The American commune and the American mythology

While the symbolic value of community has long been recognized, most of the attention to date has focussed on the symbolic content of the American small town, taken as representing the most fundamental and lasting values and characteristics of the American Way of Life (Vidich and Bensman, 1968, Caplowet al., 1982).Here it is argued that communities existing not in the cultural center but rather on the periphery also contain symbolic potency and are so interpreted by the dominant society. As is demonstrated by the case of the Amana Colonies, such communities represent the Other within. They present both the possibility of cultural alternatives and the ultimate victory of mainstream values and structures. The tension between history and myth, community and society, is then related to interpretation of other communal societies and their relationship to the dominant American society.For helpful comments on an earlier version, I would like to thank David Bouchier and Maren Lockwood Carden.     

Communication apprehension and reactions to proxemic violations

An experiment was designed to examine the role of a person's predispositions toward communication in reactions to violations of proxemic expectations. Working with Burgoon's (1983) violations of nonverbal expectations model, Buller and Burgoon (1986) predicted that predispositions may bias evaluations of initiator reward and violation valence. Apprehensive individuals should unfavorably evaluate the initiator, negatively valence a violation and comply less, while nonapprehensive individuals should favorably evaluate the initiator, positively valence a violation, and comply more. Alternately, this paper proposes that predispositions may affect arousal-induction rather than initiator evaluation and violation valencing. Following Patterson (1983), apprehensives should experience more arousal and comply more to reduce the arousal, whereas nonapprehensives should experience less arousal and comply less. Four initiators engaged 90 subjects in experimental conversations which ended with a request for the subjects' signature on a petition. Initiators either remained at the normative distance, moved one seat closer, or moved one seat farther from the subject. Results showed that apprehensives and subjects experiencing close violations complied more, suggesting that communication apprehension influences arousal-induction. Communication apprehension had no main effect on perceptions of initiator attractiveness and similarity, implying that arousal not perceptions of the initiator is affected by predispositions toward communication. Initiator gender again emerged as an important characteristic which influences a subject's perceptions of initiator reward.     

Recent trends in the process of stratification

Using the 14 annual cross-sections from the General Social Survey, we specify a "basic model" of attainment and describe the year-by-year fluctuations in its parameters. The results are partially consistent with theories describing the gradual growth of universalistic patterns of stratification and mobility. Under a linear model of educational achievement, we find that the direct effects of race are weakening and the returns to class-based advantages are declining in tandem. The contours of the socioeconomic "gender gap" are also changing in important ways, with the male intercept declining at a rapid pace and the female term registering small and insignificant year-by-year gains. At the same time, the returns to experience and schooling are increasing for men, whereas the corresponding returns for women have remained stable over the 15-year period. This pattern of interaction effects implies that the size of the gender gap varies over time and across different population groups.     

Ropes course training for youth in a rural setting: “At first I thought it was going to be boring ...”

Outdoor structured activities, such as Ropes Challenge Courses, are typically utilized as interventions for youth coming from urban settings. Evaluation of such programs is scanty at best. In this instance, the course experience is used as a prevention tool for high risk youth in a remote, rural setting of high unemployment, alcohol problems, and low income. The authors discuss the effectiveness of this approach, and the intended and unintended consequences for the rural community at large. The evaluation design relies on extensive qualitative methodology as well as quantitative methods to capture the unique nature of this rural project.     

Is There a Forest Transition? Deforestation,Reforestation, and Development1

Abstract Environmental social scientists have recently begun to use the term 'forest transition' to describe how forest cover changes as economic development occurs in nations. The hypothesized transition occurs as follows. An initial surge in economic activity in impoverished societies spurs deforestation, but as economic activity continues to intensify and cities grow larger, a 'turnaround' occurs, and deforestation gives way to reforestation. This paper uses cross-national data from five successive surveys of world forest resources to assess this empirical claim. A turnaround in forest cover trends does occur in a significant number of nations. The paper also evaluates two explanations for the turnaround, a wood scarcity hypothesis derived from microeconomic theory and an industrialization hypothesis linked to central place theory. It finds period specific support for the industrialization hypothesis. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of these findings for proposals to alleviate the biodiversity crisis through programs of reforestation.     

Power, Politics, and the Framing of Environmental Illness

The medical community, along with other government agencies, has created its own frame of environmental illness. This frame has been generally accepted by the American public. In this paper we discuss framing in general and the factors related to how the environmental illness frame has been constructed and maintained. We offer a brief history of the medical institution and illustrate the frame with its definitions of environmental illness. Qualitative data from a study of Oak Ridge, a contaminated community located in Tennessee, are examined to analyze the consequences of challenging the environmental illness frame. Implications for future research are discussed.