Everyday Sociology Blog

Food Beyond Borders

By Karen Sternheimer

Trying new foods is one of my favorite aspects of travel. I’m not exactly an adventurous eater, but I enjoy learning about what the locals eat and sampling food that’s not too far out of my comfort zone. Food is not just sociological, as I wrote about many years ago, but it also reflects the politics of shifting borders and the push and pull factors that contribute to immigration.

Living in southern California, many of the meals that I prepare at home reflect the influence of Mexican dishes. Veggie burritos with lots of black beans, jalapeños, salsa, and guacamole might not be on the menu exactly as I make them in an authentic Mexican restaurant, but the Americanized version shapes my cooking. Immigration from southeast Asia has contributed to the popularity of sriracha, a hot sauce I put on nearly everything, Like countless others, I stock up with news of a sriracha shortage, because it has become such a staple in our household.

Sociology on the Autobahn

By Karen Sternheimer

The German autobahn is the subject of much lore in the United States. Images of an open road with no speed limits, allowing high-end performance sports cars to drive as fast as their engineering can take them permeate popular imagination.

The reality is rather different from the fantasy, as I found out while on a few short road trips in Germany recently. While just mention of the word autobahn suggests something exciting, possibly scary, and exotic to a foreigner, it literally translates to “highway.” Here are some realities of driving on the autobahn for my fellow American visitors (with some sociology thrown in, of course).

Travel and Hyperreality

By Karen Sternheimer

Do you follow any “travel influencers” on social media or even aspire to be one? Even if you’re not sure what a travel influencer actually is, they are shaping peoples’ experiences of travel.

A travel influencer is someone who posts travel-related content (typically videos and/or images) to social media accounts, hoping to gain a large number of followers, often in exchange for sponsorship money and ad revenue. They might be given free perks or get paid to share videos of resorts or other travel destinations as part of a new form of tourism marketing.

Revisiting the Sacred and Profane: An Architectural Tour of European Cathedrals

By Karen Sternheimer

Popular travel host Rick Steves loves to visit cathedrals on his show to admire their art and architecture. And he’s not alone; on a recent trip to Europe, I found myself informally touring several cathedrals and houses of worship in France and Germany. Beyond appreciating the dramatic columns, striking stained glass, and sculptures that were often part of these edifices, I found myself thinking about the sociological implications of such spaces, namely Durkheim’s dichotomy between the “sacred” and “profane.”

How Do You Know What You Think You Know?

By Karen Sternheimer

One of the core principles of sociology is the idea that what we know about the world around us is socially constructed; in other words, the meanings we ascribe to our social worlds are mediated through collective cultural narratives. These narratives might come from our involvement with social institutions, such as education, religion, families, government, and the economy.

The task of sociology is two-fold: to learn about the world around us through collecting empirical evidence via systematic observation, and also to think critically about how we view and understand what we observe, based on our cultural narratives.

Kids These Days, Revisited

By Karen Sternheimer

Nearly 20 years ago, in 2006, my book Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions about Today’s Youth was published. The book focused on common concerns and complaints about kids in the late 1990s and early 2000s, mostly focusing on fears that young people were becoming overweight, rude self-centered bullies who weren’t interested in school. At the time, there were also concerns about kids being at increasing risk for being victims of violence, particularly by other kids. My conclusion then--and now--fear sells, especially fears about kids.

As the subtitle indicates, many of these concerns were based on fictions, and each chapter contained data to illustrate that despite dramatic headlines, the young people of the early 2000s were not uniquely problematic compared to previous generations.   In fact they were at less risk for many of the things that we were told to fear for them, or at least no more at risk than adults are as well.

Smartwatches at Work

By Karen Sternheimer

I’ve had a smartwatch for nearly four years now. Most of the time I don’t notice it, except for when it "taps” me on the wrist to let me know I have a call, text, reminder, or some other notification. But it has become an important factor understanding my biometrics, aspects of myself that I was previously seldom aware of. The watch provides information about my heart rate, breathing, activity levels, how well I sleep, as well as metrics like my heart rate variability, heart rate recovery rate, and way more measures than I care to list here.

My university, like many employers, incentivizes workers with wellness programs that might include fitness programs and smartwatches. We can be reimbursed about $200 a year for participating in fitness activities or use it towards purchasing a smartwatch. The data recorded by the watch is not available to my employer, but there are some concerns that employers that give employees watches might track their health information, and even more troubling, their whereabouts using GPS tracking on the device.

Role Conflict: Social Contact with your Doctor

By Karen Sternheimer

Sociologists are very interested in the social roles that we take on as part of our daily lives. Our roles provide us with social scripts—ways of behaving in particular situations that are consistent with these roles.

Take going to the doctor’s office. As a patient, you will likely be asked to wait when you arrive, provide personal information about your bodily functions and your insurance. When you are called into an examination room, you might be asked to remove parts of your clothing, answer more personal questions, and undergo medical measurements.

Becoming a College Student: Understanding Life Chances and Social Inequality

By Karen Sternheimer

If you are or were once a student attending college, have you ever thought about how that happened?

The short answer might be you studied and worked hard in high school, and maybe built up your resume to include application-worthy items for admission (Leadership! Philanthropy! Involvement in sports/arts/extracurriculars!). These are, of course, important individual achievements.But there is another aspect to thinking about how you got to college: understanding how social structure shapes your life chances.

Structural Mobility and the American Dream: Push and Pull Factors

By Karen Sternheimer

You are probably familiar with the concept of the “American Dream,” the idea that anyone who works hard in the United States has the chance to experience upward mobility. What factors make this more or less possible?

First, some history (which I write about in my book Celebrity Culture and the American Dream: Stardom and Social Mobility). The phrase “American Dream” was first used—ironically enough—during the Great Depression, when the dream was largely out of reach for most Americans (more on this in a moment).