Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._1

techniques, although in certain circumstances the analysis of covariance can be used to statistically control for possible extraneous sources of influence.

Where analysis of variance and covariance are more appropriate in sociological studies is: (1) where the independent variable can be manipulated (e.g., field experiments investigating natural reactions to staged incidences, or studies of the effectiveness of different modes of intervention or teaching styles); (2) analyses of typologies or global variables that capture a set of unspecified, interrelated causes or stimuli (e.g., comparisons of industrialized vs. nonindustrialized countries, or differences between white collar vs. blue collar workers); or (3) where independent (or predictor) variables are used that have a limited number of discrete categories (e.g., race, gender, religion, country, etc.).

REFERENCES

Blalock, Hubert M. 1972 Social Statistics, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Bornstedt, G. W., and D. Knoke 1995 Statistics for Social Data Analysis. Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.

McClendon, M. J. 1994 Multiple Regression and Causal Analysis. Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.

Nie, Norman H., C. Hadlai Hull, Jean G. Jenkins, Karin Steinbrenner, and Dale H. Bent 1975 SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Scheffe, H. A. 1959 The Analysis of Variance. New York: Wiley.

Simmons, Roberta G., and Dale A. Blyth 1987 Moving Into Adolescence: The Impact of Pubertal Change and School Context. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Tabachnick, Barbara G., and Linda S. Fidell 1996 Using Multivariate Statistics, 3rd ed. New York: HarperCollins.

RICHARD BULCROFT

ANDROGYNY

See Femininity/Masculinity.

ANOMIE

The concept anomie was used by early sociologists to describe changes in society produced by the Industrial Revolution. The demise of traditional

communities and the disruption of norms, values, and a familiar way of life were major concerns of nineteenth-century philosophers and sociologists.

For sociologists, anomie is most frequently associated with Emile Durkheim, although others used it differently even during his lifetime (Wolff 1988).

Durkheim ([1893] 1956) used the French word anomie, meaning ‘‘without norms,’’ to describe the disruption that societies experienced in the shift from agrarian, village economies to those based on industry. Anomie is used to describe a state of society, referring to characteristics of the social system, not of individuals, although individuals were affected by this force. Increasingly, this term has taken on a more social psychological meaning.

This is not to say that it no longer has uses consistent with the initial definition, but its meaning has been broadened considerably, at times consistent with Durkheim’s usage, at times at substantial variance with it.

There are, no doubt, sociologists who cringe at any expanded usage of this and other concepts, but the fact of the matter is that we have no more control over its usage than Thomas Kuhn (1970) has over abominable uses of the concept ‘‘paradigm,’’ or than computer engineers have over those who say ‘‘interface’’ when they mean ‘‘meet with.’’ Although we cannot completely stop the misappropriation of such terms as anomie we can be careful that sociological extensions of anomie are logically derived from their early uses.

DURKHEIM ON ANOMIE

According to Durkheim, village life based on agriculture had consistent, well-established norms that governed the day-to-day lives of individuals. Norms prescribed patterns of behavior, obligation, and expectations. Durkheim called this pattern of social life mechanical solidarity. Communities characterized by ‘‘mechanical solidarity’’ were self-con- tained units in which the family and the village provided for all of the needs of their members.

With the emergence of industrial capitalism and the beginnings of population shifts from the hinterland to cities, mechanical solidarity could not successfully structure social life. Durkheim believed that a new, ‘‘organic solidarity’’ based on a division of labor would emerge, with a regulating normative structure that would be as functional as mechanical solidarity. The emergence of organic

solidarity would take time, however. The transitional period, characterized by normative disorganization, Durkheim described as anomic. By this he did not mean to imply literal normlessness but, rather, a state of relative normative disorder (Coser 1977). Compared with communities characterized by mechanical solidarity, developing larger towns and cities would have a less regulated, less structured, less ordered pattern of social life.

Release from the restraining influence of norms was not a liberating circumstance, according to Durkheim. In this state, without adequate normative direction, people did not know what to expect or how to behave. Many of the social problems that

Durkheim witnessed in rapidly changing industrializing Europe, he blamed on inadequate normative regulation. In his classic Suicide, Durkheim ([1897] 1951) identifies ‘‘anomic suicide’’ as occurring when the values and norms of the group cease to have meaning or serve as anchors for the individual, leading to feelings of isolation, confusion, and personal disorganization.

