bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Primary Relationships and Social Participation in a Korean Metropolitan City
Authors: Hong Dong Shik
Published: September 2012

This article attempts to investigate patterns of association between primary relationships (in both kinship and neighborhood relations) and social participation in voluntary associations in a Korean metropolitan city. Two alternative hypotheses, that is, an incompatibility hypothesis positing a negative relation between primary relationships and social participation and a reinforcement hypothesis positing a positive relationship were derived. The data were collected from 1,047 households and housewives through self-administered questionnaires. Multiple regression analysis was applied to assess the hypotheses, controlling for 7 individual variables. The results lend strong support to the reinforcement hypothesis, indicating the positive influences of primary relationships on social participation. Finally, this article discusses some probable mechanisms underlying the findings in Korean urban contexts.
Ethnic Role Identity among Black and White College Students
Authors: White Clovis L. , Burke Peter J.
Published: September 2012

This article examines a structural symbolic interactionist approach to the process of ethnic identity formation among black and white college students. This approach, termed identity theory, considers an ethnic identity (like all identities) to be a portion of the self that contains shared understandings of what it means to be a member of a given ethnic group. Within the framework of identity theory, ethnic identification is hypothesized to be related to self-esteem, identity salience, identity commitment, and other structural characteristics. Using the Burke-Tully method, a black-white ethnic identity dimension is developed and used to measure ethnic identity among a sample of college students. The nature of this identity dimension is discussed and its relation to the other self variables is investigated. The study confirmed that identity salience, commitment, and self-esteem, as hypothesized by identity theory, are related to ethnic identity among students. However, it was also noted that these ethnic identity processes seemed to work somewhat differently for blacks and for whites as a result of differences in dominant and minority position.
Brothers' Keepers: Situating Kinship Relations in Broader Networks of Social Support
Authors: Wellman Barry , Wortley Scot
Published: September 2012

The authors evaluate the importance of kin in providing four different dimensions of social support: emotional aid, services, financial aid, and companionship. The authors analysis uses both quantitative and interview data from the East York (Toronto) studies of social networks. Kin comprise slightly less than half of these networks: an average of five ties out of twelve. Parents and adult children are highly supportive network members, providing high levels of emotional aid, services and financial aid (they avoid companionship, however). Siblings complement and substitute for parents and children, especially in the provision of services. Because there are many more ties between siblings than there are between parents and children, siblings (along with friends and neighbors) provide a substantial proportion of the support East Yorkers receive. By contrast, extended kin tend to be the least supportive and least companionable of network members. If kinship systems did not keep extended kin in contact, few would be active network members.
The Political Family: A Contemporary View
Authors: Kurtz Donn M.
Published: September 2012

As a part of a larger study of Louisiana's political families from statehood to the present, this article seeks to demonstrate that the family influence on political recruitment is not just an historical phenomenon but a current reality. Over one-fourth of 785 state and parish officials in office in 1983 were found to have at least one officeholding relative. One-half of these 209 leaders had two or more kinsmen in office at some time, and almost one-third “inherited” their position from a relative. The article analyzes the structure of these families (size, generations, kinship connections), successions, and kinship networks. The last topic, networks, delineates the connections between and among families with 1983 officials and other families whose political experience occurred before 1983. The largest of the networks includes twenty-two families with 107 officials from several states. A principal conclusion is that the family continues to exert considerable influence on its members' decision to enter the political arena. Evidence is presented indicating that Louisiana is not unique in this regard.
Neighborhood Associations, Political Repertoires and Neighborhood Exits
Authors: Oropesa R.S.
Published: September 2012

The ways in which residents can respond to neighborhood problems are well understood. Residents can act politically, move or stay put and remain inactive. Less understood are the temporal and empirical relationships between these different strategies. Social scientists and policy makers currently believe, with little empirical evidence, that the decision to move from the community is a function of one's political experiences and involvement in institutions that resolve conflicts. Using survey data collected in Seattle, Washington during the late 1970s, the empirical results are initially more consistent with this view for residential mobility than thoughts about moving. Subsequent analysis reveals that the results for residential mobility are questionable as well. Mobility is also related to perceptions about specific sets of issues in the community, including neighborhood decline and service delivery.
Social Determinants of Racial Prejudice
Authors: Case Charles E. , Greeley Andrew M. , Fuchs Stephan
Published: September 2012

