Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Sociology and Careers






































Careers Beyond Academia

Research institutions and professional organizations are great places to do research and use your skills from sociology while also networking. For example:


ASA has a number of full time positions, see here: https://www.asanet.org/about/asa-staff-directory/
There are a number of positions at the ASA and some are entry level.  I know quite a few people who worked at ASA and then spring-boarded into other positions, for example:
Senior Consultant Training and People Development (DEI), Paradigm
Senior Social Scientist, National Institute of Health
Manager of Community Outreach and Enrollment, For the Love of Children 
Program Officer, National Academies of Science 
 
Here are some videos from the ASA: 

Other Research Institutions:

PEW  https://www.pewresearch.org/about/careers/

Census  https://www.census.gov/about/census-careers.html

Federal - Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Lots of jobs across the country, esp. in D.C.
Search for jobs beyond just "sociology" with key terms like research, analyst, social science,



For Undergraduates with a Sociology major:

the sankey visualization below shows the myriad careers that sociology majors end up in:




  1. Tech Industry Research
  2. Financial Planning
  3. Government Agencies

This is from the American Sociology Association's website:

The 21st century labor market is fast changing, increasingly global and technology-driven, the jobs that you may apply for as a graduate may not even exist yet. To navigate the 21st century means being able to keep up with the changing world.
As society evolves, you as a sociology major will have the tools to critically analyze the world and your place within it.


This page from Huffington Post will help allow you to explore why some students majored in sociology, what skill sets sociology students learn.


Here's a post from Everyday Sociology Blog about majoring in sociology.


Also, for finding jobs in sociology:

This is a link to the ASA page on jobs.  Here is a brief overview of where sociology majors end up after they complete their bachelor's degree.






















Here is a video about careers in sociology, embedded below:





Monday, August 18, 2025

Famous Sociology Majors

Famous sociology majors found at the ASA page here:  
https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-people-who-majored-in-sociology/reference

And from Soc Images, an exploration into the sociology major and athletes here 



Jerry Harkness, Loyola University basketball player and 1963 NCAA Champion and star of the first NCAA D1 team to field 4 black starters. Highlighted on the History Makers page.







LaRue Martin
- Loyola basketball player and #1 draft pick in the 1972 NBA draft. Active in the community, besides his corporate career, Martins's board memberships and civic affiliations have included the City Club of Chicago, YMCA Mentoring Program, the African American Advisory Council of the Cook County State's Attorney's office, the Urban League of N.W. Indiana, M.L.K. Boys and Girls Club of Chicago, The Leverage Network and De La Salle Institute Board of Directors.

Gabby Thomas, 3X gold medal winner and Harvard Grad (Honorable Mention), cites sociology as opening her eyes to health inequity and inspiring her to work with marginalized groups.

https://youtu.be/0ib_9AlsBT8?si=1YKspmbxuYkmJYvh&t=408


Amanda Gorman,
Poet Laureate, Harvard University grad.  Read about her on the Everyday Sociology blog and on the ASA's page.


















Bong Joon Ho, Director and Oscar winner 

Steph Curry, NBA All-Star and Champion, graduate of Davis U. Senior thesis was about advancing gender equity in sports.

Steph used his sociological mindfulness to respond to a 9 year old girl.



Megan Rapinoe, Crystal Dunn, Abby Dahlkemper and Rose Lavelle
from the U.S. Women's Soccer team














 
Michelle Obama, lawyer and First Lady of the United States, read a review of her thesis on the Racism Review website.












Ronald Reagan
, President of the United States










Cory Anthony Booker
, an American politician and United States Senator from New Jersey, in office since 2013. Previously he served as Mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013.


Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary for President Biden 







"Kal Penn" Kalpen Suresh Modi, Actor and White House Liaison for Arts and Humanities under President Obama 





















Mitch Albom, author Tuesdays with Morrie, sports writer









Alexi McCammond, reporter for Axios and MSNBC










Daniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, "Blues Brother," "Ghostbuster" actor, comedian, screenwriter and singer.














Michael Savage, an American radio host, author, activist, nutritionist, and political commentator.






Nina Dobrev
, actress and model, played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother, on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season. Since 2009 she has starred as Elena Gilbert on The CW's supernatural drama, The Vampire Diaries. 








Thomas "Tom" Joyner is an American radio host, host of the nationally syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show


Arne Duncan is an American education administrator who has been United States Secretary of Education since 2009. Duncan previously served as chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools district from 2001-2009




Chante Stonewall
is a Depaul University Women's basketball player, and the 

Big East scholar-athlete of the year, 2020.








