Sociation Today Fall/Winter 2015

Sociation Today®

ISSN 1542-6300


The Official Journal of the
North Carolina Sociological Association

A Peer-Reviewed
Refereed Web-Based 
Publication


  Spring/Summer 2017
Volume 15, Issue 1



  Abstracts of Articles for the Spring/Summer Issue of
Sociation Today
  1. Criminal Elites, Conservatives and the War on the Academy: North Carolina and Beyond
    by Terrell A. Hayes
      The academy today is under attack by those who are interested in turning colleges and universities into a corporate/business model to push students into majors which lead directly to jobs in the corporate world.  Others are concerned with the so-called liberal bent of too many faculty.  When we think of oppressed groups throughout history, the professoriate does not come to mind. To compare the oppression of today’s faculty as a group with that of any racial or ethnic minority, or with those in the LGBT community would of course be ludicrous. Yet, the state of academia today reflects a highly oppressed and alienated class of workers who appear to be desperately lacking class consciousness. On the whole, university faculty represent a class-in-itself, not a class-for-itself.  The crimes being waged against the academy by conservative elites is serious.
  2. The Social Consequences of HB2: A North Carolina Effort to Reverse Civil Protections for Transgender People
    by stef m. shuster
      On March 23, 2016 in what some may call a coup of the democratic process, the North Carolina legislative body held a special one-day session to pass through the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, otherwise known as House Bill 2 in response to a Charlotte city ordinance passed in February of that same year adding LGBT protections to the non-discrimination policies. In one day, HB2 was introduced on the floor, voted on, and signed into law by then governor, Pat McCrory. In public discourse, former governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, suggested that the bill helped to, “protect young girls from predatory men in bathrooms” (Harrison 2016) in that it limits the use of school and state agency bathrooms and locker rooms designated for, and used by, people based on their assigned sex at birth. A national boycott of North Carolina began.  This article discusses the untintended consequences of the culture war which followed. 
  3. Struggling to Make Ends Meet:  Identifying Barriers to Economic Self-Sufficiency for Women in Western North Carolina
    by Cameron D. Lippard and Elizabeth Thomas
      We developed a research-based community partnership to identify and assess the barriers women face in attempting to become economically independent while living in western North Carolina. This paper presents the survey and focus group findings for 103 women who identified specific items that impeded them from “economically thriving.” While participants identified several barriers, many (34 percent) suggested that reliable employment and a living wage held them back (22 percent). Other barriers included unreliable transportation, childcare and expensive housing choices. However, no particular barrier had more influence on the participants’ overall economic independence, suggesting a convergence of several factors. Finally, our economic self-sufficiency measurement suggested that most women in the sample struggled to make ends meet but only about 5 percent were economically “safe.” However, it is clear that suppressed wages and limited employment opportunities continue to keep women from economic independence in western North Carolina.
  4. An Analysis of Portrayals of Crime, Criminals, and Cops in Icelandic Televsion
    by John Paul
      This work examines what defines a crime, a criminal offender, and a “good or quality cop” from an Icelandic television perspective. Here, as a scholar of crime and popular culture and a critical member of a viewing audience that watches “cop shows,” I make commentary on the similarity and differences in Icelandic and American crime dramas. I find most notably that: American crime shows are obsessed with violent street crime, hyper-masculine policing attitudes, and getting the “bad guy” at all costs. Icelandic shows on the other hand, focus on corporate and governmental deviance, alternative and empowered gendered models of policing, and procedural justice. If television shows are an effective means of presenting and forcing debate on issues of crime and justice, then we have much that we can learn from the (televised) model of Icelandic crime shows and presentations of policing.
  5. Book Review of Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild
    by Lawrence M Eppard
      The state of Louisiana is burdened with widespread poverty, environmental crisis, and educational attainment rates and health outcomes among the lowest in the country—so why do its citizens reject government help for problems too difficult to solve at the individual-, community-, and even state-level? This is the “Great Paradox” at the heart of Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land. Hochschild finds that, for her participants, advancing one’s own sense of justice, honor, and fair play is more important than advancing one’s economic interests. Hochschild’s Tea Party participants put their emotional self-interest above their economic self-interest. Social scientists may be correct that many Americans vote against their economic self-interest, but only because they have prioritized their emotional self-interest as more important. Her participants believe they only advance towards the American Dream (when they do) because they are patient, work hard, and play by the rules. Others in their country (immigrants, non-whites, public sector workers, refugees, and even women) make progress towards the Dream based on the help of the government—through affirmative action, welfare, and other programs. They believe this is unfair, and respond positively to politicians like Donald Trump who speak to their emotional self-interest of righting these wrongs.
  6. The 2017 Lifetime Achivment Award for the late Paul Luebke
    by Sherrie Drye Cannoy
      Paul Luebke was awarded the Lifettime Achievment award from the North Carolina Sociological Association posthumously.  Paul died suddently while both a sociology professor and a well-known member of the North Carolina General Assembly.  Paul practiced "public sociology" long before the term became popular.  He was a well-known advocate of tax fairness and a 37-year member of NCSA.

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The Editorial Board of Sociation Today

Editorial Board:
Editor:
George H. Conklin,
 North Carolina
 Central University
 Emeritus

Robert Wortham,
 Associate Editor,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Lawrence M. Eppard
Book Review Editor
Shippensburg University

 Board:
Rebecca Adams,
 UNC-Greensboro

Bob Davis,
 North Carolina
 Agricultural and
 Technical State
 University

Catherine Harris,
 Wake Forest
 University

Ella Keller,
 Fayetteville
 State University

Ken Land,
 Duke University

Steve McNamee,
 UNC-Wilmington

Miles Simpson,
 North Carolina
 Central University

William Smith,
 N.C. State University