Showing papers in "American Journal of Sociology in 1991"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed that ghettos are communities that have experienced epidemics of social problems and that the pattern of neighborhood effects on social problems should be nonlinear in large cities.
Abstract: Why are the social problems of ghettos so bad? This article proposes that ghettos are communities that have experienced epidemics of social problems One important implication of this theory is that the pattern of neighborhood effects on social problems should be nonlinear in large cities As neighborhood quality decreases, there should be a sharp increase in the probability that an individual will develop a social problem The jump should occur somewhere near the bottom of the distribution of neighborhood quality This hypothesis is tested by analyzing the pattern of neighborhood effects on dropping out and teenage childbearing The analysis strongly supports the hypothesis, with exceptions for certain subgroups Even after controlling for individual characteristics, black and white adolescents are exposed to sharp increases in the risk of dropping out and having a child in the worst neighborhoods in large cities
1,369Â citations
TL;DR: For instance, the authors found that women's extended participation in schooling delays their transition to adulthood, an effect aligned with normative expectations that young women in school are "not ready" for marriage and motherhood.
Abstract: Proponents of the "new home economics" hypothesize that women's growing economic independence largely accounts for the rise in delayed marriage and motherhood in industrialized societies. This article assesses this hypothesis for the Federal Republic of Gernamy by estimating the dynamic effects of women's educational and career investments on the timing of family events. Eventhistory analysis shows that the delaying effect on the timing of the first marriage across cohorts does not result from an increase in the quality of women's human capital investiments as posited by the new home economics. Rather, women's extended participation in schooling delays their transition to adulthood, an effect aligned with normative expectations that young women in school are "not ready" for marriage and motherhood. Increasing career resources, however, do lead women to postpone or avoid having children.
815Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, three measures of actors' network centrality are derived from an elementary rocess model of social influence, which are complementary and, in their juxtaposition, provide a rich description of social structure.
Abstract: Three measures of actors' network centrality are derived from an elementary rocess model of social influence. The measures are closely related to, and cast new light on, widely used measures of actors' centrality; for example, the essential social organization of status that has been assumed by Hubbell, Bonacich, Coleman, and Burt appears as a deducible outcome of this social influence process. Unlike previous measures, which have been viewed as competing alternatives, the present measures are complementary and, in their juxtaposition, provide for a rich description of social structure. The complementary indicates a degree of theoretical unification in the work on network centrality that was heretofore unsuspected.
689Â citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the effects of skin-tone variations of black Americans on educational attainment, occupation, and income, net of such antecedent factors as parental socioeconomic status and such contemporaneous factors as sex, region of residence, urbanicity, age, and marital status.
Abstract: Data from the National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) (197980) are used to examine the effects of skin-tone variations of blacks on educational attainment, occupation, and income, net of such antecedent factors as parental socioeconomic status and such contemporaneous factors as sex, region of residence, urbanicity, age, and marital status. The findings are that not only does complexion have significant net effects on stratification outcomes, but it is also a more consequential predictor of occupation and income than such background characteristics as parents' socioeconomic status. Results are consistent with an interpretation that suggests that the continuing disadvantage that darker blacks experience is due to persisting discrimination against them in the contemporary United States.
600Â citations
TL;DR: This paper examined three hypotheses about the relation between age and the stability of sociopolitical attitudes, including the impressionable-year hypothesis, which states that the youngest adults have the least stable attitudes; the aging-stability hypothesis, that attitude stability increases with age; and the hypothesis that symbolic attitudes are more likely to show distinctive life cycle patterns of attitude stability than less symbolic ones.
Abstract: This article examines three hypotheses about the relation between age and the stability of sociopolitical attitudes. The hypotheses are (1) the impressionable-year hypothesis, which states that the youngest adults have the least stable attitudes; (2) the aging-stability hypothesis, that attitude stability increases with age; and (3) the hypothesis that symbolic attitudes are more likely to show distinctive life-cycle patterns of attitude stability than less symbolic ones. The hypotheses are tested using nationally representative panel data from the National Election Study (NES). When results are aggregated over 50 different measures of attitudes, they reveal that in general the youngest adults have the lowest levels of attitude stability, although the difference is not significant. Beyond this, the aggregated data show very few systematic age-related differences, and very few life-span differences in attitude stability are related to the nature of the attitude object; that is, symbolic attitudes do not se...
550Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that the proportion of individuals who have fewer friends than the mean number of friends their own friends has is affected by the exact arrangement of friendships in a social network.
Abstract: It is reasonable to suppose that individuals use the number of friends that their friends have as one basis for determining whether they, themselves, have an adequate number of friends. This article shows that, if individuals compare themselves with their friends, it is likely that most of them will feel relatively inadequate. Data on friendship drawn from James Coleman's (1961) classic study The Adolescent Society are used to illustrate the phenomenon that most people have fewer friends than their friends have. The logic underlying the phenomenon is mathematically explored, showing that the mean number of friends of friends is always greater than the mean number of friends of individuals. Further analysis shows that the proportion of individuals who have fewer friends than the mean number of friends their own friends have is affected by the exact arrangement of friendships in a social network. This disproportionate experiencing of friends with many friends is related to a set of
530Â citations
TL;DR: The task of representing these contrasting aspects of the war in a single monument was framed by the tension between contrasting memorial genres as mentioned in this paper, and the analysis showed how opposing social constituencies articulated the ambi...
Abstract: The problem of commemoration is an important aspect of the sociology of culture because it bears on the way society conceives its past. Current approaches to this problem draw on Emile Durkheim and emphasize the way commemorative objects celebrate society's former glories. This article on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial deals with the way society assimilates past events that are less than glorious and whose memory induces controversy instead of consensus. The Vietnam War differed from other wars because it was politically controversial and morally questionable and resulted in defeat; it resembled other wars because it called out in participants the traditional virtues of courage, self-sacrifice, and honor. The task of representing these contrasting aspects of the war in a single monument was framed by the tension between contrasting memorial genres. Focusing on the discursive field out of which the Vietnam Veterans Memorial emerged, this analysis shows how opposing social constituencies articulated the ambi...
527Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the significance of double-entry bookkeeping can be understood as an attempt to convince some audience of the legitimacy of business ventures, and Goody's analysis of writing and literacy is applied to the development of accounting as a technique.
Abstract: This article addresses claims made by Weber, Schumpeter, and Sombart concerning the importance of double-entry bookkeeping. They argue that accounting played a key technical role in enhancing rationality and furthering the development of capitalism methods of production. The history of accounting methods and practices from the Middle Ages to the 19th century is surveyed in order to evaluate these arguments. Two important dimensions of accounting are discussed: the rhetorical and the technical. The argument is that, as rethoric, accounting must be understood as an attempt to convince some audience of the legitimacy of business ventures. Goody's analysis of writing and literacy is applied to the development of accounting as a technique. As a practical method, double-entry bookkeeping appears to have increased "rationality," but the rhetorical side of double entry is also critical. The conclusion is that the significance of double-entry bookkeeping can be appreciated only if its rhetorical and technical aspe...
507Â citations
TL;DR: The life course is shaped by the interaction of cultural and social structural features with physical and psychological attributes of the individual and by the commitments and purposive efforts of an individual as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The life course is shaped by the interaction of cultural and social structural features with physical and psychological attributes of the individual and by the commitments and purposive efforts of the individual. In modern society, rationality and functionality have replaced tradition as determinants of individual choices in the transition to adulthood. Adolescent competence should lead to thinking through career and marital choices and inhibiting tendencies to make unwise choices. Therefore, competent adolescents should have more stable careers and marriages, and, because they will more often be rewarded for their attributes than will less competent ones, they should experience less personality change over the adult years. These hypotheses are largely confirmed with data from a longitudinal cohort studied for more than 50 years.
465Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors treat marriage choice as a multidimensional phenomenon and make a distinction between ascriptive-and achievement-oriented characteristics, and explore the relative importance of these factors for the choice of a spouse, and test the hypothesis that there has been a transition from ascription to achievement in patterns of marriage selection.
Abstract: According to classical works on social stratification, status homogamy can be regarded as an indicator of the "openness" of society. In contrast to previous approaches, this article treats marriage choice as a multidimensional phenomenon and makes a distinction between ascriptive- and achievement-oriented characteristics. Ascriptive status homogamy is measured by the similarity of spouses with respect to their fathers' occupational class, while the achieved dimension of status homogamy is measured by the similarity of spouses' educational attainment. Multivariate log-linear models are used to explore the relative importance of these factors for the choice of a spouse, and the article tests the hypothesis that there has been a transition from ascription to achievement in patterns of marriage selection. This study first demonstrates empirically that previously conducted synthetic cohort analyses of educational homogamy suffer from selection biases and then, using the Occupational Change in a Generation (OCG...
406Â citations
TL;DR: The theoretical concept of role as resource is introduced and illustrated in this article, which combines critical elements of the structural, interactionist, and network approaches to role, and the role is a resource in two senses: it is a means to claim, barbain for, and gain membership and acceptance in a social community, and it grants access to social, cultura and material capital that incumbents and claimants exploit in order to pursue their interests.
Abstract: The theoretical concept of role as resource is introduced and illustrated. The concept combines critical elements of the structural, interactionist, and network approaches to role. A role is a resource in two senses: it is a means to claim, barbain for, and gain membership and acceptance in a social community, and it grants access to social, cultura, and material capital that incumbents and claimants exploit in order to pursue their interests. This article examines the impact of a major transformation-the rise of the blockbuster-on roles and positions in Hollywood filmmaking and discerns two processes underlying the growth and decline of roles in culture production. Through adaptation, filmmakers adopt role combinations with intrinsic capabilities of solving technical and organizational problems. Through imitation, filmmakers copy the role combinations associated with early blockbusters and gain legitimacy in Hollywood's institutional environment. These responses resulted in two fundamental trends: the in...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used local area data from the newly released 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample (D file) to provide a direct test of several alternative explanations of U.S. marital behavior and of black and white differences in marriage rates.
Abstract: Previous research has typically ignored the spatial dimension of marriage markets, focusing instead on highly aggregated data or on individual models of entry into marriage. A basic premise of this study is that national marriage rates are played out across local marriage-market areas that define female opportunities for marriage. Using local area data from the newly released 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample (D file), the article provides a direct test of several alternative explanations of U.S. marital behavior and of black and white differences in marriage rates. The analysis reveals that (a)local economic opportunities (including welfare)for females, spouse availability, and urbanization contribute significantly to spatial variations is female marriage rates, (b) the lcoal supply of economically "attractive" males plays an especially large role in the marital behaviors of U.S. black and white women, and (c) racial differences in marriage-market conditions accentuate, but do not explain completely, blac...
TL;DR: This article examined the effect of children on marital stability, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and tested the propositions that children enhance marital stability and younger children increase stability more than older children, and under some circumstances children have no stabilizing effect or even increase chances that their parents' marriage will end.
Abstract: Children constitute the prime example of "marital-specific capital," a resource worth substantially more inside a marriage than outside it. This article examines the effect of children on marital stability, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and tests the propositions that (1)children enhance marital stability, (2) younger children increase stability more than older children, and (3) under some circumstances children have no stabilizing effect or even increase chances that their parents' marriage will end. A proportional hazards model in continuous time is estimated and the modified to accommodate key features of the data. The results indicate that fistborn children increase the stability of marriage through their preschool years. Other children increase marital stability only when they are very young. Older children and children born before marriage significantly increase chances of disruption. The initially stabilizing and later destabilizing effects of children combine over the course ...
TL;DR: The methodological foundations of comparative-historical sociology have been transformed dramatically in recent years, while the complexity and uniqueness of historical events and the virtues of inductive methods have been emphasized.
