Everyday Sociology Blog

Sociology & Tiaras

By Hilary Levey

Robert Wood Johnson Fellow in Health Policy

Every Wednesday night at 9 pm I sit down in front of the TV, put on TLC, pull out my notebook, and do research for two hours. Yes, that’s right—watching the pageant shows Toddlers & Tiaras and the new show, King of the Crown, is part of my research. Back in 1999, when I was a sophomore in college, I did a research paper on child beauty pageants for a required sociology class. Little did I know that a decade later I would still be writing about pageants, but now as a professional sociologist!

Ever since the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, Americans have been simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by child beauty pageants. Many people didn’t know about these events until the death of JonBenét, in late 1996, but I have found that child beauty pageants have existed in the United States in one form or another since the 1800s. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the growth and development of a variety of events that are precursors to the child beauty pageants of today, including May Day festivals, baby parades, and beautiful and healthy baby contests.

All of these festivals, parades, and contests started at about the same historical moment. Such child-centered contests were part of a larger movement that began to socially value children in new ways. It was during this time period, from roughly the 1870s to the 1930s, that child labor was eradicated, compulsory education began, and children came to be valued as “economically ‘worthless’ but emotionally ‘priceless,’” according to sociologist Viviana A. Zelizer.. This re-evaluation of childhood helped contribute to the development of distinct children’s spheres, like clothing designed especially for children (see Daniel Thomas Cook’s work on kids’ clothes).

The Asbury Park baby parade was arguably the most famous of the baby parades and contests that started at the turn of the twentieth century, rewarding children for their looks and their costumes. In its heyday, in 1893, it drew 30,000 spectators; in fact, it was so popular that Thomas Edison made one of his first movies of the event, on September 12, 1904.

As the popularity of parades and contests declined at the turn of the twentieth century, modern beauty pageants, for adult women, began to hit their stride. The first “live” beauty contest is said to have occurred in Reheboth Beach, Delaware in 1880. After that, pageants began springing up at carnivals and fairs and on beaches along both coasts, with pageants available for every age and body type.

The most famous, successful, and enduring of all of these is the Miss America Pageant , founded by a group of Atlantic City businessmen in 1921. These men wanted to keep visitors on the shore after Labor Day, the traditional end of the summer season, so they came up with the idea of a bathing beauty contest. They held the first Miss America contest on September 6, 1921 (though it didn’t come to be known by that name until 1941) with only seven “bathing beauties.” By the next year there were 57 contestants, and from there the Pageant continued to grow.

After the Miss America Pageant first appeared on television in 1954—breaking all previous viewing records with twenty seven million viewers—child pageants as we know them today started to develop in the void left by the closure of the parades and contests (which was mainly because of fears of polio in the 1950s). If you’ve seen Little Miss Sunshine, then you have a pretty good idea of how these pageants work.

One the biggest questions the public usually has after watching Little Miss Sunshine or one of the TLC shows is: Why do people, almost always mothers, put their little kids in these pageants? I’ve given you a bit of historical background, but I want to suggest a few explanations from other academic disciplines, before turning to my sociological analysis. Psychological explanations usually draw on the idea that many parents vicariously live through their children. Pageant moms are looking for self-affirmation when they are told their child is beautiful; they may be frustrated with their own lives and appearances and push their daughters to succeed in ways that they have not.

Economists focus more on the investment these moms are making in their children. Here the idea is that someday, their children will grow up to be successful (perhaps related to their participation in these events), and they will then have more resources to take care of the parents when they are elderly. Or, for some families, the pageants provide the possibility of a financial windfall. For example, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears both did child beauty pageants. On a smaller fame-scale, some pageant contestants can earn money in other ways. Remember the cringe-worthy final answer of Miss South Carolina Teen a few years ago?

Caitlin has now parlayed that “answer” into TV appearances, highlighted on TLC’s King of the Crown, and a recent commercial. Other pageant contestants use the scholarship money awarded to pageant winners. For all its faults, some of which I write about here, the Miss America Pageant remains the largest source of college scholarship money for women in the world.

And this leads me to part of my sociological analysis of why mothers enroll their very young daughters in child beauty pageants, like those shown on TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras (for a more complete analysis of participation in child beauty pageants, check out a paper I recently published in the journal Childhood). The majority of the pageant moms I met explain that they have their children involved to help ensure that they will be successful later in life.

One pageant mom explains, “I just want to see my daughters go somewhere—go somewhere in life. I didn’t. I ended up having kids right away. I’m stuck at home now. I’m doing this for them.” The idea that pageants can teach children specific skills that will help girls be successful was brought up literally hundreds of times in interviews with pageant mothers. There are eight major skills mentioned by moms (in decreasing order of frequency): learning confidence, learning to be comfortable on stage and in front of strangers, learning poise, learning how to present the self and dress appropriately, learning to practice, learning good sportsmanship, learning how to be more outgoing, and learning to listen. Of course, these are lessons and skills the moms want their children to learn and the children may not actually be learning them…But that’s a subject for another blog entry!

