Category Archives: Sociology

US mosques increased from 1,209 to 2,106 between 2000 and 2011

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A new study shows that the number of mosques in the United States increased 74% between 2000 and 2011:

Researchers conducting the national count found a total of 2,106 Islamic centers, compared to 1,209 in 2000 and 962 in 1994. About one-quarter of the centers were built between 2000-2011, as the community faced intense scrutiny by government officials and a suspicious public. In 2010, protest against an Islamic center near ground zero erupted into a national debate over Islam, extremism and religious freedom. Anti-mosque demonstrations spread to Tennessee, California and other states.

While some are pleased as this suggests Muslims feel comfortable enough in the United States to establish religious congregations, I think there are two other interesting things about these findings:

1. The methodology for counting mosques:

The report released Wednesday, “The American Mosque 2011,” is a tally based on mailing lists, websites and interviews with community leaders, and a survey and interviews with 524 mosque leaders. The research is of special interest given the limited scholarship so far on Muslim houses of worship, which include a wide range of religious traditions, nationalities and languages.

Researchers defined a mosque as a Muslim organization that holds Friday congregational prayers called jumah, conducts other Islamic activities and has operational control of its building. Buildings such as hospitals and schools that have space for Friday prayer were not included. Chapters of the Muslim Student Association at colleges and universities were included only if they had space off-campus or had oversight of the building where prayer was held…

The 2011 mosque study is part of the Faith Communities Today partnership, which researches the more than 300,000 houses of worship in the United States. Among the report’s sponsors are the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, the Islamic Society of North America and Islamic Circle of North America.

I wonder if other researchers might disagree with this methodology, particularly with how a mosque was defined. This is a reminder that it can be difficult to track or count religious groups because there are no master lists, not everyone is in the phone book, and not everyone has a web site. Additionally, religious congregations can quickly form and disband.

(I assume the researchers talk about this in their report but could the increase in mosques could be related to doing a more comprehensive search this time around?)

2. It is interesting to note where the mosques are located:

The overwhelming majority of mosques are in cities, but the number located in suburbs rose from 16 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2011. The Northeast once had the largest number of mosques, but Islamic centers are now concentrated in the South and West, the study found. New York still has the greatest number of Islamic centers — 257 — followed by 246 in California and 166 in Texas. Florida is fourth with 118. The shift follows the general pattern of population movement to the South and West.

I am most interested in the figures about the suburban growth as I have tracked several cases of proposals for mosques in the Chicago suburbs. This article doesn’t say but I wonder if the greater number of suburban mosques is because city mosques have moved from city to suburb (which would mirror the movement of Protestant churches out of the city in the post-World War II suburban boom) or because these are new suburban mosques built in response to a growing suburban Muslim population.

 

Modern skeuomorphs are touches of the past in a digital age

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Clive Thompson discusses skeumorphs, “a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original” (Wikipedia definition), in a digital world:

Now ask yourself: Why does Google Calendar—and nearly every other digital calendar—work that way? It’s a strange waste of space, forcing you to look at three weeks of the past. Those weeks are mostly irrelevant now. A digital calendar could be much more clever: It could reformat on the fly, putting the current week at the top of the screen, so you always see the next three weeks at a glance…

Because they’re governed by skeuomorphs—bits of design that are based on old-fashioned, physical objects. As Google Calendar shows, skeuomorphs are hobbling innovation by lashing designers to metaphors of the past. Unless we start weaning ourselves off them, we’ll fail to produce digital tools that harness what computers do best.

Now, skeuomorphs aren’t always bad. They exist partly to orient us to new technologies. (As literary critic N. Katherine Hayles nicely puts it, they’re “threshold devices, smoothing the transition between one conceptual constellation and another.”) The Kindle is easy to use precisely because it behaves so much like a traditional print book.

But just as often, skeuomorphs kick around long past the point of reason. Early automobiles often included a buggy-whip holder on the dashboard—a useless fillip that designers couldn’t bear to part with.

I’ve noticed the same thing on my Microsoft Outlook calendar: the default is to show the full month of February even today when I don’t really care to look back at February and would much rather see what is coming up in March. I can alter it somewhat in the options by displaying two months at a time but it still shows all the earlier part of February.

