Sociation Today The Official Journal  of The North Carolina Sociological Association: A Refereed Web-Based Publication ISSN 1542-6300 Editorial Board: Editor: George H. Conklin,  North Carolina  Central University Board: Richard Dixon,  UNC-Wilmington Chien Ju Huang,  North Carolina Central  University Ken Land,  Duke University Miles Simpson,  North Carolina Central  University Ron Wimberley,  N.C. State University Robert Wortham,  North Carolina  Central University

Volume 1, Number 1 Spring 2003 The North Carolina Sociological  Association: A National Model  for Sociology?      by Michael Wise Appalachian State University and Catherine Harris Wake Forest University  As one of the largest of the state sociological associations, North Carolina has dealt with many cutting edge issues--often long before these have become important to our regional and national associations. Examples include teaching issues such as dealing with student hostility in the classroom, career guidance and planning for students emerging from their undergraduate studies and, within the arena of legislative committees and administrative rules, turf battles with our cognate disciplines over "replaceability" issues such as the need for certification and the exclusive wording of some state job descriptions. Based on these experiences, we have argued that the state associations are in a better position than the regional or national associations to detect and deal with emerging discipline related issues. Indeed, as the old adage says, "all politics are local."

    To this end, the North Carolina Sociological Association is launching a new way to communicate among ourselves is launching a new way to communicate among ourselves as professional and with the public as members of the sociological neighborhood:  Sociation Today.  This is another first for us.  Sociation Today is the first the first peer-reviewed, Web-based journal sponsored by a state sociological association. Its goal is to enhance public outreach and to 'show the flag' to both the academic the non-academic community.  Sociation Today promises to publish solid academic research of interest to those concerned with the ways in which human behavior is influenced by the stresses and strains of our contemporary environment.

    Sociation Today as an instrument of the North Carolina Sociological Association continues a long tradition of innovation and service to our state and serves as another exemplar for other state sociological associations.  Several years ago, we examined state sociological associations, their activities, concerns and issues.  It seems appropriate here, as we launch our new endeavor to look at the problems and issues that representatives of the North Carolina Sociological Association perceive as important as compared to those of state associations in the south and of the nation as a whole.

    To investigate the needs and issues relevant to state associations we surveyed the officers and former officers of state sociological associations. A questionnaire was send to 139 present and past officers representing 26 state sociological associations in 32 states. The overall return rate for this sample was 41% for individuals and 84.6% for organizations. Of these, 33.3% of respondents were from the south and 21% of the southern respondents were from North Carolina.

    The first thing of interest is the characteristics of officers who responded to the survey. The officer corps for the North Carolina association is comparable to those of the south and the nation. Based on the sample, we have tended to be white, male, middle-aged, senior faculty from four-year and research institutions. This latter point is important. Among the comments we received was one that noted, "participation by the 'U's' is critical for the survival of the state association."  Those state associations that do not have the support of their four year and research universities often have difficulty sustaining interest and support among its membership. Like other successful state associations, we have also benefited form the perspectives and vitality brought forward by representatives and leaders from the community colleges. But, we, as are other state associations, less likely to have drawn our leadership from the secondary school representatives or the private sector.

    Our openness to all levels of the academic spectrum is reflected in our general membership. The NCSA has an estimated average 300 members. We are about twice the size of most other state associations. As with our leadership, we are predominantly white. Minorities are somewhat less likely to be members of the North Carolina association than in other state associations whether in or outside the South. About a third of our members identify themselves as minorities - a larger proportion than that for the nation (9.8%) or for the south as a whole (22.5%). We are 45% female compared to 43.3% for the nation and 43.9% for the south. We are 30% students, slightly higher that the national average (26%) but a bit lower than the south (34%). All in all, it appears that our membership is relatively diverse and inclusive.

    Tables 1 and 2 reflect assessments of issues of concern for state associations. Like the nation and the south, the issue of most concern for the North Carolina Association is attracting members (Table 1). We indeed rank this as our highest priority. While we also tend to identify the problems of recruiting officers and maintain finances as salient issues as do the national and southern associations. We see as additional priorities assessing the needs of the discipline and communication among members by "keeping the news letter going."

