This week’s Supreme Court decision to uphold Michigan’s ban on affirmative action in college and university admissions stirred up a lot of legal controversy, and will likely lead to more court cases about these policies in other states. In the wake of conversations about constitutionality, however, it is often easy to miss the problems that affirmative action is meant to be correcting.

Racial inequality, especially in the workplace, is very real. Employers regularly make decisions based on race which clash with existing civil rights law.

•  John D. Skrentny. 2014. After Civil Rights: Racial Realism in the New American Workplace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Most Americans tend to think of diversity in very general, open and optimistic terms, but this “happy talk” often makes it difficult to directly address underlying racial attitudes—and the inequalities they produce—with policy changes.

•  Joyce Bell and Douglas Hartmann. 2007. “Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ‘Happy Talk.’” American Sociological Review 72(6): 895-914

Heartbleed was a real heartbreaker for the world of online security this past week. The software vulnerability in OpenSSL—a security protocol used by a wide range of popular websites—has everyone wondering what can be done to protect their data. While tech experts (and cartoonists!) do a great job of explaining how Heartbleed happened, we can turn to the social science to ask why people take advantage of these software bugs and what we might do to change their minds.

Market forces matter for stolen data, but hackers also develop rich subcultures which offer social status when members find new and better ways to break in.

• Thomas J. Holt. 2006. “Subcultural Evolution? Examining the Influence of On- and Off-Line Experiences on Deviant Subcultures.” Deviant Behavior, 28(2):171-198.

New experimental research shows hackers invest a lot of effort in their work, so it is hard to stop them once they infiltrate a system. However, putting warnings in computer systems might make them leave faster and take less with them.

• David Maimon, Mariel Alper, Bertrand Sobesto, and Michel Cukier. 2013. “Restrictive Deterrent Effects of a Warning Banner in an Attacked Computer System.” Criminology, 52(1): 33-59.

Beginning on April 6, 1994, the Rwandan genocide lasted nearly 100 days leaving an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 dead.  While the campaign to exterminate the Tutsi-minority was led by Hutu extremists, it would be a mistake to hold a single group responsible for this mass atrocity.  Comparative studies of other conflicts show that it would also be a mistake to consider genocide an anomaly.

While we often see the conflict as a clash of racial or ethnic groups, the cycle of violence is often part of larger structural forces that form political identities through privileged rule.

• Mahmood Mamdani.  2001.  When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda.  Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Sexual and racialized violence are some of the most well-known parts of genocide, but conflicts over property and the political construction of difference are also elements which occur earlier and may act as warning signs.

• John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond. 2009. Darfur and the Crime of Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comparative studies of atrocities in other contexts can also show how societies remember suffering.

•  Robyn Autry. 2010. “Memory, Materiality, and the Apartheid Past.” Contexts 9(3): 46-51
•  Barbara Sutton. 2010. “Situating Memory in Argentina.” Contexts 9(3): 52-57

For further reading, check out this TSP feature on The Crime of Genocide.

The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed a slew of changes to the nutrition labels on packaged foods. The first to be made in over 20 years, these changes will include placing a bigger emphasis on total calories and added sugars as well as highlighting certain nutrients, such as Vitamin D and potassium. They are also proposing to make changes to the serving size requirements, making them more “realistic” about what portions of a product people actually consume in a single sitting. The purported goal of these changes is to help consumers “make healthy food choices”, but sociologists show that these choices are not necessarily available to everyone.

The media, as well as most consumers, see diet and eating habits as a personal choice. However, research shows that not all consumers are financially, or even geographically, able to make conscientious decisions about the calories they consume.

• Flis Henwood, Roma Harris, and Philippa Spoel. 2011. “Informing Health? Negotiating the Logics of Choice and Care in Everyday Practices of ‘Healthy Living.’” Social Science & Medicine 72(12): 2026-2032
• Mark Winne. 2008. Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty. Beacon Press.

