From the Archives

António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, didn’t mince his words when addressing representatives from around the world about climate change. Click here to read Erik Kojola’s Discovery on political parties and opinions towards climate change.

Have a Fantasy Football team? Click here to learn more about women’s participation in Fantasy Sports by Amber Joy Powell.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Dr. Robert Bullard, Father of Environmental Justice, was interviewed by Nature on his decades of work within the environmental justice movement. He shared about his inspiration from DuBois to do “kickass sociology” and the inroads made to fight environmental racism.

Citings & Sightings

Dr. Joshua Murray was featured in The Conversation about the recent United Auto Workers strike. The use of “stand-up” strikes against key plants has a rooted history in union strike strategy and can mitigate effects on workers.

Dr. Christy Glass and Dr. Guadalupe Marquez-Velarde spoke with Utah Public Radio about racial differences in NFL players’ likelihood of high-paying and high-risk positions.

Backstage with TSP

Backstage we are getting new members acclimated and pitching new candidate journal articles to transform into Discoveries. At TSP, all board members “pitch” the latest social science journal publications to the other board members. These pitches may become Discoveries if they are deemed timely, rigorous, and distinctive. Stay tuned for a new arrangement of Discoveries coming your way!

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has two new pieces to read:

• Joseph Cohen discussed his work with Contexts in the Book Reviews section to connect the public with Sociology’s latest and greatest studies.
• Rin Reczek and Emma Bosley-Smith wrote a new post on their latest book Families We Keep: LGBTQ People and Their Enduring Bonds with Parents, exploring and explaining LGBTQ+ adult’s relationship with their parents.

New & Noteworthy

TSP is happy to announce our official TikTok page and our first video by board member Nicole Schmitgen on our TSP discovery Separate, Unequal, and Denied: The Double Discrimination of Black Disabled Students by Ellie Nickel – which are both based on “Not in My Schoolyard: Disability Discrimination in Educational Access,” in the American Sociological Review. Check it out!

Leo LaBarre’s most recent piece, “Child Poverty Prevention Policies and CPS Involvement” covers how poverty policies can impact the level of CPS involvement. This piece covers work by Jessica Pac and colleagues in Social Service Review on different policies’ potential to reduce the national CPS caseload by 669,018.

Citings & Sightings

Evan Steward (former TSP alum) at UMass Boston published a piece in The Conversation about voting patterns and religious affiliations. There were a number of surprising findings (at least to me).

Brian Donovan has been in the news for the sociology course The Sociology of Taylor Swift at The University of Kansas. Read some coverage of this course here and others like it.

Backstage with TSP

At our latest TSP meeting, we assigned “beats” for our board members, or topical areas of sociology that each member keeps a close eye on. This is one way we keep tabs on all the going-ons in the world of sociology. We also premiered our social media team’s latest work, discussed some candidates for potential discoveries, and discussed a recent publication by Dr. Uggen, Dr. Hartman, and our former Graduate Managing Editor Mahala Miller on how we translate research for public audiences.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has a new video to watch:

• Elena van Stee’s conversation with Michèle Lamont, Mari Sanchez, and Shira Zilberstein about their new book Seeing Others: How Recognition Works – And How it Can Heal a Divided World.

Council on Contemporary Families latest on:

• School Resource Officers (SROs) presence within elementary schools in the United States, and some of the benefits and complexities that follow by Samantha Viano.

New & Noteworthy

TSP is happy to announce our first episode of the SOC 101 podcast. We interviewed Dr. Reuben Miller, author of Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration. Me and my fellow interviewers had a lot of fun interviewing Dr. Miller and we learned a lot! We also published a new TSP Special Feature by Chris Knoester on sex discrimination and transgender athletes.

Citings & Sightings

John Nelson wrote an article for The Conversation about the backbone of AI language models – human beings.

Liesel Ritchie was featured in 10 News, discussing some of the implications of the Maui Wildfires – including the impact on survivors’ mental health, and how home can have a different meaning after a disaster.

Backstage with TSP

We held our first official TSP board meeting this past Friday and we are beyond excited for this semester. Alongside catching up our newest members, we honored previous TSP board members’ tireless work and made plans for the semester. Also, we are now experimenting with using Slack as a way to organize our work – we’ll see how it goes.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts‘ latest and greatest include:

• When Plans Fail, by Jessica Halliday Hardie explores how poor young women set plans for their future and pursue their goals.
• Q&A with Dr. Emily Huddart Kennedy and Ph.D. candidate Carly Hamdon on their context article on “Do People Who Drive Trucks Care About the Environment?” from Context’s Summer 2023 issue.

Council on Contemporary Families published:

• How government allowances support single mothers and their children living in poverty by Amie Bostic.

New & Noteworthy

We have several new and reposted pieces published this past week including a piece by me on Rural/Urban boundaries on work by Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson, and a particularly interesting read, Hacking Barbie, by Martha McCaughey and Beth Davison (I will be seeing the Barbie movie this weekend with my partner). In World Suffering, Mahala Miller writes about the risks and realities of bullying as school starts – click here to learn more.

