Search

Drawing on publications produced by one of the oldest and leading professional associations dealing with intellectual disability (ID), this paper explores the continual maintenance of expertise over potentially contested classifications. I find that, given unforeseen difficulties among professionals in actually defining and classifying what is currently known as ID as well as the later addition of new stakeholders in the advocacy field, professionals’ understanding of revision shifted over time from a problem to ultimately be solved to a “legacy of revision” used to explain past changes in criteria and anticipate further ones. In analyzing this legacy, I focus on professionals’ understanding of several shifts surrounding diagnostic and classification criteria over the course of the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. To the extent that previous literature suggests that ambiguities surrounding classification are to be expected, this paper shows how professionals in the ID field drew on resonant themes and rhetorically (re)framed past and future changes in their maintenance of expertise in a field that dramatically shifted in what was acceptable in the treatment of people with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries worldwide are experiencing a sharp wave of democratic decline that is cutting away at the gains made toward democracy that had occurred in decades prior. While the majority of scholars demonstrate a robust positive association between civil society and democracy, historical case studies in political sociology have demonstrated that nations with robust civic spheres can become cauldrons of anti-democratic politics under particular circumstances, particularly when the country has weak and ineffective political parties and when the country has autocratic movements working to degrade the democracy. While these case studies illuminate important caveats to leading research on civil society, these findings have not been tested at a cross-national level. In this paper, we ask how weak political parties and autocratic mobilization moderate the extent to which countries with more civic participation have stronger democracies around the world. We examine this research question using the continuous level of electoral democracy. Findings of our statistical analysis reveal support for the conditioning effects of weak political parties and autocratic mobilization on the relationship between civil society and electoral democracy and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unequal homeownership access is a major component of ethno-racial stratification. Previous studies have demonstrated substantial ethno-racial disparities in access and outcomes throughout the homeownership process. In addition, prior research has assumed that mortgage applicants have a similar age distribution across ethno-racial groups. This paper draws on annual data from the 2018 and 2019 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to assess variation in ethno-racial disparities in loan outcomes associated with different ages. I show that ethno-racial disparities in loan outcomes vary tremendously when considering the age of the applicant. I demonstrate that loan rejections and high-cost loan originations are highest among Latino and Black borrowers across age groups compared to Whites. Black borrowers have worse adverse loan outcomes than Whites, regardless of age. Depending on the adverse loan outcome, Asians perform similarly or underperform compared to Whites. In addition, older applicants are more likely to be denied a mortgage loan than younger applicants, while the trends for high-cost loans vary considerably across ethno-racial groups. When examining high-cost loan originations, Latinos above 65 years old (who are the best performing Latino sub-group) underperform Whites regardless of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gig work platforms often promise workers flexibility and freedom from formal constraints on their work schedules. Some scholars have questioned whether this "formal flexibility" actually helps people arrange gig work around non-work commitments, but few studies have examined this empirically. This paper examines how hours spent in microtask work – a form of gig work with high formal flexibility – influence work-to-life conflict (WLC) relative to conventional work hours, and how these relationships differ by workers' gender and financial situation. Fixed-effects regressions using panel data from workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform (MTurk) suggest that microtask work hours are just as closely associated with WLC as conventional work hours. Moreover, microtask work disadvantages the same groups as conventional work (i.e. women and financially struggling workers). Only financially comfortable men seem immune from microtask hours' association with WLC. This suggests that the benefits of gig work's formal flexibility are often elusive. We argue that platforms like MTurk promote a flexibility mystique: the illusory promise that gig work empowers workers to set their own schedules and earn decent income without disrupting their personal/family lives. The gig economy's expansion may thus do little to bring work-life balance to the masses or alleviate inequalities at the work-life nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how structural and social-psychological factors combine to motivate urban environmental activism. Specifically, we argue that residents' everyday perceptions about environmental, social, and political conditions in their neighborhoods and cities are connected to their likelihood of involvement in environmental collective action. We use logistic regression models and original survey data from the 2021 Cook County Community Survey (n = 1,069) to investigate whether urban residents' perceptions of the conditions where they live are associated with their likelihood of participating in protests or public meetings around environmental issues. Our findings show that, in the context of the Chicago metropolitan area, residents who perceive worse environmental conditions in their communities, feel a greater sense of belonging to their neighborhoods, and feel they understand local politics and have political power are more likely to mobilize. In contrast, those who are pessimistic about the future of their neighborhoods are less likely to act. The study suggests that participation in urban environmental collective action is partly explained by how people interpret the daily surroundings they routinely navigate and experience where they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social changes tied to late modernity and an increasingly precarious labor market have facilitated the emergence of fortune as a potentially significant element for understanding contemporary society. This article approaches this