Roundup

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.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

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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New and Noteworthy

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).

More from our Partner and Community Pages

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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New and Noteworthy

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.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

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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New and Noteworthy

Board member Daniel Cueto-Villalobos covers research from Angela S. García on the importance of local policy context for the political participation of undocumented immigrants.

Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking

As the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that threatens to overturn abortion protections, we recommend reading this piece from Allison Nobles about abortion providers before Roe v. Wade.

Citings and Sightings

Daniel Pearson interviews Elijah Anderson for the Philadelphia Inquirer about what his research can tell us about race and urban spaces.

Backstage with TSP

This week, we prepared nominations for our annual “Best of TSP” awards. We use these awards, voted on by our board, to highlight the best content from our site as we transition into a new year (and new semester). It’s a nice opportunity to reflect on all that we have accomplished over the last year and highlight the contributions of our board members. Look out for some “Best of” content over the coming weeks, and drop us a line at tsp@contexts.org or @thesocietypages if you have a piece you think should be considered.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Over at Contexts Genesis Fuentes interviews Marcus Bullock on how his experience in the criminal justice system connects to his entrepreneurship

Dan Cassino and Yasemin Besen-Cassino discuss their book Gender Threat: American Masculinity in the Face of Change at Council on Contemporary Families’ blog

A backstage sociologist shares a favorite poem

At Engaging Sports Joseph M. Bradley discusses how the rivalry between the Scottish football clubs the Rangers and Celtic connects to historical memory

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New and Noteworthy

Out today board member Jake Otis covers research from Lindsay Bullinger and colleagues documenting how, although arrests and reports for domestic violence decreased during the covid-19 lockdown in Chicago, police calls increased

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

At the Everyday Sociology blog Colby King writes on #striketober, offering a sociological perspective on the wave of labor strikes across the country.

Backstage with TSP

Last week we welcomed Walt Jacobs to our board meeting. We continued our conversation on first-person sociology, with Walt sharing how his life story and experience drew him to research on the places and institutions he inhabited using, for instance, auto-ethnographical methods to examine teaching and digital literacy. Speaking with Walt, we were reminded of the power of the personal perspective he brings to his writing with us, whether at Dispaches from a Dean or the Wonderful/Wretched series. As we look towards the future of our site, we are thinking of ways to incorporate this voice into the content we produce and post.

More from Our Partners and Community Pages

Over at the Council on Contemporary Families‘ blog Priya Fielding-Singh writes on her research on nutritional inequality and why we need to move beyond conversations centered solely on food access and consider the meaning of food for families, due out in book form next week.

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog covered Divide Up Those in Darkness from the Ones Who Walk in Light, an exhibit of Professor David Feinberg’s art currently on display at University of Minnesota’s Katherine E. Nash Gallery

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New and Noteworthy

We cover new research from Orlaith Heymann and colleagues on how people access risk and safety when seeking abortions– even after overcoming legal and economic barriers

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Over at our partner Council on Contemporary Families’s blog Sara Yeatman and Emily Smith-Greenaway discuss their research on women’s responses, both negative and positive, to unexpected pregnancies.

Citings & Sightings

Sociologist Louise Seamster was on the Ezra Klein show this week, in conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom, discussing how student loans and higher ed contribute to the racial wealth gap.

Backstage with TSP

This week, we welcome Walt Jacobs to our board meeting. Last week, in preparation, we read Walt’s preface to Sparked, and discussed how and why to do first-person writing for a social science audience. This conversation gave board members the space to think about how to balance our emotion and values with the demands of social scientific research.

Tonight, Walt will be in conversation with our own Doug Hartmann, as well as Bianet Castellanos, discussing Sparked as part of the University of Minnesota’s public life project. We’d love to see (and hear from you) there. More info and registration here.

More from Our Partners and Community Pages

Give Theory a Chance spoke with Dr. Christopher R. Matthews about the work of Nick Crossley. Give the podcast(s) a listen!

Over at Contexts’ blog David Burley spoke about the potential (and necessity) of training our sociology students to lead the fight against climate change.

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New and Noteworthy

Over the weekend Social Forces published Mariana Amorim‘s work with the Alaska Permanent Fund data, showing that low and middle-income parents increase spending on their kids when given no-strings-attached money.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

We rounded up research on the consequences of thinking about childcare as an individual family’s responsibility as democrats continue to hammer out the details of an infrastructure plan that will likely not include paid family leave.

