Everyday Sociology Blog

Abbott Elementary and the Rise of School-aganda

By Alyssa Lyons

I was sitting on the couch with my partner trying to decompress after an unusually long day. To unwind, we decided to watch Abbott Elementary. As a sociologist of education, I knew it was on brand, but I couldn’t help being drawn into the world of Abbott. I’ve spent a lot of time researching educational inequalities within schooling, and the show’s premise was both intriguing and novel.

Abbott Elementary is a feel-good mockumentary created by actress Quinta Brunson who also plays second grade teacher Janine Teagues in the show. Inspired by her mother’s career as a public-school teacher in Philadelphia, Brunson wanted to reflect the experiences of teachers in the city public school system. The mockumentary style show focuses on the experiences of predominantly BIPOC teachers, staff, administrators, and students in a fictional public elementary school in Philadelphia.

Janet Jackson, Kamala Harris, and Questions of Race

By Janis Prince Inniss 

Sociologically speaking,  there are lots of interesting aspects of the Janet Jackson PR fiasco. In case you missed it, the international superstar caused quite a stir recently. In a long and wide-ranging interview published by The Guardian on Saturday, when asked for her opinion on the upcoming U.S. presidential election and the possibility of the country’s first Black female president, Kamala Harris, Jackson said: “Well, you know what they supposedly said?...She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”

Charitably, this may be the best example of how the ultra-rich live dramatically different lives than the rest of us. Jackson seemed to suggest that she was told by those around her that this was the case, stating, “That’s what I heard…That’s what I was told.”

What is Decolonization?

By Alyssa Lyons

The word “decolonization” is a word frequently mentioned on college campuses. As administrators and professors attempt to decolonize their institutions, their teaching, their curriculum, and their very classrooms—at least in the metaphorical sense. Courses at City College of CUNY promise to teach students to “decolonize mental health” while the University of Portland looks for ways to “decolonize the curriculum.” In addition to course offerings, foundations have incentivized decolonization efforts at the university level by offering competitive grants to decolonize course content or teaching practices.

Telling Untold Stories Beyond Hollywood: Regional Labor Markets and the Possibility of a Diverse Film Industry Talent Hub

By Colby King and Uma Gupta, Associate Professor and Director of Business Analytics at USC Upstate

Where a person lives, and where they’re able to work, shapes their sociological imagination, and their opportunities. Today’s local labor markets are defined, though, by historical patterns of segregation, continuous ebbs and flows of capital investment, ongoing shifts in occupational mixes. This context contributes to unequal power between groups of workers, and ongoing racial inequalities.

How the Moynihan Report Birthed Parental Engagement Policy in Schools

By Alyssa Lyons

While parental engagement has become a popular buzzword in political circles in recent years, the language of “parental involvement” didn’t appear in U.S. federal educational policy until 1965 with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

Not without coincidence, this was the same year that academic and social scientist Daniel Patrick Moynihan published the Moynihan Report: The Negro Family, the Case for National Action. An incendiary racist, classist, homophobic, and sexist document, the Moynihan Report claimed that racial inequalities in wealth and education between Blacks and whites were the result of a broken and fractured Black family structure where Black matriarchs managed the household. Moynihan further suggested that establishing a stable Black family structure was central in alleviating poverty and inequalities.

Let’s Talk Parental Engagement in Schools: Parental Engagement as a Social Construct

By Alyssa Lyons

What does it mean to be an engaged parent in schools?

As both a sociologist and the mother of an eleven-year-old in the New York City public school system, I’ve often wrestled with this question. Whenever I attend school-based events, principals, teachers, and staff tell me, along with other parents, that being engaged in the school and in my child’s education is instrumental to their academic success. 

And it isn’t just educators and social science researchers singing the praises of parental engagement. Politicians and policymakers suggest that parental engagement can function as either a buffer or mitigator in addressing educational inequality on both a state and federal level.  In March 2022, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona implored schools to reconsider their relationship with parents and families, suggesting “parents are their children’s first and most influential teachers.”

"Fast Car" and Country Music

By Jonathan Wynn

Perhaps the highlight of the 2024 Grammys was Luke Combs’ duet with famously limelight-averse Tracy Chapman, singing Chapman’s “Fast Car.” While I had been pondering this song for over a year, it took the Grammy performance to really get a sense of what was going on here, especially with Beyoncé’s new songs promising to spark new controversy over what “country music” should be.

Combs’ version of the song is likely the one that most college-aged Everyday Sociology Blog readers know, but when most of your older professors (like me) were of a similar age, Chapman’s song was a big deal. These days, most hit songs come and go but, in 1988, the song was in heavy rotation. It was on the radio; it was in the mall.

Embracing the Icon, Debating the Message

By Mike Bossick, Professor of Sociology, Central Piedmont Community College

I was asked to give a presentation on Martin Luther King Jr. Day about racism and poverty. The more I thought about Dr. King’s message of racial and economic justice in the context of recent backlash to the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, I wondered whether most people support the sanitized folk hero version of MLK, or his message of radical racial and economic justice? Keep in mind that anyone under the age of 55 wasn’t even alive when MLK was assassinated in April, 1968; much of our culture’s collective memory comes from soundbites, summaries, or short excerpts of his work.

While MLK, the famous Morehouse alumni and sociology major is revered today, that wasn’t always the case. The Pew Research Center compiled public opinion data originally collected by Gallup showing MLK’s favorability rating between 1963-1966 as ranging between 33-45%. In addition, National Public Radio (NPR) discusses evidence in the MLK/FBI documentary stating that the FBI under director J Edgar Hoover feverishly sought to discredit King. Keeping him under heavy surveillance, they sent him compromising tapes they recorded and even created and sent an anonymous letter suggesting he should kill himself. Clearly, the former sentiment from the public and the FBI does not align with MLK’s 2011 favorability rating of 94% when the MLK Memorial opened in Washington, DC.

There are No Heroes Here: Killers of the Flower Moon and the Treatment of Indigenous Peoples

By Rob Eschmann, Associate Professor of Social Work, Columbia University

[email protected]

This post contains spoilers for the 2023 film, Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon is as good as you expect it to be, directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring spectacular performances from Robert De Niro as Bill “King” Hale, Leonardo DiCaprio as Hale’s easily influenced nephew Ernest Burkhart, and Lily Gladstone as Molly Burkhart, a beleaguered yet resolute Osage woman married to Ernest. Even the story behind the film is inspiring, as Scorsese worked with the Osage Tribe leadership, employed over one hundred Osage as extras, and was intentional about avoiding the Hollywood trope of Indigenous folks in trouble, White man to the rescue.

But don’t expect to like this film. Expect unease. For three and a half uncomfortable hours my heart broke for the Osage community as I held my breath, waiting for some respite, for the calvary to show up and save the day.

Social Media and Digital Resistance

By Karen Sternheimer

It’s not hard to find stories decrying social media. From concerns about mental health, bullying and eating disorders, wasting time, and spreading misinformation, the presumptive “harm” of social media has become taken for granted, especially where young people are concerned.