Elements of Sociology

Playing Gender Cards

2009-02-25T07:55:00.000-08:00

I did policy debate in high school and a little bit in college. The activity – at least when I was doing it – rested on the ability to organize and present evidence for and against different arguments. We referred to this evidence as “cards.” In the 1970’s quotations from newspapers and journals were physically cut out of a photocopy of the original and taped to an index card. By the time I was involved in the activity, we would put 3-5 “cards” – or bits of evidence – on standard sized paper. Now, I assume, a lot of debate evidence is kept on laptops.

Last year when I delivered my presentation on gender, socialization, and the dearth of women in the top positions in science and math I felt a little bit like I was in a debate round, reading through my cards. I had so many quotations I wanted to share, but there was simply too much text on the PowerPoint slides and too much on-screen reading required of the students.

Today, I’m going to try to use few slides, but I want to make the information available to pursue at your leisure. Please note that many of these quotations are taken from the popular press (Time and New York Times). They refer to actual studies and experiences, but more persuasive evidence will be found in the actual studies themselves (appearing in specialized sociology and education journals).

So, here are the gender “cards” from last year. Please don’t challenge me to a debate – although I still get an occasional “talks too fast” on my course evaluations, I’m certainly out-of-practice for the oratorical rigors of academic debate!

Differential Access and Support Explains Sex Differences in Science and Math

“Measures of gender differences in such areas as verbal, mathematical, and spatial abilities have changed over time showing virtually no differences at the present time. While contestations remain in the research over explanations for the source of any differences in performance, the far greater explanatory power lies in differential access and support.” (Statement of the American Sociological Association Council on the Causes of Gender Differences in Science and Math Career Achievement: Harvard’s Lawrence Summers and the Ensuing Public Debate February 28, 2005)

Assumptions and stereotypes explain sex differences, not innate ability

Studies show that social and cultural assumptions and stereotypes about differences in women's and men's abilities are the cause of noticeable differences in their interests and performance. Not surprisingly, therefore, such assumptions also have a larger impact on judgments about people's potential job performance and success.

. . .

Studies also show that peer pressures to conform to stereotypical behavior and exposure to popular media affect women’s and men’s choices and opportunities in the occupational world. These changeable social factors, not innate biological differences, provide the most powerful explanation for the continuing gap between women's abilities and their occupational attainments.

(Statement of the American Sociological Association Council on the Causes of Gender Differences in Science and Math Career Achievement: Harvard’s Lawrence Summers and the Ensuing Public Debate February 28, 2005)

Decades of research point to social structure – not innate biological differences – as the key explanatory variable accounting for sex differences in math and science

Sociological research provides ample empirical evidence of the importance of social phenomena in creating the gender gap in science and math achievement at the highest levels and, therefore, why it is a social problem. . . . . As real structural opportunities have opened to women, as a result of legal challenges and other social pressures for change, they have demonstrated increased interest in, and rapidly joined, fields from which they had been excluded.

Decades of social-scientific research provide a solid base of empirical knowledge about the power of unequal opportunities, limitations in access to formal and informal training, a lack of social and domestic supports, and lowered expectations about women's capacity to achieve that sap their educational and professional confidence. (Statement of the American Sociological Association Council on the Causes of Gender Differences in Science and Math Career Achievement: Harvard’s Lawrence Summers and the Ensuing Public Debate February 28, 2005)

Cross-Cultural Evidence Supports Social Explanations for Sex-Differences in Science Performance

“One of the sharpest retorts to Summers comes from a man, Burton Richter, a Nobel Prize winner and former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, who notes that in 2003-04, girls in England ‘Presidents of universities,’ Richter snapped, ‘should not use their mouths before their brains.’” (Keay Davidson, The San Francisco Chronicle, “Harvard President Under Microscope,” January 31, 2005, A4.) outperformed boys in the highest levels of math and physics tests.

Group Abilities Change Over Time

“Critics say Summers ignored overwhelming evidence that such difficulties are caused by social factors. . . They note that boys’ and girls’ average test scores are the same, and that gender differences in scores have converged over the past few decades -- a convergence that no one suggests is due to a sudden transmutation of women’s DNA.”

(Keay Davidson, The San Francisco Chronicle, “Harvard President Under Microscope,” January 31, 2005, A4.)

Gender Socialization Shapes Math Education

“But there are other possibilities [for the relative dearth of women in top science positions] we should consider first. One of them is the damage done by the idea that there is something wrong about a girl or woman who is really good at math.

(Cornelia Dean, “For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is that They’re Good at It.” New York Times, Feb. 1, 2005, pg. 3.)

Women are Discouraged from Math Education

I first encountered this thinking as a seventh grader who was scarred for life when my class in an experimental state school for brainiacs was given a mathematics aptitude test. The results were posted and everyone found out I had scored several years ahead of the next brightest kid. A girl really good in math! What a freak! I resolved then and there on a career in journalism.”

Cornelia Dean, “For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is that They’re Good at It.” New York Times, Feb. 1, 2005, pg. 3.

Saying Girls are Bad at Math Creates a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

“She [3rd grade daughter] came home and said to me, ‘I can’t do math.’ So I told her, ‘Sorry, but no daughter of mine is allowed to say that.’ We looked at her problems and she became thrilled to see that she could do them. Now imagine what might have happened if I had agreed with her, and said, ‘Yes, girls intrinsically aren’t very good at math.’ (Astrophysicist Wendy Freedman quoted in Cornelia Dean, “For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is that They’re Good at It.” New York Times, Feb. 1, 2005, pg. 3.)

An Example of Discrimination & Social Closure

Lillian Pierce was Princeton’s valedictorian when she graduated in 2002 and received her master's in math from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Now back at Princeton, she's studying for her Ph.D. Even with that sterling resume, she says, "I myself have experienced behavior that is hard to explain in terms of anything but discrimination: senior male mathematicians ignoring my presence when I'm introduced to them or suggesting point-blank that I pursue another career, such as medicine."

Barbara Kantrowitz, “Sex and Science” Newsweek, Jan 31, 2005, pg. 36

An Example of Discrimination & Social Closure

She says too many of her female friends “drop out of graduate programs simply because they’re disillusioned with the environment, not because they can't handle the math.”

Barbara Kantrowitz, “Sex and Science” Newsweek, Jan 31, 2005, pg. 36

A Final Example of Discrimination & Social Closure

“Another friend, graduating as a math major, was advised not to bother applying for a graduate research assistantship because they were not given to women. She eventually earned a doctorate in math, but one of her early forays into the job market ended abruptly when she was told she should stay home with her husband rather than seek employment out of town.”

(Cornelia Dean, “For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is that They’re Good at It.” New York Times, Feb. 1, 2005, pg. 3.)

~ Brian

One Minute Social Capital

2009-02-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

In this video, I attempt to explain Bourdieu's concept of social capital in about a minute. Obviously, I left a lot out, but hopefully this sparks your interest in learning more. By the phrase "we think we have friends," I am referring to the idea that agents often "misrecognize" the forms of capital that they possess. This is not to say that people don't have authentic friendships, only that we let the "authenticity" blind us to the social purposes of our friends and friend networks.

25 Random Things about Sociology (part 1)

2009-02-11T14:58:00.000-08:00

This list is inspired by a current phenomenon on Facebook, the "25 Random Things" request. I wrote about seven of these. The Discussion Section instructors helped with the rest. If you're enrolled in Elements of Sociology this semester, (most of) this list could help you on the first exam.

