Rock ‘n’ Roll Music as a Timepiece

This essay illustrates the value of time in understanding baby boomers' experiences of rock ‘n’ roll. In a distinctively interactionist style, I use time as a sensitizing concept in my research on this phenomenon. The orientation that guides this research is methodological tourism, by which the researcher treats something as common and taken‐for‐granted as rock ‘n’ roll music in everyday life as strange if not exotic. Structurally, songs about time constitute the most visible temporal structures in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Interactionally, I will argue that the concept of the cohort is more useful than that of the decade for an interpretive analysis of musical nostalgia, a key feature of the phenomenon in question. Illustrations of the reflexive relationship between rock ‘n’ roll and time in middle age include using awareness of recent deaths of rock ‘n’ roll performers to interpret the existential significance of aging; using rock ‘n’ roll songs as benchmarks for significant events such as birthdays and anniversaries, as well as gift giving for these events; and using rock ‘n’ roll music to pass the time.     

Infants' Responses to Gender‐Inconsistent Events

Toddlers' knowledge of the stereotyping of traditionally feminine and masculine household activities was examined using the preferential looking paradigm. Seventy‐seven 24‐month‐old infants observed a series of 9 pairs of photographs, each portraying a male and female adult engaged in the same stereotyped or gender‐neutral activity (e.g., ironing, hammering, or reading). Longer looking times were predicted on stimuli inconsistent with gender stereotypes (e.g., looking longer at the man putting on lipstick than at the woman). The results suggested that toddlers have acquired some knowledge of the gender stereotyping of feminine activities by their 2nd birthday.     

Other Attractions in Vietnam

This paper analyses the place of highland ethnic minorities in Vietnamese visual culture. For decades, artists have appropriated markers of ethnic difference in propaganda posters about national unity and progress. Vietnamese notions of ethnic groups draw on a historical trajectory that involves colonial racial classifications as well as the anti-colonial notion of 'the people'. The inclusion of ethnic minorities in official portrayals of the people draws on the historical conditions of nation building and an armed struggle for independence. Equally important, the visual appropriation of the markers of ethnic and national difference projects national progress through the mapping of backwardness on highland ethnic groups. The recent emergence of the same ethnic markers as an international tourist attraction draws on similar progressivist narratives, and the growing market in souvenirs recycles visual exercises in national unity as a just-discovered Other Vietnam.     

Constructivist self-development theory: a theoretical framework for assessing and treating traumatized college students.

The authors present a new conceptual framework for assessing and treating traumatized college students. The framework, constructivist self-development theory (CSDT), blends object relations, self-psychology, and social cognition theories. It is founded upon a constructivist view of trauma in which the individual's unique history shapes his or her experience of traumatic events and defines the adaptation to trauma. Within this theory, the authors suggest approaches to setting the frame for trauma therapy, including stabilizing acute symptoms and setting appropriate expectations for treatment. CSDT provides a framework for the systematic assessment and practical treatment of three aspects of the self that are affected by trauma. These include self-capacities, or the ability to tolerate strong affect and regulate self-esteem; cognitive schemas, or beliefs and expectations about self and others in the areas of frame of reference (or identity and world view), safety, trust, esteem, intimacy, power, and independence; and intrusive trauma memories and related distressing affect. Finally, the authors provide guidelines for assessing the need for longer term treatment.     

In Whose Backyard?: Concern About Siting a Nuclear Waste Facility*

Proponents of hazardous and nuclear waste depositories label opponents to local siting of such facilities “NIMBYs” (Not In My Backyard). This study assesses the extent to which the NIMBY label and the strategies of industry proponents to reduce opposition function on a reasonable set of assumptions. Using survey data and multiple regression techniques, the levels of concern of residents living in the county selected as the site of a low level radioactive waste disposal facility (imminent threat condition) are compared with a statewide sample (hypothetical threat condition). Consistent with proponents' theoretical assumptions, the levels of concern are greater for respondents under conditions of imminent threat than of hypothetical threat. However, within the host county, levels of concern are lowest, albeit most polarized, in the community closest to the proposed site. A conflict theory approach enhances an understanding of these findings by suggesting that within the most proximate community levels of concern are lowest for citizens who stand to gain the most economic benefits from the facility but highest for those citizens who are least likely to derive tangible gains.     

