My father in law once asked, “How’re things going down at the brain mill?” Well, today I’d respond that these are challenging but exciting times in education. We’ve all read the headlines — powerfully disruptive technologies, troubling race and class disparities, privatization and disinvestment in public schools, historically high tuition and debt loads, school-to-prison disciplinary pipelines, and rapidly changing demographics. While social scientists are doing important research to make sense of these changes, there are few accessible resources for “interested non-experts” who want to keep up with the field. That’s why we’re so happy to welcome our new Education & Society community page to TSP. We’ve been wanting to expand coverage of the “education beat” for years.

An interdisciplinary team of Minnesota-based education researchers writes and curates features like 3 Questions, 250 Words, and Education in the News. You’ll find interviews with education researchers as well as terrific summaries of new education  research appearing in journals like the Annals, American Journal of Education, Sociology of Education, and Social Psychology Quarterly. We’ll be featuring Education & Society on the TSP main and topical pages as well as in our social media feeds. But anyone curious about life at the brain mill should regularly stop by the community page and Twitter feed.

Only two days left to get the early-bird registration fee for the upcoming Midwest Sociological Society meetings in Kansas City, March 26-29th. The meetings, for which I serve as Program Chair are titled “Sociology and Its Publics: The Next Generation.” They will feature keynotes from Occidental’s Lisa Wade, founder and author of the wildly popular TSP blog Sociological Images, and NYU’s Dalton Conley, author of You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist and Being Black: Living in the Red.

Wade’s presentation, “Doing Pubic Sociology: Notes from a Practitioner,” will take place on 3/26 at 4:30pm.

Conley’s presentation, “Out of the (Ivory) Tower and into the Fire: The Promise and Peril of Outward-Facing Sociology,” will take place on 3/28 at 4:30pm.

For more information and to register for the 78th annual MSS meetings, please visit www.TheMSS.org.

February may be a short month, but we’re never short on sociology to share.

Roundtables:

“Is the (Tea) Party Over?” by Erik Kojola and Jack Delehanty. Scholars Meghan A. Burke, Ruth Braunstein, Andrew Perrin, and Robert Horwitz weigh in on the past, present, and future of a young political movement.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Oscar Winners Put Social Issues Center Stage.” A look at some accessible research on four big social issues raised in Academy Award speeches last weekend.

“Contexts: New Issue, New Site,” by Doug Hartmann. New editors Philip Cohen and Syed Ali have put out their first issue and launched the revamped contexts.org, hosted by thesocietypages.org.

There’s Research on That!

“Extra! Extra! Read All about It, All the Time!” by Sarah Catherine Billups. A look at media saturation with research from Sara Goldrick-Rab, Lauren Schudde, Jennie E. Brand, Fabian T. Pfeffer, Matthew Curry, Yu Xie, Mina Dadgar, Madeline J. Trimble, Christopher Jepsen, Kenneth Troske, and Paul Coomes.

“Who—and How—Community College Helps,” by Anne Kaduk and Amy August. A sociological primer on Obama’s plan to make two years of community college free, with work from Kenneth T. Andrews, Neal Caren, Rachel Best, Arnout van de Rijt, Eran Shor, Charles Ward, Steven Skiena, Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, and Stephen Ostertag.

Citings & Sightings:

“Cheap Gas Has Pricey Consequences,” by Neeraj Rajasekar. Guangqing Chi on the way pump prices change driving habits.

“God and Good Citizens,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. Penny Edgell on the perceived tie between religion and morality.

“Orphaned by Incarceration,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. When Sesame Street adds a character with a parent behind bars, Christopher Wildeman, Sara Wakefield, Kristin Turney, and John Hagan talk to The Nation.

“Happily Never After? The Challenges of ‘Marrying Up’,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. Scholar Jessi Streib discusses how cross-class marriages aren’t as common as they seem in the movies, but they certainly can, and do, work out in the real world.

Give Methods a Chance Podcast:

“Naomi Sugie on Using Smartphones for Research,” with Sarah Esther Lageson. Naomi Sugie tells GMAC, “Smartphones have their limitations, but they… can expand the realm of empirical investigation for researchers to consider questions and ideas we just weren’t able to think about before…”

Contexts Magazine:

The Winter 2015 issue is brimming with goodies! Some are available on contexts.org, but the full issue is out from behind its paywall for another three weeks at contexts.sagepub.com.