contingent, individualized, secularized, and uncertain panorama from the perspective of the young adults tasked with navigating these societal transformations and the effects of a prolonged economic crisis. Based on a discourse analysis of 20 in-depth interviews and three focus groups with young adults in Spain, it examines how chance/luck is employed by these individuals. A typology is presented and discussed, consisting of four different relationships with fortune. In the participants' narratives this paper finds a meritocratic approach, which involves an understanding that good luck is attained through individual initiative, but also relationships less concerned with human agentic power where it can be conceived as an explanatory or meaning making device, as a threat or as an element tied to hope. Consequently, the article seeks to address a gap in sociological research, which has tended to overlook the analytical relevance of fortune, arguing that it constitutes a central element to the symbolic frameworks of these vulnerable young adults as they make their way through a changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Dream has long been understood as a “shorthand summary of a nation’s collective aspirations” (Hauhart 2015:65). What determines optimism about the Dream? This paper uses nationally representative data collected at a critical historical juncture to advance research which has connected the American Dream to America’s racial history. We find faith in the American Dream was racialized into the 21st-Century, both in the sense that our data show different levels of optimism toward the Dream by race and in that predictors of belief vary by racialized experiences and ideologies. We find that most Americans continued to believe in the American Dream, but contrary to prominent 20th-Century understandings, whites became less optimistic than persons of color, and that this remaining white belief was complex, with racial attitudes being central. Predictors of belief in the Dream were different by race in ways that may vitally reflect how collective aspirations are conceived from within unfolding American racial civic histories and 21st-Century racial hierarchies, patterns we discuss as privileged multiculturalism (whites), meritocratic incorporation (Hispanics), and positive social inclusion (Blacks). Ultimately, these findings suggest that the socio-cultural significance of the American Dream is not just tied to material position but intertwined with racialized cultural expectations, outlooks, and status concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWithin urban sociology, the unpredictability of poor, urbanized space explains why black youth are “present oriented” and why they treat orientations to the future as futile. But where urban sociology suspends black youth in time and space, this research aims to de-arrest them from the “ethnographic present.” Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with thirty youth, I make the case that within “present orientations” there is prescience. This paper is based on over one year of fieldwork at Run-a-Way – a center for youth in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With limited life chances and limited chances at life, youth at Run-a-Way saw the future as fugitive. Instead of being a paralyzing force keeping youth suspended in time, present orientations were marked by the production of nowness, in light of a prescient vision of what is to come. Because black youth chose not to entertain liberal futurities directed towards “rights” and “freedoms” associated with a post-raciality did not make them present oriented. It made them prepared. As prescience comes to serve as a more accurate signifier of black youth’s relation to the future, we come to see why the “ethnographic present” and the interpellation of blackness through abjection are both unsustainable and obsolete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do scientists construct the meaning of science as oppositional to politics? How do the institutional contexts of scientists' work environment, training processes, and peer-group interactions reflect scientists' understanding of scientific practices, rules of the scientific field, and themselves as scientists? I argue that scientists' practice of boundary-work between science and politics is institutionally nurtured by a series of processes, which I call boundary-training. Drawing on ethnographic research at a molecular biology laboratory, this article reveals various tactics of boundary-training. Scientists are trained to routinely consume material infrastructure and produce massive scientific data. They internalize productivity-oriented academic life and valorize controllability in science labs to achieve this goal. Individuals' self-reliance and survival become core virtues of scientific enterprise. All combined, scientists are trained to believe that their works are irrelevant to social and political circumstances. This mundane depoliticization of science contributes to the consequence that the scientific field becoming a more efficient apparatus of political and economic powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how youth conceptualize adulthood can give insight into how they make major life decisions that aggregate into larger trends. Yet research on beliefs about adulthood is underdeveloped with respect to gender, non-Western experience, and parental influence. Based on interviews with 71 young men and women in southwestern China, I demonstrate that neither of the prevailing paradigms for understanding the transition to adulthood fully accounts for how interviewees conceive of this stage of the life course. Instead, the Linked Lives principle, which emphasizes the interdependence of lives, better addresses interviewees' prioritizing support of parents in defining adulthood as well as the significance they attach to the traditional markers. Finally, gender intersects with the Linked Lives principle such that women are less likely than men to view themselves as adults. This paper demonstrates how looking at gender and Linked Lives together can give more insight into the transition to adulthood, especially outside the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about how portrayals of American unity (i.e. "we're all in this together") have been received by essential workers on the front lines of the COVID risk divide, and how the pandemic may have contributed to perceptions of class inequality among lower-income workers. In this paper, we draw upon 192 in-depth interviews with precarious and gig-based workers in New York City. We find that during the height of the first wave of the pandemic, precarious workers often expressed frustration over class-based inequalities and antagonism toward elites. Many respondents expressed significant skepticism toward messages that the pandemic has brought Americans