Department of Sociology

Karen V. Hansen published Working-Class Kids and Visionary Educators in a Multiracial High School: A Story of Belonging (Lexington Books). This book tells the story of Sunnyvale High School in California from 1956 to 1981. As a graduate of the class of 1973 and a historical sociologist, Professor Hansen conducted oral histories with 55 people spanning a great diversity of experiences and origins—principals, teachers, alumni, members of the Chicano Student Union and Pep Club, student athletes, and competitive debaters. She worked with Nicholas Monroe to scour through yearbooks and issues of the student newspaper to tell the remarkable tales of teachers’ innovations and students' hardships and triumphs.

Derron Wallace’s book, The Culture Trap, has received the following awards

• Pierre Bourdieu Best Book Award, Sociology of Education, American Sociological Association
  
• Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award for Anti-Racist Scholarship, Race & Ethnicity, American Sociological Association
  
• Honorable Mention, Outstanding Book Award, Sociology of Children & Youth, American Sociological Association
  
• Finalist, C. Wright Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems
  PROSE Outstanding Book Award, Educational Theory & Practice, Association of American Publishers
  
• Silver Medal, Independent Publishers’ Best Book Award, Education Commentary & Theory
  
• Outstanding Book Award, Society of Professors of Education
  
• Outstanding Book Award, Educational Research, Society for the Study of Social Problems
  

Sarah Mayorga and Elizabeth Korver-Glenn (UNC-Chapel Hill) published the book A Good Reputation: How Residents Fight for an American Barrio through University of Chicago Press.

Derron Wallace was recognized three times this year for these three awards

•  Distinguished Early Career Award, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, American Sociological Association
  
• Distinguished Early Career Award, Sociology of Children & Youth, American Sociological Association
  
• Public Sociology Award, Eastern Sociological Society

Sarah Mayorga published a personal essay on growing up in an anti-communist home & now critically studying racial capitalism in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology.

Rachel McKane published a piece in The Conversation with David Pellow on "Stop Cop City"

Michael Strand published an article with Brandeis PhD alum Sam Leonard titled "Performativity: Model and meaning in a post-Austinian frame" in the European Journal of Social Theory." This article proposes a post-Austinian approach to performativity by drawing from Peircean semeiotics.

Ethnic and Racial Studies published a Symposium on Sociology Professor Derron Wallace's book, The Culture Trap. The subject matter of Derron Wallace’s The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth is the overreliance on ideas about culture to explain the underachievement of black youth in the context of education. In this symposium, they have brought together four scholars who have written critical commentaries on key facets of the book.

Rachel McKane co-authored an article with John Logan and Brian Stults on contributors to concentrated poverty, which was published in the Journal of Urban Affairs

Michael Nooy-Strand published a chapter in The Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, Volume 2 on "Social Justice as a Field"

Wendy Cadge co-authored "The Persistence of Religion as a Master Status for Chaplains" with Amy Lawton, published in Review of Religious Research

Derron Wallace made a book trailer, inspired by his son Jeremiah, for his book The Culture Trap

Michael Strand contributed a chapter entitled “Social Justice as a Field” to the Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research (Springer, 2023).

Professors Siri Suh and Gowri Vijayakumar published their new article "Toward Transnational Feminist Methodologies in Global Health: Critical Ethnographies of HIV and Abortion," in the journal Studies in Comparative International Development as part of a special issue on Global Health.

McKane, Rachel, Patrick Trent Greiner, David Pellow. "Mutual Aid as a Praxis for Critical Environmental Justice: Lessons from W.E.B. Du Bois, Critical Theoretical Perspectives, and Mobilising Collective Care in Disasters." Antipode

Strand, Michael. 2023. “Why Don’t Big Theory Books Work in the US? A Reply to Simon Susen.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 

Tamar Harrison, Linda Palmer, Sara Shostak. "Fit Around the Farm: A holistic approach to health promotion for elders." SSM - Qualitative Research in Health 

Horowitz, Bethamie, Wendy Cadge, and Joseph Weisberg. "American Jewish Chaplains: Adopting an American Form." Contemporary Jewry.

Lawton, Amy, Adah Anderson, and Wendy Cadge. 2023. "Nonreligious Chaplains and Spiritual Care." Religions.

