Karády Viktor
Stratum-mobility, status-mobility and denominational mixed marriage in Budapest between the two world wars

The study aims to assess the social significance of the mixed marriages on the basis of analysing statistical sources of extraordinary value. The mixed marriage is analysed as a way of social mobility through marriage. Significant results are obtained primarily from the analysis of mixed Jewish-Christian marriages; the study investigates the social distance between the denomations, the effects of secularization, the status mobility, the inequalities in the position of men and women and also the unequal share of "investing" in the marriage.

The author draws the conclusion that the conditions, determined by forced assimilation and class-status exert a decisive influence on choosing marriage-partnerc, though of course these decisions are always subjective decisions which can never be fully rationalized.
 

József Hegedûs-Katherine Mark-Raymond Struyk-Iván Tosics
The dilemmas of privatization in the sector of rented flats in Budapest

The local self-governments face a very difficult dilemma when they have to choose between selling or retaining the rented flats, between raising the prices or squandering the flats, in one word, when they work out the details of how to manage the local flat-stock. What should the role of the rented flats be, how should those households be defended which are characterized by a low level of income and how should the decayed flats be restored? At the same time a similarly difficult dilemma is to be faced by the households themselves: they should decide upon whether to buy their flats from the self-governments at the present cheap price (while they have only very meagre information concerning the real condition of the building or the necessary expénses of maintenance or full restoration); if they decide not to buy the flats, they are bound to face as tenants unforeseen problems in the future. The authors try in this paper to survey the situation and the alternatives of the two main actors of the privatization process, i.e. of the local self-governments and the tenants, on the basis of empirical questionnaires concerning the privatization of llats in Budapest in 1992.
 

Szelényi Szonja-Karen E. Aschaffenburg
Did socialist reforms make a difference? Class differences in educational attainment in Hungary

Did socialist reforms have an impact on the Hungarian educational system? And if so, were the effects in the desired direction?

The article answers the questions on the basis of a 24.829-strong empirical survey, restricted to respondents who were born between 1911 and 1960. According to the results of the cohort analysis the expansion of the mass education comenced before the transition to socialism, as well as the convergence between the levels of schooling of men and women. It follows that a more complex explanation, one which combines "socialist reform effects" with the thesis of industrialisation and social modernization arguments, might have to be invoked in order to explain the observed pattern of change.

On the other hand the class based quotas of the first twenty years of socialism produced little in the way of results. Quotas were abandoned too soon to have a lasting influence on educational opportunities. The authors think that the quota system was also undermined while it was in place.
 

Gedeon Péter
Luhmann's and Polányi's interpretations of the economy and the "dual rationality"

In the system-theory of Luhmann the separation of éach sub-system is effected by the symbolically generalized media of the respective sub-system. This view is called in question by Béla Pokol who introduced the concept of "double rationality", stressing that the independence of the social sub-systems requires not only their own media, but also the presence of the financial medium. Consequently, he thinks that the independence of each sub-system (such as science, arts, etc.) can be secured if the activities within these spheres are financed by the market. In this paper, trying to assess this standpoint, we compare the original theory of Luhmann with the "double rationality" thesis of Pokol, utilizing the concept of Polányi regarding the "dual economy". According to our findings it is not the sphere of economy itself, but rather the separation of the economic and political sub-systems that serves as the basis for the process whereby the other social sub-systems become gradually independent. These two sub-systems have crucial significance in the formation and preservation of the structure of modern society. Financing each separated - non-economic and non-politic sub-system - poses such a dilemma that cannot be solved on the theoretical basis of those macro-sociological concepts which have been elaborated to depict the differentiation of the social sub-systems: the answers concerning the problems of financing cannot be deducted with constraint from the network of macro-sociological concepts.