Americans these days like to think of the Ku Klux Klan—if they think of the KKK at all—as a white supremacist abomination whose time has come and gone. That is, its presence was deplorable but its impact minimal. A new article from Rory McVeigh, David Cunningham, and Justin Farrell paints a different picture, arguing that the very visible demonstrations of the extremist organization have played a lasting role in shaping the American electorate as we know it today.

The 1960s saw a major shift in the Southern United States where mostly white voters, motivated by their opposition to Civil Rights policies, shifted their support from Democrats to Republicans. The authors argue the Klan was a major player in this shift, but not because it recruited a wide swath of voters to their cause. Instead, KKK activism, in its extremism, drew attention to how the civil rights movement was challenging long-held “links between movement goals and positions taken by political candidates” (1148), thus turning white voters against the Democratic party.

McVeigh, Cunningham, and Farrell base their argument on findings from two sets of tests. First, using data from the National Consortium on Violence Research, House UnAmerican Activities Committee data on Klan organization from 1967, they measure Klan activism within counties in ten southern states through the 1960s. Counties marked by KKK activism were significantly more likely to vote for Republican Presidential candidates. And this effect carried past the ‘60s. Repeated tests comparing 1960 to 1972, 1980, 1992, and even 2000 show that the effect holds over time. There is also a geographic effect; counties that bordered centers of Klan activism had weaker, but significant shifts toward Republican voting as well.

A second analysis using 1992 Southern Focus Poll data shows a similar pattern among individual voters. Those more in favor of segregation were more likely to vote Republican; however, this was only if they lived in counties that had documented Klan activism back in the 1960s.

The authors are careful to point out these results do not mean the Klan has directly influenced voters over the last 50 years. Instead, this is a story about the unintended, yet long-lasting consequences of a radical group that “dislodge[s] voters from preexisting party loyalties” and reshapes the field of public opinion (1161). In short, the Klan changed the political culture and produced a system of party allegiances that remained in place long after their activism diminished.

Poor neighborhoods tend to have poor schools. This means that poor families, many of whom are minorities, face barriers to quality education. School choice is often seen as the solution.

Peter M. Rich and Jennifer L. Jennings investigate whether and how families in Chicago respond to new information about school quality and opportunities to choose their children’s schools when financial, social, and geographic constraints influence their enrollment decisions. Analyzing Chicago Public School (CPS) administrative records of student enrollment over consecutive semesters shows whether students stay at one school, transfer to another school in the same district, or switch to a non-CPS school. To understand more about who moves where, Rich and Jennings look at each student’s race and gender, whether the student receives free or reduced lunch, their math and reading test scores, and other demographic information. The authors then compare differences in transfer rates before and after the enactment of a school accountability policy.

The authors find that many families change schools in response to their child’s school earning a poor rating. Poor families most often transfer schools within districts, but overall, they transfer less frequently than non-poor families. When poor families move schools, they often switch from probation schools (those in danger of failing accountability testing) to non-probation schools. Although such moves seem logical, the non-probation schools to which families switch are still in the bottom 50% of all Chicago Public Schools. Families with more resources are more likely to transfer schools within the same district, transfer to schools in other districts, or enroll their children in private schools.

This pattern arises not just from class, but also from race. Over 80% of all students attending the CPS probation schools were Black, compared to almost no Asian, Native American, or White students. However, Black families responded to school probation status by transferring, while Hispanic students generally stay.

School accountability policies in this study resulted in an overall sorting away from probation schools, but holding schools accountable failed to close the inequality gap between poor and non-poor students. School choice seems to simply reinforce existing gaps: those likely to benefit from school choice are already privileged enough to transfer schools.

Beyond the 6,000 prisoners released in the U.S. Sentencing commission’s effort between October 30^th and Nov 2nd, over 650,000 people are released from prison each year—a process scholars and policy makers call reentry. Former prisoners face many barriers upon reentry, including lack of access to work, housing, and voting rights. Despite the huge population of people experiencing reentry each year, most neighborhoods and communities are scarcely involved in the process, and most of these former prisoners return to a small number of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods. How does this concentration of formerly incarcerated individuals impact recidivism, or the extent to which individuals reoffend?

David S. Kirk uses a clever “natural experiment” and data from post-Katrina New Orleans, originally published in the American Sociological Review, to investigate how concentrating former prisoners in a small number of neighborhoods affects recidivism rates. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage and forced newly released prisoners to relocate to other communities across the region, as opposed to returning to their original metropolitan neighborhoods. In effect, the natural disaster of Katrina mimicked the conditions of an “experiment,” in which released prisoners were much more widely dispersed across the region rather than clustering in a small number of neighborhoods.

In his anaylsis, Kirk measures recidivism by neighborhood reincarceration rates, comparing neighborhoods with large changes in parolee concentration to “control” neighborhoods that did not experience a change in reentry concentration. Controlling for factors such as socioeconomic condition, housing availability, and previous recidivism, Kirk finds much greater recidivism in in the New Orleans neighborhoods with the greatest concentration of parolees . Specifically, for each extra parolee per 1,000 residents, the neighborhood’s recidivism rate rose by 11%.

