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A large body of evidence points to high rates of group disorder in America's high schools. This paper examines several alternative models to account for the distribution of these events in the nation's largest school system. It is the thesis of the paper that while disorders occur in the schools, their roots lie in the larger society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the thirty-eighth annual meeting of the American Sociological Association to be held on December 4 and 5, 1943 at Hotel McAlpin, New York City. Papers on social research to be presented at the meeting are: "A Controlled Analysis of the Relationship of Guided Participation in Extra-curricular Activities to the Scholastic Achievement and Social Adjustment of College Students," by Reuben Hill, University of South Dakota, "Techniques of Social Reform: An Analysis of the Dry Movement," by Alfred McClung Lee, Wayne University, and "Reliability of the Idea-Centered Question in Interview Schedules," by Morton B. King, Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Papers will be followed by open discussion. Papers on Sociometry to be presented at the meeting are: "What Level of Living Indexes Measure," by Margaret Jarman Hagood and Louis J. Ducoff, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and "Some Regional Variations in Levels and Standards of Living," by Edgar A. Schuler, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Sociology at Barnard college, in the early 1920's, was a very insignificant appendage to the Economics Department, and William F. Ogburn served as chairman of the joint curriculum. The author took both economics and sociology with Ogburn, and was greatly influenced by his emphasis on the relationships between economic and social phenomena, his tendency to view the economic as independent and social phenomena as dependent variables, and his insistence on objectivity, verification, and measurement. The author's research orientation came from several disciplines, and his first two research papers, prepared under Ogburn's direction and published in collaboration with him in 1922, were interdisciplinary in the sense that the one, dealing with the incidence of simultaneous inventions, involved explorations into the history of science and into cultural anthropology. And the other combined the data and procedures of economics, sociology, and statistics to measure the relationships between business cycles and cycles in demographic phenomena and in indices of social disorganization.

The present article is concerned only with the connection between business cycles and frequency of divorces. The Bureau of Statistics of the city of Amsterdam has calculated the correlation between various economic indices and the marriage rate, for the years 1830-19 14. These data indicate an undeniable positive correlation between economic conditions and the frequency of marriages. This result cannot be interpreted as indicating that the tendency to matrimony in periods of prosperity is greater than in years of economic depression but rather that the possibilities of contracting a marriage are more favorable during a boom than during a depression. The effort in the present research paper is to trace a connection between business cycles and divorce similarly does not mean that the author considers economic conditions as the principal cause of divorce. In many cases, economic factors may have nothing to do with the inner cause of failure in marriage; in some, it merely predisposes towards failure; in others, it truly may be "the cause."

This article presents a report from the president of the American Sociological Society (ASS). Preparations are now under way for the 1947 annual meeting of ASS. The tentative arrangements are to meet in New York City, from December 28-30. Specific plans will be announced at the earliest possible moment in order to facilitate the largest possible attendance on the part of the members. According to the author, this is an appropriate time to review the progress that has been made in the major fields of sociological interest and in the discipline as a whole. With this in view, the author is considering inviting a number of members of the Society who have been particularly interested in one or another field of sociology to give an account of the present state of knowledge in their respective fields of interest in the form of a comprehensive paper which will be circulated early in the year among their colleagues having a similar interest, with the object of inducing the latter to participate in a panel which would subject this field to rigorous analysis and clarify the problems and possibilities that exist.

