bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bored and Busy: Sociology of Knowledge of Clerical Workers
Authors: Baker Phyllis L.
Published: September 2012

This article uses a sociology of knowledge approach to discuss the reproduction of inequality within the sociocultural world of clerical workers. A model of a semiotic square is used to analyze the experiences of bored and busy work. Through this analysis of bored and busy work, the author discovered clerical workers' perceptions and activities which were both subordinating and empowering. Clerical workers participate in the process of subordination through bored/busy work. However, they also participate in empowering strategies through not-bored/not-busy work. This sociology of knowledge approach shows that people are not automatons and strengthens our understanding of the social reproduction of inequality as a multi-faceted phenomenon.
Asian Indian Americans in the Bay Area and the Glass Ceiling
Authors: Fernandez Marilyn
Published: September 2012

Using the 1990 5% PUMS census data, this paper explores the glass ceiling experiences of college educated Asian Indian Americans in the Bay Area. Theoretical assumptions derived from human capital, assimilation, labor market structures, size discrimination, and cost of race perspectives are used to predict glass ceiling experiences. Separate analyses are conducted for males and females. U.S. born white males and females are used as benchmarks in the male and female models respectively. As predicted by the cost of race assumption, educated Asian Indian American males experience a net disadvantage in rising to management levels. The relative success of immigrant white males in management provides additional support for the cost of race assumption. Once Asian Indian males become managers, their economic returns are better than or commensurate with that of comparable white male managers in some sectors but not in others. Immigrant and U.S. born Asian Indian females face the glass ceiling at both levels: they are disadvantaged in becoming managers and earn less than comparable U.S. born white females once they become managers. There is no conclusive evidence to support the size discrimination hypothesis for males and females. The glass ceiling findings are interpreted using qualitative interview data from Asian Indian Americans in the Bay Area.
Sibling Cooperation and Scholastic Performance among Vietnamese-American Secondary School Students: An Ethnic Social Relations Theory
Authors: Bankston Carl L.
Published: September 2012

This study examines why some Vietnamese American young people appear to be doing extraordinarily well in school American schools, and how relations within families are related to school achievement. It argues that sibling cooperation is significantly associated with Vietnamese academic achievement, and that cooperation among siblings should be understood as a product of ethnic normative expectations regarding family relations. The study employs ethnographic data from observations and interviews to describe how ethnic social relations may contribute to cooperation within families. Using data from Vietnamese American students in Louisiana public high schools, it finds that family relations, in the form of cooperation among siblings, do make an important contribution to academic achievement, but that cooperative relations within families are sustained by close ties of family members to a surrounding ethnic network.
Toward Gender Integration in the Workplace: Issues at Multiple Levels
Authors: Miller-Loessi Karen
Published: September 2012

True gender integration in the workplace faces barriers at several levels: societal, organizational, interactional, and individual. Recognition of the problems specific to each level greatly enhances our understanding of gender inequality in the workplace, and suggests new approaches to change. In this introduction I review articles in this special issue of Sociological Perspectives in the context of these four levels, and relate the themes of the issue to other research on gender integration in the workplace.
Agricultural Prices, The International Economy, and Development in Kenya, 1964–1988: A Time-Series Analysis
Authors: Bradshaw York W. , Wahl Ana-Maria
Published: September 2012

With few exceptions, the growing literature on agricultural underdevelopment in Africa has two major deficiencies. First, many scholars are guided by either an “internalist” or “externalist” theoretical and policy orientation. Second, although many studies use descriptive data to support their arguments, few utilize formal quantitative techniques to test competing theories. By contrast, we apply several different theoretical perspectives to Kenyan development and then test them via time-series analysis. The quantitative analysis reveals a series of rich findings: (1) agricultural prices have a positive effect on coffee production, food production, and economic output; (2) coffee exports have a positive effect on total agricultural output but a negative effect on food production and overall economic output; (3) “finished” imports (e.g., machinery) have a positive effect on industrial output but a negative effect on agricultural output, coffee production, and total economic output.
Tensions between National and International Control of the World Food Order: Contours of a New Food Regime
Authors: McMichael Philip D.
Published: September 2012

The current crisis of the world political economy stems from the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, which was characterized by stable institutions of regulation of national capital accumulation within the Pax Americana. The resulting absence of rules governing international trade, reflected in rising (Northern) protectionism and anarchic competition for markets for agricultural commodities, underlies a dramatic restructuring of the world economy. Focusing on the world food order, this essay speculates about the characteristics of a new international food regime that could arise to match the growing power of transnational companies to restructure production and consumption relations on a global scale. It is argued that the recomposition of North-South relations means a new subordination of Southern political-economy by intensifying Southern food dependency. This is a prelude to the further centralization of Northern corporate power, and the possibility of a system of global regulation administered under the auspices of the IMF and the GATT.
The Inner Incompatibility of Empire and Nation: Popular Sovereignty and Decolonization
Authors: Strang David
Published: September 2012

