Children want to succeed academically and attend college but their actual attainment often lags behind; some groups (e.g., boys, low-income children) are particularly likely to experience this gap. Social structural factors matter, influencing this gap in part by affecting children's perceptions of what is possible for them and people like them in…

A theoretical framework for the study of sport sociology is provided in this text. It is intended for students of sport, arts and humanities, sociology, and social psychology. Sport and social organization are discussed first. Three models of societies and six theories of social organization are presented which form the basis of the eclectic…

Noting that since democratization of communication is part of the broad social process, and that any given form of democratic communication is the result of a dialectical tension between the social factors tending toward concentration of social power and contrary factors tending toward redistribution of that power, this paper argues that it is…

A broader approach to research in human development is proposed that focuses on the progressive accommodation, throughout the life span, between the growing human organism and the changing environments in which it actually lives and grows. The approach emphasizes the use of rigorously designed experiments, both naturalistic and contrived,…

Using Amitai Etzioni's (1961) sociological model as a basis for analysis, the paper examines the relationship between central student characters and their chief reference group or significant other(s) in the schools as portrayed in three films: "If" (1969), "Child's Play" (1972), and "Educating Rita" (1983). Two…

A conceptual framework for analyzing participation in adult education was developed. Adult education participation was considered a specific kind of strategic behavior. The term "strategic" was defined by proceeding from Pierre Bourdieu's concept of "educational strategy," which permits consideration of the structural…