What would be interesting to hear Thompson discuss is the half-life of skeuomorphs. If they are indeed useful for helping users make a transition from an old technology to a new one, how long should the old feature stick around? Is this made more complicated when the product has a broader audience? For example, iPhone users could be anyone from a 14 year old to an 80 year old. Presumably, the 14 year old might want the changes to come more quickly and tends to acquire the newer stuff earlier but the device still has to work for the 80 year old who is just getting their first smartphone and is doing partly so because they only recently became so cheap. How do companies make this decision? Could a critical mass of users “force”/prompt a change?

This is also a good reminder that new technologies sometimes get penalized for being too futuristic or too different. If skeu0morphs are used, users will make the necessary steps over time toward new behaviors and ways of seeing the world. Perhaps Facebook falls into this category. The method of having “friends” all in one category is often clunky but if users had to simply open their information to anyone, who would want to participate? However, by gradually changing the structure (remember we once had networks which were a comforting feature because you could easily place/ground people within an existing community), Facebook users can be moved toward a more open environment.

In general, social change takes time, even if the schedule in recent decades has become more compressed.

Odd statement: “Only 2.8% of your property tax bill goes to DuPage County”

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Two days ago, our household received the quarterly newsletter from DuPage County. While the front page of the DuPage Review trumpets “DuPage County Cuts $10.7 million from 2012 Budget,” the back page had this interesting statement: “Did You Know? Only 2.8% of your property tax bill goes to DuPage County.” See the figure below:

What exactly is the County trying to convey here? Pointing out this figure means: (a) you should not be concerned at all since this is a small amount (b) you should not care much if we ask for a little more (c) you should be impressed that we use such a small percentage, particularly compared to other taxing bodies. .

The focus here is on the small number (only 2.8%!) but it might also lead a lot of people to ask what my wife asked: why does the County need 2.8% anyway? The rest of the newsletter offers some hints: taking care of county roads, dealing with stormwater, and facilitate things like senior services and electronic recycling. The county budget for 2012 is $434.7 million and you can find more specific details here.

I wonder how many DuPage County residents know what goes on at the county level. Outside of occasional local issues, how many people actually have to be concerned about what the County does? Add in the fact that Illinois has the most local taxing bodies in the country (outpacing second place Pennsylvania by over 2,000) and it can be really hard to figure out how the County, township, Forest Preserve, Park Districts, municipalities and the other taxing bodies fit together and utilize property tax money.

Questionable web survey of the day: smart USA finds Americans prefer “right-sizing”

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I ran across a recent survey that initially looked promising as the findings suggested Americans prefer “right-sizing”:

While the last decade is often seen as a period of gluttonous consumption, McMansions, and Super-Size meals, the old adage that less is more seems to be ringing true in today’s post-recession era. The survey found that three out of four Americans prefer to receive a present in a small package over a large one. Those who thought bigger was better tended to be young, a preference that shrinks as people get older and wiser. (34% of Americans age 18-34 preferred bigger presents compared to 22% of those age 45-54 and 17% of those age 55+).

Overall, on the subject of preferring less over more:

  • 97% of Americans believe that at least some of the items in their household are junk (i.e., they could easily get rid of it)
  • Nearly one out of 10 (9%) Americans believe they can part with a full half of their stuff
  • 9% of Americans believe that 51-100% of the items in their household are junk, indicating that the supposed American obsession with size and quantity is overstated

I’m not sure the statistics here strongly show “the supposed American obsession with size and quantity is overstated” but this still seems interesting. Lots of people would argue Americans have too much stuff and particularly the admissions about having some or a lot of junk back this up. But if you read more closely, two issues pop up:

1. The survey was sponsored by smart USA and Harris Interactive. Not familiar with smart USA? Here is a hint:

“The fact that a majority of Americans are deeply concerned with right-sizing their lifestyles and making intelligent choices shows why smart has so much curb appeal today,” says smart USA General Manager Tracey Matura. “People are rethinking whether bigger is actually better and focusing instead on value. They’re looking at how they can cut down the clutter in their lives, whether in their choice of vehicle, home or other purchases, so they have fewer, better things rather than simply more, more, more. And smart is proof that good things do come in small packages.”

