Two recent surveys give strikingly different answers. Pew’s American Trends Survey finds that 70% of Americans think “the higher education system in the U.S. is generally going in the wrong direction,” while Lazer et al.’s American High Education Barometer study finds “59% approve of US universities. A majority approval is evident across a wide array of demographics, as well as in every single state” and “75% of Americans trust universities and colleges ‘some’ or ‘a lot’. This places higher education in 4th place out of the 20 institutions we evaluated in terms of institutional trust.” What gives?
Continue reading “what do americans think of higher ed anyway?”still bad science, still not about…
Believe it or not, there’s more on that old Regnerus “study” (see https://scatter.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/bad-science-not-about-same-sex-parenting/ for the early rebuttal, more than 13 years ago!). In a recent book, Multiverse Analysis by Cristobal Young and Erin Cumberworth, they use the technique the book is about to re-analyze the data from Regnerus’s NFSS in order to assess the likelihood of the article’s having been correct. The results are complicated, as I’ll discuss briefly below. But the complexity didn’t stop Paul Sullins from declaring in Public Discourse that it constitutes “New Vindication for the Regnerus Same-Sex Parenting Study.” Does it?
Continue reading “still bad science, still not about…”those theses on viewpoint diversity
My colleague Lisa Siranagian’s piece, “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” has been getting attention including positively in the Chronicle Review and negatively in Minding the Campus. When I first read it, I wrote privately to Dr. Siranagian, as I think the argument is important and I disagree with her on it. Below (with her permission) is an adaptation of what I wrote to her.
Continue reading “those theses on viewpoint diversity”ideological diversity on syllabi
A colleague called my attention to this interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jon Shields and Yuval Avnur: “Evidence Backs Trump on Higher Ed’s Bias.” A few thoughts below the fold. I am very sympathetic to the concerns the piece raises: to wit, that humanities and social sciences courses tend to teach big controversies with a strong leftward bias. I also think it is imperative to be self-critical and transparent about these things, not to lay off because of the attacks on academia. Our most important asset is scrupulous honesty.
(I do really wish people would actually spend more than five minutes with Foucault’s texts before caricaturing his oeuvre; to say that Foucault “reduced all Western societies to intricate and oppressive systems of social control” is to reveal a thorough lack of understanding of the theory.) But beyond that: it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to cite one’s own “study” in the WSJ and link, then, to an unpublished manuscript hosted on one’s own Google Drive. I admire the chutzpah, so read the study carefully.
Continue reading “ideological diversity on syllabi”performative has become a contranym
The term “performative” has become a contranym (a word with two directly opposed meanings) and it’s causing a lot of confusion. In social theory, “performative” typically means “bringing something into being through speech/action.” In contemporary political discourse, performative typically means “being just for show, not creating any real change.” I’m writing this post because I’ve had to leave some version of the same set of comments on far too many student papers who seem to not always realize the tension. Let me explain a bit more.
Continue reading “performative has become a contranym”it’s the interface
A whole lot of people – including computer scientists who should know better and academics who are usually thoughtful – are caught up in fanciful, magical beliefs about chatbots. Any sufficiently advanced technology and all that. But why chatbots specifically? Not all ‘generative AI’ or even all LLMs spark so much anthropomorphization and attributions of ‘general intelligence.’ It wasn’t StableDiffusion’s image generator or GPT-2 that excited this imagination. We don’t see much anthropomorphization for the latest versions of Copilot (a code generator) or Suno (a song generator), either. It was ChatGPT. Now often it’s character.ai.
Instruction tuning, and later chat tuning, are the methodological innovations that make some machine learning pass the Turing Test. An object that we can use imperative language with (“write me an email…”) seems to have captured imaginations in ways that other, frankly better, objects don’t.
Continue reading “it’s the interface”>5000 faculty from around the country call on academic leaders to resist
Faculty From 14 Universities Join Forces to Call on Administrative Bodies to Stand Up to Attacks on Higher Education
Nearly 5,100 Faculty From 14 Universities Call on University Administrations to Stand Up to Attacks on Democratic Principles
Cambridge, MA – April 17th, 2025 – Faculty from fourteen universities across the United States signed and released letters calling for their respective university’s administrative bodies to stand up to the Trump administration’s attacks on academic freedom, freedom of inquiry, and other democratic principles. Nearly 5,100 faculty have collectively signed these letters on what the American Association of University Professors has called a Day of Action for Higher Ed. This is a collaborative effort independently organized by passionate faculty across four universities – Professor Ryan Enos from Harvard University; Professor Gerry Leonard from Boston University; Professor Brian Cleary from Boston University; Professor Daniel Laurison from Swarthmore College; and Professor Dan Hirschman from Cornell University – to encourage leadership at higher education institutions to stand up and fight back against the anti-democratic attacks of the federal government.
Continue reading “>5000 faculty from around the country call on academic leaders to resist”somehow, scientific racism returned
This week, Trump issued a new executive order: “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” NPR has a short story about the order here.
