This episode we talk with three authors of two articles from the Winter 2011 issue of Contexts: Lisa Dodson and Wendy Luttrell, authors of Families Facing Untenable Choices, and Stefanie Mollborn, author of “Children” Having Children. We discuss why Americans are so tough on single moms and teen moms, the untenable choices that they face, and why supporting moms is a smart social investment.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Orit Avishai talks about her Fall 2010 Contexts article, Women of God. People often assume that conservative religions are bad for women, but Avishai shows us the ways in which women within fundamentalist religions can have empowering experiences as well.
(The audio quality’s pretty rough on the interview this time — sorry about that!)
This episode: Pepper Schwartz on baby boomers and sex, her contribution to the dating site PerfectMatch.com, and her views on doing relevant research. (Thanks to Tim Ortyl and Kia Heise for conducting the interview. An edited version appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Contexts.)
And the Society Page of the Week: Don’t Worry, Be Happy (When You Are Older) on Citings & Sightings.
Elizabeth Wissinger, author of the Spring 2010 Contexts Culture Review, The Top Model Life, tells us how the modeling world fits into the sociological world through marxism, beauty, technology and the commodification of culture.
Also, the Society Page of the Week: Text Messaging Trends on Graphic Sociology.
Hilary Levey talks to Jesse and Arturo about her Spring 2010 Contexts feature, Balloon Boy Plus Ei8ht? Children and Reality Television.
Also: check out Levey’s editorial in USA Today on the topic of Reality TV kids.
And if you don’t watch as much television as you know you should (it’s ok—we don’t judge), here are a few clips referenced in the interview:
Cute Kids. (TLC disabled embedding).
The Breakup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBA-StyktEU
Do schools reproduce or challenge inequality? And how can we know one way or another? Douglas Downey calls into the Contexts Podcast to help us answer these questions. Be sure to check out Downey’s Spring 2010 Contexts feature How Schools Really Matter!
Also: Jon shares a discovery about gender and software development from last month’s JITP conference on The Politics of Open Source by Hanna Wallach and the FLOSSPOLS project.
Syed Ali talks with Jon about his Spring 2010 Contexts feature about Dubai, Permanent Impermanence. (Which you can read online for free, by the way.) What’s it like in a country where over 90% of the population are expatriates? What’s it like to do research in such a place? Listen in and find out!
Also Sarah shares a discovery: Morality and Health: News Media Constructions of Overweight and Eating Disorders
Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle sit down with Jesse to chat about their graphic adaptation of Studs Terkel’s Working and about the sociological side of Studs, and also Harvey’s, work.
Arturo also shares a discovery about gender and the health benefits of education.
This episode, Julie Artis discusses her Fall 2009 Contexts article, Breastfeed at your own Risk — which you can read online at thesocietypages.org for free, by the way! Artis discusses the history of breastfeeding, and what breastfeeding can tell us about motherhood, gender and culture. She also addresses the reaction to her article and it’s title.
But first, Jeremy Minyard shares a discovery about socioeconomic differences in college transfer.
This episode, we talk with the authors of two recent Contexts features on higher education. We speak to Michael Hout about his Winter 2009 “One Thing I Know” column (which you can read online in its entirety here), and then William Beaver tells us about his article, A Matter of Degrees, from our Spring 2009 issue.
Kristin Haltinner drops by again to share a discovery about women rugby players.