The study reexamines Phillips's findings regarding the linkage between the appearance of news stories on prominent suicides and the subsequent monthly rise of national suicides-the Werther effect. Extending Phillips's original data set to 1977, and employing the quasi-experimental method, it is found that stories on prominent suicides are likely to trigger a subsequent rise in national suicides. However, this rise may be related to the linkage of suicide with the business cycle, and the fact that more prominent suicides may occur in years when there is a downturn in the economy. This study analyzes suicide rate data with a multivariate time-series model and controls for seasonal effects, the average duration of unemployment and war. No significant linkage is found between the national suicide rate and stories on prominent suicides on the front page of the New York Times, Employing Boorstin's definition of celebrities, the prominent suicides on the front page of the New York Times between 1947 and 1977 are differentiated as celebrity and noncelebrity suicides. Examining only celebrity suicides, it is found that a significant rise in the national suicide rate occurs in the month after a celebrity commits suicide. Suicidal imitation by the public is more selective than originally hypothesized by Phillips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents developments related to several associations and societies. The annual meeting of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama will be held at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel, New York City during April 27-29, 1960. Contributions of books and journals published after 1945 or "standard authors" published earlier, are needed to assist Asian countries to further their educational programs, both on the secondary and college levels. The Asia Foundation will pay transportation costs. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences' committee on Monograph Prizes announces that the program inaugurated last year to award prizes of 1,000 dollars to authors of especially meritorious unpublished monographs in the humanities, social sciences and physical and biological sciences is being continued for 1960. The final date for receipt of manuscripts is October 1. A new Inter-American Program for Advanced Training in Applied Social Sciences is being sponsored with the cooperation of government of Mexico, the Instituto Nacional Indigenista de Mexico and other official organizations.

This article reports on the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society (ASS), 1949. The forty-fourth annual meeting of the American Sociological Society will be held in New York City, December 28-30, 1949. The program is oriented toward the presentation of research and the analysis of problems, whether substantive or methodological, that lie near the frontiers of contemporary sociology. The paper "The American Soldier" will be subjected to analysis and evaluation as a research contribution in one meeting, while another will consider the censuses of 1950 as potential sources of data for social analysis. It is peculiarly appropriate that this meeting devoted to the frontiers of sociological research should be held under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The headquarters of both the ASS and the Rural Sociological Society will be the Hotel New Yorker, though ASS's own day meetings will be held in the rooms of the Manhattan Center. The program for the meeting and the proposals of the Reorganization Committee for the future development of the Society will be sent to all members in October.

The article presents information on the tentative program of the thirty-eighth annual meeting of the American Sociological Society to be held in New York City on December 4 and 5, 1943. Topics related to social research on which various professors will speak on December 4 include "A Controlled Analysis of the Relationship of Guided Participation in Extra-Curricular Activities to the Scholastic Achievement and Social Adjustment of College Students," "Techniques of Social Reform: An Analysis of the Dry Movement" and "Reliability of the Idea-Centered Question in Interview Schedules." Other topics include social theory, population, social psychology, community and ecology, methodology and policy. Topics to be discussed on December 5 include "Coordination of Government Statistical Programs," "Methodological Problems in Government Statistical Programs," "The Operation of a Government Statistical Program," "Attitudes of Americans Regarding Selected Foreign Countries," "The Attitude of Economic Restrictionism and Its Implications" and "American Personality Stereotyping and Its Implications."

The article presents information about the Eastern Sociological Society's meeting which will be held at the Berkeley-Carteret Hotel, Asbury Park, New Jersey from April 17 to 28, 1940. It will discuss the general topic, "Sociology of War." All papers submitted will be read, at least by title. They should be sent to J. K. Folsom, Vassar College, before April 20. President MacIver of the American Sociological Society will deliver one of the principal addresses. President Willard Walter, of the Eastern Sociological Society will preside at all general meetings. The complete program will appear in the June Review. J. W. Riley, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, is chairman of local arrangements. Those wishing to arrange exhibits should write him. Paul F. Cressey, Wheaton College, Norton, Mass., is secretary and will be pleased to receive dues, Dues may be paid at Asbury Park. All sociologists visiting in the region are cordially invited to attend the meeting.

