Friday Roundup

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Daniel Cueto-Villalobos rounded-up research on job insecurity, expectations for work, and emotion that puts the “great resignation” into sociological perspective

New and Noteworthy

For Contexts’ blog Alfredo Huante and Michael L. Rosino analyze coverage of the backlash against teaching critical race theory to distill the tenets of this racialized moral panic

Citings and Sightings

Axios spoke with Marianne Cooper to provide context for new findings that show that young women do out-earn young men in a limited number of metro areas

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Nikoleta Sremac wrote about the external and internal pressures threatening Serbia’s official position of neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog

L. Dugan Nichol wrote about the precarious labor conditions of professional skateboarders for Engaging Sports

Amy L. Stone wrote about their research on queer carnival and how Mardi gras celebrations offer an opportunity for parents of LGBTQ people to provide support for the Council on Contemporary Families’ blog

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New and Noteworthy

Board member S Ericson covered new research from Samuel L. Perry, Kenneth E. Frantz, and Joshua B. Grubbs showing that who identifies as anti-racist is complex with, for instance, many Americans identifying as both color-blind and anti-racist.

Worth a (Look), Sociologically Speaking

Sangyoub Park wrote for Sociological Images on the emotional experience of seeing gochujang, Korean red chili pepper paste, on the shelf in American grocery stores while the United States has experienced a sharp rise in racism and hate crimes against Asian-Americans.

Citings and Sightings

Junia Howell spoke with Marketplace for their Morning Report on the release of the Biden administration’s plan to decrease racial inequity in home appraisals. Howell’s research shows that appraisals of homes in mostly white neighborhoods are three times higher than those in Black or Latinx neighborhoods.

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Women can run the world (or at least my city) but men continue to hide from equality at home! by Barbara Risman for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog

Meyer Weinshel wrote on Marking Women’s History Month for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog

SJSU HonorsX from Dispatches from a Dean

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Board member Daniel Cueto-Villalobos covered new research from Alfredo Huante on the process of gentefication in Boyle Heights and the tensions that arise when wealthy newcomers share long-term residents’ ethnic identity, but not their class position or skin tone.

Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog featured writing from Kenneth R. Hanson on his research exploring why some people choose synthetic partners (sex dolls) over human ones.

Citings and Sightings

Episode seven of The Boston Globe’s Black News Hour featured sociologist Saida Grundy. Grundy spoke about social citizenship for Black Americans and the necessity of social change in the episode which reflected on the tenth anniversary of Travyon Martin’s killing.

Backstage with TSP

Last week we read Joseph Gusfield’s chapter “Two Genres of Sociology: A Literary Analysis of The American Occupational Structure and Tally’s Corner” together and reflected on long-form writing in sociology. As a board, we are interested in thinking about ways to incorporate more coverage of long-form sociological writing on the site since books are not always a good fit with some of our standard formats. Reading Gusfield together, we were focused on how writers in long-form have to choose an audience and decide what they can assume that audience knows about the topic at hand. This is something we think about a lot at The Society Pages: who is our imagined audience, and what do we expect them to know? We’re always trying to strike a balance between making our writing as accessible as possible, to share sociological findings with a broad public, and keeping our pieces short and engaging.

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Truth, Memory, and Solidarity with Ukraine and A World Disappearing Before Our Eyes… from the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

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New and Noteworthy

We covered new research from Maia Cuchiarra that shows that Black low-income mothers and parenting instructors understand the purpose of parenting differently and this shapes whether or not they think it is ever appropriate to use physical discipline.

Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking

Our partner Council on Contemporary Families’ blog posted a research summary from Dana M. Johnson and colleagues on the reasons people choose to self-manage their abortions by obtaining abortion medications online and how policy changes could help increase abortion access.

Citings and Sightings

As we gear up for another election cycle, WBUR spoke with R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy on how courting suburban voters means acknowledging the suburbs increasing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity.

