Senior Seminar Class 2010 Pre-Celebrates Thesis Finishings

Corks popped to celebrate the end of the thesis journey for the sociology senior seminar class of 2010 on Tuesday 14 December.  It was one day before manuscripts were due -- making these smiles all the more amazing.  Not a drop of "one-day-to-go anxiety" in the house!

L to R Kerri Thorp, Dawn Liu, Charli Prete, Lili Mano, Dan Ryan, Meredith Wensel,
Melody Sage, Erika Honan.  Back: Sarah Martin, Kali Berg, Ariunaa Thomas

After champagne, (no real pain for this crowd), crostini, pizza, and salad it was time to blow out a symbolic candle on a cake that featured a very real Hayward fault running right through the middle. Consensus was reached that this crack in the cake was symbolic of absolutely nothing.  The titles and abstracts of theses submitted so far appear below.  Congrats to members of the class of 2011 (and especially to those who are December grads : Kerri! and Melody!).

ASA Moves Annual Meeting from Chicago to Who Knows Where

This just in from ASA.  Note that the theme of this year's annual meeting is "Conflict: Multiple Dimensions and Arenas."  A change in location might make it easier for some of you to attend.

An Interesting Web Book "App"

What reminds you of what?  When one reads -- or hears about -- a book, one almost unconsciously make connections -- this book is a little bit like that book.  When you tell someone you are interested in some topic s/he will often say, "well, then you should have a look at ...." 

Now there is a web resource, http://www.librarything.com/, that implements this as a combination of a personal library catalog and a social network.  It allows you, virtually, to surf your own library and connect from books you know to books that are related to it.

When I played around with it looking for books on the sociology of information I got a bookshelf that nearly mirrored my collection in this area, but with a few titles I was unfamiliar with thrown in:

Holiday Book List

See also: http://mills-soc116.wikidot.com/holiday-book-list-2010

 

Putnam, Robert & David Campbell. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

"In recent controversy over the national motto, In God we trust, Putnam and Campbell see a symptom of profound change in the national character. Using data drawn from two large surveys, the authors plumb these changes. The data show that the tempestuous sixties shook faith in religion and that the seventies and eighties incubated a strong resurgence of devotion. But the two most recent decades add another twist, as young Americans have abandoned the pews in record numbers. Still, despite recent erosion of religious commitment, Americans remain a distinctively devout people" (Amazon).

Tina Seelig, What I Wish I Knew When I Was Twenty: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World. Harper Collins 2009.

Jacket blurb: "Tina Seelig is one of the most creative and inspiring teachers at Stanford. Her book ought to be required reading." — Robert Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule.

Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life by Nicholas Phillipson (Yale 2010, 32.50)

"How the man of feeling became the god of finance." (New Yorker)

Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory by Patrick Wilcken (Penguin 2010, 29.95)

"Antihumanist, polymath, and autodidact." (New Yorker)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacod de Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell (Random House 2010, $26)

"A formidable historical novel" (New Yorker).
"Mitchell’s historical novel about a young Dutchman in Edo-era Japan is an achingly romantic story of forbidden love and something of an adventurous rescue tale" (NYT).

Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet by Ian F. McNeely and Lisa Wolverton (Norton 2009, $25.95)

"Jumping through the computer screen" (NYRB)

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande (Metropolitan Books 2009, $26 (paper coming 1/11).

A small book about a small but powerful idea: organizational (and individual) performance can be markedly improved with the mundane device called a "check list." Much of the case material is from medicine (millions of dollars and hundreds of lives saved by consistent following of five steps when doing central line insertions), but the book also takes you into the cockpit of jetliners. Hardback available for as low as $12 and the paperback comes out in January.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Random House 2007, $26).

This book is a few years old but I think it's better than the "sequel" that came out last year. The subtitle tells you what its about — lots of excellent, research based insights into how to make your ideas good ones. A short read with good idea-density. Cheaper than list on Amazon and as low as $10 used/paper.

40: A Doonesbury Retrospectiveby by G.B. Trudeau (Andrews McMeel 2010, $100.00).

A review byGarry Wills in the November 25, 2010 NYRB : "Outstripping the News".

