Gender and the Stratification of Colleges

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The collection of biomarker-based indicators of adult health is an important addition to socioeconomic surveys since they can provide valuable insights into the biological functions, and the complex causal pathways between socioeconomic environments and health outcomes. We document the collection of blood-plasma based biomarkers as a pilot project within the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH). Using the LabAnywhere system as a minimally-invasive approach previously not used in less-developed countries, we collected biomarkers of lipids, metabolic processes, organ function, and the immune system. Overall, only small proportions of the collected samples are above the upper limits of the normal clinical ranges as defined by western standards. The correlational patterns between the biomarkers are consistent with observations from developed countries and the comparison with other low-income populations shows remarkably similar age-specific patterns of the biomarkers despite differences in the mode of blood sampling. The present study confirms that the collection of biomarker-based indicators of adult health using the LabAnywhere system is feasible in rural sub-Saharan contexts and this approach provides an attractive alternative to the collection of dried blood spots (DBS) and venous blood samples. Iliana V. KOHLER, Researcher and Associate Director, Population Aging Research Center, and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. E-mail: iliana@pop.upenn.edu . Philip ANGLEWCZ, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine and Department of Global Health System and Development, 1440 Canal St., Suite 2200, New Orleans, LA 70112-2737, USA. E-mail: panglewi@tulane.edu . Hans-Peter KOHLER, Frederick J.\ Warren Professor of Demography and Professor in Sociology, Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6299, USA;. E-mail: hpkohler@pop.upenn.edu . John F. McCABE, Programmer/Data Analyst, Population Aging Research Center (PARC), University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. E-mail: mccabef@pop.upenn.edu . Ben CHILIMA, Director, Community Health Sciences Unit, Ministry of Health and Population Community Health Sciences Unit, Private Bag 65, Lilonge, Malawi. E-mail: bchilima2@yahoo.com . Beth J. SOLDO, Distinguished Senior Scholar in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. E-mail: bsoldo@pop.upen.edu

Public sociology is an attempt to redress the issues of public engagement and disciplinary identity that have beset the discipline over the past several decades. While public sociology seeks to rectify the public invisibility of sociology, this paper investigates the limitations of it program. Several points of critique are offered. First, public sociology's affiliations with Marxism serve to potentially entrench existing divisions within the discipline. Second, public sociology's advancement of an agenda geared toward a “sociology for publics” instead of a “sociology of publics” imposes limitations on the development of a public interface. Third, the lack of a methodological agenda for public sociology raises concerns of how sociology can compete within a contested climate of public opinion. Fourth, issues of disciplinary coherence are not necessarily resolved by public sociology, and are potentially exacerbated by the invocation of public sociology as a new disciplinary identity. Fifth, the incoherence of professional sociology is obviated, and a misleading affiliation is made between scientific knowledge and the hegemonic structure of the profession. Finally, the idealism of public sociology's putative defense of civil society is explored as a Utopian gesture akin to that of Habermas’ attempt to revive the public sphere. The development of a strong program in professional sociology is briefly offered as a means to repair the disciplinary problems that are illustrated by emergence of the project of public sociology.

