Events
Upcoming Events
Annual Jergens Lecture with Guest Speaker Dr. Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira
Friday, Apr 3, 3:00p
Clifton Court Hall 1170
Reception to follow presentation with light refreshments provided.
More information coming soon!
Sociology Colloquium with Dr. Nima Dahir
Friday, Mar. 27, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
More information coming soon!
Sociology Lyceum Colloquium
Friday, March 6, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
Free & Open to All Students
Sociology graduate students will be speaking about the research they have been conducting.
Kate Durso - "Navigating accommodations: College students with invisible disabilities transitioning to the workplace"
Sarah Bostic - "Like a business transaction: Black women's trust in abortion healthcare in Ohio”
Brianna Jones-Williams - "Painting the desert Brown and Black: Race, leisure, and social hierarchies at the Coachella Music Festival"
Mahboobeh Davoodifar - "Managing abortion disclosure while seeking social support in a stigmatized context”
Previous Events
Sociology Careers Webinar Watch Party
Thursday, Feb. 26, 3:30p
Clifton Court Hall, 2101
Join us for a watch party to learn about all of the career paths open to students majoring and minoring in Sociology! Light snacks will be provided.
Annual Taft Lecture with Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield
Gray Areas: How The Way We Work Maintains Racial Inequality and How We Can Fix It
Friday, Feb. 27, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
Once mainstream, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become increasingly controversial. Yet whether companies proclaim their support for diversity or run from the term, racial inequality persists in many workplaces.
Even when support for DEI was at its peak, Black workers were slower to be hired, earned less than their white colleagues, stalled out at midlevel positions, and rarely advanced to the top ranks of organizations. Why did these different outcomes persist even amidst robust corporate and cultural support for DEI? How will recent DEI rollbacks affect these disparities? In this presentation, Dr. Wingfield will answer these questions by documenting how quotidian workplace dynamics continue to thwart Black employees’ progress. Following narratives of seven Black workers in fields ranging from academia to medicine to entertainment, she shows unexpected ways that recruitment, promotion, culture, and other basic aspects of work are themselves major drivers of racial inequality. Finally, she discusses ways companies can still create workplaces where employees can thrive even in a changing legal and regulatory landscape.
Polar Bears, Politics, and Apocalypse: How to Fix 3 Big Problems in Climate Change Communication
Friday, Feb. 20, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
The science is clear, the evidence is all around us, and the danger is rising. So why is it so difficult to change hearts and minds on this issue? Why does it seem like information about climate change falls flat for many people? What do we need to do to be more effective in changing minds and inspiring action?
In this talk, Dr. Abel Gustafson will explain 3 common mistakes we all tend to make when talking about climate change. Then, drawing on new insights from scientific research, he explains 3 communication solutions that can be much more effective. This talk will discuss traits of human psychology that make climate communication so difficult, the political and societal influences that cause division and controversy, and the communication styles that are most likely to be successful.
The Sexual Violence Victimization of Multiracial Women
Friday, Feb. 6, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
Multiracial women consistently disclose some of the highest prevalence rates of rape in national surveys, yet relatively little is known about their victimization. In addition, multiracial identities are not consistently operationalized in research on sexual violence or other social inequalities.
This week's speaker will present findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence surveys about adult women in the U.S. who identify as multiracial, the types of sexual violence that they disclose, how their victimization differs from other women, and what these findings might mean for research on racial and ethnic inequalities.
Aspiration and Collective Identity in Gig Work
Friday, Nov. 14, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
Dr. Charles' research interests include economic and organizational sociology, sociology of work, social movements, and social theory.
His research has focused on efforts at organizational change and innovation as well as how people experience and understand the labor process. He has published research on the efforts of management consultants and healthcare administrators as they adapted and deployed a management model developed by Toyota to the context of healthcare work. He has also published a research on a variety of "new economy" and "digital economy" organizations, such as a multi-purpose production facility, popularly known as a makerspace, as well as two on-demand labor platforms, Postmates and Favor, which use software to match couriers with deliveries.
He teaches undergraduate courses in sociology and organizational leadership including Social Problems, Economy and Society, Organizations and Society, Work and Occupational Justice, and Research Methods.
Fetal disposition laws and women’s miscarriage experiences in the Midwest: Navigating care, choice and commemoration
Friday, Nov. 7, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1, 1110
Dr. Kathryn J. LaRoche, PhD, MSc is an Assistant Professor of Public Health at Purdue University. Prior to joining Purdue, she received a Cotutelle PhD in Population Health from the University of Ottawa (Canada) and Anthropology from Macquarie University (Australia); she also completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at Indiana University Bloomington.
As a public health social scientist and applied anthropologist, Dr. LaRoche carries out community-engaged, action- and intervention-oriented research about sexual and reproductive health with a focus on abortion and pregnancy. In 2022, she received the Carole Joffe and Stanley Henshaw Early Achievement in Social Science Research Award from the National Abortion Federation for her contribution to generating abortion-related knowledge
Dr. LaRoche has ongoing projects in the United States, Canada, and Australia. She founded and directs the Pregnancy, Abortion, and Reproductive Rights Research Collective at Purdue and currently has opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. She is also interested in creating connections with collaborators and community partners that are committed to the rights of individuals to make informed and empowered reproductive health decisions.
How Things Fall Apart: The Excuses America Makes for Housing in Disrepair
Friday, Oct. 17, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1110
How Things Fall Apart investigates the challenge of our nation’s aging housing stock. The book draws on over 200 interviews with a broad range of actors – from homeowners and landlords to grassroots organizers and city officials – in New Orleans and Chicago. The book demonstrates how context and policy structure – and how owners and governments navigate – ordinary and exceptional decay and disrepair in aging housing stocks, revealing that our persistent acceptance and normalization of old, dilapidated housing reproduces housing precarity and racial and economic inequality.
Digital Innovation for Social Impact: A Case Study of the People’s Market Dashboard System (PMDS)
Friday, Oct. 3, 3:00p
Taft Research Center, Edwards 1110
Community-based organizations (CBO) are essential to the public service infrastructure. However, many of these organizations have limited capacity and resources, which can lead to significant challenges that compromise the sustainability of their work.
Community-institution partnerships and digital innovations can help CBOs overcome some of these challenges and achieve shared, socially driven objectives. In this presentation, I discuss the co-design, iterative development, and implementation of the People’s Market Dashboard System (PMDS)— a low-barrier, digital innovation developed for an annual community farmers’ market. The market is hosted through a partnership between a county health department and a grassroots, social enterprise that works with marginalized youth to provide agricultural skill building and entrepreneurship training.
Using a thick description case study of this ongoing, applied project, I present an institutional analysis of the market and the PMDS, exploring the structure of the collective actions that characterize both and the interdependence between them. I discuss the iterative, co-design processes that have shaped the evolution and trajectory of the platform, and I explore the adaptive learning that is occurring across the interdisciplinary partners involved in the project. I conclude with socio-technical “lessons learned” for the praxis of integrating digital innovation within collaborative, public service initiatives.