bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“Instinct” in Sport Journalism: A Case of Value‐added Attribution*
Authors: Mathisen James A.
Published: January 2007

In their roles of reality mediator and expert interpreter, sport journalists invoke the term “instinct” to explain successful athletic performances. This study of journalistic uses of instinct (N = 41) identifies three elements–ability, experience, and cognition–which comprise instinct. Theoretically, instinct is a journalistic attribution of stable, internally‐located success, the elements of which can be combined into a value‐added sequence. Insights from symbolic interactionism enhance understanding instinct in relationship to the broader, cultural significance of American sport.
Carrying Firearms for Protection: A Causal Model*
Authors: Bankston William B. , Thompson Carol Y.
Published: January 2007

The authors develop a causal model of the determinants of carrying firearms for protection. It is argued that the examination of carrying a gun as a dependent variable is methodologically more advantageous than using gun ownership as the dependent variable. Through use of path analysis, the direct and indirect effects on gun carrying behavior are identified. The results suggest most crime specific variables, e.g. fear of criminal victimization, do not directly influence the tendency to carry a gun, although these factors had minor indirect effects on the dependent variable. The most important direct influences on carrying a gun were age, gender, and the belief that the presence of guns is an effective deterrent to crime.
Advancing the Chicago School of Pragmatic Sociology: The Life and Work of Tamotsu Shibutani*
Authors: Baldwin John D.
Published: January 2007

Tamotsu Shibutani is a contemporary proponent of the Chicago School of pragmatic sociology who has devoted his academic efforts to using the Chicago School of pragmatism to analyze problems of contemporary social life and to refine the theoretical tools available to the discipline of sociology. He has evaluated such topics as the Japanese relocation centers, the social construction of rumor, demoralization in Army life, the dynamics of ethnic stratification, and the resolution of ethnic tensions. Shibutani's books on social psychology and general sociology synthesize micro and macro variables, with careful attention to both agency and social control. His work is free of metaphysical puzzles and is true to the scientific method, clearly reflecting the essence of the Chicago School of pragmatic sociology.
Becoming an American and Liking It as Functions of Social Distance and Severity of Initiation
Authors: Walsh Anthony
Published: January 2007

This paper examines the effects of social distance among a sample of immigrants in the process of becoming United States citizens. Using the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, a positive relationship was found between the degree of social distance and the likelihood of becoming a citizen. Social distance also serves as an important indicator of severity of initiation; the findings suggest that severity of initiation had a positive influence on reported satisfaction with life in America for those who became U. S. citizens. For those who did not become citizens, however, social distance had an inverse affect on satisfaction.
Sociology as a Natural Science? The Agenda of Walter Wallace*
Authors: Falk William W.
Published: January 2007

Walter L. Wallace has spent over twenty years outlining parameters for the discipline of sociology. He has paid special attention to what he calls the “complementarities” between the various areas of sociological specialization. From this investigation he has proposed a metalanguage to unite the discipline, with a particular emphasis on structure. Wallace's position is that sociology must, inevitably, follow the canons of the natural science model. This perspective is sketched in this article with some assessment of Wallace's contribution to contemporary sociology.
C. Wright Mills, Pessimistic Radical*
Authors: Chasin Barbara H.
Published: January 2007

C. Wright Mills was a radical, critical of United States society and of sociology as practiced in this country. His criticisms were especially provocative given the ideological atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s. His writings on stratification were very influential, with several of them having a mass readership. Mills viewed the United States as a society dominated by irresponsible elites and alienated masses. Sociology, he felt, had abdicated its responsibility for showing how larger social forces shape individual lives. While pessimistic about the possibility of fundamental social changes, Mills nevertheless urged intellectuals to use their skills to bring about a society where reason and democracy would prevail. Though marginalized within the profession during his life, he helped inspire the development of a critical perspective within sociology.
Parking Sign and Solidarity within Religious Groups: Social Identity Constructions in Nigeria*
Authors: Lawuyi Olatunde B.
Published: January 2007

This study offers an interpretation of driving signs used in interpersonal communication. Questionnaires were administered in a university setting to faculty members to assess the manner in which “parking” is used. Religious affiliations of the respondents are related to social identities, and the results suggest that religion serves as a direct influence on motorists who park off the road to communicate with other drivers. The findings further suggest that within the specific cultural milieu described, parking connotes respect for family members.
In Search of Social Structure*
Authors: Peacock Walter Gillis
Published: January 2007

Frederick L. Bates' career has been characterized by a single quest, the creation of an internally consistent theoretical model through which sociologists can conceptualize and analyze social structure from the simplest group structures to complex networks of groups and organizations. The basic elements of this model of social structure are examined and the model's theoretical foundations, assumptions and applications are discussed. Included are perspectives on structural modeling, self‐ referential systems theory and the concepts of social structure, social organization, culture, norms, and society as a non‐system.
“Road Warriors” on “Hair‐Tragger Highways”: Cultural Resources and the Media's Construction of the 1987 Freeway Shootings Problem*
Authors: Best Joel
Published: January 2007

