Showing papers in "American Journal of Sociology in 1971"

Ethnic Relations in Israel.

Abstract: Israel's ethnic relations can be best described in terms of two major relationships: (1) between European and non-European Jews; (2) between Jews and non-Jews (predominantly Arabs). Data about these relationships is drawn from several studies carried out in Israel durign the period 1966-68. The main conclusions of the analysis are: (1) Relations between European and non-European Jews are asymmetrical; European Jews serve as a positive reference group for non-Europeans. While there is considerable prejudice against non-European Jews, the attitude of non-European Jews toward Europeans is ussually favorable. (2) Ethnic hostilities between Jewish communities are tempered by a sense of interdependence in the face of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors and by the high rate of economic and social mobility in Israel. (3) The outlook for full integration among Jewish ethnic groups seems favorable. An overwhelming majority is both expecting and welcoming such integration. (4) Jewish-Arabs relations are de...

Uncle Tom and Mr. Charlie: Metaphysical Pathos in the Study of Racism and Personal Disorganization'

Abstract: The commonly held hypothesis the Negro Americans are very likely to experience "crisis of identity" and exhibit low self-esteem is questioned. After a brief description of the prevailing view, several major theoretical statements explaining the assumed state of affairs are presented. The third section reviews a variety of empirical evidence revealing considerable ambiguity over, if not directly challenging, currently held assumptions. The concluding section presents a series of alternative perspectives which suggest hypotheses which conflict those derived from the traditional position.

Skin Color, Status, and Mate Selection'

Abstract: Data from a sample of 350 Negro married couples in Washington, D.C., are analyzed to examine the changing relationship between status attributes, mate selection, and skin color, by comparison of duration-of-marriage cohorts. We find that the traditional status advantage of light-skinned women holds for all cohorts, with little indication of change. For men, on the other hand, darker-skinned men experienced better status and mate-selection opportunities in more recent cohorts than in earlier ones. The higher job-mobility orientation of dark-skinned men evidently explains their improved mobility. These findings suggest a change in the evaluation of differential skin color for men within the Negro community. James Baldwin (1955, p. 68) says, "It is part of the price the Negro pays for his position in that society that . .. he is almost always acting." This implies that playing the role of "Negro" requires the Negro to behave in ways that are inconsistent with his concept of himself, as others have observed. Yet if there were no effects of the role one plays upon the selfconcept, American Negroes would not bear the "mark of oppression," and sociologists would have long since lost interest in role theory. But Pettigrew (1967), after acknowledging Baldwin's point, remarks: Both Whites and Negroes confuse their own roles as being an essential part of themselves.... A large body of psychological research convincingly demonstrates the power of role-playing to change deeply-held attitudes, values, and even conceptions of self. Moreover, these remarkable changes have been rendered by temporary role adoptions of an exceedingly trivial nature when compared to the life-long role of "Negro." Imagine, then, the depth of the effects of having to play a role which has such vast personal and social significance that it influences virtually all aspects of daily living. Indeed, the resulting confusion of self-identity and lowering of self-esteem are two of the most serious "marks of oppression" upon Negro American personality. [Pp. 151-52]

Formal Education and Individual Modernity in an African Society

Abstract: The theoretical proposition that formal Western education exerts a modernizing influence on youth in traditional, non-Western societies is tested using structured interview data from a probability area sample of 591 seventeen-year-old males in Kano, Nigeria. Cross-tabular analysis provides evidence of clear and consistent educational influence on modern value orientations which is largely independent of selectivity factors and alternative modernizing forces. The effects are found to be quite uniform across different categories of youth, but variable across different value orientations. There is also limited evidence that school curriculum may be more important than organizational aspects of schools in shaping modern perspectives.

Race and Ethnicity Relative to Other Factors in Juvenile Court Dispositions

Abstract: Research up to this point has been inconclusive about whether the over-representation of minority-group members in our official correctional statistics is mostly a function of artifacts of data collection, the nature and volume of crimes committed by persons in these categories, or bias in the correctional process. This paper examines the data from the records of a juvenile court in a middle-sized city. The likelihood that the probation officers will submit more cases from minority groups than from Anglos for formal court hearings is reduced below levels of statistical significance when appropriate considerations are taken into account-except for those for whom extensive handling seems most logical. The likelihood that the judge will send more minority-group members than Anglos to the youth authority, however, persists for most categories of offenders even when these considerations are taken into account. The biases appear to consist largely of letting Anglos "get off easy" rather than of requiring uncalled-for "treatment" for minority-group members. Overall, the findings suggest that about two-thirds of the differential handling in the court studied is not explained by appropriate considerations.

