Sociology Commons^™

The Intellectual Context Of Émile Durkheim’S Review Of George Elliott Howard’S American Institutional Perspective On Marriage And Divorce, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT work produced within the Nebraska tradition of sociology is George Elliott Howard’s (1904) massive History of Matrimonial Institutions. The work was widely read, much admired, and warmly critiqued–and it influenced the shape of divorce law reform in the United States of America. Howard’s magnum opus was reviewed by the well-known French sociologist, Émile Durkheim, in L’année sociologique in 1906–an event that should have guaranteed for Howard a more prominent place in the pantheon of sociological founders. This essay documents the special uniqueness of Durkheim’s review and notes the curious neglect of the review by subsequent …

Collecting Early Nebraska Sociology: Selections From The Collections Of Mary Jo Deegan And Michael R. Hill, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Report To Congress On Waivers Granted Under The Elementary And Secondary Education Act, Jacqueline Raphael, Kristen M. Olson, Luke Miller

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This is the third annual report to Congress on waivers granted by the U.S. Department of Education, mandated under section 14401(e)(4) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Three education laws passed in 1994 — the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, and the reauthorized ESEA — allow the Secretary of Education to grant waivers of certain requirements of federal education programs in cases where a waiver will likely contribute to improved teaching and learning. States and school districts use the waiver authorities to adapt federal programs and use federal funds in ways that address their …

Meaning And Measurement: Reconceptualizing Measures Of The Division Of Household Labor, Joan E. Twiggs, Julia Mcquillan, Myra Marx Feree

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This article argues that task-specific measures of the division of household labor form a gender hierarchy that reflects dimensions of meaning in the organization of household work. We contrast these measures to the commonly used time-share and Likert scale measures, which assume all tasks are interchangeable. Using Guttman scaling, we test the unidimensionality of this task hierarchy. Using odds ratios, we measure relationships between specific tasks, and using logistic regression, we see differences in correlates of husbands’ participation by task and interrelationships among tasks that persist, controlling for gender ideology and socioeconomic factors. This work should encourage development of measures …

Archival Orientation Interviews As Social Interactions, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

For social scientists, every orientation interview is inherently an opportunity for systematic observation, analysis, and critique. Consider, by way of contrast, a hypothetical committee of mathematicians who visit archival repositories searching for documentary materials to display during the upcoming centennial celebration of the Mathematics Department at their home university. As mathematicians, orientation interviews are simply means to their pragmatic ends. For social scientists, however, especially for qualitative sociologists such as myself (Hill 1993), the situation is more complex. For some of us, every social interaction is potentially a source of sociological insight (Deegan and Hill 1987). Thus, every orientation interview …

A Risk-Amplification Model Of Victimization And Depressive Symptoms Among Runaway And Homeless Adolescents, Les B. Whitbeck, Dan R. Hoyt, Kevin Yoder

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This report is an examination of a theoretical model of risk amplification within a sample of 255 homeless and runaway adolescents. The young people were interviewed on the streets and in shelters in urban centers of four Midwestern states. Separate models were examined for males (n = 102) and females (n = 153). Results indicated that street experiences such as affiliation with deviant peers, deviant subsistence strategies, risky sexual behaviors, and drug and/or alcohol use amplified the effects of early family abuse on victimization and depressive symptoms for young women. These street adaptations significantly increased the likelihood of serious victimization …

Le Play, Warner, And The Sociology Of Fieldwork, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Several American sociologists have earlier noted, albeit briefly, Frédéric Le Play’s contributions to sociology, for example: Amos Warner (1886), George E. Howard (1904, III: 378), Elsie Clews Parsons (1906: 305, 337), Robert Park and Ernest Burgess (1921: 215), Emory S. Bogardus (1928: 615-16), Charles H. Cooley (Cooley, Angell and Carr 1933: 479), Floyd House (1936), and Lewis Mumford (1948: 678, 683). To this list, Luigi Tomasi (below) adds the names of Merle Frampton, Walter Goldfrank, Robert Nisbet, Catherine Silver, Albion Small, Pitirim Sorokin, and Carle Zimmerman. E.R.A. Seligman and Alvin Johnson included a short biography of Le Play in their …

Bio-Bibliography: Eva J. Ross – Catholic Sociologist, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The major accomplishments of Eva Jeany Ross’ productive but largely unknown sociological career present opportunities for sociobiographers to examine several contending institutional forces on the professional lives of academic sociologists. Ross’ career unfolded at the intersection of five major institutional arenas: religion, education, the nation-state, family, and patriarchy. Each made a profound impact on the shape of Ross’ sociological work.