Media constructions of social problems usually rework the claims of activists and other primary claimsmakers. However, the news media acted as primary claims‐makers in discovering and reporting the 1987 Los Angeles freeway violence problem. The press drew upon cultural resources in constructing this problem, applying a conventional template for social problems stories and using familiar imagery to depict freeway shootings. The social organization of claimsmaking, as well as contingencies in the histories of individual campaigns, affect the choice of cultural resources used to construct social problems.
Sociology and the Prosaic
Authors: Stein Michael
Published: January 2007

The sociology of Erving Goffman is examined, including those who influenced his work as well as those influenced by it. Goffman's sociology is examined in terms of focus and scope, theory, and method. As much of his sociology is singular in its presentation, stylistic elements in Goffman's work are also considered.
Three Kinds of Anti‐Intellectualism: Rethinking Hofstadter*
Authors: Rigney Daniel
Published: January 2007

Hofstadter's landmark analysis of anti‐intellectualism in American life is interpreted within the framework of the sociology of knowledge. His analysis suggests three analytically distinct types of anti‐intellectualism: religious anti‐rationalism, populist anti‐elitism, and unreflective instrumentalism. Each type arises from within its own distinctive institutional matrix. Although Hofstadter fails to anticipate the growing cultural impact of mass media institutions, he demonstrates convincingly that anti‐intellectualism is not a unitary phenomenon.
Immigration, Ethnicity, and Conflict: The California Chinese, 1849–1882*
Authors: Fong Eric , Markham William T.
Published: January 2007

Drawing on Bonacich's split market theory, the work of Hechter and Blalock on ethnic conflict, and the literature on social movements, the authors develop a model of factors producing conflict between native and immigrant workers. The model identifies the relative size of the immigrant group, the growth of the immigrant population, the desirability of jobs held by immigrant workers, economic conditions, the development of racist ideology among native workers, and the organization of native workers as factors possibly explaining the frequency of incidents of overt ethnic conflict and efforts to institutionalize discrimination through government action. The model is assessed by examining the situation of Chinese immigrants in California between 1849 and 1882. The data suggest that poor economic conditions, a well‐developed racist ideology, and well‐organized native workers best explain incidents of ethnic conflict and successful efforts to obtain discriminatory government action.
BOOK REVIEWS
Authors: Folse Kimberly A.
Published: January 2007

Book reivewed in this article:

The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians' Debate, by Jurgen Habermas. Ed. and trans. by Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990, 200 pages, $19.95, hardback.

Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender and the Social Order, by Cynthia B. Fuchs Epstein. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988, 300 pages, $25.00, hardback.

Medical Work in America: Essays on Health Care, by Eliot Freidson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989, 274 pages, $30.00, cloth, $15.95, paper.

Philosophy of Science and Its Discontents, by Steve Fuller. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989, 188 pages, $32.95, hardcover.

Friendship: Developing a Sociological Perspective, by Graham Allan. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989, 174 pages, $16.95, hardback.

The Urban Web: Politics, Policy, and Theory, by Lawrence J.R. Herson and John M. Bolland. Chicago, IL: Nelson Hall Publishers, 1990, 512 pages, $22.95, paper, $29.95, hardback.

The Real Disaster is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict, by J. Stephen Kroll‐Smith and Stephen Robert Couch. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1990, 200 pages, $24.00, hardback.

The Power Elite and the State: How Policy is Made in America, by G. William Domhoff. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1990, 315 pages, $47.95, hardback, $19.95, paper.

Locality and Inequality: Farm and Industry Structure and Socioeconomic Conditions, by Linda M. Lobao. Albany, NY: The State University of New York Press, 1990, 291 pages, $49.50, hardback, $14.95, paper.
Socio‐Economics Revisited
Authors: Etzioni Amitai
Published: January 2007

Parsons' Marshall Lectures were an important and still are a relevant contribution to the critique of the utilitarian, rationalist, radically individualist paradigm which still dominates scholarship, especially economics, today. Parsons advised economists to stop ignoring the broader societal context of which the economy is only a sub‐system; economic actors are not impersonal, fully independent individuals but should be viewed as people with internalized moral and social values, values which cannot be accounted for as mere external, environmental constraints. Parsons, however, paid little attention to the role of power in the market. Socio‐economics incorporates issues addressed in the Marshall Lectures, treats the leverage of interventionist power (large corporations and labor unions) as significant, and seeks to grow as a coherent alternative to the neoclassical paradigm.
Talcott Parsons’Marshall Lectures: Contemporay, But Flawed
Authors: Ritzer George
Published: January 2007

