We checked 6 sociology journals on Friday, January 30, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period January 23 to January 29, we retrieved 18 new paper(s) in 4 journal(s).

European Societies

Is social heterogeneity in classrooms associated with reduced achievement inequality? The role of help-seeking in peer networks
Chenru Hou, Georg Lorenz, Camilla Rjosk
Full text
The inclusion of students from diverse social origins in classrooms might be a strategy to reduce unequal access to social capital along with social origin. This study investigates the relationship between social heterogeneity in classrooms and inequality in student achievement. Additionally, a social network perspective is taken to investigate help-seeking among peers with a different social origin as a possible underlying mechanism. By analyzing large-scale data with 1,671 9th-grade classrooms and 29,597 students in Germany using multi-level regression models, we find that greater social heterogeneity in classrooms increases students' proportion of cross-social-origin help-seeking ties. Moreover, the alignment between social and ethnic origin (i.e., consolidation) does not moderate the association between social heterogeneity and the proportion of cross-social-origin help-seeking ties. Similarly, the alignment between social origin and sex also has no effect on this association. Furthermore, higher proportions of cross-social-origin help-seeking ties are slightly negatively associated with the achievement gaps between students of the most advantaged and the most disadvantaged social origins. This implies that encouraging cross-social-origin help-seeking can reduce achievement inequality. However, no significant direct association is found between social heterogeneity and achievement inequality. In conclusion, we discuss factors that might hinder social heterogeneity in classrooms from fostering more equal academic outcomes.

European Sociological Review

The long-term effects of childhood residential mobility on social capital
Riccardo Valente, Mattia Vacchiano
Full text
When a child moves home multiple times, the consequences for the adult they will later become can be substantial. This study investigates how frequent relocations during childhood influence the development of social capital in adulthood. Using a combination of retrospective and longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of the Swiss population (N = 4,451), we examine how identity formation and the sense of agency jointly shape individuals’ ability to sustain supportive networks over time. Results from structural equation modelling show that individuals who experienced frequent moves in childhood tend to identify less with the city, region, and country in which they live; yet this appears to have no direct consequences for their social capital. In contrast, they report a stronger sense of personal agency—defined as feeling more confident in addressing problems and making decisions—which, in turn, enhances their ability to maintain supportive networks. Overall, the findings highlight that residential mobility in childhood is a complex phenomenon that reshapes how individuals relate to the communities they belong to, to themselves, and to others across the life course.

Social Forces

Review of “Original Sin?: The Reproduction of Racism in a Multiracial Church”
Claire Gilliland
Full text
Review of “On the Frontlines of Crisis: Intensive Care and the Challenge of COVID-19.”
Ryan Hagen
Full text
Review of “Replace the State: How to Change the World When Elections and Protests Fail”
Todd Lu
Full text
Review of “Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora”
Marco Z Garrido
Full text
Review of “The Returned: Former U.S. Migrants’ Lives in Mexico City”
Emilio A Parrado
Full text
Review of “What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life”
Julianne Siegfriedt
Full text
Review of “Fueling Development: How Black Radical Trade Unionism Transformed Trinidad and Tobago”
Nathan W Pino
Full text
An imperfect match? gender and racial discrimination in hiring and applicant-job requirement matching as an unequal burden of proof
Koji Chavez, Katherine Weisshaar, Tania Hutt
Full text
Discrimination in hiring screening decisions against Black men, Black women, and White women compared to White men has been well-documented in social science research, yet a fundamental aspect of the hiring process—the extent to which job applicants meet the job requirements—has not been clearly integrated into our understanding of hiring discrimination. In this paper, we develop an intersectional framework that conceptualizes applicant-job requirement matching as a form of “proof” that the applicant meets the evaluative standard for the job, and that the burden of proof is unequally distributed across job applicants’ combined gender and racial statuses. White men applicants, who align with the abstract evaluative standard for professional positions, benefit from assumed abilities even without evidence of matching job requirements, whereas Black men, Black women, and White women applicants must match job requirements to “prove” that they meet screening standards. We test this theory empirically with two original experimental studies: a nationally representative survey experiment and a correspondence audit study of accountants. We find that stereotyping and hiring screening discrimination varies across the applicant-job requirement match: discrimination is heightened when job applicants do not meet the requirements, and reduced when matched to requirements. The burden of proof through matching requirements therefore falls to Black men, Black women, and White women—and we find that Black women applicants experience unique outcomes due to their “intersectional invisibility.” This article contributes to our understanding of hiring discrimination and gender and racial inequality in the labor market.
Review of “The Diversity of Morals”
Brain M Lowe
Full text
Review of “Unlocking the Red Closet: Gay Male Sex Workers in China”
Doug Guthrie
Full text
Review of “Governing the Global Clinic: HIV and the Legal Transformation of Medicine”
Claire Decoteau
Full text
Review of “Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England”
Isabella Kasselstrand
Full text
Review of “Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine”
Michael L Rosino
Full text
Review of “Industrial Islamism: How Authoritarian Movements Mobilize Workers”
Eric W Schoon
Full text
Review of “Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry”
Peter Hart-Brinson
Full text

Sociological Methods & Research

Suspicion During Fieldwork: Lessons From Ethnographers Suspected of Espionage
Eric W. Schoon
Full text
Researchers routinely face suspicion during fieldwork. This article presents findings from interviews with 34 ethnographers who were suspected of being spies while conducting fieldwork in Turkey. I find that the way the ethnographers experienced and responded to this suspicion depended on whether they reported being questioned about whether they were spies versus accused of spying. Questioning was interpreted as sense-making, and researchers reported several common strategies for addressing the suspicions they faced. Accusations, in contrast, were associated with threats and motivated the researchers to mitigate risks to themselves and their interlocutors. Engaging with scholarship on social cognition, high-risk fieldwork, and reflexivity, I discuss how my findings offer practical insights for navigating suspicion and risk during fieldwork—even in seemingly low-risk environments—and I make the case that interrogating how researchers react to suspicion can help them clarify their positionality and aid reflexivity.