Abstract: The methodological foundations of comparative-historical sociology have been transformed dramatically in recent years. Arguments against general theoretical models have proliferated, while the complexity and uniqueness of historical events and the virtues of inductive methods have been emphasized. The growing convergence of sociology and history has led to a decline in the use of general theories. This article begins with a description and analysis of the recent transformation of the methodology of comparative-historical sociology. An overreliance on inductive methods has resulted in inadequate specifications of causal relations and causal mechanisms in recent comparative-historical sociology. The concluding section discusses a nascent rational choice research program in political sociology to illustrate an alternative methodology.
TL;DR: This paper examined the influence of mothers' marital histories on the cohabitational and marital experiences of their children and found that the children of mothers who married young and were pregnant at marriage entered into their own marital and non-marital unions significantly earlier than others.
Abstract: This article examines the influence of mothers' marital histories on the cohabitational and marital experiences of their children. Significant factors include whether the mother was pregnant at marriage, her age at marriage, and her experience with marital disruption and remarriage. The analysis is conducted within an event-history framework that controls for other features of the parental home, including socioeconomic status and religious affilaition. The evidence suggests that the children of mothers who married young and were pregnant at marriage entered into their own marital and nonmarital unions significantly earlier than others. The experience of parental marital dissolution increases children's nonmarital cohabitations but has little effect on their marriages. While no single causal mechanism can easily account for all of the empirical data, the combination of different attitudes toward marriage, nonmarital sex, and cohabitation can account for the empirical findings.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the way in which physicians or clinicians apparently advance their professional dominance by ignoring lifeworld concerns of the patients of clients they see, and they demonstrate that, through the use of a conversational "perspective display series," which is adapted to the clinical environment, a delivery of "bad" diagnosis news can coimplicate the patient's perspective and promote understanding and the appearance of agreement between clinicians and patients.
Abstract: This article investigates the way in which physicians or clinicians apparently advance their professional dominance by ignoring lifeworld concerns of the patients of clients they see. Usual analyses of this phenomenon invoke conceptions of authority to explain it implicitly, or they propose that the asymmetry of clinical discourse relies solely on an institutional basis. In order to discover and analyze interactional aspects of the clinical encounter, comparative studies between institutional and everyday contexts are necessary. This article demonstrates that, through the use of a conversational "perspective display series," which is adapted to the clinical environment, a delivery of "bad" diagnosis news can coimplicate the patient's perspective and promote understanding and the appearance of agreement between clinician and patient. In general, describing manifestations of institutional power and authority should include analysis of the ways that participants organize interaction in the first place.
TL;DR: In this article, a representative sample of the working population in Tianjin, China, is analyzed to show that entrance into the core sectors (state agencies and enterprises), rather that the job per se, constitutes the primary goal of status attainment.
Abstract: This article argues that structural segmentation is a universal phenomenon in all complex societies and across political economies. Each political economy uses specific criteria in delineating segments of its economic and work organizations. Furthermore, it is argued that segmentation identification constitutes a critical destination status for individuals engaged in the status-attainment process. A representative sample of the working population in Tianjin, China, is analyzed to show that entrance into the core sectors (state agencies and enterprises), rather that the job per se, constitutes the primary goal of status attainment. Entering into a more desirable work-unit sector in China takes on differential significance and process for males and females. Formales, the direct effect of intergenerational factors (i.e., the effect of father's work-unit sector) is evident. For females, such an effect is only indirect; instead, to a great extent, their status attainment. Also, upward occupational mobility acr...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined how organizational dynamics affected rates of gender integration among California states agencies between 1979 and 1985 and found that progress toward gender integration has been substantially influenced by the degree of external pressure and bulnerability, the relative sizes of various internal interest groups that favor or oppose integration, the extent of structural inertia to which an organization is prone by virtue of its size and age, and by characteristics of agency leadership.