This paper argues that metropolitan political theories and institutions grounded in popular sovereignty help to produce decolonization. Radical distinctions between metropolis and dependency only arise when communities, and not rulers, are the theoretical source of political authority. Metropoles organized around popular sovereignty tend to legitimate peripheral claims to autonomy, and to construct political institutions (most importantly colonial legislatures) that voice such claims. An analysis of Western empires shows that, where political models were based on popular sovereignty (Great Britain, the United States, and France), decolonization resulted from internal tensions between theory and practice. Where empire was organized around dynastic principles (Spain and Portugal), empires dissolved as a result of external pressures. Dominant global models have additional effects, blurring differences between empires when popular sovereignty is widely accepted.
Regime Change in the Semiperiphery: Democratization in Latin America and the Socialist Bloc
Authors: Bergesen Albert
Published: September 2012

During the 1980s, a transition to democratic politics occurred in two very different parts of the world: state socialist Eastern Europe and dependent capitalist Latin America. This paper asks, “why‘? Why did regime change occur in the 1980s and why in the semiperipheral zone of the world system? Why, for instance, was there no regime instability on a similar scale in the core or the periphery? This paper proposes an answer that links convulsive political restructuring to the downturn phase of long Kondratieff-like economic cycles of the world-economy. Specifically, the generalized downturn that the world-economy entered in the 1970s is seen as the beginning of a Kondratieff B-Phase of economic difficulty, the political response to which is mediated by a state's zonal position in the larger world system. More powerful core nations respond by acting outwardly, in an effort to control the external environment through mechanisms such as the formation of economic blocs, like moves toward Europe an economic cooperation in 1992, and North American free-trade negotiations. Semiperipheral nations, being more constrained and weaker, act inwardly, changing their regimes to better deal with economic hardships. Finally, peripheral nations, weakest and most constrained, take little or no political action.
What Does Conflict Theory Predict about America's Future?: 1993 Presidential Address
Authors: Collins Randall
Published: September 2012

Main points of conflict theory are summarized. Multiple dimensions of social resources each generate potential conflicts between haves and have-nots. Potential interests become effective to the degree that they are mobilized, relative to the mobilization of opposing interests; such mobilization depends upon both (1) conditions of ritual solidarity within a conflict group and (2) material resources for organizing. Each round of overt conflict sets the stage for the next round, both materially and by swaying the balance of perceived responsibility for past atrocities. Any particular conflict eventually deescalates, either because material resources for mobilization are used up or by the ritual disassembling of conflict groups. Mild conflicts continue longer than intense conflicts. Deescalation of mild conflicts typically occurs through bureaucratic institutionalization of concessions to interest groups; bureaucratic niches in turn become resource bases for future conflicts. These principles are applied to analyze the patterns of conflict in the United States in the late twentieth century and to predict future patterns of conflict.
Sex, Marital Status, and Suicide in Canada: 1951–1981
Authors: Trovato Frank
Published: September 2012

This analysis extends earlier research concerning the protective role of marriage in people's lives. An important aspect of this general phenomenon pertains to the differential protection marriage engenders for the sexes. It is hypothesized that being married as opposed to unmarried entails a lower risk of suicide, and that marital status transitions from an unmarried state (e.g., single, widowed, divorced) to the married state entail a greater benefit for men than for women. This hypothesis is largely supported by an analysis of Canadian data covering four decades (from 1951 to 1981). Using a standardization procedure, it was discovered that a transition from single or widowed to married would entail a greater reduction in suicide risk for men than for women. In the case of a transition from divorced to married status, both sexes would benefit equally in reducing suicide potential. The analysis further demonstrates only weak support for the thesis that over time there would be a convergence in sex differences in the potential protective significance of marriage in reducing suicide risk.
Business, the Democratic Party, and the New Deal: An Empirical Critique of Thomas Ferguson's “Investment Theory of Politics”
Authors: Webber Michael J.
Published: September 2012

