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The points raised by professor Delbert C. Miller in his paper about the future direction of industrial sociology are analyzed. The critic agreed with the argument by Miller that industrial sociology needs to be reestablished as a separate discipline--separate from organizational sociology, sociology of occupations and sociology of work. Points in the history of industrial sociology are reviewed to support the grounds of Miller's paper. Along with industrial sociology and economics, sociology has successfully dealt with the central institution of economic life in the United States. Furthermore, industry was the scene of what seemed then to be the most important developments in American society: the rise of the labor movement and the intense conflicts between management and labor.

Tins paper is intended as an effort at taking-stock of the reference group concept after nearly three decades of use, the latter two of which have been marked by its more than ample employment. Its popularity indeed has so frequently led to its serving as an all-purpose post hoc explanation of behavior that it has led to the wry definition, "Your reference group is a group that you behave like and you behave like them because they're your reference group" (Cohen, 1962: 104). The inconsistencies, lack of clarity, but also areas of agreement which have marked the varied formulations of the concept, will be apparent from the following review and commentary. The Final discussion indicates some of the matters still to be considered in the use of thin important but perhaps overworked concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a call for papers for the meeting titled "Annual Allied Social Sciences Association Meetings" to be held on January 4-6, 2008 at New Orleans, Louisiana with a theme about inequality, democracy, and the economy. The Association for Social Economics members and nonmembers are encouraged to submit proposals for the New Orleans ASE program. The papers can be send by email of 300 words or less by May 1, 2007 to John Davis of University of Amsterdam and Marquette University. Guide questions are also included.

This article comments on the trend in social and economic history reconstruct society from an aggregative analysis of the individuals of components which make up the social whole. This practice by social historians is based on the assumption that an aggregation of the characteristics of the individual units which make up a society will give an insight into the overall structure of that society. This method of social history research poses a problem in that aggregate studies are dependent on the preservation of complete record series. And no archives can possibly contain a complete record series.

This article responds to author's commentaries on the article "The Study of Organizational Effectiveness," by J. L. Price. The basis of simplistic approach rests with three assumptions supposedly made by the paper. First, the paper, according to the authors, assumes uniformity in the meanings that respondents attach to words designating core organizational activities. The paper assumes that respondents possess knowledge and competency with respect to the evaluation of nursing care within their limited spheres of involvement in the hospitals. Although, it may be desirable to have a general measure of organizational effectiveness for the reason suggested in the paper, this may not be possible. Some scholars believe that organizational effectiveness is so specific that a general measure cannot be developed.

The article calls the attention of interested individuals to submit article that will be presented during conferences of Associations concerning economics. The organizers of the Seventh Annual Heilbronn Symposium in Economics and the Social Sciences Christian Freiherr von Wolff that will be held on June 22-25,1995 is inviting everyone to submit abstract and correspondence relevant to the theme. Likewise, the organizers of the 22nd Annual Meeting of the History of Economics Society that will be held on June 2-5, 1995 in South Bend, Indiana is calling the same.