Carolina P Seigler, Wendy Cadge. "How Organizational Leaders Negotiate Religious Differences: Frameworks of Mandate and Interpersonal Care." Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

Shostak, Sara. "Food and Inequality." Annual Review of Sociology

2024 Interview with Brandeis Graduate School of Arts and Sciences "Geeking Out With...Manning Zhang".

With sympathy, we share the passing of Gordie Fellman, Professor Emeritus of Sociology

• Memorial service video, held at Brandeis University, Oct. 24, 2022

• Remembrance of Gordie

Siri Suh's New Article

Siri Suh’s new publication in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society offers transnational perspectives on how health workers navigate restrictive abortion laws, and consequences for women's health in the post-Roe era. 

Read here: Subversive Epidemiology in Abortion Care: Reproductive Governance from the Global to the Local in Argentina and Senegal

Congratulations to Associate Professor Siri Suh for receiving the following Book Award:

Eileen Basker Memorial Prize, Society of Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, 2022

Read here: "Dying to Count: Global Reproductive Health Politics and Post-Abortion Care in Senegal"

Academic Fair

Glad to see you all at the Academic Fair!

Aug. 24, 2022
Sherman Function Hall
9:30-11:30 a.m.

Library Orientation Research Overview

August 22nd, 2022

Research Overview Presentation Slides

AAAS/SOC Diploma Ceremony

May 22nd, 2022

We are live streaming our diploma ceremony for those who aren't able to attend in person.

A Zoom link will be used for the AAAS/Sociology Diploma Ceremony at 1:30 p.m. May 22 in Sherman Hall. The link can be shared with students to share with their families.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Gowri Vijayakumar for the following Book Awards:

Outstanding Book Award, Global Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems, 2022

Best Scholarly Book Award, Section on Global and Transnational Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2022

Transnational Book Award, Section on Asia and Asian America, American
Sociological Association, 2022

Distinguished Scholarly Book Award Honorable Mention, Section on Sexualities, American Sociological Association, 2022

Read here: "At Risk: Indian Sexual Politics and the Global AIDS Crisis"

Joint Book Launch

February 11th, 2022

Joint Virtual Book Celebration hosted by Professor Siri Suh and Professor Gowri Vijayakumar

In conversation with
Professor Zine Magubane, Boston college,
and Professor Nitsan Chorev, Brown University.

Moderated by Professor Sarah Mayorga, Brandeis University.
Feb. 11, 2022
Noon-2 p.m.

 Listen to the recorded book launch.

Brandeis Sociology is celebrating the release of two new faculty books:
Professor Gowri Vijayakumar's "At Risk: Indian Sexual Politics and the Global AIDS Crisis" and
Professor Siri Suh's "Dying to Count: Post-Abortion care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal"

"Back to the Roots" and Forward Towards Equity With Sara Shostak

October 28th, 2021

Professor Sara Shostak (Sociology & HSSP) and Norris Guscott, equity policy network manager for the MA Food System Collaborative, spoke at a colloquium to discuss Sara's recent book, "Back to the Roots: Memory, Inequality & Urban Agriculture."

"Diversity’s Fault Lines"

Sociologist Sarah Mayorga examines the coded ways white people engage with their Black and Latinx neighbors.

Read in Brandeis Magazine

Sara Shostak, Wendy Cadge, and others publish "Encountering the social determinants of health on a COVID-19 ICU: Frontline providers’ perspectives on inequality in a time of pandemic"

Sara Shostak, Wendy Cadge, Julia Bandini (Sociology PhD), Mariah Lewis (Sociology UDR) and Sophie Trachtenberg (Recent Alum), and others published "Encountering the social determinants of health on a COVID-19 ICU: Frontline providers’ perspectives on inequality in a time of pandemic" in "SSM— Qualitative Research in Health," Vol. 1.

Abstract:

Efforts to improve health equity may be advanced by understanding health care providers' perceptions of the causes of health inequalities. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with nurses and registered respiratory therapists (RRTs) who served on intensive care units (ICUs) during the first surge of the pandemic, this paper examines how frontline providers perceive and attribute the unequal impacts of COVID-19. It shows that nurses and RRTs quickly perceived the pandemic's disproportionate burden on Black and Latinx individuals and families. Providers attribute these inequalities to the social determinants of health, and also raise questions about how barriers to healthcare access may have made some patients more vulnerable to the worst consequences of COVID-19. Providers' perceptions of inequality and its consequences on COVID-19 ICUs were emotionally impactful and distressing, suggesting that this is a critical moment for offering clinicians practical strategies for understanding and addressing the persistent structural inequities that cause racial inequalities in health.

Karen Hansen has just been named the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfeld Professor of Sociology.

