Digital Commons Network^™

Sociological Thought Experiments: Five Examples From The History Of Sociology, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Iam honored to speak with you today about several topics close to my professional and personal heart. I say personal as well as professional because for some twenty years now my interest in the history of sociology has developed and deepened in tandem with the pioneering research conducted by my life-partner, MaryJo Deegan. Her work on Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918 (Deegan 1988a) has become the paradigm example for the “new history” in sociology, and it is my inspiration for today’s discussion.

A Brief Centennial Bibliography Of Resources On The History Of The American Sociological Society/Association, Michael R. Hill, Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, Jack Nusan Porter, Pamela A. Roby, Kathleen Slobin, Roberta Spalter-Roth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Celebrating the centennial of the American Sociological Association provides the ritual occasion and reinforces the intellectual rationale for collectively exploring our professional and organizational roots. To guide us on our way, we have compiled a brief bibliography of relevant materials and exemplars that explicate the early history of the American Sociological Society and – to some degree – its subsequent evolution (the line separating “history” from “current events” is not always easily drawn). Practicing extreme parsimony, we have intentionally excluded literally thousands of otherwise important and instructive published works that focus primarily on specific departments of sociology, the ideas and …

Jesse Lawson And The National Sociological Society Of 1903, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The National Sociological Society, rather than the American Sociological Society (now Association), was apparently the first American organization with national aspirations to place, in 1903, the fateful word "Sociological" in its corporate name. Unfortunately, the recent centennial of the National Sociological Society (NSS) passed unnoticed and uncelebrated. The NSS, convened in 1903, was a shortlived organization of African Americans and whites, Northerners and Southerners, academic men, politicians, clergymen, and others, who vigorously confronted the most pressing conundrum in Jim Crow America: how to solve the race problem. The NSS was championed by Jesse Lawson -- an African-American attorney, educator, and …

The Psychological Capital Of Chinese Workers: Exploring The Relationship With Performance, Fred Luthans, Bruce Avolio, Fred Walumbwa, Weixing Li

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Everyone knows about China’s huge population and the fast-growing economy. Although macro-level sociological and economic analyses have given some attention to the linkage between the two, at the micro level, the relationship between human resources and, more specifically, psychological capital of Chinese workers and their performance has been largely ignored. Within the context of three factories (two private and one state-owned) in the People’s Republic of China, this exploratory study examined the relationship of a sample (n=422) of Chinese workers’ positive psychological capital states and their performance. Results indicated the workers’ positive states of hope, optimism, and resiliency, separately and …

Pound, Nathan Roscoe (1870-1964), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Roscoe Pound was born on 27 October 1870 in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was classically trained in languages and the sciences at the University of Nebraska and received the BA degree in 1888. Pound’s innovative graduate studies in botany under the tutelage of Charles E. Bessey, resulted in a doctoral dissertation written jointly with Frederic E. Clements, published in 1898, on The Phytogeography of Nebraska. The Phytogeography established the American school of plant ecology (Tobey 1981) and for his part Pound received the first Nebraska PhD earned “in course” in 1899. Already a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma …

Optimizing Student Success: Focused Curriculum, Meaningful Assessment, And Effective Instruction, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

One of the greatest challenges facing foreign language teachers is the pressure to ‘cover the curriculum.’ Jeff Golub (1993) noted “when one must cover items—and usually there are far too many items in the curriculum anyway to be covered adequately—one tends to focus on teaching content instead of teaching students” (p. 3). Classroom teaching has often focused too narrowly on the memorization of information in a setting that resembles what Freire dubs the “banking model,” depositing knowledge without regard for the individual background knowledge and experiences. Language standards have broadened our sense of what we teach and why. These standards …

Predicting Student Performance In A Statistics Course Using The Mathematics And Statistics Perception Scale (Mpsp), Isabelle D. Cherney, Ramie R. Cooney

Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies

Students tend to have higher apprehension for a statistics class than for other psychology classes. Because anxiety can impair the performance in a class, and ultimately the mastery of the subject matter, the Mathematics and Statistic Perception Scale (MSPS) was designed to assess students' perceptions of anxiety and attitudes toward statistics as well as provide a tool that could be used in classroom settings. The 22-item scale with three subscales (mathematics perceptions, statistics perceptions, and perceptions of relevance) was administered to 154 undergraduates and showed that over the course of a semester, perceptions of mathematics anxiety tended to decrease and …

Resurrecting The Causal Theory Of The Excuses, Anders Kaye

Nebraska Law Review

This article seeks to resurrect the “causal theory”‘ of the criminal law’s excuses. While the causal theory fits some of our most important and most humane moral intuitions in a way that no other theory of the excuses does, it gets little play in current criminal theory. This article argues that criminal theory should give causal theory a second look.

