Search

The article presents information about the meetings of the First Universal Races Congress in the University of London buildings which were held in July 1910. Some hundreds of members of many races, great and small, met for the better part of a week in formal discussion and in social interaction, attending with marked regularity and with an interest that was sustained to the close. There was an entire absence of active participation by Governments, and even the great missionary societies took no particular interest, for reasons best known to themselves. The papers discussed what race means, or should mean, to particular difficulties arising from the situation of individual races or nationalities; from the consideration of the function of religion or morals or language to the wide ranging problem of the Negro or the narrowly defined problem of the half-castes of Brazil. There are some papers dealing with various methods now in operation for the organization of humanity: Treaties, Peace Conferences, the Hague Tribunal, the Press. A new project was launched by the Congress deciding to set up a small permanent Committee to arrange for a second Congress, which will probably be held in the U.S. in about three years' time.

Nearly twenty years ago, the author wrote a paper for presentation at a section of the annual meeting of American Sociological Society in which he sought to demonstrate the feasibility and utility of analyzing marital problems in terms of dynamic situational fields composed of interacting roles. Of little moment in the general progress of social psychology, the paper is nevertheless pregnant with meaning for the author. In the first place, it represented the results of his own efforts to integrate such of their ideas as he had assimilated from sociologists G. H. Mead, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Kurt Koffka, R. E. Parks, E. W. Burgess, H. D. Lasswell, and many others whose thinking and orientation are symbolized by these names, into a theoretical frame work which the author could apply to the very concrete and real problems of analysis and understanding of human behavior in the groups he was studying at that time. In the second place, the paper symbolized in his own experience the shift which characterized much of social psychology in the thirties from an orientation that led to phrasing explanations in terms of intrinsic attributes to one which can be called interactional.

The article presents comments of the author on sociologist Stewart Macaulay's research paper regarding doctrinal approach to law with the so-called behavioral approach. Macaulay's paper shows the wisdom of going beyond an exegesis of legal doctrines to a study of how law is affected by, and, in turn, affects social relationships. His paper in effect points to contract law as a sociologically significant area of inquiry. For a contract is by definition a type of social relationship whose function is to ensure predictability and security in business transaction. Macaulay's preliminary finding that noncontractual relations are common in industry is of interest to students of organization theory as well as to students of the sociology of law. Macaulay's paper deals with the problem of inter-organizational relations as regards the use or non-use of contracts in business transactions. In fact, legal and non-legal norms relative to contracts may be viewed as mechanisms for regulating inter-organizational relations.

The article focuses on "Current Perspectives in Social Psychology: Readings with Commentary," edited by Edward P. Hollander and Raymond G. Hunt. This is the second edition of a collection of papers covering most of the main areas of social psychology. There are some sixty papers in all with contributors ranging from U.S. psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner to others. The commentary referred to in the title consists of brief introductions to each section, reviewing the themes dealt with.

