Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice

2009
Where We Live Now: Immigration and Race in the United States
By John Iceland

Where We Live Now explores the ways in which immigration is reshaping American neighborhoods. In his examination of residential segregation patterns, John Iceland addresses these questions: What evidence suggests that immigrants are assimilating residentially? Does the assimilation process change for immigrants of different racial and ethnic backgrounds? How has immigration affected the residential patterns of native-born blacks and whites? Drawing on census data and information from other ethnographic and quantitative studies, Iceland affirms that immigrants are becoming residentially assimilated in American metropolitan areas. While the future remains uncertain, the evidence provided in the book suggests that America's metropolitan areas are not splintering irrevocably into hostile, homogeneous, and ethnically based neighborhoods. Instead, Iceland's findings suggest a blurring of the American color line in the coming years and indicate that as we become more diverse, we may in some important respects become less segregated.

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2009
Work - Life Policies
By Alan Booth

Work-Life Policies assembles a diverse group of commentators industrial psychologists, labor organizers, policy analysts, management scholars, organizational psychologists, and others to offer fresh ideas and new insight. The contributors examine organizational policies, municipal policies, state policies, and federal policies as well as workers who vary from salaried professionals to low-wage part-time hourly workers. (With chapters by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Brian Distelberg; Cynthia A. Thompson and David J. Prottas; Netsy Firestein; Forrest Briscoe; Phyllis Moen, Erin Kelly, and Kelly Chermack; Shelley M. MacDermid, Mary Ann Remnet, and Colleen Pagnan; Jeffrey H. Greenhaus; Anisa M. Zvonkovic; Susan J. Lambert; Ruth Milkman; Noemí Enchautegui-de-Jesús; Maureen Perry-Jenkins; Jennifer Glass; Chai R. Feldblum; Ellen Galinsky; Michael A. Smyer and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes; and Kelly D. Davis and Katherine Stamps Mitchell)

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2008
Sentencing Guidelines: Lessons from Pennsylvania
By John Kramer and Jeffery Ulmer

Sentencing guidelines, adopted by many states in recent decades, are intended to eliminate the impact of bias based on factors ranging from a criminal's ethnicity or gender to the county in which he or she was convicted. But have these guidelines achieved their goal of "fair punishment"? And how do the concerns of local courts shape sentencing under guidelines? In this comprehensive examination of the development, reform, and application of sentencing guidelines in one of the first states to employ them, John Kramer and Jeffery Ulmer offer a nuanced analysis of the complexities involved in administering justice.This is a comprehensive examination of sentencing guidelines that illuminates the complexities involved in administering justice.

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2008
Handbook of Cognitive Aging: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Edited By Duane Alwin

The Handbook of Cognitive Aging: Interdisciplinary Perspectives clarifies the differences in patterns and processes of cognitive aging. Along with a comprehensive review of current research, editors Scott M. Hofer and Duane F. Alwin provide a solid foundation for building a multidisciplinary agenda that will stimulate further rigorous research into these complex factors.

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2008
Calendar and Time Diary Methods in Life Course Research
By Duane Alwin

Calendar and Time Diary Methodologies in Life Course Research offers a road map to those who wish to use calendar and diary methods in their own research. The book is also a tool for examining issues related to these up-and-coming approaches to data collection. Finally, this text may serve as a helpful resource for readers who need to interpret literature based on calendar and diary research.

The book begins with two foundational chapters in which the editors introduce readers to the history of calendar and diary methods and explain the approaches themselves. In subsequent chapters, well-known contributors from an array of disciplines discuss various applications of calendar and diary methods, as well as related issues of data quality. The text concludes with a chapter reviewing the key themes presented throughout the volume and discussing future directions for research.

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2008
Seven Rules for Social Research
By Glenn Firebaugh

Seven Rules for Social Research teaches social scientists how to get the most out of their technical skills and tools, providing a resource that fully describes the strategies and concepts no researcher or student of human behavior can do without.

Glenn Firebaugh provides indispensable practical guidance for anyone doing research in the social and health sciences today, whether they are undergraduate or graduate students embarking on their first major research projects or seasoned professionals seeking to incorporate new methods into their research. The rules are the basis for discussions of a broad range of issues, from choosing a research question to inferring causal relationships, and are illustrated with applications and case studies from sociology, economics, political science, and related fields. Though geared toward quantitative methods, the rules also work for qualitative research.

Seven Rules for Social Research is ideal for students and researchers who want to take their technical skills to new levels of precision and insight, and for instructors who want a textbook for a second methods course.

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2008
A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence
By Michael Johnson

Domestic violence, a serious and far-reaching social problem, has generated two key debates among researchers. The first debate is about gender and domestic violence. Some scholars argue that domestic violence is primarily male-perpetrated, others that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. Johnson's response to this debate--and the central theme of this book--is that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Some studies address the type of violence that is perpetrated primarily by men, while others are getting at the kind of violence that women areinvolved in as well. Because there has been no theoretical framework delineating types of domestic violence, researchers have easily misread one another's studies.

The second major debate involves how many women are abused each year by their partners. Estimates range from two to six million. Johnson's response once again comes from this book's central theme. If there is more than one type of intimate partner violence, then the numbers depend on what type you're talking about.

Johnson argues that domestic violence is not a unitary phenomenon. Instead, he delineates three major, dramatically different, forms of partner violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. He roots the conceptual distinctions among the forms of violence in an analysis of the role of power and control in relationship violence and shows that the failure to make these basic distinctions among types of partner violence has produced a research literature that is plagued by both overgeneralizations and ostensibly contradictory findings. This volume begins the work of theorizing forms of domestic violence, a crucial first step to a better understanding of these phenomena among scholars, social scientists, policy makers, and service providers.

