Sociology -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- United States.
Abstract:
This article makes contributions toward the conceptualization
of the scholarship of teaching and learning (Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning). The scholarship of teaching is a concept with multiple
ramifications. It is at the core of the current transformation
of higher education. The scholarship of teaching challenges the
existing stratification system within the academy. The scholarship
of teaching and learning is a much larger enterprise, a movement,
that can transform the nature of American society toward our ideals of
equality and justice. Sociologists have a vital role to play within the
academy and society. If we take advantage of the opportunity that the
scholarship of teaching and learning offers, we can reach our potential
as an intellectually liberating force in society.
The concept of sacrifice used to be a dominant theme in
social scientific theorizing, but it is now so neglected that recent
work speaks of the need for a "recovery" of sacrifice. Similarly,
self-sacrifice in the service of family members, formerly seen as high
virtue, is now often characterized as personality defect or self-defeating
behavior. Neither self-sacrifice nor family love play a significant
part in the prevailing family theories, grounded as they are in the
assumption of self-interest and framed in the logic of utilitarian
individualism and the rationalized marketplace. This "silence" is more
ideologically based than reflective of family process. The absence of a
language of sacrifice and love limits our ability to give voice to our
experience, and the professional neglect of these concepts diminishes our
understanding of the processes they name. Some recent work on sacrifice
by scholars in other disciplines has implications for family theory. We
draw from the disciplines of economics, history, philosophy, literature,
sociology, and from life as lived by everyday people in making the case
that self-sacrifice is a powerful and essential part of social life
generally, and family life in particular. It merits a more substantial
place in contemporary theory. Some theoretical approaches compatible with
self-sacrifice as principle and practice are offered.
Social networks have a relatively large
and multifaceted effect on the stability of intimate relationships, based
on proportional hazard analysis involving 290 individuals. Perceptions
of approval from a respondent's friends and approval from a partner's
family increase relationship stability. On the other hand, perceived
approval from a respondent's family, overall encouragement to date,
and closeness to a best friend decrease stability in the multivariate
model. Perceptions of social approval are better at predicting stability
than actual approval. The effects of social networks occur even after
controlling for the significant effects of dyadic variables such as
the perceived existence of alternatives, closeness to the partner,
and arguing. Findings confirm the positive and negative roles of social
ties and support the argument that friendships can compete with romantic
relationships for companionship.
Kalmijn, Matthijs, 1962-
Flap, Hendrik Derk, 1950-
An important hypothesis about why people
generally interact with people who are socially or culturally similar
to themselves is that the opportunities they have to meet similar
others are greater than the opportunities they have to meet dissimilar
others. We examine this supply-side perspective on social relationships
by empirically linking marriage choices to the type of setting couples
had in common before they married. We focus on five meeting settings
(work, school, the neighborhood, common family networks, and voluntary
associations) and five types of homogamy (with respect to age, education,
class destinations, class origins, and religious background). Using
data from face-to-face interviews among married and cohabiting couples
in the Netherlands, we show that these five contexts account for a
sizable portion of the places where partners have met. Using loglinear
analyses, we subsequently examine whether couples who shared settings
are more homogamous than couples who did not share a setting. Our results
indicate that schools promote most forms of homogamy, while work places
only promote homogamy with respect to class destinations. Neighborhoods
and common family networks promote religious homogamy, but they are not
related to homogamy with respect to class origins. While in some cases,
settings have unexpected effects on marriage choice, our findings
generally confirm the notion that mating requires meeting: the pool
of available interaction partners is shaped by various institutionally
organized arrangements and these constrain the type of people with whom
we form personal relationships.
Van Laningham, Jody.
Johnson, David R.
Amato, Paul R.
Previous research suggests a U-shaped
pattern of marital happiness over the life course, with happiness
declining in the early years of marriage and rising in the later
years. Most prior studies have been limited by the use of cross-sectional
data or nonprobability samples. In contrast, the present study is based on
data from a national, 17-year, 5-wave panel sample. Using cross-sectional
data from the first wave, we replicate the U-shaped relationship between
marital happiness and marital duration. In an analysis based on a
fixed-effects pooled time-series model with multiple-wave panel data,
we find declines in marital happiness at all marital durations and
no support for an upturn in marital happiness in the later years. The
relationship between marital happiness and marital duration is slightly
curvilinear, with the steepest declines in marital happiness occurring
during the earliest and latest years of marriage. When other life-course
variables are controlled, a significant negative effect of marital
duration on marital happiness remains. For most marriage cohorts, marital
happiness declined more in the 1980s than in the 1990s, suggesting a
period effect. This study provides evidence that the U-shaped pattern of
marital happiness over the life course is an artifact of cross-sectional
research and is not typical of U.S. marriages.
No trend in U.S. public opinion has
elicited more enduring concern among scholars, political commentators,
and politicians than declining levels of public confidence in the federal
government. Motivated by the possibility that this decline signals a
crisis of legitimacy or growing dissatisfaction with the overall direction
of public policy, two generations of scholarly debates have yielded three
competing theoretical interpretations of this phenomenon. While they
provide divergent answers to important questions about the devolution
of policy-making from the federal government to subnational levels of
government, competing hypotheses implied by these interpretations have
not been successfully evaluated. We seek to advance theory and research
by investigating whether governmental confidence affects the public's
willingness to support federal involvement within specific policy
domains such as health care and education. Evaluating hypotheses implied
by competing interpretations of declining government confidence, we find
that the relationship between government confidence and policy preferences
is small and shows no evidence of trends. We discuss implications for
competing interpretations of government confidence and the possible role
of declining confidence in explaining contemporary patterns of welfare
state retrenchment.
