Friday Roundup

New & Noteworthy

This week TSP’s Caroline Garland published a new Discovery, Hard Work Pays Off?, on work by Rebecca Wetter and Claudia Finger. In this piece, we learn about the buy-in of the belief of meritocracy of German medical students. Students with parents who attended college were more likely to believe their hard work paid off than students whose parents did not attend college — who felt admissions were more dependant on class or influence.

Our Clippings this week features Patrick Sharkey and Megan Kang in The New York Times on gun laws and gun deaths and Michael Rocque in Boston Globe on gun laws and safety in Maine. We also have Adia Harvey Wingfield in the Harvard Business Review on workplace culture and the experience of Black employees, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Alison Gemmil, and Sarah Hayford on millennial hurdles to having children in The Washington Post (great read), coverage of Pete Simi‘s testimony on the current Trump ballot trial in Colarod in the Ohio Capital Journal, and Gillian Gualtieri in Hyperallergic on the U.S. arts and culture industry.

From the Archives

The Grammy Award Nominations were released on November 10th! Learn more about what these awards mean for artists by reading Contexts recent article by Rose Xueqing Zhang.

Election results came in last week, highlighting some of the stakes and possibilities for next year’s election. Read S Ericson’s Discovery on work by Bart Bonikowski, Yuval Feinstein, and Sean Bock on the national political cleavage.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has several new pieces including:

• Arlene Stein’s experience with having her book Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity targeted for a possible book ban.
• Understanding the conditions necessary for megachurches to grow and flourish in the United States by Peter Muzzerall.
• Mia Brantley’s piece on her work on interviews with 35 Black mother’s experiences on parenting.

Council on Contemporary Families has two new reads:

• Sung S. Park writes up her recent study on the experiences of People of Color with Disabilities exposure to inadequate conditions and hazards in their home.
• Jennifer Tabler, Ruby Charak, and Rachel M. Schmitz work with LGBTQ+ people experience with identity-related abuse during childhood and subsequent mental health challenges in adulthood.

New & Noteworthy

This week’s Clippings includes Samuel L. Perry‘s work in The Washington Post on new House Speaker Mike Johnson and assault weapons, Carolina Are in El País on sexualization in social media, Carolyn Liebler in The Washington Post on the Census and measuring Americans with Indigenous heritage, and Amin Ghaziani in SciTechDaily on the ambivalence of coming out experiences of LGBTQ adults.

From the Archives

Pain and suffering are commonplace in the news, especially now. Read j. Siguru Wahutu’s TROT on “consuming the pain” through images of the “other” in the media.

Daylight savings time was this past Sunday (in case you haven’t noticed by now). Learn more about the history of Daylight Savings time by reading Lisa Wade’s piece in Sociological Images.

Backstage with TSP

Because of TSP’s growing student board, we have increased the number of “pitches” per week (where students review recent academic articles, write a brief summary, and present the articles to the rest of the board) and “workshops” (where students share their Discoveries drafts on screen and the rest of the board provides feedback real-time). This increased frequency of pitches and workshops will enable us to publish more content in the upcoming months!

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has a new piece on “dyadic interviewing”, interviewing both young adults and their parent, in research with Elena van Stee, Gaby Flores, Ariel Chan, and Angelica Qin.

Council on Contemporary Families has a new piece on 7 patterns of women’s journey through motherhood, education, and work through adulthood by Bo-Hyeong Jane Lee and Anna Manzoni.

First Publics has a new Reflections by Michael Kennedy on his teaching journey towards a critical and public-oriented approach.

