I checked 9 sociology journals on Friday, May 01, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period April 24 to April 30, I found 8 new paper(s) in 4 journal(s).

Annual Review of Sociology

Luck and Predictability in the Life Course
Arnout van de Rijt, Fabrizio Bernardi, William Foley, Lucas Sage
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There is an emerging recognition among sociological theorists that luck may play a substantial role in life course achievement. There is also a nascent empirical literature that finds life outcomes to be unpredictable and unexpected life events to be a likely cause. A third literature of causal event studies provides thousands of point estimates of the life course consequences of random events. This review brings these literatures together under a unified framework.

Social Forces

Policy configurations and the elasticity of gendered patterns of paid and unpaid work—evidence from comparative conjoint analyses
Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, Dominique Oehrli, Meret LĂĽtolf
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A considerable number of scholars have discussed the role that family policies play in shaping the gendered division of labor within households. The majority of this research has focused on childcare and parental leave policies and their relationship with maternal employment. In this article, we adopt a more holistic approach to study gender-specific pathways toward more equalized work patterns by investigating the role of various family policy conditions, both past and future, on paid and unpaid work patterns among men and women. We present novel survey data from five countries, including conjoint analyses, which enables us to consider that the elasticity of households to move toward more equal divisions of work may be contingent on the gender regime in which individuals live as well as on their desire and opportunity to change. Our results demonstrate that the elasticity to change strongly depends on current work patterns both at the household and the country level. Moreover, long parental leave for men and financial incentives have the strongest potential to trigger changes in work intentions. Nevertheless, significant discrepancies in the impact of policy measures between countries, as well as between women and men, can be discerned.
Just a diversity hire?: the effects of competency microaggressions in collaborative work
Malissa Alinor
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Remarks about being hired to increase diversity or expressions of surprise when competence is demonstrated are a few examples of competency microaggressions—comments and behaviors that reveal low expectations of their abilities based on their marginalized group membership—that marginalized workers such as Black people, women, and disabled individuals routinely experience. Yet, there is limited knowledge regarding the causal effects of experiencing competency microaggressions on workplace interactions, such as how people accept influence in teams (deference). To test this, an experimental study was employed using a sample of 300 Black participants tasked to work with a White partner (computer simulated). Participants in the treatment condition received a competency microaggression from their partner phrased as a joke before beginning the task. Results revealed that experiencing a competency microaggression caused participants to be less willing to defer to their partner. This behavior was explained by greater self-reported anger and negative evaluations of their partner, fully mediating the relationship between competency microaggressions and deference. Content analyses revealed that most participants in the treatment condition used conflict-avoidant responses, such as humor, to respond to their partner’s microaggression, and only 29 percent reported the incident to researchers when asked about the suitability of their partner for future work. Taken together, these findings provide novel insights into the immediate effects of competency microaggressions on workplace interactions, contributing to literatures on microaggressions, status, and workplace inequality. Implications of these findings in the context of organizational shifts away from equity initiatives are also discussed, highlighting the need for creative interventions.
The cultural meanings of science and religion: moral and epistemic authority in the United States
Timothy L O’Brien, Shiri Noy
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Scholars often associate science and religion with different spheres of authority, linking science to factual knowledge and religion to moral guidance. Yet individuals often blur these boundaries, with some using science as a basis for moral judgment and others turning to religion to understand empirical facts. Using new survey measures and nationally representative data (n = 1516), our latent class analysis identifies five distinctive perspectives on the cultural authority of science and religion. About half of the respondents see either science or religion as a source of both knowledge and values. The rest fall into one of three groups that assign different combinations of moral and intellectual meaning to science and religion. These orientations are strongly associated with views on public policies related to each domain, even after accounting for ideology, religious beliefs, and socio-demographic characteristics. By mapping the cultural meanings that anchor perceptions of science and religion, this article contributes to research on institutional trust, symbolic boundaries, and pluralism in public life.
Culture wars and classism: Christian nationalism, economic position, and Americans’ approval of inequality
Samuel L Perry, Andrew L Whitehead
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The United States has witnessed a concomitant rise in economic inequality and increasingly explicit Christian nationalist rhetoric at multiple levels of governance. Yet research has not examined how Americans’ views on Christian nationalism might justify the economic inequality. We theorize a connection between Christian nationalism and approval of economic inequality, but one contingent on economic position. Building on scholarship showing how White racial in-group commitments interact with Christian nationalism to sacralize racial hierarchies, we theorize Christian nationalism unites those who gain from economic inequality, and thus, it should drive support for economic inequality most among higher-earning Americans. Analyses of the 2021 General Social Survey affirm Christian nationalism is consistently associated with Americans’ approval of economic inequality by numerous indicators, whether in the abstract or concretely regarding education and health. However, interactions reveal this association is isolated to Americans in the highest income quartile. Replication with the 2014 Boundaries in American Mosaic survey and Pew’s 2024 American Trends Panel survey shows the same pattern: Christian nationalism and approval of economic inequality are associated primarily among higher-earners. Thus, despite lower-income Americans being more likely to embrace Christian nationalism overall, it is not bound up with their views on economic inequality. Rather, Christian nationalism is associated with approval of economic inequality among those who benefit from it, namely, higher-income Americans. Our findings thus hold implications for understanding religion’s contingent role in shaping Americans’ acceptance of inequality.

Social Networks

Network scale-up methods on aggregated relational data to estimate the outcome of elections
Jorge M. Arevalillo, Juan Marcos Ramírez, Sergio Díaz-Aranda, Jose Aguilar, Antonio Fernández Anta, Rosa E. Lillo
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Mapping the relational ecology of multi-organizational coalitions and collaboratives: Considerations in the conceptualization and design of social network analysis studies
Krista A. Haapanen, Megan S. Patterson, Brian D. Christens
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Socius

Work-Family Conflict and Physical Activity: Exploring Gender Differences among Australian Parents
Linda Maciejewski
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In this longitudinal study the author investigates the association among work-to-family conflict (WTFC) and family-to-work conflict (FTWC), gender, and the frequency of physical activity among Australian parents. On the basis of the stress process theory and the conservation of resources theory , higher work-family conflict will likely lead to decreased physical activity because of limited resources. Gender differences are hypothesized, reflecting gendered role identification with work and family. The analysis uses data from 6,370 employed parents in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, using ordered logit regression models with fixed effects. The results show that both WTFC and FTWC are negatively associated with physical activity. Gendered patterns are observed: whereas WTFC is associated with reduced physical activity among fathers and mothers, FTWC is only negatively associated with physical activity among mothers. These findings emphasize the importance to consider conflict directions and gender when examining health behaviors. Physical activity might represent another competing domain, causing a work-family-health conflict.