social science

New & Noteworthy

• In Thermal Injustice, S. Ericson highlights a new study in Demography on heat waves and caste inequality in India, emphasizing that “while temperature doesn’t discriminate, people do.” [2 min read]
• Check out this week’s Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Tressie McMillan Cottom on America’s first “meme president,” and Christopher Justin Einolf and Dylan J. Riley on the state of American civil society. Plus, new books from Martin Eiermann and Laura Hall. [2 min read]

From the Archives

• President Trump signed a proclamation marking October 13th Columbus Day, calling Christopher Columbus “the original American hero.” The proclamation omitted Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a holiday celebrated simultaneously, meant to honor victims of American colonialism. Nevertheless, many Americans will still celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday. Check out Allison Nobles’s 2017 article Why We Honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which highlights research on the racial and gendered aspects of colonialism in U.S. history. [2 min read]
• Sarah Mullally is the next Archbishop of Canterbury, making her the first woman to lead the Church of England and the global Anglican Church. Many conservative Anglican leaders have criticized Mullally’s appointment, as she is a woman and has publicly affirmed same-sex marriage. Consequently, the Anglican Church of Nigeria declared spiritual independence from the Church of England this week. Our 2021 article by Christine Delp unpacks how the Catholic Church handled a similar period of gender and sexuality debates. [2 min read]

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts

• Fire Flight by Parker Muzzerall discusses the unexpected way highly destructive wildfires affect migration patterns, based on findings from an interdisciplinary team led by sociologist Kathryn McConnell, and published in Nature Communications. [2 min read]

Council on Contemporary Families

• As the gender wage gap persists, Ashir Coillberg spotlights the unique burden it places on working mothers, who made 71 cents for every dollar earned by working fathers in 2022. Coillberg’s The Wage Gap Robs Mothers of What They’re Owed was originally published by the National Women’s Law Center and reprinted by CCF this week. [5 min read]

First Publics

• When an undergrad lesson involves unchaste topic matter, it can be tricky to find the right balance between appropriate boundaries and fruitful discussion. In Teaching Consent Before Content, Joey Bernert reflects on how practicing consent in the classroom helped them facilitate a compelling lesson on BDSM and kink. [5 min read]

New & Noteworthy

• Housework Gender Expectations in American Households by Emma Goldstein details the surprising way the COVID-19 pandemic affected gender equity, from an article published in Socius by Melissa A. Milkie, Liana C. Sayer, Kei Nomaguchi, and Hope Xu Yan. [3 min read]
• In the latest episode of The Society Pages Podcast, Jordyn Wald considers the paradoxical concept of “heteropessimism” in straight women. [3 min listen]

From the Archives

• The children’s TV show “Reading Rainbow,” which aired on PBS from 1983 to 2006, is returning. With new host Mychal Threets, known for his viral videos about the joy of libraries, “Reading Rainbow” aims to help children become avid readers. This 2023 Contexts piece highlights the importance of books in shaping how young people see themselves and understand the world in an era of book banning. [6 min read]
• This week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered his vision for the military to hundreds of top-ranking military officials. Hegseth argued for several changes to the image of the military including an end to “fat troops” and “fat generals,” claiming this was a “bad look” for the U.S. military. This 2016 article from our partner Scholars Strategy Network article discusses the prevalence of weight-based discrimination in the U.S. and the lack of legal prohibitions against it. [5 min read]

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts

• Data show that professors in the U.S. tend to be more liberal than the average American. In A Closer Look at Ideology and Truth on Campus, Michael D. Briscoe joins the conversation on “the partisan professoriate” to critique Lawrence Eppard and Jacob Mackey’s recent Contexts article, “Ideology Versus Truth on Campus.” [8 min read]

Council on Contemporary Families

• In The Silent Signals of Great Sex, Alicia M. Walker asks, what aren’t we saying in the bedroom? Drawing on an interview-based study she conducted with Audrey Lutmer, Walker calls attention to the power and peril of non-verbal cues in moments of intimacy. [4 min read]

First Publics

• For undergraduate students, social theory can feel hard and confusing. For professors, so can teaching it. Seasoned theory professor Michel Estefan offers Seven Principles for Teaching Social Theory to help undergrads stay the course. [5 min read]

Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman at the One Minnesota Budget Bill signing. Photo by Minnesota Senate DFL, cropped, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

We’re staggered in Minnesota (TSP’s home) after the political violence of the weekend. As Chris Uggen shared on social media, 

