June 2016
Amanda Baumle, University of Houston, $7,812, The Demography of Sexuality: Queering Demographic Research, Theory, and Methods. The aim of this project is to bring a queer perspective to demographic research on population sexuality. As was the case when behavioral models were reconceptualized to include the actions of women more accurately, acknowledging variations in sexual orientation requires re-evaluating demographic models to expose previously undisclosed heteronormative assumptions. This project will begin with a content analysis of demographic research published since 1990 and the details of questions on sexuality that have been asked. The analysis will “reveal whether and how demographic inquiry reflects larger trends within the discipline regarding sexuality research” and will help identify understudied areas.
Amanda Gengler, Wake Forest University, $7,937, Turning Science Fiction into “Science Fact:” Selling the Promise of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. This innovative project combines the sociology of emotion with science and technology studies to shed light on an especially interesting and timely topic: the process by which technological innovations in medicine are “sold” to different audiences utilizing a combination of emotional appeals and scientific evidence. Gengler will gather data in the form of in-depth interviews with medical researchers—to be expanded in a future phase to include patients—and ethnographic observation at three medical research conferences. These professional communications will be compared with presentations aimed at a general audience and promotional videos about the medical research, to assess differences and similarities in the appeals used.
Michael Haedicke, Drake University, $8,000, Negotiating a Sustainable Coast: The Politics of Environmental Restoration in Louisiana. This project represents a creative approach to a timely topic that holds significant promise to advance the literature of environmental sociology, specifically the emerging sociology of climate change politics and adaptation. Previous studies in this area have focused on environmental problems and how they have emerged; this analysis looks at the implications of a growing acceptance of concepts such as sustainability and resilience, with a focus on how solutions are being developed. As the author notes, “Louisiana is a state whose political leaders and industrial elites historically disregarded environmental damage produced in the name of economic development. Therefore, the consolidation of a comprehensive coastal restoration plan that is supported by industrial interests as well as by environmental advocacy groups calls out for explanation.” Understanding the perspectives of disparate actors and how they have come together should help us understand how the adaptation to climate change might unfold in other situations.
Tony Love, University of Kentucky, $4,180, The Effects of Status and Race on Role-Taking Accuracy. This project in experimental social psychology will explore Mead’s concept of role-taking (“taking the role of the other”) in a specific application: the effect of status on the relationship between race and role-taking accuracy. The advisory panel felt that this project was likely to make an incremental contribution to our sociological understanding, with the promise of revealing a fundamental interactional process. It employs an experimental design that isolates the effects of race, status, and racial composition of the group on role-taking accuracy as defined in a series of hypotheses. As the author explains, the findings from this study will improve our knowledge of social psychological aspects of race relations and inform the science of status and interpersonal interaction, including efforts to intervene and equalize status-imbalanced groups.
Laura Mamo, San Francisco State University, Susan Bell, Drexel University, and Anne Figert, Loyola University- Chicago, $8,000, Zika Social Science Network: Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice. On February 1, the Director-General of the World Health Organization declared a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” in light of the emergence of the Zika virus in Latin America and the Caribbean. To supplement the emergency medical response it is important to understand how Zika is viewed as an epidemic and how that view is situated in various local cultural contexts. The sociological perspective exposes gender inequities in access to care and abortion, as well as inequities in access to information and resources needed for community efforts at prevention. An international virtual collaboration of sociologists working on this topic is already under way, and this grant will help to underwrite a conference with both open and closed working-group sessions, as well as a series of academic and policy papers to be collected into an edited volume and the establishment of a research network of social scientists and historians.
Allison Pugh, University of Virginia, $8,000, The Rationalization of Relational Labor. This project will explore the nature of relational labor, which the investigator describes as “work that involves the humanity of the worker as an instrument.” This includes care work and also extends to situations of control such as the work of police officers. An important element of the planned research concerns the introduction of rationalization into such work. This particular project includes interviews with and ethnographic observations of middle-school teachers and cognitive therapists, both occupations where administrative and managerial rationalization are potentially changing the relationship between professional workers and their clients. The FAD project is part of a larger study including additional occupations, and the author plans to publish results for both scholarly and general audiences.
Jean Philippe Sapinski and Michael Dreiling, University of Oregon, $7,825, University Embeddedness in the Corporate Community and Fossil Fuel Divestment Decisions. The researchers will bring quantitative network analysis that has been used to examine the interconnectedness of corporate boards to the field of environmental sociology. Their study will examine the extent to which college and university governing board members and the trustees of associated foundations are embedded in corporate networks, and the implications of those connections for institutional decisions about divestment from investment in fossil fuels. Reviewers felt this project would contribute to the growing field of environmental sociology, as well as to the study of social movements, network analysis, and economic sociology. Environmental sociology is relatively small, but is in demand both substantively (because of the growing importance of environmental issues) and by students.
Jennifer Silva, Bucknell University, $5,400, Hard Coal: Pain and Politics in Small-Town America. Silva’s project focuses on an important contemporary development: the intersection of demographic, economic, and environmental changes and their consequences for political participation. It will involve interviews with young adults and their parents, designed to account for diversity not only in race and ethnicity but also the distinction between established families in the community and those who are newcomers. The study will document the view from one diversifying rural community in the aftermath of the Great Recession and during the simultaneous emergence of presidential candidate Donald Trump and the much-discussed Millennial generation on the American political scene. The author is well established in the community and the project has evolved from its original narrower focus on politics to more of a community study weaving together analysis of multiple converging and intersecting processes.
