Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Structure, Status, And Span: Gender Differences In Co-Authorship Networks Across 16 Region-Subject Pairs (2009–2013), Kjersten Bunker Whittington, Molly M. King, Isabella Cingolani

Sociology

Global and team science approaches are on the rise, as is attention to the network underpinnings of gender disparities in scientific collaboration. Many network studies of men’s and women’s collaboration rely on bounded case studies of single disciplines and/or single countries and limited measures related to the collaborative process. We deploy network analysis on the scholarly database Scopus to gain insight into gender inequity across regions and subject areas and to better understand contextual underpinnings of stagnancy. Using a dataset of over 1.2 million authors and 144 million collaborative relationships, we capture international and unbounded co-authorship networks that include intra- …

My Brother’S Keeper: Two Black Men Navigating The Tenure-Track Experience, Danny E. Malone Jr., Jesse R. Ford

Sociology

This study explores the tenure-track experiences of two junior faculty Black men in higher education, while growing still remains vastly unexplored in higher education. Using an autoethnography approach with a critical race theory lens, the authors explore how race and institutional expectations shape their experiences along the primary components of the tenure process: research, teaching and service. While one author is beginning their tenure journey while the other is ending, findings highlight commonalities along teaching and service experiences are being mediated by their identities as Black men. Their research experiences are distinct from one another given the different research expectations …

Name-Based Demographic Inference And The Unequal Distribution Of Misrecognition, Jeffrey W. Lockhart, Molly M. King, Christin Munsch

Sociology

Academics and companies increasingly draw on large datasets to understand the social world, and name-based demographic ascription tools are widespread for imputing information that is often missing from these large datasets. These approaches have drawn criticism on ethical, empirical and theoretical grounds. Using a survey of all authors listed on articles in sociology, economics and communication journals in Web of Science between 2015 and 2020, we compared self-identified demographics with name-based imputations of gender and race/ethnicity for 19,924 scholars across four gender ascription tools and four race/ethnicity ascription tools. We found substantial inequalities in how these tools misgender and misrecognize …

Paying Attention To The Pandemic: Knowledge Of Covid-19 Facts By News Source And Demographics, Molly M. King

Sociology

The structured inequalities built into our sociotechnical institutions shape access to knowledge. During the COVID-19 pandemic, knowledge acquisition was shaped by news sources, class, and race. Through analysis of nationally representative data using logistic models, this study reveals how the use of different news sources differentially shapes access to accurate knowledge about COVID-19 topics for different demographics. Those who rely on informal and local news sources have the largest knowledge gaps about these topics, while those who seek information from national or international news outlets and politicians have the most accurate knowledge. Race and class influence knowledge of government operations, …

What Students? Which Mission?, Laura Nichols

Sociology

To understand decoupling from mission at CCUs, this chapter analyzes demographic data regarding the students whom a range of types of CCUs enroll. My aim is to examine the current state of CCUs in the United States, consider how they have evolved, and assess the extent of decoupling from mission that has occurred as indicated by the characteristics of students. The chapter's focus aligns with the directive in Pope Paul VI's 1971 apostolic letter Octogesima Adveniens that "it is up to the Christian communities to analyze with objectivity the situation which is proper to their own country, to shed on …

Redi For Binned Data: A Random Empirical Distribution Imputation Method For Estimating Continuous Incomes, Molly M. King

Sociology

Researchers often need to work with categorical income data. The typical nonparametric (including midpoint) and parametric estimation methods used to estimate summary statistics both have advantages, but they carry assumptions that cause them to deviate in important ways from real-world income distributions. The method introduced here, random empirical distribution imputation (REDI), imputes discrete observations using binned income data, while also calculating summary statistics. REDI achieves this through random cold-deck imputation from a real-world reference data set (demonstrated here using the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement). This method can be used to reconcile bins between data sets or …

Teaching & Learning Guide For Disability And Climate Justice, Molly M. King, Maria A. Gregg, Ana V. Martinez, Emily Y. Pachoud

Sociology

Disability is widespread: nearly one in four Americans has a disability (Taylor, 2018) and disability cuts across demographic categories. Among individuals aged 15 and over, 12.6% had some type of mobility disability; above age 65, it is nearly 40% (Brault, 2012). Mobility disabilities heighten vulnerability to climate change and climate-related disasters (UNHCHR, 2020). Reduced information resources and mobility, increased health risks, and a lack of visibility in climate change discourse put people with disabilities in a more vulnerable position in the climate crisis. However, this vulnerability can be mitigated through relevant and sufficient access to information, risk mitigation …

Disability And Climate Change: A Critical Realist Model Of Climate Justice, Molly M. King, Maria A. Gregg