       With respect to concerns about teaching (Table 2), we are most likely to be concerned about the problems of sustaining enrollments, the related problems of encroachments of other disciplines and the techniques of teaching,

    How important is professional development?   The NCSA is somewhat less likely to provide opportunities to present research for students, faculty and other practitioners than the US or the south, but we tend to set a higher priority for recognizing and rewarding the research efforts of our students than either the nation or the south. In contrast to other associations we do not provide direct recognition of community service or teaching. Neither, at the time of the survey, did we provide opportunities for publication, nor did we set a high priority for workshops. As compared to other associations, we tend to set a high priority on communications among members. This is reflected in our concern for "keeping the newsletter going."  We were more likely to cite our newsletter, our regular meetings, our member directory and workshops as our means for sustaining communication among members. Unlike a number of other states, however, we do not use departmental representatives, social events or employment bulletins to facilitate contacts among our membership.

    One of the features of the North Carolina Sociological Association is its activist stance with respect to issues related to the discipline. Among theses issues, the North Carolina Association has been involved in decisions related to professional certification, curriculum standardization and academic freedom. To a greater degree than either the national average or the south, we have been politically involved and have been active in communicating the content of the discipline to the public. We have used brochures, our associations with the public education system and formally constituted education, outreach and legislative liaison committees to "show the flag" to then non-academic public.

    To summarize, the North Carolina Sociological Association, as compared to the nation and to the south emerges as an inclusive organization, attentive to many voices. We are alert to the changing needs of the discipline and believe in the value of sociology as an instrument of education and motivator of social change. We are particularly concerned for our next generation of sociologists and the welfare of our fellow members. (As one member said, theca membership directory is the most valuable item in her bag.)

    The North Carolina Association has tradition of being a leader among the state associations It has set an example by combining public outreach, networking and sensitivity to the identification of troublesome political issues for other state associations.  It fulfils the mission of the state sociological association in a unique way by clarifying the image of the discipline and developing models for the meaningful practice of sociology in the context of social responsibility. It represents an important part of the sociological tradition of activism at the local level and that of a critical strategic link between academic sociology and the needs of our consumers. And, it is in this tradition that we celebrate the launching of Sociation Today.

	% Identifying				% Priority 1 or 2
	US	NonSouth	South	NC	US	NonSouth	South	NC
Attracting Members	89.5	89.5	89.5	100.0	85.9	86.9	84.2	75.0
Recruiting Officers	54.4	57.9	47.4	100.0	24.6	29.0	15.8	0.0
Maintaining Finances	42.2	42.1	52.1	50.0	19.3	15.8	26.3	0.0
Assessing Needs	31.6	28.9	36.8	50.0	7.0	5.3	10.5	25.0
Tracking Members	29.8	31.6	26.3	25.0	12.3	10.5	15.8	0.0
Program Evaluation	19.3	23.7	10.5	0.0	1.8	2.6	0.0	0.0
Keeping Newsletter Going	9.6	10.5	27.7	25.0	17.3	15.8	15.8	25.0

© 2003 North Carolina Sociological Association

    The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of accessibility (street networks) and opportunity factors (land usages) on property crime among street segments in Raleigh, North Carolina. The analytical model for this research is patterned after the Beavon, Brantingham, and Brantingham (1994) study (hereafter referred to as "the Beavon study") of property crimes among Vancouver, Canada street segments. This study expands the scope of the Beavon study by including a measure of guardianship and analyzing additional opportunity measures (accounts of 10 business types and 4 residential land usages).

    The data assembled for this research contain two parts: Raleigh police crime incident reports and Wake County tax assessor information from 1993. We aggregated addresses from the tax information and police incidents to street segments (a segment is located between street intersections and includes addresses from both sides of the street). Out of 12,606 possible Raleigh street segments, a random sample of 20% (N=2,606) was selected for a street networking analysis (analysis of turns and flow). Exit ramps, freeways, and "no address" (street segments without street numbers) segments are deleted, leaving a final total of 2,207 street segments. The dependent variable, a count of property crimes per street segment, includes bicycle theft, auto theft, theft from auto, property theft, willful damage, and breaking & entering.