An awful, devastating loss. Melissa Hortman was a wise and thoughtful leader and exemplary public servant in so many ways. She carried the weight of political and social responsibility with grace, humility, and good humor — and it appears to have cost her her life. Rep. Hortman was MN House Speaker (2019-Jan 2025) and a graduate of Boston U, the U of Minnesota law school, and the Harvard Kennedy School. I became a big fan after she shared some thoughts on improving university relations with the state and the public. I could tell she was the smartest person in the room (present company included), but she spent more time listening than lecturing. I will remember her as an intelligent, congenial, and self-sacrificing public servant who did all she could to make things better. My condolences to her friends and family, and to the many publics she served.

What he didn’t mention was his own shock and visceral reaction to her assassination. At TSP, we pride ourselves on providing social science evidence and context that will help readers make sense of the social world, but this was a gut punch. As with George Floyd’s murder, we’ve found it tough to summon any “analytic distance” when killing comes to our doorstep. At our editorial meeting on Monday, we discussed sharing pieces that might provide perspective as per our usual practice. These included political violence, inflammatory rhetoric, Christian nationalism, assassinations, and domestic terrorism as well as threats to democracy, public service, and good government. However, based on what we know now, we decided that none of these felt like “the right fit” and that any such sharing would risk dramatically oversimplifying or even exploiting the harm and damage to our community. Which sociological “box” do we place this in? And, implicitly, which actors and institutions do we blame?

We’ll have more to say about this case and relevant scholarship as more information comes to light. For now we mourn – for the victims, for the communities, and for the torn social fabric that connects us all.

New & Noteworthy

• In Science We Trust? by Jordyn Wald covers global research by Viktoria Cologna and colleagues. Surveying over 70,000 people across 68 countries, the study found that trust in scientists remains high worldwide. Most respondents see scientists as competent, public-minded, and believe they should help solve major issues like health, clean energy, and poverty. However, some distrust persists—especially among conservatives and those who view scientists as elitist—raising concerns about the outsized influence of vocal skeptics.

• The Sticks and Stones of Christian Nationalist Rhetoric by Forrest Lovette highlights research by Nilay Saiya and Stuti Manchanda on how political speech can incite violence. Analyzing statements from all 100 U.S. senators, the study found that states where senators endorsed Christian nationalist views were up to 1.5 times more likely to experience violence against religious minorities. The authors argue this rhetoric legitimizes hostility by framing other faiths as threats—underscoring the real-world dangers of political language rooted in religious supremacy.

From the Archives

• Rubber bullets and other less-than-lethal projectiles have been used on Los Angeles residents in recent confrontations. This archive piece during the 2020-2021 protests covers some research on the harm that these projectiles used by police and the military can cause. And it highlights one study that found that 3% of people hit by rubber bullets actually die from these injuries, so “97% non-lethal”.

• RFK is reported to have planned the termination of all members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, with skepticism that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic being cited as a catalyst. In 2020, Contexts published this piece, the coming vaccine battle, which although now in hindsight, served as insight into today’s climate.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts

• Novel/Sociology: An Interview with Jonathan Wynn by Amin Ghaziani spotlights UMass sociologist Jonathan Wynn’s genre-bending debut novel The Set Up. Known for his academic work on cities and culture, Wynn describes the “terrific fun” of writing fiction as a way to smuggle in sociological insights. Blending mystery, marketing, and microsociology, the story follows a rogue Vegas firm that hires actors to influence behavior—raising ethical questions in a Goffman-meets-Ocean’s Eleven plot.

Council on Contemporary Families

• The Importance of Sexual and Romantic Exploration for LGBQ+ College Students by Ellen Lamont and Teresa Roach explores how college can offer a crucial space for identity development among LGBQ+ youth, especially those raised in conservative Christian environments. Based on interviews with 26 students, the study finds that beyond supportive communities, the ability to explore sexuality through relationships was key to affirming identity and building self-understanding. Yet students still faced barriers—including limited queer social spaces and conflicting expectations about campus organizations.
• From Kin to Unit: How Refugee Resettlement Reshapes Family Itself by Neda Maghbouleh draws on a seven-year ethnographic study of 52 Syrian families resettled in Canada. The research reveals how state policy fractured extended kin networks by enforcing a narrow, nuclear definition of “family.” Most families faced protracted separation from vital caregivers, while a few navigated costly sponsorships or strategic marriages to rebuild kinship ties. Maghbouleh and co-author Laila Omar argue that these exclusions are not incidental, but institutional—reshaping daily life and identity.

