Avenues to prestige among adolescents in public and religiously affiliated high schools.

Suitor, J. Jill ; Powers, Rebecca S. ; Brown, Rachel 等

For more than four decades, the relative benefits of private versus public education at the elementary and secondary school levels have been debated. Both the scholarly and popular literatures addressing this issue have focused primarily on the question of whether private schools provide a higher quality education, as measured by indices such as class size, grades, standardized test scores, and college admissions (Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982). A second question that has been raised, with greater emphasis in the popular literature, is whether private schools provide a better social environment for children and teenagers. In this context, "better" has generally been conceptualized in terms of morality, ethics (particularly Judeo-Christian ethics), safety, and the academic orientation of the student body (Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982). In this paper we focus on the second of these two questions. Specifically, we examine differences in the social environment of public and private high schools, using 1,733 student reports about avenues to prestige.

Why Parents Choose Private Schools

An examination of the popular and scholarly literature on parents' school choice finds almost completely overlapping explanations. Parents believe that their children will learn more and have broader academic opportunities if they attend private schools. Further, and more to the point of the present paper, parents also believe that both religious and nonsectarian private schools provide an educational context in which their children will be encouraged to focus on academics and character development (cf. Badie, 1998; Folmar, 1997). Although the studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s revealed a somewhat inconsistent picture regarding differences in actual academic achievement between students who attended public and private schools (cf. Bickel & Chang, 1985; Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982; Morgan, 1984; Sandy, 1989), the picture was quite consistent regarding differences in "campus climate." Reports from students and parents indicated that private schools, more so than public schools, emphasized academic achievement, high morals, and courteous behavior (cf. Bridgeman & Fox, 1978; Coleman & Hoffer, 1983; Coleman et al., 1982). More recent journalistic accounts of parents' choices suggest that school selection continues to be guided by such climate factors, as well as by anticipated academic achievement (cf. Badie, 1998; Folmar, 1997). However, little recent literature has examined whether the climate differences between public and private secondary schools that were found in earlier studies persist. As concerns about violence and drugs in schools have escalated across the past two decades, private school enrollments have increased due to perceptions that they offer greater security on these issues (Hegarty, 1995; Strauss, 1995). However, questions remain as to whether private schools actually provide a social environment with fewer negative influences. Thus, we will begin by addressing the question of the extent to which private and public schools differ in terms of climate.

Exploring Differences in School Climate: Avenues to Prestige Among Adolescents

Examination of studies over the past two decades in the United States suggests little change in school climate, as indicated by the ways in which adolescents continue to gain prestige. Consistent with the findings that Coleman (1961) reported more than 40 years ago, boys continue to gain prestige primarily through sports, academic achievement, physical appearance, and sociability, while girls gain prestige primarily through academic achievement, physical appearance, and sociability (cf. Canaan, 1990; Eckert, 1989; Eder, 1985; Eder & Parker, 1987; Eicher, Baizerman, & Michelman, 1991; Foley, 1990; Kane, 1988; Kinney, 1993; Matteo, 1986; Suitor & Carter, 1999; Suitor & Reavis, 1995; Suitor, Minyard, & Carter, 2001; Williams & White, 1983). While it is likely that these patterns are found to some extent in both public and private high schools, we expect that the emphasis on particular attributes and behaviors will differ by type of school.

Recently, in a rare large-scale investigation, Valois and colleagues (1997) reported substantial differences in high school students' engagement in high-risk behaviors; however, the findings did not provide strong support for the notion that private schools provide a uniformly more positive social environment. Although students in private high schools were less likely to be sexually active, engage in fights, or carry a weapon, they were more likely to report other high-risk behaviors that are common among teenagers. For example, the researchers found that, compared to students in public schools, those in private schools were more likely to report using alcohol on a regular basis, binge drinking, driving after consuming alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and using drugs or alcohol prior to sexual intercourse. Girls in private schools were more likely than those in public schools to report that they had used marijuana in the last 30 days, and boys in private schools were more likely to chew tobacco than were boys in public schools. While these findings call into question the better social climate parents hope their children will experience in private schools, Valois and colleagues' study was based on data collected only in the state of South Carolina. A study by Suitor and Carter (1999) suggested that many of the deviant behaviors engaged in by students in private schools are more common among Northern than Southern high school students, contrary to popular belief. Thus, it is important to examine these issues using data that extend beyond a single state or region.