What do you think—can you think of other sociological explanations that explain participation in child beauty pageants? What might some “big name” sociological theorists, like Pierre Bourdieu and Thorstein Veblen, offer as explanations? Have you ever thought about doing a beauty pageant, perhaps even to help cover the costs of college?

Soap Operas and Postmodern Theory

By Karen Sternheimer

On September 18^th, the CBS daytime drama Guiding Light aired its final episode after 72 years on the air (fifteen years on radio and 57 on television). Ratings declined as they have for many soap operas over the past few years, leading to the network’s decision to end the longest running program in television history. Both my grandmother and great-grandmother watched the show religiously, and its end represents the passing of more than just a television show. It marks a major social shift.

Daytime melodramas became popular during a time when women spent less time in the paid labor force than they did in the early and later years of the twentieth century. In pre-television radio days, these dramas became known as soap operas because manufacturers of cleaning products advertised heavily to the mostly female audience.

The content of the soaps offered an escapist fantasy of outlandish plots that could temper the tedium of regular housework. For the uninitiated, soap opera characters regularly commit infidelity, plot each others’ deaths, come back from the dead, grow from childhood to adulthood after a year’s absence, and marry and divorce at a rate that would make Elizabeth Taylor’s eight marriages seem normal. Good and evil characters can change overnight and even come back in the form of another person, especially if a surgeon managed a scar-less face transplant.

When I would visit my grandmother, I would hear the plot twists unfold to dramatic music, watch the camera zoom into an actor’s dramatic facial expression and think that this style of storytelling seemed so different than many other programs on the air today.

One might argue that reality shows are a twenty-first century answer to twentieth century melodramas. For those who watch them, reality shows suggest that we are getting an inside glimpse into someone’s private life, usually someone whose life is marked by drama (or edited to highlight--if not produce--dramatic incidents). Most viewers are now savvy enough to know that reality shows are not entirely unfiltered windows into participants’ lives, but it is their illusion of reality that is part of the interest.

This fascination highlights some of the ideas of postmodern theory, particularly French sociologist Jean Baudrillard. According to Baudrillard, the real and the simulated are no longer distinguishable. He argues that in our media age, images of reality and reality itself interact so much so that they have become interchangeable.

You can think of this as like a mirror that reflects an image from another mirror so much that the original image can no longer be identified. Baudriallard calls the outcome of this endless interaction hyperreality, and suggests in his 1983 book Simulations that we are fascinated by the "thrill of the real," particularly because in his view "reality" has imploded with simulation.

There are certainly limits to the application of postmodern theory, but it might help us understand why traditional twentieth century soaps are watching their audiences dwindle. Yes, with more women in the labor force fewer are at home during the day to watch television. And as women have more opportunities outside of the home they might find their lives less mundane and therefore would be less interested in melodrama.

Despite including younger characters, part of the soaps’ recent challenge has been that their audiences have aged and younger viewers have not begun watching in large number. A 2008 Boston Globe article describes how producers attempted to adopt the style of reality shows to attract new viewers. In particular, they sometimes use smaller cameras to mirror the informality of reality shows. But perhaps the biggest hurdle is that soaps are a product of twentieth-century modernity. Audiences may now prefer to observe people “being themselves” in our hyper-mediated age.

We can also look at the genre itself and see how it does not reflect our postmodern condition, where reality itself seems more entertaining than fiction. Soaps are deliberately unreal, asking viewers to enter a fantasy world and suspend their disbelief. We know the characters are played by actors, even if sometimes fans blur the boundary and think of the actor as their character. But the actors and producers make no claim that their character is real.

Realities shows like the Real Housewives and the Kardashian family shows, however, ask us to enjoy the illusion of reality itself by suggesting to us that these programs are depictions of real events. The stories are not limited to a television time slot: events can develop in blogs, tweets, texts, or even in the news, as pregnancies or marriages are reported by the press. Further complicating things, reality show participants are called casts and shows can win Emmys.

I think back to my grandmother, who to my knowledge had no interest in reality shows, and her mother before her, who knew nothing of them since she lived well before they existed. For those coming of age in an era of multimedia, a fantasy melodrama might not be as interesting as something that bleeds into many other forms of media. Rather than just different content, the different forms of media attract audiences today. How else might Baudrillard’s theory help explain today’s media environment?

Top Chef and the Black/Non-Black Divide

By Tamara K. Nopper, Ph.D.