CONTEMPORARY USES OF ‘‘ANOMIE’’

Anomie continues to be used as defined by Durkheim, but it has also been extended during the twentieth century. In addition to extensions similar to past uses of this concept, social psychological conceptions of anomie have become widespread. Robert

Merton’s use of ‘‘anomie’’ is very similar to that described by Durkheim. His application (1949) has been the core theoretical statement in one of the twentieth century’s major criminological traditions. ‘‘Anomia’’ is a social psychological derivative used to represent a state of disaffection or disconnectedness.

Merton on Anomie. Merton (1949) used the concept anomie to describe how social structure produced individual deviance. According to Merton, when there existed within a society a disjuncture between the legitimate goals that members of a society were aspiring to and the legitimate means of achieving these goals, then that society was in a state of anomie. For both Durkheim and Merton, frustrated aspirations were an important cause of norm violations, or deviance. They differed in what they saw as the source of aspirations. For

Durkheim, it was human nature to have limitless desires, growing from a natural ‘‘wellspring’’ within. Merton argued that desires did not come from

within us, but were advanced by a widely held conception of what constitutes ‘‘the good life.’’

Durkheim believed that when a society was characterized by anomie, there were inadequate normative constraints on the desires and expectations of people. Peasants could come to believe, even expect, that they could rise to live like the aristocracy, or become captains of newly developing industry. Part of mechanical solidarity was the norms that constrained these expectations, that ordered the intercourse between social classes, that checked the natural wellsprings of desires and encouraged peasants to be happy with their lot in life. Without these checks, desires exceeded reasonable hope of attainment, producing frustration and potentially deviance.

Merton’s conception of anomie placed the society itself in the position of determining both the legitimate goals that people should aspire to and the legitimate means of pursuing these goals. While this goal has often been expressed by researchers as wealth attainment, Merton (1997) believed that wealth attainment was only one example of many societal goals. Unfortunately, society frequently caused people to have grandiose expectations without providing all of its members with reasonable opportunities to pursue them legitimately. This circumstance, where the goals and the means were not both universally available to the members of a society, Merton called anomie.

When individuals were faced with anomie, they had to choose whether to forgo the socially advanced goals, their society’s shared vision of the good life, or to seek these objectives by means not defined as legitimate. Merton described five choices available to these individuals. With ‘‘conformity,’’ the individual uses the socially prescribed means to obtain the goals advanced by that society. ‘‘Innovation’’ is the choice to use illegitimate means to achieve the legitimate goals; much criminal behavior is an example of innovation. When a person goes through the motions of using the legitimate means, fully aware that the socially advanced goals are beyond his reach, this is ‘‘ritualism.’’ ‘‘Retreatism’’ is the choice neither to use the legitimate means nor to strive for the legitimate goals of a society. Finally, ‘‘rebellion’’ is rejecting the society’s means and goals and replacing them with ones defined by the individual as superior.

A common mistake is interpreting Merton as arguing that an individual chooses to live his or her life as a conformist, or innovator, or retreatist. To the contrary, Merton’s position is that we all are constantly making choices when faced with behavioral alternatives. At one point during the day one might choose to act as a conformist, but later, when confronted with another choice, one may choose to innovate. For example, a person who engages in robbery, innovation, is not always an innovator; he or she may also have a job, which indicates conformity. While one of these choices may predominate with some people, they should be seen as alternatives that people choose from in deciding how to act in a particular instance, not identities that they assume.

In applying Merton’s perspective to Western nations, sociologists have argued that most of these societies are characterized by some degree of anomie, which manifests itself as a lack of equal opportunity. The extent of anomie, the degree of disjuncture between goals and means in a society, can be used to predict the level of crime and deviance that society will experience. The high crime rates of the United States can be linked to great inequalities in income, education, and job opportunities (Loftin and Hill 1974). To explain individual propensity to deviate from norms, one must consider the extent to which individuals have accepted the society’s conception of ‘‘the good life,’’ and the legitimate means individuals can use to attain it (Cloward and Ohlin 1960). As an explanation of crime, this theory has given way to different approaches, but anomie has been absorbed into larger perspectives to explain the relationship between poverty and crime (Messner 1983).

New Approaches to Anomie. Anomie saw a theoretical resurgence in the late 1980s and 1990s (Agnew and Passas 1997), especially in criminological research. This resurgence first occurred with Agnew’s (1985) general strain theory and later, with macro-variations such as institutional anomie (Messner and Rosenfeld 1994).

