Would You Like Salt with that Sociological Study?

I recently read an opinion article in the local newspaper entitled, “A Grain of Salt with Sociological Studies.” The author and weekly columnist, Dan McLaughlin, argues that we must take sociological studies with a particularly large chunk of salt because, unlike hard scientific experiments, they are at the mercy of the time, place and specific circumstance in which they are conducted. At first, I wanted to dismiss the article entirely. What does this guy know about sociological research? Is he seriously implying that hard scientific experiments shouldn’t be scrutinized for biases and lack of objectivity? Personally, I think he was (which is ludicrous, by the way). The hard sciences are often looked upon as objective and factual, scientists as truth-givers. However, ask any of the hard scientists out there and they will tell you that their data can also be manipulated, that there is always some bias in what is studied, how it is studied, and what is published for the world to read.

So, actually I think our fried, Dan McLaughlin makes an excellent point. Of course we should look at sociological studies with a critical eye. Isn’t that our job as scholars, to not take for granted the information that we are given, what might seem obvious? Isn’t it our job to question? So yes Dan, we should be checking definitions, and methodology and asking about grand inferences made from small studies and about conclusions based on huge data sets.

But in no way does our duty to question sociology make it any less important. Most of us are not scientists in labs, creating drugs to cure diseases, but I argue that we are concerned with saving lives. We are the ones who understand and explain how institutions interact to create a system where some people are far more likely to die earlier because they live in poverty, who are more likely to be imprisoned, who are more likely to commit suicide because of stigma associated with their identities, who are living lives of far poorer quality because of social factors, not any internal condition. We are the ones who can advocate for solutions to fixable social issues, issues that seriously hamper the ability to live long and fulfilling lives for so many people.

I do not claim to know all there is to know about sociology. I am still learning about the discipline that lit a fire under me nearly four years ago. I want to defend it. I want people to see the necessity of sociology. But I must realize its flaws. Like so many other disciplines, sociology is ever changing and growing, adapting to the very thing that it attempts to understand. If it never changed, I wouldn’t even be here writing this—no woman would.  Thus, I am thankful to have read Mr. McLaughlin’s editorial, if only to make me think a little harder about the need for effective critique and inquiry, and why sociology is truly important despite its inability to recreate historical occurrences or rid itself of human bias (something, by the way, that no science can do).

So next time you read a sociological study, any study really, take the time to ask some questions. How did the author collect her/his/their data?  What conclusions did she/he/they make and are they valid based on the data? Why was this study published over others? And even if you don’t read sociological studies, you can still be critical (not negatively critical, but questioning critical) of what you read in the newspaper or watch on TV or hear from your sociologist cousin. Sometimes tough questions start really great, enlightening conversations. 

http://www.post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/657817/A-Grain-Of-Salt-With-Sociological-Studies.html

Semester Recap (not brief)

Wow, 3 posts in 2 days?! Yep. I figured I should try to do a brief (what is brief anyhow?) recap of the semester since I didn't do a very good job of posting once it got busy. And boy, did it get busy.... I remember getting that panicky feeling in mid October.  Any of you who have been involved in college life should know that feeling, the one you usually get around Thanksgiving when you realize there are only a few weeks left in the semester and you have WAY too much stuff to do. Yeah, that happened for me in October. But everything was okay, just like it always is.

So, what was all that stuff I was doing that I was stressing about? Here's a quick list:

• Theory Class, Blogging & Prepping for Oral Exam
• Stats Class
• Human Rights Class & Final Paper
• TAing (Discussion Groups, Grading, Finals Review)
• NSF Fellowship Application
• Youth Activities Project
• Sociology of Education Journal Review
• Department Workshops and others 

*But don't worry, I still had plenty of time to go swing dancing each week and spend many happy hours with cohort and department friends :)

Let me break some of this down for you. Essentially the first year is class-focused. All first years must take Theory in the first semester and Research Methods and Advanced Statistics in the second semester. Many also take Intermediate Stats in the first semester as I did. Additionally, everyone must take a professional development seminar which was a little bit like a Q&A therapy session.

Theory took up most of my time spent on class work. Basically everyday I was doing something theory related----the reading was long and often dense, and the day before class some of us posted blog memos and the rest of us had to comment. So we were literally doing theory all of the time. Realistically, I think theory needs to be intense if you're going to get anything out of it. I was so glad we had those memos once it came down to finals time. For our final we each selected a topic to explore theoretically and then had a 30-45 minute oral exam (more like a conversation) with a professor we also selected. It's funny because in a bunch of other countries, students are doing oral exams all throughout their schooling, but we often don't get to it until we need to defend our prelims or our dissertations and that's a pretty high stakes game. My exam went really well. I was first and I was so nervous, but it actually turned out to be really enjoyable because it was something I am passionate about. I chose to explore sexual assault using 2 case studies, campus rape in the U.S. and rape in the DRC in the midst of the ongoing conflict there. My arguments centered around the ways in which the physical act of sexual assault and the discourse surrounding it is a way of protecting masculinity, and the ways in which the act and the discourse are both forms of violence against the victim (both physical and symbolic). I of course don't have space here to explain it all, so if you have questions or would like to talk more about any of this stuff I would be more than happy to.

