SAGE Podcast

Author Minjeong Kim discusses her article from the Winter 2013 issue of Contexts, Missing Romance. Sociologist Minjeong Kim analyzes portrayals of Asian American intimacy in television and film. http://ctx.sagepub.com/content/12/1/54.abstract

Gibb Dyer on the effects of spousal involvement on family firm financial performance.

Susan Sprecher at Illinois State University and Stanislav Treger at De Paul University talk about their research on meeting strangers and first impressions.

Dr. Matthew Provencher discusses his article from the April 2013 issue of AJSM, A Prospective Analysis of 179 Type 2 Superior Labrum Anterior and Posterior Repairs: Outcomes and Factors Associated With Success and Failure. Background: There is a paucity of type 2 superior labrum anterior and posterior (SLAP) surgical outcomes with prospective data. Purpose: To prospectively analyze the clinical outcomes of the arthroscopic treatment of type 2 SLAP tears in a young, active patient population, and to determine factors associated with treatment success and failure. http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/03/01/0363546513477363.abstract

Dr. Brett Owens discusses 5 articles from the April 2013 issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine in 5 minutes.

Author Arnout van de Rijt discusses his article from the April 2013 issue of American Sociological Review, Only 15 Minutes? The Social Stratification of Fame in Printed Media. Contemporary scholarship has conceptualized modern fame as an open system in which people continually move in and out of celebrity status. This model stands in stark contrast to the traditional notion in the sociology of stratification that depicts stable hierarchies sustained through classic forces such as social structure and cumulative advantage. We investigate the mobility of fame using a unique data source containing daily records of references to person names in a large corpus of English-language media sources. These data reveal that only at the bottom of the public attention hierarchy do names exhibit fast turnover; at upper tiers, stable coverage persists around a fixed level and rank for decades. Fame exhibits strong continuity even in entertainment, on television, and on blogs, where it has been thought to be most ephemeral. We conclude that once a person's name is decoupled from the initial event that lent it momentary attention, self-reinforcing processes, career structures, and commemorative practices perpetuate fame. http://asr.sagepub.com/content/78/2/266.abstract

A conversation with Dr. Andrew McKeon discussing the state of our understanding of paraneoplastic and non-paraneoplastic syndromes of the central nervous system.

Paula Winke and Susan Gass of Michigan State University talk about rater bias in the assessment of speaking

Author Hana Brown discusses her article from the April 2013 issue of American Sociological Review, Race, Legality, and the Social Policy Consequences of Anti-Immigration Mobilization. With the dramatic rise in the U.S. Hispanic population, scholars have struggled to explain how race affects welfare state development beyond the Black-White divide. This article uses a comparative analysis of welfare reforms in California and Arizona to examine how anti-Hispanic stereotypes affect social policy formation. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and newspaper content analysis, I find that animus toward Hispanics is mobilized through two collective action frames: a legality frame and a racial frame. The legality frame lauds the contributions of documented noncitizens while demonizing illegal immigrants. The racial frame celebrates the moral worth of White citizens and uses explicit racial language to deride Hispanics as undeserving. These subtle differences in racialization and worth attribution create divergent political opportunities for welfare policy. When advocates employ the legality frame, they create openings for rights claims by documented noncitizens. Use of the racial frame, however, dampens cross-racial mobilization and effective claims-making for expansive welfare policies. These findings help to explain why the relationship between race and welfare policy is less predictable for Hispanics than for Blacks. They also reveal surprising ways in which race and immigration affect contemporary politics and political mobilization. http://asr.sagepub.com/content/78/2/290.abstract

Authors Bruce Link and Richard Carpiano discuss their article from the April 2013 issue of American Sociological Review, Can Honorific Awards Give Us Clues about the Connection between Socioeconomic Status and Mortality? Social epidemiologists Marmot and Wilkinson argue that relative deprivation is the dominant mechanism through which socioeconomic status (SES) affects mortality. If such an argument is valid, we would expect to consistently see the influence of relative deprivation in situations where two or more highly qualified and very similar individuals are nominated in a status competition, but only one receives the status boost conferred by winning. We studied mortality experiences of Emmy Award winners, Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, and presidents and vice presidents—comparing each to nominated losers in the same competition. Our findings and results of similar studies fail to show consistent advantages for winners. The association between winning and longevity is sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes nonexistent. We conclude that the critical processes determining the strength and direction of any status effect on longevity are changes in life circumstances that result from winning or losing, rather than the processes that inexorably flow from one's relative position in a status hierarchy. http://asr.sagepub.com/content/78/2/192.abstract

Dr Geoff MacDonald at the University of Toronto discusses his co-authored article on insecure attachment and romantic relationships.