    To explore the connection between accessibility and crime, we used two street networking variables (i.e., flow and turns) to measure accessibility. The supposition is that less complicated and easily accessible street segments will have more criminal activity while street segments with limited access are expected to be less criminogenic. Complex street networks with limited access, such as dead-ends and cul-de-sacs, restrict the amount of through traffic in the area thus limiting exposure to criminal opportunity. Motivated offenders are less likely to know about potential targets in these restricted areas and are less likely to consider the areas as targets. On the other hand, streets with heavier volumes of traffic expose more people to criminal opportunities located on the segment (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984).

    An accessible street segment will have many turns or points of access into the segment. Street segments with four or more entries are considered more accessible than street segments with one entry into the segment. For our sample of Raleigh street segments, the number of turns into a single street segment ranges from one to eight. Since only nine segments fall under the categories of seven and eight, these values are collapsed into the newly created category of "six or more" turns. The categories of one and two are also combined for the analysis since there are only eleven segments with only one turn. Flow through a street segment is measured from one to four. "Ones" represent less traveled residential roads and "fours" represent major arteries.

    Regardless of accessibility, an area will not be victimized unless criminal opportunity exists. Similar to the Beavon study, we used the number of commercial establishments on each segment, a dummy variable for whether or not there is a middle or high school on a street segment, and the average value of any apartments on each block (Beavon et al. 1994:134). We included 14 additional land use measures (i.e., various residential or business parcels) to better understand specific criminal opportunities.

    Targets that are perceived as guarded by potential offenders are less likely to be attacked because the risks seem greater (Felson and Cohen 1980). We used owner-occupied (i.e. whether the owner lives or occupies the building) as a measure of guardianship. The rational behind using an account of owner occupation is that since owners have an investment in their properties, they are more likely to take aggressive measures to ward off potential offenders by taking protective measures of their homes (locks, security devices, alarms, etc...) as well as "keeping an eye on" the street for suspicious or undesirable behaviors.

    We used a multiple classification analysis of covariances to explore the effects of street networking patterns on total property crime. Table 1 shows how the mean of each covariate deviates from the grand mean of 3.18 property crimes per street segment. As found in the Beavon study, property crime increases as the number of turns and flow of a segment increases. Translating from the unadjusted deviation scores, the influence of turns into a segment, ranges from an average of 1.59 property crimes for segments with two turns to an average of 6.52 property crime incidents for streets with six or more turns (grand mean minus unadjusted deviation). Calculation of the deviations from the mean for road size, as measured by flows, shows that on average, feeder streets have 1.86 property crime incidents while major thoroughfares average 16.71 crime incidents.

    The second column supports the interaction affects of the two accessibility factors by adjusting for the independent effects of the other variable. Although the magnitude of the influence is reduced, the hierarchial pattern is still present -- the greater the turns and flows, the higher the likelihood of crime (ranges are from 2.75 crimes for two turns to 5.56 for six turns; and 2 crimes for minor arteries to 16.4 for major arteries). The last column adjusts for both the main effects and the covariates. The same linear pattern is maintained, but the impact of each individual factor is greatly reduced. Although weaker, turns and flows still predict property crimes net of opportunity factors. Turns are reduced by the adjustment for flow more than flow is reduced by the adjustment for turns (column 2). The covariates, however, have more of an impact on flow (reduces the adjusted mean more) than on turns.

    We used regression equations to further analyze the influence of accessibility and opportunity factors. By logging (natural logs are used throughout) both independent and dependent count variables, the relationship is linearized, in that, a proportionate increase in the independent variable is associated with a proportionate increase in the dependent variable. A dummy variable (MISSING TAX DATA) is used to account for missing cases.

    The reference group for the regression models consists of one-family homes. The literature suggests there should be a negative correlation between the number of single family dwellings and crime (Roncek 1981). The negative relationship is expected because a predominance of single family dwellings suggests that people in the area are more likely to know each other and possibly work together to control unwanted criminal behavior (Stark 1987). Other types of residential use should positively differ from the reference category.

