bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Social Stratification, Work, and Personality
Authors: Spenner Kenneth I.
Published: July 2003

The last decade saw considerable advances in the state of research on social stratification, work, and personality. The program carried out by Kohn, Schooler, and colleagues was central to refocusing research on social structure and personality, and generating new knowledge about social stratification, work, and personality. The review is organized around the Kohn-Schooler program and considers other research and issues in relation to this centerpiece. It includes central features and findings of the Kohn-Schooler models, replication support and extensions, scope conditions and limitations, alternate hypotheses and relationships to other explanatory models, and other forms of unattended heterogeneity. The review concludes with a summary of the ways in which the field can and should move beyond this central program; the summary is organized in terms of a research agenda at multiple levels of time and space in social structure.
Sociological Research on Male and Female Homosexuality
Authors: Risman Barbara , Schwartz Pepper
Published: July 2003

We review four topics which have dominated the research on homosexuality in the last decade. First, we address the question of etiology which is now best described as the essentialist/constructionist debate. Second, we review the research on the relationship between sexuality and gender role nonconformity. Third, we critique the studies of intimate relationships. Finally, we present a summary of the research on the gay community, including the impact of AIDS on gay male culture. We critique much of the previous literature for presuming sexual desire can be used to categorize human beings into homosexual versus heterosexual types. We suggest instead that the term “homosexual” is more appropriately used as an adjective rather than a noun. Future research needs to begin the arduous task of developing a more general sociology of desire.
Organizational Learning
Authors: Levitt Barbara , March James G.
Published: July 2003

This paper reviews the literature on organizational learning. Organizational learning is viewed as routine-based, history-dependent, and target-oriented. Organizations are seen as learning by encoding inferences from history into routines that guide behavior. Within this perspective on organizational learning, topics covered include how organizations learn from direct experience, how organizations learn from the experience of others, and how organizations develop conceptual frameworks or paradigms for interpreting that experience. The section on organizational memory discusses how organizations encode, store, and retrieve the lessons of history despite the turnover of personnel and the passage of time. Organizational learning is further complicated by the ecological structure of the simultaneously adapting behavior of other organizations, and by an endogenously changing environment. The final section discusses the limitations as well as the possibilities of organizational learning as a form of intelligence.
Recent Developments in Attitudes and Social Structure
Authors: Kiecolt K. Jill
Published: July 2003

A large body of research in social psychology has investigated the links between attitudes and social structure. Efforts have focused on (a) relating attitudes to aspects of the social context and to indicators of location in the social structure; (b) investigating how social structure affects attitudes via such intervening mechanisms of influence as social networks and roles; and (c) identifying the psychological processes through which persons interpret their experiences, and which in turn affect their attitudes (House 1981). This article reviews recent work in these three areas, as well as on the relationship between social structure and attitude change over time. While attitudes often are found to be weakly correlated with socioeconomic status, research on work and personality has continued to make progress in identifying the particular aspects of occupations that influence attitudes. Theories of the intervening mechanisms through which social structure affects attitudes need to be more systematically articulated, and such theories must specify the psychological processes that mediate the effects of social structure. A promising line of research develops and tests models that show the links between aspects of social structure, psychological processes, and attitudes. Future work also would benefit by incorporating recent findings concerning the motivations and cognitive limitations that affect attitudes. The review concludes by discussing challenges that remain. These are to improve attitude measurement, to determine the relative strength of structural and cultural influences in various types of attitudes, to reconsider the degree to which attitudes are situational rather than dispositional, and to integrate research on self-attitudes with research on other attitudes.
Litigation and Society
Authors: Friedman Lawrence M.
Published: July 2003

Litigation, in ordinary speech, refers to actions contested in court; this involves a claim, a dispute or conflict, and the use of a specific institution, the court, to resolve the conflict or dispute. In the past most legal research has consisted of analysis of doctrine and theory about doctrine. But litigation is an important phenomenon in its own right and research lately has shown this. This chapter aims to sketch out a few major areas of research and theory and to add a few brief remarks about the significance of the work thus far. The topics covered include: dispute-centered and court-centered research; quantity of litigation and the so-called litigation explosion; and the impact of litigation on society.
Recent Developments in Scandinavian Sociology
Authors: Allardt Erik
Published: July 2003

After World War II a rapid development of sociology occurred in the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. By combining national intellectual traditions with different specialities in American sociology some clearly distinctive features developed within the sociology in the four countries. The student revolt at the end of the 1960s and its aftermath had substantial effects on the development of Scandinavian sociology. The dependence on American sociology weakened considerably although it did not totally disappear. Another effect was that the differences among the sociologies of the Scandinavian countries began to disappear. Rather than national sociologies there are now various orientations and code systems more or less shared by different groups in all Scandinavian countries. Sociology has become much more pluralistic, but in the process there is also an increased fragmentation and a loss of unity among the sociologists.

