Category Archives: Sociology

Defining the middle class

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A Yahoo! article lays out six markers of being middle class, according to an unnamed government task force. As the article suggests, middle class is a nebulous term in America:

People earning 20% of the average income and people earning 80% all claim to be part of the middle class. More than a few millionaires make the claim too.

Here are the six markers according to the task force: home ownership, automobile ownership, providing a college education for children, having retirement security, having health care coverage, and being able to take family vacations.

Looking at this list, I’m struck by three thoughts:

1. It seems quite American with its emphasis on owning a home, owning a car, and being able to take vacations.

2. This sounds like a life that has to be, or at least typically is, lived in the suburbs.

3. This would take quite a bit of money. Particularly with the point on providing for college, the middle class lifestyle is going to take a decent amount of income. Would the US median household income of $52,029 (2008 estimates from the American Community Survey) cover this? I’m guessing it would be difficult and it means most families would have to have two good incomes. Critical to all of this (and it was not mentioned) is to have a fairly high-paying career.

Teach from the newspapers

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A physics professor at Iowa State suggests that schools should move beyond textbooks and instead teach material based on current news stories:

I have a suggestion for Iowa schools: Don’t buy those [Texas-influenced] textbooks. Instead, buy local and state newspapers as reading material in sociology, history and literature courses. Buy paperback books from bookstores. Let our students read real news, in real time, and let them confront opinion pages and conflicting viewpoints.

An interesting argument. There is certainly plenty of material in newspapers and news magazines that could be used in the classroom. I am particularly intrigued by the suggestion he makes that students should be asked to fill in the “missing information” in a news story – this could work in a number of subject as journalists often leave out much of the relevant backstory.

Another added benefit of this technique (even in limited use): students see that the specific discipline is relevant in the real world. I think a lot of them ask this basic question and linking discipline-specific content to real stories suggests the course can be or is valuable to them rather than just a requirement to fulfill.

If concussions are costly, why still play football?

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At various levels, football organizations seem to be taking concussions more seriously. The effects on players, particularly long-term effects due to repeated incidents, can be devastating.

In an article from the Kansas City Star, a doctor asks a sociological question that I haven’t heard raised within this debate over concussions and what can be done:

“Why would people still play football?” says Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist and co-founder of the institute. “But I must warn you: That is a sociological question.”

This is a great point – is there anyone seriously advocating football is too dangerous for players? If the risks are high for players, should they turn away from football? For players, what makes the risk worth the potential rewards?

The article suggests several reasons for continuing to play such as potential fame, income, and the thrill of playing. But outside of the thrill of playing (which might be quenched elsewhere), these are cultural reasons; these are things endowed upon football players by millions of adoring fans. If the fame and money weren’t there, how many would still play knowing the risks?

Combining quantative and qualitative data collection on the Internet

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I’ve quickly seen some recent mentions of a new project out of Princeton called All Our Ideas. Here is how the creators describe the project:

All Our Ideas is a research project to develop a new form of social data collection that combines the best features of quantitative and qualitative methods. Using the power of the web, we are creating a data collection tool that has the scale, speed, and quantification of a survey while still allowing for new information to “bubble up” from respondents as happens in interviews, participant observation, and focus groups.

Of course, one of the problems with surveys is that they force respondents to fit their responses to the questions that are asked. If you ask bad questions, you get bad results or if you don’t provide the options respondents want, you don’t really get the kind of data you want. Qualitative data, on the other hand, tends to be limited to a smaller sample because it takes more time to interview people or conduct focus groups.

I will be very curious to see what emerges out of this website.

Older age = more wisdom, happiness

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In a youth-oriented culture like that of the United States, growing older may not appear appealing to many. But recent research suggests that growing older leads to more wisdom and increased levels of happiness:

Contrary to largely gloomy cultural perceptions, growing old brings some benefits, notably emotional and cognitive stability. Laura Carstensen, a Stanford social psychologist, calls this the “well-being paradox.” Although adults older than 65 face challenges to body and brain, the 70s and 80s also bring an abundance of social and emotional knowledge, qualities scientists are beginning to define as wisdom. As Carstensen and another social psychologist, Fredda Blanchard-Fields of the Georgia Institute of Technology, have shown, adults gain a toolbox of social and emotional instincts as they age. According to Blanchard-Fields, seniors acquire a feel, an enhanced sense of knowing right from wrong, and therefore a way to make sound life decisions.

That may help explain the finding that old age correlates with happiness. A study published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found a U-shaped relationship between happiness and age: Adults were happiest in youth and again in their 70s and early 80s, and least happy in middle age. A 2007 University of Chicago study similarly concluded that rates of happiness — “the degree to which a person evaluates the overall quality of his present life positively” — crept upward from age 65 to 85 and beyond, in both sexes.

These are interesting findings. Now how could American culture go about showing and sharing these benefits of growing old? Wisdom, in particular, might be a challenge to portray in commercial advertisements.