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. By Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House 2010, $30.)

"This consummate account of the exodus of blacks from the South between 1915 and 1970 explores parallels with earlier European immigration" (NYT).

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. (Crown 2010, $26.)

"Skloot untangles the ethical issues in the case of a woman who unknowingly donated cancer cells that have been the basis for a vast amount of research" (NYT).
The moral conundrums posed by wikileaks might make this book about bad acts for good causes a timely read. AMERICAN SUBVERSIVE. By David Goodwillie. (Scribner, $25.) "A bombing unites a blogger and a beautiful eco-terrorist in this literary thriller, an exploration of what motivates radicalism in an age of disillusion" (NYT).

James T. Fisher, On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York. (Cornell U. Press, 2010)

"For anyone who has ever been moved by Marlon Brando delivering the immortal line, 'I coulda been a contender,' this book is a must. Through state-of-the-art research, James T. Fisher recreates the tough, corrupt universe of the waterfront, a huge commercial and criminal bounty where careers were built, noses broken, dissenters murdered, riches gained and lostand it all became the basis for one of the most cherished American movies of all time. On the Irish Waterfront is a major act of historical restoration and a fascinating yarn told by a skilled literary maestro." T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author of Paddy Whacked, The Westies, and Havana Nocturne.

William Issel, For Both Cross and Flag: Catholic Action, Anti-Catholicism, and National Security Politics in World War II San Francisco (Temple U. Press, 2010).

"Issel's splendid book… is a sad and tragic tale…. [that] illustrates the wisdom of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus, who said, 'In war the first casualty is truth.'"
—Charles Fracchia, The Institute for Historical Study Newsletter
Issel recounts the civil right abuses suffered by Sylvester Andriano, an Italian American Catholic civil leader whose religious and political activism in San Francisco provoked an Anti-Catholic campaign against him. … Issel presents a cast of characters that includes archbishops, radicals, the Kremlin, J. Edgar Hoover, and more to examine the significant role faith-based political activism played in the political culture that violated Andriano's constitutional rights. … interesting implications for contemporary events and issues relating to urban politics, ethnic groups, and religion in a time of war" (Amazon).
Kindle edition: http://www.amazon.com/Both-Cross-Flag-Anti-Catholicism-ebook/dp/B0030EH8K8

A New Human by Morwood and Van Oosterzee (Left Coast, 2009)

"In October 2004, a team of Australian and Indonesian anthropologists led by Mike Morwood and Raden Pandji Soejono stunned the world with their announcement of the discovery of the first example of a new species of human, Homo floresiensis, which they nicknamed the "Hobbit." This was no creation of Tolkien's fantasy, however, but a tool-using, fire-making, cooperatively hunting person. The more Morwood and his colleagues revealed about the find, the more astonishing it became: standing only three feet tall with brains a little larger than a can of cola, the Hobbits forced anthropologists and everyone to reconsider what it means to be human." (Amazon)

The Hobbit Trap: How New Species Are Invented by Maciej Henneberg, Robert B Eckhardt, John Schofield, and Phillip Vallentine Tobias (Left Coast, 2010)

"When scientists found the remains of a tiny hominid on an Indonesian in 2004, they claimed they found a totally new species of human ancestor (homo floresiensis), and called it a Hobbit. Film crews rolled in and the little creature took the world by storm, but a group of prominent scientists, including Maciej Henneberg and Robert Eckhardt, smelled a rat" ( Amazon).

The Bone Readers: Science and Politics in Human Origins Research by Claudio Tuniz, Richard Gillespie, and Cheryl Jones (Left Coast)

Deals with the political and academic fights over human origins research more generally. Just won a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book Award.
“This excellent book not only clearly presents the science behind research on human origins, but also the personalities and the politics.” –Professor Chris Stringer FRS, The Natural History Museum, London

Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America by Jonathan Rauch (Holt Paperbacks 2004)