In the Scandinavian countries there are studies of good quality in many fields of sociology. By using international reputation, and the impact on other domains of sociology as the two main criteria, four fields are singled out as particularly interesting. These fields are studies of welfare and the welfare state, comparative studies of social stratification and political sociology, women's studies, and cultural sociology.
Origins of Capitalism in Western Europe: Economic and Political Aspects
Authors: Lachmann Richard
Published: July 2003

Recent scholars have drawn upon the insights of Marx and Weber in a renewed effort to explain the origins of capitalism in Western Europe. Few Weberians or Marxists have addressed the specific role of Protestantism in fostering rational economic action; instead they speak of modernization or of the rise of the West. Marxists are divided over whether capitalism developed out of conflicts among classes in feudal society or whether an external market sector served to undermine feudalism and to stimulate new forms of production. Analyses of the world system, proto-industry, and the seventeenth century crisis attempt to explain the concentration of capital and of production in a few Western European countries. Studies of agrarian class conflict and of absolutism address the formation of the bourgeoisie. The most valuable recent syntheses have come from scholars who combine class analysis with an examination of the particular interests of those actors who inhabited the complex of institutions that cohered into nation-states.
Analysis of Events in the Study of Collective Action
Authors: Olzak Susan
Published: July 2003

Recent research on collective action has focused on the occurrence, timing, and sequencing of such events as regime changes, riots, revolutions, protests, and the founding of social movement organizations. Event analysis allows information on the duration, number of participants, presence of violence, or outcome of some particular type of collective action to be compared across social systems or across time periods. This review considers issues of definition, measurement, and methods of estimation in event analysis. It also compares two general varieties of event analysis: approaches that model the dynamics of collective action as a process, and those that do not. A process-oriented approach evaluates how time and covariates (including past events) affect the timing and sequence of repeatable events, and it attempts to explain how events unfold over time. The nonprocess approaches summarize static relationships between levels or characteristics of units and some type of event count.
Sociological Research on Alcohol Use, Problems, and Policy
Authors: Bucholz Kathleen K. , Robins Lee N.
Published: July 2003

This review of sociologically relevant alcohol research addresses definitions of alcohol problems, describes patterns and trends in adult drinking practices and problems and correlates of alcoholism, and describes social policy responses to alcohol. With implications for many measures of social wellbeing, alcohol research is relevant to almost all areas of traditional sociological interest, intersecting with religious and ethnic studies, with studies of social change and social movements, with theories of social control, with criminology and social deviance, with media research and analysis of social organizations, with study of age and gender roles, with medical sociology, and with sociology of the work place. Sociologically relevant alcohol research of the last few years, while rich in the above areas, is by no means exhausted and holds great potential to illuminate issues of general interest to sociologists as well as to specialists in medical sociology or deviance.
Altruism: A Review of Recent Theory and Research
Authors: Piliavin Jane Allyn , Charng Hong-Wen
Published: July 2003

The literature on altruism in social psychology, and to a lesser degree in sociology, economics, political behavior and sociobiology since the early 1980’s is reviewed. The authors take the position that in all of these areas, there appears to be a “paradigm shift” away from the earlier position that behavior that appears to be altruistic must, under closer scrutiny, be revealed as reflecting egoistic motives. Rather, theory and data now being advanced are more compatible with the view that true altruism—acting with the goal of benefitting another—does exist and is a part of human nature.

Research in social psychology during the 80’s had a decreased emphasis on situational determinants of helping. Rather, it has focussed mainly on the following topics: the existence and nature of the altruistic personality, the debate concerning the nature of the motivation underlying helping behavior, and the nature of the process of the development of altruism in children and adults. During this time there has also been considerable theoretical and empirical work on possible biological bases for altruism, and on the evolutionary processes by which these might have developed. Within economics, politics, and sociology, the issues of behavior in social dilemmas, the provision of public goods, private and corporate philanthropy, and voluntarism (including donation of time, money, and physical parts of the self) are discussed.
Role Change
Authors: Turner Ralph H.
Published: July 2003

