sociology

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!

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TSP Edited Volumes

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

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

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog posted a research report from Debra Umberson and Rachel Donnelly that finds that black and hispanic parents are more likely to experience a child’s death in their lifetime and the psychological distress that comes with it.

Citings and Sightings

A new piece in the Atlantic on the relationship between debates on policing and political fights over gun control featured context and perspective from sociologist Jennifer Carlson, author of Policing the Second Amendment.

From the Archives

We’ve got a pride month pairing. Read Sarah Catherine Billups’ rounding up research on queer life in the country alongside Tony Silva’s feature at Council on Contemporary Families on sexual flexibility among rural men who have sex with men.

More from our Partners and Community Pages

Psychologist Tina Pittman Wagers from for Girl w/ Pen! wrote about what research actually shows us about the link between mental illness and gun violence and how the data should inform policy makers.

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Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

For Mother’s Day we rounded up some of our best pieces over the years on the challenges of motherhood plus a few additional good reads on motherhood we haven’t covered.

New and Noteworthy

Board member Isabel Arriagada created this short and engaging video highlighting new research from John Leverso and Chris Hess on how gang members’ conceptions of ideal manhood changes as they age.

Citings and Sightings

Over at the Conversation, Matt Williams interviewed sociologists Amanda Jean Stevenson and Constance Shehan on how their research provides historical context and clarifies the health risks involved if the Supreme Court does overturn Roe v. Wade.

From the #TSPClassics Collection

During this big news week, we have some TSP and partner pieces that provide social science context for the current political moment.

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New and Noteworthy

Board member Jacob Otis wrote up research from Kate Watson and her colleagues on the challenges school social workers faced during covid-19 pandemic to meet student’s basic needs, emphasizing that the importance of schools extends beyond academics.

Citings and Sightings

Axios covered the latest data drop from the Shift Project, led by sociologists Daniel Schneider and Kristen Harknett, highlighting that most hourly workers at big chains make less than $15 an hour and 80% of low wage workers that qualify for free services still pay fees for tax prep.

Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog reposted a piece from Ranita Ray on her research about the harassment Black, Latinx, Asian, and recent immigrant girls face in school classrooms.

More from our Partner and Community Pages

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog re-posted Joseph Coleman’s piece When Therapists Encourage Family Cutoffs

Henning Schroeder wrote on the entwining of war and family lore through the lens of a twice-glazed Easter bunny for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog.

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New and Noteworthy

Jean Marie Maier wrote up new research from Vincent Roscigno, Jill Yavorsky, and Natasha Quadlin showing that women experience less dignity at work despite reporting similar levels of job satisfaction as men.

Citings and Sightings

Julie Beck interviewed two friendship researchers, sociologist Rebecca Adams and psychologist Rosemary Blieszner, on how their decades-long friendship and their research inform one another for the Atlantic’s column “The Friendship Files.”

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Council on Contemporary Families’ blog reposted a piece from Kendra Hutchens on her research on crisis pregnancy centers and how centers organize their work around “ministry,” seeking to avoid framing their activities as manipulating vulnerable pregnant people.

Backstage with TSP

Last week friend of the site and colleague Dr. David Knoke joined us for a discussion of his course “Social Science Fiction.” We discussed the potential for works of fiction to offer insight into social problems and help us forecast the future. We also thought about how reading literature such as science fiction might help students develop a sociological imagination and the ability to think beyond the current status quo. Although we work in non-fiction at TSP, it’s always helpful to think and read widely and this conversation certainly sparked thought!

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Sheer Ganor reviewed Minneapolis Institute of Art’s exhibit “Envisioning Evil: “The Nazi Drawings” by Mauricio Lasansky” for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies’ blog.

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New and Noteworthy

Board member Mason Jones wrote up research from John Leverso and Chris Hess on how Chicago gang members’ relationship to masculinity changes as they age.

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking)

Jamie L. Small wrote for the Conversation on her research about boys, sexual assault, and sports. She found that communities and perpetrators struggled to grasp the severity of the sexual assaults, particularly as it threatened the presumed heterosexuality of those involved as well as the community’s reputation.

Backstage with TSP

Last week we continued our exploration of social science writing with a guest: Dr. Michael Walker. Dr. Walker’s new book, Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail, uses different narrative voices, rich description, and emotion to help the reader understand the rhythms and patterns of life in jail. We spoke with Dr. Walker about how to use field notes in the process of writing, finding supportive readers for works-in-progress, and navigating credibility and vulnerability when writing ethnography. We enjoyed having Dr. Walker in and his visit left us thinking about how to incorporate coverage of long-form qualitative writing on the site. If you have ideas, let us know at tsp@contexts.org!

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

Eliza Brown wrote about the “chore” of having sex to conceive and the gendered labor involved for women for Council on Contemporary Families’ blog.

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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

More from Our Partner and Community Pages

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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