Abstract: This paper links organizational change to social inequality by examining how organizational dynamics affected rates of gender integration among California states agencies between 1979 and 1985. The analysis draws on theories of organizations and organization environment relations to identify factors that influence economic, political, and social pressures for change, the costs of change, and capacities to change in a specific work setting. In conformity with those theories, it is shown that progress toward gender integration has been substantially influenced by the degree of external pressure and bulnerability, the relative sizes of various internal interest groups (e.g., women, nonwhites, unions) that favor or oppose integration, the extent of structural inertia to which an organization is prone by virtue of its size and age, and by characteristics of agency leadership. Some implications of these results for studies of organizations and of social inequality are discussed.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider how often minorities and women mobilize federal EEO laws in their fight for equal treatment in the marketplace, how often they with their cases, and how victory is related to their ability to organize and to get help from the federal government.
Abstract: This article attempts to establish theoretical and methodological links between work on social movements and work on the mobilization of law by analyzing legal mobilization as a social movement tactic-the pursuit of movement goals through "proper channels." Focusing on the movement for equal employment opportunity (EEO), the article considers how often minorities and women mobilize federal EEO laws in their fight for equal treatment in the marketplace, how often they with their cases, and how victory is related to thier ability to organize and to get help from the federal government. Analysis of one aspect of the mobilization of EEO laws-in the federal appellate courts-leads to some conclusions very much in keeping with recent work on social movements. They are that the relationship between grievances and mobilization is problematic, that blacks remain central to the struggle for equality in the United States, that resources matter for challengers of the status quo, and that the federal government can be ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reformulate the Prisoner's Dilemma as a stochastic learning model in which the behavior of interdependent actors is constinually shaped by sanctions and cues generated by their interaction.
Abstract: The Prisoner's Dilemma formalizes the social trap that arises when individually rational choices aggregate with mutually undesirable consequences. The game-theoretic solution centers on the opportunity for tacit collusion in repeated play. However, not all actors grasp the strategic implications of future interaction. Accordingly, this study reformulates the game as a stochastic learning model in which the behavior of interdependent actors is constinually shaped by sanctions and cues generated by their interaction. Computer simulations of a two-person game show that adaptive actors are led into a social trap more readily than are fully rational actors, but they are also better at finding their way out. Prosocial norms appear to be a consequence rather than cause of cooperation but useful in promoting forgiveness of random deviance. The model is then elaborated as an N-way Prisoner's Dilemma. Simulations show how the effects of network size, density, mobility, and anonymity derive from a fundamental princi...
TL;DR: In this paper, a theoretical formulation that integrates, within the framework of expectation states theory, theories of the emergence of power-and-prestige orders in status-heterogeneous an...
Abstract: This article presents a theoretical formulation that integrates, within the framework of expectation states theory, theories of the emergence of power-and-prestige orders in status-heterogeneous an...
TL;DR: This article examined the traits of parents and children that shape parental payment for higher education and found that parents' reported willingness and ability to pay, along with savings for children's future education, are shaped first by total income and the number of children who must share that income.
Abstract: Although sociologists and economists have been widely concerned with parental investment in children, that investment has rarely been examined directly. The Parent Survey of the High School and Beyond data set provides material for examining the traits of parents and children that shape parental payment for higher education. Parents' reported willingness and ability to pay, along with savings for children's future education, are shaped first by total income and the number of children who must share that income. Moreover, parental investment in higher education is increased when the parents themselves received parental financial support, which suggests continuity over generations. Gender of parent and child, academic achievement of child, marital status, education, and educational aspirations have more mixed and weaker effects. These findings cause a rethinking of the mechanisms of intergenerational influence as seen by status-attainment, human capital, and resource-dilution perspectives.
TL;DR: This paper investigated the relationship between reviewers' evaluations and audience attendance and found that positive reviews are associated with greater audience participation, net of other factors, but the effect is limited to high-brow performance genres such as theater.