Given the preponderance of the literature regarding differences between public and private school environments, we hypothesized that the avenues to prestige in private schools would reflect the more "traditional values" that parents believe their children will be exposed to in this academic setting--specifically, a greater emphasis on academic achievement and sociability than that found in public schools, and somewhat less emphasis on "frivolous" characteristics, such as appearance. Drawing from earlier work, we also anticipated that adolescents of both genders would accrue less prestige from "deviant behaviors," such as drinking, fighting, and sexual activities, in private schools than in public schools.

METHOD

Sampling and Procedure

The data used in the present study were collected from 1,733 college students during the 1997-98 academic year. We had several goals when selecting universities from which to recruit participants. First, we wanted to collect the data from institutions whose student bodies are composed primarily of individuals who attended high school in the state in which the institution is located (more specifically, drawing individuals from a broad range of high schools within the state). Second, we wanted to select universities with comparable student bodies in terms of entrance requirements, academic focus, cost, and race/ethnicity. Third, we originally designed this research to focus on regional differences in adolescent gender norms (Suitor & Carter, 1999). To these ends, we selected three flagship state universities in the Northeast and two in the South. The Northeastern schools we selected were the State University of New York (SUNY) at both Stony Brook and Albany, and the University of New Hampshire (UNH). The Southern universities that we selected were Louisiana State University (LSU) and the University of Georgia (UGA).

One concern we had when designing the study was that LSU and UGA might be somewhat more successful than the SUNY campuses and UNH in recruiting the best students from their respective states. Northeastern flagship state universities compete for the best students with a large number of highly prestigious private universities in New York and New England. In contrast, there are fewer large, prestigious, private universities in Georgia and Louisiana to cream off the most promising students. Thus, many of the students attending the two SUNY schools and UNH may have graduated from less academically excellent high schools than students attending LSU and UGA. In fact, examination of available data on college entrance exams suggests that this interpretation may be correct; the mean of the median Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores for the Northern schools was 1038, while the mean of the median scores for the Southern schools was 1085 (Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, 1996). (1,2)

To ensure that our findings were not the result of the creaming effect in the Southern schools, we decided to collect data from a Southern university with admissions standards lower than those of LSU and UGA, and a Northern university with admissions standards higher than those of the two SUNY schools and UNH. For the Southern school, we selected Southeastern Louisiana University (SLU), whose median SAT score was 950 (Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, 1996). For the Northeastern school, we selected Cornell University (CU). (3) While CU does not provide median SAT scores for its entering classes, other available data indicate that students entering CU have scores considerably higher than those of students entering the Other universities in this study. (4)

All of the schools reported that about 10% of the student body was African-American, with the exception of UGA and UNH; UGA's student body was 17% African-American, while UNH's was about 5% (Peterson's Annual Guide, 1997). We collected data from a total of 1,832 students. Ninety-eight students attended CU, 379 attended UGA, 239 attended UNH, 291 attended LSU, 387 attended SLU, 293 attended SUNY-Albany, and 145 attended SUNY-Stony Brook. Ninety-nine students were omitted from the present analysis because they attended high school outside of the United States, leaving a final sample of 1,733.

Thirteen percent of the students in the Northern sample and 25% of those in the Southern sample had attended private high schools. Fourteen percent had attended high school in a large city (population of 500,000 or greater), 33% had attended high school in the suburbs of a large city, 21% had attended high school in a medium-sized city (for example, Albany, Buffalo, Savannah, Macon, Baton Rouge), 6% had attended high school in the suburbs of a medium-sized city, and 26% had attended high school in a community of less than 10,000.

Sixty-two percent of the students were females and 38% were males. More than three-quarters (76.8%) had graduated from high school within four years of data collection. Examination of the data showed little or no effects of year of graduation (see Suitor & Reavis, 1995, for similar findings); therefore, the data were pooled.

