Music reflects and influences the social structures of every culture. Cultural variations in the range of musical expression, the recording industry's impact on the lives of musicians and the diffusion of musical styles, and the roles of the audience are discussed. (AM)

The object of empirical musical sociology is to study the social interaction and interdependence of musicians or composers, their music, and the public. Trends in historical and contemporary musical sociology and the constituents of the musical process are examined. (AM)

Recent contact with harmonic and popular music has radically changed traditional forms of Indian music. The impact of Western music on classical styles, the social role of folk and popular music, and aspects of the social structure of music are discussed. (AM)

Over the past ten years, the inferior social status of musicians in several Asian countries has improved. The social history and contemporary status of musicians and the impact of the mass media on the social role of music in Asian countries are described. (AM)

Characterizes trends in the development of applied sociology in the Byelorussian S.S.R., which reflects general developments in the USSR as a whole. Applied sociology studies the specific laws of development and functioning of social structures, processes, systems, organizations, and their component parts. It researches specific social groups,…

Better-integrated, more comprehensive models in the social sciences for practitioners involved in policy making and administration are needed. Marxian historical materialism, systems theory, and a mathematical language of analysis are required to analyze modern capitalist countries, either more or less developed. (KC)

Identifies problems of socio-ecological synthesis by applying them to the development of a hypothetical "eco-city." Levels of knowledge and action proceed from fundamental research, applied research, urban design, construction, and shaping of the city. Integration occurs at cultural-historical, socio-functional, and spatial-temporal…

The role of language in cross-cultural research is investigated through analysis of: communication of information; conceptual and functional equivalence; measurement of linguistic variables; and social and language changes. Available from: UNESCO, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris, France. (Author/DB)

Describes the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) project in a mountain region in Switzerland, which is trying to halt depopulation and preserve the environment. Fourteen research units analyze relationships within and among the ecosystem, the economy, and the socio-cultural system. (KC)

Describes the political development of post-colonial Africa. Continuing tension has existed between single party and multi-party solutions to political organization and between mass movements and elitism. While Africans have been responive to socialist rhetoric, the primacy of ethnicity and the weak class structure have militated against genuine…

This issue dealing with language discusses language and social structure, social progress and sociolinguistics, oral and literate traditions, Portuguese Creole dialects in West Africa, a framework for describing how languages spread, socio-cultural conflict and bilingual education, linguistic variation in one-language societies, the language…