Showing papers in "Sociological Spectrum in 1998"
TL;DR: The authors developed a model of business recovery by drawing from existing research on disaster recovery and on organizational survival in nondisaster contexts and test it by using data collected from a stratified random sample of 1,110 Los Angeles area firms affected by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Abstract: Although the long‐term effects of disasters and the factors that affect the ability to recover have received increasing attention from social science researchers, little systematic research has been conducted on the processes and outcomes associated with business disaster recovery. This article attempts to fill that void by exploring the determinants of recovery within the private sector. We develop a model of business recovery by drawing from existing research on disaster recovery and on organizational survival in nondisaster contexts and test it by using data collected from a stratified random sample of 1,110 Los Angeles area firms affected by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Business size, disruption of business operations due to the earthquake, earthquake shaking intensity, and the utilization of external postdisaster aid are all predictors of business recovery. Size helps businesses weather disaster losses, just as it proves advantageous in nondisaster contexts. How businesses fare following disasters...
174 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the motivation for career entrance and continuance and stigma management was examined with 57 nude dancers employed at a variety of stripping establishments, from more traditional nude dancing establishments to the newer gentlemen's clubs.
Abstract: Data were obtained from in‐depth interviews with 57 nude dancers. The respondents were employed at a variety of stripping establishments, from more traditional nude dancing establishments to the newer gentlemen's clubs. This study examines the motivation for career entrance and continuance and stigma management. This article made use of “thick descriptions” from dancers. The technique was to let the dancers speak for themselves, presenting the world of stripping in full vivid detail, and then to offer both summarization and interpretation.
50 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined how three major background characteristics of students (race, poverty, and family structure) can produce inequalities in school outcomes, as measured by standardized tests, and found that the percentage of students from families headed by single women is an extremely powerful predictor of levels of achievement in schools.
Abstract: This study examined how three major background characteristics of students—race, poverty, and family structure—can produce inequalities in school outcomes, as measured by standardized tests. It found that the percentage of students from families headed by single women is an extremely powerful predictor of levels of achievement in schools. Moreover, it indicates that neither racial composition nor percentage of students below poverty level can account for the association of family structure with school achievement. On the contrary, the study provided strong evidence that low‐income, minority‐dominated schools exhibited lower test scores largely because of their high proportions of mother‐only families.
29 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine power as it is used by those thought to be among the most powerless women in our society, and demonstrate that homeless women are not passive victims of this total institution.
Abstract: I examine power as it is used by those thought to be among the most powerless women in our society—sheltered homeless women. I first describe homeless shelters as a form of total institution. Next, using evidence from a longitudinal study of sheltered mothers, I demonstrate that homeless women are not passive victims of this total institution. Instead, the structure of shelter life provides homeless women with opportunities for effective action. Homeless women often effectively use strategies based on stereotypical representations of poor welfare mothers to gain resources important to their ongoing survival. Although subtle, this is, I argue, a strategic use of power by these victimized women. These actions maintain a sense of personal efficacy while also helping to secure their most important goal, a permanent place to live. Gaining a home in which to raise their children and protect themselves and their families from the worst ravages of poverty represents a real increase in social power for impoverishe...
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines how two congregations constructed their participation in the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees as "religious" activity and found that members of Morristown Quaker meeting and Smithville United Methodist Church framed sanctuary provision as religious, political, and humanitarian activity.
Abstract: This research examines how two congregations constructed their participation in the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees as “religious” activity. Although members of Morristown Quaker meeting and Smithville United Methodist Church framed sanctuary provision as religious, political, and humanitarian activity, they needed to validate further the primary religious motivation and essence of their refugee sponsorship. Members established the religiosity of sanctuary participation through four main definitional and strategic negations: (a) they worked within conventional religious networks and appropriated official religious symbolism, minimizing use of available secular alternatives; (b) they enacted sanctuary as nonpolitical, humanitarian, and thus religious action; (c) they defined and experienced sanctuary decision making as extraordinary and sacred, and (d) they designated and experienced costly and risky sanctuary activism as religious activity. This last definition and strategy illustrates th...
13 citations
Abstract: This study analyzes junctures in the experiences of a summer camp staff from the perspective of structural interactionist theory, emphasizing the process by which staff construct and maintain a wilderness community, social roles, and identities. Data were collected by means of three qualitative methods: open‐ended surveys, in‐depth interviews, and participant observation. Findings indicate that staff brought varied expectations to camp yet constructed normative channels of interaction during the first week. Initial patterns of interaction sediment into concrete roles that are internalized as camp identities. From the removed and isolated local social world of the wilderness community, participants created social roles and identities that allowed for ephemeral identity transformations. When the wilderness community dissolved, staff members initially reported readjustment difficulties but ultimately returned to preestablished identities in the outside world. These findings are relevant to understandings of ...
13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a post-modern view on power is applied to illuminate dynamics of the debate around victimhood and identity, and 20 interviews with women who have experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault suggest that they view themselves as survivors, a construction defined against dominant representations of victims.
