Sociology and the Public Agenda

408 Pages·1993·8.84 MB·English

by  William Julius Wilson

SOCIOLOGY
and the
Public
A
GENDA
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION
PRESIDENTIAL SERIES
Volumesin this series are edited by successive presidents of the American Sociological
Association and are based upon sessions at the Annual Meeting of the organization.
Volumesin this series are listed below.
JAMES F. SHORT, Jr.
The Social Fabric: Dimensions and Issues (1986)
MATILDA WHITE RILEY
in association with
BETTINA J. HUBER and BETH B. HESS
Social Structures and Human Lives:
Social Change and the Lire Course, Volume 1 (1988)
MATILDA WHITE RILEY
Sociological Lives: Social Change and the Lire Course, Volume 2 (1989)
MELVIN L. KOHN
Cross-National Research in Sociology (1989)
HERBERT J. GANS
Sociology in America (1990)
JOAN HUBER
Macro-Micro Linkages in Sociology (1991)
JOAN HUBER and BETH E. SCHNEIDER
The Social Context or AIDS (1991)
WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON
Sociology and the Public Agenda (1993)
The above volumes are availablefrom Sage Publications.
PETER M. BLAU
Approaches to the Study or Social Structure (1975, out of print)
LEWIS A. COSER and OTTO N. LARSEN
The Uses or Controversy in Sociology (1976, out of print)
J. MILTON YINGER
Major Social Issues: A Multidisciplinary View (1978, out of print)
AMOS H. HAWLEY
Societal Growth: Processes and Implications (1979, out of print)
HUBERT M. BLALOCK
Sociological Theory and Research: A Critical Approach (1980, out of print)
ALICE S. ROSSI
Gender and the Lire Course (1985, Aldine Publishing Co.)
KAI ERIKSON and STEVEN PETER VALLAS
The Nature or Work: Sociological Perspectives (1990, Yale University Press)
SOCIOLOGY
and the
Public
A
GENDA
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON
hericil SlCillllilll ASSlCillili Presidulill Series
@
SAGE Publications
"!t~ International Educational andProfessional Publisher
Newbury Park London New Delhi
Copyright © 1993 by Sage Publications, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Sociology and the public agenda I William Julius Wilson, editor.
p. cm.-(American Sociological Association presidential
series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8039-5082-9.-ISBN 0-8039-5083-7 (pbk.)
1. Social policy-Congresses. 2. Sociology-Congresses.
I. Wilson, William J., 1935- . II. Series.
HN28.S63 1993
361.6' I-dc20 92-39719
93 94 95 96 97 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sage Production Editor: Astrid Virding
Contents
About the Authors vii
Preface xiii
Introduction: Sociology, Social Science,
and the Public Policy Agenda
1. Can Sociology Playa Greater Role in Shaping
the National Agenda?
William Julius Wilson 3
2. The Interaction of the Sociological Agenda
and Public Policy
Carol H. Weiss 23
3. How Do Issues Get on Public Policy Agendas?
John W. Kingdon 40
4. The Powers and the Intellectuals:
Benchmark Texts and Changing Conditions
Steven Brint 51
Part I: The Politics of Citizenship
5. Migrants Into Citizens? Traditions of Nationhood and
Politics of Citizenship in France and Germany
Rogers Brubaker 73
6. Citizenship and Welfare: Social Democratic
and Liberal Perspectives
J. Donald Moon 97
7. "Social Citizenship," Work, and Social Solidarity:
Historical Comparisons Between Britain and Sweden
Roger Lawson 119
Part II: Organizations, Social Movements, and Public Policy
8. Organizations as (Secondary) Citizens
Philippe C. Schmitter 143
9. Networks as Political Glue:
Explaining Public Policy-Making
David Knoke 164
10. Financial Reorganization of American
Corporations in the 1980s
Neil F1igstein and Linda Markowitz 185
11. The Conservative Revolution That Wasn't: New Right
Populism and the Preservation of New Deal Liberalism
Anne Wortham 207
Part III: The Public Agenda: Addressing High Priority
Social Problems
12. How Families Manage Risk and Opportunity
in Dangerous Neighborhoods
Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. 231
13. The Community Context of Violent Crime
Robert J. Sampson 259
14. The Politics of Homelessness
Peter H. Rossi 287
15. Inner-City Education: A Theoretical
and Intervention Model
James P. Comer 300
16. Mothers, Children, and Low-Wage Work:
The Ability to Earn a Family Wage
Roberta M. Spalter-Roth, Heidi I. Hartmann,
and Linda M. Andrews 316
Part IV: Issues for the Public Agenda
17. The French Child Welfare System: An Excellent
System We Could Adapt and Afford
Barbara R. Bergmann 341
18. Employment as a Human Right
Philip Harvey 351
Index 375
About the Authors
LINDA M. ANDREWS is currently a research associate with the Institute
for Women's Policy Research. She received an M.S. in statistics and a B.S.
in mathematics and economics, both from the University of South Caro-
lina. Since joining the Institute for Women's Policy Research in 1988, she
has contributed to several research projects by performing computer pro-
gramming and statistical analysis. In this capacity, she has acquired
substantial experience working with census microdata files, especially the
Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). She is currently
working on a study of the impact of pay equity on state civil service
workers and a study on the work and welfare patterns of AFDC recipients.
Before coming to IWPR, she worked for 3 years in the actuarial field
monitoring premium rates for group health insurance and Medicare sup-
plement policies.
BARBARA R. BERGMANN, currently Distinguished Professor of Eco-
nomics at American University, Washington, D.C., has a doctorate from
Harvard University. Her research interests include social policy, sex roles
in the economy, and computer simulation methods. She has previously
served on the staff of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Council of
Economic Advisors, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Her most recent book, The Economic Emergence ofWomen (1986), ex-
plored the reasons for changes in women's economic role and outlined
needed changes in the workplace, the marketplace, government policy, and
