Showing papers in "Review of Sociology in 2015"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine three interdependent sets of concerns: intersectionality as a field of study that is situated within the power relations that it studies, intersectional as an analytical strategy that provides new angles of vision on social phenomena, and intersectional knowledge project as critical praxis that informs social justice projects.
Abstract: The term intersectionality references the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather as reciprocally constructing phenomena. Despite this general consensus, definitions of what counts as intersectionality are far from clear. In this article, I analyze intersectionality as a knowledge project whose raison d'etre lies in its attentiveness to power relations and social inequalities. I examine three interdependent sets of concerns: (a) intersectionality as a field of study that is situated within the power relations that it studies; (b) intersectionality as an analytical strategy that provides new angles of vision on social phenomena; and (c) intersectionality as critical praxis that informs social justice projects.
1,228 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that racial inequalities in health endure primarily because racism is a fundamental cause of racial differences in SES and because SES is afundamental cause of health inequalities.
Abstract: We previously proposed that socioeconomic status (SES) is a fundamental cause of health inequalities and, as such, that SES inequalities in health persist over time despite radical changes in the diseases, risks, and interventions that happen to produce them at any given time. Like SES, race in the United States has an enduring connection to health and mortality. Our goals here are to evaluate whether this connection endures because systemic racism is a fundamental cause of health inequalities and, in doing so, to review a wide range of empirical data regarding racial differences in health outcomes, health risks, and health-enhancing resources such as money, knowledge, power, prestige, freedom, and beneficial social connections. We conclude that racial inequalities in health endure primarily because racism is a fundamental cause of racial differences in SES and because SES is a fundamental cause of health inequalities. In addition to these powerful connections, however, there is evidence that racism, larg...
781 citations
TL;DR: Research suggests that displacement is associated with subsequent unemployment, long-term earnings losses, and lower job quality; declines in psychological and physical well-being; loss of psychosocial assets; social withdrawal; family disruption; and lower levels of children's attainment and well- being.
Abstract: Job loss is an involuntary disruptive life event with a far-reaching impact on workers' life trajectories. Its incidence among growing segments of the workforce, alongside the recent era of severe economic upheaval, has increased attention to the effects of job loss and unemployment. As a relatively exogenous labor market shock, the study of displacement enables robust estimates of associations between socioeconomic circumstances and life outcomes. Research suggests that displacement is associated with subsequent unemployment, long-term earnings losses, and lower job quality; declines in psychological and physical well-being; loss of psychosocial assets; social withdrawal; family disruption; and lower levels of children's attainment and well-being. While reemployment mitigates some of the negative effects of job loss, it does not eliminate them. Contexts of widespread unemployment, although associated with larger economic losses, lessen the social-psychological impact of job loss. Future research should attend more fully to how the economic and social-psychological effects of displacement intersect and extend beyond displaced workers themselves.
445 citations
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TL;DR: A stigma complex is proposed, a system of interrelated, heterogeneous parts bringing together insights across disciplines to provide a more realistic and complicated sense of the challenge facing research and change efforts.
Abstract: Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, research on stigma has continued. Building on conceptual and empirical work, the recent period clarifies new types of stigmas, expansion of measures, identification of new directions, and increasingly complex levels. Standard beliefs have been challenged, the relationship between stigma research and public debates reconsidered, and new scientific foundations for policy and programs suggested. We begin with a summary of the most recent Annual Review articles on stigma, which reminded sociologists of conceptual tools, informed them of developments from academic neighbors, and claimed findings from the early period of “resurgence.” Continued (even accelerated) progress has also revealed a central problem. Terms and measures are often used interchangeably, leading to confusion and decreasing accumulated knowledge. Drawing from this work but focusing on the past 14 years of stigma research (including mental illness, sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS, and race/ethnici...
445 citations
TL;DR: This focus on East Asia extends research on the second demographic transition in the West by describing how rapid decline in marriage and fertility rates can occur in the absence of major changes in family attitudes or rising individualism.
Abstract: Trends toward later and less marriage and childbearing have been even more pronounced in East Asia than in the West. At the same time, many other features of East Asian families have changed very little. We review recent research on trends in a wide range of family behaviors in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. We also draw upon a range of theoretical frameworks to argue that trends in marriage and fertility reflect tension between rapid social and economic changes and limited change in family expectations and obligations. We discuss how this tension may be contributing to growing socioeconomic differences in patterns of family formation. This focus on East Asia extends research on the second demographic transition in the West by describing how rapid decline in marriage and fertility rates can occur in the absence of major changes in family attitudes or rising individualism.
372 citations
TL;DR: The impact of incarceration on a range of individual outcomes, from chronic health conditions to mortality, and outcomes beyond the individual, including the health of family members and community health outcomes are considered.
