Social Civility in the United States

The existence of social civility is explored in terms of the components of social responsibility, social concern, and social involvement. Social civility is viewed as consisting of the degree to which people have a sense of duty or obligation to society, the extent of their concern for the welfare of others as well as themselves, and whether they help others through voluntary activities. The purpose of this article is to describe the level and distribution of the components of social civility in the population. Data are from a 1995 random digit–dialing sample of U.S. adults between the ages of 25 and 74. The findings fail to support the hypothesis of social incivility in the U.S. Adults report high levels of social responsibility and invest a great deal of thought and effort into their life and their contributions to others' welfare. Social civility is found to be higher among more educated, married, female, and older adults. Regular religious attendance, which predicts greater social civility, mediates the relationship of the key demographic variables with social civility.     

Values,Commitments, and Ethics of Social Work in the United States

Social workers in the U.S. practice at the margins of society where value conflicts in the larger culture are particularly acute. This paper reviews the value and ethical conflicts that social workers encounter daily and explores the impact of the continuing drive for professional recognition and status upon the profession's traditional commitment to the poor.     

Social Class and Political Engagement in the United States

The relationship between class and political engagement in the United States is well‐established: people with lower incomes, who have less education, or who work outside the professional and managerial occupations do less of all forms of political engagement. They vote less than better‐off people, are less likely to give money to candidates, pay less attention to politics, and contact their representatives less often than those with more resources. They are also less likely to believe they can influence political decisions or to feel entitled to participate in politics. This article reviews the dominant (individualist and institutionalist) approaches to explaining inequalities in political participation and highlights recent “relational” work that offers a more integrated perspective on political engagement and class position.     

Women's Status and Social Capital in the United States

SUMMARY

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone found that social capital is closely associated with a variety of important indicators of community health, and women benefit from many of these resources as members of their communities. But is there anything distinct about how women experience social capital? Is there a relationship between social capital and women's status overall? Using data on social capital from Bowling Alone and data collected by the Institute for Women's Policy Research for its Status of Women in the States project, we assess trends across the states on both dimensions. Overall, the findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between the two.     

The intersection of disability and child abuse in England and the United States

This article reports the findings of a World Rehabilitation Fund Fellowship study on the intersection of child abuse, family support, and disability in England. These findings are then compared to the American picture in this arena, and implications for new directions are delineated.     

Movement Building and the United States Social Forum

Despite the growing academic literature on the World Social Forum process, few scholars have attempted to systematically analyze the social, cultural, and political impact of the forums. This has to do in part with the inherent difficulties of assessing movement consequences, which is particularly complicated for an activity geared toward creating ‘open spaces.’ This article presents an analytic framework for evaluating the impact of the social forums through an analysis of the 2010 United States Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit from the perspective of a local Boston-based delegation called the Boston Freedom Rides. We then use that framework to consider the impact of the 2010 USSF, bridging the academic literature on movement outcomes with activist perspectives. We make two related claims. First, the social forums, and the USSF in particular, should be viewed and their impact assessed in light of their generativity as ‘movement-building machines’: infrastructures designed for the production of social capital, networks, solidarities, meanings, frames, identities, knowledges, strategies, skills, and repertoires. Second, with respect to the Freedom Rides, the 2010 USSF contributed to movement building on multiple levels, but more so within rather than across movement sectors. Our goal is less to make a definitive argument about the impact of the 2010 USSF than to provide a helpful way of thinking about movement building as a social movement outcome, which can be applied and refined through further comparative and longitudinal research. We thus favor breadth over depth in outlining a broad framework for future inquiry.     

Postindustrial Capitalism,Social Class Language Games,and Black Underachievement in the United States and United Kingdom

Against Ogbu's oppositional culture hypothesis, this article offers a class or structural/relational framework to contextualizing and understanding why it is that Blacks have more limited skills in processing information from articles, books, tables, charts, and graphs compared with their White counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom. We synthesize Marxian conceptions of identity construction within capitalist relations of production with the Wittgensteinian notion of “language games” to offer a more appropriate relational framework within which scholars ought to understand this Black–White academic achievement gap in America and the United Kingdom.     

The Future of Social Work in the United States

This article discusses six major developments shaping the future of social work practice and education in the United States, with particular attention to their implications for field education. These include economic globalization, the changing political climate, the growing use of technology, demographic shifts and their impact on cities, the changing nature of social service agencies, and changes in universities. The article analyzes how these sweeping changes compel social work educators to reassess their underlying assumptions and, based upon this analysis, suggests some calculated risks to take.     

The humorous construction of disability: 'stand-up' comedians in the United States

We examine how stand-up [sic] comedy constructs, circulates, perpetuates and/or disrupts stereotypical images of disabled persons in the United States. We use disabled people, rather than people-first language, to remind readers that disability is an ill-defined, culturally imposed attribute. Although humor is culturally specific, we draw on works of an international cadre of humanities scholars and social scientists to ground our analyses. We conclude that disability humor constitutes an emerging, liberatory art form. Disabled and non-disabled comedians elicit thought-provoking laughter and present disability as an interesting way to live. However, disabling humor still perpetuates stereotyping and isolation.     