    Table 2 reports regression estimates in which the independent variables are entered in blocks to explain the variation in total property crime among Raleigh street segments. In equation 1, the "number of places" count variable is entered before the turns and flows measures to control for the density of activity in an area. The criminal opportunities provided by this clustering of places are independent of the accessibility of an area as determined by the turns and flow variables. The presence of places positively correlates with crime and helps explain up to 33% of the variation of property crime among street segments. The most likely interpretation is that the number of places indicates the number of possible burglary and damageable targets, the amount of objects that could be stolen, and the number of people who regularly visit a street segment. We also find that segments with missing tax data have less crime than the segments with tax assessor information.

    Equation 2 introduces the accessibility measures, as advocated by the Beavon study to explain additional variance. Both measures significantly affect crime in the expected direction. The greater the access (i.e., more turns and higher flow), the more likely the crime. The accessibility measures explain an additional 11% of the variation suggesting that accessibility of an area has an impact on which street segments become targets of property crime.

    The guardianship measure (owner-occupied) is entered in the third equation. The initial factors remain significant as established in the previous equations. The owner-occupied variable negatively impacts crime as expected. Owners may be more likely to take steps to ward off crime in order to protect their investments. The addition of the owner-occupied variable increases the explained variance by ten percent.

    Equation 4 enters the opportunity measures used in the Beavon study. The number of middle or high schools and the number of commercial establishments on each segment significantly contributes to crime incidents on a street segment while average value of apartments does not significantly contribute to our understanding of property crime among street segments. Since offenders are typically school age, the existence of a middle or high school on a segment represents a gathering of potentially motivated offenders and increases the risk of property crime to the area. Having the greatest impact is the presence of commercial establishments on a segment. These measures help explain an additional 6% of the crime variation among Raleigh street segments.

    As seen in equation 5 of table 2, the additional land use measures from the tax assessor file significantly add 4% of the explained variation, a meaningful effect considering that these variables are entered into the equation last. All of the land use variables, except for rooming houses, youth places and vacant lots, are correlated with crime. These measures take away some of the explanatory power of the "places" variable (as noticed by a drop in the regression coefficients), but offer a more specific breakdown of the importance of the "type" of place.

    These measures identify what type of buildings are more predisposed to crime. All non-onefamily residents significantly increases crime with garden apartments having the greatest impact. Of the commercial establishments, shopping centers and storage facilities (warehouses) seem to be the strong catalysts for crime compared to the other factors. This supports other research studies (e.g., Felson 1987; Engstad 1980), which also find that shopping centers provide a lot of criminal opportunity because of the availability of cash, merchandise, people and automobiles.

    A total of 63% of the variance in property crime is explained when all accessibility and opportunity variables are entered into the equation. Opportunity and accessibility measures are very strong predictors for such a small unit of analysis. By explaining a large proportion of the variance in property crime, at a small level of aggregation, we are able to demonstrate that crime is a nonrandom event and is very predictable.

    This research has established not only that crime patterns exist, but that crime is more often found in accessible areas with commercial land use. Shopping centers, storage places, schools, service stations, and restaurants tend to attract criminals along with legitimate customers to the area. Hence, commercial centers are good for both business and crime. The type of residential land use also has an effect on property crime. The more housing units on a street segment, the greater the property crime risk. Additionally, street segments without a predominance of owner occupancy are more likely to be victimized.

    The implications of this research are important in being able to identify "hot spot" areas. If certain areas or even certain places of a city are considered "hot spots" then efforts should be taken towards making these areas less criminogenic by reducing accessibility opportunity and/or increasing guardianship factors.

*p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001
 

Beavon, D., Brantingham P.L. & Brantingham P.J. (1994). The Influence of Street Networks On the Patterning of Property Offenses Pp. 149-163 in Crime Prevention Studies, Vol II., edited by Ronald V. Clarke. New York: Willow Tree Press.

Engstad, P.A. "Environmental Opportunities and the Ecology of Crime." pp. 203-219, in Crime in Canadian Society, edited by Silverman, R.A. and Teevan, J. Tornoto:Butterworth & Co.

