- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Annual Review of Sociology
- Previous Issues
- Volume 31, 2005
Annual Review of Sociology - Volume 31, 2005
Volume 31, 2005
-
-
The Sociology of James S. Coleman1
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 1–24More LessThis chapter surveys the career and scholarship of James S. Coleman. It tracks scholarly usage of his work, with attention to references after 1995 and the subject areas in which its use is concentrated. At base a scholar of problems in social organization, Coleman made influential contributions that range across the sociology of education, policy research, mathematical sociology, network/structural analysis, and sociological theory. Works from several phases of Coleman's career are cited widely by scholars in sociology, education, economics, business/management, and other social science fields; during the past decade his conceptual work on social capital has been most influential. Coleman's widely debated Foundations of Social Theory is receiving increasing attention and has helped to establish a stable if limited niche for rational choice analysis within sociology.
-
-
-
Doing Justice to the Group: Examining the Roles of the Group in Justice Research
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 25–45More LessAlthough the abstract notion of justice implies attention to fairness not simply for one individual but for many, emphasis on how individuals perceive and react to injustice obscures the role of the group in justice research. Justice, as distinct from individual deserving, holds promise for the well-being of the group. Indeed, the group plays multiple roles in justice research, as a collective standard, a structure in which evaluations occur, a source of identity, and a context of interaction. Analyses of these roles help to explain underlying orientations of group members, delimiting the scope of justice in groups and the implications of justice in conflict situations. This review concludes with directions for future research that more explicitly draw attention to the rightful role of the group in understanding justice in society.
-
-
-
Identity Politics
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 47–74More LessThis review presents an overview of research on identity politics. First, I distinguish between various approaches to defining identity politics and the challenges presented by each approach. In the process, I show that these approaches reflect competing theoretical understandings of the relationship between experience, culture, identity, politics, and power. These debates raise theoretical issues that I address in the second section, including (a) how to understand the relationship between personal experience and political stance, (b) why status identities are understood and/or portrayed as essentialist or socially constructed, (c) the strategic dilemmas activists face when the identities around which a movement is organized are also the basis for oppression, (d) when to attribute certain movement outcomes to status identities, and (e) how to link collective action to specific notions of power to help explain the cultural and political goals at which identity politics is aimed. I conclude by recommending some promising avenues for future research.
-
-
-
The Social Psychology of Health Disparities
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 75–103More LessIn recent years, scholars from a variety of disciplines have turned to the potential psychosocial determinants of health in pursuit of an explanation for socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities. This review discusses the literature on psychosocial factors and mental and physical health, focusing on the roles of subjective status, self/identity, and perceived discrimination. We argue that current research may have obscured important social psychological considerations and that it is an opportune time to reconsider the social psychology of disparities. A social psychology of disparities could provide a bridge between those who encourage research on health's “upstream” causes and those who encourage research on “downstream” mechanisms precisely because social psychology is concerned with the vast “meso” level of analysis that many allude to but few explicitly traverse. We point to the importance of person-environment interactions, contingencies, reciprocality, and meaning. Although psychosocial factors might not explain disparities in the manner much psychosocial research would seem to suggest, psychosocial factors are important causes in their own right and, when considered in a more sophisticated social psychological light, may help to refine disparities theory and research.
-
-
-
Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 105–125More LessThis review examines research on the assimilation of immigrant groups. We review research on four primary benchmarks of assimilation: socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage. The existing literature shows that today's immigrants are largely assimilating into American society along each of these dimensions. This review also considers directions for future research on the assimilation of immigrant groups in new southern and midwestern gateways and how sociologists measure immigrant assimilation. We document the changing geography of immigrant settlement and review the emerging body of research in this area. We argue that examining immigrant assimilation in these new immigrant gateways is crucial for the development of theories about immigrant assimilation. We also argue that we are likely to see a protracted period of immigrant replenishment that may change the nature of assimilation. Studying this change requires sociologists to use both birth cohort and generation as temporal markers of assimilation.
-
-
-
Reading and the Reading Class in the Twenty-First Century
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 127–141More LessSociological research on reading, which formerly focused on literacy, now conceptualizes reading as a social practice. This review examines the current state of knowledge on (a) who reads, i.e., the demographic characteristics of readers; (b) how they read, i.e., reading as a form of social practice; (c) how reading relates to electronic media, especially television and the Internet; and (d) the future of reading. We conclude that a reading class is emerging, restricted in size but disproportionate in influence, and that the Internet is facilitating this development.
