Bookmarks (53)

For the first time since tennis player Renee Richards in the 1970s, transgender (trans) women athletes, including Lia Thomas and Laurel Hubbard, received major media coverage in 2021. However, these athletes weren’t spotlighted because of their athletic abilities per se, but because they became political targets caught in the crosshairs of arguments about fairness and […]

Doug Meyer, “Racializing Emasculation: An Intersectional Analysis of Queer Men’s Evaluations of Sexual Assault,” Social Problems, 2022 Male survivors of sexual assault and violence are often misunderstood, particularly queer men. Doug Meyer researched how queer men of different races perceived their experiences of sexual assault. He finds that white queer men and Black queer men […]

New and Noteworthy Council on Contemporary Families’ blog posted a research report from Debra Umberson and Rachel Donnelly that finds that black and hispanic parents are more likely to experience a child’s death in their lifetime and the psychological distress that comes with it. Citings and Sightings A new piece in the Atlantic on the […]

I didn’t start out wanting to be a gun violence expert, and, arguably, I am not one. But violent events keep repeating and hitting closer and closer to home. My neighborhood grocery store, King Soopers, made headlines 2 years ago when 10 neighbors were killed there. Right now, we are focused on the devastating events […]

The month of May means graduation. This is the time of the year to celebrate accomplishment, take pride in completing degrees, and look to the future. In fact, college graduation is called “commencement,” signaling the beginning of something—for many, it’s what they hope is the beginning of independent adulthood. But in our recently published research, […]

During the summer, we are publishing our newsletter every other week. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in the fall. New and Noteworthy Board member S Ericson wrote up new research from Miloš Broćić and Andrew Miles that shows that college attendance influences moral values. Attending college is associated with compassion but not […]

Miloš Broćić and Andrew Miles, “College and the ‘Culture War’: Assessing Higher Education’s Influence on Moral Attitudes,” American Sociological Review, 2021 For decades, conservatives have claimed that higher education has a negative influence on students’ moral and political development. A new study from Miloš Broćić and Andrew Miles provides research on one of the most […]

I know that the recently leaked draft from the U.S. Supreme Court portends a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that will harm pregnant people and our society. From my expertise as a medical sociologist who studies abortion care, I know that allowing the restriction of abortion will result in more maternal deaths, more […]

*Editors Note: This piece was originally posted by the UMN Human Rights Program. Click here to read the original post. In Serbia, since the wars accompanying the breakup of Yugoslavia ended in 2001, another battle has been waged over representations of that violence. Competing interpretations are advanced by state and non-state groups over what happened […]

In the past week, there have been several articles published commenting on Canada’s controversial plan to revise its current euthanasia law to allow people with psychiatric disabilities to be eligible for medical assistance in dying starting in March 2023. Titled Bill C-7, in 2021 this law expanded access to euthanasia to any person with an […]

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking) For Mother’s Day we rounded up some of our best pieces over the years on the challenges of motherhood plus a few additional good reads on motherhood we haven’t covered. New and Noteworthy Board member Isabel Arriagada created this short and engaging video highlighting new research from John Leverso and […]

Mother’s day is a good opportunity to surprise your mom with breakfast in bed, flowers, or a gift. It’s also a good opportunity to reflect on the challenges of motherhood, particularly in the United States, and consider how both individual and social change can help all mothers continue to thrive. We’ve rounded up some TSP […]

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the UMN School of Music had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Badema Pitic in March for a talk titled “Remembering Through Music: The Srebrenica Genocide in Bosnian izvorna Songs.” Watch a recording of the talk here. I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Pitic about her research […]

John Leverso and Chris Hess, “From the Hood to the Home: Masculinity Maturation of Chicago Street Gang Members,” Sociological Perspectives, 2021 Young men in gangs are often thought to always practice masculinity by engaging in violent behavior like fighting and shooting, which many attribute to systemic inequalities like mass incarceration, scarce jobs, and racism. New […]

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking) Board member Jacob Otis rounded up social science research on police complaints that shows that police reform is not about just removing a “few bad apples” from duty and will require systemic change New and Noteworthy Arielle Kuperberg and Pamela Stone wrote wrote about their new article on depictions of […]

Complaint ProcessIn recent years, many initiatives have worked to systematically track and analyze data on police complaints in jurisdictions such as Chicago. However, obtaining accurate data on police is notoriously difficult, because the primary mechanism for oversight is often “internal affairs” – the police themselves.  In other words, if someone wanted to voice their grievance […]

April 27th is Yom HaShoah, one of several Holocaust remembrance days observed around the world at various points in the year. It is also Genocide Awareness Month, which marks the anniversaries of the Armenian Genocide (which began on April 24th, 1915), the Holocaust (or, namely the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on April 19th, 1943), the Cambodian […]

