One of our most popular, regular features here at TSP is the “Citings & Sightings” section in which we track media references to sociology, sociologists, and social science more generally. Though it is fun to create and serves an obvious cheerleading function, the impetus behind the feature is not mere disciplinary hubris. Instead, we see Citings & Sightings as a way to help us and our fellow travelers better understand how sociology and social science are understood by others–what the public looks for and expects when they think about the world around them and our contributions to it. In the iteration of this idea we created for Contexts when we were editors of that fine journal (I can use the past tense, since our final issue ships tomorrow!), we borrowed a phrase from the symbolic interactionists for a title: “Reflected Appraisals”–or, as our tag line put it: “We perceive ourselves as we believe others perceive us.”

Of course, in order for us to have Citings & Sightings material, social scientists will have to keep talking to reporters and commenting on timely, public issues. Working with the media like this can be enlightening, but it is not always the easiest or most comfortable exercise. As a sociologist often interviewed on issues related to sports and popular culture, I’ve found this week unusually busy… and nerve-wracking.

It started, innocently enough, with a piece that appeared in one of the major local papers (yes, we have two, one on each side of the river) about the cultural and social effects of having so many unsuccessful sports teams and franchises in the Twin Cities market. (Even Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s been known to get in on the Twins-bashing.) Anyhow, I gave my standard responses, tailored as much as I could to the immediate context. I talked about how following a losing team can and often does negatively impact sports fans–and, moreover, how those who have this reaction are often celebrated (or celebrate themselves) as “true fans,” while others are denigrated as fair-weather or band wagon fans. Then I went on to try to defend the latter group a bit, suggesting that their response might actually reflect the fact that they have a pretty good perspective on sports–that while they are happy to celebrate victories, they simply refuse to let the losses bring them down. The finished product focused on these later comments, especially one quote in which I formulated this point specifically with respect to Minnesota fans. The reporter (or, more likely, his editors) even created a sort of side bar to call attention to this portion of our conversation.

The interview itself actually didn’t seem like that big of a deal at the time (I actually took the call between sessions at the national Sociology of Sport meetings that were here in town last weekend), and I even missed the piece when it appeared in the paper on Wednesday morning. But others didn’t. I was asked about it in the coffee shop I use as my satellite office and writing station, and then again when I went to my church choir rehearsal that evening. I don’t know exactly what folks thought about my comments or how they were portrayed (there were several jokes, including one about my apparent ignorance of the recent and decisive Minnesota Lynx WNBA championship), but they definitely saw the piece and at least a few of them were thinking and talking about the topic.

I often try to use such opportunities not only to answer questions, but make bigger points and offer more critical insights about sport and society. And once in a while, there are sports stories and issues that really demand and require it. I certainly felt that way when the rest of my media calls started coming in last week. These ones were about the whole ugly saga unfolding at Penn State.

Thursday morning, I appeared on Kerri Miller’s talk show Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) to comment on Joe Paterno’s firing in the wake of sexual abuse revelations at Penn State. Miller’s producer wanted me to specifically comment on the student response: I said the rioting was uninterested and uniformed, denial at best (and that’s being charitable). And I tried to use the opportunity also to talk about the paradoxical, contradictory place of sport in American culture: how, on the one hand, sports enthusiasts often justify their passions and obsessions on the grounds that sport occupies a higher place; and then, how quickly these same folks can set aside or dismiss social issues that come up in the world of sport on the grounds that it’s “just a game” and shouldn’t be taken so seriously. If ever there was a great example of this, it is Penn State and Paterno. I mean, the whole institutional reputation and legacy was built not only on the fact that Penn State football had a winning tradition, but also on the claims that Paterno led a program that did all this the “right way.” That is, Paterno and his team recruited athletes of high character and integrity, pushed them to become better on and off the field, graduated them at unparalleled rates, etc. All of this, along with the personal ties Penn State fans feel to “JoePa” and to the football program, means that a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed and unable to even talk about this awful situation.

Obviously I didn’t get to say all of that or take any of the tangents that might be sociologically productive in a mere 15 minutes that included several call-ins and a promo or two for next week’s shows. Nerve-wracking to be sure–and rushed as well. But hopefully I was able to contribute some perspective on an episode that so many are struggling to make sense of and live with.  I’m not sure if I should follow this up, or how. Certainly, I’ll continue to follow the case, and I let Miller’s producers know I’d be willing to participate in an extended, followup (though obviously that is not my decision). Perhaps I should write something of my own or undertake a study of what is going on. (Maybe I should just keep my head down and focus on the book project that has been the focus of so much of my time and energy this fall.) But even if I don’t take the initiative myself, I will continue to make myself available to speak when called upon. This, after all, is what public engagement is all about. I mean, how can we complain about the lack of social scientific information and perspective in the public sphere if we don’t at least answer when called upon. Of course, I also have to give Citings & Sightings some material!