Edward Alsworth Ross, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Edward Alsworth Ross (Dec. 12, 1866 - July 22, 1951), sociologist and writer, was born in Virden, Illinois, the son of William Carpenter Ross, a farmer, and Rachel Alsworth, a school teacher. Orphaned by his mother’s and father’s deaths (1874 and 1876, respectively), Ross was sheltered in turn by three Iowa farm families. Of the latter, Ross regarded Mary Beach as his foster mother. Alexander Campbell, Ross’ lawyer guardian, shepherded his inheritance, thereby providing ample funds for his schooling.

Despite Increases, Women And Minorities Still Underrepresented In Undergraduate And Graduate S&E Education, Kristen M. Olson

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Participation of women and minorities1 in science and engineering (S&E) higher education continues to rise, but this involvement is not yet equivalent to their representation in the U.S. population of 18- to 30-year-olds. In 1995, women were 50 percent of U.S. residents between the ages of 18 and 30; blacks were 14 percent; Hispanics, 13 percent; and American Indians, 0.8 percent. 2 However, in the same year, 46 percent of S&E bachelor’s degrees were earned by women, 7 percent by blacks, 6 percent by Hispanics, and 0.6 percent to American Indians. The proportions of S&E doctorates earned by these groups …

Multiple Perspectives On Multimedia In The Large Lecture, Helen A. Moore, Timothy D. Pippert

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Students, graduate instructors and the classroom professor responded in journals, on objective tests, in focus groups and on survey questionnaires to the effects of computer media in four large lecture classes. Graduate instructors and students responded in focus groups to multimedia technology with consistent themes, including enhancement of cognitive strategies (note taking and organization of ideas) and motivation. However, students also expressed distancing from the instructor. Student achievement outcomes using pre- and post-test scores showed no differences across two experimental applications of multimedia presentations: static and dynamic. Discussion of findings emphasizes the need to balance considerations of resource scarcity and …

Love And Terror At The Virginia Beach Hotel, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The Virginia Beach Hotel was a Victorian summer resort: Its white clapboard big house and herd of little cottages clustered at the end of a bay in Little Paw Paw Lake. It looked like hundreds of other such hotels built to serve tourists escaping the heat of summer in the city; in this case, Chicago. My great grandmother, Ida Cora Hughes, owned the Virginia Beach Hotel; and my mother, Ida May Deegan, spent her childhood and teen years there for many, many summers beginning in 1923 and ending in 1935. To my mother, this spot was a dream, a bubble …

Continental Congress, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The convening of the First Continent

The network of committees throughout Massachusetts had become firmly established by early 1773, and dissidents in other colonies rapidly imitated the Massachusetts pattern. The committees of correspondence provided a model and a working mechanism for revolutionary agitation and organization on a national scale.

Campus Racial Climate Policies: The View From The Bottom Up, Michelle Hughes, Rick Anderson, Julie Harms Cannon, Eduardo Perez, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

We review the debates over campus multicultural goals from the perspective of university officials and again from the perspective of the policy target: students. We then assess a sample of student policy opinions and the role of campus experiences and diverse racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds in shaping those opinions. Often descriptive, this provides insights on working with diverse student populations. We focus our research on students because student voices are often unheard in education. Administrators are assumed to “know better” because of their years of campus experience or professional training.

Gender-Based Pay Gaps: Methodological And Policy Issues In University Salary Studies, Myra Marx Ferree, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Methodology is often a point of contention in gender-based salary studies. Although this debate seems at first to be merely about technical issues, it also has an important conceptual dimension. We argue that there are two competing implicit conceptions of discrimination, one institutional and the other individual, that underlie many such debates. We first contrast the preferred methodologies advanced by each side, the policy capturing approach and the flagging approach, and explore the theoretical meaning of their statistical models. We then describe a practical application of both methodological approaches in one specific salary inequity study. In conclusion, we reflect on …

Martineau In Current Introductory Textbooks: An Empirical Survey, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Harriet Martineau is now making significant appearances in introductory textbooks used in the u.s. and Canada. There was a time, not so long ago, when only the Hess, Markson, and Stein "intro text" made note of Harriet Martineau. Although ample room for progress remains, the situation is improving.