Abstract: The expansion of the penal system has been one of the most dramatic trends in contemporary American society. A wealth of research has examined the impact of incarceration on a range of later life outcomes and has considered how the penal system has emerged as a mechanism of stratification and inequality in the United States. In this article, we review the literature from a comparatively new vein of this research: the impact of incarceration on health outcomes. We first consider the impact of incarceration on a range of individual outcomes, from chronic health conditions to mortality. We then consider outcomes beyond the individual, including the health of family members and community health outcomes. Next, we discuss mechanisms linking incarceration and health outcomes before closing with a consideration of limitations in the field and directions for future research.
293 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that sociologists could contribute significantly to migration-environment inquiry through attention to issues of inequality, perceptions, and agency vis-à-vis structure as well as promising developments in the field.
Abstract: Research on the environmental dimensions of human migration has made important strides in recent years. However, findings have been spread across multiple disciplines with wide-ranging methodologies and limited theoretical development. This article reviews key findings of the field and identifies future directions for sociological research. We contend that the field has moved beyond linear environmental “push” theories toward a greater integration of context, including micro-level, meso-level, and macro-level interactions. We highlight findings that migration is often a household strategy to diversify risk (new economics of labor migration theory), interacting with household composition; individual characteristics; social networks; and historical, political, and economic contexts. We highlight promising developments in the field, including the recognition that migration is a long-standing form of environmental adaptation and yet only one among many forms of adaptation. Finally, we argue that sociologists ...
242 citations
TL;DR: A review of evidence on the causes and consequences of financialization in the United States and around the world, with particular attention to the spread of financial markets is presented in this article.
Abstract: Financialization refers to the increasing importance of finance, financial markets, and financial institutions to the workings of the economy. This article reviews evidence on the causes and consequences of financialization in the United States and around the world, with particular attention to the spread of financial markets. Researchers have focused on two broad themes at the level of corporations and broader societies. First, an orientation toward shareholder value has led to substantial changes in corporate strategies and structures that have encouraged outsourcing and corporate disaggregation while increasing compensation at the top. Second, financialization has shaped patterns of inequality, culture, and social change in the broader society. Underlying these changes is a broad shift in how capital is intermediated, from financial institutions to financial markets, through mechanisms such as securitization (turning debts into marketable securities). Enabled by a combination of theory, technology, and...
224 citations
TL;DR: Evidence for rules, reputations, and relations external to the individual, including norms, reputation systems, and social networks, showing that they have powerful and pervasive effects on cooperation and prosocial behavior is reviewed.
Abstract: In explaining the sources of cooperation and prosocial behavior, psychologists, behavioral economists, and biologists often focus on factors internal to the individual, such as altruistic motivations, other-regarding preferences, and prosocial emotions. By contrast, sociologists typically emphasize social forces external to the individual, including norms, reputation systems, and social networks. Here we review evidence for these rules, reputations, and relations, showing that they have powerful and pervasive effects on cooperation and prosocial behavior. Our discussion highlights two emergent themes of the reviewed literature. First, although these classes of sociological mechanisms typically promote cooperation, their presence can also create ambiguity for individuals regarding the reasons for their own and others' prosocial acts, and that ambiguity can undermine future prosociality in subsequent settings where the mechanisms are absent. Second, altruistic preferences and social mechanisms often interac...
195 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors place this research within a framework that draws on both market and institutional theories, and conclude that additional research on the social organization of charters and traditional public schools is needed to better understand the conditions under which school choice is or is not effective.
Abstract: Charter schools have been on the educational reform landscape for over twenty years. In the last ten years, a number of rigorous studies have examined the effects of these schools on student achievement and educational attainment. Findings reveal mixed results where student achievement is concerned (i.e., some positive, some negative, some neutral) and positive results in terms of educational attainment (i.e., high school graduation and college attendance). The article places this research within a framework that draws on both market and institutional theories, and concludes that additional research on the social organization of charter schools and traditional public schools is needed to better understand the conditions under which school choice is or is not effective.
159 citations
TL;DR: This paper developed a multilevel social exclusion framework to stimulate future research on the effects of paternal and maternal incarceration on child outcomes and emphasized the underresearched importance of meso-level and macro-level exclusionary and inclusionary regimes in understanding the ef...
Abstract: The US prison boom has resulted in the mass incarceration of parents in the United States. We review recent scholarship on the relationship between parental incarceration and child inequality and social exclusion over the life course. We develop a multilevel social exclusion framework to stimulate future research on the effects of paternal and maternal incarceration. This framework is intergenerational in its focus on incarcerated parents and their children, interinstitutional in its attention to state and school regimes, and intersectional in its consideration of the role of gender and race and ethnic contingencies. It is also systemic in its focus on multiple chosen and overlapping institutional policy domains of exclusion. We address both mediators and moderators of the effects of parental incarceration on child outcomes. We emphasize the underresearched importance of meso-level (e.g., school) and macro-level (e.g., state and cross-national) exclusionary and inclusionary regimes in understanding the ef...