The epistemology of symbolic interaction derives from the pragmatic model of Dewey and Mead, close associates. This paper argues that the methodology of pragmatism and symbolic interaction permits the perspectives of the researcher and the people in interactive situations to bias the research. influenced by Hegel, Dewey and Mead adopted an evolutionary, holistic view of reality; progress was inevitable and people were naturally rational. In addition, their notion of the logico-theoretic component in science deviated sharply from the more common hypothetico-deductive model, in both she pragmatic and symbolic interaction approaches, the theoretic component is ambiguous; to formulate theory prior to research is thought to be risky for it may bias the research. instead, theory emerges fro,n the research process; the participants in an interactive situation contribute to it. Thus the social givens of the researcher and the participants serve as a theoretical framework, giving the research a bias which reflects the social perspective of the researcher and the distribution of power in the interactive setting. That many researchers in this tradition are liberal humanitarians obscures the problem of bias inherent in this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores convergences between symbolic interactionism and exchange theory in four major areas: (1) both theoretical orientations assume the operation of constructive mental processes when actors act toward their environment; this assumption is explicitly staled by symbolic interactionists and implied in exchange-theoretical propositions dealing with valuation, decision-making or justice; (2) exchange theory implies processes akin to G. H. Mead's "self" and "generalized other" in the sense that interaction in exchange requires persons to imaginatively assume the roles of others and view themselves in terms of the conceptions of others; (3) in both perspectives social organization is viewed as emerging from constructed individual acts "fitted" to one another; such "elementary" interactions give rise to institutional modes of behavior which, once established, exist as a reality sui generis over and against the individual actors; (4) in both perspectives social dynamics is conceived in dialectic terms, arising out of contradictions between micro- and macro processes and inherent tendencies in social organization toward inconsistency, conflict and change. It is proposed that a possible synthesis between exchange theory and symbolic interactionism can begin by postulating a dialectical process in which objective realities become subjectified by actors and subjective meanings become objectified in social institutions. A synthesized theory based on such general postulates can be empirically tested when (a) the concrete "subjective" and "objective" contingencies which make acts meaningful for the actors are posited and empirically indicated and (b) longitudinal observations show changes in some of these contingencies so that predictions about behavioral changes can be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on "demographic metabolism," a reflection of the fact that social organizations often exhibit continuity although their human components come and go. Ryder focused on the cohort as an analytic tool for analyzing demographic metabolism; we offer an index of regeneration which reflects the fact that social organizations often contain many overlapping cohorts. The index measures the rate of change in ratio of newcomers to veteran members. The paper considers (1) how and why reganizations processes vary, (2) the potential consequences of such variations, and (3) how social organizations deal with regeneration phenomena. Illustrative data are offered for two American universities, and the discussion is extended to other complex organizations, families, nation-states, and cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Paper resents a definition and typology of "awareness contexts" and offers a paradigm for their study. The paradigm emphasizes the developmental interaction processes deriving from given awareness contexts, and directs attention to transformations of those contexts. The writings of four sociologists are located within the paradigm with respect to the types of awareness context they assume and the segments of the paradigm they treat. Implications of the paradigm for future research and theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existential anxieties face the individual at the inception of his act. Derivatively, they produce a social problem and call forth a social response. This paper begins by illustrating several types of existential anxeieties. This is followed by an examination of some socially structured arrangements for assuring action despite them. The existential anxieties described above are rooted in the nature of social actions. They reflect factual suffering imposed by concrete freedom of choice. A value conflict or a condition of uncertainty is experienced as anxiety because conflicting motives are engaged or because an early trauma is reactivated. The result of channeling genetically prior motivational resources into support of more differentiated values is manifested as an act of courage. Courage may be defined as an attitude enabling action in the face of anxiety. Because existential anxiety inheres in every free act, individuals universally need courage. Society has an interest in courage. It is not surprising, therefore, that social institutions develop means to assure individual achievement of courage or faiths. This is a central function of the worship role in religious institutions.

This article suggests some practical and theoretical problems of churches pertinent to social class which ought to be the subjects of research and study. This article has grown out of a recent workshop conducted by members of the Religious Research Association. A sense of smugness about the status of their inter-group relations seems to characterize many churches since policies for integrating nonswhites into their congregations have been initiated or strengthened. Accepting racial integration on paper is not the end of such problems for the church, however; it often is but the beginning. others. The nature of the underlying attitudes of the social classes and their influences upon religious beliefs and behavior need study. It would be instructive to know whether or not the values of the various social classes are assimilated into the value systems of the churches in which the respective classes are the most strongly represented. New Testament teachings about the relationships of slaves and their masters, the bond and the free, and the rich and the poor are especially pertinent as a basis for establishing the ideal position of the contemporary Christian church on the subject of social-class distinctions.

This paper reports an investigation of communication behavior in a "natural" social system the white adult community in a Mississippi town of 5,000 population, called Bakerville in this report. The study was directed at the general question of who talks to whom about specific community problems and projects. The present paper, however, deals with only one aspect of this problem: how persons who report a variety of communication contacts differ from those who report few or no contacts. To examine the relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and other variables the sample has been dichotomized into high communicators and low communicators. Operationally defined, high communicators are those who report talking to three or more different persons about community problems; low communicators, those who report talking to fewer than three persons. "Positional" Factors. The relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and position in the social structure was in part investigated in the present study by comparing the social status of high and low communicators. Index of Status Characteristics (ISC) was used as a convenient method for estimating the social position of members of the sample.

This paper is a report on part of a larger project designed to develop a combined test for interpersonal competence. The findings of the study indicated that autonomy role playing tests were highly representative of "real life" autonomy behavior, correlating with the best outside criterion. Autonomy role playing accurately predicted general autonomy and general competence in handling particular tasks theoretically requiring high autonomy. It was more satisfactory than current social work procedures in this respect. However, it was pointed out that only role playing specifically designed to get at autonomy was successful. Role playing not focused on autonomy gave a distorted perception of "real life" autonomy. The tests can be reliably analyzed and are simple to give. The tests could be given in homes or offices to people of different social classes, different races, and different educational levels without too much trouble. In the light of the above findings and assuming that they will hold up through further research, the following uses of role playing seem empirically verified. If autonomy within role playing changes from one time to another, "real life" autonomy may be assumed also to have changed.