Francis Perkins
, from Wikipedia: first female cabinet member for any US President, creator of social security.

Wellington Webb, mayor of Denver
Brett Schundler, mayor of Jersey City
Annette Strauss, former mayor of Dallas
Roy Wilkins, former head of NAACP
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Rev. Ralph Abernathy
Shirley Chisholm, former Congresswoman from NY
Maxine Waters, Congresswoman from LA
Barbara Mikulski, US Senator from Maryland
Tim Holden, Congressman from Pennsylvania
Saul Alinsky, father of community organizing
Saul Bellow, novelist
Emily Balch, 1946 Nobel Peace Prize winner (a social worker and social reformer)
Francis Perkins, social reformer and former Secretary of Labor
Richard Barajas, Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court
Deepika Padukone, Indian film actress and model.


Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Political Change

The system is broken.

American Apocalypse by Rena Steinzor examines the history, motives, and momentum of six powerful groups aligned with the far right: corporations, the Tea Party, the Federalist Society, Fox News, white evangelicals, and militias.

The groups at the center of this inquiry are accused of “waging war” on the US government. Although each group has its own motivations and agenda, they share an alliance with Donald Trump and his “extreme” policies, including a concern about the size and power of the administrative state. While Steinzor notes that there’s no evidence that these groups are colluding, their cumulative impact has the potential to destabilize democracy; taken together, they are “a deconstructive force of awesome power…a constellation of armies fighting along parallel paths.”


People's party

End gerrymandering. 
The book Ratf**cked documents the effort of Republican legislators and political operatives to hack American democracy through an audacious redistricting plan called REDMAP. Since the revolutionary election of Barack Obama, a group of GOP strategists has devised a way to flood state races with a gold rush of dark money, made possible by Citizens United, in order to completely reshape Congress—and our democracy itself. “Sobering and convincing” (New York Review of Books), Ratf**ked shows how this program has radically altered America’s electoral map and created a firewall in the House, insulating the Republican party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. While exhausted voters recover from a grueling presidential election, a new Afterword from the author explores the latest intense efforts by both parties, who are already preparing for the next redistricting cycle in 2020.

Geometry Solves Gerrymandering  printed in the NYT explains how to eliminate or at least regulate gerrymandering by monitoring the relative proximity index (RPI), or how far a map departs from perfect compactness. And the seats-votes curve may also help regulate the gerrymandering.

 

Revise immigration

Tax the rich
top 1% income, increase capital gains, police and punish offshore money
 
Change election finance laws
Limit campaign donations.
Repeal Citizens United.  
End super PACS 
End foreign money 

Mandate ranked choice primaries 

Stop treating corporations as individuals.
Corporations don't vote - they shouldn't get to fund political campaigns or lobby congress.
Corporations don't go to prison - they should be held to higher standards than individuals. 

Make Congress more representative of the people
Limit congressional pay, pension, and healthcare to be more in line what the median American gets - tie pay to the median income? 
Create strict rules about trading stocks
 
 

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Fired up and ready to go!

Saint Ignatius Loyola encouraged his followers in Latin, "Ite inflammate omnia" or, "Go forth, and set the world on fire!"

And so, I like to begin every class with another reference to fire:

"Fired up? Ready to go!"

This is a phrase I like to ask students as they enter my class.  It is a way of both checking in with students and reminding them that they are in my class and I want them to feel fired up about being in class. 

But the phrase is also a fleeting reminder that we all have an influence on our world.  Maybe that influence is just the room we are in, but that influence ripples out.  So that phrase is a reminder to be sociologically mindful.  It is a reminder that we are a participant in society.  Society doesn't just happen to us; we are participants in the process. That awareness is what Michael Schwalbe talks about as "sociological mindfulness." It can change how we think and act and therefore how we influence the world. As President Obama once said,
"One voice can change a room. 
And if it can change a room, it can change a city. 
And if it can change a city it can change a state 
And if it can change a state, it can change a nation 
And if it can change a nation, it can change the world."

(see the whole story by clicking on this link)

Regardless of your political affiliation, I think the sentiment here is true. You can change a room and that can change a much larger group. There's no telling where your influence stops. So, what do you want your voice to be? How do you want to impact the world? Think with sociological mindfulness about the impact you have on the world even if your influence may seem small. 


The last reason why I like to use that phrase is because, as the video shows, even if you are not feeling fired up, after interacting with someone and saying that you are fired up, it just might get you fired up!


Go Forth and Set the World on Fire!