Censorship raises the question of how an object is deemed art or obscenity. Although sociologists have studied how cultural objects are interpreted according to the cultural frameworks of the larger society, little has been written on what makes one interpretation more compelling than another. I analyze the controversy that arose in New York City in the late nineteenth century when an eminent art dealer was arrested by Anthony Comstock, leader of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, for selling photographic reproductions of nude paintings. I contend that arguments draw on cultural schemas that constitute, and are in turn constituted by, social structures. Simultaneously, powerful interpretations construct an appealing identity for adherents to the arguments. While Comstock had been supported by New York's upper class when he claimed that pornography threatened elite children, the arrest of a leading art dealer for selling the photographs cast doubt on the moral purity of the upper class itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method for the quantitative analysis of change is developed, and demonstrated by a study of changes in the socioeconomic status (SES) characteristics of 89 Long island suburban communities 1960-1970. Three theoretical models in the literature on suburban change are shown to be related to statistical measures of change of the mean, change of dispersion and positional change. Because of failure to recognize that there are three mathematically independent dimensions of change, high correlations between measurements of a status characteristic at two points in time were formerly misinterpreted to mean a lack of change. Also, previous studies probably erred in generalizing from only one indicator of suburban SES, educational attainment, in this study, three SES variables, education, occupation and income, are shown to have different patterns of change on the three dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been decided by the Administration Committee of the American Sociological Society that the 1949 meeting will be held in New York City, New York, on December 23-30, 1948, in connection with the Allied Social Science Group which includes the American Economic Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Statistical Association and several others. The Committee's decision thereby to ignore the advisory vote of the Executive Committee in favor of a meeting in Denver, Colorado, was strongly influenced by the fact that a report of the Reorganization Committee is expected to come before the Society at this meeting and it was felt that attendance at a Denver meeting would be so small that major policy decisions of the Society should not be taken under such circumstances. The Committee did, however, feel that a meeting west of the Mississippi should be arranged in the near future, probably in 1950. The Program Committee has decided to organize the program about the topic "Frontiers of Research in Sociology."

The most consistent demographic finding reported in social psychiatric field studies is an inverse relation between social class and psychological disorder. This relationship has been interpreted on the one hand as evidence of social causation, with low status producing disorder, and on the other as evidence of social selection, with pre-existing disorder determining social status. This substantive issue could turn on a simple question of fact: whether Negroes and Puerto Ricans in New York City have higher or tower rates of disorder than their class counterparts in more advantaged ethnic groups. The facts, however, are not available from existing research. The results of field studies contain clues to group differences in modes of expressing distress, including some that involve problems of response bias, but the evidence is far from clear about the relation of the symptoms reported to the underlying psychiatric condition of individuals. It would seem that the substantive issue of social causation vs. social selection must yield precedence to resolution of the central unsolved problem of psychiatric epidemiology--the measurement of untreated psychological disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study report concerning social status, life-styles and behaviours of middle classes of the societies based on the survey conducted among residents of two similar apartment houses in upper middle-class in New York City, New York. The survey revealed that differences in life style between residents of the two buildings were small in magnitude and inconsistent in direction; more impressive were the differences among subgroups of the downtown population based on age and marital status. The uptown and downtown groups suggestively differed in their residential origins, satisfaction with the neighborhood, and plans for future moves. The survey support the position that the importance of the distinction between city arid suburban residence lies mainly in the selectivity of these areas with respect to social class, ethnicity and family status, major statuses already recognized as important in social area analysis and similar approaches.

This article presents proceedings of the 55th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association held at the Statler Hilton Hotel, New York City from August 28-31, 1960. The first meeting of the 1960 Council was called to order on August 28, 1960 by Vice-President Wilbert Moore. Members of the 1960 Council present in the meeting included Reirihard Bendix, John Clausen, W. Fred Cottrell, Robert Faris, William Goode, George Homans, Rex Hopper, Seymour Lipset, Charles Loomis, Walter Martin, Robert Merton, Wilbert Moore, Charles Page, and John Riley. Three resolutions pertaining to various aspects of the certification problem were received from the Ohio Valley Sociological Society and it was voted that these matters be studied by an ad hoc committee consisting of Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton and Guy Swanson and their findings reported to the first meeting of the 1961 Council. Regarding the site for 1963 meetings, the Council reaffirmed the earlier decision to meet on the West Coast with the detailed arrangements as to place and facilities being left in the hands of the president-elect for that meeting, the Secretary and the Executive Officer.