The choices made at the federal level about dietary guidelines and labeling are not just about making sure we all get the right amount of Vitamin D. The food industry is a profit-making business just like any other, and its influence on government nutrition policies runs deep.

• Marion Nestle. 2003. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University Of California Press.

The media coverage of this proposal is largely positive, framing it as a step towards curbing America’s “obesity epidemic”. This kind of media coverage furthers the intense stigmatization of obese people and reinforces norms that equate thinness with moral virtue and social worthiness.

• Abigail Saguy and Kjerstin Gruys. 2010. “Morality and Health: News Media Constructions of Overweight and Eating Disorders.” Social Problems 57(2): 231-250.
• Margaret Mead. 1971. “Why Do We Overeat?” in Food and Culture: A Reader. 2013. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (eds). Routledge.

For more on culture and obesity, check out Abigail Saguy’s “Office Hours” interview where she discusses her book What’s Wrong with Fat?

These days, if kids learn all they really need to know in kindergarten, it means they’re a year behind their preschool-educated peers. Fortunately for children in NYC, Mayor Bill de Blasio managed to secure $300 million in state funding to provide free prekindergarten citywide. Although the mayor’s pre-K proposal carried the day, the public education debates in New York echo nationwide controversy over which policies promise the best long-term outcomes. Sociologists wonder, who benefits most from programs like Head Start?

Though policy debates continue, the positive impacts of preschool have been known for a long time. These programs prevent learning difficulties, promote healthy development, and decrease the likelihood of incarceration for urban and low-income kids.

• Richard K. Caputo. 2003. “Head Start, Other Preschool Programs, & Life Success in a Youth Cohort.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 30(2): 105-22.
• Arthur J. Reynolds, Judy A. Temple, Dylan L. Robertson, and Emily A. Mann. 2001. “Long-term Effects of an Early Childhood Intervention on Educational Achievement and Juvenile Arrest: A 15-year Follow-up of Low-Income Children in Public Schools.” Jama, 285(18), 2339-2346.
• John R. Berrueta-Clement. 1984. “Changed Lives: The Effects of the Perry Preschool Program on Youths through Age 19. Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, Number Eight”. Monograph Series, High/Scope Foundation.

One caveat to this trend, though: a rapid expansion in pre-K access might also mean increased misdiagnoses of ADHD in young children.

• Steven Hinshaw and Richard M. Scheffler. 2014.  The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money, and Today’s Push for Performance. New York: Oxford University Press.

For more on how children’s mental health labels change when institutions change, check out this recent TSP Reading List post on autism.

This season’s deluge of religious films—Noah, Son of God, and Heaven is Real—has us all on the lookout for the next Bible blockbuster and wondering if well-known productions like The Ten Commandments and The Passion of the Christ were just flashes in the pan. While the market doesn’t always sink religious films, they often face controversy while navigating complex social and religious identities.

Consumption of religious movies, television, and books isn’t just consumerism. It is a complex blend of religious identification and economic practice, which can both encourage and discourage consumption.

• Jerry Z. Park and Joseph Baker. 2007. “What Would Jesus Buy: American Consumption of Religious and Spiritual Material Goods.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(4): 501-517.

These films also have to nail down other identities to do well in the market. The portrayal of masculine figures like Jesus and Noah represents a key way society works through gender roles.

• Joey Eschrich. 2011. “Behold the Man!: Constructing the Masculinity of Jesus of Nazareth in Mainstream American Film, 1961-2004.” Men and Masculinities, 14(5): 520-541.

As e-cigarettes are fairly new to the market, there is little research on their long-term effects, but their recent popularity has sparked debates about their use and regulation—are they healthier than combustible tobacco, should they have the same restrictions in terms of age and public use, and are they a “gateway” to real tobacco for teen smokers? While a majority of the e-cigarette conversation focuses on whether they are better for you, the desire for healthy lungs is not the only factor contributing to these debates. The e-cigarette debates are the newest chapter in a long history of substance use regulation that is as much about social stigma as public health.