New and Noteworthy Board member Jacob Otis wrote up research from Kate Watson and her colleagues on the challenges school social workers faced during covid-19 pandemic to meet student’s basic needs, emphasizing that the importance of schools extends beyond academics. Citings and Sightings Axios covered the latest data drop from the Shift Project, led by […]

Reprinted from Gender & Society December 17, 2021 One morning as I was sitting toward the back of a 5th grade classroom, Carmen, a Black girl—extremely devoted to academics—was completing her math assignment. She raised her hand to ask the teacher a question. Ms. Josephine, her white teacher, asked Carmen to wait. Carmen kept her hand […]

Are We Helping or Harming? Reprinted with permission from Psychotherapy Network Jeremy’s parents divorced when he was three. For the first two years after the divorce, Jeremy saw his father every Tuesday and every other weekend, but this decreased dramatically when his father remarried and moved to Nevada, where his new wife’s family lived. At […]

Kate R Watson, Ron Avi Astor, Rami Benbenishty, Gordon Capp, and Michael S Kelly, “Needs of Children and Families during Spring 2020 COVID-19 School Closures: Findings from a National Survey,” Social Work, 2021 Over the past two years, hundreds of K-12 education hours were lost to COVID-19 and we are beginning to see the academic […]

As far as I can think back, an odd-looking, faceless porcelain bunny has been part of the Easter decoration in my parents’ house in Germany. It has an artistic twist to it with a coat that shimmers in purple, blue and red. Originally it must have looked just like his fellow rabbits, but it no […]

New and Noteworthy Jean Marie Maier wrote up new research from Vincent Roscigno, Jill Yavorsky, and Natasha Quadlin showing that women experience less dignity at work despite reporting similar levels of job satisfaction as men. Citings and Sightings Julie Beck interviewed two friendship researchers, sociologist Rebecca Adams and psychologist Rosemary Blieszner, on how their decades-long […]

Vincent Roscigno, Jill Yavorsky, and Natasha Quadlin, “Gendered Dignity at Work,” American Journal of Sociology, 2022 Gender and work researchers have long encountered a puzzle: despite persistent gender discrimination, pay gaps, sexual harassment, and segregation within workplaces, women report approximately the same levels of job satisfaction as men. A new American Journal of Sociology article […]

Visitors facing the entrance to Envisioning Evil: “The Nazi Drawings” by Mauricio Lasansky are offered only one glimpse of what they can expect if they choose to enter: a decorated Nazi officer raises his arm in a Hitler salute while blood-like drops fall from his wrist and smear the page. On his head is a […]

New and Noteworthy Board member Mason Jones wrote up research from John Leverso and Chris Hess on how Chicago gang members’ relationship to masculinity changes as they age. Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking) Jamie L. Small wrote for the Conversation on her research about boys, sexual assault, and sports. She found that communities and perpetrators […]

John Leverso and Chris Hess, “From the Hood to the Home: Masculinity Maturation of Chicago Street Gang Members ,” Sociological Perspectives, 2021 Young men in gangs are often thought to always practice masculinity by engaging in violent behavior like fighting and shooting, which many attribute to systemic inequalities like mass incarceration, scarce jobs, and racism. […]

Worth a Read (Sociologically Speaking) Daniel Cueto-Villalobos rounded-up research on job insecurity, expectations for work, and emotion that puts the “great resignation” into sociological perspective New and Noteworthy For Contexts’ blog Alfredo Huante and Michael L. Rosino analyze coverage of the backlash against teaching critical race theory to distill the tenets of this racialized moral […]

“Back to the Bay” is a Cal State East Bay event that brings faculty and staff together to share their expertise, and learn from one another as teachers, advisors, researchers, users of technology, and active participants in the campus community. The 2021 event was virtual. I’ve been asked to present the keynote address for the […]

Today “help wanted” signs are commonplace; restaurants, shops, and cafes have temporarily closed or have cut back on hours due to staffing shortages. “Nobody wants to work,” the message goes. Some businesses now offer higher wages, benefits, and other incentives to draw in low-wage workers. All the same, “the great resignation” has been met with […]

While Serbia does not share a direct border with Ukraine, it is close enough that when the fighting broke out I immediately called my Serbian relatives on Viber to ask what they had heard about the conflict and what was happening on the ground. In contrast to the overwhelmingly anti-Russian reactions shared on Western media, […]

Over the past year and a half, politicians and media commentators have amplified a growing movement opposing education focused on racism and racial discrimination in the U.S., often under the guise of fighting “critical race theory” (CRT). Like other critical moments of backlash to efforts at racial progress, the anti-CRT movement contains the hallmarks of […]

At the first Mardi Gras ball I attended in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, my host Ernest appeared in elaborate drag at the end of the event, debuting as the queen of the ball. His parents and siblings from rural Louisiana crowded at two tables to celebrate his entrance. They wore pins signifying that they were the […]