This paper contributes to the continuing debate on how structures of economic power are connected to political processes in the United States by examining a widely respected theory concerning the financial support for the two dominant parties during the New Deal. Thomas Ferguson's “investment theory of politics” purports to demonstrate that capital-intensive, internationalist firms supported the Democrats while the labor-intensive, nationalist firms supported the Republicans. Campaign finance contributions for the 1936 Presidential election were used as an empirical indicator of the political preferences and material interests of business firms. It was found that there was little evidence to support Ferguson's claims. While there were firms where all political contributions went to the Republicans, it was highly unusual to have firms that contributed only to Democrats. There was also a total absence of Democratic industries. It is suggested that other variables need to be considered in determining the material bases of the major political parties, particularly the Democratic.
Evolutionary Materialism: A Theoretical Strategy for the Study of Social Evolution
Authors: Sanderson Stephen K.
Published: September 2012

Existing approaches to the study of social evolution are insufficient for the task of explaining the full range of social evolution from the Neolithic Revolution down to the present day. Some anthropological approaches shed considerable light on the evolution of preindustrial and precapitalist societies but are less capable of explaining the evolution of the modern world. Sociological approaches usually have the opposite result: they shed light on the evolution of the modern world but falter with respect to premodern times. This article presents a comprehensive formal-propositional theoretical approach to social evolution that combines the strengths of anthropological and sociological approaches while minimizing their weaknesses. The theoretical approach offered, referred to as evolutionary materialism, comprises propositions concerned with the directional nature of world history, the substance or content of social evolution, the principal causal factors in social evolution, the adaptational character of social evolution, the interplay of agency and structure in social evolution, the units of social evolution, the pace of social evolution, and methods of studying social evolution. The second half of the article attempts a brief logical and empirical justification of evolutionary materialism.
1995 Presidential Address: What Sociologists are Learning about the Next Generation of Students: Are We Prepared to Teach in the 21st Century?
Authors: Prather Jane E.
Published: September 2012

Predicting that by the 21st century the majority of students will not be prepared for university level curricula, this address raises a major challenge to sociologists: what action are we willing to take now to improve the preparation of future students? Smelser's value-added theory of collective behavior provides the framework for examining this educational crisis. Analyses of the learning environments of the very young and school-age children and of the school difficulties of teenagers provide evidence that an educational crisis is imminent. In closing, I suggest actions sociologists can advocate to meet the educational challenges of the next century.
The Culture of Poverty: An Ideological Analysis
Authors: Harvey David L. , Reed Michael H.
Published: September 2012

For three decades Oscar Lewis's subculture of poverty concept has been misinterpreted as a theory bent on blaming the victims of poverty for their poverty. This essay corrects this misunderstanding. Using a sociology of knowledge approach, it explores the historical origins of this misreading and shows how current poverty scholarship replicates this erroneous interpretation of Lewis's work. An attempt is made to remedy this situation by arguing that Lewis's subculture of poverty idea, far from being a poor-bashing, ideological ploy, is firmly grounded in a Marxist critique of capital and its productive contradictions. As such, Lewis's work is a celebration of the resilience and resourcefulness of the poor, not a denigration of the lower class and the cultural defenses they erect against poverty's everyday uncertainty.
Gender Wars: Emotions in Much Ado About Nothing
Authors: Scheff Thomas J.
Published: September 2012

In order to explore the relation between love and war, I apply a theory showing the affinity between romance, shame, and anger in a classic text. Shakespeare's plays present an exceedingly grim portrait of the relationship between men and women. Even his lighthearted treatment of this theme in Much Ado about Nothing suggests that love between a man and a woman involves unending tension and conflict, much like the continuous distrust, deception, and outright warfare between nations. A close reading of the text of Much Ado shows shame/anger sequences both in conventional courtship (Hero and Claudio) and in the unconventional relation of Beatrice and Benedick. Both relationships involve infatuation. My analysis suggests that acknowledging shame and anger between men and women may be an important first step toward resolving their conflict.
Political Authority and University Formation in Europe, 1200–1800
Authors: Riddle Phyllis
Published: September 2012

Both historical analysis and data on university formation in Europe for the period 1200–1800 are used to introduce a perspective which links the organizational pattern of university foundings with the structure of political authority. Most theories of higher education cannot account for the pattern of university foundings. My political-institutional perspective interprets this pattern in the context of the relationship between knowledge and authority in Western history and connects the founding and control of a university to claims to political authority. Quantitative data suggest that universities are founded least where there is a central authority with relatively low levels of competing authority claims (e.g., England). They are founded most in highly decentralized regions characterized by many claims to sovereignty (e.g., Germany, Italy). Intermediate to high rates of foundings occur where a multiplicity of local and provincial claims to authority exist within a bureaucratic state (e.g., France, Spain).
Internal Ethnicity: Iranians in Los Angeles
Authors: Bozorgmehr Mehdi
Published: September 2012

