Modern Sociology Research Articles

Nuts, Sluts, and Converts: Studying Religious Groups as Social Problems: A Comment

Irving Horowitz has called for studying religious movements as social problems. Yet he is critical of those who propose going beyond with respect to the relationship of religion and social science. Nevertheless, it has been this and its articulation through putatively valueneutral functionalism which has inhibited the inquiry into religion as a social problem, because religion has been viewed positively as a functional imperative. The waning of both detente and hegemonic functionalism in the sociology of religion reflects the increasing controversiality of religion in America. This controversiality may produce a cultural context which will question certain clericalist tendencies which have been embedded in the modern sociology of religion, including the sponsorship of research by churches. The controversy over students of religion sympathizing with cults or collaborating with The Unification Church foreshadows a broader questioning. The waning of detente is producing heightened theoretical ferment in the sociology of religion and opening the way to new overtly valuative perspectives, including critical orientations as well as overtly religious formulations such as Christian Sociology.

The Genesis of the Registrar-General's Social Classification of Occupations

Those empirical sociologists in Britain who are concerned with social classification have tended to avoid any detailed evaluation of the long-established and ubiquitous official system. Such a discussion is inhibited by our current state of ignorance regarding its historical origins. An investigation of the exact chronology of its development and elucidation of its author's intentions is, therefore, undertaken. This reveals a complex and protracted genesis, over the first three decades of this century. The final form of the official social classification was determined by the intellectual preoccupations of its progenitor, T.H.C. Stevenson, in seeking a comprehensive alternative explanation to that originally proposed by hereditarian 'sociologists ', to account for the phenomenon of fertility decline. Consequently, the now familiar five-graded hierarchy entails certain specific methodological assumptions and theoretical limitations, which, it is suggested, may constitute undesirable conceptual impedimenta for modern sociologists.

International Review of Modern Sociology 12.1 (1982). Sociology in the Middle East and International Journal of Sociology of the Family 11.2 (1981), edited by Mark C. Kennedy. Individual copies of these two special issues are available from the publisher: Vikas Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 5 Ansaro Road, New Delhi 110002, India. $16.00 a copy, $15.00 airmail (surface mail ca. 16 weeks).

International Review of Modern Sociology 12.1 (1982). Sociology in the Middle East and International Journal of Sociology of the Family 11.2 (1981), edited by Mark C. Kennedy. Individual copies of these two special issues are available from the publisher: Vikas Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 5 Ansaro Road, New Delhi 110002, India. $16.00 a copy, $15.00 airmail (surface mail ca. 16 weeks).

Reviews: Aspects of Modern Sociology. Structures and Processes of Urban Life, the Built Environment Series. An Introduction to Urban Renewal, Reviving the Industrial City: The Politics of Urban Renewal in Lyon and Birmingham, Women and Spatial Change: Learning Resources for Social Science Courses, Policing Pollution: A Study of Regulation and Enforcement, Regional Development Agencies in Europe: An International Comparison of

Reviews: Aspects of Modern Sociology. Structures and Processes of Urban Life, the Built Environment Series. An Introduction to Urban Renewal, Reviving the Industrial City: The Politics of Urban Renewal in Lyon and Birmingham, Women and Spatial Change: Learning Resources for Social Science Courses, Policing Pollution: A Study of Regulation and Enforcement, Regional Development Agencies in Europe: An International Comparison of

Ramifications of Work Experience: Work and Personality . An Inquiry into the Impact of Social Stratification. Melvin L. Kohn and Carmi L. Schooler, with the collaboration of Joanne Miller, Karen A. Miller, Carrie Schoenbach, and Ronald Schoenberg. Ablex, Norwood, N.J., 1983. xviii, 389 pp. $38.50; paper, $17.95. Modern Sociology.

Ramifications of Work Experience: <i>Work and Personality</i> . An Inquiry into the Impact of Social Stratification. Melvin L. Kohn and Carmi L. Schooler, with the collaboration of Joanne Miller, Karen A. Miller, Carrie Schoenbach, and Ronald Schoenberg. Ablex, Norwood, N.J., 1983. xviii, 389 pp. $38.50; paper, $17.95. Modern Sociology.

