Sixteen essays provide a perspective on the range and depth of current research in sociology. Most of the authors are associated with departments of sociology in U.S. colleges and universities. Several authors are from American research centers and business organizations. The essays are presented in nine broad categories: theory and methods, social processes, institutions, political and economic sociology, differentiation and stratification, culture, individual and society, policy, and sociology of world regions. Titles include: Methods for Temporal Analysis, Environmental Sociology, Sociology of Contemporary Religious Movements, Criminal Justice, Comparative Industrial Sociology and the Convergence Hypothesis, Sociology of American Catholics, Reality Construction in Interaction, Sociology of South Africa, and Social Policy and Family. The volume concludes with cumulative indexes of authors and essay titles for each of the five annual reviews published to date. (DB)