American Journal of Sociology（AJS）
Volume 115, Number 5, March 2010, pp. 1351-1670
Masthead
V Contributors
P1531
Theorizing the Restlessness of Events1
Robin Wagner-Pacifici
Swarthmore College
Abstract: This article offers a theoretical and methodological system for a sociological analysis of the restless nature of historical events. This system, political semiosis, is able to identify and assess the performative speech acts, the demonstrative orientational specifications, and the mimetic representations required to advance historical transformations. The features of political semiosis structure the flow of historical events by managing the specific media and generic forms that are the vehicles through which events take shape. Political semiosis provides a method for analyzing both the circulation and the materialization of events. The exemplary case of September 11 illuminates this approach's capabilities.
P1387
Social Influence and the Autism Epidemic
Ka‐Yuet Liu,
Marissa King, and
Peter S. Bearman
Columbia University
Abstract: Despite a plethora of studies, we do not know why autism incidence has increased rapidly over the past two decades. Using California data, this study shows that children living very close to a child previously diagnosed with autism are more likely to be diagnosed with autism. An underlying social influence mechanism involving information diffusion drives this result, contributing to 16% of the increase in prevalence over 2000–2005. We eliminate competing explanations (i.e., residential sorting, environmental toxicants, and viral transmission) through seven tests and show that information diffusion simultaneously contributed to the increased prevalence, spatial clustering, and decreasing age of diagnosis.
P1435
Migrants’ Competing Commitments: Sexual Partners in Urban Africa and Remittances to the Rural Origin
Nancy Luke
Brown University
Abstract: Migrants form nonfamilial ties in urban destinations, which could compete with origin families for a share of remittances. A framework of competing commitment predicts that new relationships affect remittances depending on the extent to which they substitute for the benefits provided by origin families. Analyses of data from urban migrants in Kenya show that serious nonmarital sexual partners substitute for psychosocial support from the rural family and that material transfers migrants give to these partners significantly reduce remittances. The findings have implications for the ways scholars conceive of competition, the nature of exchange, and substitution of support across intimate relationships.
P1480
Gender Inequality in the Welfare State: Sex Segregation in Housework, 1965–2003
Jennifer L. Hook
University of Washington
Abstract: National context may influence sex segregation of household tasks through both pragmatic decision making and the normative context in which decision making is embedded. This study utilizes 36 time use surveys from 19 countries (spanning 1965–2003) combined with original national-level data in multilevel models to examine household task segregation. Analyses reveal that men do less and women do more time-inflexible housework in nations where work hours and parental leave are long. Women do less of this work where there is more public child care and men are eligible to take parental leave. National context affects the character of gender inequality in the home through individual- and national-level pathways
P1524
Earnings Inequality and the Changing Association between Spouses’ Earnings
Christine R. Schwartz
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Abstract: Increases in the association between spouses' earnings have the potential to increase inequality as marriages increasingly consist of two high-earning or two low-earning partners. This article uses log-linear models and data from the March Current Population Survey to describe trends in the association between spouses' earnings and estimate their contribution to growing earnings inequality among married couples from 1967 to 2005. The results indicate that increases in earnings inequality would have been about 25%–30% lower than observed in the absence of changes in the association, depending on the inequality measure used. Three components of these changes and how they vary across the earnings distribution are explored.
P 1558
Panethnicity, Ethnic Diversity, and Residential Segregation
Ann H. Kim
York University
Michael J. White
Brown University
Abstract: The theoretical and empirical implications of the structural basis of panethnicity and of the layering of ethnic boundaries in residential patterns are considered while simultaneously evaluating the “panethnic hypothesis,” the extent to which homogeneity within panethnic categories can be assumed. Results show a panethnic effect—greater residential proximity within panethnic boundaries than between, net of ethnic group size and metropolitan area—that is dependent on immigration. A lower degree of social distance between panethnic subgroups is observed for blacks, whites, and Latinos, and less for Asians, yet ethnonational groups continue to maintain some degree of distinctiveness within a racialized context.
Book Reviews
P 1597
Citizen Employers: Business Communities and Labor in Cincinnati and San Francisco, by Jeffrey Haydu. Ithaca
Berch Berberoglu
P1599
The Making of Pro‐life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works by Ziad W. Munson
Jenny Irons
P1606
Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement by Marshall Ganz
Howard Kimeldorf
P1604
Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes by Arturo Escobar
Pierre Hamel
P1606
Environmental Organizations in Modern Germany: Hardy Survivors in the Twentieth Century and Beyond by William T. Markham
Mario Diani
P1608
Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain, and France, 1890s to 1990s by Marion Fourcade
John L. Campbell
P1610
Privatizing Pensions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform by Mitchell A. Orenstein
Andrew Roberts
P1612
Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture by Allison J. Pugh
Lydia Martens
P 1614
A Historical Sociology of Childhood: Developmental Thinking, Categorization, and Graphic Visualization by André Turmel
Colin Heywood
P 1616
Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China by Susan Greenhalgh
Saul Halfon
P 1619
Village China under Socialism and Reform: A Micro‐history, 1948–2008 by Huaiyin Li. Stanford
Yusheng Peng
P 1621
The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth‐Century China by Sigrid Schmalzer
David A. Palmer
P 1623
The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation by Steven Shapin
Trevor Pinch
P 1625
Living in a Material World: Economic Sociology Meets Science and Technology Studies, edited by Trevor Pinch and Richard Swedberg
Steve Fuller
P 1628
The Dividends of Dissent: How Conflict and Culture Work in Lesbian and Gay Marches on Washington by Amin Ghaziani
Nancy Whittier
P 1630
How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism by Tina Fetner
Andrea Smith
P 1632
Immigration and Religion in America: Comparative and Historical Perspectives, edited by Richard Alba, Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh DeWind
Wendy Cadge
P 1635
Migration Miracle: Faith, Hope, and Meaning on the Undocumented Journey by Jacqueline Maria Hagan
Stephanie J. Nawyn
P 1637
Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement by C. Julia Huang
Rebecca A. Allahyari
P 1639
Immigrant Ambassadors: Citizenship and Belonging in the Tibetan Diaspora by Julia Meredith Hess
Kenneth Liberman
P 1641
Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus by Silvia Pedraza
Sarah Blue
P 1644
The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization by Paul Froese
Shirin Akiner
P 1646
Crisis and the Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow by Olga Shevchenko
Balázs Vedres
P 1648
States against Migrants: Deportation in Germany and the United States by Antje Ellermann
Ryan King
P 1650
The Logics and Politics of Post–WWII Migration to Western Europe by Anthony M. Messina.
Irene Bloemraad
P 1653
Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Greengrocers in New York City by Pyong Gap Min
Eric Fong
P 1655
The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
Yen Le Espiritu
P 1657
Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen by Lisa Wedeen
Robin Wagner‐Pacifici
P 1659
Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level by Kerry B. Fosher
Diane Vaughan
P 1661
Unequal Crime Decline: Theorizing Race, Urban Inequality, and Criminal Violence by Karen F. Parker
Andrew V. Papachristos
P 1664
Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cromwell Cox
Barbara Celarent