Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
Sociologists Explore “Emotional Labor” of Black Professionals in the Workplace
BOSTON — Black professionals make extra efforts in the workplace to fulfill what they believe are the expectations of their white colleagues, according to research to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
Sociologists Marlese Durr of Wright State University and her co-author Adia Harvey Wingfield of Georgia State University argue that black professionals engage in two types of “emotional performance” in the workplace: General etiquette and racialized emotion maintenance.
December 17, 2008
Growing Income Gap among U.S. Families Suggests Increasing Economic Insecurity, Threat to Middle Class
WASHINGTON, DC — The incomes of American families with children have become increasingly stratified since 1975, with income inequality increasing two-thirds during a 30-year period, according to findings published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed science journal American Sociological Review.
“The gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is widening for families with children in the United States,” said Bruce Western, the study’s lead author and professor of sociology and director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University. “Inequality for these families has grown faster than the combined rates of inequality for all families and for men’s hourly wages.”
Anthony Greenwald, PhD
IN-PROGRESS MANUSCRIPTS & CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
American fourth- and eighth-grade students made solid achievement gains in math in recent years and in two states showed spectacular progress, an international survey of student achievement released on Tuesday found. Science performance was flat.
Their first observation was that the number of sexual partners an individual claimed did correlate with that individual’s “gender identity”. The more feminine a man, the more masculine a woman, the higher the hit rate with the opposite sex—though women of all gender identities reported fewer partners than men did. (This paradox is normal in such studies. It probably reflects either male boasting or female bashfulness, but though it affects totals it does not seem to affect trends.)
When the relationships between twins were included in the statistical analysis (all genes in common for identical twins; a 50% overlap for the non-identical) the team was able to show that both atypical gender identity and its influence on the number of people of the opposite sex an individual claimed to have seduced were under a significant amount of genetic control. More directly, the study showed that heterosexuals with a homosexual twin tend to have more sexual partners than heterosexuals with a heterosexual twin.
According to the final crunching of the numbers, genes explain 27% of an individual’s gender identity and 59% of the variation in the number of sexual partners that people have. The team also measured the genetic component of sexual orientation and came up with a figure of 47%—more or less the same, therefore, as that from previous studies. The idea that it is having fecund relatives that sustains homosexuality thus looks quite plausible.
American Religious Identification Survey
Principal Investigators
Professor Barry A. Kosmin & Professor Egon Mayer Study Director
Dr. Ariela Keysar
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the dedicated professional collaboration of ICR - International Communications Research Corp. (Media, PA). Our thanks go especially to John DeWolf, Christopher Dinardo, Dale Kulp and their associates, who provided matchless and untiring collegial assistance in all phases of sampling, data collection, and data file preparation, further enhancing the fine reputation for quality research they had established in carrying out the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI) 1990.
This study was made possible by the generous support of the Posen Foundation.
List of Exhibits
1. Self-Described Religious Identification of U.S. Adult Population - 1990 and 2001
2. Household Membership in Church, Temple, Synagogue, or Mosque for Selected Religious Groups
3. Outlook of U.S. Adult Population: Religious or Secular
4. Outlook of U.S. Adult Men and Women: Religious or Secular
5. Outlook of U.S. Adults by Age: Religious or Secular
6. Outlook of Selected Race & Ethnic Groups of U.S. Adults: Religious or Secular
7. Switching In and Out Reported by Adults for Selected Religious Groups: Number of Adults by Current and Prior Religious Identification
8. Marital Status of Adult Population by Selected Religious Group
9. Percentage Divorced or Separated by Selected Religious Groups, 1990-2001
10. Percentage of Mixed Religion Families in Selected Religious Groups
11. Age and Gender Patterns of Selected Religious Groups, 2001
12. Age and Gender Patterns of Selected Religious Groups, 1990
13. Race and Ethnic Patterns Among Selected Religious Groups, 2001
14. Political Party Preference by Selected Religious Group
15. Distribution of Selected Religious Groups by State
Lashkar-e-Taiba (Urdu: لشكرِ طيبه laškar-ĕ ṯaiyyiba, literally Army of the Pure or Righteous, also transliterated as Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba or Lashkar-i-Taiba) is one of the largest and most active Islamic terrorist organizations in South Asia. The group was founded by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed in Afghanistan’s Kunar province in the late 1980s becoming especially active after 1993 and has close ties to Al-Qaeda. The aim of the group is the end of Indian rule in Kashmir and establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia.
