Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies | Open Access Articles

The Diffusion Of Tolerance: Birth Cohort Changes In The Effects Of Education And Income On Political Tolerance, Philip Schwadel, Christopher R. H Garneau

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Political tolerance—the willingness to extend civil liberties to traditionally stigmatized groups—is pivotal to the functioning of democracy and the well-being of members of stigmatized groups. Although political tolerance has traditionally been more common among American elites, we argue that as tolerance has increased, it has also diffused to less educated and less affluent segments of the population. The relative stability of political attitudes over the life course and the socialization of more recent birth cohorts in contexts of increased tolerance suggest that this diffusion of tolerance occurs across birth cohorts rather than time periods. Using age-period-cohort models and more than …

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Quantitative Historical Analysis Uncovers A Single Dimension Of Complexity That Structures Global Variation In Human Social Organization, Peter Turchin, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Feeney, Daniel Mullins, Daniel Hoyer, Christina Collins, Stephanie Grohmann, Patrick Savage, Gavin Mendel-Gleason, Edward Turner, Agathe Dupeyron, Enrico Cioni, Jenny Reddish, Jill Levine, Greine Jordan, Eva Brandl, Alice Williams, Rudolf Cesaretti, Marta Krueger, Alessandro Ceccarelli, Joe Figliulo-Rosswurm, Po-Ju Tuan, Peter Peregrine, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Nikolay Kradin, Andrey Korotayev, Alessio Palmisano, David Baker, Julye Bidmead, Peter Bol, David Christian, Connie Cook, Alan Covey, Gary Feinman, Árni Daníel Júlíusson, Axel Kristinsson, John Miksic, Ruth Mostern, Camero Petrie, Peter Rudiak-Gould, Barend Ter Haar, Vesna Wallace, Victor Mair, Liye Xie, John Baines, Elizabeth Bridges, Joseph Manning, Bruce Lockhart, Amy Bogaard, Charles Spencer

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as “Seshat: Global History Databank.” We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information …

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Race, The Condition Of Neo-Liberalism, Vikash Singh

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article addresses the social and historical relation between Chicago School neo-liberalism and contemporary racism, and its connections with the formations of racism in classical liberalism and its colonial character. I show the pragmatic and discursive operations of neo-racism in the context of this shift to a neo-liberal discourse, drawing particularly on Michel Foucault’s seminars, Society Must be Defended, and Birth of Bio-politics. Insofar as “race” cannot be understood as a discrete category outside its social, economic, moral, and political embeddedness in liberalism, I argue that methodological individualism and expectations of high-specialization constrain the theorization of race in U.S. scholarship. …

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“That’S Why I Say Stay In School”: Black Mothers’ Parental Involvement, Cultural Wealth, And Exclusion In Their Son’S Schooling, Quaylan Allen, Kimberly A. White-Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines parental involvement practices, the cultural wealth, and school experiences of poor and working-class mothers of Black boys. Drawing upon data from an ethnographic study, we examine qualitative interviews with four Black mothers. Using critical race theory and cultural wealth frameworks, we explore the mothers’ approaches to supporting their sons’ education. We also describe how the mothers and their sons experienced exclusion from the school, and how this exclusion limited the mothers’ involvement. We highlight their agency in making use of particular forms of cultural wealth in responding to the school’s failure of their sons.

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The Republicanization Of Evangelical Protestants In The United States: An Examination Of The Sources Of Political Realignment, Philip Schwadel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Although the association between evangelical Protestant and Republican affiliations is now a fundamental aspect of American politics, this was not the case as recently as the early 1980s. Following work on secular political realignment and the issue evolution model of partisan change, I use four decades of repeated cross-sectional survey data to examine the dynamic correlates of evangelical Protestant and Republican affiliations, and how these factors promote changes in partisanship. Results show that evangelical Protestants have become relatively more likely to attend religious services and to oppose homosexuality, abortion, and welfare spending. Period-specific mediation models show that opposition to abortion, …

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Social Isolation, Survey Nonresponse, And Nonresponse Bias: An Empirical Evaluation Using Social Network Data Within An Organization, Megumi Watanabe, Kristen Olson, Christina Falci

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Survey researchers have long hypothesized that social isolation negatively affects the probability of survey participation and biases survey estimates. Previous research, however, has relied on proxy measures of isolation, such as being a marginalized group member within a population. We re-examine the relationship between social isolation and survey participation using direct measures of social isolation derived from social network data; specifically, instrumental research and expressive friendship connections among faculty within academic departments. Using a reconceptualization of social isolation, we find that social network isolation is negatively associated with unit response. Among women (a numerical minority group within the organization), we …

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Within-Household Selection In Mail Surveys: Explicit Questions Are Better Than Cover Letter Instructions, Kristen Olson, Jolene Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Randomly selecting a single adult within a household is one of the biggest challenges facing mail surveys. Yet obtaining a probability sample of adults within households is critical to having a probability sample of the US adult population. In this paper, we experimentally test three alternative placements of the within-household selection instructions in the National Health, Wellbeing, and Perspectives study (sample n = 6,000; respondent n = 998): (1) a standard cover letter informing the household to ask the person with the next birthday to complete the survey (control); (2) the control cover letter plus an instruction on the front …

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Full-Text Articles in Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies

The Diffusion Of Tolerance: Birth Cohort Changes In The Effects Of Education And Income On Political Tolerance, Philip Schwadel, Christopher R. H Garneau

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

Race, The Condition Of Neo-Liberalism, Vikash Singh

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

“That’S Why I Say Stay In School”: Black Mothers’ Parental Involvement, Cultural Wealth, And Exclusion In Their Son’S Schooling, Quaylan Allen, Kimberly A. White-Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The Republicanization Of Evangelical Protestants In The United States: An Examination Of The Sources Of Political Realignment, Philip Schwadel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Social Isolation, Survey Nonresponse, And Nonresponse Bias: An Empirical Evaluation Using Social Network Data Within An Organization, Megumi Watanabe, Kristen Olson, Christina Falci

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Within-Household Selection In Mail Surveys: Explicit Questions Are Better Than Cover Letter Instructions, Kristen Olson, Jolene Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications