The Clinical Sociology of Jesse Taft

Jessie Taft is an erudite and insightful clinical sociologist who decades ago explored the linkages between the work of G. H. Mead and Otto Rank. Her innovative practice as a Rankian therapist and her founding role in Functional Social Work has been recognized for years. Her sophisticated application of symbolic interaction, however, has been entirely neglected. This paper traces her theoretical roots and their linkage to a sexual division of labor in sociology

Multiple Minority Groups: A Case Study of Physically Disabled Women

In general, disfranchised Americans are becoming increasingly aware of their social restrictions and limitations on opportunities. As a result there are now minority groups who have identified their shared problems only within the last twenty years,and these groups are rapidly changing the nature of minority relations. In particular, people with newly defined multiple minority statuses are beginning to articulate their specialized interests and establish new relations with both the dominant majority and the minority groups to which they belong. Physically disabled women are one such group. As women and as disabled people, they are members of two separate minority groups. Their relations to disabled males and able-bodied females shed light on the theoretical complexities of this recent social phenomenon. They also reveal how understanding their specific problems can lead to a redefinition of how to generate a more liberated and liberating society

On Responsibility in Ethnography

Ethnographers have a serious responsibility to the people they study, the audience they address, and their colleagues to be both discrete and insightful about the human condition. Accordingly I read Kotarba\u27s article with deep regret and professional distress. It is theoretically confused, methodologically unsound, and ethically questionable. Justification of these assertions is presented in the following pages. [Kotarba, Joseph A. 1979 The accomplishment of intimacy in the jail visiting room. Qualitative Sociology 3(Sept.) : 80-103.

Depression and Physical Rehabilitation

Depression is often expected in our society during physical rehabilitation. This and similar expectations structure the experience of a physical disability. Contradictions in expectations and demands by providers to conform to this paradigm create barriers in the rehabilitation process. Changes in the physical rehabilitation paradigm are briefly suggested

Living and Acting in an Altered Body: A Phenomenological Description of Amputation

Adults with recent amputations are often perceived as suffering from post-operative depression and phantom limbs. These states are frequently seen as failures in adjustment since there are often few physiological involvements which curtail daily functioning. This perspective is seen as compatible with major American values of pragmatism, individualism, and a mechanistic medical model. We suggest here that problems in daily living and the phantom limb are not mental aberrations but rather reflections of a radically altered lived experience. The performance of the actor is significantly changed and can be discussed as a function of changed experience, and style. This persppctivedraws upon the work of phenomenology and dramaturgy and suggests a changed philosophical approach in physical rehabilitation. A brief application of the model is also presented. Most of the literature written on the behavior of amputees is psychological in orientation. For example, early reactions to the amputation by a group of amputees were categorized by Simon and Albronda (1967) as including disbelief, stunned feelings, fear and panic, anger, grief, relief, guilt, and revulsion. Another study, determining amputees\u27 readiness to accept the stresses of prosthetic restoration, categorized personality types such as the undisciplined, the emotional neurotics, the blamers, the fearful, and the isolated and depressed hypochondriacs (Weiss, 1960). Levin (1961) found that denial and phantom limb are associated manifestations of amputation rather than cause and effect. This explanation of behavior occurring after an amputation supports three major American values and models for behavior: pragmatism, individualism and the medical model. These social constructions are examined here and alternate models (phenomenology and dramaturgy) for explaining the behavior of amputees are suggested

PREFACE TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE

Nebraska was a tumultuous new state in 1869, the year its major University was founded. The early sociologists at Nebraska reflected this bumptious and daring spirit This special issue of the Mid-American Review of Sociology explores several facets of the intellectual heritage and institutional foundations of sociology at the University of Nebraska

Social Surveys

Social surveys are the systematic collection of data on a specific subject. From approximately 1890 to 1935, social surveys in the United States often encompassed broad topics, a whole city, or a very large sample of a target population. After World War II, surveys increasingly became more quantitative, narrower in their definition of populations, and more focused. Surveys were initially relatively infrequent events and were conducted face-to-face, but surveys now permeate daily life and increasingly occur over the telephone. The earliest social surveys were done by governments taking a census of their people. Great Britain conducted an early count of its population and was the origin of many concepts associated with empiricism and methodology to collect data. Starting in 1790, the U.S. census has occurred every ten years and provided information affecting government services and funding. In France from the middle to late nineteenth century, the work of Frederick LePlay focused on family budgets and social amelioration. At the end of this period, Emile Durkheim attacked LePlay\u27s approach, and Durkheim\u27s emphasis on objective science combined with statistics was accepted as more valid than LePlay\u27s applied work. Durkheim\u27s definition was increasingly accepted by many survey researchers in the United States during the 1930s

Cuban Women in Popular Culture

Popular culture is, by and large, a disruptive influence on the Cuban goal of equality for women. This rather strong statement is based on a short visit to Cuba, but fairly extensive data sources. These include daily bombardment by muzak, two evenings at nightclubs, five Cuban long-playing record albums, three women\u27s magazines and a popular music booklet, visits to the Bay of Pigs Exhibition, and the viewing of national-sponsored television. In other words, during even a brief stay, the visitor is in frequent contact with Cuban popular culture. There are two origins of Cuban popular culture: foreign and indigenous. The two major streams of foreign influence on Cuban music are from Latin America and the United States/Western Europe. The Latin effect is characterized by the love ideology. Romantic myths are maintained through images of traditional love and sex roles. The style of presentation is, moreover, melodramatic-lovers pine for each other, they are madly in love, and love is a focus of life. The Western effect shares similar themes, especialIy of love and romance. But there also is an underlying alienation and cynicism, an element of emotional control and distance, absent in the Latin material

AMERICAN CHARITIES AS THE HERALD TO A NEW AGE

The publication of American Charities in 1894 signaled the start of a new age. It crystallized the views of men and women working in economics, sociology, history, and philanthropy. Massive social changes-in urbanization, industrialization, immigration, the roles of women, and the relation between the home and the marketplace-generated social strains that could not be accommodated by traditional world views. Social problems in this new situation, particularly poverty, were perceived increasingly as secular instead of religious issues. Solutions to these social problems were needed urgently, and Amos G. Warner, the author of American Charities, articulated a new vision amidst the clamor for new answers. For over four decades--from 1894, when the first edition appeared, to 1930, when the fourth edition was published--American Charities defined the views of people working on the problems of poverty, mental illness, public child care, and philanthropy. This book towered over the intellectual and practical landscape of planned social improvements in the United States. Today, however, it is almost completely forgotten. The reprinting of this classic will help explain its eminence and bring it once more into the intellectual discussions on fundamental texts in applied sociology, institutional economics, social work, and political science. I present Amos Warner\u27s brief but brilliant career, document the book\u27s reception by his colleagues, outline its contents, and analyze its pivotal relation to women\u27s work in sociology between 1894 and the publication of the third edition, in 1919