Spring 2025 Table of Contents

from the editors

in brief:

• “Fire Flight,” Parker Muzzerall
• “Listing Addiction on Your Resume,” Elena G. Van Stee
• “Defining Discrimination Changes Policy Preferences,” Parker Muzzerall
• “Financial Theatrics,” Elena G. Van Stee
• “Good Lawyer, Bad Lawyer,” Elena G. Van Stee
• “Aging with Imagination,” Colter J. Uscola
• “Parental Profiteering,” Colter J. Uscola
• “Medicalizing Maternity,” Colter J. Uscola

q&a:

• “Like Reading The New Yorker: An Interview with James M. Jasper and Jeff Goodwin.” Amin Ghaziani speaks with former Contexts editors James M. Jasper and Jeff Goodwin about the best complaint they ever got.
• “We’re All Doing Public Sociology: An Interview with Doug Hartmann and Chris Uggen.” Amin Ghaziani speaks with former Contexts editors Doug Hartmann and Chris Uggen about bringing the public into public sociology.

special section:

• “The War on Woke—and What It Means,” by Amin Ghaziani, Seth Abrutyn, Shelley J. Correll, Adina D. Sterling, Adia Harvey Wingfield, Jessica R. Gold, Laura K. Nelson, and Kathrin Zippel. A curated collection of essays underscoring what we lose by abandoning efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion, this special section considers DEI program successes across business, healthcare, and academia.

features:

• “Is Asexuality Queer?” by Canton Winer. Asexuality may put the A in LGBTQIA+, yet its place in the broader queer community is often called into question. Extending sexualities research to consider queer gatekeeping allows us to understand queerness as a resource—and to reimagine just how much room there is under the rainbow.
• “Beyond Sacrifice Zones: Rethinking Pollution through a Cumulative Impact Lens,” by Maria Akchurin and Juanita Vivas Bastidas. In Chicago’s environmental sacrifice zones, activists and residents are rethinking pollution through a cumulative impact lens to capture the multiple, overlapping harms affecting so-called fenceline communities, organize resistance, and make remediation demands.
• “How Your Doctor’s Debt Matters,” by William Burr, Judson Everitt, James Johnson, and Lillian Wynne Platten. The country faces a shortage of healthcare professionals, yet today’s average U.S. medical school graduate carries an enormous debt burden. With roughly $200,000 in education loans, interviewees explain, exciting decisions about specialty paths become struggles between passion and pragmatism.
• “Conservatorships: Coercion without Care or Control,” by Alex V. Barnard. Disability rights groups fight against them and politicians seek to expand their use: a close look at policy and practice in California reveals the pitfalls of legal conservatorships for the parents, families, and community providers who need real help, not just blunt instruments.

in pictures:

• “A Strike against Columbian Poverty.” Louis Edgar Esparza on the triumph of an emancipatory network.

culture:

• “Don’t Go.” Andrew V. Papachristos on the daily practice of segregation.
• “Stigma Is Not the Solution to the Drug Crisis.” Katherine Beckett and Craig Reinarman on reducing overdose deaths.
• “TQ+: Public Memory, Structural Violence, and Transgender Erasure.” Ashley C. Rondini and David Cunningham on an indelible community.

trends:

• “Trends in Daytime Shooting Victimizations across 10 U.S. Cities.” Reginald A. Byron on “broad daylight” gun violence.
• “Ideology Vs. Truth on Campus.” Lawrence M. Eppard and Jacob L. Mackey on the partisan professoriate.

books:

• “Jonathan Wynn, Sociological Detective.” Daniel Silver on The Set Up, The Tour Guide, Music/City, and The City and the Hospital.
• “Novel/Sociology.” Amin Ghaziani interviews author Jonathan Wynn.

policy brief:

• “‘Fake News’ and the Public Sphere.” Jared M. Wright on the true functions of fake news.
• “Birthright Citizenship Works.” Philip Kasinitz on a constitutional conferral.

one thing i know:

• “Identity Verification Is Important to the Self.” Jan E. Stets on seeing and being seen.