So the survey shows that there should be plenty of Americans who want to buy a smart Fortwo! While early sales of the car lagged, Mercedes Benz trumpeted moving 9,341 smart cars worldwide in April 2011. Is this really just a marketing survey?

2. There is another issue with the survey, which happened through the web:

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Smart from December 6-8, 2011 among 2,246 adults ages 18 and older. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact terry.wei@mbusa.com.

Perhaps I’m missing something but the admission that this is not based on a probability sample is bad news. This usually means that the survey is not terribly representative of the American population at large. Of course, the surveys results could be weighted to try to make up for this but weighting may not be able to truly adjust for having a bad sample.

In conclusion, I’m not sure this survey really tells us much about anything. I assume that the findings are useful to smart USA but the results about larger American consumer patterns should be used with much caution.

The gift of empathy

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Megan McArdle of the Atlantic has a timely reminder of the dangers of schadenfreude:

I saw a fair amount of chortling this morning about this Bloomberg piece on wealthy financial-industry types who are having to cut back because of plummeting bonuses….[W]hen middle class people take out a mortgage that’s perfectly affordable on the income they’ve been enjoying for years, and then lose the house because they suddenly saw that income cut in half, we don’t feel a delicious sense of joy because they finally got what was coming to them.   We recognize that this it is really terrible to be forced out of a home where you’ve built loads of happy memories and dreams–and not incidentally, to possibly be forced to yank your kids out of the aforementioned schools.

Why are people supposed to shrug off the exact same thing because they’re rich?  It’s still really awful to lose your house.  I hardly think it’s whining to worry about this when your income drops and your fixed expenses don’t.
There are plenty of problems in this country and this world.  Rejoicing in the misery of others is just another problem that nobody needs.
The fact is that no matter how much you make, seeing your income fall below the expenses you’ve committed to is difficult.  Obviously, people whose expenses are closer to the minimum deserve more of our sympathy, and our help.  But I’m not sure that this means we’re supposed to be happy when it happens to someone richer than we are.  It’s not very attractive when conservatives rejoice to see union members thrown out of work.  I’m not sure this is much better.

New economic plan for Chicago region from Emanuel, World Business Chicago

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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a new economic plan for the Chicago region earlier today:

What’s clear from the 60-page report is that the city is aiming to shake up the status quo. Too many agencies have been making uncoordinated efforts to boost economic development, the report finds, and greater collaboration is needed. Job training programs have not been well-aligned with employers’ needs and should be tailored to specific job demand. And new funding models are needed for infrastructure and transportation projects, given the economic times.

“A global city like Chicago needs a clear set of goals, a clear framework for analysis and clear strategies for economic growth and the creation of jobs,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement…

It is one of two major regional planning endeavors that has been under way for months. Next week, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce will unveil the results of a study conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), of how the region can better compete in the global economy.

Read the executive summary of the plan here.

A few quick thoughts on the plan:

1. I’m not particularly surprised by any of the 10 primary suggestions. What seems most pertinent here is that the plan is regional and wants to leverage the assets of the whole region for this one plan.

2. It seems to me that the trick will be uniting all of the local governments and taxing bodies in order to work on this plan. Some of the recent battles in Chicagoland indicate that this will not be easy: the battle over the expansion of O’Hare Airport and the battle over the purchase of the Elgin, Joliet, & Eastern railroad tracks by Canadian National. Perhaps this most recent economic crisis presents an opportunity – after all, Emanuel is well-known for saying, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” – where even the wealthier suburbs will want to tackle these issues together. Balancing all of these interests will be difficult as will having the right kinds of structures to enact change across communities.

3. This reminds me that while Mayor Emanuel may be considered liberal by some, he is pro-business in a similar way to President Clinton and other more moderate Democrats. This plan comes out of the World Business Chicago group that Emanuel has tapped to help lead Chicago forward. Emanuel’s vision may have more governmental involvement than some would like but matters like infrastructure are already government’s concerns and if managed well (which includes preparing for the future rather than simply trying to keep up today), can help everyone else succeed. If this plan is a success and the Chicago region continues to be or even builds upon its standing as a world-class city, Emanuel will be remembered fondly by many on both sides of the political aisle.

