Using the literature in your writing: interpretive notes, not summaries

On By Sarah MosseriIn Teaching, UncategorizedLeave a comment

by Howard Aldrich

At the beginning of my doctoral workshops on academic writing, I start with a simple question: “when you sit down to compose your draft paper, what does the space look like around you? Is it covered with books and journals? Photocopies of papers and articles?” Most students confirm this description, but others say no, it’s just them and their computer. However, when I push them, it turns out that they have multiple files open on their computer, with digital copies of papers and articles ready to be consulted. My response is always the same. I tell them they’ve begun to write too soon. They have skipped the stage where they impose their own interpretations on what they’ve read. They have failed to make the material useful for the narrative structure of their own story.

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Call for Papers: ASA Pre-Conference on New Economy

On By Sarah MosseriIn Calls for Papers, Conferences, Seattle 2016Leave a comment

Please see below for a call for papers for the ASA Economic Sociology Section’s pre-conference on “The New Economy.”

The Economic Sociology Section of the ASA is pleased to announce a one-day conference on The New Economy to be held on August 19, 2016 at the University of Washington, Seattle.

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New Publication: Handbook of the Life Course

On By Sarah MosseriIn Announcements, PublicationsLeave a comment

Shanahan, Michael J., Jeylan T. Mortimer, and Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson (Editors). Handbook of the Life Course, Vol. II. Springer International Publishing Switzerland, 2016 (720 pp.)  

Building on the success of the 2003 Handbook of the Life Course, this second volume identifies future directions for life course research and policy. The introductory essay and the chapters that make up the five sections of this book, show consensus on strategic “next steps” in life course studies. These next steps are explored in detail in each section: Section I, on life course theory, provides fresh perspectives on well-established topics, including cohorts, life stages, and legal and regulatory contexts. It challenges life course scholars to move beyond common individualistic paradigms. Section II highlights changes in major institutional and organizational contexts of the life course. It draws on conceptual advances and recent empirical findings to identify promising avenues for research that illuminate the interplay between structure and agency. It examines trends in family, school, and workplace, as well as contexts that deserve heightened attention, including the military, the criminal justice system, and natural and man-made disaster. The remaining three sections consider advances and suggest strategic opportunities in the study of health and development throughout the life course. They explore methodological innovations, including qualitative and three-generational longitudinal research designs, causal analysis, growth curves, and the study of place. Finally, they show ways to build bridges between life course research and public policy.

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New Interest Group: Sociology of Medical Education

On By Sarah MosseriIn Announcements, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We would like to invite section members whose research is connected to health professions or medical education (training, socialization, or professionalization, broadly defined) to join a new interest group for the Sociology of Medical Education. Our hope is that by bringing this community together, we may forge some possible collaborations and create a space within which we may workshop our scholarship. Please contact Laura Hirshfield (UIC), Barret Michalec (Univ of Delaware), Kelly Underman (UIC) or Alexandra Vinson (Northwestern) for more information. If you would like to be added to the Google group, please contact Kelly Underman at kunder2@uic.edu. 

Call for Papers: Precarious Work ASA Miniconference

On By Sarah MosseriIn Calls for Papers, Seattle 2016, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Precarious Work: Domination and Resistance in the US, China, and the World

Friday 19 August 2016, Seattle, USA

Abstracts due January 31, 2016

http://irle.ucla.edu/events/PrecariousWork.php

Today precarious work presents perhaps the greatest global challenge to worker well-being, and has become a major rallying point for worker mobilization around the world. This conference focuses on analyzing the growth of precarious employment and informal labor, its consequences for workers and their families, the challenges it poses to worker organizing and collective mobilization, and how workers and other social actors are responding to precariousness. We seek to understand the patterns of social and economic domination of labor shaped by the state, capital, gender, class, age, ethnicity, skills, and citizenship, and examine the manifestations of labor resistance and acquiescence in their specific contexts.

The conference is initiated by the American Sociological Association (ASA)’s Labor and Labor Movements Section, the International Sociological Association (ISA)’s Research Committee on Labor Movements (RC44), and the Chinese Sociological Association’s China Association of Work and Labor (CAWL). It builds in part on an ongoing scholarly exchange between the ASA Labor Section and the CAWL. The conference program will focus on the United States and China, but will include a range of global cases and perspectives. Interdisciplinary approaches and innovative research methods are welcomed.

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Tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professor of Sociology position at Florida Atlantic University

On By Sarah MosseriIn Job Postings, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Department of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University invites applications for an appointment at the rank of assistant professor (beginning or advanced) or associate professor. The successful candidate will have a strong research agenda that complements our department’s commitment to critical sociology and broad sociological thinking.   We will consider applicants whose current research is in any field(s) but will prioritize those whose research and/or teaching is connected to the sociology of the environment, technology, aging, life course, health (physical, mental) and/or healthcare.   We encourage applications from those who have the ability to successfully seek external grant support, whether as an individual or collaboratively.

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So You Want to Teach Students about Discrimination at Work? An Active In-class Teaching Exercise Using the Audit Methodology

On By Julie KmecIn Uncategorized6 Comments

by Lindsey Trimble O’Connor and Julie A. Kmec

Undergraduate students have difficulty grasping the concept of discriminatory treatment at work in part because many have not yet had substantial labor market experience but also because so much discrimination at work is subtle or hidden from view.

One way to teach a difficult concept like workplace discrimination is through the use of active learning opportunities—teaching strategies that engage students through the practice of doing sociology.  Active learning opportunities are the gold standard in teaching because they tend to yield positive learning outcomes, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.  Providing these sorts of opportunities is easier said than done, particularly when we teach large, lecture-based or introductory classes.  How can we embed active learning opportunities in these less-than-ideal class formats to help us teach difficult concepts like workplace discrimination?

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Call for papers: Marxist Organization Studies, EGOS 2016, Naples

On By matt vidalIn Calls for Papers, ConferencesLeave a comment

Marxist Organization Studies: Institutional forms of power and their legitimacy

EGOS 2016, Naples

University of Naples Federico II

July 7–9, 2016

 

Call for papers

In 2016, we will build on the success of the six previous EGOS Marxist studies sub-themes in bringing together people who share an interest in drawing on Marx’s ideas to advance organization studies. The organizers of the EGOS 2016 Colloquium have called for papers on the interaction of overt and hidden forms of power, on the legitimacy and illegitimacy of institutions, and how these contours of power shape the process of organizing and organization.

This sub-theme takes up this invitation by providing the space for reflection on the current contributions and future prospects of Marxist-inspired organization studies in examining the operation of power, institutions and organizing in shaping organizational life. With its dual emphasis on human agency (“praxis”) and class struggle on the one hand, and on the role of institutions and deep structures on the other, Marxist work is particularly well placed to contribute to the examination of these phenomena.

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Call for Proposals: Special Issue of the European Journal of Sociology

On By Sarah MosseriIn Calls for ProposalsLeave a comment
The European Journal of Sociology is pleased to invite proposals for a special issue to be published in 2018.

The European Journal of Sociology publishes innovative, empirical and theoretical research articles from every field of sociology. It is open to sociologically informed contributions from anthropologists, economists, historians, lawyers and political scientists. The journal has a special reputation for comparative and historical sociology but is not limited to these fields. It is methodologically open to qualitative and quantitative research. The journal aims to contribute to the diffusion of sociological research from European countries and to enhance interaction between European and non-European sociology.

With their special issue, the editors of the European Journal of Sociology wish to give special in-depth attention to an innovative and important topic of current sociological scholarship.

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