Felson, M. and L. Cohen (1980). "Human Ecology and Crime: A Routine Activity Approach." Human Ecology 8:389-406.

Felson, M (1987) "Routine Activities and Crime Prevention In the Developing Metropolis" Criminology 25:911-931.

Roncek, D.W. (1981) "Dangerous Places: Crime and Residential Environment." Social Forces 60:74-96.

Stark, R. (1987) Deviant Places: A Theory of the Ecology of Crime." Criminology, 25,893-909.
 
 
 

© 2003 North Carolina Sociological Association.

    The Grateful Dead, a North American rock band that stopped performing in 1995 after thirty years together, was as well known for its fans as it was for its music. Deadheads, as these fans are called, traveled from venue to venue to hear the band play, sometimes staying "on tour" with them for extended periods of time. Although there is still a large concentration of Deadheads in the San Francisco Bay area where the band originally performed, there are now Deadheads everywhere in the United States and in many foreign countries as well.

    The community claims at least a half million members (Adams & Rosen-Grandon, 2002). It is not only remarkable among music communities because of the length of time it has survived, how geographically dispersed it is, and how large it is, it is also noteworthy because of the length and intensity of involvement of individual fans. When the band stopped playing together as the Grateful Dead, the average Deadhead had been attending their concerts for 10 or 11 years, and more than half of them had traveled at least 800 miles to attend a show (Adams, 1998b). In 2003, almost eight years after the death of Jerry Garcia, the band's lead guitarist, Deadheads remain loyal to the community and continue to attend concerts given by surviving members.

    During the Grateful Dead's heyday, the media generally depicted Deadheads as lazy, unwashed throwbacks to the 60's who used illegal drugs, dressed unconventionally, and valued collective experiences more than material success. Paterline (2000) found that there were variations in how the media depicted Deadheads in the 40 American cities where the Dead played in 1989 and 1990, but the coverage almost everywhere was more negative than positive. As a result, the cultural mainstream stereotyped and stigmatized these fans. This paper discusses the type of stigma that is applied to Deadheads, documents that not all Deadheads fit the stereotype that served as the basis of this stigmata, and describes the consequences of stigma for Deadheads who do not fit the stereotype.

    The background data were collected as part of the Deadhead Community Project (Adams, 1998a) and include observational notes from 91 Grateful Dead shows and nine Jerry Garcia Band concerts (Jerry Garcia also had his own band) between 1989 and 1995; notes from Deadhead social gatherings and concerts at which survivors of the Grateful Dead, jam bands, and Dead cover bands performed between 1995 and 2003; and reports of 21 students on each of four Dead shows during the summer of 1989. Also available are interviews with key members of the Deadhead community and of the Grateful Dead organization. When Jerry Garcia died, approximately 150 Deadheads wrote letters and email messages about their experience mourning for him. All of these data, both observational reports and interview transcripts, have been processed, coded, and analyzed using Ethnograph 5.0 text analysis software (Seidel, 1998). In addition, the available data include a file drawer of letters and more than 21 megabytes of electronic correspondence from Deadheads; downloaded online conversations among Deadheads from rec.music.gdead, an electronic discussion list, for 13 years beginning with the summer of 1989; and artifacts, photos, video tapes, audio tapes, Deadhead media, and mainstream media about Deadheads.

    Although a scientifically-correct survey of the Deadhead community has not been conducted, researchers, magazine editors, and book authors have asked volunteers to fill out questionnaires and participate in interviews on the topic. The results of these surveys are fairly consistent, and make it possible to describe the characteristics of the Deadhead community with some degree of confidence. The surveys conducted as part of this project include three mail questionnaires with open-ended questions (total N=177) between 1990 and 1996; 77 open-ended interviews conducted by students during the summer of 1989; and a questionnaire with closed-ended questions students distributed in the parking lots of Dead shows during the summer of 1987 (N=286). In addition, these data are supplemented results of a survey distributed by Grateful Dead Productions in 22 cities during Furthur Festival, a series of concerts at which surviving members of the band performed as the Other Ones during the summer of 1998 (N=6020), findings from a survey sponsored by TDK of the readers of Relix magazine (Dobbin/Bolgia Associates, 1994), which started out as a tape-trading newsletter and became a fanzine (N=600), and information from several surveys of the readers of Deadbase, a book which was published annually beginning in 1987 and includes song lists for each show and reviews of many. Results reported here include some from the 1988 Deadbase III Questionnaire (N=359), the 1989 Deadbase IV Questionnaire (N=185), the 1990 Deadbase V Feedback (N=129), the 1991 Deadbase VI Survey (N=229), and the 1992 Deadbase VII Survey (N=229).