The books, papers, studies, and investigations currently nearing completion in the field of sociological theory exhibit an impressive range. The heterogeneity of these studies introduces special difficulties into their classification. In spite of certain deficiencies in taxonomic rigor, it is presented in the following categories general sociological theory, the history of sociology, historical sociology, methodology, the sociology of knowledge, political sociology, value studies and social control. Author Howard Becker is currently drawing out the theoretical implications of several substantive studies and building on the foundations laid in his book "Through Values to Social Interpretation." The first of these studies, a long-term project, will be called Mind on the Looms of Greece. This work will have solid relevance not only to general sociological theory but also to the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, and the sociological analysis of historical change. Sociologist Read Bain has developed a theory of communication as the basic factor in society and is considering the manner in which it affects the definition of both sociological and social problems. The five topics which will appear most prominently in his book are reading and writing, art and science, mind and body, race and class, and war and peace.

The world population is confronted with the intensification of racial, cultural, religious, and national conflicts. That is, there has been an intensification of intercultural relations of populational groups. Of late years worldwide travel, trade, communication, migration, and especially war and the threat of war have been important in bringing this situation about. Whether there is war or not, one must deal with populations, as, for example, in the governing of Japan and Germany at the present time and negotiations with them previous to the war. The same is true in relation to the USSR. Whether the problem of intergroup relations is discussed on the international level, the national level, the industrial level of management and labor, or the level of a small community, as it shall be done in this paper, the point at issue is that of participation. This paper touches upon the positive values of diverse cultures in a great complex where each sub-population contributes to the total functioning culture.

It is the office of theoretical investigation," said scholar Willard Gibbs, "to give the form in which the results of experiment may be expressed." If he had put "observation" for "experiment," Gibbs would have stated the purpose of the present paper. It is to provide one form in which may be ex- pressed what one knows about social organization. Please note, at the beginning, that more than one form is possible and that, in a limited space, the one suggested here can only be sketched out. The elements of social behavior. The present paper presupposes the direct observation of social behavior. It asks the devastating questions: Looking at the actions of men with eyes innocent of the usual preconceptions what does one see? What a simple classification can one start from in this field of fact? Attempting to answer, it sets up, as components of the conceptual scheme, individuals and three elements or determinants of the behavior of individuals in groups, which will be called operation, sentiment, and interaction.

A four- to six-year follow-up study of a random sample of male schizophrenics is used to assess the relationship between a modified form of Phillips and Zigler's social competence index and prognosis. The results support the finding of Zigler and Phillips of a relationship between the index and hospitalization. Additional analyses are presented indicating that this relationship persists once the effects of differential severity of pathology are controlled and suggesting the relative influence of the various components of the index. A major issue in this paper is the question of how these results should be interpreted. On practical grounds it is contended that the observations can be largely explained on the basis of social system considerations. In terms of theory, it is suggested that the index does not provide a satisfactory operationalization of the concept of competence but rather, like hospitalization, amounts to an outcome measure which is influenced by a series of variables, among them the individual's degree of competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents author's comments in response to the criticism of his research paper by Professor Herbert Blumer. To begin with, he defends his metaphorical reference of blank mind with which Symbolic Interactionism researcher approaches data. He clarifies that the blank mind describes a mind whose knowledge derives from experience. Blank mind indeed is like a sheet of white paper and derives all knowledge from experience alone because the mind has no innate ideas. Next, he supports his charge that inadequate testing and replication procedures in the Symbolic Interactionism model permit the influence of power and personality on findings. He states that Symbolic Interactionism researchers should rely on sensitizing concepts grounded on sense instead of on explicit objective traits. The study of the ongoing real world requires a high order of careful and honest probing; creative yet disciplined imagination, resourcefulness, flexibility, pondering, and a constant readiness to recast one's images as this world can best be studied by two modes of naturalistic inquiry: exploration and inspection.

The article discusses the use of social drama for building courage and bridging the initial lag for retarded adolescents in the U.S. The project was first adopted by an FM radio station in Indianapolis, Indiana which allows disturbed and delinquent adolescents to act. It has made the participants handle conflicts such as aggression toward persons. One example of such play is the "Causes of Juvenile Delinquency. " The play was written by a teenager who himself had been in recent difficulty. The program allowed him to express what he has undergone making psychologist analyze his behavior easily. Indeed, drama and role have proved to be effective therapy for the affected group. Furthermore, the social drama helped adolescents in working out their relationships with peers, siblings, parents, and teachers.

This article assumes that labor arbitrators are influenced by values or predilections which provide them standards for judgment. An arbitrator is involved in social interaction. The article examines the literature of labor arbitration. Professor Russell Smith wrote in 1952 that ten years should show whether or not arbitrators had developed principles which would become part of the knowledge of bargainers. In addition, most arbitrators will not endorse subcontracting where a company economizes by taking advantage of the lower wage rates.

