I was surprised to receive an invitation to speak at the White House this August, as part of a parental incarceration workshop sponsored by the American Bar Foundation and National Science Foundation. Though I’d written a bit on the subject and had followed the research closely for a decade, I could not claim any great expertise. Fortunately, they didn’t need me for that. They’d already assembled an impressive roster of experts to speak on topics such as demography and family dynamics, behavioral and health problems, education and exclusion, justice policy, and caring for children. My job, according to the draft agenda, was to offer “concluding comments” in the final half-hour session. Or, as John Hagan put it, “Just do what you do.”
Riiiiight. Do what I do.
Well, I couldn’t just come out and ask what I do, so I decided to do TSP. more...
This week, I had my first telephone interview for an assistant professor position. Before it began, I mentally rehearsed the three-minute elevator speech of my dissertation, certain that the initial question was bound to be something along the lines of “Tell us about your research.” When the moment came, however, the search committee began by asking me how I would explain my research to my grandma or my neighbor. Tossing aside the elevator speech I had been advised to practice, I attempted to channel TSP.
As I reflected on the interview afterward, I felt dismay that my combination of nerves and lack of foresight kept me from saying what I’ve told countless strangers about how I study genocide (you would not believe the conversations I’ve had waiting in lines). The dismay soon gave way to excitement, though, because it’s exciting that the question was even asked. As Doug Hartmann shared in his recent sketch, “Dare to Engage in Dialogue,” much good can come from our abilities to translate our findings to the broader public, whether they are policy makers, pundits, or grandmas. And perhaps it’s wise to spend more time reflecting on how to frame what we do so we are better prepared for these conversations. more...
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what sociologists have to gain from doing “public sociology,” from engaging broader, non-ivory tower audiences more self-consciously and systematically. In my last post, “Ears to the Ground,” in fact, I gave the example of how, in my own experience with journalists and reporters, I often learn a great deal about current events, institutional dynamics, and emerging social trends that I wouldn’t otherwise be privy to. These are concrete facts, the kind of empircal social realities I talk a lot about but often don’t have the time or access to collect. But there is so much more to be gained from going public as a sociologist.
One of those potential benefits is the understanding and perspective that comes from actually conversing with regular, ordinary folks out there in the real world about our big ideas, social findings, and critical interpretations of social life. These conversations are not always the easiest to have–in fact, non-specialists not only often misunderstand our findings and claims, but adamantly disagree with them. But engaging these disagreements and addressing these misunderstandings–engaging in real, genuine public dialogue and debate–can really help sharpen and shape our own understandings of things as well as make us much more effective participants in public dialogue and public policy debates. more...
Our snazzy new book! Published by W.W. Norton & Co.
The TSP offices were buzzing with excitement this week, as our second book project—Crime and the Punished—finally arrived! This engaging (and dare I say adorably pocket-sized) volume provides some much-needed sociological insight on crime and punishment in a critical and expansive way.
And that’s not all that has us excited (and potentially over-using exclamation points) this week. Check out some highlights below!
Editors’ Desk:
“There’s Research on That!” by Chris Uggen, unveiled the newest TSP initiative (drum roll, please), There’s Research on That! Navigating the world of research is hard, and that’s assuming reporters have the funds to get past pay walls. There’s Research on That! hopes to overcome some of these issues by providing short summaries of social scientific studies that shed light on current events.
There’s Research on That!:
“New Pope’s Politics,” by Evan Stuart, suggests a number of articles about shifting views on religion, as well as other shifts within the Catholic Church. more...
Anyone tracking both popular and academic writing knows that media reports often miss out on the best, most directly relevant research on the story. At TSP, we’ve batted our heads against this wall for years. Yes, Citings and Sitings reports on social scientists in the press and the Reading List brings new research discoveries to light, but we’ve lacked a forum to make the connection more explicitly — to point to good work that should be cited in the news stories of the day.
So, like many of our readers, we find ourselves spitting coffee each morning and shouting, “There’s Research on That!” when the news somehow misses a perfectly on-point expert and study. [This ain’t necessarily the journo’s fault, of course. One of my favorite writers at the Times recently emailed to ask, “Can you send me your article from JournalX? Costs like 80 bucks to get.”] While we can’t take down everyone else’s paywalls (can we, Jon?), we can point readers to first-rate research on the day’s issues. And we’ll do so in a brand new TSP feature titled (what else?), There’s Research on That! From Evan Stewart of our grad board:
In our continuing quest to bring great social science to everyone, TSP is rolling out our latest blog project—There’s Research on That!, where we offer up great research from across our fields that speaks to the big events of the day. For journalists, TROT is a great place to find an interviewee or a new perspective on reporting. For general readers, TROT is a place to discuss current events and find some great book recommendations that are sure to impress at the next cocktail party. For sociologists, TROT posts can spark conversations about where our research connects with the real world. Of course, we welcome continued suggestions for pieces in the comments and on Twitter (hashtag #TROT, of course)!
