The lynching of African Americans in the U.S. South: A review of sociological and historical perspectives

Research in sociology and history on the lynching of African Americans by White mobs in the U.S. South around 1900 has in recent decades grown and matured into a substantive research area in its own right. This article has four purposes. The first purpose is to review dominant sociological and historical approaches in the lynching literature. One key feature of this literature is its bifurcation into one strand of social scientific sociological lynching research and one strand of culturalist historical lynching research. As a consequence of this bifurcation, the study of lynching long lacked sustained interdisciplinary dialogue between sociology and history. The second purpose of this article is to review recent sociological studies that attempt to bridge the disjuncture between sociological and historical approaches otherwise characterizing lynching scholarship. The third purpose of this article is to review other recent studies moving sociological lynching scholarship beyond dominant approaches and foci, including investigations of averted lynchings and investigations of the individual‐level characteristics that made African Americans more or less vulnerable to White lynch mobs. The last purpose is to suggest how the contributions of lynching research have implications for understanding present‐day racial injustices and inequalities.     

Manipulating diversity: How diversity regimes at US universities can reinforce whiteness

As US universities attempt to accommodate a growing multicultural society, the task of racially diversifying entering cohorts and retaining a racially diverse student demographic has taken on a leading role in recruitment, college admissions, and campus programming. But, we ask, what definitions of racial diversity are fueling these changes and how have existing racial diversity regimes impacted racial/ethnic hierarchies? We analyze two widespread applications of racial diversity—racial diversity as benefit for all and racial diversity as status marker—to illustrate how racial diversity regimes can be manipulated in ways that undermine the contributions of racially/ethnically minoritized groups and reinforce a racial order that privileges Whiteness—particularly when framed around interest convergence. We conclude by discussing the importance of articulating more concrete racial diversity objectives, addressing structural contributors to racial inequity, and measuring diversity outcomes.     

The Legacy of Lynching? An Empirical Replication and Conceptual Extension

Research shows enduring impacts of lynching on a variety of modern outcomes. For instance, Messner, Baller, and Zevenbergen found that lynching is associated with contemporary white-on-black homicide. We propose a model describing how events from the past can have effects on events in the present. Essential to our framework is the notion of social forces of “resistance” that can impede or facilitate the temporal transmission of collective memories. We test “indicators of resistance” that influence the transmission of a collective memory supportive of a “legacy of lynching.” Analyses reveal that the positive and significant association between lynching and white-on-black homicide observed by Messner et al. is attenuated and becomes statistically nonsignificant with the inclusion of these indicators. Our results suggest that the temporal transmission of a racist cultural schema manifested through lynching is more likely where resistance is low. These findings have implications for how researchers can study historical legacies.     

Apps4Africa: A new State Department public diplomacy initiative

In 2010 the U.S. State Department funded an “Apps4Africa” contest to encourage development of socially conscious mobile applications for Africa. The initiative marked a significant departure from traditional public diplomacy efforts to expand diplomatic outreach beyond traditional government-to-government relationships. This case study analyses Apps4Africa to reveal its appropriateness as a model for future efforts and concludes Apps4Africa succeeded primarily because it responded to the changing dynamics of the 21st Century.     

Changing Lives: what is really changing for Scottish social work?

In 2004 the then Scottish Executive launched the 21st Century Social Work Review. The review report, Changing Lives, addressed perceived shortcomings in statutory social work services, claiming to offer a fundamental review of the profession. This paper argues that, rather than offering any significantly new principles or policies, the drift of the Changing Lives process was chiefly to refurnish the discourse in which statutory social work is conducted. Specifically it shifts that discourse away from a long-standing Scottish concern to promote social welfare on a community basis towards an individualised conception of well-being. Central to that process is the Review's advocacy of personalisation of services. It is argued therefore that Changing Lives is best understood as an exercise in the ‘problematics of government’—a reassertion of control by reshaping expectations, rather than a substantive reform of services.     

AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM EFFECTS ON BEHAVIOR: RESULTS FROM THE 21ST CENTURY COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS PROGRAM NATIONAL EVALUATION

This paper presents evidence on after-school programs' effects on behavior from the national evaluation of the U.S. Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program. Findings come from both of the study's components: (1) an elementary school component based on random assignment of 2,308 students in 12 school districts and (2) a middle school component based on a matched comparison design including 4,264 students in 32 districts. Key findings include higher levels of negative behavior for elementary students and some evidence of higher levels of negative behaviors for middle school students . ( JEL I21)     

Layered Sites of Environmental Justice: Considering the Case of Prisons*

A growing body of scholarship highlights the merits of fusing green criminology and environmental justice frameworks to better understand intersections among carceral systems, race- and class-based stratification, and environmental harm. This paper explores how correctional institutions (CIs) with known histories of federal environmental law violations compare against other previously established environmentally harmful facilities and land uses. In this article, we ask: are prisons and other CIs that have violated federal environmental laws located proximate to areas where there is evidence of existing high-pollution facilities? Relatedly, are CIs that have established noncompliant histories with federal environmental laws located in similarly marginalized and disadvantaged communities compared to other traditionally defined sites of environmental injustice and harm? To answer these questions, we utilize data from the EPA's Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database. Our findings provide evidence that, within our sample of facilities that have recorded noncompliance with federal environmental laws, CIs are significantly more likely to be located proximate to Superfund sites than most of the other facility types/land uses and more likely to be located in communities with racially minoritized populations. Our findings have important implications for further research on carceral systems and environmental justice.     

The Evolution of Fathering Research in the 21st Century: Persistent Challenges,New Directions

Since the last decade review of the fathering literature in 2000, scholars across numerous disciplines such as demography, family studies, medicine, nursing, law, psychology, social work, and sociology have continued to produce a steady stream of work on fathering and father–child relationships. This literature is reviewed selectively with a focus on key developments, persistent challenges, and critical directions for future research. Significant developments include greater availability of large and nationally representative datasets to study fathers; expansion and evaluation of U.S. federal policy regarding fathers; thoughtful consideration of conceptualization and measurement of fathers' parenting; growth in research on coparenting, maternal gatekeeping, and fathering; increased attention to issues of diversity in fathering; and awareness of the effects of fathering on men's development. Persistent challenges and critical new directions in fathering research include full and routine inclusion of fathers in research on parenting, improved assessment and appropriate data analysis, adherence to evidence-based portrayals of fathers' roles in children's development, generation and use of scientific evidence to guide policy-making, and sustained attention to diversity and fatherhood. These should be priority areas of focus as fathering research proceeds into the next decades of the 21st century.     

Racial boundary formation at the dawn of Jim Crow: the determinants and effects of black/mulatto occupational differences in the United States, 1880

This article examines variation in the social position of mixed-race populations by exploiting county-level variation in the degree of occupational differentiation between blacks and mulattoes in the 1880 U.S. census. The role of the mixed-race category as either a "buffer class" or a status threat depended on the class composition of whites. Black/mulatto occupational differentiation was greatest where whites had high occupational prestige and thus little to fear from a mulatto group. Furthermore, differentiation increased the risk of lynching where whites had relatively low status and decreased the risk of lynching where whites had relatively high status.     

Developments in gender and U.S. politics: A call for intersectionality

Since “women and politics” scholarship emerged in the 1970s, social, institutional, and theoretical developments have shaped the trajectory of U.S. scholarship in this field. First, the presence of women in formal politics has increased, albeit unevenly across parties and minority groups over time. Simultaneously, the capacity to study “political women” has become supported through institutional mechanisms such as academic journals and communities of practice. Moreover, gender as a critical focus of analysis has been developed and refined. In the literature on women and politics, the shift from studying sex differences to interrogating gendered political institutions is especially salient. This institutional focus, along with recent intersectional studies of gender and politics, increases opportunities for cross‐pollination of sociological and political science perspectives. In this review, I provide a brief history of the U.S. scholarship on gender and politics and map these relevant social, institutional, and theoretical advances. I highlight the value of recent intersectional contributions in this field and make the case for bringing partisanship—an increasingly salient political identity and structure—into intersectional approaches to gender and politics.     