Tracing its origins back to 1960s California, skateboarding represents both a popular “lifestyle sport,” and an irreverent subculture that exists in a space between mainstream notoriety and obscurity. Highlighting its progression into the “mainstream,” the International Olympic Committee included skateboarding events for the first time in the delayed 2020 Summer Games. Today, people of all […]

To say that the pandemic has been difficult on us all would be an understatement. It’s impacted work, family, and everything in between. And yet, the group that is statistically least likely to die from COVID-19—youth—are impacted by the pandemic in ways that may be immeasurable, particularly as it relates to mental health and other […]

This week The New York Times covered new research from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that shows there was a 25% increase in alcohol-related deaths between 2019 and 2020. The new research, published in the The Journal of the American Medical Association last Friday used death certificates to identify all deaths for which alcohol […]

  New and Noteworthy Board member S Ericson covered new research from Samuel L. Perry, Kenneth E. Frantz, and Joshua B. Grubbs showing that who identifies as anti-racist is complex with, for instance, many Americans identifying as both color-blind and anti-racist. Worth a (Look), Sociologically Speaking Sangyoub Park wrote for Sociological Images on the emotional […]

Samuel L. Perry, Kenneth E. Frantz, and Joshua B. Grubbs, “Who Identifies as Anti-Racist? Racial Identity, Color-Blindness, and Generic Liberalism,” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World , 2021 After the wave of Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, the idea of being actively anti-racist, as opposed to simply “not racist” or […]

When compiling resources for Women’s History Month, in a country where reproductive rights and gender justice initiatives are in grave peril, I found it necessary to highlight numerous strands of interrelated histories. The socialist origins of International Women’s Day, and the role of Jewish immigrants who later fell victim to state repression and genocide, are […]

It is good to be a Korean today because the world is fascinated with Koreanness, from K-pop to K-dramas, K-movies, K-food, K-fashion, and K-beauty. It is no exaggeration to say that Korean culture has become synonymous with being cool and being hip. Things were quite different, however, not too long ago. It was around 2018 […]

In the summer of 2022 San José State University will launch HonorsX, a new interdisciplinary program for students interested in using integrated thinking and applied learning to tackle challenging problems in their communities and the world. HonorsX will initially have an emphasis on the intersection of social justice and sustainability, connecting all three “Es” of sustainability: environmental […]

Spring is in the air here in Minnesota and we’re back with some fresh social-scientific finds :) New and Noteworthy Léa Pessin and Elena Maria Pojman released a data visualization in Socius comparing the gendered division of household labor according to different-sex couples’ race and ethnicity. Citings and Sightings Ilana M. Horwitz wrote an op-ed […]

Spring is in the air here in Minnesota and we’re back with some fresh social-scientific finds :) New and Noteworthy Léa Pessin and Elena Maria Pojman released a data visualization in Socius comparing the gendered division of household labor according to different-sex couples’ race and ethnicity. Citings and Sightings Ilana M. Horwitz wrote an op-ed […]

Ukraine displays the powers of the weakThe people are composing the communal and passionate identity of a patriotic nation under military siege. By MONTE BUTE March 16, 2022, Minneapolis Star Tribune ATTACK ON UKRAINE Power is typically defined from the perspective of the powerful, those who issue commands. Disobedience is forbidden. I offer a view […]

“As I am sitting in the kitchen of complete strangers who have opened up their home to me, gave me food, shelter, and a brief feeling of safety, I am holding back my tears… We take a shot of alcohol in the name of the fallen. We take another shot in the name of our […]

In my previous entry I announced that my journey as a dean was coming to an end on July 1, 2022. That was my 296th entry in this blog. I think that I’ll add four more entries (including this one), so that I end on June 30, 2022 with a nice round number of 300 […]

Scott Schieman, University of Toronto This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. There has been endless chatter about the Great [insert pandemic-related work trend here]. Resignation. Renegotiation. Reshuffle. Regardless of the descriptor used, employees in the United States are purportedly re-evaluating the role of work […]

The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) seeks applicants for the CCF Scholars Early Career Program.  The CCF Scholars Early Career Program offers a unique professional development and mentorship opportunity to early-career scholars conducting research on American families. The program offers selected scholars mentorship from senior scholars who will provide them guidance and support to promote […]

New and Noteworthy Board member Daniel Cueto-Villalobos covered new research from Alfredo Huante on the process of gentefication in Boyle Heights and the tensions that arise when wealthy newcomers share long-term residents’ ethnic identity, but not their class position or skin tone. Worth a Read, Sociologically Speaking Council on Contemporary Families’ blog featured writing from […]

Alfredo Huante, “A Lighter Shade of Brown? Racial Formation and Gentrification in Latino Los Angeles,” Social Problems,” Social Problems , 2021   We usually think about gentrification as the replacement of poor, non-white residents with white and affluent newcomersin city neighborhoods. According to this narrative, property values rise alongside an influx in amenities catering to […]