Sociologists balance ideas and evidence. Sociologists have ideas about society that they test with numerical data, observation, and other forms of evidence. Our theories about the social world inform our data analysis, and our data sharpens our theories.
Both Durkheim and Marx argue that societies go through different stages of evolution. For Durkheim, societies evolve from primitive (mechanical solidarity; low division of labor) to modern (organic solidarity; high division of labor). For Marx, societies evolve from feudalism, to capitalism, to the final stages of socialism/communism.
Like all natural disasters, the Chicago heat wave of 1995 wasn’t simply about bad weather. It affected some Chicagoans and not others. Sociologists want to know why.
William Julius Wilson has published a series of influential books about urban poverty, including The Declining Significance of Race, The Truly Disadvantaged, When Work Disappears, and The Bridge Over the Racial Divide.
According to Durkheim, the phenomenon of suicide is shaped by social forces: how connected one is to groups (social integration) and the level of structure in one’s life (social regulation).
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu presents a powerful critique and analysis of snobbery.
Rebecca Moore points out that the people of Jonestown were not just being paranoid; government agencies, journalists, and the Concerned Relatives posed a legitimate threat to their settlement. This emphasis on the normality of the people at Jonestown places Moore within the 2^nd wave of discourse on Jonestown.
One experiences “anomie” if they’re disconnected from social bonds.
A community might have mechanical solidarity when everyone performs the same job, while they would have organic solidarity when everyone relied on each other to perform a different role in society.
Sociologists critique common sense, or doxa, to see whether commonly held theories about how society works are based in evidence.
Most sociologists work within the conflict perspective, meaning that they focus on how different groups in society compete for resources and how inequality is reproduced.
Eric Klinenberg used multiple research methods (statistical analysis, ethnographic observation, and document analysis) in his study of the 1995 Chicago heat wave.
Mitchell Dunier illustrates how informal economies can rise in the inner city and give meaning to people's lives. Further, it is a classic example of how large structural forces outside of most people’s control strongly affect the way people navigate the world.
The problem of urban poverty illustrates the incredibly complicated way that class and race intertwine. Sociology gives the most comprehensive account of urban poverty because it takes race, class and other inequalities into account.
Durkheim and Marx can be used to examine the same phenomenon in different ways. Social theories are tools that allow us to look at things through different lenses. There is no official sociology narrative. Rather, we have competing and complimenting theories that attempt to explain the world in various ways.
For Durkheim, crime is productive because it reinforces the collective conscience of the social group, reminding the group of its rules, values, and norms.
Marx's theory of history is that class conflict is the driving engine of history. Other scholars would also include race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and religion (among others) as categories of conflict that have been historically important.
Sociology doesn't study suicide out of sheer morbid curiosity. Rather, it is a clear example of a social phenomenon that has largely been characterized as a psychological problem.
Sidewalk is endorsed by Spike Lee, perhaps making it the coolest sociology book you will ever read.
You can use sociology to understand social problems and (hopefully) how to fix them.
Consensus perspective views society held together by common productive experiences, beliefs, and values
Bourdieu would say that when it comes to making distinctions, or displaying "taste," what matters is who is making the distinction rather than what the object (art, music, wine, etc.) of distinction is. Those with symbolic power define the dominant cultural code.
If a person has agency, they have the ability to make changes in their lives.
Sociologists often scrutinize common sense, or doxa, to see whether commonly held ideas about how society fits the evidence about how society works.
Most sociologists work within the conflict perspective, meaning that they focus on how different groups in society compete for resources and how inequality is reproduced.

Emile on the Prairie

2009-01-28T06:11:00.000-08:00

These are two short videos that describe Emile Durkheim's distinction between organic and mechanical solidarity. I argue that you can find elements of both in Walnut Grove.

Richard Ofshe & “The West Memphis Three”

2008-04-30T16:09:00.001-07:00

In the final minutes of today’s movie, sociologist Richard Ofshe testified on behalf of Jessie Misskelley, one of the teens accused of murdering the three boys. Misskelley’s defense team hired Richard Ofshe to examine the interrogation transcript and, drawing on his considerable expertise in false memory syndrome and false confession, he testified that Jessie Misskelley offered a false confession resulting from a manipulative interrogation. Ofshe suggested that a psychologically coercive interrogation led Misskelley to confess to something he didn’t do. On the stand, he pointed to inconsistencies in Misskelley testimony and areas where the police were feeding him the answers that they wanted to hear.

If you’re enrolled in our Blackboard site, you can access an excerpt from his testimony as the top item in our Course Documents folder, or you can read his full testimony here:

http://www.wm3.org/live/trialshearings/documents.php?docid=103

Your GTA will show the final 40 minutes of the film focusing on the joint trial of Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols. There’s a lot left out, but you should be able to get the main outlines of the case and the central defense and prosecution strategies. Like the McMartin preschool case, the story of the West Memphis Three brings together some of the sociological themes and ideas we’ve covered so far: class inequality, cultural capital, labeling, media hegemony, and moral panic. Just as there are some people who insist that McMartin was a hotbed of santanism, some still insist on the guilt of Misskelley, Baldwin, and Echols. It’s safe to say that a consensus has grown over the last 15 years that they’re innocent, and most of the web resources will reflect that view. For an update on the case, you can read the article from the Economist (April 19, 2008) located in our Course Documents folder. There are plenty of online resources as well:

http://www.wm3.org/live/faq/faq.php

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/memphis/index_1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_3

-- Brian

“Sociologist in Chief?” Where Do I Vote?

2008-04-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

The President-Elect of the American Sociological Association is Patricia Hill Collins, social theorist extraordinaire and author of the now-classic Black Feminist Thought. Attaining presidency of the ASA places one atop of the sociology hierarchy, but “Sociologist in Chief” sounds much more important, much weightier.

On “Meet the Press,” political consultant Bob Shrum gave voice to the idea of a “Sociologist in Chief,” but suggested that presidential hopefuls should avoid running for that particular post. In a discussion about Barack Obama’s controversial comment about “bitter” working-class Pennsylvanians who embrace religion and guns, James Carville opined: “I have eight guns myself. I’m hardly bitter about things.” Bob Shrum responded, “Well, he’s not running for sociologist in chief, he’s running for president. So I think he wishes he hadn’t said it quite this way.” Later Shrum said “People go with sociology, and he shouldn’t be a sociologist. . . . sociology says that when people are in distress, when they’re economically deprived, they, they hold onto the things in their lives that give them some sense of security and identity. That’s faith, that can be hunting, that can be all of those things.”

(“Meet the Press,” NBC News Transcripts, April 13, 2008, via Lexis/Nexis)

Obviously, there are better places in the blogosphere to debate and discuss the presidential race. Here, I only want to point to Shrum’s perception of sociology and its social role. On a show like this, it’s impossible to explore ideas with any serious depth, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by a phrase like “sociology says that . . .” but it was still a little bit jarring to hear on a Sunday morning. But Shrum’s overbroad statement might be correct to the extent that sociologists universally believe (based on research from multiple angles) that economic deprivation does something. More importantly, I would expect most sociologists think that poverty and income inequality are important things to study and understand. We can all agree on that simple proposition, even if the line “sociology says that” generally suggests a false uniformity of thought amongst sociologists.

Personally, I’d love for more politicians to don their sociology cap and address the major fault lines of inequality in the US and (where appropriate) around the globe. Maybe we don’t need a Sociologist in Chief; maybe we need more “chiefs” who are sociologists. But I’ll be the first one at the voting booth if we do, indeed, decide to elect a Sociologist in Chief.

-- Brian

PoMo and Talk Show: The Jerry Springer Opera

2008-04-10T20:12:00.001-07:00

The last time I was in Britain (January 2005) the BBC was set to televise the latest smash hit from London's famous West End theatre district. No, it wasn't another adaptation of Noel Coward or Ibsen, nor was it an updated twist on a Shakespearean classic. It was, in fact, Jerry Springer: The Opera.

You may be scratching your head at the seemingly odd juxtaposition of "high brow" opera with the lowest of "low brow" talk shows, but I urge you to keep in mind the characteristics of postmodern art we have been discussing the past couple of weeks. Art forms in the postmodern vein blur the lines between high and low subject matter, they display as sense of playfulness, they mix genres, and seemingly everyday items are elevated to artistic subject matter. In this way, I argue Jerry Springer: The Opera represents a quintessentially postmodern approach to artistic performance.

This is not to say it was aired without protest. In fact, the BBC received its highest number of complaints ever even BEFORE the show was broadcast. While extremely foul language and sexually explicit content were the main objections given in complaints, as a sociologist I have to wonder what else might have been going on. After all, the BBC regularly airs full nudity in mainstream shows and is very accommodating of foul language, and the British tabloid media is world-renowned for the "trashiness" of its content. What else then was going on? Did the blending of high and low, the stretching of comfortable divisions between what was art and what was trash, the blurring of boundaries, touch a raw nerve with the British public? What differences might there have been between those who embraced talk show opera and those who dismissed it? Did they have different levels of education, different class backgrounds, different levels of cultural capital?

For those of you who are curious, Jerry Springer: The Opera made its debut State-side in Chicago in 2007. It played last January at New York's Carnegie Hall with the esteemed actor Harvey Keitel in the lead role, and is currently in production in numerous cities across the US. As an opera, it was fair, but I wish I'd seen Bat Boy: The Musical instead...
--Gabriella Smith

Talk Show Lost at Sea!!!

2008-04-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Since we've all been reading Gamson's "Freaks Talk Back," we've seen numerous examples of talk show formulas, how they're created, and arguments about both their exploitative and democratic qualities. On a lighter note, I've posted a link to a clip from the HBO sketch comedy show "Mr. Show" that parodies the Springer-esque talk show style. Although it's intended as humor, it hyperbolizes some of the content of these shows that some would argue are already endeavors in hyperbole. Enjoy the clip, and try to make the connection between the parody and your reading this week.
--Brian Meier

Boys Beware!

