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Measuring Paradigmaticness of Disciplines Using Text

By on August 31, 2016 in Articles

Eliza D. Evans, Charles J. Gomez, Daniel A. McFarland

Sociological Science, August 31, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a32

Abstract
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In this paper, we describe new methods that use the text of publications to measure the paradigmaticness of disciplines. Drawing on the text of published articles in the Web of Science, we build samples of disciplinary discourse. Using these language samples, we measure the two core concepts of paradigmaticness—consensus and rapid discovery (Collins 1994)—and show the relative positioning of eight example disciplines on each of these measures. Our measures show consistent differences between the “hard” sciences and “soft” social sciences. Deviations in the expected ranking of disciplines within the sciences and social sciences suggest new interpretations of the hierarchy of disciplines, directions for future research, and further insight into the developments in disciplinary structure and discourse that shape paradigmaticness.

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Eliza D. Evans*: Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
Email: elizae@stanford.edu

Charles J. Gomez*: Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
Email: cjgomez@stanford.edu

Daniel A. McFarland: Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
Email: dmcfarla@stanford.edu

Acknowledgements: This project has been generously funded by the Brown Magic Grant, Dean of Research at Stanford University, and NSF Award #0835614. This material is based upon work supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (No. DGE-114747). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. This work was also supported by the Stanford Graduate Fellowship Program and by a generous grant from the Global Development and Poverty (GDP) exploratory project, sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. These data were collected by the Mimir Project conducted at Stanford University by Daniel McFarland, Dan Jurafsky, and Jure Leskovec. Access to these data was approved by the Mimir Project, and usage followed IRB guidelines.

* Co-first authors and corresponding authors

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Evans, Eliza D., Charles J. Gomez and Daniel A. McFarland. 2016. “Measuring Paradigmaticness of Disciplines Using Text.” Sociological Science 3: 757-778.
  • Received: March 4, 2016
  • Accepted: April 19, 2016
  • Editors: Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a32


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Opportunity without Equity: Educational Inequality and Constitutional Protections in Egypt

By on August 24, 2016 in Articles

Michelle Jackson, Elizabeth Buckner

Sociological Science, August 24, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a31

Abstract
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The claim that the law can be an inequality-reducing weapon is a staple of legal and political discourse. Although it is hard to dispute that legal provisions sometimes work to reduce inequality, we argue that, at least in the domain of equal opportunity in education, the pattern of these effects can be more perverse than has typically been appreciated. Positive laws implemented in the name of promoting equality of opportunity may yield only a narrowly formal equality, with the goal of substantive equality undermined because a high-profile reform will often expose the pathway to educational success. The pathway, once exposed, can then be navigated and successfully subverted by the socioeconomically advantaged. We illustrate such pitfalls of a positive legal approach by examining educational inequality in Egypt, a country with long-standing constitutional protections for equality of opportunity in education. Using data recently collected from a cohort of young people, we show that despite the institutional commitments to equality of opportunity present in Egypt, privileged families have a range of options for subverting the aims of positive legal provisions. We argue that the pattern of educational inequality in Egypt is distinctive relative to countries without similar legal protections.

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Michelle Jackson: Department of Sociology, Stanford University
Email: mvjsoc@stanford.edu

Elizabeth Buckner: Teachers College, Columbia University
Email: esb2174@tc.columbia.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank David Cox, Corey Fields, Jared Furuta, David Grusky, Tomás Jiménez, Paolo Parigi, Deborah Rhode, Aliya Saperstein, Steffen Schindler,
Adam Swift, Robb Willer, Cristobal Young, Patricia Young, and participants at the RC28 Spring Meeting 2013 (Trento) and at the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research 2016 (Berlin) for their comments on an earlier version of this article. We would also like to express our appreciation to Stephen Morgan and the Sociological Science reviewers, who offered incisive and helpful comments on the article.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Jackson, Michelle, and Elizabeth Buckner. 2016. “Opportunity without Equity: Educational Inequality and Constitutional Protections in Egypt.” Sociological Science 3: 730-756.
  • Received: March 4, 2016
  • Accepted: May 5, 2016
  • Editors: Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a31


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Income and Trustworthiness

By on August 17, 2016 in Articles

John Ermisch, Diego Gambetta

Sociological Science, August 17, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a30

Abstract
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We employ a behavioral measure of trustworthiness obtained from a trust game carried out with a sample of the general British population, the individuals of which were extensively interviewed on earlier occasions. Our basic finding is that given past income, higher current income increases trustworthiness and, given current income, higher past income reduces trustworthiness. Past income determines the level of financial aspirations, and whether or not these aspirations are fulfilled by the level of current income affects trustworthiness.

