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The article introduces the theme of the articles featured in the issue. The main topics in all the papers presented in the issue revolve around study of various aspects of voluntary associations. The study of voluntary associations involves three separate theoretical concerns. The first, and perhaps oldest of these, focuses on the nature and structure of society, especially industrial society. A second theoretical interest in voluntary associations is social psychological in emphasis; here voluntary associations are examined for what they can tell us about the nature of the person in contemporary society. Finally, voluntary associations may be studied within the framework of organizational theory with a focus upon associations as the units to be studied. Four of the papers in this issue are directly concerned with the problem of the contribution of voluntary associations to the society in which they exist. Most studies of voluntary associations implicitly suggest that such groups are integrative.