Archive: Jul 2008

The Times Online (UK) recently published an article entitled, ‘Paranoia has taken over child protection,’ marking yet another alarming reflection on the fear that grips so many parents in the 21st century.

Times writer India Knight writes,

We don’t even trust ourselves to raise our own children: we need books written by childcare “professionals” and television programmes featuring advice from child-less “experts”. In actual fact we know a great deal more than these charlatans, but since we don’t any longer trust instinct we genuinely believe that our vast repository of knowledge (and that of our mothers, sisters, aunts, grannies, friends) is worthless and that a newborn baby is better off with a strict routine dreamt up by someone with a financial motive.

In a report co-authored with Jennie Bristow a few weeks ago, the sociologist Frank Furedi, lamenting the demise of trust, mentioned as an example a mother whose child was invited over to play at a new friend’s house. The parents reassured the mother that they were “cool” – they’d passed a CRB check. I find this chilling.

Visit Furedi’s website and learn more about this sociologist’s new book.

The latest issue of Newsweek surveys a number of recent economic studies which suggest that economic growth may have a great deal to do with attitudes of a nation’s people. Newsweek writer Stefan Theil writes,

Much of the worldwide economic and political debate these days circle around ensuring continued growth—which, it’s hoped, will help various countries escape the global downturn, create more jobs and finance the rising cost of social services. What the conversation overlooks is that it turns out some countries might not want to grow.

These recent studies have been best summarized by Meinhard Miegel, of the think tank Denwerk Zukunft, who found that “while two thirds of Germans favor economic growth in principle, only about a sixth of them are willing to work for it. The rest value leisure, safety and early retirement over work and achievement. Given these attitudes, says Miegel, the popular idea that a low-birthrate country like Germany can grow its way out of the rising costs associated with an aging population ‘is reckless and built on sand.'”

But where does Weber come in? Theil continues…

Miegel might be unduly pessimistic, but he is part of a growing movement of experts who argue that economic growth is actually dependent on a state of mind. In fact, the idea goes back to Max Weber, the German sociologist who argued more than a century ago that England’s Protestant work ethic gave rise to modern capitalism. Today’s Weberians aren’t sociologists wielding historical arguments, however, but economists, pollsters and biologists working with actual numbers and data sets. Their interest in how personal attitudes might affect growth is part of the broader reinvention of economics, in which the classical view—that people make rational choices in a world of perfect information—is coming under increased scrutiny. The movement also reflects rising concern over whether growth can be increased—especially now with the ugly specter of stagflation in large parts of the globe.

Economists now claim Weber as their own…sociologists don’t work with ‘actual numbers and data sets?’

Read on.

CNN reports:

From the frontiers of mirth research, scholars offer these words of comfort: If you are mortified of dancing for fear of being the butt of jokes, don’t worry, you are far from alone. There’s even a word for it — gelotophobia. Sound like a disease involving Italian ice cream? No, it’s the potentially debilitating fear of being laughed at. This condition — the term comes from gelos, Greek for laughter — was among the topics discussed this week at a four-day meeting of the International Society for Humor Studies, an Oakland, Calif.-based collective of psychologists, sociologists, linguists and other academics who probe funniness from every conceivable angle

The setting for all this debate is the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of “Don Quixote,” the mad knight who was always good for a laugh as he tilted at windmills. The president of the humor society, British sociologist Christie Davies, offered insights Tuesday on the state of humor in today’s world. Among other things, he said, jokes in eastern Europe were a lot better when the communists ran the show.

“Once you have a democracy with free speech, you have fewer jokes,” said Davies, an emeritus professor at the University of Reading, in England. “Jokes, in many ways, are a way of getting around restrictions on what you can say. That was a very important factor in eastern Europe.”

The full story.

A recent broadcast from Minnesota Public Radio‘s Midmorning program, titled “Women, Earning Power, and the Economy,” took an in-depth look at the complex factors that determine how women are faring in today’s economy. In an attempt to discern the what has the greatest impact on women’s earning potential, this piece discusses a number of possible reasons beyond conventional explanations such as marital status and number of children.

This broadcast includes commentary from two sociologists: Leslie McCall, professor of sociology at Northwestern University and Maria Kefalas, professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Violence Research and Prevention at St. Joseph’s University.

Listen online.

Russel Ogden, a sociologist at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia, studies people with terminal illnesses who choose to take their own lives.

Ogden’s research has received significant media attention, including a recent piece from Inside Higher Education. Kwantlen Polytechnic University is trying to prevent Ogden from observing assisted suicides despite the approval he received from an ethics review board at the university. Currently, Ogden is barred from carrying out his research by the university, which has equated Ogden’s proposed observation of assisted suicides with participating in them himself.

Inside Higher Education reports:

The dispute has become public in the last week, with Canadian faculty groups charging that the university’s actions are a violation of academic freedom, and that the principles cited by the university endanger not only Ogden’s research, but the work of social scientists throughout the country who study illegal acts in part by observation. Sociologists in the United States say that the case is important for them as well — and illustrates how studying some of the cutting edge issues in bioethics can create challenging ethical and political issues for academics and universities.

Ogden is no stranger to controversy or to suicide, which he has been studying for 18 years. He first became interested in the subject when “as a teen, I had a couple of close friends who took their lives,” he said. “Those suicides had a profound impact on me.” Ogden doesn’t romanticize suicide. “I regret that they died. I wish that they were still here.”

But with legal and political debates growing about whether people with incurable diseases should be able to end their lives — and with some people not waiting for the law, and doing so — Ogden found the topic to be one in need of sociological inquiry.

