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Value Differences and Value Consensus by Socioeconomic Levels Author(s): Richard F. Larson and Sara Smith Sutker Source: Social Forces, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Jun., 1966), pp. 563-569 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2575092 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 01:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.78.115 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 01:58:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Value Differences and Value Consensus by Socioeconomic Levels

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Value Differences and Value Consensus by Socioeconomic LevelsAuthor(s): Richard F. Larson and Sara Smith SutkerSource: Social Forces, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Jun., 1966), pp. 563-569Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2575092 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 01:58

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RESEARCH NOTES

VALUE DIFFERENCES AND VALUE CONSENSUS BY SOCIOECONOMIC LEVELS*

RICHARD F. LARSON SARA SMITH SUTKER Oklahoma State University

Sspecific value differences among socioeco- nomic levels have been well documented.' The study of values among classes has

been concerned chiefly with discovering varia- tions and describing them in a context of dif- ferentiation. In a study by one of the authors conducted in a midwestern city,2 value differ- ences and differences in evaluating occupations were examined. Specifically, socioeconomic

status and ethnicity were analyzed for their im- pact on health knowledge, values, and practices, with emphasis on discovering variations in values; one set consisting of 14 desiderata, the second set consisting of 14 occupations.3 Each of these, although part of the larger study, was a separate and self-contained entity. Each was designed to contain at least one item directly related to health and medicine, with most of the items, however, referring to other institutional spheres.

There are four hypotheses central to this analysis of the data: First, upper socioeconomic level respondents differ in their values from lower socioeconomic level respondents; second, there are fewer value differences between higher and lower level respondents in the rankings of occupations than in the rankings of desiderata; third, all respondents manifest greater consen- sus in ranking occupations than in ranking desiderata; and finally, the amount of consensus varies directly with socioeconomic status.

In the sociological literature on values, a variety of definitions has been used. Central to all of these is the process of evaluation, either by ranking objects in terms of some external standard or in terms of their position with respect to each other. In this study, each respondent was presented 14 cards on which

* This article is a slightly expanded version of a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Pa- cific Sociological Association, Salt Lake City, Utah, April, 1965. Several colleagues have made valuable suggestions and constructive criticism to an earlier draft of this paper. We wish particu- larly to thank Gerald R. Leslie, Solomon Sutker, James D. Tarver, and J. Paschal Twyman.

1 For summaries, see Herbert Hyman, "The Value Systems of Different Classes: A Social Psychological Contribution to the Analysis of Stratification," in Reinhard Bendix and Seymour Martin Lipset (eds.), Class, Status, and Power: A Reader ir Social Stratification (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1953), pp. 426-442; Joseph A. Kahl, The American Class Structure (New York: Rinehart & Co., 1953), pp. 184-220; Frank Auld, "Influence of Social Class on Personality Test Responses," Psychological Bulletin, 49 (July 1952), pp. 318-332; Leonard Reissman, "Levels of Aspiration and Social Class," American Sociologi- cal Review, 18 (June 1953), pp. 233-242; Bernard C. Rosen, "Achievement Syndrome: A Psycho- cultural Dimension of Social Stratification," Ameri- can Sociological Review, 21 (April 1956), pp. 203- 211.

2The data came from field work conducted by Richard F. Larson in South Bend, Indiana, with some financial assistance from project W-108, Michigan State University, Charles P. Loomis, Director. See Richard F. Larson, An Analysis of Selected Health Knowledge, Values, and Practices as Related to Social Class, unpublished Ph.D. dis- sertation, University of Notre Dame, 1961.

3 Desiderata is a term which best describes our items. These are: being in good health, belonging to a church, having a steady job, having a good education, being clean, being respected by people, having children, having friends, owning a home, having insurance, having savings, living in a good neighborhood, getting ahead, and owning an auto- mobile. The occupations are: physician, priest or minister, public school teacher, dentist, nurse in a hospital, pharmacist, lawyer, policeman, banker, businessman, plumber, automobile mechanic, clerk in a store, and waiter or waitress.

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564 SOCIAL FORCES

were typed the desiderata, one desideratum per card. The respondent was told:

Here are some cards listing some of the things that many people like. We would like to know what you think about them. Will you please rank them in order from the one you consider most de- sirable to the one you consider least desirable?

