Annex Sociology Podcast

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The German Sociological Divide (Thomas Scheffer) Oct 21, 2019

Show notes

This week, The Annex discusses a cleavage in German sociology that resulted in the formation of the Academy of Sociology, an organization that splintered from the German Sociological Association in a spat that involved questions of scientific rigor in sociology. Here's the back story:

Background

This summer, Philip Cohen from the University of Maryland tweeted:

To be a social science discipline sociology needs to adopt standards for transparency and reproducibility. All science is moving this way. Some parts of the discipline can't or won't. This may solidify qual/quant as science/notscience & I'm not sure the discipline can survive it

— Philip N Cohen (@familyunequal) August 13, 2019

Stephen Vaisey of Duke University commented:

I don't think this maps onto qual/quant neatly, but I think sociology could survive a split. Fields have done it (e.g., anthro). And others have few institutionalized subfields (e.g., PS). No reason to force us all to live in the same "house" *if* we are pursuing different goals. https://t.co/dSquII7WGH

— Stephen Vaisey (@vaiseys) August 14, 2019

This tweet generated multiple, very interesting reactions, including this one from Fabian Ochsenfeld.

In Germany, we now have two sociological associations, @DGSoziologie and @akadsoz. Orientation to theory and replication standards were explicitly mentioned as reasons to split (qual/quant not, but there's a correlation). @socannex

— Fabian Ochsenfeld (@FOchsenfeld) August 21, 2019

This struck me as a tremendously interesting topic. It also turned out to be painfully difficult to find discussants. I struggled to find people to tell the story of the division between these two organizations. I'm grateful to Thomas Scheffer from Goethe University, who was gracious enough to tell us about this divide.

Please note: We were not able to secure someone to speak on behalf of the Academy of Sociology for this segment. I invite listeners to voice their views below, and I am happy to discuss follow-up discussions if warranted

Photo Credits

By Ribax (Diskussion) 10:53, 6. Mär. 2014 (CET) - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Chinese Students in U.S. Schools (Yingyi Ma) Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

Today, we meet Yingyi Ma from Syracuse University. Yingyi recently published Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education with Columbia University Press. We discuss the challenges facing college students from China, and how to create learning environments that can help them succeed.

Global Borderlands (Victoria Reyes) Oct 14, 2019

Show notes

In today's episode of The Annex, we interview, Victoria Reyes (University of California, Riverside). We talk about her new, widely acclaimed book, Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines with Stanford University Press.

Academic Hazing Oct 11, 2019

Show notes

On today's episode of The Annex, we discuss a recent blog entry on "academic hazing" on circulating in academic Twitter, and where to draw the line between abusive and legitimate work demands.

Victoria Reyes is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. She recently published the widely acclaimed Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines with Stanford University Press.

Photo Credits

By Internet Archive Book Images - https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14566294718/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/winningtouchdown00chad/winningtouchdown00chad#page/n128/mode/1up, No restrictions, Link

A Shortage of Marriageable Men? Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

A recent study uses multiple imputation to develop an analysis that implies falling marriage rates to be a result of too few (economically) marriageable men. We discuss the idea that a "shortage of marriageable men" is a strong explanation of falling marriage rates.

Photo Credit

By LearningLark - https://www.flickr.com/photos/44282411@N04/6738328799/, CC BY 2.0, Link

Opening Higher Ed Access (Amaka Okechukwu) Oct 07, 2019

Show notes

Today, we meet Amaka Okechukwu (George Mason University) about the politics of opening access to higher education. We discuss her new book, To Fulfill These Rights: Political Struggle Over Affirmative Action and Open Admissions (Columbia University Press), and her study about the historical political struggles surrounding affirmative action and open admissions.

Teaching Classical Theory (Seth Abrutyn) Oct 04, 2019

Show notes

Today, we talk to Seth Abrutyn from the University of British Columbia. Seth teaches graduate classical theory in UBC's sociology program, and recently caught attention on Twitter for his views about the role of classical sociology in the contemporary sociology graduate curriculum. He published a blog post on the topic here.

Seth is best known for his work on suicide with Anna Mueller from Indiana University at Bloomington. You can catch his earlier podcast episode on this work here.

Photo Credits

By John Jabez Edwin Mayal - International Institute of Social History, Public Domain, Link

What if the Republican Party were Destroyed? (Howard Ramos) Oct 02, 2019

Show notes

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, columnist Michelle Goldberg reviews a new book by pollster Stanley Greenberg, R.I.P. G.O.P.: How the New American is Dooming the Republicans (St. Martin's Press). The book describes long-term threats to Republicans' electoral chances, and Goldberg muses about the death of the G.O.P. in her article.

What would happen if the Republican Party were destroyed? Would it usher in an age of major liberal policy reforms? That is not exactly what happened in Canada, when the national conservative party collapsed after the Prime Ministership of Brian Mulroney in the early-1990s.

In this episode, we examine the aftermath of the Progressive Conservative Party's collapse with Howard Ramos of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. Howard is a leading Canadian sociologist, and former president of the Canadian Sociological Association.

Internet Gig Work (Alexandrea Ravenelle) Sep 30, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, we talk to Alexandrea Ravenelle (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) about her research on gig economy work. Her new book, Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy (University of California Press) details the motivations and trials of those who work on Internet-brokered gigs (like TaskRabbit, Uber, AirBnB, and the now-defunct KitchenSurfing).

The Ethics of College Sports (Fred Wherry) Sep 27, 2019

Show notes

NCAA athletes recently won the rights to license their name and likeness. We visit the topic of whether these athletes are exploited under the current college athletics system.

Frederick Wherry is a Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. His new book (with Kristin Seefeldt and Anthony Alvarez) is Credit Where It's Due: Rethinking Financial Citizenshipwith the Russell Sage Foundation.

Photo Credit

By RichardLowther at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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