All of the students were enrolled in an introductory sociology course, with the exception of approximately one-third of the students at UNH, who were enrolled in other lower division sociology courses. The data were collected in more than thirty separate course sections. With two exceptions, approximately two-thirds of the students enrolled in the courses were present at the time of data collection. (In two cases, attendance was markedly lower.) The response rate for those present was approximately 70%. Our rationale for collecting data from students enrolled in introductory sociology courses was: (1) sociology is one of only a limited number of similar introductory-level courses that students can complete to meet their general education requirements; (2) selecting the most elementary sociology class offered in each university increased the likelihood of similar subsamples across universities; and (3) more than 80% of the students enrolled in such courses are in their first year of college and their recollection of their high school experience is fresh in their minds.

Measurement

Adolescent gender norms. Following the lead of Coleman and his colleagues (Coleman, 1961; Coleman & Hoffer, 1983; Coleman et al., 1982), we believe that one fruitful way in which to examine the relative "climate benefits" of private and public schools is to explore the ways in which adolescents accrue prestige. The logic behind this approach is that individuals generally acquire prestige by adhering to group norms. Therefore, the means of acquiring prestige should serve as an indicator of the norms that exist in a particular group, thus defining the social climate within that setting.

To measure adolescent gender norms, the students were asked to respond to the following statements: (1) "List five ways in which male students could gain prestige in the high school you attended," and (2) "List five ways in which female students could gain prestige in the high school you attended." They mentioned a total of 79 mechanisms by which students in their high schools acquired prestige. Some attributes and behaviors were combined to facilitate analysis. For example, "friendly," "outgoing," and "having a good personality" were combined to form the category labeled "sociability"; "pretty," "handsome," and "having a good body" were combined to form the category labeled "physical attractiveness." A dichotomous variable was created for each of the 15 mechanisms that were listed most frequently for female and male students.

It is possible to question whether we introduced a selection bias by using data collected only from students enrolled in sociology courses. For example, individuals with less traditional gender role attitudes might be overrepresented in the samples we drew; further, there may be differences in the academic achievement of students who select sociology courses to meet their general education requirements. We do not have data available to address either of these limitations; in fact, both may be correct. However, the representativeness of the students' personal experiences is not the central issue. The students were asked to report their observations of the overall prestige hierarchies in their high schools, as opposed to reporting either their personal prestige or their beliefs about the appropriate avenues to prestige. Thus, while it is possible that this sample may not be fully representative of the population of incoming freshmen, there is no reason to expect that differences in either academic achievement or gender role attitudes systematically bias students' reports of the prestige hierarchies that existed in their high schools.

Independent variables. The students were asked the type of high school that they had attended. The responses were classified as "public," "religious coed," "religious boys," "religious girls," or "private, unable to determine type." The students' responses were recoded into one of two categories: public or private.

Other variables. To examine more clearly the effects of type of high school on adolescents' perceptions of prestige, we controlled for various factors that prior research has shown to affect gender norms. The students specified their gender, the year in which they graduated from high school, and the state in which they had attended high school. From the state data we created a regional variable (Southeastern and Northeastern) using the standard census categorizations (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997). The students were also asked to specify the city/ town in which they attended high school, which was used to determine size of community (Rand McNally, 1997; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1994).

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the 15 mechanisms for gaining prestige that were reported for girls and for boys. There were few differences in the avenues to prestige between those in public and private high schools, particularly for girls. Avenues to prestige for girls that focus on their physical attributes, such as attractiveness, popularity with boys, clothes, sexual activity, and participation in sports, were more prominent in public schools than in private schools. In private schools the avenues more indicative of personality attributes, such as general sociability, having a good reputation/virginity, and participating in school clubs/government and cheerleading, were more prominent. Contrary to what parents may expect, avenues considered to be more negative, such as partying and being class clown, appeared more prevalent in private schools than in public schools. However, only clothes remained a significantly more important route to prestige for girls in public schools compared to girls in private schools once controls were introduced for region, size of community, year of graduation, and gender of respondent. Thus, taken together, type of high school had little effect on the ways in which girls accrued prestige in high school.