First Publics

• Subverting a Subject: Marketing as Sociology by Sam Chian explores how teaching marketing through a sociological lens turns business education into critical inquiry. Instead of training future marketers, Chian encourages students to question how marketing reinforces inequality, commodifies identity, and shapes desire. By treating marketing as a social institution, he helps students see it not as a neutral tool, but as a force worth interrogating—and potentially transforming.
• Flattening Theory: Kyle Green on the Give Theory a Chance Podcast highlights how sociologist Kyle Green is reshaping theory education through podcasting. In Give Theory a Chance, Green invites guests to share how big ideas—from Du Bois to Deleuze—shaped their thinking and research. His goal? To demystify theory and make it accessible, especially for students daunted by jargon or academic gatekeeping. By “flattening” the canon and emphasizing lived experience, Green transforms theory from something to fear into something to feel, encouraging listeners to engage with ideas that illuminate the world around them.

Engaging Sports

• Thirsting for More: What TikTok Can Tell Us About Women’s Basketball by Julia Macey and Jennifer McGovern explores how TikTok is reshaping media narratives around women’s basketball. Analyzing 50 fan-made edits, the authors found that while racial and gendered media patterns persist—white players received more views, and Black players were more often shown in action—TikTok also offers a space to celebrate queer desire and athleticism outside the male gaze.

New & Noteworthy

This week’s Clippings by Mallory Harrington includes:

• Herbert Gans: The influential urban sociologist and public intellectual passed away at 97; remembered for The Urban Villagers, The Levittowners, The War Against the Poor, and Deciding What’s News, as well as for his anti-war activism, press-freedom advocacy, and push for publicly accessible sociology—coverage appeared in New York Times, the Washington Post, and ABC News.
• Laurie Essig: In a Ms. Magazine interview and the “Feminism, Fascism, and the Future” podcast, Essig linked authoritarianism in the U.S. and Russia to anxious masculinities, warning that “gender ideology” rhetoric masks fears of failed masculinity and urging the creation of mutual-aid “parallel societies.”
• Stephanie L. Canizales: In Sin Padres, Ni Papeles, Canizales exposes how unaccompanied undocumented youth in California are exploited in low-wage jobs and politicized as scapegoats, lamenting that when they aren’t useful for agendas “the population is completely forgotten” (UC Berkeley News).
• Craig Considine and Landon Schnabel: Argue Pope Francis widened the Church’s global reach while enacting careful reforms—outreach to the Global South and blessings for same-sex couples—demonstrating how ancient institutions can “bend without breaking” (Rice & Cornell news outlets).

Our latest Discovery by Eleanor Nickel covers research by David Jonathan Knight on African American and Afro-Latino men who spend their formative years cycling through U.S. prisons, and how growing up behind bars fuses identity to confinement, turning adulthood milestones into carceral experiences that constrain life chances long after release.

From the Archives

It has been twenty years since the first video “Me at the Zoo” was uploaded to YouTube. Since then, the site has become the second most visited site in the world behind Google. It is also on track to become the largest media company by revenue in 2025, beating out Disney. YouTube is also first for the amount of TV viewership time. Check out this archive 2017 piece on the evolution of YouTube in relation to “Legacy Media”.

The Trump administration floated a set of proposals this week aimed at boosting the U.S. birthrate—ideas that include things like a $5,000 “baby bonus” for new mothers after delivery and a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women with six or more children. The proposals highlight a familiar political tension: encouraging childbirth without meaningfully supporting families. This piece from our archives looks at the challenges contemporary mothers face—underscoring how policy often overlooks the realities of parenting.

Backstage with TSP

The Spring 2025 academic semester is coming to a close. The TSP board is now shifting to “summer hours” and will be posting less frequently to accommodate schedules, but, no need to fear. We will continue to bring you the latest and greatest social science to a device near you! Make sure to follow us on X, Bluesky, and Facebook to stay updated.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• Landon Schnabel covers their research on how many young adults walk away from their parents’ churches—especially when rigid doctrines clash with inclusive values like LGBTQ+ equality—yet keep or reinvent a personal, DIY spirituality.

First Publics

• JoAnna Boudreaux shares why she centers small-group discussions, creative projects, and personal feedback to foster belonging—demonstrating that human connection can elevate learning as much as content coverage. Read her piece, “Can We Still Come to Class If We Want To?”.

