Discusses the idea behind the European Community's recently published white paper on education and teaching, titled "To Teach and to Learn--Towards a Cognitive Society." The paper declares that Europe is undergoing a transition to a new type of society, describes the issues at stake, and proposes steps to encourage member States to…

Breaching experiments involve the conscious exhibition of "unexpected" behavior, an observation of the types of social reactions such behavioral violations engender, and an analysis of the social structure that makes these social reactions possible. The conscious violation of norms can be highly fruitful for sociology students, providing insights…

This article reviews the literature on community service and activism, particularly in youth, using the theoretical approach provided by an identity projects framework. This framework allows for an examination of the contextual and experiential factors that contribute to the emergence and maintenance of an identity project of service or activism.…

The term "social change" refers to variations over time in the ecological ordering of populations and communities, in patterns of roles and social interactions, and in the cultures of societies. Some facets of social change in one middle eastern country are presented in this paper. The study looks at the influence of social changes on…

This paper explores the transition from school to young adulthood of youth with disabilities from the first wave (n=939) of the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS). Two popular sociological perspectives which explain the postschool success of youth with disabilities were examined: human capital in the form of education and training, and…

Reviews the literature on black colleges in the light of functional analysis, focusing on their latent functions and proposing that black colleges and universities are step-children, both second class to those of the majority and performing several functions not performed by the latter. Discusses several alternatives. (Author/JM)

The role of educational institutions in the differentiation of age strata, regulation of relationships between strata, and distribution of social roles along age dimensions shows that altering the interlock between age and education affects the structure of major institutions and the psychosocial experiences specific to life-cycle stages.…

Black militancy is treated as an instance of class consciousness with criteria and scales developed to measure black consciousness and "self-placement" into black consciousness. These dimensions are then investigated with respect to the social and symbolic participation in the ideology of the black movement on the part of a sample of black…

The application of a social theory perspective to an analysis of the concept of restructuring is the purpose of this report. Restructuring is a conjunctive concept that involves changes in a school district's pattern of rules, roles, relationships, and results. A systemic viewpoint examines the reciprocal interactions between structure and process…

A volume devoted to aging and the aged in Third World societies focuses on ethnographic case studies from Papua New Guinea, China, India, the Sudan, and Mexico. The first of five articles, "Sweeping Men and Harmless Women: Responsibility and Gender Identity in Later Life" (Dorothy Ayers Counts), examines the perception of gender over the…

Based on an audience study conducted in London to investigate the educational relevance of the differentiated response of young people 11 to 16 years old to popular culture, this paper discusses: (1) the reason why this and further studies of this type are needed; (2) the main findings of the study with emphasis on the way in which young people's…

This paper argues that the effectivity of television lies in the complex effects it generates by operating in specific ways on the line of in-difference, i.e., a particular structure of self relationship enacted in the relation between identity and difference. Using a theoretical and critical framework, the paper presents an analysis of three…

The history of an urban squatter settlement in Bogota, Colombia, and the author's experiences with its residents in the last ten years are summarized. Topics covered include the unfriendly relationship between the government and squatter settlements; the history of the relationship between the government and this particular barrio; the demography…

The actuality of black kinship bonds and the sense of extended family are exemplifications of the sense of Africanity in black families.. (Author)

This bibliography on urban sociology cites studies which discuss the structures and processes of urban society from an historical and comparative perspective. Although it includes studies that discuss population growth, decline, size, and density, the prime concern of this bibliography is not with urban demography. After a brief look at some…