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- Volume 40, 2014
Annual Review of Sociology - Volume 40, 2014
Volume 40, 2014
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Movilidad Intergeneracional y Desigualdad: El Caso Latinoamericano*
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. S2-1–S2-25More LessEl estudio de la movilidad ha cobrado importancia en la última década en Latinoamérica, empujado por la reciente disponibilidad de datos y por una renovada preocupación por la igualdad de oportunidades. Aunque el análisis de la movilidad aún está restringido a pocos países de la regi ón, una conclusión es clara: La movilidad intergeneracional de ingresos es menor en América Latina que en países industrializados, y se caracteriza por la "persistencia de la elite", un patrón consistente con la gran concentración de ingresos en la región. Sin embargo, la movilidad de clases en Latinoamérica no difiere significativamente del mundo industrializado. Este ensayo revisa dos generaciones de estudios de movilidad en Latinoamérica desde los 1960s, evalúa hallazgos recientes sobre movilidad económica y de clases, examina la relación entre factores macro-estructurales y movilidad, y considera la reciente literatura sobre igualdad de oportunidades. El artículo sugiere que el análisis comparativo de la movilidad en América Latina puede inspirar e informar estudios en otros contextos.
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Transiciones a la Vida Adulta en Países en Desarrollo*
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. S-1–S-18More LessEl estudio sobre las transiciones a la vida adulta que realizan los jóvenes en países en desarrollo amerita una revisión por los nuevos acontecimientos que afectan los distintos ámbitos de la vida. Los cambios recientes en los mercados laborales con altas tasas de desocupación, las nuevas vulnerabilidades de la salud, las modificaciones en las preferencias sobre las formas de unión, en un marco de situaciones de pobreza, manifiestan un mundo con menos certidumbres que deriva en nuevas maneras de experimentar el paso a la adultez. El objetivo del artículo es realizar una revisión de la literatura reciente sobre la interacción entre escolaridad y mundo del trabajo, sexualidad y formación familiar, estado de salud, y expresión política y ciudadanía de los adolescentes y jóvenes de paíes en desarrollo. Se ha encontrado que existe una gran diversificación de trayectorias y las transiciones ocurren en diferentes edades y modalidades en una misma sociedad.
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Making Sense of Culture
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 1–30More LessI present a brief review of problems in the sociological study of culture, followed by an integrated, interdisciplinary view of culture that eschews extreme contextualism and other orthodoxies. Culture is defined as the conjugate product of two reciprocal, componential processes. The first is a dynamically stable process of collectively made, reproduced, and unevenly shared knowledge structures that are informational and meaningful, internally embodied, and externally represented and that provide predictability, coordination equilibria, continuity, and meaning in human actions and interactions. The second is a pragmatic component of culture that grounds the first, and it has its own rules of usage and a pragmatically derived structure of practical knowledge. I also offer an account of change and draw on knowledge activation theory in exploring the microdynamics of cultural practice and propose the concept of cultural configuration as a better way of studying cultural practice in highly heterogeneous modern societies where people shift between multiple, overlapping configurations.
Power, power everywhere,
And how the signs do shrink,
Power, power everywhere,
And nothing else to think.
—Marshall Sahlins (2002), Waiting for Foucault, Still
O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.
—Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant
Udanam vi.4 (transl. F.L. Woodward, 1948, p. 83)
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Endogenous Selection Bias: The Problem of Conditioning on a Collider Variable
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 31–53More LessEndogenous selection bias is a central problem for causal inference. Recognizing the problem, however, can be difficult in practice. This article introduces a purely graphical way of characterizing endogenous selection bias and of understanding its consequences (Hernán et al. 2004). We use causal graphs (direct acyclic graphs, or DAGs) to highlight that endogenous selection bias stems from conditioning (e.g., controlling, stratifying, or selecting) on a so-called collider variable, i.e., a variable that is itself caused by two other variables, one that is (or is associated with) the treatment and another that is (or is associated with) the outcome. Endogenous selection bias can result from direct conditioning on the outcome variable, a post-outcome variable, a post-treatment variable, and even a pre-treatment variable. We highlight the difference between endogenous selection bias, common-cause confounding, and overcontrol bias and discuss numerous examples from social stratification, cultural sociology, social network analysis, political sociology, social demography, and the sociology of education.
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Measurement Equivalence in Cross-National Research
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 55–75More LessDetermining whether people in certain countries score differently in measurements of interest or whether concepts relate differently to each other across nations can indisputably assist in testing theories and advancing our sociological knowledge. However, meaningful comparisons of means or relationships between constructs within and across nations require equivalent measurements of these constructs. This is especially true for subjective attributes such as values, attitudes, opinions, or behavior. In this review, we first discuss the concept of cross-group measurement equivalence, look at possible sources of nonequivalence, and suggest ways to prevent it. Next, we examine the social science methodological literature for ways to empirically test for measurement equivalence. Finally, we consider what may be done when equivalence is not supported by the data and conclude with a review of recent developments that offer exciting directions and solutions for future research in cross-national measurement equivalence assessment.