In contrast, there were notable differences between public and private schools on several of the most common routes to prestige for adolescent boys. Consistent with the better social climate sought by parents who enroll their sons in private schools, the graduates of private schools were more likely than their public school counterparts to report that boys gained prestige through general sociability, and less likely to report that boys gained prestige through materialistic means, such as car ownership and clothes. Private school graduates were also more likely to report that boys accrued prestige through having a good reputation, although the actual number of cases was very small.

However, not all of the differences for boys were in the predicted direction. Specifically, compared to graduates of public school, private school graduates were less likely to report that grades were important for prestige, and they were more likely to report that boys accrued prestige through popularity with girls, partying, using drugs/alcohol, and being the class clown.

Five avenues to prestige remained significantly different after controlling for region, size of community, year of graduation, and gender of respondent. While four of the avenues for boys (i.e., general sociability, good reputation, and less emphasis on cars and clothes) were in the direction parents might expect, one more negative avenue (i.e., being class clown) remained prominent for boys in private schools.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together, the findings of the present study show few differences between avenues to prestige for girls in private and public high schools, and differences for boys that are not uniformly in the direction that parents and private school advocates would predict or desire. For girls, the prestige hierarchy in private schools placed less emphasis on clothes but provided no other apparent educational or social climate benefit over the prestige hierarchy in public schools. For boys, private school graduates reported less emphasis on clothes and car ownership and more emphasis on sociability and having a good reputation; however, boys in private schools were more likely to accrue prestige by being the class clown than were boys in public schools. Thus, for parents of boys, it is not entirely clear whether their intentions to provide their sons with a better social climate are achieved by sending them to private high schools.

These findings are particularly interesting in the context of the type of private schools the students in our study had attended, all of which were religiously based. From the perspective of parents and school officials alike, a major mission of schools of this type is to provide a better social environment--one in which there is greater emphasis on education and morality, and less emphasis on materialism and frivolous and potentially harmful pursuits, such as drinking, using drugs, partying, and engaging in sexual activity and aggressive behaviors.

Our results provided little support for our hypotheses regarding a more positive social climate in private versus public high schools, thus indicating substantial change from the patterns found in the 1960s and 1970s (cf. Bridgeman & Fox, 1978; Coleman & Hoffer, 1983; Coleman et al., 1982). The pattern of findings in our study was much closer to that of Valois and colleagues' (1997) study of South Carolina adolescents. However, the present study extends Valois et al.'s study by including students from states in two distinct regions of the country that have been shown to have different attitudes and behaviors (cf. Hurlbert, 1989; Hurlbert & Bankston, 1998; DiMaggio et al., 1996; Rice & Coates, 1995; Suitor, Mecom, Guerra, & Gusman, 2003; Weakliem & Biggert, 1999).

The findings on graduates of public schools and religiously based private schools are sufficiently counterintuitive to call for future study of private/public school differences in social climate and academic focus. In particular, future studies should collect data from students who are presently enrolled in school, and draw from the population of students enrolled in both private, secular high schools, as well as private, religiously based high schools. Future studies could also benefit by including demographic information on both the students and their parents, such as parents' educational attainment, income, ethnicity, and religious denomination.

Table 1
College Students' Reports of Mechanisms by Which
Girls and Boys Acquired Prestige in Their High Schools
(Shown in Percentages by High School Type)

 Reported for Girls

Prestige Public Private
Mechanism School School p

Grades/Intelligence 55.1 55.2 n.s.
Participation in Sports 53.8 46.8 n.s.
Physical Attractiveness 52.2 48.8 n.s.
General Sociability 48.3 50.8 n.s.
Popularity with Opposite 33.4 30.2 n.s.
Gender
Clothes 33.1 19.0 .000
School Clubs/Government 26.0 32.7 n.s.
Cheerleading 22.2 29.0 n.s.
Sexual Activity 11.2 9.7 n.s.
Car 9.6 9.3 n.s.
Partying 7.6 8.9 n.s.
Good Reputation/Virginity 5.3 6.9 n.s.
Using Drugs/Alcohol 5.5 4.8 n.s.
Class Clown/Sense of 3.8 5.6 n.s.
Humor
Fighting/Bullying 1.5 n.a. --

