Category: Opinion

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology / Science & Technology / Sociology of Religion

The Contested Ground of Science, Politics, and Religion

It is no secret that we live in an era of “fake news” and widespread distrust in basic facts. As I have discussed previously on Sociology Lens, this is a distinguishing feature of Trumpism and much of the rhetoric currently surrounding American politics. Just recently, we saw the idea that the election of Joe Biden as the next President was “fake” playing out in deadly ways when Trump-supporting rioters and White supremacists stormed the Capitol on January 6th. Unfortunately, this...

Opinion / Social Identity / Sociology of Culture

“This Year I Will…”: Personal Resolutions and the Near Future

Each January, as the calendar turns to a new year, thoughts turn to personal resolutions. Media outlets promise a “New Year! New You!”—achieved through prescriptive, step-by-step programs or more elusive strategies, such as strengthening one’s willpower. In the popular imagination, resolutions are a means to an end, and that end is an improved version of the self.  Despite their clear connection to temporality and identity projects, sociologists have had surprisingly little to say about resolutions. In my article, “A Year...

Opinion / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Health & Illness / Urban Sociology

The Cost of Pollutants: Environmental Hazards, Racial Residential Segregation, and Health

Racial disparities in health are undoubtedly one of the most significant public health issues of our time. According to the National Institute of Health, racial and ethnic minorities suffer from a higher incidence of a wide range of negative health outcomes than Whites, such as preterm births, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. COVID-19 has been no exception, with people of color being disproportionally affected by the pandemic both in terms of infection rates and deaths. Studies have shown that these...

Opinion / Research Methodologies

A Covid Cry: adjusting, adapting & extending

Last night (11th November) the UKRI announced their latest position on funding extensions for PGRs, and I burst into tears. As I tried to grasp the fine print detail of the UKRI statement, my eyes kept leaking out fear and hopelessness. Will I be one of the lucky ones? Does my end date fit? Have my circumstances been challenging enough? How can I finish this project before the money runs out? What else is going to happen to the people...

Opinion / Sociology of Children

Using arts-based methods to access vulnerable children’s experience: The case of children in the Lesbos refugee camp

The aim of this excerpt is to outline a qualitative arts-based methodology used to understand and to evaluate refugee children’s lived experience of in-detention camp schools. We think that this may be a useful protocol with which to approach additional contexts of children’s lives that are difficult to research using traditional methods due to cultural and context – related challenges. The rights and abilities of children to consult and express their worldview as well as to influence their lives and...

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology

Brexit: the revenge of the left behind?

The outcome of the 2016 EU referendum surprised most commentators. Even after four years, the debate on why 52% of Britons voted in favour of leaving the EU is far from over. The search for the ultimate causes of Brexit has produced a large body of academic work and even infiltrated popular culture. In one HBO production, the outcome of the 2016 EU referendum is portrayed as a success of Dominic Cummings, a canning Leave campaign director (portrayed by Benedict...

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology / Rural Sociology

The Sociologia Ruralis special issue on “Right-wing populism in rural Europe”

Right-wing populism has shaken and stirred the European political landscape. Today, populist parties are no longer confined to the margins: they set the terms of the political debate, fuel societal conflict, and even form governments. Whereas their success is not an exclusively rural phenomenon, it is undeniable that their nationalist, xenophobic, Eurosceptic politics strongly resonate in many corners of the European countryside. The progressive media tends to explain this support away by presenting rural voters as politically unsophisticated, ‘naïve crowds’...

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change

Partisanship in Police Repression

Hundreds of protesters have been arrested since Tuesday’s US election. Almost all of them have been anti-Trump activists engaging in civil disobedience. Nonetheless, the fear of clashes between Trump supporters and opponents in response to the contested US election remains strong.  If these occur, my research suggests that the police will favour Trump supporters. This bias isn’t because police are right wing (although they may well be) but is tied to the features of police organizations and logics and how...

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Election Anxiety and “Fake News” – What Sociologists Can Do

With Election Day looming on November 3rd, the country’s already high levels of stress and anxiety now seem even more amplified. Demonstrably, articles entitled something along the lines of “How to Cope with Election Anxiety” are flooding the Internet. On top of COVID-19, sky-high unemployment rates, and persistent civil unrest in response to injustice, the importance of the upcoming election seems greater – and therefore more anxiety-ridden – than ever. While much of this sense of “doom” is coming from...

Opinion / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Media & Communication

Where are future generations in newspaper coverage of climate change?

Climate change is accelerating – and will impact most on children and those yet to be born.  The failure to halt the relentless rise in global temperatures is an act of intergenerational injustice in which the UK is centrally implicated.  It is among the top national contributors to global fossil fuel emissions and, as the first industrialising country, has made the largest per person contribution to climate change.   While today’s children and tomorrow’s generations will be hardest hit, they...

Opinion / Peace, War & Social Conflict / Race & Ethnicity Studies

This Cannot Be White-washed

This essay introduces the latest issue of City & Community’s Symposium: “Eyes of a Storm: COVID-19, Systemic Racism, and Police Brutality.” I thank Dr. Alyasah Ali Sewell for coming up with the symposium title. There is free online access for the next month at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15406040/2020/19/3. During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, at least 675,000 people were infected in the United States and 500 million worldwide (Barry 2004). However, like today’s COVID-19 Pandemic, the infection rates were not evenly distributed across the...

Opinion / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Health & Illness

Race and Racism in the NHS

I was privileged to host a conversation with Tarek Younis and Andrew Smart as part of the BSA Medical Sociology Group virtual event on 10th September 2020, about their papers, published in Sociology of Health and Illness, and included in the journal’s virtual collection of papers on race and ethnicity. The collection and the conversation at the conference were inspired by recent calls for racial justice, provoked in part by the killing of George Floyd, just one of too many...

Opinion / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

Is ADHD diagnosis flawed? Younger children in a school year group are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD globally

In 2019, I was the lead author of a paper titled Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder late birthdate effect common in both high and low prescribing international jurisdictions: a systematic review. We reviewed 22 studies from 13 countries covering over 15 million children, and found that it is normal for the youngest children in a school-year-group to be diagnosed with and ‘medicated’ for ADHD at a much higher rate than their older classmates. This ADHD late birthdate effect was typically strongest...

Opinion / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Body-worn cameras do not have clear or consistent effects on most officer or citizen behaviors, but more evaluation is needed.

The last decade has been marked by the rapid adoption of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by the police and a growing body of evaluation research on the technology’s effects. Spurred on by high-profile officer-involved shooting incidents and protests, many citizens and community groups have supported the adoption of BWCs, hoping that this technology might deter police misconduct and increase police accountability and transparency as to their uses of force. Police agencies also argue that BWCs can keep citizens accountable, reduce frivolous...

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Health & Illness

Populism, policy and pandemics

Across the globe there has been an upswing in populist right wing political parties in the past decade. This raises a number of particular challenges for the provision of health and social care. For example, witness the cross-country disparities in excess mortalities linked to COVID-19. If we look at countries with right wing populist leaders (e.g. USA, Brazil) compared to other countries (e.g. New Zealand). Much of this difference can be accounted for by the populist rejection of expertise and...

Class & Stratification / Opinion / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Doctors’ Orders – Sociology Lens Q&A

Can you give us some background information about the US medical residency system? The US medical residency system is peculiar in the sense that on any given year, there are consistently fewer prospective American MD medical student (USMD) applicants than there are available positions—by between 25 and 40%. This has been true since the about 1950s. So the country relies on international and osteopathic medical graduates (what I collectively call “non-USMDs”) to fill residency positions in fields like internal medicine,...