Social Mobility and Participation: The Dissociative and Socialization Hypotheses*

Information on participation with kin, with friends, and in voluntary associations was used to test two competing hypothescs of the effects of social mobility on social relations. The dissociative hypothesis maintains that mobility leads to social isolation, while the socialization hypothesis predicts an adptive outcome to mobility. The relationship is more complex than either position would suggest. Social mobility is associated with isolation from kin and friends, but only for the upwardly mobile. The findings obtained with voluntary associations support the socialization hypothesis in that the level of membership of the socially mobile is intermediate between the two stable groups. Social mobility has maladaptive consequences for more intimate and personal social relations, but it is integrative as far as participation in voluntary associations is concerned.     

Multi-Organizational Fields and Social Movement Organization Frame Content: The Religious Fro-Choice Movement*

As an explanatory method in studies of social movements, analyses of collective action frames have generally focused on the variable efficacy of the frames of social movement organizations (SMOs)in the mobilization of potential participants. However, this work has for practical reasons used the acknowledged analytic simplification that SMOs only target potential participants–and not opponents, elite decision makers, or the media–when constructing their frames. To incorporate multiple targets into future studies of SMO frame construction, this paper expands on the idea of a multi-organizational field. I propose that the characteristics of the targets in the field and the social structural and cognitive boundaries between them determine SMO frames. This perspective is demonstrated by analyzing changes in the collective action frames of SMOs in the religious pro-choice movement from 1967 to 1992. I argue that this perspective may explain findings where a frame fails to “resonate” with potential participants–the frame may not have been created with them in mind.     

The Routinization of Social Movement Organizations: China as a Deviant Case*

This paper has two purposes: (1) to show how previous work in complex organizations, social movements and political development converges to predict routinization of successful social movement organizations, and (2) to explore the Chinese experiment in organization as a deviant case for the “law” of routinization. First, theories from three substantive areas are shown to predict routinization of social movement organizations. Next, an alternative model of organization, the Maoist model, is presented. Then, recent social history of China is examined to see if the model has been implemented. Lastly, several generalizations about the routinization process are drawn from the Chinese case.     

Mobilizing Voluntary Associations into a Social Movement: The Case of Environmental Quality*

The mobilization behavior of voluntary associations in a community was studied to explain why some organizations were successfully recruited into the environmental quality movement and others were not. Analysis of a random sample of 209 community organizations in a midwest urban area showed that approximately half were mobilized into supporting the environmental quality movement. Hypotheses on the effects of goal overlap, organizational resources, and position in the multi-organizational field were tested. The significant factors were the size of the manpower base, the leader's personal mobilization into the environmental quality movement and the allocation of social responsibility among community groups for solving local pollution probems. The last factor—the acceptance or rejection of group responsibility for working for the collective good—emerged as the most important explanatory factor. Thirty-one percent of the variance in the mobilization of organizational interest and 22 percent of the variance in the mobilization of group activity was explained.     

The Interaction of Grievances and Structures in Social Movement Analysis: The Case of JUST*

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 anoiuci 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.     

The Social Dynamics of Technical Innovation in the Computing World*

The “computing world,” all those people and groups that collectively produce computers and computer-based services is an especially complex, dynamic and diffuse social world. Technical innovation is a dominant feature of the world. It is organized to provide a continuous flow of innovations from participants who specialize in innovation through many other participants to the final consumers of computer-based services. Technical innovations often flow across a large number of “markets” which are composed of only a few classes of participants such as “innovators” and “vendors” or of “users” and “consumers.” This paper identifies the major orientations taken on by participants in the computing world and examines some of the markets across which innovations are negotiated. The computing world is organized so that each market is biased in favor of innovations moving from suppliers to their customers. From this viewpoint, “innovation” is a dominant structural interest in computing around which participants organize their activities and to which they must continually adjust.     

