Q&A with Lauren Crosser

Lauren Crosser is the author, along with Sarah Mayorga and Megan R. Underhill, of the feature article “Aisle Inequality” in the Winter 2023 issue of Contexts. Listen to this short interview to learn why Crosser and her coauthors chose Contexts as an outlet for their work and what readers will find when they delve in.

Q&A with Chiara Cooper

In her Winter 2023 article, “Heterosex on Campus: Laced with Double-Binds,” Chiara Elena Cooper’s interviews with race- and class-privileged college students reveal a web of double-binds and compromises–and a whole lot of unwanted sex. Here, we chat with Dr. Cooper about why she chose to publish in Contexts and what she sees as the biggest takeaways from her new piece. Read, download, and share the article here.

Fear of CPS: A Teaching Package

Above, co-author DeAnna Y. Smith, who penned the Winter 2023 feature “Child Removal Fears and Black Mothers’ Medical Decision-Making” with Alexus Roane, speaks with Contexts graduate editorial assistant Parker Muzzerall about the lasting impact of state contacts as well as their choice to publish in our public-facing journal. Below, we share some teaching exercises for those who wish to bring Smith’s work into the classroom. And in between? The article itself! Now free to read, download, and share through April 3, 2023 (and again after March 3, 2024).

Teaching Exercises:

1. In the article, we read that Marcia, having been reported to CPS and suspecting that her son’s pediatrician made the call, “avoids providing intimate details about her life and the lives of her children” as she meets with medical practitioners. What does she risk if she’s candid, and what does she risk if she is not candid in this situation? Discuss the strategy of “concealment” (following sociologist Kelley Fong) and how it changes the interactions between clients and the institutions meant to serve them.
2. Choose three medical conditions that may be linked to socioeconomic status (SES). Using the four metamechanisms of Fundamental Cause Theory, discuss how SES and these medical conditions may interact to produce unequal health outcomes for Black mothers and their children.
3. Choose another theory from medical sociology and repeat exercise 2. How does this theory provide similar or dissimilar evidence?
4. Medical mistrust, it seems, can flow both ways. Read about the movement to abolish CPS and about the role of “mandated reporters” in the function of such agencies. Why do some doctors feel compelled to report mothers to CPS, and how might that compulsion change if the movement to abolish CPS were to succeed?

Winter 2023 Table of Contents

from the editors

in brief:

• “Fight or Flight for America,” by Parker Muzzerall.
• “The Moral Appeal of McDonald’s,” by Parker Muzzerall.
• “Anchored in Hypermasculine Orgs,” by Rose Xueqing Zhang.
• “Policing Community Complaints,” by Sophie X. Liu.
• “Food Insecurity Triggering Migration,” by Sophie X. Liu.
• “Who’s Lonely?” by Rose Xueqing Zhang.
• “TransJoy,” by Sophie X. Liu.

q&a:

• “Professors, We (Still) Need You!” Amin Ghaziani interviews Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof about the state of social science in news and policy.

features:

• “Diaper Despair and Deflecting Inequalities,” by Jennifer Randles and Jennifer Sherman. How class blindness undermines collective solutions to collective problems–and creates a situation that just plain stinks.
• “Child Removal Fears and Black Mothers’ Medical Decision-Making,” by Deanna Y. Smith and Alexus Roane. Fear of state punishment joins medical mistrust and experiences of discrimination as Black women consider whether and where to seek medical care for themselves and their children.
• “Aisle Inequality,” by Sarah Mayorga, Megan R. Underhill, and Lauren Crosser. When a simple trip to the grocery store is anything but, the reality of unequal choices forces us to rethink the American notion that consumption is freedom.
• “From Matamoros to Reynosa: Migrant Camps on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” by Bertha Alicia Bermudez Tapia. Inside the migrant camps emerging and being erased at the U.S.-Mexico border, we glimpse liminal lives crafted by punitive immigration policy yet sustained by hope.
• “Caught in the Dragnet: How Punitive Immigration Laws Harm Immigrant Community Helpers,” by Stephanie L. Canizales. Legal violence, or the effects of an intertwining of immigration and criminal law, harms asylum seekers and immigrants, as well as the U.S. attorneys, social workers, health professionals, and advocates who help them.
• “Heterosex on Campus: Laced with Double-Binds,” by Chiara Elena Cooper. Interviews with race- and class-privileged college students reveal a web of double-binds and compromises–and a whole lot of unwanted sex.

