culture

In our current political climate, freedom of speech is a major concern on college campuses and beyond. Controversial campus speakers such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer have caused event cancellations and sparked protest. Harsh criticism has come from those on the right, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions who recently stated that “the American university was once the center of academic freedom — a place of robust debate, a forum for the competition of ideas … is transforming into an echo chamber of political correctness and homogenous thought, a shelter for fragile egos.”

In a Monkey Cage analysis for The Washington Post, sociologist Jeffrey Kidder discusses conservative criticisms of liberal “safe spaces” and what these critiques illustrate about conservative identity. In some instances, provocation of liberals and progressives serves to simply embolden conservative identity, as they are able to claim a victory in successfully inciting liberal outrage. Kidder notes,

“Instead of focusing on policy debates or electoral outcomes, right-leaning students can find a sense of purpose in offending (or outright attacking) those they come to see as the opposition…Thinking sociologically — and not just politically or ideologically — about such controversies will help clarify what is at stake for the individuals and organizations involved. We must not lose sight of the narratives supporting social identities. Despite claims to the contrary, conservative groups are equally working to maintain their own safe spaces. These are largely battles over which identities get to be privileged in the public sphere, in which actors on both the left and right interpret history so as to cast their actions and causes in the most favorable possible light.”

Kidder argues that behind their critiques of liberal safe spaces, conservatives are in fact asking for their own safe spaces on campus too. In his ethnography of college Republicans, he finds that while Republicans may have national government control, many feel they are the vocal minority in campus settings. 

Given the resurgence of media attention to gun control and violent crime following the mass shooting in Las Vegas, and the recent attacks in New York and Texas, many observers are left wondering – exactly how violent is the United States? In a recent Monkey Cage analysis for The Washington Post, Kieran Healy suggests that it depends on both how you measure violence and with whom you are comparing.

Violent crime in the United States has declined in the past few decades, but it remains an outlier in assault death rates when compared to similarly-situated nations. Using comparative data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Healy demonstrates that, compared to other OECD countries excluding Mexico and Estonia, the United States has a markedly high assault death rate. Mexico has the highest assault death rate of the OECD countries and Estonia experienced steep inclines during the 1990’s, but Healy suggests that these nations are rarely compared with America in other measures of social interest:

“Mexico has a much higher assault death rate, one that has spiked in the past decade. Estonia experienced a huge wave of (possibly alcohol-related) homicides shortly after its independence in 1991 but has since receded to near-average levels. But when it comes to questions of living standards, public safety, and social policy, Americans do not typically rush to compare themselves with these countries, nor with more violent non-OECD nations such as Honduras or Kyrgyzstan.”

Measures of assault deaths do not distinguish these types of assault, which provides little indication of the specific forms of violence that lead to such a heightened amount of injury in the United States. Healy argues that it is access to guns that fuels the lethality of assaults,

“…there is little doubt that the tendency for assault to be lethal in the United States has a great deal to do with the easy availability of guns….The past decade has seen innovations in terrorist violence elsewhere in the OECD, too, such as random knife and acid attacks, or driving vehicles into crowds. These are similarly horrifying events and — at least the first few times they are tried — may lead to many fatalities. Do not look for them in the United States, though. Their lethality is intrinsically limited. Using a truck as a weapon is just less efficient than using a weapon as a weapon. For as long as powerful firearms remain easily available to private citizens, the United States is likely to remain well above the OECD average when it comes to violent death.”

When it comes to understanding violence in the United States, what matters most is how you choose to measure it. Healy’s assertion that guns are a central characteristic of American violence means that we need comparative measures that help disentangle this form of assault from others.

For baby boomers who want to engage in some type of meaningful work when they retire, the transition can be an uncertain one, as many employers are unsure of how to put the skills and experience of retirees to use. University of Minnesota’s Phyllis Moen aims to help those entering this stage of life, putting her sociological work into practice. Moen relied upon her extensive work on the aging process (like her 2016 book) to found The Advanced Careers Initiative. The Star Tribune recently talked to Moen about her program, and she explains,

“My vision is to support boomers who are navigating transitions, provide a talent pool to meet community challenges and build a model for public universities to open their doors to people of all ages, providing transformational intergenerational learning.”

The program is in its inaugural year with 10 fellows — it plans to host 20 fellows each year in the future. These individuals range from age 50-72 and come from diverse professional backgrounds including psychology, law, and communications. Moen sees potential for the program to broaden how people use higher education as they get older:

“I’m very worried about this great pool of talent — this large baby boomer cohort, and those who are coming in their wake — just sitting on the sidelines of society. That’s our model of retirement: You exit one time, all at once, and then you go and have fun. Surveys show that 70 percent of older workers say they want to do some kind of engaging work in retirement, but most don’t do that because they don’t know what’s next and don’t know how to get there. These people are not young — but they’re not old, either.”