A potential explanation for this effect is that the dispersal of formerly incarcerated individuals across larger physical space helps “break up” social networks that make reoffense more likely. Kirk notes that released individuals are often restricted to a particular neighborhood by the very rules of their parole—a policy that could be undermining public safety. To combat this situation and reduce recidivism, he suggests housing subsidies and relocation assistance to help parolees and other former prisoners find homes in a broader mix of neighborhoods.

Gentrification is a hot-button issue. The renovation and rebuilding of homes and businesses provide cultural changes that socially separate wealthy whites who move into minority neighborhoods from current residents, even when the spacial distance between the groups is small or non-existent. Looking at the history of residential segregation, Angelina Grigoryeva and Martin Reuf investigate whether whites living in close proximity to racial minorities will result in social interaction or if today’s experiences of segregation will be different than in the past.

The authors use household data from the 1880 U.S. Census to analyze different ways residential segregation appeared in post-Civil War United States. They begin by focusing on Washington, D.C., using data collected by “census enumerators”—people who went door-to-door conducting the Census. Then they examine a larger sample of 171 post-Civil War cities and towns. Grigoryeva and Reuf find regional differences in segregation, noting that the Northeast became characterized by black and white people living in separate districts, while segregation in the South grew to be characterized by a “backyard” pattern, where black and white people live within the same Census districts.The Northeast U.S. became characterized by racially separate districts, while segregation in the South was characterized by a “backyard” pattern, with black and white people living within the same Census districts.

Grigoryeva and Reuf believe their method of tracing residential housing segregation changes the way we think of the history of residential segregation in the U.S., and their findings about the different patterns of contemporary Northern and Southern segregation demonstrate how the social effects of segregation remain powerful, even when racial groups live in close proximity.

The alarmingly high rates of suicide among transgender people have received national attention, prompting larger questions about health-harming behaviors among the transgender population. When one’s gender expression strays from cultural expectations, how does it influence discrimination and health?

Using data from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, Lisa R. Miller and Eric Anthony Grollman examine this relationship. Survey respondents answered a number of questions about how their gender is perceived by others, what types of discrimination they have faced, and whether they have attempted suicide and/or abused alcohol or drugs. Miller and Grollman find that transgender adults report substantially higher rates of health-harming behaviors than cisgender (that is, non-transgender) adults report in other surveys.

A staggering 44% of transgender respondents said they had attempted suicide. Those who thought others saw them as transgender were significantly more likely to have attempted suicide than those who “passed” (were perceived to be cisgender) and reported higher rates of discrimination. Taken together, Miller and Grollman suggest that transgender adults perceived as gender nonconforming face more types of both daily and major discriminations; this may increase self-harming behavior.

Being transgender, the authors write, does not necessarily lead to health-harming behaviors; rather, being visible as transgender (or gender nonconforming) increases health-harming behaviors. It seems to be the social responses to gender nonconformity that negatively impact transgender health and wellbeing.

Many factors predict rates of gun ownership, including race, education and income levels, political-party affiliation, and local crime rates. But what about legislation and statements from local politicians and media? Do these factors also influence gun sales? University of Washington professor (and current Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy at the University of Michigan) Rene D. Flores’ research explores the relationship between the two.

Flores tests whether an increase in anti-immigration ordinances or arguments predicts an increase in gun sales within twenty-four Pennsylvania counties. Using administrative data from the countries themselves, he shows how proposed anti-immigrant laws, such as increased deportation power or English-only mandates, predicts an increased sale of handguns. Even after controlling for other factors that predict gun ownership, proposed anti-immigrant ordinances and rates of gun sales track each other closely. Flores also finds a similar link between anti-immigrant-ordinances and subsequent handgun purchases in South Carolina.

Flores suggests the relationship springs from the rhetoric used by politicians and media outlets that describes immigrants as criminal, violent, and dangerous. When immigrants or other populations are portrayed negatively in this way, social anxiety can catch fire in native populations. He tests this claim by examining how, after anti-immigrant ordinances are proposed in Pennsylvania counties, local media run more stories linking immigrants to crime and violence. He suggests that these stories either cause or reflect a change in local attitudes toward immigration—one that results in increased anti-immigration sentiment and gun sales. In short, anti-immigration legislation and rhetoric can shape public attitudes, and social anxiety can predict the likelihood that locals “lock and load.”

Since 9/11, Arab Americans have experienced various forms of harassment and repression in the U.S., including deportations, FBI questioning, citizen surveillance, and harassment as well as insults, threats, and physical attacks we might now categorize as hate crimes. Sociologists Wayne Santoro and Marian Azab are interested in how these experiences impact Arab Americans’ political activism, with a particular focus on protests.