2008-03-11T15:24:00.001-07:00

Some of you have asked me about where I found the “Boys Beware” video, the 1960s instructional movie warning boys about the supposed dangers of predatory homosexuals. Boys Beware is archived at the Internet Archive in the Prelinger Collection. It’s available in multiple downloading formats, or you can watch on the website. Also look for “Girls Beware!” and “What About School Spirit?” (filmed at Lawrence High in the 1950s). I posted a version of the Monday’s video material on youtube:

Here’s the description: This video offers snapshots of three sexual regimes in US history pertaining to male-male intimacy and gay identity. The first two clips show a stereotype of men who have sex with other men as "pansies" and "fairies," but it's not necessarily a demeaning one. The crowd is laughing with them as much as they're laughing at them. The fairies' performance receives giant applause from the hip Greenwich Village crowd. Jay (Tony Jowitt) and Nasa (the irrepressible Clara Bow) enter the night club because they're fascinated by the edgy scene, not because they hate gays (in fact, "gay" is not a commonly used term to describe men who have sex with other men at this point in history). As George Chauncey explains in Gay New York (1994), the public fascination with "gay" men (the so-called "pansy craze") turned to hostility during the 1930s. The second clip represents the solidification of anti-gay hostility after World War II, including the medicalization of same-sex desire, the conflation of pederasty and homosexuality, and other closet-constructing public opinions. The final clip represents the post-Stonewall celebration of gay pride. Chauncey's research suggests that the first and last clips have more in common despite their historical distance. The history of gay liberation in the US is not a linear one, and this history shows that fascination and public acceptance can turn to intolerance and hostility if we're not careful.
-- Brian

Brian’s Reflections on Exam #1

2008-03-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

In a giant class like ours, it’s difficult for me to give personalized feedback on your exam. I don’t want to spend too much of tomorrow’s session talking about the last exam, so I thought that I’d talk about a few of the questions that gave people problems. In this discussion, please recognize that I’m sharing some of the blame. I’m not going to change the grading scale or give credit for incorrect answers to the difficult questions, but if a large percentage of the class misses a question I’m more than willing to admit that the question should have been clearer and/or my instruction should match the exam question more closely. With that said, let’s look at a few of the questions:

Question 43: In the lecture on Structure and Agency, I described the relationship between these two forces as “dialectic.” You know it’s not “doxic” or “paradoxic.” If you got this wrong, odds are you answered “oppositional.” I can see why there’s confusion. A dialectic relationship is oppositional to a point (in its original Hegelian formulation: thesis + antithesis = synthesis). The reason why it’s better to think of structure/agency as dialectical rather than oppositional is because the capacity for agency depends on social structural arrangements. Likewise, through the exercise of human agency, we can alter social structures. There’s a back and forth quality to this (admittedly abstract) relationship. The quotes from William Sewell Jr. suggest how an agent’s “schema” (or worldview) depends on resources (a specific social structural relationship in the economy, law, etc.). I’ll admit that the question was a bit unfair given the close semantic relationship between “dialectic” and “oppositional,” but good job to those who answered “dialectic.”

Question 33: “A convenience store clerk who suddenly wins $23 million dollars in the lottery. Where would Bourdieu place this person on the following map of social space?” I thought this would be an easy one. Upon reflection, I think students over-thought it, or it relied on (unshared) assumptions about occupations. Convenience store clerks (like Apu from The Simpsons) start with low cultural and economic capital, but the lottery winning will increase the individual’s economic capital (but not necessarily their cultural capital). The correct answer was B – low cultural capital / high economic capital.

Question 48: “All of following emerged as opponents of the People Temple EXCEPT” This question was definitely detail-oriented and (arguably) nit-picky. The correct answer is Annie Moore, the nurse who stayed with Jones until the very end. Phil Tracy and Lester Kinsolving were journalists trying to expose Jim Jones. Grace Stoen was a high-level defector who helped start “the Concerned Relatives,” and whose child was at the center of the Jonestown custody battle.

-- Brian

The Washington Post Printed It So It Must Be True...Women Are Biologically Inferior

2008-03-10T13:49:00.001-07:00

Charlotte Allen, from The Washington Post, should start looking for another job. Or maybe she should start writing her own obituary. On March 2, Allen catalyzes a blogosphere backlash to her infamous article “We Scream, We Swoon, How Dumb Can We Get?” In it, she argues that women are the weaker sex, the stupid sex, the dim half of our population, citing such “convincing” evidence as Obama rallying, Hillary’s presidential campaign, recent bestselling chick lit, Grey’s Anatomy, bad driving, oh…and the female ability to score lower on standardized visuospatial tests (i.e., the ground for math, science, and philosophy). So I guess that proves it—The Washington Post printed it, so it must be true!

Too bad Allen didn’t do any research or even utilize the internet to find at least one study to disprove her outlandish observations. But I guess we shouldn’t really criticize Allen anyway, since she is one of the many dim-witted women out there (strange, seeing that she graduated from both Stanford and Harvard). She herself admits to being a “classic case of female mental deficiencies,” claiming, “I can’t add two and two (well, I can, but then what?). I don’t even know how many pairs of shoes I own. I have coasted through life and academia on the basis of an excellent memory and superior verbal skills, two areas where researchers agree, women consistently outpace men.” What’s more, all of the brilliant women throughout history, according to Allen, must be outliers. Sure, they can do their jobs well, but they’re just the exception, not the norm. And the rest of us…well, Allen lays it out plainly. We should just “relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home…Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts’ content and not mind the fact that way deep down, we are…kind of dim.”

It’s no surprise that the backlash happened (and is still going strong). Apparently women (and men) took offense to females being portrayed as vaginas that were really just brain cell black holes (The Washington Post: Bitches Ain’t Shit). Bloggers were quick to note that Allen supports the right-wing anti-feminist Independent Women’s Forum (who, according to Sara Gwin on Silence is Betrayal: A Feminist Blog, want women to be more like the virginal, less intelligent 1950s housewife). That earlier in her career she claimed that to solve women’s financial problems, women just need to get some husbands and all will be fine. So, knowing some of her biases, why did Allen write this? Was it a joke? An attempt to be loud and proud about the innate inferiority of being a woman? No. Allen claims it was to give an accurate picture of how stupid females really can be.

Let’s imagine for a minute that everything Allen says about women is true—that actual research has confirmed it. Now, imagine if instead of writing about women, we wrote about another group like blacks, gays, or Jews. Maybe we could write an article about how Africa is doomed because it’s full of black people trying to rule themselves, how the Jews deserved a genocide, or how gay people really don’t merit rights because such and such study proves that they are psychologically deranged beyond the help of medication and intervention. These would be too offensive to print, too costly to imagine the lawsuit or drop in credibility and readership. But write an offensive article about women and it’s okay. Why? Katha Pollitt, whose response to Allen was published in the Washington Post March 7, claims that “misogyny is the last acceptable prejudice.” And worse, The Washington Post—overwhelmingly dominated by white males—allowed it to be published. The editorial board probably didn’t even think twice about how it feeds into the sexism of our culture, how it unfairly condemns women to nothing more than the sex destined to relegate themselves to childcare, assisting men, and home decorating. Or maybe they did think twice about it and still said, “Okay, we’ll publish this article because we really need women to give in to the virginal mothering image, patriarchal authority, and accept that this is the greatest aspiration women will ever have.”

Makes you kind of sick, doesn't it.

Ada Van Roekel-Hughes

Now Playing!

2008-02-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

For those of you who think sociology is just in the books and articles assigned for you to read, think again. Sociological topics and reports are now being transformed into plays! A rare occurrence, yet it seems that the effects of dangerous weather have come to grab our attention. Sure, we all heard about Hurricane Katrina and the 3 feet of snow that fell this winter, but we read about the Chicago Heat Wave in 1995 just weeks ago.

If you’re planning on visiting Chicago over Spring Break, why not stop by and see the new play adapted from Eric Klinenberg’s book? Too afraid it will be like studying on your day off? Well, not really. Steven Simoncic (screenplay writer) claims that his adaptation is “unique in that it uses nonfiction reporting as a jumping-off point for fictional dramatization.” Simoncic claims “I didn’t want to put Mayor Daley on stage. I imagined ordinary characters and moments that might be happening at City Hall in the middle of the bureaucracy” (Time Out Chicago Review). Afraid it’s just going to be a couple people on stage, pretending to be hot? Not likely. A diverse company of actors, the visual spectacles on stage, and the “sonic environment” created to mimic the heat wave is designed to present a provocative look at Chicago in crisis. After all, Klinenberg’s book gives us an image of how Chicago’s racial fault lines crack, so it can’t be that boring.

Best of all, Heat Wave retains the complexity of the event and the diverse interpretations of what happened. Laura Beth Neilsen, legal scholar and blogger on Controlling Authority, gives it “two thumbs up!”

