sociology

New & Noteworthy

• In Violence and Detained Immigrants’ Access to Justice, Anastasia Dulle presents new research from Mirian G. Martinez-Aranda detailing the unique barriers to justice faced by detained immigrants marked for deportation in America. {3 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social science experts. This week, Francesco Duina on why we tolerate inequality; Stephen Whitehead on a masculinity non-crisis; Bailey Brown on parental stress caused by school choice decisions; Willy Pedersen on the link between alcohol consumption and earning potential; and Victor Onyilor Achem on the violent consequences of a cattle-grazing ban in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. {4 min read}

From the Archives

• Trump has signed a bill to release the Epstein files after months of controversy and legal fighting. Our article from 2019 looks at how laws and legal proceedings shape cultural understanding of what constitutes sexual assault or harassment. {3 min read}
• Wicked: For Good hits theatres today. Stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are on a press tour to publicize the sequel to last year’s blockbuster Wicked. This 2015 piece from our partners at Sociological Images discusses how big publicity might inflate the movie’s long-term success in theatres. {5 min read}

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Contexts

• Contexts published an essay by Laurel R. Davis-Delano and Stephanie A. Fryberg responding to the publication’s summer 2025 cover design. The authors write that the cover image – a tipi – and accompanying title – “Erasures and Defiance” – contribute to the “elimination, erasure, and dehumanization” of Native Americans. Contexts has issued an apology for the cover. {9 min read} 

Council on Contemporary Families

• Alicia M. Walker talked to Christina J. Cross about her new book, Inherited Inequality: Why Opportunity Gaps Persist between Black and White Youth Raised in Two-Parent Families for CCF’s “3Qs” series. {5 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• In her new TSP Special Feature, Midlife Motherhood: Everything, everywhere, all at once, Tannistha Samanta draws on interview research she conducted with later-in-life prospective mothers to describe the paradox of high and low expectations these women face. {6 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Ruth Braunstein on the historical context of the “No Kings” protests; Mike Savage on rethinking wealth; Sally Riggs Fuller and Ramon Aldag on the pros of “groupthink”; Yu Xie on the new brain drain; and Ashley Railey on the unique challenges of treating substance abuse in rural America. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• The largest annual conference on climate change – the COP30 – kicked off in Brazil this week with 190 countries participating. 2024 was the warmest year on record. Our 2019 piece provides pointers on how to teach students to think sociologically about climate change. {2 min read}
• This week, many observed Veterans’ Day in honor of the service of US military veterans. This 2019 article looks at cumulative impacts on veterans health including the psychological impacts of exposure to combat as well as the difficult and often unsupported transition from service back to civilian life. {3 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• In the latest installment of CCF’s “3Q” series, Alicia M. Walker interviews Elizabethe Payne on the failure of anti-bullying policies to protect LGBTQ+ youth and her new book, Queer Kids and Social Violence, edited with Melissa J. Smith. {5 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• Shania Kuo summarizes the landscape of social science research on Islamophobia in the United States in the latest installment of our series, “There’s Research on That.” {4 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle on the new major movie inspired by her research on the gig economy; Canton Winer on “gender detachment”; Orlando Patterson on the dimensions of freedom; and Tony Silva and Emily Huddart on Canada’s embrace of the paranormal. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• The New York City mayoral race ended this week with the election of Zohran Mamdani. In his campaign Mamdani positioned himself against economic elites and “corporate greed” and pledged to make New York City more affordable for residents. This 2012 article from our partners at the Scholars Strategy Network discusses why the interests of the wealthy are often overrepresented in American politics. {5 min read}
• Condé Nast folded Teen Vogue into Vogue.com and laid off much of the staff. According to a union statement, many of those laid off are BIPOC women or trans politics reporters, including the politics editor. The Roosevelt Institute, a think tank which had applauded Teen Vogue for its political coverage, called the merger “evidence that corporate concentration eliminates innovative ideas and silences voices with less power.” This 2016 piece from Sociological Images considers how media mergers threaten racial representation. {2 min read}

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Contexts

• In his new piece for Contexts, Andrew McNeely reflects on his upbringing in a gun-loving Texas family, arguing for a sociological focus on how gun culture affects both its members and the wider public. {7 min read}

Engaging Sports

• In Beyond Myths, Jack Hardwicke and Christopher R. Matthews complicate the widely held belief that sport is good for public health. {7 min read}

Council on Contemporary Families

• In The Lonely, Fractured Lives of Estranged Grandparents, practicing psychologist Joshua Coleman explains his concern over decreasing rates of grandparent/grandchild closeness. This piece was originally published in 2024 in Psychology Today. {5 min read}

First Publics

• In A Clingy Friend, Tamanna M. Shah considers what it means to teach sociology in a moment when AI is both an object of study and a tool shaping pedagogy. {5 min read}

Happy Halloween!