The occasion of the publication of Parsons’Marshall Lectures is used to demonstrate Parsons’prescience and the contemporary relevance of his ideas. It is argued that these lectures are similar in intent to the recent work of Amitai Etzioni and his objective of creating the field of socio‐economics. The two works are compared and their relative strengths and weaknesses discussed. Parsons is shown to be well ahead of his time, not only in his effort to integrate social and economic concerns, but in the broader integrative intent of his overall theory. While Parsons was not able to begin to engineer a rapprochement with economics, such an intellectual integration may be more possible today because economics appears to be in greater crisis and sociology seems to have more to offer to disaffected economists.
The Marshall Lectures and Social‐Scientific Practice
Authors: Buxton William
Published: January 2007

The paper seeks to demonstrate the inherently practical intent of the Marshall Lectures. It argues that Parsons' views on the relationship between sociology and economics were presupposed by his broader vision of how the social sciences could contribute to the successful functioning of the social order. This conception of a new division of labor in the social sciences arose from Parsons' concern with the shortcomings of both utilitarian economics and Marxism. Evidence from Parsons' writings of the 1930s and 1940s is provided in support of these claims.
Laud Humphreys: A Pioneer in the Practice of Social Science
Authors: Goodwin Glenn A. , Horowitz Irving Louis , Nardi Peter M.
Published: January 2007

The life and work of Laud Humphreys is reviewed in an attempt to assess their effect on American sociology. We focus on the intersections between biography and professional contributions as they emerged from Humphreys’graduate work at Washington University, St. Louis through his years at Pitzer College. The commentary is couched in the theoretical traditions of C. Wright Mills, the sociology of knowledge, and the sociology of sociology.
Rural‐Urban Differences in Environmental Concern: A Closer Look*
Authors: Freudenburg William R.
Published: January 2007

In comparison with urbanites, rural residents live in environments that are less heavily modified by human activity. They also depend more directly on the extraction or use of natural resources and are more likely to suffer the kinds of economic weaknesses that could lead them to favor economic development even at the expense of environmental protection. Yet while some studies have found rural residents to express lower levels of environmental concern than do urbanites, other studies have found that low levels of rural environmental concern may actually reflect lower concerns among farmers in particular. These varied results may be affected by methodologies, including the degree of focus on local environmental concern and the need to separate livins in polluted areas from workins for polluting industries. Drawing on rural areas with significant employment both in agriculture and in mining, this paper presents data on more specific local concerns about the environment and technological development. The findings show persons in agriculture express higher levels of concern than do other rural persons in the same communities. The results suggest that widespread support for environmental protection may make it difficult to isolate groups having low levels of environmental concern unless greater attention is devoted to the specific environmental issues having the greatest local salience.
The Role of Inside and Same‐Sex Influencers in the Choice of Nontraditional Occupations*
Authors: Betz Michael , O'Connell Lenahan
Published: January 2007

The role model approach to occupational choice predicts concern with sex appropriateness and reliance on same‐sex influencers when individuals choose nontraditional occupations, while the opportunity structure approach predicts men and women respond equally to opportunity. Using data from male and female engineering and nursing students, this study evaluates both perspectives. Findings suggest the opportunity structure approach is more predictive of nontraditional choices, since male nurses and female engineers rely more on opposite sex influencers, many of whom are inside their chosen occupation. Implications for theory and social policy also are discussed.
A Research Note on Family and Income Distribution: The Equalizing Impact of Married Women's Earnings in Metropolitan Brazil*
Authors: Paes de Barros Ricardo , Pinto de Mendonca Rosane Silva
Published: January 2007

Using the 1985 Brazilian Annual Household Survey (PNAD), this study analyzes the extent to which the labor force participation of married women influenced familyincome inequality. The marginal impact on family earnings is decomposed into two components, one generated uniquely by differences in earnings inequality between spouses and another produced by imperfect assortive mating on spouses' earnings. Results show that the correlation among spouses' earnings is significantly less than one (0.4), and that the level of earnings inequality is more than 50 percent higher among wives than husbands. Because these forces are offsetting, wives' labor income has a negligible impact on family‐income inequality in Brazil. The results demonstrate the importance of isolating the influence of imperfect assortive mating from that due to inequality in earnings between men and women.
The Quintessential Rural Sociologist*
Authors: Bryant Clifton D. , Ballweg John A.
Published: January 2007