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The Sociology of Empires, Colonies, and Postcolonialism
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 77–103More LessSociologists are adding specific disciplinary accents to the burgeoning literature in colonial, imperial, and postcolonial studies. They have been especially keen to add explanatory accounts to the historical literature on empires. Starting in the 1950s, sociologists pioneered the study of colonies as historical formations. Against traditional anthropological approaches, sociologists insisted on studying colonizer and colonized in their dynamic interactions, asking how both groups were being transformed. Like contemporary postcolonial scholars, sociologists began asking in the 1950s how metropoles were being remade by overseas colonialism and colonial immigration. Echoing discussions in the 1950s among sociologists working in the colonies, current discussions of postcolonial sociology question the applicability of Western social scientific concepts and theories to the global South and ask how sociology itself has been shaped by empire. Current sociological research on empires focuses on six sets of causal mechanisms: (1) capitalism; (2) geopolitics, war, and violence; (3) cultural representations and subjectivity; (4) resistance and collaboration by the colonized; (5) institutional dimensions of empires and colonies; and (6) conflict and compromise among colonizers at the heart of colonial states.
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Data Visualization in Sociology
Kieran Healy, and James MoodyVol. 40 (2014), pp. 105–128More LessVisualizing data is central to social scientific work. Despite a promising early beginning, sociology has lagged in the use of visual tools. We review the history and current state of visualization in sociology. Using examples throughout, we discuss recent developments in ways of seeing raw data and presenting the results of statistical modeling. We make a general distinction between those methods and tools designed to help explore data sets and those designed to help present results to others. We argue that recent advances should be seen as part of a broader shift toward easier sharing of code and data both between researchers and with wider publics, and we encourage practitioners and publishers to work toward a higher and more consistent standard for the graphical display of sociological insights.
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Digital Footprints: Opportunities and Challenges for Online Social Research
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 129–152More LessOnline interaction is now a regular part of daily life for a demographically diverse population of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. These interactions generate fine-grained time-stamped records of human behavior and social interaction at the level of individual events, yet are global in scale, allowing researchers to address fundamental questions about social identity, status, conflict, cooperation, collective action, and diffusion, both by using observational data and by conducting in vivo field experiments. This unprecedented opportunity comes with a number of methodological challenges, including generalizing observations to the offline world, protecting individual privacy, and solving the logistical challenges posed by “big data” and web-based experiments. We review current advances in online social research and critically assess the theoretical and methodological opportunities and limitations.
[J]ust as the invention of the telescope revolutionized the study of the heavens, so too by rendering the unmeasurable measurable, the technological revolution in mobile, Web, and Internet communications has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of ourselves and how we interact…. [T]hree hundred years after Alexander Pope argued that the proper study of mankind should lie not in the heavens but in ourselves, we have finally found our telescope. Let the revolution begin.
—Duncan Watts (2011, p. 266)
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Social Isolation in America
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 153–171More LessWe offer a new measure for social isolation for contemporary society, where opportunities for making connections with others have become ubiquitous. We develop this measure after reviewing previous research on social isolation that we segment into two perspectives. On the one side, isolation has been studied as a negative outcome of processes related to modernization; on the other side, isolation has been studied as a structural position potentially capable of delivering positive returns. Although academic interest in isolation is long-standing, recent years have seen an explosion of research on the topic. We explore the connection between this explosion and new social media and highlight a division within the literature between researchers who see new social media as creating more feelings of isolation and others who think that the jury is still out. In the final section of the article, we offer our novel conceptual framework for studying isolation.
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War
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 173–197More LessThough war has long been a neglected topic in the social sciences, we now look back on several decades of systematic research. This review first summarizes the main strands of recent research in political science, where the most influential studies and well-structured debates have emerged. It then outlines four main contributions made by political, cultural, and comparative historical sociologists: the study of ideological, cultural, and legitimation processes leading to and being shaped by war; configurations of political power and inequality as causes and outcomes of war; how wars influence and are influenced by organizational developments (including of state capacity); and the long-term causal forces that produce macro-level regularities.
