Author Archives: legallysociable

Avoiding “vulgar sociologism” when responding to events like the London riots

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Responding to commentary from social scientists about the recent riots in London, an Australian sociologist warns against “vulgar sociologism”:

ARGUABLY the greatest poet of the 20th century, Wynstan Hugh Auden, is reported to have quipped that, the goal of anyone seriously interested in human affairs, should be to “never commit a social science”. As I am an academic sociologist, one could be forgiven for thinking, I might take offence at such a blanket dismissal of my stock-in-trade.

However, I think WH was right on the money. And, the media and academic commentary on the riots in London days has only added to my conviction that ‘vulgar sociologism’ – as the Peruvian sociologist Cesar Graña termed it – is much worse than no sociology at all. If only social scientists knew how to keep their ‘traps’ shut, from time to time…

As a result of such shortcomings, what often passes for social science or social commentary, especially in the public domain, is no more than cliché, thinly veiled moralism or prophecy based on hindsight. Like the Old Testament prophets, who emerged from the desert to proclaim that unless the people repented, more God-willed disasters awaited, these social scientists and social commentators seem to relish holding society responsible for humanity’s ills…

If the recent outburst of public sociological commentary is anything to go by, we can see why Auden counselled against ‘committing’ the sin of social science. Bad social science reduces complex problems to simplistic formulas. It only fills our newspapers, radio and television airwaves, with irrelevant commentary…

The truth of the matter is, that unlike medical research and the fight against diseases, social science is acting in bad faith if it promotes the view that it can seriously enhance a society’s capacity to avoid or solve social problems. There is no social science equivalent to prevention or cure; and even diagnosis is a sketchy practice.

A sociologist is really arguing that sociologist can’t help society deal with social problems? Isn’t this what motivates many to become sociologists and what use is research if it doesn’t apply to society? If sociology can’t diagnose, let alone prevent or cure, what is left? What exactly does this sociologist lecture on in class?

At the same time, I can see some merit in another idea in this piece: it is difficult to quickly describe and/or understand what happened in London. While I don’t know many sociologists looking for “simplistic formulas,” this is a reminder that social behaviors and actions are often the product of complex circumstances. Quick, accurate, and helpful pronouncements about complex situations on television are hard to come by, whether the field is sociology, politics, economics, or something else. As this sociologist notes, there is quite a temptation to respond quickly: academics may want to be in the public eye and can be rewarded for it. In a world of sound bites and Tweets, is it any surprise that academics may want to take part and claim some space for themselves?

In the end, I’m somewhat bamboozled by this essay. Cautions about rushing to judgment are helpful but the broader statements about the capabilities of sociology and social science are unique.

Linking the history of women’s clothing size and the sociology of culture

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This article about women’s clothing sizes reminds me of the production approach within the sociology of culture: sizes were once regulated more closely.

This lack of sizing standards wasn’t always the case.

Until January 20, 1983, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology offered specifics for the sizing of apparel with body measurements for men, women, junior women, young men and children. These standards began in the late 1940s as a byproduct of the necessity for size-standardization in military uniforms during World War Two. Committees that included textile manufacturers, designers and retailers worked with the Department of Agriculture to determine these sizing standards and all adhered to it.

The program was discontinued in 1983. The measurements were not keeping up with the typical American body, which was changing due to better medicine and nutrition, along with an influx of new and varied ethnic groups. Sponsorship of these standards was assumed by private industry. That marked the start of sizing’s new Wild West, a lawless, volatile environment that continues today.

As the production approach would suggest, sizes were once standardized because of particular historical circumstances, namely, World War II. Once the regulation was deemed “unnecessary,” different companies took the sizes in completely different directions. The defense of the change given in the article, new bodies and types, doesn’t make much sense: the existing standards could have simply been altered rather than abandoned.

It would be interesting to see more on how the marketing and design of women’s clothes changed with the regulatory shift. Prior to 1983, companies couldn’t really play around with size and use it as a distinguishing feature. After 1983, different brands could use this as part of their image and sales pitch. Did brands that deviated a lot from the prior standards really help their cause?

