Black Men and Black Masculinity

In recent decades, sociological studies of black males and of black masculinity in America unfolded with great rapidity. In the 1960s, sociological studies of black males gained currency. Much of their focus has been on the problematic state of black males in education, employment, family life, peer and social relations, and within criminal justice systems. That tradition moved from employing a social problems lens for researching black men to documenting how their efforts in these and other spheres of life reflect creativity and efficacy as much as malaise and despair. Emerging several decades later in sociology, black masculinity studies began with an emphasis on how black males contended with hegemonic masculinity. This tradition moved to explore how sexual, socioeconomic, and other variations in the black male experience elucidated vulnerability as a common feature of that experience, as well as to more extensive visions of black masculinity. New research questions stand before both traditions that constitute the twenty-first-century agenda.

Rethinking Culture and Cognition

Paul DiMaggio's (1997) Annual Review of Sociology article urged integration of the cognitive and the cultural, triggering a cognitive turn in cultural sociology. Since then, a burgeoning literature in cultural sociology has incorporated ideas from the cognitive sciences—cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience and philosophy—significantly reshaping sociologists’ approach to culture, both theoretically and methodologically. This article reviews work published since DiMaggio's agenda-setting piece—research that builds on cross-disciplinary links between cultural sociology and the cognitive sciences. These works present new ideas on the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of culture, on how forms of personal culture interact, on how culture becomes shared, and on how social interaction and cultural environments inform cognitive processes. Within our discussion, we point to research questions that remain unsettled. We then conclude with issues for future research in culture and cognition that can enrich sociological analysis about action more generally.

The (Un)Managed Heart: Racial Contours of Emotion Work in Gendered Occupations

The concept of emotional labor has been very useful for elucidating how the expansion of a service economy perpetuated new forms of work that maintained gender divisions and inequalities. Research has been slower to catch up to the ways that emotional labor has racial implications as well, but recent studies are making important contributions and moving the literature in this direction. In this review, I consider how increasing racial diversity in the US population informs how emotion work is performed in the current economy. I also discuss how other macrostructural changes such as the rise of aesthetic labor, the gig economy, and the overwhelming growth of the service industry can reshape our understanding of the intersections between race and gender in emotional labor.

The Society of Algorithms

The pairing of massive data sets with processes—or algorithms—written in computer code to sort through, organize, extract, or mine them has made inroads in almost every major social institution. This article proposes a reading of the scholarly literature concerned with the social implications of this transformation. First, we discuss the rise of a new occupational class, which we call the coding elite. This group has consolidated power through their technical control over the digital means of production and by extracting labor from a newly marginalized or unpaid workforce, the cybertariat. Second, we show that the implementation of techniques of mathematical optimization across domains as varied as education, medicine, credit and finance, and criminal justice has intensified the dominance of actuarial logics of decision-making, potentially transforming pathways to social reproduction and mobility but also generating a pushback by those so governed. Third, we explore how the same pervasive algorithmic intermediation in digital communication is transforming the way people interact, associate, and think. We conclude by cautioning against the wildest promises of artificial intelligence but acknowledging the increasingly tight coupling between algorithmic processes, social structures, and subjectivities. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

New Directions in the Study of Institutional Logics: From Tools to Phenomena

In this article, we take stock of the institutional logics perspective and highlight opportunities for new scholarship. While we celebrate the growth and generativity of the literature on institutional logics, we also note that there has been a troubling tendency in recent work to use logics as analytical tools, feeding disquiet about reification and reductionism. Seeding a broader scholarly agenda that addresses such weaknesses in the literature, we highlight nascent efforts that aim to more systematically understand institutional logics as complex, dynamic phenomena in their own right. In doing so, we argue for more research that probes how logics cohere and endure by unpacking the role of values, the centrality of practice, and the governance dynamics of institutional logics and their orders. Furthermore, we encourage bridging the study of institutional logics with various literatures, including ethnomethodology, phenomenology, professions, elites, world society, and the old institutionalism, to enhance progress in these directions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The Influence of Simmel on American Sociology Since 1975