In the sociology of racial prejudice, two major paradigms can be distinguished: Cultural-environmental and social class or conflict paradigms. On the basis of Durkheimian theory, it is hypothesized that cultural-environmental variables (education, knowledge) offer stronger and more consistent explanations of racial prejudice than status variables (self-perceived class position, occupational prestige, income). To test this hypothesis, National Opinion Research Center (NORC) data are analyzed. Findings corroborate the major cultural-environmental hypothesis that racial prejudice emerges from ritually dense sociocultural lifeforms. Little support is found for the claim that prejudice arises from class conflict and competition over material resources.
Asian Indians as a Minority in the United States: The Effect of Education, Occupations and Gender on Income
Authors: Barringer Herbert , Kassebaum Gene
Published: September 2012

Are Asian Indians another “model minority” to the American mainstream? Multivariate analysis reveals Asian Indian income is a reflection of an unusual concentration of recent immigrants in professional and managerial occupations, an unusually high percentage of both men and women with education into college and beyond, but also, relative to U.S. whites, lower rates of return on years of education and occupational concentration. In addition, there are very strong gender effects even when the other factors are controlled, indicating direct gender pay differences.
Predictors of Interracial Homicide Victimization for Asian Americans: A Macrostructural Opportunity Perspective
Authors: Jang Sung Joon , Messner Steven F. , South Scott J.
Published: September 2012

This paper uses Blau's macrostructural opportunity theory to explore patterns of interracial homicide victimization among Asian Americans. Data are drawn from the F.B.I.'s Supplementary Homicide Reports and aggregated for 131 SMSAs over the 1976–1984 period. Unlike previous research, two out-groups—white and black offenders—are considered to see if the same predictors behave similarly for the different out-groups. As expected, the descriptive data show that Asian Americans as a minority group have a greater conditional probability of being killed by out-group members than do whites and blacks. On the other hand, logistic regression analysis reveals that educational inequality and population size are significant predictors of the conditional probability of out-group victimization, while hypotheses concerning the effects of relative group size, income inequality, and residential segregation fail to be fully supported. We conclude with a discussion of possible reasons for the unexpected results and of important tasks for future research.
Ritual and the Legitimation of Inequality
Authors: Della Fave L. Richard
Published: September 2012

This paper explicates the much neglected process through which ritual both reproduces and transforms beliefs concerning the legitimation of inequality. The point of departure is Collins's interpretation of Durkheim's approach. We rework Collins's analysis in terms of self-evaluation theory and develop a detailed description of several processes through which ritual is reproductive of the legitimation of a society's stratification system. In keeping with the critical character of self-evaluation theory, we show how ritual can also play an important role in the delegitimation of stratification and the promotion of egalitarian norms.
Class Struggle Analysis: A Critique of Class Structure Analysis
Authors: So Alvin Y.
Published: September 2012

Initiated during the 1970s as a critique of mainstream stratification analysis, Neo-Marxist class-structure analysis seems to have reached an impasse by the late 1980s. In order to develop class analysis further, many analysts have called for a shift in orientation from the drawing of a static class structure map to the study of class struggle dynamics. Responding to this call, this paper develops a class struggle analysis for the study of politics and history. This analysis has three components: (1) The conditions of class struggle, focusing on class structure, protoclass, and movement organization; (2) The processes of class struggle, examining the struggles over class, consciousness, organization, goals, strategy, and boundary; and (3) The consequences of class struggle, investigating both the micro-level of subjective experience and the macro-level of class and structure. By bringing class struggle back into stratification theory, this new emphasis opens new research frontiers and sharpens the power of class analysis.
Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in America: Toward an Explanation of Racial and Ethnic Group Variations in Self-Employment
Authors: Butler John Sibley , Herring Cedric
Published: September 2012

Using data from the 1983–1987 General Social Surveys, this paper investigates the degree to which being self-employed is more prevalent within certain racial and ethnic groups than others. Those of Jewish ancestry were more likely than others to be self-employed; those from “racial” ethnic groups were generally less likely than white ethnics to be self-employed. In addition, being older, more educated, from a higher-income family, male, from the South, non-Catholic, and having a self-employed father also increased one's likelihood of being self-employed. A stratified analysis separately examining the effects among the offspring of the self-employed and others revealed that, among the progeny of the self-employed, those of African, English, Hispanic, and Asian descent were less likely to be self-employed. Among those whose fathers were not self-employed, only Jewish respondents were significantly more likely be self-employed, and those of African descent and Polish descent were less likely to be self-employed. The implications of these findings for research on ethnic entrepreneurship are discussed.
Asian American Socioeconomic Achievement
Authors: Nee Victor , Wong Herbert Y.
Published: September 2012