The aim of this paper will be an analysis of Dutch social structure, particularly in one of its key dimensions: the overall importance of religious institutions and ideologies. It will be argued that, in contradistinction to developments in most other comparable industrial societies, religious institutions and ideologies occupy a central place in the social structure of the Netherlands. Dutch social structure, is best characterized in terms of vertical columnization or vertical pluralism called verzuiling--which does not have a direct English equivalent. Pluralistic societies elsewhere are usually characterized by linguistic, racial and political lines of division in addition to those of religious ideology. Religious distinctions result in a division of institutions and activities into Catholic, Protestant and humanistic/neutral columns of social organization. Perhaps, however, the most striking evidence of non-differentiation of religious influence can be seen in the field of labor relations and politics.

This paper examines the community situation of shipyard workers on Tyneside, certain aspects of their orientations to work and general social perspectives, and the relationship of these to each other and to the structure of social relations at work. In terms of their community situation shipyard workers would seem to come close to Lockwood's traditional proletarian type of worker. There is evidence to suggest, however, that these workers' social perspectives are not at all clearly traditional proletarian. The explanation for this is found, at least m part, m the much greater complexity of social relations at work than are accounted for in the model of traditional proletarianism. The paper suggests that existing typologies of the orientations and social perspectives of workers need to be refined by more detailed studies of the structural and relational aspects of both work and community situations. The paper concludes with a brief examination of changes in both industry and community and the likely effect of these on the social perspectives of shipbuilding workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN A RECENT paper Mr. Runciman concludes by inviting replies to his argument that it is logically and conceptually useful to employ the tripartite distinction between `class' `status' and `power' in the analysis of social stratification. Mr. Runciman does not, of course, deny the existence of links between these three dimensions, but suggests that such links must be seen contingent empirical relationships and not necessary logical ones. I hope that the following paper will provide such a reply. It must be clear that the following criticism is directed, in the main, to those parts of the paper in which Mr. Runciman is concerned with the logical and conceptual problem. The essay in question also contains a clear and valuable assessment of the problems encountered in any attempt to measure the three types of inequality. In the first part of the paper I propose to give a critical assessment of certain central aspects of Mr. Runciman's argument and, in the second part, I will put forward a very brief formulation of what I consider to be a more meaningful alternative view of the relationships between class, status, and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on social stratification refers on occasion to inter-class marriage as the "acid test" of class mobility. This paper examines that proposition using Italian national-sample survey data on four socio-political perspectives: the respondent's perception of 1) the different distribution of rewards in society, 2) the degree to which class boundaries restrict social intercourse, 3) the character of inter-class relation, and 4) the interest representations of political parties. Evidence supports the proposition, in addition, rates of heterogamy are reported, and the relationship of heterogamy to career entries is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the small groups literature on status organizing processes in decision- snaking groups whose members differ in external status. This literature demonstrates that status characteristics, such as age, sex, and race determine the distribution of participation, influence, and prestige among members of such groups. This effect is independent of any prior cultural belief in the relevance of the status characteristic to the task. To explain this result, we assume that status determines evaluations of, and performance-expectations for group members and hence the distribution of participation, influence, and prestige. We stipulate conditions sufficient to produce this effect. Further, to explain the fact that the effect is independent of prior cultural belief, we assume that a status characteristic becomes relevant is all situations except when it is culturally known to be irrelevant. Direct experiment supports each assumption in this explanation independently of the others. Subsequent work devoted to refining and extending the theory finds among other things that, given two equally relevant status characteristics, individuals combine all inconsistent status information rather than reduce its inconsistency. If this result survives further experiment it extends the theory on a straightforward basis to multi-characteristic status situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper investigates the effect of selected situational variables on the relationship between a verbal attitude and overt behavior toward the object of that attitude. It provides data which suggest reformulation of two theoretical schemes describing the relationship between prejudice, discrimination and the situation of action. In a relatively large-scale field experiment in a university setting, two multidimensional factors, "social constraint" and "social distance) were systematically introduced as intervening conditions in order to assess the degree to which they reduced correspondence between verbal attitudes toward Negroes and overt acts of acceptance or rejection of Negroes. Generally, these intervening factors had different mediating influences on different types of subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EDITOR'S NOTE: The two articles that follow seek to familiarize American sociologists with the writings of their counterparts in France in an area of interest that has been phrased somewhat differently in the two countries. They represent the product of a collaborative effort that came into being at the 1962 meeting of the International Seminar on Family Research, in Washington, D.C., with aid from the Committee on Socialization and Social Structure of the Social Science Research Council and from the Centre National de Ia Recherche Scientifique, Path, France. Although the focus of attention is on the French literature dealing with the interrelationships between person and society, both papers address themselves to similarities and differences in approach in the two countries. Both are being published in French (in the "Bulletin de Psychologie," Sorbonne, Path) as well as in English. it is hoped that these first steps toward a dialogue between workers in the two countries will contribute to an awareness of significant substantive research and of salient issues that will benefit from further discussion across national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work on the effects of cooperative and competitive settings appears to be completely ambiguous. An examination of these studies suggests that the strength and direction of the effect is strongly influenced by the extent to which the group has an interdependence task. A review of the literature suggests that the results may be generalized to a variety of types of groups. The thesis is put forward that these results may be conceptualized in terms of a balance between two opposing behavior patterns: one oriented to greater individual productivity and one oriented to blocking the productivity of others. This paper reports an experiment confirming the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology is often criticized as being ambiguously general or too broadly eclectic. It is held that a scientific organization of knowledge is hindered by the variety of content and method grouped together as sociology. On the other hand, a case can also be made against excessive division of the subject matter of sociology into "fields" or "areas" and "sub-areas." There is a danger that basic forms and primary forces of social life will be forgotten in the shuffle of special sociologies. Both under-generalization and over-generalization, it would seem, may be pitfalls for sociologists. This paper is an attempt to clarify the nature of general sociology by suggesting a division of its subject matter. It is intended that the categories developed should be sufficiently comprehensive to represent the broad scope of sociology without the listing of numerous sub-areas. Furthermore, the categories should correspond more closely to the habitual operations of sociologists than to an ideal scheme of what sociologists should be doing.

