An ethnographic study examined the sense of the social world as a natural order produced by the organizational members of one sales team at a New York media representation firm. Communication was observed and recorded over a ten-week period, and members of the sales team were interviewed during an additional two-week period. Results indicated that…

Although much investigation of adult social support networks has been done, little attention has been paid to children's social support networks. Childhood patterns of social support probably influence adult patterns. A study was conducted to describe the social networks of third through sixth grade children. It also tests the validity of a new…

This volume is part of a series of monographs from Australia devoted to outlining an alternative approach, based on neo-Marxist concepts, to educational administration. The opening discussion is a critique of conventional student evaluation practices aimed at tracing the social influences that are brought to bear on students, teachers, schools,…

Designed for use as supplementary instructional material in a cultural anthropology course, this learning module introduces the student to various theoretical perspectives, terms, and influential figures within the field of anthropology. The following historical and conceptual influences on anthropological theory are discussed: (1) the Greek…

These courses, two of 16 sequential courses comprising phase one of a part-time Bachelor of Arts degree program in Australian Studies, examine the establishment and development of early Australian colonial society and introduce students to the problems of reconstructing the history of the penal colony period. They are designed for independent…

Topics related to characteristics of mother/daughter relationships in contemporary patriarchal societies are discussed in this seminar paper. The first section describes cases intended to illustrate ways patriarchal social structures limit contemporary mother/daughter relationships, provides a brief historical contrast, and suggests possible…

Knowledge, curricula, and goals are implicated in some way in practically every organizational feature of schools. This paper begins with classroom activities as the most microscopic structure of interest to students of schooling processes. It progresses from there to the various forms of structure found in classrooms, to school and community…

Women's participation in the workforce is increasing, spurred by inflation, the rising level of consumer aspirations, the increasing number of families headed by women as a consequence of divorce, and the declining birth rate. However, the work women do continues to be segregated from men's and comparatively poorly paid, while women still carry…

UNLESS THE RATE OF INTEGRATION IN NORTHERN SCHOOLS IN LARGE CITIES ACCELERATES, THERE WILL BE EXTENSIVE URBAN SEGREGATION UNTIL AT LEAST THE MID-21ST CENTURY. HOWEVER, DATA FROM SMALLER CITIES SHOW THAT THERE SEEM TO BE "UNIFORM" CONDITIONS WHICH FAVOR DESEGREGATION--NEGRO PROTEST ACTION, STIMULUS FROM EXTRA-LOCAL AUTHORITY, AND A LESS…

A five-month ethnographic study of conversations in a Philadelphia nursing home revealed some of the rules governing situationally appropriate conversational behavior. The social communicational perspective of the study differed from both psychological and discourse analysis approaches. Analysis of the data indicated that sustained…

One of 52 theoretical papers on school crime and its relation to poverty, this chapter attempts to demonstrate that deviant behaviors in school are caused and patterned by the manner in which schools differentially constrain the ability of students legitimately to attain the goal of academic success. By applying a modified and extended version of…

The relationship between student attitudes and the school as a political system is analyzed in this research report. Four types of school systems are hypothesized: elite, bureaucratic, coalitional, and participant. After testing this conceptualization, student attitudes of trust, integration, confidence, and interest toward both school and society…

This paper is about myths in general and the "myth" of Democracy in the United States of America in particular. Myths have a number of definitions among which legendary stories containing some elements of fact but wholly untrue can be cited as the basis for the establishment of commonly accepted beliefs. Myths can be functional in the…

This narrative comprises the stories, opinions, and beliefs of the following people: Dona Lola--an octogenarian who still remembers her childhood; Minnie Roses--daughter of the owner of a once flourishing coffee plantation; Noberto Cedeno--a sculptor of popular artifacts; Castor Ayala--in his sixties, he is Loiza Aldea's most famous mask-maker and…

The regularity with which much variation between forms, formerly dismissed as "free variation," can be accounted for on the basis of extra-linguistic and independent linguistic factors has made the concept of the linguistic variable an invaluable construct in the description of patterned speech variation. The linguistic variable, itself…