Family and Society

Soc 2433 at the College of Saint Scholastica

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    • immigrant workers: doing it all for you
      The New York Times reports that the number of foreign-born workers is on the rise in the U.S. Nearly one in six American workers is foreign-born, the highest proportion since the 1920s, according to a census analysis released Monday. Because of government barriers to immigration, the share of foreign-born workers dipped from a 20th-century high of 21 [...] […]
    • Phone Sex: Real and Imaginary (NSFW)
      In my Power and Sexuality class, I sometimes assign articles from a book called Whores and Other Feminists. All of the essays are written by current and former sex workers who identify as feminist. It’s pretty fascinating. So some of the phone sex operators talk about what they do while having “phone sex,” like chores and booking airline ti […]
    • SocImages Apparently Undermining Itself One Image at a Time
      If you were to view an article about the diversity of Saudi Arabian life, and it included the following images, what would you likely take away from the article? Elisabeth R. drew our attention to a recent study asking about the relationship between images and text. It found that, when images that confirmed a reader’s stereotypes about a place were pai […]
    • Gay marriage in the US by space and time
      What works I cropped what you see above from an infographic that is part of GOOD magazine’s infographic section called Transparency. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend it. This was the strongest part of the graphic. It does a masterful job of elegantly illustrating a relationship both in space and time. [...]
    • Calling out Vile Homophobia
      Big shout to co-Contexts blogger Kari Lerum at Sexuality and Society for bringing attention to a vile piece of legislation in the Ugandan Parliament that would allow the “crime of homosexuality” to be punishable by death.  As academics we are trained to take detached, analytical approaches to events in the social world.  Understandably, we don […]
    • Global Warming Reparations
      Nothing beats a nice clean visual presentation to hammer home a point. Point here…we are some energy hoggin’ you-know-whatters but we’re not alone.  To be fair, it would probably be more appropriate to collapse the global emissions of all the EU nations into one bubble rather than breaking it down by individual country.   Are you as [...] […]
    • Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right—Dude, Where’s My Stimulus?
      Years ago, I once had a conversation with an economist who freely admitted that there was no unified macroeconomic theory.  What works versus what doesn’t work in a particular sociopolitical context is really just so much spitballing.  This never surprised me given the complex realities of global capitalism. I’ve been genuinely perplexed by Barac […]
    • Weekends Are for Porn (Not News)
      Just in case you’ve ever wanted evidence that people do more online searches for porn on weekends (especially Friday nights!): Thanks to Larry. UPDATE: Reader Dangger sent us a comparison of searches for porn and news: (Via.) (View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)
    • Weber’s Monopoly on Violence
      Perry H. sent in this cartoon: The cartoon, of course, reminds us of the power of words.  Calling something “terrorism” is a way to make it seem illegitimate.   And, often, what makes violence illegitimate is not something inherent in the violence itself, but your perspective on it. The cartoon also reminds us of Max Weber’s insight that th […]
    • Finally A Women’s Movement Men Can Get Behind
      Last week Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a scorching critique of the uproar over pushing regular mammography back till 50-years-old, in light of the muted response to the Stupak amendment excluding abortion from both state and public health insurance programs. “So welcome to the Women’s Movement 2.0,” she writes “pink-ribbon culture has replaced […]

Archive for January, 2009

BET Special Video by What Black Men Think – MySpace Video

Posted by Sr. Edith Bogue on 23 January, 2009

Janks Morton shows the power of data both to present a false picture and to correct it.
Here is the News Release when the original report was released; you’ll find the information about black men in prison vs college in the summary.

The report (16 page PDF) was Cellblocks and Classrooms, released in 2002.

more about “BET Special Video by What Black Men T…“, posted with vodpod

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Comparative Perspective – with irony

Posted by Sr. Edith Bogue on 16 January, 2009

This short film uses irony* and images from two very different settings to provide a comparative perspective.

*Definition of irony:  2 a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c: an ironic expression or utterance

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Name Voyager

Posted by Sr. Edith Bogue on 13 January, 2009

On the first day of class, we talked about the difference between individual stories as explanations and large scale patterns.    You may be surprised to find that even the name you carry may be part of a bigger pattern.   Check out the Name Voyager to look at the popularity of names over time. If you want to look at it some more, click on the link.

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Study Techniques

Posted by Sr. Edith Bogue on 13 January, 2009

Sociology presents a lot of information.

  • Facual information
  • Theories explaining observations
  • Historical trends
  • Names of major researchers

Keeping track of all of it can be hard. The following slideshow offers a few techniques for organizing information in your notes. Using these techniques makes it easier to learn and remember the information you read.

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