House Hunting for Social Class: A Sociological Look at Zillow

On October 13, 2026September 16, 2026 By Karen SternheimerIn Class and Stratification, Monica RaduLeave a comment

By Monica Radu

I have a confession: I look up people’s houses on Zillow.

You might think we’re exchanging addresses so I can send you a Christmas card. Sure, maybe a Christmas card is coming. But there is also a very good chance I’m going to Zillow. How much did you pay for your house? What is it worth now? How many bedrooms do you have? When was it built? Oh, you remodeled the kitchen? I love it!

Why do I do this? I don’t know! Part of it is simple curiosity. Looking at houses is fun. I’m also a sociologist, which means apparently, I cannot stop observing people even in my free time. And Zillow has made it far too easy to be nosy from the comfort of my own couch.

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Social Economy: Public Investment and Social Priorities

On September 15, 2026September 16, 2026 By Karen SternheimerIn Cities and Urbanization, Class and Stratification, Karen Sternheimer1 Comment

By Karen Sternheimer

While visiting Roosevelt Island in New York, I came upon a park named for President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, which I discuss in this blog post. I vaguely remembered this speech, and as I re-read it, I stumbled upon the phrase “social economy,” or institutions that are created with a social mission.

This seemed a perfect description of some of the beautiful buildings I visited while in New York: art museums, Penn Station, Grand Central Station, and the New York Public Library. These buildings are not all owned by the public, but exist to fulfil a public service. It made me think about how and why communities decide to invest vast resources in making spaces like these beautiful, ornate, and works of art themselves when they could easily be simple utilitarian buildings.

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Challenging Inequality: Why We Should All Love Boosters

On August 3, 2026August 4, 2026 By Karen SternheimerIn Class and Stratification, Crime and Deviance, Popular Culture and Consumption, Stacy Torres, TheoryLeave a comment

By Stacy Torres

If you see one movie in theaters this year, make it I Love Boosters, Renaissance man Boots Riley’s wildly inventive, absurdist comedy crime caper and love letter to the San Francisco Bay Area.

What’s a booster? Musician, writer, producer, filmmaker, and activist Riley (Sorry to Bother You) defined the term in The Coup’s eponymous 2006 rap anthem: “A booster is a person who jacks from the retail/ And sells it in the hood for dirt-cheap resale.” Both song and film pay tribute to the “hardworking women who risk jail-time just to make them a living.”

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Tell Me Lies: Power, Privilege, and What Goes Unsaid

On April 6, 2026 By Karen SternheimerIn Class and Stratification, Monica Radu, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity, Theory1 Comment

By Monica Radu

I have been waiting years to write this. Tell Me Lies has wrapped after three seasons; For those unfamiliar, the TV series follows a group of college students as they navigate relationships, friendships, and identity over several years, with a central focus on Lucy and Stephen’s complicated and increasingly destructive relationship.

The main timeline begins in 2007, when Lucy starts college, and unfolds through her college years, while a flash forward to 2015 shows how those earlier dynamics continue to affect their lives into adulthood. When people talk about Tell Me Lies, the conversation usually centers on how “toxic” the relationships are. And they are. The lies, the manipulation, the emotional push and pull, the way certain dynamics keep repeating even when they clearly are not healthy. It is hard to miss.

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Not Always Relatable, But Still Meaningful: A Sociological Take on the Kardashians

On February 11, 2026 By Karen SternheimerIn Class and Stratification, Monica Radu, Popular Culture and Consumption1 Comment

By Monica Radu

Whenever the Kardashians come up in conversation, a common reaction is that they are not “relatable.” While that is true, relatability is not necessarily the goal. Much of everyday life already reflects familiar struggles, including balancing work, family responsibilities, financial pressures, and exhaustion. Those experiences are well known and widely shared.

For anyone less familiar, The Kardashians follows the Kardashian-Jenner family, a group of celebrities and business owners whose fame began with reality television and expanded into fashion, beauty, social media, and brand entrepreneurship. Their lives are highly visible, carefully curated, and shaped by extraordinary economic privilege and public attention.

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Using Sociology to Imagine Alternative Paths: Abbi and Nathan in Liberty Lost

On February 2, 2026 By Karen SternheimerIn Class and Stratification, Marci Cottingham, Popular Culture and Consumption, Relationships, Marriage and Family, ReligionLeave a comment

By Alana Hogan, Student, Kenyon College, and Marci Cottingham, Associate Professor of Sociology, Kenyon College

The podcast, Liberty Lost, centers on the story of Abbi and Nathan—two teenagers whose lives are deeply shaped by the religious conservatism of their community. Abbi is home-schooled and close to her sisters and parents in a home run by her father as the traditional patriarch. Nathan is a public-school athlete raised in the same tight-knit community, where faith, reputation, and obedience are treated as non-negotiable. When she discovers that she is pregnant at sixteen, this triggers a chain of decisions that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Abbi and Nathan, surrounded by well-meaning but fearful family members, and experiencing feelings of shame for violating their religious beliefs, do not know how to navigate their new circumstances. Abbi’s parents, motivated by a desire to fulfill their duties to God and community, decide to send her to the Godparent Home.

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