I. Introduction . . . . . 1117

II. Causal Theory Defined . . . . . 1119

A. The Claims Made by Causal Theory . . . . . 1120

1. The First Claim: The Excuse Accepts a “Causal …

Helena Znaniecka Lopata: Remarks To The Asa Section On The History Of Sociology, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

THE DEATH of Helena Znaniecka Lopata represents a significant loss to the History of Sociology section because she was a good friend and colleague. Because of her direct family tie to the early years of sociology, especially at the University of Chicago, her passing also signals the end of an important era in the discipline. I knew Helena for over 30 years, and I was asked to reflect briefly on her life and career at our section reception in Atlanta. For those members not at the reception, this is what I said. Helena Lopata was a friend to many of …

Centenary Of The First Sociology Doctorate At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

On June 10,1905, the Faculty of the Graduate School in the University of Nebraska formally recommended that Anderson William Clark “receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy” in Sociology.’ Clark, who had completed a dissertation on “State Control and Supervision of Charities and Corrections,” was a Baptist minister and the founding Superintendent of Omaha’s Child Saving Institute.2 Based on extensive firsthand observations, interviews, and examinations of records in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and other states, Clark concluded, “Immediate state control is demanded in order to save the lives of thousands of infants and small children who …

Harriet Martineau’S Ambleside As A Sociological Laboratory, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Harriet Martineau was a pioneering experimental sociologist in the best sense. In a wide variety of social venues, Martineau undertook constructive, consequential, and innovative actions specifically designed to explore and demonstrate social capacities and possibilities, often in concert with her Lake District neighbors. For three decades, from 1846 to her death in 1876, Ambleside witnessed the outcomes of numerous investigations and projects that Martineau championed. This presentation identifies several of Martineau’s sociological experiments.

Centennial Bibliography On The History Of American Sociology, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

THE CENTENNIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY is intended as an inclusive clearinghouse for sources, studies, and other references that illuminate the origins and subsequent development of the sociological enterprise in the United States of America.2 As such, this bibliography is necessarily provisional and is envisioned as an on-going project to which further citations may be added as they are discovered and as new works are published. Due to the enormous scope of the project, and the short time frame within which the initial compilation was completed, countless useful and insightful references have been unintentionally omitted. Some portions …

Education And Churchgoing Protestants' Views Of Highly Politicized Christianity, Philip Schwadel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Many churchgoing Protestants support a highly political role for the Christian religion, endorsing Christian ideals shaping public policy. Highly educated Protestants' emphasis on individualism and protecting civil liberties, however; can encourage a distrust of highly politicized Christianity. Specifically, college and graduate school educated Protestants often want to avoid forcing the Christian religion on secular society. Regression results from the 1996 Religious Identity and Influence Survey show that, among churchgoing Protestants, education is strongly and negatively correlated with supporting laws based on Christian doctrines. Highly educated Protestants are also less likely than high school educated Protestants to advocate Christians attempting to …

Dialogue On Diversity Teaching: Reflections On Research, Pedagogy, And Passion For Social Justice, Katherine M. Acosta, Helen A. Moore, Gary K. Perry, Crystal Edwards

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

A "diversity" requirement was added to the liberal arts undergraduate curriculum in most colleges a decade ago; at our large Research I campus it is called the "Area H" requirement of the comprehensive education program. As part of our sociological and pedagogical inquiries, we launched a research project to reflect on the experiences of faculty and graduate instructors who teach "Area H" diversity courses. Our goal in conducting and analyzing some sixty in-depth, face-to-face interviews is to understand how intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality intertwine with instructors' classroom teaching experiences.

As we teach multicultural elements that encourage educational …

Improved Regression Estimation Of A Multivariate Relationship With Population Data On The Bivariate Relationship, Mark S. Handcock, Michael S. Rendall, Jacob Cheadle

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Regression coefficients specify the partial effect of a regressor on the dependent variable. Sometimes the bivariate or limited multivariate relationship of that regressor variable with the dependent variable is known from population-level data. We show here that such population- level data can be used to reduce variance and bias about estimates of those regression coefficients from sample survey data. The method of constrained MLE is used to achieve these improvements. Its statistical properties are first described. The method constrains the weighted sum of all the covariate-specific associations (partial effects) of the regressors on the dependent variable to equal the overall …

Family Economic Pressure And Adolescent Suicidal Ideation: Application Of The Family Stress Model, Kevin A. Yoder, Dan R. Hoyt

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study used a sample of 501 families from the Mississippi Delta region to examine the feasibility of the Family Stress Model for understanding adolescent suicidal ideation. The results indicated that family economic pressure was related to parental depressive symptoms, which, in turn, was related to parental hostile behavior and physical abuse. These parental behaviors were related to adolescent self-esteem and depressive symptoms, which, in turn, were related to adolescent suicidal ideation. Therefore, family economic pressure and parental depressive symptoms and behaviors were indirectly related to adolescent suicidal ideation. The results indicate the applicability of the Family Stress Model for …

