Cheshire Calhoun's Project of Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory

I support Cheshire Calhoun's argument that there is a distinctive type of sexuality injustice addressed to lesbians and gays, but challenge her definitional strategy regarding the concepts of “lesbian” and “gay” and the “universalistic essentialist” distinction that she draws between patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality. Finally, I take issue with the political implications of her claim that lesbians’ and gays’ special oppression stems from our exclusion from the legal prerogatives of marriage and parenthood.     

“All in the Family” as a Mirror of Contemporary American Culture

The television series “All in the Family” is discussed as paradigmatic of contemporary American culture. By exploring the dramas the members of the Bunker household enact, the images and identities they project, and those projected upon them, the dynamics of American culture are delineated. The analysis pursues such dimensions as interpersonal process, generational conflict, identity structure, value conflict, and cultural patterning.     

The Families of Drug Abusers: A Literature Review

This paper reveiws all relevant literature concerning the family background of compulsive drug abusers. The main content of the completed research is summarized and methodological criticisms are made. Future considerations for research on families of drug abusers are suggested.     

Process-governed changes in the temporal properties of ordered recalls

Pollio, H. R., Linder, W. & Foote, R. A. Process-governed changes in the temporal properties of ordered recalls. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 114–120.-Two different experiments were run in which Ss were given a large number of recall trials involving binary digits. Half of the Ss were taught a binary coding rule while half were not. As expected, Rule Ss showed consistently more extended recalls and tended to produce temporal output protocols mirroring the structural properties imposed by the coding rule. Present results were compared to results obtained from other free recall studies and led to the conclusion that human Ss when allowed by stimulus or task constraints always structure recall in whatever way they can and that the specific details of how recall is accomplished must always be specific to the particular combination of subjects, materials, and task constraints used in any given experiment.     

Cultural Specificity in Patterns of Mental Illness and Health: A Slovak-American Case Study

Mental illness and mental health are conceptualized as dynamic opposites o/a single, underlying psycho-cultural process. An illustrative case history of a Slovak-American family with a schizophrenic member is presented.     

Regional Variation in Preferences for Vernacular Houses

This paper tests 2 theories of relevance to design review and design guidelines. In Study I. a between-subjects design. III college students in Connecticut and 93 college students in Ohio judged goodness of example, familiarity, or preference for 6 houses. The results failed to uncover differences in response related to local experience, suggesting that global features of the houses may overcome local experience. In Study 2, a within-subjects design, 110 students from Connecticut and 49 from Ohio rated goodness of example, familiarity, and preference for the same 6 houses. Results indicate minor effects of goodness of example and familiarity on preference. The results show preference as multidimensional, reflecting knowledge structure, physical features, and connotative meanings.     

Models of Civic Responsibility: Korean Americans in Congregations with Different Ethnic Compositions

This article compares different discourses of civic responsibility for Korean American evangelicals in a second-generation Korean congregation and a multiethnic congregation located in the same impoverished ethnic minority community. Those in the second-generation church define civic responsibility through difference from immigrant Koreans. They stress caring for members of their local community and explicitly reject their parents' connection of Christianity to economic mobility. Yet, they find relating to other minorities in their local community difficult because of an implicit belief that the economically impoverished are not hardworking. Korean Americans in the multiethnic church connect Christianity to valuing diversity. A religious individualism that is used to justify diversity also helps Korean Americans stress their commonality with other ethnic minorities and legitimates commitment to community service. These results help researchers rethink how new groups of Americans might influence the relationship of evangelical Christianity to American civic life.     

Finding Oneself Among the Saints: Thomas F. O'Dea,Mormon Intellectuals,and the Future of Mormon Orthodoxy

Thomas F. O'Dea's classic The Mormons identified “Mormonism's encounter with modern secular thought” as perhaps the church's greatest problem. In line with secularization theory, O'Dea predicted an attenuation of traditional Mormonism, and an adaptation and gradual liberalization of Mormon theology as the literal interpretation of Mormon origins “dissolved” in the solvent of modernity. O'Dea's views on the crisis facing Mormonism were based, in part, on ethnographic field work in Salt Lake City in the summer of 1950, as interpreted by a modernist Catholic sociologist. A review of his field notes suggests that key informants who “hosted” much of O'Dea's research activity were liberal Mormon academics who defined the church's traditional theology as a problem. This viewpoint agreed with O'Dea's preconceptions about the “education and apostasy” dilemma. A comparison of O'Dea's published “reading” of his field notes with the notes themselves suggests the plausibility of alternative readings. One such alternative is offered here, an interpretation of the interplay of education, Mormon theology, and Mormon intellectualism drawn from O'Dea's field notes, but with a different emphasis from that of his essay. Finally, reverting to a modernist perspective, I offer some hints from survey research suggesting that the predicted liberalization of Mormon theology has yet to occur.     

A Functionalist Theory of Properties

I consider a grand, yet neglected proposal put forward by Shoemaker—a functionalist theory of all properties. I argue that two possible ways of developing this proposal meet with substantial objections. However, if we are prepared to endorse an ontology of tropes, one of these functionalist analyses can be developed into an original and informative theory of properties.