Strain Theory. While many have been critical of anomie and strain theories of the past (Hirschi 1969; Kornhauser 1978), Agnew (1985, 1992) argues that research in the areas of medical sociology, social psychology, and psychology can help create new directions for this theory. Agnew (1992)

has proposed a micro-level theory; that ‘‘Adolescents are pressured into delinquency by the negative affective states—most notably anger and related emotions—that often result from negative relationships’’ (p. 48). His extension of traditional strain theories focuses on more than one form of strain or anomie. Agnew (1992) suggests there are three major types of strain that can be experienced by individuals: strain (1) ‘‘as the failure to achieve positively valued goals,’’ (2) ‘‘as the removal of positively valued stimuli,’’ and (3) ‘‘as the presentation of negative stimuli.’’ This extension of anomie or strain theories allows our understanding of the creation of anomie to move even farther away from that first misconception that it must be connected to wealth attainment.

Institutional Anomie Theory. Most research on anomie has been at the micro-level (Agnew and Passas 1997). For example, variations such as Agnew’s general strain theory have ignored the theoretical implications at the macro-level (Agnew and Passas 1997; see also Bernard 1987; Messner

1988; Messner and Rosenfeld 1994; Rosenfeld 1989). Institutional anomie theory posits that in order to understand any social phenomena we must understand the basics of social organization. These basics are culture and social structure and are best understood by their linking mechanism, social institutions (Messner and Rosenfeld 1994; Rosenfeld and Messner 1997). Rosenfeld and Messner (1994, 1997) suggest that social institutions are both interdependent and in conflict with one another, which leads to a constant, necessary balancing of institutional demands. According to Rosenfeld and Messner (1997) the economy is at the center of this balancing act. Institutional anomie theory helps explain the effect of the domination of the economy over other institutions by suggesting that ‘‘economic dominance stimulates the emergence of anomie at the cultural level, and. . . erodes the structural restraints against crime associated with the performance of institutional roles’’ (Rosenfeld and Messner 1997, p. 213). Institutional anomie theory which, up until this stage, has been used to explain trends in crime, could successfully be extended to other social phenomena.

Social Psychological Conceptions of Anomia.

Items designed to measure individual feelings of anomia are now frequently included in surveys such as the General Social Survey, an annual national survey conducted by the National Opinion

Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. Examples of these items illustrate the current uses of the concept, as in the following anomia items from the 1988 NORC survey (respondents were instructed to indicate the extent of their agreement with each statement): ‘‘Most public officials (people in public office) are not really interested in the problems of the average man,’’ and ‘‘It’s hardly fair to bring a child into the world with the way things look for the future’’ (NORC 1988, pp. 215–216). (Nearly 40 percent of the respondents to the second question agreed, and 68 percent agreed with the first.)

IN SUMMARY

Anomie has been and will continue to be a mainstay concept in sociology. Papers discussing the meanings and uses of this concept continue to be written (see, for example, Adler and Laufer 1995; Bjarnason 1998; Deflem 1989; de Man and Labreche-

Gauthier 1993; Hackett 1994; Hilbert 1989; Menard 1995; Passas and Agnew 1997; Wolff 1988). The basic meaning of the term anomie, though—both in its initial usage as a description of society and in its modern extensions—is well established and widely understood within the discipline. Students new to sociology should take care to understand that the definitions of the word may not be as broad for sociologists as for the general public. The utility of the concept for the study of society is best maintained by extending it in ways that are consistent with its original definition.

REFERENCES

Adler, Freda, and William S. Laufer 1995 Advances in Criminological Theory, vol. 6: The Legacy of Anomie. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.

Agnew, Robert 1992 ‘‘Foundations For a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency.’’ Criminology 30:47–87.

——— 1985 ‘‘A Revised Strain Theory of Delinquency.’’

Social Forces 64:151–167.

———, and Nikos Passas 1997 Introduction. In Nikos Passas and Robert Agnew, eds., The Future of Anomie Theory, Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Bernard, Thomas J. 1987 ‘‘Testing Structural Strain Theories.’’ Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 24:262–280.

Bjarnason, Thoroddur 1998 ‘‘Parents, Religion and Perceived Social Coherence: A Durkheimian Framework of Adolescent Anomie.’’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37:742–755.

Cloward, Richard A., and Lloyd E. Ohlin 1960 Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs. New York: Free Press.

Coser, Lewis A. 1977 Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context, 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Deflem, Mathiew 1989 ‘‘From Anomie to Anomia and Anomic Depression: A Sociological Critique on the Use of Anomie in Psychiatric Research.’’ Social Science and Medicine 29:627–634.

de Man, A.F., and L. Labreche-Gauthier 1993 ‘‘Correlates of Anomie in French-Canadian Adolescents.’’

Journal of Social Psychology 133:141–146.

Durkheim, Emile (1897) 1951 Suicide. New York: Free Press.

——— (1893) 1956 The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.

