摘要:

Many recent studies have concluded that societal structures cannot be understood without the consideration of intersocietal interactions. World-system theory helps explain the relationship between intersocietal interactions and the development of national societies in the modern world, but because this theory was constructed primarily for the analysis of the modern world-system, it needs modification to be useful for a broader comparative approach to historical development. This article begins the construction of a more encompassing world-systems theory by proposing empirically grounded concepts and hypotheses for comparative study.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.851

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Despite the centrality of formal organizations to efforts at social change, little is known about how survival prospects vary between different kinds of change-oriented organizations. In this article, I present an event-history analysis of the disbanding of national women's and minority membership organizations between 1955 and 1985. Emphasis is on differences in organizational strategy, goals, and formal structure. I argue that properties promoting organizational legitimacy confer “survival advantages” by improving potential resource acquisition. The results suggest that membership groups that follow an accepted course of action based on moderate objectives and targeted to nonpolitical arenas are relatively secure. Moreover, there is no significant difference between women's and minority organizations. As in other organizational fields, survival chances are affected by liabilities of smallness, “adolescence,” and “transformation.”

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.887

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

To date, most analyses of risk perceptions have focused on the characteristics of individual perceivers, but given the societal changes that have occurred since the early days of the industrial revolution, there is need for greater attention to the institutions that are responsible for risk management. Risks of death have been dropping significantly for more than a century, but during that time, there has been a dramatic growth of societal interdependence and hence of the potential for recreancy — the failure of institutional actors to carry out their responsibilities with the degree of vigor necessary to merit the societal trust they enjoy. In the case of facilities for handling nuclear waste, analyses of survey data find that the recreancy perspective explains roughly three times as much variance in levels of concern as do sociodemographic and ideological variables combined. The recreancy concept may also have significant applicability in other contexts involving the potentially problematic performance of specialized responsibilities.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.909

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

In current science studies, there are only few systematic efforts at explaining how different scientific specialties change over time. Such specialties are viewed here as organizations in which workers deal with various degrees of task uncertainty and mutual dependence. The sociological theory of change suggests that scientific change is generally triggered by competition, but that various types of change depend on the social organization and status of scientific groups. Some fields change through permanent discoveries, some through specialization and cumulation, yet others change through cognitive fragmentation. This argument can synthesize the various independent branches of contemporary science studies. The proposed theory has wider significance for some core problems in sociology, such as the relationship between the natural and social sciences, the prospects for a science of society, and the possibility of cumulative progress.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.933

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Building on life-course, demographic, and deviance research literatures, we analyze the search for adolescent role exits and operationalize it through a LISREL measurement model. We use panel and cross-sectional survey data from a Canadian community to estimate models for the effects of adolescent role exits on the timing of first marriage and parenthood. Absence of control allows adolescents to search for role exits and the presence of strain pushes them toward such a search, the effects of which are most pronounced among females whose mothers experience unemployment For teenaged girls in these settings, early parenthood may be a constrained choice among restricted possibilities. Our findings from a predominantly white Canadian community suggest a generic process that is significant beyond its previous association with American ghetto settings.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.955

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

We examine the linkage of couples' late-life work exit patterns with earlier work and family roles. Using data from the 1982 U.S. Social Security New Beneficiary Study, we estimate a sequential model of retirement timing of husbands and wives. The results indicate that early investments in work and family roles, as well as late-life characteristics, are associated with how older couples coordinate retirement timing. A woman's employment during the child-rearing years is associated with her earlier retirement, especially following her husband's retirement. The findings reveal the importance of the early “family organizational economy” in defining sequences of family events that combine with late-life events to influence the sequential synchronization of retirement timing.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.981

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

Social deprivation and social isolation perspectives provide grounds for expecting residential segregation to increase violent crime among oppressed minorities. Unfortunately, scholars seldom have included residential segregation in analyses of violent crime. In addition, most research has analyzed the relationship between general rather than race-specific or ethnic-specific crime rates and social and demographic predictors. To address these shortcomings, we examine the impact of racial residential segregation on rates of African-American homicide victimization for large U.S. central cities. The analyses demonstrate that black-white segregation leads to higher rates of black killing although the relationship exists only for stranger and acquaintance homicides. This suggests that social isolation, rather than social deprivation, is the mechanism by which segregation leads to higher levels of homicide among African Americans.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.1001

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This study focuses on the relationships between the religious involvement of black Americans and two important dimensions of self-perception: self-esteem, or one's sense of personal worth, and personal mastery, or feelings of control over one's affairs. This article argues that participation in church communities may foster positive self-perception through the interpersonal supportiveness and positive reflected appraisals of coreligionists. Private devotional activities may also be linked with positive self-regard via processes of religious role taking. Analyses of data from the 1979–80 National Survey of Black Americans support these arguments with regard to self-esteem, but not personal mastery. In addition, the findings suggest that public religious participation buffers the negative influence of physical unattractiveness on self-esteem, while private religious devotion buffers the negative impact of chronic illness on self-esteem. The results shed new light on the contemporary psychosocial role of religious life among black Americans.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.1027

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

This article takes issue with propositions tendered in Roncek (1991) regarding the definitions of odds and odds ratios, the interpretation of the partial slope, and an emphasis on using predicted probabilities to convey the impact of categorical predictors in logit analysis. This article correctly defines odds and odds ratios, provides the correct interpretation of the partial slope, and argues that the interpretation of results in terms of odds and odds ratios is at times preferable to a focus on probabilities.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.1057

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP

摘要:

The reasons for using the first derivative to identify the effect of continuous independent variables in a logit function are explained with simple examples and more mathematics than in my original article (Roncek 1991). I show how a common practice of examining the difference in a dependent variable for values of X and X+1 to find the effect of a continuous independent variable in an ordinary, linear, additive regression cannot and should not be applied to nonlinear models including logit. I show that the definitional formula for the ratio of exponentiated logit coefficients contains an inherent indeterminacy due to the ratio involving a single equation with two unknowns. Any numerical value of this ratio is consistent with a wide range of probabilities for the groups being contrasted with the ratio. Thus, having only this ratio reported does not permit a precise understanding of the difference between the groups. Using the value of the first derivative for continuous variables and the differences between probabilities for dummy variables representing groups avoids the problems of these other strategies.

ISSN:0430-0696    

DOI:10.1093/sf/71.4.1067

出版商:The University of North Carolina Press    

年代:1993

数据来源: OUP