Then, each respondent was presented 14 cards on which were typed 14 different occupations. The respondent was told:

Here are some cards with the names of a few jobs or occupations. Some of these may be fairly important and others may be of less importance. We would like to know what you think about them. Will you please rank them in order from the one you consider most important to the one you con- sider least important?

The premise of this procedure was that it is the process of ranking which generates values.

There is, in addition, always the question of whether verbal statements reflect the under- lying value structure,4 especially if objects are evaluated singly with respect to an external scale. It seems plausible that the underlying structure of values is more readily tapped if a substantial number of objects are ranked in relation to each other rather than in terms of an external criterion.

The concept of consensus is either neglected or taken for granted in current sociology al- though a number of early writers were con- cerned with it.5 Cooley, Durkheim, LeBon, Mead, and Tarde viewed consensus in a social- psychological framework.6 As noted by New-

comb, "Mead, in particular, brilliantly illumi- nated the whole problem by describing it in terms of symbolic interaction, the crucial out- come of which is consensual: 'the generalized other.' "7 In ordinary usage, consensus means agreement. In its theoretical meaning, consen- sus now refers to an underlying agreement or concordance among units which nmakes possible the functioning of the units within the group and/or of the group as a whole.8

This definition implies that varying degrees of value consensus may exist without interfer- ing with the social functioning of individuals and groups. It, therefore, permits analysis of an additional, but neglected aspect of valua- tion-the degree to which value agreements and/or differences are commonly understood among individuals. Its use should result in further clarification of the articulation between values and social structure. As stated by Blau, "Value consensus is of crucial significance for social processes that pervade complex social structures, because standards commonly agreed upon serve as mediating links for social trans- actions between individuals and groups without any direct contact."9

4 Roy E. Carter, Jr., "Experiment in Value Measurement," American Sociological Reviezw, 21 (April 1956), pp. 156-163; William R. Catton, Jr., "A Retest of the Measurability of Certain Human Values," Amierican Sociological Review, 21 (June 1956), pp. 357-359; William A. Scott, "Empirical Assessment of Values and Ideologies," American Sociological Review, 24 (June 1959), pp. 299-310.

5 Orrin E. Klapp, "The Concept of Consensus and Its Importance," Sociology and Social Re- search, 41 (May-June 1957), pp. 336-342.

6 Charles H. Cooley, Hunan Nature and the Social Order (Boston: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902) ; Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938); Gustave LeBon, The Crowd (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1920), p. 48; George H. Mead, Minid, Self and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934) ; and Gabriel Tarde, The

Lazus of Im1itation (New York: Henry Holt Co., 1903).

7 Theodore M. Newcomb, "The Study of Con- sensus," in Robert K. Merton, Leonard Broom, and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr. (eds.), Sociology Today (New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp. 277- 292.

8 Each of the two meanings of consenstus listed in the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1933), can be found in sociological writings. The earlier usage, i.e., the working to- gether of different parts of a body in effecting a purpose, was physiological or functional in refer- ence and was so used by Comte and Spencer. The more common psychologistic meaning, i.e., the sharing of opinions, expectations, values, etc., based on communication, is the one used now somewhat casually by sociologists and was used more centrally by Park and Burgess in their famous Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1921 and 1924). David Gold restricts consensus to the dis- tribution of opinion within groups in "Some Com- ments on 'The Empirical Classification of Formal Groups,"' American Sociological Review, 29 (Oc- tober 1964), pp. 736-739.

9 Peter M. Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964), p 24.

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VALUES AND SOCIOECONOMIC LEVELS 565

This paper is concerned specifically with analyzing the rankings of desiderata and of occupations in terms of value differences, value consensus, and variations in consensus by socio- economic status. It was hypothesized that dif- ferential degrees of consensus would be mani- fested depending on the nature of the objects. The occupational rankings represent an im- portant status ordering; they are fairly well standardized and represent the kind of public information necessary for operating effectively in American society. The hierarchic structure of occupations is built into an individual's gen- eralized other, i.e., you cannot play the game until you know the positions of the various players. On the other hand, the desiderata appear to be more properly persona.l prefer- ences about private affairs and as such are not socially defined in an hierarchic order. These preferences may vary from person to person without directly interfering with the social functioning of the individuals.