Alvin L. Bertrand's career and research have made him an exemplar of humane social scientist, scholar, and academician. For many of his peers, Bertrand is the quintessential rural sociologist. Spending almost all of his career at Louisiana State University, Dr. Bertrand has addressed an extraordinarily broad array of social phenomena, often of a community problem variety, in his research. His research employed a social systems analysis frequently focused on the rural context and had a strong applied orientation with the result that his findings have been widely used as the basis for the formulation of important national and international program and policy decisions. Bertrand's work has attracted wide attention abroad as well as in the United States. Because of his many contributions to the discipline of sociology, he has received numerous awards and recognitions and has also been elected to various offices in professional societies and associations, including the presidency of five such groups.
Social Psychological Effects of Literacy by Language Combinations in an African Society*
Authors: Armer J. Michael
Published: January 2007

According to the “autonomous” model, literacy in any language produces uniform consequences for individuals such as interest in current affairs, personal efficacy, status aspiration, and logical thinking. This view is countered by the “ideological” model which holds that consequences vary across languages depending upon the processes through which literacy is acquired and the purposes for which it is intended. These competing views are tested with survey data from 576 young men in Kano, Nigeria. Sixteen autonomous model dependent variables are regressed on dummy variables of illiteracy (the comparison category) and major literacy combinations in three languages–Arabic, Hausa, and English. The results show many insignificant effects and wide variations in coefficients for different literacy combinations, even when adjustments are made for Arabic literacy measurement limitations and for social selectivity in literacy acquisition. The evidence provides support for the ideological model of literacy consequences and has theoretical implications for the control and use of literacy for personal and social development.
The Effects of ROTC Program Participation on Socioeconomic Status and Life Satisfaction*
Authors: Miller Robert K. , Benton Toni M.
Published: January 2007

Using mail survey data based on a stratified systematic sample [N = 686] of 1983–1988 graduates of a medium‐sized state university, this research evaluates whether ROTC program participation constitutes an independent source of human capital in civilian labor markets by comparing postgraduate earnings (annual income), prestige and authority, and life satisfaction of ROTC program participants with those of nonparticipants. The results revealed no statistically significant ROTC program participation effects, independent of subsequent military status. ROTC program participation paid off in terms of occupational prestige and authority for those on active duty, but not for those in national guard or reserve units. Neither ROTC participation nor current military status affected income or life satisfaction levels.
BOOK REVIEWS
Authors: Folse Kimberly A.
Published: January 2007

Book reviewed in this article:

Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, by Jörgen Habermas. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, 228 pages, $19.95, hardback.

Models and Interpretations: Selected Essays, by J. A. Barnes. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 273 pages, $47.50, hardback.

Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community, Elijah Anderson. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago, 1990, 276 pages, $19.95, cloth.

Status Inequality: The Self in Culture, by George A. De Vos and Marcelo Suarez‐Orozco. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, Inc. 1990, 311 pages, $39.95, hardback.
The Micro System of Deviance in Intimate Relationships*
Authors: Farrell Ronald A. , Case Carole
Published: January 2007

Deviance in intimate relationships may lie as much within the micro system of such relationships as it does within the personalities of the actors involved. Using a Parsonsian framework, it is argued that the strain of systemically disequilibrated relationships can produce deviant personality adaptations which, in turn, intensify conflict and deviance in those relationships. It is also proposed that a reciprocal quality exists to such maladaptations, with each member of the dyad contributing to the amplification of a stable system of deviant behavior patterns within the relationship. Because the patterns of maladaptive dyads spill over into parent‐child relationships, they have implications for understanding intergenerational transmission of deviance between intimates.
The Rhetoric of Violence in Rap and Country Music
Authors: Armstrong Edward G.
Published: January 2007

This study is a semiotic ethnography and ethnomusicological comparison of the rhetoric of violence found in two increasingly popular musical forms, rap and country. Based on the production‐of‐culture perspective, musical genres are considered socially constructed organizing principles and lyrics, the primary data, are viewed as ensembles of texts. The strategy is to address rap and country songs as they present claims concerning the focal concerns of trouble and toughness. First, analysis is framed in terms of three violent crimes–murder, manslaughter, and assault. Second, dimensions of toughness are specified–physical prowess and masculinity. This study illustrates the hidden resemblances between rap and country and highlights parallels between these essentially incompatible musical domains.
Postmodernizing (Macro)sociology
Authors: Weinstein Deena , Weinstein Michael A.
Published: January 2007

A selective appropriation of postmodernist theories is undertaken with special reference to their applicability to macrosociology and to other branches of sociological inquiry that employ conceptions of social and cultural totality. The appropriation is premised on the thesis that theories of culture, such as postmodernism, can contribute to sociology by their analyses of cultural form, providing sociology with general descriptions of what social processes must mediate and with guidance on how to grasp its own cultural form(s). Three notions of cultural totality, “bricolage” (Claude Lévi‐Strauss), “discursive formation” (Michel Foucault), and “deconstruction” (Jacques Derrida), are considered. All have in common a description of cultural form that stresses nonsystematic order. They are contrasted to Talcott Parsons’modernist and systematizing macrotheoretic reflection on culture and society. A deconstruction of Parsons yields the alternative of a less‐than‐systematic, postmodernized (macro)‐ sociology.
Race: The Mythic Root of Racism
Authors: Muir Donal E.
Published: January 2007

