Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 1975"

The Decomposition of Effects in Path Analysis

Abstract: This paper is about the logic of interpreting recursive causal theories in sociology. We review the distinction between associations and effects and discuss the decomposition of effects into direct and indirect components. We then describe a general method for decomposing effects into their components by the systematic application of ordinary least squares regression. The method involves successive computation of reduced-form equations, beginning with an equation containing only exogenous variables, then computing equations which add intervening variables in sequence from cause to effect. This generates all the information required to decompose effects into their various direct and indirect parts. This method is a substitute for the often more cumbersome computation of indirect effects from the structural coefficients (direct effects) of the causal model Finally, we present a way of summarizing this information in tabular form and illustrate the procedures using an empirical example.

Cycles in Symbol Production: The Case of Popular Music

Abstract: This study questions the common assertion that culture forms go through cycles. Data on the structure of the music industry and the sorts of music produced over 26 years are examined. Periods of market concentration are found to correspond to periods of homogeneity, periods of competition to periods of diversity. A relatively long period of gradually increasing concentration is followed by a short burst of competition and diversity, with changes in market structure preceding changes in music. Assertions that consumers necessarily "get what they want" or "want what they get" are not supported. The degree of vertical integration at three key points (creative factors, merchandising and distribution), as well as diverse mechanisms in the industry's task environment, are found to be important in explaining these associations. Their nature suggests the fruitfulness of comparative studies of the production of symbol systems in the arts, science, and religion.

Sex and the Process of Status Attainment: A Comparison of Working Women and Men.

Abstract: The process of educational, occupational and income attainment of working women and men is compared, utilizing data from representative national samples of women age 3044, their husbands and men of corresponding age. Comparisons are made separately for whites and nonwhites. The process and level of educational and occupational attainment is shown to be virtually identical for women and men, but women earn far less than men even when work experience and hours of work are taken into account. Married women are shown to earn less than single women, and the sources of this difference are analyzed.

De-parsonizing weber: a critique of parsons' interpretation of weber's sociology*

Abstract: One of the most influential interpretations of Max Weber's sociology has been that provided by Talcott Parsons, especially in The Structure of Social Action. We contend that the Parsonian interpretation is erroneous both in many of its particulars add in the general cast that it gives to Weber's theoretical product. The crux of Parsons' misrepresentation is his overweening emphasis on the category of the normative. A confusion of "factual regularities" with "normative validity" - despite Weber's numerous warnings against such - led Parsons to an exaggeration of the importance Weber assigned to normative orientations of social action, legitimacy add collectivity integration, and, correspondingly, to a severe understatement of the importance of nonnormative aspects of social action and structures of dominance. In consequence, Parsons expanded what was but a part of Weber's sociology and made it very nearly the whole.

School District Organization and Student Achievement.

Abstract: Using data from 104 school districts in Colorado, this study examines determinants of organizational effectiveness. Five environmental conditions of these districts, three components of district structure and one of staff composition are linked in a causal model to the median reading and mathematics achievement test scores of the districts' high school students. The environmental conditions are size, fiscal resources, percent non-white in the population of the district's community, and the education and income levels of the parental risk population. The measures of district structure are pupil-teacher ratio, administrative intensity and the ratio of supporting professional staff to teachers. The staff composition variable is qualification level of the professional staff. The results indicate that pupil-teacher ratio and administrative intensity depress median levels of achievement; whereas, staff qualifications foster student achievement. Of the environmental conditions, only percent non-white has consistently significant direct effects on median achievement levels. But other environmental conditions (resources especially) have important indirect effects on achievement via their direct effects on school district structure and staff qualifications.

The Loss of Community: An Empirical Test Through Replication

Abstract: This survey and field observation study replicates Donald Foley's Neighbors or Urbanites? (1952) in the same urban neighborhood twenty-five years later to test the dynamic hypothesized "loss of community" in urban life. Three indexes reflecting three dimensions of community were explored. "Local facility use" declined, "informal neighboring" showed no change, while "sense of community" increased. The latter two did not decline because the area has attracted residents who economically and ideologically "value" the changes which have occurred in the area and the resulting "ecological niche" which the area has come to occupy. It is middle-class, racially integrated and urban. Residents have consciously sought out this area because of these characteristics and have consciously attempted to create community in part through an active local community organization. Drawing upon Mannheim's distinction between utopia and ideology, the area is defined as a consciously created "ideological community."

