Since last we met… Our new book arrived! Check out Getting Culture (just $15!), then read on for the rest of this week’s fresh sociology.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Back to School Research,” by Doug Hartmann and Chris Uggen. Some of the fresh sociology research on education and learning as featured on TSP, its partner sites, and its Community Page blogs.

Discoveries:

“Policy Changes that Help Reduce Murder Rates,” by Ryan Larson. Patricia L. McCall and Jonathan R. Brauer‘s new research shows that welfare might not stop homicide, but increased social support certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Clippings:

“More than 9 to 5,” by Caty Taborda. Randolph Cantrell on trends in juggling multiple jobs.

“Are Behavioral Issues Black and White?” by Caty Taborda. David Ramey on finding that race affects how schoolkids are punished.

“Cougars: Literal Mountain Lions,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. Milaine Alarie and Jason Carmichael on the myth of the wealthy older woman making prey out of 20-somethings.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“U.S. Latinos Care About Many Issues Beyond Immigration,” by Stella M. Rouse. When it comes to voter priorities, for Latinos, immigration only makes the top three.

Council on Contemporary Families:

“Overwork May Explain 10% of Men’s Wage Advantage Over Women,” by Youngjoo Cha. Some of the wage gap owes to men’s taking on extra hours.

The Community Pages:

• Sociological Images on churches and arson, trophy hunting, and the cartography of cursing.
• Families As They Really Are on how it’s inequality, not family structure, that replicates poverty.
• Cyborgology on #BlackLivesMatter as a society-level hack.

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That collective sigh you hear isn’t just kids and college students bemoaning the start of a new school year. The chorus is rounded out by professors and researchers tanned from fieldwork (or, more likely, pale and blinking after emerging from weeks in libraries). Luckily, all their hard work means we have lots of new research on education to share as we, collectively, head back to our campuses and classrooms. Here’s a taste of what our prolific friends at the TSP Community Page Education & Society have published recently:

• How Multiracial College Students Cope: A summary of new research by Samuel D. Museus, Susan A. Lambe Sariñana, and Tasha Kawamata Ryan.
• Improving Support for College Students with Disabilities: A summary of new research by Barbara Hong.
• Good Guidance Increases the Numbers of College-Bound Kids: A summary of new research by Megan M. Holland.
• Do Your Kindergarten Readiness Beliefs Match What Teachers Measure? A summary of research by Jaime Puccioni.

They also provide links to the following articles about education and school:

• Choosing A Major: Dollars and Sense?
• Why Historically Black Colleges and Universities Remain Vital in U.S. Higher Education
• Why the U.S. Should Improve Support for Colleges and Universities Serving Hispanic Students

Elsewhere on TSP, don’t miss our topics page for “Teaching” and our blog, Teaching TSP. You might also enjoy Sociological Images for Instructors, including course guides and collections alongside recommended class readings; Contexts pieces including “How Students Experience Desegregation Efforts” and “Academic Doping?“‘; and our Discoveries—summaries of recent research published in sociology and social science journals—on education and collegiate life, including “Not So Different: Color-Blindness and Diversity,” “The Social Costs of Punishment, From Prisoners to Pupils,” “Active Learning and STEM Success,” and “Second-Generation Schooling: Good News for Girls.”

Since last we met…

Features:

“Commemorating 50 Years Since the Voting Rights Act… By Restricting Voting Rights,” Ryan D. King and Vincent Roscigno. How landmark legislation is being eroded, to the detriment of participatory democracy.

There’s Research on That!

“A Hate Crime By Any Other Name,” Ryan Larson. Whether we call a domestic attack a hate crime or terrorism has implications for and is shaped by public perception.

“Social Boundaries and Music Streaming,” Evan Stewart. By TROT-ifying Spotify data, we see how musical preferences are reinforced and reshaped. more...

Since last we met…

There’s Research on That!

“Caitlyn Jenner: Public Opinion, Celebrity Status, and Identity,” by Sarah Catherine Billups and Caty Taborda.

“Marriage, Inequality, and Bureaucracy: The Devil’s in the DMV?” by Evan Stewart.

The Editors’ Desk

“SSN on SCOTUS Health Care Decision,” by Doug Hartmann.