    As Goffman (1963) observed, a stigma has its origins in a discrepancy between opinions about the way people should live their lives and perceptions of the way they do. Some people are stigmatized because of physical deformities or because of character flaws (Goffman, 1963). Regardless of their own individual characteristics, others are assigned what Goffman called a "tribal stigma." In other words, expectations regarding individual behavior and evaluations of a person's moral worth are extrapolated from impressions of the larger group to which the individual belongs.

    The cultural mainstream applies a tribal stigma to Deadheads because they do not appear to be what they should be. The majority of Deadheads have opportunities to occupy privileged positions in our society. Observations at shows reveal that they tend to be Caucasian men from middle and upper-middle class backgrounds. Surveys results show that between 63% and 91% of Deadheads were male, and that the vast majority of Deadheads had at least one parent who was a professional or held a white collar job. Given these demographic characteristics, outsiders were justified in expecting Deadheads to be successful, well-groomed, law-abiding citizens rather than unemployed, lazy, drug-users as they were depicted in the press.

    As with all stereotypes, there is some truth to the way Deadheads were portrayed in the media. They sometimes wear subcultural dress such as tie-dyed shirts, Guatemalan pants, home-sewn calico jumpers and halters, and Indian gauze skirts. When they are "on tour," they do not always bathe. Many Deadheads use marijuana and other psychedelic drugs or accept their use by others. The cultural mainstream interprets these behaviors of some Deadheads as signs that they reject the Protestant work ethic, a major North American value (Williams, 1951).

    The irony is, however, that most Deadheads are successful and hardworking by mainstream standards. Rather than reject the mainstream value of individual material success, they supplement it with an appreciation of collective experientialism. Although their hippie forebears are often described as members of a "counterculture," Deadheads comprise a "subculture" (Hall, et al., 1976). The vast majority of Deadheads eventually obtain college degrees, and many of them finish graduate school (see Table 1). Although some employed Deadheads are pink or blue collar workers, most of them are professionals or fill white collar positions (see Table 2). Their level of income varies, but between 15% and 20% of samples including student Deadheads earned $50,000 or more per year (see Table 3). Even the young "tourheads" who made their living selling food and hand-crafted items in the parking lot worked hard to support themselves and their "show families" (Sheptoski, 2000). Despite these facts, the negative stereotype of Deadheads prevails.

    Tribal stigmata generally apply to people who share ethnic origin (Goffman, 1963). Race and nationality, which could each form the basis for a tribal stigma, are generally ascribed characteristics. In contrast, membership in the Deadhead community is "achieved" or voluntary. Research shows that reactions to voluntary membership in a stigmatized group is likely to evoke a more negative reaction from outsiders than membership in a group in which membership is not voluntary (Rush, 1998; Weiner, Perry, & Magnusson, 1988). When participation and identity is voluntary, as with the Deadhead community, the idea is that people who do not want to experience stigma can simply end or hide their affiliation. It is thus fair to expect that the stigma assigned to Deadheads who choose to make their membership in the community known to others is relatively potent.

    The stigma was particularly salient for older Deadheads who "should have grown up" and "gotten lives" (Adams & Rosen-Grandon, 2002). The stereotypical rock music fan is college aged, but this is not so with Deadheads. According to the Terrapin Station survey, which was conducted in 1998, two and a half years after the Dead stopped playing together, Deadheads' average age was about 32 years and most of them were in mid-life. Only a small percentage of Deadheads were younger than 22 years old (15.7%). Almost a quarter of them were more than 40 years of age (24.4%).