The analysis emphasizes the need to examine structural and cultural factors in the sending and receiving countries over a historical process to understand how immigrants are incorporated in American society. The article argues that Chinese were slower to make the transition from sojourner to immigrant due to structural characteristics of Chinese village society; whereas Japanese immigrants were not tied by strong family bonds to Japan and made a more rapid transition. The differential timing of family formation and family-run businesses in America account for the more rapid assimilation of Japanese Americans. Changing labor markets after World War II provided new opportunity structures favorable to the socioeconomic mobility of native-born Chinese and Japanese Americans.
Need for a New Paradigm
Authors: Catton William R.
Published: September 2012

To confront the probable future without becoming obsolete, sociology needs a new paradigm, for its traditional notion of the nature of its subject-matter precludes asking certain vital questions, makes important hypotheses inconceivable, and stigmatizes essential lines of inquiry. Humans are involved in the web of life, yet sociologists following Durkheim disregard nonsocial facts as explanations of social facts. To understand major social change caused by transition from abundance to scarcity, we have to see how modern technology has enlarged human resource demands and human environmental impact. We have to learn to think in terms of carrying capacity and use a larger time frame. We have to ask some ecological questions, such as how long this planet can tolerate industrialism and what are the prerequisites of a sustainable society.
Gender Differences in the Attainment of Doctorates
Authors: Wong Herbert Y. , Sanders Jimy M.
Published: September 2012

The study of gender inequality in academia is characterized by various conflicting positions (see Cole, 1979; Reskin, 1980). While it is clear such inequality exists, our knowledge of how it comes about is limited. Debate over the extent and interpretation of gender inequality in the academic labor market is exacerbated by this situation. The preliminary analysis reported here suggests that the inequality stems, in part, from different graduate training experiences encountered by female and male students.
The Making of the 1967 Montana Clean Air Act
Authors: Melichar Kenneth E.
Published: September 2012

This article uses the social definitional process approach to understand the making of the 1967 Montana Clean Air Act. This approach holds that it is how the various competing social groups define the objective situation (air pollution) as problematic and then act on these definitions that counts. Based on their cultural meanings of the problem, the competing groups engage in claims-making activities that they seek to have legitimated in law. In the struggle for the legitimation of the various competing definitions, the groups attempt to claim ownership (disownership) as well as to assign causal and political responsibility for the problem. In Montana it was the clean air forces who were able to have their cultural meanings legitimated in law and who placed causal responsibility for air pollution on industrial capital and political responsibility for solving the problem on the Montana State Board of Health.
Wife's Status and Family Social Standing
Authors: Hammond John L.
Published: September 2012

In this article, I analyze the effect of husbands' and wives' statuses on class self-placement. While the effect of wife's occupation is greater for employed wives than it is for their husbands, both employed women and their husbands attribute far greater importance to the husband's occupation. For couples in which the wife is a housewife, the class self-placement of both husbands and wives is far more strongly affected by husband's status than by wife's education. Overall, wives' characteristics make little difference either to husbands' or to wives' estimation of their social standing. The somewhat higher class self-placement of members of couples in which the wife has no paid job suggests the persistence of a patriarchal one-earner norm.
Labor Force Participation and Socioeconomic Attainment of Asian-American Women
Authors: Wong Morrison G. , Hirschman Charles
Published: September 2012

Based upon 1970 U.S. Census data and an ethnic stratification analytical framework, this study examines the socioeconomic roles of Asian-American women in the United States relative to Anglo women. In general, Asian-American women are more likely to participate in the labor force and to have above-average earnings. The earnings advantage of Asian women can be explained by their superior educational qualifications, greater levels of full-time work, and geographical location. In spite of their relatively favorable economic position, some Asian women, particularly recent immigrants, remain in the low wage sector of the economy.
Kimball Young on the Chicago School
Authors: Lindstrom Fred B. , Hardert Ronald A.
Published: September 2012

Editors' Introduction: Elsewhere in this journal is the article “Kimball Young on Founders of the Chicago School.” As with that article, the following material is taken from the 1968 seminar offered by Kimball Young at Arizona State University, a seminar attended by the editors. These lectures chronicle Young's contacts with George Herbert Mead of the University of Chicago's philosophy department, touch on his student contacts with the political scientist Harold Lasswell, and contain Young's comments upon a number of Chicago faculty and student sociologists he knew: Herbert Blumer, Ernest Watson Burgess, John Dollard, Ellsworth Faris, Philip M. Hauser, Everett Cherrington Hughes, Helen McGill Hughes, Morris Janowitz, William Fielding Ogburn, Robert E. Park, Edward Shils, David Riesman, Samuel A. Stouffer, W. I. Thomas, W. Lloyd Warner, and Louis Wirth.
The Mixed Legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology
Authors: Turner Jonathan H.
Published: September 2012

