Nearly 20 years have passed since Beverly Daniel Tatum released her groundbreaking book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations about Race. In it, she examines how and why black youth often segregate themselves in middle and high school, arguing that engagement in meaningful conversations about race can help deconstruct such racial barriers. While many may have lost hope in the Civil Rights-era dream of school integration, today, new sociological research demonstrates the importance of integration and the positive long-term effects it provides for working adults. A recent article in The Atlantic reveals that students who attend racially diverse high schools are more likely to work in diverse employment settings.

Adam Gamoran, Sarah Barfels, and Ana Cristina Collares tracked over 10,000 black and white high school students during the 1980s and 1990s, then recorded the racial make-up of their current work environment. White and black students who attended predominantly white schools were more likely to work in predominantly white work settings. Regardless of the various methods behind the integration (including busing and neighborhood development), the students from racially diverse high schools were more likely to work today with a diverse group of coworkers. The authors suggest that “Interactions with a diverse student body may mean that individuals are more likely to live in communities that are more diverse, or [are] more willing and comfortable in racially diverse settings later in life.” While they are reluctant to conclude that attending a diverse high school or working with diverse coworkers will eradicate the economic and social disparities of life in the U.S., it is safe to say that both provide a strong step in the right direction.Students from racially diverse high schools are more likely to work with a diverse group of coworkers in adulthood.

Over the last year, bystanders have recorded numerous instances of confrontation between police and black students, from one officer pointing his gun at an unarmed black youth during a pool party in Texas to another officer flipping over a black girl still seated in her desk in a South Carolina high school. Media reports often blame black girls for defying authority figures while excusing the behaviors of school officials and law enforcement officers. Recent reports including Kimberlé Crenshaw’s, “Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected,” contextualizes the serious effects of harsh punishment as black girls disproportionately enter the school-to-prison pipeline.

Monique Morris sheds additional light on the topic in her new book, “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.” Morris interviewed several young black girls in group homes, foster care, and juvenile detention centers in cities including Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. She discovered that several girls experienced various forms of physical and sexual violence. Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, praised the book, calling it “A powerful indictment of the cultural beliefs, policies, and practices that criminalize and dehumanize Black girls in America,” while activist Gloria Steinhem wrote that Morris “tells us exactly how schools are crushing the spirit and talent that this country needs.”

In one of the most iconic scenes in sitcom television history, Friends’ character Monica bends down on one knee and proposes to her long-time boyfriend, Chandler, in a romantic, candlelit, rose-filled apartment. Over fifteen years later, scholars suggest the reality of heterosexual marriage proposals is far less progressive. A recent article in The New York Times discusses why men remain more likely to propose marriage and why this tradition will likely not change in the near future.

Even as the traditional image of marriage has changed and the number of working and college-educated women continues to rise (studies show that men and women tend to marry spouses from comparable educational backgrounds), according to Amanda Miller, “Though women have more power to move the relationship closer to marriage, they still want the man to ask. That’s considered his job.”

Bradford Wilcox concurs, noting that women may also view their partner’s proposal as reassurance that he truly wants to get married (indeed, men often view their formal proposals as demonstrations of love and commitment to their future wives). A woman who proposes may face social consequences, though: Beth Montemurro adds that such women may be viewed as more masculine (and men who are proposed to may be viewed as more feminine). To avoid stigma, male-female couples generally stick to the script: men propose marriage.

In an era of “post­-racial” rhetoric, whites may not openly declare their prejudices and biases toward blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities, yet sociological research illustrates how whites may both consciously and unconsciously maintain and reproduce racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods. More subtle negative racial attitudes are persistent and pernicious. A recent article in The Atlantic showcases a few of sociologies most relevant studies on whites and racial segregation that challenge the myth of a post­-racial America.

The white family is essential for the transferring and maintaining of economic wealth. Sociologist Thomas Shapiro notes that middle­class white families use their financial resources to pay for kids’ college or housing payments, thus alleviating some of the financial burden from younger generations. Racial segregations is also reproduced in this process when whites invest in neighborhoods that provide access to majority white schools. Due to the wealth gap, most blacks do not hold the privilege of supporting younger generations with existing financial wealth. Instead, researchers report they are more likely to use more limited funds to support their own parents and additional extended family members.

The work of sociologists including Mary Pattillo, Douglas Massey, and Nancy Denton has further demonstrated that blacks are not geographically located in neighborhoods that provide access to well funded schools, even when black families are homeowners. Other researchers such as Deirdre Royster and Lauren Rivera discuss the importance of exclusive white networks that systematically neglect blacks when sharing vital information about education and careers in schools and workplaces.

