DETERMINANTS OF INDIVIDUAL NEIGHBORHOOD TIES AND SOCIAL RESOURCES IN POOR URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Studies on life in poor urban neighborhoods suggest the importance of kin and non-kin ties for support. Research also notes the dearth of certain ties that are important to locate economic and social resources. This research evaluates the determinants of certain types of social resources for residents in poor urban neighborhoods. Specifically, I consider the relationship between five types of neighborhood ties for residents--religious, kin, friendship, neighbor, and informal jobs--as well as race/ethnicity, and neighborhood poverty and social resources. Using the Urban Poverty & Family Life Survey and OLS and logistic regression analyses, results show religious and friendship ties are important predictors of individual social resources and support. Also, neighborhood poverty is insignificant in most of the analyses and when it is important, residents in more impoverished areas are more likely to seek out social resources than their counterparts in non-poor and moderately poor areas. These findings support variants of Compression and Composition theories as possibleexemplars for explaining ways in which residents secure social resources in poor urban neighborhoods.     

SOCIAL ISOLATION AND LABOR MARKET INSULATION:

This study examines the influence of neighborhood poverty and social networks on labor market experiences of less-educated urban job seekers. Data come from the Multi-City Survey of Urban Inequality and the 1990 decennial census. Results indicate that relatively small differences in job search strategies among residents of high- and low-poverty neighborhoods are magnified in the hiring process and that supply- and demand-side factors have qualitatively different effects on earnings within these residential contexts. These results refine our understanding of social isolation by clarifying the points at which "neighborhood effects" manifest themselves in the job-matching process and suggest that social isolation is often accompanied by labor market insulation characterized by an increasing reliance upon neighbors and personal contacts for securing formal employment.     

NONPROFIT INCORPORATION AMONG MOVEMENTS OF THE POOR:

Social movement scholars have begun to note the widespread use of nonprofit incorporation by social movement organizations (SMOs) in the United States. They argue that nonprofit incorporation is a voluntary act that ultimately leads to moderation in goals and tactics. I examine this argument with ethnographic data on fifteen homeless SMOs that operated in eight U.S. cities. I identify six pathways to adoption or nonadoption of nonprofit form and find that moderation, when it occurs, is not a function of nonprofit incorporation per se but of the particular pathway by which an SMO came to adopt nonprofit form. I discuss the implications of these findings for SMOs in general and for understanding the broader debates about organizational autonomy and external control of SMOs.     

GOOD PEOPLE DOING DIRTY WORK: A STUDY OF SOCIAL ISOLATION*

Everett Hughes (1964), in his essay “Good People and Dirty Work”, implies that those who engage in dirty work may be defective in some way, a view that reflects society's perception of dirty workers. However, many of them perceive themselves to be good people doing dirty work. In this paper we examine the consequences of this disjunction between the audience's and the self's perception. We examine members of a dirty work occupation: bailbondsmen. Many of these individuals are found to be socially isolated. This isolation is the result of their belief that they have been unjustly accused of corrupt and corrupting behavior and their desire to be seen and accepted as respectable. Rejected by members of respectable society and rejecting association with like others who may taint their attempts for respectability, they become socially isolated. Ironically, by proclaiming their innocence they, unlike their truly accused counterparts, find little social support or possibility of becoming integrated into respectable society.     

THE URBAN BLACK COMMUNITY AS NETWORK: TOWARD A SOCIAL NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

The social organization of Afro-American urban communities has often been viewed in a negative manner. As an alternative to traditional approaches to urban social organization that stress "pathology," a network analytic perspective is developed. Drawing on the work of Barry Wellman, the author reconceptualizes the "community question" in network terms and examines it empirically, using survey data about the personal networks of 352 blacks who live in three Los Angeles metropolitan neighborhoods. The results contradict the stereotypical view of urban black communities.     

TWO CONCEPTIONS OF THE SOCIAL SITUATION:

This article appraises two images of the social situation: Blumer's symbolic interactionism and Goffman's microstructuralism. Blumer stresses the improvisational and consequently unpredictable character of social interaction, while Goffman emphasizes situational determinism along with mutual predictability through self-abnegation. The evaluation of their respective positions is based upon their relative efficacy in the analysis of data drawn from an ethnographic study of jocularity in everyday life. The results indicate more utility for Blumer's than for Goffman's image of the situation.     

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SOCIAL BOND

Travis Hirschi's control or social bonding theory argues that those persons who have strong and abiding attachments to conventional society (in the form of attachments, involvement, investment, and belief) are less likely to deviate than persons who have weak or shallow bonds. Later, Gottfredson and Hirschi moved away from the social bond as the primary factor in deviance, and toward an emphasis on self-control. In short, low self-control is associated with higher levels of deviance and criminality irrespective of the strength or weakness of one's social bonds. In this article I argue that Talcott Parsons' AGIL schema easily incorporates Hirschi's social bond into its broader analytical framework. Furthermore, from within the logical framework of Parsons' system, Hirschi's move from an emphasis on social bonds to an emphasis on self-control is wholly compatible with, and even anticipated by, the AGIL schema. The article illustrates, and argues for, the continuing importance of theoretical subsumption in sociology and criminology. Lastly, a set of testable hypotheses is generated based upon this theoretical reformulation.     

