Small area indicators and social change

This article examines the relevance of measures of social change for small areas and how these can be used in need assessment. Specifically, this article explicates the problems of selecting a limited group of indicators from among the broad panoply of indicators available, and of determining the different kinds of information provided by indicators controlling for the level of aggregation. The use of small area social indicators to do need assessment is illustrated using data from the 1970 and 1980 Health Demographic Profile System.     

Deterrence and the Morally Committed*

The deterrence literature suggests that perceptions of the threat of legal sanctions influence the extent of involvement in illegal behavior only among those individuals who have not internalized legal norms. Individuals who are morally committed to a norm will not violate it, regardless of their perceptions of the certainty and severity of legal sanctions. We argue that this hypothesis relegates coercion to a position of secondary importance in a theory of social control; and we offer a rationale for an alternative hypothesis that perceived sanction threat has a deterrent effect at all levels of moral commitment. Our analysis, using refined measures of the variables which have emerged in recent research, supports our alternative hypothesis.     

Professional Orientation, Associational Membership, and Teacher Militancy

Using work orientation and organizational membership as critical variables, the author developed a model to explain teacher militancy. It was hypothesized that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members would be more professionally oriented than the National Education Association (NEA) members; furthermore, that the more professionally oriented teachers would be more alienated, would have more frequent conflict with the administration of the school system, and would be more militant. The findings supported these hypotheses. However, within the work orientation categories there were some unanticipated findings. For AFT members, the "Professionally Oriented" members were the more alienated, had more frequent conflicts with the administration, and were more militant. For NEA members, the "Job Bureaucrats," and not the "Professionally Oriented," were found to be more alienated, to have more frequent conflicts with the administration, and to be more militant. The data suggest that AFT and NEA members hold quite different definitions of professionalism and of the appropriate role of the public school teacher.     

A Study of Reputational Community Leaders Using The Concepts of Exchange and Coordinative Positions*

The general purposes of this study were to investigate the group and organizational affiliates of reputed community leaders in a rural community. The specific hypotheses were that the higher one is ranked as a reputational leader, (1) the more exchange influence he will likely have accumulated through occupying economic, kinship, occupational, ownership, and political-governmental positions which are reputedly influential in the community, (2) the more likely he is to be an active participant in formal and/or informal coordinative interstitial groups in the community, and (3) the more likely he is to be an active participant in those formal coordinative groups which are reputed to be influential over community affairs. The hypotheses were tested by comparing the sets of rankings of twenty-eight reputational leaders with (1) their rankings in terms of exchange positions scores, (2) their rankings in terms of social participation scores, and (3) their rankings in terms of weighted social participation scores. The results of the study tended to support the hypotheses, as stated, for the community involved.     

The Occupational Prestige Structure: a Multidimensional Scaling Approach

Occupational prestige scores are one of the more frequently used variables in sociological research. However, the methods which have been employed in the past to obtain such scores are based on the implicit assumption that the occupational prestige structure is unidimensional. The technique of smallest space analysis, which makes no assumption about dimensionality, suggests that this previous assumption has produced a somewhat inaccurate picture of the occupational prestige structure.     

Abortion: rights or technicalities? A comparison of Roe v. Wade with the abortion decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court

A comparison of the difference in approach, philosophy, and percepti on of social implications of abortion in the United States and Germany is examined by contrasting the Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court with the abortion decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Roe v. Wade effectively established abortion on demand prior to "viability" (approximately 6 months) and makes it difficult to prevent it for any reason at any time prior to live birth. When the West German Federal Diet passed the Fifth Law for the Reform of the Penal Code which allowed abortion on request up to 12 weeks of conception and for reasons of maternal health up to 22 weeks, the Constitutional Court declared it null and void 8 months later. The 2 courts reached their decisions for quite different reasons. In the U.S. "Jane Roe" was a real, though anonymous, woman. Other real persons had been trying to overturn abortion statutues in various states. The German court acted on a petition brought by 193 members of the Federal Diet and 4 of the states. It was thus, under the German system, obligated to decide the constitutionality of the revisions in abortion legislation and the decision returned the question to the legislative body. The fundamental difference between the German and the American approach is the "right to life." In America the conflict is between the mother's "right to privacy" and the compelling interest of the state to protect the right to life. At no point does the U.S. Supreme Court consider whether the unborn has rights but only whether they constitute a value the protection of which is a legitimate state interest. In Germany, by contrast, the Federal Constitution explicitly establishes the right to life as a subjective human right; the state not only has no right to take life but acknowledges that this right belongs to the human being himself. The U.S. court reasoned that the unborn have been protected "only" for the last century while the German court stated the right has "already" been recognized for a century. The U.S. Court made no mention of the wider social implications of the decision except for a few brief references; the German court's major consideration was the social implication of the law. An appendix with 6 refs. give a translation of the German court's decision.