The human rights class I took ended up being my favorite. It was on a Friday afternoon, but the discussions were great so it didn't really matter. This class was nice because there was really a variety of perspectives among the 6 of us in the class.  I was only 1 of 2 sociologists there. The other students were from public policy or history. Sometimes it's really nice to talk to non-sociologists.

I am not quite done with TAing; their final is tomorrow and then I will have to calculate grades. Luckily the professor made the final multiple choice so I won't have to actually grade the tests. I thought this semester went pretty well. It was definitely a new experience having to lead my own discussion sections and I hope I get another shot at it before I am done here. It does take up a lot of time though. I think Intro is hard to teach because you try to cover so many topics. Basically you get a week to talk about every topic and sometimes not even that. We only had one full day of lecture about gender---how do you even lecture about gender in one day?! I did that lecture, by the way ;) It was pretty fun and the students participated more than I thought they would. I think the real goal of Intro is getting students to think from a different perspective, to learn how to use their sociological imagination. That's a hard thing to do when you have students from so many different levels and backgrounds. I hardly remember anything from my introduction to sociology class, so that worries me a little bit... Although I do know one student decided to pick up a sociology minor after this course. I really appreciated having time to interact with the students in my discussion sections. Other TAs don't really get that if they are only graders. The few students that I really got to know outside of the classroom setting were really great and seem like they will go on to use sociology in a way that is meaningful.

The Sociology of Education Journal Review (sorry I'm going out of order) was something that took up much less of my time this semester, but I think was more beneficial than some of the other things. For those of you who may not be familiar, it is very important for academics to publish---grad students and faculty prior to tenure. When you want to publish something, you send a manuscript into a peer-reviewed journal like Sociology of Education. Your manuscript is then sent out to a few reviewers (preferably scholars in your field of research who can comment on your work) and then the editor decides to reject, accept or let you revise and resubmit it. Right now the Soc of Ed journal is at Minnesota (wherever the editor is). A bunch of grad students (sociology and education) get together as part of a "review board" to discuss submissions with conflicting reviews (maybe two revise and resubmits and one reject) and help the editor decide what to do with it. It's been really helpful for understanding how the publication process works and how to critically read papers. It's also been kind of encouraging to see the really poor work that some people submit because I know I can do so much better! Overall, it has just been a really casual and enjoyable atmosphere. I will be doing this next semester too.

Another exciting thing I've been doing is helping out with the Youth Activities Project here (that's not the final name, but we haven't come up with anything better). It's the first bigger project I've ever been a part of, consisting of about 4 faculty and 5 graduate students and the idea is big. The project is still in the beginning stages, and I have been playing a very small part so far, but we just received some grant funding so we will be seriously moving forward this summer! The very general gist is that we will be looking at youth participation in various activities in the Twin Cities area, including things like sports, music, various clubs, and much more. We are interested in parental decision making and questions of diversity and inequality related to participation.

I'm going to stop with the specific explaining there. Phew!

Overall, this semester has been great. Super overwhelming and crazy, but great. There is so much I still don't know and sometimes I feel very inadequate, but thinking back to the beginning of the semester and thinking about now, the "not knowing" is subsiding...if only minutely. It's kind of confusing because you get a lot of different messages from people about what your first year should be about. Some people tell you to just get through the first semester. Some people tell you you need to start doing research right away, others tell you the most important thing is to just read widely, to explore new topics the first year. I feel a little behind, or maybe behind isn't the word... It feels like I just came into loving sociology and I really haven't had enough time to learn about it and explore what I want to do and I feel like I have to decide soon where I want my research to go for the rest of my career. I'm also pretty young and I know how much I have changed in the past 4 years, so sometimes I wonder if I haven't had enough time to develop myself to just jump into all this. But I know that if I wasn't in graduate school I probably wouldn't get the exposure to sociology that I am getting. Everyday I have at least one awesome conversation that I wouldn't get to have if I was elsewhere. While I could get a different kind of good experience if I took time to work or do some kind of volunteering, there are so many awesome things going on at the university level that I would be missing.

