Image attribution at the conclusion

New and Noteworthy

New board member Leo LaBarre wrote up research from Dylan Jackson and colleagues showing that kids who are expelled or suspended from school experience earlier and more frequent police encounters.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Ahead of trick-or-treating on Monday, read this Conversation piece from sociologist Joel Best on his research of decades of media stories about hazardous and contaminated halloween candy.

Backstage with TSP

We’ve got something in the works (shhhhh!) that has us thinking about the books and articles that first got us interested in sociology. It’s fun to see the variation (from Marx to Evicted) and exciting to think about how we’d communicate what we love about these works to a public audience.

From the Archives

It’s Halloween weekend. Before you don the hat and hop on a broomstick, read this piece on how witchcraft as a religious practice empowers marginalized groups.

Alumni Spotlight

In honor of The Society Pages’ tenth anniversary in 2022 we’re highlighting the contributions and ongoing work of our superb alumni!

This week we caught up with TSP alum Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira. Here’s what she had to say about her time on the TSP board:

The Society Pages is where I learned that social scientific writing does not need to be bad writing. That might sound a bit extreme, but after reading pages (and pages) of sociological theory written centuries ago, I thought that writing like a sociologist meant writing long paragraphs full of jargon. Thankfully, TSP changed this. As part of TSP, I learned the value of writing for broader audiences, as well as how to speak without academic terms that do not resonate with the public. 

I have used this ability to translate my research on genocide into broader settings in several ways, including but not limited to the following: 

  • Creating policy reports for governments and nonprofits;
  • Giving a TEDx talk;
  • Publishing an op-ed in the New York Times;
  • Speaking about my research on C-SPAN; 
  • Writing grants for general audiences; 
  • Consulting with museums as they create new wings on genocide; and 
  • Training high school teachers.”

Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the the Ohio State University. Her research examines why and how genocide happens and how countries rebuild in the aftermath.

More From Our Partner and Community Pages

Emily Fox and Canton Winer ask: What can asexual and aromantic folks teach us about friendship? What’s the difference between sexual and romantic attraction? Where is the line between a friendship and a romantic partner? for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog

New Contexts editors Amin Ghaziani and Seth Abrutyn invite your feature story pitches!

Last Week’s Roundup

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Image Attribution

Images clockwise from upper-left. 1. Image: Group of adults lying down with their heads in the center. “Group of Friends Happily Lying on a Grass Field” by Kampus Production is licensed under CC0. 2. Dr. Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira 3. Image: Pile of colorful sugar-coated candy “Candy” by mooppoert is licensed under CC0 4. Image: A witch flies in front of a full moon on a broomstick. “Witch And Full Moon” by Linnaea Mallette is licensed under CC0. 5. Image: The back of a young black person in a red jacket, they are facing a large building in the distance. Image licensed by CC0.

(Images clockwise from upper left: 1. Marcho Verch Professional Photography/flickr/some rights reserved 2. Victoria Pickering/flickr/some rights reserved 4. HFCM Communicatie/Wikimedia/some rights reserved 5. Berkeley Journal of Sociology/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 6. Meyer Weinshel)

New and Noteworthy

New board member Caroline Garland wrote her first piece (!), writing up research from Benjamin Karney and colleagues showing that slightly raising the minimum wage decreases both divorce and marriage rates in cities.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Check out this piece in partner Berkeley Journal of Sociology’s relaunch issue from Santiago J. Molina on “Biological Citizenship and Surveillance in the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

From the Archives

With Liz Truss resigning (outlasted by a head of lettuce) check out this piece from partner Sociological Images connecting Theresa May’s 2015 rise to prime ministership to the “glass cliff” for women leaders promoted in times of crisis.

Citings & Sightings

NPR and the LA Times spoke with Nancy Wang Yuen ahead of the Anna May Wong quarter release next Monday. Wong will be the first Asian American featured on U.S. currency.

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Meyer Weinshel writes for Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog on Art in the Public: Voice to Vision at the Solidarity Street Gallery

Council on Contemporary Families‘ blog reposted Barbara Risman‘s piece on how Life in Post-Roe America forces new understandings of sex and pleasure.

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New and Noteworthy

Board member S Ericson wrote up recent research from Bart Bonikowski, Yuval Feinstein, and Sean Bock showing that in the 2016 presidential election both parties’ supporters held nationalist beliefs, however, the nature of these beliefs was partisan

From the Archives

Last week President Biden pardoned thousands of people federally convicted of marijuana possession. For context on this historic moment check out this archive piece from Katherine Beckett for partner Scholars Strategy Network on the “Futility and High Cost of Criminalizing Marijuana”

Alumni Spotlight

In honor of The Society Pages’ tenth anniversary in 2022 we’re highlighting the contributions and ongoing work of our superb alumni!

