Sports vs Academics [Video]

As a sociologist who studies sport, I'm often pushing students to view sport with a critical lens.  This usually puts us in conversation about how we value sports and how we devote time, money, and energy to sport because of those values.

 This video is especially useful for having that conversation with relation to how we value sports  versus how we regard academics.

Enjoy!

Map of Social Inequality using Human Development Indicators [Interactive Graphic]

How does the United States rank on measures of health, education, gender inequality, poverty, and other human development indicators in comparison to other countries around the world?  Use this interactive map and data from the United Nations Development Programme to help students get a better grasp on the “big picture” of social inequalities.

Link: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map

Gender and Teaching Evaluations [Interactive Graphic]

As sociologists, we know that people are evaluated differently based on their gender, but it can be hard for students to visualize this out of context.  This tool allows them to visualize gender and evaluations in a very relevant way: through professor ratings. Ben Schmidt looked at the evaluative words used in Rate My Professor reviews and compiled the results in this series of interactive charts. 

You can search for any word. The resulting graph will show you the difference between male and female professors in a variety of disciplines.    You can see one example above.  According to evaluations, men are funnier than women are more likely to be labeled as "genuises". Males are also more likely to be rated as intelligent and smart (though the gaps are smaller). . Males were also more likely to be "weird" in every discipline other than Physics.  Females were always more likely than males to be rated as  "nice" and to be rated as "mean".

  

Thanks to Dr. Schmidt, assistant history professor at Northeastern University, for putting together this data visualization.
Link: http://benschmidt.org/profGender/#

Parenting and talking about sex with children [Video]

This video of comedian Julia Sweeney is sure to make students laugh: she recounts how she talked to her 8-year-old about sex for the first time and how the conversation turned in an unexpected direction!  This clip is fun to use in my sexuality class to initiate a discussion of sexuality socialization and how parents discuss sex with children.  I accompany this video with readings on sex education.

Link to video: http://www.ted.com/talks/julia_sweeney_has_the_talk#t-3644

Laws re: sexuality and gender identity in the U.S., by state [Interactive Graphic]

This interactive graphic allows students to explore legal policies that impact gay, lesbian, and transgender people by state and region in the United States.  Issues covered include marriage, hospital visitation, adoption, employment, housing, hate crimes, and education.

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2012/may/08/gay-rights-united-states?CMP=twt_gu

Women in STEM Careers [Video]

One of my students sent me a link to this video today after my lecture on gender and education. In this commercial,  we are immersed in the life of a young girl. We hear family members' gendered message towards her over the course of her lifetime, watch her facial expressions, and see the potential result of those accumulated messages.

Verizon > Inspire Her Mind

The Widening Wealth Gap [Interactive Graphic]

The Washington Post published this interactive graphic examining net household worth by RACE and EDUCATION.  The data are pulled from the US Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation.

For each graph, you can click on a Census race category to see the differences in wealth. The bars will grow and shrink as you click.   A second graph performs a similar function using educational categories.

Check out the site here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/22/the-state-of-americas-widening-wealth-gap/

Interview with CJ Pascoe about her book Dude, You're a Fag [Video]

In this video clip, Dalton Conley interview’s CJ Pascoe about her book Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School.  Even if you have not assigned her book or article, students may find that the examples Pascoe discusses in the video help them better understand the “doing gender” theory and the concept of policing gender.

Link to video

Gender Gaps in PhDs [Interactive Graphic]

 Scientific American recently published an article on the PhD gender gap. The article included an interactive feature where students can look at the gender difference in PhD by country (56 nations are included) and also by subject area.   If you plan to talk about the underepresentation of women in certain subject areas OR if you plan to talk about global differences in gender roles, this tool should help your students visualize the differences.

(Link here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-nations-fare-in-phds-by-sex-interactive/)

Is Going to College Worth It? [Interactive Tool]

Thanks the NPR's Here & Now for bringing this interesting interactive tool to my attention.  The tool called, Take the Plunge, was designed by Fusion.  Other than the depressing personal reality that male college dropouts on average will have higher lifetimes earnings that female PhDs, the tool is very useful and helps students visualize the idea of going in to debt before climbing higher than those who have no student loans.

