Monthly Archives: February 2012

Sociology class on social change leads to amendment to Illinois law

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I noted this story last year but here is an update: Illinois passed a bill last year that originated in a sociology class at Northern Illinois University.

Sophomore students at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in Aurora were given an opportunity Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, to hear firsthand how doing their homework could lead to state-wide social change.

State Representative Kay Hatcher, NIU Sociology instructor Jack King and NIU student Gayle Deja-Schultz shared the story of how a class project at NIU’s Naperville campus led to a 2011 amendment to House Bill 180, The Let Them Rest in Peace Act, which further restricts protesting during funeral and memorial services.

However, the impact of the course taught by King, Sociology 392: Organizing for Social Change, extends beyond state legislature.

The NIU project was the inspiration for EnACT, a new IMSA program that teaches students how to address legislative issues and how to advocate change in a hands-on learning approach.

I would guess this is an educational experience these sociology students won’t forget.

Read more details about how the bill was signed into law on August 14, 2011 here. The key part of the process seems to be that one of the students had interned for an Illinois House member and this started the ball rolling beyond the class. The power of social networks…

Are there other sociology classes that have led to similar change?

In trying to preserve open space in New Jersey, the land falls into the hands of the wealthy

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Here is an interesting argument from a northern New Jersey columnist: the state’s effort to conserve open space by offering a tax break for farmland has left most of the open farmland in the hands of the wealthy.

It’s in the New Jersey Constitution, has been since 1963. Farmland is assessed for property taxes at its agricultural value, not its development value. To qualify, the property has to be at least five acres. Subsequent laws require that it generate at least $500 a year in agricultural revenue.

The goal was and is to preserve some of New Jersey’s diminishing stock of open land before it is all turned into condos and McMansions.

The program is working. But open land costs so much that the people who can afford to buy it tend to be well-to-do. This is unfair, critics say, because it enables rich people to surround themselves with open space and views while real, dirt-under-the-fingernails farmers are forced out of state…

Unsurprisingly, some owners of such New Jersey properties are megabucks celebrities. The rock star Jon Bon Jovi owns seven farm acres in historic Middletown, near the shore in Monmouth County, on which he paid $104 in taxes in 2010. Steve Forbes, magazine publisher, paid $2,005 in taxes in 2009 on 450 acres in Bedminster, in the Somerset Hills.

And here are former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and her husband, John, who own 167 acres in Tewksbury, in Hunterdon County, on which they paid $1,521 in taxes in 2010, and 65 acres in Bedminster, on which they paid $173.

This sounds like a situation of unintended consequences: the law was intended to keep farmland open in the midst of suburban development but because of rising land prices plus tax breaks, the wealthy benefit.

Of course, there are other ways to conserve open space in the face of development. Contrast the approach in New Jersey versus the actions of the DuPage County Forest Preserve. After World War II, the Forest Preserve was very aggressive in grabbing open land, particularly land around waterways. If I am remembering correctly, by the late 1960s the Forest Preserve had over 15,000 acres in a rapidly expanding county that grew from almost 155,000 people in 1950 to nearly 492,000 in 1970 to over 904,000 in 2000. This didn’t come without a cost: the Forest Preserve had to find money to fund these purchases and there were complaints about rising local taxes plus the debt taken on in bonds. Additionally, the Forest Preserve ended up in several tussles over land with municipalities as both the County and suburbs wanted to control land before it disappeared. Today, there are still complaints about the Forest Preserve as the over 25,000 acres are maintained with taxpayer dollars. At the same time, there are a number of very nice sites and the land, unlike farmland, is open for everyone to use.

So if it came down to providing tax breaks  for the farms of wealthy landowners or having facilities that are taxpayer supported but also available to all, which would you choose? Presumably there are other options to choose from as well?

Why cities bid to host the Super Bowl (hint: it’s not just about the immediate money)

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A story about how cities win the opportunity to host the Super Bowl has this explanation of why cities bid in the first place:

The NFL looks at the Super Bowl location as a kind of carrot to reward cities that are expanding the NFL’s sphere of influence, either by fielding a winning team, building a fancy stadium, or, ideally, both. Cities bid for the honor of hosting the Super Bowl because it brings in tourist dollars and prestige.

