inequality

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

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.

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

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.”

Despite being struck down in Kansas and vetoed in Arizona, proposed legislation granting businesses the right to refuse service to customers on the basis of their sexual orientation has been spreading across a number of states this week. As victories for gay rights leave conservative citizens looking for novel ways to fight back, the meaning of religious freedom is called into question. While the line between religious freedom and civil rights often seems like a matter of public opinion, both the enforcement of these laws—if any pass—and the fight against them face a number of institutional hurdles.

Religious and political factors have historically influenced attitudes towards gay marriage. Here’s how:

• Darren E. Sherkat, Melissa Powell-Williams, Gregory Maddox, & Kylan Mattias de Vries. 2011. “Religion, politics, and support for same-sex marriage in the United States 1988–2008.” Social Science Research, 40(1):167-180.

Public opinion may not be enough to change this kind of legislation, but controversy helps. State governments rely more on public conflict and issue salience as motives to act, and may be bad at protecting the LGBT population from job and housing discrimination “even when the public supports the pro-minority position.”

• Jeffrey Lax and Justin H. Phillips. 2009. “Gay rights in the states: Public opinion and policy responsiveness.” American Political Science Review 103(3):367-386.

Moreover, how good is the “gaydar” at these religiously inclined businesses? Sexuality is learned and performed in a wide variety of social situations, and identifying patrons’ sexual orientation might pose more of a challenge than lawmakers think.

• John H. Gagnon and William Simon. 2005. Sexual conduct: The social sources of human sexuality. Transaction Publishers.

Controversy continues to rage over the alleged “job-killing” effects of the Affordable Care Act and potential increases in the federal minimum wage. Kathleen Sebelius recently weighed in on the Congressional Budget Office’s report about the ACA, reminding us that the CBO’s “2 million jobs lost by 2017” figure comes from Americans cutting their work hours, not employers cutting their jobs to cover healthcare costs. With a new poll showing Americans think the job market is the number-one problem today, however, why would we see these trends? The ACA and a higher minimum wage may not be a job-killers—instead they remind us that employees can demand better working conditions.

We shouldn’t necessarily think of coverage programs in terms of “jobs lost.” Instead, giving employees affordable health coverage may actually free them from “job lock.” Economic research shows that benefit programs can give low-income workers the security and potential mobility to seek out better jobs.

• Cynthia Bansak and Steven Raphael. 2008. “The state children’s health insurance program and job mobility: Identifying job lock among working parents in near-poor households.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 61(4): 564-579

While benefits can give employees the opportunity to quit, organizational characteristics like group job satisfaction and flexibility in the workplace also affect the likelihood that employees will want to quit.

• Phyllis Moen, Erin Kelly, and Rachelle Hill. 2011. “Does enhancing work-time control and flexibility reduce turnover? A naturally occurring experiment.” Social problems 58(1): 69-98.
• Kimberly Jinnett and Jeffrey Alan Alexander. 1999. “The influence of organizational context on quitting intention an examination of treatment staff in long-term mental health care settings.” Research on Aging 21(2): 176-204.

Why would people experiencing homelessness refuse shelters in some cases? They are often trapped between policies which treat them as criminals for making their own shelter and sick if they seek help.

Last Thursday, the Senate voted to pass the Employment Non-discrimination Act. ENDA would make it illegal for the workplace to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. Workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age and disability is already illegal. If passed by the House of Representatives, this will be a major civil rights act, as twenty-nine states do not have any laws protecting LGBT individuals in the workplace.

Kathleen Hull’s chapter in the Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research addresses how gay and lesbian workers experience discrimination, and how public attitudes clash over anti-discrimination laws.

• Kathy Hull. 2005. “Employment Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation: Dimensions of Difference.” in Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities, edited by Robert L. Nelson and Laura Beth Nielsen. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Organizational context such as sex composition and workplace culture affects the likelihood for sexual discrimination.

• Stainback, K., Ratliff, T. N., & Roscigno, V. J. 2011. “The Context of Workplace Sex Discrimination: Sex Composition, Workplace Culture and Relative Power.” Social Forces, 89(4), 1165-1188.

Gay employees were most likely to report discrimination in primarily heterosexual workplaces and organizations which lacked supportive policies and protective legislation.

• Ragins, Belle Rose, and John M. Cornwell. 2001. “Pink Triangles: Antecedents and Consequences of Perceived Workplace Discrimination against Gay and Lesbian Employees.” Journal of Applied Psychology 86(6), 1244-261.