Selected recent research dealing with change in a variety of roles is reviewed in order to formulate general principles governing role change. Studies of quasichange reveal conditions leading to the abortion of potential role change. Studies of occupational, family, and gender role change reveal the sources of impetus to role change and the conditions facilitating and impeding the implementation of change. A tentative general model for role change is suggested on the basis of the evidence reviewed.
The Sociology of Nonprofit Organizations and Sectors
Authors: DiMaggio Paul J. , Anheier Helmut K.
Published: July 2003

Interest in and research on nonprofit organizations and sectors have developed rapidly in recent years. Much of this work by sociologists has focussed on particular subsectors rather than on nonprofits as a class. This review attempts to extract from a large and varied literature a distinctively sociological perspective on nonprofits, which it contrasts to influential work in economics. Two questions—“Why (and where) are there nonprofit organizations” and “What difference does nonprofitness make?”—are addressed at the levels of organization, industry, and firm. Three central conclusions, each with research implications, emerge from this review: (a) The origins and behavior nonprofit organizations reflect institutional factors and state policies as well as the social-choice processes and utility functions emphasized by economists. (b) Understandingth e origins of nonprofit sectors and behavioral differences between nonprofits and for-profit or government organizations requires an industry-level ecological perspective. (c) “Nonprofitness” has no single transhistorical or transnational meaning; nonprofit-sector functions, origins, and behavior reflect specific legal definitions, cultural inheritances, and state policies in different national societies.
Market and Network Theories of the Transition from High School to Work: Their Application to Industrialized Societies
Authors: Rosenbaum James E. , Kariya Takehiko , Settersten Rick , Maier Tony
Published: July 2003

The transition from high school to work creates serious problems for American youths and employers. Since single theories have difficulty conceptualizing the reasons for these problems, this paper reviews four theories that elucidate aspects: segmented labor market theory, human capital theory, signaling theory, and network theory. In addition, this review contrasts the American transition system with the transition systems in Japan, West Germany, and the United Kingdom to reveal practices and theoretical issues which are neither salient nor well studied in the American literature. We extend signaling theory to examine youths' use of signals, employers' use of dubious signals (e.g. age) while ignoring promising ones (e.g. grades), signals which are efficient in the short-term but not in the long-term. We extend network theory to include both personal contacts and institutional linkages. We note the ways poor signals may affect youths' plans and motivation and make them unresponsive to market demands, and the ways institutional networks may affect schooling and work-entry in the United States. Implications for theory, policy, and future research are also considered.
Epistemology and Sociohistorical Inquiry
Authors: Hall John R.
Published: July 2003

In sociohistorical inquiry, no epistemology prevails as a widely accepted account of knowledge. Positivism yet retains its defenders. As alternatives, both structuralist and hermeneutic challenges to science are undermined as foundations of knowledge by their own accounts, yielding the postmodern loss of certitude. Conventionalism, rationalism, and realism have been proposed as “local epistemologies” under the new conditions, and on a broader level, pragmatic and transcendental theories of communication substitute for epistemology classically conceived. As yet, these contending developments do not resolve the crisis of sociohistorical knowledge.
Choices, Decisions, and Problem-Solving
Authors: Tallman Irving , Gray Louis N.
Published: July 2003

Theory and research on choice and decision-making behavior is reviewed with the intent of identifying the core elements of these behavioral processes. Two distinct theoretical perspectives—“subjective/cognitive” and “behaviorist”—are critically examined and evaluated within the framework of their contribution to sociological theory. We then explore lacunae and ambiguities in the research and theory in the field. Definitional distinctions are drawn between the concepts of choice, decision-making, and problem-solving. Finally, we make a preliminary attempt to synthesize the work in this field, to identify core elements and suggest that the moment of choice can be considered as a microcosm of the social and behavioral forces affecting a given action at both the individual and collective level.
Network Data and Measurement
Authors: Marsden Peter V.
Published: July 2003

Data on social networks may be gathered for all ties linking elements of a closed population (“complete” network data) or for the sets of ties surrounding sampled individual units (“egocentric” network data). Network data have been obtained via surveys and questionnaires, archives, observation, diaries, electronic traces, and experiments. Most methodological research on data quality concerns surveys and questionnaires. The question of the accuracy with which informants can provide data on their network ties is nontrivial, but survey methods can make some claim to reliability. Unresolved issues include whether to measure perceived social ties or actual exchanges, how to treat temporal elements in the definition of relationships, and whether to seek accurate descriptions or reliable indicators. Continued research on data quality is needed; beyond improved samples and further investigation of the informant accuracy/reliability issue, this should cover common indices of network structure, address the consequences of sampling portions of a network, and examine the robustness of indicators of network structure and position to both random and nonrandom errors of measurement.
Vacancy Chains
Authors: Chase Ivan D.
Published: July 2003