New & Noteworthy

We have two new ‘There’s Research on That” pieces, a YouTube video, and our weekly Clippings of Sociology and Sociologists in the news for you to check out:

• In the spirit of Halloween, Mallory Harrington & Nicole Schmitgen wrote up work by sociologists and research on the paranormal, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: Sociology of the Cultic and Paranormal“. Check it out to learn more about what we know on this topic, including how “cultic milieu” shares space in our world with skepticism.
• I wrote a piece on the research on body-worn cameras, or body-cams, used by police officers. Turns out that body-cams benefit both police and the public and the use of the technology has skyrocketed in recent years.
• We have a new YouTube video up and ready for you to view! Our own Eleanor Nickel produced a video on a recent discovery of ours, “Separate, Unequal, and Denied: The Double Discrimination of Black Disabled Students“.
• Our latest Media Report on Clippings features Bethany Everett in USA Today on abortion care, Patricia Hill Collin‘s award of $1 million for the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture and was interviewed in TIME, Daniel Jaffee wrote an article for The Conversation on the role of bottled water used as a stopgap for crises, Marianne Cooper in Human Resources Director on LeanIn.org and McKinsey‘s annual Women in the Workplace report, and Katie Spoon on women in the academy, with Kimberlee Shauman commenting on the value of the study providing insight into the academic field.

From the Archives

Japan ruled an existing requirement for sterilization for people setting gender change to be unconstitutional. Read more about “trans joy” from Contexts to learn more.

The NHL recently reversed its ban on rainbow-coloured Pride tape for their sticks. To learn more, read Justin Maietta‘s, “make ‘hockey is for everyone’ for everyone”.

Backstage with TSP

We had a great discussion about several candidates for our upcoming SOC 101 episodes last week. Our next steps will be reaching out to authors to schedule interviews, writing questions, and forming episode teams. More to come!

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts latest includes:

• Part 2 of Dr. Aldon Morris‘s work from University of California Press blog highlighting his and other scholars’ efforts to ensure the legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois.
• Rose Xueqing Zhang writes up work by Eddie Caumiant and colleagues on the effect of social environments and alcohol consumption.

Council on Contemporary Families has a new piece to read:

• Marcus Maloney and Kate Babin write up some research and what we know about the “manosphere” and loneliness of heterosexual boys

New & Noteworthy

TSP board member Eleanor Nickel has a new Discovery, “Love Behind Bars.” Based on a recent article by Kristin Turney, Katelyn Rose Malae, MacKenzie A. Christensen, and Sarah Halpern-Meekin, the ripple effect of jail incarceration is strongly felt by women and children of incarcerated persons.

Our latest Media Report on Clippings features some Spookiology from Margee Kerr, Lars Birger Davan, Marc Eaton, and Dennis Waskul in Axios and Atlas Obscura, Patricia Romero-Lankao on transitioning to green energy and equity in NPR, and Alexei Levinson on the war in Ukraine and Putin’s career in The Bell.

From the Archives

How do we relate to people around the world experiencing war and trauma? Read our ‘There’s Research on That’ by Brooke Chambers to learn more about how distant war and the degree media coverage can impact our selective empathy of conflicts.

Student loan forgiveness developments continue to make headlines. Read our ‘There’s Research on That’ by Amber Powell on how student loan debt disproportionately impacts students of color and women.

Backstage with TSP

We are growing! New board members are joining the TSP team and bringing new perspectives and energy! Podcast planning is also our primary project. We are currently looking for recent sociological books to add to our current SOC 101 episodes.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has new pieces to check out:

• Sophie X. Liu writes up work by Liliana V Rodriguez on the role of humor in coping with impossible situations.
• Dr. Aldon Morris‘s essay from the University of California Press blog highlighted his meeting with the president of Ghana, Akufo-Addo, on W.E.B. Du Bois’s legacy in Ghana.  

Council on Contemporary Families latest include:

• Patricia Drentea writes up the change and evolution of the meaning of family, based on her latest book Families and Aging

New & Noteworthy

Nicole Smitgen and the TSP social media team has done it again! As ABC’s The Golden Bachelor continues to frequent headlines, our latest TikTok highlights research by Lauren Harris on online dating for older adults. Check out the TikTok and our recent Discovery!

We recently released our 2nd podcast episode with Dr. Natasha Warikoo on her book, Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools. Our board members Nicole Smitgen, Caroline Carland, and Mason Jones had a blast interviewing Dr. Warikoo and learned a lot! Check out the podcast here.

Leo LaBarre wrote up a new Discovery, “Autistic Person” or “Person with Autism”?, on work by Connor Keating, Lydia Hickman, Joan Leung, Ruth Monk, Alicia Montgomery, Hannah Heath, and Sophie Sowden. Give it a read and learn more about language preferences in the Autism Community.

