• The New York Times ran a story on intensive parenting (involving “painstakingly and methodically cultivating children’s talents, academics and futures through everyday interactions and activities”) and parents’ mental health, citing Melissa Milkie (Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto) and Kei Nomaguchi (Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University). Milkie and Nomaguchi describe that pressure on parents has increased in recent years: social media enables comparison to other parents, parents feel pressure to make up for opportunities lost during the pandemic, rapid changes in technology and the nature of work make it difficult to prepare children for the future, and faith that the government can help struggling families has dwindled. “In the U.S., it’s this sense of individualism: You chose to have kids, so go raise them,” Milkie said, “Parents need the village, but people are not as available as they were.”
  • Following a fatal police-action shooting in Fort Wayne, IN, Amanda Miller (Professor of Sociology at the University of Indianapolis) appeared on 21 Alive News to discuss the wide-reaching effects of police-action shootings. Miller noted that violent events can cause stress and anxiety for individuals who are not directly involved. “Even if you have a very low risk of experiencing violent crime, it can make you feel as if the world is less safe as a result of some of these things happening,” Miller said. Additionally, Miller described how police-action shootings can generate suspicion and mistrust of both law enforcement officers and neighbors
  • The Economic Times ran a story on how women are often given less clear and candid feedback at work than their male peers, hindering their career advancement. The article cites a recent study by Laura K. Nelson (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia), Alexandra Brewer (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California) and colleagues, which found that female emergency medicine residents were more likely to receive inconsistent feedback on their work (either positive numerical scores paired with criticism or low numerical scores paired with praise). The article also cites work by Shelley Correll (Professor of Sociology and Organizational Behavior at Stanford University) and colleagues, finding that managers at a Fortune 500 company often buffered critiques of female employees with praise in performance reviews. Written or verbal feedback that is inconsistent with numerical scores can leave female employees without actionable steps to improve their performance.
  • The New York Times published an article on recent calls for “viewpoint diversity” in academia. Neil Gross (Professor of Sociology at Colby College) commented that viewpoint diversity “is a very ambiguous term. And that gives it a little bit more power” than ideological diversity or political diversity. However, many advocates for viewpoint diversity point to the need for more conservatives on faculties and in syllabuses. Gross’ work indicates that academia, compared to most other professions, employs a higher percentage of liberal employees. However, in a survey of undergraduates, Gross found that 60% of students felt that professors did a “very good” or “pretty good” job of facilitating discussion of political topics where students had opposing views and 90% of students reported that professors “rarely,” “never,” or “occasionally” discussed their own political views.