This article examines the legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology. Because the Chicago department so dominated sociology in the 1920s and 1930s, it created the mold or template on which new departments, or the expansion of older ones, were modeled in the 1930s and in the post-World War II period. The legacy of this situation is mixed: On the one hand, the Chicago department made sociology a legitimate discipline in a hostile academic environment, whereas, on the other hand, it helped create a discipline so diversified in substantive specialties, so atheoretical, and so concerned with narrow research and quantitative methods that serious problems of intellectual and organizational integration confront contemporary American sociology.
Immigrant Entrepreneurs in 272 SMSAs
Authors: Light Ivan , Sanchez Angel A.
Published: September 2012

Utilizing data collected from the 1980 public-use sample of the U.S. Census, we examine the effect of percentage foreign born in the labor force upon aggregate self-employment rate in 272 SMSAs. Because mean self-employment among the foreign born was higher than among the native born, an increased percentage in the foreign born in a SMSA labor force caused increased aggregate self-employment. Also, as a result of renewed immigration during the 1970s, and the resulting increase in the foreign-born component of the civilian labor force, nonfarm self-employment in the United States increased about 3% above what would have been expected from a comparable “influx” of native-born workers. Depending on which method of estimation one selects, this immigration-prompted increase explains from 16% to 52% of the decade's total increase in nonfarm self-employment, a surprising reversal of nearly 10 decades of uninterrupted decrease. Rate of self-employment among immigrants had no effect upon the rate of or returns to self-employment of native-born workers in general or native blacks in particular.
Deviance, Crime, and the Greying of America
Authors: Gibbons Don C.
Published: September 2012

This essay offers some conjectures about the nature and forms of deviance and criminality that are likely to be encountered in the decades ahead, as the “greying” of America continues. Traditional notions centered about the study of societal forms of deviance have become obsolete. Moreover, behavioral diversity of many forms has become so commonplace in recent years that social labeling or processual conceptions of deviance are in need of revision. Some evidence of the spread of social diversity is offered, along with some commentary on the broad forces behind the growth of diversity. The concluding portion of this essay includes a number of forecasts about the levels and forms of criminality that may be encountered in the decades ahead.
Probable Collective Responses to Ecological Scarcity
Authors: Catton William R.
Published: September 2012

Natural systems have limits of tolerance that produce an ensemble of interacting constraints on human action. This ensemble, ecological scarcity, presses people and nations toward zero-sum competition. Over the past nine decades, collective behavior theory has advanced enough to show us the social dilemmas and structurally conducive conditions for targeted hostility we can expect in an era of carrying capacity deficit. After centuries of economic and social development, mankind now faces sharp reversal, making revolutions likely within nations, and wars over access to scarce resources likely between nations. People have been slow to recognize the vulnerability of ecosystems and the seriousness of pressures to overload them, but such awareness may be an essential basis for a critical ability needed to protect us from panic and from resort to catastrophic violence.
World System, Class, and State in Third World Development
Authors: Koo Hagen
Published: September 2012

The currently popular political economy approach to Third World development is divided in terms of three primary foci of analysis: (1) dependency or the world economic system; (2) the internal class structure and class struggles; and (3) the peripheral capitalist state. This article examines the basic ideas involved in these three approaches and seeks to integrate them into a single framework. The basic assumption of this framework is that the pattern of capital accumulation and socioeconomic change in Third World countries are shaped by world-system, class, and state factors jointly, rather than independently of one another. Only by looking at interactions among these structural factors can concrete ways in which each of them influences the pattern of accumulation be illuminated. Of the three sets of factors, this article highlights the role of the Third World state in linking the world system and class forces to the development process.
Generation Differences in Korean Immigrants' Life Conditions in the United States
Authors: Kim Kwang Chung , Hurh Won Moo , Kim Shin
Published: September 2012

Generation differences between Korean immigrant adult children and elderly parents are examined in terms of their life conditions in the United States. Data for this study were collected through interviewing 622 Korean adult immigrants in the Chicago area in 1986. The life conditions of adult children and elderly parents are inferred from the two groups of respondents: the young and the elderly. The life conditions of these two groups are found to be highly differentiated in terms of their current adult statuses and roles, family-kinship ties, and experiences of Americanization. Implications of the differentiated life conditions of adult children and elderly parents are discussed.
Making “Suitable Referrals”: Social Workers' Construction and Use of Informal Referral Networks
Authors: Spencer J. William
Published: September 2012