This thematic issue offers a set of articles dealing with relationships between sociology programs and academic administrators, written from a perspective that draws upon both sociological training and administrative experience. The participating authors have served in the offices of department chair, dean, vice president, provost and president. They accept the necessity of an executive function in higher education, while remaining loyal to their discipline and deeply concerned about its future within academia. The issue was made possible by the efforts of Professor Charles F. Hohm, presently Dean of the College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences at California State University, Dominguez Hills, where he also is professor of sociology. While serving as President of the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) in 2007, Professor Hohm organized a program focusing on sociology's place in the contemporary academy (see his "Preface"). The papers presented here were developed from those delivered at the PSA meetings. While the process was generally smooth, it required a considerable investment of time and effort, generously provided by Professor Hohm, to communicate with prospective contributors and help them fine-tune their work, while also keeping everyone alert to deadlines. For all that went into this project, I am sincerely grateful. The papers are arranged in two rough groupings, the first of which highlights the personal perspectives of their authors, while the second places more emphasis on sociological analysis and the examination of empirical data. There are several themes that unify the papers, especially: (1) what it feels like to be both a committed sociologist and an academic administrator; (2) how sociological training is helpful in performing administrative roles, including working for change within those roles; and (3) how sociological programs look to administrators, including our sociologically trained authors.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobyn MarschkeRobyn Marschke, a native of North Dakota, works in the Office of Institutional Research at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She earned a Ph.D. in sociology (2004) and is an alumna of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Sandra Laursen is a Ph.D.-trained chemist, science educator, and professional developer. In her research with Ethnography & Evaluation Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she studies issues of quality and equity in science education and careers from the K-12 through postgraduate levels. Joyce McCarl Nielsen is Professor of Sociology, Associate Dean for Social Sciences, and a co-principal investigator on an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In earlier work she helped define the field of gender studies with her texts, Sex and Gender in Society and Feminist Research Methods. Dr. Patricia Rankin is a particle physicist, PI of an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, and Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She worked as a program officer at the NSF for two years and has a long-standing interest in remedying the underrepresentation of women in science and technology fields.Sandra LaursenRobyn Marschke, a native of North Dakota, works in the Office of Institutional Research at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She earned a Ph.D. in sociology (2004) and is an alumna of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Sandra Laursen is a Ph.D.-trained chemist, science educator, and professional developer. In her research with Ethnography & Evaluation Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she studies issues of quality and equity in science education and careers from the K-12 through postgraduate levels. Joyce McCarl Nielsen is Professor of Sociology, Associate Dean for Social Sciences, and a co-principal investigator on an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In earlier work she helped define the field of gender studies with her texts, Sex and Gender in Society and Feminist Research Methods. Dr. Patricia Rankin is a particle physicist, PI of an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, and Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She worked as a program officer at the NSF for two years and has a long-standing interest in remedying the underrepresentation of women in science and technology fields.Joyce McCarl NielsenRobyn Marschke, a native of North Dakota, works in the Office of Institutional Research at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She earned a Ph.D. in sociology (2004) and is an alumna of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Sandra Laursen is a Ph.D.-trained chemist, science educator, and professional developer. In her research with Ethnography & Evaluation Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she studies issues of quality and equity in science education and careers from the K-12 through postgraduate levels. Joyce McCarl Nielsen is Professor of Sociology, Associate Dean for Social Sciences, and a co-principal investigator on an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In earlier work she helped define the field of gender studies with her texts, Sex and Gender in Society and Feminist Research Methods. Dr. Patricia Rankin is a particle physicist, PI of an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, and Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She worked as a program officer at the NSF for two years and has a long-standing interest in remedying the underrepresentation of women in science and technology fields.Patricia RankinRobyn Marschke, a native of North Dakota, works in the Office of Institutional Research at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She earned a Ph.D. in sociology (2004) and is an alumna of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Sandra Laursen is a Ph.D.-trained chemist, science educator, and professional developer. In her research with Ethnography & Evaluation Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she studies issues of quality and equity in science education and careers from the K-12 through postgraduate levels. Joyce McCarl Nielsen is Professor of Sociology, Associate Dean for Social Sciences, and a co-principal investigator on an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In earlier work she helped define the field of gender studies with her texts, Sex and Gender in Society and Feminist Research Methods. Dr. Patricia Rankin is a particle physicist, PI of an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, and Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She worked as a program officer at the NSF for two years and has a long-standing interest in remedying the underrepresentation of women in science and technology fields.

The Persistence of Political Attitudes Among 1960s Civil Rights Activists

Professions, Work and Careers addresses some of the central themes that preoccupied the eminent sociologist Strauss. This collection is directed at sociologists concerned with the development of theory and graduate and undergraduate students in the sociology of work and the sociology of medicine. His approach is both thematic and topical.Straus examines organization, profession, career, and work, in addition to related matters such as socialization, occupational identity, social mobility, and professional relationships, all in a social psychological context. Because medicine is considered by many to be the prototype profession, Strauss effectively illustrates many of the points by allusion to nurses, chemists, hospitals, wards, and terminal care. The progression of ideas in these essays are a befitting source for the study of structure, interaction and process, other themes that occupied Strauss in his other research enterprises.As Irving Louis Horowitz noted at the time of Strauss's death in 1996: Anselm was and remained a social psychologist of a special sort. He appreciated that what takes place in the privacy of our minds translates into public consequences for the social fabric. His statements on personal problems are invariably followed in quick succession by intensely sociological essays on close awareness, face-to-face interaction, and structured interactions. The subtext distinguishes sociological from psychiatric conventions, seeing everything from daydreams to visions in interactionist frames rather than as pathology. The implications of his explorations into the medical profession are stated gently, but carry deep ramifications, for the act of people treating each other compassionately, not less than professionally, is also an act of awareness. Treating the human person as a creature of dignity, when generalized, becomes the basis for constructing human society.The late Strauss was a pioneer in bridging the gap between theory and data in sociology. This collection of his works, available in paperback for the first time, will be a valuable resource for professionals and students interested in grounded social theory.Anselm L. Strauss was professor of sociology and chairman of the graduate program in sociology, University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books including Creating Sociological Awareness and editor of Where Medicine Fails, both published by Transaction.