together. Instead, workers identified two distinct, class-based realities in New York: elite Americans are able to socially-distance in "mansions," or on "yachts," while precarious workers struggled to weather the storm in "dinghies." Likewise, workers felt "abandoned" by wealthy owners and managers, who fled the city to socially-distanced homes in beach communities and surrounding suburbs. Our findings suggest that low-wage, high-risk workers articulate complex conceptualizations of inequality and convey grievances toward elites during the pandemic. This study contributes to broader literature on perceived inequality, the rise of noxious work, and the social consequences of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social problems claims use rhetoric and other tools of symbolic communication to persuade audiences that some troubling condition is important and needs to be addressed. This paper considers how common measures of social time are employed as rhetorical elements in social problems claims. It is argued that time units operate as temporal frames that contribute to the structure of claims, articulate core meanings, and facilitate spread into relevant public arenas. A typology of three general ways that social problems claims incorporate temporal frames is offered; these include metered time units, attention maintenance mechanisms, and epochal markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between an emergent decay of social trust created by the Covid-19 pandemic and the formation of "in" and "out" groups. Data from 37 extensive semi-structured interviews with members of the public in England found that identifying the "other" through normative conceptions of "security and order" was used by participants to legitimize their own presence within the "in" group, while self-reported compliance with restrictions was used to construct identities to be in line with that of the "in" group. These findings have important implications both for social trust within and between communities and toward the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how labor inspectors deal with ambiguous legal boundaries between those who can and who cannot be identified as a labor exploitation victim. Street-level bureaucracy research has largely overlooked how frontline officers deal with victims. We combine the street-level bureaucracy framework with insights from symbolic interactionism and criminology about 'ideal/iconic victims' to explain how inspectors use heuristics based on societal norms about victimhood to deal with legal ambiguity when dealing with potential labor exploitation cases. Using qualitative vignette studies in Belgium and the Netherlands, our results show that the perceived vulnerability and blamelessness of employees have a crucial role in inspectors' assessment of who is and is not a labor exploitation victim. More specifically, migrant workers are seen as more vulnerable than native workers, particularly if they are female, and perceived complicity of social fraud reduces the chance that workers are seen as exploitation victims. Furthermore, also perceived employer characteristics have a role in case assessment. Our findings thus show that within the context of legal ambiguity, labor inspectors use stereotypical societal victim perceptions as heuristics, which can result in legal uncertainty and the risk that those suffering exploitations do not receive the support they need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As sociologists, we engage in history whether or not we see ourselves, professionally, as historical sociologists. These remarks discuss the varieties of ways sociologists use and approach historical scholarship, including history-as-context, analytic comparative/historical sociology, and interpretive approaches. I also reflect on the first fifty years of Midwest Sociological Society to show that, at different moments, the MSS mirrored, propelled, or lagged behind societal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two aims. First, we apply Bourdieu's field theory to investigate media discourse on race and immigration, demonstrating how features of news organizations influence news content. Second, we compare contemporary natural language processing (NLP) techniques with qualitative hand-coding. Extending a previous study, we compare newspaper articles from the mainstream and black press in Atlanta. We find significant differences in both word-use and topical coverage in immigration articles aimed at the two audiences. With a focus on organizational resources and values, our quantitative approach to field theory facilitates a better understanding of the journalistic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between the perceived presence of state forces and non-state actors and the levels of criminal violence affecting Central America. It contends that state presence in some communities does not necessarily lead to lower crime levels than communities where state institutions are absent. The data of this study come from three nationally representative surveys conducted in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The findings suggest that state forces, such as the police and the military, have a limited role in reducing criminal violence rates. In contrast, non-state armed actors, such as vigilantes and community groups, may have a more significant role in reducing violence in some circumstances. We analyze these findings as evidence of the complex relationships between state actors, non-state actors, and criminal violence in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Putnam introduced his constrict thesis in 2007, many researchers have established that ethnic diversity lowers perceptions of social cohesion, at least in the short term. The connection between ethnic diversity and social behavior, however, is less certain. In this paper we draw on social distance and social identity theories to empirically test if ethnic diversity encourages behaviors linked to social withdrawal. Using data from a longitudinal panel study of urban communities in Australia, we examine the influence of social distance on neighborhood ties, neighborly exchange, and civic engagement and assess if an individual's social identity (ethnic or civic) strengthens or weakens these relationships. We find individuals that endorse an ethnic identity are more likely to engage in social withdrawal behaviors. Withdrawal is also more likely in neighborhoods where individuals distort the presence of minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on research conducted in Colorado in late-2019 and again post-COVID outbreak, from April through May of 2020. In addition to (virtual) face-to-face interviews, the study used a GPS tracking app to map respondents' macromobilities – trips from one GPS coordinate to another. The data presented are informed by practice theory. The