"Marriage, when it's right (and usually when it's wrong), is a subject that stirs strong feelings. Gay marriage inspires its own set of passions, with opponents decrying it as a step that will undermine the very fabric of society while supporters posit it as an inevitable next stage in step-by-step acceptance of homosexuality by mainstream America. Appearing as the issue heats ups following President George W. Bush's call for a constitutional amendment that would block the gathering tide of gay nuptials, this polemic by Atlantic Monthly/National Journal writer Jonathan Rauch deftly walks a fine line, both personalizing the subject (Rauch is a gay man with a longtime lover and a lifelong wistful attitude about marriage) and addressing it with an intellectual poise informed by historical and philosophical perspectives" (Amazon)

"Mommy Penalty" Varies by Profession

Business
Economix: M.B.A.’s Have Biggest ‘Mommy Penalty,’ Doctors the Smallest
By By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: December 6, 2010
Among highly educated women who take time off from their careers to raise their children, women with M.B.A.’s suffer the largest percentage “mommy penalty,” while those with medical degrees suffer the lowest proportionate loss, with female Ph.D.’s and lawyers falling somewhere in between.
[more...]

Social Science Palooza

From the opinion page of the New York Times a hymn to the social sciences by DAVID BROOKS December 6, 2010. Although Brooks is pigeon-holed as "the conservative commentator," his ideas cover a wide spectrum and he stands out as a champion of the use of all manner of social science to inform policy debates. This piece is worth quoting in full. The journalist he mentions at the start writes for the Ideas column in the Boston Globe. See, for example, this 2008 column, "Surprising insights from the social sciences: Bullying, choosing a double major, and a mystery in the bathtub."

PhD Studies in New Zealand : Digital Media, Culture+Context and Industrial Design

CALL FOR PHD APPLICATIONS

The Design Research Innovation Lab at Victoria University of Wellington's (NZ) School of Design is pleased to announce we are currently accepting applications for students interested in pursuing a PhD in Design. The application deadline is 1 March 2011.

Call for Candidates
 
Victoria University of Wellington's Design Research Innovation Lab invites applications for PhD candidates. Prospective candidates with exceptional creative and analytical skills seeking to study design from philosophical, cultural and practice-led perspectives are encouraged to apply. Potential candidates will be expected to make a substantial contribution to design knowledge, extending current understanding within the discipline and discourse of design research.

The DRIL PhD programme emphasises the advancement of interdisciplinary knowledge and supports practice-led research through its emphasis on creativity as a process of investigation, culminating in an original design composition and a substantial written exegesis critically analysing the methodology, process, and documentation of the final creative composition.

The program has three areas of concentration: Digital Media, Culture+Context and Industrial Design. Our current areas of research focus and expertise include:

• Design-Led Futures for Science, Technology & Energy
• Digital Image Cultures & Digital Media Design
• Historical & Cultural Studies of Design
• Interaction Design & Emotion

DRIL is a dynamic research group driven by the interests and expertise of outstanding research faculty as well as the research projects of participating PhD students. The DRIL programme fosters a vibrant and collaborative interdisciplinary research environment that cultivates respect for different perspectives and emphasises a willingness to explore new and challenging ways of thinking, doing and making. While particular research strands are identified above, innovative collaborations are encouraged and new researchers will be supported through the development of research partnerships both within the University and externally with industry and public organisations. To support a variety of research interests and activities, students have access to excellent facility resources including multimedia computers and software, an electronics lab, woodworking and metal workshops, laser cutters, CNC routers and 3D rapid-prototyping facilities.

Through the Design Research and Innovation Lab students also have the opportunity to actively participate in professional academic life. Our diverse faculty provide collegial mentorship in research activities from reading groups and proposal writing workshops to preparing conference presentations, exhibitions and publications. DRIL also supports the School's research-led teaching efforts, and postgraduate students have the opportunity to deliver design-related courses as part of our Bachelor and Master of Design Innovation programmes. Scholarships and doctoral assistantships are available to exceptional students on a competitive basis, and further funding opportunities may be available through faculty research projects.

We hope that you are inspired to learn more about our programme and faculty (http://www.vuw.ac.nz/design/) and we look forward to hearing from you.

