September 2006, Volume 85, Number 1

Dina G. Okamoto, University of California, Davis

In the wake of the civil rights movement, new organizations formed which were based on the collective interests and identities of their constituencies. Some of these organizations brought together national origin groups who often differed by ethnicity, language, culture, religion and immigration history. In this paper, I focus on the conditions that facilitate the institutionalization of a socially constructed panethnic community. Using a new longitudinal data set of Asian American organizations, I draw upon a theory of panethnicity which emphasizes the structured relations between groups at different boundary levels to understand panethnic organizational foundings. When controlling for resource availability, political opportunities and organizational dynamics, the boundary formation variables remain important in explaining new organizational activity.

 
Dropping the Hyphen? Becoming Latino(a)-American through Racialized Assimilation

Tanya Golash-Boza, University of Kansas

Early assimilation theorists predicted the eventual loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the United States. In this paper, the author not only questions the possibilities that Latino and Latina Americans have for losing their ethnic distinctiveness, but also proposes that these possibilities vary widely within the Hispanic population. The central question posed in this paper is: In addition to traditional predictors of assimilation, do experiences of discrimination also affect ethnic identification patterns for Hispanics? Based on the analysis of two data sets, the 1989 Latino National Political Survey and the 2002 National Survey of Latinos, the author provides evidence that Latino/a Americans who have experienced discrimination are less likely to self-identify as "Americans," and more likely to self-identify with pan-ethnic or hyphenated American labels. The author contends that this is because experiences of discrimination teach some Latinos and Latinas that other citizens of the United States do not view them as "unhyphenated Americans." The author further proposes that, through a process of racialized assimilation, these Latin American immigrants and their children are becoming Latino and Latina Americans.

 
Double-Checking the Race Box: Examining Inconsistency between Survey Measures of Observed and Self-Reported Race

Aliya Saperstein, University of California-Berkeley

Social constructivist theories of race suggest no two measures of race will capture the same information, but the degree of "error" this creates for quantitative research on inequality is unclear. Using unique data from the General Social Survey, I find observed and self-reported measures of race yield substantively different results when used to explain income inequality in the United States. This occurs because inconsistent racial classification is correlated with other respondent characteristics such as immigrant generation, educational attainment and age.

 
Structural Assimilation Revisited: Mexican-Origin Nativity and Cross-Ethnic Primary Ties

Susan K. Brown, University of California, Irvine

Classical assimilation theory postulates that over time, members of immigrant groups will develop more primary ties with native members of the host society. However, lack of data has led most research to rely on the study of either spatial mobility or other secondary variables as proxies of primary ties. Using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, this research examines primary relations, comparing the number of cross-ethnic strong ties among foreign- and native-born generations of persons of Mexican origin in Los Angeles County. The findings indicate that the native-born are substantially more likely to report cross-ethnic ties than immigrants. Spatial variables only partially explain the effect of primary structural assimilation, implying that both primary group and spatial dynamics play important roles in structural incorporation.

Brutal Borders? Examining the Treatment of Deportees During Arrest and Detention

Scott Phillips
Jacqueline Maria Hagan
Nestor Rodriguez

Recent legislation has produced a dramatic rise in the detention and removal of immigrants from the United States. Drawing on interviews with a random sample of Salvadoran deportees, we examine treatment during arrest and detention. Our findings indicate: (1) deportees are often subject to verbal harassment, procedural failings and use of force; (2) force tends to be excessive; (3) force is more common against deportees than citizens; (4) situational contingencies and organizational actors influence force, but ecological settings do not.

Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action: Rejection of Group-based Preferences as well as Rejection of Blacks

Thomas C. Wilson, Florida Atlantic University

This study addresses whether whites' rejection of affirmative action reflects an opposition to group-based preferences per se, independent of their attitudes toward blacks. Analysis of 1996 General Social Survey data shows that whites' attitude toward preferential hiring and promotion of blacks is predicted by their attitude toward preferential hiring and promotion of women. This finding remains unchanged when controlling for racial and other attitudes, and it holds regardless of gender. The conclusion is that whites' rejection of racial preferences reflects both rejection of blacks and rejection of group-based preferences in general, regardless of the target group.