The concept of vacancy chains, originally developed in Harrison White’s pioneering analysis of organizational mobility processes, has been extended to phenomena as diverse as national labor and housing markets, the historical development of professions, gender and ethnic group discrimination in job and housing markets, organizational demography, and the mobility of hermit crabs to empty snail shells. In all populations in which they occur—whether human or animal—vacancy chains appear to organize a variety of social processes in nearly identical ways. This chapter provides a broad and relatively nonmathematical review of the vacancy chain literature covering basic definitions and formulations, main theoretical ideas and assumptions, comparisons of social processes in different vacancy chain systems, and several conceptual and methodological extensions to vacancy chain analysis. The review concludes by discussing a number of outstanding problems, present limitations, and promising areas for future research using the vacancy chain approach to mobility.
Household History and Sociological Theory
Authors: Kertzer David I.
Published: July 2003

This review examines one of the most fundamental issues of family history, the nature of domestic groups in which people lived in the past. The focus is further limited to the evolution of family forms in Europe. Although such models as those originally proposed by Laslett and Hajnal for western family history have been shown to be wanting, they have served an invaluable role in stimulating and guiding family history research. We are now able to begin to grasp the contours of a much more complex western family heritage than earlier scholars recognized.
Networks of Corporate Power: A Comparative Assessment
Authors: Scott John
Published: July 2003

This paper reviews recent developments in the analysis of business power and the corporate elite, focussing on those approaches rooted in the techniques of social network analysis. A typology of research strategies is outlined, and this is illustrated through discussions of North American studies. It is argued that results from these studies cannot be generalized across all societies. This is illustrated with reference to European and Asian studies, where a number of variant patterns of corporate development can be discerned. Particular attention is given to Japan and the development of its pattern of corporate organization, which contrasts sharply with the dominant Anglo-American pattern.
The Design and Administration of Mail Surveys
Authors: Dillman Don A.
Published: July 2003

For reasons of cost and ease of implementation, mail surveys are more frequently used for social research than are either telephone or face-to-face interviews. In this chapter, the last two decades of research aimed at improving mail survey methods are examined. Discussion of this research is organized around progress made in overcoming four important sources of error: sampling , noncoverage, measurement, and nonresponse. Progress has been especially great in improving response rates as a means of reducing nonresponse error. Significant progress has also been made in finding means of overcoming measurement error. Because mail surveys generally present few, if any, special sampling error problems, little research in this area has been conducted. The lack of research on noncoverage issues is a major deficiency in research to date , and noncoverage error presents the most significant impediment to the increased use of mail surveys. The 1990s are likely to see increased research on mail surveys, as efforts are made to incorporate mail into cost-effective mixed mode designs.
Policy Domains: Organization, Culture, and Policy Outcomes
Authors: Burstein Paul
Published: July 2003

Sociologists interested in politics have increasingly turned in recent years to the study of policy domains—components of the political system organized around substantive issues. This review focuses on the process leading to legislative enactment of policy change and assesses issues and findings in three aspects of the political process: agenda setting. the development of policy proposals, and the struggle for adoption of particular proposals. Quite a bit is known about adoption of proposals, but relatively little work has been done on agenda setting, and the task of understanding the development of policy proposals has barely begun. Policy change is affected most directly by formal organizations whose activities are channeled and given meaning by culture; government organizations play an active role in formulating policy and deciding how it will be implemented as well.
Work Experiences and Family Interaction Processes: The Long Reach of the Job?
Authors: Menaghan Elizabeth G.
Published: July 2003

Until recently little theoretical or empirical attention has focused on the ways in which socially structured experiences in the workplace affect the interactions that occur within families. This review considers the many levels at which family interaction is currently being studied, presents arguments regarding expected relationships between aspects of workplace experiences and spousal and parent-child interaction, and summarizes the relatively small body of empirical research that links occupation and family interaction. It emphasizes the extent to which emotional consequences of work mediate the effect of workplace conditions on family interaction. The chapter reviews evidence suggesting that a variety of workplace conditions—restriction of opportunity to exercise self-direction, work overload, poor quality of interpersonal relations on the job, low opportunity for cooperative problemsolving, job insecurities, job loss, and low earnings—have emotional repercussions that have negative implications for family interaction. It argues that future research can illuminate social influences on family interaction by more fully incorporating observational methods to investigate both workplace and family processes and by more systematically and explicitly bringing the larger occupational and economic context into the emerging analyses of the microstructure of family interaction.
The Urban Underclass
Authors: Marks Carole
Published: July 2003

