This past weekend the Boston Globe ran a story about Obama’s new commitment to strengthening community colleges across the United States and drew upon expert commentary from Sara Goldrick-Rab of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The story:

FOR DECADES, American presidents lauded the working stiffs and immigrants who fill our community colleges, but then stiffed them during budget time. That ended this week when President Obama made one of his most welcome proposals of his first year, a $12 billion, 10-year plan to boost community colleges.

Obama called this a “historic step,’’ the biggest recognition of the importance of community colleges since the GI Bill and President Truman’s efforts that doubled the number of community colleges and increased their enrollment by seven times.

The sociologist’s reaction:

Yesterday MSNBC.com ran a story about marriage in the United States, and how some women’s fear of becoming an old maid is relatively unlikely. The story describes “a lot of fretting” women go through for fear of never being married, despite the fact that 86% of women tie the knot by age 40. But women do appear to be waiting longer to be wed, age 25 on average, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

MSNBC.com reports:

The vast majority of women who want to marry actually do, although they’re no longer in a rush to do it. Does that mean women and men are less interested in marriage than in the past?

No! Americans love marriage compared to people in other industrialized countries. While Americans get hitched at a rate of 7.5 per every 1,000 inhabitants in a given year, the French and Germans marry at a rate of 4.5 to 4.9 per 1,000, Swedes 4.0 to 4.4, Belgians 2.8 to 3.9.

But perceptions about marriage appear to be ever-changing, as a sociologist notes:

“I always tell my students that everything we study right now could be out of date in 10 years, that’s how rapidly the social environment is changing,” said Christine Whelan, a University of Iowa sociologist and author of “Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women.”

We may idolize the perfect marriage, but need to recognize that its purpose has been redefined.

The “institutional” marriages of the 19th century were practical affairs, meant to establish family bonds, distribute property and raise children as part of a unit within a community, Whelan explained. Then, from about World War I to the early 1960s, “people married for friendship, for a division of labor — what men did and what women did — and for love and attachment,” she said.

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The New Mexico Business Weekly ran a story about a new study from the National Association of Colleges and employers about new employment statistics for college graduates. The bottom line… sociology majors aren’t doing so hot.

The paper reports:

College graduates from the class of 2009 who have been able to find jobs are landing starting salaries comparable to those offered a year ago, a new report has found.

This year’s graduating class held its ground with average starting salary offers, demonstrating that employers are reluctant to significantly tinker with starting pay despite the recession, a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found.

The average starting salary offer for new college graduates is $49,307, which is less than 1 percent lower than the average of $49,693 that 2008 graduates posted last year at this time, according to a news release Wednesday.

Although engineering majors seem to be doing quite well, liberal arts majors appear to fall slightly behind.

Liberal arts grads experienced a decline of less than 1 percent from $36,419 last year to $36,175, the study found.

Among the liberal arts disciplines, English majors posted a 1.1 percent increase in their average salary offer to $34,704. The salary offers for history majors rose 1.7 percent to $37,861. Psychology majors’ average salary offers grew 2.1 percent to $34,284. Sociology majors, on the other hand, saw their average offers fall 4.4 percent to $33,280.

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The New York Times ran an article yesterday about the ‘vocal minority’ of individuals who believe that man landing on the moon was all a hoax. All of this as many Americans celebrate the anniversary of that historic event…

The Times reports:

Forty years after men first touched the lifeless dirt of the Moon — and they did. Really. Honest. — polling consistently suggests that some 6 percent of Americans believe the landings were faked and could not have happened. The series of landings, one of the greatest gambles of the human race, was an elaborate hoax developed to raise national pride, many among them insist.

They examine photos from the missions for signs of studio fakery, and claim to be able to tell that the American flag was waving in what was supposed to be the vacuum of space. They overstate the health risks of traveling through the radiation belts that girdle our planet; they understate the technological prowess of the American space program; and they cry murder behind every death in the program, linking them to an overall conspiracy.

And while there is no credible evidence to support such views, and the sheer unlikelihood of being able to pull off such an immense plot and keep it secret for four decades staggers the imagination, the deniers continue to amass accusations to this day.

And what does a sociologist have to say about this?

Ted Goertzel, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University who has studied conspiracy theorists, said “there’s a similar kind of logic behind all of these groups, I think.” For the most part, he explained, “They don’t undertake to prove that their view is true” so much as to “find flaws in what the other side is saying.” And so, he said, argument is a matter of accumulation instead of persuasion. “They feel if they’ve got more facts than the other side, that proves they’re right.”

A law professor weighs in as well…

Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law who has written extensively on conspiracy theories, said he sees similarities between people who argue that the Moon landings never happened and those who insist that the 9/11 attacks were planned by the government and that President Obama’s birth certificate is fake: at the core, he said, is a polarization so profound that people end up with an unshakable belief that those in power “simply can’t be trusted.”