Parenting Across Racial and Class Lines: Assortative Mating Patterns of New Parents Who Are Married, Cohabiting, Dating and No Longer Romantically Involved

Joshua R. Goldstein, Princeton University
Kristen Harknett, University of Pennsylvania

We examine the assortative mating patterns of new parents who are married, cohabiting, romantically involved and no longer romantically involved. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, we find that relationship status at the time of a birth depends mainly on father's race rather than on whether mother and father's race/ethnicity differ. Crossing race/ethnic lines does not appear to have much effect on relationship transitions following a birth. Rather, parents are less likely to marry after a birth if one parent is black, and the relationships of Hispanic couples are particularly stable. Crossing educational lines has little effect on relationship status at birth, but same-education couples had a slightly lower risk of divorce following the birth.

The Connection between Biology and Sociology
A Special Section edited by Guang Guo

 * Gene-Culture Coevolutionary Games

Marion Blute, University of Toronto at Mississauga

Gene-culture interactions have largely been modelled employing population genetic-type models. Moreover, in the most notable application to date, the "interactive" modes have been one way rather than bidirectional. This paper suggests using game theoretic, fully interactive models. Employing the logic utilized in population ecology for coevolution between two species, the basic kinds of coevolutionary interactions possible between biological and sociocultural strategies are mutualism, in which both are favored to match; competition, in which they are favored to unmatch; and antagonism, in which one is favored to match and the other to unmatch, in two possible ways. Hypothetical examples based on life history characteristics, ones emphasizing the importance of the mode of cultural transmission, and possible complications are discussed.

 
* Testosterone and Social Behavior

Alan Booth, The Pennsylvania State University
Douglas A. Granger, The Pennsylvania State University
Allan Mazur, Syracuse University
Katie T. Kivlighan, The Pennsylvania State University

Popular perceptions of the effect of testosterone on "manly" behavior are inaccurate. We need to move away from such simplistic notions by treating testosterone as one component along with other physiological, psychological and sociological variables in interactive and reciprocal models of behavior. Several hormones can now be measured in saliva, removing the need for blood samples. Conceptual shifts have moved research from biological determinism to biosocial models in which the social environment plays a key role in understanding behavior-hormones associations. As a result, more social scientists are incorporating testosterone in their studies. Following a primer on testosterone, we describe testosterone's link to (a) gaining, maintaining and losing social status, (b) aggression and antisocial behavior, (c) peer and family relationships, and (d) gender similarities and differences. Research needed to take us to the next level of understanding is outlined.

* Achievement and Ascription in Educational Attainment: Genetic and Environmental Influences on Adolescent Schooling

François Nielsen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The classic ("status attainment") model of educational and occupational attainment suffers from three related shortcomings when used as a tool for comparative or policy-oriented research on social mobility: (1) ambiguity of model parameters as measures of opportunity for achievement vs. ascription; (2) vulnerability to incomplete specification of family background; and (3) confounding of environmental and genetic influences. These issues can be addressed in part by using a ("behavior genetic") model that distinguishes variance components associated with genetic endowment, shared (or common) family environment, and unshared (or specific) environment. Size of the genetic component (heritability) measures opportunity for achievement; size of the shared environment component (environmentality) measures social ascription. A multivariate behavior genetic model of adolescent verbal IQ, grade point average and college plans is estimated using data for six types of adolescent sibling pairs living in the same household: MZ twins, DZ twins, full siblings, half siblings, cousins and non-related siblings. Results show large genetic components, relatively small shared environmental components, and large unshared environmental components for all three outcomes. Parameters of the behavior genetic model can be used to compare mobility regimes across social contexts and the model therefore provides an important tool for comparative social mobility research.

* Culture in Animals and a Case of a Non-Human Primate Culture of Low Aggression and High Affiliation

Robert M. Sapolsky, Stanford University and Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya

Strikes and Wages in Post-Accord America

Jake Rosenfeld, Princeton University

Using previously unreleased data on nearly every authorized work stoppage that occurred between 1984 and 2002, this paper tests whether the positive wage-strike relationship held following the breakdown of the post-war labor-capital accord. Unlike in decades past, these findings indicate a complete decoupling of the wage-strike relationship. Even in those industries and regions where unions remain relatively institutionalized, strikes no longer increase aggregate worker pay. Strike activity also fails to narrow worker wage dispersion at the industry-region level. The findings highlight the need for rethinking existing theoretical models on strike activity and wages in this era of capital dominance.

