Many of us went through school not fully knowing what we were supposed to be learning or how our teachers were measuring our progress. These priorities and processes were largely hidden to us as students because they were assumed to be irrelevant or un...

What do we know about the individuals who make comments on online news stories, blogs, videos and other media? What kind of people take the time to post all manner of information and context to material created by others? Joseph M. Reagle,

There has been a lot of talk in the United States recently about same-sex marriage. One obvious question is sociological: What are the implications of marriage equality for the longstanding social institution of marriage?

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi is the author of Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2015). She is an assistant professor of new media at Fordham University.

Valuation is a central question in contemporary social science. Indeed the question of value has a range of academic projects associated with it, whether in terms of specific questions or in terms of emerging fora for academic publications.

The discontented graduate student is something of a cultural fixture in the U.S. Indeed theirs is a sorry lot. They work very hard, earn very little, and have very poor prospects. Nearly all of them want to become professors, but most of them won’t.

Ronald P. Formisano has written Plutocracy in America: How Increasing Inequality Destroys the Middle Class and Exploits the Poor (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015). Formisano is the William T. Bryan Chair of American History and professor emeritus of history at ...

An interview with Ryan Craig

Though the conventional history of the U.S.-led “War on Drugs” locates the origins of this conflict in a reaction to the domestic culture of excess of the 1960s, a new book argues that international drug control efforts are actually decades older,

With 40 years of public school experience, from teacher to high-ranking official of one of the largest school systems in the US, Eric Nadelstern has a deep perspective and nuanced understanding of the current educational landscape.

Justin S. Vaughn and Jose D. Villalobos have written Czars in the White House: The Rise of Policy Czars as Presidential Management Tools (University of Michigan Press, 2015). Vaughn is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boise State University;...

Every year, thousands of teachers visit San Diego to understand project-based learning and find inspiration in the work done by students at High Tech High. Their multimedia presentations have been installed in public art galleries,

“America is a nation of immigrants.” Either this common refrain, or its cousin the “melting pot” metaphor is repeated daily in conversations at various levels of U.S. society. Be it in the private or public realm,

The political tradition of liberalism tends to associate political liberty with the individual’s freedom of choice. The thought is that political freedom is intrinsically tied to the individual’s ability to select one’s own path in life – to choose one...

Thomas Holyoke is the author of The Ethical Lobbyist: Reforming Washington’s Influence Industry (Georgetown UP, 2015). Holyoke is associate professor of political science at California State University, Fresno.

Are you happy? In his new book The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being (Verso, 2015), William Davies, a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, critically investigates this question.

Due in part to lobbying efforts on behalf of the human genome project, human genes tend to be thought of in light of the present–genetic components of human disease and differential risks associated with genetic individuals–before the future,

Physician/author Ian Williams coined the term “graphic medicine” to “denote the role that comics can play in the study and delivery of healthcare.” The robust emerging graphic medicine community can be witnessed in its website and annual conference,

Dr. William Elliott III, associate professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, and Melinda Lewis, associate professor of practice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas,

As patterns of religiosity have changed in the United States, chaplains have come to occupy an increasingly important place in the nation’s public institutions, especially its prisons, hospitals and military. In her newest book,

Julian E. Zelizer is the author of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (Penguin Press, 2015). Zelizer is the Malcom Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princet...

In this podcast I discuss Profit Motive: The Salary Revolution in American Government, 1780-1940 (Yale University Press, 2013) with author Nicholas R. Parrillo, professor of law at Yale University. Parrillo’s book was winner of the 2014 Law and Society...

Disputes over the definitions or legality of ‘rights’ and ‘rationing’ in their various guises have animated much of the debate around the United States Affordable Care Act. Many legislators and vocal members of their constituency have strong conviction...

That privacy in the digital age is an important concept to be discussed is axiomatic. Cameras in mobile phones make it easy to record events and post them on the web. Consumers post an enormous amount of information on social media sites.

Todd Meyers‘ The Clinic and Elsewhere: Addiction, Adolescents, and the Afterlife of Therapy (University of Washington Press, 2013) is many things, all of them compelling and fully realized. Most directly, the book is an ethnography of drug dependence a...