NATURE OF SAMPLE

Initially the data were gathered to test a series of hypotheses relating value differences and similarities to the socioeconomic structure of a midwestern industrial community. In order to draw a representative sample of the various socioeconomic levels within the com- munity, potential respondents were selected on a quota basis from randomly selected city blocks, within five different types of residential areas. The residential areas had been mapped and classified on a numerical scale set up by the City Planning Commission, using a method roughly comparable to that used by Maurice Davie in defining the ecological areas of New Haven, Connecticut.10

The sample consisted of 150 families. Thirty families residing in each of the five major resi- dential areas were selected. One person from each family was interviewed, first a male and then a female, giving 15 females and 15 males in the sample from each of the areas. In order to maximize field interviewing procedures and to be as representative as possible, interviews were conducted in each area during the morn- ing, afternoon, and evening.

Because of incomplete responses from the interviewees, eight subjects were deleted from the analysis. The modified sample of 142 re- spondents, then, consisted of 70 males and 72 females. The modal age category was 35 to 44, with 29 percent being 55 years of age and over. Approximately 60 percent of the re- spondents were white Americans not identify- ing themselves with any particular ethnic or racial group. Among the remaining 40 percent, Polish-American, Negro-American, and Hun- garian-American constituted the three largest ethnic or racial groups.

The majority of those interviewed (about 75%) was married; ten percent were single; and the other 15 percent separated, divorced, or widowed. About 90 percent of the respon- dents were heads of households or were spouses of the heads of households. The remaining ten percent included in-laws and children over 16 years of age.

Fifty-one percent of the respondents were Protestant; 37 percent were Catholic; seven percent, Jewish; three percent had no religious affiliation; and two percent were classified as Other."1 Forty-two percent were in white- collar occupations and 58 percent in blue-collar. Educationally, the largest number (44%) had not graduated from high school, 23 percent had

10 Maurice Davie, "The Pattern of Urban Growth" in George P. Murdock (ed.), Studies in the Science of Society (New Haven: Yale Univer- sity Press, 1937). The factors employed in de- termining ecological areas were: (a) value of home based on levied property tax, (b) proximity to industrial area, (c) proximity to railroad, (d) proximity to recreational area, (e) zoning classi- fication, (f) type of housing development, and (g) the extent of blight. These factors were weighted in such a fashion that the highest ranked area was characterized by homes over $50,000, more than three blocks away from an industrial area and a railroad, within three blocks of an existing recre-

ational area, located in an A residential zoned district, residential development was varied, and rated excellent in terms of lack of blight. The lowest ranked area was characterized by homes less than $5,000, more than three blocks away from an existing recreational area, within three blocks of a railroad, in or adjacent to an industrial area, residential development was not varied, D or E zoned district, and in an area rated high in the extent of blight. Areas with values from 0-2 were classified as Poor, 3-5 as Fair, 6-8 as Good, 9-11 as Excellent, and 12-14 as Superior.

11 Other includes Christian Science and Eastern Orthodox.

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566 SOCIAL FORCES

attended college, while 33 percent had termi- nated their formal training with a high school diploma. Using the Hollingshead Two-Factor Index of Social Position to determine status position, about 13 percent of the respondents were classified in each of the top three cate- gories (I, II, and III), 38 percent in Level IV, and 23 percent in Level V, the lowest status category.12

The above sample characteristics indicate that the typical respondent was likely to be Protes- tant, between the ages of 35 and 44, married, head of a household, semiskilled in occupation, a high school graduate, and of low socioeco- nomic status.

FINDINGS

As hypothesized, there are statistically sig- nificant differences between respondents of the highest and lowest socioeconomic status in the weights they assign to certain items in both sets. The classification of respondents into socioeconomic levels according to Hollings- head's Two-Factor Index was used in the test of this hypothesis. Nineteen respondents had been classified in Level I (the highest socio- economic grouping) and 32 in Level V (the lowest). Mann-Whitney U tests were com- puted between the responses of subjects of Levels I and V on each desideratum and occu- pation.13

In view of the number of studies which have reported differences among the various socio- economic levels in the United States,14 support

for this hypothesis does not come as a surprise. Upper socioeconomic level respondents attach greater value than lower level respondents to five desiderata: being in good health, having a good education, being respected by people, having children, and having friends. On four other desiderata lower level respondents attach greater value: being clean, owning a home, having insurance, and living in a good neigh- borhood. Among the occupations only busi- nessman was ranked significantly more impor- tant by upper level respondents. The lower level respondents ranked policeman, plumber, and waiter or waitress as more important.