Inside Higher Ed’s “Sociologists in Sin City” raises some interesting issues

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Earlier this week, I offered some thoughts about the American Sociological Association meetings in Las Vegas and Inside Higher Ed also offered an overview of the conference:

There is something both jarring and perfectly apropos about bringing thousands of sociologists to Sin City. As the ASA press release delicately observed, “Las Vegas [is] vibrant and fascinating from a sociological perspective” – but it’s not difficult to conjecture why the conference had never been held here before. The very aspects of Las Vegas that might make it fascinating to a sociologist — the emphasis on consumerism and decadence; the unapologetic obsession with (and exploitation of) female flesh; and the city’s most celebrated pastime gambling, whose appeal is particularly mystifying to some with a background in statistics — are also the sorts of things that tend to be off-putting to academics, especially (or at least) in the presence of their colleagues. Little wonder that ol’ Lost Wages is one of the least-educated cities in the country. (As David Dickens, professor of sociology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, likes to say: “Thank god for Fresno.”) And little wonder, too, that even those who have dedicated their careers to studying human society weren’t wholly enthused about being thrust into the heart of this particular society, however fascinating it might be…

Sara Goldrick-Rab, associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, emphatically agreed. “I found it hard to believe we sociologists would come to a place that clearly thrives on the exploitation of people’s financial and emotional insecurities,” she wrote in an e-mail. “The grotesque treatment of young women was visible and jarring.”…

Perhaps not incidentally, this faculty member was male – as was the graduate student from a highly respected private institution who suggested that any dislike of or discomfort with Las Vegas was limited to the conference’s female attendees. Also male: the grad student from a California public who smilingly boasted of having slipped a small bribe to the man at the check-in desk in exchange for a room with a good view of the pools (and the bikini-clad women therein) – which view, he said, he found rather distracting as he sat in his room preparing his presentation.

The article suggests several possible fault lines of opinion: between men and women (some of this is quoted above), those who like to gamble and those who do not, and those who work in Las Vegas (UNLV) versus elsewhere. But there was one particularly interesting thought from one of the UNLV sociologists:

Wade said it might not be a bad thing if the city made its visitors uncomfortable. Academics, she noted, tend to lead “pretty cushy” lives, and spending a few days in a difficult and even disturbing environment could prompt them to think about the “real people” who call the city home — and about the fact that, in many ways, Las Vegas is just a distilled and amplified representation of the world we all live in. “There’s a little bit of Vegas in all of us.”

I wonder how many sociologists would like to admit that as a possibility. But there is a point here: it is not as if exploitation, extreme gaps between the rich and poor, the objectification of women, and other issues are not present in other cities. Las Vegas, in its own unique way, seems to shove these issues in your face that doesn’t fit the typical academic experience.

Does this story suggest that sociologists are moralists, generally turned off by places like Las Vegas?

Reading that some people were unhappy to attend ASA in Las Vegas, it made me wonder whether ASA ever sends out surveys after the meetings to see how attendees liked the experience and what might be changed. If so, I don’t recall seeing one. Seeing that my car repair place always sends a survey afterwards, wouldn’t it make sense for ASA to do the same thing or do they not have to because they have a captive audience?

Another question: how exactly did Inside Higher Ed go about interviewing sociologists for this story?

French language losing influence, speakers

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In the global realm of languages, French has been losing ground:

Across Europe, French has gradually declined from being the lingua franca to falling behind German and English. English is spoken by 41% of Europeans, while only 19% speak French. English is now the language of business in Europe, a fact which even French ambassador for international investment Clara Gaymard was forced to admit. And French has fallen so far behind in Eastern Europe, in particular, that it is the third-most studied language, behind English and Spanish.

While once the language of culture, French has been pushed off the global stage. Perhaps the most symbolic example of this was in 2008 when Sebastian Tiller, the French representative at the Eurovision contest, planned to sing ‘Divine’ almost exclusively in English. That the French singer did not choose to represent the jealously guarded language of his country internationally came as a shock to many. This cultural decline was mirrored when New York’s Metropolitan Opera decided to reject the libretto of the musical star Rufus Wainwright (who was raised in Canada), because he chose not to translate his opera into English.

The calamitous decline in French seems irreversible, even to the French. In 2008, the budget of La Francophonie, the governing body of the French language, was six million euros; in contrast, the British Council announced it would spend 150 million euros in efforts to advance English.

Who knew that there organizations that spent millions of dollars a year to advance particular languages?

I would guess that this is tied to France’s standing in the world today. No longer a colonial nation and no longer the world’s leading culture (as it was considered to be in the late 1700s/early 1800s), the language then becomes less attractive. But this story also sounds like it is about the rise of English. If people can around the world can only pursue a certain number of languages in their lifetime, it sounds like French is simply being crowded out.

h/t Instapundit

Replacing the Chicago suburbs’ first shopping mall with a lifestyle center

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A number of older shopping malls have not aged well. Randhurst Village in Mount Prospect now stands where the Chicago suburbs’ first shopping mall once stood:

When Randhurst first opened in 1962, carved from a farm at Rand and Elmhurst roads in Mount Prospect, it announced that the Northwest suburbs had arrived, said Greg Peerbolte, executive director of the Mount Prospect Historical Society and author of “Randhurst: Suburban Chicago’s Grandest Shopping Center.”