The Beinfeld Chairs were established in 1993. Victor Beinfield, a Boston native and a successful investor and financier, was a Brandeis Fellow and received an honorary degree from the university in 1988. His second wife, Gwendolyn, was a Brandeis National Committee member who once served as a social worker in the Department of Public Welfare in Baltimore. Karen was selected to hold this chair in recognition of her many accomplishments as a scholar and her outstanding service to the university.  

Siri Suh publishes "Dying to Count: Post-Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal" in the Health, Inequality, and Social Justice series at Rutgers University Press.

June 18th, 2021

About the Book:

"During the early 1990s, global health experts developed a new model of emergency obstetric care: post-abortion care or PAC. In developing countries with restrictive abortion laws and where NGOs relied on US family planning aid, PAC offered an apolitical approach to addressing the consequences of unsafe abortion.

"In 'Dying to Count,' Siri Suh traces how national and global population politics collide in Senegal as health workers, health officials, and NGO workers strive to demonstrate PAC’s effectiveness in the absence of rigorous statistical evidence that the intervention reduces maternal mortality. Suh argues that pragmatically assembled PAC data convey commitments to maternal mortality reduction goals while obscuring the frequency of unsafe abortion and the inadequate care women with complications are likely to receive if they manage to reach a hospital. At a moment when African women face the highest risk worldwide of death from complications related to pregnancy, birth, or abortion, Suh’s ethnography of PAC in Senegal makes a critical contribution to studies of global health, population and development, African studies, and reproductive justice."

Sara Shostak, Wendy Cadge, and others publish "Intensive care unit nurses living through COVID-19: A qualitative study"

April 30th, 2021

Sara Shostak, Wendy Cadge, Julia Bandini (Sociology PhD), Mariah Lewis (Sociology UDR) and Sophie Trachtenberg (Recent Alum), and others published "Intensive Care Unit Nurses Living Through COVID-19: A Qualitative Study" in Wiley Online Library.

Abstract:

Aims

To understand how nurses experience providing care for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in intensive care units.

Background

As hospitals adjust staffing patterns to meet the demands of the pandemic, nurses have direct physical contact with ill patients, placing themselves and their families at physical and emotional risk.

Methods

From June to August 2020, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Sixteen nurses caring for COVID-19 patients during the first surge of the pandemic were selected via purposive sampling. Participants worked in ICUs of a quaternary 1,000-bed hospital in the Northeast United States. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, identifiers were removed, and data were coded thematically.

Results

Our exploratory study identified four themes that describe the experiences of nurses providing care to patients in COVID-19 ICUs during the first surge: (a) challenges of working with new co-workers and teams, (b) challenges of maintaining existing working relationships, (c) role of nursing leadership in providing information and maintaining morale and (d) the importance of institutional-level acknowledgement of their work.

Conclusions

As the pandemic continues, hospitals should implement nursing staffing models that maintain and strengthen existing relationships to minimize exhaustion and burnout.

Implications for Nursing Management

To better support nurses, hospital leaders need to account for their experiences caring for COVID-19 patients when making staffing decisions.

"Examining racial inequality in public schools during a pandemic"

December 7th, 2020

Sociologist Derron Wallace saw an opportunity to use his expertise to make a difference.

Read in BrandeisNOW

Sociology Statement on #FORDHALL2015

November 2nd, 2015

The faculty and staff of the Department of Sociology stand in solidarity with students who have occupied Bernstein-Marcus. We strongly endorse their vision of a more inclusive and diverse university. We commend their leadership and courage in asking all of us to participate in the realization of this vision. We commit ourselves to actively engaging to deepen the conversation and to support concrete efforts to move towards a more equitable and just Brandeis.

Our discipline arose from the study of inequality and injustice, and these remain central concerns. We recognize the harms done by systems of structural inequality, which exact deadly and unacceptable tolls on the bodies, souls, families, and communities of people of color in the United States. We also know that the values and policies that have attempted to address the persistent problems of racism and exclusion in our society and our university have often fallen short, and that new discussions, new ideals and new practices are necessary to move our communities forward.

We maintain an unshakable commitment to teaching and research focused on inequality and injustice, their consequences, and mechanisms for their amelioration. We support continued negotiations between the students, university administration, interim President Lynch and the Board of Trustees to find a collaborative path for addressing the yet unfulfilled social justice promise of Brandeis. We will continue to engage with our students, colleagues, and university leaders to address these issues on campus and beyond in a constructive and collaborative manner.