Sociological Perspectives

The authors evaluate the importance of kin in providing four different dimensions of social support: emotional aid, services, financial aid, and companionship. The authors analysis uses both quantitative and interview data from the East York (Toronto) studies of social networks. Kin comprise slightly less than half of these networks: an average of five ties out of twelve. Parents and adult children are highly supportive network members, providing high levels of emotional aid, services and financial aid (they avoid companionship, however). Siblings complement and substitute for parents and children, especially in the provision of services. Because there are many more ties between siblings than there are between parents and children, siblings (along with friends and neighbors) provide a substantial proportion of the support East Yorkers receive. By contrast, extended kin tend to be the least supportive and least companionable of network members. If kinship systems did not keep extended kin in contact, few would be active network members.

This article draws some theoretical implications of the findings of a factor analysis of a scale for indicating the extent to which people embrace an axiom of amity (or prescriptive altruism) in kinship ties. Separate analyses were undertaken of two samples of persons aged sixty or over—one in Budapest, Hungary and the other American. The analysis yielded an unexpected pattern of results, namely, that the axiom of amity and the presupposition of distrust of kin refer to two separate factors. The results suggest that a duality exists in the minds of the interviewees in their conception of kinship reciprocity.

The presupposition of distrust of relatives lends itself to two alternative interpretations. In the Hungarian sample, the items with thehighest loadings on the Distrust factor dealt with exploitation by kin, and generally the Hungarians reported more agreement than did the United States with statements that kin are exploitive. In the U.S. sample, the items with the highest loadings on the Distrust factor refer to unfairness and incommensurability in exchange, and the U.S. sample reported more agreement with statements that exchanges among kin are unfair. One interpretation of these tendencies derives from the conceptualization of kinship as an element in a social system. The second interpretation is derived from the proposition that kinship systems express basic paradigms of exchange prevalent in a society.

As a part of a larger study of Louisiana's political families from statehood to the present, this article seeks to demonstrate that the family influence on political recruitment is not just an historical phenomenon but a current reality. Over one-fourth of 785 state and parish officials in office in 1983 were found to have at least one officeholding relative. One-half of these 209 leaders had two or more kinsmen in office at some time, and almost one-third “inherited” their position from a relative. The article analyzes the structure of these families (size, generations, kinship connections), successions, and kinship networks. The last topic, networks, delineates the connections between and among families with 1983 officials and other families whose political experience occurred before 1983. The largest of the networks includes twenty-two families with 107 officials from several states. A principal conclusion is that the family continues to exert considerable influence on its members' decision to enter the political arena. Evidence is presented indicating that Louisiana is not unique in this regard.

This study is an attempt at further specification of the relationship between social class and self-esteem. We argue that the effects of social class on self-esteem are largely experienced through occupational conditions which affect the self-evaluation dimensions of self-efficacy and self-worth. We examine these relationships, with the use of path analysis, for a sample of working men. The path model considers the direct and indirect effects of social class (socioeconomic status and education) on occupational conditions (work complexity; control over work; degree of supervision and routinization), on dimensions of self-evaluation (self-efficacy and self-worth), and on general self-esteem. We found the direct effect of our social class indicators on general self-esteem to be small and insignificant. But occupational prestige was significantly related to occupational conditions, which in turn were significantly related to self-worth and self-efficacy. Education had a direct effect on self-efficacy and self-esteem and an indirect effect on self-esteem via self-efficacy and job complexity. Of the two dimensions of self-evaluation, self-efficacy had a substantially stronger effect than self-worth on general self-esteem. These findings support our expectation that the effects of social class on self-esteem are largely mediated by occupational conditions which affect primarily the efficacy dimension of self-evaluation.

For residents of Hawaii during the years 1969–1971 and 1979–1981, this article investigates marriage patterns by ethnicity and level of education, using measures that control for the composition of the population. The extent of marriage between members of different ethnic groups is substantial and increasing. Intergroup marriage is not concentrated among particular ethnic groups, nor is it a characteristic of persons with either high or low levels of education. Nevertheless, Hawaii is not a society that ignores ethnicity. There is an ethnic hierarchy, with Chinese, Japanese, and Whites the more favored groups and Hawaiians and Filipinos the less favored. In marriage behavior, that hierarchy is seen in the presence of apparent exchanges between education and ethnicity, as the extent to which women “marry up” with respect to education depends upon the ethnicities of the bride and groom.

In 1968, former president of the American Sociological Association Kimball Young (1893–1972) gave a seminar at Arizona State University that was attended by both editors. The sessions were taped, for it was Young's intention to organize the tapes into a book that would document his life as a sociologist/social psychologist, a book to be called Man in Transition. The present article is the fourth in a series emerging from Young's tapes and subsequent notes.

Past studies have corroborated the hypothesis asserting that family ties and co-ethnic bonds are instrumental in the growth of ethnic enterprise. Many of these studies, however, can be challenged on methodological grounds. This article uses data from two samples of Cuban exiles to test the hypothesis in a manner which addresses the challenges. Results offer minor support for the hypothesis. Because our test has dealt with methodological uncertainties that previous research overlooked, the negative nature of our results raises questions about the explanatory power of the family ties/co-ethnic bond hypothesis.

High school delinquency negatively affects educational attainment. However, when controlling for years of schooling attained and other background variables, high school delinquency does not significantly shape adult occupational status. If high school delinquents are able to obtain as much schooling as others, their past delinquency does not exert a negative independent effect on occupational achievement.