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania

http://bandung1955.wordpress.com/

I love the show Top Chef. I watch it religiously and regularly chat about it with fellow fan and friend Kevin Eddington. Although more of a foodie than me—he actually knows what sous vide means—we share concerns about the show’s racial dynamics, some of which I want to discuss here. Specifically, I want to explore how Asian Americans and African Americans are represented on Top Chef and in the process, draw from approaches emphasizing the Black/non-Black divide.

The Black/non-Black framework is proposed by George Yancey in his book Who is White?: Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide. According to Yancey, this framework is more helpful for analyzing racism than a white/non-white paradigm because Blacks experience a unique degree of social isolation, as evidenced by how whites, Latinos, and Asian Americans reject them as potential neighbors and marriage partners yet remain open to each other. Yancey’s conclusion bears out on the show.

Asian Americans are present as contestants, chefs, judges, and of course, hosts, and Hung Huynh won the title on season three. Yet Asian Americans face particular racial expectations: they’re encouraged to talk about their ethnicities or immigration histories, badmouthed for cooking too many Asian-influenced dishes, or expected to cook Asian food regardless of training. For example, Huynh was told that despite his skill and “technique,” his food lacked “soul.”

White head judge Tom Colicchio, reminding Huynh of Huynh’s Vietnamese background, said he didn’t “see” him in his food. Such comments reinforce the model minority myth, which celebrates “Asian” work ethic and mechanical productivity while denying us unconditional subjectivity, sociability, and authority automatically afforded whites.

Ultimately Huynh incorporated Asian-influenced flavors into his final meal in hopes of revealing his “authentic” (ethnic) self to the judges. As Huynh tried to express “soul,” his (aired) image shifted from a technically efficient, ultra-competitive, and unlikable Asian to a more humbled Asian eager to take advantage of American opportunities available to him and other immigrants, making one blogger conclude, “he seemed to…acquire social skills in front of my eyes.”

Whereas Asian Americans are racialized in ways that whites aren’t— white contestants aren’t expected to cook foods of their ethnicities so that judges “know” them—African Americans, for the most part, are physically absent from the show. Yet as Frank B. Wilderson, III explains in the anthology Biko Lives!, even when physically present, Blacks remain absent. Despite the popularity and skills of Tre Wilcox and Carla Hall, they exemplify what Wilderson describes as “the absence of a subjective presence.” Unlike Asian Americans, who could explicitly reference their ethnic backgrounds, they could not. They couldn’t talk about Black marginalization in the culinary industry, but were forced to adopt de-racialized tropes of gender and class marginalization used by whites, particularly women and those who are not classically trained.

Black participants also lacked what Wilderson describes as “political presence” in that they were denied cultural and institutional authority. Although Blacks don’t automatically cook (or eat) “soul food,” they are often relegated to doing so regardless of training. While “ghettoizing,” such gestures, as my friend Kevin points out, also imply that soul food has little value to the non-Black culinary world.

Indeed, no chefs were expected to know foods that are culturally associated with Black people, with the exception of the final competitions held in New Orleans on season five. Yet at both dinners, all of the judges were white except for Asian host and judge Padma Lakshmi. Because Bravo TV, which airs Top Chef, doesn’t have all five seasons archived on its website, I can’t say for certain, but I only remember one Black person, chef Govind Armstrong, ever sitting at the judges’ table during deliberations. I only remember four other Black people—and only one of them a chef—serving as guest diners: chef Marcus Samuelsson (whom my friend Kevin points out was not born or raised in the United States), actress and comic Aisha Tyler, sociologist Mary Patillo (who was never introduced to viewers but who I recognized from being in the same profession), and musician Branford Marsalis—who was the lone Black guest at the final New Orleans dinner.

Marsalis even drew attention to his lack of political presence: after listening to others discuss how dishes tasted good but didn’t “pop,” he remarked that chefs talk just like musicians. Although the others tittered, Marsalis, perhaps inadvertently, alluded to the absurdity of his physical presence as a musician at a food competition where all of the other guests were esteemed members of the culinary world—and all non-Black.

Consistent with Yancey’s and Wilderson’s arguments, then, Asian Americans are more present in multiple ways compared to African Americans on Top Chef. Asian Americans compete, host, sample, and judge. We’re recognized as having an identifiable culture and permitted narratives of “Asian Americanness.” Intrusive, limiting, and racist, these narratives nevertheless serve to endear us to non-Asians because they affirm our presumed ethnic “exoticness” while simultaneously re-institutionalizing “universal” ideas related to the white immigrant experience that emphasize outsider status (but not social inequality). And, Asian cuisine is treated as a legitimate cuisine with history, culture, and place as demonstrated by whites citing it as their specialty, talking about taking classes in Asian cooking, or traveling to Asian countries to learn flavors and techniques. Finally, Asian cuisine is racialized as simultaneously traditional and global and therefore marketable to non-Asians.