The second hypothesis states that there are fewer value differences in the rankings of occu- pations than in the rankings of desiderata be- tween higher and lower level respondents. In other words, the hypothesis, Level I respon- dents differ from Level V respondents on a fewer number of occupations than of desiderata, is supported. Differences in responses for nine of 14 desiderata are significant, in contrast to only four of 14 occupations. In testing the dif- ference between the proportion of significant desiderata and significant occupations, P = 2.03, which is significant beyond the .05 level with a one-tail test.

Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance, W, se- lected to express the degree of association among m rankings of n items, is a measure of concordance or homogeneity within a popula- tion.15 When subjects assign similar ranks to items, they are manifesting a common value- orientation or structure. Kendall's W was computed on the rankings of desiderata and of occupations for all 142 respondents.

For all subjects greater consensus was mani- fested in the rankings of occupations (W .53) than in the rankings of desiderata (W .29). Although each of the W's is significant at the .001 level, no appropriate statistical test exists to determine whether the .24 points between the two W's is a significant difference. It seems reasonable, however, from inspection of the data and from the nature of Kendall's W to conclude that a difference of .24 between W's involving 142 respondents in ranking two sets

12 August B. Hollingshead, Two-Factor Index of Social Position, 1957, privately mimeographed. This index is based on education and occupation. The cutting points to determine socioeconomic level for this paper are the same as those used by Hol- lingshead in the New Haven, Connecticut study.

13 Sidney Siegel, Nonparametric Statistics (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1956), pp. 116-127.

14 See, for example, Angus Campbell et al., The American Voter (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1960); Harry J. Crockett, Jr., "The Achievement Motive and Differential Occupational Mobility," American Sociological Review, 27 (April 1962), pp. 191-204; Genevieve Knupfer, "Portrait of the Underdog," Public Opinion Quarterly, 11 (Spring 1947), pp. 103-114; Fred B. Silberstein and Melvin Seeman, "Social Mobility and Prejudice," The American Journal of Sociology, 65 (November 1959), pp. 258-264; and Martha S. White, "Social Class, Child-Rearing Practices, and Child Be-

havior," American Sociological Review, 22 (De- cember 1957), pp. 704-712.

15 Maurice G. Kendall, The Advanced Theory of Statistics (London: Griffin, 1947), Vol. 1.

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VALUES AND SOCIOECONOMIC LEVELS 567

of items is meaningful and can be, therefore, judged significant.

The third hypothesis states that the amount of consensus, which refers to the amount of variation in rankings within groups, varies directly with socioeconomic status. Thus, as one goes down the socioeconomic scale, the amount of consensus within groups decreases. Table 1 contains the coefficients of concordance concerning the desiderata and occupational rankings for all levels. Because of the blurring of the educational factor across adjacent cate- gories of the Hollingshead Two-Factor Index of Social Position, it seems desirable to focus attention on nonadjacent socioeconomic levels in the test of the third hypothesis. Discussion, therefore, will be limited to Levels I, III, and V.

Table 1 shows that the values of W, Ken- dall's Coefficient of Concordance, are highest for Level I respondents on both desiderata and occupations, next highest for Level III, and lowest for Level V. The values of W are con- sistently higher for the occupational status orderings than for personal desiderata at each socioeconomic level. This pattern is as hy- pothesized. As pointed out earlier in this paper, there is no test of significance of difference between W's. Consequently, it is only the judgment of the writers that the decrease in the value of W's is significant.

It should be pointed out that each W in Table 1 is significant at the .001 level. This degree of consensus within the socioeconomic levels was expected. Our subjects were strati- fied into levels based on similarity of occupa- tion and education. It has been amply demon- strated that people with similar backgrounds tend to interact with one another more fre- quently than with people of different back- grounds ;16 and as pointed out by Homans, "the more frequently persons interact with one an- other, the more alike in some respects both their activities and sentiments tend to become."'17

TABLE 1. COEFFICIENTS OF CONCORDANCE, KENDALL'S W, ON DESIDERATA AND OCCUPATIONAL RANKINGS BY

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS

Desiderata Occupations

Level W* Level W* I .49 I .72

II .44 II .71 III .36 III .53 IV .29 IV .55 V .25 V .41

*All Ws are significant beyond the .001 level.

