race

Party animals are finally proving their point. Meeting the love of our lives, forgiving a friend, or even rethinking the way we experience ourselves are more likely to happen at a party than when washing dishes at home. In a new study, Alice Goffman casts her sociological eye on how social occasions — from drinks in a bar to birthday parties — can turn into transformative experiences.

Like a kaleidoscope, the nitty-gritty details of how people organize their events, their motivations to attend, the proper social norms, and what is required for social occasions to succeed follow intricate patterns. To interpret their complexity, Goffman and her research team deployed several strategies:

Goffman started to take notes and interview attendees when she attended social occasions in 2009. In addition, during the fall 2017 semester, 15 undergraduate students wrote weekly event journals as part of a college course and shared these diaries to be analyzed in the study. Finally, Goffman’s research team turned to The New York Times’ marriage section, online websites, and literary work for accounts of turning points and transitions in people’s lives. Goffman’s notes, undergraduates’ diaries, and people’s experiences helped her to understand social occasions as platforms for the emergence of life-changing moments.

Social occasions range from a visit to the doctor to the celebration of a bar mitzvah. Some of these events — parties especially — represent a special realm where people design exceptional atmospheres by decorating, dressing up, or displaying outstanding cooking. The ambiance aims to relax existent social boundaries and release attendees from the mundane pressures of everyday life. Likewise, gatherings bring together disparate people who share similar social connections, interests or activities, and create a sense of communion. The combination of heightened energy, social commonalities, and collision of divergent words gives people an opportunity to perceive things differently and think differently about themselves. Parties reinvent friendships, launch marriages, and boost professional careers by prompting people to revisit their personal plans and discovering new social connections.

Social occasions do not always run smoothly. As energy and relaxation go up, people become more vulnerable to moments of acute disrespect or embarrassment, causing lasting damage for social relationships. Social occasions also force participants to reveal their social preferences and personal rankings, so gatherings become de facto popularity contests based on, for instance, who is included in the guests lists or who gets social attention. Social norms around greetings, proper topics of discussion, or how to dance competently challenge guests to perform a complex’ choreography that others will watch and judge. People in parties thus discover their and others’ social relevance. Social occasions force participants to reveal their social preferences and personal rankings; gatherings become de facto popularity contests.

Social occasions have a flip side too. Racial discrimination, lack of economic or social capital, or not having an able body generate invisible restrictions to accessing and experiencing social occasions. Future research is required to identify how structural inequalities limit access to these transformative experiences.

If you make at least $859,000 per year in 2016 dollars, you’re part of the “one percent”– the top 1% of income earners in the United States. According to a recent study by Jill E. Yavorsky, Lisa A. Keister, Yue Qian and Michael Naud, you’re most likely to be part of the one percent if you’re a highly educated, white, married or cohabiting man or woman in your 50s, but individuals that don’t match those characteristics are much less likely to be.

The researchers used data from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board Survey of Consumer Finances from 1995 to 2016, which includes 40,418 one-percent households. They examine whether there has been a change in the gender makeup of the one percent and how many households in the one percent rely on women’s income to remain in this top category.

In 2016, only 4.5% of elite households rely on women’s income for one-percent status. While this number has increased modestly since 1995 — when only 1.7% of households relied on women’s income — a financial glass ceiling remains intact at the one percent level, and gender progress has effectively “stalled” for these women since the mid-1990s.In 2016, only 4.5% of elite households rely on women’s income for one-percent status.

Education, employment, age, and race affect whether households fall in the top one percent, but their analysis show key differences between men and women:  

• Higher education. A higher percentage of both married and single men and women in the top one percent of households are highly educated, compared with those in the full population. 
• Self-employment. Men and women in the top one percent are much more likely to be self-employed than those in the general population. Married men are much more likely to be self-employed than married women. 
• Age. Married and single men and women in one percent households are older, on average, than the general population. The average age for single women is 63, which is 9 to 12 years older than others in the one percent. 
• Race. Households in the top one percent are less racially diverse than households in the general population: Of married households in the top one percent, had respondents who identified as nonwhite, while only 3% of single-women households did.

In short, the same variables matter for both men and women, but key differences illustrate a continued gender imbalance.

Millions of students each year are suspended or expelled from school, sometimes in response to minor, non-violent policy violations such as skipping class and “disruptive behavior.” These harsh policies disproportionately push out students from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially youth of color. Much of the research on this topic focuses on middle and high school students. However, a new study by Wade Jacobsen, Garrett Pace, and Nayan Ramirez shows that a surprising number of urban students are already impacted by the third grade.

The researchers used data from several thousand children in 20 large American cities to document how many were suspended or expelled by age 9. Overall, 11% of children were removed from school at least once by this age. However, there were stark race and gender inequalities in elementary school discipline. Only 8% of white boys and 2% of white girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 40% of black boys and 15% of black girls.

