Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

Already Hit Bottom: General Assistance, Welfare Retrenchment, And Single Male Migration, Thomas Vartanian, Joe Soss, Sanford Schram, Jim Baumohl

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The claim is often made that welfare recipients move to states where benefits are more readily available in more generous amounts. To test that claim, this study uses data on state General Assistance (GA) programs, as well as data on single men from the Public Use Microdata Set of the 1990 U.S. Census. We find only slight evidence that men who lack access to GA seek it elsewhere, and overall we find that the availability of GA has no more than a marginal effect on the location decisions of the men we studied. It seems that poor people, like other …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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: 'High Risk And High Stakes: Health Professionals, Politics And Policy', Patrick G. Donnelly

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Many studies of the law and policy creation process examine the efforts of particular interest groups and coalitions to influence the views and votes of legislators. Wysong focuses on the role of professional associations, specifically associations of health care professionals, in the legislative debate over the High Risk Occupational Disease Notification and Prevention Act, an example of what is most commonly known as "right-to-know" legislation.

The ethical codes and service-oriented goals of professions suggest that associations of professionals might act differently than interest groups. Wysong shows that the core groups in debates over health and safety legislation recognize that their …

Love's Constancy, Mike W. Martin

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

This article focuses on commitments between married couples.

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 …

Woman As Cat Monster: Sax Rohmer And The Green Eyes Of Bast, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Monsters fill our nights with nightmares, cause us to shiver in terror and look over our shoulder when we walk down dark streets. In other words, monsters are fun. Famous monsters are often men of despicable shapes and minds: e.g., Count Dracula, Frankenstein, the mummy whose tomb has been violated, the werewolf, and Mr. Hyde. The world of female monsters, like their female human counterparts, is often populated by women who depend upon men for their status. Dracula picks beautiful women to become his bloody mates, and Frankenstein tries to take a "bride." More frequently, however, women are seen as …

Mentoring, Paradigmatic Change, And Institutional Structure: Charles E. Bessey And The Origins Of The Seminarium Botanicum At The University Of Nebraska, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The Seminarium Botanicum was a student scientific club that originated at the University of Nebraska during the closing years of the nineteenth century under the supportive eye of botanist Charles E. Bessey. The “Sem. Bot.” (as the club was known popularly) provided a mainspring for the paradigmatic development of the American school of plant ecology (Tobey, 1981). Based on archival materials at Harvard University, the State Historical Society of Nebraska, and the universities of Nebraska and Wyoming, this paper identifies the interpersonal dynamics and institutional matrix by means of which the “Sem. Bot.” became a catalyst for intellectual inquiry. The …

Sex, Lies, And Goffman: Embodiment And Fabrication In The Age Of Aids, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The frequently inexorable fatality, pansexual communicability, and lengthy period of asymptomatic latency of HIV combine to form biological realities and ecological dangers that are individually and socially problematic at very deep levels. How can we think sociologically about the AIDS epidemic? Talcott Parsons’ concept of “sick role,”2 a venerable and productive staple of medical sociology, gives us little to work with here, precisely as sexually active, HIV-positive but undiagnosed and asymptomatic persons do not see themselves as “sick.” Nor, importantly, do others, including: sexual intimates, friends, family members, employers, and health professionals. The interpersonal face of HIV is often trusted, …

Predictors Of Success In A Co-Correctional Halfway House: A Discriminant Analysis, Patrick G. Donnelly, Brian E. Forschner

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Considerable research and debate have focused on the effectiveness of community correctional programs. Much of the research does not address the issue of the effectiveness of programs for persons with different types of problems or criminal histories. This article utilizes discriminant analysis to determine the characteristics of persons most likely to succeed in one halfway house. The results indicate that strong socializing and integrating ties in the community and few previous contacts with the criminal justice system are major predictors of success in a halfway house program. The seven discriminators for females are used to accurately predict 87 percent of …

The Gunman Downstairs, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

EXACTLY 24 HOURS ago, in this building, nearly two dozen of your fellow students fled from Room 112, downstairs, in mortal terror of being murdered by a classmate in a senior-level actuarial science class. Newspaper accounts of this event present a particularly vivid example of the frame concepts that Erving Goffman explicates in Frame Analysis. In particular, Arthur McElroy’s entrance into Room 112 was a “guided doing” by which he willfully intended to kill at least a few, if not all, of his classmates.

“For a second,” said a student in the class, “I just sat there in a daze.” …

The Americanization Of Ritual Culture: The ‘Core Codes’ In American Culture And The Seductive Character Of American ‘Fun.’, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Modern life in the USA is driven by four “core codes” of oppression and repression which structure a wide range of cultural patterns, from fleeting, face-to-face interactions to enduring, large scale social institutions. The four codes (sex, class, bureaucratization, and the commodification of time) also give recognizable contours to modern American cultural rituals (participatory as well as media-constructed) and contribute to the seductive character of “fun” which these rituals typically generate. American “fun” provides short-lived, incomplete escapes from mundane routine, and simultaneously strengthens and reproduces the core oppression and repressions of everyday life.

