Robert R. Bell

Friendships of Women and of Men

This study examines the responses of four groups of persons as to their feelings about friendship and aloneness. The four groups are defined on the basis of gender and their Conventionality vs. Nonconventionality of values and attitudes toward life. It was found that the friendships of women are more personal and emotionally based than those of men. It is suggested that Nonconventional women and men may have more in common than do Conventional and Nonconventional women or men.

Significant Roles Among a Sample of Australian Women

Rapid social change is a quality of the modern world reflected in all aspects of social organisation and social interaction. One conceptual approach to social change is through the examination of social roles. There is uo recent area of role change more crucial to sociological analysts in general and to the sociology of the family in particular than the changes related to women’s roles. For example, from an institutional point of view the change in women’s roles is not only crucial to that of the family, but also to education, religion, politics, government, etc. These changing roles have significance both from the social psychological perspective of individual adaptations as well as for broader sociological concern with role relationships as a part of the functioning society. There is probably no sociological concept used in more different ways than that of role. Therefore, it is important to specify the way in which it will be used here. Role implies status in that it is the dynamic aspect of the rights and obligations that go with a position in some social grouping. The role is what people do within the general limits set by the status. It is assumed that roles are learned by the individual through interaction with others. It is further assumed that when people interact they generally see themselves and others in particular statuses and act accordingly. One of the major qualities of roles is that they are not absolutes but are relative to social situations. This clearly implies a recognition of the impact of social change in that roles that are appropriate

Marriage and Family Differences Among Lower-class Negro and East Indian Women in Trinidad

ROBERT R. BELL is Professor of Sociology at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The various power relationships that may exist between indigenous and immigrant groups have been extensively studied by anthropologists and sociologists.’ Any two or more ethnic, religious, or racial groups in a society may fall at a stage between total conflict and total assimilation with regard to each other. Furthermore, conflict between two or more groups in a society may be dealt with in various ways. At one extreme the differences may be resolved through destruction or coercion directed by the group with the greatest power. But when the various forms of force are not used there are other social processes that may be utilized. One social process that often results from competition and conflict between

Medium and hard‐core pornography: A comparative analysis∗

There have been few serious attempts to study literary pornography in an objective fashion. We know something about sexual differentials in the exposure and response to pornography and its uses among incarcerated populations, but our knowledge of its contents, particularly in its recent forms, is limited. Given the fact that this type of literature has been the source of much controversy, both in legal circles and in the society at large, it clearly deserves more attention than it has received. What follows is a discussion of a form of literary pornography which has become widely distributed in the United States.

Decreasing Student and Community Identification with the School

Robert R. Bell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia 22, Pennsylvania. CONTEMPORARY American social institutions are characterized by formal and informal structures. The formal is that which , is explicitly stated and the informal that which unpremeditatively emerges and in varying ways affects membership behavior.’ During the past one hundred years, the school in American society has been characterized by an increasingly complex organizational structured 2 The structure consists of formalized norms, statuses, power relationships, and methods of communication. The school system, like other institutions, is becoming increasingly bureaucratic.13 3 Schools are also characterized by informal patterns of thought and behavior; for example, reputations of particular teachers and students, school prestige symbols, school and community folklore, and other types of informal identifications with the school 4

Social Class Values and the Teacher

Robert R. Bell is a member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia 22, Pennsylvania. THERE is a constantly expanding body of sociological literature concerned with the American social class system. Of the many factors associated with descriptions of social class, none is more important than education. 1 Education is important both in establishing general social class position as well as a means of social mobility. The purpose of this article is to examine some informal aspects of education in relation to the