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60 Years After Brown: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation
Sean F. Reardon, and Ann OwensVol. 40 (2014), pp. 199–218More LessSince the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, researchers and policy makers have paid close attention to trends in school segregation. Here we review the evidence regarding trends and consequences of both racial and economic school segregation since Brown. The evidence suggests that the most significant declines in black-white school segregation occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There is disagreement about the direction of more recent trends in racial segregation, largely driven by how one defines and measures segregation. Depending on the definition used, segregation has either increased substantially or changed little, although there are important differences in the trends across regions, racial groups, and institutional levels. Limited evidence on school economic segregation makes documenting trends difficult, but students appear to be more segregated by income across schools and districts today than in 1990. We also discuss the role of desegregation litigation, demographic changes, and residential segregation in shaping trends in both racial and economic segregation. We develop a general conceptual model of how and why school segregation might affect students and review the relatively thin body of empirical evidence that explicitly assesses the consequences of school segregation. We conclude with a discussion of aspects of school segregation on which further research is needed.
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Panethnicity
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 219–239More LessPanethnicity has become a significant form of identification across the globe. Categories, such as Latino and Asian American, but also identities, such as Yoruba and European, have been embraced by a growing number of individuals and institutions. In this article, we focus on three main issues: panethnic identification, the conditions under which panethnic categories are constructed, and recent directions in the field. We argue that panethnicity is characterized by a unique tension inherent in maintaining subgroup distinctions while generating a broader sense of solidarity. This tension distinguishes panethnicity as a form of ethnic expression because it places questions of subgroup diversity and cultural legitimacy at the forefront. As such, the study of panethnicity encourages researchers to take intragroup dynamics seriously and explore how conflicts between subgroups are often negotiated or muted in ethnic mobilization and categorization processes. We call for more research that moves beyond the US case study design and makes panethnic processes explicit in international research on race, ethnicity, and nationalism.
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A Comparative View of Ethnicity and Political Engagement
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 241–260More LessThis article reviews approaches to ethnicity and political engagement, with particular emphasis on Western Europe. It argues that studies were at first marked by a structuralist approach and later turned to a more culturalist understanding of ethnic mobilization. Also, owing to increased labor migration after World War II, researchers shifted their attention from ethnic separatism to the ethnic identifications and mobilizations of migrants. While the political mobilization around (or based on) ethnicity was long seen as a disruptive factor within states, then also as a resource or barrier for migrant political involvement within national contexts, it is now studied under the auspices of increasing transnationalism, too. Simultaneously, religion, and especially Islam (in the European context), has come to be seen as one of the most important markers of identity and difference in European societies. This article's theoretical reflections concentrate on the juxtaposition of these two developments—increasing transnationalism and the (re)emergence of religion as a relevant boundary marker. To analyze these shifts, the article contrasts three theoretical approaches with regard to ethnicity: theories of integration, resource mobilization theory, and the political opportunity structures approach. It suggests the revision of the traditional understanding of integration as nationally bounded, and it highlights the need for new perspectives for the study of ethnicity and political participation in the context of globalization.
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(When) Do Organizations Have Social Capital?*
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 261–280More LessInterorganizational relationships connect people affiliated with organizations rather than corporate actors themselves. The managers and owners of organizations therefore do not always control these connections and consequently often cannot profit from them. We discuss the circumstances under which individuals (versus organizations) own these relationships (and therefore also the social capital generated by them). Three factors increase the odds of individual ownership: (a) the extent to which the resources valued by alters belong to the individual (rather than the organization), (b) the degree to which alters feel greater indebtedness to the individual than to the organization, and (c) the extent to which relationships involve emotional attachment. We discuss the implications of the locus of ownership, argue that these distinctions can help explain many results that appear inconsistent on the surface, and call for future research to pay closer attention to these issues.
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The Political Mobilization of Firms and Industries
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 281–304More LessCorporate political activity is both a long-standing preoccupation and an area of innovation for sociologists. We examine the limitations of investigating business unity without focusing directly on processes and outcomes and then review studies of five types of business political action that offer lenses into corporate power in the United States: engagement in electoral politics, direct corporate lobbying, collective action through associations and coalitions, business campaigns in civil society, and political aspects of corporate responsibility. Through these avenues, we highlight four shifts since the 1970s: (a) increasing fragmentation of capitalist interests, (b) closer attention to links between business lobbying and firms' social embeddedness, (c) a turn away from the assumption that money buys political victories, and (d) new avenues of covert corporate influence. This body of research has reinvigorated the classic elitist/pluralist debate while also raising novel questions about how business actors are adapting to (and generating changes within) their sociopolitical environments.
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Political Parties and the Sociological Imagination: Past, Present, and Future Directions
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 305–330More LessThe classical sociology of parties was born alongside parties themselves. It explored their dynamic interrelationships with states and society, as well as the tensions inherent in the fact that parties are simultaneously representatives and power seekers. Despite these rich foundations, from the 1960s the sociological approach came to be narrowly identified with a one-dimensional conception of parties, and political sociologists focused their attention elsewhere. This review contributes to efforts that began in the 1990s to reclaim the political party as a full-fledged sociological object. To this end, we track the hourglass-shaped trajectory of the sociology of parties: from broad Marxian and Weberian roots, to narrowing and near-eclipse after the 1960s, to a reemergence that reclaims the breadth of the classical traditions. We conclude by suggesting six lines of inquiry that we believe would be fruitful, emphasizing both classical concerns that deserve more attention and innovative approaches that point in novel directions.