This paper explores the presence and consideration of economics in sociology, specifically its classical version. It identifies certain original and independent economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociological theory as central and its derivations, implications and extensions of economics as peripheral. The paper argues and demonstrates that classical sociology is far from being the science of noneconomic or irrational phenomena, as often sociologists conceive it and economists perceive it in counter-distinction from economics defined as the science of rational behavior, and indeed encompasses virtually all economic activities and processes, and thus prefigures New Economic Sociology adopting the same approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are changing dynamics among political regionalization processes and the rescaling of nation-states in Europe. However, updated and timely research remains scant, ambiguous and unable to meet the challenges of data-driven societies and uneven borders. Nations' physical boundaries matter as much as political borders in their pervasive and growing algorithmic, stateless, liquid and metropolitan citizenship patterns. This paper explores these new 'connectographies' from a regional science perspective, introducing the term 'algorithmic nations' as a city-regional and techno-political conceptual assemblage. A case study is presented of the small stateless city-regionalized European nation of the Basque Country through its analytical and transitional lens, locally known as 'Euskal Hiria' (Basque city-region in the Basque language). This paper questions whether the Basque Country could evolve by (1) modifying its governmental logics and (2) merging its three separate devolved administrations (3) while enabling their direct interactions with citizens (4) through blockchain technologies as the small state of Estonia is implementing and employing cutting-edge algorithmic governance frameworks. In doing so, this paper suggests how four drivers - metropolitanization, devolution, the right to decide and blockchain - may be respectively invigorating four dynamics - geoeconomics, geopolitics, geodemocratics and geotechnologics - in this transition towards the algorithmic nations. Ultimately, this paper concludes with an algorithmic nations research and policy agenda decalogue of how these geotechnological changes might determine the future position of small stateless city-regionalized nations in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on various papers relating to crime and community published in the journal Sociological focus. Each of the papers published follow contributions in an important theoretical or empirical way to one's understanding of community, inequality and crime. Here, they outline the key issues addressed in the articles and offer the journal's sense of the directions for future research suggested by the papers. Observing these disparate patterns, author Jeanette Covington identifies the contradictions in the inequality-crime literature as reflecting largely a theoretical problem. She argues that underlying the Blaus' thesis is a conception of race in which the "black psyche" is considered as different in kind from that of whites. She notes, however, that there is no empirical support for either the notion that there is a distinctive black psychology, or the assumption that racial stratification is associated with a unique black psychological reaction of frustration the mechanism assumed in the inequality-crime literature to lead to greater black violence.

This paper deals with the role of sociology in climate change research and policies. Climate change can be regarded as one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. It has attracted attention from several disciplines, with the physical sciences regarded as dominating climate change research. Apparently, despite that climate change is inherently a social problem, sociologists have been slow in tackling it, at both theoretical and policy levels. Even so, available literature contains assorted and interesting sociological contributions and insights. As such, this paper posits that sociologists are interested in climate change issues, have a lot to offer and they can draw from a number of sub-fields. For instance, using sociology of sustainable consumption sociologists can tackle how societies can re-organise consumption patterns and habits, sociology of education provokes more intriguing research into the construction of climate change science, knowledge and solutions and feminist sociology can extend robust research into how the material and discursive dimensions of climate change are profoundly gendered. Importantly, critical sociology provides a repertoire of concepts and novel methods that can be deployed in climate change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption on the African continent unfolds two unique trends: first, the involvement of senior state officials in the perpetration of grand corruption; and secondly, the illicit and surreptitious transfer of stolen assets and funds beyond Africa's borders. As such, African States are heavily drained of their resources when corruption is committed. Foreign states become safe havens for stolen assets from Africa which makes Africa's development stagnated, paralysed and hijacked by the perpetrators. Compounded by a litany of challenges such as weak institutions; poorly written laws; a culture of impunity; the absence of the rule of law; a widening gap between the rich and the poor; the pangs of underdevelopment; undermanned and under-resourced anti-corruption institutions and a sheer absence of a strong political will, the fight against corruption in Africa is one of Africa's biggest battles. While some national efforts to overcome this invisible enemy amongst the African people (corruption) may be commended, it is clear that such efforts themselves are insufficient and ineffective: a holistic approach is more than needed, especially given the trends in which grand corruption in particular is committed. Borrowing from relevant international legal instruments, this paper argues that it is a moral and legal imperative for non-African States to enjoin Africa in its fight against corruption. In making this thesis, this paper identifies and discusses the different ways in which such non-African states can help Africa in its fight against corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the problems which arise in the planning and organizing of educational indicator systems. If a person wants to assess the effect of a certain measure, program evaluation can not be substituted by social indicators as usually conceived. Social indicators can not either give much guidance in the day-to-day planning in intermediate levels of the administration. What social indicators can do is to give a kind of gross evaluation of a number of measures usually taken under a period and of unforeseen and unplanned changes as well, to indicate if the development is taking desired directions. A danger of an indicator system of the type closely affiliated to administration is the sectorization and institutional bias likely to manifest itself in concentration on means available to the bureaucracy in question. This is an advantage as to manipulability of means but as disadvantage as to seeing the whole range of alternatives. In a social-indicators-project the ideal would be indicators of knowledge and skills in the whole population, instead of educational indicators aimed primarily at evaluating the institutionalized school system and its effects on the minority of the population affected by it.