the family. She is also coauthor (with Robert L. Bennett) of A Microsimulated
Transactions Model ofthe United States Economy (1986).
STEVEN BRINT is Professor of Sociology at University of California,
Riverside. He is the author of The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges
and the Promise ofEducational Opportunity in America, 1900-1980 (with
Jerome Karabel), and of the forthcoming Retainers, Merchants, and Priests:
Politics and Culture in the Professional Middle Class in America (Princeton
University Press).
ROGERS BRUBAKER is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Uni-
versity of California, Los Angeles. He is author, most recently, of Citizen-
ship and Nationhood in France and Germany (1992). He is currently
working on the national question in post-Soviet Eurasia.
vii
viii SOCIOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC AGENDA
JAMESP. COMER,M.D.,istheMauriceFalkProfessorofChildPsychiatry
at the Yale Child Study Center, Associate Dean of the Yale School of
Medicine, and Director of the School Development Program. His preven-
tive psychiatry work in schools began in 1968 and his school improvement
model is now used in school districts in 14 states. He has published more
than 90 scientific articles, more than 20 book chapters, and four books, the
latest, Maggie's American Dream: The Life and Times ofa Black Family,
based on the life of his own family and his work in schools. He is a graduate
oflndiana University, Howard University College ofMedicine, University
of Michigan School of Public Health, and did his training in psychiatry at
Yale School of Medicine.
NEIL FLIGSTEIN is Professor of Sociology at the University of Califor-
nia-Berkeley. He has recently published a book, The Transformation of
Corporate Control (1990), that provides a sociological view of the emer-
gence and transformation of the large American corporation in the past
century. He is currently working on a book manuscript with Doug McAdam
that attempts to theorize the problem of strategic action. He is also doing
a study of organizational and political change in the European Community
as a result of the 1992 Single Market Program.
FRANK F. FURSTENBERG, Jr., is the Zellerbach Family Professor of
Sociology and Research Associate in the Population Studies Center at the
University of Pennsylvania. His interest in the American family began at
Columbia University where he received his Ph.D. in 1967. His most recent
books include: Adolescent Mothers in Later Life. with J. Brooks-Gunn and
S. Philip Morgan and Divided Families: What Happens to Children When
Parents Part, with Andrew Cherlin.
HEIDI I. HARTMANN is currently Director of the Washington-based
Institute for Women's Policy Research, a scientific research organization
concerned with policy issues of importance to women. She is an economist
with a B.A. from Swarthmore College and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from
Yale University, all in economics. In spring 1988, she was Director of the
Women's Studies Program at Rutgers University. During 1986-1987 she held
an American Statistical Association fellowship at the Census Bureau where
she conducted research on women's poverty. For 8 years previously she was
a staff member of the National Research CounciVNational Academy of
Sciences, where she contributed to many reports on women's employment
issues, and she served as Associate Executive Director of the Commission on
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Her work on feminist theory
and the political economy of gender has been widely published.
Aboutthe Authors ix
PHILIP HARVEY is a practicing attorney in New York City. He received
his law degree from Yale and Ph.D. in economics from the New School
for Social Research. He is the author of Securing the Right to Employment
(1989) and coauthor with Theodore Marmor and Jerry Mashaw ofAmerica's
Misunderstood Welfare State (1990).
JOHN W. KINGDON is Professor in the Department of Political Science
at the University of Michigan, and has been Chair of that Department. He
has written widely on American governmental institutions, and has con-
ducted major studies of legislative decision making and public policy
formation at the national level in the United States. He is a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a John Simon
Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences.
DAVID KNOKE isProfessorand Chair ofSociologyat the University of
Minnesota. He is Chair-Elect (1991-1992) of the Organizations and Occu-
pations Section of the American Sociological Association. His most recent
books are Organizing for Collective Action (1990); Political Networks
(1990); and Basic Social Statistics (with George Bohrnstedt, 1991). Cur-
rent projects are a survey of u.S. organizations' human resources policies
(with Arne Kalleberg, Peter Marsden, and Joe Spaeth) and a comparison
of U.S., German, and Japanese labor policy domain networks (with Franz
Urban Pappi, Jeffrey Broadbent, and Yutaka Tsujinaka).
ROGER LAWSON, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of
Southampton, England, has published widely on social policy, poverty,
and inequality in the United Kingdom and other Western European coun-
tries. His books include Responses to Poverty: Lessons From Europe (with
R. Walker and P. Townsend) and Poverty and Inequality in Common
Market Countries, which he edited with Vic George. He is currently
completing a book on the development of the welfare states in Britain,
Germany, and Sweden.
LINDA MARKOWITZ is a graduate student in the Department of Soci-
ology at the University of Arizona. Her current research interests are in
the areas of gender and stratification. She is writing a dissertation about
the intended and unintended actions of labor unions that have helped
create occupational sex segregation.
J. DONALD MOON received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota
and now teaches political science at Wesleyan University. He is the author