A Profile of Adolescent Health

SUMMARY

As the adolescent population living in this country undergoes dramatic demographic changes in the 21st Century, increasing both in numbers and ethnic/racial diversity, practitioners and policy makers need to understand the prevalence of and trends in adolescent risk-taking behaviors, morbidity and mortality. Significant disparities in health status exist by ethnicity/race and gender in areas including: unintentional injury, violence, mental health, substance use, sexual behavior, and disease prevention. The epidemiological profile can help mobilize communities to address adolescent health issues. Developing effective interventions will require an ecological approach that builds on adolescents' assets and takes into account the contexts in which they live.     

Public relations and community: A persistent covenant

In the 21st Century global public relations professional community, the need for a postmodern reformation is compellingly evident. Most theorizing begins with basic assumptions about the three main social actors for which public relations has been practiced: (1) corporations, (2) nongovernmental and civil society organizations (NGOs and CSOs), and (3) governments. Questions about society itself are rarely examined, but when they do come up, scholars and practitioners tend to assume generally accepted values and mores. Neglected has been a robust criticism of the concepts upon which such paradigms have been built.     

Racially Charged Legislation and Latino Health Disparities: The Case of Arizona's S.B. 1070

Researchers have established that minority groups tend to suffer worse health outcomes compared to their white counterparts, though the specific mechanisms at play are still under investigation. The passing of Arizona's 2010 “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” commonly referred to as “S.B. 1070,” provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of an increasingly racially charged milieu on Latino health. Using the Arizona sample of the 2009–2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we find that the changing social setting around S.B. 1070 is related to poorer Latino self-reported health, but only for those whose primary language is Spanish. Furthermore, serving as control groups, we find no such relationship in other U.S.-Mexico border states that had no analogous legislation (Texas, New Mexico, and California). We expand on stress process theory and group position theory to explain this increase in Arizona's negative health reporting, despite traditional social and economic protective factors.     

Problems and prospects of measurement in the study of culture

What is the role of measurement in the sociology of culture and how can we sort out the complexities that distinguish qualitative from quantitative approaches to this domain? In this article, we compare the issues and concerns of contemporary scholars who work on matters of culture with the writings of a group of scholars who had prepared papers for a special symposium on scientific measurement held at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) back in 1956. We focus on three issues—the recurring need to reinvent measurement (as illustrated by the career of the psychologist S.S. Stevens), the linkage between qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis (as articulated in the writings of the sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld), and the assertion (by philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Peter Caws) that theorizing necessarily precedes measuring. We review a number of important advances in the way that measurement is theorized and implemented in the sociology of culture and we also point to a number of enduring dilemmas and conundrums that continue to occupy researchers in the field today.     

Condoms and Contexts: Profiles of Sexual Risk and Safety Among Young Heterosexually Active Men

Heterosexual men's sexual safety behavior is important to controlling the U.S. epidemic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). While sexual safety is often treated as a single behavior, such as condom use, it can also be conceptualized as resulting from multiple factors. Doing so can help us achieve more nuanced understandings of sexual risk and safety within partner-related contexts. We used latent class analysis with data collected online from 18- to 25-year-old heterosexually active U.S. men (n = 432) to empirically derive a typology of the patterns of sexual safety strategies they employed. Indicators were sexual risk-reduction strategies used in the past year with the most recent female sex partner: condom use, discussing sexual histories, STI testing, agreeing to be monogamous, and discussing birth control. We identified four subgroups: Risk Takers (12%), Condom Reliers (25%), Multistrategists (28%), and Relationship Reliers (35%). Partner-related context factors—number of past-year sex partners, relationship commitment, and sexual concurrency—predicted subgroup membership. Findings support tailoring STI prevention to men's sexual risk-safety subgroups. Interventions should certainly continue to encourage condom use but should also include information on how partner-related context factors and alternate sexual safety strategies can help men reduce risk for themselves and their partners.     