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John Ermisch: Department of Sociology and Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Email: john.ermisch@sociology.ox.ac.uk

Diego Gambetta: Department of Sociology and Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Email: diego.gambetta@eui.eu

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council (People’s Trust: A Survey-based Experiment, RES-000-22-2241) for financial support for the research.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Ermisch, John, and Diego Gambetta. 2016. “Income and Trustworthiness.” Sociological Science 3: 710-729.
  • Received: March 9, 2016
  • Accepted: April 13, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a30


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Religion, Time Use, and Affective Well-Being

By on August 10, 2016 in Articles

Chaeyoon Lim

Sociological Science, August 10, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a29

Abstract
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This study examines whether religious people experience more positive affect and less negative affect in everyday life and, if they do, whether it is because of the differences in how they allocate time to different activities or because they feel differently during similar activities. Using the well-being module from the 2010–13 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I show that churchgoers enjoy a significantly higher level of affective well-being on Sunday than non-churchgoers do. The supplementary analysis of the Gallup Daily Poll data suggests that this higher level of affective well-being among churchgoers is found throughout the rest of the week as well. Further analyses of the ATUS demonstrate that about 40 percent of the affective well-being gap between churchgoers and non-churchgoers on Sunday can be explained by how they spend their time differently. Churchgoers spend more time on Sunday participating in pleasant activities shared with family members and friends than non-churchgoers do. More than half of the gap, however, remains unexplained, implying that it has to do with how they feel during similar activities rather than the activities in which they participate. I discuss the implications of these findings on the mechanisms underlying the link between religion and subjective well-being.

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Chaeyoon Lim: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: chaeyoon.lim@wisc.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Lim, Chaeyoon. 2016. “Religion, Time Use, and Affective Well-Being.” Sociological Science 3: 685-709.
  • Received: April 6, 2016
  • Accepted: May 8, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a29


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Lifestyles through Expenditures: A Case-Based Approach to Saving

By on August 3, 2016 in Articles

Lisa A. Keister, Richard Benton, James Moody

Sociological Science, August 3, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a28

Abstract
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Treating people as cases that are proximate in a behavior space—representing lifestyles—rather than as markers of single variables has a long history in sociology. Yet, because it is difficult to find analytically tractable ways to implement this idea, this approach is rarely used. We take seriously the idea that people are whole packages, and we use household spending to identify groups who occupy similar positions in social space. Using detailed data on household consumption, we identify eight positions that are clearly similar in lifestyle. We then study how the lifestyles we identify are associated with saving, an important measure of household well-being. We find that households cluster into distinct lifestyles based on similarities and differences in consumption. These lifestyles are meaningfully related in social space and save in distinct ways that have important implications for understanding inequality and stratification.

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Lisa A. Keister: Department of Sociology, Duke University
Email: lkeister@soc.duke.edu

Richard Benton: School of Labor and Employment Relations, University of Illinois
Email: rabenton@illinois.edu

James Moody: Department of Sociology, Duke University
Email: Jmoody77@soc.duke.edu

Acknowledgements: Direct correspondence to Lisa A. Keister at 268 Sociology-Psychology Building, Box 90088, Durham, NC 27708. Lkeister@soc.duke.edu. Keister acknowledges a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-1322738), and Moody acknowledges a grant the National Institutes of Health (HD075712-01) that supported this research. We are grateful for comments from David Diehl, Achim Edelmann, and Hang Young Lee.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Keister, Lisa A., Richard Benton, and James Moody. 2016. “Lifestyles through Expenditures: A Case-Based Approach to Saving.” Sociological Science 3: 650-684.
  • Received: March 17, 2016
  • Accepted: April 12, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a28


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Multicollinearity and Model Misspecification

By on July 26, 2016 in Articles

Christopher Winship, Bruce Western

Sociological Science, July 26, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a27

Abstract
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Multicollinearity in linear regression is typically thought of as a problem of large standard errors due to near-linear dependencies among independent variables. This problem can be solved by more informative data, possibly in the form of a larger sample. We argue that this understanding of multicollinearity is only partly correct. The near collinearity of independent variables can also increase the sensitivity of regression estimates to small errors in the model misspecification. We examine the classical assumption that independent variables are uncorrelated with the errors. With collinearity, small deviations from this assumption can lead to large changes in estimates. We present a Bayesian estimator that specifies a prior distribution for the covariance between the independent variables and the error term. This estimator can be used to calculate confidence intervals that reflect sampling error and uncertainty about the model specification. A Monte Carlo experiment indicates that the Bayesian estimator has good frequentist properties in the presence of specification errors. We illustrate the new method by estimating a model of the black–white gap in earnings.

