Search results for special education

One of the most popular new movies in the past month was Hidden Figures, a film that highlights the forgotten story of three Black female NASA employees who were integral to the success of several U.S. space missions in the early 1960s. The film allows audiences to observe both the subtle and blatant instances of sexism and racism that plagued women in STEM, despite the prestige of the field. Over 50 years later, women’s employment in science, technology, engineering, and math remains low compared to that of their male peers, especially among minority women. Social science allows us to piece together where and how these gender differences develop, and how women within STEM careers successfully navigate their environments.

Despite growing numbers of women receiving college degrees, they remain underrepresented within STEM fields. While some research attempts to find biological explanations for gender and racial disparities, a myriad of social science scholars note that cultural stereotypes equate science and math studies with men’s work. As such, young women frequently experience lower self-confidence in their science and mathematical skills. Women of color, in particular, are less likely to attend elite schools with quality STEM programs and are more likely to experience family unemployment. These barriers limit access to the resources necessary to cultivate engagement with STEM studies.

• Yu Xie, Michael Fang, and Kimberlee Shauman. 2015. “STEM Education.” Annual Review of Sociology 41: 331-357.

High school environments account for much of the dearth of women in STEM careers. Research finds that 12th grade girls who attend high schools that fail to foster support for girls in science and mathematics, and that encourage gender segregation within extracurricular activities, are less likely to list a STEM career as a potential field of study.

• Joscha Legewie and Thomas A. DiPrete. 2014. “The High School Environment and the Gender Gap in Science and Engineering.” Sociology of Education 87(4): 259-280.

When women enter STEM work spaces, they often experience microaggressions from their male peers, despite receiving the same degrees and having the same skills. Interviews with women working in technology firms revealed that those who identified as heterosexual and traditionally feminine recalled having a harder time in their workplaces because male peers avoided eye contact, questioned their work more than other male peers, and critiqued their clothing choices. Gender-fluid and LGBTQ women, on the other hand, reported an easier time navigating their predominantly male workplace because their styles conformed to the masculine subculture of the workplace.

• Lauren Alfrey and France Winddance Twine. 2016. “Gender-Fluid Geek Girls: Negotiating Inequality Regimes in the Tech Industry.” Gender & Society 31(1): 28-50.

Over the holidays, many people gave back to their communities by donating goods or services to their favorite charitable organizations. This annual “giving season” is a crucial time for many nonprofits, so much so that a 2011 Nonprofit Fundraising Survey reported that half of the surveyed nonprofits received one quarter of their contributions between October and December. Typically, individual households, rather than private corporations or businesses, are the main contributors. In fact, individual giving to the nonprofit sector amounted to $258 billion in 2014.

Research suggests that people with greater education and financial resources, as well as extended social networks, are more likely to give to charities. However, the appearance of increased generosity among people with large social networks may be the result of simply receiving more solicitations for donations or strong ties to religious social networks that promote charitable giving. Likewise, individuals who are more involved in civic organizations and report higher levels of social (i.e. neighbors, co-workers) and racial trust are also more likely to give.

• Pamala Wiepking and Ineke Maas. 2009. Resources That Make You Generous: Effects of Social and Human Resources on Charitable Giving. Social Forces 87(4).
• Arthur Brooks. 2005. Does Social Capital Make You Generous? Social Science Quarterly 86 (1): 1-15.

Religious identification is strongly related to giving to religious charities, as might be expected, but families that increase their religious giving also tend to increase their secular giving. However, some religious denominations are more prone to secular giving than others. People belonging to denominations with centrally-controlled charities (such as Mormons) may be more likely to view their religious donations as a substitution for other secular charities than people who are affiliated with denominations whose charities are less financially structured (such as Baptists). Further, secular and religious causes often compete for our time and resources, and so giving to and volunteering for religious charities can reduce secular giving simply due to time constraints and competing commitments. However, in general, religious and secular giving are complements rather than substitutes for one another.

• Namkee G. Cho and Diana M Dinnitto. 2012. Predictors of Time Volunteering, Religious Giving, and Secular Giving: Implications for Nonprofit Organizations. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 39 (2): 93-120.
  
• Penny Edgell Becker and Pawan Dhingra. 2001. Religious Involvement and Volunteering: Implications for Civil Society. Sociology of Religion 62: 315-335.
• Jonathan P. Hill and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2011. Substitution or Symbiosis? Assessing the Relationship between Religious and Secular Giving. Social Forces 90(1): 157-180.

Want to know more about the social science of charitable behavior? Check out this TROT for a summary of research on the psychological and sociological predictors of volunteering.

