From a study of the impact of local nonprofits on crime rates to an account of protesting millennials, in 2017 the most downloaded sociological research published in the American Sociological Association’s journals spanned a wide range of topics and social concerns. More than 20% of the top 50 articles were actually published in 2017,
Eighty percent of articles in the Top 50 were published before 2017 including the most downloaded article on the list, a 2010 study of the social construction of illness and its policy implications, which contrasts the medical model of disease with the meaning and experience of illness for real individuals in society. One of the oldest article on the list was a study of race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration, first published in 2004 and perhaps charged with new interest by national consideration of criminal justice reform.
ASA’s flagship publication, the American Sociological Review (ASR), published half of the articles on the Top 10 download list. Additionally, three of the Top 10 articles were published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, one in the open-access journal Socius and another in ASA’s public-facing magazine Contexts.
The most downloaded article published in 2017 was “Why Should Women Get Less? Evidence on the Gender Pay Gap from Multifactorial Survey Experiments,” in ASR. A 2017 study entitled “Into the Red and Back to the Nest? Student Debt, College Completion and Returning to the Parental Home Among Young Adults” was the top-downloaded article in Sociology of Education. And the most downloaded article in Sociological Theory, first published in 2017, was “Fuck Nuance.” (The article deals with the “nuance traps” that inhibit sociological theory; and speculates that sociological theory may have become more entranced with nuance because there is so much less of it in the world)
Taken together, the top 50 list (below) encompasses a broad range of domestic policy issues in the U.S., from crime and incarceration to LGBTQ rights to economic mobility and inequality.
For more information, send requests to ASA Communications at [email protected].
American Sociological Association’s Top 50 Downloads of 2017
|
Total Downloads |
Article |
|
10,454 |
Peter Conrad, Kristin K. Barker |
|
The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications |
|
|
Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 51, No. 1_suppl, March 2010 |
|
|
7,675 |
Jo C. Phelan, Bruce G. Link, Parisa Tehranifar |
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Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Health Inequalities: Theory, Evidence, and Policy Implications |
|
|
Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 51, No. 1_suppl, March 2010 |
|
|
6,839 |
Katrin Auspurg, Thomas Hinz, Carsten Sauer |
|
Why Should Women Get Less? Evidence on the Gender Pay Gap from Multifactorial Survey Experiments |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 1, February 2017 |
|
|
6,773 |
Heather McLaughlin, Christopher Uggen, Amy Blackstone |
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Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power |
|
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American Sociological Review: Vol. 77, No. 4, August 2012 |
|
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6,195 |
Peggy A. Thoits |
|
Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 51, No. 1_suppl, March 2010 |
|
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5,334 |
Peter Hart-Brinson |
|
The Social Imagination of Homosexuality and the Rise of Same-sex Marriage in the United States |
|
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Socius: Vol. 2, January 2016 |
|
|
5,328 |
Matthew Desmond, Andrew V. Papachristos, David S. Kirk |
|
Police Violence and Citizen Crime Reporting in the Black Community |
|
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American Sociological Review: Vol. 81, No. 5, October 2016 |
|
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4,969 |
Rebecca Schuman |
|
Contexts: Vol. 15, No. 4, November 2016 |
|
|
4,954 |
Ruth Milkman |
|
A New Political Generation: Millennials and the Post-2008 Wave of Protest |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 1, February 2017 |
|
|
4,742 |
Lauren A. Rivera |
|
Hiring as Cultural Matching the Case of Elite Professional Service Firms |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 77, No. 6, December 2012 |
|
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4,719 |
Robert J. Sampson |
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Contexts: Vol. 7, No. 1, February 2008 |
|
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4,676 |
Lauren A. Rivera |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 6, December 2017 |
|
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4,508 |
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Paula England, Alison C. K. Fogarty |
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Accounting for Women’s Orgasm and Sexual Enjoyment in College Hookups and Relationships |
|
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American Sociological Review: Vol. 77, No. 3, June 2012 |
|
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4,491 |
Lauren A. Rivera, András Tilcsik |
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American Sociological Review: Vol. 81, No. 6, December 2016 |