The direct targets of the order are the Smithsonian Museums in DC and how they portray American history. The order attacks both diversity and trans people (among other things). (Aside: the President is not directly in charge of the Smithsonian, and so the real effect of this order – like many of Trump’s executive orders – is in question/remains to be seen.) One less reported aspect of the order, but one that’s frightening for what it signals about the arguments the administration is prepared to advance, is that the order also argues for scientific racism (sometimes called biological racism or racial realism).* Here’s the relevant text from a criticism of a specific exhibit:
Continue reading “somehow, scientific racism returned”For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” an exhibit representing that “[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.” The exhibit further claims that “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating “Race is a human invention.”
speaking out for democracy and us higher education
A group of scholars worked to write the below open letter. Please consider signing & sharing – we’re over 1800 signatures at the time of posting here, and we’re hoping for a lot more to help pressure universities to stand up for academic freedom!
Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education
To add your name to this statement, go to https://bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEdSign
We publicly affirm our commitment to the enterprise of higher education in a democratic and free society, and to the values and practices that facilitate the production, advancement, and sharing of knowledge. Given the continuous and escalating attacks on higher education along with many other pillars of American democracy by the Trump administration and its allies, we call on colleges and universities to protect these values.
Continue reading “speaking out for democracy and us higher education”submit to the 2025 junior theorists symposium!
2025 Junior Theorists Symposium–Call for Précis
SUBMIT YOUR PRÉCIS HERE
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 21, 2025, 11:59pm Eastern Time
The 19th Junior Theorists Symposium (JTS) is now open to new submissions. The JTS is a conference featuring the work of emerging sociologists engaged in theoretical work, broadly defined. Sponsored in part by the Theory Section of the ASA, the conference has provided a platform for the work of early-career sociologists since 2005. We especially welcome submissions that broaden the practice of theory beyond its traditional themes, topics, and disciplinary function.
Continue reading “submit to the 2025 junior theorists symposium!”the future of the democratic party is queer
Last week, Gallup released new data on the demographics of LGBTQ+ folks in the United States. Tristan Bridges has a fantastic write-up here with nice visualizations. Some key highlights include the overall growth of LGBTQ+ identification as well as some compositional shifts (like the fact that non-college educated people are now more likely to identify as not straight, and the continued trend of many more women identifying as LGBTQ+ than men, and especially as bi).
One thing that jumped out at me was the data on partisanship combined with the data on age. If I’m looking at it right, something like 35% of young Democrats identify as LGBTQ+. Here’s the back of the envelope math:
Continue reading “the future of the democratic party is queer”liability shedding as the complement of opportunity hoarding
Sociologists of inequality have long been interested in “opportunity hoarding.” The basic idea, attributed to Tilly’s book Durable Inequality, is that groups who have resources typically try to exclude others from accessing those resources. As Diamond and Lewis define it in a recent article, citing Tilly:
In contrast to exploitation, opportunity hoarding occurs when “members of a categorically bounded network acquire access to a resource that is valuable, renewable, subject to monopoly” and exclude other groups from access to it (Tilly, 1999: p. 10). While exploitation is the purview of elite actors, opportunity hoarding is typically practiced by a wide range of actors who attempt to secure their relatively privileged social position through monopolizing scarce resources.
We can see opportunity hoarding in, for example, the heavy reliance on network hiring when coupled with racially homogenous social networks. This kind of mechanism informs DiTomaso’s argument that “favoritism or advantages that whites provide to other whites that is the primary mechanism by which racial inequality is reproduced in the post-civil rights period in the U.S.”
In line with these scholars, I agree opportunity hoarding is a tremendously useful framework for understanding the production and reproduction of durable, categorical (group-based) inequalities. But, I think that the focus on the hoarding of opportunities may have led scholars to downplay or miss an important complement: the shedding of liabilities. If opportunity hoarding is about controlling access to valuable resources, liability shedding is about the capacity for a group to avoid exposures to claims on group resources and other potential collective risks.
Continue reading “liability shedding as the complement of opportunity hoarding”citizenship as legitimized racism
Over at Crooked Timber, Chris Bertram argues that the root of the problems exposed in this week’s reelection of Donald Trump is nationalism:
“The underlying problem is nationalism and the organization of the world into nation states, a form of organization that fosters and promotes nationalist sentiment and attachment and downplays transnational concern and solidarity”
I agree. It’s not the only problem (I don’t think we can, for example, reduce misogyny to questions of nationalism even as gender and sexism clearly shaped citizenship both historically and in the present, see e.g. Glenn’s Unequal Freedom). But it’s certainly one of the roots. Americans are socialized to treat non-Americans as less-than and other, and that is the underlying premise on which conversations around topics like immigration, foreign aid, climate change, national security, and more are premised. And the same is true for those in other nations socialized into a similar model of citizenship. I’m not a moral philosopher, but the whole thing strikes me as fundamentally immoral and basically unjustifiable.
