Contexts Magazine

“They never told me to leave the company. I left because of my own disappointment and fatigue.” In Contexts, Sekani L. Robinson examines how ballet institutions can welcome Black dancers while making it difficult for them to stay. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #dance #ballet #racism #elitespaces

Everyone knows Trump isn’t Superman. The image works anyway. In Contexts, Tristan Bridges and James W. Messerschmidt examine how AI memes make masculine domination entertaining by inviting viewers to enjoy the fantasy of a leader above ordinary limits. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Trump #memes

What if the American Dream came with an expiration date? In his Contexts essay, sociologist Roberto G. Gonzales examines how temporary immigration protections like DACA can transform lives while leaving people vulnerable to political change. doi.org/10.1177/1536... #daca #immigration

How long do you have to live somewhere before it counts as your home? Nearly half of undocumented immigrants have lived in the U.S. for 20 years or more. This Contexts roundtable examines what mass deportation would tear apart. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #deportation #immigration #trump #policy

What happens when you do everything right and still cannot count on belonging? In Contexts, Theodore Greene examines how Rob Franklin’s book 'Great Black Hope' captures the fragile promises of success for a marginalized man moving through elite spaces. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Racism #Books

Deportation does not always begin with an arrest. It can begin with a shortened deadline or a higher filing fee. In Contexts, sociologist Jennifer L. Johnson shows how immigration enforcement operates through the quiet cruelty of bureaucracy. doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Immigration #Deportation

Would a smaller gap between rich and poor mean a better life at the bottom? In Contexts, Lane Kenworthy draws on four decades of data to ask how much reducing inequality can achieve and why government benefits matter. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #socialpolicy #inequality #poverty

An institution can celebrate your presence while making it difficult to stay. In Contexts, Sekani L. Robinson examines how Black ballet dancers enter elite spaces where whiteness still sets the terms of belonging. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Ballet #Racism #Elite

What if creating equality becomes another unequal burden? And why might feeling safer from deportation have little to do with being safer? The latest Contexts Research Briefs explore these contradictions, alongside findings on disability and climate politics. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

For 25 years, Roberto G. Gonzales has followed undocumented young adults as they build lives in the U.S. In Contexts, he asks how people can plan a future when the next president can withdraw their protections. #Immigration #Dreamers #ImmigrationReform ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What happens to a neighbourhood when people are afraid to leave home? In this Contexts roundtable, scholars discuss how fear under Trump’s enforcement regime keeps people from seeking care or leaving home, even if they have legal status. doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Immigration #Deportation

It’s hard to get ahead when every pay rise goes toward rent. In Contexts, Zachary Parolin looks at how housing costs can undo gains from income supports, and why reducing poverty also means making housing affordable. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Housing #Poverty #SocialPolicy

Is an equal inheritance always fair? In Contexts, Nazli Kibria and Catherine Rosa examine how splitting an estate equally can leave years of unpaid caregiving unrecognized and preserve inequalities between siblings. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Caregiving #GenderInequality

Who profits when investing starts to feel like a game? Even losing money can become something to post about, laugh at, and try again. In Contexts, Kobe De Keere examines “hype finance” and how platforms benefit from keeping people playing. doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What happens when getting help means moving through an assembly line? In Contexts, Josh Seim examines how welfare offices divide people’s cases into tasks, and what happens to care when no single worker follows the whole situation. doi.org/10.1177/1536...

The new issue of ASA's Contexts Magazine is out now and features photo essays on NY Fashion Week and marketing cannabis in Thailand. You can read the entire issue—including articles, research briefs, and sections on culture, policy, and more—until Oct. 28! @contexts.org http://bit.ly/ASAContexts

What happens when drug legalization outpaces public acceptance? Sociologist Ronald Weitzer examines how Thailand’s cannabis boom transformed a criminalized substance into a highly visible tourist commodity, even as most Thais opposed recreational access. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What if biology textbooks teach gender inequality through flowers? Pollen competes, penetrates, and succeeds. Female plant parts wait and nurture. Shuster, Wonderlin, and Masani show how cultural myths about gender become scientific “facts.” ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What happens when food a community was once shamed for becomes someone else’s cultural discovery? C. Winter Han uses “H Mart Gate” to examine race, cultural memory, and who gets to feel at home in ethnic spaces. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What happens when being seen replaces being paid? Behind the glamour of Fashion Week is a workforce often paid in exposure rather than wages. In this visual essay, Jillian Sunderland shows how masculinity shapes who can claim space and turn exposure into paid work. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

🔥Hot off the press!🔥 What political work is done when a president posts himself as Superman? Trump’s AI memes turn dissent into disorder and domination into leadership. Tristan Bridges and James Messerschmidt show how humor makes autocratic power feel ordinary. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

LGBTQ+ People’s Views of the Police: Friend or Foe? Stefan Vogler and Valerie Jenness find that LGBTQ+ respondents are more likely than non-LGBTQ+ respondents to see police as a foe, but this varies across gender identity and sexuality. doi.org/10.1177/1536...

