Stephanie Coontz makes all the so-called relationship, marriage and family experts from the conservative thinktanks look like the frauds that they are. Her most recent book, Marriage - A History, is a masterpiece of scholarly research made accessible to the general public through great writing.

Today, in a Guardian column, she uses the 45th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique to revisit its impact.  Read more 

Groups

Social groups have specific characteristics: (a) they consist of two or more people who (b) interact in an ordered fashion, (c) share specific values and norms, and (d) have at least some sense of unity and common goals.

Group conformity / obedience

One of the main influences that groups exercise over their members lies in their capacity to induce conformity – the process through which members modify their behavior to comply with the group’s norms or decisions. Research shows that group pressure does not have to be intense to produce conformity.

One such experiment was conducted by Solomon Asch (1956) to show the power of groups to influence behavior. Asch assembled 6 to 8 students, all accomplices except one, the subject of the experiment. The students were shown a line on card 1 and asked to pick the corresponding line on card 2 (see diagram).

It is obvious that the correct answer is A. At first, Asch’s accomplices answered correctly but in further rounds of the experiment they started answering incorrectly. Asch wanted to see what the subject would do: would he provide the correct answer despite the group’s incorrect consensus or would he go along with the group?

One third of the subjects went along and provided the wrong answer and later admitted they knew it but did not want to be singled out. In other words, they were willing to compromise their judgment for the sake of going along with the group’s (wrong) answer.

Here is a video to illustrate this dynamic further:

 Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Scott Jaschik was at the ASA meeting (I had breakfast next to him on Saturday morning) and he has an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed regarding the relationship between sociology, criminology and criminal justice. These disciplines are usually considered to be "cousins". Sociology broadly provides most of the background that goes into criminology, understood as the study of the ins and out of the criminal justice system with a theoretical background. Criminal Justice often includes the more vocational aspects of the field, something often nicknamed the "cop shop" aspect of teaching. So what are the issues here?  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

This session by ASA President Arne Kalleberg (website) deserves a post of its own, because I thought it was so good and important. The title says it all: when it comes to the meaning of work, socio-economic forces have made work more insecure, unpredictable, and risky. In other words, in the brave new world of work, the French concept of précarité is the name of the game: work has become more precarious.

Kalleberg divided his presentation into four sections:  Read more 

• The causes of growth of precarious work as global challenge
• The consequences
• Rethinking the employment relationship
• Challenges for public policy and sociology

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Things that suck

Another session, another !@#$ baby.

The universe turning against you:

• Being delayed at Logan Airport long enough to see O-Force One (Change you can believe in!!) for the big birthday bash, apparently.
• Sitting on the plane next to a woman (with young child!) wearing a pink "Obama Mama" shirt (that’ll teach me to upgrade to Economy +)
• Driving home in the biggest !@#$ thunderstorm with lighting that makes you think you’re in a rave party.

The Thing that Really Sucked

Kevin Bales did not show up for the session on human trafficking and slavery. Damn, I really wanted to see him, he’s my hero!

Putting a session on such an important topic as human trafficking (which definitely fits with the general topic of labor) on the last day, where most people have already gone home.

Things that don’t suck

The session on human trafficking and slavery, which had two very interesting contributions.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

In addition to the plenary session which I’ll talk about below, I attended a couple of teaching workshops sessions that are probably of interest only to me, but they provide me with materials for

Things that suck and make me run out of the room within the first 20 minutes of a session  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Progress!! I managed to get Japanese food AND utensils, which avoided my having to resort to the same creative, yet shameful, solution as I did yesterday.

Things that suck

Please, my fellow sociologists: do NOT bring a goddamn infant to a presentation… believe it or not, it’ll end up crying (no way??!!)… and you may be used to your spawn wailing, but it annoys the rest of us (especially me, which is all that matters).

CLIQUES!! Star sociologists hang out together and with the few non-stars that managed to latch on to them and ignore the rest of the vulgum pecus.