For details on how to apply, please visit: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/fgr/prospective-phds/applying.aspx

For information on scholarships, please visit: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/home/admisenrol/payments/scholarships/

For further information, please contact

Dr Anne Galloway                               
Chair, Research Sub-Committee          
School of Design                               
Victoria University of Wellington              
PO Box 600                                     
Wellington 6140, New Zealand                   
(T) +64 04 463 6230                            
(E) anne.galloway@vuw.ac.nz

Dr Leon Gurevitch
Postgraduate Research Coordinator
School of Design                               
Victoria University of Wellington              
PO Box 600                                     
Wellington 6140, New Zealand
(T) +64 04 463 6207    
(E) leon.gurevitch@vuw.ac.nz
 
Documents required for PhD application

1. A portfolio of creative work demonstrating the breadth of the applicant?s prior experience in design or related creative discipline.
2. A statement of research interests.
3. An example of academic writing.
4. Two referees' reports provided on the correct VUW template, sent by the referee only from a verifiable institutional email address, or as a signed hard copy.
5. Verified transcripts and certificates for each national and/or international degree earned and, if from an EU country, the Diploma Supplement. (International students must also include grade conversion tables.)

Research www.designculturelab.org 

Interesting New Tool from Google for Cleaning Data

Announcing Google Refine 2.0, a power tool for data wranglers

Google acquired Metaweb last July and has release a version of their Freebase Gridworks, an open source software project for cleaning and enhancing entire data sets as Google Refine.


Google Refine is a tool for working with messy data sets, including cleaning up inconsistencies, transforming them from one format into another, and extending them with new data from external web services or other databases. 


The product is used, among other places, in the the data journalism and open government data communities (see. for example, Chicago Tribune, ProPublica and data.gov.uk). To learn more about what you can do with Google Refine 2.0, watch the following screencasts:

Oral History Workshop in February

For those of you with a qualitative or ethnographic bent, this is a great opportunity to top up your skills.

Resource News from the Library at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

Perhaps it's not the right time in the semester to discover new online resources -- or perhaps some intellectually stimulating procrastination fodder is just what the doctor ordered....

This short video, from Tricia, the librarian at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, introduces

• an Online Collection From the BBC Archive: The Gay Rights Movement in the UK
• audio recordings of current U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments (audio of earlier Supreme Court oral arguments is also available online.
• the Internet Archive (awesome resource) has a section on Old Time Radio Shows that might be of interest to those reading about the beginnings of the culture industry.

Click HERE for the video (~3 minutes)

Doctoral Research Opportunity

We invite applications to the Ph.D. Program in Design and Planning in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado for research on some aspect of children or youth and the built or natural environment. Applicants should have a strong interest in the physical environment as a context for behavior, development and intervention. A degree in planning, design or allied discipline is preferred but not required. We welcome applications from countries in the North as well as the South.

Contingent on approval, the program will provide funding, including tuition, to a qualified applicant, who will be expected to work 20 hours per week as a Research Assistant or a Teaching Assistant. Support will continue in subsequent years, pending satisfactory progress through the program.

The successful applicant will be affiliated with and work in the Children, Youth and Environments (CYE) Center for Research and Design. The CYE Center includes faculty from planning, the design professions and cognate areas, as well as about one dozen PhD students from various backgrounds.

For information about the Center and its projects, see:

http://www.cudenver.edu/cye

For more information on the PhD Program and how to apply to it, see:

http://ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/ArchitecturePlanning/ExplorePrograms/phd/Pages/Phd.aspx

February 1, 2011 is the application deadline for Fall 2011 admission.

For more information, contact:

Willem van Vliet-

Director, Children, Youth and Environments Center
College of Architecture and Planning
University of Colorado, CB 314
Boulder, CO 80309-0314
USA

Willem.vanvliet@colorado.edu

Graduate Research Assistantships at NCSU

North Carolina State University - Graduate Program in Sociology

GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIPS STUDYING LOW-INCOME FAMILIES AND
CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Please forward this announcement widely to prospective Master’s or Ph.D. students in Sociology.  We are seeking high quality applicants for up to three graduate research assistantships on a five-year qualitative
research project on low-income families and childhood obesity.  Awards are available beginning in Fall 2011.  Assistantships are for one and possibly multiple years and include stipend, full tuition remission, and fully-paid health insurance. 

