"A new SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus poll finds that a large majority of the U.S. adults see federal statistics, such as the unemployment rate, the population count, and obesity statistics, as important for decision-making and understanding our society. However, U.S. adults are divided on how much confidence they have in federal statistics and the federal agencies that collect them." Read the complete report on the SSRS website.

The Federal Register recently included two opportunities to comment on federal data collections that may be of interest to sociologists.

The Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has submitted an information collection request for the American Time Use Survey. "Comments are invited on: (1) whether the collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Department, including whether the information will have practical utility; (2) the accuracy of the agency's estimates of the burden and cost of the collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information collection; and (4) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology." Comment period ends 7/28/2025.

The Current Population Survey is testing new race/ethnicity questions that align to the long-awaited new standards (SPD-15 standards). The Census Bureau, Department of Commerce "invites the general public ... to comment ... on the proposed extension of the Current Population Survey Basic Demographics, prior to the submission of the information collection request to OMB for approval." Comment period ends 8/26/2025.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. "Gender Inequality Beyond Categories: Femininity, Masculinity, and Gender Expression." 

"Gender categories are not homogenous; they have inequalities and hierarchies both within and between them. Within any gender identity category, people enact varying levels of femininity and masculinity, from traditional bipolar or 'opposite' conceptions of gender, to various forms of androgyny and nonconformity, to feeling little attachment to gender at all. Contemporary gender theory highlights the importance of understanding these dominant, subordinate and mixed positions within gender categories as key to the overall maintenance of gender inequality. However, outside of social psychology, most quantitative research to date has been ill-equipped to operationalize concepts of femininity, masculinity, and gender expression.

"Supported in part by funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, the 2024 General Social Survey (GSS) included two pairs of femininity and masculinity scales: one asking how respondents see themselves and another asking how 'most people' see them."

Prospective contributors should submit a CV and an abstract (up to two pages in length, single or double spaced) of their study along with up to three pages of supporting material (e.g., tables, figures, pictures, etc.) no later than 5 PM EST on October 15, 2025.

See the full call on the RSF website.

The American Sociological Association has announced its 2025 awards, and two regional sociologists are among the recipients:

"The recipient of the 2025 American Sociological Association Public Understanding of Sociology Award is Dr. Gregory Squires, George Washington University, recognized by both his nominators and the selection committee for his involvement in policy research and a career as a public sociologist that have advanced the public understanding of sociology, sociological research, and scholarship among the general public."

The 2025 ASA Distinguished Scholarly Book Award goes to Allison J. Pugh, Johns Hopkins University, for The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World.  "Drawing on 108 interviews with various professionals and hundreds of hours of rich ethnographic observations of spaces and interactions (and across several states and even continents), Pugh’s [book] explores the nature of 'connective labor.' Connective labor—jobs that involve working with others, such as teachers, primary care physicians, and therapists—is the essence of making a human connection across what could be cold and impersonal interactions; such effort 'involves "seeing" the other and reflecting that understanding back.' ” 

Read the complete announcements on the ASA website. Congratulations to these and all of the winners.

The winners will be honored in a ceremony during the ASA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

From the CUNY Graduate Center:

"The CUNY Graduate Center community deeply mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Richard Alba (Sociology, Africana Studies), a pathbreaking demographer who bucked conventional ideas about how immigrants assimilate into and impact mainstream U.S. culture. He died on June 4. He was 82.

"In books, journal articles, and op-eds, he marshaled demographic data to show that the descendants of immigrants largely become integrated into mainstream society both in the U.S. and in Western Europe, rather than remain segregated from it. He also influenced generations of scholars through his teaching and mentorship."

Read the complete tribute on the CUNY GC website.

Original post from May 14:

The Office of Personnel Management has proposed a rule, "Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service." Comments on the rule can be submitted until May 23. [Update: Extended to June 7]

The proposed rule would remove civil-service protections from a new category of federal employees called “Schedule Policy/Career" (P/C). These P/C employees would be at-will workers without the right to challenge terminations or appeal reclassification to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The proposed rule would give the President sole authority to reclassify federal employees as P/C.

