Gender Role Expectations of Juveniles*

This paper discusses the development of two five-item Likert scales that classify juveniles' gender role expectations as highly traditional to nontraditional. One is composed of behavioral expectations that juveniles define as traditionally feminine and the other is composed of expectations they define as traditionally masculine. With a sample of junior and senior high school students, correlational and factor analyses of scale items were conducted to assess the validity of the assumptions of bipolarity and unidimensionality common in theoretical conceptualizations of gender roles. The results suggest that feminine and masculine role expectations are not bipolar opposites and do not form a unidimensional continuum.     

Self-interest and Expectations of Altruism in Exchange Situations*

This research focuses on norms concerning altruistic behavior and how information is used in assessing these norms. The research context was situations involving conflicting norms of self-interest versus altruism. Five categories of information were used: (1) ego's stake in the encounter, (2) relationship between ego and alter, (3) audience to the behavior, (4) legitimacy for self-interest behavior, and (5) alter's cost if ego fails to help him. Sex and SES of respondents were analyzed. The first four categories in addition to sex and SES served as between-subjects variables, each with two levels. Cost-to-alter was within-subjects variable and contained 4 levels. There were 16 groups containing 9 subjects with the same combination of sex and SES characteristics, thus, creating a 2×2×2×2×2×2×9×4 design. Respondents were asked to predict ego's behavior in a situation. Analysis of variance showed that altruism behavior was expected under the following conditions of (1) low cost to ego, (2) close relationship between ego and alter, (3) presence of audience to the encounter, and (4) high cost-to-alter. Females predicted more altruistic responses while SES produced no significant differences in predictions.     

Status Characteristics and Performance Expectations: A Reformulation

Status characteristics theory predicts the emergence and structure of power and prestige orders in task groups from members' status attributes. This paper argues that application of the burden of proof assumption, central to the theory, is inconsistent with a key concept, generalized expectation state. A reformulation is proposed that eliminates the inconsistency and gives competing predictions for a wide range of situations. The reformulation predicts that, when not directly relevant to task performance, specific characteristics (e.g., athletic or analytical ability) have less impact than diffuse characteristics (race, gender, or education) on performance expectations. The original formulation predicts equal effects. Critical tests are proposed and the paper concludes with additional comparisons of the two formulations on the grounds of parsimony and implications for intervention in settings characterized by status-based inequalities.     

Highways and Population Change*

Abstract In this paper we return to an issue often discussed in the literature regarding the relationship between highway expansion and population change. Typically it simply is assumed that this relationship is well established and understood. We argue, following a thorough review of the relevant literature, that the notion that highway expansion leads to increased population growth in the vicinity of the improved infrastructure finds only weak and often conflicting support. Using data on all major highway expansions in Wisconsin covering the period from the late‐1960s through the 1990s from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT), and census data at the minor civil division (MCD) level covering the period 1970 to 2000, we deploy the analytical tools of geographic information system (GIS) software, and theory from the expanding literature in spatial analysis and modeling, to take a fresh look at this relationship. Our analysis reveals that there is a modest relationship between highway expansion and population growth among MCDs within 10–20 miles of the expanded major highway. The causal structure, however, is complex. Our starting hypothesis argues that population growth precedes highway expansion as frequently as population growth results from highway expansion, but the data show otherwise. The dominant causal influence appears to flow from highway expansion to population growth.     

From Correspondence to Contradiction and Change: Schooling in Capitalist America Revisited

Sociological Forum -     

Cultural Analysis of Religious Change and Movements*

In this article I review a cultural perspective on religion and suggest that cultural analysis resolves current debates over the nature of religion as either collectivist or individualist. I use one type of cultural analysis, institutionalism, to present an interpretive overview of religious change and movements in historical contexts of global instrumental rationality, in particular the expansion of state authority. The usefulness of this approach is revealed in interpreting Protestantism in the United States, Islamic fundamentalism, and movements and trends in global Roman Catholicism. While not reflecting precisely the views of the authors of this collection, this article introduces the studies of the recent restructuring of religion in the United States (Robert Wuthnow), Islamic fundamentalisms in Iran and Syria (Mansoor Moaddel). and global Roman Catholicism (Jose Casanova).     

A Contradiction in the Health Care Delivery System: Problems of Access*

State-wide sample survey data regarding issues and problems frequently incurred in gaining access to health care delivery systems, as well as reports of illness, are utilized in an analysis covariance. The results indicate that the black population reports receiving more preventive health care services than the white population when controlling for all relevant independent variables. This surprising reversal of the most frequently found relationship between black and white populations, coupled with the reporting by the black population of experiencing more difficulty in gaining access to the system for needed help, presents evidence of a contradiction in the delivery of care.     