THE URBAN CONTEXT OF HISTORICAL ACTIVISM:

This article examines the contextual determinants of two types of NAACP activism between 1930 and 1939. They are the justice-oriented outreach of insurgency (e.g., a civil rights rally), and chapter-building activities (e.g., electing committee chairpersons). Activism is analyzed using a more diverse set of factors than previous research on the sociopolitical context of social movements. Specifically, I examine historical urbanization and prior racial institutional development in 136 urban counties of the United States, about 95% of the 1930 African American urban system. WLS regression is used to provide a strong statistical basis for understanding the structural power and liberation context of these two distinct types of activism during the uniquely constrained Depression Era. Both insurgency and chapter-building activities increased due to the expanding non-southern location of African Americans and the effects of WWI-era declines in the population of foreign-born hites. They declined as a result of extreme racial-occupational segregation in the local area and being distant from a predominantly African American county. The factors shaping the two types of activism were not equal, in part due to both shared and non-shared determinants. A particularly instructive finding was that wage growth served as a lever of social control, being negatively related to insurgency. Viewed together, the findings clearly point to the joint influence of economic and noneconomic factors in shaping NAACP activism during the 1930s, and enhance our understanding of the broader determinants of Africans activism generally.     

THE SOCIAL MANAGEMENT OF AMBITION

This study of "the social management of ambition' (Hopper 1968) analyzes the changes in occupational expectations that occur among a group of ambitious high school seniors during the seven years after graduation. The predictions of a socialization and of a social reproduction model of the process of expectations change are compared using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. Loglinear analysis is used to estimate a model, with a focus on the roles played by race, gender, social origins, and marriage. Less than one-fifth of the original sample remained "on track' toward achieving their original goals, most often members of already advantaged groups (whites and those from upper-middle-class homes). Married women were among the "cumulatively disadvantaged,' unlike their single peers. Marriage in particular had very different consequences for members of different social groups.     

THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL SECURITY

(with an introduction by Daniel L. McFadden) The past and the present processes leading to social security legislation inform expectations regarding the future of social security, and with international comparisons, provide lessons to those who would learn them. (JEL H55)     

THE REPRODUCTION OF FAMILIES: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF FAMILY THERAPY?

Family therapy, while highlighting the significance of family functioning for individual experience and behavior, has in general failed to respond to the critical analyses of the family that have recently been developed, and particularly that offered by the women's movement. Consequently, it cannot investigate the possibility that "dysfunction" in families is actually socially created and maintained. Family therapy's failure to consider the broader contexts of family functioning, a failure that is facilitated by the use of systems theory as its major theoretical underpinning, results in an uncritical acceptance of the contemporary family form.     

THE SOCIAL PRESERVATION OF MIND: THE ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE EXPERIENCE

Data from the Alzheimer's disease (senile dementia) experience are interpreted to extend and refine George Mead's theory of mind. While Mead conceived of mind as an internal conversation, the disease experience shows that the reality-status of mind is more practical and radically dialogical in organization. Taken as collectively preserved, mind is circumscribed through agents by means of rule-guided articulations and closures. Suggestions are offered for a more fully dialogical appreciation of Mead's view.     

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL FORCES: EVIDENCE FROM THE BEHAVIOR OF FOOTBALL REFEREES

Analyzing the neutrality of referees during 12 German premier league (1. Bundesliga) soccer seasons, this paper documents evidence that social forces influence agents’ decisions. Referees, who are appointed to be impartial, tend to favor the home team by systematically awarding more stoppage time in close matches in which the home team is behind. They also favor the home team in decisions to award goals and penalty kicks. Crowd composition affects the size and the direction of the bias, and the crowd’s proximity to the field is related to the quality of refereeing. (JEL J00)     

MASTERING THE ART OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Online communication has become a central part in the communication repertoires of political actors in Western mass democracies. In Switzerland, where broadband, internet use, and media literacy are amongst the highest in the world, all major political parties run their own website and are active on social media. This article seeks to show how Swiss political parties deal with social media, how they implement it and how they use social media. The study builds on empirical data from a structural analysis of party websites, the official Facebook sites, and Twitter feeds. These social media sites were analysed for their resonance, update frequency, and thematic clusters focusing on information, mobilization, and participation. A weekly assessment of the user numbers illustrates the development of user resonance throughout the 2011 election year. While political parties claim to appreciate the dialogue and mobilization potentials of social media, they mainly use social media as an additional channel to spread information and electoral propaganda. The overall resonance is still on a very low level. The data seem to sustain the normalization hypothesis, as larger parties with more resources and voters are better able to generate effective communication and to mobilize online than small and marginal parties.     

THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF IDENTITY: METATHEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS*

Identity has emerged as a powerful contemporary concept for social and psychological approaches to the perennial question of defining the human individual. This article attempts to ground the understanding of identity by a discussion of its modes, sources, and metadynamics from a pragmatic social constructionist orientation.