How much money is the subject of some debate. The NFL maintains that the Super Bowl brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to local economies. An article from the Indianapolis Business Journal says, “The NFL estimates Indianapolis will draw 100,000 to 150,000 visitors who could spend $200 million over a 10-day span.”

However, some find that number to be misleading. An academic paper from Holy Cross titled “Economics of the Super Bowl” argues that these numbers are “‘padded’ at least as well as the players on the field.”

Philip Porter, an economics professor from the University of South Florida, attempted to figure out the Super Bowl’s financial impact in 2007. The Sun-Sentinel reports that “he said he examined data from the Florida Department of Revenue showing expenditures in Miami-Dade County were $3.318 billion in February 2006 and $3.308 billion in February 2007.”

Regardless, there are some tangible benefits for citizens of Super Bowl cities. In the case of Indianapolis, “the city pledged to build a practice facility downtown that will be left in place for local residents to use.” There is also an increase in jobs (even if the jobs are temporary).

It sounds like the NFL pushes the economic argument: host the Super Bowl fans plus teams plus the media plus celebrities will spend lots of money. In addition, the temporary jobs that are created helps the Super Bowl bring money into a city. However, I wonder if this falls into a similar territory of the sports team who argues the city or state should spend taxpayer dollars to help build a new stadium or the team will leave. Studies show that these arguments are bogus: taxpayers end up spending money that owners profit because few cities can “afford” to let the big team go. Also, the article also suggests that a new stadium had to be built for the Colts for this bid to have any success and this cost money (some from the Colts, the rest from a food and drink tax). It sounds like it might be fairly easy to look at the economic data across Super Bowls.

My guess is that prestige, status, and the attention the Super Bowl draws and the money that this can lead to down the road is more important here. This helps put Indianapolis on the map and hopefully is not just a one-time event but rather helps lead to other big conventions and events (the city is already known as a sport town since it is home to the NCAA, hosts the Indianapolis 500) as well as attracting businesses who might otherwise not have a reason to visit the city. The immediate economic benefits may be nice to tout but this event gives a lot of air time and from what I have heard, media people have been impressed by the way Indy has rolled out the red carpet and also made all of the necessary locations within walking distance of each other. Wouldn’t it be great to be the mayor or other elected official who can claim that you helped bring the Super Bowl to Indianapolis? Wouldn’t it be even better to say that hosting the big game helped bring in more long-term revenue into the city? The real pull here is not the practice facility that is left behind but rather the fact that Indy is capable of hosting the biggest game in the United States.

Country music highlights the ideals of the country in the midst of a suburban nation

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A music critic suggests makers of and listeners to country music are mostly in the suburbs, not the country:

Of course the actual lives lived in those small towns are somewhere within these songs, but many of the details are glossed over, romanticized, politicized or just plain ignored. There are megachurches in small towns now, not just cute little white chapels. There are Meth labs. There are business sections of town that don’t look too different from what you see in suburbs around big cities; e.g., not very pretty. There are factory farms, which bring some uglier realities than the idyllic farms of country songs (the stench of large-scale hog farms, for one). There are immigrants from other countries, possibly even (gasp!) illegal ones, often working the least appreciated of the farm and factory jobs. There are eccentricities and new developments that just don’t fit the portrait of rural America in country songs.

Plus, the country singers and songwriters aren’t all living in the country these days, but are just as likely to be found in your McMansions in the suburbs (look, for example, at the neighborhood Brad Paisley stands in, whether it’s actually his or not, in the music video for “Welcome to the Future”).

Country music fans live in such suburbs and cities, as well. Country today preserves the myths, half-truths and conjecture associated with the divide between small towns and cities, rarely acknowledging the gray areas in between. (Montgomery Gentry: “Don’t you dare go running down my little town where I grew up and I won’t cuss your city lights”). In country music today there is a constant sleight of hand going on with regards to “the country life”, shuffling up ingrained ideas of what it means with ones rooted in today or yesteryear.

