Kinship and Voluntary Organization in Post-thermonuclear Attack Society

Download or read book Kinship and Voluntary Organization in Post-thermonuclear Attack Society written by Scott A. Greer and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incidence of family-kinship and voluntary organizational patterns in contemporary United States society are examined. Many primary family units, composed of Parents-Immediate Children ('nuclear families'), have ties with relatives outside the nuclear family, which suggests the existence of patterns of extended familism and of kinship networks. Participation in voluntary organizations is a widely pervasive feature of American society, offering a major level and focus of community organization and action. Participation in both kinship relations and voluntary organizations was found to vary on several dimensions. Kinship relations vary most strongly by 'ethnicity'--measured by the religious, cultural, and/or racial background of the family. Differences in patterns of kinship and voluntary organization tend to be associated with differences among social areas which can be described within the physical space formed by metropolitan communities. Several propositions are formed, relating mass data for American cities and the associational networks of localities. (1) There are constant relationships between sub-population types and participation in the local area as a community. The latter increases with declining urbanism. (2) Participation in all forms of voluntary organizations and formal organizations increases with social rank, all other things being equal. (3) Kinship relations vary most sharply by a third dimension of the social area grid: ethnicity. (4) These rank orders hold for gross differences within given cities. (Author).