Citings & Sightings

Sociologist Kristen Barber recently wrote a piece about the recent (and ongoing) Zuckerberg-Musk cage-fight drama. Give it a read to learn more about its ramifications for “masculine anxiety”.

The Conversation compiled a list of 7 songs that are milestones to hip-hop’s 50 years of influence on society – give it a read (and a listen).

Backstage with TSP

September is here and TSP will be bringing more sociology to a device near you! If you are interested in bringing some of your sociological work to our readers, visit https://thesocietypages.org/about/ and click on “Submissions”.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has new pieces on:

• How intersectional identities for Latina immigrant mothers shape their lived experiences by Sarah Bruhn.
• Q&A with Dr. Katja M. Guenther on their article on “Irresponsible Pet Owner” from Context’s Summer 2023 issue.
• How college experiences and context shape students’ making sense of inequality, and their role in it by Jonathan Mijs.

Council on Contemporary Families latest includes:

• How older siblings may be a source of support and success for disadvantaged families by Emma Zang.

New & Noteworthy

A whole lot has been happening with TSP! Our founders and fearless leaders Douglas Hartmann and Chris Uggen received the 2023 Public Understanding of Sociology Award at the American Sociological Association Conference, Sarah Shannon and Diana Graizbord launched First Publics, and we have published new content on dating for older adults, adult bullying, and an “About Us” video on TSP.

Citings and Sightings

Flordia’s new education standards for the educational narrative about African American history have led to a number of responses from sociologists, including Caty Taborda who wrote a piece for WBUR – click here to read more.

Deborah Carr was featured in the New York Times’s piece on heat-related illnesses, and commented on older adults’ selection of retirement locations, with most prioritizing a low cost of living and proximity to family over migration to warmer climates.

Backstage with TSP

Summer is over (almost). TSP will be welcoming several new board members, producing more social media content on other platforms, and investing in new ideas and projects as the academic year starts. Happy Fall! (almost)

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Contexts has new pieces on:

• Q&A with Elena G. van Stee on her Summer 2023 Context’s feature article.
• An undocumented immigrant’s story (part 1; part 2; part 3) of pursuing legal status by Jozef C. Robles.
• Multigenerational living arrangements in China by Rose Xuequing Zhang.
• Meet the editors: Letta Page, Jooyoung Lee.

Council on Contemporary Families latest includes:

• Regulation of Polgamies by Melanie Heath.
• How college students learn about their position in a world with inequality and segregation by Jonathan J.B. Mijs.
• How transgender people’s families’ are actually more supportive than not by Laurel Westbrook and Stef M. Shuster.

New & Noteworthy

Changes to Affirmative Action may impact elite prep schools, which serve as a major pipeline into elite universities. Read Richard Zweigenhaft’s latest Special Feature to learn more.

TSP board member Ellie Nickel’s writes up research by Lauren Rivera and András Tilcsik on Double Discrimination for educational opportunities that students who are Black and Disabled face.

Citings and Sightings

Parents are especially vulnerable to economic shifts and uncertainties. Sociologist Jessica Calarco was featured in The Atlantic and provides insight on some of the risks and realities that parents face.

Russian sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, a Professor at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences,  was charged with “justifying terrorism” for an online post analyzing the possible fallout of the destruction of the Crimea bridge.

Backstage with TSP

With the American Sociological Association’s annual conference a few weeks away, we will be launching a new podcast, videos, and other content within the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned on Twitter, or X, for more.

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Contexts has new pieces on:

• Police Officer’s determination of what constitutes the “hate” in hate crimes.
• COVID-19 blame and scapegoating in South Korea.
• Meet the editors: Laura Beth Nielsen and Seth Abrutyn

Council on Contemporary Families latest includes:

• LGBTQ health and its connections with State-Level Protections.
• What makes “Great Sex”?

New & Noteworthy

Fathers who spend more time on childcare duties with their young children are more likely to feel that men and women should be treated equally. Read our latest Discovery written up by Caroline Garland on Tomas Cano’s and Heather Hofmeister’s work, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. 

Citings and Sightings

Marriage patterns in the United States among midlife adults have increased, as perceptions of marriage have become more of a “capstone” life experience. Click here to listen to sociologist Susan Brown’s comments on NPR about this trend.

Backstage with TSP

Behind the scenes, our grad board is working on some new discoveries, special features are being edited, and new YouTube videos for our channel are being developed. Stay tuned for more upcoming content!

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Our partner Contexts has a number of great reads that have been published over the past few weeks, including (but not limited to) what is it to be ukrainian, black sociology: a primer, and the privileged professor. Give one (or all) a read!

Are you the oldest child? Click here to read the Council on Contemporary Families piece on favoritism towards the “prodigal children” by Reilly Kincaid. 

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