Latest articles from sociology lens

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

On Youth: Rhetoric, Practices, and Punishment

Oftentimes, there are social, economic, and political underpinnings when practices or policies are set in place. Whether a phenomenon is constructed in a new light as a social problem, an economic turn places demands on society, or there is an ideological shift within politics, these factors – together – frequently play a vital role in policy. That is, the rhetoric we employ – the way in which we discuss trends – helps dictate how issues are dealt with. This post...

Opinion

Evolution of Crime Films

Crime films are arguably the most complex classification of movies that reflect our ideology of moral order and justice, lawful and illicit, desirable and unworthy. Crime films mirror society due to its interplay with the complexity of real live events that satisfy the audience’s desire for mayhem, underdog characters, and a fallible justice system. The critical alternative tradition, for the most part, focuses on this aspect of the film; while traditional movies tend to emphasize heroism and the restoration of...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Childcare and Work: The Privilege of Choice

“If you don’t believe that childcare is work, then try telling your parents or whoever took care of you that raising you was not work.  I don’t imagine that would go over well.”  I say this in my social problems class as a counterpoint to the assertion that welfare-recipients are lazy and immoral.  Most recently the sentiment was employed to defend wealthy “stay-at-home mom,” and wife of presidential candidate, Ann Romney.  The sentiment that childcare is work is fairly uncontested...

Political & Economic Sociology / Teaching & Learning Guide

Facing More with Less: Thinking about School Budgets

There can be little doubt that because of the current economic conditions, a large part of society has undergone considerable strain. Whether discussing unemployment rates, downsizing, closed up businesses, or market trends, it seems that little has been left unaffected by these financial times. Of concern for this post is how schools, specifically secondary schools, have had to adapt to and deal with the economic state. Often making top news reports on major broadcasting stations or making the front-page of...

Race & Ethnicity Studies

Black Complaints / White Denials: The Trayvon Martin Case

In my last post, I mentioned the larger discussion about blame for racism that cases like Trayvon Martin produce.  One consistent meme that arises every time black people protest the killing of a black person by a white person is: Why don’t black people protest when blacks kill other blacks?  After all, statistically black homicide victims are more likely to be killed by blacks than any other race.  Black on black homicide certainly happens at a far greater rate than...

Opinion

Exploring Public Transits and Quality of Service

As an avid user of the metropolitan bus system for the past five years, I have met a lot of interesting characters. These include folks of different background, age, size, and color. I have witnessed events on the bus that are either too crude to describe in detail or too ridiculous to seriously warrant my attention. Over the years, I can say that my experience in using public transit services has been two-fold. On one hand, public transits have been integral in transporting me to and from work. However,...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Embracing Civility or Intensifying Deviance….A Dialectic?

As prior posts may express, my attention has been gripped by the motivations and experiences of those engaged in deviant activity. More specifically, it is not major crimes under consideration but rather the marginal acts of expression and resistance – tagging, unsanctioned extreme sports, controversial fashions, and the like. While trying to empathetically understand the ‘deviant’ perspective, it seems this perspective is often dismissed as delinquent and nothing more, void of any further value. As scholars have often noted, this...

Race & Ethnicity Studies

Disembodied Racism and the Search for Racist Intent: The Trayvon Martin Case

  The Trayvon Martin case has become a national media event complete with competing individual evaluations, competing definitions of racism and competing blame narratives.  In these “racial events,” Americans propensity for individualistic analysis coalesces with America’s racialized culture in order to produce a mix of individual evaluations and sweeping claims about racial groups and the institutional privileges and disadvantages of different racial groups.  In my experience, this process reinforces many of the flawed ideas about race that sociologists regularly debunk...

Opinion

Portrayals of Overweight Characters in Television Sitcoms: Implications for Obese Individuals in the General Society

During the periods of 1991 and 1998, obesity increased by 50 percent in the United States and at similar rates in other regions of the world. In 1993 alone, over 300,000 premature deaths were attributable to poor diet and inactivity. Obesity is a grander factor in chronic health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension among adults and children than smoking, poverty, or alcohol. The ramification of obesity directly affects one’s physical health and has profound implications for the social...

Class & Stratification / Sociology of Culture

Some critical thoughts about "critical thinking"

The two professors sat in front of me, making conversation before the talk. The speaker’s title slide already projected on the wall ahead: “What (if anything) are undergraduates learning during college?” The professors laughed at just how apt they thought the title was: “Isn’t that right?” “Yes, anything, please!” And then the more senior faculty member, a female, returned with a comment that made her junior colleague bristle: “Especially the boys. Some of those boys just try to get by...

Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Toward a Quantified Life?

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about how much of our lives are being captured and translated into numbers, percentages, and statistics. It seems that no matter where one turns, some aspect of our social life is being measured quantitatively. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon – things like age, weight, body mass index, intelligence quotient, height, and physical aptitude scores have been with us for some time now. However, it appears that this movement to quantify...

Gender & Sexuality / Opinion

Investigating Female Delinquency: The Role of Gender Construction

The shared hypothesis that delinquency—by far and wide— is a male phenomenon is an erroneous conception. Even though males have historically been recognized as violent perpetrators and females as passive and non-threatening victims, the increase in female violence and gang membership has become a cause for concern in several cities across the country. There has been marginal emphasis placed on females’ involvement in crime and delinquency due to entrenched stereotypical notions of females as “biologically incapable” of committing certain heinous...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

The Legitimation of Deviance: Examining the Role of the State

Knee deep in studying for comprehensive exams, the literature has drawn my attention toward (1) how an illegal activity can have a legal counterpart, and (2) how a deviant activity becomes socially acceptable and celebrated within mainstream culture. As examples, there is skydiving and its illegal counterpart of base jumping; wall murals and their illicit sibling of extravagant graffiti; or the ‘world’s fastest growing sport’ of MMA versus the back-yard-brawls caught on tape. While the actual activity performed for each...

Political & Economic Sociology

Exploring Homelessness: Causation and Measures of Eradication

The issue of homelessness is a sociological inquiry that has been relatively understudied, albeit the phenomenon’s unremitting development. According to Meanwell (2012), in the United States homelessness has continued to grow since the early 1980s with a particular proliferation among vagrant women and families. In 1984, the cities of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles had the largest number of homeless persons per population, with New York witnessing the highest rates of homeless individuals (Wolch, Dear, & Akita, 1988).  The...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture

Local Immigration Politics in the Rust Belt

Editor’s note: This post has been printed with permission of the author. By Dr. Jamie Longazel Last fall, the Rust Belt city of Dayton, Ohio approved the “Welcome Dayton Plan” —  an attempt to foster the inclusion of immigrants and refugees in a city devastated by years of economic decline. Dayton’s plan comes at a time when two separate but not unrelated fires are blazing across the country: economic crisis and anti-immigrant sentiment. We should certainly applaud Dayton’s willingness to...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Rethinking Behavior Change, Nudge-style

A prevailing regime by which groups, organizations, and institutions attempt to alter the behavior of its members and constituents is through imposing penalties and fines, which seek to deter certain behaviors. Parking tickets intend to prevent people from parking in certain areas, sometimes at certain times. Prison sentences, and the death penalty, are intended to serve as deterrents for serious legal violations. However, fines often prompt behaviors different from what those trying to mould behavior (e.g., governments or organizations) intend....