Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

Gender Trajectories Of Adolescent Depressed Mood: The Dynamic Role Of Stressors And Resources, Christina D. Falci

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This research examines how gender variation in the trajectory of stressors and resources during high school shapes gender variation in the trajectory of depressed mood. Boys have steeper gains in depressed mood than girls during high school. Adolescents with increasing levels of school or work strain and declining levels of parental support or mastery were more likely to have an increasing trajectory of depressed mood; the effect of chronic work was stronger for boys than girls. Steeper declines in parental support and gains in work strain among boys relative to girls explain boy’s faster rate of increase in depressed mood …

A Dimensional Model Of Psychopathology Among Homeless Adolescents: Suicidality, Internalizing, And Externalizing Disorders, Kevin A. Yoder, Susan L. Longley, Les B. Whitbeck, Dan R. Hoyt

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The present study examined associations among dimensions of suicidality and psychopathology in a sample of 428 homeless adolescents (56.3% female). Confirmatory factor analysis results provided support for a three-factor model in which suicidality (measured with lifetime suicidal ideation and suicide attempts), internalizing disorders (assessed with lifetime diagnoses of major depressive episode and post-traumatic stress disorder), and externalizing disorders (indicated by lifetime diagnoses of conduct disorder, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse) were positively intercorrelated. The findings illustrate the utility of a dimensional approach that integrates suicidality and psychopathology into one model.

Design Effects In The Transition To Web-Based Surveys, Don A. Dillman, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Innovation within survey modes should always be mitigated by concerns about survey quality and in particular sampling, coverage, nonresponse, and measurement error. This is as true today with the development of web surveying as it was in the 1970s when telephone surveying was being developed. This paper focuses on measurement error in web surveys. Although Internet technology provides significant opportunities for innovation in survey design, systematic research has yet to be conducted on how most of the possible innovations might affect measurement error, leaving many survey designers “out in the cold.” This paper summarizes recent research to provide an overview …

Helping Respondents Get It Right The First Time: The Influence Of Words, Symbols, And Graphics In Web Surveys, Leah Melani Christian, Don A. Dillman, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

We utilize and apply visual design theory to experimentally test ways to improve the likelihood that web respondents report date answers in a particular format desired by the researcher, thus reducing possible deleterious effects of error messages or requests for corrections. These experiments were embedded in a series of web surveys of random samples of university students. We seek to examine the sequential and cumulative effects of visually manipulating the size and proximity of the answer spaces, the use of symbols instead of words, the verbal language of the question stem, and the graphical location of the symbolic instruction. Our …

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

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Roscoe Pound, sociologist, ecologist, and noted jurist, originated and promulgated the legal movement known as the American school of sociological jurisprudence. This revolutionary perspective remains the single most consequential application of sociological thinking in American society. Pound's sociological theories and empirical methodologies fundamentally transformed the prosecution and administration of US law for a full half-century.

Howard, George Elliott (1849-1928), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

George Elliott Howard, a distinguished social scientist trained initially in history, rose to the presidency of the American Sociological Society in 1917. Howard earned the A.B. in 1876 at the University of Nebraska. Following two years of advanced study in Germany, Howard joined the Nebraska faculty in 1879. Howard's most prominent Nebraska student from this period, Amos Griswold Warner, later wrote American Charities (1894) - a standard classic in the field. Howard was named to the prestigious "First Faculty" of Stanford University in 1891.

Visual Design, Order Effects, And Respondent Characteristics In A Self-Administered Survey, Michael J. Stern, Don A. Dillman, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Recent survey design research has shown that small changes in the structure and visual layout of questions can affect respondents’ answers. While the findings have provided strong evidence of such effects, they are limited by the homogeneity of their samples, in that many of these studies have used random samples of college students. In this paper, we examine the effects of seven experimental alterations in question format and visual design using data from a general population survey that allows us to examine the effects of demographic differences among respondents. Results from a 2005 random sample mail survey of 1,315 households …

American Sociological Association, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The American Sociological Association (ASA) is currently the largest and most influential membership organization of professional sociologists in the US. The ASA began its organizational life in 1905 when a small group of self-selected scholars representing several existing scholarly organizations (including the American Economic Association, the American Historical Association, and the American Political Science Association) proposed a separate and independent American Sociological Society (ASS) ("Organization of the American Sociological Society" 1906). The first ASS annual meeting convened December 27-29, 1906, in Providence, Rhode Island, with 115 members and a full program of scholarly papers. In 1959 the organization's name was …