Discoveries

“Not So Different: Color-Blindness and Diversity,” by Stephen Suh. more...

With all of the attention (rightfully) focused on the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision, we’re a bit worried that the ruling about health care policy–one of the signature programs of Obama’s Presidency–may have gotten a bit lost in the blogosphere. Fortunately, our friends at Scholar’s Strategy Network have been on top of it. You can find links to all of their most recent commentaries and interviews here. If your time is limited, here’s a few to look at:

“A Turning Point for Health Care – and Its GOP Opponents,” OpEd, New York Times, June 25, 2015.
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University, and Lawrence R. Jacobs, Humphrey School, University of Minnesota

“The ACA Has Survived Yet Again. Now What?” OpEd, American Prospect, June 29, 2015.
Jacob S. Hacker, Yale University

“ObamaCare Stands, Now Focus Shifts to Costs,” by Christopher Cheney, Health Leaders Media, July 1, 2015.
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University

Since last we met…

In Case You Missed It:

“Same-Sex, Different Attitudes,” by Kathy Hull. A historical look at the push for marriage equality and the shifts in Americans’ attitudes toward civil rights for gays and lesbians.

“The Return of the Confederate Flag,” by C.N. Le. A 2008 piece examines the resurgence of the Confederate Flag and considers its changing meanings in changing macro-level contexts.

There’s Research on That!

“How Misdemeanors Maintain Inequality,” by Evan Stewart. Research shows that “misdemeanor justice” has a lot of unintended consequences.

Office Hours Podcast:

“Greta Krippner on the Politics of Financial Crisis,” with Erik Kojola. Discussing how the American economy became dangerously dependent on credit and speculation.

Discoveries:

“Political Power and Protest Can Undermine Crime,” by Evan Stewart. New Social Problems research shows that when protest leads to accrued political power, crime goes down in previously underserved communities. more...

Sociological snacks, academic dishonesty, perceptions of illegal immigration, incarcerated parents, the crime drop, exacerbating the education gap with Adderral, and when we care about economic inequality, all this week on The Society Pages. Also, be sure to check out our topics pages for Gender, Culture, Inequality, Race, Crime, Politics, and Teaching to get our graduate board’s latest picks from around the web!

Office Hours podcast:

“Michaela DeSoucey on Food and Cultural Authenticity,” with Matt Gunther. DeSoucey joins to discuss her work on food, culture, consumption, and politics.

Give Methods a Chance podcast:

“Shamus Khan on Historical Data,” with Kyle Green. The author of The Practice of Research, Shamus Khan says, “I love very micro-level analyses where you can see what one person is doing or what is happening on the ground…

“Chris Uggen on Academic Dishonesty and Public Sociology,” with Sarah Esther Lageson. Our co-editor Chris Uggen takes the mic to discuss recent sociology headlines around data and ethics.

Discoveries: (formerly The Reading List)

sar”Proving Perception Trumps Reality in Immigration Debates,” by Ryan Larson. New research in Social Problems teases out perceived threat as a driver of isolationist opinions.

Clippings: (formerly Citings & Sightings)

“Black Communities Hit Hard When Government Shrinks,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. When government jobs go away, so do economic mobility opportunities for black communities, says Jennifer Laird.

“Economic Recovery Highlights Economic Inequality,” by Caty Taborda. Sociologist Leslie McCall offers the NYTimes an explanation for why worries over inequality are higher after the Great Recession. more...

As summer starts, sociology blossoms! There’s a new issue of Contexts magazine (all content is available for free from SAGE publications for 30 days!), new podcast episodes, and more for your summer reading list.

There’s Research on That!

“Pew Compiles Data on Pew Composition,” by Jack Delehanty. Are Americans becoming less religious or less organized when it comes to religion and spirituality? Delehanty looks to research from Richard Madsen, Michael Hout and Claude Fischer, Joseph O’Brian Baker and Buster Smith, and Chaeyoon Lim, Carol Ann MacGregor, and Robert D. Putnam.

The Editors’ Desk

“Grandmothers on the World Stage,” by Doug Hartmann. The Atlantic wonders if women like Hillary Clinton find age an advantage in politics, playing what they call “the granny card.”

