Volume 6, Issue 4

Addressed to the theme of continuity in modernizing change, a prior paper argued for invariance in society’s legitimacy code of authority since the historical stage of social evolution. In the spirit of Dürkheim this effort completes the argument by: a) presenting facts suggestive of cross-societally variant types of individualisms; b) showing how a search for individual autonomy and the increasing demands to legitimate power reinforce each other; and c) suggesting that modernization does not involve change in authority codes but rather growth in internal coherence of all authority relations through the spread of nation-specific authority codes from the governmental into other institutional spheres of society.

The validity of theoretical constructs, a problem which is mainly dealt with in psychological test theory but which is also relevant for sociological questions, is analyzed with regard to its epistemological basis, i.e. Carnap’s contextual model. The concept of construct validity thus comprises two aspects: (a) the validity of the indicators which are used for measuring the dimension of reality, i.e. the question as to whether the dimension under consideration is adequately represented by the indicators;(b) the validity of the construct itself, i.e. the question as to whether the construct - as a scientist’s conjecture - implies an empirically and theoretically meaningful hypothesis. The discussion of the various types of validity shows (1) that the problem of the empirically and theoretically meaningful construct can be solved by means of a criterion of prognostic relevance, and (2) that the construct validity is generally tested according to the falsification model of theory testing. Zusammenfassung Das vor allem in der psychologischen Testtheorie behandelte Problem der Gültigkeit theoretischer Konstrukte, das auch für soziologische Fragestellungen von Bedeutung ist, wird unter Bezug auf die dem Konzept der Konstruktvalidität zugrundehegende wissenschafttheoretische Position, das Zweisprachenmodell Carnaps, analysiert. Das Konzept der Konstruktvalidität läßt sich dabei in zwei Komponenten aufspalten: (a) die Validität der Indikatoren, die zur Messung der vom Konstrukt angezielten Realitätsdimension herangezogen werden, d.h. die Frage, ob die ins Auge gefaßte Dimension adäquat von den Indikatoren erfaßt wird; (b) die Validität des theoretischen Konstrukts selbst, d.h. die Frage, ob das Konstrukt, das ja eine Erfindung des Wissenschaftlers darstellt, eine empirisch und theoretisch sinnvolle Hypothese impliziert. Die Diskussion der verschiedenen Validitätsarten ergibt, (1) daß die Frage, ob das Konstrukt selbst empirisch und theoretisch sinnvoll ist, mittels des Kriteriums der prognostischen Relevanz beantwortet werden kann, (2) daß die Überprüfung der Konstruktvalidität allgemein nach dem Falsifikationsmodell der Theorieüberprüfung erfolgt.

Our purpose here is to discuss the concept of social structure and to describe a mathematical framework for its study. We will argue that for these purposes, a potentially fruitful representation of social structure can be obtained using certain stochastic network processes. We concentrate on the structural properties of elementary, social relation as a first step towards understanding how structure in social relations arises and evolves.

Using data from an interview study of 600 Greek, Italian, and Turkish workers and a control sample of 200 Germans that has been conducted in Mannheim in 1975, it is investigated whether the duration of foreign workers’ residence in West Germany correlates with (a) an improvement of their living and work conditions (‚material integration’) and (b) the adoption of bourgeois ideologies (‚ideological integration’) or, rather, the development of class-conscious attitudes. The findings demonstrate that even long-term residence in West Germany does not lead to a notable material or ideological integration of foreign workers: their material conditions remain worse than those of the German lower class; poor material conditions lead to apathetic adaption. Zusammenfassung Mit Hilfe von Daten aus einer 1975 in Mannheim durchgeführten Befragung von 600 griechischen, italienischen und türkischen Arbeitern sowie eines Kontroll-Samples von 200 Deutschen wird untersucht, ob sich mit längerer Aufenthaltsdauer (a) die Wohn- und Arbeitssituation ausländischer Arbeiter verbessert und sich damit ‚materielle Integration‘ anzeigt und (b) der Anteil ausländischer Arbeiter erhöht, der bürgerliche Anschauungen vertritt und damit ideologisch integriert wird, oder eher die Verbreitung klassenbewußter Einstellungen zunimmt. Die Analyse zeigt, daß ausländische Arbeiter auch bei längerer Aufenthaltsdauer (zehn Jahre und mehr) weder materiell noch ideologisch in nennenswertem Umfang integriert werden: sie bleiben in fast jeder Hinsicht schlechter gestellt selbst als die deutsche Unterschicht; mäßige materielle Verhältnisse führen bei langer Aufenthaltsdauer zu resignativer Anpassung.

This paper focuses attention on three aspects of deviation from societal norms: 1. collective deviance as a result of structural constraints which are necessarily involved in differentiation processes of highly complex societies; 2. the emergence of deviant groups as a strategy of adaptation to anomie; and 3. the question whether offensive collective deviance is engendered by societal reactions to primary deviation. Following Merton and Dunphy, the form and consequences of primary deviation of groups are shown to be contingent upon differential opportunities, assets and control power of the group. Depending upon positive or negative feedback-processes between individual, group, and secondary normative systems four ideal types of groups can be distinguished: conform, deviant, generative and regressive groups. Deviant groups are characterized by „defensive structuring“ if they passively negate the dominant values and norms. They become offensive groups if they actively defy societal norms and if their deviance touches functional indispensabilities. My hypothesis is that extensiveness and intensity of state control plays an important part in creating offensive groups.