Abstract An extensive literature finds that forced moves erode well-being and widen family inequality. Fewer studies examine how worries over potential future displacement may also stratify families. Using survey data from a probability sample of Los Angeles County residents, we examine socially-patterned disparities in the prevalence and duration of anticipatory stress around housing loss, the association between such stress and health behaviors, and the role of doubling up in buffering anticipatory housing loss stress. We find that immigrants, renters, and lower-income households report significantly more anticipatory housing loss stress, even after controlling for multiple individual event stressors associated with displacement risk. We also find evidence that anticipatory housing loss stress is associated with present-day food cutbacks and that doubling up with relatives may shield against such stress. These findings advance past work on the housing crisis by demonstrating that its total impact extends beyond the downstream consequences of involuntary moves. Our results also contribute to research on socio-demographic disparities in anticipatory stress, the relationship between anticipatory stress and health behavior, and how doubling up shapes family well-being.
Abstract Students of crime in the United States examine drug economies in poor communities, poor residents’ adaptive behaviors, and punitive crime policies. Research on Latin America, the most violent region in the world, focuses on criminal governance, violence in poor communities, and the popularity of punitive policies. However, few scholars have examined middle class residents’ experiences of crime. This article builds on work on middle classes and utilizes interviews and observations in three Santiago, Chile, communities. Findings focus on middle-class Chileans’ interpretations of crime, adaptive behaviors, and analyses of crime policies. In unsettled times, individuals construct symbolic boundaries with criminals and their peers. Direct experiences with crime as well as cultural and ideological beliefs shape middle class individuals’ contrasting interpretations of crime and construction of boundaries with others. These divergent attitudes reflect enduring fissures within Chilean society over its dictatorship (1973–1990) and recent social upheaval (protests, immigration, and rising crime), complicating universalizing narratives about a punitive Chilean citizenry.
Abstract Some American gun owners have embraced the label “sheepdog,” casting armed citizens as community protectors who step in when the state fails. This identity exposes a central tension in U.S. gun culture: armed citizens present themselves as defenders of order yet challenge the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence. Previous work resolves this tension by dichotomizing gun owners into those who defer to state authority (neoliberals) and those who directly challenge it (neoradicals). We show that gun owners have used online discourse on the sheepdog identity as a locus of internal debate, grappling with the role of armed citizens in protecting their visions of social order. We conduct a digital ethnography, analyzing more than 125 items from 2008–2026 across gun forums, Reddit posts, blog posts, YouTube videos, and associated comments. A moral trinary of “sheepdog–sheep–wolf” animates these conversations, structuring how participants distinguish protectors, the unprepared, and threats. Most converge on a restive stance toward the state: deferential to law and order in normal times, yet prepared to act in the state’s stead when that order appears to fail. This study bridges existing dichotomies in gun scholarship by showing how a restive form of armed citizenship emerges across a polarized America.
Abstract Black immigrants constitute a growing segment of both the U.S. Black and immigrant populations, yet scholarship on neighborhood inequality has largely treated race and nativity as separate. Prior research shows Black neighborhoods face persistent amenity disadvantages, while immigrant neighborhoods may benefit from co-ethnic clustering that attracts resources and institutions. This article examines how these processes intersect by exploring the neighborhood amenities of native-born Black residents, Black immigrants, and non-Black immigrants across 15 U.S. cities. I find that neighborhoods with higher shares of Black residents, regardless of nativity, face disadvantages in access to amenities. Native-born Black neighborhoods experience the most pronounced disadvantages, while Black immigrant neighborhoods fare somewhat better but still lag behind comparable non-Black immigrant neighborhoods. Furthermore, both native-born Black residents and Black immigrants live in neighborhoods with substantially lower amenity levels than the average tract in their cities, with minimal difference between the two groups. These results emphasize the foundational role of anti-Blackness in constraining all Black neighborhoods regardless of nativity.
