ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE SAMPLE MEAN AND TRANSLATION-INVARIANT STATISTICS FOR MATRIX NORMAL DISTRIBUTIONS

We present an explicit characterization of the joint dependency structure of an n×p matrix normal random matrix such that the p-dimensional sample mean vector is independent of all translation invariant statistics.     

God is Society: the Religious Dimension of Maoism

Maoism as a politico-religious form emerged in a society in the process of disintegration. It became crystallized as a response to the demands of rapid modernization. The Maoist belief system centers around the concept "people," the ultimate sacred reality. Its ethic emphasizes ceaseless service to others, individual asceticism, and intensive practical activity as necessary to the achievement of social salvation and collective immortality. A number of ritual parallels are identified between Maoism and contemporary Christianity: the worship service and ministry, the initiation process, sin and atonement, and various initiative rituals. From an evolutionary perspective, both primitive and ultra-modern elements are identified in Maoism.     

Work Hard,Play Hard?: A Comparison of Male and Female Lawyers' Time in Paid and Unpaid Work and Participation in Leisure Activities

Les auteures tentent de déterminer le temps que les professionnels, hommes et femmes, passent à effectuer du travail rémunéré ou non, et la façon dont cela influe sur leur participation à différentes activités de loisirs. Elles se fondent sur des données provenant d'avocats professant dans différents milieux juridiques. Elles constatent que les hommes rapportent consacrer plus de temps au travail rémunéré et aux loisirs, alors que les femmes accordent plus de temps aux travaux ménagers ainsi qu'aux soins des enfants. Les résultats semblent démontrer que les occasions dans l'ensemble plus importantes de loisirs chez les hommes comparées à celles des femmes seraient attribuables à des relations inattendues entre la participation des hommes aux travaux domestiques et aux soins des enfants, et leurs activités de loisirs. Les auteures présentent différentes explications à ces résultats. There has been a considerable amount of research that documents how women and men spend their time in different work and home tasks. We examine how much time professional women and men spend in paid and unpaid work and how this relates to their participation in different leisure activities. We also explore whether time in paid and unpaid work has gender‐specific effects on leisure participation. In examining these issues, we rely on data from lawyers working in different legal settings. Our results show that, as hypothesized, men report more time in paid work and leisure whereas women devote more time to housework and childcare. An unexpected finding is that the time men spend in housework or childcare is either unrelated or positively related to their leisure participation. These results suggest that men's greater overall opportunities for leisure compared with women's appear to stem from the unanticipated relationships between men's involvement in housework and childcare and their leisure activities. We raise several possible explanations for these findings.     

Sport in Modern European History: Trajectories,Constellations, Conjunctures1

This essay reviews sport-related articles that have previously appeared in the JHS, alongside a range of other historical works, and in so doing recognizes the importance of persisting themes in the socio-cultural, historical analysis of sport. Such themes have appeared in wide-ranging socio-historical and figurational work, and also underpin the contributions to this special issue: they include the dynamics of cultural importation, diffusion and appropriation; and the cultural significance of sport in wider status and power relations. Emphasizing the compatibility of the historical and the sociological imaginations, and confirming recent positions on the integration of the cultural and the social in historical work, the article goes on to contextualize the place of sport in Europe in the period from the later decades of the nineteenth century into the fourth decade of the twentieth century. Referencing classic debates on historical method and periodization – particularly Braudel's discussions of event, conjuncture, and longue durée– the article identifies core conjunctural features of European sport in the period: internationalism/early globalization; increasing forms of mediatization; emergent individualism; and commercialized consumption and celebrity.     

The Culture of Sports

In conversation with Orlando Patterson, the editors of this special issue reflected and speculated on the nature of the historical sociologist's task and challenge. We agreed that any historical sociology concentrated upon particular events or single sports, but overlooking comparative cultural and social contexts, was narrow and over-focused. Recalling early contributions, Patterson notes how in cricket in the Caribbean there could be found an “intense distillation of every kind of problem and emotional baggage” carried by a society at a particular socio-historical moment. Patterson advocates the dual focus upon time/place and socio-cultural historical influence that is at the heart of the historical sociologist's enterprise; and that shows how cricket, for instance, is both constituted by the legacies of a specific historical past, and constituting of a potentially different future.     

Parents with a Learning Disability: research issues and informed practice

This paper commences with an examination of the concept of parenting and then applies its findings to parents who have a learning disability. It is argued that views on parenting, drawn from mainstream developmental psychology from parents who do not have a learning disability can inform our thinking about parents who do have a learning disability and provide an agenda for future research. In particular, we look at skills-based approaches to parenting, parenting as a motivated activity, cultural and historical factors influencing parenting, and lay views on children and childhood. The conclusion was reached that, although an audit of what people with a learning disability believe and expect about children is valuable research, the critical issue is how this knowledge is applied in parenting practice.     

From Conflict Theory to Conflict Methodology: An Emerging Paradigm for Sociology*

A brief paradigmatic history of American sociology is presented. Conflict methodology is defined and exemplified. It is held to be an essential adjunct to a complete conflict paradigm. A conflict paradigm is relevant to sociological analyses in Eastern and Western Countries in view of the proliferation and power and of the large scale organization.