Individual Reactions to Organizational Conflict and Change*

When familiar organizational relationships are drastically changed, it is important to know what factors influence individuals in their attempts to re-establish stable work associations for themselves. In the situation described here, an organizational division (which was not administratively planned) made it necessary for individuals to decide whether to remain in their original jobs, move to a similar new organization created by a splinter group, or leave altogether. Eight hypotheses are tested which examine the effects of three sets of influences on individual decisions: psychological influences (job satisfaction, job tension); relational influences (social rewards, social costs, status consistency); and extra-organizational influences (marital status, professional committment, community involvement). Of the variables examined, the strongest influence is attributed to attempts by individuals to preserve their rewarding social exchanges with other members. The implications of these findings for social exchange theory are emphasized.     

Beyond White Pride: Identity,Meaning and Contradiction in the Canadian Skinhead Subculture*

Partant de l'approche culturelle de l'analyse des sous-cultures observées chez les jeunes, cette enquête sur le terrain menée dans une ville de l'Ouest canadien examine les significations que nos sujets accordent à leur appartenance à un sous-groupe de skinheads qui se veut apolitique. Notre étude remet en cause une certaine image que l'on se fait du mouvement skinhead. En dépit des idées reçues qui véhiculent une apparente homogénéité, notre recherche montre que la sous-culture skinhead est à la fois complexe et multidimensionnelle et qu'elle offre à ses membres un choix de modèles de comportements et d'orientations idéologiques, même s'ils sont souvent contradictoires. Notre analyse suggèe aussi que, loin d'être profondément contestataires ou révolutionnaires, les groupes de skinheads peuvent constituer un instrument de reproduction des rapports sociaux, en particulier les rapports entre les sexes, les groupes raciaux et les ethnies. Grounded in a cultural studies approach to youth subcultures and based on participant observation in a Western Canadian city, this study examines the meanings associated with membership for participants in a self-described “non-political” branch of the skinhead subculture. Despite popular images that imply homogeneity, the study shows that the skinhead subculture is both complex and multi-dimensional and that it accommodates, albeit in often contradictory ways, a range of behavioural and ideological opportunities for its members. The study also suggests that, far from being resistant or transformative in any significant way, skinhead groups may represent a vehicle for social reproduction, specifically with respect to gender, race and ethnicity.     

Social Change in Economic Development Theory*

L'auteur entrepend une évaluation critique des postulats sociologiques de certaines études importantes du développment économique. Des intérèts politiques et des intentions réformistes influencent ces études et limitent leur portée quant à la formulation d'une théorie du ehangement social. La mode veut que Ton explique le ehangement social dans diverses societes par le truchement d'un seul schème conceptuel ou d'un seul facteur principal. L'auteur examine quatre modeles: homéostatique, évolutionniste, libéral et psychologique. En conclusion, il indique l'approche marxiste et l'importance qu'elle accorde au pouvoir politique, aux interets acquis et au conflict social.     

Subcommunity Change in a Changing Metropolis*

Residential areas in cities and suburbs change as they age. The conventional concepts that represent this process are succession and the neighborhood life cycle. In this study we use cohort analysis and multiple regression on small-area data from four censuses to examine population growth patterns among subcommunities in metropolitan Chicago,1940–70. The major findings: among city and suburban areas, cohort is a strong predictor of growth and loss. All suburbs grew early in the period studied, but older suburbs stabilized in the 1960s. Among city areas and suburbs, familism is a strong predictor of growth. Many areas in the city began to lose population in the 1950s, with accelerated loss in the following decade. City areas undergoing racial change in the 1950s lost population rapidly in the following decade. We conclude that the succession model, which is embedded in Burgess' city growth model, no longer accounts for change at the subcommunity level. Thus, the research confirms the life-cycle model but also points to the need for a new macro model of a nongrowing metropolis.     

Organizational Change as a Paradigm Shift*

Organizational change may be considered as analogous to scientific change. Kuhn's analysis of scientific activities as paradigm guided is applied to an organizational framework to suggest that organizational activities may be understood in the same fashion. This perspective is briefly applied to the current controversy in health care. Research attention is directed toward the use of knowledge in organizational activities and in health care in particular.     

Continuity and Change in Durkheim's Theory of Social Solidarity*

This paper examines the controversial question of whether the theory of social solidarity contained in The Division of Labor in Society remained crucial to Durkheim's thinking after the book's publication in 1893. It is argued that this theory is rooted in a number of assumptions concerning primitive social life, the boundaries between nature and culture, and human nature. An analysis of material written after 1902 shows that Durkheim revised his approach to these topics to such an extent that he appears to be in the process of constructing a new theoretical framework for the investigation of social solidarity. In both the early and the later theories, however, the models of primitive social behavior, though different, perform similar intellectual functions.