   Goffman distinguished between the "discredited" (those whose community membership is known) and the "discreditable" (those for whom exposure is a possibility). For the "out" Deadhead, tribal stigma can result in actual discrimination. For example, police profiles for cars to stop without reason include those with Dead stickers on them (Eagan, 1990). Professional Deadheads dressed to attend shows have reported such incidents as being refused seats in restaurants, having guns trained on them while shopping in convenience stores, and not being allowed to take guests to their rooms in expensive hotels.

   For the "closeted" Deadhead the issue is concealment and "passing." Of course, Deadheads might be "out" in one context and "closeted" in another. The issue is whether "[t]o display or not to display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where" (Goffman, 1963, p. 42). Another approach could be to "cover" how intensely involved the Deadhead is in the community. In both cases, whether entirely closeted or partially out, the need for concealment diminishes the identity of the Deadhead and limits how free they feel to be themselves. For example, when Jerry Garcia died, many closeted Deadheads reported depression resulting from fear of mourning publically (Adams, 1995).

   The Deadhead community is not the only stigmatized community in which many participants are hardworking, law-abiding, professionals (e.g., bikers). Furthermore, many of the problems Deadheads reported are similar to problems reported by members of ascribed stigmatized groups (e.g., ethnic groups). This case study of Deadheads demonstrates that individual achievement is not a sufficient anecdote to tribal stigma. Even for people successful by mainstream standards, the potential consequences of membership in a stigmatized community include discrimination and the diminishment of identity.
 
 

Adams, R. G. 1998a. Inciting Sociological Thought by Studying the Deadhead Community: Engaging Publics in Dialogue." Social Forces 77(1):1-25.

Adams, R. G. 1998b. Terrapin Station. Final report for an audience development study sponsored by Grateful Dead Productions.

Adams, R. G. 1995. We haven't left the planet yet. Pp. 32-37 in Garcia: A grateful celebration. New York: DDN, Inc.

Adams, R.G., & Rosen-Grandon, J. 2002. Mixed Marriage: Music Community Membership as a Source of Marital Strain. In Robin Goodwin & Duncan Cramer (Eds.), Inappropriate Relationships, Lawrence Erlbaum.

Dobbin/Bolgia Associates. 1994. TDK Survey. [Memo provided by T. Brown, Editor, Relix: Music for the Mind].

Eagan, J. M. 1990. A Speeder's Guide to Avoiding Tickets. New York: Avon Books.

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall.

Hall, S., Clarke, J., Jefferson, T., & Roberts, B. (Eds.). 1976. Resistence through rituals. Hutchinson.

Paterline, B. 2000. Community reaction to Deadhead subculture. Pp. 183-201 in Adams, R. G. & Sardiello, R. (Eds.), Deadhead social science: You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know. AltaMira.

Rush, L. L. 1998. Affective reactions to multiple social stigmas. Journal of Social Psychology, 138(4):421-430.

Scott, J., Dolgushkin, M., & Nixon, S. 1989-1993. Deadbase III-VII: The complete guide to Grateful Dead song lists. Published by the authors.

Seidel, John. 1998. The ethnograph v5.0: A user's guide. Thousands Oaks, CA: Scolari, Sage Publications Software, Inc.

Sheptoski, M. 2000. Vending at Dead shows: The Bizarre Bazaar. Pp. 157-181 in Adams, R. G. & Sardiello, R. (Eds.), Deadhead social science: You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know. AltaMira.

Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., Magnusson, J. 1988. An attributional analysis of reactions to stigma. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(5):738-748.

Williams, R. 1951. American society: A sociological interpretation. Knopf.

© 2003 by Rebecca Adams

Background: Many journals have book reviews. However, in the sciences the most common form of communication is not books, which are out of date when published, but articles. Many books are based on articles and enlarged often beyond what is required. However, the opposite is also true: there are many important articles which address basic issues in the social sciences that have not been made into books, but perhaps should be. In order to draw attention to important articles which address basic issues which sociologists are interested in, Sociation Today will review articles rather than books.