Abstract: Scholars and critics from diverse fields have forwarded various arguments about the nature and representation of victimhood and victims. For the critics and scholars, victimhood is constructed as a state of powerlessness. Although constructionist arguments recognize an ideology undergirding victim constructions, they do not explicitly engage with postmodern debates on the workings of disciplinary power. Data from 20 in‐depth interviews with women who have experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault suggest that they view themselves as survivors, a construction defined against dominant representations of victims. A postmodern view on power is applied to illuminate dynamics of the debate around victimhood and identity.
13 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines racial conflicts over efforts to build low-income government-subsidized housing in Kansas City suburbs from 1970 to 1990, drawing on public documents, housing reports and analyses, and local newspaper accounts, they examine how suburban residents have reacted to and organized against government attempts to construct housing for lowincome people outside the inner city.
Abstract: This article examines racial conflicts over efforts to build low‐income government‐subsidized housing in Kansas City suburbs from 1970 to 1990. Drawing on public documents, housing reports and analyses, and local newspaper accounts, I examine how suburban residents have reacted to and organized against government attempts to construct housing for low‐income people outside the inner city. I argue that the mobilization of suburban Whites against low‐income housing has been due to the perceived threat state‐led integration efforts have posed to White privileged access to, and control over, suburban housing practices (i.e., single‐family homeownership, racially exclusive neighborhoods, etc.). An analysis of the racial conflicts and struggles over housing integration illustrates the social construction of White racial identity and the constructed identity of the suburban homeowner. In conclusion, I discuss how single‐family homeownership, a fundamental characteristic of American suburbs, imputes distinct socia...
13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focused on the interpersonal dimension of emotional displays of persons with brain damage and contributed to research on stroke patients' "pathological crying" from the field of neuropsychology because it concentrates on the social and not only the neurological or otherwise individual level, nature of such crying.
Abstract: This study concerns the social‐interactional consequences of crying among survivors of stroke. The episodes of crying analyzed here took place during interviews including the patients, the patients’ spouses, and an interviewer. This investigation innovates on past studies within the sociology of emotions by concentrating on the interpersonal dimension of emotional displays of persons with brain damage. This study also contributes to research on stroke patients’ “pathological crying” from the field of neuropsychology because it concentrates on the social, and not only the neurological or otherwise individual‐level, nature of such crying. We first present overviews of both the sociology of emotions and the neuropsychology of poststroke emotionalism and address how our study contributes to both fields. We then discuss our participants and method of analysis and finally present our findings with respect to the techniques of the management of crying exhibited by the stroke patients’ interlocutors as well as by...
12 citations
TL;DR: Using empirical data from the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families of Households, the authors replicates and extends the marital quality model developed in 1986 by Johnson, White, Edwards, and Booth (the JWEB model).
Abstract: Using empirical data from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families of Households, this research replicates and extends the marital quality model developed in 1986 by Johnson, White, Edwards, and Booth (the JWEB model). Both conventional and multiple‐sample confirmatory factor analyses indicate that there is a great consistency of the five‐dimensional, two‐factorial marital quality model among marital unions across numerous subpopulations of gender, race, child‐bearing status, marital history, and marital duration. In addition, as the same marital quality model is extended to cohabitational unions, the results are also consistent across the same diverse subpopulations. Although the findings are highly invariant and congruent with the JWEB model, it is concluded that, regardless of the union formation (marital or cohabitational), the JWEB model is a useful and generalizable research tool for evaluating relationship quality in the United States.
12 citations
TL;DR: The history of claimsmaking by applied scientists about kudzu (Pueraria lobata) in the American South reveals three distinct periods: a period of enthusiasm when Kudzu was defined as an agricultural solution (1917-1953), a time of disenchantment when kUDZU-tioning was described as an ecological problem (1954-1984), and a period that tempered enthusiasm when new uses for kUDzu were proposed (1985-present) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The history of claimsmaking by applied scientists about kudzu (Pueraria lobata) in the American South reveals three distinct periods: a period of enthusiasm when kudzu was defined as an agricultural solution (1917–1953), a time of disenchantment when kudzu was defined as an ecological problem (1954–1984), and a period of tempered enthusiasm when new uses for kudzu were proposed (1985‐present). Experts framed scientific findings within a social context of assumptions about the usefulness of applied science, controlling kudzu, kudzu's Japanese origins, and Southern race relations. Thus, claims about kudzu illustrate the construction of applied scientists’ claims.
TL;DR: This article examined women's involvement in a community coalition in northern Brooklyn and found that women were empowered by their participation in the coalition and developed a critical consciousness regarding politics, race relations, and feminism.