The term “race” was introduced into science two and a half centuries ago as an arbitrary convenience to describe geographic groupings of humans. These ad hoc racial taxonomies were seized upon, however, as “scientific” justification for slavery and other forms of social, political, and economic oppression. Over the last fifty years, geneticists and biologists have quietly abandoned race as a scientific concept, leaving the general public unaware that racial categories, associated only with culturally selected, physically superficial characteristics, are social rather than genetic. As a result, most individuals remain “racist” in the sense of predicating interaction on racial assignments thought to reflect deep physiological differences. Some of these are conventionally recognized “mean racists.” The remainder, however, could well be considered “kind racists,” for their seeming benign tolerance defines limits to integration, and their unreflective perpetuation of the enabling belief of racism, that races exist physiologically, serves as a wellspring for mean racism during social crises. Many societies are thus much more racist than they appear. Since the belief that others are physically distinct tends to extend social distance and exacerbate hostility, analysts of social conflict ignore this pool of hidden racism at their peril.
BOOK REVIEWS
Authors: Folse Kimberly A.
Published: January 2007

Book reviewed in this article:

Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences. Graham Button (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Text in Context: Contributions to Ethnomethodology. Graham Watson and Robert M. Seiler (eds.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.

Shooting Dope: Career Patterns of Hard‐Core Heroin Users, by Charles E. Faupel. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1991, 220 pages, $27.95, hardcover.

Capitalist Development and Democracy, by Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, 387 pages, $45.00, hardback, $19.95, paper.

What Does the Lord Require? How American Christians Think about Economic Justice, by Stephen Hart. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, 251 pages, $24.95, hardback.

Understanding Everyday Racism: An Interdisciplinary Theory, by Philomena Essed. Newberry Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991, 322 pages, $44.00, cloth.

The Search for Rational Drug Control, by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 219 pages, $24.95, hardback.

Micropolitics of Knowledge: Communication and Indirect Control in Workgroups, by Emmanuel Lazega. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1992, 149 pages, $37.95, hardback, $16.95, paperback.

Studying Collective Action, Sage Modern Politics Series Volume 30, sponsored by the European Consortium for Political Research/ECPR, edited by Mario Diani and Ron Eyerman. London: Sage, 1992, 263 pages, $60.00, hardback.
From Migrant to Minority: Hmong Refugees and the Social Construction of Identity in the United States*
Authors: Hein Jeremy
Published: January 2007

The social constructionist perspective of ethnicity suggests that international migrants may not consider themselves ethnic minorities even when they objectively hold this status. Interview data from forty Hmong refugee leaders support this thesis. One‐third have an entirely migrant orientation, while few have an entirely minority orientation. However, one‐third are primarily minority in orientation. The migrant orientation prioritizes the ethnic community and problems related to migration. The minority orientation prioritizes relations with U.S. society and problems caused by U.S. institutions. Consistent with findings of prior research, the minority orientation is most common among leaders who have the greatest potential for successful adaptation. But in contrast to prior research, the findings suggest that ethnic awareness among migrants depends not only on attitudes toward assimilation, but also on whether they attribute inequality to their status as newcomers in a host society or to their status as a minority in a racial and ethnic hierarchy.
Whistleblowing and the Control of Organizational Misconduct*
Authors: Miethe Terance D. , Rothschild Joyce
Published: January 2007

The current study reviews the literature on whistleblowing and examines its role in detecting and controlling organizational misconduct. We begin with a definition of this concept, show how micro‐level theories of “deviance” explain whistleblowing, summarize evidence on its prevalence and correlates, and examine the legal protection of whistleblowers against organizational retaliation. The effectiveness of whistleblowing legislation in encouraging the reporting of organizational misconduct is also discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the relative costs and benefits of whistleblowing as a method of social control of organizational misconduct.
Frame Changes and Social Movement Contraction: U.S. Peace Movement Framing After the Cold War*
Authors: Marullo Sam
Published: January 2007

This study analyzes framing processes and their relationships with ongoing social movement change. We examine peace frames found among U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOS) in its period of contraction at the end of the Cold War. On the basis of analysis of a unique two‐wave survey of US. peace movement organizations in 1988 and 1992, we assess the extent to which organizational framing of the peace problematic changed. We found an overall shift in emphases from more bilateral frames like the nuclear weapons freeze to frames emphasizing multilateralism and global interdependence. PMO frame transformations that took place between 1988 and 1992 represent a trend towards broader, more radical (or structural) and less exclusive peace movement frames. We describe the frame transformations observed here as the emergence of “retention frames.” Retention frames embody several dimensions of movement abeyance structures and serve to sustain organizational continuity across episodes of movement surges and contraction.
Sociology and the Nation‐State in an Era of Shifting Boundaries
Authors: Levine Donald N.
Published: January 2007