Check out this provocative post from this morning (or was it last night?) by the always-probing Jeff Weintraub, inspired by Paul Krugman’s recent reflections on deregulation and the economy.

I spot at least two great sociological contributions on display in this material:

(1) Weintraub’s piece highlights the importance of empirical data. In this case, it seems to clearly undercut the main neoliberal assumptions and establishment claims about the virtues of deregulation (see the chart).

(2) The reflections and critical insights from Krugman about the power and persistence of neoliberal orthodoxy–what Weintraub neatly characterizes as “a sociological analysis of hegemonic ideologies.”

The comedian Elon James White (who hosts the web series “This Week in Blackness,” writes for a number of venues including Slate and The Huffington Post, and undertakes a huge array of other endeavors) has started the “Have a Seat Movement” (http://haveaseatmovement.org/). The mission is simple and pretty amusing: to identify celebrities, scholars, pundits who speak out on public issues that they don’t know anything about or about which they don’t have any meaningful contribution to make… and then launch a collective campaign asking them to stand down.

This movement, according to its promotors, “crosses gender, class, race, and political lines” and “isn’t about ideology—it’s about common sense.” “When we tell someone to have a seat it doesn’t mean that they are bad people. It doesn’t mean that they are specifically malicious or evil. It means that on this particular issue that they are speaking on they need to stop speaking. They aren’t enlightening. They aren’t helping. They’re causing more harm than good and need to be told that. A seat is needed. They should take it.”

I’m definitely amused, and generally I think I’m with them. However, I do want to offer one caveat: while common-sense might offer a reasonable standard for advising people out of their element to sit down, I’m not quite sure if it provides an accurate compass or gauge for identifying those individuals and organizations who actually should speak up (especially when  issues require certain amounts of information and expertise). That seems the harder task—and a task, moreover, that sociologists could take a more active, engaged role. Indeed I like to think that that is part of what we long tried to do with Contexts and will continue to do with The Society Pages.

Maybe, while Elon James White invites folks to nominate candidates who need to sit down and clears the decks a bit, perhaps we should begin to collect the names of those who should be encouraged to stand up. Thoughts? Suggestions? Nominees?

With the new academic year underway, we’re starting to see an upswing of scholarly blogging and commentary on the web. One sociologist who has been particularly on fire is Jeff Weintraub at the University of Pennsylvania. I recently posted a quick aside linking to his views economic theory through the lens of Karl Polanyi and Richard Posner’s recent about-on face on Keynesian economics. This followed another recent post in which Weintraub drew upon Monty Python to “explain” rational actor models. And earlier in the summer, he  circulated a commentary on gender and sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I found edifying, on point, and surprisingly entertaining. I don’t always agree with Weintraub’s choice of topics or conclusions (and when he posts, he often puts up more than I can read), but he is always well-informed. Andhe formulates and packages his thoughts in a rich, profound, and unrepentant social theoretical tradition.

That in mind, the post I’m highlighting today is Weintraub’s take on the recently released studies of the cost, inefficiencies, misperceptions, and outright misrepresentations of government contracts, contracting, and contractors in an age of neoliberal privatization.

Much of the piece is a repackaging of other reporting and commentary, but it’s also an important piece to call to attention. The material Weintraub gathers has a lot to say about the predictable problems and shortcomings of privatization as well as the crucial role of research, data, information, and scientific analysis and evaluation in bringing these realities to the fore. Indeed, what really caught my eye about Weintraub’s post–and, frankly, what cracked me up–was his re-appropriation of C. Wright Mills’s phrase “crackpot realism” near the end. The Mills term is, as Weintraub just wrote to me in a follow-up, “an absolutely brilliant formulation… for which the applications are, unfortunately, almost limitless.”

for a provocative meditation on the virtues of keynesian economics as rediscovered  by richard posner and put into social theoretical context by jeff weintraub, see: http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2011/09/richard-posner-jm-keynes-karl-polanyi.htm

At Contexts’ editorial board’s annual meeting in Las Vegas last week, we had the pleasure of announcing the winners of our official/unofficial Claude S. Fischer “Excellence in Contexts” awards for the 2010 and 2011 volume years. The winners of the “Claudes,” as picked by our board from nominations determined by our graduate team here at Minnesota, included:

Best Feature: “Is Hooking Up Bad for Young Women?” by Elizabeth Armstrong, Laura Hamilton, and Paula England (Summer 2010).

Best Photo Essay: “Matrimony,” by Greg Scott (Winter 2011).

