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Despite the prominence of teaching in academia, we know little about how graduate students learn to teach. We propose the concept of a teaching community network (TCN), an informal social network that facilitates the exchange of teaching-specific resources. We explore the role of TCNs through a case study of a sociology doctoral program at a large state university. Results reveal that students rely heavily on informal ties within the graduate student community and existing formal programs to share teaching-related resources (e.g., information and social support) and develop their identities as instructors. We suggest that graduate programs facilitate TCNs through formal teacher-training programs and structural conditions that encourage informal, one-on-one interactions (e.g., shared offices). By cultivating TCNs, graduate programs can assist students in developing their teaching skills and identities as instructors, thus training students to balance the demands of research and teaching within an academic culture.

Teaching Sociology's emphasis on the scholarship of teaching and learning has moved the field well beyond simple description of teaching methods. There is no doubt that the journal is more scholarly than in the past. Still, we do not take advantage of our rich theoretical disciplinary work. There is much to learn sociologically about the classroom and other sites of interaction between teachers and students. Our classrooms are social sites and our analysis of them can be of help to scholars both inside and outside the discipline. In this article, we propose a sensitizing concept, the sociology of the college classroom—the application of sociological theory and/or concepts to understand social phenomena that take place at the level of the classroom and other sites of faculty-student interaction. We situate the sociology of the college classroom as a subset of the scholarship of teaching and learning and the sociology of higher education. Sociology of the college classroom can be a place not only where research meets teaching, but it can also be a site where sociological theory meets pedagogical praxis.

THE DEBATE DEFINING THINKING, critical thinking, and higher-level thinking is expan sive. Geersteen (2003) provides an excellent review of this literature and suggests that one way to distinguish between lowerand higher-level thinking is based on the level of abstraction. In this article, we focus on analysis and synthesis or integration-that is, identifying parts and putting these parts together to form a coherent whole. We offer a simple heuristic device, the evidence ma trix, that helps students recognize the rela tionship between sources of evidence. Although analysis and synthesis are broad intellectual skills that transcend disciplinary boundaries, Grauerholz and Bouma-Holtrop (2003) and Geersteen (2003) argue that dif ferent types of higher-level thinking are more likely to be emphasized by some disci plines than others. Grauerholz and Bouma Holtrop (2003) conclude that there are two general types of higher-level thinking re quired by sociologists, conceptualizing and contextualizing. Contextualizing is most similar to C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination and emphasizes placing specific examples within larger contexts. Conceptu alizing involves the process of breaking concepts into their constituent parts, recog nizing commonalities and differences, and the ability to compare and contrast the com ponents of an argument. The evidence ma trix is a tool that is most helpful in develop ing conceptualizing skills. While the heuris tic device we suggest does tap broad cogni tive skills, these are a subset of skills that are especially relevant for sociologists. Analyzing evidence and recognizing the similarities and dissimilarities between sources is an example of a skill Geertsen (2003) calls referential thinking and Grauer holz and Bouma-Holtrop (2003) include as a part of sociological critical thinking. The evidence matrix is designed to foster critical sociological thinking by helping students integrate data and research findings from different modes of research and synthesize findings across multiple contexts. Using the evidence matrix helps students see the rela tionship among different sources of data and how to organize a more general argument around specific instances of evidence. Finding, reading, and evaluating the va lidity of research studies and synthesizing information from a variety of sources is sometimes referred to as information liter acy (Association of College and Research Libraries 2006; Grafstein 2002). Grafstein (2002:) explains, however, that instructors teach "IL [information literacy] skills that are embedded within the research para digms and procedures of their disciplines" (p. 202). Therefore, in this paper we con ceptualize certain information literacy skills, particularly synthesizing research evidence from multiple sources, as a component of sociological critical thinking more gener ally. *Please direct all correspondence to Maxine Atkinson, Department of Sociology and Anthro pology, North Carolina State University, Box 8107, Raleigh, NC 27695-8107; e-mail: Maxine_Atkinson@ncsu. edu. Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alpha betical order, Jill Bouma, Theodore D. Fuller, Kathy Rowell, and Stephen Sweet.

The TH!NK initiative at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is part of the university's five year Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). This initiative is designed to train faculty to utilize more strategies that cultivate critical and creative thinking in their classroom. TH!NK provides a comprehensive framework for implementing strategies that support higher order thinking skills through faculty training, mentoring, and formal assessment of program goals. TH!NK will begin its second year in August 2015 with a cohort of approximately 30 faculty participating from across the university including computer science and freshman engineering. Student learning outcomes include the application of critical and creative thinking skills and intellectual standards in the process of solving problems. In addition, students are provided with increased opportunities to reflect on their own thinking and the thinking of others.