From the Archives

Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this past Friday. She has worked for decades towards gender equality in Iran and is currently sentenced to 31 years and 154 lashes for her work. Learn more about “women, life, freedom” in Iran by reading a piece written by Maryam Alemzadeh in Contexts.

Katalin Kariko also won a Nobel Prize for her work on the development of technology to create mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. Dr. Kariko has faced a number of barriers in her career – which is not uncommon for women in STEM careers. Read our TROT on these barriers here to learn more.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts:

• Dan Brook has a quick and humorous piece on a recent sociology experience at the airport.
• Sophie X. Liu wrote a piece on work in Social Networks on editors on Wikipedia.

Council on Contemporary Families:

• Daniel J. Bartholomay addresses the assumptions behind the question If a man is dating a woman, what is the man’s sexuality?

New & Noteworthy

First off (in case you missed it) we are happy to share that Clippings is back – thanks to TSP board member Mallory Harrington! TSP will bring you weekly updates of sociology and sociologists in the news. This week we have Janet Vertesi in The Conversation on NASA and AI-human teams, Matthew Desmond in the ACLU’s podcast At Liberty on poverty, Juliet Schor in NPR’s TED Radio Hour on the four-day workweek, Neil Gross in Time on police reform, and Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve in WHYY on a police officer charged with over 200 sex crimes.

“Your Tweets, pictures, and messages may be used against you.” Also from Mallory Harrington’s desk, we have a new Discovery on Social Media in Criminal Trials from work by Jeffrey Lane, Fanny A. Ramirez, and Desmond U. Patton. In this piece, we cover how public defenders face many challenges in defending their clients on the social media front.

From the Archives

The current national blood shortage is leaving vulnerable people at risk. Blood donations, sociologists have found, are largely motivated by altruism, empathy, and internal-personal motivations. Click here to read TSP’s “There’s Research on That” on blood donation by Jillian LaBranche.

Sexual assault rates are typically high during the beginning of the school year and this time (August-November) is known as the “Red Zone”. Reporting these sexual charges is usually left to victims, but the act of reporting a sexual assault can subject victims to risks. Read our Discovery Counting the Cost of Reporting Sexual Assault by Amber Joy Powell on work in Sociological Science.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts has two new pieces for you to read:

• Bonnie Siegler and Greer Mellon wrote about their research on the presence of anti-Asian biases of White parents’ school preferences for their children.
•  Rose Xueqing Zhang wrote about attachment styles and memories of past relationships shaping how we think about current relationships.

Council on Contemporary Families published:

• Mari Tarantino and Tyler Jamison shared findings from their research from interviews with lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults on how they navigated and managed their relationships.

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

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

Good healthcare systems have been linked to reduced impacts of childhood adversity on adult health. Gradboard member Nicole Schmitgen writes up important findings from Matthew Andersson and colleagues in our latest TSP discovery.

Prisons around the world have a variety of disparities, but what about differences across prisons-within-prisons? Jacob Otis explores the contrasts between English & Welsh, and Norwegian prisons based on insights from Ben Crewe, Julie Laursen, and Kristian Mjåland.

Citings and Sightings

Supreme Court rulings have sparked nationwide discussions and demonstrations. Click here to hear about some sociologists’ reactions to rulings on affirmative action and student loan forgiveness.

Backstage with TSP

With July having arrived, TSP has made significant progress on some new projects. This includes our growing YouTube channel (early access) which will be regularly updated in the coming months with new content. Stay tuned for more!

From the Archives

Regions across the United States have experienced a surge in smog caused by Canadian wildfires. To delve deeper into the connection between humans and wildfires, click here.

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Peter Harvey writes up some of his research on how students make sense of their position and identity in society in Contexts’ blog.

In Sociological Images, Victoria Lieberman covers how female and male body types are portrayed in children’s TV and movies, click here to read more.

Ever wondered about the older adult dating scene? Lauren Harris in Council on Contemporary Families covers her recently published research in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

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