Beyond being generically immoral to divide the world around citizenship, in the case of American citizenship (and probably many others), it’s also racist.
Continue reading “citizenship as legitimized racism”qualitative standards, heated arguments
Late last week, sociologist Justin Pickett opened a debate on X: “We need more attention to selection bias in qualitative research.” The reason: his critique of a Social Problems article by sociologist Uriel Serrano. Pickett, a full professor, argued that Serrano, a postdoc, had made a methodological error by not sufficiently emphasizing that his interview and focus group participants were all selected from among members of a single organization:
…while completing three years of participant observations with the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition (BSS). BSS is a community-based educational space that engages young men and masculine-identified youth in abolitionist organizing, political education, healing programming, and youth participatory action research.
Because of this lack of attention, Pickett argues that the article’s conclusions could be the result of that organization’s work and not of the pattern the article claims: “carceral seepage articulates the scale and pacing of policing in the lives
of young people of color,” as an answer to the research question: “how does witnessing and experiencing everyday policing shape the racialized emotions of racially minoritized young people?”
Sociology Convention Advice
It’s been a long time since we’ve shared advice about surviving the ASA convention, and maybe the advice has changed in recent years. Last year, too late to help, I saw worries people expressed about getting along at the convention, so I thought I’d start a thread for advice. Please add your advice and share this around different social media platforms. Here are answers to FAQs I saw last year. You will note that none of these are about how to do a good presentation.
- Section business meetings are often good places to run into people in your area. This is definitely true at the CBSM business meeting. In my experience other sections vary, some are friendly and sociable, while nobody bothers to go to the meetings of others.
- Off-site receptions hosted by ASA sections or other ASA groups are not “private” events any more than the receptions held in the convention center. If you are a member of a section, you are definitely welcome at that reception no matter where it is held. Receptions are held off site because the costs of a reception at a convention center or convention hotel is typically outrageous, like $40 for a bowl of chips. Groups get more and better food cheaper at a restaurant. You are welcome as a first year grad or an unemployed sociologist or whatever.
- There is a time-honored tradition of crashing the receptions for groups you are not a member of. There are some ticketed events that people pay in advance for that are fundraisers, like the Minority Fellows program reception, that you cannot crash. But all the section receptions are open to anyone who shows up, and many receptions are jointly held by multiple sections whose members do not know each other. As long as you behave nicely and avoid acting like a drunken or otherwise offensive a** can go to any of these openly publicized events.
- Receptions may or may not be good places to meet people. Don’t expect deep intellectual conversations over appetizers and drinks. If you are outgoing, just try to strike up conversations with people around you using your normal social skills. If you are, like me, more introverted and less good at small talk, the trick is to put on an act, act like you are comfortable and not worried about whether you know anybody. Find a place to sit or stand, make eye contact and say hi to the people around you, and respond if a more outgoing person tries to start a conversation. If you encounter “famous person” it is OK to say “oh, I’m excited to meet you, I’ve read your work.” It is, however, rude to then launch into a 10 minute criticism of their work. (No kidding, this actually happened to me at a reception at about 11 pm, 2 grad students–guess their genders–accosted me and wanted me to listen appreciatively while they told me what was wrong with my work.)
- The person you try to talk to (famous or otherwise) may or may not respond to your conversational initiatives. Don’t take it personally if they don’t, just move on. Your own conversational initiatives can include asking their opinion of the conference or a panel or the convention city, you can certainly give the 30 second version of what you are working on (but avoid the 10 minute version as an opening gambit).
- “This is more a comment than a question” is a standing joke. Trying to get noticed at someone else’s panel by giving an extended description of your own research just makes other people laugh at you. A short statement of the form “this session is so exciting, I am working on similar issues, here is an interesting question” and then trying to connect with people later to ask for their paper and offer your own goes over much better as colleagueship.
- Advice about eating more cheaply at conventions. I usually find a grocery store near the hotel and have food in my room for meals I’m not sharing with others. There are also inexpensive food courts and sandwich type places where you can get food in most hotel districts (including near the convention center in Montreal). If you are flexible about what you eat, it is possible to get food by cruising receptions. There is typically lots of food at the opening night reception and at the reception after the presidential address. Section receptions vary in food quality and it is not uncommon to hear people passing the word about where the reception food is good. However, reception cruising is obviously easier when the receptions are near each other, and harder when they are scattered all around the city, as it seems like they will be in Montreal.
- Although in my experience many senior people are generous about paying for meals for other people, there is another group of predatory diners (many quite affluent) who will order expensive food in a group and then at the end just say “let’s just split the check,” thus wrecking the budget of the low income person who ordered something cheap to keep their costs down. This is a warning. It is not easy to deal with this without “looking bad” to the predators, but I suggest that if you are worried about being stuck like this that you speak up right at the beginning and tell the wait staff and the table that you’d like a separate check.
scatterplot 
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