Writing in 1965, Lewis Coser observed, “The poor, a stratum recruited from heterogeneous origins, belong to a common category by virtue of an essentially passive trait, namely that society reacts to them in a particular manner” (Coser 1965:142). This review examines the “urban underclass,” the latest effort to analyze, categorize, and react to poverty in America. It begins with a discussion of the continuing and pervasive appeal of cultural explanations as the root cause of poverty, perspectives which boast a myriad of scholarly proponents from the right and increasingly from the left. Structural theories, which by contrast find explanation for poverty in various, sometimes conflicting changes in the economy and have an equally loyal following, are also examined. A third, ethnographic approach with antecedents in the prior work of Liebow, Howell, and Stack is explored. This emerging perspective both embraces and eschews different elements of the other two, attempting to ignore labels and understand instead “how people in real communities devise collective responses to their problems” (Sullivan 1989:50). The review suggests that nascent attempts are now in evidence from all sides to produce a common ground—part culture, part structure. But it also concludes that the real advance will come about when theorizing expands beyond the limited arena of the culture versus structure debate.
Third World Urbanization: Dimensions, Theories, and Determinants
Authors: Kasarda John D. , Crenshaw Edward M.
Published: July 2003

Few aspects of international social change have generated as much scholarship as patterns of urbanization in the Third World. In this review of interdisciplinary research, we first trace the trends and dimensions of urbanization in developing countries and then discuss major theories guiding global urban studies. Second, we review and critique recent cross-national investigations of the determinants of urbanization and its dimensions, concluding that severe underspecification, the dearth of comparative statistics on critical dimensions, and the ambiguity of proxy variables hinder research in this area. Finally, we discuss issues that warrant additional investigation in the near future,
Job Mobility and Career Processes
Authors: Rosenfeld Rachel A.
Published: July 2003

Renewed interest in the movement of people between jobs highlights the roles of time and opportunity structures in career development. Vacancy-driven models provide the background for many conceptions of the opportunity structure, with recent work on labor markets and economic segmentation contributing characterization of particular structures. Individuals' job-relevant resources, constraints, and contacts interact with structural characteristics to create careers. Careers take place over time, but different aspects of time (e.g. time in the firm versus time in the labor force) have different implications for mobility. Future work in this area needs to develop better understanding of the mechanisms by which job mobility occurs and leads to different kinds of careers.
Two Approaches to Social Structure: Exchange Theory and Network Analysis
Authors: Cook K. S. , Whitmeyer J. M.
Published: July 2003

Much convergence exists between exchange theory and network approaches to social structure. Starting with the work of Emerson, exchange theory increasingly has considered social structure explicitly, as both product and constraint. Exchange theory and network analysis both conceptualize social structure as a configuration of social relations and positions, i. e. as a set of actors diversely linked into networks. Exchange theory and most work in network analysis are based on similar conceptions of the actor. Where exchange theory and network analysis differ is in their view of the links between positions. Exchange theory stresses the exchange aspects of all ties and contends that the appropriate network in any analysis is one that contains all relevant exchange relations. Network analysis tends to be more catholic about the nature of the links.
Global Structures and Political Processes in the Study of Domestic Political Conflict
Authors: Jenkins J. Craig , Schock Kurt
Published: July 2003

The comparative study of domestic political conflict has experienced a paradigm shift with the replacement of theories emphasizing deprivation and system imbalance with theories of the political and structural sources of protest and rebellion. This review summarizes criticisms of the earlier theories, arguing that these have been subsumed by newer theories that focus on the relationships between political processes, the state, the capitalist world economy, the inter-state system and the origins and dynamics of social protest and political rebellion. We outline two useful approaches: a political process theory that emphasizes the impact of internal political institutions and processes, such as political exclusion, indigenous organization, and political opportunity structures; and theories of global structures that focus on the external or international processes of incorporation into the capitalist world economy, the social effects of foreign capital penetration, and political dependence on core states. Finally we examine the possibilities for constructing a synthetic theory of political conflict by treating these theories alternately in an additive fashion or through specifying indirect effects. Problems of measurement and methodology are discussed, especially the importance of developing dynamic models of political conflict.
Medicalization and Social Control
Authors: Conrad Peter
Published: July 2003