Case studies of immigrant groups have contributed significantly to theoretical developments in the fields of immigration and ethnic studies. The focus on the immigrant group as a whole has resulted in ignoring immigrant subgroups, reducing ethnicity to national-origin. Ethnically diverse immigrant groups contain more than one type of ethnicity. Internal ethnicity refers to the presence of ethnic groups within an immigrant group. It is argued that, in the destination country, the immigrant subgroups who were already minorities in the country of origin are less assimilated than the immigrant subgroup which was part of the majority population. Survey data collected in a probability sample of Iranians in Los Angeles allow us to address this issue. Ethnicity of the Muslim majority in the United States is compared with that of Armenian, Bahai, and Jewish ethno-religious minorities from Iran. The data analysis supports the argument, and further shows that pre-migration ethnicity is an important and neglected aspect of post-migration ethnicity.
Family Secrets: Transnational Struggles among Children of Filipino Immigrants
Authors: Wolf Diane L.
Published: September 2012

In comparative studies of language proficiency and grades, Filipino second generation youth look relatively successful and assimilated, echoing what we know about their parents: post-1965 Filipino immigrants are predominantly middle-class, college-educated, English-speaking professionals who have integrated easily into U.S. society. Based on fieldwork in two California sites, this paper examines some of the issues and problems confronting second generation Filipino youth. “The family” seems to offer an extremely magnetic and positive basis of Filipino identity for many children of immigrants, yet it is also a deep source of stress and alienation, which for some, has led to internal struggles and extreme despair as manifested by rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. More specifically, by focusing on the gap between family ideology and practices, this paper suggests that many Filipino second generation youth struggle with an emotional transnationalism which situates them between different and often conflicting generational and locational points of reference.
Paradoxes (and Orthodoxies) of Assimilation
Authors: Rumbaut Rubén G.
Published: September 2012

The concept of assimilation, whether as outcome or process, conflates elements that are both empirical and ideological, ethnographic and ethnocentric. Conventional wisdom on the adaptation of immigrants in America has conceived of “assimilation” prescriptively and not only descriptively, as a linear process of progressive adjustment to American life. This conception is guided by an implicit deficit model: to get ahead immigrants need to learn how to “become American” and overcome their deficits with respect to the new language and culture, the new economy and society. As they shed the old and acquire the new over time, they surmount those obstacles and make their way more successfully—a homogenizing process more or less completed by the second or third generation. Recent research findings, however, especially in the areas of immigrant health, mental health, ethnic self-identity and education, debunk such ethnocentric assumptions, often running precisely in the opposite direction of what is expected from traditional perspectives. Some empirical examples are highlighted, focusing on paradoxes—on evidence that contradicts orthodox expectations—in order to identify areas that need conceptual, analytical, and theoretical refinement, including the need to spell out precisely and systematically what it is that is being “assimilated,” by whom, under what circumstances, and in reference to what sector of American society. The diversity of contemporary immigrants to the United States, in terms of class, culture, color, and the contexts within which they are received, and their segmented modes of incorporation, raise new questions about assimilation from what? to what? and for what?
Becoming Self-Employed: The Case of Japanese Men
Authors: Cheng Mariah Mantsun
Published: September 2012

From a dynamic, life course perspective, this study examines the determinants of nonfarm self-employment for Japanese men from around the 1930s to 1975. Using work histories in a national mobility survey, the author studied the propensity of becoming self-employed at labor force entry and in later career. Results suggest that (a) father's self-employment is important; but (b) family-employed status does not enhance one's chances; and (c) historical, economic conditions affect propensity significantly at the moment of labor force entrance. Tiny-firm workers are more likely to move into self-employment. Industrial sector and employment duration also affect one's taking nonfarm self-employment as a career option.
Buying an Activist Identity: Reproducing Class through Social Movement Philanthropy
Authors: Silver Ira
Published: September 2012

Those who lack the financial means to organize for social change may turn to elite funders, yet in doing so risk having their goals co-opted. Activist philanthropy minimizes this threat because its grant decisions are made by movement insiders. This structure leaves donors occupying a precarious position. Their money is essential, yet their class position is discrediting. The Crossroads Fund raises its money by integrating donors as activists alongside community organizers. Even though community organizers have greater power inside the foundation, integrating donors requires that community organizers defer to donors' wider class and racial privilege. By showing that securing funding from donors hinges on legitimating their identity claims, this study bridges social movement theories about resource mobilization and collective identity formation.
Gender and Interpersonal Task Behaviors: Status Expectation Accounts
Authors: Wagner David G. , Berger Joseph
Published: September 2012