The proposed rule would make it easy to fire hundreds of thousands of federal employees and replace them with political loyalists. This would make it easier to purge the government of the people and services that hold corporations accountable, protect labor rights, ensure clean air and water, provide healthcare and Social Security benefits, and enforce the safety regulations that improve the lives of Americans.

The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is very concerned  about the potential impact on federal statistics of this proposed rule, and has provided templates for taking action online.

The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) has provided an extensive Public Comment Toolkit, available as a Google document. 

See also the editorial, "Institutionalizing politicized science" in Science, May 8, by Donald Moynihan and Pamela Herd.

By Anna Harvey, President, Social Science Research Council (February 18, 2025)

Achieving Government Efficiency Requires More, Not Less, Investment

SSRC President Anna Harvey reflects on the meaning of “government efficiency” and better and worse strategies to increase government efficiency.

"Government efficiency doesn’t mean that the government does less. It means that the government does more for every dollar it spends. ...

"At the end of the day, a more efficient government might spend more or less than it spends today. But right now, we don’t know which programs we should cut, and which programs we should expand. If our goal is really a government that does more for every dollar spent, and not a government that just does less, we’re going to have to spend the money and do the work to find the programs and policies that produce more of what voters want for fewer public dollars.

"It would certainly be easier if we could achieve government efficiency simply by cutting government spending. But thinking that government efficiency can be achieved just by reducing public spending is like thinking that we can make cars more efficient just by giving them less gas. Filling your car’s gas tank only half full won’t make your car any more efficient. It just makes it less useful."

"On Friday, May 2nd, The ADVANCE Journal: Individual and Institutional Transformation for Social Justice received its termination notice from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the NSF grant supporting the journal. While we are saddened, we are not broken. In fact, we see this moment as an opportunity to continue our work for gender and intersectional equity freed from the constraints of institutional dictates in the current political situation. We are defiant.

"We are only one of hundreds of NSF grants focused on broadening participation of women, BIPOC, and 2SLGBTQIA+ in STEM higher education that have been abruptly terminated. As other such projects are receiving their notices and the destruction of the ADVANCE program at NSF continues, the ADVANCE Journal invites submission of personal or collective essays and impact statements about positive experiences of these NSF grant programs and the negative impacts of their cancellations. This is for scholars working on issues of gender, race, inclusion, equity, and justice through ADVANCE and other NSF grants, such as LSAMP. We are interested in highlighting how these cancellations impact PIs, co-PIs, postdoctoral and international scholars and other participants, institutions, and science itself.

"These essays will not be peer-reviewed but will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial team. They will be published on the ADVANCE Journal site as a blog series that bears testimony to the fallout of this administration’s targeting of women, BIPOC, people with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people within the academy."

Essays should be no more than 2,000 words and should be submitted by Monday, May 26, 2025. "We also welcome submissions of poetry, photographs, and hyperlinks to projects and publications that convey the significance of your project and the impact of the grant termination."

See the complete call and link for submission online.

From the Consortium of Social Science Associations:

"National Academy of Sciences Announces 2025 Fellows" (May 13)
COSSA congratulates the 150 newly elected fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, including the social and behavioral scientists from COSSA member institutions:

• Steven T. Berry, Department of Economics, Yale University
• Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Department of Psychology and School of Law, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Alison Gopnik, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
• David B. Grusky, Department of Sociology, Stanford University
• Jun S. Liu, Department of Statistics, Harvard University
• Daniel S. Nagin, Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
• Scott Page, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Parag A. Pathak, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• James W. Pennebaker, Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin
• Marilyn N. Raphael, Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles
• Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Department of Sociology, Stanford University
• Mary C. Stiner, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona

"ASA’s Shifting the Academic Ecology to Support Community-Engaged Scholarship in Tenure and Promotion in Sociology project establishes a framework that can be used to incorporate community-engaged scholarship into tenure and promotion processes. The elements in this Toolkit are designed for use by sociology departments, faculty, and tenure and promotion reviewers as they work to address the persistent disconnect between the reward structures in institutions of higher education and the aspiration to use our scholarly work to address real-world problems."

ASA acknowledges the contributions of the sociology departments at George Washington University, Howard University, and the University of Maryland, College Park.

See the tool kit on the ASA website.