-
-
-
New Directions in Corporate Governance
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 143–162More LessCorporate governance describes the structures, processes, and institutions within and around organizations that allocate power and resource control among participants. Law and economics scholars have developed a view of the public corporation as a nexus-of-contracts whose structure is driven by the requirements of financial markets, and thus features of the corporation and its surrounding institutions are theorized in terms of their function in directing corporations toward share price as a criterion of value. Working from this base, more recent research has studied historical and cross-national variation in governance institutions, producing highly varied interpretations of their sources and function. Sociological work, particularly within organization theory, has critiqued this functionalist view and provided alternative interpretations based on networks, power, and culture. The most promising contemporary work seeks to analyze governance in terms of the dynamics of institutions—where they originate, how they operate, how they change, and how they spread beyond their original purposes.
-
-
-
Emerging Inequalities in Central and Eastern Europe
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 163–197More LessMarket transitions are thought to inevitably produce spiraling inequality on the road to economic growth. This review provides an overview of research evaluating inequality in income and wages in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. The empirical studies agree that inequality has increased, but disagree about the amount, pace, source, and explanation of change. Patterns of inequality are unrelated to economic performance, to the pace or timing of reform, or to rates of subsequent growth. Inequality increased the most in the least successful countries and the least in those countries with historic cultural connections to the West. Inequalities by age, education, region of the country, and health status increased; differences by gender appear to have declined. Although data are plentiful and promising, it is not yet possible to conclude that patterns of inequality among postcommunist countries are due to the genesis of capitalism, to social and cultural assimilation to the West, to adaptations of redistributive institutions to deal with poverty and unemployment, or to globalization.
-
-
-
The Social Consequences of Structural Adjustment: Recent Evidence and Current Debates
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 199–222More LessThirty years ago, intellectual debates concerning the relationship between wealthy and poor nations could be summed up under the rubric of modernization versus dependency. However, the events of the 1980s and 1990s completely shifted the terms of this debate. Associated with the structural adjustment lending programs of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and neoliberal ideology, a new policy discourse suggested that it was only through liberating market forces that poor countries could grow and catch up to the developed world. With 20 years of structural adjustment behind us, what does the evidence suggest about the social consequences of these policies? This review focuses on three different social transformations: changes in the governance of economies, transformations in class structures, and the rise of transnational networks.
-
-
-
Inequality of Opportunity in Comparative Perspective: Recent Research on Educational Attainment and Social Mobility
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 223–243More LessStudies of how characteristics of the family of origin are associated with educational and labor market outcomes indicate the degree of openness of societies and have a long tradition in sociology. We review research published since 1990 into educational stratification and social (occupational or class) mobility, focusing on the importance of parental socioeconomic circumstances, and with particular emphasis on comparative studies. Large-scale data now available from many countries and several time points have led to more and better descriptions of inequality of opportunity across countries and over time. However, partly owing to problems of comparability of measurement, unambiguous conclusions about trends and ranking of countries have proven elusive. In addition, no strong evidence exists that explains intercountry differences. We conclude that the 1990s witnessed a resurgence of microlevel models, mostly of a rational choice type, that signals an increased interest in moving beyond description in stratification research.
-
-
-
White Racial and Ethnic Identity in the United States
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 245–261More LessThis review examines research on white racial and ethnic identity, paying special attention to developments in whiteness studies during the past decade. Although sociologists have long focused on white ethnic identity, considerations of white racial identity are more recent. White racial identity is commonly portrayed as a default racial category, an invisible yet privileged identity formed by centuries of oppression of nonwhite groups. Whiteness has become synonymous with privilege in much scholarly writing, although recent empirical work strives to consider white racial identity as a complex, situated identity rather than a monolithic one. The study of white racial identity can greatly benefit from moving away from simply naming whiteness as an overlooked, privileged identity and by paying closer attention to empirical studies of racial and ethnic identity by those studying social movements, ethnic identity, and social psychology.
-
-
-
Agency Theory
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 263–284More LessIn an agency relationship, one party acts on behalf of another. It is curious that a concept that could not be more profoundly sociological does not have a niche in the sociological literature. This essay begins with the economics paradigm of agency theory, which casts a very long shadow over the social sciences, and then traces how these ideas diffuse to and are transformed (if at all) in the scholarship produced in business schools, political science, law, and sociology. I cut a swathe through the social fabric where agency relationships are especially prevalent and examine some of the institutions, roles, forms of social organization, deviance, and strategies of social control that deliver agency and respond to its vulnerabilities, and I consider their impact. Finally, I suggest how sociology might make better use of and contribute to agency theory.
-
-
-
Multiethnic Cities in North America
Eric Fong, and Kumiko ShibuyaVol. 31 (2005), pp. 285–304More LessThe growing Hispanic and Asian populations in most major North American cities have drastically transformed the urban demographic landscape to become racially and ethnically diversified. We review literature on multiethnic cities by focusing on three important aspects of urban structures and processes: racial and ethnic residential patterns, ethnic businesses, and the performance of racial and ethnic groups in the labor market. Although the literature has identified many factors that shape these urban structures and processes, our discussion specifically focuses on the effects of multigroup contexts on urban structures and processes. We focus and compare four major racial and ethnic groups: whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Specific ethnic subgroups of all four groups are also discussed.