Peerbolte emphasized the importance of the mall in the development of the suburbs. “Randhurst didn’t open the floodgates; Randhurst was the floodgate,” he said…

By 2007, the village of Mount Prospect felt something drastic had to be done. Randhurst had already had several “makeovers,” and the village’s leadership felt another one would be ineffective. Officials worried for their sales tax receipts, which are key to having the money to run the village’s public services.

The village partnered with Casto Development and took a bold shot — tear it down, and start over.

The new structure seems to represent the new wave of mall development: it is a “lifestyle center” with a variety of uses that helps guarantee a steady flow of visitors. Such a move might help visitors drop older ideas about malls, sterile buildings surrounded by acres of parking lots, and start seeing them as vibrant places that may even double as “community centers.”

The article suggests that Mount Prospect was unusual in taking the step of completely tearing down the old structure and starting anew. Since previous revitalization efforts had failed, perhaps this was the only move remaining. At the same time, it seems like a community would have to be pretty confident or secure in order to make this move.

College students don’t know how to use Google

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I recently heard about this study at a faculty development day: college students have difficulty understanding and using search results.

Researchers with the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries project watched 30 students at Illinois Wesleyan University try to search for different topics online and found that only seven of them were able to conduct “what a librarian might consider a reasonably well-executed search.”

The students “appeared to lack even some of the most basic information literacy skills that we assumed they would have mastered in high school,” Lynda Duke and Andrew Asher write in a book on the project coming out this fall.

At all five Illinois universities, students reported feeling “anxious” and confused when trying to research. Many felt overwhelmed by the volume of results their searches would turn up, not realizing that there are ways to narrow those searches and get more tailored results. Others would abandon their research topics when they couldn’t find enough sources, unaware that they were using the wrong search terms or database for their topics.

The researchers found that students did not know “how to build a search to narrow or expand results, how to use subject headings, and how various search engines (including Google) organize and display results.” That means that some students didn’t understand how to search only for news articles, or only for scholarly articles. Most only know how to punch in keywords and hope for the best.

Such trust in technology. Wonder where this came from?

I like how anthropologists were involved in this study. Including an observation component could make this data quite unique. I don’t think many people would think that ethnographic methods could be used to examine such up-to-date technology.

Several other thoughts:

1. How many adults could explain how Google displays pages?

1a. If people knew how Google organized things, would they go elsewhere for information?

2. Finding and sorting through information is a key problem of our age. The problem is not a lack of information or possible sources; rather, there is too much.

3. Who exactly in schools should be responsible for teaching this? Librarians, perhaps, but students have limited contact. Preferably, all teachers/professors should know something about this and talk about it. Parents could also impart this information at home.

4. I’m now tempted to ask students to include all of their search terms in final projects so that I can check and see whether they actually sorted through articles or they simply picked the top few results.

New proposal for “bus rapid transit system” for Chicago

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A new proposal calls for a “bus rapid transit system” in Chicago:

That’s one reason to like a new proposal by the Metropolitan Planning Council (pdf) that outlines a major bus rapid transit system for the city of Chicago. The system would be pretty expansive. Its 10 routes would wind through roughly 95 miles of windy city. It would link up to Chicago’s existing transit lines and thereby increase transit trips throughout the region by 3 percent, with as many as 7,000 daily drivers converting to public transportation…

More importantly, the proposed system would also be relatively inexpensive. Whereas light rail can often cost around $35 million a mile to build, bus rapid transit can be done for about $13 million, according to the council’s report. Still, modest as the plan is, it might not be modest enough. Currently Chicago has plans for only three fast bus lanes, with another three to come in the future — “BRT light,” as one official put it. A spokeswoman for the city’s transit authority told the Tribune the money for more lines just isn’t there:

“Given the funding constraints, our plan for three routes is an aggressive, reasonable and workable plan,” CTA spokeswoman Molly Sullivan said.

This looks like an interesting proposal, including the livability scores calculated for each bus route. If I had to sell someone on this, I would say that the proposal argues that these buses deliver light-rail like performance without the additional infrastructure costs. The proposed routes seem to be targeted at areas that are not easily served by the El, particularly along several key north-south corridors.

Several questions come to mind:

1. The proposal includes several small case studies of BRT (bus rapid transit) in action in cities like Portland, Johannesburg, and Las Vegas. Is it reasonable to ask that such proposals include city systems that were not terribly effective?

2. Could this find its way to the suburbs? Suburban buses always present difficulties due to limited service over a wide areas and consistent funding issues. But rapid buses that cover well-trafficked routes might be worth considering.