They say there is a first time for everything, and after 20 long years, the time has finally arrived. With the state of New York’s legalization of mixed martial arts, New York City will host UFC 205, which has been deemed the greatest fight card in UFC history. Headliners Irishman Conor Mcgregor and Joanna Jedrzejczyk of Poland are expected to attract large numbers of attendees and evoke an emotional connection among fans. Events such as the World Cup and Superbowl are cultural symbols, and UFC 205 is shaping up to be no different.

The UFC is a major attraction in sports right now. The urge to emotionally connect with others in an excited crowd is a compelling reason for buying tickets to major sporting events like this. People who attend a big match-up often experience eustress — positive forms of stimulation that lead to elevated levels of excitement.

Randal Collins. 2004. “Interaction Ritual Chains”. Pp. 75-90 in Micro-Sociological Analysis. 3rd edition, Contemporary Sociological Theory, edited by Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Daniel L. Wann, Merrill J. Melnick, Gordon W. Russell, Dale G. Pease. 2001. Sports Fans: The Psychology and Social Impact of Spectators. New York, NY: Routledge.

Porri and Billings have found that people are drawn to sporting events that differ from traditional, mainstream sports like baseball and football. MMA athletes’ unique personalities and set of combative skills generate interest in a different way than team sports do. Social acceptance and mass popularity of attending an event also influences an individual’s decision to splurge and see the big fight. The bigger the event, the greater the desire to be part of the experience, especially if friends and family think it would be cool to attend.

Seungmo Kim, T. Christopher Greenwell, Damon P.S. Andrew, Janghyuk Lee, and Daniel F. Mahony. 2008. “An Analysis of Spectator Motives in an Individual Combat Sport: A Study of Mixed Martial Arts Fan.” Sport Marketing Quarterly 17: 109-119.

Sarah Porri and Andrew C. Billings. “No Limits: Sensation Seeking and Fandom in the Sport Culture of the X Games.” Pp. 91-100 in Sports Fans, Identity, and Socialization: Exploring the Fandemonium, edited by Adam C. Earnheardt, Paul M. Haridakis, and Barbara S. Hugenberg. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books

As the sport of mixed martial arts continues to grow, so does the research on this new sport that is captivating spectators. Other lines of research into MMA investigate the reworking of masculine identity and reasons why participants choose to participate, whether it is for competition or for health reasons. 

Kyle Green. 2015. “Tales from the Mat: Narrating Men and Meaning Making in the Mixed Martial Arts Gym.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 45 (4): 419-450.

You’ve probably seen more than an ad or two this fall for DraftKings or FanDuel, two massive online fantasy sports websites valued at over $1 billion each. Since 2009, the number of fantasy sports players has doubled, and, as of August, 56.8 million participated in the United States and Canada (according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association). It’s not all fun and games, though. The New York Attorney general launched an investigation into these sites, and a recent feature in The New York Times highlights how deep the rabbit hole goes for illegal online gambling on fantasy sports. It is easy to focus on scandalous stories of crime rings, big winnings, and crushing losses, but these sites are not just about gaming the system. Sociologists emphasize that they are also powerful social communities driven by cultures of masculinity and fandom.

Eric Leifer argues that the history of sports fandom in the U.S. is place- and team-based—fans supported the team in their town or region as a marker of community membership. Fantasy leagues and social media challenged this by shifting the focus from entire teams to individual athletes’ performance.

• Eric M. Leifer. 1995. Making the Majors: The Transformation of Team Sports in America. Harvard University Press.
• John P. McGuire, Greg G. Armfield, and Jeff Boone. 2012. “Show Me the Numbers! Media Dependency and Fantasy Game Participants.” pp. 275-287 in Sports Fans, Identity, and Socialization ed. Adam C. Earnheardt, Paul M. Haridakis, and Barbara S. Hugenbeg.
• Matthew David and Peter Millward. 2015. “Sport and New Media” pp. 388-397 in Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Sport ed. Richard Giulianotti.

Sociologists, especially, focus on the racialized and gendered nature of sport-based communities. Members often forge strong social ties in male-dominated spaces that emphasize knowledge and expertise, and the groups can privilege racial stereotypes and racialized assumptions about athletic performance.

• Nickolas W. Davis and Margaret Carlisle Duncan. 2006. “Sports Knowledge is Power: Reinforcing Masculine Privilege Through Fantasy Sports League Participation.” Journal of Sport & Social Issues. 30(3): 244-264
• Adam Love and Matthew W. Hughey. 2015. “Out of Bounds? Racial Discourse on College Basketball Message Boards.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(6):877–93.

Fantasy sites (and the betting that ensues on them) are in line with other case studies that show how online socialization is not “less real” or consequential than offline social interaction—both teach everything from harmless play to deviant behavior. We see the power of online interaction in everything from hackers developing their own open-source political theory to online peers teaching others how to download music for free and sport message boards reinforcing racial stereotypes.