Sociologists can make meaningful contributions to quantitative literacy by teaching sociological research skills in sociology classes, including introductory courses. We report on the effectiveness of requiring a research module in a large introductory class. The module is designed to teach both basic research skills and to increase awareness of race and gender inequality. We find that a majority of students are able to interpret basic percentage tables with a minimum of instruction. Under the condition that students are willing to acknowledge inequality in our occupational system, completing the research assignment increases their awareness of race and gender inequality. We argue that one of sociology's most powerful contributions to quantitative literacy is that our core content provides a challenging and relevant context in which to learn quantitative skills.

To explain wife abuse, we offer a refinement of relative resource theory, gendered resource theory, which argues that the effect of relative resources is contingent upon husbands’ gender ideologies. We use data from the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households (N =4,296) to test three theories of wife abuse. Resource theory receives no support. Relative resource theory receives limited support. Gendered resource theory receives strong support. Wives’ share of relative incomes is positively related to likelihood of abuse only for traditional husbands. The findings suggest that both cultural and structural forces must be considered to understand marriage as a context for social interactions in which we create our gendered selves.

This article focuses on how the institutional contexts of colleges and universities shape these “greedy institutions.” We look at the current social, political, and economic trends affecting all postsecondary institutions, specifically the forces that encourage “greediness.” We examine the literature on structural arenas that influence teaching in higher education, including type of institution and departmental level characteristics, considering how the varied structural features of institutions and departments shape the conditions of academic life and demands placed on faculty. We identify the features of the institutional context that can help faculty manage demands on their time and enhance teaching and learning. The article closes with identification of areas for future inquiry and a challenge to sociologists to contribute to an examination of the contextual forces that shape the work lives of faculty and students.

The social contexts within which we live have a remarkable impact on our daily lives as well as our trajectory. Contexts are also more specific. We teach in a context of a changing higher education institution. The purpose of this essay is to review some of the current conditions in higher education under which teaching and learning occur in the hope that it will help us consider their implications, suggest how we how we might take advantage of the opportunities that allow better teaching, and lessen the impact of the conditions that threaten improvements to teaching and learning. The economic climate, increases in the percent of contingent faculty and changing technology are considered

This article makes contributions toward the conceptualization of the scholarship of teaching and learning (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). The scholarship of teaching is a concept with multiple ramifications. It is at the core of the current transformation of higher education. The scholarship of teaching challenges the existing stratification system within the academy. The scholarship of teaching and learning is a much larger enterprise, a movement, that can transform the nature of American society toward our ideals of equality and justice. Sociologists have a vital role to play within the academy and society. If we take advantage of the opportunity that the scholarship of teaching and learning offers, we can reach our potential as an intellectually liberating force in society.

In this paper we use longitudinal data to test the strength of individual preferences and structural variables as explanations for married women's labor force participation. Data drawn from a subset of the Career Development Study are used to compare gendered preferences measured toward the end of adolescence vs. work and family structural variables as predictors of the actual number of hours married women work for pay. Family structures that push women out of the labor force and pull them into family work prove to be the strongest predictor of married women's employment hours, with work structures (e.g., aspects of “good” jobs) and the subjective definition of paid work as a career also being substantively important for explaining hours in the labor force. Our findings also indicate that attitudes formed before and during early adolescence do have a weak but statistically significant effect on married women's labor force participation, at least for baby boom women.

A series of structural equation models was specified to examine whether parental involvement predicts adolescents' development, controlling on family socioeconomic statuses, family composition, mothers 'work status, race, and gender Three measures of adolescent development and two dimensions of parental involvement were entered in the equations. The measures of development were grade point average, a standardized achievement test score, and an indicator of misbehavior The dimensions of parental involvement were connection (three measures) and regulation (fourmeasures). The study was based on data from high school juniors (N = 362) in two county school systems in North Carolina. Analyses consist of descriptive statistics, Cronbach s alpha, and ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression. The findings provided equivocal support for the hypotheses, which was consistent with reports from earlier research, in which results differed depending on the operational definitions of both parental involvement and outcome measures of adolescent development. Directions for further research were outlined.

Objectives. This study assesses whether grandchildren's moving into or out of grandparents' households affects grandparents' depressive symptoms and life satisfaction, and whether such effects vary by gender or race. It further examines whether effects of surrogate parenting on grandparents' subjective well-being are direct or mediated through the impact of surrogate parenting on other life changes, namely, health, work hours, income, socializing, and social supports. Methods. The analyses rely on panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households, Waves 1 and 2. The subsample consists of Black and White grandparents with grandchildren younger than age 18 (N = 1,789). Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and path analyses are used to identify direct and indirect effects of grandchildren's move into and out of grandparents' household on change in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction (residualized gain scores). Results. The data indicate that grandchildren's move into the household increases depressive symptoms among grandmothers. On the other hand, grandchildren's leaving the household leads to reduced well-being among grandfathers. Grandmothers report less participation in church activities and more supports from friends and relatives after the grandchildren move in, whereas grandfathers frequent bars/taverns more when grandchildren move in and reduce time spent with church activities and paid work when grandchildren remain in the household. Discussion. The findings suggest that effects of surrogate parenting differ by gender, and that they are partially contingent on grandparents' vulnerabilities (marital status, education, and presence of childless dependent children in the household) before grandchildren join the household. Mediating effects of other life changes are relatively small.

