scholarly journals The Joiners: A Sociological Description of Voluntary Association Membership in the United States.

1962 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 562
Author(s):  
Joel B. Montague ◽  
Murray Hausknecht
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Voluntary Association Membership

Religion and American Public Life

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-110
Author(s):  
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Religious Polarization

In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?

Defining American Jewish Ethnicity

Prospects ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 387-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Dash Moore
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
Jewish Immigrants

The Child of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, American Jewish ethnicity grew from a complex synthesis of Jewish immigrant and American urban life. As the historian Timothy Smith observes, “That this nation's ethnic groups, viewed structurally, were made in America by voluntary association of newcomers has long been evident.” Yet nineteenth-century German Jewish immigrants to the United States, who pioneered in developing ethnic Jewish fraternal associations, elaborated a religious definition of Jewish group identity. American Jewish ethnicity as an ideology and social reality defining Jewish group life in the United States emerged in the years preceding World War II, when a native-born generation of Jews came of age. These second-generation Jews were descendants of the massive Eastern European immigration of 1880–1920, which peaked in 1906. Seeking to become fully American, second-generation Jews climbed out of lower-class jobs and poor immigrant neighborhoods. Norman Podhoretz, who moved from a lower-class section of New York City to an upper-middle-class one, writes that “one of the longest journeys in the world is the journey from Brooklyn to Manhattan — or at least from certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn to certain parts of Manhattan.”

Religion and American Public Life

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura R. Olson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Religious Polarization

In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?

The Revival of Organic Theory

1942 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-459
Author(s):  
Francis G. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Political Pluralism ◽  
The North ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Social Organism ◽  
Organic Theory

Theories of the nature of the political community vary with conditions. Just as political pluralism was a phase of the late mellowness of liberalism, so the organic theory of the state is suited for more heroic moments. When integral nationalism was discovered in the United States after the defeat of the South, it was not inappropriate that organic theories should have been supported in order to explain the place of the American nation in history. Nor can it be surprising that today some of the leaders of the United States are looking at the nation as a kind of social organism.If one reads with attention the words of President Lincoln during the early days of the Civil War, it can be seen that the Union was more than just a voluntary association of political communities. The states had their being within the Union, and the Union itself had given birth to the states. Even the history of Texas and its relation to the Union did not impress Lincoln as simply consensual, for if there was consent it was all on the side of Texas. Whatever liberty and authority the states possessed they derived from the Union, and not from any original powers of their own. When the Union became a symbol of organicity in the mind of the North, the earlier individualistic theory of the state was remote enough. The social contract, the consent of all to government, was suitable in the American Revolution, since protest was being made against the specific, arbitrary actions of the British government, animated it would seem by a total conception of Empire. To Lincoln, states, like individuals, were a part of the Union, and the Union might be broken neither by citizens nor by states.

scholarly journals A Cross-Cultural Examination of Lifelong Participation in Community Wind Bands Through the Lens of Organizational Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
Roger Mantie ◽  
Leonard Tan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Organizational Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Wind Bands ◽  
Education Profession

The purpose of this study was to investigate participant involvement in community wind bands through the lens of organizational theory to inform the music education profession about community wind bands as an “expressive” voluntary association with potential for lifelong participation. Twenty-eight informants were drawn from three community wind bands in the United States and four community wind bands in Singapore. Overall, responses between U.S. and Singapore informants shared many commonalities. Informants from both countries desired musical opportunities that aligned with their interests (incentives and commitment), viewed their participation as defined largely by the ensemble-conductor relationship (formal structures), and preferred rehearsing and performing under the direction of a competent and respectful conductor (leadership and authority). The diversity of bands from which informants were drawn points to the importance of an environment that supports a range of interests for lifelong participation.

scholarly journals Different Perspectives on Higher Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 727-731
Author(s):  
Shannon Dean ◽  
Amber Sevart
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Student Services ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
Student Service ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Similarities And Differences

After visiting four higher education institutions within Germany, reflections on the similarities and differences among the student services counterparts in Europe – both at institutional and federal levels are discussed. Studentenwerk serves as a voluntary association of Germany’s 58 student service organizations, known individually as Studentenwerke. This reflection explores the variety of student services offered in the United States and in Germany through these Studentewerke organizations.  Additionally, reflection on the  differences in the way higher education is viewed at a societal level is also explored.

Religion and American Public Life

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sehat
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Religious Polarization

In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?

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