This Paper first attempts an outline of the common elements of construction in utopian societies. It is claimed that recent theoretical approaches in sociology have tended to analyze social structure in terms of immobility, i.e., have assumed the utopian image of society. The author suggest that overconcern with the social system-in the structural-functionalist apprach-has led contemporary sociology to a loss of problem consciousness and urges that a conflict model be adopted for the explanation of sociological problems.

Two distinguished medical scientists independently observed the same phenomenon in the course of their research: reversible collapse of rabbits' ears after injection of the enzyme papain. One went on to make a discovery based on this serendipitous or chance occurrence; the other did not. Intensive tandem interviews were conducted with each of these scientist in order to discover similarities and differences in their experiences with the floppy-eared rabbits. These interview materials are analyzed for the light they shed on the process of scientific discovery in general and on the serendipity pattern in particular.

This is a preliminary statement of a set of categories intended for the sociological analysis of conduct in diachronic terms. Conduct is held to be a continuous activity, broken down perceptually into acts. Social acts are analyzable according to the situation to which they refer and the way in which actors attempt to exert control over others. Four forms of social act are distinguished, differing according to their degree of obliquity from direct control. Acts are also distinguished according to their level of organization, ranging from spontaneous to sophisticated. Sophisticated acts involve instrumental use of routine action. Social change occurs when routine substitute fail in their purpose of control.

The demographic distinction between urban and rural in terms of residential population has limited value. With increased local mobility, social and economic space no longer coincides with residence. For economic purposes employment is the relevant criterion. Concentrations of employment are urban places. Types of employment determine the character of settlements, and the amount of nucleated employment measures their economic size. No such simple index exists for sociocultural purposes. Two criteria are examined; the folk-urban continuum is rejected, and the social network map is found valuable as a structural framework, whose content must be adapted to the particular cultural milieu.

Interviewing and elite poses many problems and offers further insight into the interview situation. The specific challenges in these interviews are: (1) the respondents' skill as interviewers; (2) their specialized functions; (3) the time pressure under which they work; and (4) their reluctance to be interviewed. Methods employed to overcome the forces potentially detrimental to the interview are discussed.

Residents of "The Village," a small Kansas community, drink in private but support a "temperance" morality in public. This public, "official" morality is first examined as a collective reality and is then used to develop a functional hypothesis which test the relevance of this kind of phenomenon for the systems in which it occurs.

This study attempts to determine whether legitimate and illegitimate Negro children of similar economic status differed significantly in adjustment. For this study, "adjustment" was defined as consisting of the intelligence quotient, age-grade placement, school absences, teacher's ratings, cumulative grade scores, and scores on the California Test of Personality. Findings indicate that the legitimate children rated higher in every area except one, athough significance was reached only on teacher's ratings and I.Q.-age correlation; younger illegitimate children rated consistently higher than older group, when compared to legitimate children. The results suggest that birth status may affect the adjustment of Negro children.

Two new methods of research are described. (1) Planning studies: The development of a broadcast often requires prior information about the people for whom it is being prepared. This information has to be collected quickly and inexpensively, and very frequently it requires highly controlled conditions of extraction. Group testing methods are used, but they are geared to procedures which tend to eliminate such bias as is usually associated with the recruitment of test-room groups of the general public. (2) Measuring effects: The second technique described is a new process for measuring the effect of a television (or radio) broadcast. Exposure to the broadcast is in to way controlled or stimulated, and the effect as measured tends to be independent of experimental influences. Each of the two methods here described is usable in fields other than broadcasting (e.g., in social campaigning, in propaganda, in advertising).