DISCUSSION

As indicated earlier in the paper, value con- sensus is one of the important factors which makes possible social interaction. Technically two measures of consensus have been presented: the number of differences in valuations and the amount of concordance. The first approach was concerned with differences among the socioeconomic levels for the desiderata and occupational rankings on an item-by-item basis. Among the desiderata there are five items which are not differentially evaluated by the highest and lowest socioeconomic categories. In regard to occupations there are ten items which are not differentially evaluated. In other words, approaching consensus from the standpoint of fewer differences, greater consensus is revealed in the realm of occupational status orderings than in the ranking of desiderata.

The second approach to consensus involved measurement by Kendall's Coefficient of Con- cordance. Concordance, in the context of con- sensus, can best be described in terms of the distribution of valuations within the total popu- lation as well as within each socioeconomic level. In other words, a high degree of con- cordance is indicated when respondents within the same statistical category assign identical or similar weights to the items under considera- tion. The higher the numerical value of W, the greater the consensus or homogeneity of value structure within the group.

The hypothesis that respondents will manifest greater consensus in ranking occupations than in ranking desiderata was supported. There was a W of .53 for occupations and .29 for desiderata. There may be a methodological as well as a substantive explanation for this dif- ference. A methodological explanation could

16 Numerous studies have demonstrated this -_int; one, for example, is August B. Hollingshead, Elrmtown's Youth: The Iinpact of Social Class on Adolescents (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1949).

17 George C. Homans, The Human Group (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), p. 133.

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568 SOCIAL FORCES

be that the nature of occupational ordering is unidimensional as opposed to the variety of contexts included in the desiderata. A sub- stantive explanation has been suggested earlier in this paper and is further reinforced by Bales and Slater's findings that some degree of con- sensus in terms of "who stands where on vari- ous status orders is a critical factor in the struc- ture and development of the group."'18 This implies that some degree of consensus as to the relative position of occupations is of direct consequence to an individual's relating to others in various roles. On the other hand, there may be a considerable amount of latitude permitted in relative value attached to having children, having friends, living in a good neighborhood, and being clean.

This difference in the amount of concordance between the rankings of occupations and of desiderata within the total population led the researchers to examine the variations in de- grees of consensus within each of the five socioeconomic strata. Even in the absence of a statistical test of the difference between W's, focusing on interclass differences contained in Table 1, the writers feel impelled to comment on the pattern observed because it is consistent with the hypothesis that the degree of consen- sus varies directly with socioeconomic status. For each set of 14 items, the values of W de- crease as one goes down the socioeconomic scale. Focusing attention on nonadjacent cate- gories, among the desiderata W = .49 for Level I, .36 for III, and .25 for V; among the occu- pations W =.72 for Level I, .53 for III, and .41 for V.

Several studies have indicated that upper socioeconomic people are more active in volun- tary associations as well as have more friends, read more, and are more highly educated.19

These differentials, among others, should result in upper socioeconomic people being more adept at role-taking (empathy) as a result of shifting from group to group-both real and imaginary. Role-taking ability is generally related to one's capacity to see the world as others see it and to appreciate the worth that others assign to objects. Improved or superior role-taking ability should lead one to recognize the strati- fied nature of our society and the differential worth people assign to specific objects, particu- larly to occupations. Also worth noting in this connection is the fact that although the W's for occupational rankings are markedly higher than for the desiderata at each socioeconomic level, there is also a greater range of variation be- tween Levels I and V.

Although the primary concern in this pre- sentation is value consensus, the data collected on occupations have import for the question of how position in the social structure affects judgment of the relative position of occupa- tions, one of the questions studied in the now famous North-Hatt-NORC study of occupa- tional evaluations.20 The occupational findings in our study suggest slightly greater variations in the importance attached to certain occupa- tions than those variations reported in the 1947 North-Hatt-NORC study as well as the 1963 replication.21 It was noted in the 1963 repli- cation that the prestige hierarchy of occupa- tions is not only the most thoroughly studied aspect of stratification, but "it appears that occupational prestige hierarchies are similar from country to country and from subgroup to subgroup within a country."22 Our findings also suggest that differential ranks are assigned to certain occupations according to the socio- economic status of the ranker. Although the discrepancies are not great between these two

18 Robert F. Bales and Philip E. Slater, "Role Differentiation in Small Decision-Making Groups," in Talcott Parsons and Robert F. Bales (eds.), Family, Socialization and Interaction Process (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1955), p. 296.