Council on Contemporary Families:

“Equal Pay? Not Yet for Mothers,” by Shelley J. Correll.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“The Promising Launch of Community-Oriented Charter Schools in New Orleans,” by Brian R. Beabout and Joseph L. Boselovic.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Speaking of kids with incarcerated parents, Sociological Images takes a look. They also ask, who’s harmed by pesticide drift? Taking a turn, they consider the social construction of chest hair, pharma companies’ spending, and how strawberries caught on in the U.S.
• Sociology Lens asks, “Why are we obsessed with what teens are doing on social media?“
• Cyborgology checks out a new ad campaign, “#SpeakBeautiful: Reinforcing a dangerous metric,” and wonders “Why Do Many Reasonable People Trust Science?“

Our Latest Book!

Sign Up for Inbox Delivery of the Roundup!

The Last Roundup!

Attention, friends-of-TSP, attention: Philip Cohen and Syed Ali have taken the reins at the ASA’s Contexts magazine, and their first issue—plus site redesign by Todd Van Arsdale and Jon Smajda—has hit the web!

Ali and Cohen have assembled an all-star team of authors and a truly engaging read, cover to cover and link to link. Among the highlights: a suite of articles on gun culture, including Jennifer Dawn Carlson’s feature “Carrying Guns, Contesting Gender” (free, in full, on the web) and Stephen Thrasher,Jean Beaman, and Todd Beer’s pieces on Ferguson; an interview between TSP-alum Hollie Nyseth Brehm and genocide survivor Keith Chhe; Erik Olin Wright‘s take on Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century; and a look at how lesbians can be the leaders in gentrification by Amin Ghaziani, author of There Goes the Gayborhood?

For the first four weeks after each issue of Contexts is published, its entirety is available for free (no paywall!) from SAGE, its publisher. Other selected content is available right on contexts.org. Have a look around. Our illustrious partners are off to a great start, and we couldn’t be happier to have them as part of the TSP family.

1. Equal Pay for Equal Work: The Council on Contemporary families offers aportfolio of research on 50 years since the Equal Pay Act, and we suggest checking out the pieces on how the wage gap narrows among high earners and how the wage gap is affected by race and ethnicity.
2. Awareness of Diseases like ALS and Alzheimer’s: A 2012 American Sociological Review article by Rachel Kahn Best outlines how awareness campaigns bring more funding to medical research on some conditions, but add to the stigma associated with others.
3. Voting Rights: The Scholars Strategy Network presents an overview of research on steps forward and back since the Voting Rights Act of 1963.
4. Mass Incarceration: Sarah Shannon and Chris Uggen offer a starting point with their time-lapse visualizations of changes in American punishment, including the disproportionate incarceration of black men.

This week on TheSocietyPages.org…

Office Hours Podcast:

“Hahrie Han on Organizing Political Activists,” with Evan Stewart. Dr. Han discusses her latest book and the shaping of political movements.

Teaching TSP:

“Intro to Sociological Methods Using the Reading List,” by Amy August. An exercise—with worksheets—designed to help students learn methods by distilling academic journal articles.

The Reading List:

“The KKK’s Living Legacy,” by Evan Stewart. New research from Rory McVeigh, David Cunningham, and Justin Farrell shows the Klan’s activities in the ’60s continue to affect today’s Southern politics.

Citings & Sightings:

“Self-Segregation in San Francisco Schools,” by Neeraj Rajasekar. Studies find school choice works through parents’ social networks to segregate schools.

“Working for the Long Weekend,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. Long weekends make a great treat, but one sociologist argues adopting the schedule full-time wouldn’t help work-life balance.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Does Public Education Improve When Urban Districts Manage a ‘Portfolio’ of Schools?” by Katrina Buckley.

Council on Contemporary Families:

“Men against Women, or the Top 20 Percent against the Bottom 80?” by Leslie McCall.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Sociological Images goes to Mardis Gras!
• Cyborgology on the exclusive aesthetic of writing—long-hand.
• Sociology Lens on the influence of Facebook in UK elections.

Our Latest Book!

Sign Up for Inbox Delivery of the Roundup!

The Last Roundup!

Not at all spooky, but always “soc-y.”

There’s Research on That!

