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The Cumming and Henry hypothesis that aging involves disengagement from interaction with others is related to response differentials in survey research in this paper. Within the aged population, differentials in family structure, type of housing unit, and size of housing unit were found suggesting that the aged who refused to be interviewed were more "disengaged" than those who were cooperative. On the other hand, no major differences were found in the extent of political participation and general level of social participation. If adjustments are made for age, then socioeconomic, social participation, and political participation difference, are relatively minor. The findings, then, were equivocable insofar as the disengagement hypothesis is concerned. Also, it was concluded that age response differentials are important enough to warrant a correction factor for age bias when precise population estimates are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the last two decades social anthropologists and sociologists have turned to the study of informal groups. Among the first empirical evidence of the interest were the famous Hawthorne research studies of researchers George Elton Mayo and Fritz J. Roethlisberger. Since these studies many others have been made of informal groups in community and institutional life. All of them, however, have lacked concern with individuals who are not bona fide members of cliques, but who interact with them. The focus of the paper is on these persons. In the article, they are called "fringers." The concept "fringer" should not be confused with that of the "marginal man," for the two are distinct concepts implying different categories of behavior. The "marginal man" shares the cultural life of two distinct people, whereas the "fringer" defines his own goals of behavior and disregards those of the group in favor of his own. Specifically, the paper proposes to analyze and describe the role of "fringers" in a state prison for women. Data used are from observations and personal interviews secured during the author's employment at the prison as director of religion, education and recreation from June through October 1930.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Base Map as a device for community study. Base Map is a cross section of a given region, giving a snapshot of some particular set of facts within that area. It is intended to show graphically the geographical distribution and relationship of these facts. In laying out a plan of study for any community it becomes apparent that there is certain basic information which will be called for time and again in connection with various studies. Some method of getting this foundation data into graphic and easily available form is needed. In Cincinnati the base map was called into action to provide a way of doing this. The procedure in the making of these maps is so simple that no especial technical skill is required. Chief points upon which care is required are in obtaining accurate information from authoritative source, and the exercise of patience and exactness in the plotting of the data. Ordinarily a bound index accompanies each map to give further information supplementary to the map itself.

This paper investigates husband-wife social participation by occupational status in Greensboro, North Carolina. The major conclusions include the following: (1) In the sample as a whole, churchgoing and kin-visiting are the dominant activities, with family and commercial recreation also widespread and frequent. (2) Upper-middle-class professional and managerial couples most closely approximate the popular notion of "togetherness," as evidenced by their frequent participation in commercial recreation, churchgoing, and family entertaining and recreation. (3) Working-class couples' major social involvement is in kin-visiting. (4) The ideas of both a status continuum and the white-collar-blue-collar dichotomy are useful in interpreting the data, although the highest and lowest white-collar categories are difficult to account for by either of these conceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the special methodological and technical problems in community research. Two general questions are discussed: how has community research met the general considerations of the comparative community and community context methodological models and what are the more common logical fallacies and technical errors in community studies. We shall answer this question primarily by reference to the methodological models of the experiment and the case study. The discussion is organized around the two major research designs in community study--the comparative community study and the community context study. The comparative community study ideally begins with a set of hypotheses about community and two or more empirical instances of community are employed for a test of the hypothesis. The community context study investigates the effect of communal parameters on a specific relationship under observation or test.

This article has been an attempt to synthesize and apply the theories and methods of action research to a practical research problem. It grew out of the needs of the authors for a framework within which to analyze specific actions of community groups. In the spring and summer of 1932 it was used as the basis for a field study of 145 community-needs-oriented actions in ten rural communities in North Carolina. Community research in the United States has been predominantly structural in emphasis. While acknowledging the fundamental importance of structural studies, it must be recognized that they have not been very fruitful for predicting actions of organized groups within communities. Even in those studies of communities in which the functions performed by structural elements have been featured, the group or organization itself is the major focus or unit of analysis. The twin aims of understanding and allowing the researcher to predict group actions under given conditions, either actions of the total community or the actions of some part of the community, are met only in small degree by concentrating on this unit.

The paper is a brief report of a study of the way of life followed by the caipiras who inhabit the Paraitinga Valley in the eastern part of the state of Sāo Paulo, Brazil. It is limited largely to considerations of the population and its characteristics; health, diet, housing and related aspects of the level and standard of living; labor contracts and work techniques; religious beliefs and practices; social participation; and the rights enjoyed by these humble folk who are similar in so many ways to the bulk of the rural inhabitants of other sections of the Brazilian nation. Most of the description and analysis is based upon a long period of personal observation and study by the Brazilian co-author of the report. For almost two decades the author has been in intimate contact with families in the region studied, making detailed observations and records of various aspects of social organization and social participation. Caipira is a term widely used in Sāo Paulo to designate the humble rural folk who inhabit the less advanced sections of the state. It usually has a depreciative connotation.

