NCJ Number
149161
Date Published
1974
Length
275 pages
Annotation
By participating in local activities where he lived in a Chicago blue collar community in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the author was able to examine the effects of residential segregation, ethnic identification, age groupings, job status, and leisure styles on the community's social cohesion.
Abstract
He found that "ordered segmentation" occurring in the community created fragmented groupings and delimited social worlds. Working class solidarity was, in part, a political phenomenon based on building group loyalties in the factory work setting and translating them into coalitions of ethnic leaders. Various institutional mechanisms were used by different ethnic groups to aggregate and exercise political power. Trade union politics, for example, ensued from ethnic solidarities in the workplace. Relations between trade union leaders and the rank and file and between trade union activists and political leaders, however, were strained. The author describes the complex social organization of a community dominated by heavy manufacturing, ethnic groups and community institutions, negotiation and succession in local unions, and mechanisms of social change. Notes and tables