-
-
-
Black Middle-Class Neighborhoods
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 305–329More LessThe black middle class received little scholarly attention from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the emphasis was on studying the black urban poor. Recently, however, there has been an increase in attention to this group and their residential environs. This review covers the topics of racial and class segregation, the comparative well-being of black middle-class neighborhoods, and residential preferences, with some attention to black suburbanization and black gentrification. Research findings clearly show that middle-class blacks in the United States have more favorable residential outcomes than poor blacks but still live in poorer neighborhoods than the majority of whites on all measures. Ethnographic studies explore this marginal position in more depth. I argue that if racial integration is the remedy to various racial disparities, then the more fruitful endeavor may be to study the ideologies, practices, and cultures of white neighborhoods, rather than black ones.
-
-
-
Macrostructural Analyses of Race, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime: Recent Lessons and New Directions for Research
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 331–356More LessIn 1995, Sampson & Wilson assessed the state of knowledge on race and violence and set forth an approach for future research. We review macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity, and violent crime since 1995 to evaluate progress in explaining inequality in criminal violence across racial and ethnic groups. Among the important advances are studies that attempt to gain insights from explicit comparisons of racially distinct but structurally similar communities, expansion of work beyond the black-white divide, and incorporation of macrostructural factors into multilevel models of racial/ethnic differences in violence. Yet, progress is limited in all these directions, and additional questions remain. Thus, we offer a perspective and suggestions for future research that will expand knowledge on this important topic.
-
-
-
Affirmative Action at School and on the Job
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 357–379More LessAffirmative action (AA) addresses individuals' exclusion from opportunities based on group membership by taking into account race, sex, ethnicity, and other characteristics. This chapter reviews sociological, economic, historical, and legal scholarship on AA. We first consider the emergence of group-based remedies, how protected groups are defined, and proportional representation as a standard for inclusion. We then summarize the research on AA in education (including busing) and in employment. The concluding section reviews societal responses to AA, including attitudes, challenges, and political responses. As public and judicial support for AA has waned, employers and educators have increasingly turned toward diversity as a rationale for including underrepresented groups. Despite this change, many employers and educators continue to take positive steps to include minorities and women.
-
-
-
Emerging Theories of Care Work
Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 381–399More LessCare work is done in the home as well as in markets for pay. Five theoretical frameworks have been developed to conceptualize care work; the frameworks sometimes offer competing answers to the same questions, and other times address distinct questions. The “devaluation” perspective argues that care work is badly rewarded because care is associated with women, and often women of color. The “public good” framework points out that care work provides benefits far beyond those to the direct recipient and suggests that the low pay of care work is a special case of the failure of markets to reward public goods. The “prisoner of love” framework argues that the intrinsic caring motives of care workers allow employers to more easily get away with paying care workers less. Instead of seeing the emotional satisfactions of giving care as its own reward, the “commodification of emotion” framework focuses on emotional harm to workers when they have to sell services that use an intimate part of themselves. The “love and money” framework argues against dichotomous views in which markets are seen as antithetical to true care.
-
Previous Volumes
-
Volume 50 (2024)
-
Volume 49 (2023)
-
Volume 48 (2022)
-
Volume 47 (2021)
-
Volume 46 (2020)
-
Volume 45 (2019)
-
Volume 44 (2018)
-
Volume 43 (2017)
-
Volume 42 (2016)
-
Volume 41 (2015)
-
Volume 40 (2014)
-
Volume 39 (2013)
-
Volume 38 (2012)
-
Volume 37 (2011)
-
Volume 36 (2010)
-
Volume 35 (2009)
-
Volume 34 (2008)
-
Volume 33 (2007)
-
Volume 32 (2006)
-
Volume 31 (2005)
-
Volume 30 (2004)
-
Volume 29 (2003)
-
Volume 28 (2002)
-
Volume 27 (2001)
-
Volume 26 (2000)
-
Volume 25 (1999)
-
Volume 24 (1998)
-
Volume 23 (1997)
-
Volume 22 (1996)
-
Volume 21 (1995)
-
Volume 20 (1994)
-
Volume 19 (1993)
-
Volume 18 (1992)
-
Volume 17 (1991)
-
Volume 16 (1990)
-
Volume 15 (1989)
-
Volume 14 (1988)
-
Volume 13 (1987)
-
Volume 12 (1986)
-
Volume 11 (1985)
-
Volume 10 (1984)
-
Volume 9 (1983)
-
Volume 8 (1982)
-
Volume 7 (1981)
-
Volume 6 (1980)
-
Volume 5 (1979)
-
Volume 4 (1978)
-
Volume 3 (1977)
-
Volume 2 (1976)
-
Volume 1 (1975)
-
Volume 0 (1932)