The extant literature on the referral process in human service delivery has been examined as either a “micro,” intra-organizational activity or a “macro,” interorganizational phenomenon. The negotiated-order perspective is used to bridge this gap by examining how interorganizational and other contextual-level factors shape the routine accomplishment of the referral process. The data come from a case study of the referral-related activities of social workers in a human service agency serving homeless clients. Social workers' ***referral-related activities largely comprised the construction, maintenance, and use of informal referral networks. These activities, which centered around a concern for making “suitable referrals,” comprised constructing referral sets, conducting advocacy work, and negotiating referral agreements. Aspects of how the client population and the interorganizational context facilitated or constrained each of these networking activities are delineated. Results of the analysis are used to offer observations on the micro-foundations of interorganizational referral networks.
Spontaneous Involvement and Social Life
Authors: Ostrow James M.
Published: September 2012

Throughout his writings, Erving Goffman develops the principle that successful impression management requires an appearance of “spontaneous involvement” as evidence of individuals' sincerity. Goffman never articulates this principle in terms of how persons are actually—indeed, as he sometimes recognizes, necessarily involved spontaneously in the social environment. This paper asks: What does it mean for our reading of Goffman and of social situations generally if we move the proposition of the experiential necessity of spontaneous involvement to the center of sociological analysis? I discuss why it never moved to the center of Goffman's inquiries, and then argue that a theory of habit facilitates an elaborate of its sociological significance.
Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method: Is It a Classic?
Authors: Turner Stephen Park
Published: September 2012

Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method has never enjoyed the same reputation as his major books, in part because the book is uncongenial to standard interpretations of Durkheim. In particular, its attacks on teleology do not fit his reputation as a functionalist The papers in this special issue address the work historically. Both Porter and Stedman Jones deal with aspects of the context in which Durkheim worked and transformed. Schmaus and Nemedi deal with problems of interpreting Durkheim's development, and Platt discusses the reception of The Rules. The papers shed light on such important questions as the meaning of Durkheim's slogan “society is made of representations.” Durkheim, it appears, was not only what would now be called a constructionist, he went on to ask whether the fact that constructions are real in their consequences did not imply the reality causal reality of constructions and, therefore, a specific kind of “social realism.” The problem The Rules poses, of what is the fundamental stuff of society, is “classic” in significance, and Durkheim's answer is classically radical
The United States Reception of Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method
Authors: Platt Jennifer
Published: September 2012

Durkheim has not always been treated by U.S. sociology as obviously important, as the career of The Rules shows. Initially, its social realism was strongly criticized. Gradually, however, more specialized study of Durkheim was done, which led to more contextualized understandings of his work. As U.S. sociology became more empirical the character of interest in The Rules shifted; by the 1960s, it was read in the light of Suicide, then newly translated, and interpreted as an ancestor of functionalism. The meanings imputed to key ideas such as the treatment of social facts as things also shifted. It is argued that his, then newly won, status as a founding father promoted more favorable interpretation of his meanings and that various factors in the social structure of the discipline also contributed to this change.
Computer Simulation for Exploring Theories: Models of Interpersonal Cooperation and Competition
Authors: Leik Robert K. , Meeker Barbara F.
Published: September 2012

Computer simulation for exploring substantive theories is both powerful and convenient, but there are few standards for doing simulations. Some criteria are suggested and their importance illustrated in detail via our adaptation and augmentation of a species competition model to reflect interpersonal cooperation or competition. Outcomes of the simulation and their substantive interpretation can vary due to minor variation in parameters, to convenient functional forms assumed by the program, and to settings of function parameters which seem to have no direct relevance for the substantive interpretation of the model Under certain circumstances, chaos-like patterns emerge from the simulation.
Neural Network Models of Religious Belief
Authors: Bainbridge William Sims
Published: September 2012

This paper applies neural network technology, a standard approach in computer science that has been unaccountably ignored by sociologists, to the problem of developing rigorous sociological theories. A simulation program employing a “varimax” model of human learning and decision-making models central elements of the Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion. Individuals in a micro-society of 24 simulated people learn which categories of potential exchange partners to seek for each of four material rewards which in fact can be provided by other actors in the society. However, when they seek eternal life, they are unable to find suitable human exchange partners who can provide it to them, so they postulate the existence of supernatural exchange partners as substitutes. The explanation of how the particular neural net works, including reference to modulo arithmetic, introduces some aspects of this new technology to sociology, and this paper invites readers to explore the wide range of other neural net techniques that may be of value for social scientists
The Dynamic Simulation of Control and Compliance Processes in Material Organizations
Authors: Patrick Steven
Published: September 2012