Enjoyable to watch, Top Chef is, like many pleasures experienced in a racist society, an opportunity for sociological reflection. When the soon to be launched Top Chef Masters airs, I am sure my friend Kevin and I’ll have lots to dish about. And I am certain that the Black/non-Black divide framework will still be useful for understanding the show’s dynamics. The program’s website already tells me as much. Announcing the competition of “24 world-renowned chefs,” its pictures do indeed speak a thousand words. As images of participants reveal, a few Asian Americans will be featured as competitors and host/judge; but this time around, there are literally no Blacks on the show.

Generational Differences, Cartoons, and Cooperation

By Jessica Collett

University of Notre Dame

I’m a member of Generation X . My students, on the other hand, are mostly Millennials, sometimes referred to as Generation Y. This difference extends beyond age. As C. Wright Mills explains in The Sociological Imagination, our history and biography are profoundly connected. As different generational cohorts we experienced unique defining moments and cultural influences that have shaped our hopes and our fears, our personalities and our preferences.

For example, because I came of age during the Cold War, the villains in my favorite childhood action movies were Russian or Eastern European. Today, pop culture bad guys tend to be Arabs. In college, I associated one night stands with AIDS, they are associated with the “hook-up” culture. Public service announcements of my youth warned against the devastating effects of drugs (mostly crack cocaine). Today, the truth campaign against smoking and tobacco is Gen Y’s PSA of record.

Increasingly professors and employers are trying to use their knowledge about these cohorts to increase learning, attract top applicants, and enhance employee productivity. Although a tremendous amount has been written, one of the main sources of information on the Millennials is Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation”(2000) by Neil Howe and William Strauss. While there is debate over the generalizability of Howe and Strauss’s assertions, one of their findings that has captured the attention of many is Millennials’ preferences for collaboration. Many believe that they favor teamwork over independent ventures, choosing cooperation over competition.

Maybe globalization is partly responsible for this shift, specifically the diffusion of Saturday morning programming. One of the things that diffuses across the world with globalization is culture, both material and symbolic. Material culture is the “things” of a culture – its food, tools, and art (including children’s television shows). Symbolic culture is the values, beliefs, and norms associated with a group. The two types of culture are intricately connected.

For instance, a cultural group’s art (material culture) likely reflects the group’s values or norms (symbolic culture) and television shows are no exception. When I ask my students what their favorite childhood programs were growing up, The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers always tops the list. What students may not realize is that Power Rangers, actually imported from Japan, is laden with cultural messages that emphasize cooperation over competition. In the end it always takes all the Power Rangers coming together to overtake evil, demonstrating that the whole is better than the sum of its parts.

While the United States has prized individualism for much of its history, Asia traditionally has a much more cooperative culture. Children’s programming in both countries largely reflects these values. Take, for example, national superheroes. In his chapter, “Transformational Magic: Some Japanese Super-Heroes and Monsters,” from The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures (1998), Tom Gill discusses two superheroes of the mid-twentieth century, Superman and Ultraman. Superman is quintessentially American. He’s an immigrant to the United States from some place far away. His human form lets his viewers relate to him and see his power as their potential. He’s ultimately alone, with no Superdad or Supermom or Supersiblings, yet he can win every battle. His story stresses individual achievement to the American children who look up to him. Gill contrasts Superman with Ultraman, Japan’s superhero. Ultraman, unlike Superman, never flies solo. His family grows over time, and his brothers, parents, and other kin are included in storylines and spin-offs. Ultraman often calls home for help in order to defeat his opponent. Watching these programs, Japanese children learn filial loyalty and the value of solidarity.

Ultraman might have never made it to the United States, but other Japanese characters and shows increasingly have. In addition to Power Rangers, many children today follow Teen Titans, Pokemon, and Hamtaro. The opening and closing sequences of Hamtaro, a cartoon about the adventures of a group of hamsters known as the Ham-Hams, are rich with cultural messages, not only of solidarity and cooperation, but also of the importance of school:

It's Hamtaro time!

…When we work together it's much better!

…My best friend!

…My Ham-Hams!

If she heads for trouble, we won't let her!

…Laura's gone to school, let's go to our Ham-Ham Clubhouse!

We can fix their troubles just be quiet as a mouse

Watch out for those cats you know they're smarter than you think

But if we work together we can make their plans sink!

Hamtaro!

Snoozer, Howdy, Penelope, Panda,

My best friends!

Oxnard, Bijou, Cappy, Maxwell

My Ham-Hams!

Dexter, Boss, Pashmina, Jingle

Hamtaro!

Little Hamsters, Big Adventures!

'scuse me while I work out, gotta run on my wheel

Hamtaro!

Hamtaro's here to help you!

Hamtaro!

Hamtaro's team is for you!