Recent decades have seen Georg Simmel's canonical status in American sociology solidify and his impact on research expand. A broad understanding of his influence, however, remains elusive. This review remedies this situation by evaluating Simmel's legacy in American sociology since 1975. We articulate Simmel's sociological orientation by elaborating the concepts of form, interaction, and dualism. Employing a network analysis of references to Simmel since 1975, we examine how Simmelian concepts have been adopted in research. We find Simmel became an anchor for change in urban and conflict studies, where scholars moved from his earlier functionalist reception toward a formalist interpretation. This formalist reception consolidated Simmel's status as a classic in network research and symbolic interactionism during the 1980s. Recent work in economic sociology and the sociology of culture, however, builds on Simmel's growing reception within relational sociology. We conclude with several ways to further articulate Simmel's ideas in the discipline. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Social Issues in Contemporary Russia: Women's Rights, Corruption, and Immigration Through Three Sociological Lenses

This article reviews social science research on women's rights, corruption, and immigration in Russia. Intentionally diverse, our selection of topics illustrates how the same three analytical lenses have been applied across a broad range of scholarship on the postcommunist world. Each lens is bifocal and entails a tension between two extremes. The victims versus agents lens refers to a tendency of scholars to portray their subjects either as passive victims of macrostructural and cultural conditions or as agents who adapt to survive, or even thrive, despite significant challenges. The similar versus exotic lens pits the assumption that Russia is a modern European country against the view that it is too distinctive to be meaningfully compared with the West or analyzed with Western theories. Finally, the old versus new lens represents competing views on the extent to which the institutional, cultural, and structural legacies of the Soviet Union, perestroika, and the 1990s continue to shape Russian society. The broad goal of our review is to highlight the intellectual promise of studying Russia sociologically. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The “Burden” of Oppositional Culture Among Black Youth in America

For decades, any scholarly conversation about the academic achievement of youth of color, and especially Black youth, required at least a nod to the widely discussed topic of oppositional culture. In this review, we explore whether Black youth are burdened by a peer culture oppositional to dominant institutions and achievement norms. We begin by focusing on recent research addressing oppositional culture and find little to no support for the main propositions of this theory, even as the ideas remain popular in academic and lay circles. We then turn our attention to other recent research on Black youth's educational experiences and find evidence that these youth might be better understood as burdened by structural, institutional, and interpersonal racism that they and other minoritized students face in school. We conclude by offering suggestions for research moving forward, arguing that it is time to expand the conversation within sociology on Black youth. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Negative Social Ties: Prevalence and Consequences

Recent decades have seen a surge of interest in negative ties and the negative aspects of social relationships. Researchers in different fields have studied negative ties and their consequences for various individual outcomes, including health and well-being, social status in schools and other organizations, and job performance and satisfaction, but they have mainly done so in disconnect. The result is a dearth of theoretization, manifested in a multitude of concepts and measures, that has made synthesis difficult and left numerous questions unanswered. By critically assessing these literatures, this review maps unresolved issues and identifies important lacunae in current investigations of negative ties. It is organized around three key issues: What are negative ties? How prevalent are they and where do they come from? And what are their consequences? The review concludes by proposing an agenda for future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

A Retrospective on Fundamental Cause Theory: State of the Literature and Goals for the Future

Fundamental cause theory (FCT) was originally proposed to explain how socioeconomic inequalities in health emerged and persisted over time. The concept was that higher socioeconomic status helped some people to avoid risks and adopt protective strategies using flexible resources: knowledge, money, power, prestige, and beneficial social connections. As a sociological theory, FCT addressed this issue by calling on social stratification, stigma, and racism as they affected medical treatments and health outcomes. The last comprehensive review was completed a decade ago. Since then, FCT has been tested, and new applications have extended central features. The current review consolidates key foci in the literature in order to guide future research in the field. Notable themes emerged around types of resources and their usage, approaches used to test the theory, and novel extensions. We conclude that after 25 years of use, there remain crucial questions to be addressed. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.