Indian and American officials are now reporting that the Mumbai attackers seem to have connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based Islamist organization. Among other analytical clues, over the weekend, one anonymous American official quoted in the Washington Post noted that Lashkar has a known “maritime” capability. I’m not sure how much seaworthiness a group needs to demonstrate in order to be labeled “maritime” terrorists, but I can testify to the existence of Lashkar’s pontoon boat fleet, as I was not too long ago a passenger on that line.
Proposition 209 was passed by referendum in California in 1996. After legal challenges were settled, the proposition went into effect in 1997. The 1998 freshman class within the University of California system was the first to feel the effects of the ban on affirmative action.
Compared to the previous year, the UCLA freshman class of 1998 had 42 percent fewer black students, 33 percent fewer Latino students and 62 percent fewer Native American students.
Once black PhD’s are hired at predominantly white colleges, they appear to encounter the same old racism that generations of earlier African-American scholars faced within white institutions. From 1993 to 2003, the number of African-Americans in tenured faculty positions increased by 20 percent, up from 10,555 to 12,707; however, the percentage of African-American faculty who have been awarded tenure has actually declined, from 40.8 percent in 1993 down to 38.1 percent in 2003. At least 70 percent of all black PhD’s aren’t even employed in full-time jobs. They hold part-time, adjunct and half-time positions, many of which have no pensions or medical benefits.
Jarring statistics about UCLA's freshman class this year testify to Prop 209's devastating impact on diversity in higher education. Only 100 African-Americans enrolled--2 percent of the 4,802 total and twenty-five fewer than last year. Twenty of those 100 were recruited athletes. This year's number is the lowest in more than thirty years--particularly troubling considering that the percentage of African-American applicants who meet minimum requirements to be considered eligible for admission to the University of California system has risen steadily in the past decade. "That is the strongest evidence of an anti-civil rights and anti-equal opportunity measure," says the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
“His answer actually scared me even more,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said. “He said he wants to distribute wealth. And I mean, I’m not trying to make statements here, but, I mean, that’s kind of a socialist viewpoint. You know, I work for that. You know, it’s my discretion who I want to give my money to; it’s not for the government decide that I make a little too much and so I need to share it with other people. That’s not the American Dream.”
That encounter wound up on YouTube and led to appearances on the Fox News Channel, interviews with conservative bloggers and a New York Post editorial, all of whom seized on a small part of Mr. Obama’s long reply. “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Mr. Obama had said.
Understanding Students Who Were ‘Born Digital’
Kids these days! If the technologies students use — and sometimes abuse — add up to an overwhelming jumble for some professors who teach them, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser have written a book that they hope will bridge the generation gap, at least when it comes to an understanding of the different habits, learning styles and ideas about privacy attributed to so-called “digital natives.” Their book, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (Basic Books, 2008), covers a lot of the territory mined at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where Palfrey is a faculty director, and is part of its ongoing Digital Natives project. Palfrey, a professor and vice dean at Harvard Law School and Gasser, a professor of law at the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, and a Berkman fellow, answered questions via e-mail on whether professors should ban Internet from the classroom, the ongoing evolution of libraries, and whether students are learning differently thanks to new technologies.
Circuit Judge John J. Parker led many in the South in interpreting Brown as a charge not to segregate, but not an order to integrate. In 1963 the Court ruled in McNeese v. Board of Education and Goss v. Board of Education in favor of integration, and showed impatience with efforts to end segregation.
By Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
© October 5, 2008
For hospital employees of Sentara Healthcare, it starts with a required one-hour online class each year. The goal: “to deliver respectful care to people with diverse backgrounds,” said Pat Evans, director of recruitment and workforce planning.
BYU research finds less pot use by religious kids
A correlation is also found for tobacco and alcohol, but not for the use of harder drugs
By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Launched: 10/02/2008 11:18:34 AM MDT
Brigham Young University sociologists analyzing survey data about drug use found that teens who are religiously active are half as likely to smoke marijuana or cigarettes or drink alcohol.