Things that do NOT suck

Being reminded why sociology is great and important and why I majored in it in the first place.

Panel 1 - Public Sociology

Ok, so, on to business. The first panel I attended was a panel on public sociology regarding sociology and the media.

[Disclaimer: I’m a big supporter of public sociology, which is why I blog… duh.]  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Things that suck:  Read more 

• Having one’s flight delayed for 2 hours because of a big time thunderstorm in Chicago

• Being seated on the plane next to a big guy (so, no armrest separation possible) who progressively opens his legs wider and wider… guys, keep your goddamn legs together and stop encroaching on women’s already drastically limited legspace, ok?

• Being surrounded by people who must think their disgusting habits have to be shared in public (picking one’s nose, chewing gum with one’s goddamn mouth open and making a lot of slushy noise, manicuring oneself by opening one’s mouth really wide and shoving half one’s big finger in there)… seriously, I wish there were 2 economy cabins: one of normal people like me, who just read, rest and have their Ipods on. And then one for families with kids and people with gross habits… a sealed and soundproof cabin for them… heck, different flights altogether.

Another post as part of my social justice series.

Bruce Western - of Punishment and Inequality in America fame - hopes so (via Chris Uggen ) in this article in the Boston Review.

"The British sociologist T.H. Marshall described citizenship as the “basic human equality associated with full membership in a community.” By this measure, thirty years of prison growth concentrated among the poorest in society has diminished American citizenship. But as the prison boom attains new heights, the conversation about criminal punishment may finally be shifting.

For the first time in decades, political leaders seem willing to consider the toll of rising incarceration rates. In October last year, Senator Jim Webb convened hearings of the Joint Economic Committee on the social costs of mass incarceration. In opening the hearings, Senator Webb made a remarkable observation, “With the world’s largest prison population,” he said, “our prisons test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity.”  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

I have already discussed sociologist Anthony Elliott’s Book, Making the Cut: How Cosmetic Surgery is Transforming our Lives when it was reviewed in a newspaper. I have since read the book in its entirety. Below is my full review.

"In the new economy nothing is more sexy than surgery. From Botox to lipo to tummy tucks and mini-facelifts, the number of cosmetic surgery operations undertaken around the globe has soared recently, as consumers spend more and more on themselves in the search for sex appeal and artificial beauty. In a society in which celebrity is divine, information technology rules, new ways of working predominate and people increasingly judge each other on first impressions, cosmetic enhancements of the body have become all the rage." (7)

In other words, for Elliott, we have entered the era of the cosmetic surgical culture, a subset of the makeover culture that also includes fashion, fitness and all sorts of therapies. His book is dedicated to examining the social causes and consequences of this cultural shift in the global context, both in terms of the social production of identity at the micro-level and at the global level of shift in the structure of work at the macro-level.  Read more 

Social Interaction

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog. This is by popular demand (Translation: Lambert asked me to do this)

In this first post, we start human behavior from a microsociological perspective – the view from below (I have some more macro stuff later). The very fact of being in the presence of others influences what we do and how we think of ourselves in profound ways. In other words, the sociological approach described here focuses on the architecture of everyday life : these aspects of life that we take for granted and are often invisible to us because they are so familiar but that sustain society in fundamental ways.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via Context Crawler, comes this article from the Washington Post, by Shankar Vedantam on happiness surveys. We take it for granted, and it is supported by surveys, that people tend to be happier when their economic situation is more secure and overall better. That is fairly uncontroversial. And right now, the economy stinks, gas prices are through the roof, so, the mood is on the gloomy side. Straightforward as well. If the economy were better, people would be happier. What is the paradox then?  Read more 

Via Context Crawler, sociologist Diego Gambetta gives an interview to the Independent as to why engineers are overrepresented in terrorist Islamist groups (in addition to being all men between 18-40). There are possible explanations but they are not entirely satisfactory:  Read more