Local Chapter Outposts: A Dilemma for Federated Social Movement Organizations*

Although there has been a significant shift toward decentralized forms of social movement organizations (SMOs), the federated form is still quite active and deserves further study. In particular, the role of the local chapter in relation to its national office can be explored from new angles for additional insights into federated SMOs. I address the specific issue of isolation that is problematic for some chapters of federated SMOs. I consider these chapters to be “outposts”; isolated from national headquarters geographically, socially, culturally, politically or due to communication barriers. This outpost status creates specific difficulties over control, autonomy, coordination, and resources. “SMO Outposts” are often not able or willing to carry out national goals, strategy or tactics in the prescribed manner expected from headquarters. However, SMO Outposts may also experience unexpected opportunities. My typology of SMO Outposts clarifies their characteristics and presents the challenges and opportunities they encounter under various modes of isolation. This provides for a fuller assessment of the success, organizing capability and adaptation of federated SMOs.     

A Comparative Analysis of Propositions Describing Social Movement Organizations*

Natural history, observational, and interview data from a study of two anti-pornography crusades and the social movement organizations which created and directed them are used to assess nine propositions formulated by Zald and Ash (1966) concerning the structure and dynamics of social movement organizations. The Zald-Ash propositions were formulated from the literature on national, established social movement organizations. This paper explores the applicability of the propositions to those organizations which are small and emerging. The propositions are generally supported. Discrepancies are accounted for by the significant influence of leadership orientation, goal specificity, and incentive structure in determining other structural and dynamic characteristics of small or emerging social movement organizations.     

The Role of Social Capital in Educational Aspirations of Rural Youth*

Drawing on a recent national survey of rural high school students, this study investigated the relationship between social capital and educational aspirations of rural youth. Results showed that various process features of family and school social capital were important for predicting rural youths' educational aspirations beyond sociodemographic background. In particular, parents' and teachers' educational expectations for their child and student, respectively, were positively related to educational aspirations of rural youth. In addition, discussion with parents about college was positively related to educational aspirations of rural youth. On the other hand, there was little evidence to suggest that number of siblings and school proportions of students eligible for free lunch and minority students are related to educational aspirations of rural youth, after controlling for the other variables. We highlight unique features of rural families, schools, and communities that may combine to explain the complexity of the role of social capital in shaping educational aspirations of rural youth.     

The Functional Theory of Stratification: a Test of Some Structural Hypotheses*

A review of previous attempts to test hypotheses derived from the functional theory of stratification suggests that to test the theory as formulated by Davis and Moore, the unit of analysis must be the position rather than the individual: indices of the theoretical concepts must be measures of the stratification structure itself rather than perceptions of that structure: and a universe or representative sample of positions must be used to determine if the relationships specified by the theory are applicable throughout a society's labor force. This paper reports a test of the functional theory that attempts to meet these specifications. Three related models are deduced from the theory and tested: (a) a model in which functional importance and change in skill are presumed to antecede change in reward and change in prestige; (b) a second model in which the dependent variables are additionally influenced by the interaction of functional importance and change in skill; and (c) a third model in which possible reciprocal effects of functional importance and skill are estimated using longitudinal data. The predictions of the functional theory concerning the effects of functional importance are not supported by the data.     

Community Organization and Social Activism: Black Boston and the Antislavery Movement*

This paper uses data from an intensive study of Boston's antebellum black community to demonstrate how sustained social activism is embedded in the formal and informal institutions of the community. The social networks of cooperative institutions were primary factors in this community's ability to mobilize and sustain protest actions and to call attention to social injustice. This examination of antebellum black Boston indicates that the issue of slavery was crucial to social activism. This suggests that the presence of a salient issue which links the everyday lives of participants with a public issue may be an important factor in building a social movement based in a poor, relatively powerless community.     