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2007
Disparities in School Readiness: How Families Contribute to Transitions into School
By Alan Booth

Significant disparities exist in children's behavioral and learning capacities that support successful transitions into school. In this new volume, leading researchers from a variety of disciplines review the latest data on how families influence their children's transitions into school. The inequalities that exist in school readiness, the roots of the inequalities, and the ways in which families exacerbate or minimize these inequalities, are explored. The book concludes with a review of policies and programs that represent the best practices for how families, schools and communities can address these disparities.

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2007
Alone Together: How Marriage in America Is Changing
By Paul Amato , Alan Booth , David Johnson , and Stacy Rogers

Most observers agree that marriage in America has been changing. Some think it is in decline, that the growth of individualism has made it increasingly difficult to achieve satisfying and stable relationships. Others believe that changes, such as increasing gender equality, have made marriage a better arrangement for men as well as women.

Based on two studies of marital quality in America twenty years apart, this book takes a middle view, showing that while the divorce rate has leveled off, spouses are spending less time together--people may be "bowling alone" these days, but married couples are also eating alone. Indeed, the declining social capital of married couples--including the fact that couples have fewer shared friends--combined with the general erosion of community ties in American society has had pervasive, negative effects on marital quality.

At the same time, family income has increased, decision-making equality between husbands and wives is greater, marital conflict and violence have declined, and the norm of lifelong marriage enjoys greater support than ever.

The authors conclude that marriage is an adaptable institution, and in accommodating the vast changes that have occurred in society over the recent past, it has become a less cohesive, yet less confining arrangement.

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2007
Margins of Error: A Study of Reliability in Survey Measurement (Wiley Series in Survey Methodology)
By Duane Alwin

Margins of Error: A Study of Reliability in Survey Measurement demonstrates how and why identifying the presence and extent of measurement errors in survey data is essential for improving the overall collection and analysis of the data. The author outlines the consequences of ignoring survey measurement errors and also discusses ways to detect and estimate the impact of these errors. This book also provides recommendations of improving the quality of survey data.

This book argues that the consideration of the presence and extent of measurement errors in survey data leads to improvement in the overall collection and analysis of survey data. Its main purpose is to identify which types of questions and which types of interviewer practices produce the most valid and reliable data.

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2006
Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences
By Alan Sica

Comparative research methods are central to sociology and its associated disciplines. This four-volume set brings together 77 articles and book chapters from key sources, spanning the history of comparative analysis in the social sciences, from ancient to modern works. The selections cover not only explanations of how to carry out comparative analysis in a reliable and creative way, but also exhaustively explore the fields of sociology, political science, anthropology and education.

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2006
Romance And Sex in Adolescence And Emerging Adulthood: Risks And Opportunities
By Alan Booth

Contents: Preface. Part I: What Are the Evolutionary Origins of Contemporary Patterns of Sexual and Romantic Relationships? Where Does Evolution Leave Off and Where Do History and Culture Begin? H.E. Fisher, Broken Hearts: The Nature and Risks of Romantic Rejection. B.L. Barber, To Have Loved and Lost...Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Rejection. D.P. Schmitt, Short- and Long-Term Mating Strategies: Additional Evolutionary Systems Relevant to Adolescent Sexuality. P. Schwartz, What Elicits Romance, Passion, and Attachment, and How Do They Affect Our Lives Throughout the Life Cycle? Part II: How Do Early Family and Peer Relationships Give Rise to the Quality of Romantic Relationships in Adolescence and Young Adulthood? W.A. Collins, M. van Dulmen, "The Course of True Love(s)...": Origins and Pathways in the Development of Romantic Relationships. S. Coontz, Romance and Sex in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood K. Joyner, M. Campa, How Do Adolescent Relationships Influence the Quality of Romantic and Sexual Relationships in Young Adulthood? C.M. Bryant, Pathways Linking Early Experiences and Later Relationship Functioning. B.B. Brown, A Few "Course Corrections" to Collins & van Dulmen's "The Course of True Love". Part III: How Do Early Romantic and Sexual Relationships Influence People Contemporaneously and Later in Life? P.C. Giordano, W.D. Manning, M.A. Longmore, Adolescent Romantic Relationships: An Emerging Portrait of Their Nature and Developmental Significance. V.M. Murry, T.R. Hurt, S.M. Kogan, Z. Luo, Contextual Processes of Romantic Relationships: Plausible Explanations for Gender and Race Effects. A.R. Snyder, Risky and Casual Sexual Relationships Among Teens. W. Furman, L.S. Hand, The Slippery Nature of Romantic Relationships: Issues in Definition and Differentiation. Part IV: To What Extent Are Current Trends in Sexual and Romantic Relationships Problematic for Individuals, Families, and Society? What Are Effective Intervention Approaches at the Level of Practice, Program, and Policy? J. Manlove, K. Franzetta, S. Ryan, K. Moore, Adolescent Sexual Relationships, Contraceptive Consistency, and Pregnancy Prevention Approaches. V.J. Hotz, The Economic Approach to Modeling Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Empirical Implications. D.M. Upchurch, Y. Kusunoki, Adolescent Sexual Relationships and Reproductive Health Outcomes: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges. J. Manlove, S. Ryan, K. Franzetta, Sample Selection for Adolescent Sexual Relationships. M.L. Kan, A.C. Cares, From "Friends With Benefits" to "Going Steady": New Directions in Understanding Romance and Sex in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood.

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2006
The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties
By Alan Sica