The winds of (seasonal) change are blowing here in Minnesota! As the leaves turn on the banks of the Mississippi River we’re breaking out the flannel and cozying up with some great soc reads…

From the Archives

October is breast-cancer awareness month. Check out this piece from alum Sarah Catherine Billups on “The Politics of Pink”

Citings and Sightings

Jireh Deng interviewed sociologist Anthony Christian Ocampo for the Los Angeles Times on his new book, Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons

Alumni Spotlight

In honor of The Society Pages’ tenth anniversary in 2022 we’re highlighting the contributions and ongoing work of our superb alumni!

Board member Jacob Otis sat down with Dr. Sarah Shannon to reflect on Sarah’s TSP experience.

Dr. Sarah Shannon was on the inaugural graduate board! During her time in TSP, she learned the value of writing for a public audience and how accessible writing can have an impact on audiences.  Behind the TSP curtain, Sarah reminisced about the opportunities that came with board membership. She remembers meeting renowned social scientists, networking with fellow students, publishing her work, and building confidence. Reflecting back 10 years since the founding of TSP, Sarah’s fondest memories are of the people she connected with and the relationships made. She remembers goofing off in board meetings, sharing food, and laughing together.

Currently, Sarah is an associate professor of sociology and director of the criminal justice studies program at the University of Georgia. Her research has been cited by everyone from prominent punishment scholars to former President Barack Obama. Sarah is also an award-winning teacher and public scholar, who facilitates the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program in Georgia’s Clarke County Jail .

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Shelby Astle wrote for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog about her new research finding that, in conversations about sex with their parents, kids are more willing to share if they talk more frequently and openly about it.

Michelle Mueller wrote for Contexts’ blog about how the responsibility for addressing systemic inequality should not fall to marginalized groups, themselves.

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New and Noteworthy

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog re-printed Arielle Kuperberg and Pamela Stone on their new research that shows that representations of stay-at-home fathers have gotten more positive, but only for some dads.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Check out this piece from Tyler Leeds in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology on the “Unthinkable Path Forward for American Journalism,” drawing on both social science research and personal experience.

Backstage with TSP

This week we’re talking podcasts! It’s been a few years since we’ve put out an Office Hours podcast. We’re excited to think about what the future of TSP produced podcasts might be. Some of our new undergraduate board members are really excited about getting involved in pocast-ing. We’re not sure how this will shake out just yet but are looking forward to getting the conversation going again.

From the Archives

With news that Hurricane Ian has hit coastal communities in the United States hard, check out our write up of Junia Howell and James Elliot‘s work on “Disaster Relief’s Unequal Aid”

TSP Edited Volumes

New and Noteworthy

Chantal A. Hailey wrote about results from her experimental study that show that that high students express different race-based preferences for schools than their parents

Worth a (Look), Sociologically Speaking

TSP partner Berkeley Journal of Sociology published a photo-essay on the process of producing the documentary film “Una Escuela llamada América,” that explores the relationship between production of the documentary and social research as well as how visual narratives can serve public debates

Backstage with TSP

This week we’re starting off a new round of pitches for the semester, returning board members summarize new sociological articles they think would make good Discoveries for the site. This year, we’re focusing on making sure we have good coverage of the generalist journals in sociology. It can be tempting for graduate students to only pitch articles from their sub-areas but we think this broader focus will help us connect back to the big vision of the field, something that is at the heart of TSP

From the Archives

In the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona hitting Puerto Rico, read this roundup of research from us on “Not So Natural Disasters”

Citings & Sightings

NPR’s “On the Media” spoke with John Thompson about how technology has changed the book industry, paving the way for Amazon’s global dominance

More from Our Partner & Community Pages

Andrew Guest wrote for Engaging Sports on Thinking Fandom: When (and How) to Watch Games We Love and Hate

New and Noteworthy

S Ericson writes up research from Gillian Slee and Mathew Desmond that finds that the higher a neighborhood’s eviction rate, the lower its voter turnout rate is.

From the Archives

The start of a new semester is a great time to re-read this piece from our archives, covering research from Miloš Broćić and Andrew Miles on how the moral values of people who have attended college differ from those that have not.