in pictures:

• “Globalizing the City Creative,” by David Schalliol and Michael Carriere. DIY activists creating change in communities around the world.

culture:

• “Nigerian Intermarriage: Making Black Diversity Visible,” by Karen Amaka Okigbo.
• “So Shut Up and Listen to Us!” by Neeraja Kolloju.

trends:

• “Working from Home: Before and After the Pandemic,” by Hilary Silver.
• “How We Define Mass Shootings Shapes What We Can Learn about Them,” by Melanie Brazzell, Tara Leigh Tober, and Tristan Bridges.

books:

• “American Racism,” by Iddo Tavory.

policy briefs:

• “Improving Communication Access for Children with Incarcerated Parents,” by Sarah Jensen, Kaitlyn Pritzl, Pajarita Charles, Margaret Kerr, and Julie Poehlmann.
• “The Case for Drug War Reparations,” by Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman.

one thing i know:

• “A Promise of Care,” by Steven W. Thrasher.

 

Contexts in the Classroom: Teaching Durkheim’s Suicide at UBC

Contexts articles are perfect for the classroom: rigorous, relevant, readable, and rad! In this video, Dr. Seth Abrutyn, Contexts co-editor, talks about using his own piece, “Durkheim’s Suicide in the Zombie Apocalypse,” co-written with Dr. Anna Mueller, to help undergrads engage Suicide. The article is free to read and download from our publisher SAGE, making it easy for students to access and use it, and below, Dr. Abrutyn shares his small-group discussion prompts.

Please break up into groups of 3-4 students to discuss the Durkheim’s Suicide and the article on the zombie apocalypse. One student can be responsible for taking down the group’s answers to the following questions, and another for sharing with the full class when we reconvene.

1. Why does a zombie apocalypse serve as a good analogy to Durkheim’s thoughts on modern societies?
2. From your understanding, what were the major differences between Rick Grimes and Dr. Jenner’s characters that led to different outcomes?
3. Can you think of other real or fictional crises that might have similar social outcomes to a zombie apocalypse?

A Chat with Dr. Elizabeth Hirsh

What is Dr. Beth Hirsh’s favorite section of Contexts? The policy briefs, she says, are great because they put policymakers and scholars into conversation while helping the broader public think about how sociological insights and evidence can be used in actual problem-solving. Pitch your own article ideas to Contexts by visiting contexts.org/submission-guidelines.

Contexts: Rigorous. Relevant. Readable. Rad.

A Chat with Dr. Elizabeth Hirsch

What is Dr. Beth Hirsch’s favorite section of Contexts? The policy briefs, she says, are great because they put policymakers and scholars into conversation while helping the broader public think about how sociological insights and evidence can be used in actual problem-solving. Pitch your own article ideas to Contexts by visiting contexts.org/submission-guidelines.

Contexts: Rigorous. Relevant. Readable. Rad.

A Chat with Dr. Laura Nelson

About Contexts and its trends section, Dr. Laura Nelson (University of British Columbia) enthuses, “This is what we [sociologists] do: We take data and we turn it into social insights!” Interested in writing for Contexts? Check out our author guidelines at contexts.org/submission-guidelines. Plus you can read, download, and share our back issues at ctx.sagepub.com!

Contexts: Rigorous. Relevant. Readable. Rad.

A Chat with Dr. Ethan Raker

As UBC welcomes Contexts (or, should we say, CANtexts?), we’re speaking with sociology faculty to learn what they love about the magazine and its public-facing mission. First up, Dr. Ethan Raker with Contexts graduate editor Rose Zhang.