Please check out the recent publications by OOW members Benjamin Shestakofsky and Shreeharsh Kelkar. “Making Platforms Work: Relationship Labor and the Management of Publics.” Theory and Society, Online first.

Abstract

How do digital platforms govern their users? Existing studies, with their focus on impersonal and procedural modes of governance, have largely neglected to examine the human labor through which platform companies attempt to elicit the consent of their users. This study describes the relationship labor that is systematically excised from many platforms’ accounts of what they do and missing from much of the scholarship on platform governance. Relationship labor is carried out by agents of platform companies who engage in interpersonal communications with a platform’s users in an effort to align diverse users’ activities and preferences with the company’s interests. The authors draw on ethnographic research conducted at AllDone (a for-profit startup that built an online market for local services) and edX (a non-profit startup that partnered with institutions to offer Massive Open Online Courses). The findings leverage variation in organizational contexts to elaborate the common practices and divergent strategies of relationship labor deployed by each platform. Both platforms relied on relationship workers to engage in account management practices aimed at addressing the particular concerns of individual users through interpersonal communications. Relationship workers in each setting also engaged in community management practices that facilitated contact and collaboration among users in pursuit of shared goals. However, our findings show that the relative frequency of relationship workers’ use of account management and community management practices varies with organizational conditions. This difference in strategies also corresponded to different ways of valuing relationship workers and incorporating them into organizational processes. The article demonstrates how variation in organizational context accounts for divergent strategies for governing user participation in digital platforms and for the particular processes through which governance is accomplished and contested.

Please check out the recent publications by OOW members Patti Giuffre and Gretchen R. Webber. 2020. “‘Be a Gutsy Girl!’: Essentialism in Success-at-Work Books for Women.” Gender Issues, Online First.

Abstract

This article examines how essentialism is depicted in recent popular press “success-at-work” books that are marketed for women. Our qualitative content analysis of fourteen advice books published from 2013 to 2018 identifies the subtle, yet powerful, messages about how men and women supposedly “are” and the depictions of men and women at work. We find a persistent tension in the advice that relies on two types of essentialism in this success discourse: (1) women are deficient, and, simultaneously, (2) women have unique strengths. We argue that these contradictory depictions of essentialism are embedded in the organizational logic of workplaces and bolster gendered ideal worker norms in the new economy. We discuss the implications of these conflicting representations and speculate about their impact and consequences for eradicating gender inequality at work.

Please check out the recent publications by OOW member Teresa A. Sullivan. 2020.  “The U.S. African-American Population Experienced a COVID-19 Double Disadvantage: Unemployment and Illness.”  Pp. 49-58 in Glenn Muschert, Kristen Budd, Michelle Christian, David Lane, and Jason Smith, eds. Social Problems in the Age of COVID-19: Volume 1 – U.S. Perspectives. Bristol: Bristol University Press

Please check out the recent publications by OOW member and past chair Michael Sauder. 2020. “A Sociology of Luck.” Sociological Theory, Online first.

Abstract

Sociology has been curiously silent about the concept of luck. The present article argues that this omission is, in fact, an oversight: An explicit and systematic engagement with luck provides a more accurate portrayal of the social world, opens potentially rich veins of empirical and theoretical inquiry, and offers a compelling alternative for challenging dominant meritocratic frames about inequality and the distribution of rewards. This article develops a framework for studying luck, first by proposing a working definition of luck, examining why sociology has ignored luck in the past, and making the case for the value of including luck in sociology’s conceptual repertoire. The article then demonstrates the fertile research potential of studying luck by identifying a host of research questions and hypotheses pertaining to the social construction of luck, the real effects of luck, and theoretical interventions related to luck. It concludes by highlighting the distinctive contributions sociology can make to the growing interdisciplinary interest in this topic.

Please check out the recent publications by OOW member Carolyn Cummings Perrucci.

Hogan, Richard, and Carolyn Cummings Perrucci. 2020. “Earnings Inequality in 2016 among Anglos, Latinxs, and Blacks.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 42 (3): 363-380.

Abstract

In this article we estimate gross, net, and interactive effects of race, ethnicity, marriage and family status, labor and capital markets, class/occupation and education and employment experience/effort, using the 2017 Current Population Survey, March Supplement. Following the Tilly and Hogan conceptualization of durable inequality and the Hogan and Hogan and Perrucci empirical work on Black and White racial and gender inequality, we update and expand that analysis to include Latinos and Latinas, focusing on the ways in which relations with Anglo men create or sustain distinctive forms of exploitation and opportunity hoarding, concluding that Latinas are truly disadvantaged due to ethnic barriers to educational and employment opportunities and exploitation as unpaid or underpaid labor, at home and at work.

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Perrucci, Carolyn Cummings, and Mangala Subramaniam, and Robert Perrucci, “Gender and Publication in Two Longstanding Sociology Journals, 1960-2010.” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 57 (1): 25-47.

Please join us for a zoom discussion of Erin Hatton’s new book, Coerced: Work Under Threat of Punishment (University of California Press, 2020). 

Adia Harvey Wingfield (Washington University in St. Louis) and Victor Ray (University of Iowa) will share their brilliant takes on the book’s central question: What do incarcerated workers, workfare workers, student athletes, and graduate students have in common? 

Sept. 16, 2020 – 12pm Pacific// 2pm Central// 3pm Eastern (zoom link to follow) 

RSVP by Sept. 1st 

Please check out the recent publication by OOW member Jen Schradie. 2020. The Revolution That Wasn’t: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives. Harvard University Press.

