We develop a theoretical model of social influence in n-person groups. We argue that disagreement between group members introduces uncertainty into the social situation, and this uncertainty motivates people to use status characteristics to evaluate the merits of a particular opinion. Our model takes the numerical distribution of opinions and the…

Using a model of student dropout with only two possible outcomes--"still in school" or "dropout"--hides the complex reasons that students leave high school. We offer a model with three outcomes: in school, pushed out or pulled out. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Survey, we find that for black students, differences in SES explain…

Previous research into the social distribution of early life depression has yielded inconsistent results regarding the causes and course of subgroup depression disparities. This study examines the topic by analyzing National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data, modeling gender and racial/ethnic differences in early life depression…

The sociology of aging draws on a broad array of theoretical perspectives and social theories from several disciplines, but rarely has it developed its own theories or theoretical perspectives. We build on past work to further advance and empirically test a model of mental health framed in terms of structural theorizing and situated within the…

Using tract-level data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census, this study addresses four questions: (1) Has the proportion of neighborhoods with high ethnic concentration changed in from 1990 to 2000? (2) What are the socio-demographic profiles of ethnic neighborhoods? (3) Are new ethnic neighborhoods forming in America's suburbs? (4) How common are…

The authors welcome and appreciate the comments of Eric Grodsky and Sigal Alon on their article "Shadow Education, American Style: Test Preparation, the SAT and College Enrollment." In their comments, Grodsky takes issue with several important theoretical and methodological aspects of their article and Alon highlights key processes…

Applies loglinear models of social mobility to six surveys of Australian and Japanese men covering the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Finds similar patterns of association between social origins and social destinations in the two countries, no evidence of change over time in Japan, and only small evidence of increasing openness in Australia. (SV)

How does a history of competition between two economic actors affect their willingness and ability to work together for mutual benefit? Existing theory and research offer mixed predictions and answers. The competitive embeddedness hypothesis suggested here postulates that the likelihood of cooperation between two firms is positively related to the…

Buchmann, Condron and Roscigno argue in their article, "Shadow Education, American Style: Test Preparation, the SAT and College Enrollment," that the activities in which students engage to prepare for college entrance exams are forms of shadow education, a means by which more advantaged parents seek to pass their privileged status along…

Using data from a 2005 nationally representative survey of working adults residing in the United States, we show that education is associated positively with a sense of personal control. The well-educated have higher status occupations which include higher levels of schedule control, challenging, interesting and enriching work, greater economic…

The study of group processes has benefited from longstanding programs of theory-driven research on status and power. The present work constructs a bridge between two formal theories of status and power: Status Characteristics Theory and Network Exchange Theory. Two theoretical models, one for "status value" and one for "status influence,"…

This research focuses on immigration and youthful illegalities in the Toronto area, one of the world's most ethnically diverse global cities. While current research documents a negative relationship between crime and immigration, there is little attention to individual level mechanisms that explain the paths through which immigrant youth refrain…

Data for 318 metropolitan areas confirm the Burgess model's positive relationship between social status and residential distance from the urban core. Over time, all categories of metropolitan areas moved in the predicted direction of status distribution, with stronger associations for older, larger, and more industrial cities. Contains 53…

The finding that mobility significantly affects expected completed family size among this sample of Mexican Americans provides evidence that membership in minority groups may be a factor mediating the relationship between mobility and fertility. (Author)

Employs log linear and logit techniques in order to model male-female differences in the odds of a mental disorder, as affected by marital status, age, and residential location. Suggests that sex differences may be expressed in terms of a model with main effects only. (Author/GC)