Read the full story

MSNBC reports on the recent trend towards more mothers undergoing dramatic cosmetic surgery to alter their bodies post-birth.

The trend…

Among women in their 30s, there was a 9 percent to 12 percent rise in tummy tucks and breast surgery between 2005 and 2006. In 2007, 59 percent of American Society of Plastic Surgeons members surveyed said they saw an increase in patients seeking post-childbirth cosmetic surgery procedures in the previous three years. “Many of my patients are young moms who are doing their best to take care of themselves, but their bodies have gone through some irreversible changes that they find discouraging,” says David Stoker, M.D., of Marina Plastic Surgery Associates in Marina del Rey, Calif.

The sociologist’s commentary…

Others point out that many mothers today are not “just” mothers — they have professional and personal lives outside of the home and don’t want to look like the stereotypical mom. They want to feel better about their bodies, and that desire shouldn’t be dismissed or criticized, says sociologist Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Ph.D., author of “Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture” (Rutgers University Press). “I don’t think we should judge women for wanting to look like they did before they got pregnant,” Pitts-Taylor adds. “Social approval is empowering in our society.”

Read on…

A new study from the American Sociological Association (ASA) finds that women in sociology are achieving substantial success as professional sociologists and enjoying high productivity in their research. But the study finds that nearly a decade after earning their Ph.D.’s, there are significant differences between men’s and women’s career trajectories.

Inside Higher Ed reports some of the key findings from this research…

• Male sociologists in the cohort [received their Ph.D. in 1996-1997] were more likely than female sociologists to be married or living with a partner (83 percent vs. 68 percent), or to have children living with them (62 percent to 50 percent).
• Among sociologists who are parents, women are much more likely to be divorced (21 percent vs. 1.4 percent).
• Many sociologists who do have children do so before their tenure reviews, with the largest group having a first child 3-4 years after earning a doctorate.
• Parenthood does not appear to limit research productivity, at least as measured by the number of articles published in refereed journals — a key measure for the discipline. Mothers and fathers reported an average of 10.0 refereed journal articles since they earned their doctorates, while childless men and women reported an average of 9.5.
• Mothers appeared, on average, to earn less than others in the cohort. The income question was asked with categories, not exact amounts. The median income for sociologists who are fathers, and for sociologists who don’t have children, was between $70,000 and $99,000. The median income for sociologists who are mothers was between $50,000 and $59,000.
• On many issues, mothers and fathers both reported high levels of stress related to advancing their careers while also caring for their families. Child care, the tenure process, and teaching loads were key issues for parents.

Read more.

The latest issue of Newsweek featured an article entitled, ‘The Future of Freedom: The Fate Of Liberty In The Next Century Is Fragile, In Part, Because The Very Notion Is Now So Ill-Defined.’

Newsweek reporter Robert J. Samuelson writes,

In a century scarred by the gulags, concentration camps and secret-police terror, freedom is now spreading to an expanding swath of humanity. It is not only growing but also changing–becoming more ambitious and ambiguous–in ways that might, perversely, spawn disappointment and disorder in the new century.

Undoubtedly, it was time for some sociologists to weigh in…

In 1900, this was unimaginable. “Freedom in the modern sense [then] existed only for the upper crust,” says political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset of George Mason University. There were exceptions–America certainly, but even its freedom was conspicuously curtailed, particularly for women and blacks.

…

Traditional freedom historically meant liberation from oppression. But now freedom increasingly involves “self-realization.” People need, it’s argued, to be freed from whatever prevents them becoming whoever they want to be. There’s a drift toward “positive liberty” that emphasizes “the things that government ought to do for us,” says sociologist Alan Wolfe of Boston College. This newer freedom blends into individual “rights” (for women, minorities, the disabled) and “entitlements” (for health care, education and income support) deemed essential for self-realization.

Read more.

Contexts contributor Robin Simon graced the pages of Newsweek recently to offer some comments on the debate as to whether or not having children contributes to or detracts from overall happiness. While Simon’s perspective has garnered some negative attention, her numerous publications on the subject of parenting have brought her significant media attention.

Newsweek’s Lorraine Ali writes,

The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term “bundle of joy” may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. “Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers,” says Florida State University’s Robin Simon, a sociology professor who’s conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. “In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It’s such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not.”

Simon’s findings have not always been well-received…

Simon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research (“Obviously Professor Simon hates her kids,” read one), which isn’t surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of what we’ve been raised to believe is true. In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. Only one in six (16 percent) said that adding new children had a negative effect on the parents’ happiness. But which parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable?

Read more.

UK paper, the Telegraph reports on a recent study from sociologist Alfred Biderman, titled ‘Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War.’ This studied garnered media attention today as it was revealed that US interrogators’ training was based on Chinese methods of interrogation proven to be ineffective.

Telegraph reporter Tim Shipman writes:

American military trainers gave a class to camp interrogators in 2002 on how to use “sleep deprivation”, “exposure” and other “torture” methods to reduce captives to “animals” and obtain information.

But it has emerged that the techniques presented in the class were copied word-for-word from a 1957 US Air Force study which focused on Chinese techniques – that did not work.

The study by sociologist Alfred Biderman, Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War commented on methods that led to false confessions and “brainwashing.”

…

Mr Biderman’s article described “one form of torture” used by the Chinese as forcing prisoners to stand “for exceedingly long periods” in conditions of “extreme cold”

It also detailed how “semi-starvation”, the “exploitation of wounds” and “filthy, infested surroundings” could reduce a prisoner to “animal level concerns.”

The Guantanamo Bay interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker during the September 11 attacks, is known to have included sleep deprivation and exposure to cold.

Read more.