actually, now is the perfect time to ‘commit sociology’

This opinion piece by Bob Brym and Howard Ramos was published by iPolitics on April 26, 2013. Since that piece is behind a paywall, it is reproduced here with permission. When questioned during a news conference Thursday about an alleged plot to blow up a Via Rail train, Prime Minister Stephen Harper — making a […]

when to retract?

The Regnerus controversy has us debating, among other things, the criteria for retracting a published sociology paper from a journal. There are clearly some cases in which there is widespread agreement that a retraction is warranted: fraudulent data plagiarism a mistake that invalidates the analysis The case of Regnerus, however, has us disagreeing. So far, […]

these salary data got you blue?

From the ASA Faculty Salary Brief: Perhaps you need to relocate to Canada, where we don’t necessarily collect data on sociologists’ salaries, but the Ontario Sunshine List gives us a hint that there are plenty of sociologists up here who break the six-figure barrier. Plus, a real pension, all the snowballs you can throw, and […]

it gets better, but only if you stay away from people like these

Happy Superbowl Sunday! My hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, is in it this year, and they are my 3rd favorite hometown sports team (after the Giants, and the Sharks. In that order, if you must know). So, I’m hosting a gathering, and I’m cheering for my team, and then WTF–the 49ers go all homophobic […]

mary mcintosh

Mary McIntosh, author of “The Homosexual Role,” among other things, has passed away. This piece is of course one of the foundational works of a sociology of sexuality. It always struck me as such a brave work, as it applies general sociological concepts to a topic that, at the time, was so strikingly marginalized and […]

same-sex marriage support increases in all age groups

This story in the NY times is a pleasant read among all the bad news in the digital papers these days. It shows that recent data reveal an interesting trend–support for same-sex marriage among all age cohorts: [Between 2009 and 2012], according to Pew, support among baby boomers (ages 48 to 66) has grown to […]

kid’s view of the election

When I woke Kid up this morning, his first words to me were “Did Obama get 270?” Then, questions about the popular vote, Ohio, and Florida. I hadn’t really gotten the sense that he was such a political nerd, but now I see the signs were there all along. Four years ago, I tried to […]

asa 2012 update

It’s Day 1 of ASA 2012, and you might be wondering where all the fun is to be had. Tonight is the bloggerly baseball game. If you don’t have a ticket, I think you can still buy one; we are in Section L301. On Saturday night, the blog party is going to be fabulous. It […]

the 2012 asa blog party: covered in awesomesauce

Please join us at the annual ASA blog party: Saturday, August 18, 2012 8-10pm Harry’s Bar in the lobby of the Magnolia hotel 818 17th street between Stout and Champa Streets (just 2.5 blocks from the convention center) This year, Jenn Lena and Gina Neff have graciously invited us to join their party to celebrate […]

why do we sign away our copyrights, again?

This isn’t the first time we’ve puzzled over the wacky world of academic journals, but was reading this  discussion of signing away copyright vs. licensing a journal to publish your article, the gist of which is that for this particular journal these are equally poor choices: If I have signed away all rights as a […]

the brains behind youth hockey

I know, I know, no one cares about ice hockey. Except Canadians, Russians, and sociology bloggers, that is. Up here, hockey is in the news because someone did a study to dispel a widely held myth so stupid that it burns. The idea is that introducing body checking in hockey at a younger age reduces […]

asa baseball 2nd chance

Did you miss your chance to order tickets for the ASA baseball game? Maybe you didn’t know about your trip schedule, or you didn’t want to take a chance on missing Just Desserts. Perhaps you were so excited about THE HUB that you couldn’t dream of walking away from the beating heart of technology information. […]

ego-networks on twitter

Neal Caren of UNC Chapel Hill has written up a handy guide to deriving the ego-networks of Twitter users as part of his series of tutorials on text analysis for social scientists. Neal uses my twitter account as his starting point, so you may find some familiar names in the network. I recommend the whole […]

ask a scatterbrain: self-citation in works in progress

Is there a standard way to indicate that an author has cut and paste a chunk of text from an earlier work into a work-in-progress? As I move from one part of a larger project to another, I like to plunk down chunks of text as placeholders to frame the argument, provide theoretical or historical […]

who’s guest blogging at the atlantic?

Gabriel Rossman, that’s who. You already read his blog, Code and Culture, and you are going to read his book, Climbing the Charts, as soon as it comes out. Now, for a short time only, you can read his posts on the lamestream, smarty-pants magazine of the lefty elite while sipping Pinot Grigio and eating […]