inequality

Everyone gets quiet, removes their hats, and puts their hand over their hearts to sing. In center field, soldiers hold the American flag. Fighter jets fly over the stadium as the national anthem plays. Sports are not only about the games, they also provide a platform for the presentation and celebration of all manner of collective identities and values–and in the United States, the message is often about nationalism and the military. In new research, Chris Knoester and Evan Davis examine whether Americans  recognize this  messaging or not.

They used data from the National Sports and Society Survey (NSASS) which asked nearly four thousand Americans, “if they felt sports taught a love of country, respect for the military, competition as a way of life, or how to be Americans.” They found that the vast majority of respondents did not believe that sports teaches nationalistic or militaristic values even while most, 84%, overwhelmingly agreed that sport teaches competition as a way of life.  Given that the United States is one of the few countries in the world which plays the national anthem before sporting events and features armed forces in their ceremonies, their results are intriguing, to say the least. the vast majority of respondents did not believe that sports teaches nationalistic or militaristic values

Interestingly, respondents who identified as male, heterosexual, Christian, and Republican were most likely to agree that sports teaches patriotic and militaristic values, with Black and Latinx respondents not far behind. In contrast, Americans who were white and college-educated were less likely to believe that sports taught any values. The authors suggest that this could be due to them viewing sports as truly neutral. 

Over the years, sport sociologists have demonstrated that sport  is a place where many Americans learn patriotic, nationalistic, and militaristic ideals. The fact that most Americans don’t believe this, and that those who do tend to be more conservative, less educated, or not white, raises some very important questions about the role of sport in contemporary American culture.

Advocates for criminal justice reform have argued that supervisory punishments, such as parole and probation, are a key driver of  mass incarceration even though they are meant to serve as alternatives to prison. This is because people who violate the technical conditions of their supervision are often arrested and reincarcerated. However, new research from Michelle Phelps and colleagues puts some of these concerns into perspective. 

Using data from a national survey of incarcerated adults from 1979 to 2016, the researchers discovered that people in prison for parole and probation violations alone have made up about 11-14% of the prison population – and that this percentage has been remarkably stable over time. The largest percentage of the prison population consists of people incarcerated for new offenses, regardless of whether they were on probation or parole.people in prison for parole and probation violations alone have made up about 11-14% of the prison population

This finding suggests that mass incarceration has been driven primarily by increasing punishments for new offenses, rather than increasing enforcement of technical conditions. In order to reduce mass incarceration, the researchers advise that prison reformers should focus on shortening sentence length for new offenses. 

Although parole and probation violations have not contributed as significantly to mass incarceration as originally thought, the researchers caution advocates from diverting their attention from this issue. First, this study focuses on state prison populations and revocations are likely to have an even larger effect on local jail populations. Second, the threat of incarceration alone puts unnecessary stress on those who are on probation and just trying to survive. Incarceration for parole and probation violations contributes to the disorganization and difficulties people can face when they are churned in and out of prison.

Bundles of joy? Previous research suggests that having children may not be joyful for all parents, especially those who juggle high expectations with inflexible and demanding workplaces or raising children of color in a racially inhospitable world. However, new research from Jennifer Augustine and Mia Brantley finds that the happiness of parents varies by race and gender and in ways that were not entirely expected, especially in comparison to adults without kids.the happiness of parents varies by race and gender and in ways that were not entirely expected, especially in comparison to adults without kids

The study is based upondata from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults in the United States, between 2010 and 2018. Researchers used questions where participants are asked to rate how happy they are and provide information about  their race and if they have children who they live with. This study also took into account what respondents reported for  r items such as income  or church attendence that previous research has shown influences happiness.

Augustine and Brantley found that there is not a difference in happiness between white fathers and nonfathers, but that white mothers are less happy than white women who are not parents. The existence of a “happiness gap” for white women but not white men may result from cultural expectations that  White mothers be totally devoted to their children despite the necessity for most white moms to work outside the home. Conversely, the fact that white dads are not expected to take equal responsibility for caring for kids might help explain why they are about as happy as men without kids.

This analysis also revealed no difference in happiness between black parents and nonparents. In fact, it found that black fathers are actually happier than their peers without children. These findings suggest that fatherhood is an important and meaningful part of life for many black men, whileblack moms might have ways of coping that help them manage the stress of raising children that white moms lack. Black mothers also may not exhibit a “happiness gap” compared to black nonmothers because black motherhood views work and parenting as complementary and emphasizes the importance of communal care for children, providing important support for moms. 