Factors Associated with the Development of Nonmetropolitan Growth Nodes in Producer Services Industries, 1980–1990*

Abstract Over the 1980–1990 period, employment in producer services industries in the nonmetropolitan United States increased substantially. This growth resulted in the development of nonmetropolitan growth nodes in producer services industries. A growth node refers to a nonmetropolitan area that contains a greater than average concentration of employment in a particular industry sector relative to other nonmetropolitan areas. Moreover, this industry concentration not only increases over time, but also represents an important source of employment growth within the area. With nonmetropolitan counties as the spatial unit of analysis, 317 growth nodes in producer services industries are identified for the 1980–1990 period. Access to workers with clerical and administrative support skills, access to highly educated workers, higher earnings per employed worker, access to recreational amenities, and proximity to metropolitan areas were associated with the development of nonmetropolitan growth nodes in producer services industries during this period.     

The Texaco racial discrimination case and shareholder wealth

We analyze the wealth ejfects of the Texaco racial discrimination lawsuit both on the shareholders of Texaco and its major U.S. competitors. Employing a comprehensive data set which included every case docket entry and every Wall Street Journal article on the case as an experimental stimulus, our findings suggest that the overall cost of the case to Texaco shareholders exceeded $500 million, that Texaco's tribulations had little, if any, impact on the share prices of its major competitors, and that Wall Street Journal coverage of the case was highly correlated with significant changes in Texaco stock prices. This last finding provides significant support for Hite 's suppostion that newspaper editors “key ” on ex post stock price changes in selecting the events to be covered in the next day's edition. The authors are grateful to Kee Chung for helpful comments on earlier drafts and also acknowlege the help-ful assistance of the staff of the law library at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at The University of Memphis.     

Review Essay: The Political Sociology of Nader and Chomsky

Sociological Forum -     

Toward the development of an adolescent gambling problem severity scale

The development and initial psychometric properties of an adolescent gambling problem severity measure are described. The scale, based on a revision of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (Lesieur & Blume, 1987), was administered to 1,101 older (ages 15 to 18) Minnesota adolescents as part of a state-wide gambling survey. Study results indicated that the scale had moderate internal consistency reliability and was significantly related to alternate measures of problem severity for male subjects. Because the rate and severity of gambling among females was very low, the psychometric adequacy of the scale for females is not known at this time. The implications of study findings to the conceptual understanding of adolescent gambling problem severity as well as study limitations and future research needs, are discussed.Support for the study was provided by the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Center for Addiction Studies, University of Minnesota, Duluth. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance from Robert Blum, Linda Harris, Durand Jacobs, J. Laundergan, Alan Mathiason, Brenda Miller, James Schaefer, school officials from the participating high schools, and interviewers who assisted with the telephone survey.     

The Role of Family Income in the Intergenerational Association of AFDC Receipt

Daughters from low‐income families who did not receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) are compared to daughters from low‐income families who did receive assistance to better account for family income in the intergenerational association of AFDC. The research models the timing of a daughter's first birth and, for those who become mothers, the number of years a daughter receives any AFDC. Women whose families received AFDC during their childhood are more likely to receive AFDC as adults relative to those women whose families did not receive AFDC. Controlling for family income in a more careful and comprehensive way than past research explains part but not all of the effects of childhood AFDC receipt. Among daughters from chronically poor families, however, parental AFDC use is not associated with additional years of AFDC participation. Although the present research cannot confirm or deny a causal role for parental welfare use, the intergenerational transmission of financial resources does explain part of the intergenerational association of welfare use.