|
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4,420 |
Patrick Sharkey, Gerard Torrats-Espinosa, Delaram Takyar |
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Community and the Crime Decline: The Causal Effect of Local Nonprofits on Violent Crime |
|
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American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 6, December 2017 |
|
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4,067 |
Debra Umberson, Jennifer Karas Montez |
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Social Relationships and Health: A Flashpoint for Health Policy |
|
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 51, No. 1_suppl, March 2010 |
|
|
4,055 |
Joseph DiGrazia |
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Socius: Vol. 3, January 2017 |
|
|
3,930 |
Michael J. Rosenfeld, Reuben J. Thomas |
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Searching for a Mate the Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 77, No. 4, August 2012 |
|
|
3,791 |
Jason N. Houle, Cody Warner |
|
Sociology of Education: Vol. 90, No. 1, January 2017 |
|
|
3,760 |
Arne L. Kalleberg |
|
Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 74, No. 1, February 2009 |
|
|
3,523 |
Hyun Sik Kim |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 76, No. 3, June 2011 |
|
|
3,489 |
Becky Pettit, Bruce Western |
|
Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 69, No. 2, April 2004 |
|
|
3,326 |
Arlie Russell Hochschild |
|
Contemporary Sociology: Vol. 45, No. 6, November 2016 |
|
|
3,276 |
Bart Bonikowski, Paul DiMaggio |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 81, No. 5, October 2016 |
|
|
3,106 |
Cynthia Feliciano, Yader R. Lanuza |
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An Immigrant Paradox? Contextual Attainment and Intergenerational Educational Mobility |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 1, February 2017 |
|
|
3,084 |
Peggy A. Thoits |
|
Mechanisms Linking Social Ties and Support to Physical and Mental Health |
|
|
Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 52, No. 2, June 2011 |
|
|
3,081 |
Richard Florida City & Community, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2003 |
|
3,054 |
Miliann Kang, Katherine Jones |
|
Contexts: Vol. 6, No. 1, February 2007 |
|
|
2,869 |
Johanna Bockman |
|
Contexts: Vol. 12, No. 3, August 2013 |
|
|
2,861 |
Richard York, Julius Alexander McGee |
|
Does Renewable Energy Development Decouple Economic Growth from CO2 Emissions? |
|
|
Socius: Vol. 3, January 2017 |
|
|
2,770 |
Jeffrey S. Denis |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 80, No. 1, February 2015 |
|
|
2,739 |
Syed Ali |
|
Contexts: Vol. 16, No. 4, November 2017 |
|
|
2,662 |
Lane Kenworthy |
|
Contemporary Sociology: Vol. 46, No. 1, January 2017 |
|
|
2,644 |
Sarah Brayne |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 5, October 2017 |
|
|
2,618 |
Jackelyn Hwang, Robert J. Sampson |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 79, No. 4, August 2014 |
|
|
2,541 |
Cedric Herring |
|
Does Diversity Pay?: Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 74, No. 2, April 2009 |
|
|
2,506 |
Joscha Legewie, Thomas A. DiPrete |
|
School Context and the Gender Gap in Educational Achievement |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 77, No. 3, June 2012 |
|
|
2,461 |
Stefanie Mollborn |
|
Contexts: Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2015 |
|
|
2,449 |
Kristen Schilt, Laurel Westbrook |
|
Contexts: Vol. 14, No. 3, August 2015 |
|
|
2,432 |
Juliet B. Schor, Edward T. Walker, Caroline W. Lee, Paolo Parigi, Karen Cook |
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Contexts: Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2015 |
|
|
2,411 |
Amanda M. Gengler |
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Contexts: Vol. 10, No. 2, May 2011 |
|
|
2,292 |
Anna S. Mueller, Seth Abrutyn |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 81, No. 5, October 2016 |
|
|
2,245 |
David R. Williams, Michelle Sternthal |
|
Understanding Racial-ethnic Disparities in Health: Sociological Contributions |
|
|
Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 51, No. 1_suppl, March 2010 |
|
|
2,233 |
Annette Lareau |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 80, No. 1, February 2015 |
|
|
2,181 |
Thomas W. Volscho, Nathan J. Kelly |
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 77, No. 5, October 2012 |
|
|
2,171 |
Tanya Golash-Boza |
|
A Critical and Comprehensive Sociological Theory of Race and Racism |
|
|
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity: Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2016 |
|
|
2,167 |
Omar Lizardo |
|
Improving Cultural Analysis Considering Personal Culture in its Declarative and Nondeclarative Modes |
|
|
American Sociological Review: Vol. 82, No. 1, February 2017 |
|
|
2,161 |
Elaine Howard Ecklund, Sarah Damaske, Anne E. Lincoln, Virginia Johnston White |
|
Socius: Vol. 3, January 2017 |
|
|
2,148 |
Gabriel Rossman |
|
Contexts: Vol. 16, No. 3, August 2017 |
|
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2,118 |
Bernice A. Pescosolido |
|
The Public Stigma of Mental Illness What Do We Think; What Do We Know; What Can We Prove? |
|
|
Journal of Health and Social Behavior: Vol. 54, No. 1, March 2013 |
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