The Multivariate Analysis of Ordinal Measures

Abstract: Measures of partial association of any order are defined for ordinal measures using the notions of variation and covariation of ordinal measures. They are equivalent to partial correlation and regression coefficients computed on signed differences of pairs of observations. Kendall's and first-order partial and Somers's d and first-order partial d are special cases of the proposed measures.

The Social Class Basis of Ethnic Residential Segregation: The Canadian Case

Abstract: Census data for Toronto in 1961 are employed to determine the patterns of residential segregation along three separate dimensions of ethnicity-ethnic origin, birthplace, and mother tongue. For each of these ethnic characteristics, published and unpublished data are used to generate the "expected" patterns of segregation based only on the differences in education, occupation, and income composition between various groups. The SES differences by themselves account for only relatively small proportions of the ethnic residential segregation in all cases. Special-run cross tabulations show, further, that mother-tongue and birthplace groups with similar occupation or income statuses are no less segregated than total ethnic populations. In contrast with accounts of racial residential segregation, the prevailing socioeconomic interpretation of the segregation of immigrants and other ethnic groups has been accepted too uncritically.

Black Invisibility, the Press, and the Los Angeles Riot

Abstract: Previous survey research indicated the importance of "black invisibility" for understanding the Los Angeles riot of 1965 and black reactions to it. The extent and nature of this invisibility were explored by means of a content analysis of Los Angeles newspapers from 1892-1968. The results indicate that little attention has been given in the press to blacks throughout the twentieth century, and coverage of blacks relative to their proportion of the population actually diminished from 1892 to just before the riot. The great increase in coverage during the riot itself returned rapidly to the pre-riot level by early 1966. The white public in Los Angeles, local white public officials, and subsequent press coverage were largely unsympathetic to Negro grievances. While press attention to blacks has not increased, its content has changed markedly from coverage of conventionally stereotyped activity to emphasis on interracial conflict. Possible consequences of black invisibility for race relations in the United St...

American Sociology and Black Assimilation: Conflicting Perspectives

Abstract: The theme of the eventual assimilation of the racial and ethnic minorities of the United States has been a recurrent preoccupation of American sociology. This paper examines some of the major arguments which have appeared in the sociological literature in support of the view that the outcome of race relations in the United States will be the assimilation of the Negro into American mainstream culture. The affinity of sociological with liberal views of the racial question is noted, and it is concluded that a perspective which takes account of the social forces generating ethnicity as well as those favoring assimilation is necessary for an accurate and relevant analysis of the role of ethnic and racial groups in American life.

Observations on the Study of Crime Causation

Abstract: Differential association theory, typological views, and other approaches to crime causation are noted. Situational and genetichistorical factors in lawbreaking are identified and contrasted. The ma...

Family Status, Socialization and Student Politics: A Multivariate Analysis.

Abstract: Instead of bivariate analyses which have been employed in the past to explain the origins of student politics, a multivariate model appears better suited to test the theoretical assumptions available for verification. A sample of 1,246 college students representing both flanks of the campus ideological spectrum has been surveyed from ten universities and from two national conventions. Gamma and path-analysis techniques were used to test the relationship among selected aspects of family status, socialization, and student politics. While both techniques detected family politics to be the strongest predictor of student politics, with offspring closely following the political views of their parents, path analysis revealed that: between 20 and 40 percent of the total variance in the direction of student politics could be explained by the variables in our model; ethnicity was deleted from the model due to its high interrelationship with family politics and parents' religion; both social class and family politic...

An Empirical Study of Military-Industrial Linkages

Abstract: Military-industrial relations are examined from both the elistist and pluralist perspective on power. Neither theory readily accounts for all of the empirical data. On the one hand, elist theory explains the relatively high level of military spending after World War II as well as the deep dependence on military expenditures among some large corporations. However, both the regresion and input-output analyses indicate that the economy does not require extensive military outlays. Indeed, there is some evidence that most corporations would be more prosperous if the government shifted to nonmilitary expenditures. These discrepancies suggest that a third interpretation may be in order. Based on the assumption that a growing division of labor leads to increasingly specialized needs and vested interests, the hypothesis of compensating strategies is presented. Under this notion, political decision that run counter to the interests of the majority will occur even if the government is not dominated by a small number...