Sometimes this might be political, a way to smuggle (or, more often, showcase outright) conservative ideas about the way America should and shouldn’t be. More often it’s probably of convenience or laziness, repeating past successes or playing into what artists imagine their audiences want to hear. But on another level this is about genre, about preserving a certain library of scenes and stories, to make the music recognizable as country and further the tradition. Then again, genres are shaped by the minds of the fans as much as the musicians, and by the times we live in.

In this argument about country music, the themes of country music highlight (a stereotype of?) the rural nature of America even as the producers and consumers are all part of a suburban or exurban existence. I tend to think of suburbs as an American adaptation to the issue of cities versus rural areas, a debate that began in the early days of the American project. The suburbs offer some of the city life, particularly the access to business and culture, with some of the country life with single-family homes and lots and a closer proximity to nature. In this case, the genre of music highlights a past era of American history as we are clearly a suburban nation today.

Are there country songs that celebrate the suburbs? I’m always on the lookout for cultural products that highlight the suburbs. Also, is it fair to single out a country music star for a McMansion – do other music stars also in suburban McMansions?

If there is a popular genre of music that holds out an ideal vision of the country life, is there a genre that does the opposite, hold out an ideal vision of city life?

Fuel efficiency = bankrupt highways?

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Brian hit the issue almost a year ago, but Jordan Weissmann at the Atlantic recently re-focused attention on the problem of funding U.S. highways with fuel taxes:

Since back in the Eisenhower era, the federal government has maintained a Highway Trust Fund, paid for mostly by taxes on fuel, that helps cover the repair and construction of our country’s roads, bridges, and mass transit. The idea was that drivers themselves should bear some of the cost the roads they used. Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1993. Since then, inflation has eaten away at least a third of its value…[and] two new challenges [have] emerged. First, Americans started caring about the fuel efficiency again, as skyrocketing oil prices ended the era of gas-guzzling SUVs. Then the recession struck, and penny-pinching drivers logged fewer miles to save on gas.

The upshot, of course, is that

less money is flowing into the Highway Trust Fund, which is now facing potential insolvency in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

I guess it’s good that fuel efficiency gains are having an impact?  (Ah, unintended consequences.)  Looks like we’re headed into a world where cars will have to start paying by the mile–or the highways are going to get a lot worse.

More on limits of Census measures of race and ethnicity

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Here is some more information about the limitations of measuring race with the current questions in the United States Census:

When the 2010 census asked people to classify themselves by race, more than 21.7 million — at least 1 in 14 — went beyond the standard labels and wrote in such terms as “Arab,” ”Haitian,” ”Mexican” and “multiracial.”

The unpublished data, the broadest tally to date of such write-in responses, are a sign of a diversifying America that’s wrestling with changing notions of race…

“It’s a continual problem to measure such a personal concept using a check box,” said Carolyn Liebler, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in demography, identity and race. “The world is changing, and more people today feel free to identify themselves however they want — whether it’s black-white, biracial, Scottish-Nigerian or American. It can create challenges whenever a set of people feel the boxes don’t fit them.”

In an interview, Census Bureau officials said they have been looking at ways to improve responses to the race question based on focus group discussions during the 2010 census. The research, some of which is scheduled to be released later this year, examines whether to include new write-in lines for whites and blacks who wish to specify ancestry or nationality; whether to drop use of the word “Negro” from the census form as antiquated; and whether to possibly treat Hispanics as a mutually exclusive group to the four main race categories.

This highlights some of the issues of social science research:

1. Social science categories change as people’s own understanding of the terms changes. Keeping up with these understandings can be difficult and there is always a lag. For example, a sizable group of respondents in the 2010 Census didn’t like the categories but the problem can’t be fixed until a future Census.

2. Adding write-in options or more questions means that the Census becomes longer, requiring more time to take and analyze. With all of the Census forms that are returned, this is no small matter.