Sightings & Citings

Adia Harvey Wingfield reflected on the legacy of Barbara Ehrenreich for The Conversation arguing that, while Ehrenreich was not a sociologist, “she adopted what I like to think are the strengths of my discipline”

Backstage with TSP

All the fresh faces and activity around campus has us feeling energized and we’re starting off the semester with a bang! This week, members of our undergrad cohort have their first discovery “workshop,” where we edit one of our short and informative summaries of new research for a public audience. It can be intimidating for new board members to engage in this public editing process for the first time but (as alumni and returning board members can attest) it is a super valuable process that teaches all of us a lot about improving our writing. We’re excited to get started!

More from Our Partners & Community Pages

Our partner, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, just put out a new call for their Spring 2023 issue! Check out more info here.

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog reprinted Joan Maya Mazelis for the The Inquirer on why paying for childcare shouldn’t be so hard.

Sarah Barnes wrote for Engaging Sports on how the WNBA’s working-conditions effect player’s sleep.

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New & Noteworthy

Mieke Beth Thomeer described findings from their new study for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog showing that never married respondents were at increased risk for poor mental and physical health relative to married adults as the pandemic progressed during 2020.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

We reposted Sarah Shannon’s piece in The Criminologist on how archival-based learning can bring challenging topics to life for students, viscerally connecting them with course concepts and providing opportunity for community engagement.

Backstage with TSP

This week marks our first board meeting of the semester! As you read this, we may be gathered around the table welcoming new board members and excitedly reuniting with old friends. This year, we’re joined by a cohort of undergraduate board members for the first time. We’re excited to work with this group of amazing undergraduates, helping connect them to public sociology and scholarship and benefitting from their energy, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas!

More from our Partner & Community Pages

For their relaunch issue the Berkeley Journal of Sociology spoke with Arlene Stein and Jessie Daniels, authors of Going Public, a field guide for connecting research to public audiences and policymakers.

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New and Noteworthy

On the site, Aisha Upton-Azzam traces the roots of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, passed in March, in more than a century of anti-lynching activism by individuals and organizations.

Worth a Listen (Sociologically Speaking)

Give Theory a Chance brings some great theoretical insights to your ears. Kyle Green spoke with  Dr. Andrew McCumber on Raymond Williams and Dr. Amanda McMillan Lequieu on Kai Erikson.

Backstage with TSP

Here in Minnesota we’re gearing up for the start of a new semester next week. We’re looking forward to welcoming the student board back in-person to our meeting room overlooking the mighty Mississippi. The start of a new semester always bring a wave of energy and excitement and we’re looking forward to what it means for the site!

From the Archives

With black female athletes like Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka competing at the U.S. open this week check out this piece from partner Engaging Sports on how Osaka’s 2021 protest of the french open highlights the misogynoir and racial capitalism of professional sports.

More from our Partner & Community Pages

Courtney Szto wrote for Engaging Sports on how conversations about cycling and environmentalism need to consider the eco-cost of manufacturing and consuming sporting goods like bicycles.

Krista K. Westrick-Payne wrote for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog on new research from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research showing that both marriages and divorces fell during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

TSP Edited Volumes

New and Noteworthy

We wrote up research from Margot Jackson and Daniel Schneider showing that more public investment decreases class inequality in parental spending on children’s development

Citings & Sightings

Elaine Godfrey interviewed Theda Skocpol for The Atlantic about the close connections between “Stop the Steal” efforts and the Tea-party movement of the Obama years.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Partner Berkeley Journal of Sociology published Aldon Morris’ “Reflections for Young Sociologists to Consider” in their re-launch issue.

From the Archives

With back to school season upon us, read this piece from Jean Marie Maier on why going back to school means “going backwards” for some adults.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Vanessa Delgado wrote for Council on Contemporary Families on how Latinx youth manage their parents’ undocumented status.

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Hey, hey, Everybody. Happy summer!

We’re writing to you from Los Angeles, California, the site of the annual American Sociological Association meetings—the first in-person gathering of the post-Covid era. We’re not sure how many of you will be able to join us, but whether we see you face-to-face or not, we want all of you—our friends and colleagues, contributors, readers, and alumni alike—to know that this is a kind of big year for The Society Pages. 2022 marks the 10^th anniversary of our site! Not bad for a shoe-string, limited liability operation headed up by two sociologists whose business plan included no revenue plans and relied almost exclusively on the energy, enthusiasm, and good will of a volunteer graduate student board. Anyway, happy birthday to us! 

We‘ve spent the past few months reconnecting with our alums and reflecting on  our work (and play) together the past decade. Over the coming fall months we will share highlights, memories, and reflections of these exchanges and our journey together. On the occasion of the ASA meetings, we thought we’d tease just a few of those highlights here.