The article presents a paper on federal action programs and community action in the South, presented by the author at the fifth Annual Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society in Knoxville, Tennessee on April 5, 1940. It focuses on the influence which these programs had for community life. It expresses in a general way the lines of more or less conscious thought which the activity of the federal government during the depression has given rise to in the South. This trial was not conscious nor wholehearted but its main movement would have denied the false divorce between democracy and work which the eighteenth century initiated. The double task failed, not because it was wrong nor impossible, but because in the setting in which it was tried the opposing patterns and forces were far too strong. Neither the South nor the whole of the North believed in allowing back folk to have voice in their own government; but it was more especially because the industrial North and the ruins of the planting South still wanted to keep political power separated from industry. This was finally accomplished by setting up in the South, political institutions which deserve more thorough and critical study than they have received.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the adequacy of socialization and social influence processes in accounting for the development of leisure interests. Data come from intensive interviews (N=40) and structured interviews (N=189) with antique automobile enthusiasts. Four major patterns of entry into this world are identified; the most important of these suggest that interpersonal influence alone cannot explain involvement in such activities. I suggest that Berger's conception of "underinstitutionalization" of the social environment and its subjective correlate, " subjectivization," provides an explanation for the findings. It is argued that this process may have wider applicability in studying leisure activity and social participation, and constitutes a form of social-structural effect that is distinct from socialization and social influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A metaphor of classical social theory concerning the "intersection" of persons within groups and of groups within the individual is translated into a set of techniques to aid in empirical analysis of the interpenetration of networks of interpersonal ties and networks of intergroup ties. These techniques are useful in the study of director interlocks, clique structures, organizations within community and national power structures, and other collectivities which share members. The "membership" network analysis" suggested in this paper is compared to and contrasted with sociometric approaches and is applied to the study by Davis et. al (1941) of the social participation of eighteen women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this discussion is avowedly critical. But in the process of criticism, some empirical evidence is presented which, it is hoped, will describe at least part of the phenomenon which is labeled community. This phenomenon is what may be loosely referred to as the village. More precise delineation is given later in the paper, but for the moment, note that the village as used here does agree with those qualities common to most definitions of community: a social group inhabiting a common territory and having one or more additional common ties. A composite picture or model is built from an examination of existing villages. This model in turn is used as a standard of comparison for other concepts, particularly the various group types, which have been included under the rubric of community. In summary, the region, nation, world and city are seen to differ from the model in lacking at least two traits and possibly as many as five. The household and neighborhood are more varying in the number of traits omitted. Finally, there is a broad class of groups, represented by the prison, monastery, and merchant ship, which center their omission of model-traits around the family.

The article focuses on the attitudinal correlations of social participation. Attitudes reflecting a basic outlook on life may be expected to be related to social participation in two ways: First, those who have certain attitudes are more likely to be drawn into social participation than those who have opposing attitudes. Second, social participation tends to develop a certain outlook on life which nonparticipants are less likely to acquire. Nevertheless, it is of theoretical and practical significance to ascertain the mere fact of correlation between social participation and the kinds of attitudes people shall consider. The attitudes that are the subject of study in this paper are some of those referring to respondents' own lives, other people, or society in general. Thus, the greater the extent to which a person participates in organized activity, the greater is his opportunity to internalize the meanings and values which constitute the culture. In this study, the reciprocal relationship between theory-construction and empirical research is exemplified. The theory has led to hypotheses which, when tested, confirm the theory. At the same time, this test has raised questions regarding the variable functioning of factors included in the theory and thus provides a means for further specification of the theory.

In clarifying what is meant by community organization, we shall consider first the somewhat related and earlier developed con thought and symbols. In the second place, the greater part of social organization comes into being spontaneously rather than by rational design. It should not be conceived as the product merely of definite and utilitarian purpose, but as the total expression of conscious and sub-conscious tendency, the slow crystallization in many forms and colon of the life of the human spirit." Social organization has resulted largely from uncontrolled evolutionary processes, at least until recently in certain societies where the idea of planning has taken hold. Community organization, on the other hand, is itself a rationally directed effort to modify the social organization of a particular locality. It is utilitarian, purposive. Since the community organization process must take place within a given social organization, its ideological basis will be largely determined by the social organization and culture it seeks to modify and will vary accordingly.