Abstract Latino immigrant day laborers in California’s Central Valley often experience poor working conditions and employer noncompliance, yet rarely report workplace abuses. This study situates rural day laborers’ experiences of labor and claims-making (e.g., reporting injuries and labor noncompliance), within the context of global racial capitalism. Drawing on 38 semi-structured interviews and six months of participant observation, this article analyzes how workers in rural geographies experience “subordinate inclusion” (De Genova 2013) in ways that discipline them to accept non-compliant working conditions. Findings suggest that workers’ legal status, socioeconomic status, prior work experience, and paternalistic relationships with employers shape decisions against claims-making—processes intended to deter employer noncompliance. Instead, Latino day laborers rely on informal agreements and acts of care from employers that reinforce paternalistic and co-ethnic ties, where loyalty, trust, and shared migration histories discourage formal claims-making. Instances of overt racism by non-Latino employers, however, rupture this arrangement and may prompt claims-making. While scholarship in the sociology of labor and immigration has often conceptualized the rise of low-wage, precarious labor with post-industrialization and fiscal austerity, this study illuminates how the persistence of pre-industrial work, through dynamics of paternalism, carry forward and contribute to the global degradation of work under racial capitalism.
Abstract Inequality scholarship has emphasized the tangible consequences of workplace position and status, focusing less attention on how experiences at work may influence individuals’ views about what is and ought to be. In this article, we explore the possibility that experiences with workplace injustice will shape beliefs about inequality. Our modeling builds on classic theory regarding organizational socialization experiences, recent conceptions concerning relational power dynamics, and research that touches on the spillover from work to other domains of social life. Drawing from five waves of the General Social Survey, our analyses highlight how perceived experiences of injustice in workplace organizations – incompetent management, unfair promotional practices and unjust pay – erode beliefs about meritocracy and encourage progressive orientations toward inequality, including whether or not the government should intervene. Notably, these relationships hold even when accounting for intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of work, demographic attributes, and other potentially relevant controls. Additional analyses demonstrate that these patterns are consistent across race, gender, and socioeconomic status, and are robust to alternative modeling strategies. We conclude by highlighting our most central findings in these regards and how they expand the sociological conception of experiences with inequality, implications for beliefs, and their foundations within organizational contexts.
Abstract While research has examined how the career decisions and outcomes of scientists are influenced by their partners and children, less research has examined the role of their family of origin. Using data from an original survey fielded on a sample of U.S. graduate students in five natural and social science disciplines, we consider how a students’ closeness to and concerns about caring for their family of origin might influence their educational and career decision-making. Our analysis finds that women and many racially- or ethnically-minoritized groups express greater closeness to their family of origin and greater concerns about caring for their family of origin when compared to men and white students. In turn, closeness to and concerns about caring for one’s family of origin are both independently associated with students saying they picked their graduate program to be close to their family of origin and saying they would like to live close to their family after completing their graduate program. These patterns could lead individuals to seek programs and jobs of less prestige and compensation than they could otherwise obtain and have implications for efforts to recruit and retain these groups in science.
Abstract Often referred to as the “mobility turn,” sociologists increasingly attend to the social implications of movement and to movement as itself constitutive of social processes. Despite this shift, environmental justice scholars remain largely focused on spatially fixed areas as sites of analysis, but this approach may miss the complexity of environmental harm experienced by uniquely mobile populations. This article focuses on experiences of environmental injustice for one such population: people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews with people experiencing homelessness, I examine how participants are impacted by extreme and unpredictable weather patterns related to climate change in a mid-sized city in Oregon (USA). The study bridges frameworks from environmental justice and mobilities studies to uncover that homeless criminalization, a lack of social services, and gendered violence compel participants to employ strategies of heightened movement which shape and are shaped by their exposure to environmental hazards, with women and people with disabilities experiencing unique and compounded forms of environmental injustice. By centering the role of movement in processes of environmental inequality, this study expands sociological understandings of environmental justice while offering practical insights for more effective responses to climate change and homelessness.
