December 2005, Volume 84, Number 2

National and Global Influences on Transnational Association

Jackie Smith, University of Notre Dame
Dawn Wiest, SUNY Stony Brook

Recent decades have seen an explosion of transnational networking and activism, but participation varies widely around the globe. Using negative binomial regression, we explore how national and global political and economic factors shape this "uneven geography" of participation in transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs). Contrary to assumptions in popular discourse, we find a continued importance of the state and limited importance of global economic integration in determining participation in transnational associations. But while ties to the global economy do not significantly impact participation, a country's links to global institutions enhance opportunities for transnational activism. Rich countries' citizens are more active transnationally, but low-income countries with strong ties to the global polity are also more tied to global activist networks. This suggests that TSMOs do not simply reproduce world-system stratification, but – aided by a supportive institutional environment – they help sow the seeds for its transformation.

Decline of the Nation State?
How the European Union Creates National and Sub-National Identifications

Karl-Dieter Opp, University of Leipzig

A widely held argument is that organizations such as the European Community will only succeed if an identification with these organizations develops; and the EC creates this identification. This, in turn, is supposed to diminish identification with national and sub-national regions. Based on this argument, some testable propositions are suggested referring to the conditions under which identifications with hierarchical regions – in this paper Europe, nation states and sub-national regions – arise and how these identifications are causally related. The propositions are tested with a two-wave panel study carried out in 2000 and 2002 in East Germany. In contrast to the previous argument, we found positive correlations between the three identifications. Furthermore, European identification has positive causal effects on sub-national and national identifications, and sub-national identification has positive causal effects on national and European identification.

Explaining the Global Digital Divide: 
Economic, Political, and Sociological Drivers of Cross-National Internet use

Mauro F. Guillén, University of Pennsylvania
Sandra L. Suárez, Temple University

We argue that the global digital divide, as measured by cross-national differences in Internet use, is the result of the economic, regulatory and sociopolitical characteristics of countries and their evolution over time. We predict Internet use to increase with world-system status, privatization and competition in the telecommunications sector, democracy and cosmopolitanism. Using data on 118 countries from 1997 through 2001, we find relatively robust support for each of our hypotheses. We conclude by exploring the implications of this new, powerful communication medium for the global political economy and for the spread of democracy around the world.

 
Self-Employment of Immigrants:
A Cross-National Study of 17 Western Societies

Frank van Tubergen, Utrecht University

This study examines the role of immigrants' country of origin, country of destination and combinations thereof (settings or communities) in the likelihood of immigrants being self-employed. I pooled census data from three classic immigrant countries (Australia, Canada and the United States) and labor-force surveys from 14 countries in the European Union for a cross-national data set. Using multilevel techniques, I find that (1) immigrants from non-Christian countries of origin have higher odds of self-employment, (2) higher levels of unemployment among natives increase the odds of self-employment, and (3) self-employment is more frequent among immigrant communities that are small, highly educated and have a longer settlement history.

Economic Restructuring and Intra-generational Class Mobility in Mexico

Emilio A. Parrado, Duke University

This paper compares men's career opportunities and intra-generational class mobility across periods with markedly different development strategies in Mexico. Despite its significance for social stratification and inequality in Mexico, research on mobility has been relatively scant in recent decades. Using data from the National Retrospective Demographic Survey, my analysis connects development strategies to individual career opportunities by comparing intra-generational class mobility across three cohorts of Mexican men. Results show that occupational opportunities failed to keep pace with rising human capital in Mexico under the neoliberal regime. Instead, entry and mobility into good jobs became more difficult to achieve and downward mobility more prevalent even among highly educated workers.

White Supremacists, Oppositional Culture, and the World Wide Web

Josh Adams, Ohio State University
Vincent J. Roscigno, Ohio State University

Over the previous decade, white supremacist organizations have tapped into the ever emerging possibilities offered by the World Wide Web. Drawing from prior sociological work that has examined this medium and its uses by white supremacist organizations, this article advances the understanding of recruitment, identity and action by providing a synthesis of interpretive and more systematic analyses of thematic content, structure and associations within white supremacist discourse. Analyses, which rely on TextAnalyst, highlight semantic networks of thematic content from principal white supremacist websites, and delineate patterns and thematic associations relative to the three requisites of social movement culture denoted in recent research – namely identity, interpretational framing of cause and effect, and political efficacy. Our results suggest that nationalism, religion and definitions of responsible citizenship are interwoven with race to create a sense of collective identity for these groups, their members and potential recruits. Moreover, interpretative frameworks that simultaneously identify threatening social issues and provide corresponding recommendations for social action are employed. Importantly, and relative to prior work, results show how the interpretation of problems, their alleged causes and the call to action are systematically linked. We conclude by discussing the framing of white supremacy issues, the organizations' potential for recruitment, and how a relatively new communication medium, the Internet, has been cheaply and efficiently integrated into the white supremacist repertoire. Broader implications for social movement theory are also explored.