The biggest lie in academe is that the bedrock of faculty rewards and responsibilities is a triumvirate of teaching, research, and service. Many academic sociologists view teaching as something to do to earn the right to perform the truly important work: "MY RESEARCH." Others value teaching but lack peer respect because professional recognition for teaching is either absent or infrequent. Teaching, like service, is too often the activity you have to do just well enough to prevent having complaints lodged against you. Faculty are rarely rewarded for teaching excellence, especially in our highest ranked sociology programs. Perhaps worse, the content of textbooks is organized by presses rather than by the discipline. The sad state of teaching in sociology is an epidemic social problem for the discipline, not an isolated individual-level issue. If there are few rewards for teaching, few if any penalties for doing a poor job, and few of us know how to do it, why should we worry about teaching? We owe it to ourselves for our own personal well-being. As Howard Aldrich (1997) puts it, "a person's self worth and sense of efficacy are bound up in what that person does for a living, and teaching consumes a large part of an academic's job no matter how much he or she tries to escape it. Years of falling down on the job will take their toll, and that's no way to live." Years of looking out over a sea of blank faces, many hidden behind student newspapers, do not constitute a strategy for achieving job sat

Recently, MacEwen and Barling (1991) published an article on the effects of maternal employment experiences on children's behavior. The authors suggest that most empirical research on the impact of maternal employment has focused on whether children of employed mothers suffer ill effects and suggest that, popular notions notwithstanding, there appear to be no consistent negative effects of maternal employment experiences on families. However, when a mother's experiences of her role is negative, whether her role is that of employed mother or homemaker, then there are detrimental effects to herself and her children. MacEwen and Barling propose two mechanisms to explain "why" and "how" mothers' employment affects children's behavior. They reason that mothers' negative employment experiences create personal strains. The personal strains, in turn, affect parenting behaviors. Finally, parenting behaviors affect children's behaviors. MacEwen and Barling operationalize maternal employment experiences in terms of interrole conflict and satisfaction with employment, and they specify three forms of children's behavior as outcome variables, namely, anxious/withdrawn, attention/immaturity, and conduct disorder behaviors. The writers propose that maternal employment experience affects children's behavior by way of personal strain and parenting behavior. The personal strain variables are cognitive difficulties and negative mood. The parenting behavior variables are rejecting and punishing behaviors. The authors specify an empirical model in which most variables at each stage affect the next stage of variables. Notably, however, the empirical specification does not provide for direct effects of maternal employment experiences on children's behavior, a specification that, unfortunately, maximizes the magnitude of the indirect effect coefficients and, further, leaves the basic issue unresolved, that is, whether the proposed process explains how maternal employment experience affects children's behavior. The authors use a series of hierarchical regression equations in which they first enter two control variables, age and education, and then enter subsequent predictor variables. They estimate a model in which, typically, successive variables are assumed to be directly affected by variables immediately preceding them in the model. Variables with hypothesized direct effects on the dependent variable are entered last, which produces conservative estimates for the hypothesized direct effects, as is appropriate. Next, the investigators trim the model by deleting nonsignificant paths, then reestimate the trimmed model which they present graphically with accompanying beta weights in their Figure 2 (reproduced below). The trimmed model reveals two significant effects the authors had not hypothesized: Negative mood, an indicator of personal strain, produces a direct effect on two measures of children's behavior, attention/immaturity and conduct disorder. Also, the trimmed model fails to confirm three hypothesized effects: Parental rejecting behavior affects neither children's conduct disorder nor attention/immaturity, and parental punishing behavior has no effect on children's anxious/withdrawn behavior. The authors discuss beta coefficients for the trimmed model and assert that "in general, the trimmed model confirms the hypotheses outlined in the introduction" (p. 640). Their analyses and observations proceed from left to right with a coefficient-by-coefficient discussion of how each preceding variable affects the next step in the model--that is, how maternal employment experience affects personal strain, how personal strain affects parenting behavior, and, finally, how parenting behavior affects children's behavior. The authors again conclude that their analyses confirm their theoretical model, and they acknowledge and speculate about unanticipated relationships their analyses expose and about relationships the estimates fail to confirm. …

This study provided an empirical test of a widely cited proposed model of intergenerational solidarity. The model emphasizes that association, affect, and consensus are interdependent dimensions of solidarity and offers an explanatory rationale for parent-child solidarity. Path analysis techniques were used with a sample of 279 older rural-transitional parents. The results showed little support for the model, but the data indicated that residential propinquity and mutual helping behavior were strong predictors of intergenerational association. The importance of the indirect effect of sex linkage via mutual help to associational solidarity also received strong support. The results showed that the proposed model was useful in explaining objective solidarity (association) but not subjective solidarity (consensus and affection) and that these variables were not dimensions of one construct.