Bourdieu on Bookshelves

2008-02-27T08:06:00.000-08:00

"In fact, the position of the different fractions ranked according to their interest in the different types of reading-matter tends to correspond to their position when ranked according to volume of cultural capital as one moves towards the rarer types of reading, which are known to be those most linked to educational level and highest in the hierarchy of cultural legitimacy." (Bourdieu, Distinction, page 116)

In this morning’s edition of insidehighered.com, Scott McLemee has an article about professors’ bookshelves. I read the article as an affirmation of Bourdieu’s insights about the centrality of cultural capital and the display of markers of our cultural knowledge. He quotes journalist Ezra Klein as saying “Bookshelves are not for displaying books you’ve read. Those books go in your office, or near your bed, or on your Facebook profile. Rather, the books on your shelves are there to convey the type of person you would like to be. I am the type of person who would read long biographies of Lyndon Johnson, despite not being the type of person who has read any long biographies of Lyndon Johnson. I am the type of person who is very interested in a history of the Reformation, but am not, as it happens, the type of person with the time to read 900 pages on the subject.”

Although I’ve read plenty of Bourdieu, and although I realize that I’m caught in these webs of cultural capital acquisition and exchange just as much anyone else, I try to rise above it by only having books on my shelf that I’ve read or intend to read in the next year. But, now that I think about it, all of my books about Jonestown, and all of my books about movie stars from the 1920’s and 30’s, are at home. Could Bourdieu explain this shelving choice? Maybe I don’t want my colleagues to think that I’m obsessed with a so-called “death cult” when they walk into my office? Maybe I want to convey the impression that I just don’t have time for Jean Harlow or Greta Garbo (because I’m thinking about sociology all the time)?

But enough about me – what does your bookshelf say about YOU?

-- Brian

Durkheim in the New York Times

2008-02-24T09:00:00.001-08:00

The New York Times published an article last week noting rising suicide rates among the middle-aged. Today in the letters-to-the-editor section, a number of letter-writers shared their thoughts about the article. Jack D. Spiro, a rabbi from Richmond Virginia, obviously paid attention in his introductory sociology class. Here’s what he wrote:

As a rabbi in one congregation for 25 years and as a professor of a course on death for the last 30 years, I have observed this gloom (or sadness, ennui, feeling of emptiness) in this age group.

It is not so much the means as it is the psychosocial and spiritual condition of boomers — what Émile Durkheim described in his 1897 pioneering book on suicide as anomie, referring to a lack of regulation or a breakdown of norms.

To quote one statement from his writings, “Man is the more vulnerable to self-destruction the more he is detached from any collectivity.”

Anomie as a cause of suicide is rare when human beings share their lives in intimate connection with others, when there is a sense of mutual interdependence in the human community.

The breakdown of personal relationships has been a major cause of depression and anomie among boomers. With the impermanence of friendships, unremitting mobility, job insecurities and the breakdown of the family structure, it should not be surprising that the suicide rate in this age group has increased.

The observation about the “impermanence of friendships” is well-supported by recent sociological research (see the full study here).

-- Brian

Thoughts on Our First Exam

2008-02-19T16:24:00.000-08:00

I’ve received a couple of questions from student that I’ll answer here:

Question: I was wondering what reading materials are going to be on the exam? Up to what day?
The exam covers material up until the 20th. There will be a question or two based on the most recent reading.

Question: I wanted to know if we have to know the names of the people in the readings other than Sidewalk. I also wanted to know will the test be more on the readings or the lectures.
Yes, you should know the names of the key people surrounding the Jonestown tragedy, but I won’t ask any questions about specific people in Heat Wave. The exam will cover the reading and lecture on about a 50-50 basis, with the more difficult questions coming from the reading.

Why Details Are Important
I think dates, places, and names are important for understanding the conceptual and analytical elements of the course material. At the end of the course, I’d ideally like you to retain general sociological concepts and conceptual frameworks that speak to the first two learning goals of the course (being able to see the connection between social forces and our everyday lives and gaining 21st century information literacy). In other words, I’d rather you walk away with “the concept of social solidarity is important for understanding inequalities in contemporary America” in your head than “a lot of poor people died in the Chicago heat wave because they had no friends or family.” But, the only way to make a case for the first, more abstract, concept is to reference real-life evidence like the statistics & evidence Klinenberg uses. I think you’re more likely to hold onto the theoretical and conceptual ideas if you have examples you can reference. In this way, I think of names, dates, and places as “mental coat hangers” on which we hang more elaborate ideas.

Also, I think it’s important to know details instead of just concepts because it allows you to argue more effectively in civil society. Here’s an example of what I mean by that: let’s say you’re at a local bar and someone next to you starts yapping about how religion is the root of all suicide terrorism in the world and if we just ban Islam we’ll all be safe. To counter this, you could respond with: “That’s not true, there’s this one terrorist group in Sri Lanka that uses suicide terror tactics, and they’re secular and they have secular goals. In fact, the forms of terror that seem the most irrational (like suicide attacks) often involve more of a rational personal and political calculation than you’re comment seemed to suggest. There’s this professor at the University of Chicago that wrote a book about this. You’re totally wrong.” That’s persuasive, but not as compelling as this: “That’s not true the Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka use suicide terror tactics and they’re a secular Marxist organization. Robert Pape, University of Chicago political scientist, analyzed over 400 suicide terror attacks and found that suicide attacks often involve more of a rational personal and political calculation than you’re comment seemed to suggest. You’re totally wrong.” The second line is much more persuasive (although both responses risk a physical confrontation with this hypothetical person).

Details are important because they’re the building blocks of general, abstract, and conceptual arguments. Therefore, you can expect some straightforward fact-based questions. I also ask this style of question because it measures whether or not, and how closely, the test-taker read the reading. That said, I won’t ask an absurdly detailed question. I might ask “about how many people died in Jonestown? 400? 700? 900? 1,400?” but I won’t ask “exactly how many people died in Jonestown?”

In general, it’s good to read the material with an eye for detail, but some details are just too nit-picky to be included on the exam. The trick is being able to distinguish the two. For instance, I might ask “Who is Tim Stoen?” because he was a semi-major figure in Peoples Temple, is discussed in both Jonestown readings, and I talked about him (albeit, very briefly) class. I wouldn’t, however, ask “Who’s Jack Beam?” even though his name is probably mentioned in at least one of the readings. There will be some fact & detail oriented questions to see if you’re reading the material, but I’ll also ask plenty of questions that have more of a theoretical angle to them (“Which of the following scenarios illustrates Durkheim’s idea of ‘organic solidarity?’”).

Elements of Bourdieu: Three Videos

2008-02-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

Distinctions Create Class Boundaries

Jackson Pollock's Social Capital

Distinctions Have Consequences

Race & Class in Trading Places

2008-02-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

Sex Education Policies Incite Protest

2008-02-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

Last week a blog at The Nation caught my eye because the town of St. Louis was mentioned in the title. It tells the story (albeit lacking in much detail) of two eighth grade girls who were suspended because they protested their school's abstinence-only sex education policy by decorating tank tops with condoms and the words "Safe sex or no sex!" Here's a CNN video news story about what happened.

The government-supported program of abstinence-only sex education has surfaced in the news recently, and its effectiveness has come under fire. According to Advocates for Youth, a group concerned with the sexual health of young people, pregnancy rates among teens in the United States have been declining since the early 1990's, but our country still has one of the highest teen birth rates and rates of sexually transmitted infections in the industrialized world.

Their investigation of abstinence-only education programs in the U.S. over the last five years came to the conclusion that there are "few short-term benefits and no lasting, positive impact," and in comparison to comprehensive sex education programs, they found that "regardless of which program was implemented in the seventh and eighth grades, sexual attitudes, intentions, and behaviors were similar by the end of the 10th grade." Additionally, researchers found abstinence-only sex education was associated with a resistance to using any form of contraception, putting them at risk for sexually transmitted infections making pregnancy when they decide to become sexually active a real possibility.

Importantly, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy also evaluated abstinence-only sex education programs and found that "the vast majority of the public does not see abstinence and contraception as an either/or proposition—they want teens to be informed of both." According to an April 2007 report about abstinence education programs, $87.5 million is put into them annually, a mix of federal and state funding.

So, I've thrown some facts, opinions and studies at you. But what does this all mean? If we could have a discussion about this, I would point it in the direction of asking these specific questions:

If these studies are true and abstinence education programs aren't making a difference, why are we still using them?
What does it say about the culture of the United States surrounding sexuality (and specifically teen sexuality) that in some states abstinence is the only formal education students receive?
What is it about teen sexuality that scares people? Can we boil it down to an aversion to teen pregnancy or is something else going on here?

Thanks to Ada Van Roekel-Hughes for her help in finding some info online!

--Brittany Hanstad

Dirt Cookie, Anyone?

