culture

New & Noteworthy

• In Talk and Trust About Climate Change, Nicole Bekesz covers new research investigating who people trust to tell them the truth about climate change, and what makes them seem trustworthy. {2 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Jan-Rose Davis for recent news featuring social science experts. Last week, Iman Sediqe on intersections between cooking and sociology, Katie E. Corcoran and Christopher P. Scheitle on Americans’ habits of attending multiple religious congregations, Seung-yeon Lee on therapy culture, and Heather Hensman Kettrey on students’ distrust of universities to appropriately handle sexual misconduct. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• The U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in a ruling last Wednesday, reversing protections against racial discrimination in redistricting. This 2020 piece from Neeraj Rajasekar synthesizes research on gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and the role of voting in U.S. democracy. {7 min read}
• Last week, Israel intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters more than 600 miles from the flotilla’s destination in Gaza, where they sought to bring aid. Over 175 civilian activists from around the world were detained, which leaders of multiple countries have criticized as illegal. To help make sense of how international crimes are understood and arbitrated, check out this roundtable discussion from 2013 explaining the international criminal justice system. {19 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• A new study by Yiang Li, Jason Wong, and Linda Waite shows how the conditions people experience in childhood don’t only shape themselves in adulthood, but impact their partners and wider relationships as well. {5 min read}

Backstage with TSP

• After a grueling start to the year here in the Twin Cities, the spring 2026 academic semester is coming to a close. While the TSP board will be posting less frequently over the summer to accommodate the break and changing schedules, stay tuned for more content covering the latest social science research, as well as a special TSP series processing the ICE surge in Minnesota.

New & Noteworthy

• A new Discoveries article highlights research on how renters navigate the risks of poor housing conditions and forced moves. Tenants often face a tough choice: stay and deal with needed repairs or risk instability by relocating. Learn more in The Risks of Relocation and Repair for Renters by Luna Iman. {2 min read}

From the Archives

• Despite declining participation in organized religion, mainstream media is seeing a rise in religion-based films and shows, like Amazon’s “The Chosen” and Fox’s “The Faithful: Women of the Bible.” This 2011 TSP article by Kyle Green – Godless TV – suggests that there has been a dramatic shift in media production of religion in the last 15 years. {4 min read} And this 2014 piece by Evan Stewart – Christian Cinema? – highlights the controversy surrounding religious media in the market concerning navigating complex social and religious identities. {2 min read}
• Last Thursday the Trump administration signed an order to reclassify licensed medical marijuana as a less regulated Schedule III rather than a more highly regulated Schedule I drug, a designation typically reserved for drugs with limited medical use and high potential for abuse. Check out this 2018 TSP article for A Sociological Look at Marijuana and its Users. {3 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• What are the expectations for family members to care for older adults with chronic health conditions? A new piece by Samantha M. Pantelic, Kelsi Caywood, and Sarah E. Patterson shows the complicated dynamics behind caregiver relationships. Read more in “Families Are Messy, Aren’t They?” {3 min read}

First Publics

• A new essay by Brianna Stefano reflects on teaching victimology in classrooms where students may have lived experience with trauma, emphasizing care and flexibility in pedagogy. {5 min read}
• First Publics interviewed Sarah Lageson, Associate Professor of Technology and Social Power at Northeastern University. They discussed the intersection of sociology and law, public sociology and pedagogy. {6 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• Do you find it hard to tell your family when you’re struggling, but easy to unpack your problems with a stranger on a plane? In The Weakness of Strong Ties, Tianhe Chen covers new research showing that people very commonly avoid talking to their closest friends and family when facing personal issues. {2 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Jan-Rose Davis for recent news featuring social science experts. Last week, Sean M. Theriault on the legacy of Pope Francis, Danielle J. Lindemann on how reality TV changes your behavior, Zachary Levenson on the state censorship of sociology in Florida, and Megan Thiele Strong on how misinformation impacts sociologists in the age of Trump. {2 min read}