4. I would be curious to know how many plans like this have been developed in the past, how many were successfully followed, and how many were successes.

5. There are a number of groups who do regional planning in the Chicago area, such as the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning which has its own Go to 2040 Plan, and I wonder how they will respond to this plan.

“Almost 40 percent of U.S. working wives now out-earn their husbands”

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This isn’t too surprising considering the number of women getting college and graduate degrees today, but a new statistic puts those education figures in a different light: “almost 40 percent of U.S. working wives now out-earn their husbands.”

Reading Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy’s book, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family, out this March, was a genuine shock. Based on 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics figures hot off the press (a government economist slipped Mundy the stats before they were published, in fact), “almost 40 percent of U.S. working wives now out-earn their husbands.” While that’s not the majority-grandiose subtitles definitely are the norm-it’s darn close to it. (For the record, my guess was 25 percent, the figure in the early ’90s.)

Luckily for my ego, Mundy tells me in an interview that she too was surprised at the 40 percent, and, better yet, she says, “Most of the expert readers I’ve given the manuscript to don’t believe it.” The lofty number of female breadwinners, or more accurately, female primary breadwinners, isn’t just a product of our devastating recession. As has been well publicized, largely male employment sectors such as manufacturing did contract the most during the recent economic downturn, accelerating the trend. But since way back in 1987, the slice of wives taking home more than their husbands has risen steadily, by a percentage point or so every year.

That’s principally because so many more women than men are getting undergraduate and postgrad degrees-by 2050, there will be 140 college-educated women in the U.S. for every 100 similar men-and because the economy is bifurcating between low-skill, low-wage jobs and high-skill, higher paying ones (that require a bachelor’s or more), with the middle emptying out.

Indeed, another title of Mundy’s book could’ve been The Big Flip. It’s the phrase she uses to denote the time not so far away-2025 is her hunch, based on her impressive research, which, in addition to a data dump, includes interviews with scores of ordinary people living the new reality-when more than half of the earners-in-chief in American households will be women. (Another factoid pointing toward the imminence of the flip: Nine out of the 10 U.S. job categories expected to grow most in the next decade-nursing, accounting, postsecondary teaching-are female dominated.)

While this is a weirdly casual account of these figures, the author is correct in suggesting this could lead to big changes in relationships and the established patriarchy.

One issue I haven’t seen raised when looking at data like this is while women may be making more money and be getting more degrees, will they really be in positions of power in society? While women may have relative power in the household (though having an economic edge doesn’t necessarily translate into more power), this doesn’t necessarily mean that these women have power in their workplace. You could end up with a situation where women’s status at home is up, which I think some would see as is a good thing, but they are still subordinates in male-led careers and workplaces, which would not be viewed as positively.

Figures for modern-day slavery: 27 million or 12.5 million

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Whichever of these two figures you choose, there are still a lot of slaves in the world today:

According to sociologist Kevin Bales, who founded and directs the new abolition group Free the Slaves, an estimated 27 million people are enslaved around the world today—more than were ever enslaved at any single time in history. The United Nation’s International Labour Organization estimates are a more modest 12.3 million—which is still a shocking number of people forced to labor against their will, unable to walk away, for no compensation. Much of the reporting on this phenomenon has been on women forced to work in the sex trades. But the U.S. State Department reports that many more people are enslaved in far more ordinary endeavors: mining coltrane, growing cotton, domestic servitude, and fishing in the south Pacific.

This is not just a historical problem: this is a major issue around the world. Bales has written a number of book on the subject and these would be a good place to start in learning more.

The battle between business and sociology majors

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Here is one account of the divide in colleges between business and sociology majors:

I attended undergrad at one of the nation’s more so-called “liberal” schools, San Francisco State University. Some of my fondest memories center on the rivalry, for want of a better word, between the College of Business and the College of Behavioral and Social Science.

