Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

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 …

Bureaucracy, Institutional Change, And Deegan’S Theory Of Core Codes And Liberating Rituals, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In American Ritual Dramas: Social Rules and Cultural Meanings (Greenwood Press, 1989), Mary Jo Deegan presents a theory of core codes and communitas that implicitly challenges the present organization of sociological practice in bureaucratic structures such as universities. The rituals of modern academic sociology are permeated by the same core codes that Deegan finds in many modern participatory and media-constructed rituals, specifically: the codes of oppression (class and sex codes) and the codes of repression (bureaucracy and time codes). Sociology remains little more than a rationalization for repressive and oppressive social control mechanisms unless it convincingly demonstrates and acts upon …

Excavating Underappreciated Sociologists: A Survey Of Assumptions And Strategies In Archival Research, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Archivally-based research in the history and sociology of sociology (especially the recent work of Mary Jo Deegan on Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918) powerfully demonstrates the central epistemological importance of excavating and rehabilitating the contributions of sociologists who have long been ignored by historians of sociology. Archival experience reveals that uncovering the unknown, the unwritten, or the unrecognized in the history of sociology frequently requires reversing the conventional wisdoms of sociological research. Ten archival research strategies are identified. These approaches are best adapted to long-term rather than short-term research programs. It is concluded that. the …

What It Means To Be A Humanist Sociologist: A Socioautobiographical Perspective, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

I am delighted to speak to you as a representative of the Association for Humanist Sociology. It is my purpose today to acquaint you with the Association for Humanist Sociology, to prompt your queries about the Association, and to answer your questions concerning the ways in which our organization supports the humanist values and professional interests of students and practicing sociologists across the country. Prior to talking about the “nuts and bolts” of the Association’s history and member services, however, I turn to my central topic for today: a socioautobiographical perspective on what it means to be a humanist sociologist.

American Charities As The Herald To A New Age, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The publication of American Charities in 1894 signaled the start of a new age. It crystallized the views of men and women working in economics, sociology, history, and philanthropy. Massive social changes-in urbanization, industrialization, immigration, the roles of women, and the relation between the home and the marketplace-generated social strains that could not be accommodated by traditional world views. Social problems in this new situation, particularly poverty, were perceived increasingly as secular instead of religious issues. Solutions to these social problems were needed urgently, and Amos G. Warner, the author of American Charities, articulated a new vision amidst the …

Dramaturgy In Archival Research: A Frame Analysis Of Disciplinary Reconstruction In Sociology, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Research in the history of sociology has with few exceptions depended primarily on interviews, reminiscences, and information gleaned from published sources rather than upon archival data such as unpublished correspondence, manuscripts, diaries, and memos. Recently, however, Mary Jo Deegan (1988) and others have demonstrated the power of archival data for rehabilitating the history of American sociology. Archival research is not without its own set of pitfalls and problems, but archival data can at times provide needed corrections to the skewed and often self-serving historical images portrayed in many of the "standard" published accounts of our disciplinary history.

The Presentation Of The City On ‘Fat-Letter’ Postcards, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Media-constructed rituals are cultural products. Unlike participatory rituals, my focus thus far, media-constructed rituals have more stability, higher internal order and consistency, and greater potential to reach people over time. Cultural artifacts from the past can reach people in their own era, the present, and the future, and in this way they provide a source of continuity even for rapidly changing societies. We begin this section of the book by examining a small artifact in an interaction ritual, the presentation of the city on a particular style of postcard.

Cities are complex human environments that are frequently symbolized in the …

Mari Sandoz’ Sociological Imagination: Capital City As An Ideal Type, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper examines Mari Sandoz' (1939) novel Capital City from the perspective of sociology. ‘I outline Sandoz' data collection methods and consider her use of ideal-type analysis and sociological imagination. From the perspective of literary critics it may be, as Helen Stauffer (1982: 131) judged, that Capital City "is not a successful novel." It is not my purpose, however, to contest the merit of Sandoz' work on literary grounds. Rather, I invoke the viewpoint of the sociologist and note the criteria on which I conclude that Capital City is a complex and well-executed sociological study.