Best Culture Review: “Neoliberalism and the Realities of Reality Television,” by David Grazian (Spring 2010).

Best Book Review: “From The Music Man to Methland,” by Maria Kefalas (Winter 2011).

Best “One Thing I Know” Column: “Falling Upward,” by Dalton Conley (Summer 2011).

We’ve seen some wicked-good writing the past few years, so these authors faced some tough competition. Congratulations to all!

And while we’re on the subject of awards, one of the great preoccupations of any professional meeting, a word about the ASA’s award “Excellence in the Reporting of Social Issues,” which went this year to New York Times columnist David Brooks.

You might think this award presented an occasion to really recognize and celebrate the contributions of one of the few genuine public intellectuals who regularly reads and uses scholarly sociological research and writing. This, especially in recent months with Brooks’s courageous defense of NSF funding and the publication of the widely read The Social Animal. Yet the reception, which followed on the heels of several months of threatened protests, extensive bad-mouthing, and email attacks on members of the award committee, was underwhelming at best, even including a few scattered boos and catcalls. From our perspective, the reaction to the award was embarrassing, misguided, and deeply disconcerting.

Many in the field obviously object to Brooks’s political ideologies and affiliations–he’s simply perceived as too conservative to represent sociology. But this is troubling on several fronts. One is that anyone who has been reading Brooks lately would know that he is anything but a doctrinaire Republican mouthpiece. For another, the knee-jerk sociological opposition undermines our calls for broad-based public relevance and engaged scholarship — or, at least, recasts those calls as more narrowly partisan ideological projects.

At the root of this is the fact that Brooks–contrary to many erstwhile conservative pundits–actually believes in a real, empirical world and the importance of more or less objective social scientific facts and information. While some of us may disagree with how he uses our work, it would be tough to argue that he doesn’t take social science seriously.

But even to the extent he does represent particular ideological points of view (and who doesn’t?), we will step up and defend Brooks’s right to read, interpret, and mobilize our work. Anything less would be both elitist and a failure to appreciate our discipline’s genuinely conservative (not Republican) impulses and insights with respect to norms, solidarity, and the high ideals that support and sustain social order and democracy in the contemporary world.

The reaction of a small but vocal contingent of fellow sociologists to the presentation of Brooks’s award, we fear, not only contributes to the polarization of political discourse in this country, but compromises our ability as social scientists to play a productive role therein.

As is often the case for summers, I have been catching up on some reading lately. A fairly eclectic list both in subject matter and format.

Standouts on the book front include: The Hunger Games trilogy (highly and rightly recommended by my 13 year-old Emma); The Insiders by Craig Hickman, he of The Oz Principle fame (a guilty pleasure action story about the struggle for a more humane capitalism in America–global sequence sure to follow); and, As They See ‘Em (Bruce Weber’s insider’s look at baseball umpire culture and training, a topic I’ve been thinking about writing about myself sometime down the line).

The only academic book on the list (I’ve read others, they just weren’t particularly memorable) is Impure Play: Sacredness, Transgression, and the Tragic in Popular Culture. It is by Alexander Riley, a old grad school classmate of mine who I have inexplicably and inexcusably not stayed in touch with.

Lots and lots of magazine articles as well. As has been the case several times in the last few months, it was a New Yorker piece that made the biggest impression: Lauren Collins’ piece in the July 4th issue on the failure of British multiculturalism and the rise of the Islamophobic right “England, Their England.” Many great points on its own terms in this piece–about how fashionable it has become for European leaders to decry multiculturalism and separatism; about religion as a crucial dividing line in Europe; about how difficult it can be to disentangle liberal democratic rhetoric from racism and hysteria.  But what stood out to me was how central soccer and soccer fans have been to the whole right wing movement. Especially with the recent and ongoing riots in England, I want to hear more.

And finally, two recommendations. One is a book from a few back that I think would be a fun read for the ASA meetings in Vegas: James McManus’s Positively Fifth Street. Part crime trial reporting, part travel log, part poker tutorial, and all fun. The other, which I haven’t yet read, is Robert Bellah’s long awaited magnum opus, Religion in Human Evolution (for a great Q and A with the author, go to: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/where-does-religion-come-from/243723/).

I spent some time in court today, taking the stand to share some research on voting and disenfranchisement. I’ve done this sort of thing a few times before, but courtrooms, sworn oaths, and cross-examinations are still a little scary to me — more like heebie-jeebies scary than howling fantods scary — but scary nonetheless. Whenever I get anxious, though, I try to “do as I say” in my capacity as advisor, editor, or chair.