Jonsonian Comedy and the Discovery of the Social Self

The self in Jonson's comedies, like the self described by modern sociologists, is a reflection of other reflections, created by the society it creates. As Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority seems to show, the social self is radically contingent. Therefore the anagnorisis in Jonson's comedies is a catastrophe in more than the technical sense; it is the discovery of a self that cannot bear its own exposure. By contrast, the heroes and heroines of Shakespeare's romantic comedies discover themselves in relation to a nurturing family and a mature sexual family. Theirs is a psychological self. In the “comical satires,” Jonson encounters the problem of finding appropriate endings for plays whose characters can achieve no satisfying self-discovery. InVolponethe protagonist acts like an experimental social psychologist, exposing the pliability of the social self. The catastrophe shows that Volpone's own “substance” is only a reflection of his world's insubstantiality.

Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology: From Adam Smith to Max Weber.

The Origins of Modern Sociology - Classical Political Economy - Alienated Labour and the Critique of Political Economy - Value, Class and the Theory of Society - Political Economy and its Sociological Critics - The Marginalist Revolution in Economics - The Irrationality of Marginalist Economics - From Marginalism to Modern Sociology - Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology

Synthesis of the Theory of Action and the Theory of Social System

According to my opinion, the construction of the social theory needs to synthe-size the theory of action and the theory of social system.This view agrees with Parsons' conception. But the theory of Parsons fails to explain fully the interrelations of action and “Handlungszusammenhang” i.e. social order.This task is, however, the problem assigned to Parsons but also to the modern sociology as a whole. For the basic feature of the social theory lies in the attempt to set both “Subjektiv gemeinter Sinn” and the social structure into the view.N. Luhmann suggests that in order to explain actions, the theory of social system in general should be integrated with the conception of action, which pays attention to actors' “Subjektiv gemeinter Sinn”, and that at the same time the theory of action needs to be based on the theory of social system. Anyway, Luhmann thinks of “Konstitutionszusammenhang von Handlung and System” with the help of concepts of “Selbstreferenz” of the social system and “Basale Selbst-referenz” of actions.From this perspective, Luhmann thinks that the basic conception of the theory of social system makes a new approach to “actions” possible.In this thesis, an attempt is made to discuss the central point of Luhmann's theory.

“Ascription” in the “Achievement Society”

Almost all the sociologists who maintained the modernization theory insisted that “ascription” would disappear or barely remain as “achievement” became predominant. Even now, this thesis is supported by many people. Such is the modernization theories' paradigm, and we can find this paradigm in many sociological theories such as Linton's, Tonnies', Durkheim's, Parsons'……Now we are in the “achievement society”, in which achievement becomes the most powerful principle for distribution and allocation, and in which almost all the members become achievement-oriented. However, when we observe the actual with full attention, we can find unexpectedly the fact that there scarcely exists “achievement” in the strict sense and that many social problems related to “ascription” newly come on the scene.We can find out two new fields for sociological investigation. The first is the “achieved ascription” that is the achievement which changed into ascription (e.g. credentialism). The second is the “ascribed achievement” that is the achievement supported by ascription (e.g. competition for achievement under the influence of language, ethnicity, social class….) R. Linton and T. Parsons gave definitions of “Achievement” and “Ascription”. But Parsons later modified his terminology and converted Achievement/Ascription into Performance/Quality. Between Linton' s definition and Parsons', there is a subtle difference. When we try to cross two axes (Linton's Achievement-Ascription. and Parsons' Achievement -Ascription), we can discover four fields : (I) L (Linton) -Achievement & P (Parsons) -Achievement, (II) L-Achievement & P-Ascription, (III) L-Ascription & P-Ascription, (IV) L-Ascription & P-Achievement.In many sociological theories, I and III are analyzed explicitly, but II and IV are covert or are not indicated clearly. We can call II “achieved ascription” and IV “ascribed achievement”. These two are the fields which are in need of the most vigorous investigation in modern sociology.