Empiricism And Reason In Harriet Martineau’S Sociology, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The architecture and evolution of Harriet Martineau's sociological epistemology epitomize an essential tension between abstract theory and concrete empiricism. The body of Martineau's intellectual work demonstrates a major conceptual shift, from early religious convictions to subsequent rejection of all metaphysical systems. How to Observe Morals and Manners lies midway in this journey. The epistemological and biographical route to Martineau's adamant repudiation of metaphysics was long, personally tumultuous, and grounded fundamentally in empirical studies of social conditions. I focus here on the give-and-take between metaphysics, empiricism, and rationality in Harriet Martineau's sociological work. Part one of this essay highlights the major …

Roscoe Pound’S Sociological Library: The Foundations Of American Sociological Jurisprudence, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Roscoe Pound was an interdisciplinarian of the first order. His active reformation of legal thought and administrative practice in the United States was grounded in careful study of European and American legal and social theorists. He read widely in the discipline of sociology, as the following bibliography of his personal sociological book collection attests. Pound's study of sociology reached more widely and deeply than cursory examination of his published work reveals.

This bibliographic essay introduces modern scholars to the theoretical and intellectual contributions of the discipline of sociology to the foundations of twentieth-century juristic thought in the United States as …

Early Women Sociologists At The University Of Nebraska: A Selective Bibliography, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This working bibliography provides a key to the large literature written by early women sociologists from the University of Nebraska for those who wish to know more about their writings.

MARY ADELL TREMAIN (1860-1921)

FRANCES BROWN TAYLOR (1861-1925)

LUCILLE EAVES (1869-1949)

EDITH ABBOTT (1876-1957)

LUCILLE EAVES (1869-1949)

HATTIE PLUM WILLIAMS (1878-1963)

ALICE MARIE LOOMIS (1880-1982)

LETA S. HOLLINGWORTH (1886-1939)

GWENDOLYN HUGHES (1895-1911)

Roscoe Pound And The Seminarium Botanicum At The University Of Nebraska, 1888-1889, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Roscoe Pound (1870-1964) became one of America's leading legal scholars, but few recall his rigorous training in botany. Those who do most often cite his 1898 joint doctoral thesis (The Phytogeography of Nebraska, co-authored with Frederic Clements), but fail to note his first graduate work of a decade earlier. Roscoe Pound's master's thesis, "The Imperfect Fungi of Nebraska," was researched and written during the 1888-1889 academic year. Although the thesis itself is now lost, its content and the circumstances under which it was written can be established by using archival materials. Pound's role in leading the student botanical club (the …

Leadership And Nonverbal Behaviors Of Hispanic Females Across School Equity Environments, Helen A. Moore, Natalie K. Porter

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Nonverbal behaviors of Hispanic elementary school students and their peers were examined in a small-group cooperative task with a total of 202 subjects. Thirty-five randomly selected groups were videotaped in ten desegregated schools, each group was gender-homogeneous, with three Hispanic and three Anglo students. Analysis of the videotapes revealed that Hispanic females used less vertical and horizontal space than Anglo females, and were also less likely to verbally interrupt or physically intrude on other group members They had similar rates of handling the group resource cards and were given similar leadership scores by multi-ethnic trained observers. Among males, Hispanics are …

Preface To The Special Issue, Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Nebraska was a tumultuous new state in 1869, the year its major University was founded. The early sociologists at Nebraska reflected this bumptious and daring spirit This special issue of the Mid-American Review of Sociology explores several facets of the intellectual heritage and institutional foundations of sociology at the University of Nebraska.

Editor’S Introduction: The Social Construction Of A Departmental Heritage, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The creation, maintenance, and diffusion of each academic department's corporate identity is a social project. This is as true for departments of sociology as for any other academic organization. Numerous individuals and organizations -- within and outside a particular institute of higher learning -participate in the constructive, reconstructive, and deconstructive processes that shape the content and character of the institutional heritage passed from one generation of scholars in each department of sociology to the next.

