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Social Trends in American Life assembles a team of leading researchers to provide unparalleled insight into how American social attitudes and behaviors have changed since the 1970s. Drawing on the General Social Survey--a social science project that has tracked demographic and attitudinal trends in the United States since 1972--it offers a window into diverse facets of American life, from intergroup relations to political views and orientations, social affiliations, and perceived well-being. Among the book's many important findings are the greater willingness of ordinary Americans to accord rights of free expressions to unpopular groups, to endorse formal racial equality, and to accept nontraditional roles for women in the workplaces, politics, and the family.

This chapter surveys the career and scholarship of James S. Coleman. It tracks scholarly usage of his work, with attention to references after 1995 and the subject areas in which its use is concentrated. At base a scholar of problems in social organization, Coleman made influential contributions that range across the sociology of education, policy research, mathematical sociology, network/structural analysis, and sociological theory. Works from several phases of Coleman's career are cited widely by scholars in sociology, education, economics, business/management, and other social science fields; during the past decade his conceptual work on social capital has been most influential. Coleman's widely debated Foundations of Social Theory is receiving increasing attention and has helped to establish a stable if limited niche for rational choice analysis within sociology.

Examines methods used by employers to locate, screen, & select new employees, drawing on data from the 1991 National Organizations Study. It is found that large establishments are more likely to recruit new employees through employment agencies, search for candidates for a longer period of time, & use tests more often. Further, differences in recruitment practices for different levels of the organization are found, with prestige positions most often filled through professional referrals & newspaper advertisments, & entailing more intense interviewing & reference-checking procedures than lesser positions. Sex differences are also found in occupations differing in sex composition, with typically female positions recruited through newspaper advertisement & employing less intense interviewing & testing procedures. Findings are consistent with the view that organizations use staffing methods that correspond to their available resources & anticipated risks & benefits associated with hiring decisions. Ambiguities in these findings & directions for future research are briefly considered. 6 Tables. D. M. Smith

The NOS survey data show that U.S. establishments use a variety of methods for publicizing the availability of job opportunities to potential workers. Newspaper advertisements and informal referrals from employees are used most frequently. Referrals are more often used together with other approaches than as a sole recruitment strategy; those establishments that rely exclusively on "network hiring" tend to be small, less formalized, and in the private sector. Organizations display strong proclivities to rely on the same approaches to recruitment for different types of employees, but there are occupationally related variations in recruiting techniques. Professional referrals and advertisements are more typical approaches for high-prestige occupations than for low ones, and some variations in recruitment practices are associated with occupational gender composition.