News
MAGA World Is About to Meet Taylor Swift's Fandom. It Won't Go Well. (Opens in new window)
Taylor Swift has many titles: cultural juggernaut; international pop star; billionaire businesswoman. She can now add MAGA conspiracy theory target to the list. ...
"Aging and the Rise in Bottom Income Inequality in Korea" (Opens in new window)
Korea is one of the world’s fastest-aging societies, with poverty and low income prevalent among the elderly population. Unlike other advanced economies, where top income inequality has driven the rise in income inequality, fluctuations in income inequality in Korea in recent decades have been dominated by changes in the bottom...
For Some Professors, Taylor Swift Is a Student-Engagement Tactic (Opens in new window)
Elizabeth Scala was having trouble, trouble, trouble. It was 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. Scala, a professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, had tried several themes, including the Harry Potter series, to engage students in a course she’s been teaching for years, a freshman...
Argun Saatcioglu co-authored "Structure and Agency in Resistance to Schooling: Class, Race, and the Reproduction of Unequal Outcomes" in Social Science Research (Opens in new window)
This article examines how social class and race intersect to shape students’ resistance to schooling. ...
Jarron Saint Onge recently voted President-elect of the Southern Demographic Association
Professor Saint Onge is a sociologist and social demographer by training. He has expertise in nationally representative survey data, U.S. Census data, and quantitative data analysis. His research has been focused on understanding how social determinants of health continue to influence health disparities, by sociodemographic characteristics such as race/ethnicity or...
Tracey LaPierre was selected as the Patrick Malone Honors Faculty Fellow for the University Honors Program (3-yr appt.) (Opens in new window)
This talented cohort provides our students with proximity to preeminent scholarship, research, and creative generation, in addition to transformative educational experiences and mentoring. For each of our fellows, you can find a link below to a profile containing their contact information and office hours. ...
ChangHwan Kim's Review of Jake Rosenfeld's "You're Paid What You're Worth, and Other Myths of the Modern Economy" (Opens in new window)
In his latest book, You’re Paid What You’re Worth, and Other Myths of the Modern Economy (YPWYW), Jake Rosenfeld debunks the pervasive myth that salary is determined mainly by individual performance or occupation. The human capital theory argues that with more education, a person becomes a more productive worker as...
If Taylor Swift is living in Kansas City, here's what locals say she should know (Opens in new window)
Taylor Swift — international superstar, the most-streamed artist of 2023, and onetime New York City tourism ambassador — is apparently now a Kansas City resident. ...
ChangHwan Kim receives General Faculty Research Fund
ChangHwan Kim receives GRF funding for a project titled "Inequality in Lifetime Earnings." ...
How Travis Kelce Manifested the Best Year of His Life (Opens in new window)
WHEN TRAVIS KELCE was a young man, his college football coach pulled him aside one day and told him the secret of life: Everybody you meet in this world is either a fountain or a drain. ...
Kansas City Chiefs dreamed of building an international fanbase. Then Taylor Swift came along (Opens in new window)
On Saturday night, Google searches for the word “Chiefs” (who weren’t playing that weekend) were just about non-existent until — at about 2 a.m. local time — they saw a 150% spike. ...
Taylor Swift is having a moment. So is girlhood. (Opens in new window)
Carys Musto has been a Taylor Swift fan since before she was born. ...
Why is Taylor Swift so popular? (Opens in new window)
What lengths would you go to for your favourite musician? Hours spent refreshing a web page? Queuing in the rain for a meet-and-greet? If you could see yourself camping for five months outside a venue to get the best seats at their show, then that’s exactly what a group of...
Why is Taylor Swift so popular? (Opens in new window)
What lengths would you go to for your favourite musician? Hours spent refreshing a web page? Queuing in the rain for a meet-and-greet? If you could see yourself camping for five months outside a venue to get the best seats at their show, then that’s exactly what a group of...
Why is Taylor Swift so popular? (Opens in new window)
What lengths would you go to for your favourite musician? Hours spent refreshing a web page? Queuing in the rain for a meet-and-greet? If you could see yourself camping for five months outside a venue to get the best seats at their show, then that’s exactly what a group of...
