The Conversation

Cellphone bans in the workplace are legal and more common among blue-collar jobs – they also might be a safety risk

Written by Richard Carlson, Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Six died as a tornado tore through an Amazon fulfillment center in Edwardsville, Illinois.AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

Cellphones in the workplace can be a distraction – but they could also save your life.

In the aftermath of a devastating tornado ripping through an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, on Dec. 10, 2021 – killing six...

To tree, or not to tree? How Jewish-Christian families navigate the 'December Dilemma'

Written by Samira Mehta, Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

Lots of families wrestle with how – and whether – to celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas.Brianna Soukup/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

Traditionally, for Christian-Jewish families – or at least in writing about them – the month of December is referred to as a “dilemma.” This time of year brings...

How Mrs. Claus embodied 19th-century debates about women's rights

Written by Maura Ives, Professor of English, Texas A&M University

Why did she do all the work while Santa got all the glory? What would happen if she delivered the toys?Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” redefined Christmas in America. As historian Steven Nissenbaum explains in “The...

Mourning after mass shootings isn't enough – a sociologist argues that society's messages about masculinity need to change

Written by Darcie Vandegrift, Professor, Sociology, Drake University

People attend a vigil for the victims of a school shooting that occurred in Oxford, Michigan, on Nov. 30, 2021. AP Photo/Paul Sancya

Today, Dec. 14, marks the anniversary of the tragic loss of children and teachers at Sandy Hook.

After any mass shooting, Americans hear politicians make the ritualistic call for “thoughts and prayers.”...

Pandemic, war and environmental disaster push scientists to deliver quick answers – here's what it takes to do good science under pressure

Written by Fiona Greenland, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia

A crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic lends urgency to scientific research, putting researchers under pressure to produce.janiecbros/E+ via Getty Images

How can you know that science done quickly during a crisis is good science?

This question has taken on new relevance with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Researchers developed vaccines in under a year &...

2021 Arctic Report Card reveals a (human) story of cascading disruptions, extreme events and global connections

Written by Matthew Druckenmiller, Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder

Community members from Utqiagvik, Alaska, look to open water from the edge of shorefast sea ice. Matthew Druckenmiller

The Arctic has long been portrayed as a distant end-of-the-Earth place, disconnected from everyday common experience. But as the planet rapidly warms, what happens in this icy region, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as...

Vast majority of American workers like their jobs – even as a record number quit them

Written by Scott Schieman, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto

Surveys suggest job satisfaction is still quite high. Maskot/Getty Images

A record share of American workers are quitting their jobs, thanks in part to a strong economy and a labor shortage.

Does that mean Americans are unhappy with where they work?

The answer would seem to be yes, according to many economists and other observers. That’s the...

Smoke, heat and stress: A snapshot from Southern California of life in an altered climate

Written by Kyla Thomas, Sociologist, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A lone jogger runs during a heat wave in the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in Los Angeles on June 17, 2021. Xinhua via Getty Images

From record-breaking heat waves to massive wildfires, floods and long-running drought, the impacts of climate change across the U.S. have been impossible to ignore in 2021. While conditions vary from one region to...

US prep schools held student exchanges with elite Nazi academies

Written by Helen Roche, Associate Professor of Modern European Cultural History, Durham University

German students reading newspapers in the Nazi academy in Rügen in 1943.Dietrich Schulz, Author provided

In the summer of 1935, the Nazi government hijacked a student exchange program between leading American and German schools.

The International Schoolboy Fellowship, as it was known, was first set up by Walter Huston Lillard, the headmaster...

'Strangers in their own land': Iraqi Yazidis and their plight, 7 years on from genocide

Written by Houman Oliaei, PhD Candidate, Brandeis University

Tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi religious minority are now living in shelters and camps.AP Photo/Seivan Salim

Each year in the second week of December, Iraqi Yazidis, an ethnoreligious minority in northern Iraq, celebrate Rojiet Ezi, a festival that follows three days of fasting. During my ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in...