Sage Sociology

Coauthors Ruth Braunstein and Brad Fulton discuss their article with Richard Wood for the August 2014 issue of American Sociological Review: “The Role of Bridging Cultural Practices in Racially and Socioeconomically Diverse Civic Organizations.”

Abstract: Organizations can benefit from being internally diverse, but they may also face significant challenges arising from such diversity. Potential benefits include increased organizational innovation, legitimacy, and strategic capacity; challenges include threats to organizational stability, efficacy, and survival. In this article, we analyze the dynamics of internal diversity within a field of politically oriented civic organizations. We find that “bridging cultural practices” serve as a key mechanism through which racially and socioeconomically diverse organizations navigate challenges generated by internal differences. Drawing on data from extended ethnographic fieldwork within one local faith-based community organizing coalition, we describe how particular prayer practices are used to bridge differences within group settings marked by diversity. Furthermore, using data from a national study of all faith-based community organizing coalitions in the United States, we find that a coalition’s prayer practices are associated with its objective level of racial and socioeconomic diversity and its subjective perception of challenges arising from such diversity. Our multi-method analysis supports the argument that diverse coalitions use bridging prayer practices to navigate organizational challenges arising from racial and socioeconomic diversity, and we argue that bridging cultural practices may play a similar role within other kinds of diverse organizations.

Article available here.

Posted July 2014

Danny Dorling discusses his paper “Thinking about Class”, with Kath Woodward, Editor of Sociology. Posted July 2014.

Author Giacomo Negro discusses his article with coauthors Fabiana Visentin and Anand Swaminathan, "Resource Partitioning and the Organizational Dynamics of "‘Fringe Banking,’" which appears in the August 2014 issue of American Sociological Review.

Abstract: We examine the emergence and proliferation of payday lenders, fringe businesses that provide small short-term, but high-cost loans. We link the organizational dynamics of these businesses to two trends in consumer lending in the United States: the continuing consolidation of mainstream financial institutions; and the expansion of such institutions in the provision of financial services regarded as similar to payday loans. We explain the coexistence in mature industries of large-scale organizations in the market center and smaller specialists in the periphery by testing and extending the organizational model of resource partitioning. Our focus is on two under-examined aspects of the model: the dynamic underlying the partitioning process, and the conditions under which the market remains partitioned. The empirical analysis covers payday lenders, banks, and credit unions operating in Wisconsin between 1994 and 2008.

Full article available here.

Posted July 2014

Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses the postmodern Marxian theory of class, as a process that he developed with Professor Stephen Resnick. Posted June/July 2014

Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses the Marxian and Neoclassical theories of profit, and Marxian theories of expolitation. Posted June/July 2014

Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses the theory of overdetermination that he developed with Stephen A. Resnick, the concept of theoretical entry points, and the relative merit of different forms of economic analysis (Marxian, Keynesian, Neoclassical). Posted June/July 2014

Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses his last book with the late Stephen A. Resnick, Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian (2012, MIT Press) as well as the postmodern critique of social scientific determinism that he developed during his long collaboration with Professor Resnick. Posted June/July 2014  

Author Leah Ruppanner discusses work-family conflict and more from her article in the May 2014 issue of Work and Occupations, "Blurred Boundaries: Gender and Work-Family Interference in Cross-National Context."

Abstract: Although well theorized at the individual level, previous research has neglected the role of national context in shaping overall levels of nonwork–work and work–nonwork interference. This study fills this gap by examining how a national context of gender empowerment affects the likelihood of experiencing nonwork–work and work–nonwork interference at the individual and national levels. Controlling for individual-level differences in the distribution of job demands and resources, results from our multilevel models indicate that women’s empowerment has significant net gender and parenthood effects on nonwork–work interference. By contrast, gender empowerment equally structures work–nonwork interference for these groups. Our results highlight the need to investigate interference bidirectionally and in a multilevel context.

Article available here.

Posted March 2014.

Author Julie Kmec discusses her article for the February 2014 issue of Work and Occupations, "Not Ideal: The Association Between Working Anything But Full Time and Perceived Unfair Treatment."

Abstract: Ideal-worker norms permeate workplaces, guiding employers’ evaluation of workers and perceptions of workers’ worth. The authors investigate how an ideal-worker norm violation—working anything but full time—affects workers’ perception of unfair treatment. The authors assess gender and parental status differences in the relationship. Analyses using Midlife Development in the United States II data reveal that women who violate the norm when they have children perceive greater unfair treatment than women who violate the norm but do not have children in the study period. Men who work anything but full time do not perceive unfair treatment. The authors’ findings inform efforts to challenge ideal-worker norms.

Article available here.

Posted February 2014.

Author Elizabeth Aura McClintock takes on the trophy wife stereotype in discussing her article for the August 2014 issue of American Sociological Review, “Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?”

Abstract: Scholars have long been interested in exchange and matching (assortative mating) in romantic partner selection. But many analyses of exchange, particularly those that examine beauty and socioeconomic status, fail to control for partners’ tendency to match each other on these traits. Because desirable traits in mates are positively correlated between partners and within individuals, ignoring matching may exaggerate evidence of cross-trait beauty-status exchange. Moreover, many prior analyses assume a gendered exchange in which women trade beauty for men’s status, without testing whether men might use handsomeness to attract higher-status women. Nor have prior analyses fully investigated how the prevalence of beauty-status exchange varies between different types of couples. I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health Romantic Pair Sample, a large (N = 1,507) nationally representative probability sample of dating, cohabiting, and married couples, to investigate how often romantic partners exchange physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status, net of matching on these traits. I find that controlling for matching eliminates nearly all evidence of beauty-status exchange. The discussion focuses on the contexts in which beauty-status exchange is most likely and on implications these results have for market-based and sociobiological theories of partner selection.

Article available here.

Posted June 2014