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Adolescents under Pressure
A New Durkheimian Framework for Understanding Adolescent Suicide in a
Cohesive Community

     Anna S. Muellera?
     Seth Abrutynb

     aUniversity of Chicago
     bUniversity of Memphis

     Anna S. Mueller, Department of Comparative Human Development,
University of Chicago, Office 103, 1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL
60637 E-mail: AMueller{at}uchicago.edu

Abstract

Despite the profound impact Durkheim’s Suicide has had on the social
sciences, several enduring issues limit the utility of his insights. With
this study, we offer a new Durkheimian framework for understanding suicide
that addresses these problems. We seek to understand how high levels of
integration and regulation may shape suicide in modern societies. We draw
on an in-depth, qualitative case study (N = 110) of a cohesive community
with a serious adolescent suicide problem to demonstrate the utility of
our approach. Our case study illustrates how the lives of adolescents in
this highly integrated community are intensely regulated by the local
culture, which emphasizes academic achievement. Additionally, the town’s
cohesive social networks facilitate the spread of information, amplify the
visibility of actions and attitudes, and increase the potential for swift
sanctions. This combination of cultural and structural factors generates
intense emotional reactions to the prospect of failure among adolescents
and an unwillingness to seek psychological help for adolescents’ mental
health problems among both parents and youth. Ultimately, this case
illustrates (1) how high levels of integration and regulation within a
social group can render individuals vulnerable to suicide and (2) how
sociological research can provide meaningful and unique insights into
suicide prevention.

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Varieties of American Popular Nationalism

     Bart Bonikowskia?
     Paul DiMaggiob

     aHarvard University
     bNew York University

     Bart Bonikowski, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, 636
William James Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138 E-mail:
bonikowski{at}fas.harvard.edu

Abstract

Despite the relevance of nationalism for politics and intergroup
relations, sociologists have devoted surprisingly little attention to the
phenomenon in the United States, and historians and political
psychologists who do study the United States have limited their focus to
specific forms of nationalist sentiment: ethnocultural or civic
nationalism, patriotism, or national pride. This article innovates, first,
by examining an unusually broad set of measures (from the 2004 GSS)
tapping national identification, ethnocultural and civic criteria for
national membership, domain-specific national pride, and invidious
comparisons to other nations, thus providing a fuller depiction of
Americans’ national self-understanding. Second, we use latent class
analysis to explore heterogeneity, partitioning the sample into classes
characterized by distinctive patterns of attitudes. Conventional
distinctions between ethnocultural and civic nationalism describe just
about half of the U.S. population and do not account for the unexpectedly
low levels of national pride found among respondents who hold restrictive
definitions of American nationhood. A subset of primarily younger and
well-educated Americans lacks any strong form of patriotic sentiment; a
larger class, primarily older and less well educated, embraces every form
of nationalist sentiment. Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics
and partisan identification, these classes vary significantly in attitudes
toward ethnic minorities, immigration, and national sovereignty. Finally,
using comparable data from 1996 and 2012, we find structural continuity
and distributional change in national sentiments over a period marked by
terrorist attacks, war, economic crisis, and political contention.


   Barry Wellman

    A vision is just a vision if it's only in your head
    Step by step, link by link, putting it together
                  Streisand/Sondheim
  _______________________________________________________________________
   NetLab Network FRSC INSNA Founder
   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman twitter: @barrywellman
   NETWORKED: The New Social Operating System Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman
                        http://amzn.to/zXZg39
   _______________________________________________________________________

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