Game theory and planning: some perspectives

Policy: Critique, University of California Press, Berkeley. HUXLEY, J. (1943), Tennessee Valley Authority: Adventure in Planning, Architectural Press, Surrey. KELLEY, C. R. (1968), Manual of Automatic Control, Wiley, N.Y. KOESTLER, A. (1970) Ghost in the Machine, N.Y. LEE, D. B. (1973), Requiem for Large Scale Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 39, pp. 163-178. LOCKWOOD, D. (1956), Some Remarks on the Social System in Modern Sociology, Ed. P . Worsley, 1976, Penguin, Middlesex. MARCH, J. G., and SIMON, H. A. (1966), Organisations, Wiley, London. McLOUGHLIN, J. B. (1970), and Regional Planning, Approach, Faber, London. MITCHEL, W. C. (ed.) (1937), What Veblen Taught, Viking Press, N.Y. MESAROVIC, M. (ed.) (1964), Views on Systems, N.Y. MESAROVIC, M. (1968), General Theory and its Main Theoretical Foundations, IEEE Transactions on and Cybernetics. NICHOLIS, G. and PRIGOGINE, I. (1977), Self Organisation in Nonequilibrium Systems, Wiley, N.Y. PARKINSON, F. (1977), Philosophy of International Relations, Sage, N.Y. PARSONS, T. (1949, 1937), Structure of Social Actions, Free Press, N.Y. PORAT, M. Uri (1976), Information Economy, PhD dissertation, University of Stamford. REX, T. (1961), Power, Conflict, Values and Change in Worsley, op cit. ROSENBLUETH, A. and WIENER, N. (1950), Purposeful and non-Purposeful Systems in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 17, pp. 318326. SHANNON, C. (1948), The Mathematical Theory of Communications, Bell Technical Journal, Vol. 27, pp. 379-423. VALDES, N. P. (1979), Health and Revolution in Cuba, and Society, Vol. 35, pp. 311-353. VAJDA, S., Theory of Games and Linear Programming, Methuen, London. VEBLEN, T., in Mitchel (1937) op cit. VENERIS, Y. (1979), Spatial Models of Retailing, PhD dissertation, University of Thessaloniki. WEAVER, W. (1948), Science and Complexity, American Scientist, Vol. 36, pp. 536544. WEAVER, W. (1958), A Quarter Century in the Natural Sciences, Annual Report, Rockefeller Foundation, N.Y. WIENER, N. (1938), Cybernetics, Wiley, N.Y. WILSON, A. (1975), Urban and Regional Models: some Organising Concepts to Describe the State of the Art, in Development Models, Eds. R. Baxter, M. Echenique and J. Owen, Construction Press, Lancaster. WILSON, A. (1974), and Regional Models in Geography and Planning, Wiley, N.Y.

Sociology or social science?

Abstract Modern sociology has set itself up as a specialised discipline dissociating itself from the broad-ranging theories of development of the early sociologists and breaking the links with economics, social anthropology and politics which had formed such an exciting unity in their works or at least in their lives.

Social History, Local Studies and the Institutions of Early America

Bruce C. Daniels, ed., Town and County: Essavs on the Structure of Local Government in the American Colonies. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1978.279 + xiv pp. Bruce C. Daniels, The Connecticut Town: Growth and Development, 1635-1790. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1979.249 + xii pp. Richard P. Horwitz, Anthropology Toward History: Culture and Work in a 19th-century Maine Town. Middletown, Conn,: Wesleyan Unversity Press, 1978. 197 + xiii pp. The study of the "social history" of colonial America has had a checkered history of its own. As recently as 1965, Jackson Turner Main could remark accurately that "there has been no systematic description of the social structure.. .of colonial society." Yet, despite the truth of Main's comment, there has been a long and often lively tradition of social history in American scholarship. It was at least as old as the 1880's and had grown in volume and frequency over time, influenced to some extent by the social ideas of Progressivism. And the rise of modern sociology had suggested that there might be models for a social history of early America. But as a distinct field of study, the latter remained loosely framed and the scholarship of social history was often idiosyncratic in contrast to the increasing sophist- ication of the social science schools of the twentieth century.

John L. Hammond. The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting Behavior. (Modern Sociology Series.) Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing. 1979. Pp. xi, 243. $16.50

John L. Hammond. The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting Behavior. (Modern Sociology Series.) Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing. 1979. Pp. xi, 243. $16.50 Get access Hammond John L.. The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting behavior. (Modern Sociology Series.) Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing. 1979. Pp. xi, 243. $16.50. Ronald P. Formisano Ronald P. Formisano Clark University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 85, Issue 4, October 1980, Page 982, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/85.4.982 Published: 01 October 1980

Airplane Accidents, Murder, and the Mass Media: Towards a Theory of Imitation and Suggestion