This study only analyzed data up to 2018, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest following the murder of George Floyd. Future research will have to examine how changing demands on parents during the pandemic, especially virtual schooling, as well as greater attention to police brutality and racial injustice shaped differences in happiness between black and white parents and nonparents. But what this research clearly demonstrates is whether there is a “happiness gap” between parents and adults without children depends on who is doing the parenting and how they are expected to manage their parenting responsibilities with other aspects of their life.

Although many of us view traffic stops as a minor inconvenience, a ticket on the commute to school can end in traumatic separation for undocumented immigrants and their children. Using interviews and data from The US Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS), Robert Smith and colleagues found that the threat of deportation can jeopardize children’s mental and physical wellbeing. 

Smith and colleagues interviewed undocumented parents who have been pulled over for driving without a license. Parents described stops where the police discovered they were unlicensed and delivered them to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on the side of the road while their children watched. The children in the backseat watching these encounters experienced short and long term emotional harm after police stops and ICE detainment, including nightmares, post traumatic stress disorder and difficulty adjusting to change in family structure. After these arrests, the parents felt that police neglected their children. For example, one mother described how police made her young children walk three miles home unaccompanied on a cold winter night.The children in the backseat watching these encounters experienced short and long term emotional harm after police stops and ICE detainment

Children and parents lived in constant fear that routine trips to school or the doctor would lead to separation after a police stop. This constant fear of separation from parents made it hard for kids to focus in school. One mother reported that her son had to repeat fifth grade because of his anxiety about his mom being deported. Likewise, fear of deportation can also prevent parents from taking their children to routine healthcare visits.  

 Many parents reported that they were stopped by police due to racial profiling.  Researchers found that a majority of people deported after a traffic stop were booked under “No conviction,” meaning that they were not convicted of any crime or driving violation. Instead, many were targeted for stops on account of their racial appearance. Smith and colleagues found that some law enforcement agencies would even work cooperatively with ICE to scout out undocumented people through traffic stops. 

The authors argue that New York’s newly implemented Drivers License Access and Privacy Act, commonly known as the Greenlight law, could prevent these harms to children. The law allows undocumented immigrants in New York to obtain drivers licenses and prevents the DMV from reporting them to ICE. However, the government’s implementation of the Greenlight law has been inconsistent, weakening its effects. In the small number of counties where Greenlight licenses are offered, lack of funding restricts the amount of licenses that the DMV can administer per day. Some DMV offices refuse to offer services in Spanish and make Greenlight applicants, but not standard license applicants, wait outside in the cold. 

The researchers suggest that universal implementation of the Greenlight law and more thoughtful policing of Latinx communities could eliminate the harm to children and families that comes from police stops, ICE detainment, and family separation. Other solutions include expanding busing to communities with large immigrant populations. This would ensure that children have a safe ride to school and parents would not have to risk deportation by driving unlicensed. These efforts could address the reality that short and routine car trips put some immigrant families at risk of police contact and the harm and separation that can follow. 

With the increasing visibility of transgender people in media, law, and social life, many suggest that the United States reached a  “transgender tipping point” in the past decade. The term suggests a big recent increase in people identifying as transgender, yet there has been surprisingly little research into whether and how the likelihood of identifying as transgender has changed over time.  

In a recent American Journal of Sociology article, Danya Lagos put the “transgender tipping point” idea to the test. They analyzed how many people, born between 1935 to 2001, identified as transgender or gender nonconforming. In addition, Lagos looked at the influence of social demographic factors (age, race, sex assigned at birth, and educational attainment) on the likelihood of identifying as transgender. The results of the study confirmed that there has been a big increase in people identifying as transgender and gender nonconforming since 1984, and that there have been big changes in the social demographic factors that predict trans identity across different birth cohorts.

For cohorts born from 1995 to 2001, for example, white people are somewhat more likely than people of other races to identify as trans, yet the reverse was the case for older cohorts born from 1945 to 1984. For every cohort born from 1935 to 1984, people assigned male at birth are more likely to identify as trans than those assigned female at birth. But this too has changed in recent years, as sex assignment at birth no longer predicts trans identity for those born from 1985-2001. Higher educational attainment is more consistently linked to lower rates of transgender identification throughout all age cohorts. Many believe that exposure to gender theory in higher education leads to more fluidity in gender expression, but the results of this study suggest otherwise.

In short, although the number of people identifying as trans has definitely increased, there hasn’t been any singular “transgender tipping point.” Instead, it’s more complicated than that.  The effect of other social identities and statuses, including race, sex assignment, and education, actively evolves and shifts as each birth cohort grows up in a changing social world. And just as society has changed throughout the years, so too has the prevalence and predictors of trans identity.although the number of people identifying as trans has definitely increased, there hasn’t been any singular “transgender tipping point.”