Hackett, Edward J. 1994 ‘‘A Social Control Perspective on Scientific Misconduct.’’ Journal of Higher Education 65:242–261.

Hilbert, Richard A. 1989 ‘‘Durkheim and Merton on Anomie: An Unexplored Contrast and Its Derivatives.’’ Social Problems 36:242–250.

Hirschi, Travis 1969 Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kornhauser, Ruth 1978 Social Sources of Delinquency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kuhn, Thomas 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Loftin, Colin, and Robert H. Hill 1974 ‘‘Regional Subculture and Homicide.’’ American Sociological Review

39:714–724.

Menard, Scott 1995 ‘‘A Developmental Test of Mertonian Anomie Theory.’’ Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 32:136–175.

Merton, Robert K. 1997 Forward. In Nikos Passas and Robert Agnew, eds., The Future of Anomie Theory. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

——— 1949 Social Theory and Social Structure: Toward the Codification of Theory and Research. New York: Free Press.

Messner, Steven F. 1988 ‘‘Merton’s ‘Social Structure and Anomie’: The Road Not Taken.’’ Deviant Behavior 9:33–53.

——— 1983 ‘‘Regional and Racial Effects on the Urban Homicide Rate: The Subculture of Violence Revisited.’’ American Journal of Sociology 88:997–1007.

———, and Richard Rosenfeld 1994 Crime and the American Dream. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.

National Opinion Research Center 1988 General Social

Surveys, 1972–1988: Cumulative Codebook. Chicago:

National Opinion Research Center, University of

Chicago.

Passas, Nikos, and Robert Agnew 1997 The Future of Anomie. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Rosenfeld, Richard 1989 ‘‘Robert Merton’s Contribution to the Sociology of Deviance.’’ Sociological Inquiry 59:453–466.

———, and Steven F. Messner 1997 ‘‘Markets, Morality, and an Institutional-Anomie Theory of Crime.’’ In Nikos Passas and Robert Agnew, eds., The Future of Anomie Theory. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Wolff, Kurt H. 1988 ‘‘Anomie and the Sociology of Knowledge, in Durkheim and Today.’’ Philosophy and Social Criticism 14:53–67.

The nature of applied sociology can more easily be grasped by examining those characteristics that distinguish it from basic sociology. Different audiences are involved (Coleman 1972). Basic sociology is oriented toward those who have a concern for the advancement of sociological knowledge. The quality of such work (quantitative or qualitative,) is evaluated in accordance with agreedupon standards of scientific merit. Applied sociology is oriented more toward those who are making decisions, developing or monitoring programs, or concerned about the accountability of those who are making decisions and developing programs. The quality of applied work is evaluated in accordance with a dual set of criteria: (1) how useful it is in informing decisions, revealing patterns, improving programs, and increasing accountability; and (2) whether its assumptions and methods are appropriately rigorous for the problems under investigation.

ROBERT CRUTCHFIELD

KRISTIN A. BATES

ANTI-SEMITISM

See Discrimination; Prejudice; Race.

APARTHEID

See African Studies; Discrimination; Race; Segregation and Desegregation.

APPLIED SOCIOLOGY

Applied sociology is sociology in use. It is policyoriented, action-directed, and intends to assist people and groups to think reflectively about what it is they do, or how it is they can create more viable social forms capable of adapting to changing external and internal conditions. The roots of applied sociology in the United States go back to the publication in 1883 of Lester Ward’s Dynamic Sociology: or Applied Social Science, a text in which he laid the groundwork for distinguishing between an understanding of causal processes and how to intervene in them to foster social progress. Today applied sociology has blossomed in every arena of sociological endeavor (Olsen and Micklin 1981).

If we were to imagine a continuum between pure research and pure practice, applied sociology would occupy a space in the middle of this continuum. This space is enlarged along one boundary when practitioners and applied sociologists collaborate to explain patterns of behavior or develop causal models for predicting the likely impact of different courses of action. It is enlarged on the other boundary when applied and basic sociologists collaborate in the elaboration of abstract theory so as to make it more useful (Lazersfeld and Reitz 1975). There is always tension between the two, however. In part, the tension is attributable to the analytic distance that should characterize sociological analysis more generally (Lofland 1997). In part, it is attributable to the infusion of an ethical position in applied analysis, a posture which, if nothing else, is sensitive to the operation of power.

The boundaries of applied sociology may also be specified by enumerating the activities that play a central role in what it is that applied sociologists do. Freeman and Rossi (1984) have suggested three activities: (1) mapping and social indicator research, (2) modeling social phenomena, and (3) evaluating purposive action. To this could be added at least one more activity: (4) conceptualizing, studying, and facilitating the adaptability of alternative social forms. Examining these activities also permits considering some of the presumed tradeoffs that are commonly thought to distinguish basic from applied sociology.

