by ryan on
Jan 17, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Article: Negotiating Borders with Valores del Rancho. Latin American Perspectives, January 2008
Summary: Based on an ethnographic study of second generation Mexican immigrants in the U.S. and who have returned to Mexico, Mary A. Petron argues the immigration experience forces the participants to negotiate class status. Interviewees who returned to Mexico found they did not fit in with the lower class or the middle class. As children of the lower class, immigrants felt that they had learned the culture or values of that class such as hard work, saving money, and a commitment to family. Once they moved back to Mexico, with a middle-class lifestyle and speaking English, they felt disconnected from their poorer compatriots financially as well as disconnected from the middle class in terms of values. They therefore found a “third space” from which to mediate their new status.
by ryan on
Jan 17, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Article: Schwartzman, Luisa Farah. “Does Money Whiten?” American Sociological Review. , December 2007.
Summary: So does money whiten in Brazil? In a word, Schwartzman argues yes. This is for two reasons. First, more educated nonwhite parents are more likely to marry white and less likely to marry nonwhites. Second, more-educated interracial couples label their children white more often than do less-educated interracial couples.
The most interesting aspect of this article in my opinion is the structural buffer the upper-class, and especially the white upper-class, has erected. As the author notes, “By maintaining rigid class boundaries with poor nonwhites (by both marrying within their social class and imposing restraints on upward mobility of nonwhites…), the white elite isolates itself from nonwhites and imposes its standards (and incorporates into its families) the few nonwhites who share their elite status. For the same reason, nonwhites who move up are not able to break the system of racial hierarchy in the long run, because their children are often incorporated into the white group.” 958-9
***It is important to note that, in Brazil, educational attainment is a proxy for socio-economic status as we understand it in the U.S. Therefore, the dependent variable used by Schwartzman is parent education.
by jon on
Jan 08, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Article: Celebrity Status. Sociological Theory, December 2007.
Summary: The authors* argue that debates within sociology over class and status,which are usually grounded in the classic debate between Marxian and Weberian views of class, miss out on a distinguishing feature of status in contemporary mass society: celebrity. As they put it:
Compared with other types of status, however, celebrity is status on speed. It confers honor in days, not generations; it decays over time, rather than accumulating; and it demands a constant supply of new recruits, rather than erecting barriers to entry.
*Charles Kurzman, Chelise Anderson, Clinton Key, Youn Ok Lee, Mairead Moloney, Alexis Silver, and Maria W. Van Ryn.
by wes on
Dec 11, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Article: Democracy versus Distinction: A Study of Omnivorousness in Gourmet Food Writing. American Journal of Sociology, July 2007
Summary: Hamburgers, macaroni, and meatloaf. Traditional working-class fare or signs of a populist revolution? Although the ascendancy of the cupcake may look like a democratic swelling within the ranks of highbrow cuisine, a recent study by Josée Johnston and Shyon Baumann (American Journal of Sociology, July 2007) suggests gourmet food is still all about taste and distinction. Food critics have simply become more “omnivorous”—well-versed in many different cuisines—by showcasing the more obscure traits of everyday foods only a refined palette can discern. What makes a roadside diner or homemade casserole gourmet is their authenticity and exoticism. However, what counts as exotic or authentic depends on the expertise of someone with first-class taste and loads of frequent flier miles.
UPDATE: This Discovery was published in our Winter 2008 issue.