The article presents several papers related developments in economics as realist social theory. According to the author, social theory expressly committed to work out the nature of social being, and, or how people access social reality is going through something of a revival in economics. The papers presented, provide numerous results, arguments, conjectures, and critiques have been produced in recent years, and aim to take some of these specific developments further. Context of the papers and basic ideas and results are presented.

Recollections of past officers provide the basis for a history of the North Central Sociology cat Association (NCSA). Foci include the early environment, school participation, and forces behind its growth and current character. Contemporary issues of big school domination and image are examined through data on current numbers, school affiliations and convention participation. The latter part of the paper, based on a 1976 NCSA membership survey, compares criticisms of American Sociological Association national meetings with those of North Central, summarizing the asserts and deficits of each. Conclusions are drawn about the identifying characteristics and functions of a regional association given the image it assumes and its organizational goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe the establishment of a group that encourages doctoral students to write for publication while focusing on the quality of their written work. They detail the steps taken in starting the group, describe the group's internal review process, share results of an evaluation of the group's first year, and discuss implications for other social work programs wishing to nurture publication productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to that of Moore and Muller 'The Discourse of Voice and the Problem of Knowledge and Identity in the Sociology of Education', which appeared in Volume 20 of this journal. It starts by summarising and endorsing their criticisms of 'voice discourses' but argues that their case is weakened by their failure to distinguish clearly between the 'debunking of knowledge' associated with the postmodernist theories that underpin 'voice discourses' and the general propositions of a social theory of knowledge. The idea that knowledge has a social as well as an epistemological basis is now widely accepted in philosophy as well as sociology. The paper draws on a paper by Stephen Toulmin and makes a distinction between anthropological and sociological approaches to the idea of knowledge having a social basis. It goes on to use some ideas from the author's recent work on the issue of knowledge specialisation to suggest the kind of contribution that a sociological approach to knowledge can make to current curriculum issues as well as to educational policy more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I review and discuss the articles in this issue by Walker, by Wanner, and by Heidtman et al. There are three main themes that appear in all three papers: these flow from the shared commitment among these authors to understanding and promoting "scientific theory construction" within sociology, and to dispelling some common misconceptions about scientific sociological theory. The common themes that run through the three papers can be put in the form of questions: 1) What is a theory? 2) How should we evaluate theory? 3) How does theory grow? In addition to discussing these three main themes. I discuss four sub-themes that emerged: 1) Sociology as a Scientific Endeavor; 2) Critiques of General Theory as Being Positivistic; 3) Unitary versus Multiple Forms of Theory Building; 4) Professional/Disciplinary Barriers to Theory Construction and Theory Building in Sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note outlines the type of papers which the U.S. periodical "The Sociological Quarterly" wishes to publish. The periodical is a general sociological journal, and as such does not place any quotas on the number of papers it shall publish in any specific area. It nearly always considers scholarly sociological research and writing done by sociologists as being within the journal's acceptable limits. The note airs a special call for articles on the teaching of sociology as well.

Most classical models of urban development conceptualize suburbanization and reurbanization as opposing processes of in- and out-migration. The article at hand starts from the understanding that this linear interpretation of migration figures falls short of the mark. Drawing on different approaches to operationalize reurbanization, case-specific migration-data from Berlin illustrates a population development where decline and revival do not exclusively happen at either the urban core or the city’s fringes, but can be observed throughout the city region. The paper concludes that seemingly contradicting urban dynamics, such as population gains and losses in different parts of a diversified spatial system such as the city region result from the same land and housing market processes which favour and disadvantage different social groups and neighbourhoods, respectively. This observation calls for a dismissal of mono-linear policy approaches in urban governance and planning, so as to address both macro- and micro-scale disparities in a fair manner and to prevent the neglect of the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article serves as an introduction to the issue's special feature on "The Nuclear Threat." The early sociological literature on nuclear war related issues is reviewed and the dearth of sociological work in this area since the early 1960s is documented. A new call for sociological theory and research on the nuclear threat is issued and possible topics are outlined. The paper concludes with a brief review of the papers that make up the special feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper written by Professor Delbert Miller about the future direction of industrial sociology is critiqued. Miller addressed the related two related themes which are the need for sociology departments to remodel offerings to compete for students in the educational marketplace and the importance of sharpening the discipline's identity as a specialization directed at business and industry. As a result of the proposed changes in the discipline, students would become viable candidates for personnel, human resources and industrial relations positions. Miller was not suggesting that sociology departments or industrial sociologists have absolutely avoided applications. Rather, neither has sufficiently developed such programs to brake the loss of sociology majors to university units that promise more marketable training.