Do High Technology Policies Work?  High Technology Industry Employment Growth in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1988-1998

J. Craig Jenkins, Ohio State University
Kevin T. Leicht, University of Iowa
Arthur Jaynes, Ohio State University

Since the 1970s, federal, state and local governments have launched an array of new high technology development programs. Researchers and policy-makers disagree about the relative merits of these policies. We address the effects of seven of these policies on high tech industry employment growth in metropolitan statistical areas in the United States between 1988 and 1998. A conditional change score design shows that technology grant/loan programs and technology research parks have direct effects net of location and agglomeration factors. Five of seven programs positively interact with existing agglomeration advantages to create growth in high technology industry employment. Technology development programs compensate for deficits in agglomeration resources. Our results suggest that high-technology development can be planned by designing programs that magnify existing local growth advantages.

Economic Globalization, Industrialization and Deindustrialization in Affluent Democracies

David Brady, Duke University
Ryan Denniston, Duke University

This study reexamines the relationship between economic globalization and manufacturing employment in affluent democracies. After reviewing past research, including the well-supported Rowthorn model, we propose a differentiation-saturation model that theorizes that globalization has a curvilinear relationship with manufacturing employment. Using two different techniques, we analyze the most comprehensive sample of 18 affluent democracies from 1960-2001. We examine 12 globalization measures and provide the first analysis of the curvilinear relationship between globalization and manufacturing employment. We find that some aspects of globalization have linear effects on manufacturing employment, most of which are positive. We find more evidence, however, that globalization has a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped relationship with manufacturing employment. The evidence for the Rowthorn model is mixed. GDP per capita and its square do not have robust effects, but agricultural employment is one of the most important causes. Including globalization in the model weakens the evidence for the Rowthorn model. There is some evidence that globalization has different effects across different varieties of capitalism, regions and historical periods. Ultimately, our analyses partially support both the Rowthorn model and our differentiation-saturation model.

Redressing Past Human Rights Violations: Global Dimensions of Contemporary Social Movements

Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Stony Brook University

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to analyze global dimensions of contemporary social movements and attempts to answer the empirical question: why did the social movement for former comfort women emerge in the late 1980s after more than 40 years of silence? The theoretical framework integrates the world polity approach into social movement theory to argue that global political and cultural transformations in recent years have expanded political opportunities at the global level and intensified international flows of mobilizational resources and discursive frames, increasing the potential for social movements on globally legitimated issues such as human rights. The empirical analysis on the rise and development of the comfort women movement shows that these global factors have been crucial in the emergence and success of the movement.

Domestic Violence Against Married Women in Cambodia

Kathryn M. Yount, Ph.D., Emory University
Jennifer S. Carrera, University of Illinois

We evaluate the effects of marital resources and early-life experiences on recent domestic violence and attitudes about wife abuse among 2,074 married Cambodian women. Household standard of living was negatively associated with physical domestic violence. Women with 8-13 fewer years of schooling than their husbands more often experienced physical and psychological domestic violence. Women with more living children more often experienced physical domestic violence and justified wife beating. Having surviving parents and siblings was not associated with domestic violence nor with attitudes about wife beating. Women reporting higher paternal schooling, urban childhood residence and domestic violence against their mothers had higher odds of experiencing physical and psychological domestic violence. Findings underscore the effects of marital resources and early-life experiences on domestic violence in Cambodia.

Communist Cadres and Market Opportunities: Entry into Self-Employment in China, 1978 -1996

Xiaogang Wu, Hong Kong University

This paper examines the patterns of entry into self-employment in urban and rural China and across different reform stages, focusing on how communist cadres have responded to new market opportunities. Analysis of data from a national representative survey shows that both education and cadre status deter people from entry into self-employment in urban areas but not in rural areas. However, urban cadres have become increasingly more likely to be self-employed over time, and only those who became self-employed in the late reform stage have enjoyed higher income returns. The paper concludes that the labor mobility process should be taken into account in studying changes in advantages/disadvantages associated with different social groups in post-socialist transition economies.

 
Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

William Alex Pridemore, Indiana University

Russian levels of alcohol consumption and suicide are among the highest in the world. While observers have long suspected an association between the two, they were unable to investigate this hypothesis until recently due to past Soviet secrecy and thus a lack of data. This study took advantage of the newly available data during the post-Soviet era to examine the cross-sectional association between heavy drinking and suicide mortality in Russia. Aggregate mortality data for the Russian regions (n = 78) for the year 2000 were used to measure heavy drinking and suicide rates. Government data were used to control for the regional economic situation and strength of social institutions. Ordinary Least Squares regression was employed to estimate the effect of a proxy for heavy drinking on overall and sex-specific age-adjusted suicide rates. The results showed a positive and significant association between the two, and the association held for overall, male and female rates. These results not only confirmed an association between heavy drinking and suicide in Russia, but when compared to findings from previous studies of other countries they led to the hypothesis that a nation's beverage preference may be as important as its wet/dry drinking culture in the sensitivity of its suicide rates to alcohol consumption.