From the Archives

• Millions of people attended “No Kings” protests across the U.S. this past weekend. This 2017 article by Neeraj Rajasekar provides insights from social scientists on what makes protests successful. {2 min read}
• There’s a connection between the growing heat of March Madness and the growing discontent with President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. Learn more in this 2017 Engaging Sports piece by Ryan Turcott, which explains the increasing internationalization of college basketball – a dynamic that has become more complicated with changes in transfer rules and NIL payments for student athletes. {5 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• CCF reprinted a report from the Texas Population Research Center showing the demand for pill packs for self-managed abortions increased significantly after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision. {5 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• How Black Women Navigate Interracial Relationships by Jan-Rose Davis covers a new interview study by Vanessa Gonlin, Chelsey D. Adams, and Elaysha K. Brown. Black women in interracial relationships were often confronted with social tensions rooted in a history of slavery, including accusations of internalized racism from other Black people. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• Spring has sprung! As we move into the warmer season, revisit this 2016 TROT for research on the sociology of spring cleaning. {3 min read}
• This past weekend, the Islamic holiday Eid converged with Nowruz, the start of the Persian New Year. Next week, the Jewish holiday Passover will converge with Christian celebrations of Holy Week and Easter. This Discovery from 2016 discusses how social media facilitates exposure to religious diversity, which can in turn impact people’s own religious practices. {3 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• Does getting your hair done feel like therapy? CCF’s Alicia M. Walker interviewed Hannah McCann about her new book, Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon: Caring Beyond Skin Deep. {6 min read}
• CCF reprinted a 2023 briefing from Daniel Carlson on how worries about COVID-19 transmission affected mother’s participation in the workforce. It warned that the pandemic could have long-lasting effects on gender equality. {5 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• In How Anti-ICE Organizing in Minnesota Reactivated Mutual Aid Networks Started After George Floyd’s Murder, republished from The Conversation, Gemma Ware interviews Daniel Cueto-Villalobos about the origins and scale of mutual aid organizing in the Twin Cities. {2 min read; 25 min listen}
• “I Love My Country, but I Hate the State” by Anastasia Dulle covers new research illustrating how political emigrants from Russia navigate complicated feelings toward their home and their government. {2 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social science experts. Last week, Gopa Sabharwal on the legacy of the late Indian sociologist Andre Beteille; Meaghan Furlano on “heteropessimism”; Laura Maudlin on caregiving in romantic relationships; and more! {3 min read}

From the Archives

• A measles outbreak at the University of Florida has reached 60 cases. Measles are preventable by vaccines, and were declared eradicated in 2000. This 2015 TROT by Caty Taborda examines how vaccinations have become viewed as a personal choice, to the potential cost of public health. {2 min read}
• Valentine’s Day was this past weekend! Here’s a 2024 roundup from TSP on sociological research related to love, relationships, and Valentine’s Day itself.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• CCF reprinted an article from The Conversation on the mental load mothers experience from managing family life. {5 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• Disability and (In)Accessibility in American Churches by Anastasia Dulle presents social science research on the legal and theological justifications for ableism in Christian churches. {3 min read}
• Who’s to Blame for Climate Change? by S. Ericson details a new survey study that reveals how media framing can shape perceptions of climate change. {3 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social science experts. Last week, Scott Schieman on the state of AI attitudes in the workforce; Musa al-Gharbi on higher education’s “awokening”; and Murat Haner, Justin Pickett, and Melissa Sloan on the shifting target of political violence. Plus, reflections on the life and career of medical sociologist Alice Wong. {4 min read}

From the Archives

• The president’s xenophobic remarks this week renewed political attacks on Somali-Americans. The population is also a target of increased ICE actions in the Twin Cities. This piece – #BlackMuslimsResist: Minnesota Somalis Fight Back – from our partners at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies places this moment in historical context, reminding us how the president’s 2017 “Muslim ban” caused pain and inspired resistance in the Twin Cities. {3 min read}
• Another TSP article from 2023 highlights how immigration arrests affect the children who witness them, shaping their future relationship with law enforcement. {3 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts

• Contexts is turning the page on its print magazine, moving to online-only publications. The outgoing editors, Amin Ghaziani and Seth Abrutyn, reflect on the big change and offer a sneak peek at what’s inside the Fall 2025 issue. {4 min read}

Give Theory A Chance 

• In the latest episode of Give Theory A Chance, Kyle Green speaks to Christopher R. Matthews about radical honesty in the methods section, Simone Weil, and conceiving research as sacred. {79 min listen}

Council on Contemporary Families

• This week, CCF reprinted a report by Renee Ryberg and Arielle Kuperberg on the thin landscape of financial assistance for student parents enrolled in colleges and universities. The study was published earlier this year in The Journal of Higher Education. {7 min read}
• Last week, a CCF brief by Zhe (Meredith) Zhang detailed the author’s findings on differences in unpaid caregiving work by gender and sexual identity. The study, by Zhang, Madeline Smith-Johnson, and Bridget K. Gorman, was published last year in Demography. {7 min read}

Happy Halloween!

New & Noteworthy

• In the mood for something spooky? Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, a new StoryMap from Jordyn Wald, tracks the Sociology of the occult. This visual special feature is based on a 2024 piece by Mallory Harrington and Nicole Schmitgen. {3 min scroll}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Michael Benediktsson on the history of the public bench; Ash Watson on who the digital revolution leaves behind; Jennifer Glass on the contentious results of a new Pew Research survey on parenting; Alex Wood on the rise of the freelancer; and Alka Menon on the quickening cycle of trends in cosmetic surgery. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• This week, an unpublished Dr. Seuss manuscript was uncovered in UC San Diego’s Geisel Library. Penguin House plans to publish the book titled Sing the 50 United States! in the summer of 2026. Small Books, Big Questions, a 2018 article by Evan Stewart for Sociological Images, discusses how children’s books reflect the culture around them. {3 min read}
• The Fed lowered interest rates earlier this week, but will this resolve housing shortages? Read Steven Schmidt’s recent piece in Council on Contemporary Families covering research in Los Angeles on this ongoing and complex issue for want-to-be homeowners and sellers. {6 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