Using data from official court records and observations in court hearings throughout one state with a typical reform statute, this study investigates the elderly against whom petitions are brought for involuntary civil commitment. In relation to their proportion in the population, the aged are only slightly more likely than younger persons to become respondents in commitment proceedings; but they are over three times more likely to remain involuntarily hospitalized and to be subjected to recommitment proceedings. Once brought into the process, they are more likely than younger respondents to be committed and are more likely to be successively recommitted. In analyzing court testimony, focus is on evidence of dangerousness since involuntary commitment is limited to the mentally ill who are dangerous. Almost half of the young old initial respondents with formal hearings have no testimony alleging dangerous behavior and more than half of the old old have no such testimony. The alleged dangerous acts of the a...

This research addresses a key process in power-control theory, namely, the gender stratification of social control. Using a multidimensional measure of familial control, the authors find evidence that the types of familial control employed are stratified by gender: male children are more typically aligned with paternal support and appearance rules, and female children are more often the objects of maternal support and curfew rules. All four dimensions have significant negative effects on delinquency. Brief attention is given as well to the effects of these variables on contact with formal social control agencies.

The lady represented the ideal image for most nineteenth‐century American women, even those who pioneered the American frontier. The Southern lady, however, has always been considered the particular embodiment of that image. Since the advent of women's liberation and the large‐scale movement of women into the labor force, one might well question the salience of the lady as role model for contemporary women. Do modern women still want to be ladies? Using the constructed type of the lady role, this study examines the salience of the lady image for selected samples of women from the South and the Pacific Northwest. Our respondents indicated the extent of their agreement with our constructed type and also the extent to which they held the temperamental and behavioral traits of the constructed type. In general, the women in our samples supported the constructed type. Also the women in both regions felt that they lived up to the role expectations of the lady; however, the Northwest women felt that they met more...

Most research on prostitution has considered it either a form of deviant behavior or one of the more extreme examples of occupational professionalization (Gray, 1973; Winnick and Kinsie, 1973; Hirschi, 1962). Little research has included the effects of criminal statutes and law enforcement practices on the behavior of prostitutes even though the illegality of prostitution and police strategies to control it strongly relate to the behavior, attitudes and lifestyles of prostitutes themselves (Roby, 1972; James, 1975).

Older adults with an only child (n = 57) were compared with parents with two or three children (n = 139) and parents with four or more children (n = 83) with regard to filial expectations and frequency of parent-child association and assistance. The results showed no differences between groups with regard to filial expectations. Parents of only children, however, were less likely to receive assistance and to have seen a child in the last day or two. Only a minimal amount of variance could be explained in parent-child association and helping except for parents of only children. Factors influencing association and helping patterns were observed to vary according to number of children. Whereas income, geographical proximity, and health of older parents were central to the assistance received by parents of only children, sex-linked factors, health of parents, and geographical proximity were found to contribute to the amount of help received by parents with more than one child. The research suggests the importance of controlling for number of children in future studies of intergenerational relationships and raises important questions regarding the adequacy of limited family networks as certain subgroups of the current "young-old" cohort move further into the dependencies of old age.

Using exchange and interactionist perspectives, this research explores a previously ignored contemporary marriage pattern: Wives as Senior Partners. WASP marriages are those in which marriage and family life are organized around the wife's job or career rather than the husband's. We found that there are three social conditions concurrent with WASP marriages: wives having traditionally male jobs, flexibility of husbands' jobs, and absence of children. Although the marital pattern was costly to both wives and husbands, especially in being perceived as deviant, techniques of deviance neutralization were used to minimize costs. There were also unique rewards attributed to the WASP maritalpattern. We suggest that marital roles are now more open to negotiation and that traditional marital role expectations may be re-evaluated when marital partners perceive a rewarding alternative. The WASP marital pattern is currently being chosen by some couples and is increasingly likely to be considered by others.

sociological concepts. We suggest that the difficulty of teaching and learning sociology is that sociological concepts and relationships require using abstract reasoning patterns. Many students do not use these abstract reasoning patterns. We use Piaget's cognitive development theoretical rationale to discuss abstract thinking, offer a suggestion for measuring students' level of abstract reasoning, and provide an instructional strategy to teach abstract concepts in sociology.