UC Irvine

Local social systems are connected to larger systems, including the world-system, in a variety of complex ways; thus it is often difficult to identify the local stratification system or community of reference. Yet system specification is crucial in stratification studies, because the phenomena studied are often best understood in terms of relative position within the local system. Support for this is found through review of the theory of UMc conservatism advanced by Frank Cancian (The Innovator's Situation: Upper-Middle-Class Conservatism in Agricultural Communities, Stanford, Calif: Stanford U Press, 1979) & of the replication of this research by R. Scott Frey, David M. Freeman, & Max K. Lowdermilk, which yielded a finding of LMc conservatism in adoption of agricultural innovations. Reanalysis of the data from the latter study shows that the finding changes when the specification of the local system changes. Thus, the system specification problem faced by empirical researchers dealing with Ru stratification is highlighted. In Stratification and Risk-Taking in Pakistan: A Response to Cancian, R. Scott Frey & David M. Freeman (George Washington U, Washington, DC) find the concept of community of reference to be operationally ambiguous. Cancian's reanalysis of the data from Pakistan is misleading & leads to invalid conclusions; further, the anomaly does not vanish when rank is defined in a new way, but simply takes a new form. Cancian's explanation of the anomaly remains questionable. 3 Tables, 6 Figures, Appendix. Modified HA.