Contexts

sociology for the public

Guest posts

Dark money in American politics

by Dana R. Fisher
The term “Dark Money” conjures images of back-room deals, bribes and quid pro quo arrangements, but what is Dark Money, really? And why should we … Read More

Is the Border Safe? Border Residents’ Perceptions of Crime and Security

by Ernesto Castañeda
The overwhelming majority of residents of El Paso, Texas, reported feeling safe in their city. Read More

Weiners Galore

by joshua gamson
“Shit, this is the worst,” Anthony Weiner declares to himself at the beginning of the titular documentary (now in theaters), as he waits for someone … Read More

the unhappy marriage of IRBs and ethnography

by abigail e. cameron
A student submits an IRB application to study “media freedom” and the struggles of citizen journalists for her doctoral dissertation. The study methodology includes immersion … Read More

doing qualitative research as if counsel is hiding in the closet

by dana r. fisher
A lot of my research studies political elites. As such, I am frequently conducting participant observation and open-ended, semi-structured interviews in the halls of the … Read More

want to improve your qualitative research? try using representative sampling and working in teams

by stefanie DeLuca, susan clampet-lundquist, and and kathryn edin
In the mid-1990s, the federal government launched a high-profile social experiment in five cities to determine if escaping concentrated neighborhood poverty could change the lives … Read More

accessing the hardest to reach populations

by Kimberly Kay Hoang and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
On January 3, 2009, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed “If This Isn’t Slavery, What Is?” In it he described the … Read More

it’s about the depth of your data

by annette lareau and aliya hamid rao
A key strength of in-depth interviews and ethnography is obtaining textured insights into social phenomenon. Yet, many qualitative researchers try to invoke the reliability of … Read More

ethnographic masking in an era of data transparency

by alexandra murphy and colin jerolmack
Demands for data transparency are sweeping across the social sciences. Calls for the sharing of survey instruments, code, databases, and even interview transcripts, have grown … Read More

keeping it real with twitter and #realacademicbios

by Stephen Barnard
Social media has come to play a significant role in Higher Education. Academics use social media for many things, including public scholarship, professional … 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.