Kansas professors/fans: Musician Taylor Swift poised to raise political voice in 2024 (Opens in new window)
Professional musician and novice Kansas City Chiefs enthusiast Taylor Swift avoided flexing her artistry on the political stage during the 2016 presidential contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. ...
Red Hot Research returns for its 12th year
LAWRENCE — Red Hot Research returns for three sessions this fall, offering a fast-paced, presentation-style event from The Commons at the University of Kansas as a way of introducing colleagues to one another. ...
Paul Stock co-authored "You're Asking Me to Put into Words Something That I Don't Put into Words": Climate Grief and Older Adult Environmental Activists (Opens in new window)
Globally, climate change is leading to environmental crises, which activists have been fighting against for decades. Social scientists have rarely considered older adults as environmentalists and their feelings about climate change. Most studies focus on younger people’s emotions or concerns about environmental crises. The purpose of this study is to...
Liz Felix Selected for the Inaugural Fostering Research Expansion in the Social Sciences (Opens in new window)
The FRESSH Program is designed to help scholars in the arts, social sciences, and humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences apply for and obtain external funding for their research. The program will consist of workshops during the 2023-24 academic year during which scholars will work with invited...
When Pop Stars Take Over the Classroom (Opens in new window)
Brian Donovan's article "Baldness and Civilization: Alopecia and the Social Construction of Race in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era" was published in the Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities (Opens in new window)
In late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century America, doctors, scientists, and social commentators amplified concerns that white men were going bald at an alarming rate. Theories of baldness in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era created and relied on racial distinctions. This article examines the role of baldness and perceptions of baldness in...
Taylor Swift is 'in a class of her own right now' as Eras tour gives way to Eras movie (Opens in new window)
KU chancellor announces promotion and tenure for 163 faculty and researchers
LAWRENCE — Chancellor Douglas A. Girod has approved the promotion and award of tenure, where indicated, for 64 individuals at the University of Kansas Lawrence and Edwards campuses and 99 individuals at the KU Medical Center campuses. ...
An intrastate study-abroad trip visits the foreign land of Kansas (Opens in new window)
Jarron St. Onge receives funding from the National Science Foundation, 2023-2025
Jarron St. Onge is the Co-Principal Investigator (KU is primary institution -- Sociology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology -- with George Mason, North Carolina-Greensboro, University of Puerto Rico) for the National Science Foundation, 2023-2025. (PI: Agusto) “Project INSIGHT: INclusion of challenges from Social Isolation Governed by Human behavior through Transformative...
Taylor Swift and her fans are such a phenomenon, this KU professor is studying them (Opens in new window)
Earlier this month Brian Donovan, a sociology professor at the University of Kansas, made a TikTok to recruit people for his study of Taylor Swift fans. He couldn’t offer them money but promised “we’ll have a good conversation.”...
Can’t ‘Shake It Off’? University of Kansas class will explore Taylor Swift’s popularity (Opens in new window)
Like many “Swifties,” University of Kansas sociology professor Brian Donovan first became a Taylor Swift fan in 2013, upon the release of her album “1989.”...
Andrew Taeho Kim receives Postdoctoral Fellow at the Population Studies Center, Univ. of Pennsylvania (Opens in new window)
Andrew Taeho Kim’s research centers on the various facets of labor market inequality, including how economic returns from the labor market are stratified based on race, gender, and family. He received Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Kansas. His work appears in Social Science Research, Population...
SOC 450 "Gender and Society" developed as a Research-Intensive Course
Assistant Teaching Professor Kelly Sharron has developed SOC 450 as a Research-Intensive Course with a mini grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research. Students will be presenting their work in the Undergraduate Research Symposium April 17-21, 2023. ...
ChangHwan Kim co-authored "Is hyper-selectivity a root of Asian American Children's Success?" (Opens in new window)
Asian immigrants' children, even those from lower-backgrounds, tend to acquire higher levels of education than other ethnoracial groups, including White natives. Asian culture is often cited as a conventional explanation. The hyper-selectivity hypothesis challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that Asian American culture is an outcome of the community resources associated...