Maori and Pakeha: A Study of Mixed Marriages in New Zealand. by John HarréReview by: Charles F. MardenSocial Forces, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Sep., 1967), p. 138Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2575365 .

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138 SOCIAL FORCES

Detroit, albeit less practiced, is much truer to the traditional faith than is the modified variant prac- ticed in Toledo. It is hardly surprising, then, that the Detroit Moslems are less assimilated. Moreover, the assimilation index is contaminated by the inclusion of two items pertaining to re- ligion.

The book is replete with factual inconsistencies. For example: (1) several relationships are de- clared significant at one point and nonsignificant at another; (2) contrary to Table 55, the Toledo third generation is declared higher in religiosity than the second generation; and (3) while the data indicate otherwise, Elkholy states that the Detroit and Toledo third generation "have achieved an identical high degree of assimilation." Finally, the book is extremely repetitious in both text and tables (e.g., 54 and 60). No table, however, pre- sents the key relationship between religiosity and assimilation.

On the positive side, the book provides useful data regarding a previously neglected immigrant group and it illuminates some aspects of the as- similation process-e.g., the complex relation of generation to assimilation. The index of religiosity is excellent. The index of assimilation is com- mendable although it ignores the social dimen- sion, with the result that interaction between Mos- lems and other Americans is not adequately analyzed.

DONALD L. NOEL Ohio State University

MAORI AND PAKEHA: A STUDY OF MIXED MAR- RIAGES IN NEW ZEALAND. By John Harre. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. 158 pp. $5.00.

The twofold purpose of this study was to analyze intermarriages between Maori and European New Zealanders and to relate this to the general state of race relations in the Commonwealth. Findings are based on data obtained from 104 interracial couples, from 73 of which rather complete data were collected, all living in Auckland. While not a random sample, Harre feels it is representative.

After presenting the social characteristics of the mixed couples, the organization follows the family cycle-meeting and courtship, through to the child-rearing stages, and relates the mixed family system to larger kinship systems and the community. A typology of mixed marriages is developed: (1) "fully mixed marriages" in which each spouse is both racially and culturally oriented toward his own ethnic group at marriage; and (2) "only racially mixed" marriages in which both spouses are culturally oriented toward the same group (either Maori or Pakeha). The most marked variation in the typologies is in the "only racially mixed" marriages where the Maori hus- band-Pakeha wife marriage starts with a Pakeha culture orientation of both spouses.

The study is a valuable contribution to knowl-

edge of intermarriage and to dominant-minority group relations, on the whole supporting generali- zations found in other studies. For example, mixed married couples do not form separate social groups. Interracial marriages are increasing; "almost half the marriages made by Maoris in Auckland in 1960 were to Pakehas. Intermarrying persons tend to be drawn from atypical population segments, for example, Pakeha husbands are often new- comers; Pakeha wives frequently quite young. "In a very high proportion . . . both spouses come from disrupted homes."

The author provides no background information of New Zealand or of its race relations. Some lack of familiarity with the sociology of minori- ties is seen in the failure to relate the small size of the Maori population, 6-7 percent of the total population (percentages possibly higher in Auck- land) and the noncompetitive threat the Maoris pose for the whites. These factors may account for the currently benign state of white dominance and what Harre feels will be a continued decline of interracial tension in New Zealand.

CHARLES F. MARDEN

Rutgers, The State University

MASS ENTERTAINMENT. By Harold Mendelsohn. New Haven, Connecticut: College & Univer- sity Press, 1966. 203 pp. Cloth, $5.00; paper, $1.95. This is a rather clever though hopelessly philis-

tine defense of mass entertainment as currently dispensed by the mass media. The author makes selective use of various empirical studies to argue that the institutions that provide mass entertain- ment have "grown from human needs and are sustained by satisfying those needs" (p. 48.). The needs in question are anxiety reduction, pleasure, a sense of security for the middle and upper classes, and anticipatory socialization for the lower classes in their quest for upward mobility. Thus there is something for everybody, or for almost everybody, for the author is fighting an odd assortment of enemies which include the Protestant Ethic, Marxism, elitist intellectuals, and the theorists of Mass Society.

The trouble with this argument is that the middle- and upper-class life style presented by television does not aid the upward mobility of the adult lower class by anticipatory socialization, be- cause this anticipatory socialization is largely fraudulent. In advanced industrial society adult workers seldom become managers. We know that the mechanism of upward mobility has shifted from industry to the educational structure, and the adult worker has left the latter far behind. What this fraudulent anticipatory socialization does accom- plish is to stimulate demand for high-prestige con- sumer goods and to reinforce lower-class cross- pressures (which Lipset has identified as a source of political apathy).

We are told that, "since the great majority of

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