This essay examines the major conceptual issues concerning medicalization and social control, emphasizing studies published on the topic since 1980. Several issues are considered: the emergence, definition, contexts, process, degree, range, consequences, critiques, and future of medicalization and demedicalization. Also discussed are the relation of medicalization and social control, the effect of changes in the medical profession and organization on medicalization, and dilemmas and lacunae in medicalization research.
Concepts and Measurement of Prestige
Authors: Wegener Bernd
Published: July 2003

Reviewing the major stratification theories that involve prestige as a concept, this chapter suggests that these theories differ in that they base prestige either on achievement, esteem, honor, or charisma. None of these theories is able to solve the problem of how theoretically to merge the idea of social closure with that of a hierarchy of positions. Empirically, research on prestige and prestige measurement has for some time been confronted with findings that demonstrate the inferior role of prestige in status attainment models. Dissensus in prestige judgments, regarding prestige of women in particular, is another recent concern. While the “dominant view” of prestige measurement, arguing for prestige consensus in society, is defended, emphasis is placed on studies that detect systematic interindividual variation of prestige judgments. The review concludes that empirically, prestige research has diversified and deals now with two different concept of prestige, one linked to the idea of a social hierarchy and the other to that of socially closed groups. A reconciliation of both views is wanting.
Sociological Perspectives on American Indians
Authors: Snipp C. Matthew
Published: July 2003

The sociology of American Indians incorporates perspectives from across the social sciences. Recently, sociologists have taken a greater interest in American Indians, perhaps because American Indians have become increasingly visible in the diverse ethnic mosaic of American society. This review focuses on the position of American Indians in the US socioeconomic hierarchy: their numbers, where they live, and their social and economic well-being. The collapse and revitalization of the Indian population has been a central issue within American Indian demography. The recent growth in the population has been accompanied by increasing urbanization. These developments have significant implications for the socioeconomic well-being of American Indians in contemporary society.
Suburban Communities
Authors: Baldassare Mark
Published: July 2003

Suburban communities have experienced a radical transformation in the past century, and now they are where most Americans live. This chaper summarizes the historical evolution of the modern suburb, presents the major suburban theories, and reviews the empirical evidence on the suburban form and social structure. We discuss the suburbanization process in the context of urban decline and change. Finally we review the suburban crisis that has developed after decades of rapid population growth and industrialization. The challenges facing today’s suburbs include political fragmentation in regional governance, a growth revolt by local residents, a declining quality of community life, and a lack of affordable housing. The response to the suburban crisis by governments, business, and local residents will affect future suburban growth and suburban form.
Historical Studies of Labor Movements in the United States
Authors: Kimeldorf Howard , Stepan-Norris Judith
Published: July 2003

This article reviews recent historical research on the American labor movement. Emphasizing the primacy of economic and political struggles waged between and within classes, our discussion highlights the contested past of organized labor. We begin by exploring key aspects of organized labor’s political history, including its alleged “exceptionalism,” and its relationship to the state under the New Deal. Then, turning to the industrial arena, we review the determinants of unionism and critically consider arguments about the conservative impact of formal organization on worker insurgency. Next we survey recent contributions by labor historians, whose work challenges many of the received sociological understandings of organized labor’s development. Finally, we review some promising areas of inquiry within sociology, pointing in particular to research on social movements, organizational environments, and workers’ consciousness.
The Crisis of African Development: Conflicting Interpretations and Resolutions
Authors: Lubeck Paul M.
Published: July 2003

The depth and duration of economic decline, coupled with ecological degradation, political paralysis, and institutional decay, has created an unprecedented crisis in sub-saharan Africa. Explanations for the multiple crises of African development focus on debates regarding the necessity of following market-oriented economic policies, the capacity of African states to manage either development or reform and the way in which African institutions reproduce societies that are resistant either to state-centered development or to market forces. After allowing for events that are beyond the control of policy, the three schools—neoliberal, structural-nationalist, and institutional—are used to evaluate the literature on peasant agriculture, industry, and state policy. The experience of Nigeria indicates that commercial agriculture is increasing, that structural reforms can have some positive benefits and that its hydrocarbon sector can form a basis for regional industrialization. Finally, the rise of popular democratic movement suggests how the crisis has unleashed elements of a formerly passive civil society which promise to reform authoritarianism and discipline rentier states.
A Sociologist's Atypical Life
Authors: Coser Lewis A.
Published: July 2003

This paper depicts the career of the author as a complicated journey from European beginnings to American destinations. It emphasizes crucial turning points that finally led the author from antifascist radical intellectual to established member of the American sociological community. It attempts to show lines of divergence but also lines of continuity in his thought and contributions. This essay attempts to show the extent to which his background influenced the themes and orientations of his sociological work.