Allison Nobles, former graduate managing editor, shared this reflection of her time with TSP:

“TSP always felt like a little community within the larger sociology department. I genuinely wanted to get to our Friday board meetings early so I could catch up with everyone. Now, as I consider future career goals, I find myself coming back to my time at TSP — not only as a place where I refined many transferable skills, but even more so as an exemplar of what a workplace could be like. “

Allison Nobles is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. She studies how adults learn about sex. Allison is preparing for an “alt-ac” career outside of the academy.

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Mary Shi wrote for the Berkeley Journal of Sociology on Counterpoints, a project featuring cartography, essays, illustrations, poetry, and more from gentrification and resistance struggles across the San Francisco Bay Area, as public sociology.

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog reposted Chloe E. Bird’s write-up of their study that found that doubling the spending the National Institute of Health spends on research assessing women’s health would have a substantial return on investment.

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The winds of (seasonal) change are blowing here in Minnesota! As the leaves turn on the banks of the Mississippi River we’re breaking out the flannel and cozying up with some great soc reads…

From the Archives

October is breast-cancer awareness month. Check out this piece from alum Sarah Catherine Billups on “The Politics of Pink”

Citings and Sightings

Jireh Deng interviewed sociologist Anthony Christian Ocampo for the Los Angeles Times on his new book, Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons

Alumni Spotlight

In honor of The Society Pages’ tenth anniversary in 2022 we’re highlighting the contributions and ongoing work of our superb alumni!

Board member Jacob Otis sat down with Dr. Sarah Shannon to reflect on Sarah’s TSP experience.

Dr. Sarah Shannon was on the inaugural graduate board! During her time in TSP, she learned the value of writing for a public audience and how accessible writing can have an impact on audiences.  Behind the TSP curtain, Sarah reminisced about the opportunities that came with board membership. She remembers meeting renowned social scientists, networking with fellow students, publishing her work, and building confidence. Reflecting back 10 years since the founding of TSP, Sarah’s fondest memories are of the people she connected with and the relationships made. She remembers goofing off in board meetings, sharing food, and laughing together.

Currently, Sarah is an associate professor of sociology and director of the criminal justice studies program at the University of Georgia. Her research has been cited by everyone from prominent punishment scholars to former President Barack Obama. Sarah is also an award-winning teacher and public scholar, who facilitates the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program in Georgia’s Clarke County Jail .

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Shelby Astle wrote for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog about her new research finding that, in conversations about sex with their parents, kids are more willing to share if they talk more frequently and openly about it.

Michelle Mueller wrote for Contexts’ blog about how the responsibility for addressing systemic inequality should not fall to marginalized groups, themselves.

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New and Noteworthy

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog re-printed Arielle Kuperberg and Pamela Stone on their new research that shows that representations of stay-at-home fathers have gotten more positive, but only for some dads.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Check out this piece from Tyler Leeds in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology on the “Unthinkable Path Forward for American Journalism,” drawing on both social science research and personal experience.

Backstage with TSP

This week we’re talking podcasts! It’s been a few years since we’ve put out an Office Hours podcast. We’re excited to think about what the future of TSP produced podcasts might be. Some of our new undergraduate board members are really excited about getting involved in pocast-ing. We’re not sure how this will shake out just yet but are looking forward to getting the conversation going again.

From the Archives

With news that Hurricane Ian has hit coastal communities in the United States hard, check out our write up of Junia Howell and James Elliot‘s work on “Disaster Relief’s Unequal Aid”

TSP Edited Volumes

New and Noteworthy

Chantal A. Hailey wrote about results from her experimental study that show that that high students express different race-based preferences for schools than their parents

Worth a (Look), Sociologically Speaking

TSP partner Berkeley Journal of Sociology published a photo-essay on the process of producing the documentary film “Una Escuela llamada América,” that explores the relationship between production of the documentary and social research as well as how visual narratives can serve public debates

Backstage with TSP

This week we’re starting off a new round of pitches for the semester, returning board members summarize new sociological articles they think would make good Discoveries for the site. This year, we’re focusing on making sure we have good coverage of the generalist journals in sociology. It can be tempting for graduate students to only pitch articles from their sub-areas but we think this broader focus will help us connect back to the big vision of the field, something that is at the heart of TSP

From the Archives

In the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona hitting Puerto Rico, read this roundup of research from us on “Not So Natural Disasters”

Citings & Sightings

NPR’s “On the Media” spoke with John Thompson about how technology has changed the book industry, paving the way for Amazon’s global dominance

More from Our Partner & Community Pages

Andrew Guest wrote for Engaging Sports on Thinking Fandom: When (and How) to Watch Games We Love and Hate

New and Noteworthy

S Ericson writes up research from Gillian Slee and Mathew Desmond that finds that the higher a neighborhood’s eviction rate, the lower its voter turnout rate is.

