The Social Breakdown

By socbreakdown

Society & Culture Education Higher Education

What's The Social Breakdown about?

The sociology podcast nobody wants, but everybody needs! Come join us as we break down the complex social world one topic at a time using our sociological imagination.

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SOC305 - Stereotypes, Preju...

12.04.2019

Stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination-- all words we use interchangeably, and consequently, words we sometimes use incorrectly! This week’s show is the first episode of a two-part series where we untangle these three concepts from each other, and get a better sense ...

The Social Breakdown episodes:

12.04.2019 SOC305 - Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination (pt. 1): "Can I call you 'Mulan'?" Stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination-- all words we use interchangeably, and consequently, words we sometimes use incorrectly! This week’s show is the first episode of a two-part series where we untangle these three concepts from each other, and get a better sense ...
11.20.2019 SOC304 - PhD's Guide to Money in Grad School If you hang around grad students, you’ll discover we love to talk about money. We’re usually grumbling about funding, side gigs, scholarships that we don’t get, and how we wish we had enough money to afford living alone. So in ...
11.06.2019 SOC303 - The "Myth" of Mental Illness Join the SB team as we talk about the “myth of mental illness,” a phrase coined by psychiatrist and medical sociologist, Thomas Szasz. Today we will be comparing the ideas of mental health and illness as “problems with living” to ...
10.23.2019 Breakaway Episode 7 - Monster Artists: When something you love is created by a monster We tackle an interesting dilemma that has come into the spotlight in the wake of the #MeToo movement - what are we supposed to do when we find out that the art we love was created by monster artists? From ...
10.09.2019 SOC302 - Podcasting w/ The Annex (Guest Edition) There’s a few sociology podcasts out there and this week we’re lucky enough to have Dr. Joseph Cohen, host of one of our favorites, The Annex Sociology Podcast, on to talk shop! What inspired him to start The Annex? How ...
09.25.2019 SOC301 - Intro to Sociology of Emotions: Did you cry at Avengers: Endgame? We’re back y’all!! And we’re starting off our third season with a deep dive into the field of the Sociology of Emotions, a relatively young but uber fascinating subfield. What exactly are emotions? How are some emotions more social than ...
05.15.2019 SOC216 - Feminist & Critical Criminology: Problematizing the State (Guest Edition) Feminism has a bad rep, but it’s an important social movement fighting for equality across sex, gender, race in our society. Right on the heels of Alabama and Georgia passing restrictive abortion laws, this week’s episode features a guest expert, ...
05.01.2019 SOC215 - Social Stratification, Capitalism, and Inequality: All the Sad Things This week we’re introducing the alliterative and uber important concept of social stratification: how people are sorted into different hierarchical groups based on the intersections of class, race, gender, wealth, etc. Using the perspectives of Karl Marx and Max Weber, ...
04.17.2019 Breakaway 6 - "JPOP, KPOP, and Boy Bands" A Rant by Dr. Penn Why is J-Pop and K-Pop so globally popular? What’s the difference between American, Japanese, and Korean boybands anyway? K-Pop is known for their perfectly choreographed and intricate dancing with pitch perfect singing; while J-Pop aims to be your boyband next ...
04.03.2019 SOC 214 - Reproductive Politics: The Body as a Site of Political Struggle The team tackles one of the most sensitive topics within current social discussions - reproductive politics. Using Rickie Solinger’s seminal book Reproductive Politics, we discuss how the women’s bodies have become a site of public political struggle, thereby, determining the ...
03.20.2019 SOC213 - Doulas and Midwives and Women's Health, Oh My! (Guest Edition) The Social Breakdown Team is at it again with another really important topic--Women’s Health! On this week’s show Omar and Ellen will be having a discussion with Alexandra, a current University of Hawai’i at Manoa PhD Student, medical sociologist, and ...
03.06.2019 SOC 212 - Our Imagined Communities: Intro to Migration Studies (Guest Edition) This week, we have a guest speaker on to give an introduction to migration studies. This topic has a lot to do with current events such as DACA, The Wall, and various other immigration policies. Tune in to learn more ...
02.20.2019 SOC211 - "It Ain't a Rug!": Edward Said's Orientalism We’re getting theoretical this week and tackling Orientalism, a concept and book by the fantastic Dr. Edward Said. If you’re taking a higher-level soc, anthro, history, or poli sci class, chances are you’re gonna hear “orientalism” thrown around! What is ...
02.06.2019 SOC210 - PhD's Guide to Research Ethics This week, we’re bringing the PhD’s Guide series back to cover research ethics! Nowadays, researchers must carefully balance the potential knowledge a study can collect with the potential harm it may cause to participants of the studies. But that definitely ...