New & Noteworthy

• In the mood for something spooky? Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, a new StoryMap from Jordyn Wald, tracks the Sociology of the occult. This visual special feature is based on a 2024 piece by Mallory Harrington and Nicole Schmitgen. {3 min scroll}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Michael Benediktsson on the history of the public bench; Ash Watson on who the digital revolution leaves behind; Jennifer Glass on the contentious results of a new Pew Research survey on parenting; Alex Wood on the rise of the freelancer; and Alka Menon on the quickening cycle of trends in cosmetic surgery. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• This week, an unpublished Dr. Seuss manuscript was uncovered in UC San Diego’s Geisel Library. Penguin House plans to publish the book titled Sing the 50 United States! in the summer of 2026. Small Books, Big Questions, a 2018 article by Evan Stewart for Sociological Images, discusses how children’s books reflect the culture around them. {3 min read}
• The Fed lowered interest rates earlier this week, but will this resolve housing shortages? Read Steven Schmidt’s recent piece in Council on Contemporary Families covering research in Los Angeles on this ongoing and complex issue for want-to-be homeowners and sellers. {6 min read}

More from our Partners & Community Pages

World Suffering

• Research finds that forgiveness is healthy, but the pressure to do so may not be. TSP’s Managing Editor, Jacob Otis, wrote Social Expectations of Forgiveness for our partner publication World Suffering this week. {4 min read}

Council on Contemporary Families

• Increases in Community Income Improve Birth Outcomes by Molly A. Martin was originally published in CCF’s Brief Reports and reprinted by CCF this week. Read about the novel experimental design Martin and colleagues used to find a causal link between income and birth outcomes, from their study published in Demography. {4 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• Domestic Violence Doesn’t Have Just One Exit by Jacob Otis highlights the diverse ways victims resist abuse, from research by Lynette Renner, Carolyn Hartley and Knute Carter, published in the Journal of Family Violence. {2 min read}
• In the latest episode of Sociology in the News, TSP board members Jordyn Wald and Mallory Harrington discuss Emine Fidan Elcioglu’s recent article in The Conversation on how YouTube shapes young adults’ political identities. {5 min listen}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Elizabeth Chiarello on pharmacists as “medical gatekeepers”; Patrick Sheehan on “hype” culture in Silicon Valley; Nancy Berns on flag burning; and Abigail Coplin on American-Chinese research collaboration. Plus, a new book by Charles Derber on societies’ self-imposed breakdowns. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• The “No Kings” movement is galvanizing Americans to protest in the streets, including some who attend in inflatable costumes like frogs, dinosaurs and unicorns. This piece from 2024 covers some sociology behind humor in politics. {6 min read}
• Republican-led states are adjusting SNAP benefits to restrict junk food, in line with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again campaign. Some experts say the restrictions will have little to no impact on children’s health outcomes. Check out our 2018 article that considers Why Poor Parents Say “Yes” to Junk Food. {2 min read}

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Contexts

• In a Letter from the Editors, Contexts’ Seth Abrutyn and Amin Ghaziani offer an overview of the Summer 2025 magazine issue. They hope that pieces centering positivity will bring light to our ever-darker afternoons. {3 min read}

Council on Contemporary Families

• With teens’ growing access to high-potency cannabis products, Jamie Seabrook outlines his research on a little-known condition linked to frequent and prolonged usage in Cannabis and Vomiting: What Every Parent, Youth, and Doctor Should Know. {4 min read}

New & Noteworthy

• In How Abortion Access Shapes Women’s Financial Futures, Dylan DiGiacomo-Stumm explores how access to abortion care impacts women’s financial prospects, based on research published by Bethany G. Everett and Catherine J. Taylor in American Sociological Review. {2 min read}
• Check out our Media Report by Mallory Harrington for recent news featuring social scientists. This week, Michael Macy on the politicalization of children’s media censorship; Emine Fidan Elcioglu on the growing influence of YouTube on political education; Martin Shaw on defining genocide; and Andreas Reckwitz on the Western aversion to loss. {3 min read}

From the Archives

• As the government shutdown continues, funding for social safety nets like the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program is dwindling. A new bill would allocate emergency funds to continue providing food assistance to WIC recipients. However, several states have already delayed benefits. This 2013 article from our partners at the Scholars Strategy Network surveyed the patchy efficacy of seven government welfare programs for low-income families. {5 min read}
• Virtually all major news organizations have refused to agree to new rules put forth by the U.S. Department of War (formerly Defense) that would prohibit the publication of any material not approved for release by the Pentagon. The united front, including conservative-leaning outlets like Fox News, is seen as a defense of core journalistic principles. This 2019 article tracks the history of debates over what good journalism is and what it should be, discussing the role of journalism in hostile political contexts. {3 min read}

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First Publics

• First Publics announced the formation of the First Publics Advisory Board. The inaugural Board of six public sociologists will work with leadership to increase the publication’s representation of diverse scholarly viewpoints. Meet the Board and learn about First Publics’ priorities here. {3 min read}

Contexts

• Listing Addiction on your Resume by Elena G. van Stee highlights a phenomenon Joseph W. Silcox and Evan Stewart call “the professionalization of stigma,” drawing on interviews with people in long-term recovery from drug use. {1 min read}
• It seems like a paradox – why would someone enter a career field they’re critical of? In Good Lawyer, Bad Lawyer, Elena G. van Stee summarizes research by Matthew Clair and Sophia Hunt on the ways liberal law students justify their decision to enter professions they see as perpetuating injustice. {2 min read}

