Editorial Board:
Editor:
George H. Conklin,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Board:
Bob Davis,
 North Carolina
 Agricultural and
 Technical State
 University

Richard Dixon,
 UNC-Wilmington

Ken Land,
 Duke University

Miles Simpson,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Ron Wimberley,
 N.C. State University

Robert Wortham,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Editorial Assistants

Rob Tolliver,
 Duke University

Shannon O'Connor,
 North Carolina
 Central University

John W.M. Russell,
 Technical
 Consultant

® 
Volume 5, Number 2

Fall 2007

Outline of Articles

1. The Social Construction of Life Meaning: The 2007 North Carolina Sociological Association Presidential Address
   by Stephen J. McNamee 
   With few exceptions, sociologists have not generally explored the topic of meaning-of-life as a whole.   For the most part, the topic of meaning in life has been the intellectual domain of philosophers, psychologists, and theologians.  However, a uniquely sociological perspective can provide value added insight to this issue. 
2. Disparity in Academic Achievement Between Black and White Students in the Wake County Public School System of North Carolina 
   by Patricia Moore Watkins
   Since the desegregation of public schools in the 1950s, studies have been conducted to determine why Blacks lag behind Whites academically. Efforts to understand the racial disparities in school performance continue, and some studies indicate this may be due to neighborhood differences. According to this study, the characteristics of neighborhood and school have profound effects on students' academic success or failure. The students' characteristics have more of an effect on students' test scores as opposed to the neighborhood's characteristics.
3. Southern (Dis)Comfort?: Latino Population Growth, Economic Integration and Spatial Assimilation in North Carolina Micropolitan Areas  
   by Ana-María González Wahl 
   This paper examines more closely the growth and assimilation of the Latino population in non-metropolitan areas across North Carolina.  More specifically, the analysis focuses on micropolitan areas. Based on the last decennial census, micropolitan areas were newly defined by the Census Bureau to reflect the growing importance of "urban clusters" located in non-metropolitan counties. The study finds that North Carolina represenets an important exception to the patterns uncovered in nationwide studies, which tie Latino growth in non-metropolitan areas to growth in the manufacturing sector.   
4. Building a Bohemian Boom Town: The Construction of a 'Creative Class' in Asheville, North Carolina 
   by Mary LaRue Scherer 
   Asheville North Carolina is currently on the radar for developers, tourists, young couples and retirees looking for the perfect place to relocate. As a result of the development, sleek new buildings are popping up downtown and sidewalks are expanding to accommodate outdoor cafes and more and more visitors.  This is occurring in a non-industrial city dependent on hype to attract newcomers with significant money.  An examination of how this is happening is presented along with interviews of significant players in Asheville's development patterns to show how people pretty much tend to buy into the marketing of their hometown by the development community using the concept of the economy of the mind.  The case-study approach is used.
5. Succession and Renewal in Urban Neighborhoods: The Case of Coney Island 
   by Raymond M. Weinstein 
   Sociologists for some time have used the concepts of succession and renewal to describe two different, but sometimes complementary, processes of neighborhood change in urban areas.  Coney Island has long been famous as an amusement area popular in New York City, but today the area has fallen on hard times.  Developers want to tear down the amusement area of  Coney Island and replace it with condos for the well-to-do.  This process is discussed in light of classic sociological theories of urban change and renewal.  
6. Book Review of Sprawl: A Compact History
   by George H. Conklin
   Cities have always sprawled, according to the conclusions of  Robert Bruegmann in the book Sprawl: A Compact History.  As populations of nations grow and the old rural areas need fewer workers, cities have to grow, but elites have been opposed as far back as Queen Elizabeth I who tried to limit the growth of London.  By the late 1800s most of the nasty anti-sprawl vocabulary had been developed and is used to this day virtually unchanged by elites who try to tell the rest of the world we do not know how to live properly.  Planning has become a normative undertaking and judges itself more as an art than a science, where elites set the tone and average person becomes an impediment to a better world. 
7. Announcing the Sociation Today Urban Sociology and Reprint Collection Series
   by George H. Conklin
   Sociation Today is happy to announce the Urban Sociology Reprint Series. Other reprints will be focused on DuBois and his work available on-line, while the Max Weber video now has its own page. Articles printed in the current and past issues of Sociation Today have been gathered together in one place so they can be viewed conviently. The MENU link to the left will direct you to the proper place, as will the link above (for the urban reprints). The files will enable you to see the articles on a specific topic in one place, and also will enable the professor to assign the articles easily in classes. As an open access journal, Sociation Today's goal remains to provide scholars, the public and students with refereed articles exploring the nature of society and its interactions at no charge, unlike traditional journals and JSTOR.

©2007 by the North Carolina Sociological Association