The article presents a list of books. Some of them are: "The Law of Civilization and Decay," by Brooks Adams, "Food Rationing and Morale. Wartime Farm and Food Policy," by Arnold Anderson, "Population Trends in New York State, 1900 to 1940," by W.A. Anderson, "The Social Participation of Farm Families," by W.A. Anderson and Dwight Sanderson, "Let the People Know," by Norman Angell, "America's Foreign Policies, Past and Present," by Thomas A. Bailey, "New Horizons in Criminology. The American Crime Problem," by Harry Elmer Barnes and Negley L Teeters, "The Jewish Community. Its History and Structure to the American Revolution," by Salo Wittmayer Baron, "The Culture of Early Charleston," by Frederick P. Bowes and "Business As a System of Power,"by Robert A. Brady.

Proponents of homeownership policies often argue that homeowners participate more actively in community life and civic affairs than renters. Although research suggests higher rates of participation among homeowners, the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship are unclear. On one hand, the locally dependent financial investments homeowners make in their communities could lead them to participate as a means of protecting their principal investment. On the other hand, homeownership could stimulate participation by increasing residential stability, enabling households to overcome the institutional barriers and to develop the social networks that drive community participation. The failure to differentiate between these pathways muddies our understanding of how homeownership matters for community life. Drawing on the November supplement of the Current Population Survey, this article investigates whether homeowners are more likely to vote in local elections, participate in neighborhood groups and join civic associations. A falsification strategy compares these outcomes to a set of placebo measures to address concerns that the findings are driven by selection. The research identifies an independent role for residential stability and locally dependent financial investments in explaining why homeowners participate in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article assesses whether housing in predominantly minority and integrated neighborhoods appreciates more slowly than comparable housing in predominantly white communities, and if so, the extent to which inequality is due to neighborhood racial composition per se rather than nonracial socioeconomic and housing structure factors. I take a dynamic approach to the issue of housing appreciation, considering both racial, ethnic, and poverty composition at purchase and change in those characteristics over time. I examine differences in real housing appreciation across black, white, and Hispanic households by applying a hedonic price analysis to data from the Health and Retirement Study, combined with data from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Census. While much of neighborhood appreciation inequality is explained by nonracial (particularly socioeconomic) factors, minority composition continues to exert a significant effect on appreciation even net of these considerations, particularly in highly segregated communities and those that experience large increases in black representation. Unequal housing appreciation has a large negative impact on the overall wealth holdings of mature minority households, and has important implications for racial and ethnic stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender bias in family formation in China is well documented. Much less is known about how children fare once they become part of a family Drawing on fieldwork and survey data, we describe the care of young children, and investigate the relationship between the one=child policy and parental involvement in care. Results indicate that the one-child policy, insofar as it limits couples to one or two children, leads to greater involvement by parents in child Care. Additional effects of policy vary by children's gender. Boys receive similar care regardless of the one-child policy in their communities's Girls, living in communities where couples arc permitted another child if their first is a girl, are more likely to receive parental care than girls in other communities, These results suggest that gender bias in China is not solely due to outdated `"feudal" ideas resulting in son preference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although social isolation has been posited as a critical structural mechanism linking neighborhood disadvantage to the reduced life chances of inner-city residents, there have been few empirical tests of this proposition. We examine the relative importance of neighborhood poverty and individual and family characteristics on social-network composition and community organizational participation of inner-city Chicago African American families. The results of the multilevel analysis indicate that while most of the variation in isolation outcomes is due to individual-level respondent characteristics, social-network composition and some forms of organizational participation are affected by neighborhood poverty. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public librarian is working out a new way of neighborhood democratic life in the public school community library. A social worker faced his in the local community clearing house and welfare station; the physician, in the health center; the theologian, in the community church; the educator, in the wider use of the school plant; the chamber of commerce, in the civic association; and the social scientist in the study of community organization generally. Economy is the first argument for local school library branches. Taxes, donations, volunteers can't be stretched far enough to meet demands that they reach and serve everybody. More intensive use of existing equipment therefore has to be made: more consolidations reducing overhead costs; more decentralization; closer living together in the neighborhood service groups at the risk of more minor collisions in them. For illustration, take the present situation in Chicago. The state legislature can grant a millage yielding of $300.00. Yet 50 branch library buildings are projected in a new program, one for each ward of the city, at a cost of $100,000 and an annual maintenance charge of $20,000 each, amounting to a million dollars a year that must be raised by taxation.

