Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 2009"
TL;DR: The growth of precarious work since the 1970s has emerged as a core contemporary concern within politics, in the media, and among researchers as discussed by the authors, and it contrasts with the re...
Abstract: The growth of precarious work since the 1970s has emerged as a core contemporary concern within politics, in the media, and among researchers. Uncertain and unpredictable work contrasts with the re...
2,188 citations
TL;DR: The value-in-diversity perspective argues that a diverse workforce, relative to a homogeneous one, is generally beneficial for business, including but not limited to corporate profits and earnings.
Abstract: The value-in-diversity perspective argues that a diverse workforce, relative to a homogeneous one, is generally beneficial for business, including but not limited to corporate profits and earnings. This is in contrast to other accounts that view diversity as either nonconsequential to business success or actually detrimental by creating conflict, undermining cohesion, and thus decreasing productivity. Using data from the 1996 to 1997 National Organizations Survey, a national sample of for-profit business organizations, this article tests eight hypotheses derived from the value-in-diversity thesis. The results support seven of these hypotheses: racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits. Gender diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, and greater relative profits. I discuss the implications of these findings relative to alternative views of diversity in the workplace.
876 citations
TL;DR: A field experiment in the low-wage labor market of New York City recruiting white, black, and Latino job applicants who were matched on demographic characteristics and interpersonal skills shows that black applicants were half as likely as equally qualified whites to receive a callback or job offer.
Abstract: Decades of racial progress have led some researchers and policymakers to doubt that discrimination remains an important cause of economic inequality. To study contemporary discrimination, we conducted a field experiment in the low-wage labor market of New York City, recruiting white, black, and Latino job applicants who were matched on demographic characteristics and interpersonal skills. These applicants were given equivalent resumes and sent to apply in tandem for hundreds of entry-level jobs. Our results show that black applicants were half as likely as equally qualified whites to receive a callback or job offer. In fact, black and Latino applicants with clean backgrounds fared no better than white applicants just released from prison. Additional qualitative evidence from our applicants' experiences further illustrates the multiple points at which employment trajectories can be deflected by various forms of racial bias. These results point to the subtle yet systematic forms of discrimination that continue to shape employment opportunities for low-wage workers.
849 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate the value of Foucault's conception of discipline for understanding organizational responses to rankings using a case study of law schools, and explain why rankings have pe...
Abstract: This article demonstrates the value of Foucault's conception of discipline for understanding organizational responses to rankings. Using a case study of law schools, we explain why rankings have pe...
765 citations
TL;DR: The authors show that states characterized by certain ethnopolitical configurations of power are more likely to experience violent conflict, such as armed rebellions, infighting, and seceding from the United States.
Abstract: Quantitative scholarship on civil wars has long debated whether ethnic diversity breeds armed conflict. We go beyond this debate and show that highly diverse societies are not more conflict prone. Rather, states characterized by certain ethnopolitical configurations of power are more likely to experience violent conflict. First, armed rebellions are more likely to challenge states that exclude large portions of the population on the basis of ethnic background. Second, when a large number of competing elites share power in a segmented state, the risk of violent infighting increases. Third, incohesive states with a short history of direct rule are more likely to experience secessionist conflicts. We test these hypotheses for all independent states since 1945 using the new Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) data set. Cross-national analysis demonstrates that ethnic politics is as powerful and robust in predicting civil wars as is a country s level of economic development. Using multinomial logit regression, we show that rebellion, infighting, and secession result from high degrees of exclusion, segmentation, and incohesi?n, respectively. More diverse states, on the other hand, are not more likely to suffer from violent conflict.
729 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the major aim of sociological inquiry is to identify the mechanisms by which cause and effect relationships in the social world come about, and that sociologists have recently argued that a major objective of sociology is to find the mechanisms that make such relationships come about.
Abstract: Some sociologists have recently argued that a major aim of sociological inquiry is to identify the mechanisms by which cause and effect relationships in the social world come about. This article ar...
561 citations
TL;DR: The authors used status as a selective incentive to motivate contributors to collective action, and found that participants who received status for their contributions subsequently contributed more and viewed the group more positively, indicating that the allocation of respect to contributors shapes group productivity and solidarity.