 Reported for Boys

Prestige Public Private
Mechanism School School p

Grades/Intelligence 47.0 41.6 n.s.
Participation in Sports 87.5 87.2 n.s.
Physical Attractiveness 34.3 32.3 n.s.
General Sociability 39.3 48.7 0.28
Popularity with Opposite 32.7 37.2 n.s.
Gender
Clothes 22.1 11.9 .000
School Clubs/Government 24.1 25.2 n.s.
Cheerleading n.a. 0.4 --
Sexual Activity 14.0 11.5 n.s.
Car 24.9 20.8 .048
Partying 11.1 12.6 n.s.
Good Reputation/Virginity 1.2 3.1 .086
Using Drugs/Alcohol 14.2 15.0 n.s.
Class Clown/Sense of 12.4 19.5 .004
Humor
Fighting/Bullying 11.0 11.5 n.s.

Note. n.a. = not applicable; n.s. = not significant at p < .10.

Some students attended single-gender high schools and
therefore could not report on the ways in which the
other gender accrued prestige in their schools. The
p-values indicate significant differences by high school
type, using logistic regression (for each
dependent variable), and controlling for region
(Southeastern versus Northeastern U.S.), size of community,
year of graduation, and gender of respondent.

NOTES

(1.) Obtaining comparison data regarding entrance exam scores required converting scores on the American College Test (ACT)--often required by Southern universities--into Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, which are most olden required by Northern universities (see Marco, Abdel-fattah, & Baron, 1996, regarding conversion of SAT and ACT scores).

(2.) The SAT scores reported in Barron's Profiles of American Colleges for the Southern schools were: LSU, 1060; UGA, 1110. The scores reported for the Northern schools were: UNH, 1013; SUNY-Stony Brook, 1022; SUNY-Albany, 1080.

(3.) Unlike the other six institutions, CU is both a state land-grant university and a member of the Ivy League. Both institutional structures have admissions standards substantially higher than those of any of the other institutions whose students participated in the study. We chose to collect data from students enrolled in the state-supported side of CU for two reasons. First, the only introductory sociology course offered in the College of Arts and Sciences (on the Ivy League side) had a small enrollment compared to the introductory sociology course offered on the state-supported side. Second, the course offered in the College of Arts and Sciences was composed primarily of students who did not attend high school in the study's target region; in contrast, approximately two-thirds of the students enrolled in the course on the state-supported side attended high school in New York State.

(4.) In 1994, 50% of the entering class at CU had verbal scores above 600 and 91% had math scores above 600. This stands in sharp contrast to the students at the school with the second highest SAT scores in our study, UGA. In 1994, 14% of the entering class at UGA had verbal scores above 600 and 29% had math scores above 600 (Cass & Cass-Liepmann, 1994).

REFERENCES

Badie, R. (1998, October 1). Private school boom: Growth drives demand for private schools as parents seek alternatives to public schools and their problems. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. JH1.

Barron's profiles of American colleges. (1996). Hauppaugue, NY: Barron's Educational Series.

Bickel, R., & Chang, M. J. (1985). Public schools, private schools, and the common school ideal. Urban Review, 17(2), 75-97.

Bridgeman, T., & Fox, I. (1978). Why people chose private schools. New Society, 44(821), 702-705.

Canaan, J. E. (1990). Passing notes and telling jokes: Gendered strategies among American middle school teenagers. In F. Ginsburg & A. L. Tsing (Eds.), Uncertain terms: Negotiating in American culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Cass, M., & Cass-Liepmann, J. (1994). Cass and Birnbaum's guide to American colleges. New York: Harper Perennial.

Coleman, J. S. (1961). The adolescent society. New York: Free Press.

Coleman, J. S., & Hoffer, T. (1983). Response to Taeuber-James, Caid-Goldberger and Morgan. Sociology of Education, 56, 219-234.

Coleman, J. S., Hoffer, T., & Kilgore, S. (1982). Cognitive outcomes in public and private schools. Sociology of Education, 55(2-3), 65-76.

Coleman, J. S., Kilgore, S. B., & Hoffer, T. (1982). Public and private schools. Society, 19(2), 4-9.