Next, the researchers wanted to understand what factors are driving inequalities in early school discipline. They found that racial disparities were not due to differences in behavior reported by parents. Instead, disparities were mostly explained by school disciplinary practices and family background, such as poverty and parental incarceration.Only 8% of white boys and 2% of white girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 40% of black boys and 15% of black girls.

Exclusionary discipline is intended to punish and reduce aggressive behavior. However, the researchers showed that children who were suspended or expelled became more physically aggressive after they returned to school. They suggest that suspension and expulsion disrupt routines at home and cause children to fall behind at school, and this increased stress may lead to poor behavior.

While exclusionary discipline may sometimes be necessary to ensure student safety, there can be little disagreement that pushing kids out of schools when they are still learning to read is a practice that should be reconsidered. Finding effective alternatives to exclusionary discipline for non-violent behavior at an early age could improve racial equity in life-long educational outcomes.

“Broken-windows” policing was a popular policing strategy in the 1990s that emphasized aggressive policing of low-level crimes as a way to reduce more serious crimes in an area. However, broken-windows policing led to racial disparities in stops and arrests in many cities where it was implemented. Recent research by Joscha Legewie  and Jeffery Fagandemonstrates that such disparities in police stops and arrests can have far-reaching impacts on youth educational performance. Specifically, they found that in New York City, broken-windows policing led to diminished educational successes among African American boys in particular.

Legewie and Fagan tested the effect of policing program, “Operation Impact,” which began in 2004. Over its 10 years in existence, Operation Impact targeted high-crime areas of the city for increased stop-and-frisks of pedestrians and officers were encouraged to make arrests for low-level offenses. Legewie and Fagan argue that Operation Impact could have two potential impacts on educational performance among youth: 1) it could lead to major reductions in crime which could increase academic performance in high-crime areas or 2) it could diminish educational achievement due to negative direct and indirect contacts with police.

The authors employ data from two major sources to test this relationship: a database of NYC student records from 2003 to 2012 and NYPD data on pedestrian stops, crime complaints, and arrests during Operation Impact from 2004 to 2012. They adopt a difference-in-differences analytic approach to assess the before and after impacts of Operation Impact on crime and educational performance. The NYPD expanded, moved, removed, or added impact zones every six months during implementation of Operation Impact, which allowed Legewie and Fagan to estimate the causal effect of the program on youth educational performance by accounting for other neighborhood factors that could confound their findings. Operation Impact lowered educational performance of black boys in the neighborhoods affected, especially those between the ages of 13 to 15.

Operation Impact lowered educational performance of black boys in the neighborhoods affected, especially those between the ages of 13 to 15. They find that this reduced educational performance was related to decreased school attendance among African American boys, suggesting that this form of system avoidance may be partly to blame for bad test scores.

This research demonstrates how broken-windows policing strategies have had far-reaching consequences for opportunity gaps in education. The analysis suggests that while Operation Impact reduced violent and property crime rates, its costs to students’ educational success outweighed these crime reductions.

On April 18th, police officer Christopher Krickovich faced public criticism for rough handling a Black teenager at a local school. Similar incidents across the nation have compelled Black parents to talk to their children about how to navigate and survive police interactions. Most of these conversations use familiar high-profile cases involving Black men such as Michael Brown and Eric Gardner to illustrate the danger with police contact. Yet, Black girls and women have largely been neglected as targets of police brutality. In a recent study, Shannon Malone Gonzalez reveals that Black girls are not only left out of public discourse regarding police violence, but also the everyday “police talk” Black mothers use to teach Black children how to navigate interactions with law enforcement.

Gonzalez conducted interviews with 30 middle- and working-class Black mothers in an urban city. Each mother had one or more children between the ages of four and thirteen and 21 Black mothers had at least one daughter. During her interviews, Gonzalez asked Black mothers to reflect on their children’s racial and gendered vulnerabilities to police violence and how these perceptions of vulnerability informed police talk with their children. Black mothers often categorized Black sons as the primary targets of police brutality and Black daughters as collateral targets or “secondary victims.”

Black mothers often utilized the “making it home” framework when discussing police with their children. Through double consciousness — understanding one’s own vulnerabilities through the lens of the dominant group — this framework teaches Black youth to be hyperaware of police stereotypes that reproduce notions of Black criminality. Mothers provide suggestions for how Black youth should interact with law enforcement to increase their chances of “making it home” safely. Black mothers believe these talks are vital for their children’s survival.

