Contexts

sociology for the public

Spring 2017

Volume: 16 | Number: 2

the politics of trans identities

Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities by Rogers Brubaker Princeton University Press, 2016 236 pages With his provocative … Read More

D is for disaster

A 6-year-old boy in Buras, LA sits down with his father to read Patti the Pelican and the Gulf Oil Spill. Buras was devastated … Read More

Success and Failure in Framing Social Movements

How social movements frame their issues is crucial for success or failure, but understanding how framing works remains a challenge for researchers and activists alike. Read More

Photographs of the Mind

Blind folks taking photographs? It may seem unbelievable, but members of the Seeing With Photography Collective have been making pictures for close to 20 years. Read More

How Grown Siblings Divide Care Work

The “graying” of the U.S. population has meant more adults caring for their elderly parents—whether that means picking up more expenses, moving your mother-in-law into … Read More

Marriage and the Genetic Risk of Depression

In other stress and depression news, a new study uses data on twins to investigate genetic and environmental effects on mental health. Genetic effects refer … Read More

Long-Term Job Insecurity is Depressing

Losing your job is hugely stressful, and more and more people have experienced this stress since the Great Recession. In Society and Mental Health, Sarah … Read More

Whitewashing the Working Class

Six essays consider the emotion, economic power, racial animus, alienation, anti-elitism, and exploitation of the “white working class”—and how it all fit into the 2016 election. Read More

Measuring Race to Measure Inequality

Conversations about racial classifications—who is what—typically center around self-identification, and social scientists try to write survey questions that properly capture it. But how we measure … Read More

In Defense of Alternative Facts

We’ve all been there: in the middle of a heated discussion, it dawns on you that your opponent will not be walking away from the … Read More