01.30.2019 Intro to Spring Semester Aloha! We’re coming back--we promise! This week we’ve a little update for you on our new set up for Spring semester. Take a quick listen and get your ears ready for next week’s new release.
12.19.2018 SOC209 - Winter Mini-Ep: Gifts for Grad Students It is that time of year! Time to wind down, take a break, and enjoy the holidays. It’s also time for the Social Breakdown Team to collect our thoughts so we can get ready for our return in January. We ...
12.12.2018 SOC208 - Left Handed Devils: The Social Construction of Deviance We’re using our understanding of the three schools of sociological theory to breakdown deviance and crime this week. What is deviance? What is crime? How are they different? How does society create the definitions of what is a deviant behavior ...
12.05.2018 Breakaway 5 - Black Friday and Holiday Shopping Are you Black Friday shopper, like Penn? Or are you ambivalent, like Ellen? This week, the ladies of the Social Breakdown get together for a breakaway episode on the history of Black Friday and the many sociological purposes of holiday ...
11.28.2018 SOC207 - Three Schools of Thought: Conflict Theory, Structural Functionalism, and Symbolic Interactionism We're going back to the basics by introducing the three schools of sociological thought - conflict theory, structural functionalism, and symbolic interactionism. Knowing these is a must for any aspiring sociologist. Join us as we discuss how Marx theorized the ...
11.07.2018 Breakaway Episode 4: Context Collapse This week, we breakdown an interesting phenomenon that occurs often on social media - context collapse - when various segments of your social network (friends, family, acquaintances, employers, and complete strangers) are muddled together into one big audience. How does ...
10.31.2018 SOC206 - Intention vs. Perception: On Human Aggression For our Halloween spooktacular, we present to you an episode on human aggression! AhhHHHH! This week we’re defining what aggression is, how it is different from violence, and where aggression stems from. Is it an innate trait, as Freud believed, ...
10.24.2018 SOC205 - The Matrices of Oppression: An Introduction to Intersectionality We're building off of last week's episode on sex and gender and breaking down the more complex ideas of intersectionality and feminist thought. How do you define intersectionality? What is feminist thought? And how can you apply these concepts to ...
10.17.2018 SOC204 - The Spectrum: An Introduction to Sex and Gender Gender and sex - they appear to be the same thing, but in reality they aren’t! This week we dive into the differences between gender and sex through the lense of sociology using work from Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir ...
10.10.2018 SOC203 - PhD's Guide to Grad School Applications We’re back with another PhD’s Guide on an important and timely topic: the graduate school application process! This week, we’re talking 'bout do’s and do not’s when trying to impress those higher education programs to accept you as a worthy ...
10.03.2018 SOC202 - #FreeTheGenitals: Why Japanese Porn is Blurred Finally, we are answering one of life’s greatest mysteries. Remember the first episode we did? We mentioned a little question: Why the heck is Japanese porn blurred? More specifically, why is genitalia blurred? We tackle this hairy question first with ...
09.26.2018 SOC201 - PhD's Guide to Time Management We are back for year 2, and we’re starting off with some useful tips on time management for the Fall semester. Curious about how to keep up with all of that reading? Interested in some tips to stay on track ...
06.06.2018 SOC131 - How We Do It (Behind the Scenes) For our last show of our 1st academic year, we’re giving you a behind the scenes look into The Social Breakdown. We talk about the podcast’s origins, our recording and editing set up, how we prepare for each episode, and ...
06.01.2018 SOC130 - Obedience, Whaddup? Like all living things, humans are creatures of habit, routine, and-- most importantly-- learned and patterned behavior. So this week, the Social Breakdown team has the interesting task of teasing out difference between the socialized and patterned behaviors of conformity ...
05.23.2018 SOC129 - PhD's Guide to Writing Here we are with another episode in our PhD’s guide series. This time, with the help of Howard Becker's "Writing for Social Scientists", we are discussing how to write, and how to do it well! Of course we cannot discuss ...
05.16.2018 Breakaway Episode 3: Self-Esteem and Race Self-esteem is a major concept in Social Psychology and it is majorly interesting! That’s why Ellen and Omar got together to discuss it this week. With the help of writing from academics Morris Rosenberg and Leonard Pearlin, they talk about ...
05.09.2018 SOC128 - The Dark Web (Part 2): The Good, The Bad, The Ugly We’re back to the deep and dark web! This week we’re looking at the positive (and innocuous) aspects of the dark web. While it may be a place for illicit trade, the dark web is also a space for free ...
05.02.2018 SOC127 - The Dark Web (Part 1): The Good, The Bad, The Ugly The surface web, deep web, and dark web! What are they? What’s the difference? And what are the social implications of having these different areas of the internet? Since these are such hefty questions, we’ve split this topic into two ...