Sociology

Existing literature on climate change as an issue of environmental justice documents the heightened vulnerability of people with disabilities to the effects of climate change. Additionally, there are numerous studies showing that access to information is a prerequisite for perceiving risk and taking action. Building on this work, our review seeks to understand how physical disability relates to perceptions of climate-related risk and adaptations to climate-related events. We introduce a critical realist model of climate justice to understand the relationships between the environmental features that disable, risk perception and information seeking, and adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. In …

The Pandemic Penalty: The Gendered Effects Of Covid-19 On Scientific Productivity, Molly M. King, Megan E. Frederickson

Sociology

Academia serves as a valuable case for studying the effects of social forces on workplace productivity, using a concrete measure of output: scholarly papers. Many academics, especially women, have experienced unprecedented challenges to scholarly productivity during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The authors analyze the gender composition of more than 450,000 authorships in the arXiv and bioRxiv scholarly preprint repositories from before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis reveals that the underrepresentation of women scientists in the last authorship position necessary for retention and promotion in the sciences is growing more inequitable. The authors find differences between the …

Embracing Every Ability, Jacksiel Colon

Sociology

With time continuing, American education has progressively improved. Though there still remains much-needed improvement and some of that stands in the way of equality within the education system. Special education and special needs students experience inequality with accessibility, funding, and educational quality, on top of daily barriers due to personal limitations. Data from the 2006 General Social Survey (N=652), asked individuals to identify whether they had a mental/emotional disability. They were asked to assess federal spending on education. This study focuses on the factors encouraging individuals to support or not support increased spending on the education system. Mental/emotional ability, affiliated …

Like A Lake, Carol Mavor

Sociology

Carol Mavor is Professor of Art History at the University of Manchester. Her most recent books are Aurelia: Art and Literature Through the Mouth of the Fairy Tale, Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour, and Black and Blue: The Bruising Passion of Camera Lucida, La Jetée, Sans Soleil and Hiroshima mon amour.

Addressing Exclusion In Organizations: Social Desire Paths And Undocumented Students Attending College, Laura Nichols

Sociology

With data from a national study of a network of 28 private, non-profit colleges in the United States, I show how the individual actions of high school and college staff became collective “social desire paths” to introduce new organizational practices to enroll students who were undocumented. In interviews with staff, four factors emerged as important in enrolling students: (1) the way social desire paths started as ad hoc processes and then were entrenched through the collective and similar responses of staff; (2) identification of financial, administrative, structural, and cultural barriers to inclusion that formed the basis for the development of …

A Is For Asylum Seeker / A De Asilo [Toc], Rachel Ida Buff, Alejandra Oliva

Sociology

A clear and concise A to Z of keywords that echo our current human rights crisis

As millions are forced to leave their nations of origin due to political, economic, and environmental peril, rising racism and xenophobia has led to increasingly harsh policies. A mass-mediated political circus obscures both histories of migration and longstanding definitions of words for people on the move, fomenting widespread linguistic confusion. Under this circus tent, there is no regard for history, legal advocacy, or jurisprudence. Yet in a world where the differences between “undocumented migrant” and “asylum seeker” can mean life or death, words have …

Urban Formalism: The Work Of City Reading [Table Of Contents], David Faflik

Sociology

Urban Formalism radically reimagines what it meant to “read” a brave new urban world during the transformative middle decades of the nineteenth century. At a time when contemporaries in the twin capitals of modernity in the West, New York and Paris, were learning to make sense of unfamiliar surroundings, city peoples increasingly looked to the experiential patterns, or forms, from their everyday lives in an attempt to translate urban experience into something they could more easily comprehend. Urban Formalism interrogates both the risks and rewards of an interpretive practice that depended on the mutual relation between urbanism and formalism, at …

Prescribing Biases: Evaluating Race And Gender Biases Held By Medical Professionals, Adelaide Scenti

Sociology

Evaluating medical professionals implicit racial and gender biases compared to other professions provides a window into medical professionals’ covertly biased behaviors. I examine whether or not medical professionals, compared to other professions, are more likely to hold predisposed racial and gender biases. Analysis of 2000 to 2014 General Social Survey Data (N=4,772) found the framework of implicitly biased behavior against Black and female- identifying individuals held by medical professionals to be faulty. The results from the multivariate regression revealed the opposite of my hypothesis, regarding sexist (pro-natal) attitudes, medical professionals were less likely than other professions to exhibit sexist attitudes. …

Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule And Political Rupture [Table Of Contents], William Callison, Zachary Manfredi

Sociology

Tales of neoliberalism’s death are serially overstated. Following the financial crisis of 2008, neoliberalism was proclaimed a “zombie,” a disgraced ideology that staggered on like an undead monster. After the political ruptures of 2016, commentators were quick to announce “the end” of neoliberalism yet again, pointing to both the global rise of far-right forces and the reinvigoration of democratic socialist politics. But do new political forces sound neoliberalism’s death knell or will they instead catalyze new mutations in its dynamic development?

