Puerto Rico: 51st State or Harbinger of U.S. Decline?

On November 6, 2012, the people of Puerto Rico voted to join the U.S. as its 51st state. Or did they? The referendum was non-binding and was conducted in a two-step process. The first question asked whether Puerto Ricans were … Read More

Power, Sociologically Speaking

At the close of another hotly contested campaign season, politics seems to me like a sport. We have been inundated with commercials, bumper stickers, debates, and speeches. Fans have flaunted their allegiances while those at the top tried to carve … Read More

The Social Significance of Barack Obama, Revisited

Back in the fall of 2008, Doug Hartmann was editing Contexts magazine. To gain some perspective on what was clearly a historic election, he and the Contexts graduate student editorial board reached out to a number of scholars to get their … Read More

Surfing and My Mindset

It is easy to like something when you are naturally good at it, and it is easy to walk away from something when you are not. Enjoying something despite not being good at it requires a particular … Read More

Social Fact: Those Who Can, Vote?

In the weeks leading up to the November 2012 presidential election, college campuses have been teeming with young volunteers urging their classmates to register online to vote. Miles away from the Ivy towers and frat rows, dedicated volunteers (typically for … Read More

Let Herman Be Herman

Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain and the Utility of Blackness for the Political Right In November of last year, Herman Cain was the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, and the darling of the … Read More

Stigma and the Replacement Refs

The adventure in labor relations that has marked the start of the NFL season has brought to light many larger forces in our society: the challenge of occupations that mix complexity with snap decision making and, of course, the depth … Read More

Overcoming Discomfort with Disability

Most of the students in David Travis’s physical geography course were there to fulfill a general science elective requirement. Travis is a popular professor, known nationally for his work, and the small room in which he taught was filled to … Read More

The Color Purple

In “Why Punishment is Purple,” Josh Page astutely updates the political sociology of mass incarceration. The story of conservative/Republican success in using crime as a wedge issue was told first by political observers and then more rigorously by sociologists … Read More

My (and Our) Social Security

Editors’ Note: After Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, debates over the future of programs like Medicare, Medicade, and Social Security intensified this election season. Sociologists and political scientists have done a great deal of research on … Read More