2008-02-04T17:16:00.000-08:00

Did anyone see the Kansas City Star's "Haitis Poor Eating Cookies Made of Dirt" on Tuesday the 29th (available from http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/466837.html)? The article revealed a poor Haitian family eating dirt cookies because they couldn't afford anything else. Those poor children, eating dirt!! How could this happen? What has this world come to?

But what the article didn't explicate was that the situation in Haiti is due to larger social forces...

Here's a quick article summary:

Haiti's dire economic conditions are causing the poor to rely on some unconventional food choices. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, food prices are up as much as 40 percent on some Carribbean islands due to the flood and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season. At the market, "Two cups of rice [a daily food staple] now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate." But with rising food prices, what are the poor able to afford to eat? The answer has come in a traditional remedy for an enduring hunger problem: dirt cookies. Haitians can purchase dried yellow dirt from the local market--dirt which is prized as an antacid and source of calcium--for about $5.00, up by $1.50 a year ago. The dirt, mixed with salt and vegetable shortening and left to dry under the sun, is enough to make 100 cookies and costs much less than a bowl of rice.

Here's what else to think about:

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Almost 80 percent of its population lives below the poverty line. Today, the country is vulnerable to extensive deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate supplies of clean water. It not only faces growing environmental cocners, but suffers from trade deficits, higher inflation than similar low-income countries, and a lack of investment due to insecurity and limited infrastructure.

Haiti's position in the world shows us the inequality that exists between the Developed and Less Developed Countries. When industrialization was taking place in the Developed Countries, it was often at the expense of their colonies, who have since been unable to industrialize themselves thanks to imperialism. These social causes have been the topic of much inquiries in sociology. For example, Immanuel Wallerstein (World Systems Theory) has written extensively about the social causes of unequal development and the history of colonialism. Further, Dependency Theory (see Andre Gunder Frank and Eduardo Galliano) claims that the Developed World was able to industrialize due to the exploitation of the Less Developed. Both theories are a criticism to Rostow's Modernization Thesis, claiming that all countries pass through key stages of development and that Less Developed Countries just haven't made it there yet.

What the KC Star article seemed to skip over was that macro-social policies and and macro-social causes--like development--have profound effects at the individual level. In this case, it's food choices (or lack thereof). So pass the dirt cookies.

Ada Van Roekel-Hughes/ Robert Hughes; Soc 104 GTAs

The Sociology of 'Hooking Up'

2008-02-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

Kathleen A. Bogle, a sociologist at LaSalle University, recently published a book called Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus. Her research is a qualitative study of college students at two universities in the eastern part of the United States--one large public university and one small Roman Catholic school.

If you follow this link, you'll find an interview with Bogle in which she answers some questions about the implications of her research findings as well as the limitations of her study and whether it can be generalized to other universities or the general population.

I'd like to focus on two related points from the interview: first, Bogle discusses how she found that "students tend to overestimate what their peers are doing" as far as their sex lives, and second, that this culture of hooking up is seen as more beneficial for men than women.

The first issue relates directly to social norms. Bogle's research shows that college students look to other people who are largely the same age and status to make decisions about how they should act.

This concept also ties in to the gendered double standard of player/slut Bogle mentions. If male students look around and see their male peers hooking up and reaping rewards for doing so, they're likely to follow suit if it's something they want. Females, however, might think twice about hooking up after overhearing or being apart of discussions in the dining hall about how so-and-so from the 5th floor sleeps around. If this discussion is laced with negative connotations, the female student may even feel guilty for wanting to hook up. This is one of the reasons Bogle claims women benefit less than men from hook up culture.

If men and women are socialized to believe that it's okay for males to hook up without being harshly judged on "how often they hook up, who they hook up with, how far they go sexually during a hook up, and how they dress when they out on a night where hooking up may happen" whereas this is a constant danger for females, then hook up culture certainly seems like a better deal for the male population.

Thoughts?

Thanks to Brian for the link!

--Brittany Hanstad, GTA

Solidarity & Electronic Dance Music Culture

2008-01-29T07:34:00.000-08:00

I talked about social solidarity on Monday in class, and so I was excited to see the new issue of The Sociological Quarterly in my mailbox today with an article titled “Solidarity and Drug Use in the Electronic Dance Music Scene” by sociologists Philip Kavanaugh and Tammy Anderson. In fact, some of it perfectly supplements Monday’s lecture: “Solidarity generally refers to the degree or type of integration in a society or within a social group. Initially discussed by Durkheim, solidarity is defined by personal attachments within one’s primary group (such as the family), as well as emotionally strong bonds to larger, more complex social groups” (Kavanaugh & Anderson, pg. 184). They cite two of Durkheim’s books in the bibliography.

Kavanaugh and Anderson explored the electronic dance music subculture in Philadelphia, interviewed about 50 participants in the city’s rave scene, and conducted ethnographic observation at 33 late-night dance events. Characteristically, these parties entail DJs playing some form of electronic dance music like house, trance, or drum-and-bass. Party-goers dance all night in a high-energy environment fueled by psychedelics and amphetamines. The researchers wanted to discern the role of drugs in creating solidarity among ravers and clubbers. Their research confronts two common viewpoints about the role of drugs in dance music culture. The first (articulated by both party-goers and some researchers) avoids the e-lephant in the room and insists that other subcultural factors create solidarity (“it’s all about the music and the lifestyle”). In fact, one of the first sociological books on underground electronic dance music culture (Sarah Thorton’s Club Cultures) oddly ignored the centrality of ecstasy (or MDMA) in the rave and club scene, instead focusing on the PLUR ethos and subcultural hierarchy as the central social glue of the subculture. The second perspective views the camaraderie found at these parties as just a “synthetic byproduct resulting from the pharmacological properties of ecstasy” (pg. 184). In other words, the second perspective considers the appearance of solidarity as a drug-produced illusion.

Kavanaugh and Anderson suggest that both of these viewpoints are too simplistic. From their research, they created about 600 pages of field notes and 750 pages of interview transcripts. Analyzing these data, they argue that there are two broad dimensions of solidarity: social-affective and behavioral-organizational. Social-affective solidarity was built “in the moment” by creating shared experiences (pg. 189). They write “Here, drug use played an important role, as it allowed participants to develop a personal and social identity defined against their mainstream parent culture, and participate in an affectively meaningful social group that was uniquely ‘their own’” (pg. 190). Behavioral-organizational solidarity was generated through the common experiences of party-goers. This tracks somewhat with Durkheim’s notion of mechanical solidarity. Through shared experiences, like dancing until 4 in the morning, the subculture develops behavioral-organizational solidarity. They show up to the same events, they visit the same websites, they’re similarly affected by the enforcement of drug laws, and so on. Drug use plays a role in sustaining this form of solidarity as well.

But can’t drug use wreck solidarity just as easily as it can build it? Yes. The authors include an extensive discussion about the role of drugs in eroding solidarity, and they refer to this process as “detachment.” More and more participants start abusing cocaine and methamphetamines, the crime associated with illegal drug markets starts to seep into club culture, and older members of the scene become disillusioned and leave. Taken together, the relationship between drugs and social solidarity within the electronic dance music scene is much more nuanced and multifaceted than other studies have suggested. Their study is informed by sociological theory and rooted in empirical findings, and so the authors avoid both clichés that tend to dominate representations of electronic dance music culture: ravers and clubbers as a collection of alienated drugged-out kids, and raves as utopian and spiritual countercultural spaces where youth culture achieves true freedom from mainstream society. They challenge both of these stereotypes, yet find a bit of truth in them as well. Along the way, we learn that Durkheim’s notion of social solidarity isn’t just an artifact of 19^th century sociology, but it’s relevant for understanding the diversity and complexity of our modern age.

If you’re interested in reading this article, go to the KU Library Catalog, type “sociological quarterly” in the search field and select “journal articles” next to “search by.” Select the third choice (“Blackwell Synergy”) and you’ll find the article in the first 2008 edition.

-- Brian

Theme #3 (this time with more zombies)

2008-01-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, I’ll use the blog to clarify a point in lecture. During our first class session, I noted that a central theme of sociological inquiry is the disruption of “doxa.” We know something is “doxic” or taken-for-granted when in response to “why are you doing that?” we say “because that’s just how you do it,” “that’s just what’s done” or “that’s just the way it is.” Our doxa allows us to drive on the right side of the road without really thinking about it every time we start our car. It also guides practices of greater social consequence like voting, dating, and job hunting. If we can shine a light on social processes most people don’t think about, or think about in a particularly narrow way, we will be in a better position to solve society’s core problems (or at least understand what they are).