Predictive Measures of Ordinal Association

Abstract: For selecting and interpreting appropriate measures of association, a "proportional-reduction-in-error" (P-R-E) criterion is useful. However, efforts to give a P-R-E interpretation to measures of ordinal association have not been successful, especially in delineating the "form" or "shape" of ordinal association. An effort is therefore made in this paper to introduce the notion of relevant forms of ordinal association, such as strict monotonic, monotonic, and nonmonotonic associations, and to suggest a few P-R-E measures that would assess such particular forms of association in ordinal data. When we talk about a measure of association, we mean an index designed to measure the degree to which two or more variables "go together" in some sense. In the loosest sense, any two variables may be said to be associated as long as the two are not statistically independent. In a stricter sense, however, two variables are said to be associated only if they show some patterned covariation. The pattern of our interest may be linear or curvilinear, monotonic or nonmonotonic, to name a few. Although lack of independence can be indicated without any reference to a specific form of relationship, the degree of association can be indicated only with reference to a specific pattern of relationship. Costner (1965) pointed out the importance of making the implied form of association explicit when he advocated the adoption of the "proportional-reduction-in-error" (P-R-E) criterion in selecting appropriate measures of association for sociological research. The P-R-E interpretation, as he cogently argued, will give us not only an exact probabilistic statemenlt about the degree of ani association but also a clear indication of the reference pattern of association under consideration. For instance, it is clear from the P-R-E interpretation of Pearsonian r that it measures the linear relationship, and that the value of r2 will reach unity (maximum) if and only if one variable is a linear function of the other (see Kruskal 1958; Hays 1963).

Social and psychological consequences of intergenerational occupational mobility.

Abstract: Studies relating intergenerational mobility to disturbed emotional states and decreased participation in solidary groups present contradictory evidence. Recent theoretical work suggests that the relationship between mobility and its hypothesized detrimental consequences will hold to a greater extent in a traditional and static social order and to a lesser extent in a society already "modernized." Aside from conflicting empirical findings, methods used to determine the effects of mobility have been unable to control simultaneously for prior and current socioeconomic level. Using dummy-variable multiple-regression analysis, scores for Community Integration, Primary Affiliation, Family Participation, Manifest Anxiety, and Psychosomatic Symptoms show few overall systematic effects of mobility. Respondents moving upward two or more socioeconomic levels have significantly lower Community Integration scores and significantly higher Manifest Anxiety and Psychosomatic Symptom scores. Scores on the dependent variab...

Status Inconsistency and Ethnoreligious Group Membership as Determinants of Social Participation and Political Attitudes.

Abstract: As a test of the theory of status inconsistency, the effects of ethnoreligious group membership and education on several economic and political attitudes and indicators of social participation were analyzed, using survey data on a white native-born Detroit sample. It was hypothesized that if status-inconsistency effects were operating, we would observe statistical interaction effects between ethnoreligious group membership and education, and that these interactions would vary as a function of ethnoreligious status. For some variables and for some ethnoreligious groups, regression analysis demonstrated the existence of interaction effects. However, they were not the specific interaction effects anticipated on the basis of status-inconsistency theory. Rather, we attribute our results to the persistence of subcultural differences within ethnoreligious groups in Detroit.

Individual Resources, Societal Reaction, and Hospital Commitment

Abstract: Despite the attention a number of sociologists have given to the societal reaction perspective on deviant behavior and especially mental illness, few efforts have been made to investigate or even systematically to conceptualize conceptualize contingences of the social reaction. In this paper I hypothesize that important contingencies in hospital commitment are individual resources and community integration-visibility. Using the ratio of involuntary to voluntary hospital admissions to state hospitals in Washington as a measure of societal reaction, I found that the data consistently support the hypotheses.

