Showing papers on "Social network published in 1977"

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory

Abstract: Past analysis of social movements and social movement organizations has normally assumed a close link between the frustrations or grievances of a collectivity of actors and the growth and decline of movement activity. Questioning the theoretical centrality of this assumption directs social movement analysis away from its heavy emphasis upon the social psychology of social movement participants; it can then be more easily integrated with structural theories of social process. This essay presents a set of concepts and related propositions drawn from a resource mobilization perspective. It emphasizes the variety and sources of resources; the relationship of social movements to the media, authorities, and other parties; and the interaction among movement organizations. Propositions are developed to explain social movement activity at several levels of inclusiveness-the social movement sector, the social movement industry, and social movement organization.

Constructing Social Problems

Abstract: There is no adequate definition of social problems within sociology, and there is not and never has been a sociology of social problems. That observation is the point of departure of this book. The authors aim to provide such a definition and to prepare the ground for the empirical study of social problems. They are aware that their objective will strike many fellow sociologists as ambitious, perhaps even arrogant. Their work challenges sociologists who have, over a period of fifty years, written treatises on social problems, produced textbooks cataloguing the nature, distribution, and causes of these problems, and taught many sociology courses. It is only natural that the authors' work will be viewed as controversial in light of the large literature which has established a "sociology of" a wide range of social problems-the sociology of race relations, prostitution, poverty, crime, mental illness, and so forth. In the 1970s when the authors were preparing for a seminar on the sociology of social problems, their review of the "literature" revealed the absence of any systematic, coherent statement of theory or method in the study of social problems. For many years the subject was listed and offered by university departments of sociology as a "service course" to present undergraduates with what they should know about the various "social pathologies" that exist in their society. This conception of social problems for several decades has been reflected in the substance and quality of the literature dominated by textbooks. In 'Constructing Social Problems', the authors propose that social problems be conceived as the claims-making activities of individuals or groups regarding social conditions they consider unjust, immoral, or harmful and that should be addressed. This perspective, as the authors have formulated it, conceives of social problems as a process of interaction that produces social problems as social facts in society. The authors further propose that this process and the social facts it produces are the data to be researched for the sociology of social problems. This volume will be of interest to those concerned with the discipline of sociology, especially its current theoretical development and growth.

The social network, support and neurosis. The function of attachment in adult life.

Abstract: The psychological function of the social network is considered in terms of attachment theory. Social bonds are proposed as essential for obtaining a commodity commonly but unsatisfactorily referred to as support. Requirements for this complex commodity can be discerned in a wide range of contexts. Examples considered are the evolutionary origin of the social network itself, the concept of psychosocial supplies, the distribution of neurosis in Western and non-Western populations, the use of medical consultations, psychotherapy and habitual responses to adversity or disaster. In these and other contexts, it is apparent that individuals have, quite simply, a requirement for affectively positive interaction with others. Under stressful conditions this interaction is called 'support'. When support is lacking there is evidence that psychiatric and perhaps medical morbidity rates increase. For reaseach, the objective must now be to determine whether depleted primary group interaction is causally related to morbidity, or whether it is only an associated or a secondary factor in aetiology, or indeed wholly unrelated. Elucidating more precisely why people need people constitutes an important new task for social psychiatry.

The three faces of social psychology.

Abstract: The current "crisis" of social psychology largely reflects the division of the field into three increasingly isolated domains or faces: (1) psychological social psychology, (2) symbolic interactionism, and (3) psychological sociology (or social structure and personality) A sociology of knowledge analysis suggests that the distinctive substantive and methodological concerns of each face reflect the intellectual and institutional contexts in which it developed Psychological social psychology has increasingly focused on individual psychological processes in relation to social stimuli using laboratory experiments; symbolic interactionism, on face-to-face interaction processes using naturalistic observations; and psychological sociology, on the relation of macrosocial structures and processes to individual psychology and behavior, most often using survey methods Brief critical discussion of the faces indicates that the strengths of each complement weaknesses in the others, highlighting a need for more interchange among them Psychological sociology receives special emphasis because it currently lacks the coherence and clear identity of the other faces, yet is essential to a well-rounded social psychology since it balances the increasingly microsocial emphases of the other faces Although diagnosis does not guarantee cure, this paper aims to promote modification of the very faces and trends it depicts The expansion of the Handbook of Social Psychology from one volume in 1935 to two volumes in 1954 and five volumes by 1968-69 reflects the rapid growth of the broad interdisciplinary field of social psy