Abstract: That critics mediate the relationship between artworks and publics has often been suggested but never adequately tested. Cultural capital arguments lead to the expectation that the mediation process operates differently for highbrow and popular genres, while the idea of cultural convergence does not predict such an effect. Data on 624 shows and 1,204 primary reviews from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe are used to investigate the relationship between reviewers' evaluations and audience attendance. The results show that positive reviews are associated with greater audience participation, net of other factors, but the effect is limited to highbrow performance genres such as theater. Critics do not have the power to "make or break" shows. The visibility provided by reviews is more important than their evaluative function. The findings support the idea that the operative aesthetics in popular and highbrow genres are distinct, and critics are important only in the latter.
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TL;DR: In 1989 Suhrkamp Verlag of Frankfurt published Zwischenbetrachtungen im Prozess der Aufliirung: Jiirgen Habermas zum 60. Geburtstag, an 839-page compilation of intermediate contemplations/reflections as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In 1989 Suhrkamp Verlag of Frankfurt published Zwischenbetrachtungen im Prozess der Aufliirung: Jiirgen Habermas zum 60. Geburtstag, an 839-page compilation of \"intermediate contemplations/reflections\" somehow connected with Habermas (Honneth, McCarthy, Offe, and Wellmer 1989). It was coedited by four well-known theorists, including the American, Thomas McCarthy, and brought together 30 authors from several countries, all of whom somehow put Habermas's work to use. Eight of the chapters (190 pages) were printed in English, and the roster of authors stretched from well-known academics in midcareer to the venerable Hans-Georg Gadamer, nearly 90 when the book appeared. Just three years before, another 420-page Suhrkamp volume (Honneth and Joas 1986) had dealt exclusively with Habermas's Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (hereafter, TCA). An English translation of that book will soon be out, which makes sense in that, in addition to eight European scholars, Charles Taylor, Jeffrey Alexander, Thomas McCarthy, and Habermas himself provided chapters. In fact, Alexander's (1985) AJS review essay treating the first volume of TCA is reprinted there in German.2 No other living social theorist-Merton excepted-has inspired this level of concern. Even Anthony Giddens, recently assayed in three separate anthologies of criticism, does not have the international, crossdisciplinary appeal that has come to Habermas in his first 62 years of life. According to his bibliographer, Habermas published about 250 items between 1952 and 1981, and over 920 responses to his work found print in the same period in German and English (Gortzen 1982). A bibliography updated through 1990 will list over 3,000 publications about Habermas, plus scores of new entries from his own pen (Rasmussen 1990,
TL;DR: In this article, a neo-Marxist theory is developed that grasps the totality of capitalist culture by grounding the effects of class on culture in concrete, historical class struggle.
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu's theory of culture as a system of symbols furthering a misrecognition of class is critically compared to the Frankfurt school's theory of culture as reifying cimmodities furthering an unrecognition of class. Because of their approaches to history, both theories recognize only part of the complex reality of modern capitalist culture. Bourdieu's ahistorical structuralism fails to grasp the historical changes produced in culture by capitalism, while critical theory's essentialism fails to specify the concrete factors mediating the historical effects of capitalism on culture. As a corrective to both, a neo-Marxist theory is developed that grasps the totality of capitalist culture by grounding the effects of class on culture in concrete, historical class struggle.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the sociological model of crime as the dominant paradigm in criminology and as a result became the most influential criminologist of the 20th century.
Abstract: During the 1930, Edwin Sutherland established the sociological model of crime as the dominant paradigm in criminology and as a result became the most influential criminologist of the 20th century. This article examines Sutherland's debate with Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck about the causes of crime and the proper focus of social science research. Previously unavailable correspondence and unpublished papers are examined along with published works from the period (1925-45) when Sutherland was developing the theory of differential association and the Gluecks were launching research on criminal careers. The competing paradigms of the Gluecks and Sutherland are also placed in the socio-intellectual and institutional context in which they worked. It is shown that Sutherland's attack on the Gluecks' interdisciplinary research program was driven by: (a) a substantive version of sociological positivism that attempted to establish criminology as the proper domain of sociology, (b) a commitment to the method of analytic induction, and (c) Sutherland's rise to prominence in sociology. In addition, key aspects of the Gluecks' perspective reflecting their own professional interests in law and psychiatry further contributed to sociologists' hostile reaction. Nevertheless, the article presents evidence that the Gluecks' research on such fundamental issues as age and crime, criminal careers, and social control is more correct than commonly believed and, in fact, occupies center stage in contemporary research.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors combine the fear-of-crime and opportunity research traditions in one model, where the model first examined is a recursive one in which robbery constrains social interaction that affects other crimes and then a nonrecursive model where robbery cons...