The Structure of Women’s Employment in Comparative Perspective

Becky Pettit Universityof Washington
Jennifer Hook, University of Washington

In this paper we analyze social survey data from 19 countries using multi-level modeling methods in an effort to synthesize structural and institutional accounts for variation in women's employment. Observed demographic characteristics show much consistency in their relationship to women's employment across countries, yet there is significant variation in the effect of demographic characteristics on women's employment across countries. Disentangling specific policy conditions from overall policy generosity leads us to discover important non-linearities in the effects of parental leave on the employment of women with young children, and that federally supported childcare is positively related to the probability of employment of married women and women with young children.

A New Kind of English:
Cultural Variance, Citizenship and DiY Politics amongst the Exodus Collective in England

Lee Robert Blackstone, State University of New York, College at Old Westbury

This article addresses the construction of citizenship in contemporary England as a boundary between 'proper' and 'improper' English behavior. Through an ethnographic study of the Exodus Collective, a Rastafarian-anarchist community that was located north of London, I show that constructing citizenship also constructs criminality by indicating inclusion or exclusion in England. The Exodus Collective's alternative lifestyle and radical politics transgressed on mainstream British values, and their cultural variance marked the group as outsiders in English society. I argue that the classic model of English citizenship proposed by T.H. Marshall is too linear and static, and fails to capture the reality of a present-day English citizenship that is neither fixed nor secure. I propose that the cultural features of citizenship have become increasingly important to the social construction of deviance.

Social vs. Self-Directed Events among Japanese and Americans

Herman Smith, University Missouri-St. Louis
Linda E. Francis, SUNY at Stony Brook

Cultural expectations provide meaning to human perceptions of who-does-what-to-whom-where. However, the effects of actions directed at oneself have been much less systematically studied. This article replicates the American factorial design of Britt and Heise (1992) in a Japanese setting. The analysis demonstrates both cultural similarities and differences in psychological principles for attaching meanings to self-directed events. Cross-cultural differences in creating a sense of self-fulfillment or self-actualization are expressed through emotional labeling and trait attribution.

Employment Transitions and the Household Division of Labor in China

Feinian Chen, North CarolinaState University

Highlighting one aspect of the economic transition in China (industrialization), this article focuses on how a change in employment from an agricultural to a non-agricultural job could change the household division of labor. Longitudinal analysis of data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey showed that such job shifts affected the household division of labor in different directions and magnitude, depending upon which spouse changed jobs. If the husband changed from an agricultural to a non-agricultural job, he cut back on housework, thereby increasing the difference in the number of hours of housework each spouse performed. If the wife experienced such a job change, the reduction in her housework hours was twice that of her husband's, reducing the difference between their shares of household duties.

 

Pay Differences Among the Highly Trained:
Cohort Differences in the Sex Gap in Lawyers’ Earnings

Mary C. Noonan, University of Iowa
Mary E. Corcoran, University of Michigan
Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan

Using unique data from a survey of University of Michigan Law School graduates, we test various models of how sex differences in pay, labor supply and job settings should have evolved as women entered the elite male field of law. We compare the sex gap in earnings 15 years after graduation for two cohorts of lawyers and find that it has remained constant over time. In both cohorts, men earn 52 percent more than women, 17 percent more than women with similar characteristics, and 11 percent more than women with similar characteristics in the same job settings. Sex differences in hours worked have increased over time and explain more of the sex-based earnings gap, while sex differences in job settings and years spent in private practice have declined and explain less of the gap.

Exiting and Entering High-Poverty Neighborhoods:
Latinos, Blacks and Anglos Compared

Scott J. South, State University of New York at Albany
Kyle Crowder Western Washington University
Erick Chavez, State University of New York at Albany

A special sample from the 1990-1995 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used to examine differences in the patterns and determinants of residential mobility between high-poverty and lower-poverty neighborhoods among Latinos, blacks and Anglos. Householders of Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban origin are significantly less likely than Anglos to move from a high-poverty to a lower-poverty neighborhood, and these differences are only partially explained by ethnic differences in standard mobility determinants. Although African Americans are thought to face unique barriers to geographic mobility, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans are significantly less likely than non-Hispanic blacks to escape high-poverty neighborhoods. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are significantly more likely than Anglos to move from a lower-poverty to a high-poverty neighborhood, but blacks exhibit by far the highest rates of moving into high-poverty neighborhoods.

