University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jessica Calarco is a professor of Sociology, the vice president-elect of the American Sociological Association, a non-resident fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and an expert on qualitative methods and on the role that privilege and power play in shaping inequalities in education and family life. Calarco has published four books, including “Holding it Together: How Women …
June 1, 2026 Congratulations to CDHA Director Michal Engelman who was chosen to lead the RISE-THRIVE Collaboration Headquarters (HQ), bringing together experts working at the forefront of research on the healthspan and immunology. The initiative supports cutting edge research on how the body defends against disease and how to extend the number of years people live healthy lives.
Summary Prior literature on fertility during war examines high-fertility settings using quantitative data on births collected mainly after fighting ends. In contrast, we analyze cognitive processes related to childbearing during wartime in Ukraine, where a full-scale war erupted in the context of long-standing low fertility. We conducted 22 in-depth, semi-structured virtual interviews and three focus …
Summary: Question: How can we obtain comparable measurement of cognitive functioning for people who took different cognitive tests? Findings: Our method uses the relationship between cognitive functioning and individual characteristics (like high school achievement) to make cognitive scores comparable. Importance: National studies of aging often rely on multiple methods of surveying participants, including face-to-face, phone, …
Cambridge University Press Summary Tens of thousands of mostly younger Black people went to rural Louisiana in 2007 to support the Jena 6, Black students who were overcharged after a school fight. We examine the construction of two narratives. The powerful Jena 6 narrative told how the conflict began when nooses were hung on the …
Sociological Focus Abstract The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States. A prosperous community before the massacre, over 1200 businesses and homes in the predominately Black Greenwood District of Tulsa were destroyed over 2 days in 1921. Systemically covered up and ignored for …
Jimin Gim was selected as a 2026 Emerging Scholar by Women & Wellbeing in Wisconsin & the World (4W) at UW–Madison. The 4W mission is to leverage the strengths of UW–Madison to be a convener and leading voice in education, applied research, and impactful engagement to promote global wellbeing and full participation of women in society. The Emerging Scholar …
Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption
Introduction Whether you walk into a Catholic church out of the balmy U.S. Southwest or a blustering Midwest winter, the “liturgical environment” you’ll step into is remarkably similar. Irrespective of the local landscape, the altar likely dons only a select few plants. Which plants depends not on where the church is located, but when you visit it. If it’s …
The Annual Review of Sociology Abstract: This article surveys a growing body of work examining the concrete consequences of implementing meritocracy in social life. To date, this work remains compartmentalized into the separate subfields of cultural sociology, economic sociology, organizational science, and the sociology of education and stratification. We bring these literatures together by arguing …