This article focuses on the evaluation of social conditions and activities. The possibly greatest gesture by sociologists to analyze community activities was by means of the social survey. It is likewise one of the few techniques in social investigation that has been quite generally standardized and its limitations recognized. The object of a social survey should be not merely to gather all the facts pertaining to the social life of a community, but rather to correlate these facts and to make progress toward an underlying causes by which they are molded and their effect upon each other. It should disclose facts, their interrelation and bearing, and the forces within the social group under consideration, which determine and condition its activities. It is impossible to study adequately any one phase of community life, without giving due weight to all the interrelated activities. A comprehensive survey of the community is the necessary first step in making a more intensive analysis of evaluation of any particular phase of the social activities. Since the social processes are a resultant of all the conditioning and problem phenomena, it is necessary to do the rather tedious and exacting preparatory survey work.

The article discusses the effect of spatial distance on community organization pattern. Community organization inevitably becomes accommodated to space and time factors. The local community is spatially organized with reference to the daily movements of population which in turn are limited by the prevailing forms of communication and transportation. In other words, the local distribution of homes and interest centers falls within a plane the maximum area of which cannot be greater than the physical distance which can be daily traversed using the current mode of transportation. The slower the form of transport the smaller the range of the community. There are at least four general types of organization pattern represented among local interest centers. First there is the small unit service center which depends upon primary agencies of communication and transportation for its field of operation. The second type of organization pattern is exemplified by the department store. The third type of pattern is that represented by the chain store system. The fourth type of retail service pattern is the federation system.

It is obvious, of course, that under all primitive conditions the neighborhood, as camp or settlement, readily becomes a full-functioning community so far as necessarily collective functions are concerned. Of these defence against external enemies was long the most obvious and pressing, and maintenance of certain kinds of internal order the next in importance. When there are few or no roads or safe waterways, no telegraph lines, almost no commerce and only rare communication with the outside world the village as a compact neighborhood, whether of ancient Italy, Minnesota frontier or present Siberia naturally tends towards the extension and perfection of a variety of community functions--of defence, policing, sanitation, recreation, worship, education and even economic production and distribution. But these same urban dwellers know well enough that neither politically nor otherwise are these neighborhoods by themselves expected to discharge collective functions. Certain kinds of defence and order maintaining functions have been transferred to the large communities of state and nation; others have been assigned to the city as a whole.

The article presents various news briefs related to community interests. According to a report the National Education Association at its annual meeting in Washington, July, 1914, abolished its Department of Wider Use of the School Plant. In place of it there was created in January, 1925, a Committee on Community Relations. The Chairman of the Committee is Dr. George E. Carrothers of the College of Education of Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. The Secretary is Clarence A. Perry of the Recreation Department of the Russel Sage Foundation. The personnel of the Committee is made up of city and county superintendents, state supervisors, professors in teachers colleges and normal schools, directors of extension activities in city school systems and principals and teachers from the high and elementary school, a total of 30 members representing all sections of the U.S. According to another report, the Community Center recently established at El Paso, Texas, is making an experiment of ways in which to get attendance. They have listed some exceptionally fine entertainments and made them available for the members of the Center. The membership fee coven all the entertainments given during the year and amounts to a season ticket.

Throughout the country one is hearing the complaint of the over organization of the forces of community life, not so much politically and commercially as socially, educationally and religiously. Women's clubs, community dubs, service clubs, parent-teacher associations, teacher's federations, boy scouts, camp fire girls, Knights of Columbus, young men's and young women's Christian associations, commercial clubs, civic organizations, library associations, community hospitals, lodges for both men and women, churches and schools of various denominations, with many internally organized groups and other organizations too numerous to mention are usually found in any fair sized city, each existing independently and each with a horizon of service to the community that often overlaps extensively the functioning of other institutions. Each has some good for the community, it is true and each contributes to the volume of social action; but too often many groups are drafting on the time and energies of the same leaders of society who soon discover that they have more community responsibility than they wish to carry and retire from active public service. In such retirement, community capital ceases to bear interest.