The emergence of the Internet as a communications medium, he noted, makes it possible for once-scattered believers to find one another. “It allows the theory to continue to exist, to continue to be available — it’s not just some old dusty books on the half-price shelf.”

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This morning USA Today ran a story about new research soon to be published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology debunking some popular myths about suicide.

USA Today reports:

Common beliefs about suicide being more likely on Mondays and during the winter aren’t really true, according to new research from the University of California, Riverside — summer is the most common season and Wednesday the most likely day. [The study is co-authored by sociology professor Augustine Kposowa.]

July and August are the most common months for suicide, followed by April and May, finds the analysis… The researchers found that 24.6% of suicides were on Wednesdays, with Thursdays the least likely day at just 11.1%.

Kposowa elaborates:

Kposowa says the common wisdom used to be that suicides were more likely on Mondays because the weekend had ended; however, he says Wednesday is right in the middle of the work week when stress is highest and the weekend is still farther away.

“Thursday is lowest because usually people are in better moods because the weekend is near,” he says.

He also says the folklore about more suicides in winter never really was true because much past research has shown that suicide was more likely in the spring.

Read more.

National Public Radio (NPR) ran an interesting story yesterday about the effects of the recession on young, low income families, drawing up the expertise of well-known sociologist Maria Kefalas.

The NPR blurb:

Financial and emotional stability can be an elusive fantasy for young, low-income families. Writer Laura Sessions Stepp, who wrote about “fragile families” in this week’s Washington Post Magazine , discusses how unemployment and financial troubles can shatter even the most loving young families. And sociology professor Maria Kefalas explains how family stability has become a class privilege in America.

Listen to the broadcast, here.

At the end of last week the New York Times ran an article about how the effects of parental imprisonment have led to a ‘tide of troubled kids.’

The Times reports (with sociological commentary):

The chances of seeing a parent go to prison have never been greater, especially for poor black Americans, and new research is documenting the long-term harm to the children they leave behind. Recent studies indicate that having an incarcerated parent doubles the chance that a child will be at least temporarily homeless and measurably increases the likelihood of physically aggressive behavior, social isolation, depression and problems in school — all portending dimmer prospects in adulthood.

“Parental imprisonment has emerged as a novel, and distinctly American, childhood risk that is concentrated among black children and children of low-education parents,” said Christopher Wildeman, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who is studying what some now call the “incarceration generation.”

Work by sociologist Sara Wakefield offers additional insight:

Quantifying other effects of parental incarceration, like aggressive behavior and depression, is more complex because many children of prisoners are already living in deprived and turbulent environments. But researchers using newly available surveys that follow families over time are starting to home in on the impact.

Among 5-year-old urban boys, 49 percent of those who had a father incarcerated within the previous 30 months exhibited physically aggressive behaviors like hitting others or destroying objects, compared with 38 percent of those in otherwise similar circumstances who did not have a father imprisoned, Dr. Wildeman found.

While most attention has been placed on physical aggression, a study by Sara Wakefield, a sociologist following children in Chicago, found that having a parent imprisoned was a mental-health tipping point for some. Thus, while 28 percent of the children in her study over all experienced feelings of social isolation, depression or anxiety at levels that would warrant clinical evaluation or treatment, about 35 percent of those who had an incarcerated parent did.

And additional sociological commentary…

With financial woes now forcing many states to rethink the relentless expansion of prisons, “this intergenerational transfer of problems should be included as an additional cost of incarceration to society,” said Sarah S. McLanahan, a sociologist at Princeton University and director of a national survey of families that is providing data for many of the new studies.

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A recent article in USA Today, based on new data from the Pew Research Center, indicates that few people see themselves as ‘old,’ regardless of their age.  USA Today reports, “No matter what their chronological age, most people say that they aren’t yet “old” — and that they feel younger than their birthday count, according to a new nationally representative survey of almost 3,000 adults by the Pew Research Center.”

The findings:

The average age considered “old” by respondents was 68 — but there were real differences in perception driven by the respondents’ own ages:

•More than half of those under 30 say the average person becomes old before 60.

•Middle-aged respondents say it’s closer to 70.

•Those ages 65 and older say “old” is not until 75.

“What you find is the older people are, the more people push back the age that is old,” says Russell Ward, a sociologist who focuses on aging at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and who was not involved in the survey. “It’s more in your future. You’re not there yet.”

A researcher at the Pew Research Center notes the following…

“We are becoming an older society, as are most advanced societies around the world, and we are about to hit a big new wave of adults entering older age,” says Paul Taylor, who directs Pew’s Social and Demographic Trends project.