Mapping and social indicator research. Such studies are primarily descriptive, and designed to provide estimates of the incidence and prevalence of phenomena that are social in nature. There may be interest in how these phenomena are distributed in different social categories (e.g., by ethnic group affiliation, lifestyles, or social classes) or are changing over time. For example, corporations may wish to know how consumption patterns for various goods are changing over time for different groups to facilitate the development of marketing strategies. Federal and state agencies may wish to understand how the incidence and prevalence of diseases for different social groups is changing over time to develop more effective prevention and treatment strategies. Neighborhood groups may wish to know how citizen complaints regarding the police, high school graduation, or cervical cancer rates are distributed in relation to income characteristics of neighborhoods.

It is often assumed that applied sociology is less rigorous than basic sociology. Freeman and Rossi (1984) suggest that it is more appropriate to argue that the norms governing the conduct of basic sociological research are universally rigorous, while the norms governing the conduct of applied sociological research, of which mapping and social indicator research are but two examples, have a sliding scale of rigor. For critical decisions, complex phenomena that are either difficult to measure or disentangle, or where precise projections are needed, sophisticated quantitative or qualitative measures, or both, may be required and sophisticated analytic techniques may be needed, or may need to be developed. But as time and budget constraints increase, and the need for precision decreases, ‘‘quick and dirty’’ measures might be more appropriate. The level of rigor in applied sociology, in short, is driven by the needs of the client and the situation as well as the nature of the problem under investigation.

Modeling social phenomena. The modeling of social phenomena is an activity common to both basic and applied sociology. Sociologists of both persuasions might be interested in modeling the paths by which adolescents develop adaptive or maladaptive coping strategies, or the mechanisms by which social order is maintained in illicit drug networks. The applied sociologist would need to go beyond the development of these causal models. For the adolescents, applied sociologists would

need to understand how various interventions might increase the development and maintenance of adaptive strategies. In the case of drug networks, they might need to understand the relative effectiveness of different crime-control strategies in reducing the capacity of drug networks to protect themselves.

Just as with mapping and social indicator research, while there are norms supporting rigor to which basic researchers should adhere in the development of causal models, there is usually a sliding scale of rigor in applied research. There is not a necessary trade-off between doing applied work and levels of rigor. It usually happens, however, that applied problems are relatively more complex and tap into concepts that are less easy to quantify. In trying to capture more of the complexity, precision in the specification of concepts and elegance of form of the overall model may be traded off against an understanding of dynamics that is sufficient to inform decisions.

For both basic and applied work it is imperative that the mechanisms by which controllable and uncontrollable concepts have an impact on the phenomenon of interest are properly speci-

fied. Specification decisions must be made with respect to three aspects of the dynamics of situations (Britt 1997). First, the nature of what concepts are (and what they are not) must be specified with regard to the contextually specific indicators that give them meaning. Second, the concepts that are considered sufficiently important to be included in a model (as well as those that are deemed sufficiently unimportant to be left out) must be specified. Finally, the nature of relationships that exist (and do not exist) among the included concepts must be specified. Since these specification decisions interpenetrate one another (i.e., have implications for one another) over time, it may be prudent to think of models as vehicles for summarizing what we think we know about the dynamics of situations (Britt 1997).

The clients of applied researchers, however, are not interested in how elegant models are, but in how well the implications of these models assist them in reducing the uncertainty associated with decisions that must be made. As time and budget constraints increase, or researchers become more confident in their ability to understand which controllable concepts are having the biggest (or

most unanticipated) impact, less formal techniques may be used to develop and evaluate the models under consideration. Elegance must be balanced against usability. Complexity must be balanced against communicability. Theoretical sophistication must be balanced against the capacity of a model to interpret the lives of individuals and groups living through situations.

Evaluating purposive action. Evaluation research is an applied activity in which theories and methods of the social sciences are used to ascertain the extent to which programs are being implemented, services are being delivered, goals are being accomplished, and these efforts are being conducted in a cost-effective manner. These may be relatively small-scale efforts with finite and specific research questions. A manufacturing company may be interested in evaluating the impact of a new marketing program. A drug rehabilitation center may be interested in evaluating the costeffectiveness of a new treatment modality. A movement organization may be interested in the situational effectiveness of particular strategies for fostering policies that are conducive to the reduction in infant-mortality differentials or the production of higher graduation rates in high-risk areas, or to a more equitable allocation of tax revenues (Maines and McCallion 2000).