Social Movement Radicalization: the Case of the People's Democracy in Northern Ireland*

Most of existing literature assumes that social movement organizations will inevitably become more ideologically and tactically conservative over time. This paper presents a couterargument to this position, suggesting that many movement organizations can be shown to have grown more radical as they have developed. A definition of movement radicalization is constructed, and eight propositions concerning factors which seem to increase the likelihood that a movement organization will radicalize are presented. These factors include repressive action by the agents of social control, changes in the ideological and tactical orientations of the movement organization's constituency, codification of a radicalizing movement's ideology, a reduced likelihood of co-optation, certain aspects of the structural character of the larger society, weak internal controls over the group's members, and the presence of individual radical leaders. Each proposition is illustrated by reference to the career of a North Irish group known as the People's Democracy.     

Democratizing Rural Economy: Institutional Friction,Sustainable Struggle and the Cooperative Movement*

Abstract Sustainable development demands institutions manage the conflicts and struggles that inevitably arise over material and ideal interests. While current cooperative theory privileges the economic element, a political economy of cooperation emphasizes cooperatives' tentative bridging of economic and political spheres with a democratic ethos. The cooperatives' democratic political structure exists in tension with a capitalist economic structure and other sites of friction. These contradictions are: in the realm of social relations, between production and consumption; in the realm of spatial relations, between the local and the global; and in the realm of collective action, between cooperatives as both traditional as well as new social movements. Where neo‐classical economic models seek to eliminate or reduce these tensions, political economy views these tensions as functional to sustainability by creating an “institutional friction” that facilitates innovation, flexibility and long‐term adaptability. This political economy of cooperation is intended as a step toward the development of a multidimensional sociology of cooperation.     

The National Social Distance Study: Ten Years Later

The Bogardus social distance scale, which measures the level of acceptance that Americans feel toward members of the most common ethnic and racial groups in the United States, was administered six times nationally between 1920 and 2001. Replicating the most recent study with its revised list of ethnic and racial groups, the authors of this study analyzed a stratified random sample of 3,166 college students, making it the largest national social distance study ever conducted. The findings indicate an increase since 2001 in the mean level of social distance toward all ethnic groups, as well as in the spread between the groups with the highest and lowest levels of social distance. Further, a consistency between studies in group preferences reaffirms the relevance of the similarity‐attraction bond in accepting those who are racially and culturally different. Mean comparisons and analysis of variance tests also showed that gender, birthplace of respondents and/or their parents, race, and year in college are all significant indicators of the level of social distance toward groups.     

Frame Changes and Social Movement Contraction: U.S. Peace Movement Framing After the Cold War*

This study analyzes framing processes and their relationships with ongoing social movement change. We examine peace frames found among U.S. peace movement organizations (PMOS) in its period of contraction at the end of the Cold War. On the basis of analysis of a unique two-wave survey of US. peace movement organizations in 1988 and 1992, we assess the extent to which organizational framing of the peace problematic changed. We found an overall shift in emphases from more bilateral frames like the nuclear weapons freeze to frames emphasizing multilateralism and global interdependence. PMO frame transformations that took place between 1988 and 1992 represent a trend towards broader, more radical (or structural) and less exclusive peace movement frames. We describe the frame transformations observed here as the emergence of “retention frames.” Retention frames embody several dimensions of movement abeyance structures and serve to sustain organizational continuity across episodes of movement surges and contraction.     

流行文化对青年农民工城市化历程的影响

本文通过对某高校从事服务业的农民工群体的经验研究,探讨流行文化对青年农民工城市化历程的影响.本文认为,由于近年来中国农村流行文化新的发展特点以及青年农民工务工性质的变化,城市流行文化对青年农民工产生了双重影响.一方面,流行文化作为城市生活的表征,可以部分地弥合和消解城乡间生活方式及文化的巨大落差,而另一方面,由于工作时间、经济收入的限制,流行文化又在相当程度上阻碍着青年农民工的城市化历程.而就本文的经验研究而言,目前以城市人口为主要受众的高速发展的流行文化使得后者的影响作用更加明显.