Arrests Among Homeless And Runaway Youths: The Effects Of Race And Gender, Kevin A. Yoder, Ed A. Muñoz, Les B. Whitbeck, Dan R. Hoyt, Barbara J. Mcmorris

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study examined the contributions of race and gender to the likelihood of a first post-run arrest for a more serious and less serious offense in a sample of homeless and runaway youths from four Midwestern states. Event history analysis was used to test the hypothesis that race and gender would interact so that the likelihood of a first post-run arrest for a more serious and less serious offense would be highest for non-white males and non-white females, respectively. Potentially confounding factors—deviant subsistence strategies, substance use, gang involvement and membership, prior arrests, age, prior physical abuse, age on own, and …

The Interplay Of Traits And Motives On Volunteering: Agreeableness, Extraversion And Prosocial Value Motivation, Gustavo Carlo, Morris A. Okun, George Knight, Maria Rosario T. De Guzman

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Social psychology and personality theorists have proposed that our understanding of prosocial behavior will be enhanced by examining the interplay of traits and motives. The present study was designed to test several pathways by which agreeableness, extraversion, and prosocial value motivation to volunteer influence volunteerism. A sample of 796 college students completed measures of the Big Five traits, prosocial value motivation to volunteer, and volunteering. Results of path analyses showed that prosocial value motivation to volunteer partially mediated the relations between agreeableness and extraversion, and volunteering. Furthermore, as agreeableness decreased, extraversion was more strongly related to prosocial value motivation to …

Individual, Congregational, And Denominational Effects On Church Members’ Civic Participation, Philip Schwadel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Previous research demonstrates two aspects of religion that affect civic activity—church participation and religious conservatism. Conservative religious beliefs and membership in conservative denominations are often associated with low levels of civic activity while church participation is said to increase civic activity. This article advances the discussion of the relationship between religion and civic participation by introducing the congregational context. Data from the 1987 Church and Community Planning Inventory show that congregations vary in their members’ civic activity—congregational factors associated with conservative Christianity (high levels of biblical literalism and within-church friendships) are strongly and negatively associated with church members’ activity in …

Testing Whiteness: No Child Or No School Left Behind?, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

I began my study of schooling and critical pedagogy as a research assistant for a program called PRIME: Program Research in Multicultural Education. One of our challenges in the mid-1970s was to assist the Principal Investigator, Dr. Jane Mercer, in constructing educational materials for her role as an expert witness in Larry P. v. Riles. Through that project, I learned a great deal about testing issues as they relate to the whiteness of educational, political, legal and policy perspectives. Today, as a sociologist, I commit my research to an understanding of the processes and consequences of testing policy and the …

Child Labor In The Early Sugar Beet Industry In The Great Plains, 1890-1920, Mary Lyons-Barrett

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Children working in agriculture have always been a part of the rural culture and work ethos of the United States, especially on the Great Plains. Many teenagers still detassel corn or walk the beans in the summer months to earn spending money or money for college. But what about the children who work as migrant laborers in commercialized agriculture? These children, even today, typically go untracked by governmental agencies. The children may lag behind in school because of their family's migrations and their frequent absences from school to work in the crops. Unlike the child who works during the summer …

Reviving An Honors Program With Specialized Sequence Tracks, Sharon Carrish

Honors in Practice Online Archive

When I assumed the position of Honors Program Director along with my other responsibilities, I was handed the Honors Program Review from the previous five years. Nestled among the goals and objectives—alongside of recruiting, marketing and identifying faculty to teach honors courses—was the most pressing problem: serious declining enrollment. Students were being recruited for the honors program by the department of admissions, but only a very small number were continuing into their junior and senior years. With this problem of disappearing numbers came the possibility of a disappearing honors program. Apparently most of these students were dropping out of the …

Book Review: Discovering Lewis And Clark From The Air, Gary Huibregtse

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

When acclaimed photo historian Beaumont Newhall published the fourth edition of The History of Photography in 1964, he included (in a chapter titled "The Quest of Form") an aerial photograph, made by a Royal Air Force photographer, that showed German forces plowing up a Libyan airfield to render it useless for advancing allied forces. This strange, abstract image, consisting largely of linear plowed patterns, though by no means the first example of a photograph made from an airplane, was most likely included in this largely aesthetic tracing of the medium's history as an illustration of the visual power potently available …

Marketing Locally Produced Foods: Consumer And Farmer Opinions In Washington County, Nebraska, Mindi L. Schneider, Charles A. Francis