Previous articleNext article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreMark Anthony Hoffman is assistant professor of sociology at Stanford University. His research uses computational methods to understand how language, identity, and social structure have changed in England and the United States over the past 300 years. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2019.Sanaz Mobasseri is assistant professor of management and organizations and (by courtesy) sociology at Boston University. Her research investigates race and gender inequalities in organizations using field experimental and computational methods. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.Mary C. Brinton is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology and the director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Her current research focuses on the determinants of historically low birth rates in the postindustrial world, with particular attention to the role played by gender inequality.Eunsil Oh is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University and her research focuses on gender, work, and family. Using comparative lens, her current projects explore how labor markets, welfare systems, and gender norms shape individual- and couple-level understandings of work and family.Christine Leibbrand is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on internal migration within the United States, segregation, neighborhood attainment, and racial/ethnic stratification. She has published several journal articles, including “The Legacy of the PSID in Understanding Patterns of Migration and Residential Mobility” (with Kyle Crowder).Catherine Massey is a senior economist at Welch Consulting’s Bryan Texas office. Prior to joining Welch Consulting, she was assistant research scientist in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. While at the University of Michigan, she conducted research on record linkage and data quality, as well as research on intergenerational contributors to inequality and outcomes of the Great Migration.J. Trent Alexander is the associate director of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and a research professor in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on historical demography, record linkage, and large-scale data infrastructure.Stewart Tolnay is S. Frank Miyamoto Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Washington. His research has focused on the history of racial violence in the American South and the Great Migration of southerners to the North and West. He is the author of The Bottom Rung: African American Family Life on Southern Farms (University of Illinois Press, 1999) and a coauthor with E. M. Beck of A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882 to 1930 (University of Illinois Press, 1995).Argun Saatcioglu is associate professor of education (ELPS) and (by courtesy) sociology at the University of Kansas. He studies racial/ethnic and class inequalities in K–12 education, school responses to equity initiatives, and the broader politics of educational policy and governance.Thomas M. Skrtic is the Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. His research interests include disability, race, and class inequalities in school and society, education and special education policy and politics, and critical policy inquiry. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 125, Number 1July 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/704720 © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

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When Marvin Wolfgang asked me to co-author, Victim Categories of Crime (Wolfgang and Singer 1978), he transformed my status as an anonymous graduate student into one that was committed to his way of doing criminology. Victim categories of crime set the stage for my dissertation, and a research agenda that saw crime less as a product of the actions of an offender, and more as an event to be described and understood in ways that go beyond any simple, unidirectional analysis. Previously, I had completed a proseminar paper on the development of the National Crime Panel victimization surveys. I came into the graduate program in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania after having completed a Master’s thesis at Northeastern University on the elderly as victims of crime. Wolfgang knew of my interest in the emerging study of victims, and for that reason I believe asked me to join him in revising his article. The original version of Victim Categories of Crime first appeared a decade earlier in a German publication honoring Hans von Hentig (Wolfgang 1967). Wolfgang wanted to see an English version of the article published, and one that would take into account recent developments in the emerging study of the victim.

"We all know that the actual process of empirical research is a messy, complicated business that at best only approximates the models we impart to students. Research Confidential pulls back the curtain on this process, laying bare the sordid details of the research process, but doing so in a way that respects the ideals of social research and that provides useful lessons for young scholars. It should be required reading for our research methods courses." ---Michael X. Delli Carpini, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania "In this impressive volume, some of the brightest young lights in social research have taken us backstage to share what they learned from their innovative projects. Besides providing a wealth of help with methodological concerns, the book includes theoretical and career issues to consider when doing research. Anyone doing research should benefit from reading it." ---Caroline Hodges Persell, Professor of Sociology, New York University "Research Confidential complements existing methods literature by providing refreshingly honest accounts of key challenges and decision forks-in-the-research-road. Each chapter enlightens and entertains." ---Kirsten Foot, Associate Professor of Communication, University of Washington "A must-read for researchers embarking on new projects. Rather than the abstract descriptions of most methods textbooks, this volume provides rich accounts of the firsthand experiences of actual researchers. An invaluable resource of practical advice. Critically, it will make new researchers aware of the actual challenges that they are likely to face in their work." ---Christopher Winship, editor of Sociological Methods and Research and Professor of Sociology, Harvard University This collection of essays aims to fill a notable gap in the existing literature on research methods in the social sciences. While the methods literature is extensive, rarely do authors discuss the practical issues and challenges they routinely confront in the course of their research projects. As a result, editor Eszter Hargittai argues, each new cohort is forced to reinvent the wheel, making mistakes that previous generations have already confronted and resolved. Research Confidential seeks to address this failing by supplying new researchers with the kind of detailed practical information that can make or break a given project. Written in an informal, accessible, and engaging manner by a group of prominent young scholars, many of whom are involved in groundbreaking research in online contexts, this collection promises to be a valuable tool for graduate students and educators across the social sciences. Eszter Hargittai is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University and Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Cover art courtesy of Dustin Gerard

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsShirley M. ClarkShirley M. Clark is professor of education and sociology and Mary Corcoran is professor of higher education and educational psychology at the University of Minnesota.Mary CorcoranShirley M. Clark is professor of education and sociology and Mary Corcoran is professor of higher education and educational psychology at the University of Minnesota.

This seminar was hosted by the Workshop in American History and Culture, co-organized by professors Nathalie Caron and Andrew Diamond (both are part of the MAPS team of the HDEA laboratory, Ecole Doctorale IV). Professor Andrew Diamond started with a short introduction of the speaker, Thomas Sugrue, David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, a specialist in twentieth-century American politics, urban history, civil rights and race and the author of many c...