As the number of children born to racially diverse parents in the U.S. increases, the country faces the difficult task of exploring multiracial identities. Biracial children bear the brunt of the challenge, as they are often pressured to select a single racial category to which they identify. In the past, mixed ­raced persons had little say concerning their label due to such formalized policies as the “one­-drop rule,” which assigned the newborn child the racial category of the non­White parent. While such notions continue to exist, a new study reveals that “multiracial” is becoming an increasingly popular identification, especially for mixed ­raced women.

Recently on NPR’s CodeSwitch, Lauren Davenport at Stanford University provided insight from her new American Sociological Review research. Examining the racial self ­identifications of 37,000 incoming freshmen with combinations of Asian­-White, Black-­White, and Latino­-White parents, Davenport reported that in each of the three racial combinations, women self ­identified as multiracial more than their male counterparts. For example, only 64% of men with Black-­White parents self­ identified as multiracial in comparison to 76% of women. Further research indicates that both women and men with Black­-White parents were more likely to self ­identify as multiracial than those with Asian­-White and Latino­-White parents and less likely to self ­identify as White only. Additional factors included the person’s religion and socioeconomic status; as those who were less religious and those from affluent backgrounds were more likely to describe themselves as multiracial.

Davenport suggests that women may be more inclined to employ the multiracial label because they are often perceived as racially ambiguous, while men are generally viewed as minorities. According to Davenport, “It would seem that, for biracial women, looking racially ambiguous is tied to racial stereotypes surrounding femininity and beauty.” Davenport hypothesizes that biracial children from Black­-White parents in particular may describe themselves as multiracial to challenge traditional rules that place them in one category. Thus, the multiracial identity provides them the opportunity to formally recognize multiple racial lineages. Others may opt for multiracial because it allows them to disassociate with Black heritage.

For years, legislators and employers have framed guaranteed parental leave as a “women’s issue.” Women serve as the primary advocates for policies that allow more flexibility between work and family life, while fighting stereotypes that paint them as less committed to their jobs than men. In a recent article for Fast Company, sociologist Michael Kimmel discusses how the U.S. lags behind every other industrialized country in policies that guarantee parental leave and how he believes this contradicts “family first” ideals. “Supporting families is the very definition of family values,” writes Kimmel. “How can we possibly lecture others about loving and supporting families when we value our own so little?”The U.S. lags behind every other industrialized country in policies that guarantee parental leave.

One key to the gradual change that’s come to cities including New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago may be a shift in male perspectives of household work. Recent surveys suggest many men want to be more involved in household duties. Despite that willingness, however, women still bear much of the burden. Consequently, fathers are often praised for more public acts of parenting, like taking children to soccer practice, while mothers are more likely to take care of unsung housework, struggling to also meet the demands of their careers. Further, researchers note that demanding careers cause increased risks of physical and mental illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and stress for everyone, not just fathers or mothers.

As legislators craft a new wave of parental leave policies, many question how employers can provide a working environment to support parents and families. In a recent study, Phyllis Moen and Erin Kelly studied the Star Initiative program that allowed for increased flexibility for 700 employees at a Fortune 500 company. The aim was to provide employees with more flexibility in attending meetings, working from home, and communicating via instant messenger. After one year, those involved in the initiative reported greater job satisfaction and lower rates of poor mental health. According to Kelly, “One important implication of this research is that workplaces can change to bring some relief to stressed out workers. It’s not up to an individual to figure out how to balance everything. Challenges come up with work, but organizations can change to bring some relief.”“It’s not up to an individual to figure out how to balance everything. Challenges come up with work, but organizations can change to bring some relief.” –Erin Kelly

Traditional norms of feminine behavior encourage women to pledge sexual abstinence before marriage, instilling values of female sexual innocence and purity. In contrast, these norms suggest male sexual activity before marriage legitimizes their masculinity. Men who choose to abstain from sexual activity until marriage remain largely unexamined. In 2008, Ph.D. sociology candidate Sarah Diefendorf studied a male abstinence support group called The River to explore male beliefs about sexuality and masculinity in relation to sexual abstinence. Diefendorf discussed her findings in a recent Huffington Post article.

Men within The River used the group as a support network to resist various forms of sexual temptation, including masturbation, pornography, and same-sex attraction. While the resistance of sexual desires often proved difficult, these men believed that by waiting for sex, an act they believed God deemed sacred, they would enjoy fulfilling sex lives as married men. And by sharing their struggles with sexuality, the men in the group still “reinforce the norm that they are highly sexual men, even in the absence of sexual activity.”

During interviews conducted three years later, Diefendorf discovered that most of the men were still wrestling with their sexual urges even now that they were married. They no longer had a peer support network holding them accountable and did not feel comfortable speaking to their female spouses, since their group as taught that women are nonsexual.

Diefendorf explained, “After 25 years of being told that sex is something dangerous that needs to be controlled, the transition to married (and sexual) life is difficult, at best, while leaving men without the support they need. Women, meanwhile, are often left out of the conversation entirely.”