New & Noteworthy

• This week’s Clippings includes: Tressie McMillan Cottom discussed masculinity and gender politics on The Opinions podcast, analyzing how Trump’s rhetoric delegitimizes women and minorities. Yolande Strengers appeared on Switched On Australia to critique the energy industry’s flawed assumptions about consumer behavior. Ana Paula Sousa spoke to The Credits about how I’m Still Here exposes Brazil’s ongoing struggles with historical violence. Bonnie Zare analyzed The Substance for the Irish Star, explaining how the film critiques societal pressures on women’s bodies. Matthew Desmond joined The Daily Show to highlight systemic economic inequalities that perpetuate poverty. Jacqueline Ho’s research, featured on EurekaAlert!, examined how Singaporean parents perceive educational inequality. Finally, Kelsey McKinney discussed the social functions of gossip on Normal Gossip, noting how it shapes our understanding of society and ourselves.

• Our new piece, Social Isolation and “Loneliness” of Young Adults by Jacob Otis, examines how economic insecurity, mental health struggles, and shifting social norms contribute to young adults spending more time at home while still participating in public life. The piece explores the role of stigma, technology, and declining civic engagement in shaping social withdrawal, questioning whether this trend reflects a crisis or an evolving cultural preference.

From the Archives

• 2025 has seen a number of airplane incidents and tragedies. In this Cyborgology piece, PJ Patella-Rey extends Anthony Giddens’ work to discuss how we are living in an era within which we cannot all be experts on the technologies that we rely on every day, from our phones to airplanes. This requires extreme “trust that the institutions that deliver these devices to us have designed, tested, and maintained the devices properly.” Yet, seeing the amount of plane crashes and other incidents we’ve seen related to air travel, this trust is certainly being tested in the public sphere.

• In Germany, 5 members of a far-right group have been arrested for allegedly plotting to kidnap the health minister. They are associated with the “Citizens of the Reich,” conspiracy theorists who believe that the German government is illegitimate. Last year, S Ericson summarized research on conspiracy theories, check it out here, “What “They” Don’t Want You to Know About Conspiracy Theories“.

• March 8th was International Women’s Day. This post from the Council on Contemporary Families highlights research on family wellbeing around the world.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy by Lucas Wilson, examines how conversion practices persist underground despite legal bans, using religious rhetoric and shame to justify harmful efforts to change queer identities.

New & Noteworthy

How Partisan Moral Flexibility Shapes Beliefs in American Politics by Anastasia Dulle writes about research by Minjae Kim and colleagues who examined how Americans evaluate truth in political statements in their study in the American Journal of Sociology. Using online surveys, the researchers found that voters across the political spectrum often support factually false statements from politicians of their own party, even after being informed of their inaccuracy.

How the American Rescue Plan Transformed Child Poverty in the U.S. by Leo LaBarre covers research by  Zachary Parolin and Stefano Filauro in Demography lookings at the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021, which temporarily increased economic support for families. They found that the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) decreased from 9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021, making the child poverty rate the lowest ever recorded in US history. 

From the Archives

Attacks on Sociology in Higher Education continue in the United States and across the globe. Check out ‘Sociological Gobbledygook’ and Public Distrust of Social Science Experts by Isabel Arriagada writes about the current public distrust of social science, rooted in perceptions of intellectual elitism and hidden biases, challenges researchers to bridge gaps by engaging more visibly in the public sphere to rebuild credibility and trust.

Backstage with TSP

TSP board member Leo LaBarre has graduated (see above pic)! Congratulations Leo – we will miss you!

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Contexts

• parenting gender, from left to right by Elena G. Van Stee highlights Mallory Rees and Abigail Saguy‘s study, revealing surprising points of agreement, including shared beliefs in gender as an innate attribute and evolving perspectives on children’s gender expression.

Council on Contemporary Families

• Highlights from the 2024 CCF Workshop include the low-down of CCF’s “Families in Perilous Times: A Policy and Public Scholarship Workshop” from October in Baltimore. Check out the recordings here.

First Publics

• Embracing AI in the Sociological Classroom by JoAnna Boudreaux and Kendra Murphy call for instructors in Sociology to lean into the use of generative AI in the classroom – but thoughtfully and intentionally.

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

Last Week’s Roundup

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TSP Edited Volumes

New and Noteworthy

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.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

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

Last Week’s Roundup

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TSP Edited Volumes

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.

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

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

Last Week’s Roundup

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TSP Edited Volumes