technology

Do schools reproduce or challenge inequality? And how can we know one way or another? Douglas Downey calls into the Contexts Podcast to help us answer these questions. Be sure to check out Downey’s Spring 2010 Contexts feature How Schools Really Matter!

Also: Jon shares a discovery about gender and software development from last month’s JITP conference on The Politics of Open Source by Hanna Wallach and the FLOSSPOLS project.

Download episode #37 now!

This week’s guest is Jessie Daniels, author of Cyber Racism and blogger at Racism Review and Contech. Cyber Racism is about white supremacist groups online, and Daniels tells us how white supremacy online is important for how we think about education, free spech and multiculturalism.

Also, Kia Heise discusses Karin Martin’s Normalizing Heterosexuality: Mothers’ Assumptions, Talk, and Strategies with Young Children.

If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please do! You can find it at thesocietypages.org/podcast/survey!

Download episode #20 now!

Our web editor, Jon Smajda, interviews Jose Marichal, professor of political science at California Lutheran University and blogger in chief at ThickCulture, a blog about politics, culture and technology. Jose describes how he uses blogging to enhance both his teaching and research, and discusses how Web 2.0 technologies like blogging and podcasting can contribute to a multidisciplinary social science.

Download episode #4 now!

This week, we turn again to our Fall 2008 Discoveries for a set of technology-themed discoveries. Next, we chat with Francesca Polletta about her article in our Fall issue, Storytelling in Politics. In particular, we talk about when and why political storytelling is effective and we get Polletta’s take on storytelling in the 2008 election. The failure of Joe the Plumber, she argues, represents the end of the “little anecdote” and a new appreciation that the best political stories are often sophisticated and nuanced.

Download episode #3 now!

We’ll be back in a few weeks after the new year. Happy Holidays!