Computer simulation is a tool of multiple uses. One is the ability to dynamically model theories and discover unexpected interactions and outcomes. A propositional theory of organizational control, based on the work of Collins (1975, 1988), is modeled and simulated here. The verbal theory synthesizes other theories to explain how formal organizations attain and maintain compliance from members. The modeling and simulation of Collins' theory discovers a number of interesting and informative, but unexpected, outcomes. While the control processes of organizations do produce stable compliance, this compliance is punctuated by episodic periods of noncompliance that increase in frequency and duration over time, resulting ultimately in the breakdown of the control process.
History of the Self: From Primates to Present
Authors: Wiley Norbert
Published: September 2012

The article begins with a semiotic theory of how human selves emerged from the primates. It then follows the history of the self from classical Greece, throught the Christian Middle Ages, to early industrialization (as seen by Durkheim) and later industrialization (as seen by Weber). The story is largely an implicit struggle between self and society for what might be called the steering power, or “cybernetic control,” of life.
More than Clockwork: Women's Time Management in Their Combined Workloads
Authors: Hessing Melody
Published: September 2012

Women's labor force participation requires not only their compliance with workplace schedules but also the coordination of these with household needs. The routinization of paid work hours, scarcity of discretionary time, and conflict in the time requirements of women's combined workload contribute to the difficulty of accommodating these demands. Women respond to these constraints by implementing timing strategies which include: their conformity to and priorization of paid work hours; manipulation of time use, especially in household schedules; routinization of daily tasks; and synchronization of household and workplace events, as well as preparation for contingency needs. Women's responsibility for the household in time is thus perpetuated not only by gendered differences in time use but also in its allocation. The intentional and creative “time management” performed by women enables them to accommodate the constraints of a combined workload.
The Revenge of the Humanities: Reality, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Postmodernism
Authors: Ward Steven
Published: September 2012

The debate between scientific realists and postmodern relativists has been generally treated as a philosophical disagreement over the status of epistemology. Here, however, I use material from Bourdieuian social theory and science and technology studies to illustrate how both scientific realism and postmodern deconstructionism can be seen as political and organizational strategies used in the historical and ongoing struggle between scientific and literary fields and camps. I argue that just as scientific realism and experimentalism were used to dismiss the knowledge contributions of literary fields and to relegate them to secondary status in the seventeenth century, postmodern deconstructionism and its turn to rhetoric and textualism is now being employed as a strategy to counter the political and intellectual dominance gained by the sciences over the last few centuries.
Persistence and Change in Asian Identity among Children of Intermarried Couples
Authors: Saenz Rogelio , Hwang Sean-Shong , Aguirre Benigno E. , Anderson Robert N.
Published: September 2012

In recent years, a significant amount of attention has been devoted to the survival of ethnicity among multiracial people in the United States. This concern is especially evident in the case of the offspring of Asian-Anglo couples. While scholars have speculated on the extent to which Asian ethnicity will continue to persist among multiracial children, little empirical work has addressed this concern. In this analysis, we use a multilevel model to examine the ethnic identification (as reported by parents) of children of Asian-Anglo couples. Data from the 1980 Public-Use Microdata Sample for California are used in the analysis. The results indicate that the majority of the children had Anglo ethnic identities. The multivariate findings also identify several variables that are related to children's ethnic identification.
Injury and Depression: The Mediating Effects of Self-Concept
Authors: Seff Monica A. , Gecas Viktor , Ray Margaret P.
Published: September 2012

This study further specifies the relationship between injury, self-conceptions, and depression. With the use of path analysis, we look at the direct and indirect effects of pain and work limitation associated with a job-related injury on self-efficacy, self-esteem and depression for a sample of injured workers (N = 1,037). As expected, we found that self-efficacy and self-esteem are negatively associated with depression, while work limitation and pain are positively associated with depression. We also found that work limitation has additional indirect effects on depression through its effect on self-efficacy and self-esteem. Pain has an additional indirect effect on depression via its effect on self-efficacy and work limitation. These findings support our expectation that self-concept significantly mediates the relationship between physical injury and depression.
Predicting the Sharing of Household Labor: Are Parenting and Housework Distinct?
Authors: Ishii-Kuntz Masako , Coltrane Scott
Published: September 2012