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860-1935), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an influential and sometimes controversial contributor to early American sociology. Her Women and Economics (1898) launched a searching feminist sociological critique of the economic position of women in patriarchal societies. The primary site for Gilman's continuing sociological work was the Forerunner (1909-16), a monthly journal that Gilman wrote and self-published. The socially problematic issues that Gilman explored in her works echo theoretical proposals of Lester F. Ward (1841-1913), a founding American sociologist who admired Gilman and vice versa. Ward's concept of gynecocentric (i.e., womancentered) social theory reinforced Gilman's strong belief in the fundamental rationality of women's …

Ward, Lester Frank (1841-1913), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Lester Frank Ward, a man of modest origins born in Joliet, Illinois, was a major architect of American sociology. Prior to Ward's election to the first presidency (1906-7) of the American Sociological Society (ASS, now the American Sociological Association), academic sociology in the US had no independent national disciplinary organization save the unifying voice of the American Journal of Sociology, then edited by Albion W. Small at the University of Chicago. The ASS, under Lester Ward's pi

The Gunman In Blacksburg, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

TWODAYSAGO, on Monday morning, April 16, while this class was in session, a lethal, hypermodern tragedy was unfolding on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, more commonly known today as Virginia Tech. The precise details of the deadly episode in Blacksburg are still preliminary and will undoubtedly be clarified in the coming days. What we do know is that a disturbed young man, a fully-credentialed college senior, shot and killed some thirty persons—black and white, classmates and instructors—and seriously wounded dozens more. He then took his own life. The shooter employed small, industrially-produced, rapid-firing handguns. It was an horrific happening, …

Adult Social Capital And Track Placement Of Ethnic Groups In Germany, Simon Cheng, Leslie Martin, Regina E. Werum

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The dictum that “context matters” notwithstanding, few researchers have focused on how social capital affects educational outcomes for ethnic groups outside of the United States. Using German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) data, analyses highlight the group-specific effects of parental social capital on track placement among 11–16-year-old German and non-German students. For both groups, parents’ family ties fail to affect track placement. Parents’ community ties have mixed effects. Among Germans, parental involvement in sports affects children’s tracking positively. Among non-Germans, parental socializing with peers affects track placement negatively, while parental involvement in religion-based community groups and interethnic ties with Germans improve track …

Comparing Check-All And Forced-Choice Question Formats In Web Surveys, Jolene D. Smyth, Don A. Dillman, Leah Melani Christian, Michael J. Stern

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

For survey researchers, it is common practice to use the check-all question format in Web and mail surveys but to convert to the forced-choice question format in telephone surveys. The assumption underlying this practice is that respondents will answer the two formats similarly. In this research note we report results from 16 experimental comparisons in two Web surveys and a paper survey conducted in 2002 and 2003 that test whether the check-all and forced-choice formats produce similar results. In all 16 comparisons, we find that the two question formats do not perform similarly; respondents endorse more options and take longer …

Nebraska Sociology On The Ground: A Souvenir Booklet To Accompany An Historical Walking Tour Of Faces And Places On The Lincoln Campus, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This 1-hour and 15-minute walking tour leaves promptly from the Nebraska Undergraduate Sociology Symposium (NUSS), Regency Suite, Room C, in the UNL Nebraska Union, on the City Campus. The tour includes eight locales of sociological interest (see map on the last page of this booklet) and features brief pauses at the Nebraska State Historical Society and the UNL University Archives. The first 15 participants receive this printed souvenir tour guide and related handouts. The tour will be conducted regardless of weather (rain, snow, sleet or shine) — please dress accordingly.

Bio-Bibliography: John Barron Mays (1914-1987), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

John Barron Mays developed a humane sociological perspective with multiple roots, including formal training in English, firsthand experience in a settlement house, a distinguished university professorship in sociology, and lifelong work as an active poet. Mays’ felicitous professional publications often spoke not only to university colleagues but also to constituencies beyond the halls of academe on a series of interrelated topics, including adolescence, criminology, education, urban life, and poetry.

