Everyday Sociology Blog

Constructing Deviance: A-Rod, Drugs, and Cheating

By Peter Kaufman “Is Calling Cheating Cheating, Cheating?” This was the title of a paper I wrote back in graduate school for a class on the sociology of deviance. This playful (or confusing) use of words was my attempt at getting at the

The Ethics of Ethnography

By Peter Kaufman When I was an undergrad, I was a political science major. I did not discover sociology until my junior year when I took a course titled Institutions and Inequalities. It was after taking this course that I knew that I was

Applying Weber’s Concept of Bureaucracy to the Pandemic

By Jessica Poling Like many of the classical theorists of his age, nineteenth-century German social theorist Max Weber sought to define “modernity.” Weber lived in a society experiencing rapid economic, political, and social changes and de

Commodities, Neoliberalism, and the Economy of Imprisonment

By Jenny Enos Under capitalism, we are surrounded by products that promise to improve or fulfill our lives in some way. Whether it’s beauty products, nutritional supplements, clothing, or even technology, the advertisements we are expose

Moral Panics in 2020

By Jessica Poling It is no secret that 2020 has been a time of public unrest. Mounting outcries regarding police brutality, gender inequality, and the Trump administration’s mishandling of climate change and COVID-19 dominate the daily new