Framing Falls: A Goffmanian Analysis Of Pedestrian Falls And Muffings, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Sociology: A Brief But Critical Introduction, 2nd Edition, By Anthony Giddens, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

As Giddens announces correctly in the preface, "This book differs from most other introductory texts in sociology in several ways" (p. vii). It concentrates on theory, "the core of theoretical concerns which sociology shares with all the social sciences" (p. vii). Giddens asserts, "I do not adopt the usual view that these issues are unimportant to those seeking to achieve an initial acquaintance with sociology. Neither do I accept the equally common idea that such matters are too complex to be grasped before the reader has a mastery of the more empirical content of the subject" (pp. vii-viii). On the …

Research By Bureaucracy: Hattie Plum Williams And The National Commission On Law Observance And Enforcement, 1929-1931, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper explores the bureaucratized research activities (1929-1931) of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (NCLOE) from the perspective of Hattie Plum Williams' sociobiographical experience. Williams was a doctoral student of George E. Howard and earned her Ph.D. in 1915 -- the ftrst doctorate in sociology awarded by the University of Nebraska. That same year, she joined the Nebraska faculty and eventually became Chair of the Department (1922-1928).2 In 1931, at age 53, this full professor was called upon be an unpaid fieldworker, gathering data according to rigid protocols stipulated by the NCLOE. Archival reconstruction of Williams' "view …

The Intellectual Legacy Of Nebraska Sociology: A Bibliographical Chronology Of Separately Published Works, 1887-1989, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The ftrst full century of sociological scholarship at the University of Nebraska rests solidly on numerous contributions to the acknowledged pinnacle of academic work: single-author monographs published by scholarly presses. Collaborative works, including jointly-authored monographs and scholarly editorial projects, round out the separately published volumes in the continually growing library of Nebraska sociology. Several works are recognized classics and have been revised and revived in various editions. The sociological work flowing from Nebraska roots is evidenced by inspection of the bibliography below.

If one wished to deftne a "Nebraska school of sociology," one could do worse than look to the …

Framing ‘Bomb Talk’: The Macro Consequences Of The Microfoundations Of Social Interaction In A Goffmanian Nuclear World, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper, originating with issues generated in Professor Deegan’s seminar on contemporary sociological theory at the University of Nebraska, explores the “frames” or microfoundations of everyday interaction and their consequences for the ultimate macrosociological threat: global nuclear annihilation. The theoretical basis of this study is Erving Goffman’s Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. The adequacy and comprehensiveness of Goffman’s major constructs are substantiated by data from the everyday world of newspapers and popular culture. “Keys” (or transformational conventions) are pivotal in this analysis. The central thesis of this paper holds that the keys used to transformationally …

We’Re Partners – Not Husband And Wife, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

On May I, 1982- International Workers' Day-we celebrated and consecrated our relationship with friends and family. Our partnership ceremony included blessings by a Presbyterian minister, piano music played by a close friend, and readings by Frederick Engels on marriage as slavery for women and by Jane Addams on the right of all people to live in societies they created. We did not obtain a marriage license, we did not exchange "marriage vows," and we specifically chose to not be married. Our celebration cake was covered with white frosting and in red letters the slogan "Workers Should Unite-Not Marry" merrily conveyed …

Bomb Talk: Framing The Unthinkable, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Our cultural apparatus appears ill-equipped, if not unable, to conceptualize or frame the present nuclear reality in a way that lets us effectively come to grips with it as it really is: a deployed, targeted, industrialized capacity to instantaneously annihilate all human life. This paper demonstrates that we key or transform our nuclear reality in virtually every conceivable way, thus normalizing it and treating it culturally the same as any other phenomenon, including the most mundane. I argue therefore that we have before us the immense and challenging task of finding a way – working with flawed and inadequate intellectual …

Physically Disabled Women And New Directions In Public Policy, 1977-1987., Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Women with physical disabilities now demand new directions in public policy. Starting a mere decade ago, in 1977, a driving momentum redefined the self-concepts, expectations, and united actions of disabled women. This burgeoning social movement is documented here through the geometric growth of writings articulating the vision of a more active and independent group. An overview of this Iiterature and its policy implications is provided.

