By Karen Sternheimer Trying new foods is one of my favorite aspects of travel. I’m not exactly an adventurous eater, but I enjoy learning about what the locals eat and sampling food that’s not too far out of my comfort ..read more

By Karen Sternheimer The German autobahn is the subject of much lore in the United States. Images of an open road with no speed limits, allowing high-end performance sports cars to drive as fast as their engineering can take them ..read more

By Karen Sternheimer Popular travel host Rick Steves loves to visit cathedrals on his show to admire their art and architecture. And he’s not alone; on a recent trip to Europe, I found myself informally touring several cathedrals and houses ..read more

By Lisa Smith, Douglas College, Department of Sociology and Menstrual Cycle Research Group In May 2023, Phyllis arrived at Broadway-City Hall Station--a transit hub not too far from downtown Vancouver, Canada. Phyllis is one of two tunnel-boring machines (Elsie is ..read more

By Karen Sternheimer One of the core principles of sociology is the idea that what we know about the world around us is socially constructed; in other words, the meanings we ascribe to our social worlds are mediated through collective cultural narratives. These narratives might come from our involvement with social institutions, such as education, religion, families, government, and the economy. The task of sociology is two-fold: to learn about the world around us through collecting empirical evidence via systematic observation, and also to think critically about how we view and understand wha ..read more

By Karen Sternheimer Nearly 20 years ago, in 2006, my book Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions about Today’s Youth was published. The book focused on common concerns and complaints about kids in the late 1990s and early 2000s, mostly focusing on fears that young people were becoming overweight, rude self-centered bullies who weren’t interested in school. At the time, there were also concerns about kids being at increasing risk for being victims of violence, particularly by other kids. My conclusion then--and now--fear sells, especially fears about kids. As the subtitle indicates, many of these ..read more

By Karen Sternheimer I’ve had a smartwatch for nearly four years now. Most of the time I don’t notice it, except for when it "taps” me on the wrist to let me know I have a call, text, reminder, or some other notification. But it has become an important factor understanding my biometrics, aspects of myself that I was previously seldom aware of. The watch provides information about my heart rate, breathing, activity levels, how well I sleep, as well as metrics like my heart rate variability, heart rate recovery rate, and way more measures than I care to list here. My university, like many employ ..read more

By Karen Sternheimer Sociologists are very interested in the social roles that we take on as part of our daily lives. Our roles provide us with social scripts—ways of behaving in particular situations that are consistent with these roles. Take going to the doctor’s office. As a patient, you will likely be asked to wait when you arrive, provide personal information about your bodily functions and your insurance. When you are called into an examination room, you might be asked to remove parts of your clothing, answer more personal questions, and undergo medical measurements. Health care provider ..read more

By Michelle Janning, Professor of Sociology and co-designer of Human-Centered Design at Whitman College, and Elena Harris, professional declutterer based in Walla Walla, Washington Does living in a rural area impact someone’s likelihood to declutter a home? Or even their desire to do so? The short answer is yes, and people have already written thoughtfully about this. The longer—and more sociologically interesting—answer requires diving into ways that rural living may not fit into the typical categories of experiences related to how people deal with household stuff. And it also requires think ..read more

By Colby King and Uma Gupta, Associate Professor and Director of Business Analytics at USC Upstate Where a person lives, and where they’re able to work, shapes their sociological imagination, and their opportunities. Today’s local labor markets are defined, though, by historical patterns of segregation, continuous ebbs and flows of capital investment, ongoing shifts in occupational mixes. This context contributes to unequal power between groups of workers, and ongoing racial inequalities. Over the past year, we have been working on a research report for the Urban League of the Upstate (ULUS ..read more