THE TASK of this paper is to present a conception of leadership as a particular type of power relationship. By way of an introduction to this presentation, some remarks will first be made concerning concept construction and social research. Two approaches to the study of leadership will then be examined, setting the stage for a discussion about the development of the concept of leadership. After examining some of the conceptual difficulties which have plagued the study of leadership, this paper will comment briefly on the relationship between the study of leadership and the study of power. Finally, attention will be directed to the main task of considering leadership as a power phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study of the triad is one of the most interesting and satisfactory areas of current research activity in sociology. The relevant theory is unusually simple and straightforward. It lends itself to empirical verification more readily than most other models of interaction. The theory of the triad promises to be applicable to situations of different scale, although this advantage has not yet been fully exploited. The purpose of this paper is to examine the model of the triad whose members are not identical in power and to call attention to a neglected feature of this model, namely, that the formation of given coalitions depends upon the initial distribution of power in the triad and, other things being equal, may be predicted to some extent when the initial distribution of power is known. In his discussion of the zero-sum three-Person game, mathematician von Neumann consider at some length the case of unsymmetric distribution, i.e., those in which different coalitions receive different results. He remarked, "it seems that what a player can get in a definite coalition depends not only on what the rules of the game provide for that eventuality, but also on the other competing possibility of coalition for himself and for his partner.

This paper concerns aspects of the individual's relationship to his neighbors in the community of residence. The general predisposition to enter into friendly relationships with neighbors is considered in terms of mutual visiting, borrowing, general liking for one another, and getting to know new residents in the community. In addition to the general predisposition to neighboring, the analysis considers actual patterns of neighboring among members of the community in order to explore the behavioral counterpart of the predisposition. Such an approach assumes that a predisposition is not necessarily realized on a behavioral level. It is proposed that casual neighboring behavior of the type described is conditioned both by class position and by ethnic origin. Two variables were dealt with in analyzing the ethnic and class correlates of casual neighboring. The first of these was "predisposition to interpersonal contact," and the second was "actual neighboring behavior." The predisposition to interpersonal contact concerns the individuals interest in and desire to engage in casual neighboring with his fellow residents in the community. Actual neighboring behavior, relates jointly to ethnic origin and class position of the respondent. It was observed that the major differentials between desire and performance in area of casual neighboring appeared in the middle and lowest class non-European groups.

The objective of this paper is to examine the characteristics of suburban communities as they relate to the structuring of social relationships of the resident populations. This presumes that the form taken by these phenomena in suburban communities somehow differs from the form to be observed in other types of communities, and, furthermore, that this difference is engendered by the suburban situation. By definition suburban areas, however sub-categorized, are primarily residential areas having a peculiar location; that is, they are farther away from the center of the major city than urban neighborhoods but closer than rural neighborhoods. The ecological position differs from both urban and rural positions. It is hypothesized that this positional relationship with the larger city has a definite influence on the social organization of the suburbs. As unique characteristics of suburbs the positional relationship to a larger city and the daily commuting pattern of suburbanites would appear to have an important influence on the patterns of social interaction and participation regardless of the nature of the derivative characteristics.

