Sociological Images: Seeing is Believing is designed to encourage all kinds of people to exercise and develop their sociological imagination by presenting brief sociological discussions of compelling and timely imagery that spans the breadth of sociological inquiry.
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WHY: The sociological imagination is a woefully under-utilized tool. We hope this blog encourages all kinds of people to exercise and develop their sociological imagination and that, between all of us, public discourse will increasingly include a sociological lens with which we can all learn about social processes and mechanisms, critique social inadequacies, and design functional and equitable alternatives.
Also, if you are a professor, we hope that these images will be useful for your classes. A good image is often more effective for getting a point across than all the citations, repetition, or jumping up and down and saying “really I swear” will be. Also, check out our collection of Sociological Images assignments.
OUR AUDIENCE: We assume that you, our audience, are sociologically-inclined folks. So we do not typically include a lengthy sociological interpretation of the images.
DIALOGUE: Images are polysemic and people will view and use them in many different ways, so our commentary, when offered, is never meant to control how people use the images (as if we could anyway). We welcome comments that offer additional or alternative interpretations of images.
COMMENTS MODERATION: Comments that are hateful or threatening toward other commenters, or that are mean-spirited toward particular social groups, will be deleted.
STANDARDS OF EVIDENCE: The point of this blog is not to prove that sociological insights actually describe the social world (i.e., “prove” that they are “true”), but to illustrate those sociological insights that are shown or posited to be true elsewhere in academia. This is by design.
CONTRIBUTIONS: If you see an image you’d like to see posted, we’d be happy to oblige. Email the image to socimages@contexts.org. If you add commentary, we may even quote you! And, if you send a website or blog of your own, we’ll link to you.
LEGALITY: While all law is a matter of interpretation, we believe Sociological Images to be legal under the Fair Use doctrine. That is, we use the images for a non-commercial educational purpose and that makes it all good.
About The Authors
LISA WADE, founder and co-author, holds an M.A. in Human Sexuality from New York University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles where she teaches classes in gender, race, sexuality, and the body. In addition to her contributions here, she sometimes posts sociologically-inspired rants at the Huffington Post.
GWEN SHARP, co-author, has an M.S. in Rural Sociology and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Nevada State College in Henderson. She is developing a sociology minor at NSC and teaches courses in gender, race, sexuality, stratification, and urban sociology. She is widely considered to be a comedic genius.
About Our Interns
VELANIE WILLIAMS is earning her B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Sociology at Nevada State College. She aims to become a clinical psychologist specializing in treatment for adults with severe mental disorders. Sociology has had an inspiring effect on her and she’s intrigued by human social behavior and its effects on society. She ejoys the aspect of research and continues to work toward her ultimate goal.
LAUREN McGUIRE is a liberal arts graduate working as an assistant to a disability activist who blogs at The Deal with Disabilty. She crawled out from beneath the burning wreckage that is Florida to make it to Pasadena, CA, where she lives with four boys, one bathroom, and a dog. She is an enthusiastic amateur in writing, blogging, sewing, photography, and general creative buffoonery. She blogs at The Fatal Foxtrot.
Past Team Members
We are grateful for the contributions of past members of the Sociological Images team:
Elizabeth Allen (blogger)
Ron Anderson (blogger)
Angela Barian (blogger)
Jessica Brown (blogger)
Wendy M. Christensen (blogger and technology whiz)
John T. Lang (blogger)
Julianne Monday (intern)
Richard Mora (blogger)
Jeffrey Sanceri (blogger)
Brett Wheeler (blogger)