Also, there is an interesting discussion in the article about how to define and measure “wisdom.”

Passionate vs. “fake” faith among teenagers

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Kendra Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theology Seminary and United Methodist minister,  has a new book, based on data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, regarding the faith of teenagers. While many American teenagers claim to be Christian, their faith can be termed “moral therapeutic deism” (defined roughly in the article as “It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.”).

Dean says teenagers with passionate faith are marked by several characteristics:

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.

This would certainly be of interest to parents and those who work with teenagers. At the same time, we could ask where these teenagers are getting their ideas about moral therapeutic deism.

For more on this topic (and also based on the same data set): read Soul Searching by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton and Souls In Transition by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell.

Sociologist Oldenburg responds to Facebook Places

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In a recent interview, Facebook vice president of product Chris Cox, suggested that Ray Oldenburg’s work on the “third place” was behind the development of Facebook Places.

Oldenburg has responded in an email exchange with ZDNet:

“While I can appreciate that Facebook certainly helps people keep in touch with one another, I’m left to wonder why the pitch began with the 3P idea.  I got a whiff of snake oil there for the matter of how Facebook ties to 3Ps is not made clear.”

Speaking more broadly about the relationship between Facebook as a service and his ideas of place:

“I had nothing to do with Facebook and I resent the idea that it’s a “place.”  Real places unite people, electronic ones, because they are based on user choice, tend to be divisive; that is, to connect people who think alike and exclude others.  The term “virtual third place(s)” is common and most inappropriate.”Virtual” means the same in essence and effect and that is far from the truth.”

So Oldenburg is skeptical. The main issue seems to be whether this online realm is a real “place.” Public places are typically conceived as locations that all sorts of people can use. They don’t necessarily interact with each other but all can partake of it and are generally aware that there are different people around. In contrast, Facebook Places is limited to those with Facebook. Until we have a world where everyone has Facebook and has the ability to use it with a mobile device, Facebook Places is limited. There is a substantial sociological literature on the privatization of public spaces, such as parks.

Additionally, Oldenburg suggests that online communities tend to be broken down along lines of interest rather than proximity. People who like certain things tend to gather together and experience little mixing with others. These online places then become exclusive clubs. This is different than true public spaces where at least people are made aware that there are others in the world.

As ZDNet notes, Facebook is also interested in making money with these Places.

Identifying four types of Evangelical leaders

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A new sociological study examines how Evangelical business leaders mix faith and business:

A new study based on interviews with hundreds of American leaders who are evangelical Christians (including CEOs, presidents, and chairs of large businesses and their equivalents in government and politics, nonprofits, arts, entertainment, the media, and sports) finds enormous variety in how leaders engage their personal faith in workplace decision-making.

“While everyone in the workplace has to make decisions—whether they’re the janitor or the manager—the most consequential decisions are made at the top, and we wanted to look at how they affect their businesses,” says D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University.

Lindsay found that most evangelical leaders fit into one of four decision-making categories: pragmatic, heroic, circumspect, and brazen.

Read about the four types in the rest of the article. The study suggests that Evangelicals live out their faith in a variety of ways. What predicts which type people fall into? And then how does acting as this type as a business leader affect their organization?

Of course, one could always ask if there is a more correct type…

How birth rates can be influenced by economics

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Birth rates have been relatively stable over the last 20 years in the United States – while there is some variation, it is nothing like comparing the birth rate today to the birth rate in early 1900s. Additionally, the United States has a relatively high birth rate compared to many industrialized nations.

However, new data suggests the birth rate may have been affected by the economic crisis:

The birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year. That’s down from 14.3 in 2007 and way down from 30 in 1909, when it was common for people to have big families…

The situation is a striking turnabout from 2007, when more babies were born in the United States than any other year in the nation’s history. The recession began that fall, dragging stocks, jobs and births down…

Another possible factor in the drop: a decline in immigration to the United States.

On one hand, deciding to have a child is a very personal decision – the United States has no official guidelines about this and people are free to do what they wish. On the other hand, there are a whole host of social factors that influence this decision including economics, cultural background, and social pressure to conform to existing and changing norms.

A few days ago, the Chicago Tribune highlighted the issue in Illinois.

The changing demographics of American kindergarten students

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Many researchers have noted the existing demographic transition in America away from a large majority of whites to a more diverse population. USA Today has some statistics about what this looks like at the level of kindergarten classes:

•About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1.

•The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%.

“This is not just a big-city phenomenon,” Johnson says. “The percentage of minority children is growing faster in the suburbs and in rural areas.”

Measuring this at the level of kindergarten classes might be a decent proxy for measuring the next generation.

I wonder how this will impact the image of suburbs which have traditionally been thought of as lily-white places. The suburbs of the 2050s will look quite different in population than the suburbs of the 1950s, post-World War II era.