These programs may or may not be of national importance, may or may not have large sums of money contingent on the outcomes, and may or may not require an understanding of anything but gross effects. It may be necessary to perform such analyses with limited personnel, time, and money. Under such circumstances, relatively unsophisticated methods are going to be used to conduct the evaluations and reanalysis will not be likely.

On the other hand, programs may involve the lives of many people, and deal with critical and complex social issues. The Coleman report on the equality of educational opportunity was presumably intended to establish once and for all that gross differences in school facilities did exist for black and white children in the United States

(Coleman et al. 1966). The report, carried out by a team of sophisticated social scientists in a relatively short time, unleashed a storm of reanalyses and critiques (e.g., Mosteller and Moynihan 1972).

These reanalyses attempted to apply the most

sophisticated theoretical and methodological weapons in the sociological arsenal to the task of evaluating the implications of the Coleman report. Similarly, econometric analyses initially conducted to evaluate the impact of capital punishment on the homicide rate spawned very painstaking and sophisticated applied research (e.g., Bowers and Pierce 1975) in an attempt to evaluate the robustness of the conclusions. In these latter two cases, a high level of rigor by any standard was maintained.

Conceptualizing, studying, and facilitating the adaptability of alternative social forms. A legitimate test of applied sociology is whether it can be used as a basis for designing and implementing better social institutions (Street and Weinstein 1975). An element of critical theory is involved here that complicates the distinction between basic and applied sociology, for it challenges applied sociologists and their clients to imagine: (1) alternative social forms that might be more adaptive in the face of changing social, environmental, and technological trends; and (2) alternative environments that must be sought if equitable social forms are to exist. At the level of families, this may mean asking what new role relationships could create more adaptive family structures. Alternatively, it might mean asking in what normative environments egalitarian family roles might exist. Or perhaps, asking what the impact of pressure for reproductive rights might be on the influence of women in families and communities. At the level of work groups faced with changing technologies and dynamic environments, it is appropriate to ask whether flatter organizational structures and more autonomous work groups might better serve both organizational goals and those of its members (e.g., Myers 1985). At the community level, exploring the viability of alternative interorganizational relationships, or how communities respond to the threat of drug dealing are among a host of legitimate questions. Whatever the specific focus of such questions and the role of applied sociologists in working with clients to answer them, questions of power and ethics should never be far away.

In applied sociology, problems drive the development of both theory and method. When problems and their dynamics cannot be explained by existing theories, new assumptions are added (Lazerefeld and Reitz 1975), new ways of thinking about concepts like adaptability are developed

(e.g., Britt 1989), or more fundamental theoretical shifts take place in a manner described by Kuhn

(1961). When problems cannot be studied using existing methodological and statistical techniques, new techniques are developed. For example, the computer was developed under a contract from the Census Bureau so that the 1950 census could be conducted, and advances in area sampling theory were stimulated by the Department of Commerce needing to get better unemployment estimates (Rossi 1986). Ragin (1987) developed qualitative comparative analysis to permit the rigorous analysis of relatively rare events such as revolutions. Yet the applied implications of being able to study the alternative combinations of conditions that might give rise to particular outcomes has immense applied value (Britt 1998).

The continuing pressure on applied sociology to adapt to the needs of clients has had two important second-order effects beyond the development of theory and method. The nature of graduate training for applied sociologists is changing by virtue of the wider repertoire of skills needed by applied sociologists, and the dilemmas faced by sociologists vis-à-vis their clients are being confronted, and norms regarding the appropriateness of various courses of action are being developed.

A universal component of graduate applied education is the internship. Learning by doing, and experiencing the array of problems associated with designing and conducting research under time and budget constraints, while still having supportive ties with the academic program, are very important. The range and depth of coursework in qualitative and quantitative methods and statistics is increasing in applied programs to prepare students for the prospect of needing to employ techniques as varied as structural equations, focus groups, archival analysis, and participant observation in order to deal with the complexity of the problems requiring analysis.

There have been corresponding changes in the area of theory, with more emphasis given to moving back and forth from theory to applied problem. And there have been increases in courses designed to train students in the other skills required for successful applied work: networking, problem decomposition, and dealing with clientsociologist dilemmas.

REFERENCES

Bowers, W., and G. Pierce 1975 ‘‘The Illusion of Deterrence in Isaac Erlich’s Research on Capital Punishment.’’ Yale Law Journal 85: 187–208.

Coleman, J. G. 1972 Policy Research in the Social Sciences. Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press.