In this paper we argue for the utility of status characteristics theory (Berger et al. 1977) in accounting for research concerned with gender differences in interpersonal task situations. We state and defend a basic status argument that differences in stereotypical gender task behaviors are a direct function of status differences or of attempts to cope with status differences. We show support for this argument in several areas of research: the influence, participation and performer evaluations of group members; their relative performance-reactor profiles; the relation of these behavioral profiles to the assignment of personality traits; the correlation of status position with the gender typing of tasks (i.e., male-identified, female-identified, or neutral); the relationship between gender status and salient information about other statuses; the role of expectations for rewards; and the emergence of mechanisms for coping with the implication of a low gender status position. We conclude that status characteristics theory can provide a set of interrelated explanations of the relationship of gender to interpersonal task behaviors.
The Works of Peter M. Blau: Analytical Strategies, Developments and Assumptions
Authors: Knottnerus J. David , Guan Jian
Published: September 2012

This paper examines the fundamental theoretical approaches and research interests of Peter M. Blau by focusing upon three distinct stages in his work: exchange theory, status attainment theory, and macrostructural theory. A discussion of four general issues reveals various continuities and transitions in these analytical strategies. The features examined are (a) research interests in social stratification, (b) investigative strategies, (c) analytical focus and assumptions, and (d) micro/macro units of analysis. It is argued that the three approaches rest upon different conceptions of society which, in respective order, are the “multilevel model of societal exchange,” “optimistic image of modern, mass, industrial society,” and “guardedly optimistic image of modern differentiated society.” Attention is directed to the importance of the status attainment phase for understanding other dimensions of Blau's work, the development of certain theoretical themes in his various analytical strategies, and the presence of a basic conceptual opposition involving the role of values and structural forces in society which permeates much of his analyses.
Metatheory as Cognitive Style
Authors: Fuchs Stephan
Published: September 2012

The current debates on metatheory in sociology do not account for the fact that metatheorizing, as a distinct intellectual activity, is unequally distributed throughout the sciences. As a reflexive and critical subspecialty, metatheory and metasociology are more likely to routinely accompany work in loosely coupled and highly controversial disciplines. The theory of scientific organizations explains the propensity for metatheorizing as the outcome of weak and conversational fields that rely mostly on texts to support their discourse.
Decline of Political Control in Chinese Universities and the Rise of the 1989 Chinese Student Movement
Authors: Zhao Dingxin
Published: September 2012

Political control in Chinese universities had depended mainly on the cooperation of students with nonprofessional political workers. In the process of economic reform in China, the ideological legitimation of the communist state greatly declined while other avenues of status attainment outside the realm of state control opened up. Participating actively in mutual supervision became neither moral nor necessarily profitable. As a result, a campus environment which had once facilitated political control over students became conducive to student mobilization. Some students and political workers even captured political control institutions to spread nonconforming and dissident ideas. This paper argues that this decline in political control over students made a significant contribution to the rise of the 1989 Chinese Student Movement.
Social Dimensions of Epistemological Disputes: The Case of Literary Theory
Authors: Schneider Mark A.
Published: September 2012

Epistemological reflection has been a major source of innovation in the human sciences while having very little influence on the arts or sciences. This variation is explained using a sociological framework emphasizing the organizational forms that underpin or are implicit in epistemological positions. The fine arts and the harder sciences are, respectively, too weakly and too strongly organized to be open to epistemological influence. By contrast, the human sciences might plausibly be organized either more loosely or more tightly, and epistemological argument is used in part to urge movement in one or the other direction. This perspective is applied to the academic study of literature both historically and in relation to a current epistemological dispute between realist and relativist scholars. The argument is unresolvable in practice, it is argued, because of constraints on scholarly interpretation set by consumers. Parallels are drawn with circumstances in sociology.
A Formalization of Postmodern Theory
Authors: Allan Kenneth , Turner Jonathan H.
Published: September 2012

Postmodern theory is examined from the perspective of explanatory scientific theory. Although this kind of effort would be rejected by postmodernists as imposing a failed epistemology, this article nonetheless translates the arguments of prominent postmodern theorists into a series of propositions. By developing these propositions, it is possible to see how they might generate testable hypotheses that can guide the empirical assessment of the substantive arguments of sociological postmodernists. The propositions are organized under four basic headings: (1) the increasing importance of culture; (2) the destabilization and dereification of culture; (3) the increasing importance of the individual; and (4) the viability of the subject. While there is inevitably a certain amount of selectivity involved in this exercise, our hope is that the core arguments of postmodern theory are arrayed in a manner that can facilitate their empirical assessment by researchers.
A Commentary on Allan and Turner. Sailing in Postmodern Winds: Formal Methods in Uncertain Worlds
Authors: Lemert Charles
Published: September 2012

