Maurice Freedman

Bio: Maurice Freedman is an academic researcher from London School of Economics and Political Science. The author has contributed to research in topics: Kinship & China. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 53 publications receiving 8593 citations.

Chinese Kinship and Marriage in Singapore

Abstract: When the history of Chinese social institutions in Malaya comes to be written it will, I suspect, be especially difficult to construct a picture of the life associated with the domestic family and ties based upon common descent and marriage. The sources of material on these matters are likely to be very limited, at least in regard to the nineteenth century. Yet, as a social anthropologist I shall draw attention to a number of facts drawn from published material on nineteenth-century Singapore, hoping to show that there are some interesting problems in the analysis of the Chinese kinship institutions of the period and that, however hard it may be to come by the data, a worthwhile task awaits the historian with some sociological insight.

Some Recent Work on Race Relations: A Critique

Abstract: tT might be as well if we tried to find out what useful role in the growing dis| cussion on race relations in this country can be played by sociologists, social Aanthropologists, social psychologists, and social historians. Domestically and imperially we are beset by problems which pass in public discourse as problems of race. We know that these problems have only an indirect relationship with the " race " of physical anthropology, that " race " in " race relations" may be a trap even for the more wary, and that it does not requ*e very great dialectical proficiency to be able to pull the house of race relations about the ears of those who claim to profess it as an independent subject. But, unpleasing as it may seem, the subject is with us and we must try to make some sense of it. It is clear that in this we have both an academic and a public duty. One duty we certainly do not have: to decide pontifically which books shall be considered as essays in race relations and which not. Yet it is not the whim of review editor or of reviewer mrhich selects a set of books such as I propose to deal with in this article. Each one of these boolis, although certainly in widely different ways and with varying emphases, discusses situations in which the ties between groups and individuals in society are seen, in the situations themselves, as being affected by racial factors. This, however, by no means implies that the field to be appropriated by the student of race relations is crucially distinguished by the presence of racialist notions. For he would be foolish to set up problems which always and necessarily exclude, say, the tensions between religious communities or linguistically defined blocs in so-called plural societies simply because they show no signicant element of racialist thinking. RacialismJ by which I mean attributing differences in social and cultural behaviour to differences in racial inheritance, is only one criterion to be used for marking out a Seld of study, and it is by no means an altogether satisfactory one. The extent to which racialist ideas enter into group conflict and discrimination araries not only between different situations, not only within particular situations over time, but also within particular situations at one time. How could one possibly assert, to take 342 Some Recent Work on Race Relations:

The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and Preliminary Psychometric Data

Abstract: This article describes a revised Conflict Tactics Scales (the CTS2) to measure psychological and physical attacks on a partner in a marital, cohabiting, or dating relationship; and also use of negotiation. The CTS2 has (a) additional items to enhance content validity and reliability; (b) revised wording to increase clarity and specificity; (c) better differentiation between minor and severe levels of each scale; (d) new scales to measure sexual coercion and physical injury; and (e) a new format to simplify administration and reduce response sets. Reliability ranges from .79 to .95. There is preliminary evidence of construct validity.

Social categorization and intergroup behaviour

Abstract: The aim of the studies was to assess the effefcs of social categorization on intergroup behaviour when, in the intergroup situation, neither calculations of individual interest nor previously existing attitudes of hostility could have been said to have determined discriminative behaviour against an outgroup. These conditions were satisfied in the experimental design. In the first series of experiments, it was found that the subjects favoured their own group in the distribution of real rewards and penalities in a situation in which nothing but the variable of fairly irrelevant classification distinguished between the ingroup and the outgroup. In the second series of experiments it was found that: 1) maximum joint profit independent of group membership did not affect significantly the manner in which the subjects divided real pecuniary rewards; 2) maximum profit for own group did affect the distribution of rewards; 3) the clearest effect on the distribution of rewards was due to the subjects' attempt to achieve a maximum difference between the ingroup and the outgroup even at the price of sacrificing other ‘objective’ advantages. The design and the results of the study are theoretically discussed within the framework of social norms and expectations and particularly in relation to a ‘generic’ norm of outgroup behaviour prevalent in some societies.

Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression

Abstract: Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation 4. Let's both agree that you're really stupid: the power of consensual ideology Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I'll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets 6. They're just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market 7. They're just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care 8. The more of 'them' in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy 11. Epilogue.

Respondent-driven sampling : A new approach to the study of hidden populations

Abstract: A population is “hidden” when no sampling frame exists and public acknowledgment of membership in the population is potentially threatening. Accessing such populations is difficult because standard probability sampling methods produce low response rates and responses that lack candor. Existing procedures for sampling these populations, including snowball and other chain-referral samples, the key-informant approach, and targeted sampling, introduce well-documented biases into their samples. This paper introduces a new variant of chain-referral sampling, respondent-driven sampling, that employs a dual system of structured incentives to overcome some of the deficiencies of such samples. A theoretic analysis, drawing on both Markov-chain theory and the theory of biased networks, shows that this procedure can reduce the biases generally associated with chain-referral methods. The analysis includes a proof showing that even though sampling begins with an arbitrarily chosen set of initial subjects, as do most chain-referral samples, the composition of the ultimate sample is wholly independent of those initial subjects. The analysis also includes a theoretic specification of the conditions under which the procedure yields unbiased samples. Empirical results, based on surveys of 277 active drug injectors in Connecticut, support these conclusions. Finally, the conclusion discusses how respondent- driven sampling can improve both network sampling and ethnographic 44 investigation.

Central problems in the management of innovation

Abstract: Innovation is defined as the development and implementation of new ideas by people who over time engage in transactions with others within an institutional order. This definition focuses on four basic factors new ideas, people, transactions, and institutional context. An understanding of how these factors are related leads to four basic problems confronting most general managers: 1 a human problem of managing attention, 2 a process problem in managing new ideas into good currency, 3 a structural problem of managing part-whole relationships, and 4 a strategic problem of institutional leadership. This paper discusses these four basic problems and concludes by suggesting how they fit together into an overall framework to guide longitudinal study of the management of innovation.