Academic disciplines and nation‐states resemble one another in the sense that both emerged worldwide as overarching categories for conferring collective identities about a century ago. During the past quarter century, however, the status of both has been challenged. Disciplines like sociology have been challenged by more salient intellectual boundaries organized around subdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and supradisciplinary lines—a fact that helps account for sociology's response to external threats to the discipline with a sense of being in crisis. Nation‐states have been similarly challenged by new jurisdictions organized around subnational, transnational, and supranational lines. Even so, these changes constitute a process of differentiation, not displacement; disciplines and nation‐states are likely to persist in serving important functions. albeit reduced in scope.
Incorporation as an Interactive Process: Cherokee Resistance to Expansion of the Capitalist World‐System, 1560–1763*
Authors: Dunaway Wilma A.
Published: January 2007

Like capitalism itself, incorporation is a dialectical historical process that involves both social structure and human agency. On the one hand, transformations are determined by hegemonic forces in the capitalist world‐system itself. Incorporation is the long‐range civilizational project of capitalist colonizers. This historical process is best understood not as a cultural conflict between indigenes and European invaders, but as an economic conflict between precapitalist or communal modes of production and capitalist modes. Driven by the cultural logic of historical capitalism, the intruders mythologize their economic domination as a lofty mission to implant civilization on savages. On the other hand, indigenous people are not passive recipients of Western civilization. In sharp contrast to the imperialistic goals of the interlopers, the indigenous group seeks to safeguard its established way of life. The devastating effects of change are ameliorated because the impacted people act, react, and resist. As a result, the dominated disrupt the agenda of the colonizers and create a historical window by which they prevent their cultural annihilation.
Archaeology and World‐Systems Theory
Authors: Peregrine Peter N.
Published: January 2007

Archaeology has tremendous potential for developing world‐systems approaches to non‐Western and noncapitalist societies because it has the ability to both explore non‐Western and noncapitalist societies with the sophistication of anthropology and to explore societies in existence long before the capitalist world‐system began to evolve. I suggest that sociologists stand to gain by learning about non‐Western and noncapitalist societies, particularly as they are understood by archaeologists. World‐systems theory provides a common framework within which archaeologists and sociologists can both work. This article explores recent work in world‐systems archaeology that sociologists might find particularly valuable.
Structure, Agency, and Context: The Contributions of Geography to World‐Systems Analysis
Authors: Flint Colin , Shelley Fred M.
Published: January 2007

The interaction of geography and world‐systems theory has created two groups of work. The first body of work uses world‐systems theory as its theoretical framework with minor levels of critique or change. The second body of work attempts to inform world‐ systems theory by explicitly including a geographical perspective. Human geographers attracted to world‐systems theory provide a perspective that highlights the role of agency in what is widely perceived to be a rigid structuralist approach. Key geographical concepts of region and place are viewed as social constructs created within an overarching context of structural imperatives. By conceptualizing places, states, and the macroregions of core, semiperiphery, and periphery as geographical scales, the role of agency in creating and maintaining the important structures and institutions of the capitalist world‐economy, such as hegemony, is illustrated. The geographer's interest in the creation of geographical scales results in analysis of the dynamism of the contemporary world‐system.
Shifting Worlds of Strangers: Medium Theory and Changes in “Them” Versus “Us”*
Authors: Meyrowitz Joshua
Published: January 2007

Macrolevel analyses of the influence of different communication technologies are more difficult to test and apply than the results of focused studies of particular media messages. Nevertheless, “medium theory” is of potentially great significance because it outlines how media, rather than functioning simply as channels for conveying information between two or more social environments, are themselves social contexts that foster certain forms of interaction and social identities.

This article uses a medium‐theory perspective to address one variable related to “technological communities”—the changing boundaries between “them” and “us.” The ways in which oral, print, and electronic modes of communication each foster a different balance between strangers and “familiars” are outlined.
“Only Connect”—E. M. Forster in an Age of Electronic Communication: Computer‐Mediated Association and Community Networks
Authors: Virnoche Mary E. , Marx Gary T.
Published: January 2007

In this article, we construct a framework for distinguishing various types of computer‐mediated communities. Once that is done, we move on to the analysis of “community networks.” Community networks are systems that electronically connect individuals who also share common geographic space. Considering data gathered from 1994 to 1995, we suggest some problems concerning community networks as a locus of computer‐mediated interaction. In addition, we propose research directions that may enhance future sociological inquiries into the social understanding of community networks as well as other computer‐mediated associations.
Technology and Community: Historical Complexities*
Authors: Fischer Claude S.
Published: January 2007