In Shaun of the Dead zombies take over London and slowly turn other people into zombies. Eventually, the whole town is full of zombies except Shaun and a handful of others. They become responsible for doing whatever it is to kill all the zombies or to de-zombify them. The sociologist sees him or herself as a bit like Shaun. We see ourselves as pointing out the zombie threat that no one else sees or pays attention to, and we’re trying to snap people, organizations, and institutions out of their zombie-like tendencies and trajectories. By uncovering the doxic or taken-for-granted, sociologists try to wake people up out of their normal ways of thinking and behaving.

The other side of this analogy is that if you’re a zombie, being a zombie seems like a fine thing to be. You don’t even know you’re a zombie, really, you’re just doing your thing, eating brains, grunting at other zombies, hanging out at graveyards. Sociologists don’t point blame at the individual zombies. We’re more concerned with group-level zombie production, believing that if we can generate another perspective - someone from the outside with different information [research] and different ideas or arguments regarding that information [theory] - we can snap out of it.

Someone can probably point to an alternative linguistic history, but my understanding is that the term “doxa” came into vogue in American sociology after the translation of Pierre Bourdieu’s Outline of a Theory of Practice in the 1970s. Here’s a reproduction of the diagram from that book. I’m a “visual learner,” so I find pictures and diagrams of abstract ideas immensely helpful. Maybe you do, too.

-- Brian

That Crazy Diagram

2008-01-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

During our first class session, I discussed the difficulty of covering the 44 recognized subfields of American sociology in 30 or so class sessions. I talked about how I’ve organized the course around the 16 “core categories” designated by the American Sociological Association in 2005. This diagram is just to give you a sense of how I’ve organized the class given the breadth of sociology (“we study groups!”). I certainly don’t expect you to memorize this, and this won’t appear on the first exam.

-- Brian

The Final Will Not Be Cumulative

2008-01-17T07:21:00.000-08:00

Are there any other course-related questions I can answer here before our class officially starts on Wednesday? Just create a Blogger account and post a comment or question.

-- Brian

Don’t Fear the Google

2008-01-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

I found this article in the Times of London online this morning about Tara Barbazon at the University of Brighton who believes that “easy access to information has dulled students’ sense of curiosity and is stifling debate.” This, of course, is an empirical question. Has Google damped curiosity and debate? Do Google-users debate less vigorously and show less intellectual curiosity than non-Google users? In the 1970s’ and ‘80s, were the late night dorm debates and discussions just rockin’ because no one could appeal to a common authority like Wikipedia or find additional information through Google? I don’t think so, but it’s something that can be empirically studied, and I would want to look at those studies before making bold pronouncements like “Google is white bread for the mind.” Barbazon is a professor of media studies who has written books like University of Google and Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and the Poisoning of Teaching that are critical of the new information age, distance learning, and tech trends in higher education. There are legions of social scientists concerned about information overload, information literacy, and the effect of the Internet on knowledge production and reception. In fact, the Communication and Information Technology section of the American Sociological Association is one of the fastest growing groups within American sociology, expanding tremendously in the last five years.

My first impulse is to brand Barbazon as a luddite. Instead, I’ll merely point out that I found her university homepage, information about her scholarship and teaching, and all of her books online using – you guessed it – Google.

-- Brian

Even More Facebook Sociology

2008-01-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

I've been following this story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune since earlier this week. "Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook photos of several students partying." Interestingly, not all the photos were of underage students drinking at parties with fellow students--some of them were of students drinking at family weddings and on family vacations.

Minnesota, my home state, has been faced with multiple college student deaths related to the consumption of alcohol, and I have to think this is on the mind of the administrators and parents dealing with the news in Eden Prairie. Four college students died in 2007 either because of alcohol itself (usually alcohol poisoning) or actions that resulted directly from drinking excessively. Already in 2008, a 20-year-old who would have started classes at St. Cloud State University next week was found dead "after a night of partying and drinking games."

Sociologically, these news events bring about many legal issues related to the privacy of students and the seemingly eminent (at least in Minnesota, though I'm sure other states as well) social problem of underage drinking fatalities. A new bill is being presented to the Minnesota legislature that would allow colleges and universities to notify the parents or guardians of students caught drinking underage or possessing illegal substances.

While I am not surprised by this knee-jerk reaction to the recent deaths of young people and venerable "proof" of underage drinking, will this solve the problem? So often it seems that parents and legislators grasp for something, anything to mollify the questions posed and problems that arise. As a sociologist and person familiar with the geographic area in question, I cannot escape from questions of culture and socialization. Can legislation drastically alter culture?

And what about the students in Eden Prairie? Today, some of them walked out of school in protest, claiming the penalties given were too severe. Here's an interesting video interview with two students involved in the walk-out. The young women claim the school has disallowed students from talking about the issue, but they felt they needed to "stand up for what they believe in." Yet another sociological approach to this issue would be to discuss social movements. Both women were saddened that not very many of their fellow students joined them and cited the opposition by teachers as scaring the students into staying put.

Just as an aside, I did a search on Facebook and found group called "Eden Prairie High School has not gone too far." which was started by a junior at the school. He agrees with the actions taken by the administration and does not see it as a violation of privacy. The group has 25 members, 16 of which belong to the Eden Prairie High School network, meaning they are currently students or were in the past.

--Brittany, Soc 104 GTA

Research Party

2008-01-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

A research team led by John D. Clapp from San Diego State University’s School of Social Work attended over 60 college parties to uncover the relative influence of environment and individual characteristics on risky drinking behavior. Armed with breathalyzers, the researchers roamed the parties and talked to as many partygoers as they could. Altogether, they administered a brief questionnaire and took the BrAC (breath alcohol concentration) readings of about 1,300 people, most of who were between 18 and 21 years old. They applied a statistical method called “hierarchical linear modeling” to analyze the associations between personal factors (age, gender, motivation for attending the party, etc.), environment (size, location, type of party, etc.), and drunkenness.

The study tilts toward psychology with its consideration of “individual characteristics,” but it has some intriguing sociological dimensions and implications. The basic scenario boils down to this: Is Joe Student going to the party with the intent to get drunk or, once at the party, is Joe Student enticed to drink more than he would otherwise by the prevalence of hard alcohol, loud music, and other intoxicated people? This is important because if the party-goers are hell-bent on getting wasted regardless of party size, atmosphere, prevalence of hard alcohol, the playing of drinking games, and other environmental factors, then there’s little colleges and universities can do at the party-level to curb problem drinking. On the other hand, if those environmental factors are important – if, for instance, having food available at parties decreases drunkenness – then studies like this can suggest preventative strategies that lower rates of problem drinking and alcoholism. It's an important thing to study.

A critic might ask: “Why does anyone need to study this? The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism gave this guy 1.5 million dollars to attend college parties? Isn’t it obvious that both environmental factors and personal factors lead to certain drinking behaviors? I mean, come on! The larger, louder, and rowdier parties obviously lead to heavier drinking.”

And bloggers poked fun at some of the study’s more obvious findings: “They successfully infiltrated 66 college parties, surveyed dozens of students and found, shockingly, that 45 percent of partiers were there to have fun. Yes, fun. What’s more, 40 percent were there to get drunk and 21 percent were there to get laid. It just shakes you to the core, doesn’t it?” Sometimes social scientists get a bad rap for “proving the obvious,” but the reason we need to examine and test relationships and associations that seem clear to the naked eye is because our eyes are often wrong. For instance, it might appear obvious to today’s parents that college parties corrupt their sons and daughters, but (scientifically and empirically) this might not be the case.

In this instance, the study dispelled popular wisdom (and previous studies of college partiers that relied on telephone interviews). The presence of hard alcohol, illegal drugs, loud music, rowdy behavior, and the number of parties going on during the night did not correlate with higher BrAC readings among partygoers, and people actually became drunker at smaller parties compared to larger, multi-keg, parties.

The researchers found a strong correlation between theme parties and rates of intoxication among female partygoers. In other words, themed parties entailed more female drunkenness. One explanation, they offer, is that the theme parties often have a sexual premise and, in that sexually-charged environment, women drink more to lower their inhibitions.

Sociology can help address the study’s unanswered questions. Specifically, sociologists can use ethnographic research and in-depth interviewing to assess the roles of gender and sexuality in parties, and theme parties in particular. I think the researchers made some reasonable assumptions, but, again, what might seem obvious is probably much more complex than it looks. Sociological research methods can better answer “why?” of theme-party-drinking; the brief survey used by Clapp et. al. just isn’t going to cut it.

Sociology can also cast light on how the media represent the study. How are the media framing the study? Is there evidence of a burgeoning moral panic about drunken college students? The study, published in the prestigious Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research [link works only for KU folks], is full of scientific restraint, nuance, and cautious claims-making, but the mainstream media isn’t going to lead with “Hot New Use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling!” No way. The ABC News title reads: “College Parties Getting Hotter, Boozier: Researchers Find Women Drinking More, Wearing Less at College Parties,” with an accompanying photo of six women at a “naughty schoolgirl” themed college party at SDSU. Looking at the journal article and the ABC News article side-by-side, one can see a wide gap between social science and the media’s reporting about that science, which is why it’s important to track down the original article before making assumptions about a study’s importance or value.