TL;DR: In this paper, a review synthesizes evidence from different research traditions in light of emerging findings from the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and traces pathways by which macroeconomic changes "get under the skin" and generate contradictory aggregate-and individual-level consequences.
Abstract: The existing evidence linking recessions to individual and population health presents a puzzle. Some studies show that people who experience the kinds of labor market, housing, and asset shocks that proliferate in recessions suffer negative health consequences, whereas other studies show that mortality rates fall when the economy worsens. This review synthesizes evidence from these distinct research traditions in light of emerging findings from the Great Recession of 2007–2009. It traces pathways by which macroeconomic changes “get under the skin” and generate contradictory aggregate- and individual-level consequences. Research on the longer-term health effects of recessions could be strengthened by integrating theoretical and analytical approaches from sociology. These include a multilevel perspective that considers how individuals cope with recessions as members of families and communities embedded in different policy environments, and attention to cascades of recessionary shocks, individuals' strategie...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the increasing interdependence of societies, focusing specifically on issues of systemic instability and fragility generated by the new and unprecedented level of connectedness and complexity resulting from globalization.
Abstract: In this article, we discuss the increasing interdependence of societies, focusing specifically on issues of systemic instability and fragility generated by the new and unprecedented level of connectedness and complexity resulting from globalization. We define the global system as a set of tightly coupled interactions that allow for the continued flow of information, capital, goods, services, and people. Using the general concepts of globality, complexity, networks, and the nature of risk, we analyze case studies of trade, finance, infrastructure, climate change, and public health to develop empirical support for the concept of global systemic risk. We seek to identify and describe the sources and nature of such risks and methods of thinking about risks that may inform future academic research and policy-making decisions.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the development of the sociology of consumption and identify three periods in its evolution: origins prior to the 1980s, the years between the 1980 and the mid-2000s under the influence of the cultural turn; and the subsequent decade, when new theoretical perspectives and political issues have emerged.
Abstract: This article examines the development of the sociology of consumption. It identifies three periods in its evolution: origins prior to the 1980s; the years between the 1980s and the mid-2000s under the influence of the cultural turn; and the subsequent decade, when new theoretical perspectives and political issues have emerged. Achievements of the second period are reviewed and three areas of fresh and productive recent research are identified: cultural consumption and its intersection with inequality and stratification, sustainable consumption and the organization of everyday life in Western societies, and the politics of consumption. The article concludes with a discussion of possibilities for future research.
TL;DR: A review of micro-level studies that illustrate tremendous variation and complexity in structural arrangements and individuals' lived experiences as discussed by the authors suggests that in this field microlevel research has at least three advantages over grand, macro-level meta-analyses, which are quantitative, qualitative and well suited to formulating contextually appropriate policy and enforcement responses.
Abstract: The article begins with a discussion of definitional issues regarding human trafficking and modern slavery and then briefly critiques some popular claims regarding each problem. Examples of macro-level research are critically evaluated, followed by a review of micro-level studies that illustrate tremendous variation and complexity in structural arrangements and individuals’ lived experiences. These studies suggest that in this field micro-level research has at least three advantages over grand, macro-level meta-analyses—advantages that are quantitative (i.e., estimating the magnitude of the problem within a measurable universe), qualitative (i.e., documenting complexities in lived experiences), and well suited to formulating contextually appropriate policy and enforcement responses.
TL;DR: This paper proposed that the impact of going to school on a given skill depends on the quality of the instructional regime a child will experience at school compared with the quality the child would receive if not at school.
Abstract: Does experience in school increase or reduce social inequality in skills? Sociologists have long debated this question. Drawing from the counterfactual account of causality, we propose that the impact of going to school on a given skill depends on the quality of the instructional regime a child will experience at school compared with the quality of the instructional regime the child would receive if not at school. Children vary in their benefit from new instruction, and current skill increases this benefit. We hypothesize that the expansion of free, universal schooling promotes social equality in part by equalizing access to school, but also because disadvantaged children benefit more from access. However, we predict that this equalizing effect will be more pronounced for younger children than for older children. To test these hypotheses, we review empirical evidence regarding the impact of (a) increasing access to universal kindergarten and preschool, (b) interrupting schooling with the summer recess, (c...
TL;DR: The concept of complexity and the burgeoning field of complex systems and their relevance to sociology are discussed in this paper. But the focus of this paper is on the structural and functional properties of complexity.
