COLUMBUS, Ohio – A desire for expensive, high-status goods is related to feelings of social status – which helps explain why minorities are attracted to bling, a new study suggests.
Previous research had shown that racial minorities spend a larger portion of their incomes than do whites on conspicuous consumption – buying products that suggest high status. (more…)
Much has been made about who or what is to blame for the “obesity epidemic” and what can or should be done to stem the tide of rising body mass among the U.S. population.
A new book by a UCLA sociologist turns these concerns on their head by asking two questions. First, how and why has fatness been medicalized as “obesity” in the first place? Second, what are the social costs of this particular way of discussing body size? (more…)
ANN ARBOR — National samples of 45,000 to 50,000 students in three grades (8, 10, and 12) have been surveyed every year since 1991 as part of the nationwide Monitoring the Future study. Among the most important findings from this year’s survey of U.S. secondary school students are the following:
Marijuana. After four straight years of increasing use among teens, annual marijuana use showed no further increase in any of the three grades surveyed in 2012. The 2012 annual prevalence rates (i.e., percent using in the prior 12 months) were 11%, 28%, and 36% for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, respectively. (Among the 8th graders there was a modest decline across the past two years—from 13.7% in 2010 to 11.4% in 2012—that reached statistical significance.) (more…)
In everyday life the way we express ourselves with our body language is very important. This is equally important when travelling abroad and when you may be coming into contact with people who have different cultures and customs. Follow our tips below for how to behave during your holiday. (more…)
Moustaches from the classic handlebar to the dramatic Dali are soon to be cut short as the month of Mo’vember draws to a close, and clean shaven faces return from their period of charitable exile
Research by a historian at the University of Exeter into the history of shaving and masculinity in eighteenth century Britain shows the advancement of new technologies in steel and the connection between advertising are inextricably linked to a closer shave. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Support for gay marriage is growing in Michigan, mirroring changing attitudes in many parts of the United States, according to Michigan State University’s State of the State Survey.
A recent survey found that 56 percent of the state’s residents support gay marriage while 39 percent oppose it. Two years ago, 48 percent supported gay marriage and 51 percent were opposed. (more…)
To Paul Tough, his recent visit to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy was “a nice homecoming.”
During the two years of research for his new book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, Tough spent time at UChicago and in its surrounding neighborhoods.
“The nerve center of my journalistic enterprise was a small dorm room in International House,” he joked Oct. 18 in a speech at Chicago Harris, saying that many of the ideas in the book drew from work in the Department of Economics, the Economics Research Center, the Crime Lab and from the Consortium on Chicago School Research. (more…)
CEHD alumna writes children’s book about animal friends on St. Kitts
Can a dog and a monkey be best friends? In Heidi Fagerberg’s first children’s book, Lion Paw and Oliver – An Unlikely Friendship, readers learn that the answer is yes. (more…)