'Asking Directions’ And Pedestrian Wayfinding, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper reports a study of the social ecology and systemic aspects of "asking for directions" in an urban area. Interviews were conducted with 100 randomly selected pedestrians at spatially stratified locations representing a variety of urban environments in Lincoln, Nebraska. The interviewer, posing as a "lost" pedestrian, asked respondents to give directions to local landmarks and then unobtrusively recorded their responses on a concealed tape recorder. Respondents generally provided accurate, distance-conserving directions with low levels of spatial complexity. Responses were friendly and often tailored to the unique environmental attributes characterizing each location. An outline of the process whereby a …

Novels, Thought Experiments, And Humanist Sociology In The Classroom: Mari Sandoz And Capital City, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Based upon teaching Mari Sandoz' allegorical novel, Capital City, as part of Introduction to Sociology for three semesters, this report outlines the characteristics of sociologically useful novels from a humanist perspective. A key characteristic is the extent to which novelists not only conduct thought experiments but also stimulate student thinking and research. The pedagogical dimensions of thought experiments are explicated and the positive outcomes of using a novel-and group study projects based on a novel-are reported.

Preface, Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

To us, as feminist professors, the structural inequality of women is obvious. To our nonfeminist students, however, this inequality is often invisible. They believe, optimistically, that all women's problems have been solved or will be by the time they complete their undergraduate education. They are firm believers that American society is egalitarian and radically different from the world of ten or twenty years ago. This book is oriented toward our students and our vision. We, too, believe that people are flexible and can change, and that the United States Constitution guarantees equality for all citizens. We know, however, that women's …

The Sociology And Experiences Of Pedestrians, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper introduces the sociological and experiential studies included in this special issue of Man-Environment Systems. Sociological and experiential perspectives and their interconnections are briefly explored. A sociology of sociology perspective is adopted and argues that architects, planners, engineers and other managers of vested, status guo interests fail to systematically incorporate the burgeoning social scientific work on pedestrianism due to the inherent and unavoidable political character of walking.

A Cross-Cultural Analysis Of Several Forms Of Parenting: Mother, Genitrix, And Mater, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Melissa Stern was born March 27, 1986, in New Jersey. For one so young, she has experienced or been the subject of interstate flight and fugitive hegira, legal battles involving her own court-appointed attorney, social controversy, the voracious attention of an insensitive media industry, and a place in history as the famous Baby "M". Judge Sorkow (1987: 26-27), in his opinion awarding custody of Melissa to her genetic father and terminating all parental rights of her genetic mother, notes professional evaluations indicating Melissa to be a "a mellow, alert, easy-to-care-for child who is blessed with a 'sunniness of disposition that …

"Martha's Rules": An Alternative To Robert's Rules Of Order, Anne Minahan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

For several years I have been teaching a social work course on how social workers can make their employing organization more responsive to consumers. We study how decisions are made in organizations. The students and I have become intrigued with the use of consensus decision-making in some organizations. Many—but by no means all—of these organizations are feminist organizations that wish to put feminist beliefs and philosophy into practice within organizations and to avoid structured administrative hierarchies for decision making. In their study of consensus decision-making organizations, students have reported that some participants are impatient with the time required by the …

Sexism In Space: The Freudian Formula In "Star Trek", Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

These words, spoken at the beginning of each televised "Star Trek" episode, set the stage for the fantastic future. Although the "Star Trek" series was cancelled in 1969 after only three years of production, it generated a large cult following that flourishes still today. One reason for the series' remarkable longevity is its depiction of the future as a Freudian fantasy. This Freudian vision draws on cultural myths embedded in the patriarchal dominance of men over women characteristic of Western civilization.

According to Freud, both sexes are driven by three instincts --- sex, aggression, and the death wish---but men have …