Taiwanese parents send kids to California summer camps. Their friends in Boston order Taiwanese textbooks. Sociologist Pei-Chia Lan finds that parents diverge in how they prepare kids for the future, each responding differently to the global economy. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What does it mean when college enrollment falls while elite universities receive record numbers of applications? Sociologist Steven Brint asks what we lose when access contracts most sharply for those least well served. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #HigherEducation #Academia

What happens when economic change feels like a threat to masculinity? In Contexts, Dan Cassino examines how men’s political preferences change when the traditional breadwinner role becomes less secure. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Sociology #Masculinity #Gender #PoliticalSociology

What happens when “fake news” determines press access? Recently, Trump barred CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House after attacking their coverage. In Contexts, sociologist Jared Wright shows how the label becomes a weapon for deciding who can scrutinize power. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

How can someone be surrounded by people and still be treated as though they aren’t there? In this brief essay, sociologist Jacob Avery writes about Neon, a man asking for change on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. He shows how quickly we turn poverty into a moral category. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What happens when public problems are framed as personal failures? Revisiting C. Wright Mills, Jerry Jacobs defines “sociological curiosity” as locating private troubles within the institutions shaping them. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #SociologicalImagination #PublicSociology #ContextsMagazine

Why does breaking the rules seem to make populist leaders more popular, not less? Francesco Duina argues that populist leaders turn private grievance into public voice. For people who feel ignored, breaking political norms can feel like recognition. doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Populism #Democracy

What happens when authenticity becomes a sales strategy? Sociologists Eleanor Matheson and Donna Sedgwick show how curated glimpses of private life create trust, turning authenticity into commercial power. Read here ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #InfluencerCulture #SocialMedia #ConsumerCulture

How could conflict be good for communities? Evelyn M. Perry shows how disagreements can expose whose standards define neighborhood life and create room to renegotiate belonging. Read in Contexts ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Sociology #Community #UrbanSociology #ContextsMagazine

Why do economists dominate public debate while sociologists remain on the sidelines? In this interview, Amin Ghaziani interviews a New York Times columnist about the many ways sociologists can enter public discussions. Read "Professors, We Still Need You!" journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

What can sociology teach us about #neurodiversity? Micki McGee argues that increasing productivity and accelerated work schedules have gradually become the norm, recasting unforgiving institutional expectations as individual medical deficits. doi.org/10.1177/1536... @mickimcgee.bsky.social

What do you picture when you hear “red-light district”? In this visual sociological essay, Ronald Weitzer's photographs complicate the familiar image of red-light districts as uniformly dangerous and disordered. Read in Contexts ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

What can marital infidelity reveal about masculinity? In Contexts, Alicia M. Walker analyzes men who use the platform Ashley Madison to seek out extramarital affairs, finding that men's consistent concerns were about masculine validation. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536... @aliciamwalker1.bsky.social

How free are we to dream? We are told that anyone can dream big. Yet inequality can shape the future long before opportunity appears. Sociologist Karen Cerulo explores how social position enters even our most private visions of the future. doi.org/10.1177/1536...

Many workplace protections we take for granted were won through collective struggle. For Labor Day, Judith Stepan-Norris writes in Contexts about how unions raise wages, reduce inequality and give workers a collective voice, and what their decline costs us. Read here: doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What if the most powerful technology in a start-up is the hype? Sociologist Patrick Sheehan shows how hype turns an imagined future into a way of extracting more labour in the present. The breakthrough is always just around the corner. Read more in Contexts: doi.org/10.1177/1536... #Tech

How did dark skin become a deadly blind spot in dermatology? Black patients are often diagnosed later, yet prevention guidelines still center fair skin. Ashley C. Rondini and colleagues examine how racial erasure becomes medical knowledge. doi.org/10.1177/1536... @ashley-c-rondini.bsky.social

AI is reshaping our relationships. What if it is also reshaping how we understand ourselves? Carsten Lund Pedersen asks what happens when algorithms become mirrors and begin shaping the selves they claim to reflect. Read in Contexts: doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What if #Girlboss and #Tradwife come from the same feminist crisis? Both respond to the demand that women “have it all” by doing it all. What becomes possible when feminism expands its imagination and makes room for joy? Read in Contexts: doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What does the anti-work movement look like when Black women tell its story? On YouTube, Black women are claiming a right to rest. Sociologist Sharla Berry asks who gets to refuse work and who can afford to leave. Read in Contexts: doi.org/10.1177/1536...

Why do conspiracy theories remain compelling even after their predictions fail? Sociologists Meggan Jordan and Jennifer Whitmer show how conspiracy theories can become an identity resource. Read here ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What happens when AI learns from a world already structured by inequality? Sociologists Sharla Alegria (@salegria.bsky.social) and Catherine Yeh show that machine learning can scale social inequalities and return them as objective predictions. @uoftsociology.bsky.social doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What if young men aren’t only buying crypto to get rich, but to feel more like men? Dan Cassino at Fairleigh Dickinson University (@fduwhatsnew.bsky.social) explores how crypto and meme stocks can offer “gender value” through risk, mastery, and independence. Read here: doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What is the point of public intellectuals? As expertise becomes more urgent and more contested, Michael D. Kennedy of @brownsociology.bsky.social asks whose knowledge counts, whom it serves, and whether public intellectuals can help build a more just world. ➡️ doi.org/10.1177/1536...

What are mothers of children with disabilities telling us? Interviews with mothers by Robert Crosnoe and colleagues reveal resilience, growth, and joy over decades of mothering. ➡️https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/ctx

How did sexual harassment become recognized as unlawful discrimination in education? Celene Reynolds traces how 1970s and '80s feminist coalitions transformed Title IX, showing how ordinary citizens can change not just laws, but how they're interpreted. ➡️https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/ctx