Abstract: I discuss the concept of complexity and the burgeoning field of complex systems and their relevance to sociology. I begin by comparing and contrasting various definitions of complexity and then describe the attributes of systems capable of producing complexity: diversity, networked interactions, interdependent behavior, and adaptation. Next, I survey the contributions of complexity sciences with the most resonance with sociology. I organize those contributions into four categories: dynamics, aggregation, distributions, and functional properties of structure and diversity. On the basis of that survey, I conclude that incorporating complexity science into sociology requires the introduction of new models and methodologies as well as a more expansive approach to empirical research, and that the benefits of a deeper engagement with complexity will be substantial.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the recent trajectory of development in sociology, paying close attention to the intersections between development studies and development practice, and demonstrate how the prominence of development sociology has varied historically in relation to its proposed policy prescriptions.
Abstract: At the close of World War II, “development” began to evolve along two paths. On the first path, scholars aimed to generate theoretical understandings of social change, especially at the national level (development studies). On the second path, policy makers in governments and other development-focused organizations initiated actions to promote positive social change, especially in poor or war-torn nations (development practice). In this article, we review the recent trajectory of “development” in sociology, paying close attention to the intersections between development studies and development practice. Through explicit comparisons to economics and political science, we demonstrate how the prominence of development sociology has varied historically in relation to its proposed policy prescriptions. We conclude by highlighting five uniquely sociological contributions that could powerfully improve contemporary interdisciplinary development conversations, and by calling for greater sociological attention to t...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the historical formation of migratory subsystems and identify emerging trends in South-South intra-regional migration and propose new theoretical orientations that go beyond the questions already identified in the mobility from poorer to wealthier countries.
Abstract: This article contributes to the global dialogue attempting to incorporate South-South intraregional migration into policy and academic discussions by reviewing the dynamics, characteristics, and legal contexts of interregional migration in South America. We first present the historical formation of migratory subsystems and identify emerging trends. We then organize our revision along the main theoretical issues surrounding international migration and their significance in the region. These issues include motivation, contexts of origin and reception, migration dynamics, gender, race and ethnicity, immigrant adaptation, and migration policies. Next, we consider the study of South American migrations, both internal and international, to be a research agenda with significant potential to deepen our understanding of migrations in general and to propose new theoretical orientations that go beyond the questions already identified in the mobility from poorer to wealthier countries. We conclude with suggestions fo...
TL;DR: Several popular struggles show a diminishing tolerance among the world's peoples for the health policies of empire and a growing demand for health care in developed countries.
Abstract: Health and health care have played important roles during the rise of empire and during its subsequent decline. Research has emphasized the underdevelopment of health in less developed countries, the opening of new markets for medical products manufactured in dominant nations, the contribution of public health in enhancing the productivity of labor, the impact of medicine in reinforcing international class relations, and the adverse effects of military interventions on health and mental health. Latin American social medicine, especially work by Salvador Allende, has clarified the social origins of illness and early death in the context of empire. Connections among empire, health, and health care have operated through key mediating institutions: trade agreements and international financial institutions, foundations, and international public health organizations. Several popular struggles show a diminishing tolerance among the world's peoples for the health policies of empire and a growing demand for health...
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TL;DR: In order to properly welcome Professor Scaff in Japan, the author of Max Weber in America [2011], it would be necessary to speak something about "Max Weber in Japan" as comment on his excellent presentation as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In order to properly welcome Professor Scaff in Japan, the author of Max Weber in America [2011], it would be necessary to speak something about “Max Weber in Japan” as comment on his excellent presentation. Although this task, too, was already done by another excellent book of the German historian, Professor Wolfgang Schwentker, Max Weber in Japan [1998], I would like to briefly sketch Max Weber in Japan from my own perspective, adding some complementary information to Professor Schwentker’s book.
TL;DR: In this paper, Luhmann explora la relacion entre el medio dinero and the analisis of the mecanismos de inclusion and exclusion, and debiende que el mecanismo de inclusion in el centro is the capacidad crediticia.
Abstract: RESUMEN Este articulo explora la relacion entre el medio dinero y el analisis de los mecanismos de inclusion y exclusion. En la actualidad tales mecanismos siguen una logica de inclusion plural o multiple, opuesta a la asimilacion. En una economia monetaria plenamente desarrollada, el dinero y la propiedad han surgido como estructuras regulativas para la participacion en la practica economica. De este modo, discutiendo el enfoque de Luhmann, se traza aqui una distincion entre el centro, la semiperiferia y la periferia del sistema economico. Mientras el medio dinero incluye al conjunto de la poblacion, en la periferia de la economia, a traves del consumo, este articulo busca evidenciar que el mecanismo de inclusion en el centro es la capacidad crediticia. Puede demostrarse que en su configuracion historica, la forma del credito esta organizada de un modo dual: para obtener una ganancia y para promover la inclusion social. En este sentido, los microcreditos son analizados como una forma global de inclusion que no se basa en la distincion pobre/rico PALABRAS CLAVE: dinero; credito; inclusion; exclusion; diferenciacion