paper's findings focus on the themes of competencies, moralities, and mobilities. Gender proved a particularly significant variable for disentangling the diversity and contingency involved in the social effects of the pandemic, while also stressing the continuities of practice for some, and disruptions for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent flourishing of visual methods is not mirrored in studies of taste. This paper engages with photo elicitation (PE), which Bourdieu applied in Distinction, but never elaborated on. We conducted systematic photo-interviewing in arts, fiction and architecture. After reviewing the relevant literature, we highlight illustrative findings and discuss the potential of PE. In studies of taste, PE helps in bridging "social worlds", and can unveil class-based repertoires for understanding culture. It provides entry to tacit knowledge, and aids comparisons. Importantly, when two methods, PE and oral interviewing, are used in combination, this significantly helps substantiate our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive literature examining human rights decoupling between treaty commitments and practices, little research has addressed how to fill these empty promises. This paper proposes a mechanism neglected in prior studies that might play an important role in narrowing human rights decoupling and improving world society model compliance: foreign aid. Using longitudinal analysis on a sample of 120 aid-receiving countries between 1981 and 2011, we find: total aid has a significant effect on reducing human rights decoupling; aid to good governance shows a similar pattern but the impact is much weaker; by contrast, aid to human rights has limited influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What social and political factors explain the presence of Stand-Your-Ground (SYG) laws in US. states? This paper assesses the influence of crime and violence prevalence, minority threat theory, and self-help theory on SYG law adoption using discrete-time event-history analysis. Our findings indicate that these laws are linked to a violent vigilante and racially animus past. We also find evidence for minority threat theory with minority presence positively associated with SYG law adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of 9/11 and the Trump campaign in 2016, organized Islamophobia has been on the rise in the U.S. In this article, I ask: How do those leading and participating in anti-Muslim mobilizations justify this discriminatory activism? To answer this question, I conducted a frame analysis of an anti-Muslim mobilization in Aberdeen, SD from 2016–2017. I analyzed the content of public meetings during this period (n = 8), the public Facebook posts of a local hate group, the Americans First, Task Force (n = 454), and individual Facebook user comments (n = 1370). I find that color-blind racist frames, place-based racial storytelling , white victimhood, and racialization are the central justifications deployed in this mobilization's frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women and racial minorities have made significant inroads into senior managerial and, especially, board of director positions over the past half-century. Despite this, there is little research on gender and racial differences in the political behavior of corporate elites. In this study, we investigate whether and how gender, race, and their intersection shape the political donation strategies of elite actors. Relying on a novel longitudinal corporate elites' political donation database, we provide the first systematic elite-level analysis of political donations to U.S. Congressional campaigns during the 1980-2014 election cycles. Overall, we find that, compared to men, women elites are less likely to donate, but are more Democrat-leaning and give to more ideologically extreme candidates. We also find evidence of intersectionality between gender and race in political donations among corporate elites. While elites of color favor the Democratic Party overall, our results suggest minority men concentrate their donations on more centrist candidates relative to women. Notably, white men are the only reliably Republican constituency within this elite group. Our results portend potentially far-reaching consequences for the party system as the composition of the American corporate elite grows more racially and gender diverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although religion once played a central role in sociological inquiry, today it has fallen from prominence and now occupies a marginal space in the field. Sociologists of religion suggest that this neglect can be explained by the unusual irreligiosity of academia. However, some are hopeful that changes to graduate training and other institutional interventions can overcome this propensity and encourage more sociological engagement with religion, one of the most influential forces in contemporary society. Drawing on a new dataset of 473 sociology graduate students in the top 25 departments in the United States, we assess how personal secularity and departmental support for religious inquiry predict sociological engagement with religion. Personal secularity is a strong predictor of the decision to study religion and of the overall perception of the relevance of religion in contemporary society. Coming from a department where religion is discussed and faculty pursue research on religion predicts the perception of religion's relevance for the secular majority. Our findings contribute to the understanding of sociological knowledge creation and how individual and institutional proclivities – together – shape what we deem important enough to study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early 2000s, the U.S. government began to partner with local law enforcement agencies for assistance with the enforcement of immigration laws. Participation in the voluntary 287(g) program by law enforcement agencies was an important early iteration of this new strategy. Although relatively few agencies adopted 287(g), its implementation was a critical turning point in the nation's approach to immigration enforcement and has been linked to a wide range of negative consequences for Latinos, including higher levels of violent victimization, and decreases in police trust. This study advances knowledge about the factors associated with 287(g) program adoption during the late 2000s. We examined the role of agency ethnoracial diversity and fiscal capacity and several theoretically relevant indicators of the broader county context. Based on a sample of 880 law enforcement agencies located in 233 counties, rare event logistic regression models indicate that the strongest predictors of 287(g) adoption were the share of county population estimated to be undocumented immigrants, the degree of support for the Republican Presidential