They’ve got pens (and keyboards), and they’re not afraid to use them! Here are a few of our favorites from TSP’s community page Girl w/ Pen! in 2014:

1. “Violence and Masculinity Threat,” Tristan Bridges and CJ Pascoe
2. “Hookups: Commuters Who Don’t, Women Who Do,” Virginia Rutter
3. “Life Goal: Make My Dad a Hard Core Feminist,” Karlyn Crowley

Continuing to roll out our choices for the Best of 2014 on TSP, today we’re highlighting the best of the Scholars’ Strategy Network:

1. The Downsides of Excluding Millions of Immigrants from Health Reform, by Heide Castañeda.
2. How Better U.S. Food Policies Could Foster Improved Health, Safer Jobs, and a More Sustainable Environment, by Nicholas Freudenberg.
3. How “Gentrification” in American Cities Maintains Racial Inequality and Segregation, by Jackelyn Hwang.

SocImages continued to #breaktheinternet harder than any Kardashian could hope in 2014. Here are a few of the biggest stories that should make it into your afternoon reading:

1. #InstagrammingAfrica: The Narcissism of Global Voluntourism. Lauren Kascak and Sayantani DasGupta.
2. When Force Is Hardest to Justify, Victims of Police Violence Are Most Likely to Be Black. Lisa Wade.
3. How to Change the World, One Shrug at a Time. Lisa Wade.

Ta-da! Again, through no scientific process—unless you count some triangulation of popularity per Google Analytics, being published in 2014, and home office favorite-choosing as “science”—here are our choices for the best of Cyborgology, 2014:

1. What Was Ello? Nathan Jurgenson
2. Causes and Consequences of the Duckface. Jenny Davis.
3. An Attempt at a Precise & Substantive Definition of “Neoliberalism” (Plus Some Thoughts on Algorithms). Robin James.

Oh, it’s time! Since we last checked in, TSP has been abuzz, taking on topics from the sociology of protest photos to the construction of consent, how to best build a diverse coalition, and the glorious launch of our latest podcast, “Give Methods a Chance”! Here’s the news you need to know (and some stuff that’s just plain interesting):

Features:

“The Social Construction of Consent,” by Jill D. Weinberg. You can’t get to “yes” without first asking a question.

“Between Protestors and Police: How a Photojournalist Got ‘The Shot’,” by Josh Page. Oakland photographer Noah Berger talks exclusively to TSP about catching a shot that went viral. Related: “‘I Can Breathe’ and the Occasional Fear of Photographing Protest,” by Steven W. Thrasher on the Contexts blog. more...

The Council on Contemporary Families is TSP’s newest partner, but they’re already knocking it out of the park with great information and straightforward facts on American families today. Here are three of their biggest hits from 2014:

1) “Homesick Kids and Helicopter Parents,” by Susan Matt. Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the “boomerang generation,” so coddled by their hovering parents as kids that they are practically destined to come back home, a soft, unprepared generation not yet ready for adulthood. Weber State University historian Susan Matt checks the facts.

2) “In School, Good Looks Help and Good Looks Hurt (But They Mostly Help),” by Rachel A. Gordon and Robert Crosnoe. Picking up on the authors Wiley-Blackwell monograph, this article takes a second look at good looks, finding another form of inequality.

3) “Really? Work Lowers People’s Stress Levels,” by Sarah Damaske. The author of For the Family?, Damaske steps back to explain a consistent finding: people who work have better mental and physical health than their non-working peers, and the news is even better for women (how often does a sociologist get to say that?).

To continue honoring the best and most widely disseminated posts on TSP in 2014, we’re moving first into our partner sites. Here are the thought-provoking blockbusters from the editors of Contexts Magazine, the public outreach journal of the American Sociological Society, hosted here online at TSP:

1) “‘I Can Breathe’: The Occasional Fear of Covering Protests,” by Steven Thrasher. A Contexts board member, Thrasher is a professional journalist and photographer with a sociological lens like no other.

2) “Contexts Quicklit: 11 Recent Sociological Findings on Race and the Criminal Justice System,” by Lucia Lykke. University of Maryland grad student Lykke gives a rundown of some of the important numbers for placing today’s widespread protests in, well, context.

3) “Sociology’s Irrelevance in the News,” by Syed Ali. Co-editor Ali largely agrees with Orlando Patterson that sociology, as a discipline, has excused itself from much of the news and offers way to get back in the mix.