Social Networks and Pathways to Psychiatric Treatment

Abstract: Cultural interpretations have dominated the study of class differences in entering psychiatric treatment. This study compares the power of cultural variables and structural variables to predict the entry into psychiatric treatment. The concept of the social network is used to show that structural relationships, in addition to the culture of the different social classes, are important predictors of psychiatric labels and referrals, severity of symptoms, and duration of symptoms in the community. Interviews with 120 outpatients and short-term inpatients at a community mental health center provide the data for the study. The findings support the hypothesis that structural variables are important determinants of the pathways into psychiatric treatment and point to the need to link the structure of social networks to the content of networks. Studies of psychiatric help-seeking have emphasized the cultural forces predisposing individuals to enter psychiatric treatment. Sociologists have paid particular attention to the attitudes, knowledge, and verbal skills of persons of various social class backgrounds (Dohrenwend and Chin-Song; Gove and Howell; Hollingshead and Redlich; Myers and Roberts). For example, middle-class persons have more favorable attitudes toward psychiatry and greater knowledge to correctly identify psychiatric disorders than lower-class people, leading them to enter psychiatric treatment with less severe problems and in shorter periods of time (Gove and Howell). In addition, the greater intellectual sophistication of the middle and upper classes makes them more likely to initiate hospitalization themselves while the lack of such sophistication among the lower classes makes social control agents more likely to initiate hospitalization (Gove and Howell). The primary causal factor in these studies has been different cultural attitudes -how they lead to different behavior patterns in psychiatric help-seeking. Recently, researchers have questioned this preoccupation with cultural forces and have used structural patterns of interaction to predict

The Social Network: A Reconsideration of the Concept of Attachment

Abstract: The concept of attachment is reviewed and is found to be somewhat confusing and restrictive. An alternative to this concept, a social network approach, is offered to clarify the issues central to the study of social relationships. First, the following definition features of attachment are critically examined: (1) the affectionate quality of the relationship; (2) the role of proximity-seeking and maintaining behaviors; (3) the enduring quality of the relationship; (4) the uniqueness of the relationship and differentiality of behavioral expression; (5) attachment as an all-or-none phenomenon, and (6) attachment as a ‘tie’, ‘bond’, or ‘behavioral system’. Second, a social network approach is presented and specific propositions concerning this approach outlined.

Random Directed Graph Distributions in the Triad Census in Social Networks

Abstract: This paper uses the concept of the triad census as, developed by Holland and Leinhardt, and describes several distributions on directed graphs Methods are presented for calculating the mean and the covariance matrix of the triad census for the uniform distribution that conditions on the number of choices made by each individual in the social network Several complex distributions on digraphs are approximated, and an application of these methods to a sociogram is given

Social Economics: One Perspective

Abstract: (1977). Social Economics: One Perspective. Review of Social Economy: Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 299-310.

Social networks and territory in a commuter village, bond head, ontario

Abstract: SOCIAL NETWORKS AND PLACE Below the level of formal organizations, but above that of individual behaviour, there exists a weblike mesh of relationships between households. We are all aware, intuitively, of social networks. They are the old-boys networks, cliques, alliances, friendships, acquaintanceship chains, and kinship groups in which we all participate. Many, perhaps most, decisions taken by individuals are mediated through social networks. Networks are, as well, located in geographic space. In this paper I shall look at the concept of social networks and then use the concept to examine a small settlement in the Toronto hinterland.

Scholarship in the Quest for Social Welfare: A Fifty-Year History of the "Social Service Review"

Abstract: This essay examines the changing purposes of social work and social welfare scholarship through the fifty years of the Social Service Review. The author suggests that, although the personalities and ideologies of the editors were important in determining the content of the Review, national and international developments and trends within the social work profession and the academic world generally have been the most important determinants.

Systems Theory and Social Work: A Reexamination

Abstract: Systems theory has received considerable attention in social work and appears to be in use at all levels of planning and practice. There is some indication, however, that this acceptance has occurred without much attention to its structural properties and their practical implications. This paper discusses some of the basic elements of systems theory, noting both reasons for their appeal to social workers and dangers involved in their uncritical application. Specific attention is paid to the issue of analogies in theory building and to systems theory implications for dealing with macrosocial phenomena, social change, and power.

The social psychology of military service.

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Cliques, clubs and clans

Abstract: In the analysis of social networks adequate concepts are necessary to indicate various types and configurations of social groups such as peer groups, coteries, acquaintance groups, etc. The problem has theoretically been argued convincingly by e.g. Kadushin (1968), who introduced the general concept of "social circle". In the actual empirical study of social networks there is therefore a need for adequate operational and analytically useful concepts to represent such more or less closely knit groups. Many of these can be developed with the help of the theory of graphs and networks. A well-known concept, more or less corresponding to that of the peer group is the clique: a group all members of which are in contact with each other or are friends, know each other, etc. However, similar concepts will be necessary to denote less closely knit, yet significantly homogeneous social groups, such as "acquaintance groups", where every pair of members, if they are not in mutual contact, have mutual acquaintances, or common third contacts, etc. In this latter type of social group an important aspect is brought out by the question of whether the homogeneity of a social group is due to its position in a larger social network in which it is embedded, or whether it is a property of the group itself as a more or less autarchic unit, independent of the surrounding social network. In the first case, for instance, a group may be as closely knit as an "acquaintance network",