American “fun” provides its consumers with ritual …

Review Of Aspen, A Documentary Film By Frederick Wiseman, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Frederick Wiseman's most recent documentary was heralded in the New York Times (December 29, 1991, pp. 27,36) with considerable fanfare, but for this reviewer Aspen is a sociological disappointment. Wiseman's unusually keen documentary grip on the subtleties and institutional complexities of Western society has momentarily slipped in his presentation of the collage of institutionally disjointed images offered in Aspen. Visually excavating the social nexus of community life as a whole is a worthy objective for filmmakers of Wiseman's stature and experience, but sociology instructors who hope that Aspen might serve as an institutionally sophisticated community study will have to …

“The Mirror Crack'd": Women As Mothers And Wives In Paternally Incestuous Families, Mary Deyoung

Dissertations

Women often are blamed for paternal incest. Although the notion of women's culpability is repeated so often in the literature that it has all the tranquility of an axiom, few studies have even used these women as subjects. This study sought to remedy that flaw by using as its subjects 20 women from paternally incestuous families. Each participated in an in-depth interview comprised of life history questions, and in a shorter follow-up interview.

The women reported a moderate degree of conflict between their roles as mother and wife. Their strategies for coping with that conflict were categorized according to the …

Roscoe Pound And Academic Community On The Great Plains: The Interactional Origins Of American Sociological Jurisprudence At The University Of Nebraska, 1900-1907, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The turn-of-the-century academic community at the University of Nebraska differed sharply from today's highly stratified, bureaucratized, multiversity setting. The campus, the student body, and the instructional staff were, of course, considerably smaller in number than now. But, beyond this obvious demographic observation, there was a pioneering spirit and a sense of scholarly community that fostered remarkable intellectual creativity. In particular, the Nebraska campus provided the collegial setting from which Roscoe Pound's American version of sociological jurisprudence sprang forth in a resounding critique of the U.S. legal establishment at the 1906 meetings of the American Bar Association (cf., Pound 1906; Harding …

Review Of The Role And Nature Of The Doctoral Dissertation, By The Council Of Graduate Schools, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This brief, impressively sponsored report overflows with Machiavellian subtexts, bureaucratic rationalizations, and mendacious platitudes. While concluding that the doctoral dissertation "defines the essence of the PhD degree" (p. 31), the overall message is that doctoral dissertations have become all things to all disciplines and that-further-this diversity of options is legitimate and virtually inexorable. The shock to my academic sensibilities on reading this official policy statement of the Council of Graduate Schools is the realization (once again) that some of our colleagues in several of the engineering, natural, and physical sciences have thoroughly subverted the doctoral process, turning it into a …

Teaching Sociology: An Approach To Pedagogy, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The central emphasis in my classroom approach, regardless of the substantive content of a given course, is on “learning to think sociologically." Teaching students to think as sociologists is an uphill struggle in this psychologically-oriented culture. Thinking sociologically involves, for most students, the acquisition of a new point of view to which many students are ideologically hostile. This hostility does not emerge fundamentally (although it often appears overtly the case) from the students' location on the political spectrum (i.e., from conservative to liberal), but derives from deeply held (and often conflicting) convictions about the nature of science and religion, freedom …

Toward Rigor In The Undergraduate Sociology Curriculum: Some Thoughts On Change And Innovation, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

CHANGE IS OVERDUE in undergraduate sociology. The present situation is too often dominated by classroom charlatans, textbook sophistry, and mental torpor. In a science which confronts complex intellectual puzzles and deeply problematic social issues, we bore the average student nearly to death, we chase the brightest scholars from our midst, and we reward one-dimensional rote memorizers with good grades and glowing letters of recommendation. Given this stifling state of affairs, a change toward intellectual rigor in the undergraduate curriculum would indeed be a welcome and revolutionary development.

By asking for “rigor,” I do not mean more sociology statistics courses or …

Doctoral Dissertations As Liminal Journeys Of The Self: Betwixt And Between In Graduate Sociology Programs, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The sociology dissertation process is a liminal journey, a passage characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, and crisis in which the student self is abandoned and a new professional self claims a world of power. authority, maturity, and responsibility. The theoretical perspectives of Victor Turner, Arnold Van Gennep, and George H. Mead are extended to conceptualize the “liminal self who undertakes this difficult and problematic journey of transformation. Experiential methodology, in which theory and autobiography are combined, is employed to explicate the dissertation as a conflictful rite de passage and to critique doctoral projects that unrefexively adopt “technical formulas” for success and …