Zipf's (1949) generalized harmonic series model of occupational differentiation is tested in 91 community general hospitals. It was not possible to reject this model in the majority of cases and problems of measurement error make it difficult to claim a firm rejection in the remainder. Relationships among the generalized harmonic series parameters are essentially the same as those reported by Mayhew et al. (1972) for military organizations. Accordingly, from this model of occupational differentiation, we can deduce one of Blau's (1970) major theoretical propositions on the division of labor. The findings of this study broaden the base of empirical support for Zipf's model and Blau's proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the differences between industrial employment profiles among a set of 65 urban communities in the East North Central region. A review of literature on between-community differentiation led to the following hypotheses: (1) over time there is increasing differentiation between communities; and (2) proximity promotes increasing differentiation between communities. Findings suggest rejection of the hypotheses. Communities tended to become more alike over time, and those closer together tended to be more alike than communities farther apart. These results lead to a discussion of convergence. It is urged that functional convergence be included as a dimension in the conceptualization of systems of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on social groups in jazz which is collectively termed here as "jazz community." An empirical study was performed to present factual description of this community. The available literature and the said study suggest that this is organized along well-developed lines which reveal specific behavioral patterns. The community analyzed here is a set of people who share an interest in jazz, and who share it at a level of intensity such that they participate to some extent in the occupational role and ideology of the professional jazz musician. They learn and accept at least some of the norms which are peculiar to the jazz musician: norms regarding proper and improper language, good and bad music, stylish and unstylish clothing, acceptable and unacceptable audience behavior, and so on. One special feature of the jazz community is the extreme identification with and participation in the occupational ideology of the jazz musician by his public. The jazz community is characterized by a central theme, that is, the isolation of the group from society at large, an isolation which is at once psychological, social, and physical. The whole discussion is centralized at musicians rather than the public which form a part of the community. This is based on the assumption that the behavior of the public stems from the behavior of the musician.

Both the laity and the professional sociologist make frequent reference to social class, but few are precise or consistent about what a social class means in American society. However, it is apparent in the minds of the layman and the sociologist that members of American society make social differentiations among themselves and develop differential clusterings in social participation, values, and mannerisms. This results in varying degrees of social distance among these members so clustering. It will be attempted herein to reveal how the urban Negroes in Southern City, a North Carolina city, socially stratify themselves. It thus appears that the Negro population does socially differentiate itself and that difference in values, behavior, and attitudes tend to be noticeable and recognized by the group itself. There is a continuum apparent in social distance with regard to social intercourse and differentiation in formal associations within the group. It seems to be fairly evident that education is the most important factor, with occupation following, in ascribing status and prestige in the group. Education tends to have a high value, as it serves as a means not only of facilitating movement upward within the group but also affords an expected means of overcoming barriers hampering the group's assimilation into American society.

In a city perhaps it will not be so easy to define the area of the local community, but in the town and country, when people speak of a community, a definite locality is easily understood. This is a problem which demands the attention of all leaders in social and community organization work who desire to secure the largest results with the minimum duplication of effort. A Council should be composed of the leaders of all the welfare organizations, using that term in its broad sense, working in a community and it should serve as a clearing house which will enable all of these leaders to know what each organization is doing and thereby prevent duplication of effort. Perhaps the first principle that should be considered in the establishment of a Council is that of discovering the need for such an organization. This will require a very careful study or survey of the community to discover just what organizations are now operating in the community, something of the work of these organizations and the names and characteristics of the leaden. If only one organization is doing welfare work in the community, then of course a Council of leaders is not necessary.

The article focuses on the annual meeting of the National Community Center Association. It was brought out by directors of school extension departments that forums in public schools are growing in number and there seems to be a quieter spirit prevailing and, while certain neighbors are scandalized occasionally. The directors of the forums have found a way of introducing almost any subject without bringing about adverse first reactions. At the session of the section on community devoted to principles of organization the organizers refused to claim for neighborhood comprehensive organization the virtues of efficient organization that it was common to hear a few years ago. Understanding, adjustment of view points, education in certain community standards were described as the chief values of coordinating community organizations. The community cathedral would be all comprehending and would include within its walls chapels of every religious creed, all worshipping according to their own beliefs.

Skepticism grows not only with scientific training but also with multiplication of experiences, and the social workers of the country seem to have grown skeptical with regard to community organization not only because it has been meddling with their profession but also because they have been through many experiences with community organization in the last few years. The National Conference of Social Work at Denver in June revealed their wholesome skeptical attitude. After the session devoted to a description of certain community projects. Apparently the social workers in this Division arc going to continue their critical attitude, not only toward the doctrine assertions of protagonists of pure democratic neighborhood organization, which they believe has either failed or proved its decided limitations, but likewise this section seemed to be critically skeptical about social service as such.