Abstract U.S. cities have long embraced spatial removal to manage the visibility of homelessness, yet the determinants of these tactics remain understudied. Extant literature often excludes vehicle residents, focuses on formal legal sanctions, and fails to account for the prevalence of homelessness. Addressing such gaps, this paper leverages novel administrative and street outreach data to interrogate the relationship between contemporary removal practices and neighborhood characteristics in Seattle, Washington. Spatiotemporal models suggest that the prevalence of homelessness in an area may not substantially influence the forced displacement of unsheltered residents. Removal instead seems related to other contextual factors. Most notably, increases in neighborhood property value predict more encampment sweeps and vehicle impoundments. Both interventions also positively correlate with public complaints and crime, while vehicle removals seem further associated with higher concentrations of Black residents. These findings extend prior theories on development-driven and complaint-oriented policing. Authorities may disproportionately target locations experiencing economic expansion, as well as those where residents more actively submit grievances. These patterns even appear to reflect existing racial and spatial disparities in law enforcement practices. Clarifying these mechanisms will help communities more effectively address processes that criminalize homelessness, perpetuate injustice, and reshape place.
Cognitive labor, disproportionately undertaken by women, is central to household functioning and is likely a critical aspect of managing the fallout of family member incarceration. We use 279 interviews with mothers and romantic partners of incarcerated men to describe the scope and process of cognitive labor stemming from family member incarceration. First, we show that the tasks stemming from family member incarceration involve the four stages of cognitive labor (anticipating needs, identifying options, making decisions, and monitoring results). Second, the uncertainty of the criminal legal system means family members spend extensive time in the first two stages. Third, constraints of the decision-making stage both stall and redirect cognitive labor. Fourth, family members undertake cognitive labor regardless of their relative's incarceration history. These findings show that the cognitive labor process unfolds distinctly and is more burdensome for disadvantaged groups, who are disproportionately routed through institutions that reorient family life to demand intensive cognitive labor.
This study examines men's perspectives on sexual harassment against women in Kathmandu's public spaces by foregrounding harassment repertoires as performances of masculinity shaped by cultural meanings, justificatory vocabularies, and peer dynamics. Drawing on 48 semi-structured individual interviews and five group interviews with men, the research adopts an inductive approach to analyze how harassment is framed, enacted, and normalized. Findings discuss three key themes: (1) most men commonly normalize to justify verbal harassment as harmless fun or flirtation, denying its status as harassment unless it involves physical contact; (2) men deploy culturally embedded harassment repertoires including metaphors, object comparisons, animal analogies, and celebrity references to sexualize and objectify women's bodies; and (3) peer solidarity plays a significant role, with group settings fostering a culture where harassment is used to affirm masculinity and gain social approval. This research contributes to understanding how hegemonic masculinity is performed and sustained through unequal gendered relations and peer accountability in rapidly transforming urban societies.
Political and religious beliefs are closely associated with trust in science, yet little is known about how these beliefs shape perceptions of scientists' motivations. Using original national survey data from U.S. adults (n = 1510), this article examines how political and religious identities influence perceptions of scientists' motives and how those perceptions relate to support for therapeutic gene editing (TGE). We develop new measures of motive attribution to capture the moral meanings people assign to scientific work. Structural equation models show that liberals and nonreligious respondents, especially atheists and agnostics, are more likely than conservatives and religious respondents to view scientists as motivated by helping others and by advancing scientific knowledge. These perceptions are, in turn, strongly associated with support for TGE. Believing that scientists are motivated by helping others has the strongest positive effect, although believing they are motivated by advancing science is also associated with greater support for TGE. Decomposition analyses indicate that much of the political and religious variation in support for TGE operates through differences in perceived motives. Overall, these results suggest that cleavages in trust in science stem from divergent views of who scientists are and what motivates their work.
Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews with Black students attending two selective institutions-"Bluesdale University," a historically and predominantly white institution (HPWI), and "Redding University," a historically Black college and university (HBCU)-this study examines how students navigate storytelling and racial identity in the college admissions process. At Bluesdale, students view the essay as an explanatory tool, a place to justify their admissibility beyond quantitative measures. These essays serve as a site for negotiating worthiness in the face of expectations and assumptions of racialized disadvantage. Students at Redding describe the essay as an avenue for self-expression and cultural affirmation, believing that Black admissions officers would understand their narratives. Rather than collapsing institutional differences, this study highlights how HBCUs and HPWIs may produce pressures for racial legibility, while also offering distinct pathways for meaning-making. These findings contribute to scholarship on college admissions, institutional contexts, and the sociology of education by centering how Black students interpret and respond to institutional contexts through the college admissions essay. The study also invites organizations to increase transparency about college essay expectations and holistic admissions, reduce reliance on standardized testing in admissions processes, and encourage educators to discuss the benefits of HBCUs on Black identity and meaning-making.