3. Comparing results of repeated surveys like the Census can become quite difficult when the definitions change.

4. The Census is going to change things based on focus groups? I assume they will also test permutations of the questions and possible categories in smaller-scale surveys before settling on what they will do.

Difficulty in convincing students of racism and racial inequality

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An article about whiteness studies hints at a bigger issue: the difficulty of convincing today’s college students that racism and racial inequality are still problems.

But that progress [end of slavery and Jim Crow plus the election of President Obama] has slanted the mainstream narrative too far into positive terrain, they argue, leaving many to think that racial equality has arrived. Even some young students of color are more skeptical than ever before…

“The typical college student will always say ‘What racial inequality? Look at the White House,’” says Charles Gallagher, chair of the sociology department at La Salle University in Philadelphia. “I have to first convince them that inequality exists.”…

He says he starts the conversation by pointing to research such as a Pew Research Center report published last fall that showed the typical white family has roughly 20 times the wealth of the median black or Latino family. Thanks to the recession, the report said the gap is the largest it has been in a quarter century.

But some believe the idea of racism is shifting entirely. A 2008 poll by USA Today/Gallup and  showed that 40% of adults in America think racism against white people is widespread in the United States. A study published last year said that bias against whites is a bigger problem than bias against blacks.

While some indicators have improved (such as recent measures of residential segregation), there are still plenty of differences between different races. On the whole, life chances are still significantly determined by race. In Divided By Faith, two sociologists describe this as living in a “racialized” society where one’s race and ethnicity has a large impact on even micro-level decisions.

Part of this might simply be the process of continually teaching a new generation of college students. As their context and culture changes, college students arrive in the classroom with different concerns, knowledge, and passions. It would be interesting to track how incoming freshmen classes rate the importance of the issue of race, particularly compared to other concerns (like being able to find a job, terrorism, etc.). Perhaps this is cyclical, dependent on noteworthy events or political debates.

Of course, the world continues to change and academia will continue to shift toward studying newer trends. While the American case has historically been mostly about black-white relations, Latinos are now the largest minority group and how Latinos view themselves is something worth watching. Perhaps the trajectory of “whiteness studies” will change but the issue of race is still salient and is going to be studied for a long time.

The disappearing natural world in children’s books

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A new sociological study suggests the natural world is disappearing from award-winning children’s books:

A group of researchers led by University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist J. Allen Williams Jr. studied the winners of the American Library Association’s prestigious Caldecott Medal between 1938 (the year the prize was first awarded) through 2008. They looked at more than 8,000 images in the 296 volumes.

They noted whether each image depicted a natural environment (such as a forest), a built environment (such as a house), or a modified environment (such as a cornfield or manicured lawn). In addition, they observed whether the illustrations contained any animals, and if so, rated them as either domestic, wild or anthropomorphized (that is, taking on human qualities)…

Specifically, they find images of built and natural environments were “almost equally likely to be present” in books published from the late 1930s through the 1960s. But in the  mid-1970s, illustrations of the built environment started to increase in number, while there were fewer and fewer featuring the natural environment…

“These findings suggest that today’s generation of children are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it,” Williams and his colleagues conclude.

Here is the list of Caldecott winners. Here is what the award is about:

Each year the Newbery Medal is awarded by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children’s books published the previous year. However, as many persons became concerned that the artists creating picture books for children were as deserving of honor and encouragement as were the authors of children’s books, Frederic G. Melcher suggested in 1937 the establishment of a second annual medal. This medal is to be given to the artist who had created the most distinguished picture book of the year and named in honor of the nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph J. Caldecott. The idea for this medal was also accepted enthusiastically by the Section for Library Work with Children of ALA and was approved by the ALA Executive Board.

Do Newbery winners (chapter books) have more depictions of nature?

Perhaps this is simply the necessary consequence of suburbanized America. How many children actually have consistent opportunities to interact with nature or even to see it? The suburban world is a strange one in that while it has a lot of natural imagery (think of street names) and the first suburbs of the mid 1800s invoked pastoral themes, the natural world is very homogenized and sanitized.