At the same time, Gonzalez points out that these talks marginalize the experiences of Black girls in three ways. First, Black mothers often categorized Black sons as the primary targets of police brutality and Black daughters as collateral targets or “secondary victims.” Even when asked about girls, several mothers turn their attention back to their sons. Second, these talks reinforce the idea that violence associated with masculinity, such as physical assault and shootings, are more important than verbal harassment or sexual violence — experiences that are more often linked to women’s experiences of police misconduct. The “making it home” narrative also treats the home as an inherently safe space, even though homes often function as a site of police violence for Black girls and women. Finally, mothers see police talk as crucial for boys’ socialization but optional for their daughters. Through her work, Gonzalez encourages us to make Black women’s and girls’ experiences with police more visible in our understandings of police-community relations.

Contesting individual’s claims to Indigenous ancestry is nothing new; a notable example is Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry testing and Donald Trump’s repeated “Pocahontas” jeers. Proving authentic group heritage is something many Americans never think about, but such dynamics are common for Indigenous persons.

The labels, “Native American,” “Indigenous,” and “American Indian,” are social constructions rooted in the story of colonization. Indigenous populations in present-day United States were subject to state policies and institutions that lumped many different groups into the label, “Native American.” As a legacy of these policies, people have to provide proof of Native American ancestry to be considered official tribal members. In new research published in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Dwanna L. McKay explores how Indigenous people draw on different strategies to navigate these complicated systems of belonging and proving identity. Proving authentic group heritage is something many Americans never think about, but such dynamics are common for Indigenous Peoples.

Interviewing 45 Native American participants, McKay describes two dominant methods they use to defend their identity as authentic Indigineous Peoples. First, there is “blood quantum,” a term that refers to how much Native ancestry or family a person can point to in their family tree. The other common way to display authenticity is producing one’s “Indian Card,” a certificate that some Indigenous people receive as proof of their heritage. For several interviewees, these cards not only represent a structural and political qualification, but also hold cultural and personal significance.  

Of course, blood quantums and Indian cards are specific to Native Americans; members of other races in the United States do not have to similarly prove their ancestry or identity. This distinct picture is a product of colonialism and the subsequent categorization, marginalization, and isolated Indigenous populations. Today, such history has affected how people experience race and negotiate Indigenous authenticity.

The Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice honors the lives of the over 4,000 Black men, women, and children who were lynched on U.S. soil between 1877 and 1950. When the memorial opened in Montgomery, Alabama last spring, reporters asked founder Bryan Stevenson, why build a lynching memorial? Stevenson aptly replied that the memorial serves to not only honor lynching victims but to highlight how the legacy of racial violence affects U.S. punishment practices today. A new study from Eric Stewart and colleagues helps us understand the relationship between lynching and the contemporary punitive attitudes of whites.

The study builds on a long line of research that stems from the work of Ida B. Wells and examines how this history of racial violence shapes criminal justice practices. Wells was one of the main public voices to challenge the common justification for lynchings among whites — that Black men committed acts of rape and other crimes against white women. Her work demonstrated that lynchings were in fact, not a response to crime but a tool of economic and political control used to maintain white dominance in both the South and North. Stewart and his co-authors attempt to unpack this complex history and its implications for criminal justice attitudes today.

The authors draw from a wide range of sources, including a 2013 national survey of crime and punishment attitudes and multiple historical lynching data inventories matched to modern county boundaries. Their findings indicate that this history of racial violence is relevant for whites’ beliefs about crime and punishment today. Specifically, white people who reside in areas where lynchings were more common have increased punitive sentiments towards Black people, including greater support for imprisonment, longer prison sentences, and the death penalty.In places where lynchings were historically more common, white residents report increased punitive sentiments towards Black people.

This effect is amplified among whites who view Black people as more prone to violence against white people. This finding demonstrates that the historical myth used to justify lynchings of black-on-white violence continues to hold sway over white beliefs’ about crime and punishment today. Further, the findings seem to apply nationally — not just in the South — and lynchings do not appear to impact the punitiveness among Black survey respondents.

Stewart and colleagues’ study demonstrates that the legacy of lynchings has shaped contemporary white views of crime, criminality, and punishment through a racial lens. Similar to Stevenson’s comments, the authors conclude that researchers must continue to unpack the importance of historical context in shaping contemporary views of crime and other social issues.

There are two understandings of how schools affect inequality. On the one hand, evidence suggests that schools increase inequality by providing more advantages to students who are better off to begin with. On the other, schools are hailed as society’s “great equalizer” and believed to provide opportunities for all children to get ahead. New work from von Hippel, Workman, and Downey revisits whether schools can compensate for family inequality.

