sunday morning sociology, economic indicators edition

The NYT does a deep dive into the sources of stagnating wages, arguing that even though unemployment is low by historical standards, the employment-to-population to rate is still well below its 2001 levels and that may be more strongly connected to stagnating wages.

A weekly link round-up of sociological work – work by sociologists, referencing sociologists, or just of interest to sociologists. This scatterplot feature is co-produced with Mike Bader.

keeping up with jones et al: toc emails and rss readers

Keeping up with the literature can seem like a full time job. In this post, I want to introduce two technological tools that can help you keep tabs on what’s happening in the research literature and in the broader public conversation: table of contents (TOC) emails and RSS readers.

reconsidering the use of “women and people of color”

One of my most strongly-held positions is that language matters. It gives voice and form to our ideas and thoughts, and in turn it shapes those ideas and thoughts as well.

So I appreciated when Daniel Laurison recently asked this question on twitter

Serious question about thoughtful language for talking about the set of people who are not white men. I’ve seen compelling critiques of phrasing like “women and people of color” on the basis that it syntactically (grammatically? linguistically?) implies that those don’t overlap.

— Daniel Laurison (@Daniel_Laurison) October 21, 2018

especially since it was a question I’d found myself asking a little while ago too

I’m also trying to think through why I don’t have strong feelings about the phrasing “women and people of color.”

I don’t use it, because I hear and want to respect the thoughts of people who find that phrasing erasing. but I don’t totally get it, tbh.

— meritocracy killjoy (@polumechanos) January 26, 2018

Despite my strong feelings about the use of language, I don’t have particularly strong feelings about the phrase “women and people of color.” But especially as a Black woman, “listen to Black women” is a guiding ethos for me, so I take seriously when Black women say they don’t like the phrase.

“whole milk or two-percent?” mommy shaming in the doctor’s office

*cross-posted at parenthoodphd.com*

Last week, I took my son to the doctor for his 15-month check-up. I tried to keep my son entertained while the nurse went through the standard battery of questions, entering my answers on her laptop:

Is he in a rear-facing car seat? Yes.

Are there smoke detectors in the home? Yes.

Does anyone in the house smoke cigarettes? No.

Is he exposed to wood smoke? No.

Is he still breastfeeding? Yes.

Does he drink cow’s milk, too? Yes.

But then she followed up with one that required more brainpower.

Does he drink whole milk or two percent?

If I had been on my A-game, I probably would’ve gone with the “right” answer (whole milk). But I was trying to keep my son from catapulting himself off the exam table, so I went with distracted honesty: “Uh, a mix of both.”

sunday morning sociology, bringing “bringing back in” back in edition

Lizardo et al visualize uses of the term “bringing X back in” at Socius. They summarize “An irony presents itself. While Homans wanted to bring (concrete) “men” [sic] back in, the things that have been most successfully brought back after his call are closer to the macro-abstractions he railed against.”

A weekly link round-up of sociological work – work by sociologists, referencing sociologists, or just of interest to sociologists. This scatterplot feature is co-produced with Mike Bader.

a guide to politics, sociology, and facebook

Photo by Tracy Le Blanc on Pexels.com

As sociologists, many of us are deeply involved in work on politically-relevant issues in our professional lives, but we hesitate to bring them into our personal worlds. It can be daunting to confront your most stubborn relatives or involve the family members who still think you’re a psychologist. Still, there is a lot to be gained from engaging the people you care for the most on topics related to your version of sociology. Changing hearts and minds isn’t impossible and bringing more of your political academic ideologies to Facebook is one way to do that. To help you, I offer my guiding principles for political Facebook engagement.

hegemony and climate despair

Rebecca Solnit has a new essay in The Guardian about the recent IPCC climate change report. The report itself paints a grim picture, and warns us that the time is running very short to prevent catastrophic levels of global warming. Solnit argues that we must resist the urge to despair, to give up – an urge nicely exemplified by a recent NHTSA report arguing against increasing fuel efficiency standards on the assumption that four degrees Celsius worth of warming was inevitable and that US fuel emissions would only be a small contribution to that catastrophe, so why bother? Solnit, in contrast, counsels hope:

The future hasn’t already been decided. That is, climate change is an inescapable present and future reality, but the point of the IPCC report is that there is still a chance to seize the best-case scenario rather than surrender to the worst. Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in a gulag for his work with Soviet dissident Andrei Sarkovsky, recalls his mentor saying, “They want us to believe there’s no chance of success. But whether or not there’s hope for change is not the question. If you want to be a free person, you don’t stand up for human rights because it will work, but because it is right. We must continue living as decent people.” Right now living as decent people means every one of us with resources taking serious climate action, or stepping up what we’re already doing.

sunday morning sociology, moonmoons edition

Between the quickly approaching climate dystopia and the actually existing political hellscape, things seem pretty grim right now. But at least we have this: “Moons can have moons and they are called moonmoons.”

A weekly link round-up of sociological work – work by sociologists, referencing sociologists, or just of interest to sociologists. This scatterplot feature is co-produced with Mike Bader.

so you want to post your book for open review

The following is a guest post by jimi adams.

I never envisioned myself as a book person. I’d grown pretty comfortable writing in article-length ideas. I work in interdisciplinary fields though, so the length of articles varies considerably (I’ve submitted pieces anywhere from 2500 to 14k+ words), but books felt like a completely different animal.

I recently finally took the book plunge, first for a SAGE “little green book” on Gathering Social Network Data mainly because it’s a book I’ve wished existed quite a few times when teaching social networks at various points and to a range of audiences over the past decade or so. Also, the QASS books being more in the 40k word range than a “full” monograph closer to 90k, it felt like a good way to “ease in.”

A couple of days after submitting my manuscript for peer review, I bumped into Matt Salganik at the ASA annual meetings, and he suggested I consider posting it for Open Review while it was undergoing the traditional review process. The basic idea of Open Review is to make available a version of the manuscript that’s readable — and hopefully commented upon— by anyone who’s interested and willing before the text is finalized. Matt framed the utility of Open Review as potentially bolstering sales once actually published, and likely making for a more readable manuscript. It was the latter that intrigued me, but it’s likely his claim about the former that led the publisher to give it a whirl.

sunday morning sociology, don’t despair donate (and volunteer and vote) edition

Dana Fisher argues at the Monkey Cage that reproductive rights have been at the center of protests against Trump, and Kavanaugh, and that these protests are unlikely to end with Kavanaugh’s confirmation. 

A weekly link round-up of sociological work – work by sociologists, referencing sociologists, or just of interest to sociologists. This scatterplot feature is co-produced with Mike Bader.

What a week. In addition to our usual links, we’ve got a list of resources and places you might want to donate if you’re feeling the urge to do something beyond social media.