In order to determine the directions which the field of sociology of occupations has taken in recent years, a content analysis of articles on work and occupations in four general sociological journals and two specialized journals was completed for the years of 1976 to early 1982. Not surprisingly, there has been a rapid increase in the number of papers dealing with status and income attainment. Very surprisingly, there has been a near demise of papers on the professions. Another dominant thrust has been the large number of articles on women and sex roles. Satisfaction and alienation at work and attempts at job redesign have also received increasing attention. Papers on other topics have received less concentrated attention. Moving beyond the results of the content analysis, the present work discusses unresolved theoretical issues and potential new directions for the content areas. It is suggested that even for sociologists who do not identify themselves as specialists in occupations, the occupational variable remains a dominant one in sociological analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article criticizes the paper of M. J. Max Van Manen on alternative research orientations in social education. Van Manen contends in his paper that educational researchers are caught in a limit situation. The author believes that most professors of education are not familiar with research frames of references other than the empirical-analytic. Van Manen argues that metatheory might improve educational research by identifying neglected areas of research, by suggesting alternative research possibilities, and by making clear the theories underlying research. An example of how metatheory might suggest alternative research strategies is presented.

The present paper summarizes papers given at the 8th International Family Research Seminar in Oslo, Norway, 1963, which describe and explain differential frequencies of those decisions to marry which result in teenage marriage. Sociological analysis of marriage usually points out that age at marriage varies with the type of society and, therefore, reflects the stage of industrialization and urbanization. The lowest ages at marriage are generally found in peasant agricultural countries, such as India and China. During the rapid growth phase of urban industrial nations, age at marriage apparently rises, but later the age at marriage once again turns downward, though not rapidly. One way of viewing trends of teenage marriage is in terms of the percentage of males and females under 20 years of age involved in marriages contracted. During 1961, in 6% of all marriages contracted in Yugoslavia one or both spouses were under the age of 18. However, in such marriages the wife was under 18 years of age in 91 % of the cases, the husband in only 9 %. From 1953-1961 there was a gradual decrease in the percentage married under 18 years from 6.6 % to 6.0 %.

Introduces various articles and research papers related to sociology that appeared in the 1962 issue of the journal "Acta Sociologica."

Introduces articles and research papers of the December 1970 issue of the journal "Sociological Focus."