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Local food system potentials were studied in Washington County, Nebraska, United States. As a departure from most studies of locally based systems, farmers were surveyed in addition to consumers for potential participation. Data about the current food system and opinions and preferences for local production, marketing, and purchasing of food were collected using self-administered mail questionnaires. The response rate was 35% for the farmer survey and 37% for the consumer survey. Results indicated that, on the farming side of the food system, conventional corn and soybean production and marketing predominated in Washington County, and farmer interest in producing for local …

Farmer Research: Conventional Experiences And Guidelines For Alternative Agriculture And Multi-Functional Agro-Ecosystems, Charles S. Wortmann, A. P. Christensen, Keith L. Glewen, Terence A. Hejny, J. Mulliken, J. M. Peterson, D. L. Varner, S. Wortmann, Gary L. Zoubek

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Crop producers are challenged to operate profitably, use resources efficiently, meet high standards of quality and protect the environment, while sustaining rural economies and societies. Cropping systems are generally fine-tuned and improved through changes that have small effects which can often be verified only through research. The processes and successes of two farmer research projects were studied. Results of these studies, information from other sources and the authors’ reflections on their own experiences were integrated to develop guidelines for the implementation of farmer research projects for alternative agriculture and multi-functional agro-ecosystems with diverse stakeholders. Surveys were mailed to 118 farmers …

From The Field: Field Searches Versus Vaginal Implant Translocating Elk Calves, Nathan W. Seward, David S. Maehr, Jonathan W. Gassett, John J. Cox, Jeffrey L. Larkin

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

We compared the utility of vaginal implant transmitters (VITs) and field searches for locating elk (Cervus elaphus) calves in southeastern Kentucky during the spring of 2001. Retention of VITs among 40 adult females ranged from 1–276 days (x - =61.6±8.4 [SE] days). Approximately half of the transmitters (n=19) were expelled prematurely or malfunctioned. Two of 37 (5%) transmitters in translocated females performed as designed and led to calf capture. We captured more calves (n=9 in 2001; n=16 in 2002) by searching areas where elk exhibited parturition behavior. We suggest that manufacturers refine the current VIT design to increase its application …

A Meta-Analytic Review Of The Effects Of High Stress On Eyewitness Memory, Kenneth A. Deffenbacher, Brian H. Bornstein, Steven D. Penrod, E. Kiernan Mcgorty

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

In the past 30 years researchers have examined the impact of heightened stress on the fidelity of eyewitness memory. Meta-analyses were conducted on 27 independent tests of the effects of heightened stress on eyewitness identification of the perpetrator or target person and separately on 36 tests of eyewitness recall of details associated with the crime. There was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impact both types of eyewitness memory. Meta-analytic Z-scores, whether unweighted or weighted by sample size, ranged from -5.40 to -6.44 (high stress condition–low stress condition). The overall effect sizes were -.31 for …

Iowa Physicians: Legitimacy, Institutions, And The Practice Of Medicine, Part Two: Putting Science Into Practice, 1887–1928, Susan C. Lawrence

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The second in a three-part series offering an overview of the history of medicine in Iowa from Euro-American settlement through World War II, this survey like part one, concentrates on physicians, medical institutions, public health, and state laws. Developments in these areas shaped the ways Iowans both received health care and, through legislation, tried to translate medical knowledge and values into public benefits. Such a perspective entails omissions. Physicians were by no means the only people who served the ill and injured between 1887 and 1928. Midwives, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, neighbors, relatives, itinerant healers, and nostrum purveyors all provided a …

Court Review: Volume 40, Issue 3-4 - Smarter Sentencing: On The Need To Consider Crime Reduction As A Goal, Michael Marcus

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

In February, 2004, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski directed a newly created “Public Safety Review Steering Committee” to “look at our public safety system from beginning to end” and to develop “strategies to make the system stronger” wherever it does not sufficiently protect Oregonians. In common with many states, Oregon long ago adopted a modification of the penal code to declare crime reduction among the purposes of sentencing. And in common with many states, Oregon has adopted a sentencing guidelines model that roughly directs sentencing to reflect crime seriousness, criminal history, and prison resources—largely or entirely ignoring crime reduction. Apparently in …

Court Review: Volume 40, Issue 3-4 - Racial And Ethnic Bias In The Courts: Impressions From Public Hearings, Elizabeth Neeley

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Attitudes toward the courts can affect the way individuals perceive their role in the justice system: their willingness to comply with laws, report crimes, file legal suits, serve as jurors, and so on. In short, a positive public perception of the courts is “critical to the maintenance and operation of the judicial system.” Given the import of these perceptions, a substantial body of research has examined the factors that explain differing levels of support for the court system. Although many of these studies examine national samples or examine attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court, it is beyond the scope of …