Statistics In Sociology, 1950–2000: A Selective Review

Statistical methods have had a successful half-century in sociology, contributing to a greatly improved standard of scientific rigor in the discipline. I identify three overlapping postwar generations of statistical methods in sociology, based on the kinds of data they address. The first generation, which started in the late 1940s, deals with cross-tabulations and focuses on measures of association and log-linear models, perhaps the area of statistics to which sociology has contributed the most. The second generation, which began in the 1960s, deals with unit-level survey data and focuses on LISREL-type causal models and event-history analysis. The third generation, starting to emerge in the late 1980s, deals with data that do not fall easily into either of these categories, either because they have a different form, such as texts or narratives, or because dependence is a crucial aspect, as with spatial or social network data. There are many new challenges, and the area is ripe for statistical research; several major institutions have recently launched new initiatives in statistics and the social sciences.     

Recent Trends of Emigration from China: 1982–2000

Using data from several Chinese censuses and surveys, we provide a new perspective for the study of international migration. Focusing on the trends of international migration from China and Fujian province between 1982 and 2000, several findings emerge. First, Fujian and Yunnan provinces became the leading immigrant‐sending provinces in China by 2000. Second, changes in socio‐economic selectivity among emigrants from Fujian province from 1990 to 1995 are also clearly revealed in our analysis. The shift from urbanites to rural peasants among the emigrant population is particularly noteworthy. Third, in the context of Fujian province, factors such as age, education, rural/urban status, and occupation (especially the service sector) are the most important predictors of emigration. The paper ends with a discussion of the prospects of assimilation of Fujianese immigrants in destination societies.     

The Dynamics of Occupational Prestige: 1975–2000*

Les données sur l'espace urbain recueillies à Kitchener-Waterloo, en Ontario, jumelées avec celles d'une première étude réalisée en 1975, sont utilisées comme point d'observation pour analyser à nouveau la stabilité historique du prestige professionnel. L'article suggère que la structure de la courbe de distribution du prestige a été négligée en faveur de statistiques décrivant la stabilité du classement par ordre de grandeur et que le changement historique depuis environ 1975 est, du point de vue qualitatif, différent de celui des périodes antérieures. Notre hypothèse est que la courbe de distribution du prestige professionnel est devenue plus constante et que le classement par ordre de grandeur s'est nettement déplacé.
Urban-area data collected in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, twinned with an earlier study from 1975, are used as a vantage point for re-examining the historical stability of occupational prestige. The paper proposes that the shape of the prestige distribution has been neglected in favour of statistics describing stability in rank order and that historical change since around 1975 is qualitatively different than for earlier periods. Our hypothesis is that the distribution of occupational prestige has become more equal and that the rank order has shifted noticeably.     

THE RISE OF THE POPULAR INVESTOR: Financial Knowledge and Investing in England and France, 1840–1880

This article examines the knowledge frame in which financial investing became a popular, socially legitimate, and desirable activity in England and France in the nineteenth century. The empirical basis underlying the arguments of the article is provided by investor manuals, newspaper reports, advice brochures, stock price lists, financial charts, and novels from the period. The analysis focuses on the instruments and processes making possible a financial knowledge that could be legitimately acquired and utilized by separate, unrelated, individual actors dispersed over the territory. The core argument is that this knowledge should be understood as an integrative social practice—that is, as a nexus of legitimating discourses, rules, skills, and cognitive instruments that transformed financial investing into a socially desirable activity. At the same time, they generated forms of financial knowledge that were no longer embedded in local conditions, but could be transported across various contexts. The dominant modes of evaluating financial securities include the new instruments of balance sheet analysis, problem solving, and charts. In this integrative nexus of discourses and cognitive instruments, financial activities became first and foremost an object of knowledge. The investor's social and personal responsibilities became dependent upon his financial knowledge. This stance, together with the social desirability of financial investing and with the cognitive instruments provided to individual, dispersed actors, constitutes the ground for the expansion of financial investing. Where does he come from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend     

A failed graft: Rural sociology in New Zealand

This paper examines the attempt to transfer American-style rural sociology to New Zealand in the years between 1935 and 1957. In the first half of this period the ground was prepared through sponsorship by an influential group of intellectuals, visits by leading American rural sociologists and support from the Carnegie Foundation. Between 1944 and 1957 the attempt at transfer was made in the New Zealand Department of Agriculture, but it failed. Reasons for the failure are shown to turn on the internal institutional structure of the Department, and the way in which it was articulated with powerful interest groups.     

Ulster Protestants in New Zealand: A Bibliographic Essay

One of the most noticeable aspects of recent studies which examine Irish migration to New Zealand has been the identification of a sizeable contingent of Ulster Protestant settlers within that migrant stream. Their presence has proven to be a complicating factor in how the history of the Irish in New Zealand has been written and has made easy assumptions about the loyalty, identity, politics and ethnicity of that population impossible. This essay surveys the existing literature on New Zealand's Ulster Protestant population across a wide range of subjects while at the same time considering their apparent disappearance as a distinct ethnic grouping in the new world.     