The researchers replicated an earlier study that compared kindergarteners’ reading and math progress during the school year to their progress during summer vacation. Looking at summer vacation allows researchers to focus on inequality due to differences in the home. And by comparing summer vacation progress to school year progress, researchers can determine whether schools are making those differences larger or smaller. The earlier study found that, while inequality grew substantially between the start of kindergarten and the end of first grade, it grew much faster during summer vacations than it did during the school year. The researchers concluded that schools, in fact, were slowing down the growth of gaps due to inequalities in the home. Not only are schools slowing down the growth of achievement gaps, they’re actually shrinking them.

In the new study, von Hippel, Workman, and Downey tested children who began kindergarten in 2010 with an updated measurement of achievement to see if school affected inequality differently in this younger cohort. For most students in both the original and the younger cohorts, gaps grew more quickly over summer vacations. For the 2010 cohort, however, the variation in scores upon entering kindergarten was reduced by the time they finished second grade. This means that not only are schools slowing down the growth of achievement gaps, they’re actually shrinking them. Yet, this finding was not the same for all children — for African American students, the pattern was reversed, with gaps growing wider when school was in session.

While it is heartening to know that schools have the ability to close achievement gaps, these early childhood gaps — especially those in basic reading and math — are still an issue. Since these gaps emerge before students begin kindergarten, later school or summer interventions are palliative, rather than preventative. It may therefore be wiser to develop policies that reduce inequalities among parents and their children before they’re old enough to enroll.

Originally published November 1, 2018.

For a long time, individuals and organizations have drawn stark lines between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. Over the past 40 years, these distinctions have been used to justify cutting or limiting social safety net programs, leading to a decline in cash welfare programs and other parts of social assistance programs that working-age, able-bodied, poor adults are eligible for. Furthermore, researchers have shown that welfare recipients are subject to a growing list of limits, conditions, and expectations. In a recent study, Eric Bjorklund, Andrew P. Davis, and Jessica Pfaffendorf continue such research by examining states’ efforts to implement drug testing for applicants to “Temporary Aid to Needy Families” (TANF), a flagship national welfare program.

In the tense racial and economic climate following Obama’s 2008 election, Arizona became the first state to introduce a policy restricting access to cash welfare for applicants based on drug test results. Since then, 15 states followed by passing drug test policies for recipients of TANF. To understand how the states that passed welfare drug testing policies potentially differ from states that did not, Bjorklund and colleagues looked for patterns in the years leading up to the implementation of the policy. They examined factors such as states’ government ideology, whether a Republican governor ousted a Democrat, the proportion of nonwhites in the population, and the white employment rate.  Whites’ racialized economic fears may have led them to support restrictive policies framed as “correcting” the behavior of certain groups, thus prompting politicians and legislators to tighten access to welfare programs by excluding those who failed a drug test.

Both decreases in white labor force participation and having a Republican governor were associated with a state’s implementation of a drug testing policy. The authors rely on social context to explain this finding — specifically, these policies were implemented during the economic recession following Obama’s 2008 election as the first African American President of the United States. Given the importance of the white employment rate, the authors speculate that whites may have held a zero-sum belief that economic gains by people of color would entail losses for whites. Whites’ racialized economic fears may have led them to support restrictive policies framed as “correcting” the behavior of certain “morally compromised” groups, thus prompting politicians and legislators to tighten access to welfare programs by excluding those who failed a drug test. In short, this research highlights the ways social assistance programs can be shaped by public perceptions about who deserves assistance and who doesn’t.

Originally posted May 16, 2018. 

After a particularly long winter, spring has finally sprung in our snowy corner of the United States. As the weather improves, people are emerging from their winter sanctuaries to enjoy the warmth and sunshine outdoors. But there may be more to these everyday adventures than just taking a stroll. In fact, going out in public — whether riding transit, taking a walk, or gathering in large groups — is an act influenced by social factors, like identity and bias. In a recent article, Michael DeLand and David Trouille examine these daily explorations through their new theoretical lens.  

DeLand and Trouille describe different styles of “going out” on various spectrums. The first includes the level of interactions with others. While some go out to be alone, others go out to seek social engagement. Outings also differ by commitment. Some may head outside to wander and explore, and others may venture with a specific task in mind, like joining a public sporting event or going for a run. Each outing is dynamic — an individual may intend to stroll alone through a park, then stumble across a game of soccer and change plans. Going out in public — whether riding transit, taking a walk, or gathering in large groups — is an act influenced by social factors, like identity and bias.

The authors also discuss how social structures and identities influences the styles of going out. For example, structural inequalities and individual identities influence which public spaces an individual may feel safe inhabiting. For example, in Trouille’s ethnographic work he describes tension between styles of “going out” for Latino immigrant men and their neighbors. The men he observed drank in a Los Angeles park since bars were too expensive and unsafe. While some neighbors found this maddening, the Latino men made plans based on structural restraints — and this vantage point of “going out” allows for deeper insight into the ways that inequality impacts day-to-day life. In short, the social world influences decision processes like these every time we step outside.