Mutant Neoliberalism brings together leading scholars of neoliberalism—political theorists, historians, philosophers, anthropologists and sociologists—to rethink transformations in market rule …

Introduction: Science And Religion Around The World, Elaine Howard Ecklund, David R. Johnson, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Steven W. Lewis, Kirstin R.W. Matthews, Robert A. Thomson Jr., Di Di

Sociology

From a scholarly perspective, we reasoned that our research examining the beliefs of scientists would provide insight into the major theoretical issues related to religious change and the impact of science on religion-and religion on science-in different national contexts. Our goal was to understand how science is related to ideas about secularization, or the decline of religion's vitality and influence, among scientists and societies. For policy makers and the general public, our research would reveal how national ideologies and policies related to religion affect scientists' work, and how this in tum might affect the way science is presented and implemented …

Text Selection And Course Design: Faculty Perspectives On Critical Reading And Critical Thinking, Julie Collins-Dogrul, Kenia Saldaña

Sociology

This study of sociology faculty in twelve private colleges and universities compares teaching with textbooks and textbook alternatives in undergraduate classes. Faculty explain that textbooks provide a breadth of material that is organized and streamlined in a way that promotes consistency across instructors, facilitates content delivery to students with a range of abilities, and reduces course preparation time. Despite these benefits, faculty have a strong preference for textbook alternatives. Faculty argue that readings, like monographs and journal articles, develop students’ critical reading and thinking skills. Additionally, when instructors design courses with alternative readings they engage their own critical reading and …

Generational Aspects Of U.S. Public Opinion On Renewable Energy And Climate Change, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Joel N. Hartter, Erin Bell

Sociology

The topics of climate change and renewable energy often are linked in policy discussions and scientific analysis, but public opinion on these topics exhibits both overlap and divergence. Although renewable energy has potentially broader acceptance than anthropogenic climate change, it can also sometimes face differently-based opposition. Analyses of U.S. and regional surveys, including time series of repeated surveys in New Hampshire (2010–2018) and northeast Oregon (2011–2018), explore the social bases of public views on both issues. Political divisions are prominent, although somewhat greater regarding climate change. Such divisions widen with education, an interaction effect documented in other studies as well. …

The African Development Bank, Organized Hypocrisy, And Maternal Mortality, Jamie M. Sommer, John M. Shandra, Michael Restivo, Holly E. Reed

Sociology

We draw on the theory of organized hypocrisy and examine how different forms of lending by the African Development Bank affect maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. We do so by using a two-way fixed effects model for a sample of 33 Sub-Saharan African nations from1990 to 2010. We find that the bank’s structural adjustment lending in the health sector is associated with increased maternal mortality, and its reproductive health investment lending is associated with decreased maternal mortality, consistent with the organized hypocrisy approach. These findings remain stable and consistent even when controlling for World Bank lending and other relevant control …

Alegal: Biopolitics And The Unintelligibility Of Okinawan Life, Annmaria M. Shimabuku

Sociology

Okinawan life, at the crossroads of American militarism and Japanese capitalism, embodies a fundamental contradiction to the myth of the monoethnic state. Suspended in a state of exception, Okinawa has never been an official colony of the Japanese empire or the United States, nor has it ever been treated as an equal part of Japan. As a result, Okinawans live amid one of the densest concentrations of U.S. military bases in the world. By bringing Foucauldian biopolitics into conversation with Japanese Marxian theory, Alegal uncovers Japan’s determination to protect its middle class from the racialized sexual contact around its mainland …

Sacred Shelter: Thirteen Journeys Of Homelessness And Healing [Table Of Contents], Susan Greenfield

Sociology

Named a Gift Book for the Discerning New Yorker by The New York Times

In a metropolis like New York, homelessness can blend into the urban landscape. For editor Susan Greenfield, however, New York is the place where a community of resilient, remarkable individuals are yearning for a voice. Sacred Shelter follows the lives of thirteen formerly homeless people, all of whom have graduated from the life skills empowerment program, an interfaith life skills program for homeless and formerly homeless individuals in New York. Through frank, honest interviews, these individuals share traumas from their youth, their experience with homelessness, and …

Sacred Shelter: Thirteen Journeys Of Homelessness And Healing [Readers' Guide], Susan Celia Greenfield

Sociology

In a metropolis like New York, homelessness can blend into the urban landscape. For editor Susan Greenfield, however, New York is the place where a community of resilient, remarkable individuals are yearning for a voice. Sacred Shelter follows the lives of thirteen formerly homeless people, all of whom have graduated from the life skills empowerment program, an interfaith life skills program for homeless and formerly homeless individuals in New York. Through frank, honest interviews, these individuals share traumas from their youth, their experience with homelessness, and the healing they have discovered through community and faith.

