The mouse that roared? Article publishing in undergraduate sociology programs

This paper explores article production by the entire population of US undergraduate sociology departments. The available literature suggests that undergraduate programs publish little, that this is concentrated among relatively few—mainly liberal arts—departments, and that publication rates are increasing. We argue There are reasons to expect that social/economic presence, reward policies, student quality, and faculty quality, size, and workload will affect productivity. Tracing publication of articles across the 1990s, few undergraduate departments are represented in 30 journals deemed important on the bases of reputation and citation rates. Liberal arts schools do not predominate. Ceteris paribus, public schools outpublished private schools. Publication rates have not increased. Social/economic presence, and student and faculty quality affect publishing, but salary, tenure structure, and workload do not. Finally, faculty size suppresses per capita publication.     

The social construction of ‘Middle England’: The politics of participation in forward planning

In this paper we wish to examine how social actors represent the rural community and the rural environment in the context of the planning system, specifically within the review process of a development plan. In particular, we focus on the role residential, environmental and amenity groups play in stabilizing certain features of rural society and environment and their reasons for seeking such stabilization. We explore their motivations for engaging in political activity of this kind, some of the constraints they encounter along the way and how they attempt to overcome these in order to shape their own local environments, and, in the process, their community.     

Adolescent alienation: Evaluating the hypotheses

Statistics reveal the steady, long-term, increase of self-and-other-destructive conduct among American youths. The conduct involved includes suicide, homicide, out-of-wedlock births, drug abuse and recorded crimes. A variety of hypotheses have been proposed to interpret this conduct — and to indicate possible remedies. Some of these hypotheses are briefly characterized, generally evaluated, and rejected. One hypothesis, the so-called youth bulge theory, suggests that the conduct is due to a disproportinate relationship between the youth population and the adult population; this disproportion — the so-called youth bulge — ultimately led to various modes of youth alienation. The youth bulge hypothesis was tested through a regression analysis which estimated the contemporaneous relationship between a measure of adolescent disorder (the youth suicide rate over time) and the proportion of youths to adults. A statistically significant but small relationship was found between the two variables. The implications of this conclusion are briefly sketched.     

Toward a unified theory of ethnic antagonism: A preliminary synthesis of three macro models

This study analyzes and compares the Marxist-class, prejudice-discrimination, and middleman minority theories of ethnic antagonism by extracting the key endogenous variables in each and presenting them in abstract models. Then, a composite model is developed in a preliminary effort to combine the essential elements of the theories. In turn, this composite model is used to develop five abstract propositions on the underlying dynamics of all ethnic antagonism. These propositions argue that competition, perceptions of threat, discrimination, identifiability, and stigmatization are the basic dynamics in all ethnic antagonism. The composite model and abstract propositions are viewed as a starting point for the analysis of the common processes inhering in diverse historical/empirical cases.     

A DIAGNOSIS FOR OUR TIMES:

This paper explores two submerged networks in the Pittsburgh area alternative health movement through the use of thirty two intensive interviews and ethnographic research. Utilizing Jürgen Habermas's colonization theory as well as Alberto Melucci's emphasis on the process of collective identity formation, the paper describes a "conservative Christian' and a culturally progressive network demonstrating how these networks differ and what they have in common. The paper examines how new oppositional identities and meanings emerge from face to face interactions between alternative practitioners, patients and activists in a variety of settings. Overall, the paper argues that resistance to the "medical industrial complex,' one leading instrument of "colonization,' is coming from the Christian right as well as elements of the cultural left.     

Classical Statements on Geopolitics and the Aftermath of War

The relationship among geopolitical position, political legitimacy, and internal conflict has been rejuvenated as a topic of theoretical interest. This revival of interest has, to a degree, borrowed from earlier theories, but the implications of these earlier theories have not been fully explored. In this article the classical geopolitical statements of Herbert Spencer and Max Weber are modeled to highlight their continued relevance to sociological theories that address the relationship between geopolitics and internal societal processes.     

Doctoral Theses 1954-1996

The present article centres on a group of Indonesians and Australians who are members of a gamelan ensemble based at the Consulate of the Republic of Indonesia in Perth, Western Australia. By examining why Australians and Indonesians choose to participate in this musical community, the article investigates how these individuals negotiate and construct musical identities to give local meaning to gamelan in the West Australian context.