Sociological Perspectives

Although researchers attempting to quantify theories of individual political participation have assumed that mass media use is a recursive cause of such participation, an argument could be made for a return effect of political activity on media use. The “uses and gratifications” tradition in communication research, for example, views media use as purposive behavior that is influenced by the users' social situation. In this paper the possibilty of a bidirectional relationship between mass media use and political participation is examined using the Two-Stage Least Squares technique. The data used to estimate model parameters are from a 1971 statewide survey of North Carolina. Separate analyses were conducted for male and female respondents to explore sex differences in the processes leading to individual political participation. Mass media use is shown to have an effect on participation in both the male and female subsamples. Political activity has a positive return effect on media use in the female subsample, but there is no significant return effect in the male subsample. Generally, the results indicate that models which specify media use as a unidirectional cause of participation behavior may be incorrect and wider use of techniques which allow the investigation of non-recursive relationships is recommended.

Hypotheses relating differences in husband-wife backgrounds, or sociocultural heterogamy, to marital disagreement over role expectations, marital values, and marital conflict are empirically tested and found to be unsupported. Three alternative hypotheses are presented and tested in an attempt to shed light on the general lack of association between heterogamy and the dissensus-conflict variables, including a developmental extension of heterogamy theory (controlling for years married), an overall heterogamy index, and an examination of the direction of heterogamy (hypogamy vs. hypergamy). These tests yield virtually no support for heterogamy theory. In light of these findings regarding the predictions of heterogamy theory, arguments which might account for the overall lack of support are presented and discussed.

For more than a quarter of a century, status inconsistency has been invoked by analysts to explain problematic behavior and illness. A fundamental problem has been distinguishing between the effects of inconsistencies between two or more social positions and the effects of the positions themselves. This study examines the effects of status and status inconsistency on patterns of alcohol consumption. The principal findings are that as ascribed status exceeds achieved status, quantity of beer and liquor consumed per occasion increases, and that as achieved status exceeds ascribed status, frequency of wine and liquor consumption increases.

There is little agreement about why behavior is considered deviant and/or illegal. This paper is a qualitative case study of deviance within a community of disabled people. Through in-depth interviewing and an examination of the historical and present situation of the deaf in a hearing world, I analyze the deviant status of peddling among the deaf. Sociologists have long recognized that deviance and its sanctioning may be functional for the group in which it occurs. They help maintain the boundary of the community. I demonstrate, however, that peddling is deviant within the deaf community because it is perceived as maintaining the symbolic boundary between a group of outsiders, the deaf, and the wider society.

The routine practice of hard data production is described in two human service institutions. Three modes of production are delineated: Direct counts of behavior, secondary production, and surveys of those in-the-know. Practical production is contrasted with the formal image of hard data held and used by staff members and regulating agents. The use of circumstantial rules and the use of glossing practices are shown to be two means by which hard data become available. The practical reality of hard data is discussed in relation to staff and outsider awareness of hard data as a matter of production.