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Showing papers on "Contemporary society published in 1971"



Book
01 Jan 1971

50 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper argued that the media can be used to assist in the subjugation of the many by the few or are they a vehicle for bringing men nearer the ancient ideals of freedom and equality.
Abstract: Extravagant claims have been made concerning the potential of the mass media. The new media, it is said, have made the education previously available only to an elite available to all. They have ended parochialism for any who care to watch, read, or listen. They have made vivid the flaws and social problems of contemporary society, dramatizing them in a way previously available only to persons who encountered them directly. It is the media more than any other influence that have accelerated the intellectual maturity and social awareness of the young. But on the negative side, the contemporary utopias found in such works as Brave New World, 1984, and Walden Two are typically grim portraits of peoples controlled by clever use of the media. As an aberration characteristic of our time, totalitarianism reduces itself to one essential feature: the manipulation of the masses through the monolithic control of industry, propaganda, and police power by a party elite, proclaiming a manifest destiny that enflames mass aspirations to some messianic historical goal. Totalitarianism can establish itself only as a mass movement dominated by a minority and communications media are crucial to the development of any mass movement. Are the media cruel instruments perfectly designed to assist in the subjugation of the many by the few or are they a vehicle for bringing men nearer the ancient ideals of freedom and equality? Anything we conclude is necessarily speculative and speculations are the subject of this essay. The theories of social change developed by two noted twen-

11 citations


Book
01 Jan 1971

7 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The survey on the state of education in England and Wales, conducted in response to Lord Kerry's motion of 24 May I833, was made by the overseers of the poor as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: I N his recent article,1 Prof. West has shown a remarkable faith in the accuracy of the educational statistics that were collected in the first half of the nineteenth century. This faith was shared neither by those by whom they were compiled nor by those for whom they were produced. The reasons for this scepticism are not far to seek. The survey on the state of education in England and Wales, conducted in response to Lord Kerry's motion of 24 May I833, was made by the overseers of the poor. These officials, in making a return for the purposes of implementing the i832 Reform Act, had already given contemporary society adequate evidence of their incompetence. In the words of one observer: " [they] are quite as likely to fail in giving a correct account of the number of schools and of pupils in their respective districts, as in making an accurate return of the number of houses rated at ?Cio a year." Little more, it was pointed out in all fairness, could be expected of "men who (especially in the rural districts) have had but small advantages of education, and who are forced into office contrary to their inclination, and without any remuneration' " .2 Moreover, this inquiry was conducted at a time of bitter rivalry between the main parties interested in education. The two leading religious societies, the Anglican National Society and the nonconformist British and Foreign School Society, had only one interest in common. They were both resolutely opposed to the principle of state control. In every other respect, they were at loggerheads. Hence they fought out with each other, and with the state, a battle of statistics. As a consequence both societies, by I 839, claimed that they had a million and a half children in their schools.3 Since it has been estimated that there were 3,024,000 children between the ages of three and twelve at this time, the two societies had apparently cornered the market. Thus it was in a highly charged atmosphere that the overseer of the poor assisted by the schoolmaster, whose shortcomings will be

5 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of Catholic education in American society has never been fully explicated-particularly relative to its public counterpart as mentioned in this paper, but some insight into the nature of that role is possible, however, by comparing the outputs of the two systems in contemporary American society.
Abstract: The role of Catholic education in American society has never been fully explicated-particularly relative to its public counterpart. Some insight into the nature of that role is possible, however, by comparing the outputs of the two systems in contemporary American society. Using data collected in a national survey, this study reports upon the results of a secondary analysis wherein the "effectiveness" of the output of the two systems is compared. Defining "effectiveness" as the proportion of former tenth, grade students in senior high schools who go on to any form of post-secondary education, controlling for the number of dropouts, the results of the analysis indicate that Catholic senior high schools are more effective than public senior high schools. This difference was maintained even when the effects of the capability of the student body, the social class context, and the community setting were controlled for. Implications of these findings for the nature of Catholic education are considered.

4 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, four types of seminarians are distinguished: traditionalist, revisionist, academic, and activist, and their religious perspectives and attitudes toward ministry are described, including the traditionalist maintaining primary emphasis upon fellowship with God, the revisionist focusing on community among men, the academic following the revisionists but plans to minister in college teaching, and the activist emphasizing social transformation.
Abstract: Stimulated by recent interest in conceptualizing and measuring new forms of religion in contemporary society, this inquiry focuses on new forms of religion emerging in the seminary. Four types of seminarians are distinguished--the traditionalist, the revisionist, the academic, and the activist-and their religious perspectives and attitudes toward ministry are described. The traditionalist maintains primary emphasis upon fellowship with God; the revisionist focuses on community among men; the academic follows the revisionist but plans to minister in college teaching; and the activist emphasizes social transformation. Some of the sources and consequences of these four perspectives are given, and suggestions are made toward further study of seminarians and other religious elites. Although considerable advances have been made in recent years toward the study of contemporary religious phenomena, the dominant conclusion that emerges is that much remains to be explained. In fact, many of these studies have been predominately negative (e.g., Berton, 1965; Berger, 1961; and Winter, 1962), discovering more of what religion is not, than of what it actually is. More recently the empirical work of Glock, Stark, and colleagues (1965, 1967, and 1968) has also proven the need for new formulations of religion. While their focus on traditional "orthodoxy" has contributed immensely to the understanding of denominationalism, secularism, anti-Semitism, etc., the fact remains that their "orthodoxy index" left the beliefs of many church-goers unexplained. As one approach to studying new forms of religion, interest has recently been directed toward the analysis of religious elites. Hadden (1969), for example, has focused on new forms of social involvement among ministers, and Time (1970) journalists have surveyed Catholic priests and nuns to, discover sources of change within their ranks. The study of religious elites cannot in itself fully predict the nature of new religious forms, but it has long been recognized as a useful place to start. Max Weber (Bendix, 1960), for example,

3 citations