Fringe: A Brief Genealogy of Edginess

In the Victorian period, “edginess” referred to “hardness of outline”: fringe softened, I argue here, the literal and figurative hard edges of that historical moment. In the 20th century, edginess moves inside the subject: it connotes irritability. This etymological journey from the literal to the figurative, and from the outside to the inside, traces a larger cultural trend I wish to resist. The prescribed reliance on metaphor and irony in modernist and postmodernist interpretive schemes means that we have lost the ability to understand other modes of representation, including the literal—a mode that was still available in the 19th century. By performing the forbidden maneuver of taking fringe literally and interpreting it, I argue for the importance of reconsidering representational strategies we have stopped valuing, as if their obviousness makes them too clear to harbor significant meaning or to do critical psychic and cultural work.     

The Impact of Economic Freedom and Personal Freedom on Net In-Migration in the U.S.: A State-Level Empirical Analysis, 2000 to 2010

Arguably, private enterprise flourishes under conditions of increased freedom. However, increases in economic freedom can sometimes impose costs on others (negative externalities and monopoly power being prominent examples). Nevertheless, on balance, it is typically expected that the greater the degree of economic freedom, the more successfully and efficiently markets perform and the greater the prosperity created through private enterprise. These net outcomes from greater freedom accelerate economic growth and development, which in turn creates opportunities for yet further success. From a different perspective, it can be argued that greater personal freedom promotes higher levels of utility for consumers in non-economic ways. Accordingly, the present study empirically investigates whether the prospects of greater economic freedom and/or greater personal freedom in any given state vis-à-vis other states act(s) to induce a greater net influx of migrants. This empirical study of internal U.S. migration over the study period from 2000 to 2010 finds clear evidence that migrants prefer to move to those states with greater economic freedom on the one hand and greater personal freedom on the other hand.     

The Role of <Emphasis Type="Italic">New Zealand Sociology</Emphasis> in Developing New Zealand Sociology

Journals may set themselves one or several of a range of missions, but often a national Sociology Association’s journal is concerned to be a vehicle assisting in the shaping of that country’s ‘national sociology’, while maintaining some openness to international sociology. This personalised case study of New Zealand’s sociology journal discusses the extent to which this mission has been achieved over the last decade and more generally over the journal’s history, and the nitty-gritty of challenges and operational issues involved in carrying this out.     

Sexual Harassment in Small‐Town New Zealand: A Qualitative Study of Three Contrasting Organizations

This research investigates women's experiences of sexual harassment in three different organizations in the same New Zealand town. Women working at the local meat‐processing plant, a retail store and a local bank were interviewed about their personal experiences of sexual harassment. The interviews revealed that sexual harassment took different forms and was interpreted and responded to differently in each organization. Women at the meatworks were often socially isolated from other women and had few effective strategies for combating the verbal and physical harassment collectively perpetrated by male employees. In contrast, women at the store had a range of collective coping strategies which enabled them to regard harassment from fellow‐workers and customers as an irritant rather than a serious threat. Women at the bank also had various collective coping strategies, but were more constrained by customer service norms in the organization. These findings are discussed in relation to three key themes; firstly, the influence of the local environment on organizational life; secondly, the effects of differing organizational structures and cultures on the expression and interpretation of sexual harassment and thirdly, the effectiveness of the various ‘communities of coping’ which women develop to combat sexual harassment in the workplace.     

Rural restructuring and agriculture-rural economy linkages: A New Zealand study

Rapid rural restructuring in New Zealand has occurred following government policy changes in the mid-1980s. This paper seeks to explore the impact of these events on agriculture-rural economy linkages, with a study of a rural service town in Southland, the southernmost region of the South Island. The findings show that the town experienced recession soon after agricultural deregulation due to cutbacks in farmer expenditure. The responses of a range of agriculturally-related businesses, and also community responses to recession, are explored through documentary research and in-depth interviews. It is concluded that deregulation has altered agricultural-rural economy linkages but has not lessened their importance.     

Exposure to Suicide Movies and Suicide Attempts: A Research Note

Research on the impact of exposure to suicide movies on suicidality has been marked by three limitations. It is largely based on (1) aggregate data subject to the ecological fallacy, (2) exposure to a single movie, and (3) relative lack of controls for psychological states and social factors linked to suicide. The present study addresses these gaps. It follows a modified Beach method and assesses the impact of cumulative, voluntary exposure to suicide movies on suicide attempts. The subjects are 260 undergraduates at a midwestern university. The dependent variable is a previous suicide attempt. Cumulative exposure to suicide movies is based on self-reports. Controls include religiosity, depression, burdensomeness, and demographics. A multivariate logistic regression analysis determined that, controlling for other predictors, for each additional movie exposure the risk of attempted suicide increased by 47.6 percent. This is the first investigation to demonstrate a link between cumulative, voluntary exposure to suicide movies on suicidality.     

Ethnic Entrepreneurship Among Indian Women in New Zealand: A Bittersweet Process

This research article explores the lived‐in and lived‐through experiences of Indian women entrepreneurs in New Zealand in the context of ethnic entrepreneurship. Through a four‐stage model emerging from qualitative interviews, the article illuminates the bittersweet entrepreneurial process of ethnic minority migrant women. The four stages are: the low permeability for entry into the job market for ethnic minority migrant women; underemployment; setting up a micro‐enterprise and expanding the business and creating employment for others, primarily co‐ethnics as well as an expanding customer base. A combination of factors ranging from perceived discrimination, low self esteem and feelings of being devalued, to ethnic networks and lack of access/knowledge of government resources and the entry of women from Indian business families feed into each of the four stages of this model. The article offers an analysis of minority voices, along with implications for future research.