World Suffering

• Research finds that forgiveness is healthy, but the pressure to do so may not be. TSP’s Managing Editor, Jacob Otis, wrote Social Expectations of Forgiveness for our partner publication World Suffering this week. {4 min read}

Council on Contemporary Families

• Increases in Community Income Improve Birth Outcomes by Molly A. Martin was originally published in CCF’s Brief Reports and reprinted by CCF this week. Read about the novel experimental design Martin and colleagues used to find a causal link between income and birth outcomes, from their study published in Demography. {4 min read}

New & Noteworthy

We have two new Discoveries for you to read:

• Policing and Crimmigration by Leo LaBarre on a study by Michael T. Light, Jason P. Robey, and Jungmyung Kim how local and federal law enforcement in California and Texas differently work together when policing immigrants. They found immigrants were almost 10% more likely than citizens to be incarcerated in Texas, whereas the immigrant-citizen gap was only 2% in California.
• Teachers’ Racial Blame in the Classroom by John Purnell covers research by Jayanti Owens on race and the use of blame by high school teachers toward students. Dr. Owens shows evidence of ‘tough love’ by teachers of color towards Black and Latino students.

Check out some of our ‘Best of 2023’ pieces including:

• Defending Against Social Media in Criminal Trials by Mallory Harrington (best opening line).
• Roses are Red, Violets are Blue: Online Dating May Have a Gendered View by Nicole Schmitgen (best title).
• Not Just a Monolith: Complicating Asian American Identity by Shania Kuo (best TROT).

From the Archives

Government shutdown avoided? Read our TROT on shutdowns to learn more about how impactful.

Children and adults experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to cold weather, especially in Minnesota. Check out this World Suffering piece by Ron Anderson The Intractable Suffering of the Homeless to understand some of the complexities, and risks.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

The latest from Contexts includes:

• Rose Xueqing Zhang writes up a recent publication by Sarah Goodrum, Jessie Slepicka, William Woodward, and Beverly Kingston on how school structure and culture can contribute to violence.
• Parker Muzzerall covers research by Pierre-Christian Fink on the front and backstage of financial crises.

Council on Contemporary Families a piece on love and loss:

• Deborah Carr writes about The Golden Bachelor and older adult dating and five important truths about widowhood, grief, and loss from The Golden Bachelor.

New & Noteworthy

TSP board member Eleanor Nickel has a new Discovery, “Love Behind Bars.” Based on a recent article by Kristin Turney, Katelyn Rose Malae, MacKenzie A. Christensen, and Sarah Halpern-Meekin, the ripple effect of jail incarceration is strongly felt by women and children of incarcerated persons.

Our latest Media Report on Clippings features some Spookiology from Margee Kerr, Lars Birger Davan, Marc Eaton, and Dennis Waskul in Axios and Atlas Obscura, Patricia Romero-Lankao on transitioning to green energy and equity in NPR, and Alexei Levinson on the war in Ukraine and Putin’s career in The Bell.

From the Archives

How do we relate to people around the world experiencing war and trauma? Read our ‘There’s Research on That’ by Brooke Chambers to learn more about how distant war and the degree media coverage can impact our selective empathy of conflicts.

Student loan forgiveness developments continue to make headlines. Read our ‘There’s Research on That’ by Amber Powell on how student loan debt disproportionately impacts students of color and women.

Backstage with TSP

We are growing! New board members are joining the TSP team and bringing new perspectives and energy! Podcast planning is also our primary project. We are currently looking for recent sociological books to add to our current SOC 101 episodes.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has new pieces to check out:

• Sophie X. Liu writes up work by Liliana V Rodriguez on the role of humor in coping with impossible situations.
• Dr. Aldon Morris‘s essay from the University of California Press blog highlighted his meeting with the president of Ghana, Akufo-Addo, on W.E.B. Du Bois’s legacy in Ghana.  

Council on Contemporary Families latest include:

• Patricia Drentea writes up the change and evolution of the meaning of family, based on her latest book Families and Aging

New and Noteworthy

The children of undocumented migrants pulled over by police experience both short and long-term emotional harm, fearing their parents detainment or deportation. Expanded access to driver’s licenses could change that according to new research from Robert Smith and colleagues written up by Leonardo LaBarre.

Worth a (Watch) Sociologically Speaking

Watch board member Jacob Otis’s roundup of research on the Child Tax Credit. As parents file their 2022 taxes, they won’t receive the expanded CTC despite evidence that it improved parent and child health.

From the Archives

This week Wellesley, a historically women’s college, voted against admitting any transgender or nonbinary students. For some social scientific context, read this archive piece summarizing research on how transgender policies at women’s colleges actively construct gender.

From Our Partner and Community Pages

Contexts spoke with Dr. Chiara Cooper about her new article in the magazine, exploring the double-binds, compromises, and unwanted sex heterosexual college women experience.

For Council on Contemporary Families’ blog, Marta Soler and Ane Lopez de Aguileta wrote about how the book Creative Friendships can help children learn friendship skills and develop values that support their wellbeing.

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