21世纪海上丝绸之路建设与我国沿海城市和港口的发展

"一带一路"计划集中体现了中国政府进一步扩大对外开放、提高对外开放水平的新理念。21世纪海上丝绸之路是"一带一路"的一个重要组成部分。21世纪海上丝绸之路建设将推动我国沿海城市和港口的发展,而沿海城市和港口的发展又将进一步为21世纪海上丝绸之路的延伸奠定坚实的基础。这一过程是双向的,不仅是一个向海外输出商品、资金、技术、服务标准、管理经验,甚至发展模式的过程,同时也是一个继续向海外学习、吸收、提升自我的过程,它体现的是一种海纳百川、对外开放、相互借鉴、互通有无、相互促进、共同发展的精神和文化。     

The power of relationships

The Deliberative Democracy Handbook: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement in the 21st Century, edited by John Gastil and Peter Levine. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2005. 336 pp., $36.00 cloth. Politics Is About Relationship: A Blueprint for the Citizens' Century, by Harold H. Saunders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 242 pp., $35.00 cloth. Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action, by Michael Gecan. New York: Anchor, 2002. 224 pp., $12.00 paper. The Civic Renewal Movement: Community‐Building and Democracy in the United States, by Carmen Sirianni and Lewis A. Friedland. Dayton, Ohio: Kettering Foundation Press, 2005. 260 pp., $9.95 paper.     

Race,Marginalization, and Perceptions of Stress Among Workers Worldwide Post-2020

Research shows that stressful workplace changes in 2020 disproportionately impacted historically marginalized workers. However, we need more information on enduring inequalities of stress post-2020. Thus, drawing from surveys with employees working in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and India (N = 5,242), we use logistic regression to explore how worker identities (race/ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and social class) might matter for stress as measured through respondents' self-assessments of their own feelings of stress (“helplessness”) and states counter to stress (“self-efficacy”). Taking a sociological approach to analyze worker responses to the perceived stress scale (PSS-10), we found that historically marginalized workers (in terms of race, gender, sexual identity, and social class) reported greater feelings of stress (helplessness). However, we also found that employees identifying as racially minoritized at work and employees in India reported high self-efficacy scores on the PSS-10—a surprising relationship given that feelings of self-efficacy have been previously theorized to have an inverse relationship with stress (helplessness). Though based on a convenience sample, our research suggests that historically marginalized workers worldwide are feeling more significant amounts of stress. In addition, our findings may have implications regarding how researchers use the PSS-10 to measure stress across diverse worker groups and international contexts.     

U.S. sociology and the Iraq War

The 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq had profound consequences for the people living in that nation. In this essay, I provide a brief overview of the dramatic changes that transpired in Iraq due to the war. I then move on to highlight the contributions U.S. sociologists have made in studies regarding the conflict, based on a review of articles published from 2003–2016 in ten generalist U.S.‐based journals. My review shows that while U.S. sociology has made significant contributions to further collective knowledge about American aspects of the Iraq War, U.S. sociologists have paid very little attention to the actual impacts of the invasion and occupation on Iraqi social organizations, Iraqi culture, and on the lives of individual Iraqis. I make the case that these historically significant events deserve more scholarly attention than they have been given so far. I further argue that U.S. sociologists have a special responsibility to document, study, and explain the consequences of their government's behavior when it causes extensive harm to people living in another land.     

The Distribution of Air Lead Levels Across U.S. Counties: Implications for the Production of Racial Inequality

This work draws upon previous studies of environmental inequity to investigate the distribution of estimated air lead concentrations across 3,111 U.S. counties. Data for this research come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 1990 Census of Population and Housing: Summary Tape File 3A and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 1990 Cumulative Exposure Project . Findings from OLS and WLS regression suggest that air lead concentrations are associated with county racial composition. Counties with the largest proportion of Black youth under 16 years of age (10th decile=0.09) have nearly 7.9 percent more lead in the air than counties with no Black youth (1st decile=0.00). Counties with the largest proportion of White youth under 16 years of age (10th decile=0.25) have nearly 10.0 percent less lead in the air than counties with the smallest proportion of White youth (1st decile=0.13). These findings persist despite adjustments for urbanization, income, and housing values. This work proposes that the distribution of air lead levels has important implications for the field of sociology and the study of racial inequality.