I made a comprehensive effort, during the 1997 meetings of the American Sociological Association in Toronto, Canada, to survey all introductory sociology textbooks that were prominently displayed by publishers in their booths in the Sheraton Exhibition Hall. Some ninety publishers displayed textbooks, journals, and sociological monographs. Of forty-three works clearly identifiable and …

Coercive Sexual Strategies, Kimberly A. Tyler, Dan R. Hoyt, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study examines the use of coercive sexual strategies by men and the outcomes of these behaviors for women. Using a sample of 541 college undergraduates, data were gathered from men on their use of three types of coercive sexual strategies and from women on their experiences with these same forms of behaviors. For women, there is a positive association between being sexually active, having sexually permissive attitudes, drinking alcohol and being a victim of certain types of sexual coercive strategies. For men, sexually permissive attitudes and attitudes toward rape are found to be significant predictors of their use of …

Edward Alsworth Ross In Chicago, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

THE NAMES “Edward A. Ross” and “Chicago sociology” are not usually linked today in sociological accounts of the discipline, but the connections are nonetheless tangible. Ross’s work at Stanford, Nebraska, and Wisconsin is, perhaps, better known (Hertzler 1951; Hill forthcoming; Hinkle 1980; Howard 1988; Keith 1988; Weinberg 1972) and has overshadowed Ross’ ties to Chicago. The “symposium” presented below in this issue of SOCIOLOGICAL ORIGINS celebrates Ross’ place in Chicago sociology.

The record shows that Ross taught briefly in 1896 as a Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, lectured informally to the University of Chicago Sociological Club, …

Cheyenne Autumn, By Mari Sandoz, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Cheyenne Autumn is an unflinching historical portrait of a people confronting physical extermination and cultural annihilation at the hands of duplicitous government forces. This work is structurally a chapter-by-chapter chronicle of a Cheyenne outbreak starting in Oklahoma and ending in the surrender of Little Wolf and his followers hundreds of miles and six months later in Montana. The northern Cheyennes of the Yellowstone region are promised land, food, and protection in treaties signed by the U.S. Government. These agreements, however, are repeatedly and brutally broken by the government.

Hundreds of northern Cheyennes agree, under government coercion, to removal to Oklahoma …

Psychological Distress And Help Seeking In Rural America, Dan R. Hoyt, Rand D. Conger, Jill Gaffney Valde, Karen Weihs

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The implications of exposure to acute and chronic stressors, and seeking mental health care, for increased psychological distress are examined. Research on eco¬nomic stress, psychological distress, and rural agrarian values each point to in¬creasing variability within rural areas. Using data from a panel study of 1,487 adults, a model predicting changes in depressive symptoms was specified and tested. Results show effects by size of place for men but not for women. Men living in rural villages of under 2,500 or in small towns of 2,500 to 9,999 people had significantly greater increases in depressive symptoms than men living in the …

Herland, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Herland is the first half of a witty, sociologically astute critique of life in the United States. This story concentrates ostensibly on three men-Van, Jeff, and Terry-who discover a small, uncharted country called Herland which, by force of an unusual accident of nature, has been governed and populated for two thousand years solely by women. Biological reproduction occurs miraculously by parthenogenesis (that is, without insemination). Charlotte Perkins Gilman exploits this contrived situation in order to contrast and compare the social features of a hypothetical woman-centered society to the harsh realities and crushing inequalities of everyday life found pervasively in male-dominated …

Joan Huber, Irving Louis Horowitz, And The Ideological Future Of Objectivity In American Sociology, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The occasion of this essay is an unsolicited but welcome invitation to comment on Irving Louis Horowitz's (1993) most recent book, The Decomposition of Sociology, a work that is generating considerable discussion (e.g., Bauer Mengelberg 1995; Chriss 1994; Goldman 1994; Horowitz 1994, 1995; Pizzorno 1994; Wagner 1994). An invitation to discuss a book by Horowitz in a public forum-to which he is invited to respond-is a genuine honor eagerly accepted here with what is undoubtedly a too small twinge of apprehension, a twinge of the minimally regarded kind that allows proverbial fools to rush into intellectual tight spots from which …

Training Sociologists: Professional Socialization And The Emergence Of Career Aspirations, Bruce Keith, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The individual and departmental factors affecting graduate students' professional socialization were studied by employing data from 309 PhD students in 16 graduate programs in sociology. Using Rosenbaum's tournament model of opportunity structures and aspects of Tinto's model of social psychological integration, this study examines students' access to initial funding, resources in the department, indicators of prior ability, current professional activities, mentoring processes, and social psychological factors for their effects on socialization into the academic profession. Access to initial funding and to mentoring have substantial effects on PhD students' professional socialization, but prove to be less than rational processes in the …