Recent celebrations of National Hispanic Heritage Month call our attention to the growing importance of Hispanic culture, histories, and contributions in the United States. As the Hispanic population has grown, so too has the interest in defining what exactly it means to be “Hispanic.”  Research suggests that administrative agencies, particularly the U.S. Census Bureau, played a significant role in unifying different identities under this single pan-ethnic umbrella category. In a conversation with sociologist Cristina Mora, NPR’s Code Switch uncovers the complicated history behind the term “Hispanics.”

Prior to the 1960 census, Latin communities did not have an identifiable option or category matching their ethnic identity. Initial attempts in the 1960 and 1970 census resulted in a massive undercount. Following these largely unsuccessful efforts, Mexican and Puerto Rican communities mobilized to come up with a sufficient term for the 1980 census. Terms were heavily contested, agencies and experts debated various phrasings, and, with reservations, they eventually decided on Hispanic. And the importance of finding a proper category cannot be underestimated — having “Hispanics” as a category in the census enabled communities to address pressing political issues. Mora told NPR,

“Once the category was made, everything from political groups to civic organizations to every other media group that would emerge, would draw on census data. As soon as the census numbers came out, Latino lobby groups could then run the numbers and say, ‘Look, this is what Latino poverty looks like; this is what Latino educational attainment looks like.’ They could go up to the Department of Education, for example, and say, ‘Latinos are the second-largest minority group. And yet, our educational attainment pales to that of whites. Send money to our schools.’”

Despite its contested nature, the use of the ethnic category of Hispanic and its incorporation into administrative counts has proven to be an effective tool for mobilization of Latinx populations. Mora’s research indicates that defining ethnic categories in this way may create opportunities to increase political representation and power among minorities in the U.S.

For the past twenty-five years, Oklahoma has seen some of the highest levels of female incarceration in the United States. In a recent article from Reveal, research by sociologist Susan Sharp demonstrates that incarceration rates and sentence severity varies between different counties within the state, where courtroom cultures and access to legal resources vary.   

Across the state, harsh drug sentencing leading to lengthy prison sentences for women is the norm, and Sharp argues that women in Oklahoma have become “collateral damage” in the War on Drugs. This is in large part due to the cultural norms surrounding women’s roles as mothers. Sharp explains,

“I think the general population of the state feels that a woman – particularly a woman who has children who uses drugs – violates all the norms in a way that they find unacceptable . . . and they would rather see those children grow up in foster care than to be with a mother who had a drug problem.”

However, Sharp has found that rural counties with more “get tough on crime” district attorneys and judges will typically send more people to prison, and poor women in these areas often experience the “wrath of judges and prosecutors.” In urban areas, women have access to more resources — money for private attorneys and specialty courts for drug addiction and mental health issues — which often keeps them from serving a sentence or helps reduce their time served.  The case of Oklahoma demonstrates how local differences influence punishment, as external and situational factors play a central role in shaping personal experiences with the criminal justice system.

Popular media sometimes makes it seem as though college students are inundated with sex now more than ever. However, in a recent NPR podcast, “Hookup Culture: The Unspoken Rules Of Sex On College Campuses,” sociologist Lisa Wade argues that college students having frequent sex is nothing new. What has changed are the rules that govern these hookups. Wade’s work shows that hookup culture isn’t just about having any kind of sex — it’s about having meaningless sex. While it may sound rather simple, having meaningless sex often takes a great deal of emotional work for students. Wade explains,

“…to show themselves and other people that it was meaningless, they have to find a way … to perform meaningless. It’s not automatic. And they do that by, for example, making sure that they’re drunk. Or they appear to be drunk when they hook up … Sober sex is very serious, but if the students have been drinking then that helps send the message that it’s meaningless.”

Meaningless sex is tied to assumptions about women’s desperation for serious romantic relationships with men. Since serious relationships disrupt the flow of hookups, many women feel as though they need to show that they are not “desperate” and do not care as much about relationships as men think they do. On the other hand, women who do want serious relationships often feel as though they must engage in hooking up so that they can eventually develop a serious relationship. Wade explains further,

“So women’s options are either opt out of hookup culture altogether, or expose herself to this period where she’s treated disrespectfully in the hopes that it translates into something better on the other end.”

Male students, in turn, also keep their distance from the women they hook up with so that they do not appear to be seeking a serious relationship. At the same time, both male and female students alike revealed that they are interested in serious relationships at some point down the road.

In the past 50 years, marriage rates among U.S. adults have declined significantly. Social science suggests that financial success may play an central role in this trend. For example, in 2015 65% of adults 25 and older with a four year degree were married, while only 50% of those with a high school education were married. In a recent article in The New York Times, sociologists Sharon Sassler and Andrew Cherlin weigh in on this divergence in marriage rates.  