The paper may be read as a contribution to the sociology of knowledge from the autobiographical point of view. It stresses the various stages of the author's career and attempts to show the extent to which these stages are reflected in his writings and general orientations. The paper closes with a bird's eye view of the recent past and the probable future of American sociological thought.
The Sad Demise, Mysterious Disappearance, and Glorious Triumph of Symbolic Interactionism
Authors: Fine Gary Alan
Published: July 2003

Symbolic interactionism has changed over the past two decades, both in the issues that practitioners examine and in its position within the discipline. Once considered adherents of a marginal oppositional perspective, confronting the dominant positivist, quantitative approach of mainstream sociology, symbolic interactionists find now that many of their core concepts have been accepted. Simultaneously their core as an intellectual community has been weakened by the diversity of interests of those who self-identify with the perspective. I examine here four processes that led to these changes: fragmentation, expansion, incorporation, and adoption. I then describe the role of symbolic interactionism in three major debates confronting the discipline: the micro/macro debate, the structure/agency debate, and the social realist/interpretivist debate. I discuss six empirical arenas in which interactionists have made major research contributions: social coordination theory, the sociology of emotions, social constructionism, self and identity theory, macro-interactionism, and policy-relevant research. I conclude by speculating about the future role of interactionism.
Perspectives on Organizational Change in the US Medical Care Sector
Authors: Fennell Mary L. , Alexander Jeffrey A.
Published: July 2003

The focus of this review is macro-level organizational change in medical care organizations in the United States, with particular emphasis on the decade of the 1980s. We begin with a brief review of the historical context of this sector and discuss several important trends characterizing the industry since 1980. The body of this review focuses on major perspectives in organizational theory which either have been used or could be used to study these changes. We consider both determinants and consequences of change in the medical care sector.
Minority Identity and Self-Esteem
Authors: Porter Judith R. , Washington Robert E.
Published: July 2003

We review the theoretical models and the research on self-esteem among Hispanic and Asian American subgroups and compare these findings to the existing literature on African American self-image. Group self-esteem refers to how the individual feels about racial or ethnic group membership. Personal self-esteem refers to how the individual feels about the self in a comprehensive manner. We describe the major paradigms of ethnic/racial and personal self-esteem utilized in studies of Hispanics and Asian Americans. These paradigms are largely informed by the literature on ethnicity and stress the macrostructural forces that affect self-concept. Paradigms of African American self-image, however, tend to focus more on the psychological mechanisms that transform social context into personal identity. We also review empirical evidence on both dimensions of self-esteem among Hispanics and Asian Americans, and we contrast these findings to research on African Americans. We conclude by suggesting parallels between the theories dealing with ethnicity and those dealing with race, and we suggest areas for further theoretical integration and empirical research.
Nationalism and Ethnicity
Authors: Calhoun Craig
Published: July 2003

Neither nationalism nor ethnicity is vanishing as part of an obsolete traditional order. Both are part of a modern set of categorical identities invoked by elites and other participants in political and social struggles. These categorical identities also shape everyday life, offering both tools for grasping pre-existing homogeneity and difference and for constructing specific versions of such identities. While it is impossible to dissociate nationalism entirely from ethnicity, it is equally impossible to explain it simply as a continuation of ethnicity or a simple reflection of common history or language. Numerous dimensions of modern social and cultural change, notably state building (along with war and colonialism), individualism, and the integration of large-scale webs of indirect relationships also serve to make both nationalism and ethnicity salient. Nationalism, in particular, remains the pre-eminent rhetoric for attempts to demarcate political communities, claim rights of self-determination and legitimate role by reference to “the people” of a country. Ethnic solidarities and identities are claimed most often where groups do not seek “national” autonomy but rather a recognition internal to or cross-cutting national or state boundaries. The possibility of a closer link to nationalism is seldom altogether absent from such ethnic claims, however, and the two sorts of categorical identities are often invoked in similar ways.
Sex Segregation in the Workplace
Authors: Reskin Barbara
Published: July 2003