Abstract: Sociologist have long been interested in the functions of deviance and crime for the social order. Following Durkheim, functionalists argue that crime or the reaction to it (punishment) brings people together, thereby building social solidarity and cohesiveness, which in turn decreases crime. Recently, theory and research on the fear of crime argue, to the contrary, that crime or the reaction to it (fear) does not bring people together; rather it constrains their social interaction, thereby undermining instead of building social solidarity and cohesiveness. Additionally, opportunity (routine-activities) theory and research suggest that constraining social interaction to safe sites and times limits the opportunities for crime. This article attempts to combine the fear-of-crime and opportunity (routine activities) research traditions in one model. The model first examined is a recursive one in which robbery constrains social interaction that affects other crimes. Then a nonrecursive model where robbery cons...
TL;DR: In some northeastern states, levels of childlessness approached 30% for women born in the mid-19th century, while other states in the South and West had levels of 6-8% as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In some northeastern states, levels of childlessness approached 30% for women born in the mid-19th century. Other states in the South and West had levels of 6%-8%. Nationally, childlessness increased across cohorts born in the latter part of the 19th century. Nonmarriage and delayed marriage account for some of this variability. But the argument here is that fertility control within marriage played a major role in producing these differentials. Both the intercohort and cross-sectional differentials in childlessness match differentials in higher parity births, suggesting that fertility control was practiced most in the times and places where childlessness was gratest. Furthermore, "own-children" methods are used to present evidence of fertility control among childless women early in marriage. The argument is not that young women born in the mid-19th century intended to be childless at young ages; it is instead that they were willing and able to postpone childbearing. With fertility delay came experience an...
TL;DR: This article developed hypotheses about how prejudice can be expected to affect discrimination and tested them in Australia, a nation with numerous and diverse immigrants. But they found that the sociological hypothesis of prejudice leading to discrimination is both wrong and right.
Abstract: This article develops hypotheses about how prejudice can be expected to affect discrimination and tests them in Australia, a nation with numerous and diverse immigrants. Census data, analyzed with a flexible regression model, are from the 1981 1% Public Use Sample (PUS), with detailed information on education, occupation, income, timing of immigration, and language fluency. Attitudinal data, analyzed with LISREL methods, are from a representative national sample (N = 3,012). The analyses show that the sociological hypothesis of prejudice leading to discrimination is both wrong (there is little or no discrimination in jobs and pay) and right (prejudiced employers say they would discriminate in hiring). Economists employers, too,are partly wrong (competition does not force employers to renounce discriminatory hiring) and partly right(minorities receive equal rewards to education with no sign of discrimination on a social distance gradient). The authors suggest that "exclusionary" and "economic" discriminati...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the initial phase of the emergence of serious music ideology in late 18th-and early 19th-century Vienna by examining elite receptivity to the news ideology as it occurred against a backdrop of change in the organizational basis of music sponsorship.
Abstract: This article attempts to account for the initial phase of the emergence of serious music ideology in late 18th-and early 19th-century Vienna by examining elite receptivity to the news ideology as it occurred against a backdrop of change in the organizational basis of music sponsorship. The decline of the private house ensembles (Hauskapellen) resulted in a social broadening of music patronage and thereby tended to erode the traditional institutional means for aristocratic authority in musical affairs. The exclusive function that the qualitatively different ideology of "serious" music could provide reaffirmed traditional cultural boundaries through ideological rather than institutional means and enabled Vienna's old aristocrats to emerge after 1800 as the city's "most brilliant" dilettantes.