I will often end my classes with this phrase.  Fire is energy.  It spurs a process of change. And, as Fr. Mark Bosco explains in Ite Inflammate Omnia: Setting the World on Fire with Learning published by Medium, 
...just as St. Ignatius wanted everyone to be set afire with passion and zeal for the Kingdom of God, we continually exhort our faculty, students, and alumni to be agents for change in the world, men and women for others.
Whether you are Roman Catholic or Christian or neither, Nithya Vemireddy, a social Hindu, explains that there is much room and benefit for you to embrace the Jesuit values. We can find reverence and appreciation for creation in all things.  We can embrace our agency and awareness of our role in that creation.  We can acknowledge our shared humanity with a desire to affect that humanity with loving nurture.  And education can be our guide to each of these.

I hope that my class can contribute to that sentiment.  

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Meditation 1: Listen for Where the Ringing Ends and the Silence Begins

 


Listen for where the ringing ends and the silence begins.

This will force your mind to tune into the present moment.  Be aware of the moment you are in; do not surrender this present moment to the past or the future. Let this remind you to turn off distractions that pull your attention from being in the moment. 


From Medium
Are you listening?
Do you take the time to simply stop and listen — to yourself?
Our world has so many distractions. Some are important. Most can be a total waste of time and genuinely rob us of who we are meant to be. 

Distractions rob us of our ability to be at our best. Research indicates that silence gives us the space to be creative and think deeply about what matters. And yet, where do we find silence today? And, do we even want to experience silence? Modern studies indicate we do not. Why?
Our brains are constantly seeking dopamine. These distractions can use up all of our time and keep us from knowing what we should spend our limited and precious time on. What is the solution? Silence is our best hope for success.

Silence speaks the international language of reflection. In many ways, it allows us to become more self-aware, to think about profound and trivial matters. Lawrence Durrell, a British author, said, "Does not everything depend on the interpretation of the silence around us?" Most of us have experienced conflict that can arise from a lack of restraint in speech. Are there such faults associated with silence? Gandhi said, "It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart." If you see the wind in its calmness, it has a peaceful and pleasurable quality to it but the same wind once in motion can turn violent in stormy weathers. The same can be said of words.
 
Across disciplines—from neuroscience to psychology to cardiology—there’s growing consensus that noise is a serious threat to our health and cognition. And that silence is something truly vital—particularly for the brain.

“Noises cause stress, especially if we have little or no control over them,” explains Mathias Basner, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in sound processing and rest. “The body will excrete stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that lead to changes in the composition of our blood—and of our blood vessels, which actually have been shown to be stiffer after a single night of noise exposure,” Basner says.


From TED, When Did You Last Take Some Time to Do Nothing?

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

The Social Construction of Adolescence

The Social Construction of Adolescence 

 

EPHEBIPHOBIA:(Ephebiphobia and Fear of Teenagers)
1: ephebiphobia:  a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of teenagers ,  despite the understanding by the phobic individual and reassurance  by others that there is no danger.   
2: ephebiphobia:  a strong fear of, dislike of, or aversion to teenagers. 



Here is a brainstorming activity:

 

Make a timeline of the milestones throughout an average American's life - What are the milestones?  

 

 

BIRTH ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 80

 

Your timeline might include a number of milestones including:

first steps

first words

riding a bike

first day of school

able to stay home alone

PG 13 movies

drivers permit

drivers license

no curfew

legal adult

gambling

voting 

college

alcohol

first job

first home

living alone

marriage

kids

retirement

 

 

Small Group Discussion:

Which milestones are natural and which are social? How do these differ?

When is an American independent?  

What are the most important events that mark adulthood/independence?

 

This exercise shows how society constructs our life course. This especially happens through social institutions of education, economy and criminal justice system. Americans enter the education system largely as a cohort by age. They then move through that system with their peers regardless of physical, academic or mental maturity. This segregation among peers creates generational cultures including shared language, trends, and values.  Patricia Hersch calls this subculture A Tribe Apart in her book by the same name.


Besides school, the economy and criminal justice system add to the segregation of adolescents by regulating their legal rights and responsibilities. 

   

Because adolescence is a social construction, it has been affected differently over time:

         

Education

  • Highschool is taken for granted now, but it was not until the 1930s that a majority of youth enrolled.
  • The idea of high school for all was not until after WWII.
  • The first published use of the word “teenager" was not until a 1941 article in Popular Science.
  • Newsweek cover story September 6, 1954; “Our teenagers are out of control.”
  • 1955 film, Blackboard Jungle, claims teens are savage animals b/c gang leaders have replaced parents.
  • Newsweek publishes a cover story in 1999 called The Secret life of Teens, setting off alarms about teens online creating their own subculture.