Using a representative sample of married couples with preschool-aged children in the United States, this study analyzes the conditions under which husbands share household tasks conventionally performed by wives. Survey data are analyzed using LISREL VII procedures, with proportional hourly contributions to child care (feeding, bathing, dressing, or putting child to bed) and housework (housecleaning, shopping, cooking, meal cleanup or laundry) treated as conceptually distinct dependent variables. Husbands perform an average of 26 percent of the child care and 21 percent of the housework and contribute more to both child care and housework if they are employed fewer hours than their wives. For housework, couples share more if wives earn a larger share of the family income, have more education, and hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. For preschool-aged child care, couples share more if they have more and older children and husbands hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. Theoretical explanations for the observed findings are discussed; we advocate modeling and measuring child care and housework as distinct, but interrelated activities.
Introduction: Environmental Conflict
Authors: Lach Denise
Published: September 2012

Environmental conflict appears to be increasing exponentially. Natural resource management disputes over preservation or “wise use” rage in forests, river systems, rangelands, and mineral lands. Locating hazardous waste sites is so contentious that there is only one site in the country that accepts the high-level waste produced everywhere else in the United State. Existing waste sites are closing their gates to all but local waste. Low income and minority communities are documenting the disproportionate burden of toxic contamination in their neighborhoods and are fighting back in the environmental justice movement. NIMBY (Not In My ***BackYard) responses to LULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) appear to have paralyzed both government agencies and neighborhoods as they attempt to clean up past contamination, control present pollution, and manage future responses to development. Conflicts and disputes between affected parties—stakeholders in the common parlance—are regularly in the news as local, state, and federal government agencies attempt to gain public acceptability of programs through public involvement in decision making.
Earth First! Activism: Ecological Postmodern Praxis in Radical Environmentalist Identities
Authors: Ingalsbee Timothy
Published: September 2012

Classical and conventional sociological theories cannot explain social-psychological dynamics in contemporary social movements. A synthesis of symbolic interactionism and New Social Movement theory offers a useful framework for analyzing and interpreting the role of consciousness/identity and culture/lifestyle in new social movements. Movement identifications are social-interactional processes that symbolize collectively constructed cognitive frameworks. Activist identities are forms of collective consciousness that function as symbolic resources in the ongoing mobilization of collective action. Activism in the radical environmentalist Earth First! movement is theorized as an ecological postmodern identity praxis that expresses biocentric, transpersonal ecological consciousness. The identity-constructs of the “Ecological Self” and “Wild Within” are expressed in activists' social gatherings and symbolic direct actions. These movement identifications/activist identities represent symbolic, counter-discursive challenges to technocracy.
The Seeds of Protest: From Elite Initiation to Grassroots Mobilization
Authors: Norris G. Lachelle , Cable Sherry
Published: September 2012

The article reports the findings of our case study of a social movement organization opposed to the pollution of a river by a paper mill. Using data from participant-observation and archival sources, we analyze the relationship between elites and non-elites in this community mobilization. We find that: (1) mobilization was inhibited for 80 years because of the economic oppression of the region; (2) when a movement organization finally emerged, it was initiated by elites who resisted grassroots membership in order to control movement goals and protect their own economic interests; and (3) the elite-sponsored organization declined because of internal conflict but generated a new, grassroots organization. Based on our analysis, we conclude that protest and quiescence are cycles in the interaction of elites and non-elites that reflect social class conflict.
Technology, Ideology, and Societal Development
Authors: Nolan Patrick , Lenski Gerhard
Published: September 2012

To address the question of whether ideology or technology has been the more powerful force shaping societies and their development, log-linear models are used to assess the association of typologies based on religious beliefs and on subsistence technology with indicators of: (1) community size, (2) political complexity, (3) stratification, (4) marital patterns, and (5) premarital sex norms. Using data derived from Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas, the analysis suggests that, although ideology is significantly associated with a number of important societal variables, the effects of technology are generally more powerful, more widespread, and more robust.
The Sociology of the Future and the Future of Sociology
Authors: Bell Wendell
Published: September 2012

Drawing on futures studies for possible future directions of Sociology, I make eight proposals designed to enhance Sociology as an action and policy science: (1) Replace postmodern beliefs with critical realism as a theory of knowledge, thereby avoiding the self-defeating consequences of extreme subjectivism and relativism. (2) Since sound decision making invites knowing the probable future consequences of contemplated actions, give more attention to prediction and the study of self-altering prophecies. (3) Bring moral discourse back into Sociology— explicitly, rigorously, critically, and objectively—focusing on achieving freedom and well-being for human beings. Think (4) globally and (5) holistically, even when working locally. (6) Take the meaning of time seriously and explore the real, though sometimes hidden, alternative present possibilities for the not-yet-evidential future. (7) View people as active agents who strive to create the futures that they want. And (8) in defining society, emphasize expectation, choice, and decision as people, through historical actions, construct society by attempting to transform their images of desirable futures into social realities.
Eccentricity and Indulgence in Autocratic Rulers
Authors: Whitmeyer Joseph M.
Published: September 2012