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York is beginning a research study which would be a longitudinal study for seven years, on a nationwide basis, seeks to test the comprehensive hypothesis that chronological, abrupt, mandatory, involuntary and unplanned forms of occupational retirement accelerate physical and mental morbidity and mortality and aggravate the symptoms of senescence among gainfully employed workers upon their retirement. The overall research objective is to measure and to determine the reasons for differentials in morbidity and mortality between retirants and non-retirants. Retirants are being further specified and the dependent variables in the study, in short, are physical and mental morbidity and mortality, determined by the state of physical health, longevity, and psychological adjustment to retirement and old age. The independent variables are the occupational and retirement factors. Intervening variables are personality, background status, values, activities and social participation.

The article presents information related to the field of sociology. Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the National University of Mexico is publishing a series of little books under the general title, "Cuadernos de Sociologia." These compact little volumes give to North American sociologists an intimate glimpse of the thinking, teaching and research of their colleagues in Mexico. Carnegie Corp. of New York has provided $260,000 grant payable over a two-year period, to the Social Science Research Council for area training fellowships and travel grants. Carnegie continuing its support of the national area fellowship program set up by the Council in 1947. $50,000 has been granted to New York University toward support of an experiment in educational method in the Graduate Division of Public Service. Pi Lambda Theta, National Association for Women in Education, announces two awards of $400 each, to be granted on or before August 15, 1950, for significant research studies on "Professional Problems of Women." The 1950 annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society will be held on April 22 and 23 at Boston University.

The article focuses on attitudes of minority youth. The author states that in studying attitudes of minority youth, a number of methodological questions come to mind. Without in the least attempting to be exhaustive, the article presents some of those, which occurred to the author during a recent investigation into cultural interests of Jewish and Negro youth in the Brownsville district of Brooklyn, New York City. The focus of the article is as on cultural consciousness, mainly of Jewish but also of Negro youth in the area. The term "cultural" is used, in this connection, not in the all-inclusive anthropological sense of the word, but in the more specific and limited sense in which it is generally employed. In other words, cultural interests means interests in leisure-time activities other than those in food, dress, games and sex. It is hoped that the article will provide a limited and tentative answer to the questions how Jewish and Negro youth look at themselves, how they look at each other and how they formulate, upon this basis, their cultural and intercultural interests.

This article presents news and announcements related to various organizations in the U.S. as of June 1949. Rural Settlement Institute, founded in 1941, announces its incorporation, under the laws of New York, which took place in December 1948. The name of the institute has been changed to Group Fanning Research Institute. The activities of the institute include field studies, contacts with interested groups, grants-in-aid, and publications. A new non-profit research organization, known as Rand Corp., has recently been established with head-quarters at Santa Monica, California. The objective of the corporation, as set forth in its charter, is to further and promote scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare and security of the U.S. Eastern Sociological Society held its nineteenth annual meeting on April 23 and 24, 1945, at the Hotel Commodore, New York City. Over three hundred persons were in attendance. The first morning session was devoted to reports on research projects.

During the short time that human ecology has been a part of the research repertoire of some American sociologists, enough urban and rural communities have been described and a sufficiently compelling theoretical background has been provided to establish the importance of the distributive aspects of society for any adequate theory of social life. Too few studies have, however, attempted to describe the general ecological patterning of a community, and to use these general patterns to test some of the broad insights of ecological theory. The expansion and internal patterning of the city are seen to show considerable regularity around the original point of settlement. The chief irregularities in growth are the pronounced indentation in the southern boundary of the city and the northern bottle-neck extension to Lake Ontario. The former is a true ecological distortion, but the latter is a recently incorporated area that should be considered more a part of Rochester's metropolitan district than part of the city proper.