TSP/Norton edited volumes

One of our first big projects (and a key source of social and financial support) was a series of edited volumes drawn from site content and contributors with WWW Norton. This collaboration resulted in a half dozen books on topics ranging from culture, crime, and race to politics and gender. We’re delighted  that several of these collections are in use, including the methods volume Kyle Green and Sarah Lageson produced out of their fabulous TSP podcast “Give Methods a Chance.” 

Partner & Community Pages

One of the chief functions of our site is to provide a platform for various sociology and social science sites, blogs, and projects to do their thing. The lineup has changed over the years and some of the most avid readers of these sites may not even realize the backstage role TSP plays in hosting them. But we have been proud to help launch and host sites including Contexts.org and the Scholars Strategy Network, to the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF), Sociological Images, Backstage Sociology, and Dispatches from a Dean. Indeed, if you have greatest-hit favorites from these sites that you think we might repost this fall, please let us know!

Graduate board

Our graduate-student run board remains the beating heart of TSP. Most of the original content published on our home page is conceived of, written, and edited by University of Minnesota graduate students. It offers us a chance to connect directly with the future of public sociology. It also serves as an important community for graduate students, a place to connect and share wisdom during the sometimes-lonely PhD journey. We’ll be sharing a few of our favorite pieces from our graduate board over the past decade, but especially want to give a shout-out to the backbone features that constitute the backbone of these efforts: “Discoveries” which tracks new and exciting research in the field, and “There’s Research on That” (TROTs, for short) which provides references for and brief snippets of sociological research and writing. Both share research with an eye toward public conversation and media coverage of current events and contemporary social problems.   

TSP Alumni Features

Our graduate board spent the last semester reaching out and conducting brief interviews with some of our noted alumni. These conversations offered current students the chance to connect with  board alums who have taken the TSP perspective out into the field as professors, community-based researchers, and alt-ac professionals. We’ll be sharing insights and memories from our alumni as well as highlighting the important public work they continue to do. 

So look for all that—and more—in the months ahead! Join us in celebrating our milestone. And thanks to all of the colleagues, contributors, alumni and staff—including web editor Jon Smajda and the indomitable Letta Page, the former TSP-editor and current Contexts managing editor—for all you have done to publicize, support, and use our site over these past 10 years. We are grateful beyond words.

With all the best that sociology has to offer,

Doug and Chris

New and Noteworthy

Board member Mason Jones wrote up research from Hope Harvey on the ways that doubling-up (sharing households with friends and family members) challenges mothers’ identities.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Check out the re-launch statement (!!!!) from our partner the Berkeley Journal of Sociology. It’s been exciting to be in conversation with Tiffany Hamidjaja, Janna Huang, and Elena Amaya over the past year as they worked towards the relaunch, articulated their vision for the next generation of public sociology, and solicited and published contributions. Look here and on our twitter for more coverage of BJS’s important pieces in the coming months!

Backstage with TSP

We’re moving offices here in Minnesota. The shuffling around and organization has us reminiscing about how much we’ve accomplished during the past ten years from where we’ve come from (lots of great Contexts issues from the Hartmann/Uggen days) and who has helped us get there (while we peruse books left behind by the great Evan Stewart). Exciting things to come (like better space for collaboration)!

From the Archives

As record heat waves wash across Europe, bringing along wild fires, check out this piece from TSP alum (and new assistant professor!) Nick Matthews about the challenges firefighters face. A recent Contexts piece from David Burley on using sociology to teach students to fight against climate change is also a relevant read.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Alan Martino wrote for partner Council on Contemporary Families on his research on the romantic and sexual experiences of queer disabled people.

New and Noteworthy

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog posted a research report from Debra Umberson and Rachel Donnelly that finds that black and hispanic parents are more likely to experience a child’s death in their lifetime and the psychological distress that comes with it.

Citings and Sightings

A new piece in the Atlantic on the relationship between debates on policing and political fights over gun control featured context and perspective from sociologist Jennifer Carlson, author of Policing the Second Amendment.

From the Archives

We’ve got a pride month pairing. Read Sarah Catherine Billups’ rounding up research on queer life in the country alongside Tony Silva’s feature at Council on Contemporary Families on sexual flexibility among rural men who have sex with men.

More from our Partners and Community Pages

Psychologist Tina Pittman Wagers from for Girl w/ Pen! wrote about what research actually shows us about the link between mental illness and gun violence and how the data should inform policy makers.

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TSP Edited Volumes