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The Labeling Perspective And Commitment Procedures: A Case Study Of Bernalillo District Court In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Edeltraut Hannemann

Sociology ETDs

An effort is made to analyze the labeling perspective by contrasting the clinical vs. the societal reaction model. Erving Goffman's and Thomas J. Scheff's theory of ascribed deviance with its social consequences, and Kai Erikson's conception of role-validation and role-commitment are utilized to examine its effects on the mentally ill. In this critical analysis of current commitment procedures attention is drawn to the field of forensic psychiatry, the medicolegal criteria, to the laws and statutes, and to concepts such as mental illness, insanity, and dangerousness. These concepts are vague, undefined, and ambiguous. They are not defined in objective scientific terms …

Smelser's Value-Added Approach To The Study Of Collective Behavior: The Karate Craze As A Case In Point, Stephen Earl Doeren

Sociology ETDs

This thesis is an exploratory case study of participation in karate based on the concept of a craze presented by Smelser. Some specific hypotheses concerning how the determinants in Smelser's theory could be applied to the emergence of karate were presented for an empirical study of this phenomenon.

To test these hypotheses, a sample of adult male karate participants (karatekas) at an Albuquerque karate school were interviewed. Additional knowledge was gained by participant observation in karate classes. For comparative purposes, questionnaires were distributed to adult male members who belonged to two Albuquerque health spas.

Compared with the spa participants, the …

Tutoring In Albuquerque:A Study In Goal Transformation, Janet Frank

Sociology ETDs

This study examines the school volunteer program in Albuquerque, its organization and administration, and the people who have participated as volunteers. In this regard, comparisons were undertaken of low income and middle or upper income schools as to participation and involvement of persons from neighborhoods of both types, at the administrative and volunteer levels of the program.

A theoretical framework was provided into which the data and conclusions of the study could be integrated. This frame­work focused upon the various processes of institutionaliza­tion, the transition from charismatic to bureaucratic leader­ship, cooptation, and organizational adaptation to precarious values.

A survey was …

Emile Durkheim And The Categories Of The Understanding, Barbara Patricia Hostetler

Sociology ETDs

In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Emile Durkheim attempts to demonstrate the social character of the categories of the understanding--concepts such as space, time, causation, etc. The present study is devoted to clarification of this account of the categories. It is proposed that Durkheim's account of the relation between the categories and society may be understood more clearly by interpreting his categorial formulation as one concerned with the origin of the categories, not in an absolute, but in a relative sense of .. origin." To show that this is the case, the proposition "the categories are social in …