Citings & Sightings

Council on Contemporary Families reposted Stacy Torres’ USA Today essay on how her experiences with hospice care at the end of her father’s life opened up her eyes to the weight of “administrative burdens” on folks navigating the healthcare system.

Backstage with TSP

Last week the board discussed the introduction to friend of the site Lisa Wade’s new introduction to sociology textbook Terrible, Magnificent Sociology. We used this as a jumping off point to discuss the relationship between emancipatory sociology and sociology as the pursuit of social facts, what that means for teaching, and how we can incorporate that into the public sociology work we do here at TSP. Going “back to the basics” was helpful for us, particularly as we have undergraduate board members and board members from outside the discipline.

More from Our Partners and Community Pages

Read Rabble Rouser get the Boot! at a backstage sociologist.

Contexts’ blog posted a 2018 interview of California Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar by Jeannine Bell.

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Next week marks the launch of our new newsletter format. This week we stick with our oldie-but-a-goodie.

On TSP this week we highlighted research contextualizing cultural change and the church. Our partner and community pages wrote on orientalism and the media, the risk of genocide in Afghanistan, and queer recruitment panic. Plus, a new podcast from Give Theory a Chance.

There’s Research on That!

As Pope Francis kicks off a three-year synod to discuss Catholic doctrine and practices where a big question on the table is the ordination of women as deacons, our own Christine Delp rounds up research on gender, cultural change, and the church.

From Our Partners

Contexts

Japonica Brown-Saracino, D’Lane Compton, and Jeffrey Nathaniel Parker write on panic over the “recruitment” of people into LGBTQ identity following the release of new Gallup data.

From Our Community Pages

Over at Engaging Sports Umer Hussain considers orientalist and islamophobic media coverage in advance of the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

Will Calhoun writes for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies considering how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan raises the risk of genocide for the Hazara people.

Give Theory a Chance shared a new podcast this week in conversation with Michael DeLand on Herbert Blumer’s interpretation of George Herbet Mead’s work on social construction and symbolic interactionism.

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Welcome back! This week we cover new research that shows that surface level changes in policing might hide ongoing bias and punitive practices. We also round up research about public opinions on pay-to-play in college sports, as we await a verdict in the NCAA supreme court case.

Discoveries

Punitive Policing Persists by Daniel Cueto-Villalobos. We cover new research that shows that more cooperative or cordial policing styles can be used to justify more punitive policing.

There’s Research On That

Public Opinion on Pay-to-Play by Jean Marie Maier. With the NCAA back in the Supreme Court we round up research on who supports paying college athletes and how this relates to race, concerns about athlete exploitation, and beliefs about amateurism.

From Our Partners:

Contexts

Teaching Sociology of Gender During COVID-19: Lessons from Contexts Magazine by Gabrielle G. Gonzales and Catherine J. Taylor

Council on Contemporary Families

New Work: Multiracial children and their family lives by Kate H. Choi and Rachel E. Goldberg

From Our Community Pages:

• Dispatches from a Dean shares a thoughtful letter to colleagues in the wake of the Chauvin verdict.
• Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies sheds light on histories of terrorist sexual violence in Algeria.
• Cyborgology considers the past and future of artificial intelligence

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Happy Friday! This week we cover new research that explores the challenges freelancers face when looking for full-time jobs. We also explore what sociology, and other social sciences, can tell us about the social influences of intergenerational trauma.

Discoveries

Freelancers Face Frustration in Full-Time Job Searches by Jean Marie Maier. We cover new research that shows that a history of freelancing sends negative signals about commitment and competence to potential employers.

There’s Research On That

When Trauma is Passed Down by Nikoleta Sremac. We round up research that explores the cultural legacy of trauma for social groups.

From Our Partners:

Contexts

What Do Memes Tell Us about Self and Time during the Pandemic? by Michael G. Flaherty and Cosima Rughiniș

Council on Contemporary Families

The Shortest Distance is Across Not Around: Bridging Chasms in Women’s Health Care and Racial Justice to Achieve Maternal Health Equity by Irene Headen

From Our Community Pages:

• Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies shows how spatial tools can help students understand the Holocaust.

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