When my students are anxious about presentating their work, I tell them what my little league coach told me on his (frequent) trips to see me on the pitcher’s mound: trust your stuff. I remind them about all the preparation, hard work, painstaking research, analysis, and careful writing they’ve done on the subject. If they”re well-prepared, know what they’re doing, and have good stuff to present, there’s really little reason for anxiety. And, at that point, they can direct their energies into communicating effectively, rather than worrying about freaking out, melting down, or curling up in a fetal position before a room of stunned observers.

Social scientists are trained to be appropriately cautious in presenting our work to peers and to the public, but such caution shouldn’t morph itself into learned helplessness or defeatism. As editors, we’re often encouraging writers to trust their stuff — “We actually know a lot about that right? You don’t need to put “may,” “perhaps,” “preliminary,” and “exploratory,” in the concluding sentence. You’ve actually written some good stuff that’s quite convincing on those very points, right?” 

So, while it makes good sense to worry about “overselling” a particular study or finding, there’s also a danger in “underselling” the real knowledge we’ve gained on a topic of importance. When I see social scientists overselling or overreaching, it is usually because they’ve gotten away from their stuff and started popping off about things they haven’t researched or thought much about.

I was thinking of this after raising my right hand and striding across the courtroom to take the stand — just stay on your research and trust your stuff. And it seemed to work out okay today — I said “I don’t know” when I lacked the information to answer a question responsibly, but I also made clear that we have learned some information relevant to the case at hand.

Learning how to trust your stuff comes in as handy in the courtroom as it does in the lecture hall or on the pitcher’s mound. Of course, it won’t eliminate all sources of anxiety. While 95 percent of my attention may have been devoted to responsibly communicating the research, about 5 percent was still pretty anxious. So, however much I may trust my research, I’m still mortified that my fly may be down when I feel a cool breeze on my way to the witness stand.

One of the features we introduced in Contexts was the student column “What I Learned.” Kind of in that vein, I just came across a little commentary written for the undergraduate sociology newsletter by one of our own, Contexts research assistant Alex “Sweet Al” Casey. Perhaps we can’t take credit for it, but the piece is written with a certain flair and takes the kind of big view on the world and the field we are always looking for. So, without further ado:

“Is sociology ruining your fun?
By Alex Casey

You may have learned by now that Sociology majors don’t make the best movie dates, and odds are we Soc majors have probably annoyed our friends on more than one occasion. Those of us trained to think sociologically simply can’t accept anything at face-value, even when we desperately want to. Furthermore, we possess the annoying habit of explaining this fact to others.

You begin to notice times when your family laughs at a commercial while you’re debating the effects of its use of gay stereotypes. Your friends might be moved to tears during a heart-warming drama, but you’re busy identifying the replication of racial power dynamics. And when you get roped into playing dolls with your little cousin, you interrogate a five-year-old about why boy dolls can’t cook dinner, too.

Even if we spoil a friend’s favorite Disney movie, those things aren’t necessarily all bad – and thinking in a sociological style is important. No matter the field you ultimately end up in, there is tremendous value in questioning a presented “fact,” in understanding different viewpoints, and in recognizing the social assumptions existing within the seemingly mundane. Learning sociology shouldn’t be about memorizing solutions to social woes, but examining the world from a lens that aggregates each piece of the puzzle, and seeing the big picture when most do not.

So remain critical of the world around you. The beauty of the sociologically-enthused is that we aren’t know-it-alls with every answer, but we do know, before we accept anything, what questions should be asked.”

In editing Contexts articles, one of the first phrases we often cut from conclusions is the line “more research on this topic is required.” We do this because it usually is so obvious and trite, and because we believe that our readers are generally more interested in what we social scientists actually know than what we don’t know. Yet, in an increasingly angry, anti-intellectual culture, we cannot take the need for more social research for granted.

The latest to make this point is one of our favorite public purveyors of social science, New York Times columnist David Brooks. It comes in the context of a column chastising Congress for considering a bill that would eliminate funding for the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences.

“Today,” Brooks writes, “we are in the middle of a golden age of behavioral research. Thousands of researchers are studying the way actual behavior differs from the way we assume people behave. They are coming up with more accurate theories of who we are, and scores of real world applications.” Brooks goes on to provide a couple of fascinating examples of this kind of work. But the most important point of the piece is the basic insight that such research isn’t particularly costly and typically leads to much cheaper, more effective social programs and public policy. “Cutting cheap things that produce enormous future benefits,” as Brooks puts it, “is exactly how budgets should not be balanced.”

His closing line on this point is a doozie, aimed, I think, at erstwhile patriots and their contradictory economic principles and nationalistic pride. “Cutting off financing for this sort of research now is like cutting off navigation financing just as Columbus hit the shoreline of the New World.”