 
A Distorted Nation:
Perceptions of Racial/Ethnic Group Sizes and Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Other Minorities

Richard Alba, University at Albany, SUNY
Rubén G. Rumbaut, University of California, Irvine
Karen Marotz, University at Albany, SUNY

Using a special module (MEUS) of the 2000 General Social Survey, we investigate Americans' perceptions of the racial and ethnic composition of the United States. We show that, because of innumeracy, it is critical to gauge perceptions through relative, rather than absolute, group sizes. Even so, it appears that, as of 2000, roughly half of Americans believed that whites had become a numerical minority; such perceptions were even more common among minority-group members than among whites. Majority-group respondents' perceptions of the relative sizes of minorities affect their attitudes towards immigrants, blacks and Hispanics, with those having the most distorted perceptions holding the most negative attitudes. Although perceptions of group sizes in the nation are linked to the perceived racial/ethnic composition of the communities where respondents reside, the effects of the former on attitudes are largely independent of the latter. Our findings highlight the frequently overlooked value of an old bromide against prejudice: education.

 
Circles of Influence and Chains of Command:
The Social Processes Whereby Ethnic Communities Influence Host Societies

Anthony M. Orum, University of Illinois at Chicago

Research into immigration has for many years focused most of its attention on the issue of how immigrants adapt to host societies. This tendency is especially true in the work of sociologists. Yet if we acknowledge the growing ethnic diversity today in the United States and elsewhere, the most interesting questions arise as to how immigrants influence the host society – not how they adapt to it. This paper proposes a sociological theory to account for such influence. For evidence it draws on a variety of empirical examples from research on ethnic communities in the United States.

The Antislavery Movement in Early America:
Religion, Social Environment and Slave Manumissions

Art Budros, McMaster University

Although traditional explanations of the historic slave manumission movement during the early Republic have stressed religion, rival ones have emphasized broader environmental forces. However, the literature has offered non-systematic conceptualizations of religion and impressionistic empirical analyses of the facilitators of liberations. In response, I examine the Methodist church's efforts to convince the faithful to free their slaves in Brunswick County, Virginia, from 1782 to 1808. Analyzing the entire population of freedom documents, I report that evangelical ideology motivated masters to make the initial decision to release chattels and that Methodist organizational and social environmental factors influenced masters' decisions regarding when manumissions were written, how many slaves were freed, and whether willed or deeded liberations were awarded. Masters' traits also influenced when willed (moderate) and deeded (radical) manumissions were issued. I end by discussing the role played by economic self-interest in masters' decisions to free bondspeople.

 
Black Church Culture and Community Action

Sandra L. Barnes, Purdue University

Cultural theory posits that social groups possess a cultural repertoire or "tool kit" that reflects beliefs, ritual practices, stories and symbols that provide meaning and impetus for resource mobilization. However, little research based on quantitative techniques has been forwarded relative to the relationship between longstanding Black Church cultural components – specifically, scripture, songs, prayers and sermons – and activism among Black churches. Using a large national sample of Black congregations across seven denominations, I test aspects of cultural theory. Findings support the consistent, direct relationship between prayer groups and gospel music and various forms of community action and less influence by spirituals and the general usage of sacred scripture.

 
Social Capital, Too Much of a Good Thing? 
American Religious Traditions and Community Crime

Kraig Beyerlein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
John R. Hipp, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Using American religious traditions as measures of bonding and bridging social capital in communities, we empirically test how these different forms of social capital affect crime rates in 3,157 U.S. counties in 2000. Our results suggest that the bonding networks evangelical Protestants promote in communities explain why counties with a greater percentage of residents affiliated with this tradition consistently have higher crime rates. Conversely, our results suggest that the bridging networks that mainline Protestants and Catholics foster in communities explain why counties with a greater percentage of residents affiliated with these traditions generally have lower crime rates. This article thus provides empirical corroboration for recent theoretical discussions that focus on how the social capital that groups cultivate in communities need not always benefit communities as a whole.

