Research finds that Black students often report positive educational attitudes despite experiencing lower average academic outcomes, a pattern commonly described as the “attitude–achievement paradox.” However, studies of the paradox rarely situate Black children's attitudes within the anti‐Black educational and structural conditions that shape academic outcomes. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011 (ECLS‐K:2011), we examine racial/ethnic differences in third graders' perceptions of competence and interest in math, reading, and science. Findings reveal a domain‐specific pattern. Black children report higher levels of competence and interest in math and reading than non‐Black children, even after accounting for prior achievement and school context. In contrast, Black children report lower levels of interest and enthusiasm toward science, while exhibiting similar levels of perceived competence as compared with non‐Black children. We argue that these findings challenge deficit‐oriented interpretations of Black children's educational attitudes and invite sociologists to reconsider the “attitude–achievement paradox” by situating educational attitudes within the broader context of anti‐Black schooling and structural inequality.
In the growing scholarship about immigrants' resilience, or strategies to cope with their precarity, high‐skilled immigrants remain underrepresented due to their economic privilege. Some sociologists, however, have examined high‐skilled immigrants' precarity, as well as strategies by which they contend with it, but without investigating the aspect of resilience. In this article, I analyze high‐skilled Indian immigrants' approaches to resilience in the United States. Drawing on Foucauldian readings of immigrants' resilience, where sociologists emphasize the intersection of agency and conformity, I develop the concept of the “worthiness conduct”. It means a strategic cultivation of conduct or behavior, by which the immigrants seek to prove their resilience and their worthiness for belonging in the host country. Based on interviews, ethnography and participant observation, I demonstrate that high‐skilled Indian immigrants develop three approaches to resilience in their worthiness conduct: resilience as a skill, resilience as compliance, and resilience as an institutional obligation. My findings affirm that resilience in neoliberal migration regimes is not merely an expression of emancipatory agency, but it is fraught with docile conformity.
Despite the high prevalence of mental health issues in adulthood, scholars have yet to fully explain the social conditions that contribute to poor mental health outcomes. One important gap in the existing literature is the impact of multigenerational caregiving on the mental well-being of adults whose parents are part of the sandwich generation. Using seven waves of linked mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Surveys (2008-2020) and growth curve models, I examined (1) the relationship between mothers' caregiving for both older and younger generations and depressive symptoms in their adult children, and (2) whether this association varies by adult children's age. Findings suggest that maternal sandwich caregiving does not significantly predict adult children's depressive symptoms overall. However, the association differs by age: maternal sandwich caregiving is particularly detrimental to the mental health of older adult children compared with their younger counterparts. These results highlight the need for continued research on the collateral consequences of sandwich caregiving, especially as this caregiving arrangement becomes a reality for millions of American families.
Helping people learn about racism as systemic rather than as solely or even primarily as an individual and interpersonal phenomenon is important. In this study, we examined how two different courses may have affected the racial attitudes and understandings of our students. We found that students in both an introductory and an upper-level course showed significant increases in the understanding of racism as systemic, using both quantitative and qualitative measures. Further, those in the upper-level course experienced the largest change in understanding. In documenting these shifts, we found that emotion played an important and surprising role. We discuss our findings in the context of both the prior literature and the current political climate. Finally, we offer suggestions for next steps as well as for teaching.
Development interventions, specifically rural financial services, seek to bring positive changes in traditional rural agrarian contexts. However, short-sighted interventions can cause long-term societal, environmental, and economic challenges. Drawing insights from long-term ethnographic research on the social and economic implications of rural financial services in rural Bangladesh, this study cautions that sometimes development interventions by local non-government organizations (NGOs) contribute to the creation of long-term debt and dependency cycles on NGO services among their beneficiaries. While creating dependency or a debt trap is not usually the intentions of NGO services, mechanisms can strengthen the bonds between the NGOs and their beneficiaries who enter a complex relationship. This study argues that a lack of any locally feasible exit plans or sustainability roadmaps can contribute to strong bonds between NGOs and recipients, akin to world system models of dependency, rather than empowerment.
