesion, communication) are important for the formation and stable maintenance of all family groups. One of these processes, boundary maintenance, is used to illustrate the unique experiences of stepfamilies. The stepfamily as a high risk setting is next discussed. Suggestions that are offered in the literature to explain stepmember vulnerability to abuse are summarized. The paper concludes with a discussion of theory and methods and the progress, problems, and promising directions of this research topic.
New Directions in the Study of Culture
Authors: Wuthnow Robert , Witten Marsha
Published: July 2003

Cultural analysis has recently emerged as a prominent subfield within sociology. The subfield comprises a variety of approaches and substantive concerns, which may for heuristic purposes be divided along several lines. One major division separates studies viewing culture as implicit in social life from studies in which culture is seen as an explicit social product. Alternatively, recent cultural studies can be divided on the basis of the theoretical methods they employ. Four such approaches predominate: subjective, structural, dramaturgic, and institutional. Finally, cultural studies may be classified with respect to their area of substantive interest. Reviews are given of recent work in four substantive fields: public moral discourse, science, organizational culture, and ideology.