We’re hoping to make this a quick-hitting and timely feature, so we’ll keep the posts short and spread the word on social media. We hope There’s Research on That informs, inspires, and provokes you — and that you’ll cite your own favorite research in the comments section.
For the next couple of Roundups, I’d like to welcome TSP’s graduate editor Hollie Nyseth Brehm. She’ll be covering for me as I head off on a 3-hour cruise. Actually, there’s no cruise. But I do expect to find myself washed up on a beach for a stretch, so I won’t be rounding up the site until… October 11th? Craziness. For now, one last hurrah before heading for the airport (yet again). more...
This photo does not depict either Doug Hartmann or Chris Uggen (nor any of the reporters they work with), but does come courtesy of Tommy Japan via flickr.com.
When scholars think about doing interviews with the media, we often imagine ourselves to be doing some kind of great public service–wherein we deign to come down from the ivory tower and share our wisdom and knowledge with naive, uninformed journalists and their massive, mostly ignorant, and fundamentally distracted masses. There is some truth to this conceit. Writers and producers often approach a story or a topic with a limited, fairly narrow frame of reference, and sometimes don’t even know the most basic facts or more general trends that are involved. I average maybe an interview a week, and find myself spending much of my time in these exchanges trying to get the writer or producer on the other end of the line to expand their scope, attend to some of the broader social forces or issues, or reframe their pieces in one way or the other. Sometimes this effort to frame and/or reorient stories works, sometimes it doesn’t (and rarely do we get credit either way).
But none of that is really the point of this post. The point of this post is that journalists often know a lot more than we give them credit for, and that we scholars–especially us sociologists–have got a lot more to gain from working with them than we usually realize. more...
Oh, have you heard of this Scholars Strategy Network? Of course you have! You’re hip, in-the-know sorts. But the reason I’m pointing it out specifically right now is that I want to direct your eyes to two specific things going on over at their site:
As Syria takes the spotlight off Miley (for real), I recommend you return to Richard Lachmann and Hal Brands’s thoughts on America’s foreign policy and its place in the world. SSN’er Jeff Faux also talks war-weariness in the Huffington Post.
September’s topical spotlight on SSN is labor and unionization. While we’ll be featuring several of the briefs in this suite (I believe 17 make up the full complement) on the SSN section of TSP (fun with acronyms!), it’s particularly worth reading Nick Carnes and Jake Rosenfeld’s summary of the spotlight pieces.
Now, back to TSP, riiiiiight after I wish my mom a happy birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom! more...
New years bring new goals and often bigger ambitions. One of our TSP goals, over the next year or two, is to better represent the field of sociology as a whole. Don’t get us wrong: we think we’ve got a great site with tremendous (and tremendously provocative) content. But there are some areas of specialization we don’t cover as well as others, and our suite of blogs probably leans more toward the op-ed, commentary-and-critique side than the more basic, empirical data and explanation of concrete social processes that dominates much of our journal research and scholarly publishing.
We are working with our graduate student board on some new features and initiatives to make our site even bigger and broader, and we’re hoping to begin rolling some of those out in the weeks to come. But in thinking through and working on all of this, Chris and I have also begun to believe that we’ve got some ideas about sociology itself—what it is, how it can be better understood and practiced, and what its role in society should and can be—that aren’t nearly as well represented or articulated as they should be. So what we are going to do is start laying out some of those observations and ideas as part of the Editors’ Desk. We’re not sure exactly how much we’ve got to say or how it will cohere, but for the next few weeks, under the heading of “Sketches,” that’s what we’re going to try to do. Here goes…
Getting down with what’s up on The Society Pages (and if you just wanna get down, NPR’s streaming the new Elvis Costello/The Roots album here)
Shiny New Book:
In case you missed our excitement about the publication of our first reader with W.W. Norton & Co. (hard to do, what with all the skywriters we hired…), please do check out the source of our pride, The Social Side of Politics. Click on through to Norton to request a desk copy or order your own.
Well, not really, but we’re doing a lot more posting on FB, usually drawing together related articles from across our site. Love a SocImages post? We’ll let you know about a White Paper or Special Feature that pairs well. Excited to see Dalton Conley in Vogue? We’ve got stuff on that, too!
Citings & Sightings:
“Social Network Sorrows,” by Andrew Weibe. Researchers are all over the map when it comes to deciding if social networking is “good” or “bad” for us. Here’s a new look. more...
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I was surprised to receive an invitation to speak at the White House this August, as part of a parental incarceration workshop sponsored by the American Bar Foundation and National Science Foundation. Though I’d written a bit on the subject and had followed the research closely for a decade, I could not claim any great expertise. Fortunately, they didn’t need me for that. They’d already assembled an impressive roster of experts to speak on topics such as demography and family dynamics, behavioral and health problems, education and exclusion, justice policy, and caring for children. My job, according to the draft agenda, was to offer “concluding comments” in the final half-hour session. Or, as John Hagan put it, “Just do what you do.”