Crowder, Kyle D.
Racial Stratification in the Actuation of Mobility Expectations: Microlevel Impacts of Racially Restrictive Housing Markets [Access article in HTML][Access article in PDF] Subject Headings:
Residential mobility -- United States.
Housing -- United States.
African Americans -- Housing.
Abstract:
This research uses data from the Panel Study of Income
Dynamics to examine racial differences in the ability to translate
mobility expectations into a residential move. The results indicate
that, despite similar mobility expectations, black householders are
significantly less likely than white householders to translate their
expectations into a residential move. Supporting the stratification
perspective, this racial difference persists when a variety of individual
and contextual characteristics are controlled. Furthermore, higher income
appears to enhance the ability of white but not black householders
to convert their mobility expectations into a move. Supplemental
analyses suggest that this racial stratification does not reflect
poorer planning on the part of blacks and that this racial disparity
helps to explain existing racial differences in the ability to escape
poor neighborhoods.
Smith, Jackie.
McCarthy, John D. (John David), 1940-
McPhail, Clark, 1936-
Augustyn, Boguslaw.
Social movements -- Press coverage -- Washington (D.C.)
Protest movements in mass media.
Abstract:
Social movements often seek to
draw attention to issues they deem important by organizing public
demonstrations with the aim of attracting mass media coverage. But
only a small proportion of all public demonstrations receives any
media attention. This article asks whether even the minimal coverage
that demonstrations receive reveal any influence of social movements in
shaping how issues are framed by the mass media. Analyzing newspaper and
television news stories on Washington, D.C. protests held during 1982
and 1991, we ask whether news reports on protests are framed in ways
consistent with the aims of protesters. Do demonstrators receive media
coverage that highlights the issues about which they are concerned,
or does coverage focus on the protest event itself, to the exclusion
of the social issues that movements target? Our results support much of
the surmising among media scholars, that even when movements succeed at
obtaining the attention of mass media outlets, media reports portray
protests in ways that may undermine social movement agendas. Despite
this obstacle to communicating protest messages through demonstrations,
movements engage in other forms of communication that can affect public
interpretations of mass media frames
Protestants -- United States -- Political activity.
Protest movements -- United States -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.
Social movements -- United States -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.
Abstract:
Most students of social protest now
agree that protest participation and participation in institutionalized
politics are both potentially effective means of addressing individual
and collective grievances. A primary conceptual distinction between the
two forms of political participation centers on the contentious nature
of protest. We focus attention on the disruptive potential of religious
beliefs and values and argue that approval of contentious tactics is a
critical link between religious beliefs and protest participation. We
analyze data from a representative sample of churchgoing Protestants in
the United States. Results show that four factors increase the likelihood
that Protestants approve of contentious tactics: volunteering for church
organizations, a perception that religious values are being threatened, a
belief that individuals should not have a right to deviate from Christian
moral standards, and a belief that humans are inherently sinful. Approval
of contentious tactics and frequent volunteering for church organizations
are the only variables in our analysis that differentiate conservative
Christian voters from those who combine conservative Christian voting
with protest participation.
Trends and patterns of religious
mobility have played a central role in theoretical controversies in
the sociology of religion. Early examinations focused on how social
status might motivate religious switching, and recently scholars have
claimed that diminishing status differences between denominations
have opened denominational boundaries and led to higher rates of
religious mobility. Scholars working from rational actor perspectives
have generated several hypotheses. First, human capital and adaptive
preference theories suggest that switching will remain infrequent,
and will tend to occur between similar denominations. Second, "strict
church" perspectives argue that demanding sectarian denominations will
have higher retention, and be more attractive destinations. Third, market
niche perspectives argue that niche overlap will foster high rates of
religious mobility. Finally, theories emphasizing normative constraints
on religious choices suggest that quasi-ethnic religious groups will have
a greater hold on members. This article examines trends and patterns of
religious mobility in the U.S. between 1973 and 1998 using data from the
General Social Surveys. Retention rates, distributions of original and
destination affiliations, and mobility tables are compared across three
periods, and four broad cohorts using log-multiplicative association
models. I find some support for hypotheses generated by status theories,
and for several propositions from rational actor theories, however the
decline of denominationalism perspective is unsupported.
Gastroenterologists -- Professional relationships.
Internists -- Professional relationships.
Surgeons -- Professional relationships.
Endoscopes -- Political aspects.
Abstract:
Through a case analysis of how medicine's
intra-occupational division of labor responded to the development of
gastrointestinal endoscopy, this article sheds light on how occupational
divisions of labor respond to technological innovation. The article
proposes that innovations are introduced into such structures in ways
consistent with the cultural scripts that regulate relations and workflows
between occupations' functional segments. However, these scripts may not
be able to regulate effectively subsequent developments, and structural
divisions may produce intra-occupational conflict and struggle over
market turf. A "Trojan horse" metaphor is used to illustrate this process.
The analysis developed here poses questions about the current tendency to
extol the virtues of occupational divisions of labor, for such structures
may lack effective mechanisms for regulating the unintended outcomes of
technological change.
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