Contexts

Sociologist Sangyoub Park discusses how the recession is affecting every aspect of American lives—especially those of young people.

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Sociologist Andrew M. Lindner explores the increasing popularity of the research tool of content analysis and how innovation has given rise to new opportunities and new concerns.

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Links from the Article

• Pew Research’s Project for Excellence in Journalism project with an ongoing content analysis of the “newshole.”
• The Dynamics of Collective Action research (McAdam, McCarthy, Olzak, and Soule)
• Ezra Klein’s word cloud
• A simple online content analysis tool. It’s content analysis of this article reveals Lindner used 656 unique words in 1439 words. Average sentence length was 26.16 words. Only 11% of Lindner’s words were “hard words,” but apparently it is at college level of reading difficult (15th grade level). Unsurprisingly, the two most common words are “content” and “analysis.”

Author Stephen Steinberg revisits his own 1964 data to consider how and when Medicare became the “third rail of American politics.”

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During eight years of a U.S.-led occupation, Iraqi attitudes have shifted away from sectarianism and toward a national identity. Coupled with increased support for the separation of politics and religion, this shift may pave the road for a functioning national government.

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An imbalanced sex ratio in the 1970s and 1980s has led South Korean men to seek wives abroad. Though a solution to one problem, this spike in interracial marriage has posed new social conundrums for the formerly homogenous society.

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Brian Conway examines the decline in vocations in Ireland and the U.S., and considers what it means for the future of international Catholicism.

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The 20th century saw women take the workplace by storm. Now, the revolution has reached higher education, as women outpace men in college graduation and continue to narrow the gap in professional degrees.

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A closer look at Malcolm Gladwell’s “iron law of Canadian Hockey” reveals that birthday cut-offs in pee-wee leagues do not, in fact, predict eventual hockey stardom. The authors find that the Gladwell’s supposed bias levels out once players reach the major leagues.

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Women’s attitudes and decisions about work-family balance belie the popular “separate spheres” notion. In reality, the majority of women work and parent simultaneously, even as workplaces continue to idealize workers who are fully (and solely) devoted to their jobs.

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Recommended Readings from Patricia Roos

Blair-Loy, Mary. 2003. Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1994. “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood.” Pp. 45-65 in Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Grace Chang, and Linda Rennie Forcey (eds.), Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, New York: Routledge.

Garey, Anita I. 1999. Weaving Work and Motherhood. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Landry, Bart. 2000. Black Working Wives: Pioneers of the American Family Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.

McQuillan, Julia, Arthur L. Greil, Karina M. Shreffler, Veronica Tichenor. 2008. “The Importance of Motherhood Among Women in the Contemporary United States.” Gender & Society 22:477-96.

Parker, Lonnae O’Neal. 2005. I’m Every Woman: Remixed Stories of Marriage, Motherhood, and Work. New York: Amistad.

Roos, Patricia A. 2009. “Interconnecting Work and Family: Race and Class Differences in Women’s Work Status and Attitudes.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 37:103-20.

Roos, Patricia A., Mary K. Trigg, and Mary S. Hartman. 2006. “Changing Families/Changing Communities: Work, Family and Community in Transition.” Community, Work and Family 9:197-224.

Simon, Robin. 2008. “The Joys of Parenthood, Reconsidered.” Contexts 7 (Spring):40-45.

Stone, Pamela. 2007. Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Williams, Joan. 2001. Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It. New York: Oxford University Press.