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Christopher Winship: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Email: cwinship@wjh.harvard.edu

Bruce Western: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Email: western@wjh.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank Kinga Makovi for help in the preparation of the manuscript. We also appreciate the editor’s suggestions for citations that we were unaware of.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Winship, Christopher, and Bruce Western. 2016. “Multicollinearity and Model Misspecification.” Sociological Science 3:627-649.
  • Received: February 5, 2016
  • Accepted: March 5, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a27


0

Stylized Facts in the Social Sciences

By on July 19, 2016 in Articles

Daniel Hirschman

Sociological Science, July 19, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a26

Abstract
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Stylized facts are empirical regularities in search of theoretical, causal explanations. Stylized facts are both positive claims (about what is in the world) and normative claims (about what merits scholarly attention). Much of canonical social science research can be usefully characterized as the production or contestation of stylized facts. Beyond their value as grist for the theoretical mill of social scientists, stylized facts also travel directly into the political arena. Drawing on three recent examples, I show how stylized facts can interact with existing folk causal theories to reconstitute political debates and how tensions in the operationalization of folk concepts drive contention around stylized fact claims.

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Daniel Hirschman: Department of Sociology, Brown University
Email: daniel_hirschman@brown.edu

Acknowledgements: I thank Beth Berman, Jamie Budnick, Wendy Espeland, Isaac Reed, and audiences at the 2013 Junior Theorists Symposium and the Michigan Social Theory Workshop for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

  • Citation:Hirschman, Daniel. 2016. “Stylized Facts in the Social Sciences.” Sociological Science 3: 604-626.
  • Received: April 22, 2016
  • Accepted: April 29, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a26


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The Consequences of the National Math and Science Performance Environment for Gender Differences in STEM Aspiration

By on July 12, 2016 in Articles

Allison Mann, Thomas A. DiPrete

Sociological Science, July 12, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a25

Abstract
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Using the lens of expectation states theory, which we formalize in Bayesian terms, this article examines the influences of national performance and self-assessment contexts on gender differences in the rate of aspiring to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations. We demonstrate that girls hold themselves to a higher performance standard than do boys before forming STEM orientations, and this gender “standards gap” grows with the strength of a country’s performance environment. We also demonstrate that a repeatedly observed paradox in this literature—namely, that the STEM gender gap increases with a more strongly gender-egalitarian national culture—vanishes when the national performance culture is taken into account. Whereas other research has proposed theories to explain the apparent paradox as an empirical reality, we demonstrate that the empirical relationship is as expected; net of the performance environment, countries with a more gender-egalitarian culture have a smaller gender gap in STEM orientations. We also find, consistent with our theory, that the proportion of high-performing girls among STEM aspirants grows with the strength of the national performance environment even as the overall gender gap in STEM orientations grows because of offsetting behavior by students at the lower end of the performance distribution.

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Allison Mann: Sociology Department, Columbia University
Email: alm2174@columbia.edu

Thomas A. DiPrete: Sociology Department, Columbia University
Email: tad61@columbia.edu

Acknowledgements: This project was supported by Award Number R01EB010584 from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering or the National Institutes of Health. We acknowledge helpful comments by Claudia Buchmann and Joscha Legewie.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Mann, Allison, and Thomas A. DiPrete. 2016. “The Consequences of the National Math and Science Performance Environment for Gender Differences in STEM Aspirations.” Sociological Science 3: 568-603.
  • Received: February 22, 2016
  • Accepted: March 31, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a25


0

American Exceptionalism Revisited: Tax Relief, Poverty Reduction, and the Politics of Child Tax Credits

By on July 8, 2016 in Articles

Joshua T. McCabe, Elizabeth Popp Berman

Sociological Science, July 8, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a24