And for all those worried about my mental health, I have been very social. I have been dancing every week, usually on Wednesdays,  usually with a group of engineers I met here who are ironically all from a college in South Dakota.  I also spend quite a bit of time with members of my cohort in social settings, especially happy hour but not limited to that. My roommate is really awesome. I love her! I feel like I have a lot of support here, both inside and outside of the department. Of course I still feel isolated sometimes, I miss home, I question everything, but that's normal, right? :p

I will be home December 18th- January 8th. I am sooooo excited to be home for Christmas! I can't wait to see everyone! That being said, I always get a little nervous because I know how stressful it is to try to plan things over the holidays and fit everyone in. Whether I follow it or not, my goal is to take a more passive stance this break and try not to stress myself out too much--let the people come to me :)

Well, that's all folks. Semester one of grad school done. That's one semester closer to Dr. Nobles!

A relatively warm walk at night

 Last night was relatively warm (mid to upper 40s) so some friends and I took a walk across the Stone Arch Bridge. It was really foggy.

 This picture is right by the ruins of the old milling industry. It was too dark to capture without using my flash, but I thought it looked cool with the lit up sign above them.

Sociology is Hard.

Sociology is hard. But not in the same way math is hard. Sociology is hard because it makes you question everything you've ever learned, everything you thought was someone's individual problem, every time you ever thought, "that's just the way things are." Sociology doesn't let you live in a happy bubble of equality and optimism because now you're able to see the systems that we (as a society) have created that keep the happy equality bubble from happening. Remember when you're parents kept telling you "life isn't fair" when you complained it wasn't fair that you had to go to bed at 8 o'clock or that you had to apologize for something you didn't think was wrong? Well, they were right. Life isn't fair because we don't all start in the same place; we don't all have the same resources. It's not fair because some groups are elevated above others for no reason other than they are part of that group.  Sociology is hard because in America we're taught that the individual is so important. We learn that we have choices, freedoms, that what we think/need/want matters and that we can succeed if only we put in the individual effort. But sociology says, wait a second. Take a step back. Look at the big picture. You can't just choose to succeed, you can't just choose to be "good," you're not as free as you think you are. You are born into all these interlocking systems and where you start plays a big role in what kind of life you are going to have. You don't have the control you think you did. And that can make a person feel very small and very helpless. And you're allowed to feel depressed about it. I sure do.

But sociology is also invigorating. Lisa Wade (a sociologist), in an AKD induction ceremony speech (see link to the video below), said it's almost like having a "super power." You're finally able to see things that were once invisible. You learn you can question what you thought couldn't be questioned. And this is truly empowering. It's empowering because when we understand that for instance, poverty is not a choice, or that crime is not an individual deficit, or that inequalities between races are disparities that we've constructed, it gives us new ways to think about solutions to our social problems. It means we can change the world if we know how it works and if we do it together. As a sociologist you live within the system, but you are also able to step back and see the system. And that's kind of an awesome feeling.

I am so thankful that I took that Social Inequality class with Dr. Easton my sophomore year of college. Truth be told, I barely remember anything from my Intro class. But I remember leaving Social Inequality feeling SO ANGRY. I felt betrayed by what I had been taught and told up to that point about the way the world works and I felt devastated by the ways in which we (yes, you me and everyone else in the world--past and present) create and reproduce these systems that make us believe some people are worth more than others, that tell us some people deserve less, that make us believe we are in control of our individual lives way more than we actually are. I had to go back and question everything I thought I knew. And I am still questioning those things, especially now that I have started a sociology PhD program. I spend a lot of time thinking about my own social position--white, middle class, able-bodied, female from a very white, small town--and how these things affect the privileges and inequalities I encounter in my life. I am far more aware of these factors as I go about my everyday life.

I spend a lot of time thinking about change and social justice. I think about how I can be a part of that change, how I can help people see what their missing. Again, this has the potential to be extremely depressing and also very empowering, sometimes both at the same time. What I always agree on is, that sociology is and should be in everything we do. We need sociology, not just to understand the world, but to change it. We need it to understand that Ferguson is not an isolated case, and that colorblindness is not particularly useful when institutional and structural racism still exists. We need it to understand that power relations and cultural messages about sex play into the fact that overwhelmingly known victims/survivors of sexual assault are women and perpetrators are men. We need it to realize that when 45 million people are in poverty in the U.S. and the poverty rate for Blacks and Hispanics is  more than double the rate for Whites, it is not a problem of individual choice but structural inequality. We need it to realize how differently we value work, family and carework in the U.S., the only developed country where paid maternity and paternity leave is not guaranteed, compared to our counterparts in the rest of the world. And the list goes on....

What I always come back to though, is how to make other people really see and whether I should try to make people see. Because once you see it, you see it everywhere and I really want others to be able to uncover their eyes and truly question how the world works.

But sociology is hard...

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**If you have time, please watch this video. Lisa Wade discusses how difficult and awesome sociology is. It's about 10 min. 
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/05/07/sociology-is-awesome-an-akd-induction-ceremony-speech/