“Justifying Our Love,” by Jacqui Frost. Americans love love, even when it hurts. How have love and culture mingled to create modern “love”? Frost brings research from Eva Illouz, Ann Swidler, Francesca Cancian, and Anthony Giddens.

“Vexed by Vaccination Refusals,” by Caty Taborda. Research on distrust of science and vaccinations, as well as network ties that spread medical knowledge—and sometimes skew it along the way.

The Editors’ Desk:

“The New Yorker: Champion of Serious Sociology,” by Doug Hartmann. Admiring the work of Kelefa Sanneh, Jill Lepore, and Adam Gopnik, who are all bringing sociology’s big ideas to the Big Apple.

Give Methods a Chance:

“Amy Schalet on In-Depth Interviews,” with Kyle Green. A leading sociologist on the methodology behind a time-consuming, but very rewarding, research technique.

Citings & Sightings:

“Books Behind Bars: College Courses in Prisons,” by Neeraj Rajasekar. Using reading for rehabilitation.

“Could Porn Lead to Sex Trafficking?” by Caty Taborda. One researcher argues a correlation between consumption of pornography and demand for sex trafficking.

“The Anti-Vaxxer Vote,” by Caty Taborda. Does vaccination refusal break along party lines?

“Cheats in Cleats,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. When sports scandals break, are they amplified by public notions of sport as an almost sacred space?

“Workplaces May Create Inequalities at Home,” by Caty Taborda. Bringing work home has more than one meaning.

Council on Contemporary Families:

“Valentine’s Day Fact Sheet on Healthy Sex,” by Adina Nack.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Schools Adopting Digital Tools Without Evidence that They Boost Student Achievement,” by Patricia Burch, Annalee Good, Caroly J. Heinrich, and Chandi Wagner.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Graphic Sociology on a Stakeholder Theory Diagram (aka, a donut).
• Sociological Images on the late 19th century Supreme Court case that decided whether tomatoes were fruits or vegetables and the globalization of commodified love.
• Cyborgology on using hashtags to speak up in a broad, thoughtful way.

We sociologists tend to have a chip on our shoulder. We tend to think—not without substantial evidence, of course—that our research and ideas are not particularly visible or influential in the public realm, both in general and especially in comparison to our social science cousins. Maybe we should all be reading The New Yorker. It seems like we’ve got a few champions over there.

Exhibit A: A few weeks back, for example, the magazine ran an intriguing and insightful profile of Howie Becker. This was not a fluff piece. Inspired by Becker’s current popularity among a certain set of French sociologists in Paris (where the 86-year-old Becker now spends a great deal of his time), Adam Gopnik’s* article thoughtfully walks readers through Becker’s intellectual career and distinctive way of thinking about deviance, culture, and collective activity. This wonderfully written piece serves, I think, not only to introduce a broad, general audience of readers to one of the truly iconic (and iconoclastic) figures in sociology and his uniquely sociological worldview. More than this, it frames and situates Becker’s work in the broader history and current debates of the field in a subtle, sophisticated way that I believe proves provocative and edifying no matter how much we may already know and think about the discipline and Becker’s contributions to it. (For you insiders: Becker directs a zinger or two at Pierre Bourdieu along the way.)

Exhibit B: Last May, a review of recent books on office design by Jill Lepore was framed around a discussion of C. Wright Mills’s classic 1951 study White Collar. Although ostensibly about new studies of the new trends in office work, this review, at least in my reading, seems more fascinated with and driven by what Mills and his sociological perspective contribute to our understanding of life and work and contemporary work culture than anything written recently from more specialized scholars and fields. more...

This week on The Society Pages:

There’s Research on That!

“Curbing Police Profiteering,” by Ryan Larson. New policies put the brakes on civil forfeiture. With research from Eric Blumenson, Eva Nilsen, John L. Worrall, and others.

“Parents Prepping Kids for Racism,” by Lisa Gulya and Alex Manning. The NYTimes’ Charles Blow and NYC Mayor Bill deBlasio aren’t the only Americans who talk with their kids about expecting and reacting to discrimination. Research from Diane Hughes, Patricia Hill Collins, Cady Berkel, and Stephanie I. Coard.