Presidential Address: Two Methods in Search of a Substance

Abstract: In tune with the overall theme of these meetings, this Presidential Address is an exercise in the uses of controversy. I am perturbed about present developments in American sociology which seem to foster the growth of both narrow, routine activities, and of sect-like, esoteric ruminations. While on the surface these two trends are dissimilar, together they are an expression of crisis and fatigue within the discipline and its theoretical underpinnings. I shall eschew statesmanlike weighing of the pros and cons of the issues to be considered and shall attempt instead to express bluntly certain of my misgivings and alarms about these recent trends in our common enterprise; let the chips fall where they may. Building on other students of science, Diane Crane (1972) has argued that scientific disciplines typically go through various stages of growth accompanied by a series of changes in the characteristics of scientific knowledge and of the scientific community involved in the study of the area. In stage one, important discoveries provide models for future work and attract new enthusiastic scientists. In the next stage, a few highly productive scientists recruit and train students, set priorities for research and maintain informal contacts with one another. All this leads to rapid growth in both membership and publications. But in later stages the seminal ideas become exhausted and the original theories no longer seem sufficient. At this point a gradual decline in both membership and publication sets in, and those who remain develop increasingly narrow, specialized, though often methodologically highly refined, interests. Unless fresh theoretical leads are produced at this point to inspire new growth, the field gradually declines. Such stages of growth and decline are, of course, not limited to the sciences. In other spheres of culture, religion and the arts for example, similar phenomena have been observed (cf. Thomas O'Dea, 1966; Max Weber 1963; Alfred Kroeber, 1957). One need only think of the creative effervescence in the communities of Christ's immediate disciples and their direct successors in contrast to quotidian routines and ritualized devotions of the later stages in what had now become the Church of Rome. Or consider the art of Byzantine icon painting where, after the early creative period, the same motives, even techniques, were endlessly repeated so that it takes a specialist to distinguish between paintings executed not just decades but even centuries apart. In religion and the arts, however, innovation is not a necessary condition for flowering and appeal, but in the sciences, when no innovation is forthcoming rigor mortis is not far away. The findings of Crane and others in the sociology of science typically refer not to a whole branch of knowledge but only to sub-fields within such branches. It would therefore be wrong to apply these findings to sociology as a whole, composed as it is of a wide variety of sub-areas each with its own pattern and rhythm of growth. Yet permit me nevertheless roughly, and per*Presidential Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of The American Sociological Association in San Francisco, August, 1975. 691

Disengagement theory: a critique and proposal

Abstract: This article examines the central theory in the sociology of aging-disengagement theory. It asks why the last decade of research bearing on it has been so inconclusive. The answer, the author suggests, lies (a) in the overlooked flaws in its underlying logic-the escape clause problem, (b) in the overly inclusive nature of its central variables-the omnibus variable problem and (c) in the level of reality it selects for study-the assumption of meaning problem. These three problems appear not only in disengagement theory but in much of the later research bearing on it. In an attempt to avoid these problems, the author sketches an alternative theory. This theory redefines disengagement and proposes new structural determinants of it.

Growth and Decline Processes in Organizations.

Abstract: Since the original articles by Melman (1951) and Terrien and Mills (1955), researchers have most often attempted to explain variations in administrative intensity through reference to size. Administrative intensity is defined as the relative sizes of two personnel components in organizations: administrative (or "supportive") and production-worker (or "direct"). In its most recent form, the linkage between this variable and size has been asserted by Blau and a number of collaborators (Blau, 1970; Blau and Schoenherr, 1971; Blau, 1972; Blau, 1973). The essential idea is that bigger organizations have more highly elaborated structures with regard to both horizontal and vertical differentiation. Size has positive effects on administrative intensity because these elaborate structures produce coordination problems for which the organization compensates by hiring additional administrators. On the other hand, bigger organizations have previously made investments in organizational patterns required to manage a higher level of work activity. As Blau (1972:18) put it: ". . . the investment of administrative time required for organizing operations is not proportionate to their volume, increasing far less than the volume of work increases." In addition, larger size makes for a more efficient use of specialized administrative effort. Skills and abilities are not infinitely divisible. So small organizations are less able to use administrative manpower efficiently.

Socioeconomic status and criminal sentencing: An empirical assessment of a conflict proposition.

Abstract: The "conflict perspective" has generated considerable critical interest in the mechanisms of criminal sanctioning. Among the hypotheses generated by conflict criminology is the proposition that "when sanctions are imposed, the most severe sanctions will be imposed on, persons in the lowest social class" (Chambliss and Seidman, 1971:475). This paper affords an empirical test of that.proposition, which has been widely accepted as true despite the absence of substantial supporting evidence. Prison sentences received by 10,488 inmates for a total of seventeen specific offenses, within three southeastern states are examined. Product-moment correlations between a defendant's SES and the sentence received provide no support for the conflict proposition, and this conclusion is further strengthened when controls are introduced for "prior record" and demographic characteristics of the defendant. Multiple correlation and beta coefficients are also examined with similar conclusions. Implications for the explanation of criminal sanctioning institutions by conflict mechanisms are suggested.