Research assistantships are associated with a USDA-funded project on the structural (social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental) factors that contribute to childhood obesity among low-income and
minority populations.  Students will participate in a community-based project that will involve interviewing low-income mothers about their food practices and perceptions and working with community groups to
develop community-driven, culturally-appropriate policy changes that increase food access and address the specific challenges faced by these families.  Students will have the opportunity to be actively involved in
the entire research process.  Students with any combination of the following interests are particularly encouraged to apply:

•       Sociology of food and/or agriculture
•       Environmental sociology
•       Gender
•       Race and ethnicity
•       Social stratification
•       Sociology of family

Please contact Sarah Bowen (sarah_bowen@ncsu.edu) or Sinikka Elliott (sinikka_elliott@ncsu.edu) for more information about the project.

Students and faculty at NC State engage in a broad range of research projects that utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods and take place in both domestic and global settings.   An additional strength of
the program is our faculty’s strong commitment to mentoring graduate students, in teaching and in research.  Faculty strengths include sociology of agriculture and food systems; environmental sociology; race, class, and gender inequality; family and life course; work and the economy; global social change and development; and crime, delinquency, and social control.  Please see our website (http://sociology.chass.ncsu.edu/graduate.php) for more information about the program.   To be considered for an assistantship, applications for graduate study are due by January 1, 2011.

What Social Scientists Do, volume 43, number 17

The following ad is for a post-doc and so none of us is eligible (though projects that need post docs always need research assistants so a little googling could go a long way for soon-to-graduate types), but it gives you another angle on the kinds of things people are doing with sociology (and other social science) degrees in connection with new media.

And note that we are offering a sociology of mass communication this spring!

See the Movie; Assess the Commentator

In today's Times, David Brooks says "The Social Network" is not good sociology, but it is good psychology.  What do you think?

 

Opinion

The Facebook Searchers

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: October 7, 2010

 

“The Social Network” is spot on with its parsing of who wins and loses in our information economy and hypercompetitive meritocracy.

"In 1952, two-thirds of Harvard applicants were admitted. The average verbal SAT score for incoming freshmen was 583. If your father went to Harvard, you had a 90 percent chance of getting in.

 

"Harvard’s president at the time, James Bryant Conant, decided to change that. Harvard could no longer be about birth and WASP breeding, he realized. It had to promote intelligence and merit. Within eight years, the average freshman had a verbal score of 678 and a math score of 695. New sorts of people were going to Harvard — more intellectual and less blue blood. But Conant didn’t want his school to be home to unidimensional brainiacs. He hoped to retain the emphasis on character.  

"In “The Social Network,” the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin imagine that these two Harvards still exist side by side. On top, there is the old WASP Harvard of Mayflower families, regatta blazers and Anglo-Saxon cheekbones. Underneath, there is the largely Jewish and Asian Harvard of brilliant but geeky young strivers.

"This social structure will be familiar to moviegoers. From “Animal House” through “Revenge of the Nerds,” it has provided the basic plotline for most collegiate movies. But as sociology, of course, it’s completely fanciful."  [Read More]
 

The Quantified Self: Meetup tomorrow, Wednesday, October 6, 2010 6:00 PM!

 Some of you sociology/anthropology types might find this "meetup" group dedicated to "the quantified self" interesting.  What they mean by QS is any form of "self-tracking."  It is, at once, the data collection of the future and, in its way, an intriguing manifestation of the protestant ethic.

--Dan

	Meetup Reminder The Bay Area Quantified Self Meetup Group
Your group has a Meetup tomorrow! You still need to RSVP.