Snoozer, Penelope, Panda, Howdy, Oxnard, Bijou & Boss let’s go!

Zersnoo, Pepenelo, Sobs, Dapan, Dehow Nardox Joubi & Hamtaro!

…Let’s make a wish ­ ooh, ooh

Make it come true

Singing along with us is all you do!

Come on and do your very best, ooh, ooh

Get a hundred on your test

All of your dreams will come true

…This will be our song, come on and sing

Snoozer, Penelope, Panda, Howdy, Oxnard Bijou & Boss let’s go!

Zersnoo, Pepenelo, Sobs, Dapan, Dehow Nardox Joubi & Hamtaro!

Little Hamsters, Big Adventures

Ham-Ham, Hamtaro!

Contrasting the above songs with the theme song of Jimmy Neutron , an American cartoon, is particularly striking:

From here to the stars,

With my candy bars,

Rides a kid

With a knack

For inventions.

A super-powered mind,

A mechanical canine, 

He rescues the day

From sure destruction.

…He's gotta save the world

And get to school on time,

So many things to do

And not much time

Who can we count on?

Jimmy Neutron!

Who can we count on?

Jimmy Neutron!

Who can we count on?

Jimmy Neutron!

Unlike the Hamtaro songs, which highlight the group or team and go so far as to list the names of all of the Ham-Hams, Jimmy Neutron’s episodes and theme songs emphasize the importance of one boy who must constantly save the world. Jimmy Neutron was born with “a knack for inventions [and] a super-powered mind” and school is mentioned in passing, as one of the many things he has to do. Hamtaro, on the other hand, emphasizes doing one’s very best and making a hundred on a test, to make all one’s dreams come true.

While I don’t know of any scientific research on the power of these children’s shows for fostering cooperation or competition, sociology is rich with research on the influence of the media on our perceptions and behavior. It might just be that one of the reasons the Millennials value collaboration is all those Saturday mornings spent with the Power Rangers and the success of the team-oriented shows that continue to follow might be suggestive of media’s tendency to both shape and reflect culture. It might just be that shows demonstrating cooperation over competition are more appealing to today’s young people.

Who is Most Likely to be a Crime Victim?

By Karen Sternheimer

If you watch one of the many television crime dramas that are on now, you might think you know the answer to this question. But looking at the actual statistics might surprise you.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has conducted the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) each year since 1973, asking a random sample of Americans twelve and older about their experiences with crime during the past year.

This survey is important because many crimes, especially minor crimes like theft, never get reported to police. So if we relied solely on law enforcement agency data, we might never get a good picture of the prevalence of crime. For instance, by comparing the NCVS to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, a database of crimes and arrests based on law enforcement data, we can also get an idea of how many rapes get reported to the police and how many don’t.

Here are some things the NCVS teaches us about crime victimization from 1973 to 2006, the most recent year for which data are available:

1. Violent victimization is on the decline

Between 1973 and 1993, violent victimization held somewhat steady, hovering just under 50 per 1,000 (this means that for every thousand Americans, fifty were victims of violence) to around 20 per 1,000 in 2006. This trend mirrors FBI data, which also details a sharp crime decline after the early 1990s. As you can see below, property crime declined significantly too.

2. Teens and young adults are the most likely victims of violent crime

Young people are the most likely victims of violent crime. In 2006, young adults 20-24 were slightly more likely to report victimization than teens after many years of teens being the group most likely to be victims of violence. This isn’t necessarily because teens themselves are more violent—according to then FBI Uniform Crime Reports the vast majority of people arrested for violent crime (more than 80 percent) are adults.

Take a look at the lowest line on the graph above; despite the common perception that the elderly are highly likely to be victims of violence, they are the group least likely to be victimized.

3. Blacks are more likely to be victims of violence than whites

Unfortunately, the NCVS data on race only considers two categories. From the graph above, it is clear that black victimization is higher than the rate for whites. Although the rates for both groups have declined in recent years, we can see that black victimization has increased slightly, while white victimization has remained flat.

4. Males are more likely to be victims of violence than females

With the exception of rape, males are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than females are. As Sally Raskoff blogged about last year, we tend to believe that females are more vulnerable to violence. Boys and men are more likely to be victims of assault, robbery, and homicide than girls or women are.

5. Low-income people are more likely to be victims

The NCVS data reveal that those with household incomes below $7,500 are more than three times more likely to be robbed than those with incomes above $75,000. This might seem counterintuitive; wouldn’t wealthier people have more and better stuff to take? They probably do, but poorer people are more likely to live in higher crime neighborhoods, and criminals typically victimize those around them the most. It’s more convenient.

Poor people are not just more likely to be robbed. Those at the lowest income level are victims of aggravated assault at the rate of 13 per 1,000, compared with 3 per 1,000 in the $75,000 and over category.

