How Does Life Course Exposure to Contextual Disadvantage Accelerate Biological Aging? The Role of Psychological Symptoms by Christina Kamis, Wei Xu, Amy Schultz, Joseph Clark, Michal Engelman, and Kristen Malecki (2025)

The Journals of Gerontology Series B Abstract: Objectives Recent research has found that life course exposure to contextual socioeconomic disadvantage may accelerate biological aging, providing key insight into an upstream driver of health disparities. However, questions about the intervening mechanisms remain. We examine the role of psychological symptoms in the direct and indirect relationships between …

Bijoyetri Samaddar receives Midwest Sociological Society scholarship

Bijoyetri Samaddar received a scholarship from the Midwest Sociological Society (MSS) for her research into knowledge production in policy-oriented organizations. The next MSS Annual Meeting will be March 26-29, 2026 in St. Louis, MO.

“Nobody’s Children”: The Racial History of Parental Rights Law in Foster Care by Michaela Simmons (2025)

Gender & Society Abstract: While scholars show that child protection is tied to the regulation of motherhood, we know little about how mothers of color were treated in early child welfare history. To address this gap, this article traces how racial logics of maternal unfitness emerged in foster care services and shaped parental rights. Using …

Max Besbris speaks on National Academies panel

Max Besbris spoke on a National Academies panel entitled “Extreme Weather Events and Insurance: Households, Homeowners, and Risk.” A recording of the event is available to view here. He discussed research published in his book with Anna Rhodes, Soaking the Middle Class: Suburban Inequality and Recovery from Disaster, and the path he took as he …

Decriminalizing or reassembling schools? Implications of removing police from schools for racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice system contact by Catalina Valdez, Benjamin W Fisher, and Abigail J Beneke (2025)

Social Problems Abstract: Calls to remove school-based law enforcement (SBLE) have grown in tandem with widespread SBLE presence. Central to these calls are issues of equity, with the hope that removing SBLE will reduce racial/ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. However, little research has examined the extent to which removing SBLE shapes outcomes related …

Youbin Kang named co-winner of Theda Skocpol Dissertation Award

Alum Youbin Kang (2024) was named one of two co-winners of the Theda Skocpol Dissertation Award from the Comparative Historical Sociology section of the American Sociological Association. She’s currently a Moynihan Postdoctoral Fellow at the City College of New York and a Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow at the New York Public Library. Youbin’s dissertation, “Underground Labor and …

Dementia prevalence in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (2025)

Alzheimer’s & Dementia Abstract: Introduction While there is growing appreciation of the importance of sociobiological determinants of dementia, few lifespan cohorts offer well‐characterized dementia outcomes to explore these aims. We sought to identify dementia prevalence in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), one of the most comprehensive lifespan cohort studies in the United States. Highlights We …

Featured article in ASA Journals Newsletter from Katherine Jensen and Benny Witkovsky

Katherine Jensen and Benny Witkovsky’s article “Human Rights as a Lay Category of Thought,” with co-author Monika Krause, was the featured Socius article in the ASA Journals Newsletter. You can listen to the accompanying podcast about the article on ASA’s website.

The Gender Gap in Life Expectancy in the United States and Deaths of Despair: Trends From 1979 to 2022 by Christine Schwartz and Rodrigo González-Velastín (2025)

Population and Development Review Abstract: The extent to which women outlive men in the United States has fluctuated over the 20th century, with periods of equalization, stagnation, and increase. Women’s life expectancy advantage declined for roughly four decades but resurged after 2012. This coincided with an increase in deaths of despair (deaths due to suicide, …

WPR interviews Chad Alan Goldberg about antisemitism

Wisconsin Public Radio interviewed Chad Alan Goldberg about a proposal for the Wisconsin state legislature to adopt an official definition of antisemitism. “The definition could be a useful tool to determine, if there is a criminal offense, whether there’s an antisemitic element to that offense.”