Social capital and household income distributions in the United States: 1980, 1990

This paper asked if changes in social capital influence the level and disparity of household income in the United States. Social capital is defined in this paper as one's sympathy (antipathy) for others and one's idealized self. Changes in social capital are expected to produce the following economic consequences. First, increases in social capital are expected to alter the terms of trade and to increase the likelihood of trades between friends and family. Second, increases in social capital are expected to increase an economic agent's concerns for the external consequences of his or her choices, internalizing what otherwise would be considered externalities. Third, increases in social capital between firms are expected to increase the likelihood that they will act in their collective interest. Fourth, increases in social capital are expected to increase the opportunities for specialization and the likelihood of trade. Finally, increases in social capital are expected to raise the average level of income and reduce the disparity of income.This paper empirically tested the relationship between changes in social capital indicator variables and changes in the average and coefficient of variation (CVs) of household income. State CVs and averages of household income were calculated for all 50 states and for different races/ethnic groups using the U.S. Census data for 1980 and 1990. Social capital indicator variables selected to measure changes in social capital included measures of family integrity including the percentages of households headed by a single female with children; educational achievement variables including high school graduation rates; crime rate variables including litigation rates; and labor force participation rates. The social capital indicator variables appeared to be significantly correlated with each other. However, in 1980, the percentages of households headed by a single female with children was not significantly related to the birth rates of single teens. By 1990, however, a strong correlation was found between the percentages of households headed by a single female with children and the birth rate of single teens.Income inequality among U.S. households measured using CVs increased between 1980 and 1990 in all 50 states. The largest increase in CVs was among white households. The smallest increase in CVs was among Asian households. The states with the largest increase in the ratio of 1990 and 1980 CVs were Arizona, Wyoming, Maine, Vermont, and Texas. Half of the states reported decreases in real household income between 1980 and 1990. Those states with the largest percentage decrease in real income were Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Louisiana, and West Virginia. The largest percentage increase in real income was reported by Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.State CVs and averages of household income were regressed on four factors or subsets of social capital indicator variables. The four factors used to predict CVs and averages of household income were generally statistically significant. The findings of this report support the conclusion that changes in social capital have a significant effect on the disparity and level of household income.     

Immigration in the United States and What Social Workers Should Know

This article has been retracted.     

Intermarriage,Ethnic Identity,and Perceived Social Standing Among Asian Women in the United States

This study investigates the consequences of Asian women's intermarriage—whether it is associated with higher social standing and lower ethnic identity, using data on Asian women (N = 589) from the National Latino and Asian American Survey (NLAAS). The socioeconomic status of partners of women who intermarried and partners of women who married men of the same ethnicity are compared. The potential associations between intermarriage and two subjective measures—ethnic identity and perceived social standing—are explored. The study rejects the hypothesis based on the conventional belief that Asian women in the United States find “better” partners with higher socioeconomic status from other racial or ethnic groups. The findings support the view that marital assimilation leads to identificational assimilation and demonstrate that intermarriage is not associated with higher perceived social standing. The results suggest that educational and occupational endogamy plays a larger role in Asian women's intermarriage than social exchange.     

Relationships between Economics,Welfare, Social Network Factors,and Net Migration in the United States

By using economics, welfare and social network factors as frames of reference, this study aims to explore the relationship between these three factors and net migration to various US states. Adopting related variables collected from official aggregate data, this study first utilizes Logit Regression analysis to draw out seven variables that best explain net migration to the various states, then employs these variables in LISREL analyses to build a model explaining the factors influencing net migration to the various US states. Concretely, this research obtained the following findings: (1) the seven variables ‐‐ the average rate of net migrants of 2002–2005, Medicaid, federal aid, employment rate, non‐poverty population rate, and SSI subsidy ‐‐ all significantly affected (p < 0.01 or p < 0.05) net migration in 2006; (2) the main influences on net migration for the various states are, from highest to lowest, social network, economic, and welfare factors. More specifically, a better explanation is that, through the social network factor, economic and welfare factors exert an increased influence on the net number of migrants; and (3) as for the influence of social network factors on the number of net migrants, the social network factor for the previous year was found to best explain domestic migration flows, while the social network factor for the previous three‐to‐four years best explained international migration flows.     

Health Social Movements in the United States: An Overview

This article reviews the literature on health social movements (HSMs) and provides an overview of their main conceptual, theoretical and empirical underpinnings. Health social movements is not a single paradigm but spans several decades’ worth of theoretical and research activity in the areas of social movements, medical sociology and social studies in science. Case studies of HSMs have been accumulating for years, and several new collections of papers attempt to systematize the various strands of health social movements research to answer questions about their origins, different strategic and political approaches to social change, their trajectories and consequences. We provide a selective overview of the literature on health social movements that explore these questions, while distinguishing between health social movements seeking greater access to healthcare, those focusing on health disparities and inequality, and those challenging the underlying science of health and healthcare. We conclude with some suggestions for the direction of future studies.     

Social Status Ranking of Occupations in the People's Republic of China,Taiwan, and the United States

College students (1,039) in three different countries ranked 24 occupations according to social status, as they perceived it existing in their respective societies. The selected occupations were first used by Counts in 1925. There was more agreement than disagreement in the rankings, although exceptions were noted and explained by local conditions. If social status is a determining factor in occupational choice, this cross-cultural study may be useful in examining differences and similarities among college students in different parts of the world.     

The Influence of Religion on Latino Education,Marriage, and Social Views in the United States

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the Hispanic Churches in American Public Life National Survey (n = 2,060) data set to examine the relationship between religious affiliation and commitment and education, marital status, and social views in the U.S. Latino community. The findings indicate that religious affiliation and high rates of religious participation and commitment are important factors that are positively and negatively related to Latino education, marriage, and social action. This study found a positive relationship between high rates of religious participation and commitment and high rates of marriage, social action, and conservative views on church–state relations and social issues like abortion and homosexual relations, but not on other social views like the death penalty and the ordination of women. In general, conservative religiosity (in this case Protestant Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism) is positively related to high rates of marriage and social action. However, the data also suggest that high rates of religious participation and commitment do not necessarily result in higher income and educational levels, although this may be due to the fact that many Latinos recently converted from Catholicism to Protestantism and thus have not had a chance to adopt and benefit from Protestant educational attitudes and resources.