Kenneth Allan and Jonathan Turner's article, “A Formalization of Postmodern Theory,” is a wonderful example of intellectual courage and honesty. They seek to subject selected theories associated with postmodernism to the rule of formal theory construction. Their article is a rare instance of scientific regard for ideas too often dismissed by those who have not the least idea what they are about. Allan and Turner, by contrast, understand their subject very well Their method is careful and compelling. Yet, if there is such a thing as a postmodern world, it may be one unready to submit to formal analysis. The resistance of the postmodern to formal methods is discussed with specific reference to culture and the idea of the subject. Whatever one may think of their argument, Allan and Turner have set a very high standard for respectful behavior among sociologists—a standard that prevails but rarely these days.
Reciprocity and Depression in Aids Caregiving
Authors: Leblanc Allen J. , Wight Richard G.
Published: September 2012

A community-based sample of informal AIDS caregivers was surveyed between 1990 and 1992 about the degree to which they perceive reciprocity with the recipient of their care. Equivalent exchanges between caregivers and care recipients are unlikely, a general fact that may have been particularly true in the case of AIDS at the beginning of the 1990s. Yet perceived reciprocity is remarkably high in this sample across all relationship types. Multivariate regression analyses suggest that the highest measured levels of perceived reciprocity are most likely among gay men caring for a lover. In turn, they show reciprocity to be negatively associated with caregiver depression and positively associated with the duration of caregiving. However, this heightened sense of reciprocity among gay men caring for a lover apparently does not insulate them from depressed mood. Rather, the data suggest that these men suffer greater depression than individuals caring for a legal spouse or friend, net an array of other predictive factors.
National Power on the Local Stage: How Cable Captured Congress and Cornered Cities
Authors: Cook James M. , Taylor Kristie A.
Published: September 2012

This article examines the interaction of national power and local authority in cable television licensing over time. Our work supplements power elite theory in three ways. First, power elite theory focuses on indicators of power such as membership, money, and access; to these we add the availability of alternatives. Second, while power elite research has demonstrated that policy victors are powerful, it is equally important to determine whether the vanquished are powerless. Third, while power elite theory predicts that power will be used to capture policy-making bodies, policy makers can be cornered as well. When used in conjunction, capturing and cornering tactics can lead to policy gains by powerful interests. These ideas provide insight into the political basis of change in a city's cable TV license. Using information from a variety of sources, we find that over time the city lost its early negotiating advantage. By capturing Congress, the cable industry cornered the city and gained an important political victory.
Subcultures and the Emergence of the Estonian Nationalist Opposition 1945–1990
Authors: Johnston Hank , Snow David A.
Published: September 2012

It is widely recognized that subcultural organization provides fertile soil for the development of social movements. There has not, however, been a systematic analysis of how different subcultures may be configured and what characteristics may encourage or inhibit mobilization. This paper takes an initial step in that direction by suggesting a typology of subcultures based on the degree of congruency of subcultural values and behaviors with the those of the dominant culture. We examine two subcultural types which are particularly relevant to social movement development: accommodative subcultures and oppositional subcultures. By drawing on interviews with activists in the former Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, we specify the conditions by which accommodative and oppositional subcultures exist and are successfully transformed into social movements. We trace the evolution from an accommodative subculture under Stalinist terror to an oppositional subculture as state repression lessened under Krushchev's liberalizations, to mass mobilization of the Estonian independence movement in the late 1980s.
Moral Panics and the Social Construction of Deviant Behavior: A Theory and Application to the Case of Ritual Child Abuse
Authors: Victor Jeffrey S.
Published: September 2012

The objective of the article is to develop a theory of the causes and transmission of moral panics. The theory is designed to explain forms of collective behavior, previously labeled panics, scares and persecutions. Part one of this article presents criteria for the identification of moral panics. Part two of the article offers models for analyzing the social conditions, which cause moral panics and lead to the social construction of definitions of deviance. Finally, part three examines the social processes by which moral panics are transmitted between different societies. In order to illustrate the theoretical analysis, the article presents information about the current moral panic involving criminal accusations of ritual child abuse by secret, satanic cults.
Jealousy and Parenting: Predicting Emotions from Identity Theory
Authors: Ellestad June , Stets Jan E.
Published: September 2012