Coleman, J. S., E. Q. Campbell, C. J. Hobson, J. McPartland, A. M. Mood, F. D. Weinfield, R. L. York 1966 Equality of Educational Opportunity, 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Freeman, H. E., and P. H. Rossi 1984 ‘‘Furthering the Applied Side of Sociology.’’ American Sociological Review 49:571–580.

Lazersfeld, P. F., and J. G. Reitz 1975 An Introduction to Applied Sociology. New York: Elsevier.

Mosteller, F., and D. P. Moynihan 1972 On Equality of Educational Opportunity. New York: Random House.

Myers, J. B. ‘‘Making Organizations Adaptive to Change: Eliminating Bureaucracy at Shenandoah Life.’’ National Productivity Review, (Spring) 131–138.

Olsen, M.E., and M. Micklin 1981 Handbook of Applied Sociology. New York: Praeger.

Rossi, P.H. 1986 ‘‘How Applied Sociology can Save Basic Sociology.’’ Journal of Applied Sociology 3:1–6.

Street, D., and E. Weinstein 1975 ‘‘Prologue: Problems and Prospects of Applied Sociology.’’ The American Sociologist 10:65–72.

Maives, D. R. and M. J. McCallion (2000) Urban Inequality and the Possibilities of Church–based Intervention. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 23, (forthcoming).

DAVID BRITT

ART AND SOCIETY

There is no consensus as to what art is nor, until the 1970s, had sociologists expended much energy on its study or on the development of a sociology of the arts. While in Europe art had longer been of interest to sociologists than in the United States, even there it had not developed into an identifiable field with clear and internationally accepted parameters. As recently as 1968 the term sociology of art was not indexed in the International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, which sought to sum and assess the thinking and accomplishments in the rapidly expanding social sciences of the post-World

War II period. Yet by the end of the century the study of art had moved into the mainstream of sociological theory and was rapidly becoming a

favored subject for empirical investigation not only in the countries of Central and Western Europe but also in the United States.

Why should art, as a subject for sociological study, have been so neglected as to have virtually disappeared from mention in American textbooks for half a century after World War I? In large part this reflected the inherent tension between sociology and art, which, as noted by Pierre Bourdieu, make an ‘‘odd couple.’’ Artists, believing in the uniqueness of the original creator, resented the social scientist’s attempt to demystify their achievements by dissecting the role of the artist in society, by questioning to what extent artists are ‘‘born’’ rather than ‘‘made,’’ by conceptualizing artistic works as the products of collective rather than individual action, by anthropologically approaching art institutions, by studying the importance of networks in artistic success, and by investigating the economic correlates of artistic productivity. Many scholars in the humanities were also skeptical. For them the appeal of art is something of a mystery and best left that way; they could hardly relate to the attempts of social scientists who, in their quest for objectivity, sought to eliminate any evaluative component from their own research. This practice of disregarding one’s own personal preferences and tastes hardly seemed legitimate to aestheticians. Moreover, in pursuing a rigorous methodology, many sociologists chose to study only those problems that could yield readily to statistical analysis, and art did not seem to be one of those. They also preferred to focus on subjects that were important in the solution of social problems, and, in the United States, the arts were not generally regarded as high on this list.

Nonetheless, there has been—especially since the late 1960s—a slow but steady movement toward the development of a sociology of the arts. This is due, in part, to a narrowing of the intellectual gulf between the humanistic and sociological approaches. On the one hand, art historians have legitimated the study of art within its social context, and, on the other, mainstream sociology has become more hospitable to the use of other than purely ‘‘scientistic’’ methodology. In part this progress resulted from the expanded contacts of American sociologists after World War II with their counterparts in other countries where art is regarded as a vital social institution and a public good. And just as art must be understood and

studied within its social context, so too the growing sociological interest in the arts reflects the growing importance of the arts within American society and the recognition of this importance by the government. Despite the concerted opposition of those who believe there is no role for government in funding the arts, at every level of government—federal, state, and local—arrange- ments for the support of grassroots arts have become institutionalized.

A small but dedicated number of scholars can be credited with sparking this postwar advancement of theory and research in the sociology of culture and, more specifically, in the sociology of the arts. The latter term, though not unknown before then, began to surface with some frequency in the 1950s; thus, in 1954 a session on the sociology of art was listed in the program of the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. In 1957 a symposium on the arts and human behavior at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences served as a catalyst for the production of a book, based partially on papers presented there. In its preface, the editor, Robert N. Wilson, concluded that a sociology of art, though in the early stages of its development, was not yet ripe for formalization. Nonetheless, Wilson’s book included a number of articles based on empirical research that attracted attention. In one, Cynthia White, an art historian, and Harrison White, a

Harvard sociologist, reported on their investigation into institutional change in the French painting world and how this affected artistic careers. Later expanded and published in book form as Canvases and Careers (1965), this research provides a working example of how a changing art form might best be studied and understood within its historical and social context.