The study notes that about 39 million Americans, or 13% of the U.S. population, are 65 and older — a figure that has tripled from 4% in 1900. In two years, the oldest of the nation’s 76 million Baby Boomers will turn 65. And by 2050, according to Pew Research projections, about one in five Americans will be over 65, and about 5% will be ages 85 and older, up from 2% now.

Expectations and realities about aging in the survey also differ. Among those age 65 and older, the perceived downsides of aging (such as memory loss, illness, inability to drive or an end to sexual activity) aren’t experienced as much as younger people think they’ll be.

Also, the perceived benefits of growing older (more time with family, more leisure travel, having more time for hobbies or volunteer work) are less than either age group thought they would be. Experts say the recession has reduced the “fun” part of retirement.

Read more.

Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating story about a new form of speed-dating inspired by a book written by sociologist Masahiro Yamada and journalist Tohko Shirakawa.

The WSJ reports:

Desperate to turn around his money-losing singles bar last summer, Yuta Honda decided that marriage would be his only salvation. Abandoning a marketing plan based on the ephemeral attractions of one-night commitments, Mr. Honda rechristened his place a “konkatsu bar,” a place for “marriage hunting.”

These days, his Green Bar is packed with marriage-seeking singles in their twenties and thirties — a rare success story in the Roppongi entertainment district, where businesses are closing right and left in the economic downturn.

“I was lucky to come across the book,” says the 37-year old, unmarried Mr. Honda.

The book is the best-seller “Konkatsu Jidai,” or “The Era of Marriage Hunting.” In it, sociologist Masahiro Yamada and journalist Tohko Shirakawa use the term — a play on the Japanese words for “marriage” and “activity” — that has become a national rage.

The tome has sold 170,000 copies since it was released by Tokyo publisher Discover21 in early 2008. The authors urge young singles to actively seek a spouse: Just sitting back and waiting for the right person to come along isn’t enough.

The broader trend…

Government data show the percentage of unmarried people surged from 14% to 47% for men aged 30 to 34 and from 8% to 32% for women over the three decades ending in 2005.

The authors of “The Era of Marriage Hunting” cite changes in Japanese society, where traditional matchmaking — often by so-called neighborhood aunties — is fading away. Bosses in Japanese companies also used to match up women and men working under them — then force the women to quit once they were married.

That changed after an equal-employment opportunity law was enacted in the late 1980s. Since the law was passed, sociologists have observed an increase in women seeking careers rather than marriage. Men, they say, have become less aggressive about finding partners because of money troubles and uncertain jobs.

Read more.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story about the recently-released paperback edition of a volume edited by Elijah Anderson entitled, Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black and Male. The collection of sixteen essays, includes work by William Julius Wilson, Gerald D. Jaynes, and David Kairys, with a foreword by Cornel West.

The Inquirer reports:

They are overrepresented in the ranks of the unemployed and the incarcerated, and underrepresented as college students, as live-in husbands, and as fathers raising children. They are more likely than most to die early and violently. Perhaps most important, young black men are among the most misunderstood people in America.

To bring awareness and understanding to their plight and to offer solutions, sociologist Elijah Anderson has brought together a roster of eminent and emerging social scientists and activists in his latest work, Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male.

The review goes on to say…

Anderson has made certain to include the perspectives of emerging young thinkers as well, including his son Luke, a community organizer in Chicago; Waverly Duck, a postdoctoral fellow in sociology at Yale; and Imani Perry, a professor of law at Rutgers-Camden who is joining the faculty at Princeton University.

Anderson has long contended that in impoverished black communities, income is derived from three main sources: low-paying jobs, welfare, and an irregular, underground economy based on bartering, borrowing, hustling and street crime.

The failure of any one of those sources, he asserts, pushes individuals to one of the two others, and the disappearance of low-paying jobs and welfare drives people to the underground economy, which is governed by violence. This assertion is the premise of Anderson’s seminal books Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999) and A Place on the Corner (1978).

In his own essay, Anderson writes that inferior schooling, employment discrimination, and stereotypes have taken a heavy toll on the social capital of young black men.

“All this set the stage for the situation we face today. The social costs of impoverishment fell particularly hard on the heads of young black men who are feared by the rest of society and left to fend for themselves by white authorities,” Anderson writes. “In his alienation and use of violence, the contemporary poor young black male is a new social type peculiar to postindustrial America. This young man is in profound crisis. His social trajectory leads from the community to prison or cemetery, or at least to a life of trouble characterized by unemployment, discrimination and participation in an oppositional culture – which is how he goes about dealing with the alienation from society.”

The overwhelmingly positive review encourages interested readers to seek out this book to better understand an array of social problems, but reviewer Vernon Clark notes that “a weakness of the book is that the prescribed solutions are not nearly as concrete or commensurate in number as the relentless documentation of the problems and the long list of them.”

Read more.