Politics and Sports: Strange, Secret Bedfellows

A closeup of a football on a turf field. Photo by Jean-Daniel Francoeur from Pexels under Pexels license. 2024 Readers: Sport and politics in America are deeply intertwined, but in complicated … Read More

Striking Goals for Pay and Prize Parity in Sport

In March 2016, the United States women’s national soccer team filed a wage discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to the complaint, the U.S. women’s national team is paid less than their male counterparts, despite having the … Read More

The Social Construction of Consent

In March 2013, Americans were gripped by television coverage of a trial involving two high school football players from Steubenville, Ohio. They were charged with the rape of an intoxicated 16-year-old girl and with posting images of the assault on … Read More

The Homogenization of Asian Beauty

The old cliché says that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But who is the beholder? That’s complicated when we look through the unique lenses of different countries and societies. In a more globalized world, culture, race, media, … Read More

All Together, Now: Producing Fashion at the Global Level

It’s 5:45 AM in Hong Kong, or so it says on the flight display. We left New York some seven hours ago and most lights are out in the business cabin, but Nicole Santana is working. She is flying business … Read More

Same-Sex, Different Attitudes

Ten short years ago, same-sex marriage produced deep divisions within American society. The majority of Americans opposed granting legal recognition to gay and lesbian couples, and politicians seemed to play tug-of-war with the issue as it suited their needs. In … Read More

Out of the Nest and into the Red

The Dynamics of Debt in Young Adulthood In any newspaper or blog these days, you’re bound to find human interest stories of fresh-faced young adults, newly independent from their parents, and saddled by a mountain of debt they can’t even … Read More

The Cruel Poverty of Monetary Sanctions

“Do the crime, pay the fine.” A little different, right? Many are unaware that when convicted of breaking the law, not only do people “pay” for their crimes by doing time, but they are also forced to pay up financially. Read More

Students Squeezed by an Hourglass Economy

A few years ago, I visited classrooms filled with poor and working class students in a diverse high school in Texas; I was launching a long-term study on teenage social life that formed the basis for my book Fitting … Read More

Environmental Inequalities

Think back to the movie Erin Brockovich. The basic plot, based on a true story, goes like this: A woman with no legal training learns that many residents in a small town have gotten cancer due to exposure to contaminated … Read More