“With Whom no White Scholar can Compare”: Academic Interpretations of the Relationship between W.E.B. Du Bois and Max Weber

Max Weber (1864–1920) is considered one of the canonical founders of sociology, while W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), author of The Philadelphia Negro (1899), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and Black Reconstruction (1935), has only recently been included in the sociological canon. We provide a historical review of what we know of their relationship in order to first ask, what did Du Bois say about Weber, and second, what did Weber say about Du Bois? We then analyze the extant scholarly discourse of published English-language academic journal articles that substantively mention both Weber and Du Bois in order to address a third question: what did other scholars say about their relationship? We provide an analysis of the variation of scholars’ perceptions on the relationship between Du Bois and Weber to illumine the dominant assumptions about founding figures and the origin story of American sociology writ large. We argue that three mechanisms of white group interests configured the marginalization of Du Bois from both mainstream and sub-disciplinary sociological theory: (1) reduction or “knowing that we do no know and not caring to know” (when knowledge is perceived as irrelevant to white group interests), (2) deportation or “not wanting to know” (when knowledge is systematically exiled), and (3) appropriation or “not knowing that we do not know”) (when dominant knowledge usurps or assimilates challenges to that knowledge).     

Back to Hegel? On Gillian Rose's critique of sociological reason

Thirty‐five years ago, Gillian Rose articulated a significant critique of classical sociological reason, emphasizing its relationship to its philosophical forebears. In a series of works, but most significantly in her Hegel contra Sociology, Rose worked to specify the implications of sociology's failure, both in its critical Marxist and its ‘scientific’ forms, to move beyond Kant and to fully come to terms with the thought of Hegel. In this article, I unpack and explain the substance of her criticisms, developing the necessary Hegelian philosophical background on which she founded them. I argue that Rose's attempted recuperation of ‘speculative reason’ for social theory remains little understood, despite its continued relevance to contemporary debates concerning the nature and scope of sociological reason. As an illustration, I employ Rose to critique Chernilo's recent call for a more philosophically sophisticated sociology. From the vantage point of Rose, this particular account of a ‘philosophical sociology’ remains abstract and rooted in the neo‐Kantian contradictions that continue to characterize sociology.     

Do Associations Between Pleasure Ratings and Condom Use During Penile–Vaginal Intercourse Vary by Relationship Type?: A Study of Canadian University Students

Research suggests the relationship between pleasure and condom use during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) is associated with relationship status. This online study examined pleasure ratings and condom use at last PVI, stratifying by partner type, among a national sample of Canadian university students. Participants were 715 undergraduates (60.7% women, 39.3% men) who reported on their most recent sexual experience. Condom use decreased with level of relationship commitment, whereas ratings of pleasure increased. Overall, participants were more likely to rate their most recent PVI as Very pleasurable when condoms were not used compared to when condoms were used. However, when stratified by partner type, these differences largely disappeared. For women, with one exception, there were no differences in pleasure between PVI with and without condoms across most partner-type categories. Women in committed dating relationships were more likely to report their last PVI as very pleasurable if condoms were not used than women in these same relationships who had used condoms. Across relationship categories, men who did and did not use condoms did not differ in terms of their pleasure ratings. The results of this study suggest relationship context should be taken into account when assessing condom use experiences.     

ENTERTAINING MALTHUS: BREAD,CIRCUSES, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Motivated by the basic adage that man does not live by bread alone, we offer a theory of historical economic growth and population dynamics where human beings need food to survive, but enjoy other things, too. Our model imposes a Malthusian constraint on food, but introduces a second good to the analysis that affects living standards without affecting population growth. We show that technological change does a good job explaining historical consumption patterns and population dynamics, including the Neolithic Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. Our theory stands in contrast to models that assume a single composite good and a Malthusian constraint. These models generate negligible growth prior to the Industrial Revolution. However, recent revisions to historical data show that historical living standards—though obviously much lower than today's—varied over time and space much more than previously thought. These revisions include updates to Maddison's dataset, which served as the basis for many papers taking long‐run stagnation as a point of departure. This new evidence suggests that the assumption of long‐run stagnation is problematic. Our model shows that when we give theoretical accounting of these new observations the Industrial Revolution is much less puzzling. (JEL B10, I31, J1, N1, O30)     

CHAOTIC DYNAMICS IN CONTESTS

Under a myopic best‐reply dynamic, efforts in repeated contests may exhibit chaotic behavior. This may help explain, for example, why experimental data often show nonconvergence to one‐shot equilibrium efforts. (JEL C61, C72, D72, D74, D83)     

How Have Other Journals Compared to “The Top Seven” Journals in Family Social Science with Respect to LGBT-Related Research and Reviews? A Comment on “A Content Analysis of LGBT Research in Top Family Journals 2000–2015”? An Editorial Analysis

Van Eeden-Moorefield, Few-Demo, Benson, Bible, and Lummer (2018) recently reviewed the content of seven family social science journals with respect to theory and methods used in 153 articles featuring LGBT research or reviews of LGBT research. They concluded that less than three percent of 6,832 articles published in those journals between 2000 and 2015 were LGBT-related and that most had not used explicit theory and had used purposive cross-sectional samples consisting mostly of White and middle-class participants. During the tenure of the present editor, between 2010 and 2017, Marriage & Family Review featured 14 research reports, reviews, or commentary on LGBT-related issues out of 250 articles, not counting brief editorials or biographies between 2010 and 2017, an odds ratio of over 2.0 compared to the other “top-tier” journals. Likewise, the Journal of Family Theory & Review published at least 15 articles, mainly reviews or commentaries, on LGBT-related issues between 2009 and 2017. Articles in Marriage & Family Review and Journal of Family Theory & Review were more likely to be reviews of the literature, or feature explicit theory, to be qualitative in methodology, or to involve interviews or surveys, while other characteristics were similar to those in the other seven journals. Thus, even if some mainstream family journals did not publish often on LGBT-related issues, other important family science journals have done so. Furthermore, there are numerous scholarly journals that welcome LGBT-related research and reviews almost exclusively.     

Anxiety and depression among college students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Cross-informant,sex, and subtype differences

Objective: This study examined symptoms of anxiety and depression among college students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Participants: Data were collected between March 2011 and March 2016 from 150 college students with ADHD and 150 college students without ADHD. Method: Participants with ADHD were compared to a sex- and ethnicity-matched control group. For the ADHD group, parent and self-report of anxiety and depression were also compared. Results: College students with ADHD self-reported significantly higher anxiety and depressive symptoms than did students without ADHD. Scores on parent-report measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms were significantly higher than scores on self-report measures. Significant sex differences were found for participants with ADHD, with females showing higher depressive and anxiety symptoms than males. Parent-reported anxiety symptoms were higher for those with inattentive type ADHD compared to combined type ADHD. Conclusion: The current study highlights the importance of multi-informant assessment in ADHD evaluations for college-aged adults.     

Automating and evaluating reversible jump MCMC proposal distributions

The reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler (Green in Biometrika 82:711–732, 1995) has become an invaluable device for Bayesian practitioners. However, the primary difficulty with the sampler lies with the efficient construction of transitions between competing models of possibly differing dimensionality and interpretation. We propose the use of a marginal density estimator to construct between-model proposal distributions. This provides both a step towards black-box simulation for reversible jump samplers, and a tool to examine the utility of common between-model mapping strategies. We compare the performance of our approach to well established alternatives in both time series and mixture model examples.