 

Okay, now that we have some basic ideas about the age, race, gender, and class of the most likely victims of crime, let’s think about who is most likely to be featured in crime dramas. The victims on these shows tend to be (although are not always) sympathetic figures; after all, if we don’t care about the victim, we might not care if their assailants are caught and brought to justice.

This might lead to highlighting white female victimization, both in crime dramas and in the news to appeal to a specific target audience. Historically the fear for white women and children’s safety motivated the lynching of many black men and the passage of laws allegedly to protect women’s virtue.

In seeking a middle class audience, producers might also tend to focus on middle class victims, people we might imagine are “just like us” and therefore their victimization hits closer to home. We might also feel more emotional connection to stories about elderly victims, which heighten the sense of outrage against a heartless perpetrator.

So crime shows have a lot of compelling reasons for telling slightly different crime stories than the ones that happen in real life. Drama, after all, is heightened reality, not reality.

But it’s important to recognize that the abundance of crime dramas might distort our perception of who are most likely to be victims. Based on NCVS data, those who are young, black, male, and poor are disproportionally likely to be crime victims. Why do you think we have had an easier time viewing this group as the cause of crime, rather than as crime victims?

Field Experiments and Racism

By Bradley Wright

When sociologists study something, we usually start by making observations. Maybe we take a survey, in which case we covert our observations to answers on a questionnaire, or maybe we’ll do fieldwork and go out into a social situation and watch what goes on. In either case, we’re not changing what we’re studying, or at least we’re not trying to, but rather we’re just watching it and recording what we learn.

In contrast to these observational studies, we could intentionally change something and then see what happens as a result. This is an experimental approach. With an experiment, you have two or more groups, and the researcher (or somebody) does something to one of the groups but not the other. What the researcher does is the independent variable (or cause). The researcher then measures the outcome of what happens—the dependent variable (or effect).

The idea of an experiment conjures up images of a mad scientist in a castle or at least well-funded psychologists in laboratories messing with introductory psychology students. Another approach, however, is called a field experiment, where the researcher conducts an experiment in a natural setting instead of laboratory.

Here’s a video that illustrates this approach. In it, the reporting team from ABC News sets up an experiment. They park an old car in a parking lot in a predominately white neighborhood. They then have several white teenagers vandalize the car for about an hour. These kids jump on the car, spray paint it, and try to break into it. During this time, several people walking by stop and talk to the kids, sometimes even telling them not to do it. However, during that period of time, only one person called the police.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Next, the reporters repeated the situation but they used African-American teens instead. The kids did the same things to the car for about the same period of time, but this time ten people called the police. The conclusion? The race of the possible offender influences whether their actions are defined as criminal, so it’s not just what people do that matters but also who they are. (Unfortunately, the news crew did not repeat the experiment in a predominately black neighborhood.)

Field experiments have a lot going for them. Like all experiments, the causality is clear. The independent variable precedes the dependent variable, and, if the study is done correctly, the change in the dependent variable is the only difference (on average) between the two groups. Sociologists call this internal validity— which means we can trust the causal story of a study.

Also, field experiments measure things that people might not report on surveys, either because they don’t want to look bad or they don’t realize that aspect of themselves. For example, imagine we gave a survey to the people in the community described above, and we asked them if they would be more likely to call police if they saw African-American kids committing vandalism. I imagine that they would all so “no”—who wants to be viewed as potentially racist? Yet, in the field experiment, that’s exactly what they did.

Finally, field experiments take place in naturalistic settings in contrast to laboratory settings which happen in small, windowless rooms in academic buildings. Now, maybe what happens in lab experiments generalizes to the real world just fine, but we’re more confident in the generalizability of field experiments because they actually happen in everyday life. Sociologists call this external validity.

So, field experiments have both high internal and external validity. Sweet deal!

This raises the question of why sociologists don’t do more field experiments. Perhaps one reason is that it’s not traditional in sociology. When I went through graduate school, I received a lot of training in survey research, some in qualitative methods, and none in experiments.

Unfortunately, it’s not always clear how to translate a sociological topic into a field experiment. Let me give you an example. I study the sociology of religion, and I am also very interested in field experiments. This makes me wonder about how to study religion using field experiments. To do this, I need to randomly assign religion, or at least the perception of religion, or randomly assign something that will change religion. Obviously I can’t just assign religious beliefs—“you’re Christian, you’re Muslim, you’re Hindu.” Also, it’s tough to assign levels of religiosity. “Could you stop going to church so much?”

So, can religion be studied using a field experiment, and, if so, how? I have some thoughts, but I would like to hear what you think. If you have some ideas, send them to me at Bradley.wright@uconn.edu. Who knows? Maybe your idea will someday be featured on a television show!