Edna Humphrey talks about losing …

Changes In The Policing Of Civil Disorders Since The Kerner Report: The Police Response To Ferguson, August 2014, And Some Implications For The Twenty-First Century, Patrick F. Gillham, Gary T. Marx

Sociology

The Kerner Commission identified factors contributing to police ineffectiveness during the 1960s civil disorders. Since release of the Kerner report, the frequency and intensity of civil disorders has declined and the policing of disorders has changed. Using the report recommendations as a framework, we analyze changes in police disorder management during the 2014 events in Ferguson as these involve operational planning and equipment. Data for the Ferguson case are constructed from media reports, police and activist accounts, after action reports, and field observations. We link changes seen in Ferguson to larger institutional changes in law enforcement over the last fifty …

Paths To Enlightenment: Constructing Buddhist Identities In Mainland China And The United States, Di Di

Sociology

How do national contexts influence the construction of religious identity in faith communities? In this article, I examine the construction of Buddhist identities in two similar ethnic Chinese Mahayana Buddhist temples but in distinct national contexts, one in mainland China and the other in the United States. While both are Chinese Mahayana Buddhist temples, they have distinctive temple-level cultures: a strict culture in China and a permissive culture in the United States. Individual-level cultural frameworks also differ. In mainland China, the Buddhists learn their religion dutifully while their U.S. counterparts critically explore religion inside and outside their temples. Relying on …

The Indian Information Technology Sector: The New Caste Inequality Frontier, Marilyn Fernandez

Sociology

My conversations with IT professionals, and Indians I met in social settings, about the current state of 'caste' in India and in Indian IT sector often went like this:¹ 'Why are we talking about caste in this modern age? Aren't we perpetuating caste distinctions by continuing to talk about it? Isn't it time to get rid of reservations as IT has done? Look at the progress the IT sector has brought to the country! It is "merit, pure merit" that matters, and not caste or any other background'. Such were the assessments, often angry and even dismissive, of many …

The News You Choose: News Media Preferences Amplify Views On Climate Change, Jessica L. Bolin, Lawrence C. Hamilton

Sociology

How do choices among information sources reinforce political differences on topics such as climate change? Environmental sociologists have observed large-scale and long-term impacts from news media and think-tank reports, while experimental science-communication studies detect more immediate effects from variations in supplied information. Applying generalized structural equation modeling to recent survey data, previous work is extended to show that political ideology, education and their interaction predict news media information choices in much the same way they predict opinions about climate change itself. Consequently, media information sources serve as intervening variables that can reinforce and, through their own independent effects, amplify existing …

Does It Matter If People Think Climate Change Is Human Caused?, Joel N. Hartter, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Angela E. Boag, Forrest R. Stevens, Mark J. Ducey, Nils D. Christoffersen, Paul T. Oester, Michael W. Palace

Sociology

There is a growing consensus that climate is changing, but beliefs about the causal factors vary widely among the general public. Current research shows that such causal beliefs are strongly influenced by cultural, political, and identity-driven views. We examined the influence that local perceptions have on the acceptance of basic facts about climate change. We also examined the connection to wildfire by local people. Two recent telephone surveys found that 37% (in 2011) and 46% (in 2014) of eastern Oregon (USA) respondents accept the scientific consensus that human activities are now changing the climate. Although most do not agree with …

Getting, Staying, And Being In College: The Experiences Of Students, Laura Nichols, Maria Guzmán

Sociology

This chapter presents the experiences of undergraduate students at Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States based on interviews with twenty-five enrolled students at six of the twenty-eight private, nonprofit Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. who were undocumented at the time of the interview. The six schools include two in the western region of the U.S., two in the Midwest, and two in the East. Together, the six institutions represent the breadth and diversity of Jesuit institutions, from a research university with undergraduate and graduate programs, a law school, and a medical school, to an undergraduate focused …

Staying In Place During Times Of Change In Arctic Alaska: The Implications Of Attachment,Alternatives, And Buffering, Henry P. Huntington, Philip A. Loring, Glenna Gannon, Shari Fox Gearheard, S. Craig Gerlach, Lawrence C. Hamilton

Sociology

The relationship between stability and change in social-ecological systems has received considerable attention in recent years, including the expectation that significant environmental changes will drive observable consequences for individuals, communities, and populations. Migration, as one example of response to adverse economic or environmental changes, has been observed in many places, including parts of the Far North. In Arctic Alaska, a relative lack of demographic or migratory response to rapid environmental and other changes has been observed. To understand why Arctic Alaska appears different, we draw on the literature on environmentally driven migration, focusing on three mechanisms that could account for …