What QS Show&Tell #16 (Autodesk Gallery in SF) When Wednesday, October 6, 2010 6:00 PM Who 159 Yes Where Autodesk Gallery One Market Street, 2nd Floor San Francisco CA 94105	159 Self-Quantifiers RSVPed Yes, including… see all
Meetup Description Please join us for yet another interesting, fun night of self-tracking presentations, sharing ideas, and showing tools. This time we will be at the breathtaking Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco, with innovations ranging from 3-D printed gadgets to augmented reality displays for us to responsibly play with. It's an amazing setting - thanks to Carlos Olguin at Autodesk for hosting us! Our theme for the presentations will be location, transportation, consumption, and energy. If you are self-tracking in any way, please come and share your methods and results during the opening workshop, or volunteer to give a talk. We will also be experimenting with a sticky-note board where people with similar interests can find each other - thanks to David Fetherstonhaugh from IDEO for this suggestion! 6 -7:30 pm SOCIAL HOUR AND WORKSHOP: If you have a self-tracking project, gadget, app, or idea you'd like to share or demo, but you don't want to get up and talk about it, the workshop hour is for you. You don't need to have a prepared talk, or permission to show something. Just come and bring what you have. We will have tables and power strips where you can plug in a laptop if you like, but paper is good too. Think: "science fair." With healthy snacks and wine to get the conversation flowing. Just to be clear, we save the talks for personal accounts of self-tracking and self-experimentation, rather than sales/investor pitches. But of course we are also interested in tools! If you are making something useful for self-trackers – software, hardware, web services, or data standards – please demo it in this workshop portion of the Show&Tell. 7:30 pm – 9 pm QS SHOW&TELL TALKS For this meetup, we're excited to have a theme of location, transportation, consumption, and energy. We have some exciting speakers planned, to be announced soon! If you'd like to talk about your project, please let us know in advance so we can discuss your topic and how much time you'll need. Bonus points if your talk includes the use of AutoCAD or other Autodesk software! QS SPONSORS: OUR THANKS TO AUTODESK AND HEALTHTAP An incredible space is generously being provided by Autodesk. Thanks too to HealthTap, our first annual sponsor, for supporting the Quantified Self movement expansion across the country and around the world. Three cheers to them for making our gathering possible! QS SPONSORSHIP - WHAT IT IS We use the sponsor money to pay for professional video recording and healthy refreshments, as well as to fund projects that help the larger QS community. If you or your company are interested in sponsoring Quantified Self, please let us know. See you there!
This Meetup Group is sponsored by Autodesk · CureTogether · HealthTap

Add info@meetup.com to your address book to receive all Meetup emails

To manage your email settings for this group, click here

Meetup, PO Box 4668 #37895 New York, New York 10163-4668

Meetup HQ in NYC is hiring! http://www.meetup.com/jobs/

UCB Colloquium: Mobilizing Inclusion -- TODAY at 2 p.m.

MONDAY September 13th

BLUMER ROOM – 402 BARROWS HALL

2:00-3:30pm

The Berkeley Sociology Colloquium Series FALL 2010 Presents:

 Mobilizing Inclusion: Getting Out the Vote among Low-Propensity Voters

 

Lisa García Bedolla

Graduate School of Education

University of California, Berkeley

 &

 Melissa Michelson

Department of Political Science

Menlo College

Political participation studies have consistently found that socioeconomic status (SES) -- education, occupation, and income -- is the best predictor of voter turnout. Yet, over the past decade hundreds of field experiments have shown that get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, usually a short conversation on a voter's doorstep, changes individual behavior. Given the voter's resources do not change as a result of that conversation, how can we explain why GOTV works? Using a foundation of over 300 field experiments fielded across six electoral cycles, we put forward a cognitive explanation for the power of GOTV. We argue that brief conversation, because it takes the form of a narrative social interaction, changes the voter's cognitive schema. In addition, through their voting practice, these marginalized voters are not only changing their own self-perceptions, but they are also redefining and expanding the American electorate -- what we call "governmentality from below." It is at this intersection between the individual and the social context that the transformative potential of GOTV may be realized.

What's Out There: Grad School in Internet Journalism

The details of this probably make it inappropriate for current students, but it gives you an idea of some alternative paths through grad school that you might not ordinarily hear about.

-- Dan

Jobs with a Sociology Major

The following is not a job for which a BA in sociology would qualify you, but I thought it'd be useful to pass it along to supplement your mental database of sociology related jobs. The field of online content creation is a growing one, and will, I suspect, play a larger and larger role in higher education over time (for better or worse, one can add).

