A New Era for Sociological Images
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Normal Distributions in the Wild
by Evan Stewart
Social scientists rely on the normal distribution all the time. This classic “bell curve” shape is so important because it fits all kinds of patterns in human behavior, from measures of public opinion to scores on standardized tests. But it can be difficult to teach the normal distribution in social statistics, because at the core it […]
Surviving Student Debt
by Amber Joy Powell
Recent estimates indicate that roughly 45 million students in the United States have incurred student loans during college. Democratic candidates like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have proposed legislation to relieve or cancel this debt burden. Sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom’s congressional testimony on behalf of Warren’s student loan relief plan last April reveals the importance of sociological perspectives on […]
Family Matters
by Evan Stewart
The ‘power elite’ as we conceive it, also rests upon the similarity of its personnel, and their personal and official relations with one another, upon their social and psychological affinities. In order to grasp the personal and social basis of the power elite’s unity, we have first to remind ourselves of the facts of origin, […]
Editor and Principal Writer
Evan Stewart is an assistant professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. His research on political culture and public opinion, especially on the political impact of the growing nonreligious population in the United States, has appeared in journals such as Social Forces, Social Currents, and The Sociological Quarterly. Evan holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Minnesota and a BA in political theory and social policy from Michigan State University.
Founder
Lisa Wade, PhD, is the editor and principal writer for Sociological Images. Born and raised in California, she earned a BA in philosophy from UC Santa Barbara, an MA in human sexuality from NYU, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is now a tenured professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Her most recent book, American Hookup, is an open-minded, compassionate, and unflinching account of the new culture of sex on campus. She is also the author of the bestselling textbook Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, with Myra Marx Ferree, and the co-editor of Assigned, a book about life with gender. She is currently working on what she hopes will be a rousing, tide-turning take on the introduction to sociology textbook.
You can join Lisa on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Or, you can visit her website for her curriculum vitae, syllabi, information on public speaking, and more.