This research incorporates the sociology of emotions into the study of parenting by examining the theoretical relationship between the mother identity and mothers' emotional response of jealousy to father-child interactions. Using identity theory, we predict that in response to father-child interactions, mothers with a more prominent mother identity will report the emotional experience of jealousy, and mothers with a more salient mother identity will report coping strategies designed to reduce the jealous experience. Since prominence captures the affective dimension of an identity, it should be tied to one's emotional response in a situation. Further, while salience captures the behavioral dimension of an identity, it should be related to the coping strategies which follow from and manage one's emotional response in a situation. The results confirm these expected relationships. We discuss not only how emotion may serve to maintain the mother identity, but also how mothers' emotion may unintentionally serve to maintain social structural arrangements with respect to parenting.
Cultural Consumption and Social Stratification: Leisure Activities, Musical Tastes, and Social Location
Authors: Katz-Gerro Tally
Published: September 2012

This article examines the extent to which different cultural preferences are associated with occupational class and other stratifying dimensions in contemporary American society. Building on existing research that tends to analyze leisure activities and cultural tastes separately, I construct cultural profiles that combine participation in leisure activities and tastes in music. Using this method allows me to go beyond the common highbrow/lowbrow distinction. I analyze data from the 1993 culture module of the General Social Survey and find four cultural types: highbrow, popular, outdoor nature, and youth music. I discuss the association of the four culture types with different dimensions of stratification. The findings support the conclusion that, while class indeed matters, the main determinants of cultural preferences are race, gender, education, and age.
A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Declining Significance of Race in the Occupational Attainment of White and Black Men
Authors: Sakamoto Arthur , Tzeng Jessie M.
Published: September 2012

Using William J. Wilson's thesis of the declining significance of race as our theoretical context, we investigate comparable models of occupational attainment before and after the civil rights movement. The results indicate that in the later period the net disadvantage of being black is consistently lower than in the pre-civil rights period. Furthermore, in the later period the effects of class among black men are consistently greater than are the effects of race. These findings support Wilson's thesis of the declining significance of race.
The Morality of Market Exchange: Love, Money, and Contractual Justice
Authors: Prasad Monica
Published: September 2012

Prostitution as a cultural practice describes the line between what must be given as a gift and what may be exchanged as a commodity; an investigation of prostitution can therefore further our understanding of the ideological underpinnings of commodity exchange. This study uses interviews with prostitutes' clients to show how commodity exchange can be understood as being morally superior to gift exchange. The interviewees praise “market exchange” of sex for lacking the ambiguity, status-dependence, and potential hypocrisy that they see in the “gift exchange” of sex characteristic of romantic relationships. This justification of market exchange suggests that theories of the “moral economy” that posit a dichotomy between “premarket” and “market” societies understate the degree to which market societies are, for their participants, also moral economies: they are economies embodying moral beliefs about individual autonomy, democratic equality, and unambiguous and nondiscretionary fulfillment of obligations. Critics of the market do themselves a disservice in ignoring the powerful moral appeals of market exchange. More generally, sociological analyses that pit “norms” against “self-interest” ignore the ways in which norms can enable as well as constrain self-interested market behavior.
Social Control, Delinquency, and Youth Status Achievement: A Developmental Approach
Authors: De Li Spencer
Published: September 2012

This study examines the impact of formal control and informal control on delinquency and youth status achievement. Theories relating to social control, delinquency, and status achievement, including labeling, deterrence, and social bond, are integrated under the life course perspective. A structural equation model based on a set of longitudinal data is used to test the impact of social control on delinquency and status achievement. This study finds that formal sanctions have a negative effect on status achievement. Informal social control, measured by the strength of social bond, increases the likelihood of high status achievement by decreasing youths' involvement in delinquent relationships and antisocial behavior. This study demonstrates the need for integrating both formal control and informal control into status attainment research.
Maintaining the Balance of Power: Taxation and Democracy in England and France, 1340–1688
Authors: Hopcroft Rosemary L.
Published: September 2012

The endurance of democracy in England from the late medieval period to the Glorious Revolution (1688) remains a puzzle. Many analysts agree that an important factor in maintaining constitutionalism in England during this pivotal period was the reliance of the English Crown on indirect taxation and suggest that this reliance occurred because taxation on trade was easy and lucrative in a commercialized economy. I show how this explanation is inadequate. The English Crown tried to institute an additional system of permanent direct taxation in England in this period but failed. In contrast, the French Crown was successful in implementing a system of regular direct taxation in the early fifteenth century, which in turn facilitated the emergence of an autocratic state in the early modern period. I discuss reasons for the national difference, with particular attention to the role of regional factors and the response of local society to state impositions in shaping outcomes in both countries.
From Plantation to Corporation: The Attack on Tenure and Academic Freedom in Florida
Authors: Elkins Charles L.
Published: September 2012