Labor

  • for most of America’s history, teens were a vital part of the family economy.
  • now, laws limit the hours and types of work that teens can perform.

Justice System

  • Juvenile Justice System was founded as a product of progressivism (in Chicago 1899). It provided a mixed blessing; protecting youth (avoid prison and hardened criminals) while taking away rights (must give up right to counsel, trial by jury, rules of evidence, right to appeal).
  • By 1974 Federal Law JJDPA discourages Juveniles in prison but demands that those incarcerate are not mixed with adults.
  • 1980s-90s Tough on crime laws allow for lower ages of prosecution as an adult and automatic transfers to adult prison for violent crimes. 


The Obfuscating Age of Independence

The timeline in the exercise at the start of this lesson is useful in examining the difficulty of defining when a person is an independent adult. The age of puberty has been getting lower and now begins on average at 10 for girls and 13 for boys.  But legally you are not considered an adult until age 18. However, more than 60% of Americans will attend college after they turn 18. After college, most students are financially and emotionally still reliant on their families. For example, one third of grads will move back home after college graduation and even those who might have an apartment in the city, might have to share the rent and/or have parents help pay the rent, or pay for a car etc... So, some sociologists have said the age of real independence/adulthood is going up to the late 20s.


Practically from puberty, young people are bombarded with mixed signals about the scope of their rights and the depth of their responsibilities. And most of those mixed signals come from the laws of state and local governments. In most respects, people are considered adults at 18. That’s when they can vote and enter into legal contracts—including the purchase, if not rental, of a car. But a 20-year-old Marine, just back from patrolling the streets of Baghdad, would have to turn 21 before he could join a local police force in most cities in the United States. A 20-year-old college junior, more educated than the average American, cannot buy alcohol or enter a casino. In 10 states, a single 20-year-old cannot legally have sex with a 17-year old. But in nearly every state, a 16-year-old can marry—if they have their parents’ permission. (A handful of states allow girls to marry before boys.)


Despite legally allowing marriage by age 18, the Census illustrates the older age at which Americans are getting married:



Another glaring discrepancy between expectations and reality of independence/adulthood is the criminal justice system. A spike in juvenile violence two decades ago spurred state legislators to adopt the mantra “adult time for adult crimes.” Consequently, in most states, a 10-year-old charged with murder can be tried as an adult. The difficulty in determining the age of responsibility or adulthood is highlighted by a 2009 discussion on the radio program Talk of the Nation called When does responsibility begin? 16, 18 21?

 

For more on the difficulties of determining adulthood:

 

This 2004 article from Contexts magazine about research showing different routes to adulthood depending on one's race, social class and other factors. 

 

This 2016 brief, called Grownups, from Contexts magazine highlights,   

A new paper by Scott Eliason, Jeylan Mortimer, and Mike Vuolo in Social Psychology Quarterly that seeks to better understand individuals’ perceptions of having finally become grownups. 

 

Growing Up is Harder to Do.2 - After the Great Recession (Contexts November 2016 is a nice follow-up, highlighting both how sociology explores the ways that inequality shows up in society and how society is dynamic so follow-up research is necessary.

 


Ruth Benedict and Discontinuous Society
Ruth Benedict, an early sociologist, explained the disconnect between childhood and adulthood by positing that American culture is discontinuous. Americans learn that as kids and teens, they are expected to be irresponsible, submissive and asexual and then as adults they are expected to be the opposite. Benedict wrote about continuous and discontinuous societies in her seminal work, Patterns of Culture.  Benedict said that some societies are continuous citing her own studies of indigenous cultures and Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa.  (The relationship and research of Mead and Benedict are detailed in this 2019 article in the Atlantic.)

 

In contrast to other cultures, Benedict argued that culture in the U.S. is discontinuous because culturally, children have such different/opposing expectations from adults, especially: 

 

    Children              Adults

·      irresponsible         responsible

·      asexual                sexual

·      submissive           dominant

·      dependent            independent

 

Small group discussion:  Think back to the timeline of milestones. What are the ways that Americans are viewed opposite from childhood to adulthood?

 

Kids Up Parents Down is a funny take from Jerry Seinfeld on the discontinuous nature of childhood and adulthood in the U.S.:



 Thomas Hines and The 'Teen Mystique'


More recently, Thomas Hine's book, The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager (2000) examines how society has created teens and how it affects them.  Hines calls the obfuscation of adolescence the "Teen Mystique."

 

You can hear the author discussing his ideas here. 