Consensus and the Creation of Status Beliefs

Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Stanford University
Shelley J. Correll, Cornell University

We develop a new status construction theory argument that apparently valid social realities in which a salient social difference is consistently linked to signs of status and competence induce participants to form status beliefs. Supporting this social validity account, an experiment showed that when an influence hierarchy developed between categorically different actors and appeared to be consensually accepted in the situation and therefore valid, participants formed strongly differentiated status beliefs about the categorical distinction. Yet when slight challenges to these influence hierarchies broke the validating consensus, participants' status beliefs were significantly weaker and less clear. An implication is that acts of resistance can disrupt the emergence of new status beliefs, so that while some differences become axes of status inequality, others do not.

Status on Trial: Social Characteristics and Influence in the Jury Room

Erin York, University of Chicago
Benjamin Cornwell, University of Chicago

The American jury is heralded as an institution that is simultaneously representative and egalitarian. However, jury studies conducted 50 years ago found that white, upper-class men dominate jury deliberations, presumably due to their higher status outside of the jury room. Logistic regression analysis of dyadic influence inside the jury room updates this research. Results indicate that today upper-class jurors alone – not men, not whites – are regarded as most influential in deliberations. Upper-class jurors' influence is not simply a product of status deference. Rather, upper-class jurors seem to influence deliberations due to generalized expectations of their competence or their possession of skill sets that enhance jury room performance. We conclude that increased statistical representation in the jury pool does not guarantee that diverse views will affect verdicts.

Social Context and Musical Content: Rap Music, 1979-1995

Jennifer C. Lena, Vanderbilt University

There is a link between the context of production and the content of rap music singles. This research finds that when independent labels owned most of the charted singles, lyrics emphasized features of the local environment and hostility to corporate music production and values. In contrast, the major-label dominated market featured lyrics blending "street" credibility and commercial success in the "hustler" protagonist. I contribute a new finding to research on market concentration and musical diversity: artists' reactions to the market effects musical content.

Volunteering in Middle and Later Life: Is Health a Benefit, Barrier, or Both?

Yunqing Li, New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services
Kenneth F. Ferraro, Purdue University

The positive association between volunteering and health has been widely interpreted as evidence of the salutary effect of volunteering during adulthood. Using three waves of data from a national survey, this study uses structural equation models to examine the relationships among volunteering, functional limitations, and depressive symptoms during middle and later adulthood. The findings reveal a salutary effect of volunteering in later life as well as a compensatory mechanism. By contrast, only a barrier mechanism was uncovered in middle age: Depressive symptoms decreased volunteer participation over time. The results demonstrate life course variation in the relationship between volunteering and health and suggest greater attention to selection processes in the study of social engagement and health.

When Does Social Capital Matter? Non-Searching For Jobs Across the Life Course

Steve McDonald, North Carolina State University
Glen H. Elder, Jr., University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Non-searchers – people who get their jobs without engaging in a job search – are often excluded from investigations of the role of personal relationships in job finding processes. This practice fails to capture the scope of informal job matching activity and underestimates the effectiveness of social capital. Moreover, studies typically obtain average estimates of social capital effectiveness across broad age ranges, obscuring variation across the life course. Analysis of early career and mid-career job matching shows that non-searching is associated with significant advantages over formal job searching. However, these benefits accrue only during mid-career and primarily among highly experienced male non-searchers. The results highlight the need to examine life course variations in social capital effectiveness and the role of non-searching as an important informal mechanism in the maintenance of gender inequality.

Family Instability and Children’s Early Problem Behavior

Shannon E. Cavanagh, University of Texas at Austin
Aletha C. Huston, University of Texas at Austin

This study investigated the association between family instability and children's problem behavior during the transition to first grade. In a sample (n = 1,015) drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we found that a quarter of sample members experienced at least one family transition between birth and age 6. Instability was also related to family structure at birth: those born into cohabiting parent families experienced the most instability, followed by those born into single mother families and finally, those in two-biological married parent families. Children who experienced instability had higher teacher and observer reports of problem behaviors than those from stable family structures. Finally, differences in problem behavior associated with family instability varied by family structure at birth and the emotional, social and material resources in the family.