Theory, Values, And Practice In The Legal Lifeworld Of Sociological Jurisprudence: Roscoe Pound’S Views On Professional Women, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The lived social dimensions of Roscoe Pound’s theories of sociological jurisprudence deserve criticism in light of his often progressive worldview and frequent support of civil liberties. Especially important in this regard are his views on women. Despite Sayre’s (1948: 390) assertion that “there is no dualism to Pound,” the archival record reveals internal contradictions. That is to say, Pound’s attitudes toward women were multi-dimensional. His social attitudes-inpractice informed his sociological ideas and thus illustrate the lived conflicts in his professional lifeworld.

Sociology And Poetry: An Introduction, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Poetry is a sociological reality. It has an institutional location within society, plays an important part in everyday social interaction, and promises very real results as a site for conceiving and explicating alternative social constellations. Simultaneously, poetry is sometimes difficult to grasp by those of decidedly a prosaic bent, and this includes too many sociologists. As poetry shapes — and is in turn shaped by — the active use of language in our culture on the respective parts of authors, speakers, hearers, readers, etc., the relevance and meaning of poetry can escape the sociological imagination when sociologists frame the social …

Sociological Novels Reviewed In Sociology And Social Research, 1925-1958, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The Bibliographic Record reveals the novel as a distinctive and frequently used format for sociological inquiry and exposition. From 1925 to 1958, the pages of Sociology and Social Research identified and reviewed 140 examples of sociological novels. A bibliography of these novels is provided here, annotated with citations for the reviews in Sociology and Social Research. This “library” of sociological novels is a useful resource for research on American culture, student projects, and (not unimportantly) recreational reading that combines business with pleasure.

Under the editorship of Emory S. Bogardus, Sociology and Social Research routinely opened its pages to reviews …

A Seven-Minute Sketch Of My Research, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

My central project is to identify, explicate, and better understand the fundamental dimensions, consequences, and possibilities of human embodiment in the social world. This project is multifaceted and is continually evolving. Virtually all of my work contributes directly to this project, including my analyses of archives, biography, “bomb talk,” bureaucracies, doctoral training, environmental art and design, epistemologies, landscapes, libraries, novels, organizations, patriarchy, pedestrians, postcards, research methodologies, scholars, surrogate parenting, terrorism, and — yes — disciplinary history. Methodologies I use include: archival excavation, bibliographic research, case studies, disguised interviews, ethological observation, experiential reflexivity, framing, genealogy, key informants, participant observation, questionnaires, site …

Bio-Bibliography: Stephen James Meredith Brown (1881-1962), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Stephen James Meredith Brown, S.J., was born in County Down, Ireland, on 24 September 1881. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College and was ordained as a Jesuit in 1914. Brown also pursued studies at Tullabeg, Jersey, Paris, and Hastings. Teaching posts included Clongowes and University College. At the latter, he launched the post-graduate school of librarianship, serving on the faculty for 24 years. Brown founded the Central Catholic Library in 1922 and was its motive force for some four decades. He is remembered today as a major bibliographer of Irish literature.

Bio-Bibliography: William Clark Gordon (1865-1936), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

William Clark Gordon was a clergyman and an early theorist of the relationships between literature and sociology. He earned a Ph.D. in the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1899 where he majored — within the School’s own Department of Sociology — in social institutions. As such, he completed his doctorate during the first full decade of Chicago’s pioneering sociological project — a fact noted but misattributed by Robert E. L. Faris (1967) to work in the University’s Department of Sociology in the Graduate School of Arts and Literature (Hill 2005). As a practicing clergyman, Gordon’s professional attentions focused on …

Effects Of Using Visual Design Principles To Group Response Options In Web Surveys, Jolene D. Smyth, Don A. Dillman, Leah M. Christian, Michael J. Stern

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we show that in Web questionnaires verbal and visual languages can be used to create groups and subgroups of information, which influence how respondents process Web questionnaires. Following Schwarz (1996; and also Schwarz, Grayson, & Knäuper, 1998) we argue that respondents act as cooperative communicators who use formal features of the questionnaire to help guide them through the survey conversation. Using data from three Web surveys of random samples of Washington State University undergraduates, we found that when response options are placed in close graphical proximity to each other and separated from other options, respondents perceive visual …

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 …

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 …

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 …