• Gabriella Coleman. 2012. Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Princeton University Press
• George E. Higgins, Catherine D. Marcum, Tina L. Freiburger, and Melissa L. Ricketts. 2012. “Examining the Role of Peer Influence and Self-Control on Downloading Behavior.” Deviant Behavior 33(5):412–23.

Of course, gambling is tied up in these social structures. While American society has “medicalized” compulsive gambling, treating it as an individual and treatable problem, more recent work shows how social environments create what gamblers want most: a chance to be in the “zone” and play for long periods of time. The strong communal aspect of fantasy sports websites makes them a perfect space for sustained play.

• John Rosecrance. 1985. “Compulsive Gambling and the Medicalization of Deviance.” Social Problems. 32(3):275-284
• Natasha Dow Schüll. 2012. Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

With Apple Music’s launch and services like Spotify and Pandora going strong, music streaming is here to stay. Spotify recently released data on music preferences, giving us a new look into listeners’ lives. Metal rules over pop worldwide with the highest listener loyalty, especially with a tight-knit fan community. On the other hand, rigid genre boundaries may fade away as streaming listeners feel more comfortable trying just about anything. Demographics also matter; listeners “age out” of following popular music, and they do so much faster if they have children. Genres are more than labels on the shelf, though, and have more staying power when they represent social groups. Research shows these changes aren’t just about personal taste—social structure as a stronger effect.

We still use genre preferences to mark out a range of social boundaries. Education and political tolerance relate to “musical tolerance,” but people with these broad tastes are also more likely to say they don’t like music associated with uneducated fans (gospel, country, rap and metal).

• Bethany Bryson. 1996. “‘Anything But Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes.” American Sociological Review. 61(5): 884-899

Streaming allows more listeners to quietly cross these boundaries, but fan subcultures remain powerful social groups that encourage devotion—and sometimes deviance. Genre preferences associate with different kinds of substance use, and loyalty to a community of fans can create a strong culture of sharing and collection that sustains music file-sharing.

• Mike Vuolo, Christopher Uggen, and Sarah Lageson. 2014. “Taste clusters of music and drugs: evidence from three analytic levels.” The British Journal of Sociology 65(3): 529-554.
• Kevin F. Steinmetz and Kenneth D. Tunnell. 2013. “Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: A Study of On-Line Pirates.” Deviant Behavior 34(1):53–67.

Most importantly, genre hopping is not new. The way music marks class and status has changed since the 1980s. While high status listeners used to prefer particular genres, younger generations mark status by “omnivorous” music habits—consuming a wide range of popular and obscure tunes.

• Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern. 1996. “Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore.” American Sociological Review 61: 900-907.

With the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, states must legally recognize same-sex marriage nationwide. The fight for equality isn’t over, however, as many states do not have explicit protections for same-sex couples against practices like hiring discrimination. The Texas Attorney General also ruled that individual county clerks can refuse to offer marriage licenses to same sex couples on the grounds of their religious beliefs, even if the clerks’ office must ultimately grant the license. This is the challenge with nationwide legislation: laws on the books often differs from the law in action. History shows inequality can thrive in low level bureaucracy, sometimes in spite of national policy.

Policy changes take time to wind through organizations, especially those with large bureaucratic structures like the U.S. government. Autonomous managers in the middle construct their own reasons for adopting policies, often distancing themselves from big changes at the top of the chain. An institutional culture affects the implementation of a policy as much as the policy itself.

• Frank Dobbin and John R. Sutton. 1998. “The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions.” American Journal of Sociology 104(2): 441-476
• Bruce G. Carruthers. 1994. “When is the State Autonomous? Culture, Organization Theory, and the Political Sociology of the State.” Sociological Theory 12(1): 19-44

We can see these institutional boundaries in broader patterns of hiring discrimination against LGBT citizens that appear in experimental studies, even when employers don’t intend to discriminate. The history of federal regulation in immigration, the military, and welfare policies shows that the U.S. slowly built a bureaucratic system interested in measuring and controlling sexuality long before public battles over LGBT rights came on the scene.

• Margot Canaday. 2009. The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America. Princeton University Press
• András Tilcsik. 2011. “Pride and Prejudice: Employment Discrimination against Openly Gay Men in the United States.”American Journal of Sociology 117(2):586–626.

Similar bureaucratic patterns happen around race. When the Supreme Court repealed laws against interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, for example, mixed-race couples still faced clerks who were often unwilling to grant them licenses. While the GI Bill was a sweeping national effort in which many U.S. citizens got better housing and education, veterans of color often had trouble registering for those benefits in uncooperative local offices.

• Peggy Pascoe. 2009. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. Oxford University Press
• Ira Katznelson. 2006. When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. W.W. Norton & Co.

Race’s role in higher education gets a lot of press. Recent challenges to admissions procedures and classes on race highlight problems with whiteness, raising questions about the state of college diversity.  But what often gets left out of these conversations is the impact of diversity on learning itself and the nuances of how these impacts differ between students.