candidate, and the relative unemployment of Hispanic and non-Hispanic White residents. Overall, the results suggest that 287(g) was primarily a political response to concerns about the potential threats associated with undocumented immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illicit drug markets have long been associated with violence as a mode of regulating market behavior, especially regarding debts linked to drug purchase. While a growing literature examines violent and nonviolent modes of ensuring repayment by dealers and lenders, little research has focused on strategies of buyers and borrowers in navigating drug debt. Drawing on interviews with 75 people who use drugs within a materially disadvantaged neighborhood, we explore experiences in managing debt to dealers and within social networks adjacent to drug markets. Findings describe complex strategies to protect reputation, foster relationships with dealers, and employ cooperative, assertive, or coercive tactics to negotiate credit arrangements that sustain and stabilize the drug market while mitigating violent retaliation for unpaid debt. Findings also elucidate informal credit arrangements within social networks, identifying reciprocity and self-control as constitutive of social capital within friendship groups that serve as financial and social safety nets. This research considers socially embedded, boundedly rational decisions of marginalized drug market actors, highlighting diverse financial management practices among structurally vulnerable borrowers that serve economic and social goals while seeking to mitigate the risk of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian nationalism has been linked to a variety of political and social outcomes in the contemporary United States, however little research has investigated factors that give rise to it. Most scholars examining Christian nationalism contend that it is unmoored from extant social institutions, and even oppositional to institutional Christianity. This claim is associated with earlier research arguing for the declining influence of denominations, and particularly mainline Protestantism. In contrast, social movement theory views Christian nationalism as an ideological outgrowth of religious organizations, structured by exclusivist religious beliefs, and reenforced through religious participation. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS) this investigation examines how religious and political factors inform subscription to Christian nationalism and explores how religious and political commitments are connected. In general, the findings support the expectations of the social movement perspective. Christian nationalism is strongly predicted by ties to sectarian Protestantism, religious participation, and fundamentalist beliefs, and it is not embraced by secular and non-Christian Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013 a group of science fiction authors launched a campaign to reform the Hugos, one of science fiction's most prestigious awards. Dubbing themselves "Sad Puppies," these activists sought to correct what they viewed as a political imbalance. Science fiction, they argued, had moved away from entertaining story telling in favor of heavy-handed message fiction meant to spread pernicious liberal values. This article draws on an analysis of internet posts by actors involved in the movement to examine the Puppies' efforts to reform the science fiction field, reclaiming it as a space for conservative authors and fans. I argue that the leaders of the movement were able to build small fan communities into a larger social movement by framing the movement in such a way as to link their efforts to exogenous political and cultural debates occurring in proximate social fields. This analysis demonstrates the processes by which tournament rituals in popular culture can come to serve as contests of values, arenas within which larger political and cultural conflicts are waged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. young adults in the 2000s and 2010s entered a national labor market that was highly stratified by education. While the socioeconomic consequences of a four-year bachelor's degree are well documented during this period, less is known about the consequences of seeking a sub-baccalaureate credential. I analyze the employment, earnings, and student debt outcomes associated with several sub-baccalaureate experiences differentiated by enrollment, credential level, and for-profit attendance using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 Cohort. Using fixed-effects regression models, I find that certificates and associate degrees are associated with employment advantages relative to a high school diploma. However, young adults with some two-year college and no credential or a certificate have no higher earnings than those with a high school diploma. Sub-baccalaureate credentials can also be costly, as those who attend a for-profit college have more student debt than those who do not. Results shed light on labor market inequality among a large but understudied segment of higher education and underscore the importance of considering debt alongside labor market outcomes in analyses of the socioeconomic consequences of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous scholarship highlights the importance of cross-class alliances between intellectuals and workers in past social-democratic and labor movements, the growth of right-wing populism may signal the breakdown of this political alignment today. We investigate the extent to which intellectuals and workers remain politically aligned through a case study of political developments in the state of Wisconsin, which pioneered social-democratic reforms in the US in the early twentieth century and then turned toward right-wing populism in the twenty-first century. We draw on Alvin Gouldner and Pierre Bourdieu to theorize intellectual-worker alliances. We then present historical evidence that an intellectual-worker alliance played an important role in the earlier period. Logistic regression analysis with survey data shows continued political antagonism between the state's wealthiest and most highly educated citizens in the later period, as well as an enduring political alignment of highly educated and working-class Wisconsinites. Our results demonstrate that right-wing populism prevailed in Wisconsin despite an intellectual-worker alliance, not because the alliance broke down. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings imply about contemporary right-wing populism beyond Wisconsin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One explanation of increasing gender earnings inequality during China's marketization is the increasing representation of women in industries and occupations in which, on average, earnings are declining. I argue that focusing on the average relationship between feminization and earnings is insufficient to understand complex changes in gender inequality during this period. I hypothesize that the feminization-earnings relationship may vary by industry because of differences in devaluation, social closure, and earnings-setting mechanisms. The hypotheses are tested using data from the China Household Income Project (1988– 2013) in industry-province level fixed-effects models. Results support the hypotheses that focus on industry-specific contexts. Specifically, feminization is not negatively associated with earnings in state-monopolized industries, where earnings are protected, and finance-insurance industries, where high-skilled female-typed skills have been increasingly in demand. I discuss implications for understanding segregation amongst the highly educated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecologically unequal exchange theory explains that unequal trade arrangements between higher- and lower-income countries result in greater environmental degradation in lower-income countries. Farm animals are sometimes neglected by sociology because of their unique place between nature and society. Here, we extend ecologically unequal exchange theory to analyze trade relationships between higher- and lower-income countries and farm animal cruelty, using data from 2014. Results from regression analyses show that contrary to what we would expect based on ecologically unequal exchange theory, higher levels of exports to high-income countries from low- and middle-income countries is associated with lower overall farm animal cruelty and production of farm animal cruelty. We suggest that this may be the result of spillover effects, where the types of legislation meant to improve farm animal welfare passed in high-income countries are affecting lower-income countries, and call for more research into animal welfare, including research that examines changes over time as data become available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the idea that performance expectations in problem-solving groups (e.g., juries, planning groups) are partially outside of group members' awareness. We first identify a divergence between indirect and direct teammate performance assessments among participants who are working with a teammate with schizophrenia in a two-person task group. The indirect indicator is the participant's resistance to the teammate's problem-solving suggestions, and the direct indicator is the participant's subsequent and private responses to a series of questions about the teammate's task performance. We explore the divergence further by assessing the extent to which participants' political beliefs differentially affect the two measures. Liberals are likely to hold less explicitly prejudicial views of individuals with a mental illness than do conservatives. But, if performance expectations are driven by fairly uniform status beliefs, liberals' resistance to influence from individuals with a mental illness should be similar to conservatives'. Consistent with that expectation, liberals' direct assessment of the task performance of teammates with schizophrenia is more positive than conservatives', but their indirect assessment (i.e., their resistance to their influence) is the same as conservatives'. All the findings hold with controls for stigmatized behavior toward the teammate (social and physical distance), stigmatized perceptions of the teammate (teammate evaluation and teammate likability), and social desirability bias. The findings are generally consistent with the idea that deference behaviors are sometimes rooted in performance expectations that are subconsciously held. They also illuminate status processes related to mental health and suggest a new way to infer the extent to which explicit performance assessments differ from performance expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly a third of students whose parents do not have bachelor's degrees become first-generation college graduates and over a third of students with at least one parent with a bachelor's degree do not become continuing-generation college graduates. We apply insights from social reproduction theory to study educational mobility, examining which factors are associated with becoming a first-generation college graduate and not becoming a continuing-generation college graduate. Drawing on data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that students with low educational origins who become first-generation college graduates have parents who possess and pass down high levels of some resources for their educational level and are well equipped to use the resources they receive. Likewise, students with high educational origins who do not become continuing-generation graduates tend to have parents who possess few resources for their education level, pass down few of some resources, and are less well equipped to use the resources they receive. We discuss the implications of our findings for the openness of the American educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perspectives in human ecology and political economy present local growth as a syndrome of interdependent changes happening over time within municipalities. This quantitative study examines the reciprocal relationship between three core concepts of growth: employment, land development, and migration. To assess these associations across the United States, covering the years 2001–2011, we merge county-level data (n = 3,108) from three sources: USA Counties' Employment Data; satellite imagery from the National Land Cover Database; and the Internal Revenue Service's County-to-County Migration Data. In structural equation models (SEMs) with cross-lagged associations, we estimate the reciprocal relationship between first-difference change scores for three variables: the unemployment rate, the area of human constructed impervious surfaces (i.e. land development), and the ratio of in/out migration. While land development and migration are in an asymmetric, positive feedback loop, the reciprocal association between unemployment and migration is positive in one direction and negative in the other. With SEM, the analysis contributes to the literature by highlighting the social forces of local growth as an interdependent system of reciprocal change, although not fully recursive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attitudes toward gay men and lesbians in the United States have liberalized dramatically over time yet vary substantially between states. Trends in college attainment mirror this uneven progress. This study draws on theories of the university as a cultural institution to examine the relationship between college-educated populations and attitudes toward gay men and lesbians over time and across American states. Employing 1984–2016 American National Election Studies data, this study demonstrates that