19 Charles R. Wright and Herbert H. Hyman, "Voluntary Association Memberships of American Adults: Evidence from National Sample Surveys," American Sociological Review, 23 (June 1958), pp. 285-294; Natalie Rogoff, "Local Social Struc- ture and Educational Selection," in A. H. Halsey et al. (eds.), Educcation, Economy, and Society (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 241-

251; and Bernard Berelson and Gary A. Steiner, Humnan Behavior: An Inventory of Scientific Findings (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), p. 487.

20 Cecil C. North and Paul K. Hatt, "Jobs and Occupations: A Popular Evaluation," Opinion News, 9 (September 1947), pp. 3-13.

21 Robert W. Hodge, Paul M. Siegel, and Peter H. Rossi, "Occupational Prestige in the United States, 1925-63," American Journal of Sociology, 70 (November 1964), pp. 286-302.

22 Ibid., p. 286.

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SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGISTS 569

sets of data and may be due to the evaluating procedures themselves, they indicate a need to explore further the effects on findings of dif- ferent ranking techniques,23 of the status of the ranker, and of the nature of the objects being ranked. Finally, the findings suggest that it would be theoretically fruitful to re-examine results of previous studies of values in relation to socioeconomic status in the broader context of consenlsus, which allows for a consideration of the extent to which value agreements and differences are commonly understood within and among social class groupings.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The findings are based on a study by one of the authors in a midwestern industrial com- munity in which 142 respondents ranked 14

occupations in terms of importance and 14 per- sonal desiderata in terms of desirability. Ken- dall's Coefficient of Concordance (W) was com- puted on the rankings of desiderata and occu- pations within socioeconomic groupings.

The data support the following hypotheses:

1. Upper socioeconomic level respondents differ in their values from lower socioeconomic respondents;

2. There are fewer value differences in the rankings of occupations than in the rankings of desiderata between higher and lower level re- spondents;

3. Respondents manifest greater consensus in ranking occupations than in ranking desiderata; and

4. The amount of consensus varies directly with socioeconomic status.

In addition, the data suggest the existence of greater differences in ranking occupations ac- cording to socioeconomic level than those posited by the North-Hatt-NORC approach.

Previous studies relating values to social structure have focused attention on a descrip- tion of specific variations in values. The writers suggest that the focus of value and class studies could be enlarged to encompass value consensus and variations in value consensus by socioeconomic status.

23 Judging 14 occupations in terms of each other forced respondents to assign a different weight (or different rank order position) to each occupation; in the North-Hatt-NORC technique, each respon- dent could assign identical weights to a number of items: "Occupational ratings were elicited by asking respondents to judge an occupation as hav- ing excellent, good, average, somewhat below average, or poor standing in response to the item 'For each job mentioned, please pick out the state- ment that best gives your own personal opinion of the general standing that such a job has.'"

EDUCATIONAL SPECIALIZATION OF SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGISTS WITH THE DOCTORATE

ABBOTT L. FERRISS* National Science Foundation

F ormal disciplinary labels on courses of study, majors, minors, and degrees, pro- vide clues to relationships among dis-

ciplines. Accessible and relatively uniformly

*Associate Study Director, Science Education Studies Group, Manpower and Education Studies Section, Office of Economic and Manpower Studies, National Science Foundation. The views expressed herein are solely the author's responsibility, and do not necessarily represent Foundation opinion nor reflect its policies. Parts of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Atlainta, Ga., April, 1965.

interpreted, this information gives an economi- cal, if not highly refined, method of identifying interdisciplinary experiences of individuals, thus yielding one clue to integration among fields of knowledge.1

While specialization continues to provide the avenue toward substantive research achieve- ment, specialization is attained, not alone by

1 For references on this see the author's "Edu- cational Interrelations Among Social Sciences," The American Sociologist, 1 (November 1965), pp. 15-23.

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