This article analyzes how fathers make paternity and parental leave decisions, focusing on the role of extended family support. Existing research has emphasized how state-provided leave policies influence fathers' involvement at home, suggesting that paid paternity leave can promote gender equality. However, researchers have yet to consider the relationship between access to extended family support and the gendered allocation of parental time across policy regimes. This study addresses this gap through interviews with 50 middle-class fathers recruited from three branches of a single financial firm (Toronto, Montreal, Chicago) and 35 of their female partners. Access to support from relatives orients fathers to consider their involvement as "replaceable." Some fathers recalled taking less time off during periods when other family members were involved in caregiving. Others who initially took time off described returning to work during the periods when visiting family caregivers were present in their homes. Notably, fathers across all three sites cited family support as a reason for reducing their own caregiving involvement, despite Canadian fathers' access to state-supported paid leave. These findings suggest that extended family caregiving may contribute to the gendered distribution of parents' time, as men disproportionately use this resource to pursue paid labor.
This article advances sociological scholarship on how supranational migration governance shapes the lived experiences of asylum seekers and refugees. It focuses on the European Union (EU)'s Dublin Regulation (1990, 2002, 2013), which requires asylum seekers to apply for protection in the EU country where they are first fingerprinted-typically the country of entry. For individuals arriving via the Mediterranean route, this is most often Italy. Drawing on over 170 hours of participant observations and 42 in-depth interviews conducted at a refugee center in Rome, I examine the trajectories of asylum seekers transferred back to Italy following unsuccessful claims elsewhere in the EU. I argue that rather than streamlining pathways to protection, the Dublin system produces a process of "bureaucratic entrapment," whereby overlapping national and regional bureaucracies amplify the well-documented administrative harms of national asylum governance. These intersecting systems prolong legal uncertainty, constrain mobility, and render the EU's role invisible in producing these conditions. This article shifts the analytical focus beyond the nation-state and demonstrates how supranational migration regimes intensify asylum seekers' precarity while obscuring the source of this harm. As regional migration frameworks proliferate globally, these findings offer insights into the lived consequences of asylum governance under increasingly complex legal frameworks.
A growing body of scholarship on gender inequality examines how men negotiate masculinity amid perceived challenges to traditional gender arrangements. Much of this work emphasizes men's compensatory responses to masculinity threat, which typically involve intensified performances of masculinity. Drawing on theories of emergent or "hybrid" masculinities, this study advances an alternate framework that conceptualizes disinvestment from traditional configurations of masculine practice as a capitulatory strategy for resolving masculinity threat. Using an original, nationally representative survey of U.S. men, we examine whether structural and cultural threats to masculinity predict masculine disinvestment. As qualitative work often observes masculine distancing among privileged men motivated by specific concerns, we also investigate which men adopt this capitulatory strategy and why. Consistent with our expectations, men who perceive structural and cultural threats to masculinity are more likely to report masculine disinvestment. Complicating extant theories of emergent masculinities, this capitulatory strategy is not unique to unilaterally privileged men and is driven by diverse rationales involving status, ideology, and interpersonal relationships. Considered collectively, these findings advance scholarship on contemporary transformations of masculinity, revealing both theoretical continuities and novel insights into the different strategies men use to navigate social change.
