A collection of essays with the purpose of stimulate interest and provoke discussion and criticism, and so contributing to our understanding of the three very different societies of France, the USA and Germany. Each essay stands on its own, and it is the authors’ intention to explain some of the differences between Germany and the United States in the first article. The second essay suggests that career mobility in France has more in common with social mobility in the United States than in Germany. The third essay, while not an explicitly comparative analysis, was included because it clearly shows the close links between the educational and occupational systems in Germany, a source of major differences with the United States, at least until the 1980s. The last section contains analyses of income attainment. Drawing on studies in the United States conducted by Erik O. Wright, the fourth essay compares the effects of education and position on income attainment. Since these can be construed as class effects, we were also curious about other types of potential positional and nonvertical income differences in a comparison of France, the United States, and the Federal Republic of Germany (the fifth essay). The concluding summary is very brief, giving only preliminary answers to the more detailed questions raised in the comparative empirical research projects.

Social movements such as environmentalism, feminism, nationalism, and the anti-immigration movement are a prominent feature of the modern world and have attracted increasing attention from scholars in many countries. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, first published in 1996, brings together a set of essays that focus upon mobilization structures and strategies, political opportunities, and cultural framing and ideologies. The essays are comparative and include studies of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. Their authors are amongst the leaders in the development of social movement theory and the empirical study of social movements.

International Comparative Research: Social Structures and Public Institutions in Eastern and Western Europe is a seven-chapter book prepared for the Second International Seminar on Cross-National Comparative Research. Chapters 1 and 2 describe developments in comparative research on social structure and comparisons of social mobility in different socio-economic systems. Subsequent chapters explore structural changes and mobility in a capitalist and a socialist society; comparative research on public institutions; a comparative perspective on social problems and the law; and comparison of public institutions, their organization, and procedures. The last chapter considers high level public officials in Eastern and Western European countries.

This open access volume identifies the common and specific aspects of social mechanisms that generate inequalities, through comparative analyses of different dimensions in which inequalities are expressed. It includes studies on social inequalities in 5 European and 5 Latin American countries, along 11 thematic axes: inequalities in the labour market and labour trajectories; asymmetries in the relationship between training and employment; inequalities in work and family life; educational inequalities; geographical and social inequalities: ethnicity and language; social inequalities, migration and space; uncertainty, strategies, resources and capabilities; inequality of opportunity: intergenerational social mobility; social policies; gender inequalities; and research methodology. This volume is the result of a large collaborative project on social inequality funded by the European Commission: the International Network for Comparative Analysis of Social Inequalities. Taking into account diverse perspectives and approximations, the collaborators have created a general analytical framework as a model of analysis of social inequalities. The various contributions in this volume help readers gain a global outlook and help reflect on social inequalities in a comparative perspective. This volume addresses social science graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, social policy makers, as well as a broader academic audience interested in social inequality.

First published in 1969 and augmented by the author with a new essay in 1977, Class and Conformity remains a model of sociological craftsmanship. Kohn's work marshals evidence from three studies to show a decided connection between social class and values. He emphasizes that occupation fosters either self-direction or conformity in people, depending upon the amount of freedom from supervision, the complexity of the task, and the variety of the work that the job entails. The extent of parents' self-direction on the job further determines the value placed on self-direction for the children; this, Kohn finds, is the most critical and pervasive factor distingushing children raised in different socioeconomic classes.--Back cover.

For too long the study of law and society in the modern Middle East has been left to specialists in narrow subcategories of law or the social sciences. Property, Social Structure, and Law in the Modern Middle East lays the groundwork for a new field of scholarship in which analysis of the social dimensions of law and the legal dimensions of social structure are integrated. It offers the stimulus of a variety of new models of scholarship by a distinguished international group of contributors whose work shares a common focus on regimes of property in the societies of the modern Middle East. The case studies examine the regulations of many kinds of property in relation to the social structures of selected Middle Eastern communities form the eighteenth century to the present. Most of the societies studied are subjected to pressures for rapid modernization and adjustment to major economic transformations. The book features comparisons of property rights and relations under regimes of Islamic and customary law as well as modern statutory law. Highlighted are new patterns of intervention by modern Middle Eastern states to alter traditional regimes of property and to transform the accompanying social structures. Their implications for development are also considered. The book's notes and bibliographies constitute a valuable resource for anyone interested in further research.

Originally published in 1975, this book presents the results of research into social change in Ghana. The book looks in detail at the problems of particular sub-groups and sectors in one single nation and they show that the field-worker with a wide comparative background in the range of pre-industrial societies has a positive role to play in contemporary social science.

The foundation of this volume is the notion that the several processes of change constituting economic and social development are systematically interrelated. The essence of development is the appearance of rapid rates of increases in many different indices--output per capita, political participation, literacy and the like. These quantitative changes are, however, commonly accompanied by vast changes in the social structure--markets emerge, political bureaucracies arise, and new educational systems appear. Written by the leading authorities on the subject, this group of papers tackles the causes and consequences of social mobility. Each author brings his particular skills to bear on various aspects of the problem in studies of persons moving from rural to urban settings, from one kind of industry to another and from one prestige level to another. Several of the papers review the theoretical and methodological issues involved in comparative research on social mobility while others compare and contrast traditional and modern stratification systems. Various papers explore the economic, religious and psychological basis of social mobility, concluding with enquiry into the consequences of rapid mobility, especially in terms of the political stability of developing nations. Because social mobility is a central consideration in any study of economic and social change, every student of change will use this pioneering reference source as a text for all future research. Contributors include Otis Dudley Duncan, Harold L. Wilensky, Michael G. Smith, Bert F. Hoselitz, Wilbert E. Moore, Natalie Rogoff Rams°y, Gideon Sjoberg, Reinhard Bendix, Harry Crockett, David Matza, Lester Seligman, and Gino Germani. Neil J. Smelser is emeritus professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley. Seymour Martin Lipset was professor of sociology and director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Comparative studies in information and library science published in the past ten years have reflected a broad spectrum of backgrounds, interests, and issues, but until now services between different countries, Asian nations in particular, have never been gathered or organized into a single source. As demand from researchers, students, directors, and practitioners for pertinent literature continues to grow, there is a definite and increasing need for a focused guide to international and comparative librarianship. International and Comparative Studies in Information and Library Science: A Focus on the United States and Asian Countries consists of eighteen previously published articles divided into seven categories that address issues such as research methodologies; information policy; professional education; information organization; and school, academic, and public libraries. It also features a comprehensive bibliography of related articles, books, proceedings, and other publications in both English and Chinese and four appendixes that list curricula, journal titles, conferences, and websites relating to International and comparative librarianship available at the time of publication. With this important compilation, Yan Quan Liu and Xiaojun Cheng fill an important and previously unmet need. Book jacket.