Occupations, Labor Markets and the Process of Wage Attainment

Abstract: A key problem in sociology, as in economics, is explaining why some workers earn more money than others. Sociological models of earnings have stressed the role of a worker's occupation and have tended to ignore the conditions of the labor market in which he finds work. Economic models have stressed labor market functioning at the expense of considering the role of a worker's occupation in determining his wages. In this paper, I attempt to combine sociological models of earnings with (a) economic models of earnings and (b) concepts and findings from the sociology of occupations and professions. I argue theoretically and empirically that some similar conclusions about the processes governing individual earnings attainment can be drawn by examining occupations in terms of labor markets and by analysis of labor markets from the standpoint of occupations. These conclusions are: (a) that labor markets tend to be fragmented along occupational lines, (b) that the processes governing wage attainment vary from one occupation to another and (c) that occupational differences in these processes can be predicted from and explained in terms of the forces which lead to occupational segmentation of labor markets. I discuss some useful implications of my analyses for the study of the relationship between worker age and worker earnings, and I perform some empirical and theoretical analyses of occupational differences in the age-wage relationship. Data are drawn from the U.S. Censuses of 1960 and 1970 and from publications of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Contextual Effects in the High School Attainment Process.

Abstract: This paper presents a multidimensional mediation model of composition influences. Ability and social status of student body composition are distinguished, and the interpersonal and social comparison processes by which their effects tend to offset each other are specified. Whereas the contextual effects of ability were found to be negative, those of social status were positive. Since the two contextual variables themselves are positively and strongly correlated, their effects are almost exactly offsetting in the long run. The model is examined on data for a national sample first surveyed in 1955 as high school sophomores and followed up in 1973.

Expectations, evaluations and equity

Abstract: One important reason for the inconsistent findings of the research on inequitably over-rewarded individuals is the failure to understand and control the process by which rewards come to be related to the formation of expectations about rank or position on the dimensions of evaluation which are the basis for the allocation of rewards in social systems. If individuals have well-defined expectations concerning position or rank on the dimension of evaluation which serves as the basis for allocating rewards, when reward-expectations are violated the individual will define the situation as unjust and will attempt to act equitably when allowed to distribute rewards. If, on the other hand, an individual's rank expectations are not clearly defined, rank expectations emerge which tend to be consistent with the actual distribution of rewards. In this case, individuals come to define the initial distribution by some third party as equitable, and when given the opportunity to allocate rewards they maintain the existing reward distribution, continuing to allocate more pay to themselves.

Models of Status Inconsistency and Social Mobility Effects

Abstract: The author draws out the conceptual implications of technical procedures which he employed in an analysis published in this journal (Hope, 1971). He defends an earlier statement of status-inconsistency theory (Lenski, 1954; 1956) against attacks on its coherence, and he provides a model which accurately represents the theory (and an equivalent theory of mobility effects) and may be used to test it. By contrast with this "diamond" model, he shows that the usual "square-additive " model cannot test for the presence of status inconsistency or mobility effects, whether these are defined additively or interactively. The technique of "design matrix regression analysis" is introduced as a means for exploring the relations between models in order to grasp their structure and implications before they are fitted to data. The square-additive model is criticized for its conceptual vagueness, but a theoretical position is suggested which incorporates the main positive feature of the model while constituting a worthy rival to inconsistency theory.

The Structure of Intragenerational Mobility.

Abstract: This paper analyzes mobility rates for black and white men using life-history data on intragenerational mobility. Mobility is linked to the process of occupational achievement. It is argued that job mobility is generated by persons' attempts to maximize their status and income. Since opportunities for better jobs will be fewer the higher the occupational achievement already attained, the rate of mobility will depend on time in the labor force. The mathematical formulation of this time dependency is derived from a simple change model for the occupational achievement process. With this formulation, a redefinition of time is possible and job shifts in the redefined time scale can be described by a Poisson process. One component in the formulation of a realistic and theoretically meaningful stochastic model of mobility is then obtained. The empirical analysis indicates that the proposed model describes the observed change in mobility rates over time reasonably well.

Status inequality and stress in marriage.

Abstract: Emotional stresses that are experienced in marriage are traced to differences in spouses' status origins. Linking status differences to such stress are a number of intervening conditions. People to whom status advancement is important and who have married mates of lower status are apt to have a sense of loss that leads, in turn, to a disruptions of reciprocity, expressiveness, affection and value sharing in marital exchange. Such disruptions then act as immediate antecedents to emotional stress. It is through this process that the status order of the larger society can reach out to have a deleterious influence on the emotional states arising out of marital transactions.

