The difficulties of obtaining classical experimental and control groups when sampling populations called deviant often lead researchers to analyze data from index and comparison groups (for example, drug users and non‐users, respectively). When one is dealing with such samples, classical hypothesis testing and its associated inferential statistics are inappropriate. Yet, social scientists can generalize from their samples on the basis of facet theory, with its associated tools of the mapping sentence, smallest space analysis (SSA), and multidimensional scalogram analysis (MSA). These are illustrated and discussed with data taken from a large research project concerned with infants born to women who were using methadone.

African American young women exhibit higher risk for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, compared with European American women, and this is particularly true for African American women living in low-income contexts. We used rigorous qualitative methods, that is, domain analysis, including free listing (n = 20), similarity assessment (n = 25), and focus groups (four groups), to elicit self-described motivations for sex among low-income African American young women (19-22 years). Analyses revealed six clusters: Love/Feelings, For Fun, Curiosity, Pressured, For Money, and For Material Things. Focus groups explored how African American women interpreted the clusters in light of condom use expectations. Participants expressed the importance of using condoms in risky situations, yet endorsed condom use during casual sexual encounters less than half the time. This study highlights the need for more effective intervention strategies to increase condom use expectations among low-income African American women, particularly in casual relationships where perceived risk is already high.

In rediscovering clinical sociology, the therapeutic aspects of some former investi gations offriendship become evident. Moreover, sociologists and other scholars have long noted that the relationship of friendship contributes to mental health. Con sequently, they have developed various interventions to promote friendship, from describing and quantifying it to designing programs to help the friendless. This article introduces the background upon which I designed groups to promote the development of friendship.

Qualitatively summarizing a longer piece of research also based on quantitative methods, the author analyzes small group, videotaped discussions of friendship in which graduate and undergraduate students participated. Through these sessions the therapeutic and educational values of discussion groups on "closest friendship" are evaluated. In these groups the peak experience coincided with the discussion of the possibility for true friendships between men and women. To illustrate the verbal and nonverbal content of this phase, a section of the transcripts is recorded. The potential and limitations of groups for the development offriendship are elaborated in terms of the functions and the constraints placed on them in particular sociocultural contexts.

No abstract