This paper draws attention to some factors which must be taken into account in any attempt to describe adequately the relationship of an ethnic group to the large society. The dynamic nature of such relations makes a rapid, even crude, summary of the ethnic history of the Upper Rio Grande Region the most appropriate approach to the problem. As is well known, the area had been inhabited by several communities of Pueblo Indians before it was conquered and colonized by the Spaniards. Consequently, the originally separate native societies were integrated into a social system which was an extension of the large society of colonial Spain. The intergroup relations were based upon force and domination, but involved also more intimate interactions. First, there was the common need of defense against an external enemy, the Plains Indians. Second, the economy favored exchange and a certain division of labor. Still more crucial was the fact that the Spaniards imposed upon the native folk groups an heteronomous institutional framework which, nevertheless, left them considerable freedom to manage their internal affairs. This institutional framework extended primarily to the political, military, and economic sphere.

This paper reports some of the more salient findings of the second study of a projected multi phase investigation of the relationship between social differentials and attitudes in the realm of intergroup relations. The first study, the field work for which was conducted in Indianapolis during 1950 involved the assessment of attitudes of Whites of varying socio economic status toward both Negroes and Whites of varying status. The present study, the data for which were gathered in Indianapolis during 1952, is to some extent a mirror image of the first phase. Virtually all relevant variables are the same as in the first investigation. This study is concerned with attitudes of Whites toward Negroes. The research dealing with attitudes of minority group members toward the majority makes a rather thin chapter in annals of sociological research, especially when compared to the volume of research on the other half of the intergroup relations picture. The inter group relations area has been traditionally handled within a social pathology framework and this orientation has been conducive not only to the espousal of values of the investigator, but has also lent itself to the assignment of blame and responsibility to particular individuals and groups for the society's failure to realize the investigator's values.

Social interaction of any kind requires some degree of consensus. This is true only if the word consensus sheds its connotation of empathy, of emotional rap- port, and is confined to meaning agreement on the terms of which interaction takes place. Consensus may thus be defined as the tacit delineation of mutually accepted norms of behavior. Since it takes two to make a quarrel, a quarrel requires consensus in this sense. The examination of certain situations in which consensus is purposefully manipulated may illuminate its significance in inter- action; the primary object of this paper, however, is to relate the analysis of interaction to more general sociological categories, and thereby to develop further insights into the processes of social interaction. The roles that an individual plays in different social situations may sometimes be present as possible alternatives in the same situation. A man may invite workmates or colleagues into his home and meet them in the same situation as that in which he enacts the role of husband and parent. The roles of husband and of parent may themselves over-lap in this way in different situations within the home.

Sociometry is an axis with two poles. The arm towards one pole is directed towards the discovery of the deeper levels of society's structure. The other is directed towards promoting change of society based upon the dynamic facts found in its structure. Since one cannot anticipate the structure of society, the sociometrist must be an experimental realist and plunge into the task of uncovering the actually functioning structures in which people relate themselves to one another. It is an unavoidable task, yet one surely worth the effort, if one ever gain control over social processes in which one participates and to which the destiny not only of oneself as individuals is bound up, but also the destiny of man as a species if he is to better his lot and build a harmonious society. Social process is used in this paper to define the temporal development of interpersonal relationships as contrasted with structure, which is herein used to designate the spatial facts of such relationships. Social process is the way by which structure comes to exist. In contrast to structure, which may be conceived spatially, social process is the manner by which sociation occurs, develops and results in structure, the psychosocial organization of relationships maintaining between individuals.

The notion that ideologies play an important part in contemporary social life seems to have penetrated into the sphere of popular discourse. Today even the newspapers occasionally refer to ideologies when they wish to allude to a complex of ideas, a body of doctrines, the programs of movements, the platforms of parties-in fact, to any creed or theory that takes on an intellectualized and rationalized form. It would be difficult to imagine a single social problem in the analysis and proposed solution of which one does not have to take account of ideological factors. They are an elusive but significant part of the contemporary social landscape. They serve as landmarks which help to find the way in what otherwise would be a chaotic social world, by providing with guidance in defining and evaluating situations. Ideologies enable a person to identify with social movements and groups which offer interpretations and solutions of problems which could only rarely be undertaken by each individual independently. They aid in reducing excessive individuation and indifference in respect to social problems by furnishing us with goals by which more or less articulate groups become integrated. It is the object of this paper to. elaborate the proposition that our contemporary social problems cannot be adequately treated and that the situations to which they refer cannot be understood without taking due account of, the role of their ideological involvements.