Using Michigan as their case study, Santoro and Azab focus on two main questions. First, to what extent are documented levels of repression associated with increases in public demonstrations and meetings between Detroit-area Arab Americans and authorities about ethnic-based grievances? And second, which Arab Americans are more likely to be involved in activism and civic engagement?

To answer the first, Santoro and Azab examined archives of the Detroit Free Press from 1999-2010. They found a clear temporal relationship between increases in repressive treatment against Arab Americans and patterns of protest and organizing in the community. Such activism peaked in the year after 9/11, with a general increase in protest in the following years.

If the fact that protests peaked post-9/11 within the Arab-American community is unsurprising, the second question—who participated in these protests—provides new information. To examine the effects of repression on an individual level, Santoro and Azab used the Detroit Arab American Study (DAAS) to look at a sample of 1,016 people of Arab or Chaldean descent living in the Detroit area in 2003. They examined the impact of experiencing repression due to race, ethnicity, or religion on the respondent’s participation in a protest, march, or demonstration about any social or political issue within the last twelve months. The results indicated that individuals who identify weakly with their Arab identity are more likely to protest after experiencing repression.

The results indicate that repression does not just mobilize those who are already activists. Rather, repression mobilizes individuals with low levels of identity who are especially shocked by their experiences with oppression.

Stories of domestic violence and child abuse committed by athletes like Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson prompt public belief that violent crimes are a widespread epidemic in American professional football, thus inspiring the nickname “National Felon League.” In fact, a national survey indicates 69% of Americans believe domestic violence is a serious problem in the league. NFL officials have responded by developing policies to address domestic violence and sexual assault. Despite numerous news articles highlighting these crimes, however, few researchers have actually researched whether NFL players are more likely to commit crimes than people in the general population.

Wanda Leal, Marc Gertz, and Alex Piquero contrast the arrest rates of NFL players with those of the general public from 2000 to 2013. Using data compiled by the San Diego Union – Tribune and USA Today, the authors looked at the arrest rates of 1,952 NFL players to the national arrest rates for males between the ages of 20 and 39 as reported in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). They found that NFL players had significantly lower rates of property, public order, and total arrests than other young men, but higher rates of violent arrests (a statistically significant phenomenon in 6 of the 14 years they measured, particularly from 2004 to 2008).

Leal, Gertz, and Piquero’s preliminary study does not appear to support the theory that NFL players are especially likely to be arrested, as the general population had higher arrest rates in three of the four measured crime indices. Nevertheless, the study also provides some support for those concerned about violence crime committed by professional football players.

Women around the world leave their homes in economically disadvantaged, politically unstable countries in search of better income every day. One might assume that the act of venturing out—independent of husbands, fathers, and brothers—represents a break with traditional gender norms and unequal power dynamics between men and women. However, this is not always the case. In fact, Filipino women who travel overseas to do domestic work often frame their choice to leave in the opposite way—as an extension of their duties as wives, mothers, and daughters.

In 139 interviews with Filipino migrant domestic workers, Anju Mary Paul finds that these female migrants present their aspirations for work overseas as an extension of their duties as caregiving women in traditional Filipino households. Paul argues that the decision to migrate almost always begins with the individual woman who then presents the idea to family members for approval, anticipating potential resistance. In Paul’s interviews, family members opposed to migration may argue that working overseas does not follow traditional gender roles. For instance, parents argued it was not their daughter’s duty to work, but her husband’s. Other relatives criticized mothers for “abandoning their children.” In response, women often used the same gendered scripts: Mothers framed migration as the best way to be good mothers by providing money for their children’s education and well-being. Daughters emphasized their responsibility to care for parents and support younger siblings. And married women presented their potential earnings as a supplement their husbands’ incomes.

As exceptional as the Filipino females in this study may be, their case reminds us that even activities and choices that appear liberating for women can reflect and reproduce traditional gender norms and roles.

Higher education, whether it’s taking a few classes or earning a four-year degree, decreases the likelihood of individuals developing depression. Shawn Bauldry investigates whether college is a one-size-fits-all prescription, finding that higher education offers more protection from depression for people with lower incomes than it does for those already financially well-off.

Using nationally representative survey data that tracks individuals’ health from adolescents to adulthood (Add Health), Bauldry measures responses that indicate mental depression for individuals who have completed a bachelor’s degree, finished some college, or have not attended college and who are from either advantaged or disadvantaged backgrounds. The analysis controls for other factors like race, gender, and substance use. The results show that obtaining a college degree and attending some college provide similar levels of protection against depression across social strata, but these effects are magnified among those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Bauldry explains the difference in effects with an idea called “resource substitution.” According to this theory, higher education can compensate for preexisting disadvantages by providing the means to access more health, social, and economic resources. Compared to peers from similarly disadvantaged circumstances, those who attend college have better outcomes in the job market, resulting in more financial stability and greater access to health and mental health resources. Additionally, finishing college (or even making it to college) may provide a sense of self-mastery that aids in overcoming the obstacles of a poor background.