This paper presents evidence indicating that imitation and suggestion have a powerful impact on social behavior. The major findings of the paper are: (1) After publicized murder-suicide stories there is an increase in noncommercial plane crashes and an increase in airline crashes. (2) This increase in crashes persists for approximately nine days, and then the level of crashes returns to normal. (3) The greater the publicity given by the mass media to a murder-suicide story, the greater the increase in airline crashes and the greater the increase in noncommercial plane crashes. Alternative explanations for the findings are tested. The best available explanation is that publicized murder-suicide stories trigger additional, imitative murder-suicides, some of which are disguised as airplane accidents. The second half of the paper moves from the empirical findings towards a modern sociological theory of imitation and suggestion. Some nineteenth century sociologists began to theorize upon this topic, but modern sociologists have virtually ignored it. Both the empirical evidence and the theoretical discussion presented in this paper suggest that it may be worth reopening a line of research which has been closed since the turn of this century. Despite the classic contributions of Tarde, LeBon, and Mead, modern sociology has very largely neglected the concepts of imitation and suggestion. Sociologists' neglect of these concepts is somewhat surprising, because there has been widespread interest in imitation, suggestion, and modeling outside of sociology, particularly in the fields of psychology and economics.1 The effect of imitation has been extensively documented by psy

Reduction and The Future of Sociology*

The reductionist position of Homans and Skinner has generated substantial debate among sociologists over the past two decades. Mitch of the debate can be resolved by examining the issues in light of the history of science. A historical analysis suggests that modern sociology has little to lose—and something to gain—by reevaluating its traditional stance on reduction.

The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting Behavior. By John L. Hammond. Modern Sociology. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1979. 243 pp. $16.50

The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting Behavior. By John L. Hammond. Modern Sociology. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1979. 243 pp. $16.50

Dialectical Approach in Modern Sociology

Dialectical Approach in Modern Sociology

The Changing Roles and Status of Women in ASEAN

Until recently, studies of the changing positions of women in de veloping countries have tended to follow the so-called convergence model in the sociology of development and modernization, which posits that the forces of industrialization and urbanization would ul timately lead to the emergence of a social structure in the developing countries which is closely similar to the type of modern society that has evolved in the industrialized West. It is often assumed that women in the developing world would benefit from the general devel opment process so that they too would come to enjoy a rising social status and resemble the women in the developed countries in terms of their modern social roles and identities. However, the validity of such a theoretical model has been increasingly challenged in the light of the actual development experience of the Third World. As more and more sociological and anthropological studies on women are made, there is a growing body of evidence to indicate that the effects of economic development and modernization are not only different but may even have adverse effects on the status and roles of women in the developing countries, at least during the early transitional stage. We are also led to question whether in the long run women in the devel oping world will indeed become the mirror-image of their sisters in the West. The experience of women in Southeast Asia contrasts sharply with that of women in the West. In Southeast Asia, modern develop ment has clearly had different effects on women, because of differ ences in social and cultural backgrounds, and also because of the nature of the development process itself. On the other hand, the adverse effects of modernization on Southeast Asian women may well be representative of the experiences in other Third World coun tries at similar stages of development. In this paper, we shall discuss how economic and socio-cultural changes have affected the roles and status of women in the devel

Suicide, motor vehicle fatalities, and the mass media: evidence toward a theory of suggestion.

Tarde and other classical sociologists paid a great deal of attention to the concepts of imitation and suggestion, but these concepts have been virtually ignored in modern sociology. This paper presents new findings indication that imitation and suggestion have a powerful have impact on social behavior: Three days after a publicized suicide, automobile fatalities increase by 31%. The more the suicide is publicized, the more the automobile fatalies increase. The age of the drivers is significantly correlated with the age of the person described in the suicide story. Single-car accidents increase more than other types just after the publicized suicide. After persentation of these and related findings, the paper discusses some ways in which the concepts of suggestion and imitation can be incorporated into sociological theory.

Free Blacks' Rhetorical Impact on African Colonization

The role of the Free Blacks in the African Colonization Movement has served as a provocative research topic for modern historians and sociologists for nearly a century (Imes, 1919; Rippy, 1921; Sherwood, 1923; Cleven, 1926; Hirsch, 1931; Boud, 1962). However, very few scholars have focused on the rhetorical impact of the Free Blacks on African Colonization through the spatial evolvement of discourse and the emergence of key rhetorical exigencies. Free Blacks were viewed as a social problem that caused the emergence of discourse. For example, between 1800 and 1850 the Free Blacks increased in number on the average of about 52,000 every ten years (Remarks, 1850: 9). As perceived by spokesmen of the United States government, influential slaveholders, leaders in the British House of Commons, and even the Free Blacks themselves, such an increase in population among the black race in America had become a fear-provoking social problem. As a result, the crime rate among Free Blacks increased at the same proportions as did the population of Free Blacks thus forcing