Abstract
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In the 1990s, several liberal welfare regimes (LWRs) introduced child tax credits (CTCs) aimed at reducing child poverty. While in other countries these tax credits were refundable, the United States alone introduced a nonrefundable CTC. As a result, the United States was the only country in which poor and working-class families were paradoxically excluded from these new benefits. A comparative analysis of Canada and the United States shows that American exceptionalism resulted from the cultural legacy of distinct public policies. We argue that policy changes in the 1940s institutionalized different “logics of appropriateness” that later constrained policymakers in the 1990s. Specifically, the introduction of family allowances in Canada and other LWR countries naturalized a logic of income supplementation in which families could legitimately receive cash benefits without the stigma of “welfare.” Lacking this policy legacy, American attempts to introduce a refundable CTC were quickly derailed by policymakers who saw it as equivalent to welfare. Instead, they introduced a narrow, nonrefundable CTC under the alternative logic of “tax relief,” even though this meant excluding the lowest-income families. The cultural legacy of past policies can explain American exceptionalism not only with regard to CTCs but to other social policies as well.

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Joshua T.McCabe: The Freedom Project, Wellesley College
Email: jmccabe@wellesley.edu

Elizabeth Popp Berman: Department of Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY
Email: epberman@albany.edu

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Nadya Hajj, Sarah Quinn, and audiences at the University of Toronto and Social Science History Association for comments on various versions of this article.

  • Citation: McCabe, Joshua T., and Elizabeth Popp Berman. 2016. “American Exceptionalism Revisited: Tax Relief, Poverty Reduction, and the Politics of Child Tax Credits.” Sociological Science 3: 540-567.
  • Received: March 16, 2016
  • Accepted: March 27, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a24


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The Bell Curve Revisited: Testing Controversial Hypotheses with Molecular Genetic Data

By on July 5, 2016 in Articles

Dalton Conley, Benjamin Domingue

Sociological Science, July 5, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a23

Abstract
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3 Citation

In 1994, the publication of Herrnstein’s and Murray’s The Bell Curve resulted in a social science maelstrom of responses. In the present study, we argue that Herrnstein’s and Murray’s assertions were made prematurely, on their own terms, given the lack of data available to test the role of genotype in the dynamics of achievement and attainment in U.S. society. Today, however, the scientific community has access to at least one dataset that is nationally representative and has genome-wide molecular markers. We deploy those data from the Health and Retirement Study in order to test the core series of propositions offered by Herrnstein and Murray in 1994. First, we ask whether the effect of genotype is increasing in predictive power across birth cohorts in the middle twentieth century. Second, we ask whether assortative mating on relevant genotypes is increasing across the same time period. Finally, we ask whether educational genotypes are increasingly predictive of fertility (number ever born [NEB]) in tandem with the rising (negative) association of educational outcomes and NEB. The answers to these questions are mostly no; while molecular genetic markers can predict educational attainment, we find little evidence for the proposition that we are becoming increasingly genetically stratified.

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Dalton Conley: Department of Sociology, Princeton University
Email: dconley@princeton.edu

Benjamin Domingue: Graduate School of Education, Stanford University
Email: bdomingue@stanford.edu

Acknowledgements: Funding for this study was provided by the Russell Sage Foundation, Grant 83-15-29. This research uses data from the HRS, which is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (Grants NIA U01AG009740, RC2AG036495, and RC4AG039029) and conducted by the University of Michigan.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Conley, Dalton, and Benjamin Domingue. 2016. “The Bell Curve Revisited: Testing Controversial Hypotheses with Molecular Genetic Data.” Sociological Science 3: 520-539.
  • Received: January 19, 2016
  • Accepted: February 22, 2016
  • Editors: Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a23


3

Financialization Is Marketization! A Study of the Respective Impacts of Various Dimensions of Financialization on the Increase in Global Inequality

By on June 29, 2016 in Articles

Olivier Godechot

Sociological Science, June 29, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a22

Abstract
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In this article, I study the impact of financialization on the rise in inequality in 18 OECD countries from 1970 to 2011 and measure the respective roles of various forms of financialization: the growth of the financial sector; the growth of one of its subcomponents, financial markets; the financialization of non-financial firms; and the financialization of households. I test these impacts using cross-country panel regressions in OECD countries. I show first that the share of the finance sector within the GDP is a substantial driver of world inequality, explaining between 20 and 40 percent of its increase from 1980 to 2007. When I decompose this financial sector effect, I find that this evolution was mainly driven by the increase in the volume of stocks traded in national stock exchanges and by the volume of shares held as assets in banks’ balance sheets. By contrast, the financialization of non-financial firms and of households does not play a substantial role. Based on this inequality test, I therefore interpret financialization as being mainly a phenomenon of marketization, redefined as the growing amount of social energy devoted to the trade of financial instruments on financial markets.