This chapter reviews research on the segregation of women and men in the workplace. After examining ways to measure segregation, I summarize trends in sex segregation in the United States and cross-nationally. Occupational segregation has declined since 1970, but most workers remain in sex segregated jobs. I then evaluate the empirical support for explanations for segregation. Demand-side explanations include employers' preferences, the demand for workers, economic pressures, discrimination, and personnel practices. Supply-side explanations include the size of the labor supply, the neoclassical human-capital explanation, gender-role socialization, workers' values, and the opportunity structure. I conclude that a variety of social and economic forces operate both to perpetuate and to reduce segregation. However, workplace segregation is an important mechanism in sex stratification, and a stratification perspective stresses the importance of demand-side factors. I call for research on sex segregation that examines the behavior of all labor market actors.
Urban Sociology: The Contribution and Limits of Political Economy
Authors: Walton John
Published: July 2003

This paper departs from reviews of urban sociology that juxtapose competing Marxist and ecological theories, arguing instead that over the last 25 years a venerable social organization paradigm has been superseded by a fertile political economy paradigm that continues to orchestrate current research. The contributions of political economy are reviewed under six headings: historical explanation, comparative studies, socioeconomic processes, spatial relations, ethnicity and community, and political movements. The conclusion argues that urban sociology is currently in need of new directions. Some criticisms and alternatives are suggested.
Sociological Perspectives on Life Transitions
Authors: George Linda K.
Published: July 2003

Research on life transitions highlights the normative and nonnormative changes that individuals experience over time. During the past two decades, life course perspectives have provided a strategic context for studying the genesis of life transitions and their personal and social consequences. Both population-based and individual models of transitions have become more complex, focusing on the ways that social and historical contexts shape life transitions. At the individual level, progress has also been made in identifying the mechanisms by which transitions affect outcomes. Research on life transitions continues to grapple with two major issues—the challenges raised by heterogeneity, and the need to better link macro and micro perspectives—although advances have been made in both cases. One of the most promising characteristics of recent studies is cross-fertilization of concepts and methods from previously distinct research traditions: role theory, social stress theory, and life course sociology.
Entry Into School: The Beginning School Transition and Educational Stratification in the United States
Authors: Entwisle Doris R. , Alexander Karl L.
Published: July 2003

Though critically important for children's long-term well being, the beginning school transition generally has been neglected by sociologists interested in issues of schooling and social inequality. This chapter examines early school from an educational stratification perspective. Life-stage and developmental considerations heighten young children's sensitivity to school influences generally, while pressures associated with social role transitions (i.e. from “home child” to “school child”) challenge them. We review how out-of-school social structural influences associated with poverty, ethnicity, and family type complicate early school adjustment. Reviewed too are various structural arrangements in the social organization of early schooling (e.g. access to preschools, the restricted socioeconomic variability of elementary schools, and various kinds of educational “tracking”) that can either reinforce or offset out-of-school influences. We conclude with a call for more work on mechanisms of educational stratification in the early grades.
Recent Moves in the Sociology of Literature
Authors: Griswold Wendy
Published: July 2003

Building on earlier work in the production of culture, reception aesthetics, and cultural capital, sociology of literature research during the past few years has concentrated on readers' construction of meaning and on networks within literary systems. New directions include studying the relationship between literature and group identities; connecting institutional and reader-response analyses; reintroducing the role of authorial intentionality; and developing a clearer understanding of how literature is and is not like other media.
Comparative Studies in Class Structure
Authors: Myles John , Turegun Adnan
Published: July 2003

In this paper we review the empirical legacy that developed out of the theoretical and methodological agendas of class analysis and comparative methods of the 1970s and 1980s. Our review is restricted to studies that examine the variants in the class structures of the developed capitalist democracies. The paper is organized into four main sections. In part one, we examine variations in the organization of capital; part two takes up the still little-studied resurgence of the petite bourgeoisie and small capital; in part three, we review studies that have examined national variations in the size and composition of the new middle class; and part four reviews the postindustrial and gendered nature of the working class. Our conclusion highlights important labor market developments of the 1980s that have largely been missed by conventional class models and commentosn their significance for the future of empirical research in class analysis.
Legal Theory and Social Theory
Authors: Scheppele Kim Lane
Published: July 2003

While social theory and legal theory were once closely intertwined, contemporary American sociology pays scant attention to recent developments in legal theory. But the problems that legal theory currently wrestles with are very similar to those with which sociology is now centrally concerned. This essay reviews major schools of thought in contemporary legal theory to introduce sociologists to some potentially useful literatures on the meaning of rationality; on critical theory; on the importance of gender, race, and class in understanding social institutions; on the interpretive turn; on the relationship between structure and agency; and on the revival of pragmatism.