Sociology Lens

Looking at sex offender laws, Kelly M. Socia, Jr. and Janet P. Stamatel identify the unintended consequences of policies that are context driven rather than research driven.  Responding to a frightened public, legislatures across the US passed laws requiring sex offender registration, community notification, and residence restrictions.  Socia and Stamatel study the enactment of legislation, the ways these laws reflect assumptions or evidence, and research on the effectiveness of these laws in their article in the January 2010 edition of the Crime and Deviance section of Sociology Compass.  This extensive review of the scientific study of sex offender registration, community notification, and residence restrictions laws questions their effectiveness and shows that the laws produce harmful unintended consequences.  Based upon these findings, Socia and Stamatel urge lawmakers to move beyond expressive justice and instead work to craft evidence based policies.

Kelly M. Socia Jr. and Janet P. Stamatel on Assumptions and Evidence Behind Sex Offender Laws: Registration, Community Notification, and Residence Restrictions

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Macintosh.

Living in and between two normative contexts, second generation immigrant youths experience normative conflict.  In the February 2010 edition of Sociology Compass, Giguère, Lalonde and Lou explore how second generation immigrant youth of Canada respond to normative conflict regarding their intimate relationships.

Actions of immigrant youths occur within two normative frameworks: the heritage culture and the mainstream culture.  Recent immigrants to Canada tend to be from Eastern cultures that reject individualism, which can conflict with the mainstream Western culture.  Norm acquisition is different for second generation youth, who have limited experiences of their heritage culture as compared to their parents.  Frame-switching and situated identity allow the youth to negotiate two normative frameworks in many situations.  However, this is not the case when selecting partners for intimate relationships.  Here the family’s heritage-based norms and society’s mainstream norms cannot be selectively applied and the gap between them produces conflict.  Giguère, Lalonde and Lou explore the implications of this gap for second generation immigrant youths, given the importance of norms in social life.

Benjamin Giguère, Richard Lalonde and Evelina Lou on Living at the Crossroads of Cultural Worlds: The Experience of Normative Conflicts by Second Generation Immigrant Youth

Photo courtesy of Melinda.

As the Proposition 8 trial is underway in California, testing the definitions of family and marriage, it seems timely to look at what sociologists know about same-sex families.  Easterbrook’s December 2009 article in the Social Psychology & Family section of Sociology Compass is a review of sociological literature on same-sex families, focusing on the life course perspective.  A life course study of the family examines the transitions that families experience over time, history, and social context.

Existing literature tells a story of same-sex relationships, identifying patterns in: meeting partners, dating, sexual consummation, relationship formation, committed relationships/marriage, parenting, dissolution, and old age.  The literature reveals that sex-linked differences matter more than whether a person is in a same or opposite-sex relationship at three stages: partner choice, cohabitation, and relationship dissolution.  Holes in the literature reveal a need for research on dating and committed relationships.  Easterbrook is particularly critical of the large gaps in sociological knowledge of parenthood, relationship dissolution, and old age in same-sex families, which exist due to marginalization and the inability of same-sex couples to transition into family life via marriage.  Yet a life course lens has much to contribute to the study of same-sex families.  To the extent that it acknowledges a different life course for same-sex couples, it will be possible to grow sociological knowledge of same-sex families and challenge the assumptions of a family’s life course among both same and opposite-sex families.

Adam Easterbrook on Rethinking Families Over the Life Course Development Perspective: Including the Lives of Same-Sex Families

In the media they produce, diasporized communities express both the cultural practices they share with others from the same origin and their differences from host cultures.  Harindranath’s December 2009 article in the Race and Ethnicity section of Sociology Compass critically explores research of media and diasporized communities to reveal paths for future research that will allow for a better sociological knowledge of diasporas.  He begins by examining literatures on the politics of creating identity in a diaspora and the meaning of the term diaspora.  A review of studies of media production and consumption reveal weaknesses in existing scholarship:  the homogenization of the diaspora, a reliance on national boundaries, and an uninterrogated analysis of space.  Harindranath also critiques studies of audience, particularly assumptions about ethnicity and race and the absence of other factors such as class.  To understand diasporas that are diverse along many vectors–race, ethnicity, class, education, or gender–studies of transnational migrants must critically examine existing methodologies and epistemologies.

R. Harindranath on Translating Tradition: The Poetics and Politics of Diasporic Media

This fall’s lineup in the United States featured fewer reality programs, but they are still a dominant part of network TV.  Jelle Mast’s September 2009 article in the Communication and Media section of Sociology Compass challenges sociologists to think about the form and function of reality television programming.  Beginning with a critique of the academic community’s acceptance of the term “reality television,” Mast then compares this form to documentary television.  Whereas documentary television seeks to inform, educate, or connect viewers, reality television seems to merge these goals with that of popular genres which seek to entertain.  Challenging the “reality” of such programs, Mast examines many theoretical traditions to discover how reality television can be conceptualized based upon what we know about existing forms of entertainment.  The ethical dimensions of reality television are also explored, for both the the subject and the viewer, along with research on the production of such programs and their audiences.  Future research might yield a better understanding of both documentary television and reality television forms.

Jelle Mast on Documentary at a Crossroads: Reality TV and the Hybridization of Small-Screen Documentary

Social science research has been lax in the use of terms medical and natural, using the words without problematizing them.  Yet a cursory glance at the way research regards men’s health and women’s health reveals a striking pattern.  While men are empowered by the medicalization of their bodies, women are disempowered by the same process.  Sarah Jane Brubaker and Heather E. Dillaway’s January 2009 article in the Gender section of Sociology Compass offers a revealing look at childbirth.  They review existing literature on the medicalization and naturalization of childbirth practices and expose holes in the existing sociological knowledge.  In seeking to gain a deeper understanding of women’s experiences of childbirth, Brubaker and Dillaway offer a critical consideration of gender, power, technology, nature, health, and the body.

Sarah Jane Brubbaker and Heather E. Dillaway on Medicalization, Natural Childbirth and Birthing Experiences