Perhaps the most important step toward the development of the field in these postwar years came with the publication of a collection of readings edited by Milton Albrecht, James Barnett, and Mason Griff (1970). Clearly titled as to subject matter—The Sociology of Art and Literature—it was intended to serve a classroom purpose but also to advance an institutional approach to its study. In one article, originally published in 1968, Albrecht oriented the reader to art as an institution, using art as a collective term for a wide variety of aesthetic products, including literature, the visual arts, and music. In another (‘‘The Sociology of Art’’),

Barnett reprinted his state-of-the-field synthesis as it stood in 1959, and, in yet another, Griff published a seminal article on the recruitment and socialization of artists, drawing in some part on his earlier empirical studies of art students in Chicago. Though here, too, the editors spoke of the sociology of art as being still in its infancy, they helped it to take its first steps by including in their reader a large number of empirically grounded articles—by scholars in the humanities as well as the social sciences. Divided into six subjects— forms and styles, artists, distribution and reward systems, tastemakers and publics, methodology, history and theory—it served for many years as an exemplary resource both for those attempting to set up courses on the arts and society and those embarking on research.

Beginning in the 1970s the sociology of art moved toward formalization and started to come into its own. Speeding this development in the new age of television dominance was a growing sociological interest in the mass media, in visual communications, and in the popular arts. The debate about mass versus popular culture was revitalized by new fears about the effects of commercialization, but some scholars began to wonder about the terms in which the debate was being cast. The assumption that art forms could be categorized as ‘‘high’’ or ‘‘low’’ or, put another way, as ‘‘mass’’ or ‘‘elite’’—an assumption that had fueled the critiques of Theodor Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School—came into question as reputable researchers looked more closely at the empirical evidence (Gans 1974). Howard S. Becker’s conceptualization of art as collective action (1982) did not so much mute the debate as turn attention away from the circumstances surrounding the production of any particular work— that is, what kind of an artist produced work for what kind of audience under what system of re- wards—toward the collective (cooperative) nature of the activity whereby works regarded as art are produced as well as to that collective process itself.

As attention turned to the production of culture, the arts came to be widely regarded by sociologists as socially constructed entities whose symbolic meanings reside not in the objects themselves but change as circumstances change.

Recent American studies in the sociology of art have taken varied approaches, both as to subject matter and methodology. Some have focused

on genres that are considered marginal to established categories of fine art, including such ‘‘outsider art’’ as that produced by asylum inmates,

‘‘naive artists,’’ African primitives, and Australian aborigines. Others have researched the process whereby ‘‘outsider artists’’ may make the transition to being ‘‘insiders’’ while still others, extending their interests to the politics of art, have considered what happens to ‘‘insiders’’ (and the art they have produced) when shifts in the political culture recast them as ‘‘outsiders.’’ Sociologists have also extended their inquiries to the economics of art as they have considered the influence of funding and the structure of museums on the creation, production, preservation, and dissemination of art works; case studies of ‘‘arts management’’ abound.

Some inquiries involving genres marginal to established categories of fine art have adopted methodologically unusual approaches. These include Wendy Griswold’s studies of the social factors influencing the revival of Renaissance plays (1986); Robert Crane’s study of the transformation of art styles in post-World War II New York (1987); Liah Greenfeld’s study of taste, choice, and success in the Israeli art worlds (1989); Vera Zolberg’s studies of art patronage and new art forms (1990); and Gladys Lang and Kurt Lang’s study of the building and survival of artistic reputations (1990).

These and other empirical studies that have already appeared in print or are under way are helping to clarify what is meant by a sociology of art. While there still may be no consensus as to what art is—nor need there be—some consensus is shaping up as to the direction in which the field should be moving. Leading theoreticians—Vera Zolberg, Janet Wolff, Paul DiMaggio, Richard Peterson, and Anne Bowler among them—agree on the need to keep the art itself at the center of theoretical concern but continue to disagree on the proper methodological approach to that ‘‘centering.’’ Essentially, this pits the case for focusing on the institutions in which aesthetic objects are produced and received—an analytical approach— against one that emphasizes criticism and textual interpretation of the objects themselves. Zolberg has voiced the need to avoid the narrowness of both social science and aesthetic disciplines, accepting the premise that art should be contextualized in terms of time and place in a general sense as