Training Sociologists: Professional Socialization And The Emergence Of Career Aspirations, Bruce Keith, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The individual and departmental factors affecting graduate students' professional socialization were studied by employing data from 309 PhD students in 16 graduate programs in sociology. Using Rosenbaum's tournament model of opportunity structures and aspects of Tinto's model of social psychological integration, this study examines students' access to initial funding, resources in the department, indicators of prior ability, current professional activities, mentoring processes, and social psychological factors for their effects on socialization into the academic profession. Access to initial funding and to mentoring have substantial effects on PhD students' professional socialization, but prove to be less than rational processes in the …

Review Of Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, Volume I, By Mary Pickering, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The appearance of a comprehensive biography of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) deserves our alert attention if for no other reason than the ubiquitous citations to his foundational work, Cours de philosophie positive, that fortify the footnotes of virtually every introductory textbook in the discipline of sociology. Without the extraordinary work of English sociologist Harriet Martineau (1802-1876), however, Comte's vision of a systematic, lawful science of society would in all probability remain buried in the encyclopedic French in which it was originally written and published. Martineau, in 1853, published her English translation and condensation of Comte's six-volume opus, and it is …

American Terrorism And The Sociological Imagination In 1995: A Sociologist’S Commentary, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

On Wednesday morning, April 19, 1995, a rented truck parked purposefully near the entrance to the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, exploded with extreme force, killing and wounding hundreds of people, including dozens of youngsters in a day care facility. The lethal explosion directly challenged the sovereignty and legitimacy of the United States government. The nation, our television sets reported, was in shock. How could such a terrible event occur in the United States? The television images, so much like frozen frames from a fantastic made-for-TV action-adventure movie, challenged our sensibilities and stung the national consciousness.

Review Of Never Too Thin, By Eva Szekely, And Anorexia And Bulimia: Anatomy Of A Social Epidemic, By Richard Gordon, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The two books reviewed seek more than a medical or a psychological understanding of the recent increase in eating disorders. Clinical psychologist Richard Gordon (1990) titles his work Anorexia and Bulimia: The Anatomy of a Social Epidemic and uses anthropologist George Devereux’s eating disorder concept as his primary analytic tool. In Never Too Thin, Eva Szekely, also a clinical psychologist, conveys a different understanding of the concept of social, which does not separate it from the concept of individual. She understands the individual and social as coconstituting each other through social relations embedded in individuals’ bodies and shaped by …

In Whose Backyard?: Concern About Sitting A Nuclear Waste Facility, Robert D. Benford, Helen A. Moore, J. Allen Williams Jr.

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Proponents of hazardous and nuclear waste depositories label opponents to local siting of such facilities "NIMBYs" (Not In My Backyard). This study assesses the extent to which the NIMBY label and the strategies of industry proponents to reduce opposition function on a reasonable set of assumptions. Using survey data and multiple regression techniques, the levels of concern of residents living in the county selected as the site of a low level radioactive wane disposal facility (imminent threat condition) are compared with a statewide sample (hypothetical threat condition). Consistent with proponents' theoretical assumptions, the levels of concern are greater for respondents …

The Contexts Of Housework And The Paid Labor Force: Women’S Perceptions Of The Demand Levels Of Their Work, Sheryl J. Grana, Helen A. Moore, Janet K. Wilson, Michelle Miller

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This research explores the work perceptions, both physical and mental, of women. The research finds that women’s perceptions of waged and nonwaged labor differ greatly depending on the work environment. Perceptions of physical demands of waged labor are almost solely dependent on the type of paid labor women engage in. For homeworkers, perceptions of physical labor are influenced primarily by the number of hours invested in housework. The mental demands of waged and nonwaged labor are also perceived differently. Women in the waged economy report significantly higher mental demands than do homeworkers. This too varies across labor segments. The closest …

Review Of Harriet Martineau: First Woman Sociologist, By Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Harriet Martineau (1802-76) is one of the most important and least appreciated founders of sociology. The author takes a significant and much-needed step in this lucid introductory biography of Harriet Martineau, from the standpoint of a sociologist. Hoecker Drysdale's decidedly sociological perspective distinguishes this volume from several parallel works that critique Martineau from literary, historical, journalistic, and other angles. With this book, the early woman sociologist whose writing influenced the likes of Edith Abbott, Herbert Spencer, William Sumner, and Lester Ward finally receives a book-length appreciation from a member of the one intellectual discipline that ought long ago to have …