The article reports on the committee of the American Sociological Society appointed at its annual meeting held in December 1935 in New York City to study the question of affiliation with the International Federation of Sociological Societies and Institutes. Between March and June, 1936, a preliminary report was prepared and distributed by the chairman, based upon extensive correspondence and conferences with various members of the Society. The report asserts that L'Institut International de Sociologie was founded in 1893 by René Worms, who served as its Secretary-General and executive head till his death in 1915. The organization was patterned in some degree after the French Academy, and as originally conceived was designed to constitute a distinguished body limited to 300 of the world's leading sociologists. In 1909 L'Institut was given greater stability and prestige by being incorporated under the government of France, from which it receives a small subsidy. Later La F&eacutedération Internationale des Soci&eacutet&eacutes et Institus de Sociologie, as distinguished from L'Institut was established for the intellectual co-operation for scientific study of sociological problems of all regular associations of sociologists, whatever their nationality.

The article presents reply to James P. Pitts in response to his comments on group disorders in the public school by Sociologists Pual Ritterband and Richard Silberstein. The authors say that in "Group Disorders in the Public Schools," they set out to understand and explain the distribution of two related sets of events in the high schools of New York City. The article was not set out to explain inequality in the schools nor did it attempt to describe the ways in which schools sort people into the general social structure. The authors did not and do not feel that every sociologist who deals with questions of race has to recapitulate the history of inequality. On the most primitive empiricist level, the authors were able to show that the distribution of non-political disorder was relatively random in the New York City High School context during their study. They deny inequality in school resources and achievement. They demonstrated that more money is spent on black pupils in New York City than Puerto Ricans or Whites, though the way the money is spent makes no dent in the educational problem.

The exploration of antecedent-consequent relationships or probable causation is facilitated by use of the ex post facto experimental design. In the present study, it was assumed that rentals may be taken as a rough index of a bundle of social and economic factors causally related to crowding in dwelling units. There is empirical evidence from previous studies of the relationship of crowding to certain social and structural factors, including rental rates. Empirical results suggest the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship or correlation between rentals and crowding. This measure of relationship correlates rentals and crowding for a single date and does not measure antecedent-consequent relationship. For the borough of Manhattan, New York, using census tracts as units of area, a correlation of rental r = -.31 was obtained between changes in rentals and associated changes in percentage crowded from 1934 to 1940. This correlation, based upon changes between two dates, approaches more closely to an analysis of possible cause and effect relationships, but of course, it offers no proof of cause and effect.

The Section on Methodology held its first business and council meetings at the time of the American Sociological Association meetings in New York City last August. At the annual meeting last year in New York the Section sponsored a panel discussion and two other sessions. Three sessions have been planned for the coming annual meeting. The Publications Committee was requested to obtain additional information on the cost of publishing a journal on methodology. Criteria for membership in the Section were discussed at the annual meeting and it was decided that any voting member of the Association who pays Section dues shall be admitted to the Section. There was also discussion of the function of the Section and some question as to its constitutionality. The present officer of the section are Daniel O. Price, Chairman, Robert F. Mcginnis, Secretary-Treasurer. The committees that have been appointed for the year 1960-61 were Program Committee, headed by Robert McGinnis; Nominating Committee, headed by Leslie Kish; and Publications Committee, headed by William S. Robinson.

This article presents a proceeding for the meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Sociological Association held on March 25, 1960 in New York City. Decisions regarding the location of the association's offices, and change in administration were taken. Issues like budget allocation for revision of the index, membership directory and address lists, subscriptions to other journals, certification of social psychologists, journal of educational sociology, new bulletins, and the 1960 criminological conferences were also discussed. Further in line with the recommendation of the committee on the profession, the association's president was asked to write a strong letter to the U.S. Civil Service Commission in support of a ruling that a social psychologist with a Ph.D. in sociology be recognized as qualifying for the title of social psychologist in the psychology series. The executive committee also took note of the recommendation of the committee on the profession and approved its establishment of a new sub-committee on professional ethics.