摘要:

Fear of crime in the United States has become a problem as serious as crime itself. Many commentators have pointed out that fear is greatly out of proportion to the objective probability of being victimized. But to date, few multivariate analyses of fear of crime have been undertaken. The present research moves in this direction by combining and analyzing two national samples from 1973 and 1974 in regard to fear (n = 2,700). We employed five variables central to the victimization literature—sex, race, age, socioeconomic status, and community size. Multivariate Nominal Scale Analysis (MNA) was employed to assess the independent ability of each variable to predict respondents who indicated a fear of crime (42%) and those who did not (58 %). Findings indicated that sex and city size are strong predictors of fear. Age and race were somewhat less important than has generally been supposed and the socioeconomic variables, income and education, had small effects. Merely on the basis of this system of explanatory variables, however, it was possible to classify correctly almost 72 percent of the entire sample in regard to fear. Implications of this high explanatory power as well as limitations of the analysis are presented and discussed.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.519

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Panel data from a study of adolescent drinking practices are used to study the relationship of norms, deviance, and social environments. Using these data, a test is made of contrasting perspectives which differentially emphasize the extent of individual activity in the construction and maintenance of social order. The normative paradigm emphasizes the impact on individual behavior of normative structures and the groups with which individuals have affiliated themselves. The interpretive paradigm emphasizes the extent to which norms and group affiliations can be changed to support behavior which the individual has found rewarding. The results indicate that elements of both perspectives are applicable in the case of drinking among first-year college students. Norms influence both one's own drinking behavior and through a process of selection that of one's five best friends; and whether one drinks influences both one's drinking-related norms and the drinking habits of those we select as friends.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.532

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Three basic research issues are addressed concerning the structure of relations among elite community decision-makers as an illustrative application of the conception of a system of actors as a social topology given in Part One (appearing in the previous issue of this journal): (1) What is the form of the role-sets defining statuses across which the elite are stratified? (2) What is the content of these role-sets, i.e., what is the substance of the relations differentiating the community elite? (3) How is the possession of resources associated with the distribution of prestige among the community elite? The application to elite decision-makers in a small German community illustrates the explicit epistemic linkage between abstract and empirical structure inherent in casting a system of actors as a social topology and the hypothesis testing capabilities arising from this explicit linkage.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.551

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This paper examines bias toward status-similarity in adult friendships in Detroit and a West German city. Principles of meeting and “mating,” by which strangers are converted to acquaintances and acquaintances to friends, are stated. One of these, the proximity principle, claims that the more similar people are, the more likely they will meet and become friends. This principle is tested in matrices of friendship choice for twelve social characteristics. Two statistical measures of bias are used (odds ratio and marginal ratio) and their properties discussed. Compared to a random-choice model, adult friendships show strong bias toward status similarity for all social characteristics. Bias is strongest for “edge” categories of ranked statuses and for “best” friends. The less similar two people are in social characteristics, the less likely they are to be close friends. Demographic characteristics tend to show more bias toward homogeneous choices than other characteristics. These findings are explained and further analyses of adult friendship structure and dynamics are discussed.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.576

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Measures of organizational and occupational commitment, as operationalized by Ritzer and Trice, and Alutto et al. were obtained from 120 park and forest rangers working in state and federal organizations in Virginia. Findings yield partial support for Becker's original side-bet hypothesis, especially with respect to organizational commitment. Stronger support, however, is found for an alternative social psychological explanation of commitment, offered by Ritzer and Trice. Since neither explanation of organizational or occupational commitment is totally supported by the data, future research should take into account the various fields and levels of those surveyed.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.598

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.604

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This paper uses the results of the 1970 census to examine the question whether males, especially lower-income males, benefit economically from earnings discrimination against women. The kinds of arguments raised in the literature on the parallel question, whether whites benefit from economic discrimination against blacks are examined for their bearing on the effect of sexual discrimination.The ratio of urban female to urban male and the ratio of white female to white male earnings are used as indicators of earnings discrimination against women, while median annual male earnings and the Gini index of male earnings inequality are used as the measure of male gain. The fifty U.S. states are compared on these measures through correlation analysis. The percentage of the population in manufacturing, personal income per capita, the percent living in cities, the percentage of the population that is Third World and the region of the country are controlled through partial correlation. Indicators of earnings discrimination against women are also correlated with a measure of the strength of unions.The results show that discrimination against women does not affect the median annual earnings of males, but that the greater the discrimination against women, the more equal the male earnings distribution. This means that while men as a whole do not earn more because of sexual discrimination, the poorer paid whites do benefit somewhat at the expense of women, while the better paid males lose. It also means that while men, in a given state, are concentrated in the better paying jobs because of earnings discrimination against women, the median pay of those better paying jobs is somewhat less than it is in those states where earnings discrimination is less. Sexual discrimination does not appear to be a divisive force undermining working-class solidarity. Thus racism and sexism are not analogous phenomena in their effect on the working class.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.611

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.626

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

By analyzing a white Christian subsample of pooled national survey data collected in 1968, 1970, and 1972 (subsample'sn =4,142), we try to determine whether ethnicity has a direct effect on party identification net of parental party identification. In so doing, we raise a number of subsidiary issues: (1) how best to measure ethnicity, (2) the need to distinguish between ethnically identified and ethnically assimilated respondents, and (3) possible regional variation in the impact of ethnicity. We find that religion alone (Protestant versus Catholic) is an adequate measure of ethnicity for this analysis, there being little intrareligious variation in party identification by national origin. Second, religion's effect is largely limited to the ethnically identified. Third, its effect holds up when controlling for parental party identification and SES. Fourth, regional variation in the impact of religion is understood as largely flowing from regional variations in the distribution of Catholics.

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.637

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP

ISSN:0037-7732    

DOI:10.1093/sf/56.2.654

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1977

数据来源: OUP