Stuart A. Queen

Sociologists in the Present Crisis

JN OCTOBER, I940,ERobert M. MacIver, then President of the American Sociological Society, appointed a special committee on Participation of Sociologists in the National Emergency; it was headed by Joseph K. Folsom. Though seriously handicapped in time and funds, this committee did some fine preliminary work on a problem which is bound to concern us for some time to come. Its report, which is published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review, urged definite steps to secure increased employment of sociologists in the Federal civil service. In line with the committees recommendation a resolution was adopted and sent to the Unitecd States Civil Service Commission; a new committee was authorized to cooperate with the Commission; and members of the Society were urged to fill out and return promptly the questionnaire for the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel. Sociologists were also advised to watch all announcements of relevant civil service examinations, Federal, state, and local, both for themselves and for their students. As to the new Committee on Cooperation with the United States Civil Service Commission, its chairman and one other member are now in the Federal service. The three academic members are thoroughly familiar with the problems involved. It is expected that this committee will aid in the classifying of positions wherein sociological knowledge and skills may be utilized to advantage; that it will make known to various Federal agencies the nature of these skills and bodies of knowledge; that it will convey to members of our group information about openings in government service. Whether the term sociologist will become one of the major categories used by the Civil Service Commission I have no idea, but I am confident that something worth while will emerge from the work of our committee. But the report of last years committee was by no means confined to the employment of sociologists in the Federal and other civil service. It dealt also with modifications in our present programs of teaching, research, and extra-curricular activities:

Can Interviews be Described Objectively

A STUDY of the various papers on social work interviews shows that their writers have had in mind two fairly distinct purposes. Some have aimed quite directly at the improvement of ca,se work eechnique, while others have undertaken primarily an analysis of the interview as a bit of social interaction. The majority have clearly been concerned with the technology rather than with the sociology of interviews. Yet it is a curious fact that the Minneapolis-St. Paul group, whose immediniate objective is frankly improved teaching of how to interview clients, has made one of the most significant contributions to the analysis of interviews. A comparison with the work of the Kansas City group may be of interest. It has been concerned primarily in studying the interview as a type of social interaction, but so far has failed to discover any means of generalizing its data. It took the interview apart and identified certain constituent elements, but it did not succeed in producing a set of concepts by means of which to describe and lable recurring processes. Some of us do not think that the Twin-City group has been altogether successful either, but it has pointed the way. Its attempt to classify phases of the interview as techniques, processes, and purposes is quite significant; and the effort to find suitable names for these also deserves credit. So far the work of Miss Colcords committee has been particularly helpful. But having conceded these contributions to our common task, some questions will now be in order. First, are techniques, processes, and purposes really distinct phenomnena? If so, are they properly designated? Second, are the particular techniques, processes, and purposes listed by Miss Colcord really distinct, and are they appropriately named? Bound up with the first two questions is a third one: Are the various aspects of an interview adequately and objectively described? We shall discuss these questions briefly and in the order indicated. By technique I understand Miss Colcord to mean a group of activities centered about an immediate, minor objective. Examples Fgiven are playing the hostess, flattery, direct question, lettilag client talk himself out, dominating through volubility, etc. By processes she seems to mean a group of techniques centered about a more important but less immediate objective. Certainly lessening emotional tension, keeping to main issue, and breaking defense involve rather large and complex groups of activities with relatively important objectives which are on the whole less immediate than the first set. Finally the term purpose, as used in this discussion, seems to mean a still more remote and more fundamental objective at which the interviewer is driving when he combines the various processes. The hierarchy involves, therefore, three levels above that of specific acts and habits. Are these levels appropriately designated? There may be no objection to caUing the simplest combination of habits a technique, although common usage puts no such restriction upon the term. But it seems questioniable whether only one of the three types of grouped activities should be termed a process. Surely all are processes. But if this term

Discussion of “Some Sociological Principles Underlying the Community Chest Movement”

PROFESSOR TODDS paper is confined largely to an exposition of the activities of the Community Fund movement in sociological terms. He has made clear that we may find in the movement excellent illustrative material of the concepts of sociology. It is evident, as he shows, that we find in it a wide variety of those phenomena in whose operation the sociological student is interested. The consciousness of kind, invention, competition and conflict, diffusion of a behavior pattern, collective response, influence of prestige, bonds of social cohesion, coercion, public opinion, interaction, communication, esprit de corps, segregation, accommodation, co6peration, tolerance, compromise, group mores, attitudes, slogans, social control, are but a part of the sociological concepts which the student may find well illustrated in the Community Chest. I quite agree with Professor Todd that such a movement contains a rich source for even those pure sociologists whose purity is so marked that no unclean or unholy social improvement can be included in their purview. They may disabuse themselves of any concern for the relation of Community Chests with human welfare, and still find in the movement rich material for an understanding of human behavior. There is another sociological approach, however, to the Community Chest movement than that which finds in it illustrative material for sociological concepts or sources for the study of behavior patterns. That is, we may inquire what the sociologist as a student of human behavior has to offer the Community Chest worker that will be of value to him in more effectively accomplishing his purpose. It is this aspect of the topic that appeals most strongly to me. Social workers have, at times, I believe, had legitimate cause for complaint that the sociologist has not been of great assistance in helping to provide a scientific basis for social work. The sociologist has been free to criticise the lack of a scientific approach that is frequently observable in social work, but he has not always been equally ready to furniish the scientific data on which a more intelligent program might be built. If a clear case is to be made for the importance of including a considerable amount of sociology in the training of the social worker, it is incumbent on the sociologist to show how his data may be made available for the building of a genuinely scientific structure of social work. From the background of this point of view I wish to point out several ways in which an understanding of sociological concepts and sociological techniques may be of value for the Community Chest worker. Two aspects of the movement will be con-sidered. Probably the most outstanding sociological concept with which the Community Chest worker is confronted is that of social control. While the business man may