DiMaggio, P., Evans, J., & Bryson, B. (1996). Have Americans' social attitudes become more polarized? American Journal of Sociology, 102, 690-755.

Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College.

Eder, D. (1985). The cycle of popularity: Interpersonal relations among female adolescents. Sociology of Education, 58, 154-165.

Eder, D., & Parker, S. (1987). The cultural production and reproduction of gender: The effect of extracurricular activities on peer-group culture. Sociology of Education, 60, 200-213.

Eicher, J. B., Baizerman, S., & Michelman, J. (1991). Adolescent dress, Part II: A qualitative study of suburban high school students. Adolescence, 26(103), 679-686.

Foley, D. E. (1990). The great American football ritual: Reproducing race, class, and gender inequality. Sociology of Sport Journal, 7, 111-135.

Folmar, K. (1997, April 20). Education: Parents who shun public campuses cite smaller sizes and rigorous academics. Los Angeles Times, p. 2.

Hegarty, S. (1995, March 26). Safety concerns drives many to private schools. St. Petersburg Times, p. lB.

Hurlbert, J. S. (1989). The southern region: A test of the hypothesis of cultural distinctiveness. The Sociological Quarterly, 30, 245-266.

Hurlbert, J. S., & Bankston, W. B. (1998). Cultural distinctiveness in the face of structural transformation: The "new" Old South. In D. R. Hurt (Ed.), Social change in the rural South, 1945-1995. Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press.

Kane, M. J. (1988). The female athletic role as a status determinant within the social systems of high school adolescents. Adolescence, 23(90), 253-264.

Kinney, D. A. (1993). From nerds to normal: The recovery of identity among adolescents from middle school to high school. Sociology of Education, 66, 21-40.

Marco, G. L., Abdel-fattah, A. A., & Baron, P. A. (1996). Methods used to establish score comparability on the enhanced ACT assessment and the SAT. College Board Report (No. 92-3).

Matteo, S. (1986). The effect of sex and gender-schematic processing on sport participation. Sex Roles, 15, 417-432.

Morgan, W. R. (1984). The analysis of NLS youth in public and private schools: Response to Coleman-Hoffer. Sociology of Education, 57(2), 122-128.

Peterson's annual guide to undergraduate study. (1997). Princeton, NJ: Peterson Publishing.

Rand McNally commercial atlas and marketing guide. (1997). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.

Rice, T. W., & Coates, D. L. (1995). Gender role attitudes in the southern United States. Gender and Society, 9, 744-756.

Sandy, J. (1989). The choice of public or private school. Social Science Journal, 26(4), 415-431.

Strauss, V. (1995, March 19). Private students get a strict schooling in discipline. The Washington Post, p. B1.

Suitor, J. J., & Carter, R. S. (1999). Jocks, nerds, babes, and thugs: A research note on regional differences in adolescent gender norms. Gender Issues, 17, 87-101.

Suitor, J. J., Mecom, D., Guerra, S., & Gusman, K. (2003, August). Regional differences in gender role attitudes: Variations by gender and race. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta, GA.

Suitor, J. J., Minyard, S. A., & Carter, R. S. (2001). "Did you see what I saw?" Gender differences in perceptions of avenues to prestige among adolescents. Sociological Inquiry, 71(4), 437-454.

Suitor, J. J., & Reavis, R. (1995). Football, fast cars, and cheerleading: Adolescent gender norms, 1978-1989. Adolescence, 30(118), 265-272.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1994). County and city data book. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1997). Statistical abstract of the United States, 1997. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Valois, R. F., Thatcher, W. G., Drane, J. W., & Reininger, B. M. (1997). Comparison of selected health risk behaviors between adolescents in public and private schools in South Carolina. Journal of School Health, 67(10), 434 437.

Weakliem, D. L., & Biggert, R. (1999). Region and political opinion in the contemporary United States. Social Forces, 77, 863-886.

Williams, J. M., & White, K. A. (1983). Adolescent status systems for males and females at three age levels. Adolescence, 18(70), 381-389.

This article was prepared while J. Jill Suitor was at Louisiana State University, Department of Sociology.

Rebecca S. Powers, Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina.

Rachel Brown, Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.