The Office

By Karen Sternheimer

Do you now, or have you ever worked in an office? If so, you might like watching The Office as much as I do. Aside from its quirky characters, faux documentary style and offbeat plot lines, The Office is a window into some sociological aspects of work.

When you work with people on a regular basis, they can become a sort of second family. Sometimes our coworkers see us more than family members do, and might even know more about us than some of our closest friends.

On The Office, the Steve Carell character, Michael, often refers to his staff as a family. Managers can go to a lot of trouble to help workers feel like part of a group, and of course this isn’t just so everyone makes new friends. If people have a sense of commitment to each other, rather than just to a paycheck, they might be more productive. That’s why companies spend untold amounts of money on office parties and retreats in order to promote a sense of cohesion.

Coworkers can move from being people that we have to deal with on a limited basis in order to earn a living, to what sociologists call primary groups, or people who experience ongoing relationships with one another that can be very influential.

I worked in several offices before becoming a professor, and on several occasions my coworkers became my closest friends. Like the work at the fictitious Dunder Mifflin paper company on The Office, the work I did was often mundane and unfulfilling, and the mini-dramas of coworkers was the only thing that helped pass the time. In one office I worked at, I had three or four coworkers who were just as bored as I was, and we bonded over the absurdity of our daily tasks. We all worked in different areas of the office and had experiences with different aspects of the organization. One day, we thought it would be fun to all have lunch together and comment on our observations (okay, I really mean gossip).

We all became close friends, talking on the phone after work, meeting up for dinner, going to lunch together and hanging out on weekends. We developed code names for our coworkers (and ourselves) ranging from cartoon characters and Disney icons to infamous criminals and unique combinations of obscenities. One of my friends panicked when he couldn’t remember the actual name of a coworker with whom he had an upcoming meeting and called me on my extension to ask if I remembered her real name. Fortunately for him, I did.

If this all sounds immature and mean-spirited to you, I admit, it was. Just like on The Office, pettiness and gossip can dominate a day’s work when the job itself offers little mental stimulation (which is why I love being a professor now). This reflects Marx’s concept of alienation, or when workers feel little or no connection to their work. He originally described alienation as something that happened to people working in factories who saw little or no economic gain from the products they produced. We can certainly apply this idea to more contemporary forms of work, like selling things in a retail job but earning the same wage whether you sell $1 or $1,000 dollars worth of merchandise. With limited opportunity for workers to make unique contributions in their jobs, they might feel more like cogs in a machine than valued employees.

And yet some of the shenanigans featured in The Office also happen in places where people truly like their work and feel that their skills are being well used. I worked in one such office years ago, where most of the employees were well educated and had a significant amount of responsibility and autonomy. But much like in The Office, we had a supervisor who had a knack for irritating the employees, in particular by constantly reminding everyone of his superior position.

As occasionally happens on the sitcom, we had moments of bonding when our self-centered boss did something we found absurd. For instance, once the boss and I had a meeting and presentation with an important client. The boss let me know, in front of the client, that after the presentation I could leave because I was not invited to have lunch with them. When I told the others, they laughed at the unique ability of this person to look for opportunities to be rude. On a business trip a colleague and I ran into the boss in the hotel lobby with a client. Again, the boss told us that they would be having dinner and we would have to make other plans. My coworker and I looked at each other and laughed, knowing we’d all have a much better time without them there.

My office was located the furthest from the self-important bosses’ office, so coworkers would often come by to vent and laugh at some absurd interchange they just had with him. The boss once told me that my coworkers had complained that I “distracted them” too much and I should stop talking to them because they weren’t as productive as I was. I knew as he spoke that it was a lie, that my coworkers were friends outside of the office and they would never have gone to the boss they distrusted. But by blaming me for the quality of other people’s work, the boss could find an easy target. As work becomes central to who we are, our sense of self can become intertwined with our performance as workers and/or managers.

Having a bad job or obnoxious boss is no excuse to do bad work or to goof off on the clock. And yet as social beings, we look for ways to forge ties with our fellow workers. Some of these ties involve managing the stress of a dead-end job or domineering boss. Just as it is on The Office, sometimes what goes on at work is a way to pass the time that we have exchanged for a paycheck. As some occupations require people to work longer hours, relocate away from other friends and family, and as others delay marriage and child rearing for later years, the people at the office become even more important in our lives.

Rehab, Labeling, and Deviance

By Sally Raskoff

Your favorite television shows can be useful for applying sociological concepts and theories. Sometimes it’s easier to look at other people’s lives than it is to analyze than something in your own life.

This occurred to me as I watched the beginning episodes of the second season of “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” on VH1. We all know people who struggle with addiction whether it be caffeine, alcohol, other drugs, chocolate, sex, shopping, or gambling, yet using those personal examples can be difficult as our emotions may cloud our perceptions of what is occurring.