You can access the tool here: http://static.fusion.net/lifetime_earnings/

The online tool uses data from PayScale to show the median lifetime earnings for people based on their gender, level of education, degree type, and gender.  If you want more information about the data, click on the Methodology link on the lower left hand corner or the Analysis section on the menu bar located across the top of the screen. If you would like to see some examples, check out the "Featured Charts" on the same menu bar.



Some of my thoughts on this

• Figuring out how to add new people to the chart was a bit confusing at first, but I eventually got the hang of it. Don't  get discouraged.  
• It would have been great to also see Race/Ethnicity on here. I didn't really see any mention of why it was not there -perhaps it is not something that PayScale collects?
• I had some questions on using past data to predict future outcomes.   Fusion Senior editor Felix Salmon gave his take on that in the NPR Interview (Listen Here). I'm not sure if I agree but this would be a great discussion point for more advanced methods courses.
• Despite all of that, I think this is a great visualization and I hope it will get students talking about the cost of education.s

Student Loan Debt by State [Interactive Map + Data]

If you are looking to start a conversation on student loan debt, The Institute for College Access and Success is a great place to find data.

The link to the website below will bring you to an interactive map, where you can look at state by state data on student loan debt.
http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/state_by_state-data.php

Clicking on a state will bring you to a page that includes information on most schools within that state. An interesting exercise would be to have students look up your university and compare it to other types of university.  You can also download the data from the site.

Finding Data About Education [Data]

The National Center for Education Statistics provides links to data that can be very useful when discussing the Sociology of Education in your courses. You can look at enrollment, educational attainment, school districts, teachers--and many other topics that might be of interest to you and your students.   The available data changes depending on the level of education that you are interested in.

The upside: The data are extensive - with so much to choose from, you will surely find data to help students who are completing methods projects or you will come up with interesting talking and discussion points for class.

The downside: The data are extensive -- they feel overwhelming! This might be mitigated by a better table search feature.

Link to the site here: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2012menu_tables.asp

(This link brings you to the 2012 table data. If you would rather see other years, just change the year using the drop down menu. If you would rather see charts and maps, click the radio button for "Figures" on the top right.)

Here is an example of a  figure that I found on the site.

Diversity Data Kids [Interactive Maps]

This site is great because it allows users to generate custom maps based on certain variables of interest. One can generate the maps based on a number of geographic areas (states, counties, school districts, metro areas)

The majority of the indicators are related to children's outcomes in some way; however, keep in mind that not all variables are available at all of the location types. Some of the variables can be broken down further by race or poverty level.

• Population Demographics and Diversity
• Early Childhood Care and Education
• Education
• Health
• Parental Employment
• Policy
• Income and Poverty

Here is an example of a map that I generated.  

I really like that these maps are so easy to generate and the program generally seems to run quickly; however, one of the reasons is because the options are limited.  The lack of choices makes things pretty user friendly - but it also means that you don't get too much complexity here. In addition, I have not  found out any way to download the data that are generated.   Despite this drawback, the tool is a nice way to make a quick map of a variable of interest.

UN Human Development Index [Data]

The UN Human Development Index measures the life expectancy, educational attainment, and income of most nations. "The breakthrough for the HDI was the creation of a single statistic which was to serve as a frame of reference for both social and economic development."

The site is a great way to have students look up differences between nations and regions on three major indicators. The data are also easy to sort on the spot- and so you could use this in class to start a discussion on global inequality.

UN Human Development Index

The site does a great job explaining how each data point was calculated, so this would also be a nice tool to use if you wanted to talk about measuring and operationalizing concepts.

Exploring Differences in the Number of Adults With College Degrees [Interactive Map]

This interactive map, published by the Chronicle of Higher Education, allows the user to examine trends in higher education.  Users can compare the the percentage of adults with college degree from 1940 to 2009. Users can also look at differences by county or by demographics such as gender or race. One final cool feature is that you can isolate certain types of counties, such as wealthy counties or heavily Hispanic counties. The Census is the primary source of Data.

Click here for Link to Interactive Map

The only downside to this one is that users mus have a Chronicle password. Because of that, this would probably work better as an in class demo rather than as a student assignment.  This would be a great starting point for a conversation about rising levels of higher education or about stratification by demographics.