 
Pulpits and Platforms:
The Role of the Church in Determining Protest among Black Americans

Scott T. Fitzgerald, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Ryan E. Spohn, Kansas State University

This article further specifies the relationship between church-based resources, group identification and political activism among black Americans. Previous research indicates that political communication within churches and activism within the church serve to motivate political participation. Our research suggests that, net of relevant controls, activism within the church does not significantly increase protest politics. A key determinant of protest participation is attending a church that exhibits a politicized church culture, and this effect is contingent upon educational attainment and membership in secular organizations. Hence, the church serves as a crucial context for the dissemination of political messages and exposure to opportunities for protest only for those black Americans with relatively low educational achievement and organizational involvement. Group identification has no effect on protest participation.

 
Political Microcultures: Linking Civic Life and Democratic Discourse

Andrew Perrin, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

At the core of democratic citizenship is deliberation: citizens' tendency and capacity for debating issues of common importance. This study considers civic organizations – often found to be political mobilizers – as political microcultures: environments for political discourse that structure participants' understanding of the practice of citizenship. The study consists of 20 focus groups, each composed of members of one of five kinds of civic organizations. The transcripts are analyzed using bivariate and hierarchical linear modeling techniques. The group context in which political discussions take place is found to have a significant impact on the structure and logic of those discussions, even after accounting for individual-level variations in the demographic characteristics and civic experiences of group participants. A significant portion of civic life and its contribution to democratic citizenship is in social environments that vary in the richness of their political discourse. Elements of political microcultures may explain part of the often-observed differences among civic organizations' degree and type of political mobilization.

Process and Protest: Accounting for Individual Protest Participation

Alan Schussman, University of Arizona
Sarah A. Soule, University of Arizona

Using American Citizen Participation Survey data (Verba et al. 1995a), we perform logistic regression analyses to adjudicate between three core explanations for individual protest: biographical availability, political engagement and structural availability. We calculate estimated probabilities to weigh the relative effects of these factors on the likelihood of protest participation, and we find that being asked to protest is the strongest predictor of participating in protest, but that numerous other individual characteristics such as political interest and organizational ties are important predictors of being asked to protest. Viewing protest as a multi-stage process and recognizing that certain factors predict being asked to protest while others predict actually protesting, we gain theoretical leverage over the ways in which individuals are prompted to take part in protest.

 
Reconsidering Peers and Delinquency: How do Peers Matter?

Dana L. Haynie, Ohio State University
D. Wayne Osgood, Pennsylvania State University

This paper examines the contribution of peer relations to delinquency from the perspective of two sociological traditions: socialization/normative influence and opportunity. Earlier studies have likely overestimated normative influence by relying on respondents' reports about their friends' behaviors rather than obtaining independent assessments and by inadequately controlling for the tendency to select peers who are similar to oneself. Using detailed social network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find support for both the socialization and opportunity models. Adolescents engage in higher rates of delinquency if they have highly delinquent friends and if they spend a great deal of time in unstructured socializing with friends. Yet our results also indicate that (1) the normative influence of peers on delinquency is more limited than indicated by most previous studies, (2) normative influence is not increased by being more closely attached to friends or spending more time with them, (3) the contribution of opportunity is independent from normative influence and of comparable importance, and (4) influences from the peer domain do not mediate the influences of age, gender, family or school.

 
Interracial Families and the Racial Identification of Mixed-Race Children: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

David L. Brunsma, University of Missouri, Columbia

In this article, a nationally-representative sample of kindergarten-aged children is used from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to explore the structure of parental racial designation of mixed-race children. The variation in these parental designations of a variety of mixed-race children is described. Parental racial designations in the three most common majority-minority interracial couplings – White/Hispanic, Black/White and Asian/White – are predicted using multinomial logistic regression models. The results may indicate a movement by the parents of these multiracial children away from minority status through racial labeling and towards "multiracial" and "White" – movements that are predicated upon gender, class and context. Critical discussions of the implications of these results as well as directions for future research are offered.

Student Disengagement and the Socialization Styles of High Schools

Lisa A. Pellerin, Ball State University

This paper advances a cross-contextual understanding of authoritative socialization, a concept developed by family researchers. Using data from the High School Effectiveness Study, I use multilevel modeling to test the effect of high school socialization style on student disengagement from 10^th to 12^th grades, controlling for both the sociodemographic context of schools and student characteristics. I find that school socialization style is differentially associated with student disengagement by 10^th grade, and controlling for 10^th grade disengagement, school styles have further effects on disengagement by 12^th grade. As hypothesized, the pattern of effects replicates that found in studies of family socialization – authoritative schools have the lowest levels of disengagement and indifferent schools the highest, while authoritarian and permissive schools have moderate levels of disengagement.