“You may kiss the bride.” Getting married is a pivotal moment that comes with many life changes. One of the first big decisions couples must make is whether spouses will change their last names. Although increasingly women are choosing to keep their maiden names, and some couples have hyphenated, new research from Kristin Kelley shows that Americans still hold strong beliefs that women should take their husband’s last names.

Kelley asked a nationally representative sample of 1000 people to rate each spouse’s level of commitment to love and similarity to the “ideal” husband or wife in three different hypothetical situations: a wife taking her husband’s last name, a wife keeping her maiden name, or both the husband and wife hyphenating their last names. 

They found that respondents viewed women who did not take their husband’s name negatively. Specifically, respondents believed that women who kept their maiden names were 14 percent less committed and loving, and 12 percent further from the ideal wife than women who took their husband’s last name. respondents believed that women who kept their maiden names were 14 percent less committed and loving

Respondents viewed the women who hyphenated their last names with similar skepticism, rating them as 12 percent less committed and loving, and 13 percent further from the ideal wife. These results did not appear for men who changed their names. Surprisingly, these views of women were also true of highly educated respondents who we might expect to have more egalitarian gender expectations. 

These findings raise many questions–about the persistence of gendered double-standards that work against women, for example, or about how marital name changes might impact partners in non-heterosexual unions.  But it is not difficult to imagine that negative attitudes towards women who don’t take their husband’s names at marriage carry over to their social and professional relationships. 

Recent police violence and related protests have led to calls to reestablish and strengthen trust between police and communities. In response, the New York Police Department (NYPD) holds quarterly police-community listening meetings to discuss issues ranging from junked cars to shootings of people with mental illness. 

Cheng collected ethnographic data from 40 of these community-police meetings across nine communities in New York and conducted 58 interviews with meeting attendees. He found that three issues prevent these meetings from successfully increasing police-community trust and communication: 1) ignoring “rabble rousing” topics such as police brutality and focusing on easily resolvable problems, 2) the snubing of first-time attendees from actively participating, and 3) the use of police-friendly venues.

During these meetings, attendees sometimes raised concerns about police violence towards community members. When these conversations arose, police redirected comments and shifted dialogue towards directly resolvable problems, such as parking. Following meetings, tweets and reports written by officers further omitted complaints about police violence and framed the events in a favorable light. For example, instead of recording discussion about the police’s failure to respond to gang activity in a timely manner, police officially reported “Trespassing/Narcotics–Late Nights” in a housing development as the topic of discussion – favorably curating the original complaint. 

In his observations of the dialogue between police and attendees, Cheng also noted the presence of pro-police “regulars” frequently attending meetings and vocally dismissing first-time attendees. For example, when a first time attendee expressed their intent to create a non-profit to help youth find employment and reduce crime, “regulars” dismissed this non-law enforcement solution and declared that youths in question “don’t want help”. 

The location of the meetings also favored the NYPD. Churches, schools, and housing complexes were selected for their convenience and capacity – but these venues hold pre-existing connections with law enforcement. Officers frequently serve in roles such as security for weekend religious gatherings and school resource officers in schools. By using these venues the NYPD inadvertently stacked attendance with police-friendly community members. For example, one pastor had bible-study members attend and following an opening prayer to begin the meeting then commented, “the way to stomp [drug dealing] is to foster that relationship between the police. We’re not just to see the police as the enemy, but we see the police as our ally”.

This research shows how intentional and impartial organization is necessary to create a space where people can effectively share constructive criticism of the police. In order to meaningfully change responses to police complaints, organizers must better balance institutional control over these types of meetings and actually provide space for community members’ criticism.This research shows how intentional and impartial organization is necessary to create a space where people can effectively share constructive criticism of the police

American fine dining is innovative, prestigious, and world-renowned. But a recent study by Gillian Gualtieri reveals that inequality also shapes the industry: only some forms of cuisine are labeled as “ethnic” and excluded from the status and rewards of the fine-dining designation. 

Gualtieri conducted 120 interviews with renowned chefs in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, two of the most popular restaurant cities in the United States. She also analyzed over one thousand Michelin restaurant reviews from these cities. Her basic finding was that restaurants that are considered “ethnic” are held to different standards. restaurants that are considered “ethnic” are held to different standards

Gualtieri identified three descriptors routinely used in to assess restaurants: technique, creativity, and authenticity. These criteria are used inconsistently by both chefs and critics. Restaurants considered general fine dining establishments, including those featuring Italian, vegan, or contemporary food, are more likely to receive recognition for technique and creativity.