Abstract: One of sociology s classic puzzles is how groups motivate their members to set aside self interest and contribute to collective action. This article presents a solution to the problem based on status as a selective incentive motivating contribution. Contributors to collective action signal their motivation to help the group and consequently earn diverse benefits from group members?in particular, higher status?and these rewards encourage greater giving to the group in the future. In Study 1, high contributors to collective action earned higher status, exercised more interpersonal influence, were cooperated with more, and received gifts of greater value. Studies 2 and 3 replicated these findings while discounting alternative explanations. All three studies show that giving to the group mattered because it signaled an individual s motivation to help the group. Study 4 finds that participants who received status for their contributions subsequently contributed more and viewed the group more positively. These results demonstrate how the allocation of respect to contributors shapes group productivity and solidarity, offering a solution to the collective action problem.
500 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effects of market specialization on economic and social outcomes and explored why products that span multiple categories suffer social and economic disadvantages, and proposed that both processes matter and offer a systematic, integrated account of how penalties arise as a consequence of audience-side and producer-side processes.
Abstract: This article examines the effects of market specialization on economic and social outcomes. Integrating two perspectives, we explore why products that span multiple categories suffer social and economic disadvantages. According to the audience-side perspective, audience members refer to established categories to make sense of products. Products that incorporate features from multiple categories are perceived to be poor fits with category expectations and less appealing than category specialists. The producerside view holds that spanning categories reduces one's ability to effectively target each category's audience, which decreases appeal to audience members. Rather than treating these as rival explanations, we propose that both processes matter and offer a systematic, integrated account of how penalties arise as a consequence of audience-side and producer-side processes. We analyze data from two dissimilar contexts, eBay auctions and U.S. feature-film projects, to test the central implications of our theory. Together, these tests provide support for our integrated approach and suggest that both processes contribute to the penalties associated with category spanning.
410 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that a high percentage of employed men and women report that work interferes with non-work life, and that a large number of employed adults feel that their jobs interfeerences with their non-working life.
Abstract: Using data from a 2005 survey of U.S. workers, we find that a high percentage of employed men and women report that work interferes with nonwork life. This research offers three main contributions:...
410 citations
TL;DR: Although recent increases in imprisonment are concentrated in poor Black communities, we know little about how daily life within these neighborhoods is affected as discussed by the authors, and almost all ethnographic work in poo...
Abstract: Although recent increases in imprisonment are concentrated in poor Black communities, we know little about how daily life within these neighborhoods is affected. Almost all ethnographic work in poo...
356 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop a comprehensive theoretical framework regarding the evolution of the class divide in postsecondary education, and find that adaptation is more effective than exclusion in expanding class inequality in U.S. higher education.
Abstract: This study develops a comprehensive theoretical framework regarding the evolution of the class divide in postsecondary education. I conceptualize three prototypes of class inequality—effectively maintained, declining, and expanding—and associate their emergence with the level of competition in college admissions. I also unearth the twin mechanisms, exclusion and adaptation, that link class hierarchy to a highly stratified postsecondary system in an allegedly meritocratic environment. Intra- and inter-cohort comparisons reveal that while the class divide regarding enrollment and access to selective postsecondary schooling is ubiquitous, it declines when competition for slots in higher education is low and expands during periods of high competition. In such a regime of effectively expanding inequality (EEI), a greater emphasis on a certain selection criterion (like test scores) in admission decisions—required to sort the influx of applicants—is bolstered by class-based polarization vis-a-vis this particular criterion. This vicious cycle of exclusion and adaptation intensifies and expedites the escalation of class inequality. The results show that adaptation is more effective than exclusion in expanding class inequality in U.S. higher education.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined whether structuring socially isolated women into peer-groups for an explicitly economic purpose, such as access to credit, has any effect on the women s collective social behavior.
Abstract: Can economic ties positively influence social relations and actions? If so, how does this influence operate? Microfinance programs, which provide credit through a group-based lending strategy, provide the ideal setting for exploring these questions. This article examines whether structuring socially isolated women into peer-groups for an explicitly economic purpose, such as access to credit, has any effect on the women s collective social behavior. Based on interviews with 400 women from 59 microfinance groups in West Bengal, India, I find that one third of these groups undertook various collective actions. Improvements in women s social capital and normative influence fostered this capacity for collective action. Several factors contributed to these transformations, including economic ties among members, the structure of the group network, and women's participation in group meetings. Based on these findings, I argue that microfinance groups have the potential to promote women s social capital and normative influence, thereby facilitating women s collective empowerment. I conclude by discussing the need for refining our understanding of social capital and social ties that promote normative influence.