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Swastikas in the Bathrooms and Memory Politics and Memory Solidarity: An Interview with Jelena Subotić from Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog

End of the journey as a dean from Dispatches from a Dean

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After the Child Tax Credit’s historic expansion ended in December, board member Jacob Otis helps us think about what’s next reviewing research on the history of the Child Tax Credit and how it supports families.

Worth a (Look), Sociologically Speaking

Board member S Ericson writes up a data visualization from Benjamin Elbers in Socius showing trends in residential segregation over the past thirty years. Elbers shows that segregation is going down, overall, but is increasing between some racial groups.

Backstage with TSP

I had the pleasure of announcing in this week’s meeting agenda that one of our fearless leaders, Doug Hartmann, is bringing bagels to our board meeting today. (We may be happily munching away on them as you read this). One of the things we missed most about going virtual during covid was the opportunity to gather together in-person not only to get work done but also to be in community with one another. As with all things covid, we aren’t sure what’s next but we feel grateful that, for the time being, we feel safe to be together and carefully lower our masks to take bites of our bagels!

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Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog spotlights student Tibisay Navarro-Mana.

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog posted writing from Naomi Lightman and Anthony Kevins, sharing their research on how family policy changes might decrease inequalities in unpaid care work.

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Board member Daniel Cueto-Villalobos wrote up new research from Samuel Perry and colleagues that explores the relationship between White Christian nationalism and denial of anti-Black discrimination and racial injustice.

Worth a (Watch), Sociologically Speaking

Isabel Arriagada created a short and informative video that summarizes this piece from Jillian LaBranche on how the meaning of diamonds is intertwined with their place in global conflict (Just in time for Valentine’s Day <3).

Backstage with TSP

This week we reincorporated “archive pitches” into the regular business of our board meetings. With an archive pitch, board members search through the (literally) thousands of posts on our pages and find a piece that connects with a current event, news story, or something on their mind. We promote these archive pitches on the site and social media and use them as springboards for new ideas. Our archive pitches are both useful reminders of how extensive and useful our backlog is and motivation to write something new when one of us discovers that we don’t actually have anything on (insert important and timely issue).

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Council on Contemporary Families’ blog posted a piece from Shannon Cavanaugh covering research showing that women are less likely to initiate romantic contact online but have more success when they do

For the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ (CHGS) blog Remco Ensel wrote on “The Betrayal of Anne Frank”: Genocide research in the time of mass media and Kurt Borchard explained the significance of The COPE Visitor Center in Laos

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New and Noteworthy

Board member Mason Jones wrote up research from Vicki Lens that shows that, in family law court rooms, low-income moms face expectations of what “good mothers” do that do not acknowledge the structural barriers they face when parenting.

Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking

Board member Jake Otis rounded up social science research that places the current wave of labor strikes in context.

Backstage with TSP

This week we turned our focus to writing and will discuss the first chapter of Becker’s classic Writing for Social Scientists. It’s an excellent book and the first chapter got me thinking about vulnerability and shame in the writing process. Becker does a great job of articulating that part of what makes writing so difficult is that we have to be vulnerable. When we write we are putting ourselves out there. We worry about getting it right at TSP. We worry that maybe we aren’t quite capturing what the author meant by that phrase, or maybe we don’t really understand the complex statistical technique used in that exciting new article, so maybe we shouldn’t write about it for the site. But we do anyway, in part, because we have the advantage of being really close to why writing in spite of fear matters. We hope our writing helps bring social scientific findings to a a public that would otherwise not have access to them. Having such a lofty vision means that the stakes can feel really high at times but it also helps motivate us to work together to get words on the (digital) page.

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Council for Contemporary Families’ blog re-posted a piece from Tyler Jamison on the skills needed to break-up a partnership with care.

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It’s the start of a new semester here in Minnesota (where, at the time of writing, it is a balmy one degree) and we’re back to share the latest social science writing from our grad board, partner, and community pages.