Many TSP readers are more interested in research findings than the methodologies used to obtain them. But methods are often an important part of the story, such as new experimental studies that provide powerful tools for measuring discrimination. Backstage at TheSocietyPages, we’re constantly arguing about whether a study’s methods are strong enough to support its findings. And methods are so important that we won’t run a piece unless we agree the underlying research is methodologically sound — regardless of who produced it or where it was published.

So we’ve always wanted a front-stage spot on the site to geek out about methods and explore how we know what we (think we) know. That’s why we’re so delighted to welcome Give Methods a Chance to TSP. GMAC is hosted by Kyle Green and Sarah Lageson, two all-star TSP board members, podcasters, and exceptionally creative multi-method researchers and teachers. Their first couple podcast interviews will give you a sense of the site’s vision and mission: thoughtful discussions with Deborah Carr on how and why we do longitudinal studies, and Francesca Polletta on systematically coding and analyzing people’s stories. Like a good research design, their interviewing approach helps render complex ideas clear and comprehensible.

These podcasts are wonderful for researchers and readers eager to learn how first-rate scholars do their work, but they’ll be an especially useful resource for methods students and teachers. When instructors bring methodology alive for students, as Kyle and Sarah are doing, it has a lasting impact on students. As a department chair, I saw how alumni who pursued careers in business, justice, or social services routinely cited methods as the “sleeper” courses that paved the way for their success. And we hear similar stories from students who became social scientists (like Eric Hedberg, who just sent Facebook props for teaching him paired t-tests 15 years ago — along with his new article on the subject).

We also think Give Methods a Chance will show how sound methodology has far more to do with elegant design principles than technical complexity. As Paola Antonelli of the Museum of Modern Art puts it, good design “combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.” As you’ll see from Give Methods a Chance, the best social science does precisely the same thing.

In the first weeks of the New Year, we will begin running down some of the most popular and provocative posts from around The Society Pages and its partner sites. But before we all head off to the four corners for winter break, we want to get the plaudits started with our own in-house team.

We are inestimably lucky to have the dedicated, inquisitive, and intellectually rigorous grad board we’ve assembled here at the University of Minnesota. These students volunteer their time, coming to meetings, workshopping ideas, live-editing their pieces together, reaching out to top scholars for interviews and roundtable contributions, and bringing their energies to the site every day. Here are the unscientific but happily presented Best-Of’s in just some of the areas to which these students contribute:

Best of… Citings & Sightings:

“Pushing the Secret Service Director Off the Glass Cliff?” by Matt Gunther

Best of… There’s Research on That!

“Reflecting on Ferguson,” by Evan Stewart

Best… Office Hours Podcast:

“Brian Southwell on Social Networks and Public Understandings of Health and Science,” with Sarah Lageson.

Best of… The Reading List:

“The Fluidity of Racial Categories on the US Census,” by Ryan Larson.

Best of… Roundtables:

“Re-evaluating the ‘Culture of Poverty’, with Mark Gould, Kaaryn Gustafson, and Mario Luis Small,” by Stephen Suh and Kia Heise.

Best of… In-House Titles:

“Atheist Church: A Predictable Paradox,” by Jacqui Frost.

Without fail, the world keeps moving, and, as we like to say here at TSP, “We will do sociology to it.” Here’s how we’ve been putting those sociological imaginations to work since the last Roundup!

Features:

“Racism Retriggered,” by Jennifer D. Carlson. How disproportionate contact with the criminal justice system translates to fewer concealed pistol licenses being issued to African Americans.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Race and the Regulation of Voting,” by Doug Hartmann. When co-editor Chris Uggen’s research informs the NYTimes, Doug’s on the case.

“Ferguson, the Morning After,” by Doug Hartmann. When facts feel futile.

“Ferguson and Football,” by Doug Hartmann. The St. Louis Rams’ “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” entry to their Sunday Football game brings up sport and political protest, as well as the formal and informal policing of black men’s bodies.

There’s Research on That!:

“Volunteer Work: Getting the Gift to Keep on Giving,” by Jacqui Frost. You really shouldn’t swing a turkey, but if you did…

“Veterans’ Day and the Challenges of Civilian Life,” by Evan Stewart. Research on soldiers’ reintegration after service, from social benefits to institutional challenges. more...