George A. Hillery, Jr. Communal Organizations: A Study of Local Societies. Pp. xv, 374. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

that these changes would enable the reformers to recruit and elect a &dquo;higher type&dquo; candidate to municipal office. The electoral system, and its undemocratic consequences, must be reassessed in the light of current conditions. At-large elections over-represent the middle class majority and often result in no direct representation for minorities, thereby aggravating any alienation that may exist. Basic policy decisions, as a consequence of the electoral system, are made by a city council often unaware of, and insensitive to the problems of poor neighborhoods and minority groups. A council which provides no direct representation for major minority groups can be labelled an undemocratic body. One method of improving the prospects for minority representation is the enlargement of the council, and election of all or some of its members by districts. Cumulative and limited voting also could be utilized to provide minority representation. These systems, however, do not guarantee that minority groups will be represented in proportion to their voting strength Only Proportional Representation will do this. JOSEPH F. ZIMMERMAN Professor of Political Science

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textbook for use in the typical &dquo;general introductory&dquo; college course in sociology tends, I feel, to raise the question whether it is not likely to be found by many instructors to be somewhat beyond the capacities (as developed up to that stage in their careers) of many of the students in such a course. I hope that this will not prove to be the case; I think it would be profitable for many American college students to be exposed to this book. The author deserves commendation for the effective and open-minded way in which he has synthesized ideas originated by a number of prominent thinkers of the not-sodistant past, who are commonly thought of as of different and partially conflicting &dquo;schools.&dquo; On the other hand, in a careful second reading of the book I have taken note of a number of passages in which it seemed to me that he presented his own opinions in a somewhat excessively dogmatic fashion. My judgment of this book is on the whole quite favorable. FLOYD N. HOUSE University of Virginia

HOLLINGSHEAD, AUGUST B. Elmtown's Youth. Pp. xi, 480. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1949.

66THE WORD sociology by itself gives us no precise idea of the content of that science. (R75)2 An amazing variety of problems, data, methods, and opinions have been given the label sociological, ever since the days of Auguste Comte, whose work displayed a system of philosophy, zeal for social reform, and a program for developing a new science. Even today, after 100 years, we find press and radio applying the name sociologist to kind ladies who visit the poor, journalists eager to reform our penal institutions, clergymen who preach good will among men, professors who speculate about the nature of society, and researchers who assemble concrete data to test hypotheses about human relations. Concerned about this confusion, a contemporary Spanish sociologist, Jose Medina Echavarria, has set himself the task of outlining, anew the objectives, procedures, and subject matter that might fruitfully engage the attention of people called sociologists. He formulated his problems in terms of what he called dichotomies.

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JELLINEK, E. M. Phases in the Drinking History of Alcoholics. Pp. 88. New Haven, Conn.: Hillhouse Press, 1946.

The Sociology of José Medina Echavarría

1.00. CUSHMAN, JANE F., and CARNEY LANDIS (Eds.) Studies of Compulsive Drinkers. Pp. 90. New Haven, Conn.: Hillhouse Press, 1946.

JELLINEK, E. M. Phases in the Drinking History of Alcoholics. Pp. 88. New Haven, Conn.: Hillhouse Press, 1946.

1.00. These two monographs add to the growing body of data pertaining to alcoholism especially in its social aspects. The case histories prepared by Doctors Wortis and Sillman in Studies of Compulsive Drinkers

1.00. CUSHMAN, JANE F., and CARNEY LANDIS (Eds.) Studies of Compulsive Drinkers. Pp. 90. New Haven, Conn.: Hillhouse Press, 1946.

The stated object of the Country Towns Conference of the Town and Country Planning Association, the third of a series, was &dquo;to consider what part country towns should play in a national planning policy, and whether there is ground for united action in representations on planning policy to the Government, in making their viewpoint known to public opinion, and in other ways.&dquo; Representatives of over a hundred small communities and of various cultural interest and planning groups attended. The prime mover of the conference, the Town and Country Planning Association, advocated, as was to be expected, the reconstruction of &dquo;blitzed&dquo; and congested areas at low densities, and the decanting of industrial, commercial, and population concentrations onto new sites. For support, the association turned to the Barlow, Uthwatt and Scott reports on industrial, land, and planning policy, prepared for the British Government.