According to social scientists, some of the change has to do with economic trends. The decline in manufacturing jobs in the United States has made men without college educations less “marriageable.” According to Sassler, “women don’t want to take a risk on somebody who’s not going to be able to provide anything.” This decline has not, however, corresponded to a decline in births — births are just happening outside of marriage more often now. The article explains, 

“In reality, economics and culture both play a role, and influence each other, social scientists say. When well-paying jobs became scarce for less educated men, they became less likely to marry. As a result, the culture changed: Marriage was no longer the norm, and out-of-wedlock childbirth was accepted. Even if jobs returned, an increase in marriage wouldn’t necessarily immediately follow.”

On the other hand, those with college degrees are more likely to postpone marriage and children until after they feel financially stable, but then they do get married. They also may benefit from their own parents’ help in paying for education, birth control, and rent, allowing them the advantages of achieving stability not often available to lower and working class adults. Privilege, therefore, can play a key role in the decision to get married.

It’s been well documented that religion played an important role in the 2016 presidential election, as well as recent state elections. ThinkProgress.org recently contributed a new analysis of this relationship, highlighting preliminary research from a number of sociologists on the role of “Christian nationalism” in President Trump’s victory. Their findings indicate that the belief that America is a Christian nation may both predict support for Trump and be connected to intolerant views of other groups.

Sociologists Andrew Whitehead, Samuel Perry, and Joseph Baker found that Christian nationalism was “strongly and positively associated with voting for Trump,” and they emphasized that Christian nationalism is not simply another measure of religiosity. Whitehead told ThinkProgress,

“For this study, when we look at a lot of the normal ways we measure religiosity, at the end of the day, none of them really predict a vote for Trump except Christian nationalism. It didn’t matter if you were evangelical or mainline [Christian], it didn’t matter if you went to church a lot or a little, what mattered was whether you think America is a Christian nation.”

Whitehead notes that an important part of this research regards findings about the ways Christian nationalism interacts with other ideologies, and ThinkProgress reached out to sociologist  Penny Edgell for further development of this connection. Edgell’s ongoing work with Evan Stewart and Jack Delehanty indicates that support for “public religious expression,” a variable that measures the belief that religion should be an integral part of public life and deliberation, is associated with intolerance against a variety of groups. Edgell emphasized the need for more analysis of white Christian nationalism, especially its role in propagating ideologies like Islamophobia and xenophobia. She told ThinkProgress,

“Certain white Christian institutions house and foster and bundle these attitudes all together, and link them to politics in systematic ways.”

Where does Washington D.C. get its policy? For nearly a century, think tanks have churned out the research that drives the political agendas of the day. Often hiring specialists from universities, we think these organizations bring the facts to politicians who, of course, can add the spin.

But recent shakeups in the think tank world call this narrative into question. NPR reports on a controversial decision at the New America Foundation to close a project studying monopolies. Critics allege that funding from Google swayed the decision, but blatant bribery isn’t necessarily the whole story. Sociologist Thomas Medvetz traces bigger structural changes in think tank organizing over the years that make these groups more susceptible to partisan interests, because they aren’t just doing research. From the article:

[Medvetz] said think tank experts now need skills not commonly found on college campuses: “Skills that one would use in a PR firm, for example, or a lobbying firm, as an aide on Capitol Hill, as a scholar, or a journalist.”

This is a key sociological insight about organizations: when groups have to draw on a wide variety of skills and resources to survive, there is a higher chance that conflicts of interest will arise even without explicit corruption.

Music festivals are a popular part of the summer experience and can often last days at a time. As the seasons change and real life comes crashing back, however, some people find themselves feeling depressed after leaving their favorite festival atmospheres. Vice’s Noisey talked to Lindfield College’s Rob Gardner, a sociologist who has studied music concerts, festivals, and traveling fans extensively, about why post-festival blues are not an simply an individual phenomenon, but a social one.

As Gardner describes, music festivals are about more than simply the music or the atmosphere — they provide a sense of community for a lot of people from different walks of life. Gardner says,

“We may be incredibly connected to people via social media, but there’s something missing there. That intimate, visceral experience of sharing the same physical space with another human being, or thousands of human beings is something that’s missing from our daily lives … I think that there’s something that people are trying to get back in touch to, whether consciously or unconsciously, through that festival experience.”

These spaces provide a unique opportunity for individualism, expression, and freedom from mundane, everyday life. So, when someone leaves the festival environment and returns to constraints such as work, school, and family, it’s unsurprising that they hit a low note. Gardner notes,

“I think it has a lot to do with the structure of these events. Because festivals create this temporary community that is physically, socially, and experientially separate from our daily lives, when we enter them they allow us to do things and meet people we wouldn’t otherwise encounter. When we leave and re-enter our normal lives, it throws certain features of our lives into relief.”

Be sure to check out the full interview in which Dr. Gardner discusses other aspects of festival-going, including drugs, crowd dynamics, and partying on ships!