Office Hours Podcast

“Susan Terrio on Children in U.S. Immigration Custody,” with Lisa Gulya. Discussing Terrio’s new book, Whose Child Am I? more...

“Why Age May Be Hillary’s Secret Weapon” is the cover tease for a provocative little piece in the new issue of The Atlantic (June 2015) on women, aging, culture, and power in contemporary society. The piece starts by pondering why, in an evolutionary context, female humans live so long and what role(s) postmenopausal women fulfill for the species. This science-y context sets the stage for an essentially sociological attempt to explain why “people of both sexes may feel more comfortable with ambitious older women than with ambitious younger ones.”

The bulk of the article reviews a body of social scientific research on the biases women face in the workplace and society at large, and how some of these constraints may be mitigated as women get older and, especially, become grandmothers. The larger implication is that candidate Clinton and others are actively “playing the granny card” in positioning their public images against other stereotypes about women in positions of authority and power.

A lot of the work comes out of psychology (especially the experimental stuff) but some sociological contributions find their way in  as well. Indeed, there is a quote from Stanford sociologist Shelley Correll, and even an in-print reference to the American Journal of Sociology! And the overarching conclusion or claim is more positive, more progressive than what usually comes out of such research: “…the current cohort of female eminences grises may herald an era when aging, for women, ceases to be an enemy, and even becomes a friend.”

The main problem is that I’m not exactly sure if there really is a new generation of powerful women turning age to their advantage. Is this a real phenomenon or social trend? Certainly, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren are making headlines in United States politics, and Angela Merkel as German Chancellor is historic. And I’m happy to see Janet Yellen and Christine Lagarde in positions of economic leadership (as Chair of Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and Head of the International Monetary Fund, respectively). But who else are we talking about? Does four or five or even a dozen or two dozen such women—gratifying as that might be in and of itself—really constitute a cultural transformation? Even The Atlantic admits the sample size is small. It could well be that we are drawing some pretty big conclusions and implications out of some developments that are quite recent and fairly limited.

Perhaps I shouldn’t nitpick an article that is doing the honorable work of promoting and assessing the rise of women’s status and power in society and bringing social science research to bear on issues of public interest and significance. I am fully on-board with both aims. Still, the sociologist in me can’t help but want to know whether we are talking about real social shifts and trends or just some exceptional—albeit exciting—individual-level developments. The answer to that question has some very real implications for how we use the research and the meaning and significance we draw from all of this.

Since last we met…

The Editors’ Desk:

“Tie Day: R.I.P. Professor Gusfield,” by Doug Hartmann. Doug remembers Joseph R. Gusfield, author of Symbolic Crusade and The Culture of Public Problems.

“Research on a Potato Chip Budget,” by Chris Uggen and Doug Hartmann. TSP’s co-editors on the devastating effects of HR1806, the proposed reauthorization bill funding the National Science Foundation, which would strip 45% of the funding for social, behavioral, and economic sciences.

Office Hours Podcast:

“Joyce Bell on Social Work and the Black Power Movement,” with Matt Gunther. Bell’s work demonstrates the resources and tensions that radical social movements bring to civil society.

There’s Research on That!:

“Election 2016: Let the Sexism Begin!” by Caty Taborda and Sarah Catherine Billups, with research from Caroline Heldman, Lisa Wade, Susan J. Carroll, Stephanie Olson, Kathleen Dlan, Jennifer L. Lawless, Kathryn Pearson, Sheri Kunovich, and Pamela Paxton.

“When Women Lead,” by Caty Taborda and Sarah Catherine Billups, with research from Erin I. Demaiter, Tracy L. Adams, and Alexandra Kalev.

“Advanced Placement Testing Season,” by Amy August, with research from Grace Kao, Jennifer S. Thompson, Daniel G. Solorzano, Armida Ornelas, Joshu Klugman, Thurston Domina, Joshua Saldana, Saul Geiser, Veronica Santelices, and Wayne Au.

“May Day Part I: The U.S. and Inequality,” by Erik Kojola, with research from ChangHwan Kim, Arthur Sakamoto, Bruce Western, Jake Rosenfeld, Winfried Koeniger, Marco Leonardi, and Luca Nunzjata. more...