The article presents a study that tested some hypotheses about the conditions for nonviolent patterns of conflict resolution in democratic systems based on the case of Switzerland. Switzerland is one of the few democracies that has regulated its political conflicts for a long time with very little violence, If one operationalizes the degree of political violence by the number of deaths from domestic group violence per million population, Switzerland has the value zero for the period studied by the authors of the "World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators." This paper takes the case of Switzerland to test some hypotheses about the conditions for nonviolent patterns of conflict resolution in democratic systems. Most hypotheses that the authors have found in the literature are not particularly concerned with political nonviolence but rather with democratic stability. Nevertheless, since political nonviolence is usually considered to be one element of democratic stability, hypotheses about the conditions of democratic stability have also to be valid for the conditions of political nonviolence.

This paper advocates an educationally focused definition of problems and procedures in educating handicapped children, with particular emphasis on the aptitude by treatment interaction model as a useful guide for both instructional and research activities. Specialized instructional systems based on decision variables are proposed as an alternative to simple categorization and placement of children based on source variables. A brief review of aptitude by treatment interaction research with handicapped children is followed by implications for the organization of schooling, diagnostic and instructional procedures, and preparation of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, to outline some of the reasons for the relative neglect of sociologists to study or give emphasis in their analyses to transport systems and, in particular, to social interaction in the social conduit of the street. The second aim is to present some of the sociological factors relating to the behavior of different types of road users in the Greater Manchester area. The frame of reference adopted from which the data have been primarily assembled has been that of the city's traffic wardens. More specifically, the analysis will polarise around an examination of the territorial-defence theory of aggression, which has been operationalised quite recently, as an explanation for the violent behavior of motorists on the road and the resulting high incidence of fatalities and serious injuries. The tremendous impact the motor car has had on society and everyday life is self-evident. It has produced its own code of law; its own language; it creates ephemeral, new hierarchies of prestige on the road; and, not least, it has its own collective and privatized, symbolic meanings.

An important feature of contemporary arguments over the possibly harmful effects of television on children has been the assumption that the presence or absence of certain social conditions renders television more salient or important to children; thus perhaps increasing children's susceptibility to possibly harmful effects. In fact, for the substitution thesis to become feasible, one needs to accept either a zero-sum model of social relationships or to accept that children's motivation is based solely on the principles of attraction-repulsion so that frustration of one son will necessarily enhance the attractiveness of other relationships. Given the social importance of establishing an adequate explanatory theory of media dependency and the extremely vague boundaries of the frustration-substitution theory, the study reported in this paper used relevant data to investigate two broad hypotheses: amongst a sample of juvenile delinquents time spent on television viewing will increase as strain in family or peer relationships increases; amongst a sample of juvenile delinquents involvement in television viewing will increase as strain in family or peer relationship increases.

The article presents the concept of ideology with reference to social changes. Ideologies and classes are subject to the same forces of social change which are at work on the whole structure. These two concepts are explored in this paper, including the relation of elites to ideology. When people today hear the word "ideology" they almost automatically associate it with some aspect of class consciousness or class feeling which has coloured thought or desire. Yet the word "ideology" has no necessary connection with the concepts of class and class relationship. One original significance of the word was that of the science of the sources of ideas, and this, of course, could be understood in a strictly epistemological sense. Researcher in fact distinguished two sorts of socially distorted thought and called only that which is distorted to serve the interests of a ruling, class, a status quo, and a backward harking and historically based politics by the name of Ideology. Between all positions in a hierarchically ordered social system there exists what is sometimes called social distance.

The article focuses on family life in London, England suburb. The material presented in this paper was collected in the course of a study of an urban general practice made by the Social Medicine Research Unit of the Medical Research Council during 1950-52. It relates to the way of life, and the family and social relationships, of a group of families within that practice, and it is the kind of material that often lies unused in research flies. It also provided a basis for assessing the characteristics of the group; characteristics which cannot be left out of account if any attempt is to be made to understand the factors which influence the behavior of patients in health and illness. The young wife of a man who had recently set up in business on his own volunteered the information that she and her husband could talk about everything and anything together, she thought that modern girls were not afraid of their husbands, as the older generation hat been, and so they could be companions for each other and do things together.