This paper considers the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2) a visionary document when viewed in comparison with the ways ethics review is enacted in New Zealand. New Zealand has unequivocal guidelines for indigenous research. The indigenous guidelines in Chapter 9 of the Canadian document are particularly innovative, in that they prescribe indigenous consultation for some, but not all researchers. In New Zealand, according to the Health Research Council Te Ara Tika guidelines, all research in New Zealand warrants indigenous consultation. This paper suggests that progress around improving the practice of consultation and engagement with Māori could be made if the consultation requirements for mainstream research were to be paper based, and reviewed by an ethics committee without actual expectation of mandatory consultation conditions. On the other hand, Māori centred research should require actual and detailed evidence of consultation that would be tied to an explicit articulation of the mutual understanding of the benefits accruing from this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the organization and representation of time in certain kinds of undergraduate programs, here represented by a sociology program in a US university. Written requirements for the major are analyzed as constituting a 'chart' that defines academic time in terms of units of before-after relationships. The paper shows how students 'reuse' these temporal units when charting paths through the university and reckoning their academic work to specific futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any application of information and communication technology in education (ICTE) sits, at times uncomfortably, at the intersection of three key disciplines: technology, education and sociology (including reflexivity). To confuse matters, any specific study may need to take account of specific knowledge within subdisciplines, such as organisational management and technology transfer, and of knowledge within the domain of application (e.g. nursing, social work, fashion, etc.). Researchers must build a consistent model of knowledge that can integrate disparate methodologies, research goals and even conflicting interpretations of the same terminology. Without this, the ICTE research field will be dominated by what is simply novel, irrespective of the relevance of particular changes to educational practice. If existing models in this field are as limited as suggested by Moule, when should lecturers and teachers, with no motivation to use technology for its own sake and no additional financial support, review progress in this field for effective examples of innovative practice, let alone wide-scale change? On most of the criteria that could be introduced to compare two papers, the views of Moule and Salmon appear almost diametrically opposed and a detailed comparison would seem of limited value. Instead, this paper asks a more fundamental question: what could be the basis within this research community for establishing coherence within the field and ensuring that research can justify actual changes in educational practice? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a framework for reviewing developments in thinking about social capital over the last decade and for assessing future prospects. It argues for giving particular value to social capital as a phenomenon (conceptual and empirical) which is most effective when viewed in interaction with other elements of analysis or policy. Two forms of interaction are addressed: between bonding and bridging social capital; and between human and social capital. The paper then tracks some of the developments in the policy research debate in order to illustrate the dilemmas involved in the deployment of the concept. The fourth section poses some methodological questions and possible future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative to other fields, social work has been slow to adopt geographic information systems (GIS) as a tool for research and practice. This paper argues that GIS can benefit social work by: (1) continuing and strengthening the social survey tradition; (2) providing a framework for understanding human behavior; (3) identifying community needs and assets; (4) improving the delivery of social services; and (5) empowering communities and traditionally disenfranchised groups. Examples from a social work course on GIS and published social work research help illustrate these points. The paper concludes by considering the ways that social work can contribute to the development of GIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the treatment of ontology offered by critical realism. It addresses much of the material elaborated upon in two editions of this journal. Three main groups of criticisms are made here of the critical realist treatment of open systems. It is argued that critical realism, particularly in the project in economics emanating from Cambridge, UK, tends to define systems in terms of events. This definition is shown to be problematic. The exemplar of a closed system provided by critical realism of the solar system is shown to be flawed in that it is not closed according to the closure conditions identified by critical realism. Second, the negativity of the definitions adopted is problematic for heterodox traditions attempting to build positive programmes. Furthermore, the dualism of the definitions is also inconsistent with Dow's approach, which has ramifications for the coherence of post Keynesianism. Third, the definitions tend to polarize open and closed systems and ignore the degrees of openness evident in reality. The polarization of systems leads to polarized methodology and unsustainable arguments to reject so-called “closed-systems methods.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article raises the question of the character of Bernstein's theory. It draws upon a set of key concepts elaborated in some of his later papers, although we suggest that it is possible to discern the origins of these ideas in much earlier work. In the first section, Bernstein's diagnosis of the sociology of education as a horizontal knowledge structure with a weak grammar is discussed and an apparent paradox identified: if the sociology of education has this form, how can we account for Bernstein's own theory? The remainder of the paper uses the case of Bernstein's own work as a way of exploring the conditions for knowledge growth in sociology as a vertical knowledge structure with a strong grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The society of Hong Kong objected strongly when the government instructed schools to change their medium of instruction from English to Chinese at the junior secondary level soon after Hong Kong was reunited with the People's Republic of China in 1997. This paper tries to make sense of the objection to this piece of politically correct and pedagogically sound policy. It analyses the situation from Bourdieu's ideas of habitus and various types of capitals. The paper argues that the government's effort to persuade Hong Kong society to accept mother-tongue education on pedagogical grounds alone was to no avail because the English language has not only become a habitus of society; it also serves to distinguish Hong Kong people from mainland Chinese. The failure of the government was partly due to its insensitivity to the nature and social functions of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the question of knowledge needs to be reconceptualised if sociology is to make its potential contribution to current debates about the curriculum. It begins with a review of the dominant assumptions underlying contemporary curriculum policy: neo-conservative traditionalism and technical-instrumentalism. It then examines the relativist position on knowledge that follows from the postmodernist critiques that have recently come to dominate social theory, particularly in the sociology of education. The paper argues that, in different ways, each of these approaches avoids the question of knowledge and hence leaves unresolved epistemological and educational dilemmas. In the final section, the paper draws on recent research in the sociology of science to develop what is referred to as a social realist approach to knowledge and explores its implications both for the curriculum and the claims that we are entering a 'knowledge society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article replies to comments of David Klein on a discussion of the role of conceptual frameworks or paradigms in the development of theory in sociology and the social sciences. The three major points of the discussion are summarized, and the author claims that Klein failed to refute any of these major points. At several points Klein seems to confuse conceptual analysis with conceptual frameworks. The paper is not a blanket condemnation of conceptual frameworks or theoretical perspectives, and it does not suggest that they play no role in theoretical advances. What it suggests is that much of the work on conceptual frameworks, though couched in theoretical terms, is illusory.

