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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

Johfre and Colleagues Study the Social Construction of Age in the Context of Healthcare

CSDE Affiliate Sasha Johfre (Sociology) co-authored new research in the American Journal of Sociology, entitled “Galvanizing the ‘Missing Revolution’: Processes and Meanings of the Child/Adult Binary in the Social Construction of Age“. Sociologists understand that seemingly innate characteristics like race and gender are social constructs, yet a similar appreciation of age has failed to take hold. Using ethnographic, interview, and population-based survey experiment data, authors interrogate the child/adult binary in the context of healthcare to illuminate processes through which age categories are essentialized and legitimated and thereby how age is socially constructed.

CSDE Seminar – Patchwork Apartheid: Private Restriction, Racial Segregation, and Urban Inequality

Please join CSDE for a seminar with Colin Gordon on Friday, May 3rd from 12:30-1:30 in 360 PAR and on Zoom (register here). Colin Gordon is Professor and Chair of History at the University of Iowa, where he has taught since 1994. Gordon will be available for 1×1 meetings throughout the day. Sign up for a 1×1 meeting here. 

After the seminar, Evans PhD student Isaiah Wright will facilitate a graduate student discussion with Dr.Gordon in 221 Raitt from 1:30-2:30. Students can discuss research collaborations, professional development, academic publishing, and interdisciplinary research, among other topics. Learn more in the event poster here. RSVP to Isaiah Wright (iwrig@uw.edu) to join the student discussion.

Abstract: Drawing on a unique record of property restrictions excavated from local property records in five Midwestern counties, this research documents the prevalence of private property restriction in the era before zoning and building codes were widely employed and before federal redlining sanctioned the segregation of American cities and suburbs. This record of private restriction—documented and mapped to the parcel level in Greater Minneapolis, Greater St. Louis, and two Iowa counties—reveals the racial segregation process both on the ground, in the strategic deployment of restrictions throughout transitional central city neighborhoods and suburbs, and in the broader social and legal construction of racial categories and racial boundaries. Enforcement of private racial restrictions was held unconstitutional in 1948, and such agreements were prohibited outright in 1968. But their premises and assumptions, and the segregation they had accomplished, were carried forward by an array of private practices and public policies—including local zoning and federal redlining. Private race restriction was thus a key element in the original segregation of American cities and a source of durable inequalities in housing wealth, housing opportunity, and economic mobility.

 

 

Bratman and Co-authors Use an RCT to Examine Susceptibility to Stress and Nature Exposure

CSDE Affiliate Gregory Bratman (College of the Environment) released research with colleagues in Plos One, entitled “Susceptibility to stress and nature exposure: Unveiling differential susceptibility to physical environments; a randomized controlled trial“. Emerging epidemiological evidence indicates nature exposure could be associated with greater health benefits among groups in lower versus higher socioeconomic positions. One possible mechanism underpinning this evidence is described by our framework: (susceptibility) adults in low socioeconomic positions face higher exposure to persistent psychosocial stressors in early life, inducing a pro-inflammatory phenotype as a lifelong susceptibility to stress; (differential susceptibility) susceptible adults are more sensitive to the health risks of adverse (stress-promoting) environments, but also to the health benefits of protective (stress-buffering) environments. This study serves as an experimental investigation of a pro-inflammatory phenotype as a mechanism facilitating greater stress recovery from nature exposure.