Additionally, we live in a country that suggests technology can improve or solve most problems while nature might seem somewhat static (even though it is incredibly dynamic). Perhaps we are now a culture where only the built environment promises excitement while nature seems unpromising. Or perhaps pressing social concerns simply tend to outweigh natural concerns at every turn.

While this study can’t conclude whether these books are reflecting cultural concerns or forming cultural ideas, it does raise questions about what children’s books should be doing. Teaching valuable lessons? Passing along cultural values or cultural capital (a la Bourdieu)? Entertaining? Helping kids learn to read and learn about the world? Making money for the publishers? All of the above?

I wonder if any of the Caldecott Award committees thought about the role of nature in the books they selected.

(This study seems a bit similar in methodology to a study last year that looked at gender biases in children’s literature.)

Glaeser argues “desegregation is unsung US success story”

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Residential segregation is a persistent feature of American life (a few earlier posts here, here, and here). Yet, economist Edward Glaeser argues that things are improving on this front:

As the figure shows, as of 1970, almost 80 percent of either whites or blacks would have had to move neighborhoods in order to achieve an even distribution of whites and blacks within the average metropolitan area. By 1990, that dissimilarity measure had dropped to 66 percent; it is 54 percent today. We are very far from living in a perfectly integrated society, but our nation is far more integrated than it was 40 years ago.

The progress over the last decade has been particularly dramatic. Every one of the 10 largest metropolitan areas experienced drops in both dissimilarity and isolation of 3.6 points or more. The isolation index is below 45 percent in every one of those 10 largest areas, except for Chicago. Long among the most segregated places in America, the Windy City has experienced a particularly dramatic decline in segregation since 2000.

The general decline in segregation has also been accompanied by a change in its nature. Before 1968, segregation is best understood as the result of hard, if often informal, barriers against black mobility. There were neighborhoods that were simply off-limits. The effect was that blacks paid more for housing, especially in more segregated cities…

After 1970, however, that pricing pattern switched. By 1990, blacks were paying less for housing than whites, especially in more segregated metropolitan areas. This switch can be explained if segregation, post-1970, reflects white preferences rather than barriers preventing black mobility. If the segregation that remains is the result of whites liking to live in primarily white neighborhoods, then we should expect whites to pay a price for limiting their own choices, and that is exactly what the data show.

The decline in segregation hasn’t been uniform across the black population. Much of the decline reflects relatively well- educated black Americans moving into white districts. While that freedom is something to celebrate, the exodus of the more skilled left many urban neighborhoods behind, and the effect of growing up in a segregated community appears to have gotten worse over time.

A few things to note here:

1. Glaeser ends by suggesting this is a triumph for everyone. While the numbers overall may have improved, there is still a lot of work to do – as he notes, cities like Chicago still have higher levels of segregation and only certain segments of the black population have had the options to move to whiter areas. On one hand, you want to celebrate progress but on the other hand, you don’t want to minimize the fact that this is still a major issue. The issue of where people (can) live is tied to a lot of other concerns including school performance, wealth, and life chances.

2. Glaeser suggests the change in recent decades is due to white preferences rather than the presence of real barriers. Two thoughts on this:

a. Really? There are no barriers for lower-income or non-white residents to move into wealthier areas? Why do we still then have cases about exclusionary zoning (such as an example in Westchester County)? Why there are still big debates about constructing affordable housing (an example from Winnetka, Illinois)?

b. Glaeser seems to suggest these white preferences are okay since they pay for this privilege. This is the appropriate penalty for essentially restricting the abilities of others to live in certain places? I bet a lot of sociologists might have some complaints about this – this is the key difference between de jure and de facto segregation and both have negative outcomes.

Another story on Glaeser’s study has a response from a sociologist who suggests some caution:

“We’re nowhere near the end of segregation,” says Brown University sociologist John Logan, who was not involved in the study. “There are still no signs of whites moving into what were previously all-minority neighborhoods, and there is still considerable white abandonment of mixed areas.”

3. Glaeser also seems to be only looking at the black/white divide in where people live, the widest measure. I would be interested to hear his explanations for the differences between whites and other groups.