Contexts

sociology for the public

Contexts Blog

Seven things social science tells us about natural disasters

by Hannah Cash, Kelsey Drotning, and Paige Miller
The word disaster conjures a variety of devastating images. Natural disasters can have unpredictable and frightening impacts on communities. Survivors of such events … Read More

Trans: A Response from Rogers Brubaker

by Rogers Brubaker
I hold Iván Szelényi in the highest esteem. I was therefore disappointed to find that his review of my book Trans: Gender and Race … Read More

Staking Post-Racialism in Charlottesville

by Milton Vickerman
It must be said that Charlottesville is a self-consciously liberal bubble—a blue dot in a red state (barring Northern Virginia) in which students routinely volunteer … Read More

The importance of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy

by Hyein Lee and Margaret Chin
The Trump administration’s decision to (sort of) rescind DACA, despite formally announcing in June that the policy will temporarily remain intact epitomizes the contentious nature … Read More

social pressure to appear masculine leads straight men to have unwanted sex

by Michelle J. Cera, Jessie Ford, and and Paula England
Heterosexual men’s experiences of unwanted sex are often overlooked. We tend to see sexual assault perpetrators as male and victims as female—and usually that is … Read More

what does studying college sex tell us about immigrant assimilation?

by Kristine Wang, Jessie Ford, and and Paula England
To study immigrants’ experiences in American society, researchers often compare first- or second-generation immigrants to those whose families have been in the US for a … Read More

Contexts Hall of Fame Award

by Syed Ali and Philip N. Cohen
Contexts is a labor of love, not just for the editors, but for our writers, editorial board members, and everyone else involved. There … Read More

College women: seen as a “slut” if they have sex on a hookup, “bitch” or “prude” if they don’t

by Michelle J. Cera, Jessie Ford, and Paula England
Walking a tightrope in casual hookup situations, either they have sex and risk being seen as a “slut,” or decline to have sex and risk being seen as a “prude” or a “bitch.” Read More

Changing the World, One Website at a Time

by Mark R. Rank
Given our current age of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” moving sociological research into the hands of a wider audience has taken on added importance. Read More

“13 Reasons Why” and the Pressing Need for a Sociology of Suicide

by Seth Abrutyn and Anna S. Mueller
Note: this article contains spoilers and detailed discussions of suicide and sexual assault. Recently, Netflix released a series based on the young adult novel 13 … Read More

About Contexts

Contexts is a quarterly magazine that makes cutting-edge social research accessible to general readers. We're the public face of sociology.

It is a publication of the American Sociological Association, edited by Amin Ghaziani and Seth Abrutyn (University of British Columbia), with Letta Page.