On the other hand, restaurants that are typically thought of as “ethnic,” such as Indian, Thai, or Greek establishments, are more frequently judged for their perceived authenticity. This means that ratings of ethnic restaurants are more heavily dependent on “what other people’s perception of the cuisine is… a stereotype of what that cuisine is,” according to one chef at a Chinese restaurant.

This differential evaluation leads to Gualtieri’s second finding: restaurants designated as “ethnic” are less likely to hold high Michelin star ratings, one of the primary markers of prestige and value in the field of fine dining. Gualterri argues that ethnic restaurants are less likely to receive fine dining awards because they are overwhelmingly evaluated by their authenticity, rather than their creativity or technique. 

Another consequence of the emphasis on ethnic restaurant’s authenticity is competition for low prices. “People seem to think if they pay a lot for ethnic food, they’re being ripped off because it’s not supposed to be expensive,” a chef told Gulaterri. In other words, being designated as an ethnic restaurant not only lowers the chances of receiving prestigious awards and recognition, it also forces ethnic restaurants to charge less than their peers. Together, this places ethnic restaurants in precarious positions where they struggle to stay afloat.

Women who enter the armed forces are expected to be strong, tough, and masculine. Feminine insults, like being called a girl, are used to denigrate and motivate male service members. New research shows a hidden consequence of these gendered expectations: undeniably feminine moments in servicewomen’s lives, like pregnancy or entering a new heterosexual relationship, increase their risk of assault and discrimination.

Sociologist Stephanie Bonnes interviewed 50 current and former servicewomen. Over 59% of the participants experienced sexual harassment and discrimination that coincided with feminine life events like dating, engagement, marriage to a man, or  pregnancy. Feminine life events jeopardize female service members’ efforts to appear strong and masculine and put them in danger. Feminine life events jeopardize female service members’ efforts to appear strong and masculine and put them in danger

One participant explains how she was victimized  after she started dating a fellow serviceman. The day that her partner left the unit for training, her superior sexually assaulted her. 

 “This NCO cornered me and grabbed and kissed me. I was completely caught off guard. I mean it was right in front of his home, with his wife inside.“

The participant described how this had shocked her. Not only was this very public, she had also never had any issues with this coworker before. The timing of the incident led her to believe that her superior waited for her new boyfriend to leave before assaulting her. 

Discrimination against servicewomen who are pregnant or in heterosexual relationships is also deeply ingrained in military institutions. One woman described how her she was treated differently by the military organization after she told her unit she was pregnant.

 “So, I got pregnant and of course they’re liable for lots of things, so God forbid I pick up  a single chair. But then they went and made me go clean the bathrooms for the company.”

The findings show how the undeniably feminine moments in servicewomen’s lives put them at risk for both sexual harassment and workplace discrimination – and how women in the US military are put in harm’s way by their fellow soldiers.

When we hear about “poverty” in the news, it’s usually measured by income. These measures are very useful! But, we also know that poverty isn’t just about how much money you’re making, it’s also about your net worth: the value of your assets minus your debts. If people suddenly lose income, having savings or selling belongings can cushion families and cover basic expenses such as food and housing. Additionally, some assistance programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), have asset tests that kick people with “too many assets” off benefits.

This puts many poor Americans in a double bind: they need assets as an economic safety net but are penalized for accumulating too many. Despite the importance of assets to the lives of poor Americans, according to Christina Gibson-Davis and her colleagues, there is not enough research on net worth poverty.

In their new study, Gibson-Davis and colleagues address our lack of knowledge about net worth poverty, which they define as a net worth less than one fourth of the federal poverty line, by examining how it affects children’s development compared to income poverty. To do so, they analyze  survey data from 2002 through 2019. This survey include information on household wealth and income, as well as children’s cognitive and behavioral development.

The researchers found that, for kids ages 3-17, net worth poverty was associated with worse reading scores, math scores, and behavioral outcomes, such as sadness and aggression. Although the effects of net worth poverty were similar to those of income poverty, kids who experienced poverty in both net worth and income had the worst outcomes.kids who experienced poverty in both net worth and income had the worst outcomes

Importantly, this research shows that having fewer assets had a greater negative influence on children’s outcomes than having more debt, although both could contribute to net worth poverty.  Debt poverty alone was associated with worse behavioral outcomes while  asset poverty was associated with worse cognitive and behavioral measures. The authors suggest that this is because asset-poor households have fewer resources on hand to invest in their kids than debt-poor households.

In short, this study suggests that children who are “doubly poor,” lacking in both income and net worth, are at the highest risk for cognitive and behavioral concerns. Policy makers should consider that interventions  that target income-poor children alone may overlook the needs of those who are net worth poor.