TL;DR: Results indicate that socioeconomic desegregation plans should also attend to equity in course enrollments and the social integration of students more generally, and suggest curricular and social psychological mechanisms of oft-noted frog pond effects in schools should be extended beyond achievement itself to demographic statuses perceptually linked to achievement.
Abstract: Increasing constraints placed on race-based school diversification have shifted attention to socioeconomic desegregation. Although past research suggests that socioeconomic desegregation can produce heightened achievement, the “frog pond” perspective points to potential problems with socioeconomic desegregation in nonachievement domains. Such problems are important in their own right, and they may also chip away at the magnitude of potential achievement benefits. In this article, I report conducted propensity score analyses and robustness calculations on a sample of public high schools in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. As the proportion of the student body with middle- or high-income parents increased, low-income students progressed less far in math and science. Moreover, as the proportion of the student body with middle- or high-income or college-educated parents increased, low-income students experienced more psychosocial problems. Such patterns were often more pronounced among Af...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that conventional social mobility research, which measures family social class background relative to only fathers' characteristics, presents an outmoded picture of families, a picture wherein mothers' economic participation is neither common nor important.
Abstract: Conventional social mobility research, which measures family social class background relative to only fathers' characteristics, presents an outmoded picture of families—a picture wherein mothers' economic participation is neither common nor important. This article demonstrates that such measurement is theoretically and empirically untenable. Models that incorporate both mothers' and fathers' characteristics into class origin measures fit observed mobility patterns better than do conventional models, and for both men and women. Furthermore, in contrast to the current consensus that conventional measurement strategies do not alter substantive research conclusions, analyses of cohort change in social mobility illustrate the distortions that conventional practice can produce in stratification research findings. By failing to measure the impact of mothers' class, the current practice misses a recent upturn in the importance of family background for class outcomes among men in the United States. The conventiona...
TL;DR: Welfare sanctions are financial penalties applied to individuals who fail to comply with welfare program rules as discussed by the authors, and their widespread use reflects a turn toward disciplinary approaches to poverty manage and control.
Abstract: Welfare sanctions are financial penalties applied to individuals who fail to comply with welfare program rules. Their widespread use reflects a turn toward disciplinary approaches to poverty manage...
TL;DR: The authors examines national identification from a comparative and multilevel perspective, building on the identity, nationalism, and prejudice literatures, and analyzes relationships between societe cietes.
Abstract: This article examines national identification from a comparative and multilevel perspective. Building on the identity, nationalism, and prejudice literatures, I analyze relationships between societ...
TL;DR: A process model of how movements penetrate the relatively closed polity of private organizations is developed and explains this variation in organization-level outcomes of movement contestation.
Abstract: How do social movements affect decisions within corporations, such as the commercialization of new technologies? We suggest that the effect of movement activism is conditioned by the internal polity and therefore varies across organizations. This article examines how the anti-genetic movement in Germany during the 1980s affected six domestic pharmaceutical firms’ commercialization of biotechnology. We develop a process model of how movements penetrate the relatively closed polity of private organizations. External contestation weakened the position of internal champions of biotechnology, precipitated divisions among organizational elites, and undermined collective commitment to the technology. The movement also increased perceptions of investment uncertainty, but the consequences of this uncertainty depended on organizational logics of decision making. As a result, investments in some firms were tilted away from domestic biotechnology projects. The model also explains this variation in organization-level outcomes of movement contestation.
TL;DR: The authors investigates how native and institutions in rural America's "new immigrant destinations" adapt to Hispanic newcomers and how they adapt to the newcomers' culture and language skills in a qualitative study.
Abstract: Drawing on original qualitative research, this article investigates how natives and institutions in rural America's “new immigrant destinations” are adapting, if at all, to Hispanic newcomers and w...
TL;DR: This paper found that school factors play an elevated role in generating the black/white achievement gap while non-school factors primarily drive social class inequalities, which helps explain why black and white achievement disparities grow mostly during the school year (when schools are in session and have their greatest impact on students' learning).
