Narrative Mapping of Social Worlds: The Voice of Experience in Alcoholics Anonymous

At the threshold of an unfamiliar social world, newcomers may seek knowledgeable or experienced others for orientation, information, and advice. Oldtimers, “pros,” and veterans, in turn, may draw upon their personal experience to offer “narrative maps” of the new psychosocial geography. The prepresentations of reality contained in narrative maps may shape newcomers' decisions, actions, and discourse. Despite their ubiquity and significance, however, narrative maps have received scant attention as a topic of sociological inquiry. The personal narratives in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous provide a rich opportunity to explore how experienced members articulate a version of the past, population, practices, and problems of a new world. The contexts, uses, and consequences of narrative mapping are considered.     

Sociology and the Prosaic

The sociology of Erving Goffman is examined, including those who influenced his work as well as those influenced by it. Goffman's sociology is examined in terms of focus and scope, theory, and method. As much of his sociology is singular in its presentation, stylistic elements in Goffman's work are also considered.     

The life spiral

What is the relationship between the expression of human needs and the emergence of alternative adult roles? In this paper we criticize the assumptions of the life cycle model of adulthood as having only a limited repertoire of adult roles. We propose the life spiral model of adulthood to conceptualize the legitimation of alternative adult roles and the emergence of several patterns of adult life events. We present findings from interviews with 60 single adults with respect to the issues of intimacy and work to illustrate the differences between the cycle and the spiral models of adulthood.     

The Role of Joint Attention in Later Development Among Preterm Children: Linkages Between Early and Middle Childhood

Joint attention is a hallmark of human cognition. It refers to the capacity to coordinate attention to objects and events with attention to other people. Infants display considerable individual differences in this capacity. This longitudinal study of 13‐month‐old preterms was conducted to examine the hypothesis that two different types of joint‐attention skills assessed in an infant–tester paradigm are related to verbal and nonverbal IQ measures through middle childhood. Data are reported separately for the children's tendency to initiate such skills and to respond to an experimenter's offers to share in such behaviours. The results provide support for the hypothesis that the initiation of joint attention makes a unique contribution to later nonverbal IQ apart from variance associated with biomedical risk status and infant development. The results of this study have implications for the conceptualisation of joint‐attention skills, as well as for understanding the relation between joint attention and later cognition.     

AIDS Risk Behaviors among American and Australian Homeless Youth

We examined HIV/AIDS risk behaviors among homeless youth in cross-national data collected in Melbourne, Australia ( n = 398), and Los Angeles, California ( n = 498). Using structural equation modeling, we found that the Australian youth reported greater involvement in AIDS risk behaviors than the American youth and the Australian youth were more involved in intervening risk factors that promote risk behaviors and less involved with protective factors that reduce risk behaviors. Youth reporting the highest rates of delinquent behaviors also had peers engaging in delinquent acts, used alcohol and marijuana, and were more likely to utilize social services. These findings underscore the importance of having a service sector that is able to adequately address the needs of homeless youth .