Robert C. Williamson

Adjustment to the Highrise: Variables in a German Sample

The study concerns interviews with a German sample of 430 residents of highrise complexes (with comparison with 166 nonhighrise residents). The data were analyzed primarily according to social backgrounds such as social class, sex, marital status, and age. Satisfaction in the highrise was largely conditioned by physical aspects of the apartment, but also by the ability to form social networks. Whatever their reservations about the highrise, parents were more enthusiastic about the adjustment of children than were childless respondents. On the whole, there appears to be considerable self-selectivity among highrise residents even though many regard their residence as temporary.

‘Subcultural’ Factors in the Survival of Secondary Languages: A Cross-National Sample

Among the minority peoples struggling to maintain identity — and often to reduce a latent sense of inferiority are members of several language communities in Western Europe. In recent years certain minorities have displayed varying degrees of militancy, for instance, the Basques, Bretons and Welsh. Others like the Friulans or Proven9al have awakened to a consciousness of their linguistic and literary heritage with the realization that their language may not survive because of the social, economic and educational dominance of the national language. The present study is concerned with given subculturaP factors (age, sex, social class, urban-rural origin) as to the role they play in the survival of three minority languages: Friulan in northeastern Italy, Rhaetoroman in southeast Switzerland and Gaelic in northwestern Scotland. Also through interviews, the investigators attempted to secure a statistical profile of language usage in kinship and social relationships, attitudes toward the language as well as the linguistic and social backgrounds of the subjects. With the possible exception of Romansh, the three areas chosen represent economically marginal areas in their respective nations. All have literatures beginning in the medieval period with a literary revival in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At the same time, they represent a Sprachgemeinschaft of differing size and of varied national cultures and geographic settings. According to the 1971 census, Friulan is spoken by 525,649 speakers in a frontier province so often bartered among Venice, Austria and other European powers (Frau 1975). Competing with

Selected factors in bilingualism: The case of Galicia

Abstract This study must be viewed in the context of the decline of the ML (minority language) in a number of Western nations. The authors’ previous research on the social factors in several ML areas (Friulan, Romansh, Breton, Welsh, Gaelic, and Pennsylvania German) pointed to the effects of given ‘subcultures’ such as age and social class. Interviews with both open‐ended and standardised items on usage of the ML and OL as well as attitudes toward bilingualism, were largely carried out in the homes of 104 subjects in representative areas of Galicia. The sample was notably younger and more poorly educated than in the other ML areas studied by the authors, largely because of the years of underdevelopment in Spain and especially Galicia. The findings revealed that as with the other ML areas, upper age, low social status, and rural residence were associated with ML code choice. Particularly during adolescence, language commitment shifted from the ML to the OL (official language). Still, since most Galicians a...

Socialization, mental health, and social class: A Santiago sample

SummaryAs part of a larger study of social change, an investigation of a representative sample of 111 middle class and 64 lower class subjects of early adult age in Santiago, Chile, included several indices of mental health. As compared to the middle class the lower class disproportionately showed parental rejection, perceived their parents as punitive, and felt greater distance from their parents as well as recalling a less consistent and predictable emotional climate in the home. The lower class had also experienced less satisfactory relations with their siblings. Personal adjustment was more problematical in areas like isolation, self-control, paranoid projections, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and schizoid symptoms. Emotional health as revealed in a number of symptoms also favored the middle class.As a pilot study in the tradition of the Midtown Manhattan and New Haven research, most findings (although in some instances with borderline statistical significance in the chi-squares) confirmed the class relationship of mental health, at least for pre-Allende metropolitan Santiago.

Social Distance and Ethnicity Some Subcultural Factors among High School Students

The social distance from white to black is greater than that from black to white.

Modernism and Related Attitudes: An International Comparison among University Students

our contemporary period and one that is only partially understood. Several points are clear: One, this dissent appears as a form of intergenerational conflict. Two, a student insurgency involves most of the world to differing degrees, except for those areas which dictatorial control holds it in check. In areas like Western Europe and the United States it is of relatively recent origin, although student dissent was not unknown in the nineteenth century and periodically since. In other areas, notably Latin America, student protest has been institutionalized for several decades. For most parts of the world, organized protest is confined to the minority, however under special conditions a student elite may activate the greater part of the student body.’ In view of the relatively small number of activists involved in most demonstrations, the question may be asked: What do students really think? a

ORIENTATION TO CHANGE IN ADVANCED AND DEVELOPING SOCIETIES: A CROSS-NATIONAL SAMPLE

A fundamental question in the twentieth century is the determination of factors surrounding t h e process of modernization in underdeveloped or transitional societies. What conditions promote change and how d o these differ among nations? What attitudes and values accompany industrialization and urbanization? How do these factors vary among nations and social classes, and between the generations? Clearly, the present study is a tentativc inquiry into a complex set of questions. Although more a pilot study than an exhaustive analysis of the subcultural variables underlying the process of modernization, it illustrates some psychological correlates accompanying social change. The study, which was carried out between 1965 and 1968, includes adult and student samples from Colombia, Western Germany, Japan, and the United States, together with adult samples from Chile and Spain.* I have reported in other publications the findings regarding class differences in Colombia’ and Chile,2 along with a cross-national comparison among student sample^.^ This paper presents the national and generational comparison in a broader focus and arrives at some general conclusions. To a certain extent, the study may be regarded more as a comparison of given cities than of countries since the samples were drawn from Bogota and Santiago among the transitional countries, from Munich, Barcelona, Tokyo, and a middle-sized city (Allentown, Pennsylvania), among the industrialized ones. Basically, we are comparing four samples of industrialized Western cultures with two samples from Latin American nations in different stages of development. The comparison will focus o n the Colombian, German, Japanese, and American samples since they included both adults and students. Despite the emphasis on cross-generational and cross-national comparisons, the effect of social class will not be ignored.

The Rural Urban Continuum and Social Class: A Salvadorean Sample

The last twenty years has seen an amazing transformation of various folk and feudal societies, largely due to industrialism and urbanization. This expansion of urban culture has brought fundamental tranformations to the social structure, not only in the city but in rural areas as well, and especially to the class system. It has been difficult to obtain empirical studies of the social and psychological changes accompanying urbanization,although there has been increasing documentation of those changes in Asia, Africa, Southeastern Europe, and Latin America.