The Reading List:

“The Social Costs of Punishment, from Prisoners to Pupils,” by Jacqui Frost. Brea Perry and Edward Morris show how school suspensions lower all students’ achievement, even those who aren’t suspended.

Citings & Sightings:

“2014: When Social Media Changed Sports Culture,” by Neeraj Rajasekar. Dave Zirin on public pressures to address concussions and crimes, citing Harry Edwards from UC-Berkeley.

“What Doulas Do,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. The social role and medical mediation work of doulas, citing Lisa Hall.

“The Political and Cultural Problem of Paid Leave,” by Jack Delahanty. The NYTimes’ Upshot blog looks to Ruth Milkman‘s research on policies for working parents.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Learning about Commonalities Can Improve Student-Teacher Relationships and Boost Achievement,” by Hunter Gehlbach.

Council on Contemporary Families:

“The Gender Pay Gap by Race and Ethnicity,” by Sarah Jane Glynn and Jane Ferrell.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Cyborgology on the tyranny of small-town Internet, creating a “data-us,” and the difficulty of recognizing—and liking—the aggregated social media self.
• Sociological Images on physiognomy, leotards, stereotypes about feminists, work under capitalism, and state and local taxes as penalties on the poor.
• Sociology Lens on the “nuclear taboo,” unqualified teachers, and whether the LGBTQ community will ever be ubiquitous.
• Feminist Reflections on life as a roller derby queen.
• Girl w/ Pen! on the fluidity of male sexuality.

Our Latest Book!

Sign Up for Inbox Delivery of the Roundup!

The Last Roundup!

This week has seen the beginning of the new semester at the University of Minnesota and new additions to our TSP graduate editorial board. Be sure to follow these up-and-comers as they begin to report and shape sociology in the public sphere!

The Editors’ Desk:

“Public Criminology and the Social Media Echo Chamber,” by Chris Uggen. How Uggen approaches public appearances and truly translating sociology for different audiences.

There’s Research on That!

“Taking Stock of Torture,” by Evan Stewart. When it comes to interrogation techniques, the choice to use torture has little to do with proven outcomes. Stewart looks to research by Randall Collins, Jared Del Rosso, John Hagan, Gabrielle Ferrales, Guillermina Jasso, and Diane Vaughan.

The Reading List:

“Active Learning and STEM Success,” by Amy August. New research from Scott Freeman and his colleagues compare the outcomes of teaching techniques, and Nobel Prize winning physicist Carl Wieman says, “Sounds about right.” (I’m paraphrasing here…)

Citings & Sightings:

“Trial Hype: The Different Allures of the Tsarnaev and Hernandez Cases,” by Neeraj Rajasekar. Northeastern University’s Jack Levin on how trials attract attention in specific ways.

“Modeling: A Tough Job at Any Size,” by Sarah Catherine Billups. Sociologist Amanda Czerniawski has walked a mile—or at least a runway—in those shoes.

“A Sociology of Celebrity Sanctions,” by Neeraj Rajasekar. UT-Austin prof Ari Adut chimes in on when corporate interests start taking an interest in celebrity crimes.

“Women at the Top Find the View Depressing,” by Caty Taborda. Tetyana Pudrovska shares findings from her research on highly successful women.

“Twitter Tension?” by Sarah Catherine Billups. When it comes to social media, it’s not all bad news, says sociologist Dhiraj Murthy in Smithsonian Magazine.

Give Methods a Chance Podcast:

“David Knoke on Network Analysis,” with Sarah Esther Lageson.

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Targeting Muslims in the Name of National Security,” by Saher Selod.

Council on Contemporary Families:

“Child-Rearing Norms and Practices in Contemporary American Families,” by Sandra Hofferth.

“The Youth and Beauty Mystique: Its Costs for Women and Men,” by Stephanie Coontz.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• “Can We Finish the Gender Revolution?” asks Families As They Really Are.
• “Elite University Degrees Do Not Protect Black People from Racism,” asserts Sociological Images (Barack Obama nods woefully). Further, “We Have Less Control Over Our Reproductive Bodies than We Think.”
• Graphic Sociology is back! “The New York Times Notable Books and Gender Equity.”
• Sociology Lens wonders if “Meritocracy” is “Neoliberalism’s Fig Leaf.” Intriguing!

Our Latest Book!

Sign Up for Inbox Delivery of the Roundup!

The Last Roundup!