System Size and Structural Differentiation in Military Organizations: Testing a Harmonic Series Model of the Division of Labor

Abstract: The relationship between organizational size and occupational differentiation is examined in thirty-seven units of the United States Coast Guard, broken down into three subtypes of operating systems. This relationship is examined in light of two distinctions for structural differentiation and is tested against a probabilistic model of differentiation based upon system size. A strong positive relationship is found between size and number of occupations, but a strong negative relationship is found between size and internal specialization. The relationship between size and differentiation does not differ significantly from what would be expected on the basis of a random differentiation process in two of the three types of military systems, and does not depart markedly in a third type. It is suggested that differentiation in these systems in determined by a variety of countervailing forces, some pressuring the system toward increased heterogeneity and others pressuring the system toward homogeneity in occupat...

Occupational Achievement in Australia and the United States: A Comparative Path Analysis

Abstract: In this paper, Blau and Duncan's model of the process of occupational achievement in the United States is applied to comparable Australian data. A path analysis indicates that the major difference between the two countries, at least in terms of the model considered, is a looser articulation between the educational and occupational systems in Australia. Separate analysis of different age cohorts indicates a convergence between the two countries, reflecting the rapid industrialization and expansion of tertiary education in Australia since the end of the Second World War.

Decisions by Juvenile Officers

Abstract: This paper examines decision making by juvenile officers, looking at the effects that race and socioeconomic status of the individual, and racial composition and socioeconomic status of his neighborhood, have on juvenile police disposition. Data from Washington, D.C., indicate little, if any, influence of any of these factors. An analysis of data from Syracuse, N.Y., using a variation of Blau's structural effects technique, likewise indicate no effect of any kind. It is suggested that the juvenile officer's discretion may be viewed as an example of enacted institutional change.

Residential Mobility of Blacks and Whites: A National Longitudinal Survey

Abstract: A limited literature suggests that blacks move more often than whites but that their mobility is more local. In testing this double hypothesis with interviews from a national panel of 1,500 households, we find that greater black mobility is largely explained by blacks' tendency to be renters. Black renters are less likely to move, and black owners are about as stable residentially. Furthermore, blacks are more likely to move only within their nighborhoods or communities and much less likely to move elsewhere in the metropolitan area or to migrate out of it. Not only do different racial categories move differently, but they apparently do so for different reason.

A Research Note: A Social Structural Model for the Socioeconomic Career

Abstract: Among a subset of the white male metropolitan population in the years 1957-67, the process of socioeconomic achievement is examined. These longitudinal data on occupational and economic attainment provide comparisons between synthetic cohort and real cohort models of achievement through the middle of the work career. Structural models of career achievement which fail to represent the "historical" quality of work careers ar incomplete. In more elaborated casual models of the process of achievement, the roles of paternal occupation, respondent's education, and prior occupational and income attainments are summarized. Fuller details of the data from which this note was drawn appear in Featherman (1969,1971).

Anomie in the ghetto: a study of neighborhood type, race, and anomie.

Abstract: Three inner-city neighborhoods in varying stages of racial change were surveyed. Contrary to previous studies, it was found that the Negro ghetto exhibited lower anomie that two other areas which were undergoing racial transition. It is suggested that the pattern of social organization of the ghetto may foster a normative system which leads to feelings of relative well-being, reflected in low anomie scores.

Lifetime Commitment in Japan: Roles, Norms, and Values'

Abstract: This paper reexamines the extent and sources of "lifetime commitment"-the practice of working for one firm throughout one's work life-in Japan. Earlier analyses are modified by the introduction of (1) conceptual distinctions between lifetime commitment as role behavior, and two types of commitment to a firm: status enhancement and moral loyality; (2) Japanese and U. S. data on interfirm mobility; and (3) data from our own research in Japanese factories. On the basis of these conceptual distinctions and data, we conclude that, with regard to lifetime commitment, the degree to which Japan disconfirms theories of modernization and differentiation has been exaggerated.

The Ecology of Chicago: Persistence and Change, 1930-1960

Abstract: Two sets of factor analyses are performed upon census data for Chicago from 1930 to 1960. The first method explores changes in ecological structure by comparing four separate factor analyses, each done at a different point in time. The second method explores the structure of ecological change and is based upon the factor analysis of differences in variables over three time periods. The first method reveals a marked stability in Chicago's ecological structure, with important changes being a decline in explanatory power of the family-status factor, a rise in explanatory power of the racial-ethnic factor, and the linkage of age and racial-ethnic segregation in the city. These findings are related to propositions in the factorial ecology literature. The second method reveals highly variable factors of change from one decade to the next, which appear to reflect unique societywide changes occurring in each period. The methods are briefly compared. In general, the first method most clearly elucidates stable and ...

