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Part I. Previous analyses of samples of women in the 1950's revealed that intentions for further births were affected by the sex of the previous children. More recent analyses found however that the effect of previous childrens' sex on fertility intentions has either diminished or disappeared completely, and some writers on the subject concluded that the decline in family size norms could account for that finding. The research reported herein, using samples of married women interviewed in the 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies, shows that at least among women with two children there has been no change over time in the tendency for mothers of similar sex children to be more likely to want an additional child than mothers of opposite sex children. The persistence of that tendency among mothers of two children argues strongly for including the sex of previous children as an independent variable in models of fertility intentions, since the decline in family size norms makes factors which affect the decision to have (or not have) a third child increasingly important. Part II. Since Stouffer's pioneering effort to ascertain the public's intolerance of various nonconformists, numerous researchers have relied on summary measures and scales to investigate intolerance and have stressed the effects of such general processes as aging and education on such measures. Parallel analyses of four of Stouffer's original items that were recently replicated and of four items included in the 1958 and 1971 Detroit Area Studies schedules indicates however that the use of such summary measures or scales is unjustified and that the processes of education and aging alone are inadequate in explaining changes in intolerance over time. While a small proportion of both samples are consistently (and perhaps ideologically) tolerant or intolerant in their responses to both sets of items, most respond situationally to the items and changes in tolerant and intolerant responses over time vary according to the item considered. Differential change by color in the Detroit sample suggests that short term and less predictable period effects must be considered (along with such general processes as aging and education) in explaining the level of intolerance at any given time, and changes in that level over time. Part III. An analysis of juveniles attending six Arizona high schools in the fall of 1975 shows that how homes were disrupted (by death, divorce or separation, or some other reason) has little impact on delinquent behavior and referrals to court, but whether homes were broken had a strong and consistent effect on both. Further, whereas it was the absence of a mother or father which affected the juveniles' delinquent behavior, it was the absence of a mother (but not a father) which affected their being referred to court.

The purpose of this study is to trace the judicial history of the disintegration of the traditional concept of "state action" and the consequent development of the new concept that the prohibitions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments apply to private action among individuals.

This dissertation examines the interaction between American social movements as they pursue their constitutional rights. The public law literature is dominated by a topdown approach to the study of constitutional politics, frequently focusing on the impact of Supreme Court decision-making. Instead, I explore constitutional politics from the bottom-up, analyzing constraints on social movement organizations as they formulate their constitutional strategies. Social movements must always be keenly aware of the actions of their peers who also seek to exploit the Constitution for their own benefit. My findings indicated that social movements recognize this competitive relationship with other social movements and treat their fellow constitutional claimants accordingly, acting to contest claims unfavorable to their cause, co-opt claims of other groups that have shown promise, and even form coalitions with their peers where an adjustment of their own claims to accommodate their coalition partners will likely net a greater return than going it alone. These negotiated constitutional claims have resulted in significant, durable and often ironic or unexpected shifts in constitutional development. / text