All I have to add is, regardless of the party’s theme or size, drink responsibly! Alcohol poisoning can kill you, and that would be a lousy way to start the semester.

-- Brian

File-Sharing Lawsuits, the RIAA, and the Sociology of Law

2008-01-01T08:51:00.001-08:00

As most of you are well aware, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) targets students who illegally download copyrighted content from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Over the last several years, KU copyright infringers have had to pay thousands of dollars for illegal downloads. The RIAA served a fresh batch of subpoenas to KU students during the Fall 2007 semester, leading to the creation of Student Senate task force to investigate and potentially change the way KU handles RIAA subpoenas.

When RIAA subpoenas landed at the University of Oregon, the school fought back by issuing a “blistering” motion to quash the request for student information. Among other arguments, the motion accused the RIAA of violating students’ rights by using a data mining company called MediaSentry.

What does this have to do with sociology?

A lot, I think . . . Here’s one sociological observation:

I see faint signs that file-sharing litigation is moving from “repeat players” suing “one-shotters” to a more complicated situation where other “repeat-players” (colleges, universities, and attorneys general) defend the interests of students. Before the University of Oregon jumped into the picture, students would receive a scary “prelitigation letter” saying that the RIAA was suing them into poverty, or – if they act fast – they could pay a “bargain settlement” of about $3000 by entering their credit card information at www.p2plawsuits.com. The RIAA has sent over 4,000 of these letters to more than 150 colleges and universities in the last four years.

Sociology of law superstar Marc Galanter published a 1974 article titled “Why the ‘Haves’ Come Out" which “has achieved uncontested canonical status within the broad range of college and university courses in law and social science. It has been cited more than any other piece of socio-legal research and is listed among the most well cited law review articles of all time.” (Kritzer & Silbey. 2003. In Litigation. pg. 4). He argues that the institutional position of people involved in lawsuits and legal conflicts directs participants’ legal strategies in ways that bolster the power and dominance of the “Haves” (the people who already have money and power, like the recording industry). By emphasizing institutional position and rational strategies that spring from that position, Galanter went against the then-prevailing Marxist and functionalist theories of how lawsuits affect society and reproduce inequality.

From page 14 of Galanter’s article (excerpted and edited):

FIGURE 1

A TAXONOMY OF LITIGATION BY STRATEGIC CONFIGURATION OF PARTIES

Initiator, Claimant

	One-Shotter	Repeat Player
One-Shotter	Scenario I OS vs OS Parent v. Parent (Custody) Spouse v. Spouse (divorce) Family v. Family (inheritance) Neighbor v. Neighbor	Scenario II RP vs OS Prosecutor v. Accused Finance Company v. Debtor Landlord v. Tenant RIAA v. College Student
Defendant
Repeat Player	Scenario III RP vs RP Welfare Client v. Agency Auto Dealer v. Manufacturer Injured Victim v. Insurance Company Tenant v. Landlord Defamed v. Publisher	Scenario IV RP vs RP Union v. Company Developer v. Municipality Purchaser v. Supplier Regulatory Agency v. Multinational Company Oregon Attorney General v. RIAA

Galanter’s model and argument helps us make sense of how things could change with the University of Oregon recent move to intervene on behalf of its state university students. Right now, the RIAA isn’t interested in soaking each student for the maximum they could get if they went to court. They want money that they can predictably extract from students over the long term. On the other side, the student wants it over and done with. They don’t want to spend thousands of dollars in attorney fees to fight a $40,000 lawsuit with an organization teeming with skilled lawyers, especially when the kind folks at the RIAA make it so darn easy for them to pay a settlement online. The RIAA is acting rationally as a “repeat player.” The student is acting rationally as a “one-shotter.” Their relative institutional position (powerful organization, college student) shapes their strategies, and helps explain why the RIAA can get away with – what appears to many as – habitual extortion. Now, the battle will be between repeat players; both will have a long-term outlook. Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said to the NYT, “The Oregon attorney general is showing what a real fight among equals would look like.”

Will the University of Oregon succeed? It’s hard to say. The article suggested that other parties have tried the university’s legal arguments before, with little success. Regardless, the fact that a states attorney general and a state university are standing up to the RIAA changes the fight considerably.

For more on the RIAA’s legal offensive against colleges and universities, check out these two articles representing the RIAA’s position and an opposing point of view.

-- Brian

Totally 80s Sociology!

2007-12-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

_____________________________

I came across a New York Times article from 1985 that interviewed a handful of well known sociologists about the future of their profession and discipline. I found it fascinating because, on one hand, it was totally ‘80s. It discussed some of the central issues that cropped up in American sociology in the mid-1980s. In particular, it emphasized the quantitative/qualitative split that generated conflict in some sociology departments; the article referenced Paul Starr’s failed Harvard tenure attempt for reputedly being insufficiently scientific.

On the other hand, the issues, conflicts, and central concerns of American sociologists a quarter-century ago strongly resemble those of the early 21^st century (poverty, education, occupations, causes of human suffering etc.).

[As a member of the KU community, you’re able to access this article through Lexis/Nexis or New York Times Historical, both are accessible through the KU Library Databases page. Here’s the cite: The New York Times April 28, 1985, Section 4; Page 7, Column 1; “Debating the Direction of the Discipline: Sociologists examine an issue that's very close to home."]

Of the sociologists profiled in the article, I think William Sewell did the best job of explaining sociology to news readers (news readers then and now):

The mainstream of sociology is empirical and quantitative. And I would guess about 85 percent of sociologists are of that persuasion. But that doesn't mean they have no use for theoretical issues. The divisions aren't all that clear, and they've existed ever since I've been a sociologist, for about 50 years.

The big movement in the last 15 years or so has been the rise of ''complex multivariate'' styles of research. All it means is that there are many variables that help to explain social behavior, and that they must be taken into account. And to take them into account requires big samples, large data bases.

Say that you're trying to develop a social policy for increasing equality of educational opportunity. Well, you have to know why some people receive less education than others. So you have to investigate such things as an individual's social origins, the occupation and education of his or her family, how rich or poor they were. You'd want to know what effect race and sex have on educational opportunity. How much does intelligence matter?

To put all these factors together you need statistical techniques that tell you which make the most difference and which handicaps are amenable to policy changes. Then the policy-makers can target their programs. We've always had that style of research, but with the coming of large-scale computers and large sample surveys, it's been possible to do many more of those kinds of studies. And as our younger scholars have learned those techniques, it has taken away from the more purely theoretical kinds of operations.

-- Brian

Facebook & Research Ethics: The 411 on the IRB

2007-12-24T08:32:00.000-08:00

I didn’t expect the NYT Facebook article to generate a negative reaction in the letters-to-the-editor section, and I certainly didn’t think it would come from fellow social scientists. Writer Donna Gaines decried “the reckless intrusion of adults into one of the few remaining sacred spaces where young people congregate for the creation of subculture, meaning and community.” She called for “a serious and lengthy conversation among scholars and youth activists about power and rights of access.” It’s a fine sentiment, but none of the research projects discussed in the article posed the ethical questions about which she’s concerned. The Harvard team, for instance, is mining Facebook to look at big trends, not individual kids. To my mind, the letter is simply obnoxious hand-wringing because it assumes that these ethical debates and conversations aren’t happening among researchers, a state of affairs to which the letter-writer has no evidence. I’m sure the researchers interviewed in the original article would have had a lot to say if Stephanie Rosenbloom (the article’s author) had asked them about ethics and responsibilities.

Donna Gaines has had an eclectic career, and she’s best known for her ethnography of suburban kids, Teenage Wasteland. Both of her books received popular and (some) academic praise, but they aren’t standard sociology insofar as they mix journalism and memoir. I think of her as more of a “pop sociologist” because she isn’t affiliated with a research university, doesn’t teach sociology, and she writes for a popular audience instead of an academic one. Most of her paid work derives from journalism and consulting. I don’t mean “pop sociologist” as an insult. Barbara Ehrenreich is another author I consider a “pop sociologist,” but I have a tremendous amount of respect for her work. I read one of her books as a high school student one summer and it probably played a small role in pushing me toward a sociology career. So, there’s nothing inherently wrong with working outside of a university and being a pop sociologist.