larger shares of college graduates in a state are associated with more favorable attitudes on average toward gay men and lesbians, including among those who do not have a college degree. These results are robust to competing state-level religious, political, and economic explanations. Results also show that individuals in states with more college graduates are more likely to identify as LGB. This increases the likelihood of knowing someone who is LGB, which in turn leads to more accepting views. Cultural values of tolerance and acceptance espoused by university graduates may create social contexts in which sexual minorities feel safe to come out, thus increasing the visibility of sexual minority communities and enhancing favorable attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and why do advocates choose frames, and what are the effects of these choices? This study draws on two decades of data about the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW), an advocacy organization founded by feminist early childhood educators in 1977 to raise child care wages. It traces how contextual factors shape framing choices, and how framing choices shape advocacy goals and claims. Archival research and interview data reveal that discursive barriers led CCW to lobby for ensuring "quality" child care, a strategic choice that inadvertently prioritized professional educators' interests over those of other caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society's binary understanding of gender and sexuality often render the identities of bisexual, queer, and pansexual (bi+) people invisible in everyday interactions. Furthermore, when a bi+ person gets married, they are often mistakenly presumed to have "made a choice" regarding their sexual preference or identity. What are the consequences – both negative and positive – of this perception? Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with 23 married bi+ individuals, this research extends the theory of doing gender to the context of doing sexuality to explore if and how married bi+ people attempt to make their sexual identities known in everyday interactions. Findings suggest that being married increased feelings of bisexual erasure. However, married bi+ people who were presumed by others to be heterosexual during interactions frequently reported taking advantage of passing to situationally avoid prejudice or discrimination. Applying a queer theoretical critique of heteronormativity and the binaries it reinforces, this research considers how increased visibility of married bi+ people could contribute to the deconstruction of gender and sexual binaries and the inequalities they create. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational expectations have increased over time, with greater increases among young women than men, yet research focused on expectations for post-baccalaureate degrees is limited. We investigate young men's and women's plans to attend graduate or professional school using Monitoring the Future data from 12th graders for 1976 to 2019, focusing on how academic performance and work and family values may be associated with post-baccalaureate expectations. We find that young women's expectations for graduate or professional school began to exceed young men's in the early 1990s and continued to do so afterward, although expectations for post-baccalaureate schooling declined some in recent years, especially among young men. Results also indicate that the gender gap over time is driven partially by more young women than men with B or lower average grades holding post-baccalaureate expectations. Work values may foster these high expectations, especially for lower-achieving young women. Finally, we examine whether post-baccalaureate expectations translate into higher attainments, and results suggest that higher-achieving students are better positioned to meet their post-baccalaureate expectations. Collectively, our findings suggest that sociocultural factors promoting women's participation in the public sphere may encourage some young women to form high-level expectations that they are not academically equipped to meet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on sociological theories of affect and ambivalence to empirically examine individuals who express support for the rights of gays and lesbians but not transgender people. Using a representative survey of Nebraska residents and quantitative and qualitative analysis of close-ended and open-ended responses, we find that the group we call "inconsistents" are more similar demographically to consistent opponents, they outnumber consistent opponents, and that they rely on two types of logics to justify their views. For nearly all who oppose employment nondiscrimination and bathroom protections for transgender people, they use an identity logic to express skepticism, and often overt hostility, toward transgender identity. For most who oppose only bathroom protections but support employment nondiscrimination, they use a setting logic that emphasizes how social context determines when definitions of gender matter (like when using public restrooms). Our analysis shows that attitudes about LGBT rights are not dichotomous or always uniform and serves as a model to understand other contentious social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines protests targeting Multilateral Economic Institutions (MEIs), namely the WTO, IMF, and World Bank from 1995 to 2018 across a large sample of countries using data drawn from media reports. We consider conventional social movement arguments regarding domestic and international resources and political opportunities, as well as economic threats, integration into the global economy, and the effects of international lending. Hypotheses are evaluated using negative binomial panel regression models of annual country protest counts. Results are consistent with several arguments. Recessions and high unemployment are associated with the number of anti-MEI protests, and countries that receive large IMF loans also tend to have more protests. Moreover, we observe a globalization of the political landscape itself. International sites, such as the locations of WTO, IMF, and World Bank summits, serve as powerful magnets for protest. Finally, we note a decline in anti-globalization protests in recent years. We suspect that this reflects the weakening of MEIs, which have seen their influence wane amidst diminished enthusiasm for globalization. As the neo-liberal agenda stalls, MEIs lose salience and social movements have shifted their attention elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses resampling methods and machine learning to measure how religio-scientific groups are distributed across regions, countries/territories, and religious groups. Across 76 societies (N = 143,092), the distribution of class membership is as follows: traditional (31.9 