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Olivier Godechot: Sciences Po / MaxPo and OSC-CNRS, Axa Chair Holder
Email: olivier.godechot@sciencespo.fr

Acknowledgements: I am very grateful to Moritz Schularick for sharing his precious data on debt (Jordà and al., 2014). I would like to thank Alex Barnard, Emanuele Ferragina, Neil Fligstein, Elsa Massoc, Cornelia Woll and Nicolas Woloszko for comments on this article.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Godechot, Olivier. 2016. “Financialization Is Marketization! A Study of the Respective Impacts of Various Dimensions of Financialization on the Increase in Global Inequality” Sociological Science 3: 495-519.
  • Received: November 23, 2015
  • Accepted: March 16, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a22


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Vocational Education and Employment over the Life Cycle

By on June 24, 2016 in Articles

Andrea G. Forster, Thijs Bol, Herman G. van de Werfhorst

Sociological Science, June 24, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a21

Abstract
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Vocationally educated individuals often find employment sooner after school than those with a general educational qualification. A recent study has argued that the higher employment probability associated with a vocational qualification reverses in later life. The main explanation is that although having (occupation-)specific skills is an advantage when entering the labor market, specific skills also make the vocationally educated less flexible. This life cycle effect is hypothesized to be especially strong in countries where the vocational system provides highly occupation-specific skills. We test these two hypotheses on cross-national data from PIAAC 2012. Using logistic regressions with country fixed effects, we find that individuals with a vocational qualification have a higher employment probability than those with a general qualification at the start of their career, but this pattern reverses in later life. In contrast to earlier findings, we do not find that this effect varies systematically across countries with different vocational educational systems.

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Andrea G. Forster: Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam
Email: a.g.forster@uva.nl

Thijs Bol: Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam
Email: t.bol@uva.nl

Herman G. van de Werfhorst: Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam
Email: h.g.vandewerfhorst@uva.nl

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by several grants awarded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO): A Vici grant (number 453-14-017), a NWO/NRO-PROO grant Educational Systems and Functions of Education (number 411-10-920), and a NWO/NRO-ProBo grant The Future of Craftsmanship (number 405-15-400).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Forster, Andrea G., Thijs Bol, and Herman G. van de Werfhorst. 2016. “Vocational Education and Employment over the Life Cycle” Sociological Science 3: 473-494.
  • Received: December 3, 2015
  • Accepted: February 15, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a21


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A Theory of the Evolution of Social Power: Natural Trajectories of Interpersonal Influence Systems along Issue Sequences

By on June 21, 2016 in Articles

Noah E. Friedkin, Peng Jia, Francesco Bullo

Sociological Science, June 21, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a20

Abstract
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This article reports new advancements in the theory of influence system evolution in small deliberative groups, and a novel set of empirical findings on such evolution. The theory elaborates the specification of the single-issue opinion dynamics of such groups, which has been the focus of theory development in the field of opinion dynamics, to include group dynamics that occur along a sequence of issues. The theory predicts an evolution of influence centralities along issue sequences based on elementary reflected appraisal mechanisms that modify influence network structure and flows of influence in the group. The new empirical findings, which are also reported in this article, present a remarkable suite of issue-sequence effects on influence network structure consistent with theoretical predictions.

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Noah E. Friedkin: Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara
Email: friedkin@soc.ucsb.edu

Peng Jia: Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara
Email: pjia@engineering.ucsb.edu

Francesco Bullo: Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara
Email: bullo@engineering.ucsb.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank the Editor and Associate Editors of this journal for their cogent comments. This material is based upon work supported by, or in part by, the U. S. Army Research Laboratory and the U. S. Army Research Office under grant numbers W911NF-15-1-0577, W911NF-15-1-0274, and W911NF-09-0001. The content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Friedkin, Noah E., Peng Jia, and Francesco Bullo. 2016. “A Theory of the Evolution of Social Power: Natural Trajectories of Interpersonal Influence Systems along Issue Sequences.” Sociological Science 3: 444-472.
  • Received: November 7, 2015
  • Accepted: February 4, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a20