Abstract: As social and economic stratification between black and white Americans persists at the dawn of the twenty-first century, disparities in educational outcomes remain an especially formidable barrier. Recent research on the black/white achievement gap points to a perplexing pattern in this regard. Schools appear to exacerbate black/white disparities in learning while simultaneously slowing the growth of social class gaps. How might this occur? Using 1st grade data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), I test—and find support for—the proposition that school factors play an elevated role in generating the black/white achievement gap while non-school factors primarily drive social class inequalities. These findings help explain why black/white achievement disparities grow mostly during the school year (when schools are in session and have their greatest impact on students' learning) while class gaps widen mostly during the summer (when school is out of session and non-school...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the widespread resistance to condom use in sub-Saharan Africa by describing the major semiotic axes that organize how people talk about condoms and condom use, including the "sweetness" of sex, trust and love between sexual partners, and assessments of risk and danger.
Abstract: This article examines the widespread resistance to condom use in sub-Saharan Africa by describing the major semiotic axes that organize how people talk about condoms and condom use. These axes include the “sweetness” of sex, trust and love between sexual partners, and assessments of risk and danger. Using data from rural Malawi, we show that framing the meaning of condoms as a simple choice between risky behavior and rational attempts to protect one's health ignores the complex semiotic space that Malawians navigate. Based on data from more than 600 diaries that record rural Malawians' everyday conversations, our analysis charts the semiotic axes related to condom use. Semiotic constraints operate most powerfully at the level of relationships. Condom use signifies a risky, less serious, and less intimate partner. Even when people believe that condom use is appropriate, wise, or even a matter of life and death, the statement that condom use makes about a relationship usually trumps all other meanings. We c...
TL;DR: McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears as mentioned in this paper reported that Americans' social networks shrank precipitously from 1985 to 2004, when asked to list the people with whom they discussed "importan...
Abstract: McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears (2006, 2008b) reported that Americans' social networks shrank precipitously from 1985 to 2004. When asked to list the people with whom they discussed “importan...
TL;DR: This paper examined the dynamics and the impact of the month-long 2004 same-sex wedding protest in San Francisco and identified three core features of cultural repertoires: contestation, intentionality, and collective identity.
Abstract: Social movement scholars have long been skeptical of culture's impact on political change, perhaps for good reason, since little empirical research explicitly addresses this question. This article fills the void by examining the dynamics and the impact of the month-long 2004 same-sex wedding protest in San Francisco. We integrate insights of contentious politics approaches with social constructionist conceptions and identify three core features of cultural repertoires: contestation, intentionality, and collective identity. Our analyses, which draw on rich qualitative and quantitative data from interviews with participants and movement leaders and a random survey of participants, highlight these dimensions of cultural repertoires as well as the impact that the same-sex wedding protest had on subsequent activism. Same-sex weddings, as our multimethod analyses show, were an intentional episode of claim-making, with participants arriving with a history of activism in a variety of other social movements. Moreo...
TL;DR: It is proposed that cross-cohort socialization by older neighborhood peers is one source of socialization for adolescent boys in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and such interactions can expose adolescents to local, unconventional, or alternative cultural models.
Abstract: Most theoretical perspectives on neighborhood effects on youth assume that neighborhood context serves as a source of socialization The exact sources and processes underlying adolescent socialization in disadvantaged neighborhoods, however, are largely unspecified and unelaborated This article proposes that cross-cohort socialization by older neighborhood peers is one source of socialization for adolescent boys Data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey suggest that adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to spend time with older individuals I analyze qualitative interview data from 60 adolescent boys in three neighborhoods in Boston to understand the causes and consequences of these interactions and relationships Some of the strategies these adolescents employ to cope with violence in disadvantaged neighborhoods promote interaction with older peers, particularly those who are most disadvantaged Furthermore, such interactions can expose adolescents to local, unconventional, or alternative cultural models
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors elaborate and appraise four core arguments in the literature on movements and their co-occurrence in the media, including the following four: Why did some social movement organization (SMO) families receive extensive media coverage?
Abstract: Why did some social movement organization (SMO) families receive extensive media coverage? In this article, we elaborate and appraise four core arguments in the literature on movements and their co...
TL;DR: In recent years, social scientists have identified not just heterosexism and homophobia as social problems, but also heteronormativity-the mundane, everyday ways that heterosexuality is privileged.
Abstract: In recent years, social scientists have identified not just heterosexism and homophobia as social problems, but also heteronormativity-the mundane, everyday ways that heterosexuality is privileged ...