percent), modern (23.7 percent), post-secular (30.3 percent), and postmodern (14.1 percent). Although most societies are dominated by a single class, there is evidence of significant heterogeneity within societies in class prevalence. Those with post-secular views are both religious and feel favorably toward science; however, when faced with a conflict between religion and science they tend to support religion. Ultimately, societies with large traditional and post-secular classes are significantly more likely to support religion given a conflict with science; in contrast, the reverse is true for societies with large modern and postmodern classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of work that has examined Chinese immigration to the US has coined the term "culture of remittances": money that is sent home not only provides economically but also elevates the "face" of the family. However, using qualitative data from a multiyear ethnographic study of three undocumented and mixed-status Chinese families in the US and their families in China, we find that garnering face for the family is less of a motivator than the fear of losing it. This dynamic plays a role at all stages of immigration and amplifies existing norms in a way that perpetuates disadvantage experienced by Chinese immigrants. As these undocumented Chinese immigrants craft an idealized narrative of their lives in the US, more members from their sending communities are motivated to immigrate, leading to precarious consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is unevenly distributed within the United States – – a fact demonstrated by a rich literature on inequality in the US. By ignoring such variation, research runs the risk of overlooking the geographical distribution of poverty and risks that increase the likelihood of poverty. In this article, I address this by: (1) building on the prevalence and penalties framework, developed in cross-national scholarship, and applying it to the U.S. case given state autonomy in poverty policy; and (2) conducting longitudinal analyses using high-quality data derived from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC). Through these analyses, I examine the extent of interstate variation in poverty and in the prevalence of risks and the penalties associated with those risks. Results confirm interstate variation in poverty similar to that seen across rich democracies – the focus of much cross-national comparative work – and demonstrate sizable differences in risks and their associated penalties that have grown rapidly since the welfare reforms of the 1990s. These findings have substantial implications for scholars and policymakers interested in understanding poverty and vulnerability in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the regional and national determinants of workplace discrimination complaints across the US states from 2009–2018. Drawing on the EEOC charge data supplemented with a number of additional data sources, the authors examine the extent to which socioeconomic, demographic, and political environments explain variation in the rate of total, race, and sex-based employment discrimination charges. Building on the neoinstitutional and power resource theories, the authors examine the role of social-structural factors as important determinants of workplace discrimination charges across US states. In fixed-effects regressions, the authors find evidence that union density and collective bargaining, democratic partisanship in legislatures, and demographic composition at the state level and contentious politics and economic inequalities at the national level are important determinants of workplace discrimination claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship finds linkages between religiosity and vaccination practices but neglects the role of religious, social structural influences. The relationship between religious beliefs and immunization in the context of closed religious communities remains understudied. We use a survey of Amish and Old Order Mennonite parents to explore relationships between religious belief, group closure, perceived vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine uptake. The results indicate higher group and individual closure levels are positively related to having unvaccinated children and vaccine hesitancy. Perceptions of vaccine effectiveness partially explain these associations. Healthcare providers should consider constructing culturally competent programs to reach closed communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from recent work on "otherness" and social boundaries in America, we investigate anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish opinion among white Americans. After outlining the logic of the comparison, we use nationally representative data to analyze these forms of othering. Although anti-Muslim opinion is more extensive, the two track together empirically and share a cultural logic as connected forms of ethno-religious boundary-making. Latent class analysis shows that anti-Semitism is nested within anti-Muslim attitudes, with political and religious identifications as consistent predictors of opinion. We conclude with a reflection on politicized boundary-making and the relationship between extreme and mainstream views of the "other." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the employment of gendered frameworks accompanying organizational imperatives to diversify and offer equal opportunities through a content analysis of the Women in Service Review conducted prior to gender integration of the U.S. military's combat arms in 2015. Through a framework of gender difference, these documents support the organizational position that integrating women into combat arms can enhance, but mostly endangers, military capability. Additionally, the military's focus on developing gender-neutral standards both claims erasure of gender as a barrier to inclusion while asserting "intrinsic" gender differences that account for (and justify) women's continued underrepresentation in combat arms units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether the gender composition of one's workplace influences mental health and employment consequences and whether these associations vary for men and women. We test the impact of perceived gender dissimilarity and the aggregate averaged gender composition of the respondent's occupation. Our study is situated in the mid 2000's, when women's labor market participation was comparable to men's. We use nationally-representative individual-level data from the American Work Stress and Health Survey matched to occupation-level data. We find perceived gender-dissimilarity is associated with worse mental health and employment consequences in feminized occupations. Respondents' gender partially impacts these associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]