According to Hine, society in the US has created a mystique around teenagers:

Our beliefs, about teenagers are deeply contradictory: They should be free to become themselves. They need many years of training and study. They know more about the future than adults do. They know hardly anything at all. They ought to know the value of a dollar. They should be protected from the world of work. They are frail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They are sex fiends. They are the death of culture. They are the hope of us all.

 


Rolelessness


Another monograph about the difficulty affecting teens is by the sociologist Stephanie Coontz. In Putting Teen-Parent Conflicts Into Perspective, Coontz explains how society has constructed the idea of being a teenager as a roleless - not quite a child but also not allowed to be an independent adult. The idea of a teenager has only been around since the 1940s.  Before that, individuals went more from childhood to adulthood very quickly and distinctly.  Now, the process of childhood has a long, drawn-out middle period.  This encompasses the "teenage years" but it also includes what sociologists call "young adulthood."  Sociologists estimate the average age of independence in the United States to be 27.  That is when (on average) individuals can be self-sustaining financially and emotionally and socially enough to have a family and residence of their own.  So this leaves a long middle period between the age of puberty (10) and independence (27).  And throughout that time, there are many mixed messages being given to young adults.  This results in "rolelessness," or a feeling of not knowing what is expected of you during those years.  One example was the lack of meaningful work.  Teens generally have jobs that society deems as unworthy or meaningless.  This can leave teens feeling like they don't matter.  

 

 

Rise of Social Media, Digital Devices and Gen Z

The rise of social media and it's ubiquitous availability on personal devices has created new dynamics affecting the rolelessness of adolescence. Sources that might be useful:

  • Jean M. Twenge – iGen (2017), "Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood"
    • One of the most widely cited works on Gen Z, it uses large-scale survey data to show how smartphones and digital life have shaped values, behavior, and mental health.
  • Corey Seemiller & Meghan Grace – Generation Z Goes to College (2016) & Generation Z Leads (2018)
    • Firsthand research on Gen Z’s expectations in higher ed, leadership, and civic engagement.
  • Sherry Turkle – Reclaiming Conversation (2015) & Alone Together (2011)
    • Turkle’s work isn't Gen Z-specific but powerfully explores how technology affects relationships and self-concept—key for understanding digital natives.

 

PEW and Gen Z


One way of understanding the next generation of adults is staying in tune with their beliefs and values. The PEW offers regular monitoring of their opinions on a wide range of topics.  Here is a link to the PEW's site for Generations, Age and Politics:


Gen Z is actively reshaping social norms—deprioritizing alcohol, reprioritizing mental and physical well‑being, and redefining dating and intimacy through more mindful, sober, and friendship-led frameworks. These shifts are likely to influence broader cultural norms for years to come.

Gen Z and Dating

Dating is being redefined: Young adults are stepping back from both traditional dating and casual hookups. Instead, they favor friendship-first connections and intentional intimacy, often without alcohol. 

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS)
Data-driven pieces on declining sexual activity among young adults:
https://ifstudies.org/blog/why-are-young-adults-having-less-sex

CDC: Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)
Tracks trends in teen and young adult sexual activity: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/

American Psychological Association (APA)
Articles on loneliness, hookup culture, and young adult relationships:
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2023

New York Post, July 2025
“Gen Z singles giving up on dating” – based on recent surveys:
https://nypost.com/2025/07/12/lifestyle/poll-finds-gen-z-singles-are-giving-up-on-dating 
 
Gen Z and Alcohol

Sober/Health-focused lifestyles: Wellness and mental health are guiding behaviors. The sober-curious trend is real, with meaningful decline in drinking tied to seeking more present, purposeful experiences.
TIME Magazine (April 2024)
“Why Gen Z is Drinking Less Alcohol” – survey-backed analysis:

Monitoring the Future Survey (University of Michigan, 2024)
Longitudinal data on alcohol and drug use among young adults:

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
National trends in youth/young adult alcohol use:

Attest (2024 Gen Z Alcohol Trends Report)
Consumer research on drinking behaviors and the “sober curious” movement:

Gen Z and Social Life
Digital dependency: Socialization via apps/gaming reduces in-person mingling and bar scenes, reshaping how people connect and date.

McKinsey & Co. (2022–2024 Gen Z Research)
Reports on Gen Z’s values: mental health, wellness, and autonomy:
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/true-gen

Harvard Graduate School of Education (2023)
Study on social withdrawal and digital life among young adults:
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/23/03/young-people-disconnect

Springtide Research Institute (Annual Reports)
Focuses on Gen Z spirituality, loneliness, and independence:
https://www.springtideresearch.org

Cigna Loneliness in America 2025
Includes data on young adult loneliness and independence:https://newsroom.thecignagroup.com/loneliness-in-america