Florida's recent history as well as current trends within the state reveal a failure to protect academic freedom and an aggressive attack on the tradition of academic tenure. From the mid-nineteen fifties to the mid-nineteen sixties, the notorious “Johns Committee” sought to discover any communists, “godless” faculty or homosexuals in Florida's universities. Acting as investigator, prosecutor and judge, the Committee forced the departure of untold numbers of faculty and students. Today, the undermining of tenure and academic freedom is more subtle. Under the rubric of such terms as “productivity,” efficiency,” “the market,” and “flexibility,” powerful political and business interests have declared war on tenure in Florida.
The Third Circle: On Education and Distance Learning
Authors: Farber Jerry
Published: September 2012

Has it been demonstrated that distance learning is as effective as face-to-face learning? This paper, proposing a “three circle” model of postsecondary education, argues that measurable competence, though a central component of education, is not in itself an adequate indicator of educational effectiveness. The model, supported by research into educational effects, is discussed in relation to the distinction between semantic memory and episodic memory, and in relation to the role of context in memory. Analysis of a widely-cited summary of 248 studies comparing distance learning and face-to-face learning concludes that these studies, which generally fail to go beyond measurable competence, and fail as well to support the newer interactive technologies commonly associated with distance learning, do not support any transfer of postsecondary education from the classroom to the screen. The limitations of distance learning are discussed in relation to their broader social implications.
Digital Diploma Mills, Part II: The Coming Battle over Online Instruction
Authors: Noble David F.
Published: September 2012

This essay focuses on the possible loss or diminution of faculty intellectual property rights in the face of universities signing contracts with private firms to distribute professors' courses through distance learning. Several examples of university contracts and practices that pose serious challenges to faculty intellectual property ownership are discussed. Until recently, universities did not usually challenge faculty ownership of the copyright to their courses since there was little money to be made from the courses, beyond funds generated from teaching students at given universities. However, with the selling of distance learning courses to large audiences, several universities have shown considerable interest in the ownership of courses. An upcoming intellectual property rights battle between faculty and universities over the quickly expanding online instruction is predicted.
Urban Restructuring Revisited: Organizational and Labor Market Changes during the 1980S
Authors: Elliott James R.
Published: September 2012

This research revisits the structural determinants of changing job prospects at the bottom of urban labor markets during the 1980s, measured in terms of employment instability, earnings inequality, and low-income jobs. In addition to the deindustrialization thesis, hypotheses are drawn from recent perspectives on new industrial districts, global cities, and the “new” social division of labor. Statistical analyses reveal that the organization, rather than the size, of the local manufacturing base, the proliferation of small establishments, and industrial diversification are among the most crucial processes for understanding the shifting contours of urban inequality during the 1980s. The implication is that social scientists must continue to look beyond quantitative shifts in employment from manufacturing to services to the qualitative reorganization of production in order to make sense of the structural underpinnings of today's urban inequality.
Representing Social Movements: Advocacy and Activism in Northwest Bookstores
Authors: Linneman Thomas J.
Published: September 2012

Much social movement research examines the role played by the individual. Studies of this type have focused almost exclusively on the individual's involvement in collective action. This article highlights individual-level behavior outside of social movement organizations. Using results from a recent survey of booksellers, I show that advocacy for the gay and lesbian rights movement and the environmental movement is expressed in several ways within bookstores. Booksellers who are advocates of a social movement, especially the gay and lesbian rights movement, are more likely to carry large numbers of movement-related books, create separate sections of these books, and display these books prominently in their stores. Individuals, acting apart from social movement organizations, aid in the diffusion of movement ideology to the populace at large. I discuss the structural and economic conditions under which this process most readily occurs.
The Globalization of Women's Status: Consensus/Dissensus in the World Polity
Authors: Berkovitch Nitza , Bradley Karen
Published: September 2012

The amount of attention devoted to women and women's issues has increased dramatically in the last five decades throughout the world. In this article we examine the cultural construction of women that guided such action by analyzing texts that were produced and activities that were undertaken in relation to women by international organizations from 1945 through 1995. We show that the modernist principles of universalism, liberal individualism, and rationality provided the cultural framework for this global project. We compare the ways in which two issues important to women, education and genital mutilation, were constructed by global actors and the implications of this meaning making for action over time. Our analysis reveals an important link between the extent to which an issue is constructed to be consistent with the modernist principles and the extent to which it receives global attention.