These debates are also influenced by social factors such as unemployment, youth populations, political battles for and against government regulation, and a much broader, but more subtle, process of stigmatization when cigarette smoking— which was once perfectly acceptable in society—slowly slides out of favor.

• Randall Collins. 2004. “Tobacco Ritual and Anti-Ritual” in Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press
• Mike Vuolo. 2012. “Placing Deviance in a Legal and Local Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Cigarette Use in the European Union.” Social Forces Vol.90(4), p.1377-1402

As smoking loses favor in public opinion, so do smokers. While these debates are about health on the surface, the underlying message to smokers is that they are deviant. Research has found that smoking, and substance use in general, occurs in higher numbers among lower income and minority groups, revealing much deeper power dynamics influencing smoking policy and the public image of smokers.

• Justin Tuggle and Malcolm Holmes. 1997. “Blowing Smoke: Status Politics and the Shasta County Smoking Ban.” Deviant Behavior Vol.18(1), p.77-93
• Kellie Barr et al. 1993. “Race, Class, and Gender Differences in Substance Abuse: Evidence of Middle-class/Underclass Polarization among Black Males.” Social Problems Vol.40(3), pp.314-327

The recent collapse of Mt. Gox—a prominent exchange site for the internet currency Bitcoin—has sparked wide discussion about the future of “virtual” money and the social groups that create it. Some remain cautiously optimistic (though pointing out that Bitcoin may take itself a little too seriously), while others have said the currency amounts to a “Ponzi scheme” with “no store of value.” As a post from our friends at Cyborgology noted last year,

Calling Bitcoins “virtual currency” is nonsensical because all currencies are virtual in that they are “collective hallucinations” about measurement of worth.

Classic sociological theory investigated how society creates value, and came to similar conclusions. Gold and paper money needed a lot of collective social support to become valuable.

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1867. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy Volume One London: Penguin, 1990.
• Georg Simmel. 1900. The Philosophy of Money. New York: Routledge, 2011.

What makes one currency more “valuable” than another is institutional support, but this wasn’t always guaranteed for the U.S. dollar, either.

• Bruce G. Carruthers and Sarah Babb. 1996. “The Color of Money and the Nature of Value: Greenbacks and Gold in Postbellum America.” American Journal of Sociology 101(6): 1556–91.

Last month Comcast announced its plans to merge with Time Warner Cable, and internet subscribers may have to choose Comcast as their broadband provider even if they don’t want cable in the near future. With rising cable rates, the merger is stoking fears and outrage among the public, and politicians like Senator Al Franken. The deal has yet to be finalized and the FCC may instruct Comcast and Time-Warner to pump their brakes before merging.  If the deal succeeds, however, the nation’s two largest cable and broadband providers are sure to become a behemoth on the information superhighway.

While profit is a big motive for acquisitions and takeovers, companies also try to take over close members of their social networks to reduce competition. Monopolies and oligopolies are especially likely in industries with only a few major players and close ties.

• Donald Palmer, Xueguang Zhou, Brad M. Barber, and Yasemin Soysal. 1995. “The Friendly and Predatory Acquisition of Large U.S. Corporations in the 1960s: The Other Contested Terrain,” American Sociological Review 60(4): 469-499.
• Marshall Barron Clinard, Peter C. Yeager, and Ruth Blackburn Clinard. 1980. Corporate Crime. New York: Free Press

What does this mean for women, people of color, and low income communities? Rising prices for internet access would expand an already-large “digital divide” in who can use the web and who gets represented on it.

• Eszter Hargittai. 2004. “Internet Access and Use in Context.”  New Media Society 6(1): 137-143.

Also, check out Eszter Hargittai’s “Office Hours” interview where she discusses the expanding gaps and inequalities in the level of internet skills possessed by so-called “digital natives.”