Social scientific analyses concerned with autocratic rulers of states typically either assume that rulers pursue wealth and power to the virtual exclusion of all else, or else describe rulers' motivations in an entirely post hoc fashion. These perspectives can be improved upon. I predict that eccentricity and sexual indulgence—that is, the pursuit of desires other than power and wealth—on the part of autocratic rulers will be neither infrequent nor negligible. I predict that such behaviors are more likely to emerge when rulers inherit rather than win the throne, and that they are more likely to be reformed in the face of severe threats. These predictions are tested using four dynasties of autocratic rulers.
The Massification of Education in Hong Kong: Effects on the Equality of Opportunity, 1981–1991
Authors: Post David
Published: September 2012

Hong Kong's commitment to free schooling in the 1970s led to a massification of its formerly elite education system. Analysis of census data reveals that, consequently, family background and gender have played smaller roles in determining which children go to secondary school. There was no concomitant increase in social selection at the postsecondary level Ironically, the colonial government owed little of its legitimacy to the provision of equal opportunities for individuals. In years past, social mobility was not central to the rationale for public education. However, with the pending transfer of sovereignty to China, the weakened authority of the government has generated a need for new bases of legitimacy. It may be that guarantees of equal opportunity will emerge in attempts to bolster state authority.
Forty Years of Spotted Owls? A Longitudinal Analysis of Logging Industry Job Losses
Authors: Freudenburg William R. , Wilson Lisa J. , O'Leary Daniel J.
Published: September 2012

The protection of habitat for an officially designated “threatened” species, the Northern Spotted Owl, is widely seen as having endangered the survival of a very different “species,” namely the rural American logger. In spite of the widespread agreement on this point, however, it is not clear just how many jobs have been endangered, over just how long a period, due to the protection of spotted-owl habitat and of the environment more broadly. In the present paper, we analyze longer term employment trends in logging and milling, both nationally and in the two states of the Pacific Northwest where the spotted-owl debate has been most intense, to determine the length of time over which such environmental protection efforts have been creating the loss of logging and milling jobs. There are three potential key “turning points” since the start of high-quality employment data in 1947—the 1989 controversy over the federal “listing” of the Northern Spotted Owl under the Endangered Species Act, the earlier increase in environmental regulations accompanying the first Earth Day in 1970, and the still-earlier “locking up” of timber after the passage of the Wilderness Protection Act in 1964. We also examine the effects of two other variables that have received considerable attention in the ongoing debates—levels of U.S. Forest Service timber harvests and the exporting of raw logs. We find that the 1989 listing of the spotted owl has no significant effect on employment—not even in the two states where the debate has been most intense. Instead, the only statistically significant turning point came with the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. The direction of the change, however, was precisely the opposite of what is generally expected. Both nationally and in the Pacific Northwest, the greatest decline in timber employment occurred from 1947 until 1964—a time of great economic growth, a general absence of “unreasonable environmental regulations,” and growing timber harvests. The period since the passage of the Wilderness Act has been one of increased complaints about environmental constraints, but much less decline in U.S. logging employment. If logging jobs have indeed been endangered by efforts to protect the environment in general and spotted-owl habitat in particular, what is needed is a plausible explanation of how the influence of the owls could have begun more than forty years before the species came under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.
Academic Achievement and Impression Management as Factors in the Grading of White Junior High Pupils
Authors: Takei Yoshimitsu , Johnson Michael P. , Clark Melvin E.
Published: September 2012

The process of grading pupil performance in American schools has received considerable attention over the years. Most of the previous studies have focused on the observed associations between grades and certain pupil characteristics such as family background, sex, abilities, attitudes and behaviors. Far less attention has been given to the influence of teachers' assessment of pupil behavior on grades. Incorporating this dimension into our analysis of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 data, we not only found virtually no difference in school performance by gender, but also that the influence of family SES on grades operates almost entirely through academic achievement and behavior in school. Furthermore, since academic achievement affects grades both directly and indirectly, achievement seems to reflect both the quality of work performed in class as well as the teacher's evaluation of the adolescent's role performance. Consistent with this interpretation, the pupils' self-reported behavior does not affect his or her grades directly, but indirectly through the teacher's evaluation of the adolescent's role performance. This finding suggests a pupil's demeanor and behavior have institutional meaning only as they are filtered through the teacher's perceptions.