Council on Contemporary Families

• Amid Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign to find the biological causes of autism, historian Steven Mintz calls for a reframe. In his new piece, The Cultural Construction of Autism, Mintz argues that autism is more than a biomedical reality, and acknowledging this can contribute to more human-centered conversations. {6 min read}

Give Theory a Chance [podcast]

• Alicia M. Walker and Arielle Kuperberg join host Kyle Green to discuss their new book, Bound by BDSM: Unexpected Lessons in Building a Happier Life. {42 min listen}

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]

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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]

New & Noteworthy

• Not Your Feminism, Not Your TERF by Jordyn Wald explores the rise of trans-exclusionary rhetoric within feminist movements. While most feminists support transgender rights, a small but vocal group—commonly called “TERFs” or gender-critical feminists—argue for “sex-based rights” that exclude trans women. Drawing from recent research, Jordyn highlights how this perspective relies on rigid and outdated notions of biological sex and often aligns with conservative political agendas.

• TSP’s Summer of Sociology Reading List, 2025 spans a wide range of sociological themes—from youth mental health and labor to nationalism, race, and identity. With titles covering politics, culture, inequality, and everyday life, it offers something for every curious reader.

From the Archives

• A recent execution in Tennessee drew national attention after concerns were raised that a heart device could cause severe pain during the procedure by delivering electrical shocks. For broader context on why the death penalty remains embedded in U.S. culture, check out the 2016 piece, The Resiliency of the Death Penalty in the United States.

• With the fall semester just weeks away and global conflicts intensifying, campus protests are already beginning to take shape. Explore our collection of sociological insights in Campus Protests and Student Activism: Some Sociology Perspectives.

More from our Partners & Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families

• 3Q with Ranita Ray Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom, with CCF’s Alicia Walker with Ranita Ray discussing her new book  Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom, which exposes the everyday harms marginalized students face from school personnel—including racism, fatphobia, and gender-based harassment—often disguised as discipline. Drawing on years of fieldwork, Ray describes how subtle but repeated indignities accumulate over time to erode students’ well-being, political consciousness, and love of learning.
• 3 Q with Christopher Bjork & William Hoynes More Than Just a Game: How the Youth Sports Industry Is Changing the Way We Parent and What to Do About It with Chris Bjork on his new book More Than Just a Game: How the Youth Sports Industry is Changing the Way We Parent and What to Do About It, on how the youth sports industry pressures families into early specialization, financial strain, and achievement-focused parenting.

First Publics

• Theory for Good: Sociology in Cultural Studies by Hannah McCann shares how sociological theory enriches cultural studies classrooms by offering students tools to make sense of their everyday lives. Arguing that teaching theory is a form of public engagement, she shows how applied, reflective learning—especially in today’s age of AI—can foster critical thinking and the need for sociology, now more than ever.

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

• “Life is (not) a Cabaret”: A Genocide-Informed Review of The Guthrie’s Cabaret by Kyra Layman, who reflects on the production which forces audiences to confront the dark historical truths that underlie the surface.

give theory a chance

• Daniel Chambliss shares lessons from the Mundanity of Excellence with Kyle Green discuss The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on the Stratification of Swimmers, first published in Sociological Theory in 1989.

A large, circular library with reading desks and seating in the middle. Photo by Tamás Mészáros is licensed under CC BY 2.0 via pexels.

As TSP Graduate Student Board members, we’re constantly reading and sharing new books that spark conversations. And 2025 was no exception—our discussions spanned topics like youth mental health, race and labor, nationalism and democracy, and the cultural politics of guns, TV, and religion. Here are a few recent titles that sparked in-depth conversations—books we think are well worth picking up and maybe even adding to your collection.

Power, Politics, and Democracy

• Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy by Christophe Jaffrelot
• The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy by Jaime Lee Kucinskas
• After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe But Not Abortion by David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe
• The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do it Again by Robert Putnam
• Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture by David Yamane
• We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi

Race, Inequality, and Social Justice

• Who Pays for Diversity: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do About It
• The Souls of White Jokes by Raúl Pérez
• Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It by Adia Harvey Wingfield
• Don’t Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It by Tonika Lewis Johnson and Maria Krysan 
• Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States by Stephanie L Canizales

Culture, Identity, and Belonging

• True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us by Danielle J. Lindemann
• Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution by Amin Ghaziani
• Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America by Christian Smith
• Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net by Jessica Calarco
• A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith
• Bound by BDSM: Unexpected Lessons for Building a Happier Life by Alicia M. Walker and Arielle Kuperberg
• At Home with the Holocaust: Postmemory, Domestic Space, and Second-Generation Holocaust Narratives by Lucas Wilson
• Marriage Material: How an Enduring Institution is Changing Same-Sex Relationships by Abigail Ocobock 

Work, Mental Health, and Everyday Life

• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
• Life under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them by Anna S. Mueller and Seth Abrutyn
• Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism by Michael Burawoy

Happy Reading!