Blog Profile / Everyday Sociology
| URL : | http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Sociology | |
| Posts on Regator: | 429 | |
| Posts / Week: | 1.9 | |
| Archived Since: | February 14, 2009 | |
Blog Post Archive
Ideologies in the News: How Powerful Ideas Become Common Sense
By Wayne Mellinger Instructor, Antioch University A “dominant ideology” is a way of looking at and understanding the social world that reflects the perspectives of the rich and powerful. British sociologist John B. Thompson aptly describes ideology as “meaning in...
The Myth of the Self-Made Person
By Peter Kaufman What do the alleged Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have in common with Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, J.K. Rowling, Jimi Hendrix, and Ben Franklin? The answer: All of these individuals are said to have become...
Honoring Parents
By Sally Raskoff How do you spend the two days of the year that we honor the challenging and important job that parents do? Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are celebrated in the U.S. in May and June, respectively. Both...
Benefitting from Housing’s Burst Bubble
By Karen Sternheimer I recently purchased a home in Los Angeles, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to afford. When prices started skyrocketing in the mid-2000s, like many other people I chose not to buy and saved my...
Thinking Critically About Statistics and Their Sources
By Sally Raskoff In the sciences, we use theory and methods to empirically assess “reality”. While we can often play with data to explore the relationships between our concepts(our variables), it is important to frame what we’re doing with good...
To ”Commit Sociology”
By Jonathan Wynn Recently, when the Canadian Government arrested men suspected of planning a terrorist attack, Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned the media not to “commit sociology” by asking for their motives. (It’s a reference to a W.H. Auden poem.)...
Thinking Sociologically about the Boston Tragedy
By Karen Sternheimer Since the bombing at the Boston Marathon on April 15, the nation has been trying to figure out how and why someone would do something so horrific. The bombers’ methods and motives are the domain of law...
Violence and the Need to Be Imaginatively Aware
By Peter Kaufman “It’s always one damn thing after another.” This was a favorite phrase of my advisor in graduate school. He was referring both to the relatively minor irritations of grad school—getting papers rejected, having data troubles, worrying about...
The Power of Acquaintances
By Wayne Mellinger Instructor, Antioch University Casual connections might be some of the most consequential relations in our lives, helping us to land jobs, deal with our personal issues, and providing us with a sense of identity and belonging. And...
Social Interactions
By Todd Schoepflin There I was, sitting on a bar stool, having a beer and shooting the breeze with my brother-in-law Jim, and watching people bowl together. I don’t get out much, so it was eventful just to hang out...
Thinking Sociologically About Education
By Karen Sternheimer Ask just about anyone about how to improve public education and they’ll likely give you an answer: Hire better teachers. Fire bad teachers. Instill more discipline. Include more art and music in the curriculum. Go back to...
On the Social Construction of Privacy
By Tristan Bridges, The College at Brockport, State University of New York and Tara Tober, University of Virgina Drug-sniffing dogs are becoming more and more ubiquitous. Dogs are often one line of defense against possessing drugs in public. They help...
Data are Everywhere
By Sally Raskoff From day one in my statistics course, I tell my students that data are everywhere. Even though the word makes it sound like data is everywhere, the word data is plural thus they are everywhere. Facebook helped...
Gay Marriage: It’s Personal
By Peter Kaufman Recently, gay marriage and gay rights have been at the forefront of the nation’s attention. As the Supreme Court heard two historic arguments on same-sex marriage, the top story in print, on the airwaves, and over the...
The Sociology of Pranks
By Jonathan Wynn For the last five years I’ve received many calls about pranks. I’m not a prank expert, but I did write an article about tricks tour guides use to tell historical stories. That perked up the ears of...
The Sociological Imagination and Personal Crises
By Karen Sternheimer C. Wright Mills famously described how “personal troubles” and “public issues” are related; understanding this relationship is essential for developing a sociological imagination. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for a handful of students to encounter serious “personal troubles”...
Steubenville Meets the 24-hour News Cycle
By Jonathan Wynn You are likely familiar with the Steubenville, Ohio case where two teenaged boys were recently convicted of raping a young woman. There have been some great sociological analyses about it. Sarah Sobieraj wrote an OpEd on the...
Cheating: A Sociological Perspective
By Karen Sternheimer Did you know that turning in a class assignment copied directly from your textbook without quotes is a form of plagiarism? A student who did this in one of my classes claimed not to. Each year I...
I am a Sociologist Because . . .
By Peter Kaufman What makes you a sociologist? Is it a degree? A title? A job? Are there certain books you need to read? Is there a test you need to pass? Must you freely use jargon and esoteric language?...
Are You Normal or are You WEIRD?
By Jonathan Wynn What if I told you that if you thought you were normal, you might just be weird? Some friends of mine have a ten-year-old, and I pulled a book off their shelf to read it aloud. The...