Presents an introduction to the December 1996 issue of "International Journal of Sociology."

From the theoretical standpoint, this paper attempts to integrate the objective, cognitive and normative dimensions of social mobility. This integration is based on a comparison of the matrices of actual, perceived and equitable frequencies of transitions between origins and destinations. The ratios of compared frequencies operationally define the degree of false consciousness, feeling of injustice and illegitimacy in the domain of social mobility. From the methodological standpoint we propose a practical method for ascertaining cognitive and normative mobility frequencies. In this paper we used average frequencies for the entire sample, although an analysis of individual images and preferences of mobility frequencies can be performed. This extension would seem particularly useful for heterogeneous samples with respect to the social positions of the respondents. From the empirical standpoint we have demonstrated that, net of marginal effects, the matrices of actual, perceived and equitable mobility do not differ very much from each other, at least in terms of the goodness of fit. Within a small range of differences the measure of false consciousness has a smaller value than the measure of illegitimacy, which is still smaller than the measure of the feeling of injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introductory chapter by Rokkan and Lipset in Party Systems and Voter Alignments (1967) and the further development of Rokkan's work in Citizens, Elections, Parties (1970) provide points of departure for a discussion of the impact of Parsonian AGIL theory on Rokkan's political sociology. The AGIL theory would seem to have provided initial inspiration for Rokkan's own thinking rather than premises for strict hypothetico-deductive reasoning closely related to the Parsonian theoretical framework. The present paper, however, attempts to deductively explore certain hidden implications of the AGIL dynamic, thus arriving at notions of structural contradictions similar to those found among some structural Marxists. These notions are then related back to Rokkan's theory of sequential historical junctures and conflicts, the conclusion being that his theory can and must be further developed to take account of the internal contradictions emerging in mature capitalism not only according to Marxists but also according to the hidden implications of AGIL theory explicated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the stress rule (a temporary role assumed by actors experiencing unusual or critical stress) is developed in this paper. It is hypothesized that the stress role is a patterned, regularly occurring set of rights, obligations, and expectations which accords special latitude to stressed actors, specifies appropriate behavior toward the stressed, and releases the actors from culpability for atypical role performances during the stressful period. The stress role and similar disabling, adjective-type roles are proposed as examples of "role riders." This paper identities the stress role norms and outlines the process by which one acquires, occupies, and relinquishes the role. The legitimacy of assuming the stress role is addressed and the timetables, or containment norms, of the stress role are developed. Finally, the functions of the stress role for the actor and for society are discussed. The propositions and concepts introduced here are based on data from in-depth interviews with a random sample of reentry university women, as well as from the growing body of stress and social-support research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent increase in American divorce rates has aroused a great deal of media publicity, popular discussion, and social science research. Several recent works have begun to reexamine the origins, trends, and implications of divorce in American history. This paper presents systematic data concerning the extent of divorce in three North Central states for the 1810-60 period. The findings establish the incidence of mass divorce for a considerable period prior to official divorce statistics. Major patterns are analyzed and compared to late 19th-century data from the first governmental studies of divorce for the 1870-1900 decades. While some urban-rural differences are found, changing laws and norms played the principal role in the increase in divorce rates during the 1800s. The final part of the paper discusses the implications of these findings for understanding marital disruption in social-historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon insights from the social movement literature as well as leadership experience in a successful social movement organization, this paper suggests aspects of a framework for integrating traditional and contemporary approaches. The case history of JUST (Johnstowners United to Stop another Tragedy) is used to illustrate the interaction of grievances and structures in the career of a social movement organization. In addition to helping fill a lacuna in the literature on the internal dynamics of such organizations, this analysis also demonstrates the importance of the nature of the grievance as well as the target group's structural entrenchment. The paper focuses upon a relatively anomalous case for U.S. social movement organizations: an SMO which was successful despite displacement goals. The final section of the paper includes a summary diagram of the factors involved in JUSTs successful protest effort as well as broader generalizations suggesting the conditions under which grievances or infrastructures are more salient in explaining social movement phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the importance of race and racial attitudes among sociologists by attempting to document the existence of what has been called a "black insiders doctrine" and showing that black sociologists are more likely than their white counterparts to subscribe to this doctrine. Data in this paper are based on a survey questionnaire administered during the winter of 1978. The findings show that: (1) race is a strong predictor in determining how sociologists perceive the role and characteristics of black sociologists and (2) black sociologists do not think highly of whites who study race relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent review essay of three books on effective schooling stated that the literature on school effectiveness largely adopts a functionalist view of society and schooling and the field of inquiry is dominated by a positivist paradigm. The review argued for a sociological analysis of effective schooling. This paper examines from a sociological perspective the nature of effective schooling. The paper draws on case studies of four high schools to analyze their relationship with the social, cultural and policy dimensions oft heir context. A major focus of the paper is on the dilemmas, tensions and issues arising from the interrelationship between each school and its context, and the implications of these for an understanding of effective practices in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins with a brief reference of some of the inaccuracies in accounts of the so called 'Honeyford affair'. The main purpose of the paper, however, is not to compare differing accounts, but rather to examine aspects of Honeyford's discourse in its own terms. These aspects include his notion of 'racism', his concern with 'tolerance and coherence' and his account of what he refers to as 'the human character'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the difficulties in conceptualising and presenting research, in particular doctoral work in education, in the current climate of intellectual theorising. It argues that many researches experience a phenomenon described in the paper as 'post-modernist tension' when trying to write in an atmosphere of theoretical and methodological uncertainty. The author elaborates the 'symptoms' of post-modernist tension, and makes a critique of some elements of contemporary social theorising. Nevertheless, the author acknowledges the usefulness of contemporary social theory in challenging traditional research, despite its density and inaccessibility to many researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to place the other papers in this issue of the journal in a broader theoretical and political context. It considers some of the ways in which sociologists of education have approached the analysis of the curriculum and discusses the extent to which their work can be seen as a contribution to political struggles in and around the curriculum. It pays particular attention to the ways in which recent American and Australian work in this field has developed and to some of the criticisms that have been made of the political orientation of such work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to demonstrate that Bourdieu's critics who claim that his theory is structurally 'frozen', with no room for human agency misperceive the basis of the theory The relationships between his theory and education are summarised and the concept of habitus explicated Then drawing on Outline of a Theory of Practice, the determinants of practice are shown to incorporate change and human agency This is then related to an examination of education as cultural practice, and some comments made in that light on a recent paper by Willis, and `Origins and Destinations'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a discussion of the renewed interest in developing a unified theoretical umbrella under which the various sociological theories can be ordered and contained. It suggests that a "unified or 'unifying" theory will do more harm than good toward advancing sociological knowledge. Using Paul K. Feyerabend's (1968) notions of (1) the relative autonomy of facts, (2) the consistency condition, and (3) the principle, of meaning invariance, the paper illustrates how a movement toward a dominant paradigm will have deleterious effects on sociological knowledge. A plea is made for maintaining theoretical diversity as an acceptable, means for advancing sociological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding academic representation and substantive concerns of five annual meetings of the North Central Sociological Association. The institutional affiliation of each participant was regarded as a unit frequency except when a paper was co-authored by two or more persons from the same institution. The initial analysis of the data involved separate rankings of all the academic departments by frequency of participation at each of the five meetings, then, a cumulative total, mean, and rank for each institution was determined. Information was also obtained regarding the degree granting status of each academic department in sociology. Several Guides to Graduate Departments of Sociology were utilized for this purpose but graduate schools are not always consistent in providing ins formation. Certain other data regarding the academic departments was also obtained, e.g., geographic location of school. Although the results of this initial analysis are too encompassing to present in tabular form, conclusions are summarized in the next section. The extent of Canadian Involvement at the meetings is also of interest as is the fact that a sizable number of American sociology departments, that do not offer a graduate degree, were always represented.