Our first review article deals with the core concept of size of organization and its effects on human behavior. The author of the article concludes as city size goes up, civic participation goes down.

City Size and Civic Involvement in Metropolitan America by J. Eric Oliver in American Political Science Review Vol. 94, No. 2, June 2000, pp. 361-373.

    Urban density in the United States has been declining at least since 1910 when the electric street car made it possible for people to commute up to about 12 miles in one hour. Using census data, Oliver shows that Americans today live in small to medium-size cities or ‘places’ within larger or more densely settled urban areas. "Since 1950, the proportion living in metropolitan areas has risen from 57% to 75%. Yet, proportionally, fewer Americans reside in large cities: Less than 19% currently live in cities of more than 250,000, compared to 23% in 1950; 56% now live in metropolitan places smaller than 250,000, compared to 34% in 1950. (p. 361)." Dahl and Tufte (1973) have gone so far as to ask if there is not an optimal city size in the modern world: not too big and not too small,  maybe somewhere between 50,000 and 250,000.

    The movement of the American population to smaller units of course has been widely condemned by traditional elites in the United States. The charge is frequently made that the suburbanization of the population has resulted in fragmentation and boredom of the population, turning us into mindless conformers too weak not to be swayed developers and the mass media. They say we lack choice, and Americans would prefer to live in the largest cities if given something called 'choice.'

    On the other side of the debate, early sociologists such as Louis Wirth (1969) have argued that large cities result in loss of bonds that exist between neighbors in smaller communities. For Wirth, size, density and heterogenity overwhelm the individual, causing people to withdraw from each other. Experiments done in the 1970s, for example, do show that urbanites are in fact less likely to get involved when someone needs help, be that help minor, such as asking directions, or major, such as calls for help when one is being attacked in public.

    Oliver joins this debate by asking about civic involvement in modern America by measuring four aspects of civic life and looking at their relationship to community size. The four measures are:

• Contacting local officials
• Attending organizational meetings
• Attending community board meetings
• Voting in local elections.

    Despite all the controls, the findings are quite clear: "Controlling for other individual and city-level characteristics does not alter the generally negative relationship between civic participation and city size (p. 366)." Comparing the differences between the largest and smallest places, Oliver finds that "…the likelihood of contacting local officials drops by 16 percentage points, attending organizational meetings by 8 percentage points, attending community board meetings by 18 percentage points, and voting in local elections by .14 points on a five-point frequency scale…. (p. 366)."

    Even more interesting, however, is the lack of association between community size and the size of the metropolitan area in which it is located. Suburban residents of New York City as just as likely to participate in civic life as are those of a small city in Texas, not near a very large city. "Despite the fact that boundaries in many metropolitan areas are invisible amid a continuous urban sprawl, they nevertheless influence the behavior of the behavior of the residents within them (p. 371)."

    Tom Hayden (1996), Los Angeles mayoral candidate, wrote that "To end the alienation from government that is so prevalent in society today…the answer is not busting up a big city into a lot of small cities. You slice baloney, you get baloney." Oliver finds this quote ironic, because small places do have fewer signs of alienation. But in other work, Oliver has also found that economically segregated places are less likely to engage in civic activities. Since ‘busting up’ cities is not an option in the real world, Oliver does not pursue this point.

    In conclusion, even though the patterns are fairly complex, the effect of city size on civic participation still remains clear: as city size goes up, civic participation goes down. While classic theory did not made specific references to what aspects of city life would change as size increases, Oliver has shown that in general the old theories hold quite well in predicting that city size has an important influence on human behavior.

Dahl, Robert and Edward Tufte. 1973. Size and Democracy. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford  University Press.

Hayden, Tom. 1996. Quoted in the New York Times, May 29, 1996, page A10. Cited by Oliver (p. 361).

Wirth, Louis [1938] 1969. "Urbanism as a Way of Life." In Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities, ed. Richard Sennett. New York: Appleton-Centry-Crofts: Pp. 67-83.

© 2003 North Carolina Sociological Association.

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