Everyday Sociology Blog

Health, Racial Inequality, and Residential Segregation

By Jenny Enos, Sociology Doctoral Student at Rutgers University – New Brunswick

We often talk about health as a strictly biological concept. After all, poor health outcomes such as heart disease and cancer are heavily dependent on biological factors such as our genetic makeup and our age. Public discourse is also rife with notions that viruses, such as COVID-19, “do not discriminate” and affect all of us equally – regardless of the vastly different social circumstances under which people in the U.S. are living.

Sociologists, however, have long emphasized that health outcomes are far from strictly biological. In fact, the subfield of medical sociology – one of the American Sociological Association’s largest sections – is entirely devoted to the study of how social contexts and structures influence health, illness, and healthcare. Although certain poor health outcomes are indeed influenced by factors outside of the social world, medical sociologists stress the importance of social influence in examining e.g. who gets sick and why.

Internships and the Cost of Geography

By Colby King

This year, National Public Radio (NPR) received 20,520 applications for the 27 internships they are offering this fall. That was nearly 8 times the number of applications NPR received for 55 internship slots the year before, according to a report in Current, a trade journal that covers the public broadcasting industry in the US. Executive Director Julie Drizin notes how we are currently in “truly tough times to be job-hunting.”

I found this report after seeing behavioral economist Jodi Beggs retweet it, saying, “Wow I feel like we just learned something pretty important here.” In the report, NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara as suggests that this increase in applications is likely a result of the internships being offered remotely this year, and not requiring participants to move to the expensive large cities in which they are typically offered.

Collective Trauma and COVID-19

By Liana Renée Tuller,  Research Fellow at Northeastern University's Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence

Numerous newspaper and magazine articles, health advisories, blogs, radio segments, and op-eds have dubbed COVID-19 a “collective trauma.” What does that mean? And, if our city, our country, and our world is, indeed, experiencing a collective trauma, what lessons can previous collective traumas offer us to help us cope?

Unquestionably, COVID-19 has affected people’s psychological state, not only through grief when loved ones die, but also through the stress of job loss, fear of being infected, isolation imposed by social distancing, and anxiety that life will never return to normal. These emotions, communally experienced, could indeed be described as traumatic.

Are Social Bubbles a New Form of Segregation?

By Jonathan Wynn

Are we moving from "social distancing" to "social bubbles?" What are the factors and consequences involved in such a move?

Based on the TV show Lost, I used to ask my Introduction to Sociology students (back in the before times) what characteristics they would want their fellow castaways to behold. What kinds of skills would you hope people in your group would have on your beautiful-yet-isolated island?

Together, Alone in the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Jonathan Wynn

Yesterday I sat on my porch with my family, listening to the across-the-street neighbors sing Yiddish folk songs on their porch. With an accordion and fiddle, they nodded and smiled to people passing by, but no one stopped. We exchanged some waves and the kids yelled out occasionally. We were together in the moment, but also on our own, alone. It’s been a strange few weeks.

While our Everyday Sociology Blog comrades have all been tapping away at different aspects of how the COVID-19 has shaken the structure of our society, I would like to spend a little time on the facet of distancing in this moment.

Millennials, Social Capital, and Decision Making

By Jessica Poling

Sociology Ph.D. student, Rutgers University

In his landmark book, Distinction, Pierre Bourdieu laid out a framework that characterized social stratification as the unequal distribution of “capital” among members of a given society. Bourdieu broadly defines capital as accumulated labor that can be found in material objects (such as valuable household items), embodied within individuals (such as unique knowledge or a skill that one might possess), or institutionalized. Bourdieu argues that it is by possessing capital that individuals gain social status; however, there is a limited quantity of capital within a social sphere, consequently motivating individuals to hoard capital to gain an advantage over others.

Capital is found in three forms: economic, cultural, and social. Whereas economic capital is that which can easily be converted into money, cultural capital includes accumulated knowledge, behaviors, or skills that demonstrate cultural competency. Finally, and of interest to this post, social capital encompasses realized or potential resources connected to one’s social network.

Tammy’s Story: Revealing Rural Poverty

By Karen Sternheimer

As Colby King recently blogged, the film People Like Us: Social Class in America is a useful tool to discuss class in sociology courses. I have used clips in various classes over the years, but the segment that has had the most impact has been the segment titled “Tammy’s Story.” Tammy lives in Waverly, Ohio, population 4,408; her segment does a particularly good job detailing the challenges of rural poverty.

The 2001 film first introduces Tammy Crabtree, a 42-year-old single mother with two sons. She is interviewed in a run-down trailer, and appears to have aged beyond her years (my students in image-conscious Los Angeles are always shocked when I mention her age after seeing the clip). Tammy has no means of transportation, so she walks to work at a Burger King ten miles away from home. She is filmed on this walk, which looks quiet and pastoral on first glance, but Tammy mentions that people shout nasty things to her, such as “trashy bitch” as she walks.

Libraries and Social Change

By Karen Sternheimer

I have vivid memories of visiting the library as a child, going to story hour and then being allowed to choose a few books to read that week. With age came the ability to take out more books and then eventually to have my own library card.

I still use the library all the time, but mostly online, whether it is my university’s library system or the public library to download e-books and audio books. While the way many of us use the library has changed, it is still a public institution whose importance we often overlook.

Where People Live: The Socio Spatial Perspective

By Colby King

It is important to study both how residents socially construct meaning in their settlement spaces, and how the built environment shapes social life. The socio spatial perspective (SSP), which is a framework for studying urban social life that integrates sociological and political economy dimensions into the analysis of urban space and social life. (For more discussion see The New Urban Sociology.)

This approach to urban sociology is deeply informed by Mark Gottdiener’s efforts to bring Henri Lefebvre’s writing to urban sociology. Drawing on Lefebvre, the SSP focuses on the social production of space, and as we explain in the book, examines how everyday life throughout metropolitan regions is affected by the interplay of cultural, political, economic, and social forces.

Canopies and Contact Zones

By Jonathan Wynn

Last month, the Speaker of the House for Ohio, a Republican named Larry Householder, was upset by a local library story time hosted by a drag queen. He said, “Taxpayers aren’t interested in seeing their hard earned dollars being used to teach teenage boys how to become drag queens.” But taxpayers should absolutely be interested in the idea that a public space like a library can be places where people who are different from one another can meet and engage with each other. In fact, State Rep. Householder should visit a few places like that.

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg recently published a wonderful book on this very topic, called Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. The idea is as simple an idea as it is profound: societies need public places for people to engage with others in meaningful ways. Parks, libraries, public places of all sorts are where people from different places can come together. This idea has really taken off in the last few months, and I know that librarians are happy to have Klinenberg write in a New York Times op-ed that the effort should start with libraries!