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Digital text has revolutionized how we consume and produce information, and also provides seemingly limitless sources of data from Twitter feeds to online historical archives. Such new data challenge traditional boundaries between quantitative and qualitative research, and exciting horizons have emerged. New analytic approaches are warranted, however, given the typically unstructured, respondent-generated format of such data. In this article, I examine how sociologists have handled text data prior to digitization. Building on recent advancements in computational linguistics and computational social science, I then offer a network-based model and approach for analyzing similarities and locating emergent, general themes in digitized text. I provide a case in point by analyzing the United States' presidential inaugural addresses. This analysis illustrates how sociologists can take advantage of both the breadth of new digital sources of data and the richness that such qualitative material provides. Indeed, the digitization of texts represents a possible and stimulating sea change in how we tell socio-cultural and historical stories. The greatest potential in these regards rests at the nexus of new computational methods and in-depth, qualitative strategies.

AbstractGender stratification continues to pervade the American workplace, and academic science as a vocation is hardly exempt. In this article, I review prior work on why and how gender inequality affects scientific careers. I focus specifically on scientific publication, an important determinant of scientific success. The research indicates that processes of gender stratification operate through formal and informal relationships contributing to the inequality we continue to find in academic science. Following Bourdieu (2004), I argue that sociology's unique reflexivity – that is, our ability to turn the tools of science inward – offers an important vantage point and contribution to our understanding of stratification in science specifically, in workplaces more generally, and in society at large.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks gathers forty leading scholars in social networks who link the distinct practices of social network scholars in the social sciences. Each chapter provides a succinct background to, and future directions for, distinctive approaches to analyzing social networks--theoretical, methodological, or substantive. The Handbook serves as a resource for graduate students and faculty new to networks looking to learn new approaches, scholars interested in an overview of the field, and network analysts looking to expand their skills or substantive areas of research.

While some social scientists may argue that we have always been networked, the increased visibility of networks today across economic, political, and social domains can hardly be disputed. Social networks fundamentally shape our lives and social network analysis has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research. In this handbook, Ryan Light and James Moody have gathered 40 leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science, among others, to provide an overview of the theory, methods, and contributions in the field of social networks. Each of the chapters moves through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically.

Social movement frames are dynamic, shifting and embedded within an already existent cultural milieu—a milieu that affects mobilization opportunities. In this article, we invoke the concept of the "cultural clearinghouse" to tackle how broader cultural structures translate to frames or influence frame resonance. Our illustrative case, the Nobel Peace Prize, along with our use of topic modeling, a computational technique that identifies commonalities between texts, offer an important methodological advance for social movement scholars interested in culture, frame formation and resonance, and dynamic approaches to social movement discourse. Our findings show how peace discourse—as represented by Peace Prize acceptance speeches—increasingly has become embedded within broader cultural emphases on globalization and neoliberalism, versus earlier Christian and global institutional schemas. We conclude by discussing the usefulness of our conceptual and methodological advance for movement scholars with special attention to the coupling of new computational techniques and more traditional methods.

While there are many uncertainties about the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic, scientific mobilization that integrates knowledge from across the wide-ranging intersection of applicable expertise will optimize our response strategy. As we continue to coordinate these efforts, sociological contributions can continue to identify improved social coordination opportunities, even while practicing social distancing.

Over the past 25 years, since the publication of Omi & Winant's Racial Formation in the United States, the statement that race is socially constructed has become a truism in sociological circles. Yet many struggle to describe exactly what the claim means. This review brings together empirical literature on the social construction of race from different levels of analysis to highlight the variety of approaches to studying racial formation processes. For example, macro-level scholarship often focuses on the creation of racial categories, micro-level studies examine who comes to occupy these categories, and meso-level research captures the effects of institutional and social context. Each of these levels of analysis has yielded important contributions to our understanding of the social construction of race, yet there is little conversation across boundaries. Scholarship that bridges methodological and disciplinary divides is needed to continue to advance the racial formation perspective and demonstrate its broader relevance.

Research on race stratification and employment usually implies discrimination as a key mechanism in race stratification, although few if any analyses bring attitudes, employee-employer interpretations, and established discriminatory behavior into a singular analysis. In this article, the authors do so and offer a relational account of how discrimination operates, drawing on a large sample of verified racial discrimination cases. Building on racial stratification literature and theory on "color-blind" racism, the analyses focus on employee and employer interpretations and then use dyadic analyses coupled with qualitative case immersion to shed light on the relational nature of discrimination and how employers justify such conduct. Findings highlight significant interpersonal disjunctures in descriptions of common events as well as the ways in which employers evoke broad organizational and societal ideals of meritocracy— ideals that often fall by the wayside in concrete decision-making pertaining to and in evaluation of minority employees.

Research on race stratification and employment usually implies discrimination as a key mechanism in race stratification, although few if any analyses bring attitudes, employee-employer interpretations, and established discriminatory behavior into a singular analysis. In this article, the authors do so and offer a relational account of how discrimination operates, drawing on a large sample of verified racial discrimination cases. Building on racial stratification literature and theory on "color-blind" racism, the analyses focus on employee and employer interpretations and then use dyadic analyses coupled with qualitative case immersion to shed light on the relational nature of discrimination and how employers justify such conduct. Findings highlight significant interpersonal disjunctures in descriptions of common events as well as the ways in which employers evoke broad organizational and societal ideals of meritocracy -- ideals that often fall by the wayside in concrete decision-making pertaining to and in evaluation of minority employees. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]