The major purpose of this study is to analyze and assess the validity of those charges which have alleged: (1) that political parties impede voters' efforts to make rational choices between issue alternatives and between candidates by failing to take clear cut positions on the issues which confront them; and (2) that the parties frustrate the efforts of the voters to appraise legislative performance because that performance bears little resemblance to the program which the parties presented to the electorate. A second purpose of the study is historical: to investigate, and present an account of political and legislative developments in the nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties regarding four relatively broad issues. Each of these issues--foreign aid, civil rights, labor-management relations, and farm policy-received major national attention during the decades of the fifties and sixties and each continues to be significant as the nation enters the decade of the seventies.The study began by tracing the main elements in the historic background of the above issues. This background served as the springboard from which the investigations into the role of the political parties in formulating and implementing public policies were launched. The positions which the Democratic and Republican Parties developed on the issues were examined and contrasted for 1952 and 1960. In addition, the elaboration of these positions by the respective Presidential candidates was examined. The four issues were then studied as they were formulated into legislative proposals, and party legislative performance with respect to them was described and analyzed for the 83rd and 87th Congresses. These two Congresses were selected because in each one the party which had been out of power was reassuming control of both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency.The investigation of the four issues and the analysis of party performance with respect to them yielded only qualified answers to the two questions which guided the investigation. These two questions were: (1) Did the parties take clear-cut positions on the issues?; and (2) Did the party which controlled the Government follow through on the positions it had taken? With respect to party positions the study revealed that on two of the issues the parties did offer diametrically opposed alternatives. These two issues were labor-management relations and farm policy. Moreover, distinguishable alternatives were offered on the other two issues, foreign aid and civil rights.In the implementation of party programs the study revealed that on two of the issues, labor-management relations and civil rights, the Republicans in the 83rd and the Democrats in the 87th Congress honored their pledges more in the breach than in the observance. On the other hand, both parties did implement programs in foreign aid and in farm policy which corresponded with the programs they had sented during the respective campaigns.The data indicate then, that there were distinguishable differences between the positions taken by the parties on those issues which the study covered. In addition, the process by which these positions were reached as well as the legislative debates on the proposals stemming from them, should have enhanced, rather than inhibited the citizen's understanding of the important issues. Finally, the legislative debates and the voting records of the party members provided a basis for evaluating party performance. The results of this study strongly suggest that the interested citizen who takes the time to do so can use the machinery of the American party system to make intelligent choices at election time, and to evaluate the performance of the individuals and the party for whom he has voted.3

This study's purposes were to (1) determine perceptions toward citizenship and the Bill of Rights among social studies students and teachers and (2) examine variables useful in predicting their degree of support for the Bill of Rights. To accomplish these purposes, a thirty-item perceptions scale and a demographic questionnaire was administered to 72 teachers and 249 5 students in 25 racially mixed Texas public high schools. A random sample of 703 students was drawn for statistical analysis with the original teacher sample. A mean score was computed for each subject and analysis of variance utilized to test for differences between means of various groups

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The purpose of this study is to explore the administrative setting of the Office for Civil Rights, treating especially the functional requisites of agencies: namely, the development of a viable role within its set and the internal necessity of developing among its functionaries a degree of cohesion and sense of common purpose. This case study is designed, moreover, to challenge the naturalistic assumptions of the pluralist model of administrative theory. Chapter I develops the theme of "social engineering agencies" as a distinctively new genre of public agency in the American political setting and adumbrates the theoretical challenges which these organizations present to the conventional pluralist paradigm.

State level bias crime legislation was passed throughout much of the United States over the last three decades. Beyond their prosecutorial or instrumental application, bias or hate crime laws serve an expressive or messaging function. This function is meant to promote societal cohesion through the rejection of hateful ideologies, as well as signal to attacked or marginalized members of communities that the government is directly addressing the effects of bias crime. As the number of reported hate crimes in the United States remains essentially level, it is of importance to assess how well the expressive function is performing. Following a background on the development, debate, and variation of bias or hate crime law, this project focuses on a content analysis of prominent state level media with the expectation that the expressive success of laws can be detected in bias crime coverage. It is found that bias crime related stories were featured with greater regularity in the states of Washington and Minnesota, which have passed extensive bias crime legislation. Bias crime related stories were far less prominent in South Carolina, which has no bias crime laws. The State of Wyoming, another state with no bias crime laws, displayed a surprisingly large amount of coverage, primarily as a result of the high-profile murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998.

The purpose of the study was to determine how the Fourth Amendment is treated in the age of the internet. To determine the degree of the significance of this relationship a comparative approach is used. Court opinions from cases involving other technological innovations and the Fourth Amendment were examined and their reasoning was compared to that of cases involving the internet and the Fourth Amendment. The results indicated that contrary to some fears that the internet would require a different approach with respect to the law it actually did not present many novel barriers to its application. The principle conclusion was that the reasoning used in cases involving older technologies, namely the test outlined in Katz v. United States, was consistently applied even in the age of the internet.