Since sociology courses are not “therapy” it may be wise to use examples that are further from one’s own life. “Celebrity Rehab” provides many opportunities for us to further develop our sociological imaginations.

On this “reality” show, actors, models, musicians, and other celebrities come to Dr. Drew and rehab and attempt to kick their habits. In this second season actor Jeff has returned – he had been a participant in season 1 but had left the program – and his girlfriend Vikki has checked herself in as well. Actor Gary has a mission and has come to share his tales of sobriety to inspire others. Model Amber is also among the second season participants. Like Sean, the son of a famous person, she has come to quit her opiate addiction.

Dr. Drew discusses each patient on season 2:

• VH1 TV Shows
• Music Videos
• Celebrity Photos
• News & Gossip

Self-perception is a particularly salient concept to analyze here since many of these people have agreed to come to rehab because they have realized that they have can no longer live with their addiction. Charles Horton Cooley’s "looking glass self" –that our self perception rests partially on how we think others perceive us—is fascinating to consider for these celebrities. They are volunteering to be on television to show their addictions, therapy, and many other personal details with the public. The show airs long after it is filmed, so they have no idea of how they will be depicted or what will air, and they have no control over that. Like our own "looking glass selves" we never really know how other are really perceiving us, but we make internal judgments and those assessments are based on our own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about ourselves and others.

This process is rarely conscious; if we feel shame then our assessments are likely to fuel this shame and guilt and all other such negative emotions that accompany low self-esteem.

Many of these celebrities are living out what Robert K. Merton called "self-fulfilling prophecies", or false assessments and beliefs that can become true if we believe them and act as if they were true.

To some extent we expect actors, models, and children of famous people to abuse drugs and alcohol. The mantra “Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n Roll” makes addiction almost a job requirement. Thus many who go into these lines of work, or who are members of famous families, the addiction cycle becomes fulfilled as life continues.

Each participant in Celebrity Rehab gives different reasons for why they became addicted to their particular drug of choice. Yet most have in common traumatic childhood events, neglectful or abusive histories, and plenty of emotional and physical pain -- commonalities with all addicts and many other people. Most of them also mention specifically their social context as part of the reason for their addiction: the actors speak of drugs offered to them on their jobs, the model speaks of drugs to stay thin and alert for work then to bring them down to sleep, and the child actor says that partying was the only vocation expected of him.

People who use or abuse illegal drugs (or misuse prescription drugs) are violating a norm and exemplify Primary deviance. When Gary and Jeff talk of earlier cocaine use and Amber mentions her prescription drug use, it’s obvious they know this is problematic or deviant behavior. Amber mentions that her mother taught her how to use – and they used together -- which makes you wonder if she was aware of the deviant nature of drugs when she first began to abuse them.

Secondary deviance moves a step beyond primary deviance: As a result of breaking a norm, an individual is labeled as deviant and then conforms to that label and thinks of him or herself as deviant. (Or others think that they are). For example, the Celebrity Rehabbers talk about themselves as addicts and the problems they have as a result of those addictions.

Gary talks frankly about his cocaine addiction and seems proud that he is “thirteen years sober.” Jeff talks about his back pain and subsequent pain killer addiction, and in the first season of the show he discloses early childhood abuses that provide another level of rationale for numbing himself (albeit ineffectively). Amber and Sean are upfront about identifying themselves as addicts who are there to try and break the cycle of addiction. While they all accept the label of drug addict, Gary is adamant about identifying his problem as in the past.

Jeff’s girlfriend, Vikki, seems to move from primary deviance into secondary deviance when she admits that she needs help for her problems related to drug use. In the first season, it was clear she was using but wasn’t aware that it was a problem. When she checked into rehab, she seemed to accept that label. On the other hand, perhaps this decision had more to do with staying with Jeff as he participated on the show.

Gary’s insistence on his sobriety is a great example of tertiary deviance-- when we reject or transform the stigma associated with the deviant label and redefine it as a positive phenomenon. He sees himself as a member of the therapeutic team who is there to inspire and redeem. That he “uses medicinal marijuana for his asthma” among other substances doesn’t seem to bother him. Dr. Drew tries to point out, carefully, that any substance use means he is not sober and that Gary is a patient not an employee, but this message doesn’t sink in.

While Gary’s brain damage due to earlier events could be a factor in his thinking, his repeated insistence on this role suggests that he has redefined his addiction as an experience through which he can inspire others --thus turning this negative identity into a positive role. He visibly bristles at being equated with the others who are there to kick their addictions, as he firmly believes he has already done so himself.

Television shows like Celebrity Rehab can provide some ways to both practice applying sociological concepts and to identify how these concepts and theories can be of use.

What other TV shows would you recommend for fleshing out sociological theories and concepts?