Abstract: This article presents the community activism of working‐class and poor women and offers a reconceptualization of community power in general and women's empowerment in particular. This analysis is done by examining women's involvement in a community coalition in northern Brooklyn and was carried out through the use of interviews, participant observation, and content analysis. Findings indicate that women were empowered by their participation in the coalition and developed a critical consciousness regarding politics, race relations, and feminism.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine chief academic officers' perceptions of the relationship between faculty research and faculty undergraduate teaching effectiveness and suggest that chief academic officer are instrumental in establishing institutional definitions of scholarship and in creating faculty reward patterns.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine chief academic officers’ perceptions of the relationship between faculty research and faculty undergraduate teaching effectiveness. We contend that chief academic officers are instrumental in establishing institutional definitions of scholarship and in creating faculty reward patterns. Data were gathered through a mail questionnaire sent to 300 chief academic officers. A stratified random sampling technique was used to establish a representative sample. The data indicate that chief academic officers often use a conventional standard—a research‐publication standard—to measure the effectiveness of teaching. We call this process regressive determination and suggest that it occurs when there is a need to evaluate others in the presence of developing or conflicting norms for scholarly assessment. Implications for the definitional processes of scholarship and faculty reward are discussed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine whether women's increased involvement at the intersection of business and government translates to places of power, drawing primarily from a series of in-depth interviews and a mail survey.
Abstract: This article examines whether women's increased involvement at the intersection of business and government translates to places of power. Drawing primarily from a series of in‐depth interviews and a mail survey, women's positions in the formal hierarchy and decision‐making structure of corporate‐government relations are analyzed. The context and character of women's networks with those in business and government are also explored. Women are disadvantaged relative to their male counterparts; they are significantly less likely to hold top decision‐making positions in corporate‐government affairs and earn significantly less than men. Moreover, they are on tracks, within government relations and the corporation, that tend not to lead to formal positions of power. Yet women occupy key places in the interface between business and government, through which they potentially derive power to transform their conditions.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how sociodemographic factors, stage of illness, and perceived stigma affected the identification of a supportive social relationship among HIV-infected women.
Abstract: Addressing the lack of research on the social distribution of social support and research on the social experience of women with HIV infection, this article examines how sociodemographic factors, stage of illness, and perceived stigma affected the identification of a supportive social relationship among HIV‐infected women. Data were collected from women with HIV disease living in the state of Georgia. Logistic regression analysis indicates that after taking account of other factors, marital status, rural‐urban residency, stage of illness, and stigmatization were significant predictors of whether the women identified a support person. Single status and rural residency had negative effects on the outcome. Those who were at the advanced stage of illness were less likely than those at the asymptomatic stage to identify a supportive relationship. Contrary to our expectation, stigmatization had positive effects on the outcome. Implications and limitations of the analysis are discussed, followed by directions fo...
TL;DR: This paper examined gender differences in students' evaluations of statements describing various sexual acts and found that women see both gay men and lesbian women primarily in terms of violating conventional sexual behavior, while men perceive men having sex with men much differently, and much more negatively.
Abstract: In this article, we examine gender differences in students’ evaluations of statements describing various sexual acts. This examination sheds light on gender differences in prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women. On the basis of previous research, we hypothesized that men see gay men primarily in terms of violating conventional gender behavior, whereas they see lesbian women primarily in terms of violating conventional sexual behavior. In contrast, we hypothesized that women see both gay men and lesbian women primarily in terms of violating conventional sexual behavior. Our study of 201 southern university students supports these hypotheses. Men perceive women having sex with women and men having sex with women similarly. However, men perceive men having sex with men much differently, and much more negatively. In contrast, women perceive little difference between women having sex with women and men having sex with men. Women distinguish mostly between consensual and nonconsensual acts rather than betwe...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined union membership's possible empowerment of unskilled women and these workers' access to positions of power within union locals and found that women typically chose social commitments over union participation; gender, race, and job status also acted as barriers to workers' achieving positions in their union locals.
Abstract: This research examines union membership's possible empowerment of unskilled women and these workers’ access to positions of power within union locals. The women worked as custodians, clerks, and cafeteria workers at a public, urban university and were members of the Communication Workers of America or the United Auto Workers unions. We found that these workers recognized the union's ability to limit the administration's power over their workforce. However, the women typically chose social commitments over union participation; gender, race, and job status also acted as barriers to workers’ achieving positions of power in their union locals. These findings suggest that unions attempting to appeal to increasing female memberships should adopt more decentralized and participatory organizational structures to attract and empower women workers.
TL;DR: The multidimensional character of teenagers' lives is studied together with the risk of becoming a parent among British youths during the 1970s and findings suggest the existence of reciprocal relationships between adolescents' families, schools, and peer networks.
Abstract: Research on the antecedents of teen parenthood has most often focused on the family of origin as the primary locus for understanding parenthood risk; however, several theoretical perspectives promo...
TL;DR: This article explored the ways that the feminist organization Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) has become an arena of change in the discipline of sociology, academic institutions, and larger society.
Abstract: This article explores the ways that the feminist organization Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) has become an arena of change in the discipline of sociology, academic institutions, and larger society. We begin with an examination of feminist models of power and change, followed by a brief history of SWS and an exploration of the use of power in sociology, academia, and beyond. We find that SWS has influenced both the organizational governance structures of sociology (such as the American Sociological Association) and the production of sociological scholarship. As a result, the presence of women is more apparent than ever before, and sociological paradigms are more inclusive and attentive to the voices of “outsiders.” Academic institutions have been challenged and changed by an SWS presence and the monitoring of women's experiences in the academy. Beyond the discipline and academia, SWS strives to participate in the making of public policy that affects women's lives and to be a presence both domestic...