~the-society-pages | Bookmarks (102)

This piece, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, offers instructors various ideas for sparking joy and fostering connection in the classroom. Many of these activities can even be adapted for online classes.

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings includes: Jonathan Rauch wrote in The Atlantic on how Trump’s administration embraces “patrimonialism,” a loyalty-based governing style that breeds corruption. Karyn Vilbig explained in The Conversation how improved views of Black Americans from 2012 to 2020 drove increased support for social welfare programs. The ASA and AFT sued over […]

Jill E Yavorsky, Lisa A Keister, Yue Qian, and Sarah Thébaud, “Separate Spheres: The Gender Division of Labor in the Financial Elite,” Social Forces, 2023 A father and his three children wearing surfing wetsuits, running on a beach. Photo by Kampus Production under Pexels license. Gendered work and family patterns among couples in the financial […]

Check out this New York Times article, which details some things state and local governments can do to lower the cost of living while also combatting climate change.

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings includes: Robert Putnam discussed the link between social isolation and populism on PBS News Hour, highlighting how civic engagement can drive moral revival. Florence Becot appeared on The FarmHouse podcast to examine the invisible labor of women in agriculture, including the expectation of raising children while performing farm work. […]

This Contexts piece highlights the many sides of Michael Burawoy and invites us to remember his work as a teacher, scholar, mentor, activist, and more.

Teaching social theory is just plain fun. For me, it’s an opportunity to see our world in a multidimensional way. Who needs a comic book multiverse when you can look at social phenomena through different perspectives? Inspired by sociologist Arthur Stinchcombe, one of my favorite things to prompt theory students with is to present them […]

Catherine Burgess and Jennifer Carlson, “The roots of charity: How Gendered Racialization Shapes Crowdfunding for Women and Girls Murdered by Gun Violence,” Gender & Society, 2024 A woman holding a white box saying “Donate” on it, by Liza Summer is licensed under Pexels License. Gun violence remains a critical public health crisis, causing measurable and immeasurable loss to families […]

TSP Board members Jordyn Wald, Emma Goldstein, Mason Jones discuss Elizabeth Bruch and Amie Gordon recent coverage in The Pulse on “Revel“, a dating app for students at the University of Michigan that doubles as a research tool to uncover college dating patterns. Listen on Spotify

This piece by Merrill 2021, offers insight on some pedagogical tools instructors can use when teaching difficult or contentious topics.

And so begins our end. With this issue we step forward into the final year of our editorship of Contexts, embodying in a personal way the theme of “heartbreak and hope” that animates these pages. We recognize that our letter finds you at a time when fear and fury, shock and struggle saturate our lives, […]

from the editors in brief: “Cash and Control,” Colter J. Uscola. “Place-Based Politics,” Parker Muzzerall. “New Labor Model, Same Old Problems,” Parker Muzzerall. “All Fun and Games?” Colter J.  Uscola. “Emirati Women’s Hidden Paychecks,” Elena G. van Stee. “Between a Rock and a Landlord,” Parker Muzzerall. “Friendship Therapy,” Parker Muzzerall. “Seeking Help, Seeking Dignity,” Elena […]

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings includes: Zeynep Tufekci comments on the Trump administration’s NIH funding cuts, warning they endanger America’s biomedical research infrastructure. Elizabeth Bruch and Amie Gordon launched Revel, a University of Michigan dating app that doubles as a research tool to study relationship dynamics. Meanwhile, Ruby Lai examined Hong Kong’s subdivided flats, Musa Al-Gharbi […]

“Dr Burawoy was one of the few senior sociologists who stood unequivocally against the genocide. He did so loudly and eloquently, never declining a request to speak or write on the matter. What an absolute gem of a human.” – Eman Abdelhadi, posted on X Professor Michael Burawoy, our beloved colleague, mentor, and friend, passed […]

Ethan Kutlu, “Now You See Me, Now You Mishear Me: Raciolinguistic accounts of speech perception in different English varieties,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2023 Speech is not just about what we hear. Listeners make judgments about how they think people will talk using visual cues to make assumptions about a person’s age, gender […]

With the explosion of genetic ancestry testing, more and more Americans are connecting with new parts of their ethno-racial identities. But does a White suburban New Yorker finding out they are 4% Cherokee make them Indigenous? If they believe it does, what are the implications for our everyday understandings of racial identity? A new article […]

Baby Tooth Survey Pledge Card, Missouri Encyclopediahttps://missouriencyclopedia.org/groupsorganizations/baby-tooth-survey-st-louis  Nuclear fallout from nuclear testing 1951-1962Source: Originally from Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing by Richard Miller, and featured in Silent Fallout  From 1959-1970, the communities of Saint Louis, Missouri were tasked with a unique mission: sending in the teeth of children to a newly formed initiative called the […]

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings by Mallory Harrington includes Raka Ray and Geoffrey Pleyers’ reflections on the passing of Michael Burawoy, a towering figure in public sociology whose work shaped labor studies, ethnographic methods, and the discipline as a whole. Max Besbris commented on the rapid rebuilding of the Palisades after California’s wildfires, noting that wealthy […]

In a recent New York Times article, journalist Eli Tan shared his experiences using AI clones to improve his dating life. After programming these clones with information about his hobbies and mannerisms, he tasked them with evaluating potential matches. The clones interacted with other dating platform users—sometimes real people, sometimes other AI clones—through chat messages […]

When was the last time you heard someone say they wanted sex that was just “good”? Ever heard anyone wax nostalgic about an “average” sexual experience they had? Probably not. Whether scrolling through social media, thumbing through glossy magazine pages, or even in late-night chats with friends, the talk is always about making sex great. […]