0

Political Structures and Political Mores: Varieties of Politics in Comparative Perspective

By on June 16, 2016 in Articles

Marion Fourcade, Evan Schofer

Sociological Science, June 16, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a19

Abstract
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We offer an integrated study of political participation, bridging the gap between the literatures on civic engagement and social movements. Historically evolved institutions and culture generate different configurations of the political domain, shaping the meaning and forms of political activity in different societies. The structuration of the polity along the dimensions of “stateness” and “corporateness” accounts for cross-national differences in the way individuals make sense of and engage in the political sphere. Forms of political participation that are usually treated as istinct are actually interlinked and co-vary across national configurations. In societies where interests are represented in a formalized manner through corporatist arrangements, political participation revolves primarily around membership in pre-established groups and concerted negotiation, rather than extra-institutional types of action. By contrast, in “statist” societies the centralization and concentration of sovereignty in the state makes it the focal point of claim-making, driving social actors to engage in “public” activities and marginalizing private and, especially, market-based political forms. We test these and other hypotheses using cross-national data on political participation from the World Values Survey.

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Marion Fourcade: Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Email: fourcade@berkeley.edu

Evan Schofer: Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine
Email: schofer@uci.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors contributed equally to this article. We thank Irene Bloemraad, Steven Brint, David Frank, Ann Hironaka, Ronald Jepperson, Howard Kimmeldorf, John Meyer, Francisco Ramirez, Sandra Smith, Sarah Soule; members of the Stanford Comparative Workshop and the Irvine Comparative Sociology Workshop. The usual disclaimer applies.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Fourcade, Marion and Evan Schofer. 2016. “Political Structures and Political Mores: Varieties of Politics in Comparative Perspective” Sociological Science 3: 413-443.
  • Received: May 8, 2015
  • Accepted: December 23, 2015
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a19


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Twentieth Century Intercohort Trends in Verbal Ability in the United States

By on June 13, 2016 in Articles

Shawn F. Dorius, Duane F. Alwin, Julianna Pacheco

Sociological Science, June 13, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a18

Abstract
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0 Citation

Vocabulary test score trends from the General Social Survey contradict the widespread conclusion that scores on standardized intelligence tests have systematically increased over the past century. We use a vocabulary test included in 20 nationally representative surveys administered since 1974 to test three hypotheses proposed to account for these trends, including changes in the formal measurement properties of the test, over-time changes in the meaning of education, and intercohort differences in exposure to words on the test. We find no support for the idea that test scores have declined because of changes in the structure of the test. Instead, our results show that education selectivity accounts for some cohort differences among prewar cohorts and that cohort-specific differences in exposure to words on the test account for nearly all variation in vocabulary scores of respondents born after 1945, suggesting different causal processes have influenced cohort verbal ability during distinct historical eras.

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Shawn F. Dorius: Department of Sociology, Iowa State University
Email: sdorius@iastate.edu

Duane F. Alwin: Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University
Email: dfa2@psu.edu

Julianna Pacheco: Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
Email: julianna-pacheco@uiowa.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Training Grant from the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan (T32 HD007339). Duane Alwin was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Aging (R01AG021203), a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-1331454), and the McCourtney endowment, College of the Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, during the writing of this article. Please direct correspondence to Shawn F. Dorius (sdorius@iastate.edu).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Dorius, Shawn F., Duane F. Alwin and Julianna Pacheco. 2016. “Twentieth Century Intercohort Trends in Verbal Ability in the United States.” Sociological Science 3: 383-412.
  • Received: January 13, 2016
  • Accepted: January 28, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a18


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Trust and Public Support for Environmental Protection in Diverse National Contexts

By on June 8, 2016 in Articles

Malcolm Fairbrother

Sociological Science, June 8, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a17

Abstract
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Worldwide, most people share scientists’ concerns about environmental problems, but reject the solution that policy experts most strongly recommend: putting a price on pollution. Why? I show that this puzzling gap between the public’s positive concerns and normative preferences is due substantially to a lack of trust, particularly political trust. In multilevel models fitted to two international survey datasets, trust strongly predicts support for environmental protection within countries and, by some measures, among countries also. An influential competing theory holds that environmental attitudes correlate mostly with left versus right political ideology; the results here, however, show that this correlation is weaker and varies substantially from country to country—unlike that with trust. Theoretically, these results reflect that environmental degradation is a collective action problem and environmental protection a public good. Methodologically, they derive from the more flexible application of multilevel modeling techniques than in previous studies using such models.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Malcolm Fairbrother: School of Geographical Sciences, Cabot Institute, Centre for Multilevel Modelling, University of Bristol
Email: ggmhf@bristol.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: The author thanks Diego Miralles, Laura De Vito, Jan Mewes, and Jonas Edlund for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article, and audiences at the Institute for Futures Studies (Stockholm), Umeå University, Örebro University, Gothenburg University, Stockholm University, and the Institute for Social and Economic Research (Essex) for many constructive suggestions and criticisms. The research on which the article is based was funded in part by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfonds (Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, project number NHS14-2035:1), and a Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bristol.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Fairbrother, Malcolm. 2016. “Trust and Public Support for Environmental Protection in Diverse National Contexts.” Sociological Science 3: 359-382.
  • Received: March 3, 2016
  • Accepted: March 13, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a17


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Integration Policies and Immigrants’ Labor Market Outcomes in Europe

By on June 3, 2016 in Articles

Irena Kogan

Sociological Science, June 3, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a16

Abstract
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This article assesses whether two integration policy measures (labor market training and counseling) reach the immigrants who need them and whether these policies improve immigrants’ labor market situations. We first examine the comprehensiveness of integration policies by linking Migration Integration Policy Index scores of immigrants’ labor market mobility with levels of immigrant participation in labor market training and counseling in 15 European countries. We find that provision with labor market training does not entirely correspond to policy intentions, whereas labor market counseling more closely achieves policies’ proclaimed aims. Second, we carry out propensity score matching analysis to estimate the effectiveness of immigrants’ integration policies. We find that labor market training and counseling do not improve immigrants’ employability or job status in three of the four analyzed countries, which lends weak support to the productivity skills argument, emphasizing instead the validity of the signaling and selection perspectives.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Irena Kogan: University of Mannheim
Email: kogan@mail.uni-mannheim.de

Acknowledgements: Earlier versions of the article were presented at ECSR Spring School, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin, March 23–27, 2015; Nuffield College Sociology Seminar, University of Oxford, June 3, 2015; and Annual BAGGS Conference on Inequality, University of Bamberg, September 29–30, 2015. We thank the participants for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Kogan, Irena. 2016. “Integration Policies and Immigrants’ Labor Market Outcomes in Europe.” Sociological Science 3: 335-358.
  • Received: January 16, 2016
  • Accepted: February 19, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a16


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Pulling the Trigger: How Threats to the Nation Increase Support for Military Action via the Generation of Hubris

By on May 25, 2016 in Articles

Yuval Feinstein

Sociological Science, May 25, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a15

Abstract
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0 Citation

Previous studies of public opinion in the United States have reported positive associations between national hubris and support for military actions. This article argues that in addition to its stable aspect, national hubris has a contextual aspect: under perceived symbolic threats to the nation, national hubris increases and boosts support for military action. To test this argument, which is grounded in a sociological and social psychological understanding of individuals as members of collectivities who pursue a symbolic politics of status achievement and maintenance, a survey-experiment was conducted with a nationally representative sample. In the experiment, participants who were exposed to rhetoric that highlighted symbolic threats to the nation to justify an impending military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities reported higher levels of national hubris and were more likely to support the military action than either participants who were exposed to internationalist rhetoric or those in the control group.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Yuval Feinstein: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa
Email: fyuval@soc.haifa.ac.il

Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to the National Science Foundation for providing the funding for this research. The author also thanks Terece Bell, Jeremy Broekman, Philippe Duhart, Jennifer Eggerling-Boeck, Vered Kraus, Robert D. Mare, Zeynep Ozgen, David O. Sears, Andreas Wimmer, and Meir Yaish for their help and advice regarding theory, research design, and manuscript preparation. Previous versions of the article were presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association (2012), the Association for the Study of Nationalities (2012), and the Israeli Political Science Association (2013). I thank conveners and audiences for stimulating comments and challenging criticisms

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Feinstein, Yuval. 2016. “Pulling the Trigger: How Threats to the Nation Increase Support for Military Action via the Generation of Hubris.” Sociological Science 3: 317-334.
  • Received: January 4, 2016
  • Accepted: February 8, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a15


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