After release, previously incarcerated men's (PIM) lives are shaped by risk-averse logics that extend carceral control beyond prison. This manifests in restrictive supervision and sustains what scholars describe as the "shadow carceral state" and "carceral citizenship." While the impact of supervision on previously incarcerated people is well documented, less attention has been given to how PIM respond to it day-to-day. Drawing on 16 months of ongoing ethnographic research in Ontario, Canada - including over 600 hours of participant observation, 102 interviews, and document analysis - I identify three fluid "tactics" that PIM use to make their lives more manageable under supervision: over compliance, compliance, and edgewalking. By showing how PIM move within and between these tactics, I highlight their actions as forms of situated agency that shift along a continuum of resistance and submission. While their tactics offer temporary stability, they also paradoxically deepen PIMs' entanglement in the systems they aim to avoid, undermining the very goals of supervision. Building on the sociology of risk governance, surveillance, and adaptive responses, I provide a grounded account of the limits of state control in reintegration and the ways PIM enact bounded agency under supervision. I conclude by outlining limitations and directions for future research.
This study considers the interplay of race, religion, and politics in bolstering racial boundaries in American family life. Research consistently finds "Christian nationalism" (a set of beliefs about America's Christian foundations and the need to preserve those foundations), particularly among White Americans, is associated with ethnocentrism and preserving racial boundaries in multiple domains, including marriage and parenting. Likewise, the contemporary Republican project involves preserving certain social orders, including Christian supremacy, racial boundaries, and "traditional" families. I theorize these three dynamics-Whiteness, Christian nationalism, and Republican partisanship-combine to bolster support for racial boundaries in marriage. Focusing on Americans' views toward marriage with White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans in the 2021 General Social Survey, analyses reveal Christian nationalism is indeed among the strongest predictors that White (but not Black or Hispanic) Americans show a relative preference for same-race marriage partners. Interactions affirm the association between Christian nationalism and White Americans' preference for same-race marriage partners is limited to White Republicans, and indeed, is most pronounced among Strong Republicans. My finding that Christian nationalism and Republican partisanship together bolster White Americans' preference for same-race marriage has implications for understanding how contemporary Republican "pro-family" goals may bolster White supremacy and racial division.
Declining American fertility has become a mainstream political issue, particularly for conservatives. Some lawmakers (including some Republicans) have proposed economic policies that might be viewed as a bipartisan win-win, relieving financial strain for working parents (especially women) and potentially encouraging childbearing. I theorize and demonstrate how such interventions are hindered by what I call the "natalism-neoliberalism paradox": stronger pronatalist sentiment and optimism regarding pro-family economic policies move in opposite directions for different ideological and interest groups, revealing fundamentally divergent understandings of political economy and family. Using data from Pew's 2024 American Trends Panel Survey, Wave 148 (N = 7944), initial regression analyses reveal both concern about growing national childlessness and views toward economic policies to encourage childbearing correspond to different political characteristics and genders. Moreover, interactions show the link between concern about national childlessness and optimism about economic interventions is contingent on political characteristics and structural location. The association is positive only among liberals, Democrats, Black Americans, and women (most of whom tend to be the least concerned about national fertility), but for conservatives, greater concern about growing childlessness predicts greater pessimism about pro-family economic interventions. Thus, pronatalism is not only an ideological wedge, but also an economic policy wedge.
How do movements without centralized hierarchy and programmatic cohesion influence each other? This article revisits the concept of social movement spillover by analyzing the influence of the Yellow Vests movement (YVM) on Anti-Covid Measures (ACM) mobilizations in southern France during the pandemic. While existing literature tends to study spillover through meso-level processes involving formal organizations and brokers, such approaches fail to capture the influence of leaderful movements, in which leadership is polycentrically distributed. Drawing on a five-year ethnographic study supplemented by longitudinal digital trace analysis of Facebook posts and repeated biographical interviews, we propose a multi-scale framework that combines meso-level analysis with a micro-process approach focused on individual trajectories and meaning-making. Our findings identify three distinct spillover micro-routes: ideational appropriation, affective loyalty, and tactical persistence. These mechanisms clarify that, beyond temporal proximity and organizational continuity, spillover in a leaderful configuration requires resonant hinge frames across waves and distributed leadership that maintain cross-arena coordination. By foregrounding individual biographies and digital traces, the article contributes to a broader rethinking of movement influence beyond formal organization and clarifies the conditions under which seemingly disconnected protest waves become sites of transmission and convergence.