Colleges and universities have what are called Internal Review Boards (or “IRB”). If you pursue sociology at KU, you’ll learn more about research ethics and the role of IRBs in SOC 310. KU has its own Human Subjects Committee with an Internal Review Board. IRBs regulate and give approval to research on human subjects. Do you want to explore the views of college-aged men and women about sexual abstinence? You have to write a proposal and submit it to the IRB. They’ll consider such issues as: Will the students be anonymous? Will the researcher ask any potentially damaging or overly-intrusive questions? Are there any risks associated with participating in the research? Is the researcher fully informing the interview subjects about the project and their role in it?

While being a “pop” anything is not necessarily a liability, if Gaines actively participated in a university community she wouldn’t assume that sociologists ignore the “many compelling ethical and methodological issues” posed by researching Facebook. The IRB process and Human Subject Committees force sociologists and other social scientists to confront these issues when studying anything involving living humans. Gaines writes: “Before we proceed as scholars, let us first be citizens.” Fine; show me that we aren’t.

Okay, so I wasn’t thrilled about what Gaines had to say and have now expended more words writing about it than her original letter. All the same, let’s think about if we were on an IRB and received a proposal from a young sociologist wanting to study and write a book about Facebook. What will we allow her to do? (Collect information about social network nodes and connections? Collect personal information – age, race, sex – on individual users?) What will we prevent her from doing? (Using real names? Printing information about relationships? Printing information about employment?)

-- Brian

More Facebook Sociology

2007-12-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

Did Megan Hirt’s Jayplay article inspire the New York Times to write a story about how Facebook has become an academic Disneyland for social network analysis? Hey, it’s possible. This morning’s NYT article, “On Facebook, Scholars Link Up with Data,” examines how sociologists and other social scientists use Facebook (the 6^th most trafficked web-site in the U.S.) for their research. The article cites the “Facebook Friends” study I referenced earlier, as well as some other Facebook-centered research projects. As one of the editors of the American Sociological Review (the top sociology journal in the U.S.) noted in the article, “For studying young adults, Facebook is the key site of the moment.”

In Unit II, I will discuss Pierre Bourdieu’s contribution to studies of inequality. In a sentence, Bourdieu complicated Marx’s map of inequality by adding social capital and cultural capital to the mix. Social capital describes the strength and quality of one’s social network. A 5^th grader with strong social capital will have friends with whom to pass notes about the weird new kid (who has no social capital). If I’m a social scientist that wanted to study bullying behavior, social capital would be an important variable to consider, and Facebook would be one way to understand the flows of social capital in American schools.

The New York Times article describes Facebook as “a petri dish for the social sciences — sociology, psychology and political science — that particularly excites some scholars, because the site lets them examine how people, especially young people, are connected to one another, something few data sets offer, the scholars say.” The article quotes Harvard professor Jay Kaufman: “One of the holy grails of social science is the degree to which taste determines friendship, or to which friendship determines taste. Do birds of a feather flock together, or do you become more like your friends?” Another Harvard sociologist (Nicholas Christakis) writes: “We’re on the cusp of a new way of doing social science. Our predecessors could only dream of the kind of data we now have.”

From the article: “In other words, Facebook — where users rate one another as ‘hot or not,’ play games like ‘Pirates vs. Ninjas’ and throw virtual sheep at one another — is helping scholars explore fundamental social science questions.”

I think this means it's time for me to update my profile!

-- Brian

Brains, Race, & IQ

2007-12-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

This Dec. 9 op-ed piece in the New York Times by University of Michigan psychology professor Richard Nisbett makes a lot of smart points about race and IQ. He states that “the evidence heavily favors the view that race differences in I.Q. are environmental in origin, not genetic.” His article discusses a number of psychological studies that lend support for his overall argument.

-- Brian

Facebook: Artificial Friends or Helpful "Weak Ties?"

2007-12-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

Megan Hirt has an engaging and well-written essay about Facebook in the Dec. 2007 Jayplay. She quoted from a number of Facebook users and she talked to several scholars, including KU sociologist Bill Staples: “In today’s culture, we like to see ourselves and see others—a combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism. Facebook is the perfect example of how these two come together.”

The article also quoted from John Grohol, a psychologist, who muses “We feel like it’s bringing us closer to the person, but this is an artificial connection.” I would have liked to have seen some evidence, though, to back up that claim. A team of researchers led by Nicole Ellison conducted a study of Facebook users, and their work was eventually published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Their article (“The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends:’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites”) suggests some social benefits of Facebook. They write:

Returning to our original research question, we can definitively state that there is a positive relationship between certain kinds of Facebook use and the maintenance and creation of social capital. Although we cannot say which precedes the other, Facebook appears to play an important role in the process by which students form and maintain social capital . . . Our participants overwhelmingly used Facebook to keep in touch with old friends and to maintain or intensify relationships characterized by some form of offline connection such as dormitory proximity or a shared class.

Their research also suggests that Facebook permits students to develop and expand their “weak ties.” Years ago, sociologist Mark Granovetter used sophisticated statistical analysis to show how people we “kind of know” are often more important for our social lives than previously thought – hence his famous article “The Strength of Weak Ties.” Granovetter concluded that we don’t necessarily find jobs from our BFF, but we often find them from a “friend of a friend” or a “friend of a friend of a friend.” Likewise, it’s not a stretch to think of “Facebook friends” as social capital, and the corresponding sense of social belonging we feel is hardly “artificial.” Grohol might be right that the Facebook phenomenon is redefining the word “friend,” but I don’t share his pessimism.

- Brian

Imagining Social Change

2007-12-05T09:45:00.000-08:00

Back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, a 5MB hard drive weighed over a ton and cost $3,200 a month to lease. Now, we comfortably store 400 times that capacity on the 2GB flash drives attached to our key chains. In the middle of the 20^th century, people imagined what life would be like at the cusp of the 21^st century, and some of them were remarkably accurate. Through snopes, I found this 2-minute video from the early 1960’s. It’s fascinating! The creators accurately anticipated email (an “electronic correspondence machine”) and online shopping. They didn’t anticipate the drastic social changes that occurred in the 1960’s and 1970's that increased women’s political and economic power. They predict technological change, but social stasis; men are breadwinners who make the money and pay the bills, and wifey goes shopping and cares for the home. It’s like the creators of The Jetsons projecting 1950’s gender stereotypes onto the space age.

So, what’s going to happen in 2057? And why can we wrap our heads around technologies that are 50 years down the road, but we can’t conceive of social arrangements outside the present?

- Brian

Sociology in the News

2007-12-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

Harvard sociologist Bruce Western has studied the US prison system for many years, examining how imprisonment exacerbates economic inequality in various ways. He’s used his sociological research to assist and develop programs for inmates, with an aim to reduce the alienating effects of incarceration such that prisoners will become productive members of society when released and less likely to commit new crime. Western & his research program exemplify a core element of sociological inquiry: sociology as a critique of the status quo.

“The Right Way to Handle Former Inmates.” New York Time November 29, 2007.

from the article: "Created in 1999 in Brooklyn, ComAlert was recently the subject of a state-funded study carried out by the district attorney’s office in collaboration with Bruce Western of Harvard, a sociologist and criminal justice expert. The program is still evolving and is far from perfect. But the study shows that former inmates are more likely to get jobs and keep jobs — and more likely to remain out of jail — if they undergo a rigorous regime of counseling and drug treatment while participating in a companion program that offers them immediate work experience and job training."

- Brian

The Fools Quest for Biological Determinants

2007-12-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

A friend who teaches Communication Studies at a different university forwarded me this story. Sociology, as a whole discipline, is skeptical of explanations for intelligence rooted in biological and genetic sources. Earlier efforts to link intelligence to genetics produced studies that seemed to justify present-day social inequality based on supposed differences in genetically-based intelligence, leading to various crackpot and racist conclusions.

“Genetics=intelligence” stories historically turn out bad for women and minorities, but sociologists reject them because (among other reasons) the quest asks the wrong questions. Case in point: Dr. Plomin and his search for the magic intelligence gene or genes. His team of researchers has a huge sample (7,000) from which they identified 37 variants in 6 genes. “But the individual effects of these genes was barely detectable.” Taken together the genes account for less than one percent of variation in intelligence.

What would a biological determinist conclude from the article? They just haven’t looked hard enough for the magic gene! Now, to be fair, mainstream print and television media routinely simplify and distort the goals and findings of research scientists, and it's possible that this research has a more immediate beneficent purpose in finding clues about mental retardation, genetically-based learning disorders, or something like that. But the way the author framed the story, and the quotations from the experts, suggests that the genetics/intelligence link is a foregone conclusion in their minds.

What do I conclude from reading this article? The researchers and the journalist reporting on their studies are asking the wrong questions about intelligence and about variations in intelligence across groups. Of course a gene cluster doesn’t account for any significant variation in “intelligence.” As a society, we reach agreements about what it means to be "intelligent," and different social groups (with varying levels of power and capacities for action) make distinctions about intelligence that reflect social criteria. Intelligence is a social construction.

Brian