3. The funding issue is a big deal. Is the City of Chicago in any position to approve new mass transit considering its financial state? The proposal suggests this would be beneficial because it would encourage development, improve mass transit, and make the city more livable but would this also provide cost savings? It would be interesting to hear from a panel of experts as to whether Chicago “needs” light rail or BRT. In other words, is this a luxury or a necessity?

Naperville, Aurora mayors among those who voted for Illinois toll increase

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Amidst news that Illinois tollway directors voted today to raise tolls for a $12 billion capital project (see my earlier thoughts here), I noticed that Naperville Mayor George Pradel is involved:

But a majority of Illinois State Toll Highway Authority leaders said the move is crucial to repair existing roads and build some new ambitious projects such as the long-delayed Elgin-O’Hare Expressway extension into O’Hare International Airport and a western bypass road around the airport. The capital plan will create about 120,000 permanent jobs and ease congestion, officials said.

“My heart goes out to those going through tough times and that have lost jobs. One side effect of this is that it will enhance the economy in northern Illinois over 15 years,” said Naperville Mayor and tollway director George Pradel, who voted for the toll increase.

The decision didn’t come quietly — one board director called the move too hasty and proposed a scaled-back version.

Director Bill Morris of Grayslake, the only dissenter in today’s vote, thinks the toll authority could carry out a 10-year capital plan with a 15-cent increase at a 40-cent toll plaza now with more hikes expected later.

You can see the profiles of the Illinois Tollway Board of Directors here. Having never looked at these profiles, I was intrigued: Pradel is joined by the current mayor of Aurora as well as well a number of businessmen and two female public servants (one from education, one from Cook County government). On the whole, it seems like the directors bought into the economic development argument: good tollways, whether that means improved roadways or new roadways, will help northeastern Illinois prosper.

But looking at the backgrounds of this group, I wonder how many also were influenced by how better roadways might help their community or business interests. While this is not necessarily bad – indeed, northeastern Illinois needs businesses and jobs – it is a different perspective than the common driver might have. (And since this is Illinois, I assume there is some political process behind this board. Still, no “citizen” members?) Take Mayor Pradel: was his vote solely for northeastern Illinois and/or is this quite beneficial for Naperville? The regional argument is interesting (and I’m sure the job and economic estimates could be debated) but I would be interested in hearing about how local interests affected this vote.

The large homes of politicians

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While this gallery of photos doesn’t offer “proof” that most or even many politicians have big homes (and it may just be a play to pull in Internet visitors and clicks), it is an interesting subject to think about:

1. What exactly is the causal relationship here? Did they have bigger than normal homes before they were politicians (meaning they were wealthy when running for office) or are the big homes in part because of their political office?

2. Are there large homes any different than other people within their income brackets?

3. How should the public think about this? Should there be outrage that public servants don’t live like public servants? Do we not usually care because it is their private home and many Americans would buy bigger homes if they had the opportunity? Occasionally, this becomes part of a campaign – John Edwards took some grief for this and his haircuts – and others like Al Gore can be mocked.

4. How much time can a politician even spend in these homes with duties and homes elsewhere?

5. Would a politician who lives in a McMansion (and the implications regarding bad taste, etc.) be considered worse off than one who lives in a mansion?

Toll Brothers, former McMansion builder, near completion of luxury condos in NYC

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During the housing boom of the 1990s and 2000s, Toll Brothers was well-known for its large homes that they often called “estate homes” and critics called “McMansions.” But now Toll Brothers is branching out into new kinds of construction, including luxury condos in New York City:

The kinder, gentler Toll Brothers are debuting new luxury condos at 205 Water Street in Dumbo next month, and to support that image, the 67-unit “modern loft” building just got a huge PR boost from a Wall Street Journal preview calling it “unerringly contextual, but also elegant, and even at some points, whimsical.” Unlike Toll Brothers’ previous, shinier attempts in Brooklyn, the seven-story scale of 205 Water fits right in with its landmarked historic district (zoning allows up to 12 stories) and the rusty steel and concrete facade by architects GreenbergFarrow takes cues from the nabe’s industrial past. Adhering to the LPC’s requirements meant constructing 205 Water out of reinforced architectural concrete, a “temperamental material rarely used anymore as the primary material in new buildings” that projects a “world-weary sort of workingman’s facade” to the street. Upper stories are clad in cor-ten steel, a lighter material also seen on the Ford Foundation headquarters in Manhattan.

I wonder if the people at Curbed are disappointed since it sounds like Toll Brothers is building fewer homes they would view as McMansions and instead built contextualized structures that fit in more urban neighborhoods that maybe could even be considered green. Could Toll Brothers turn their image around?