H. Kerbo Prof. Social Sciences Department CPSU

Dr. Harold R. Kerbo, Professor of Sociology

Office: 47-12P
Phone: (805) 765-1150
Office Hours
Email: hkerbo@calpoly.edu

Current Research Interests and Projects:

Along with the many projects involving the Pacific Rim Group, Professor Kerbo has taken on a new writing/editing project with McGraw-Hill, is continuing research on Japanese transplant corporations in Southeast Asia, and is starting a new book on prostitution and sex slavery in Southeast Asia.

Professor Kerbo is the general editor of the new Comparative Societies Series for McGraw-Hill, which will include about 10 books on major countries around the world. Two of these books, on the German society and the Japanese society, will be coauthored by Kerbo. The first five of the books in the Series will be published in late 1997, with the next five to follow a year later.

With a research grant from the World Society Foundation in Zurich, Prof. Kerbo is continuing research on Japanese transplant corporations and their relations with foreign employees in Thailand. During the summer of 1996 the research will be extended to Vietnam, and hopefully to other Southeast Asian countries in the future.

Over the past three summers in Thailand, Professor Kerbo has been gathering information about the increasingly serious problem of teenage prostitution in Thailand, as well as the new trend of many of these girls kept as virtual sex slaves. Interviews with some of the girls who have been helped to escape and the Thai agencies working to help these girls will continue during June through August of 1996. A book from these interviews and research will be forthcoming.

Dr. Kerbo also acts as the Tomodachi Kai

Past Research and Projects

In recent years, Prof. Kerbo has been a visiting professor at Duisburg University, Germany, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, and a visiting research Professor at Silpakorn University, Thailand. During 1988-1989 he was a Fulbright professor at Hiroshima University in Japan, and received a Fulbright-Hayes grant to attend the summer siminar at Chulalongkorn University, in Thailand during 1991. Professor Kerbo is the founding Director of the Pacific Rim Group at Cal Poly, which sponsors various activities from faculty research to study trips to Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, with China and other Pacific Rim countries to be included for study trips in the future. Kerbo has received grants from the DAAD in Germany, the World Society Foundation in Zurich, Center for International Business and Education Research, San Diego State University, the U.S. Department of Education, and a California State University Summer Fellowship to do research on Japanese corporations in Germany and Thailand.

During 1996, Professor Kerbo's third edition of Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in Historical and Comparative Perspective was published by McGraw-Hill, as was a new book with John McKinstry, Who Rules Japan?: The Inner Circles of Economic and Political Power, by Greenwood/Praeger.

Courses:

SOC 309: Modern World System course description

SOC 323: Social Stratification course description

SOC 421: Sociological Theory course descrition

Some Recent Publications

Sociology: Social Structure and Social Conflict, Macmillan, 1989.
Who Rules Japan?: The Inner-Circles of Economic and Political Power. (coauthor, John McKinstry). The Greenwood Group, Praeger, 1995.
Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict In Historical and Comparative Perspective. (Third, revised edition) McGraw- Hill, 1996.
Comparative Societies Series. General editor of the 10 book series to be published by McGraw-Hill, with first books appearing in late 1997.
Modern Japan. (volume of Comparative Societies Series, McGraw-Hill, forthcoming, 1997, John McKinstry co-author).
German Society Today. (volume of Comparative Societies Series, McGraw-Hill, forthcoming 1997, Hermann Strasser co-author).
"Social Structure and White Collar Crime in Japan: Recruit Cosmos and Beyond." Deviant Behavior. 1990. 11:139-154. (Second author, Mariko Inoe)
"Corporate Structure and Modernization: A Comparative Analysis of Japan and the United States." International Review of Sociology. 1991. no. 3:149-174. (Second author, Keiko Nakao)
"The Distribution of Income in Modern Japan: An examination of the Structural Determinants of Relative Equality." Duisburger Bettrage zur Soziologischen Forschung. no. 5, 1991.
"Lower Class Insurgency and the Political Process: The Response of the U.S. Unemployed, 1890-1940." Social Problems. 1992. 39:401-416.(Second author, Richard A. Shaffer)
"Soziale Ungleichheit und Gesellschaftliche Integration. Ein Vergleich von USA, Japan und Deutschland." Berliner Journal Fur Soziologie. 1993. Heft 2:215-226. (with Brigitte Hamm, Deiter Holtman, and Hermann Strasser)
"Japanische Unternehmen in Deutsch: Unternehmenstruktur und Arbeitsverhaltnis." (With Elke Wittenhagen and Keiko Nakao), Veroffentlichungsliste Des Instituts Arbeit Und Technik, Gelsenkirchen, Germany, 1994.
"Japanese Transplant Corporations, Foreign Employees, and the German Economy: A Comparative analysis of Germany and the United States." (with Elke Wittenhagen and Keiko Nakao), Duisburger Bettrage zur Soziologischen Forschung, Duisburg, Germany, 1994.
"A Sociology of Higher Education: The Japanese University in the Context of Japanese Culture, Social Organization, and Social Stratification." Sociological Viewpoints. vol 10, 1994.
"Japanese Companies in Germany: A Case Study in Cross-Cultural Management." Journal of Industrial Relations. Forthcoming, Spring 1995. (First author James Lincoln, with Elke Wittenhagen).