TL;DR: This paper used a natural experiment as a means of addressing the selection issue and examined whether the migration of ex-prisoners away from their former place of residence will lead to lower levels of recidivism.
Abstract: Ex-prisoners tend to be geographically concentrated in a relatively small number of neighborhoods within the most resource deprived sections of metropolitan areas. Furthermore, many prisoners return “home” to the same criminogenic environment with the same criminal opportunities and criminal peers that proved so detrimental prior to incarceration. Yet estimating the causal impact of place of residence on the likelihood of recidivism is complicated by the issue of selection bias. In this study, I use a natural experiment as a means of addressing the selection issue and examine whether the migration of ex-prisoners away from their former place of residence will lead to lower levels of recidivism. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Louisiana Gulf Coast, damaging many of the neighborhoods where ex-prisoners typically reside. The residential destruction resulting from Hurricane Katrina is an exogenous source of variation that influences where a parolee will reside upon release from prison. Findings ...
TL;DR: This article investigated the association between past lynchings (1882 to 1930) and contemporary law enforcement responses to hate crimes in the United States and found that levels of past lynching are associated with three outcome variables germane to hate crime policing and prosecution.
Abstract: This article investigates the association between past lynchings (1882 to 1930) and contemporary law enforcement responses to hate crimes in the United States. While prior research indicates a positive correlation between past levels of lynching and current social control practices against minority groups, we posit an inverse relationship for facets of social control that are protective of minorities. Specifically, we hypothesize that contemporary hate crime policing and prosecution will be less vigorous where lynching was more prevalent prior to 1930. Analyses show that levels of past lynching are associated with three outcome variables germane to hate crime policing and prosecution, but the effect of lynching is partly contingent on the presence of a minority group threat. That is, past lynching combined with a sizeable black population largely suppresses (1) police compliance with federal hate crime law, (2) police reports of hate crimes that target blacks, and in some analyses (3) the likelihood of pr...
TL;DR: This article found that men and women form equally strong status beliefs from only two encounters with others, and women are just as likely as men to treat someone unequally on the basis of an established status distinction.
Abstract: Are people quick to adopt status beliefs about a social difference that lead them to treat others unequally? In a test of status construction theory, two experiments show that men and women form equally strong status beliefs from only two encounters with others. Men act powerfully on these new beliefs in their next encounters with others but women do not, possibly because women face greater social risks for acting on ambiguous status advantages. Women are just as likely as men, however, to treat someone unequally on the basis of an established status distinction. This suggests that men are first movers in the emergence of status distinctions, but women eventually adopt the distinctions as well. Our results show that people readily transform social differences into status distinctions-distinctions that act as formidable forces of inequality.
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of traditional family structure and gender roles are especially strong in counties characterized by weak community cohesion, as indicated by residential instability, low rates of home ownership, and high crime rates.
Abstract: From 2000 through 2008, initiatives proposing to ban same-sex marriage were on the ballot in 28 states. Although same-sex marriage opponents scored lopsided victories in most cases, voting outcomes varied substantially at the county level. This article examines sources of that variation and argues that opposition to same-sex marriage should be strong in communities characterized by the predominance of traditional gender roles and family structure. Perhaps more interestingly, the analysis also shows that the effects of traditional family structure and gender roles are especially strong in counties characterized by weak community cohesion, as indicated by residential instability, low rates of home ownership, and high crime rates.
TL;DR: This article examined the shifting boundaries between the public and private spheres in advanced capitalist societies through an examination of grassroots lobbying firms and found that the increasing formal organization of civil society has supported the development of a field of organizations that subsidize participation.
Abstract: This article highlights the shifting boundaries between the public and private spheres in advanced capitalist societies through an examination of grassroots lobbying firms. These organizations, which became a fixture in U.S. politics in the 1970s and have grown in number and prominence since, subsidize public participation on behalf of corporations, industry groups, and associations using direct mail, telephoning, and by mobilizing members and stakeholders. I examine the dynamics of this organizational population—whose existence calls attention to broad transformations in civil society—with reference to dramatic growth in the organizational populations of civic and trade associations. Results, derived from a Generalized Estimating Equation panel regression of firm founding events across U.S. regions from 1972 to 2002, suggest that the increasing formal organization of civil society has supported the development of a field of organizations that subsidize participation. These organizations do so, however, i...