The findings, to be published this month in the "Journal of Drug Issues," suggest that kids' participation in religion counteracts the powerful pressure to smoke pot when their friends are getting high.
"After we accounted for family and peer characteristics, and regardless of denomination, there was an independent effect that those who were religious were less likely to do drugs, even when their friends were users," said co-author Stephen Bahr, a professor in BYU's sociology department. "The power of peers is less among youths who are religious, meaning if you are religious, the pressure from peers to use drugs will not have as much effect."
The researchers based their findings on an analysis of two data sets - a national longitudinal study that has tracked more than 13,000 students since the 1990s, and a survey of about 5,000 Utah teens Bahr conducted about a decade ago.
While most sociologists agree that peer pressure is a major determinant in the choices teens make, there has been widespread disagreement about whether religion plays a role in teens' choice not to use drugs. The Bahr study affirms the argument that faith plays a role not just in marijuana use, but also for alcohol and tobacco -
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even when kids' friends are puffing and drinking.
"We found it with heavy drinking, smoking tobacco - across the board, religiosity had a dampening effect both in Utah data, which is what you would expect, but we also found it nationally," said co-author John Hoffman, also a professor of sociology.
But the authors added a few cautionary notes. First, the study does not conclusively draw a causal link between religion and kids' drug choices. Moreover, the religion correlation was weak for heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other hard drugs.
"We tried to look at more illicit drugs, but we didn't find a statistically significant effect, although it pointed in the same direction," Hoffman said. "It could be that once kids get involved in these types of drugs, religiosity doesn't do much for them."
The researchers also found that religious fervor within the community has little effect on teens' drug behavior.
"Previously, it was thought that if someone grew up in a religious community and went to church, then the community's religious strength would make a difference," Bahr said. "We basically found that this was not the case. Individual religiosity is what makes the difference."
bmaffly@sltrib.com
OES Employment and Wages by Occupation
Wage data for all geographical areas have been updated to the first quarter of 2008 by applying the U. S. Department of Labor's Employment Cost Index to the 2006 SOC wage database. The wage data has not been validated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and are not official BLS data series, but LMID feels that the additional information is useful to users of our wage data. The occupational employment estimates are for May 2007.
Income, Expenditures, Poverty, & Wealth
This section presents data on gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), national and personal income, saving and investment, money income, poverty, and national and personal wealth.
The Shift from Dating to Hooking up in College: What Scholars Have Missed
Kathleen A. Bogle 1*
1 La Salle University
Copyright © 2007 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
ABSTRACT
In recent years, research has been building that suggests dating has been replaced by hooking up as the dominant way for heterosexual students to get together on college campuses. Although recent studies have documented the phenomenon of hooking up, there is evidence that this behavior was likely in place long before it was recognized in the literature. Yet, for the past several decades, scholars have continued to examine 'dating' among college students. This calls into question whether scholars missed a fundamental shift in how heterosexual men and women form sexual and romantic relationships on campus. In this paper, I will (i) review the major findings on hooking up, (ii) explain the differences between traditional dating and hooking up, (iii) explore when traditional dating declined and hooking up emerged on the college campus, and (iv) discuss the effect of this shift on the literature.
Many researchers rely on college undergraduates as subjects for studies of human behavior. For Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at LaSalle University who trained her scholarly lens on the students themselves, focusing on that cross-section was part of the design.
When people talk about “hooking up,” they’re referring to a subculture with a complex set of rules and expectations. Not surprisingly, most of what they know about student “hookup” culture comes from alarmist news reports of “risky sex” and the American Pie movies, not serious scholarship. In her new book, Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (New York University Press, 2008), Bogle wields the tools of the sociologist, employing in-depth interviews with students and graduates from two unnamed universities — one a large East Coast public university, the other a smaller Roman Catholic institution in the Northeast — and placing the culture of hooking up in a historical context. She answered questions via e-mail, shedding light on what she calls the “center of college social life.”
Poll shows gap between blacks and whites over racial discrimination
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the nation's birth, Americans have discussed race and avoided it, organized neighborhoods and political movements around it, and used it to divide and hurt people even as relations have improved dramatically since the days of slavery, Reconstruction and legal segregation.
Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.
Youth suicide rate is still high
Note: Example of unintended consequences. Fear of a linkage between anti-depressants and suicide creates a stronger connection.