New and Noteworthy

We shared writing from our own Doug Hartmann, published in the Winter 2022 issue of Footnotes, on what community-engaged research is and how it can provide meaning, and challenges, to sociologists.

Worth a (Look), Sociologically Speaking

Over at Sociological Images Evan Stewart covers the persistent drop in self-reported happiness in the General Social Survey and the potential for both policy (and personal) solutions to improve subjective well being.

Citings and Sightings

Amanda Mull interviewed sociologist Daniel Schneider, who studies precarious and unpredictable work schedules, for the Atlantic on “How Omicron is Making America’s Bad Jobs Even Worse.”

Backstage with TSP

At the request of our graduate board, this semester we’re focusing some of our meetings on writing. As both academics and folks interested in connecting scientific findings with a larger public, we wear a lot of “writing hats” at TSP. Over the course of the semester we hope that talking together about writing will help us think about our collective work at TSP, exploring how to better engage in writing as communication and writing as a collaborative process. If you have a favorite piece on sociological writing, send it our way at tsp@contexts.org.

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The Council on Contemporary Families’ blog shared Dominique C. Hill‘s writing A Black Girl’s Crown Changes the Game, exploring how her participants defined black girlhood.

Kennedy Kneller wrote for Engaging Sports on how the backyard ice rink shatters the myth of Canadian hockey as underpinned by community and collective identity.

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Matthew Valasik and Shannon E. Reid wrote a policy brief for our partner Contexts, on the unequal treatment of far rights groups under the law and the potential for gang statutes to enable intervention and prevention of far-right violence.

Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking

Irmak Karademir Hazir offered some important findings from her study on how parents of toddler-aged children differ in their understandings of what “good feeding” is according to social class for our partner Council on Contemporary Families.

Backstage with TSP

Today we had our TSP end-of-semester celebration. We handed out our Best of 2021 awards, and a few tokens of appreciation for our hard-working board members. This party is always a nice opportunity to take a break from the flurry of last minute tasks and take a moment to connect and celebrate our collective accomplishments.

Over the next few weeks we plan to take some time away to rest, reflect, and spend time with those important to us. You’ll see us less here as we post our Best of 2021 features over at the site. We hope this time away will offer some inspiration for writing and coverage in the new year (both for us and for you, dear reader).

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Our friend and colleague Edgar Campos wrote for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog on Olympic Boycotts and the Politics of the Label “Genocide”

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Michael A. Garcia, Rachel Donnelly, and Debra Umberson wrote for the Council on Contemporary Families’ blog on their recent research on racial disparities in loss of a family member and how this inequities contributes to racial disadvantage in health and well-being.

Worth a Watch, Sociologically Speaking

Today is Human Rights Day, the perfect occasion to watch this short video created by Isabel Arriagada summarizing writing from Brooke Chambers‘ on the United Nations’ role in global human rights.

Citings and Sightings

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered host Mary Louis Kelley spoke with sociologist Gretchen Sisson on why the choice pregnant people considering adoption face is perhaps best thought of as a choice between adoption and parenting rather than a choice between abortion and parenting.

Sisson was also quoted in this Vox article that covered why adoption is not a replacement for abortion rights.

Backstage with TSP

This week for the first time we assigned a board member to write up a data visualization from Socius. In the coming weeks, we’re excited to publish this piece, offering some context for one of the short data visualizations that Socius publishes. We (along with our friends over at Soc Images) know how important and impactful seeing sociological concepts represented visually can be for readers. We are also excited that this is something we’re able to do because of Socius’ commitment to open access and creative commons licensing.

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R Spiker and Rin Reczek wrote for Contexts on what we’ve missed about socioeconomic disparities and LGB people and what new survey data and analysis can tell us

Brian Ellison of the Black Man Project shares his photo essay on Contexts exploring African-American masculinity for young boys and men

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