04.25.2018 SOC126 - Medicalizing Behavior: Common or "Abnormal"? Since 2000, which marked the national Human Genome Project (HGP), society has seen a shift in the process of medicalization, and we are here to talk about it! What is “normal” versus “abnormal” child behavior? How has society continued to ...
04.18.2018 SOC125 - Conformity, Whaddup? This week we’re dipping our toes into the field of Social Psychology by exploring the concept of conformity. What is it? What do we risk if we don’t conform? And what are some social structures that influence us into conforming? ...
04.11.2018 Breakaway Episode 2: The Middle Finger This week, Ellen and Penn get together to sociologically discuss one of their favorite gestures in a breakaway episode: The middle finger! Using work by Jack Katz, they explore why we flip the bird, what a “well-flipped” finger looks like, ...
04.04.2018 SOC124 - Life is but a Stage: Goffman and Dramaturgy “Life is a performance!” Have you ever heard that phrase? Well it’s super dramaturgical! Today we explore the work of Erving Goffman, a micro-sociologists who pioneered the notion that we have front stage and back stage performances (aka dramaturgy). Join ...
03.21.2018 SOC123 - Sprannng Break Mini Episode The SB team have been busy giving you new episodes each week, but as most of you are well aware... SPRING BREAK IS HERE! And we need a break. So, this week will be a mini episode where we give ...
03.14.2018 SOC122 - PhD's Guide to Research Methods We continue our PhD’s guide series with a broad overview of sociological research methodology. WAIT! Don't fall asleep! We talk a ton about concepts and theories, but how do sociologists come up with the evidence to back them up? This ...
03.07.2018 SOC121 - X Number of Asians: The Model Minority Myth This week we’re talking about the myths of the model minority. It’s important to break down this myth, because we live in a world of identity politics where we fight over who gets to speak for whom and how we ...
02.28.2018 SOC120 - PhD's Guide to Conferences Conferences… A little awkward, pretty informative, and occasionally monotonous. They’re a fact of life for those of us in academia! This week we delve into what conferences are, why you should attend, some of the main sociology conferences, and most ...
02.21.2018 SOC119 - Mom is the Panopticon: Modern Day Surveillance Triggered by the U.S. congress reauthorizing section 702 of the FISA act, our conversation this week focuses on privacy and surveillance. With the internet, social media, and all of our new technology, do we have privacy anymore? We start the ...
02.14.2018 SOC118 - Love Struck or Love Sick? As SZA likes to croon, “LoOOOovveee, long as we got loovVVEeee.” And that’s this week’s topic! We explore what happens in our brains when we are struck with love, how sociologists like Charles Cooley and Theodore Kemper see love, and ...
02.07.2018 SOC117 - The Forgotten Founding Father: W.E.B. Du Bois Ever wonder where fieldwork, quantitative research, participant observation came from? Or who challenged the notion of the ‘armchair theorist’? In recognizing Black History Month, we pay homage to the often ignored, great modern sociologist, W.E.B. Du Bois. Using the book, ...
01.31.2018 SOC116 - Constructing Race and Black History Month February is Black History Month (BHM), which means… we gotta talk about it! This week we dig into the history behind BHM, talk about the founder of the holiday (the fascinating Dr. Carter Woodson), and tackle the many critiques and ...
01.24.2018 SOC115 - "I Do (Not)": Marriage and Family in the 21st Century We’re baaaack! This week we discuss two major social institutions that are in the midst of serious change: First, the Family! How does sociology look at the family unit? How is the family used as a tool of socialization? What ...
01.03.2018 Breakaway 1: The Infamous N-Word Technically we’re on Winter Vacay, but Ellen and Omar couldn’t wait for the new semester to start up! So, we broke away to have a conversation about the infamous N-word, how it’s used, what it means, and what educators should ...
12.20.2017 SOC114 - Mini-Episode: Winter Vacay is here to stay yay! We've taken a break for the winter holidays but here's a quick check-in from the gang, along with some reading recommendations for those cozy nights!
12.13.2017 SOC113 - Christmas Rituals & Traditions: Mariah Carey VS Chipmunks Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s hard to avoid it. Not only is it a day of celebration for Christian religions, but it has become commercialized and commodified for the sake of consumption and capitalism. Christmas also has a ...
12.06.2017 SOC112 - (Neo)liberalism and its Discontents Looking back at its historical origins, we talk about liberalism and its manifestations in our contemporary world. John Locke--a British philosopher enshrined in American legal and political doctrine--talks a lot about freedom and liberty, but for whom? To what end? ...
11.29.2017 SOC111 - PhD's Guide to the PhD A lot of what we talk on this podcast stem from our status as doctoral students (although Penn is finally a newly certified doctor!), but what exactly is a PhD? The PhD is the highest level of education that people ...

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