Author April Sutton discusses her article from the January 2013 issue of Sociology of Education, High School Transfer Students and the Transition to College: Timing and the Structure of the School Year. The timing of a high school transfer may shape students' transitions to college through its (mis)alignment with the structure of the school year. A transfer that occurs during the summer interrupts the four-year high school career, whereas a transfer that occurs midyear disrupts both the four-year high school career and the structure of the school year. Using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS), the investigators find that the penalty suffered after the transfer depends on the degree to which students’ high school pathways synchronize with the curricular and extracurricular structure of the school year. Midyear transfer students appear to suffer the greatest postsecondary matriculation penalty. Students who transfer midyear are less likely to attend a four-year college compared with nontransfer and summer transfer students, whereas summer transfer students are less likely to attend a highly selective four-year college compared with their nontransfer counterparts. Curricular and extracurricular disruptions that transfer students experience after their school move explain some, but not all, of the negative associations observed between transferring and the transition to college. Directions for future research and the theoretical and policy implications of the results are discussed. http://soe.sagepub.com/content/86/1/63.abstract

Author Patrick McGrady discusses his article from the January 2013 issue of Sociology of Education, Racial Mismatch in the Classroom: Beyond Black-white Differences. Previous research demonstrates that students taught by teachers of the same race and ethnicity receive more positive behavioral evaluations than students taught by teachers of a different race/ethnicity. Many researchers view these findings as evidence that teachers, mainly white teachers, are racially biased due to preferences stemming from racial stereotypes that depict some groups as more academically oriented than others. Most of this research has been based on comparisons of only black and white students and teachers and does not directly test if other nonwhite students fare better when taught by nonwhite teachers. Analyses of Asian, black, Hispanic, and white 10th graders in the 2002 Education Longitudinal Study confirm that the effects of mismatch often depend on the racial/ethnic statuses of both the teacher and the student, controlling for a variety of school and student characteristics. Among students with white teachers, Asian students are usually viewed more positively than white students, while black students are perceived more negatively. White teachers’ perceptions of Hispanic students do not typically differ from those of white students. Postestimation comparisons of slopes indicate that Asian students benefit (perceptionwise) from having white teachers, but they reveal surprisingly few instances when black students would benefit (again, perceptionwise) from having more nonwhite teachers. http://soe.sagepub.com/content/86/1/3.abstract

Author Brian Boutwell discusses his article from the February 2013 issue of Sexual Abuse, Life-Course Persistent Offenders and the Propensity to Commit Sexual Assault. Moffitt's (1993) developmental theory has garnered an extensive amount of attention from scholars across a range of disciplines, and the results generated from this body of literature have been consistently supportive. Specifically, the segment of the population predicted by Moffitt to be chronically aggressive—called life-course persistent offenders—has been found to account for a disproportionate number of serious crimes. What remains less certain, however, is whether this same group of offenders are also responsible for perpetrating acts of forced sex. The authors examined the tendency for life-course persisters to sexually assault using a nationally representative sample of individuals. Our findings suggest that life-course persisters are disproportionately more likely to be sexually coercive compared to other individuals. http://sax.sagepub.com/content/25/1/69.abstract

Author Leslie Irvine discusses her article from the February 2013 issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Animals as Lifechangers and Lifesavers: Pets in the Redemption Narratives of Homeless People. This paper examines personal narratives in which homeless and formerly homeless people construct their companion animals as having changed or saved their lives. The analysis considers selfhood a narrative accomplishment, the strategic outcome rather than the source of the stories people tell. These particular stories employ the theme of redemption, in which tellers describe overcoming adversity to face a better future, with animals playing key roles. The analysis reveals the narrative elements through which animals become vehicles for redemption. As dependent others, animals encourage a sense of responsibility. As the providers of unconditional love, they reward the fulfillment of responsibility. And as silent witnesses, they keep the tellers from lapsing into risky behavior. Narratives that describe animals in these ways allow for the construction of a positive moral identity. They also indicate that commitment belongs among the recognized languages of redemption and highlight the social embeddedness of autobiographical experience. http://jce.sagepub.com/content/42/1/3.abstract