Editorial

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis -     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., Asterie Baker Provenzo, Peter A. Zorn, Jr., Pursuing the Past: Oral History, Photographs, Family History, Cemeteries, Cemeteries Company (Menlo Park, California) Publisher: Addison-Wesley Publishing Publication date: 1904 Price: 317.05 (includes teacher's guide) Audience: elementary and secondary students, as well as general audience Reviewed by S. Rex Morrow.

John Anthony Scott, The Story of America: A National Geographic Picture Atlas National Geographic Society (Washington, D.C.) 1984 $19.95 Audience: elementary, secondary, and general audience Reviewed by S. Rex Morrow.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Author: Jacquelin Tivers and Michael Day Title: The Viking Children's World Atlas Publisher. The Viking Press-Junior Books 40 W. 23rd St. NY, NY 10010 Date of Publication: 1983 Price: $6.95 Audience: Ages 5 to 12 Introductory Atlas Reviewed by Tom Collins.

Title: Preserving America's Past. Publisher: National Geographic Society Date of Publication: 1983 Price: $6.95 Audience: Middle School to Adult Reviewed by Barbara Harris.     

Occupational Level and the Love of Money

Abstract

As an alternative to the embourgeoisement hypothesis, Goldethorpe, et al., have advanced the notion that the modern working class is privatized in social relations and money-oriented in culture. The present paper addresses itself to this latter point of money-orientedness. Presenting data from a 1973 national survey, the findings support the idea that semi-skilled and unskilled workers place a greater emphasis on money than do other occupational levels. Differences in emphasis on the importance of money are not explained when income is used as a covariate. A part of these differences is explained by education. When both education and income are controlled, differences between occupational levels vanish except for the difference between the semiskilled/unskilled and all other levels. The findings tend to support Form's hypothesis of the ‘internal stratification of the working class” with increasing industrialization.     

Expertise: Between the Scylla of certainty and the new age charybdis

Scientists should be seen as expert advisors rather than producers of certainty. The progress of scientific controversies shows both why this is the case, and why it is so little understood. Those very close to the research front are aware of the many points at which experimental procedures and theoretical arguments could be wrong. They understand the ‘expert’ quality of their conclusions. Those further distanced from the research front are unaware of the immense complexity of the research and, consequently, are more certain of the truth of science.

That scientific results are less conclusive than they are generally taken to be does not mean that ‘anything goes’. There is a difference between experts and non‐experts; it is just that experts should not be expected to agree. Scientific controversies rarely end; it is usual to find equally well qualified experts on both sides of a scientific debate long after a view has been reached throughout the larger part of the scientific community.     

Working for God and Sustainability: The Activities of Faith-Based Organizations in Kenya

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) have long played a role in international development, and are increasingly involved in environmental sustainability initiatives. Despite these contributions they have, until recently, been largely ignored in scholarship and by secular agencies. This article adds to the growing recognition of FBOs, exploring the identity and function of FBOs doing environmental and development work in Kenya through document review, qualitative questionnaires and participant observation. A diverse group of FBOs with varied identities and engaged in a broad range of activities revealed several strengths and challenges of faith-based environmental and development work. Of particular note is the key role churches and faith-based agencies can play in effecting sustainable and holistic change in Global South countries, due to their rootedness in the community, the social capital they help to produce, and the respect they receive from the people.     

Groups and individuals: conformity and diversity in the performance of gendered identities

The nature and role of social groups is a central tension in sociology. On the one hand, the idea of a group enables sociologists to locate and describe individuals in terms of characteristics that are shared with others. On the other, emphasizing the fluidity of categories such as gender or ethnicity undermines their legitimacy as ways of classifying people and, by extension, the legitimacy of categorization as a goal of sociological research. In this paper, we use a new research method known as the Imitation Game to defend the social group as a sociological concept. We show that, despite the diversity of practices that may be consistent with self‐identified membership of a group, there are also shared normative expectations – typically narrower in nature than the diversity displayed by individual group members – that shape the ways in which category membership can be discussed with, and performed to, others. Two claims follow from this. First, the Imitation Game provides a way of simultaneously revealing both the diversity and ‘groupishness’ of social groups. Second, that the social group, in the quasi‐Durkheimian sense of something that transcends the individual, remains an important concept for sociology.