Race and socioeconomic segregation

Abstract: An investigation of the residential contiguity of socioeconomic status groups in the white and black population of the Chicago SMSA in 1970 shows that although segregation indices between socioeconomic groups were comparable for whites and blacks, residential propinquity between high status and low status persons differed dramatically between racial groups. Black professionals and managers lived in tracts with an occupational composition comparable, on the average, to that of tracts where unskilled white workers lived. The neighbors of white high school drop-outs had educational backgrounds similar to those of black college graduates. Black families with incomes over $25,000 lived in poorer tracts than white families with incomes below $3,000. In comparisons of whites and blacks on any variable affected by neighborhood composition, therefore, control for individual characteristics does not eliminate the effects of differential neighborhood characteristics. In the introduction to Kantrowitz's book

Biasing influences on drug arrest records: implications for deviance research.

Abstract: Despite repeated demonstrations that a variety of factors bias official records, such records are widely used in deviance research. The crucial issue relating to such use is whether biasing factors are random (tending to cancel each other out) or systematic (reducing validity for research to unacceptable degrees). Deviance statistics are generated in contexts whose numerous biasing factors can distort the occurrence rates of deviant acts. This study examines the influence of such factors on drug arrest records in Chicago. Three decades of arrests were studied and related to findings from extensive field research in the Narcotics Division of the Chicago Police. Drug arrest statistics for both whites and nonwhites revealed distinct trends and distributions over time and space. These patterns reflect systematic biases in the operations of police assigned to the Narcotics Division. These and other such biases argue that we ought not to rely on indices of drug activity derived from arrest records.

Socioeconomic status and religious participation

Abstract: The relationship between socioeconomic status and frequency of religious participation is examined for a 1970 U.S. sample of males and females. Although some support is found for the frequently observed positive relationship between these two variables, the data require that such a generalization be qualified. The zero-order relationship generally is stronger for males than females and is positive and weak for Protestants, but is essentially zero for Catholics and negative in sign for Jews and unaffiliated whites. Where the relationship is positive, it is not entirely explainable by the positive relationship of our measure of general social participation with both SES and religious participation. In addition, the examination of interactions with marital status and the presence of children under age 16 indicated that the SES-religious participation relationship is strongest for those who are married and responsible for young children. Even with these significant variations by relevant subpopulations, we conclude that the explanatory power of socioeconomic status in predicting religious participation is small both in absolute terms and in comparison with other possible determinants examined.

Social structural and psychological antecedents of self-estrangement and powerlessness.

Abstract: Estimates are presented for a structural equations model of the social structural and personality antecedents of two forms of early career alienation, self-estrangement and powerlessness. The sample consists of panel data from a cohort of 1 7-year-old men studied in 195 7 and again in 1972 (N = 442). Analysis is by multiple regression based on correlations corrected for unreliability, a strategy relating measured variables to their latent constructs thereby making explicit issues of differential validity and reliability among indicators and the bearing of each on causal systems. The major finding is that the two forms of alienation are affected by different patterns of structural and personality antecedents originating at various stages in the first half of the life cycle. The model accounts for small to modest proportions of variance in self-estrangement and powerlessness and slightly reduces the covariation between the two forms of alienation.

Components of sustenance organization and nonmetropolitan population change: a human ecological investigation

Abstract: An assumption basic to human ecological theory, as developed by Gibbs, Hawley, Martin and others, states that a significant relationship exists between sustenance organization and population growth or decline. The present investigation transforms this assumption into an empirically verifiable hypothesis. Several components of sustenance organization are operationalized and found to account for a substantial proportion of the variation in relative population change in the nonmetropolitan counties of the United States between 1960 and 1970. The efficacy of sustenance activities as an explanation of population change is tested against a number of competing hypotheses focusing on age and racial composition, economic opportunities and proximity to metropolitan areas. Collectively these alternative explanations add little to the amount of variation in population change accounted for by components of sustenance organization. The implications of these findings for ecological theory are discussed in some detail.

The Market, Tradition and Peasant Rebellion: The Case of Romania in 1907

Abstract: Two models of peasant rebellion are examined using historical census data relevant to the Romanian peasant rebellion of 1907. One model synthesizes the arguments of Wolf Moore, Hobsbawm and Tlly. The other is Stinchcombe's. Each model is operationalized and tested using multiple regression techniques on county level data. The first synthetic model works well and shows that the most important variable explaining the intensity of the rebellion is the interactive effect of peasant traditionalism and the penetration of market forces in agriculture.

SOCIO-HISTORICAL MODEL AND DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY Charismatic Community, Charisma of Reason and the Counterculture

Abstract: No other part of Max Weber’s Sociology of Domination in Economy and Society has proven so troublesome and yet so provocative as the sections on charisma. At the same time, the work’s comprehensive typology is still insufficiently utilized.