As a comment on speculations that new electronic technologies will revolutionize community, this article points to three lessons drawn from historical studies on earlier technologies such as the telephone: (1) Effects are modest; (2) effects differ from one specific technology to another; and (3) the effects of any one technology can be contradictory.
Corporate Form and the State: Business Policy and Change from the Multidivisional to the Multilayered Subsidiary Form*
Authors: Prechel Harland
Published: January 2007

The largest industrial corporations are changing to a multilayered subsidiary form. Whereas corporations have used subsidiaries to organize their assets since the tum of the century, the number of wholly owned subsidiaries in the 100 largest industrial corporations doubled between 1981 and 1993. The question addressed here is: Why are corporations changing their form now? I suggest that the question is historically contingent and that the answer is, in part, explained by changes in state business policy. A capital dependence framework is elaborated to examine the relationship between state business policy and corporations in the 1970s and 1980s. Business policy changes–resulting in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and the Revenue Act of 1987–provided corporations with tax‐free procedures for parent companies to simultaneously restructure their divisions as subsidiaries and restructure their debt. There are additional incentives for corporations to restructure their divisions as subsidiaries: (1) creating a liability firewall between the parent company and its subsidiary corporations, limiting the financial risk of parent companies, and (2) creating an internal capital market, providing an alternative form of financing thereby reducing corporations’dependence on external capital markets.
The Process of Cognitive Liberation: Cultural Synapses, Links, and Frame Contradictions in the U.S.‐Central America Peace Movement*
Authors: Nepstad Sharon Erickson
Published: January 2007

Based upon qualitative interviews with thirty‐two Central American peace activists, this article elaborates the process of “cognitive liberation” through the application of frame analysis. In addition, I seek to explain the diffusion of this social‐psychological state from Central to North America. Attention is given to the role of the church as a common cultural link that functioned as a micro‐mobilizing context, which provided missionaries who served as “meso‐mobilizing actors.” The term frame contradictions is introduced to specify the condition in which irreconcilable differences between a movement's frame and its opponent's frame are exposed, thereby facilitating frame adoption. I conclude that some type of cultural link is necessary for the development of a common frame that can integrate groups cross‐nationally and that can provide agents of mobilization to serve as a synapse through which frames can be transmitted from one country to another.
Appearance Management as Border Construction: Least Favorite Clothing, Group Distancing, and Identity Not!1
Authors: Freitas Anthony , Kaiser Susan , Joan Chandler Davis , Carol Hall Davis , Kim Jung‐Won , Hammidi Tania
Published: January 2007

Who we say we are and how we strive to look are but part of the negotiation of identity and appearance. While previous research has focused on the construction of who we are, in this paper we examine the negotiation of who we are not. We explore the vantage point and examine statements of identity not, questioning whether they allude to the mere antithesis of identity or to more complex identity ambivalences. Drawing from nearly 300 interviews, we question the primacy of master statuses and attempt to undo the binaries they support by illuminating salient cross‐cutting themes and by introducing descriptors to accompany the categories (age/temporality, gender/sexuality, ethnicity/intersecting cultural identities). In asking about least favorite clothes or about groups one avoids dressing like, we query not so much: What do clothes mean (or not mean)? Rather, we ask: How do we use clothes to negotiate tenuous, fragile, and elastic self/other, past/ present, and present/future relations?

Like a barbed wire fence; Strung tight; Strung tense; Prickling with pretense; A borderline. Every income, every age, every fashion‐plated rage, every measure, every gauge, creates a borderline.
Clothes to Kill For: An Analysis of Primary and Secondary Claims‐Making in Print Media
Authors: O'Neal Gwendolyn S.
Published: January 2007

This paper explores print media's representations of the phenomenon of violence or killing for clothing and other fashion apparel items. Using the social constructionist definition of social problems, condition‐categories used by both primary and secondary claims‐makers are examined through rhetorical idioms and forms of talk representing motives, settings, and solutions. Typifications of the problem by primary claims‐makers were related to the vested interest of those making the claims. Media claims were framed differently in different types of news stories. While some overlap was found in the rhetorics of primary and secondary claims‐makers, their differences were sufficient to establish support for the need to examine social problems from the perspectives of various claims‐makers.
Changing Old Habits: Dress of Women Religious and Its Relationship to Personal and Social Identity
Authors: Michelman Susan O.
Published: January 2007