A diverse student environment can have a positive effect on learning, especially since students from other backgrounds can help each other think about topics differently. In addition, students can learn from the lived experiences of their out-group peers.

• Patricia Gurin, Biren (Ratnesh) A. Nagda, and Gretchen E. Lopez. 2004. “The Benefits of Diversity in Education for Democratic Citizenship.” Journal of Social Issues 60(1): 17-34
• Sylvia Hurtado. 2006. ” Linking Diversity with the Educational and Civic Missions of Higher Education.” The Review of Higher Education 30(2): 185-196

While diversity has overall beneficial impacts for the educational process, these outcomes are not created equal. White students are more likely to connect class concepts to abstract theory or class contexts rather than personal experiences, and they are more likely to join in class discussions than are black students.

• Josh Packard. 2011. “Activating Diversity: The Impact of Student Race of Contributions to Course Discussions.” Teaching Sociology 41(2): 144–158.
• Lisa M. Nunn. 2011. “Classrooms as Racialized Spaces: Dynamics of Collaboration, Tension, and Student Attitudes in Urban and Suburban High Schools.” Urban Education,46(6): 1226-1255

Students from different backgrounds connect to professors, faculty, and educational spaces differently, affecting their scores and educational success. Notably, this affects the way educators teach and grade. Nonwhite students, particularly under a white teacher, are more likely to feel alienated in the classroom, participate less, and receive lower scores.

• Yoshimitsu Takei & Roger Shouse. 2008. “Ratings in Black and White: Does racial symmetry or asymmetry influence teacher assessment of a pupil’s work habits?” Social Psychology of Education 11:367–387

Flipping burgers at McDonald’s is the iconic dead-end job of the U.S. service economy with low-wages, few benefits and certainly no labor unions. But now a national movement of fast-food and other low-paid workers is growing and organizing to improve working conditions. In the past two years there have been seven national fast-food strikes, which reflect a broader resurgence in the U.S. labor movement and new forms of social mobilization from Occupy Wall Street to the Walmart Black Friday strikes. These recent protests have mobilized often marginalized communities in ways that question the service economy model based on cheap non-unionized labor.

Service work, and fast-food in particular, is a growing sector of employment that is indicative of larger trends in the U.S. economy towards contingent, temporary employment and low wages. Violations of workplace laws like mandatory overtime and minimum wage are part of corporate cost-cutting and common in low-wage industries, and unionization could help give workers power to resist these practices.

• Annette Bernhardt, Michael W. Spiller, and Diana Polson. 2013. “All Work and No Pay: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.” Social Forces 91(3):725–46.

This revitalized labor movement is also mobilizing women, people of color and immigrants who were largely left out of the traditional craft and industrial unions.

• Ruth Milkman. 2006. L.A. Story : Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Broader decline of unionization and decrease in the minimum wage has contributed to rising income inequality, and so attempts to organize low-wage workers could help all U.S. workers and reduce this inequality. Union membership provides a wage boost for workers, especially women, people of color and those with less education.

• Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld. 2011. “Unions, Norms, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality.” American Sociological Review 76(4):513–37.
• Jake Rosenfeld and Meredith Kleykamp. 2012. “Organized Labor and Racial Wage Inequality in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 117(5):1460–1502.

For more on the inclusive power of unions, check out this Girl w/Pen! post.

Security breaches can be slippery slopes. Fortunately, Friday’s failed planejacking ended with the containment of a Ukranian passenger who, claiming there was a bomb on board, attempted to reroute a Pegasus Airlines flight to land in Sochi during the Olympic Opening Ceremony. This success corroborates the findings of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism:  given that there have been no consistent changes in number of terror attacks during the past five Games, efforts to reinforce Olympic security have generally been effective. However, with the number of terrorist attacks striking Russia skyrocketing from 50 in 2003 to 250 in 2010, public safety at the Sochi Olympics continues to be a top priority. Safety and surveillance measures taken by Olympic officials have been largely successful at mitigating increased risks, but we’re left wondering why sport mega events are targeted in the first place.

Does the “spectacularization” of the Olympics make the games an ideal arena for terror? A historical look at terrorist attacks on the Olympics sheds some light on potential risks facing host cities.

• Richard Pringle. 2012. “Debunking Olympic sized myths: government investment in Olympism in the context of terror and the risk society.” Educational Review,64(3), 303-316.

Social forces—such as  global economic conditions and professional network structures—shape the security and surveillance strategies at sport mega events. How do these strategies change as both security concerns and expenditure rise?

• Richard Giulianotti and Francisco Klauser. 2011. Special Issue: Security and Surveillance at Sport Mega Events. Urban Studies, 48, 3157-3168.