Here is a short description of the book:

How do we make sense of this pendulum swing from digital utopianism of Facebook and Twitter revolutions to dystopianism Russian bots, political hacking, and fake news? The Revolution That Wasn’t: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives (Harvard University Press), is sociologist Jen Schradie’s new book that contextualizes the online political landscape. WIRED Magazine chose The Revolution that Wasn’t as one of its top summer reads, noting, “Schradie explains that, while Black Lives Matter and #MeToo capture headlines, it’s traditionally powerful conservative groups who have used digital tools to create tangible change. Hers may not be the internet culture take you want…but it’s likely the one you need.” Other news outlets, ranging from Newsweek and Vox to The Times Literary Supplement and Le Monde, have recommended the book to its readers. Academic critics have also sung its praises: Dave Karpf noted that the book is “both timely and important. The book offers a robust challenge to some of the bedrock assumptions that have motivated research on digital politics for the past decade or two…It is empirically rigorous, theoretically compelling, and beautifully written. I expect this is a book that will help shape the field for years to come.” Data & Society director danah boyd noted, “The Revolution That Wasn’t reveals the textured reality of contemporary activism, challenging widespread assumptions about technology’s role in social movements. Beautiful storytelling and grounded insights make this book a delightful and important read for anyone who is concerned about politics today.” According to Sidney Tarrow, “A pleasure to read, and packed with vibrant interactions with activists of both types, Schradie’s book will take the study of digital activism to a new level.” And Richard R. John noted in the Washington Monthly, “An “arresting thesis…While Schradie recognizes the quantitative dimension of online engagement, the primary strength of her book lies in her fine-grained ethnographic analysis of the ways in which left-leaning and right-leaning groups did, and did not, take advantage of digital media.” 

Please check out the recent publication by OOW members Andre Nickow and Sanjay Kumar. “Mobilizing for Entitlement: A Randomised Evaluation of a Homestead Land Rights Initiative in Bihar, India.” Journal of Development Studies (2020): 1-25.

Abstract

Across much of India, potentially transformative development programs are hampered by barriers to implementation. A case in point is Bihar, a province of over 100 million inhabitants, where state law guarantees each otherwise landless rural household the right to hold title over a plot of homestead land. Yet most eligible Scheduled Caste (SC) households remain untitled. This article studies a social accountability program that established, trained, and mobilised village-level community-based organisations to assist SC households in obtaining homestead title. The study employs a mixed methods design in which a survey-based field experiment estimates program impact while analysis of data from qualitative fieldwork documents ground-level processes. Results indicate that the program strongly increased land security and access to government entitlements, moderately increased asset ownership and homestead satisfaction, and had a weak positive effect on food security. However, the main impact estimates do not show statistically significant treatment effects on investment in dwellings or homestead -based livelihood activities. The qualitative analysis suggests that a key mechanism by which the program improved entitlement access was enabling target households to circumvent rent-seeking intermediaries. Results contribute to development studies research on social accountability, government service delivery, and land rights.

Please check out the recent publication by OOW members Corey Pech, Elizabeth Klainot-Hess, and Davon Norris. “Part-time by Gender, not Choice: The Gender Gap in Involuntary Part-Time Work,” Sociological Perspectives, Online First.

Abstract

Gender inequality in the labor market is a key focus of stratification research. Increasingly, variation in hours worked separates men and women’s employment experiences. Though women often voluntarily work part-time at higher rates than men, involuntary part-time work is both analytically distinct from voluntary part-time work and leaves workers economically precarious. To date, researchers have not systematically investigated gender disparities in involuntary part-time work in the United States. Utilizing Current Population Survey data, we test for a gender gap in involuntary part-time work and evaluate two potential mechanisms: occupational segregation and penalties for care work. We find that women are much more likely than men to work in involuntary part-time positions. Occupational segregation and a care work penalty partially, but not fully, explain this gap. Findings extend existing theories of gender inequality in the workforce and show how an underresearched dimension of job quality creates gender stratification in the United States.

Please check out the forthcoming publication by OOW member Margaret M. Chin. 2020. Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don’t Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder. New York: NYU Press. 

The book will be released on August 11, 2020. Here is a short description:

A behind-the-scenes examination of Asian Americans in the workplace 

In the classroom, Asian Americans, often singled out as so-called “model minorities,” are expected to be top of the class. Often they are, getting straight As and gaining admission to elite colleges and universities. But the corporate world is a different story. As Margaret M. Chin reveals in this important new book, many Asian Americans get stuck on the corporate ladder, never reaching the top. 

In Stuck, Chin shows that there is a “bamboo ceiling” in the workplace, describing a corporate world where racial and ethnic inequalities prevent upward mobility. Drawing on interviews with second-generation Asian Americans, she examines why they fail to advance as fast or as high as their colleagues, showing how they lose out on leadership positions, executive roles, and entry to the coveted boardroom suite over the course of their careers. An unfair lack of trust from their coworkers, absence of role models, sponsors and mentors, and for women, sexual harassment and prejudice especially born at the intersection of race and gender are only a few of the factors that hold Asian American professionals back. 

Ultimately, Chin sheds light on the experiences of Asian Americans in the workplace, providing insight into and a framework of who is and isn’t granted access into the upper echelons of American society, and why. 

Order online from the NYU Press website. Use promo code STUCK30 at checkout for 30% off and free shipping.