Dress has played a critical and visible role in constructing social and personal identities of Roman Catholic nuns, or as those in noncloistered orders prefer to be called, women religious. This research utilizes symbolic interaction theory to examine how social identity, symbolized by the religious habit, communicated an image that was incompatible with the personal identities of the women religious who wore habits. To explore this issue, the author uses the concepts of identity distancing and embracing. During the 1960s and 1970s, following the mandates of Vatican II in 1962, the process of identity distancing was evidenced by relinquishing the habit. Identity embracing was at first symbolized by the ambivalence expressed in wearing the modified habit and more clearly conveyed through secular dress.
Role Salience, Role Embracement, and the Symbolic Self‐Completion of Sorority Pledges
Authors: Arthur Linda Boynton
Published: January 2007

According to symbolic self‐completion theory, people who feel status anxiety may engage in self‐symbolization, resulting in the adoption of symbols used to bolster identity. Self‐symbolization is an idealized condition that occurs when a person's status is legitimized by others who accept these symbols as valid status markers. While some studies support this perspective, others have identified blind spots and suggest revision. The current research suggests that role theory be incorporated with this perspective. In this article, the sorority experience is analyzed as a rite of passage in which high levels of role salience produce role embracement and symbolic self‐completion. Symbolic self‐completion theory is made more robust by analyzing the use of visual symbols as expressions of social roles.
Responding to Black Political Interests in the Post‐Civil Rights Era: The Substantive Results of Black Political Incorporation
Authors: Byng Michelle D.
Published: January 2007

This article analyzes political responsiveness to minority communities through a case study of municipal employment opportunities in Richmond, Virginia. Using equal employment opportunity reports, it analyzes racial exclusion (the representation of minority workers within occupations) and racial subordination (the distribution of minority and nonminority workers across occupations) among Richmond's public sector workers. Additionally, it looks at percentage point changes in the representation of minority and nonminority workers in municipal jobs, to provide a more detailed analysis of the quality of opportunities that are made available as the city's dominant council coalitions changed from a White conservative coalition to a Black liberal regime to a multiracial conservative coalition. Qualitative data from interviews with the city's political actors clarify and support the patterns found in the employment data. The analysis demonstrates that the substantive resources Blacks are likely to gain differ significantly by political regime.
Sociological Perspectives on New Communication Technologies
Authors: Cerulo Karen A.
Published: January 2007

The technological leaps of our day, especially those in the communications area, touch issues at the very heart of sociological discourse; new communication technologies problematize the definition of interaction, the nature of social ties, and the scope of experience and reality. In light of such developments, one might guess that sociologists would be very busy. Yet, our voice on these matters registers as a mere whisper in comparison to many of our sister social sciences: communications, psychology, and anthropology. (Cerulo 1995, at annual American Sociological Association meetings)
Broadcasting Holidays
Authors: Katz Elihu
Published: January 2007

For reasons unclear, sociology abandoned its proprietary rights in the study of mass communications and relegated it to the fringes of collective behavior on the one hand and critical studies on the other. Relatively recently, however, as interest in hegemonic processes becomes more popular and critical theory gains new prominence, there is a corresponding rise in attention to the integrative, if hegemonic, role of the media of mass communication. This paper explores that role, reflecting on television and its influence in the construction of holidays.
Adoption and the Race Factor: How Important is It?
Authors: Simon Rita J.
Published: January 2007

As of 1997 federal law prohibits a state from delaying or denying adoption on the basis of race, color, or national origin. This article reports the major research findings, going back over 25 years, pertaining to transracial adoptions. The findings show that transracial adoptions serve the children's best interest and are consistent with the recently enacted federal law.
When Death Isn't Dead: Implicit Social Rationing during Resuscitative Efforts
Authors: Timmermans Stefan
Published: January 2007

In this paper, I address the relationship between social death and clinical‐biological death during resuscitative efforts. In Western societies, resuscitative efforts are the medical intervention of choice when sudden death occurs. The widespread use of this technology puts emergency department staff in a difficult gatekeeping position. They are expected to save lives, but, at the same time–when their efforts become futile–to prepare for a dignified death. I show that certain groups of patients are much more likely to be considered socially dead regardless of their clinical viability, while others are less likely to be considered socially dead even when irreversible biological death has set in. The result is an implicit rationing of the lifesaving endeavors based on the social worth of the patient. This rationing annihilates initiatives, such as advance directives, which were instituted to empower patients. Social scientists usually suggest that the solution to the negative effects of rationing is to increase accessibility for all populations; however, resuscitative efforts are a prime example in which less access for all groups–instead of for some–might be preferable. This paper is based on observations of 112 resuscitative efforts during a fourteenth‐month period and interviews with 42 health care providers.
Saving Academic Sociology
Authors: Rossi Peter H.
Published: January 2007

In this paper, I argue that academic sociology threatens to slip into the very limited relevance of scholasticism. Saving it from such a fate will require less academic interest in textual or epistemological analysis and more academic interest in the contributions to empirical understanding that applied sociology can make.