The New Demography of American Motherhood

A recent report, "The New Demography of American Motherhood," by Gretchen Livingston and D’Vera Cohn of the Pew Research Center "examines the changing demographic characteristics of U.S. mothers by comparing women who gave birth in 2008 with those who gave birth in 1990. It is based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau. It also presents results of a nationwide Pew Research Center survey that asked a range of questions about parenthood."

"Among the key findings of this report:

• "Age: Mothers of newborns are older now than their counterparts were two decades ago. In 1990, teens had a higher share of all births (13%) than did women ages 35 and older (9%). In 2008, the reverse was true -- 10% of births were to teens, compared with 14% to women ages 35 and older. Each race and ethnic group had a higher share of mothers of newborns in 2008 who are ages 35 and older, and a lower share who are teens, than in 1990.
• "Marital Status: A record four-in-ten births (41%) were to unmarried women in 2008, including most births to women in their early 20s. In 1990, 28% of births were to unmarried women. The unmarried-mother share of births has increased most sharply for whites and Hispanics, although the highest share is for black women.
• "Race and Ethnicity: White women made up 53% of mothers of newborns in 2008, down from 65% in 1990. The share of births to Hispanic women has grown dramatically, to one-in-four.
• "Education: Most mothers of newborns (54%) had at least some college education in 2006, an increase from 41% in 1990. Among mothers of newborns who were ages 35 and older, 71% had at least some college education.
• "Explaining the Trends: All the trends cited above reflect a complex mix of demographic and behavioral factors. For example, the higher share of college-educated mothers stems both from their rising birth rates and from women's increasing educational attainment. The rise in births to unmarried women reflects both their rising birth rates and the shrinking share of adults who are married.
• "Attitudes about Parenthood: When asked why they decided to have their first (or only) child, the overwhelming majority of parents (87%) answer, 'The joy of having children.' But nearly half (47%) also say, 'There wasn't a reason; it just happened.'"

Read Online Report or download PDF of full report.

Publish Post

How Does "Pay It Forward" Happen?

A little bit of positive social science to start the summer. Below you can watch a lecture given at the meeting of the American Sociological Association, 2008, on the topic of generalized exchange. An example of the nexus of sociology (e.g., Simmel on exchange and gratitude, social control), anthropology (e.g., norms of reciprocity, altruism), and economics (e.g., laboratory experiments using games).

How Pay it Forward Happens? from sslevine on Vimeo.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

What's Hot: Sociology of Surveillance and Security

A part of our ongoing series of "what's out there" posts...

Postdoctoral Fellowship on Surveillance and Security
"Exploring U.S. Department of Homeland Security Fusion Centers."

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

We are seeking a postdoctoral-level scholar for a research project on the social, legal, and technical dimensions of DHS "fusion centers." This project will document and evaluate the information sharing practices of fusion centers, with a focus on variations in data sharing across fusion centers. The primary researchers on this project are Torin Monahan (Vanderbilt University) and Priscilla Regan (George Mason University). This will be a one-year position beginning this summer, with the possibility of renewal for a second year.

Applicants should have familiarity with the field of surveillance studies and possess a Ph.D. in a relevant social science field (e.g., sociology, science and technology studies, criminology, anthropology, communication, political science, or law and society). Applicants must have advanced methodological expertise in interviewing and participant observation, excellent writing skills, and motivation to take initiative to ensure the success of the project. The ideal applicant will have demonstrated experience in related research and a record of publishing research results. The postdoctoral fellow will take the lead on collecting and analyzing data, writing articles and reports, and presenting findings at conferences. Periodic out-of-state travel will be required for data collection.

The beginning salary for this full-time position will be $39,360 (plus health benefits). The fellow will be expected to be in residence in Nashville, Tennessee, for the duration of the position and be an active colleague at Vanderbilt University.


This fellowship is made possible through a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The research will contribute to an international research project called "The New Transparency," which is facilitating multi-national and cross-cultural comparisons of the global security industry.

