American Journal of Sociology 117(6)

American Journal of Sociology, May 2012: Volume 117, Issue 6

Bright Futures in Malawi’s New Dawn: Educational Aspirations as Assertions of Identity
Margaret Frye

Imagined futures, once a vital topic of theoretical inquiry within the sociology of culture, have been sidelined in recent decades. Rational choice models cannot explain the seemingly irrational optimism of youth aspirations, pointing to the need to explore other alternatives. This article incorporates insights from pragmatist theory and cognitive sociology to examine the relationship between imagined futures and present actions and experiences in rural Malawi, where future optimism appears particularly unfounded. Drawing from in-depth interviews and archival sources documenting ideological campaigns promoting schooling, the author shows that four elements are understood to jointly produce educational success: ambitious career goals, sustained effort, unflagging optimism, and resistance to temptation. Aspirations should be interpreted not as rational calculations, but instead as assertions of a virtuous identity, claims to be “one who aspires.”

Weber and the Environment: Classical Foundations for a Post-exemptionalist Sociology
John Bellamy Foster and Hannah Holleman

In the last two decades classical sociology, notably Marx, has been mined for environmental insights in the attempt to surmount the “human exemptionalism” of post–Second World War sociology. Weber, however, has remained an enigma in this respect. This article addresses Weber’s approach to the environment, including its significance for his interpretive-causal framework and his understanding of capitalism. For Weber, sociological meanings were often anchored in biophysical realities, including climate change, resource consumption, and energy scarcity, while environmental influences were refracted in complex ways within cultural reproduction. His work thus constitutes a crucial key to constructing a meaningful postexemptionalist sociology.

Social Movement Organizational Collaboration: Networks of Learning and the Diffusion of Protest Tactics, 1960–1995
Dan J. Wang and Sarah A. Soule

This article examines the diffusion of protest tactics among social movement organizations (SMOs) through their collaboration in protest groups. Using a longitudinal data set of SMO protest activity between 1960 and 1995, the authors adapt novel methods for dealing with two forms of selection and measurement bias in network analysis: (i) the mechanism that renders some SMOs more likely to select into collaboration and (ii) the notion that diffusion is an artifact of homophily or indirect learning rather than influence. The authors find that collaboration is an important channel of tactical diffusion and that SMOs with broader tactical repertoires adopt more tactics via their collaboration with other SMOs, but only up to a point. Engaging in more collaboration also makes SMOs more active transmitters and adopters of new tactics. Finally, initial overlap in respective tactical repertoires facilitates the diffusion of tactics among collaborating SMOs.

The Three Worlds of Inequality
Kim A. Weeden and David B. Grusky

Recent inequality scholarship fixates on trends in the amount of inequality and largely ignores trends in the form of inequality. The authors describe three ideal-typical inequality regimes (big-class, microclass, and gradational) and identify the mechanisms driving a shift toward or away from each of them. Using GSS and CPS data on 39 measures of life chances, attitudes, and behaviors, the authors find that big-class inequality is in decline whereas microclass inequality has remained stable. Moreover, big classes are simplifying into largely economic aggregates, whereas microclasses remain more complicated moral configurations that cannot be understood in terms of economic standing.

Employment and Exile: U.S. Criminal Deportations, 1908–2005
Ryan D. King, Michael Massoglia, and Christopher Uggen

This study documents and explains historical variation in U.S. criminal deportations. Results from time-series analyses suggest that criminal deportations increase during times of rising unemployment, and this effect is partly mediated by an elevated discourse about immigration and labor. An especially strong association between deportations and unemployment emerges from 1941 through 1986, a period in which the federal law enforcement bureaucracy and deportation laws were well established and judges retained substantial discretion. After 1986, changes in criminal deportation rates mirror the trend in incarceration rates. The study connects the burgeoning sociological literatures on immigration and punishment, revealing a historically contingent effect of labor markets on the criminal deportation of noncitizen offenders.