 
Social Capital in Action:
Alignment of Parental Support in Adolescents’ Transition to Postsecondary Education

DooHwan Kim, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Barbara Schneider, Michigan State University

This article examines the effects of social capital in the transition to postsecondary education, in particular, transitions to selective colleges. Refining the theory of social capital with the concept of alignment between parents' and adolescents' goals and actions, we emphasize the complementarity of extra-group ties as social capital through which parents can effectively bridge resources and information to adolescents, enabling them to make informed choices about college. This study explores conditions that ease the transition to college, especially for students who are disadvantaged (e.g., children of immigrants). Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988-94, a multinomial logistic regression analysis that differentiates among students who choose different pathways after high school graduation (a two-year college, a four-year college or no postsecondary enrollment). A Heckman selection model is used to predict the selectivity of four-year colleges attended by students. Results show that alignment of parents' and students' goals increases students' odds of attending a postsecondary institution in the year after high school graduation. The effect of parents' education on the selectivity of the college attended is also dependent on aligned ambition and aligned action between parents and adolescents. For example, active participation in postsecondary school guidance programs by parents is more beneficial to students whose

 
Going Too Far? Sex, Sin and Social Policy

Susan Rose, Dickinson College

This paper examines the impact of the Religious Right on American social policy as it relates to family, sexuality and reproductive health. The article focuses on the current debates and practices of abstinence-until-marriage programs vs. comprehensive sex education programs – and the ways in which they reflect and affect cultural attitudes about sexuality, teenagers, parents and rights. The manuscript is based on comparative fieldwork, including participant observations in schools and interviews in the United States and Denmark with teenagers, teachers and sexuality educators. We question whether it is sex education that goes too far in promoting early and promiscuous sex or the Religious Right in attempting to censor vital information and services from young people.

The Status of Cultural Omnivorism: A Case Study of Reading in Russia

Jane Zavisca, University of Arizona

The literature on cultural consumption documents the displacement of highbrow snobbery by cultural omnivorism among high status groups. This article interrogates the status meanings of cultural omnivorism through a case study of reading in Russia. Post-socialist transformations have destabilized the status of social groups and the honorability of cultural practices. Survey analysis suggests that omnivorism has become the dominant taste pattern among the educated and the well-to-do. However, qualitative data reveal a discursive divide among educated omnivores who have become rich or poor since the collapse of the Soviet Union. When omnivores articulate their tastes, they invoke discourses of moral decline vs. moral defense of the new capitalist order to make conflicting claims about whether its beneficiaries are worthy of status honor.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself?
Fear of Fear, Fear of Greed and Gender Effects in Two-person Asymmetric Social Dilemmas

Ko Kuwabara, Cornell University

This article extends Simpson's (2003) research on sex differences in social dilemmas. To test the hypotheses that men defect in response to greed and women to fear, Simpson created Fear and Greed Dilemmas, but experiments using these games supported the greed hypothesis only. In this article I focus on why the fear hypothesis failed and suggest that fear was actually absent in the Fear Dilemma. To retest Simpson's hypotheses, I propose a new asymmetric game, the Fear-of-Greed Dilemma. The asymmetry is important for two reasons. First, it creates the risk of exploitation that Simpson's Fear Dilemma lacked. Second, it exposes a critical limitation in Rapoport's (1964) K-index and suggests a re-specification. Laboratory studies supported the fear hypothesis and found mediating effects of expectations about partners on sex differences in cooperation.

Constraints and Opportunities with Interview Transcription:
Towards Reflection in Qualitative Research

Daniel G. Oliver, Ohio State University
Julianne M. Serovich, Ohio State University
Tina L. Mason, Ohio State University

In this paper we discuss the complexities of interview transcription. While often seen as a behind-the-scenes task, we suggest that transcription is a powerful act of representation. Transcription is practiced in multiple ways, often using naturalism, in which every utterance is captured in as much detail as possible, and/or denaturalism, in which grammar is corrected, interview noise (e.g., stutters, pauses, etc.) is removed and non-standard accents (i.e., non-majority) are standardized. In this article, we discuss the constraints and opportunities of our transcription decisions and point to an intermediate, reflective step. We suggest that researchers incorporate reflection into their research design by interrogating their transcription decisions and the possible impact these decisions may have on participants and research outcomes.

 
Public Sociology

Constructing Reason:
Human Rights and the Democratization of the United Nations

Jerry Pubantz, University of North Carolina at Greensboro