Class, Culture, and "Social Structure and Anomie"

Abstract: Hypotheses derived from Merton's theory of "social structure and anomie" are tested on 240 well-to-do and affluent farmers and 1,031 mostly poverty-level farm workers in Washington. Farm workers consist of Anglo-Americans, bilingual Mexican-Americans, and non-English-speaking Mexican-Americans. Results indicate that disjunction between educational aspirations for children and perceived opportunity is greater among Anglo-American farm workers than farmers. In both classes, however, disjunction is related to normative alienation (normlessness). The relationship appears to depend upon cultural background, since the relationship holds for Anglo-Americans and, less consistently, bilinguals, but not at all for non-English speakers. Results thus suggest that the relathionship between aspiration-perceived opportunity disjunction and normlessness transcend class levels but may be specific to a culture which empahsizes and open-class ideology. Here it is the cultural interpretation given to aspiration-perceived opp...

Another Look at Residential Turnover in Urban Neighborhoods: A Note on "Racial Change in a Stable Community" by Harvey Molotch'

Abstract: Evidence has indicated that property turnovers in a racially changing area are a function of the structural conditions of the housing and demographic characteristics fo the white residents in a Chicago community. Analysis of the Chicago case study raises questions about the validity of the evidence. A test of the hypothesis in Cleveland subareas revealed that, in some racially changing areas, the high turnover can be explained by the housing and nonracial demographic characteristics of the area, but a few neighborhoods experienced a household turnover indicative of "white flight." Further factors are suggested for a comparative, multicity study of neighborhood transition processes.

Class and Marriage in Africa and Eurasia

Abstract: The concepts of class, caste, and estate, derived as they are from Eurasian models, are not wholly satisfactory when applied to Africa. Homogamy and in-marriage are not characteristic of the social strata in African states, which tend to encourage marriage between groups of different status, hence these groups tend not to develop in isolation with distinctive modes of life. Out-marriage and bridewealth in Africa stand in contrast to in-marriage and dowry in Eurasia. It is suggested that the more intesive form of agriculture in the latter area encouraged the preservation of familial status by the transmission, inter alia, of property ot females (e.g., the dowry) as well as males, a procedure which strongly encourages the marriage of like with like. In africa, out-marriage strengthens the social ties and cultural similarities within a society. As a consequence, "class conflict" was less significant in the political system, although the situation is now changing in the "modern" sector.

A Research Note on Urbanism and Tolerance

Abstract: One deduction from Louis Wirth's theories on the psychological effects of city life is that urbanism directly leads to more ethnic tolerance and universalistic attitudes. This hypothesis was tested by examining five national polls (N = 7,714) which asked respondents if they would vote for minority-group presidential candidates. The data show that tolerance does increase with size of community. However, as successive controls are added, the relationship approaches zero. The results are interpreted as not supporting the hypothesis and explanations for the nonsupport are explored.

Some like it hot: social participation and environmental use as functions of the season.

Abstract: Utilizing data from a sample of housewives in metropolitan Toronto who were interviewed both in Febraury and in June of the same year, this paper brings out the existence of seasonal volatility both in organizational participation and in interpersonal relations, a situation accorded little attention in the sociological literature. The pattern of shifts in personal interaction indicates greater elasticity according to season in northern climates in use of macroscopic environment, as compared to inmediate environment, and some grounds for devoting greater attention to planning for winter conditions in the inmediate environment.

Race, Maternal Authority, and Adolescent Aspiration'

Abstract: The present paper tests the prevalent hypotheses that the matriarchal character of black families is associated principally with father absence from the home and that a matriarchal family structure has detrimental educational consequences for black males. Within the limitations imposed by the samples, the results lead to the tentative rejection of these hypotheses. Among blacks, the authority of mothers tends to be stronger in intact than in broken families. Furthermore, maternal authority in the household hand identification with a female role model do not appear to have the negative consequences on educational aspirations and school performance for black adolescent boys which have been attributed to them. Black mothers and their children have the same or higher educational aspirations than white regardless of the fact that the black adolescents tend to identify more closely with their mothers. The lower educational attainment of blacks must be sought in other factors within and outside the family which ...