Everyday Sociology Blog

Hobbies, Ghost Work, and Identity

By Jonathan Wynn

Work and occupations occupy a dominant position in our lives and, perhaps correspondingly, in our sociological scholarship. For good reason, of course. Work is a central component of our lives. Work fills our days (or nights) and pays the bills.

Work is also a resource for who we are, as what we do is often a central part of our identities. Although you may still be a college student, and if so, you’re probably only working a part time job. (70% of students work while in school and 25% of students work full time.) Eventually, however, you will graduate and have a job doing something. And at some point not too far down the road, you’ll be at a party and someone will ask you: “So, what do you do for a living?” Is it a lazy question, or should our work provide a key insight into who we are?

Learning to Perform Emotional Labor

By Karen Sternheimer

Think about all of the things you learn as students that have nothing to do with the actual content of your classes: you learn to meet deadlines, proper classroom decorum, how to navigate a large bureaucracy, and create social ties with peers, among other things. Sociologists call this education’s hidden curriculum, or unintended lessons, many of which are quite valuable to your future career—and to your life overall.

Learning to perform emotional labor is part of the hidden curriculum. What exactly is emotional labor? It happens when we work to control our emotions in order to fit the requirements of a job. Emotional labor is part of any job that involves interacting with others, and is important to consider when pondering your own current or future career choices.

Intersectionality for Beginners

By Peter Kaufman

Intersectionality is one of those terms that we use a lot in sociology but we don’t always do a good job of explaining. I know I’m guilty of this. Sometimes I’ll be talking with students in class or trying to explain something to someone and I may casually use the words intersectional or intersectionality without stopping to define what these terms mean.

Much like the word structure, intersectionality has become one of those common, go-to concepts that we tend to invoke so frequently in sociology we assume everyone knows what we mean by it. It’s both troubling and ironic that we make these assumptions because these concepts are usually crucial to the point we are trying to make; in fact, sometimes these concepts are the point. If the people we are talking with do not understand these terms then they will certainly not understand what we are trying to say.

The Art and Science of Survey Writing

By Karen Sternheimer

Recently, the question about citizenship in the 2020 Census has made news. Critics are concerned that such a question might lead to a lower response rate, most notably by immigrants.

While a census by definition is distinct from a survey, which seeks out a representative sample of a population, both types of research tools rely on good question construction to get the most accurate results. Not only should the questions be written clearly, but ideally they should also be written in such a way that brings you closer to learning more about the population.

Community Building and Women’s Activism

By Teresa Irene Gonzales

As I’ve discussed in previous posts, affordable housing in urban areas, particularly places like New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and increasingly Chicago, is scarce and oftentimes inaccessible. Movements for access to housing have mobilized around expanding or implementing rent controls (for instance, in Chicago through the Lift the Ban coalition), while others have focused on training people how to advocate for policies that support equitable access to housing (such as the Resident Access Project or RAP in Washington State). As is the case with RAP, many housing activists aim to increasing residents’ knowledge and skills through leadership development and empowerment.

As scholars of both social movements and organizational studies have noted, some of the most effective leaders provide skill building, work to build self-confidence among followers, create opportunities for personal development, and understand when to move from a leadership to follower position.

The Return of Multigenerational Households

By Karen Sternheimer

It may seem like the natural order of things for parents and children to live in the same home until the children are off to college or can afford their own apartment. But the so-called “nuclear” family living separately from other family members is mostly a mid-twentieth century development, and one that is declining.

As a Pew Research Center report recently detailed, multigenerational households are becoming more common. In 2016, more than 60 million people, or nearly one in five Americans lived in a household with two or more generations of adults.

Masks and Nods: Distancing and Bids for Acknowledgement

By Jonathan Wynn

The recent news about Amazon Go stores developing technology that eliminates the need for cashiers has renewed concerns over technology’s ability to not only eliminate working class jobs, but also peel away another layer of interpersonal connection. Small interactions can matter, big time.

Cities and shopping are zones of personal contact, places for micro-level exchanges. It got me thinking a lot about all those small interactions that I enjoy. (My friends tease me over how much I like to make small talk with people and it’s somewhat true. I often try simple nonstandard interactional responses like: “How would you like your coffee?” “Black like my heart.”) I love small micro interactions.

Getting Your Sociology Research Project Started

By Karen Sternheimer

One of the most exciting parts of being a student in sociology is the chance to conduct your own research project. But getting started can be a challenge, especially if you have never conducted a full-scale study from start to finish. Here are some steps to take to get started.

Dove Body Wash, Colorism, and Skin Bleaching

By Angelique Harris

This past October, Dove, the personal care brand, released an advertisement that garnered quite a bit of negative press. This body wash ad featured a two to three second video of a Black woman wearing a brown shirt. She removes the shirt, revealing a White woman in a light beige shirt, who then takes it off to reveal another woman with a light skin tone.

A Facebook user was the first to post about this ad on her page and simply wrote: “So I’m scrolling through Facebook and this is the #dove ad that comes up… ok so what am I looking at.” This Facebook user also included four screenshots that showed the Black woman in the ad removing her shirt to reveal the White woman. Although these screenshots reveal only part of the ad and the Black woman portrayed in the ad, Lola Ogunyemi, wrote an op-ed defending the intentions behind the ad, many still believed that Dove implied that darker skin was dirty and the ad was widely panned as offensive and racist.