You could tell that business students hated taking general education courses in the behavioral and social sciences. That came through most clearly in philosophy, sociology, social work, urban poverty and touchy-feely psychology classes. The business students wanted no part of the “useless crap” we learned in those disciplines. They just wanted to fulfill requirements so they could get into Berkeley’s MBA program or somesuch.

Admittedly, social science geeks, serious psychology majors and even the more politically-active policy wonks dreaded business class. For them, a George Bush fundraising rally would have represented better time spent.

Many of us, particularly those headed to graduate school, considered ourselves embarked on a more righteous endeavor than business students. We were making proper use of education, broadening our minds and learning how to think out of the box. Business students were being fed laws that would bring no positive impact to the world and maybe not even apply outside of a classroom. As I have grown older, I have backed off of this rather pompous view of academia and an MBA’s place in it. Of course, it’s all about perspective. Plus, business students often turned that pompous argument around on us.

There are real differences between these disciplines in how they approach the world. Talking from the sociology end, we tend to critique capitalism (or the excesses of “market logic”), look for broad patterns across social groups, and have different aims (crassly put as helping right social wrongs vs. making money – I know these are not mutually exclusive).

But sometimes I wonder why students don’t put these two disciplines together more. Profit-making can be harnessed for good causes. Businesses can provide good jobs, create capital, and enhance a community. It is hard to run a non-profit or a social service agency without knowledge about managing finances. Both disciplines use quantitative analysis (though the variables and the outcomes we care about may differ) so some of these skills are transferable. Sociologists can use real-world training in management and setting up organizations. Doing business requires a lot of interaction with people, something that sociology can help with because you need to have an understanding of what motivates people plus how their context affects their actions (a one-size-fits-all approach is difficult to implement across different social settings). Additionally, sociology can help people in business see the the big picture beyond making money, promoting a longer-term view and more nuanced understanding about where their operation fits within society.

Are there any schools that promote a joint program or have a large number of students who tackle both of these disciplines?

Santorum claims college pushes people away from religion, experts push back

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently suggested that going to college pushes people away from the church and faith. Those who study the subject disagree:

Santorum told talk show host Glenn Beck on Thursday that “62% of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it.”

Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, a Nashville evangelical research and marketing agency, said, “There is no statistical difference in the dropout rate among those who attended college and those that did not attend college. Going to college doesn’t make you a religious drop out.”…

The real causes [of leaving the faith]: lack of “a robust faith,” strongly committed parents and an essential church connection, Rainer said.

“Higher education is not the villain,” said sociologist William D’Antonio of Catholic University of America. Since 1986, D’Antonio’s surveys of American Catholics have asked about Mass attendance, whether they rate their religion as very important in their life, and whether they have considered leaving Catholicism. The percentage of Catholics who scored low on all three points hovers between 18% in 1993 and 14% in 2011. But the percentage of people who are highly committed fell from 27% to 19%.

Recent research also disputes this: several 2011 studies found that those with education are actually more religious than those with less education.

So what was Santorum getting at with his statement? Three thoughts:

1. Conservative Christians commonly cite alarmist statistics to show that the church needs to redouble its efforts or to demonstrate that the church is under attack. See this classic article “Evangelicals Behaving Badly with Statistics,” a good article titled “Curing Christians’ Stats Abuse,” and the book Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…

2. He is hitting back against “elitist academia,” responding to but also feeding the perception college classrooms are filled with atheists and agnostics who want to disabuse students of their faith. Of course, there are many people of faith in academia. This is a larger battle over a perceived liberal, atheist elite versus a faith-filled “average America.”

2a. If Santorum were correct, does this mean that people of faith should not send their kids to college? Or alternatively, do these ideas continue to boost attendance at religious colleges?

3. To compound matters, Santorum was talking to Glenn Beck and this argument was aimed at Beck’s audience. At the same time, it appears Santorum made this a more general argument on the campaign trail:

“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob,” Santorum said Saturday at a campaign stop in Troy, Mich. “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor that [tries] to indoctrinate them.”

In the end, this seems like another plank in a moral argument, rather than a political or social argument, for Republicans.