Wandlungsprozesse elitärer und populärer Geschmackskultur?

For an entire century — from Veblen (1899) to Bourdieu (1982) — the representation of social status through cultural taste was theorized in terms of “undifferentiated” masses at the bottom, and exclusive elites at the top of the social scale. Using music-related survey data, however, recent American cultural sociology maintains that, increasingly, cultural articulation of social status is performed in a different way: high-status persons show a broad, even “omnivorous” range of tastes and an open mind for different musical styles, low-status persons show a narrow, even “univorous” range of tastes and a closed mind for different musical styles. Testing the hypotheses with data from German concert visitors results in different findings. First, American and German samples show strongly different levels in width of musical tastes. Second, musical highbrows, in accordance with the traditional paradigm, show less interest in popular styles than others and rather dislike such musics. Third, regression analysis reveals that structured symbolic distinction through cultural choices depends on the relative importance of a given symbolic universe for the individual. Discussion of findings takes up questions of method and refers to culturally and historically defined differences between the German and American sample. Simple transfer of “inductively” developed hypotheses into different cultural contexts is critcized as inadequate and misleading.     

European Physicians and Botanists, Indigenous Herbal Medicine in the Dutch East Indies, and Colonial Networks of Mediation

During the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, European physicians and botanists working in the Dutch East Indies displayed an eager interest in Indonesian indigenous herbal medicine or jamu, the investigation of which required them to establish contacts with local informers and mediators who could make indigenous medicine understandable to researchers. In the Dutch East Indies, these mediators were Indo-European women who had built up a medical lore with both European and Indigenous elements. The diminishing trust in the standard therapeutic measures created a window of opportunity for the investigation of Indonesian indigenous herbal medicine. The way medical knowledge circulated in the Dutch East Indies, the intermediaries who aided this circulation and the factors which impeded or facilitated it, and the ways in which European physicians and botanists legitimized indigenous herbal medicine are analyzed.     

Estimation of a linear model in transformed variables under microaggregation by individual ranking

We consider the least squares estimation of a linear regression model in transformed variables from a data set that has been microaggregated by means of the individual ranking method. It is shown that the least squares estimators are consistent even in the case where variable transformations are carried out after microaggregation. Applying individual ranking techniques to a data set thus guarantees the analytical validity of the microaggregated data for a wide class of statistical models.     

Self-perceived origins of attitudes toward homosexuality

Undergraduate students (N = 417) at a large southern university responded to open-ended questions designed to assess self-perceived origins of attitudes toward homosexuality and circumstances that may prompt a shift in attitudes. Inductively coded responses pointed to a positive correlation between attitudes toward homosexuality and experience interacting with gay men or lesbians; this is discussed in the context of Allport's (1954 ) contact hypothesis and Herek's (1984 , 1986 ) theory of functional attitudes. Implications are discussed for education and intervention efforts aimed at facilitating understanding and tolerance of gay men and lesbians.     

“Hard workers” and labor restrictions

This paper analyzes the effects of changes in relative bargaining power within two-member households participating in labor and product markets. The most striking effects occur when household members differ in individual preferences and enjoy positive leisure-dependent externalities. For instance, a global change in relative bargaining power where the hardworking member becomes more influential in each working class household can render the working class worse off. Moreover, we show that restrictions on labor supply can prevent hard workers from exerting too much pressure on their hedonistic partners to work more. A restriction on individual labor supply improves welfare of the working class population, which adds a new twist to the literature on why working hours are limited in many European countries.     

The ASA survey of graduate programs: Some problems with unproblematic responses

The most remarkable finding of the American Sociological Association’s first survey of graduate departments in sociology was the striking similarity among programs in terms of course requirements, the number of credits, thesis requirements, and other formal procedures that lead to the M.A. and Ph.D. Moreover, when asked to identify problems with their graduate programs, respondents were much more likely to mention the quality of students and the shrinking of budgets than the content or organization of their programs. The authors suggest that the apparent absence of problems may in itself be a matter of concern for the discipline.