Torin Monahan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Human & Organizational Development
Associate Professor of Medicine
Vanderbilt University
www.torinmonahan.com
NEW BOOK: Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity

Conference Streaming Live this Thursday

http://politicsofopensource.jitp.net/

The Annual Journal of Information Technology and Politics (JITP) thematic conference JITP 2010 will stream live this Thursday and Friday, May 6 & 7. The live stream is sponsored by Panopto.com and there will be link available at the conference Web site. The full program is online at: http://politicsofopensource.jitp.net/program

Social Life of Methods PhD Studentship

Postgraduate Research Students

Project: The Social Life of Methods

Faculty of Social Sciences, the Open University in Milton Keynes

Start date: 1 October 2010

Ref RD/MB/05

Salary: ?13,290 p.a.

The Department of Sociology invites applications for a University-funded PhD studentship for three years commencing October 2010.

The Social Life of Methods (SLOM) is an interdisciplinary programme of research based in the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). Using theoretical ideas from science and technology studies (STS), anthropology, political economy and cultural sociology, SLOM analyses research methods, not simply as benign ?tools?, but as performative agents of the social and of different kinds of social and cultural change

Applicants are particularly welcome from students who wish to pursue research in any of the following broadly-defined areas:

Methods as Devices, Objects or Technologies
Visual Methods
Methodological Challenges of Digital Data
Methods and Social Transformation/Change

For informal enquiries contact Dr Mark Banks m.o.banks@open.ac.uk. More specific details about research in the Faculty and Department can be found on the Faculty?s website: http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences and the CRESC website; www.cresc.ac.uk.

For detailed information and how to apply go to www3.open.ac.uk/employment and http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/phd, or email socsci-phd-applications@open.ac.uk quoting the reference number RD/MB/05. Closing date: 5pm on 27th May 2010, interviews will be held in Milton Keynes in mid June 2010.

Further particulars are available in large print, disk or audiotape (minicom 01908 654901).

We promote diversity in employment and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

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The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales, and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

PAID Internship at MTC

THE METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION (MTC) 2010 COLLEGE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM IS UNDERWAY 

Application packets must arrive by 4:00 p.m. May 5, 2010.

MTC is sponsoring 13 internships at our Oakland location. The hourly rate is $14.50 - $18.75 students generally work full-time from June through September and may be extended on a part-time basis through December.

The purpose of the program is to provide college students the opportunity to gain professional work experience in the field of Transportation; City/Regional Planning, Planning, Transportation Engineering, Public Policy, Public Administration, Urban Studies, and Public Finance. Students enrolled in closely related fields will be considered. Each position has its own set of requirements, it*s best to review the position you are interested in at http://www.mtc.ca.gov/jobs/college/. 

REQUIREMENTS are: Must be enrolled at least part-time in a four-year undergraduate or graduate level program. Individuals who have already graduated may be considered up to six (6) months after-graduation.

Please direct any interested parties to MTC's website at: 

http://www.mtc.ca.gov/jobs/college/. for detailed job descriptions

and an MTC application.  

Ann Macaulay, PHR

MTC

Human Resources

101-8th St

Oakland, CA  94607

(510) 817-5741

Transborder Membership Politics

BERKELEY SOCIOLOGY COLLOQUIUM SERIES

PLEASE NOTE THE SPECIAL TIME AND PLACE

ROGERS BRUBAKER

UCLA

Transborder Membership Politics 

in Cold War and Post-Cold War 

Germany and Korea

Thursday, 22 April 2010, 4-5:30 p.m.

102 Wurster Hall

This paper addresses transborder membership politics in historical and comparative perspective, examining changing German and Korean policies towards transborder coethnics (German in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and Koreans in Japan and China) during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. "Ethnic Germans" or "overseas Koreans" are often treated as prepolitical, self-subsistent ethnonational entities; and the transborder membership politics of Germany and Korea have been cast as clear exemplars of ethnic nationalism. Yet transborder populations' status as "co-ethnics" or "co-nationals" is not given by the facts of ethnic demography: it is constructed through, contested in, and contingent on representations, claims, and struggles in transborder political fields; and the state is central to these historically specific and variably configured political struggles.

Rogers Brubaker is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.