In this paper, we describe the learning of psychotherapeutic skills from our observations of the training of first-year psychiatric residents in one specific hospital. This description reflects our conception of the requisite set of skills which any fully formed, presumably competent psychotherapist is expected to master in order to be accredited as a "finished product," i.e., a real professional. We identify some sources of strain involved in the first-year residents' attempts to master these particular skills, and we suggest that much of the tension experienced can be ascribed to the discrepancies between the resident's pre-training orientation towards "normal everyday" social interaction and the new demands posed by psychotherapeutic interaction. We also specify some of the adaptive strategies contemplated by residents as they come to question the efficacy of this skill system. In general, our attempt is to clarify the nature of psychotherapeutic skills and to discuss the way they serve as a pivotal point of reference for organizing the socialization experiences of first-year psychiatric residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is threefold. First, to take account of the published material to establish what significance should be attached to the status hierarchies of territory and kinship in various regions of northern India. Second, to discuss the nature of the relationship between the hierarchies of caste, kinship and territory in terms of what will be defined as diverse positional viewpoints, and the relevance of such an approach for our understanding of social structure and social change. Finally, to analyze some features of the social organization of a particular north Indian city in terms of multiple status hierarchies and diverse positional viewpoints. This paper suggests that the social organization of much of northern India can be best understood in terms of a complex network of status hierarchies rather than in terms of a single, caste hierarchy. Further, it suggests that there is no single morphology, or structure, which describes the relationship between these hierarchies, but rather that the categories of caste, kinship and territory are the basic building blocks which are molded into structural configurations in relation to diverse positional viewpoints; or to which significance is attached on the basis of a certain limited body of knowledge about one's social universe.

The article presents information on education of handicapped in the New York State. The Fleischmann Commission on Education estimated that more than 200,000 handicapped children are not receiving any special services in New York at present. In an effort to alter this situation, the New York State Board of Regents issued a position paper to assure the right of each handicapped child to attend a publicly supported educational program. In addition, the Regents suggested that opportunities for social interaction within the total school environment be provided to establish healthy self-esteem. Handicapped children should be encouraged to share educational experiences with other children throughout the everyday school program.

The article presents comments of the author to the critiques of her article "Symbolic Interaction as a Pragmatic Perspective: The Bias of Emergent Theory," by Raymond L. Schimitt and Gregory P. Stone et al. Schmitt and Stone et al raised three issues. First, they reacted vigorously to the notion that the emergent theorist approaches the research setting with the atheoretical simplicity of a blank mind. The blank mind is a mind whose knowledge comes from experience. Such a mind is devoid of logico-theoretic components, a phrase whose meaning was, unfortunately, left implicit in my article. A second issue, which Schmitt discusses systematically, and Stone et al in somewhat scattered fashion concerns the bias of the researcher and of the respondents in emergent theory. Schmitt correctly observes that researchers are always biased by the glasses they wear. But he also claims that the savvy of the emergent theorist is not biasing because it is also the vehicle through which interpretations are made. On the contrary, it is precisely this savvy, which biases emergent theory. The researcher not only brings ideas to the research situation but they form the logico-theoretic component in standard formulations. The third issue is basically resolved in advance. Everyone agrees that the symbolic interactionism approach has neglected power; but Stone et al feel that this general truth is misleading. They have things turned around.

Taft has suggested that the study of the assimilation of immigrants can serve as a prototype for other social processes whereby a group imposes pressures on new members to accommodate their attitudes, behaviour and affiliations, e.g. when a person is accepted into a profession or when a freshman enters a residential college'. (1962a, p. 90) Any process in which a person changes his social environment from one sub-cultural community to another is analogous to that of the assimilation of immigrants, although the impact on the individual may vary according to the degree of `ego immersion' involved in the communities. The transition process involved in assimilation includes such psychological factors as changes in attitudes and values; the acquisition of new social skills and behaviour norms and consequent changes in role behaviour; changes in reference group affiliations and group identifications, and social and emotional adjustment to the new environment. This paper presents the results of the application of the analysis of the social assimilation of immigrants to the processes whereby beginning teachers transfer their membership from the university student sub-culture to the professional secondary teacher sub-culture. The investigation aims at extending the social assimilation framework from the study of immigrants to the general field of professional socialization. The entry into a profession involves many of the same changes as immigration; a move from membership in one social structure to another with a consequent need to cope with and adapt to a new social environment resulting in changes in skills, attitudes, behaviour and concept of self. Although there are limitations in the analogy between the assimilation of immigrants and the socialization of teachers, the basic processes involved in both are thus similar. These will be examined in the next section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the books "On Social Psychology," by George Herbert and "On Culture and Social Change," by William Ogburn. George Herbert Mead's influence on social psychological thinking has been so great that much of what was genuinely original in his contribution has become the common property of social thinking. The book "On Culture and Social Change," is not only useful to the historian sociology (there is a good though incomplete bibliography of Ogburn's works) but also some of the essays in it are lucidly basic enough for the beginner student, especially, the early papers on culture.