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Taxes and Fiscal Sociology
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 331–345More LessThis article reviews recent research in fiscal sociology. We specifically examine contributions to the study of taxation that illuminate core issues in the sociology of contemporary capitalism, including the causes of poverty and inequality in rich countries and of inequality between rich and poor countries. Research on developed countries suggests that tax policy changes are important for explaining rising income inequality, tax policies may structure durable inequalities of race and gender, and earnings-conditional tax subsidies may alleviate poverty more effectively and with less stigma than means-tested social spending. Scholars also find the most generous welfare states rely the most heavily on regressive taxes, although there is disagreement over how this association arises. Comparative research on developing countries shows consumption taxes are more conducive to growth than taxes on income, tax-financed spending benefits growth if it is spent on productive investments, and taxation strengthened democracy and state building in medieval and early modern Europe. However, there is disagreement as to whether taxation contributes to state building in contemporary developing countries and whether foreign aid undermines democracy by undermining taxation. These questions are the focus of considerable current research.
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The One Percent
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 347–367More LessRecent protest movements brought attention to the one percent, a segment of the population that is critical to understanding inequality and social mobility but that attracts relatively little research attention. In this article, I survey current research on the one percent in the United States. I distinguish income from wealth and show that both are very concentrated but that the concentration of wealth, particularly financial wealth, is extremely high. I describe the demographic traits and finances of households who are in the one percent and discuss how these have changed in the past decade. I review literature that explains rising top incomes, and I propose that future research will usefully concentrate more on top wealth owners and on the demographic and life course processes that underlie income and wealth concentration. I conclude by speculating about why Americans are so tolerant of resource concentration.
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Immigrants and African Americans
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 369–390More LessWe examine how recent immigration to the United States has affected African Americans. We first review the research on the growing diversity within the black population, driven largely by the presence of black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. As their children and grandchildren come of age, relations between immigrants and African Americans are complicated by the fact that a growing portion of the African American community has origins in both groups. We then review literature on both new destinations and established gateway cities to illustrate the patterns of cooperation, competition, and avoidance between immigrants of diverse races and African Americans in neighborhoods, the labor market, and politics. We explore the implications of the population's increasing racial diversity owing to immigration for policies that aim to promote racial equality but that are framed in terms of diversity. We conclude with suggestions for new areas of research.
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Caste in Contemporary India: Flexibility and Persistence
Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 391–410More LessThe caste system, its salient characteristics, and its subtle and more obvious transformations, coupled with its persistence and pervasiveness, have been central to studies of Indian society. This review provides a specific view of caste and its transformations with an emphasis on the socioeconomic or labor market dimension. Such a perspective is particularly crucial as one of the distinctive features of caste is the inheritance of occupations. A major argument of modernization has been the increasing movement away from occupational inheritance. This review traces the limited support for the “Orientalist” view of caste as essentially unchanging and focuses on the fluid nature of caste and its transformation in the economic domain.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 50 (2024)
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Volume 49 (2023)
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Volume 48 (2022)
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Volume 47 (2021)
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Volume 46 (2020)
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Volume 45 (2019)
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Volume 44 (2018)
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Volume 43 (2017)
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Volume 42 (2016)
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Volume 41 (2015)
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Volume 40 (2014)
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Volume 39 (2013)
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Volume 38 (2012)
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Volume 37 (2011)
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Volume 36 (2010)
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Volume 35 (2009)
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Volume 34 (2008)
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Volume 33 (2007)
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Volume 32 (2006)
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Volume 31 (2005)
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Volume 30 (2004)
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Volume 29 (2003)
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Volume 28 (2002)
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Volume 27 (2001)
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Volume 26 (2000)
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Volume 25 (1999)
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Volume 24 (1998)
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Volume 23 (1997)
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Volume 22 (1996)
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Volume 21 (1995)
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Volume 20 (1994)
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Volume 19 (1993)
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Volume 18 (1992)
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Volume 17 (1991)
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Volume 16 (1990)
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Volume 15 (1989)
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Volume 14 (1988)
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Volume 13 (1987)
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Volume 12 (1986)
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Volume 11 (1985)
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Volume 10 (1984)
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Volume 9 (1983)
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Volume 8 (1982)
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Volume 7 (1981)
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Volume 6 (1980)
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Volume 5 (1979)
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Volume 4 (1978)
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Volume 3 (1977)
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Volume 2 (1976)
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Volume 1 (1975)
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Volume 0 (1932)