Simulation in Social Science

Abstract: The basic problems and questions confronted by contemporary social scientists are problems dealing with the interrelationships between a large number of elements. While classical science was concerned with problems which usually entailed only a few variables and one-way chains of causality, modern problems are generally multivariate. They are problems of &dquo;organized complexity&dquo;-that is, of the interaction of a large but not infinite number of variables (see von Bertalanffy, 1968: 11). The analysis and explanation of these highly complex systems frequently requires the use of tools that have only recently come into their own. This brief article provides an overview regarding the use of one such tool, computer simulation-the construction of systems models and the subsequent evaluation of these models as a surrogate for the system that is of primary interest.

Social Networks in the Modern City

Abstract: Social network, an interesting theoretical cconcept, has suffered through difficulties in developing from it any operational devices suitable for use in ordinary social survey research. Here, one such device is presented, and its utility is examined in the contrasting urban contexts of Hull and Los Angeles. Existing theories about the correlates of network density are partially confirmed and partially contradicted by the findings. In particular there is an attempt to reevaluate the part played by kinship in the social networks of modern urban society. "And these three things abideth-class, role and network-and the greatest of these is network" (Mitchell). When Mitchell wrote these words, network was certainly looming large on the sociological scene. The seminal work of Elizabeth Bott and her followers, in their studies of conjugal role segregation, had placed the idea of network firmly in the language of social inquiry, by suggesting that it provided a far more useful contextual framework for studying informal social relations than the more traditional "group." Frankenburg had attempted to give the concept of network a more general importance by placing various communities on a spectrum of "social redundancy." Mitchell's own former colleagues in Rhodesia had given an impressive array of research teeth to the idea by their participant observer studies of the spread of rumour and the extension of influence in African urban situations. J. A. Barnes, the doyen of the network group, had been attempting, for some fifteen years, to wrap the network concept in a theoretical garb derived from graph theory. Mitchell's enthusiasm was certainly well-founded. Yet most social scientists will agree that network has not attained the conceptual stature of class or role. I would like to suggest that this stunted growth stems not from the lack of theoretical investment, for there has been plenty of that, but from the reluctance of social scientists to operationalize the idea. Several workers have specifically attempted to test the Bott hypothesis in a variety of social contexts (Aldous and Strauss; Nelson; Udry and Hall), but their efforts merely attracted the approbrium of "narrow operationalism" (Turner). Such hostility to genuine attempts to build a body of working empirical devices must surely be inimical to the development of the idea of a social network. Without spawning a set of measuring devices that have widespread and relatively straightforward usage, the construct must inevitably remain stillborn. Other reasons, apart from the perennial hostility of self-styled theorists, underlay the slow operational development of the network idea. In the first place lay the heavy hand of the Bott hypothesis. So influential were Bott's ideas in the early years of network that it came to be regarded, not as an interesting social fact to be investigated in its own right, but as an intervening variable in the explanation of conjugal role segregation. Yet the idea of network density, as a way of characterizing

A study of illness referral in a Spanish-speaking community.

Abstract: In an anthropologic study of illness referral among Latin-American immigrants three phases were ascertained: First, there was extended use of self-treatment. Second, referrals were made to the social network, particularly to people from the same country of origin. Finally, referrals to the professional network were made to professionals with the same cultural heritage. Latin-American immigrant families living in a cooperative were studied over a 14-month period, utilizing the method of participant observation, a family health calendar, and interviews. This report focuses on the results of the family health calendar. Most illnesses reported by families did not go beyond self-treatment. Cultural influences including language, social network, priorities of daily living were related to the alternatives selected by families when illness incidents oc-curred.

A network approach to clinical social work

Abstract: This article describes a technique that attempts to combine the best of the traditional clinical psychotherapeutic method with the advantages of a social systems approach. The technique is based on the assumption that the solution to a variety of human dilemmas lies within the collective resources of an individual's social network. The vehicle for accomplishing this is the “Network Session” in which professional, care-givers meet with a client and his natural social network to facilitate client growth, and to design and implement a strategy for more effective service delivery. Two case studies are included to demonstrate the method.

Community mental health nursing: a social network approach.

Abstract: This paper describes an intervention technique that the psychiatric nurse may find useful in community mental health settings. This technique is called social network intervention. It attempts to combine the best of traditional clinical psychotherapeutic method with the advantages of a social systems approach for working with the patient in psychiatric distress. The technique is based on the assumption that the solution to a variety of human predicaments lies within the collective instrumental and affective resources of a patient's social network. The vehicle for accomplishing this is the "Network Session" during which a mental health clinician convenes the patient and his/her social network to help plan and resolve the difficulty. A Case Report demonstrating the use of the technique is included.