From the Archives

The start of a new semester is a great time to re-read this piece from our archives, covering research from Miloš Broćić and Andrew Miles on how the moral values of people who have attended college differ from those that have not.

Sightings & Citings

Adia Harvey Wingfield reflected on the legacy of Barbara Ehrenreich for The Conversation arguing that, while Ehrenreich was not a sociologist, “she adopted what I like to think are the strengths of my discipline”

Backstage with TSP

All the fresh faces and activity around campus has us feeling energized and we’re starting off the semester with a bang! This week, members of our undergrad cohort have their first discovery “workshop,” where we edit one of our short and informative summaries of new research for a public audience. It can be intimidating for new board members to engage in this public editing process for the first time but (as alumni and returning board members can attest) it is a super valuable process that teaches all of us a lot about improving our writing. We’re excited to get started!

More from Our Partners & Community Pages

Our partner, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, just put out a new call for their Spring 2023 issue! Check out more info here.

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog reprinted Joan Maya Mazelis for the The Inquirer on why paying for childcare shouldn’t be so hard.

Sarah Barnes wrote for Engaging Sports on how the WNBA’s working-conditions effect player’s sleep.

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New & Noteworthy

Mieke Beth Thomeer described findings from their new study for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog showing that never married respondents were at increased risk for poor mental and physical health relative to married adults as the pandemic progressed during 2020.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

We reposted Sarah Shannon’s piece in The Criminologist on how archival-based learning can bring challenging topics to life for students, viscerally connecting them with course concepts and providing opportunity for community engagement.

Backstage with TSP

This week marks our first board meeting of the semester! As you read this, we may be gathered around the table welcoming new board members and excitedly reuniting with old friends. This year, we’re joined by a cohort of undergraduate board members for the first time. We’re excited to work with this group of amazing undergraduates, helping connect them to public sociology and scholarship and benefitting from their energy, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas!

More from our Partner & Community Pages

For their relaunch issue the Berkeley Journal of Sociology spoke with Arlene Stein and Jessie Daniels, authors of Going Public, a field guide for connecting research to public audiences and policymakers.

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New and Noteworthy

On the site, Aisha Upton-Azzam traces the roots of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, passed in March, in more than a century of anti-lynching activism by individuals and organizations.

Worth a Listen (Sociologically Speaking)

Give Theory a Chance brings some great theoretical insights to your ears. Kyle Green spoke with  Dr. Andrew McCumber on Raymond Williams and Dr. Amanda McMillan Lequieu on Kai Erikson.

Backstage with TSP

Here in Minnesota we’re gearing up for the start of a new semester next week. We’re looking forward to welcoming the student board back in-person to our meeting room overlooking the mighty Mississippi. The start of a new semester always bring a wave of energy and excitement and we’re looking forward to what it means for the site!

From the Archives

With black female athletes like Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka competing at the U.S. open this week check out this piece from partner Engaging Sports on how Osaka’s 2021 protest of the french open highlights the misogynoir and racial capitalism of professional sports.

More from our Partner & Community Pages

Courtney Szto wrote for Engaging Sports on how conversations about cycling and environmentalism need to consider the eco-cost of manufacturing and consuming sporting goods like bicycles.

Krista K. Westrick-Payne wrote for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog on new research from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research showing that both marriages and divorces fell during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

TSP Edited Volumes

New and Noteworthy

We wrote up research from Margot Jackson and Daniel Schneider showing that more public investment decreases class inequality in parental spending on children’s development

Citings & Sightings

Elaine Godfrey interviewed Theda Skocpol for The Atlantic about the close connections between “Stop the Steal” efforts and the Tea-party movement of the Obama years.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Partner Berkeley Journal of Sociology published Aldon Morris’ “Reflections for Young Sociologists to Consider” in their re-launch issue.

From the Archives

With back to school season upon us, read this piece from Jean Marie Maier on why going back to school means “going backwards” for some adults.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Vanessa Delgado wrote for Council on Contemporary Families on how Latinx youth manage their parents’ undocumented status.

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