there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · last wk.

Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”

your apartment, the sport of basketball, and the Republic of Korea are all social constructs. mere recognition of this fact does not actually make the question of whether you are standing in your own apartment, playing basketball, or a Korean national up in the air until settled by op ed editors

Great thread on academic networking (the good kind!)

Daniel Laurison@daniellaurison.bsky.social · 2w ago

A part of the "hidden curriculum" of academia that was entirely unknown to me until fairly late in my career is the thing where people cold-email each other about meeting up at conferences. So here's general advice to junior scholars, and an offer: (1/n)

Somehow, despite the anti-trans policy that says I should have an F on my passport, my new one came back with an M. I don't know if some kind bureaucrat just decided to do a good deed or what, but it's a huge relief - and not what most trans people are getting, still.

Good advice from @daniellaurison.bsky.social Certainly no one clued me into this when I was new to academia. Anyways, I’ll be in Boston during APSA, so happy to do coffee dates with people who’d like meet up and talk about research. pcurrah@gc.cuny.edu

Daniel Laurison@daniellaurison.bsky.social · 2w ago

A part of the "hidden curriculum" of academia that was entirely unknown to me until fairly late in my career is the thing where people cold-email each other about meeting up at conferences. So here's general advice to junior scholars, and an offer: (1/n)

Some people really believe and are willing to say explicitly that being rich means you're a better/smarter person than everyone else, and more deserving of rights as well as privileges. Half of sociology is basically just showing all the problems with that claim.

Oliver Willis@owillis.bsky.social · last wk.

the tech bros are begging us to get very french with them fortune.com/2026/07/27/s...

Academics and adjacent - talk to me about encyclopedias, please. It seems like there are so many (X encyclopedia of Y sub/field), I don't have a good sense of how to judge quality or utility... Do you use them? Have you written entries? Would you do it again? Which are better?

Terrific advice from @daniellaurison.bsky.social ! I'm also at ASA this year and happy to meet up.

Daniel Laurison@daniellaurison.bsky.social · 2w ago

A part of the "hidden curriculum" of academia that was entirely unknown to me until fairly late in my career is the thing where people cold-email each other about meeting up at conferences. So here's general advice to junior scholars, and an offer: (1/n)

A part of the "hidden curriculum" of academia that was entirely unknown to me until fairly late in my career is the thing where people cold-email each other about meeting up at conferences. So here's general advice to junior scholars, and an offer: (1/n)

This is a great read, and it's also a lesson. This is what everyone could be doing, at every level. This is the possibility open to every one of us, while every single cry of "we had no choice" was and is a cowardly lie.

Kyle Goon@kylegoon.bsky.social · 2w ago

In February, USA Rugby banned trans women from all levels of one of the world’s most inclusive sports. What happened next was telling. Across the country, teams refused to comply. The story of the Baltimore Ferals, who are pushing back: www.thebanner.com/sports/rugby...

Page One. @nytimes.com

Want to see a public collection of all the times cops have been busted abusing Flock systems to stalk exes, spy on protests, or deport migrants? You can check it out here 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 HT @deflock library.kansas.watch

Got our first serious summer harvest from our community garden plot this weekend. 100 degrees alternating with total torrential rain seems to work for the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.

Weary of all the recent political discourse *on behalf* of low-income and working-class voters, I returned to @daniellaurison.bsky.social work *with* non-voting poor and working-class voters and wondered about nurturing first-gen students' political agency. ghost.edandclass.com/poor-and-wor...

Listening to Poor and Working-Class [Non]Voters

I've spent a lot of time in the past few weeks listening to political discourse about social class. There has been yet another news cycle of wealthy [male] consultants recruiting someone that they bel...

ghost.edandclass.com

For anyone in the US who cares about science, today (by 11:59p east coast) is the last day to comment on the proposed rules making federal grant funding subject to political oversight (and other bad things). I'm writing now & found this guide helpful: elizabethginexi.subs...

For America's 250th, I read Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” on the House floor—for the first time in history. His speech endures as a mirror & mandate for us all—to confront our inequities while fighting for an America as good as its promise.

BREAKING: Federal judge blocks DOJ from requesting or receiving patient information about those who have received gender-affirming medical care as minors at Packard Children's Hospital (Stanford). The is the second order blocking these grand jury subpoenas: www.lawdork.com/p/doj-trans-...

There's a family we help out from time to time, a young couple who have taken in their nieces and nephews, and have their own kids. They used to live nearby but have moved across town. I am trying to send $ but keep getting errors. It has been an hour of trying to find a way to get her $ or food.

No, see, "overruled 90 years of precedent in order to expand presidential power" is the way *critics* describe it. *Your* side says: resisting intrusion into core executive functions, protecting the sanctity of the separation of powers, and acknowledging that the precedent has been whittled away.

Another reminder: Do NOT sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan! This is handing over your Medicare to a private insurer (thank you, George Bush). They are DIS-Advantage plans. Stick with original Medicare and a Medicare supplement. See John Oliver segment in next post.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · last mo.

Margaret Hvatum has a weakened immune system from a rare condition known as primary immunodeficiency. For more than a decade she relied on an expensive medicine for treatment — and relied on her insurance to pay for it. Then the denial letters came.

Opinion: Banning gender-affirming care doesn’t protect children — it makes it harder to help them www.statnews.com/2026/06/29/g...

Banning gender-affirming care doesn’t protect children — it makes it harder to help them

“Physician groups betraying the public’s trust out of fear of government retaliation has permanent consequences,” writes a plastic surgeon.

statnews.com

I know I've seen/read a few people making the point that the period we are in now can/should be understood as a new epoch in America's racial history, a backlash to a brief period of greater equality - parallel to the end of Reconstruction. But I'm not remembering/finding the essay I want -

A point that this piece only makes in passing, but is worth flagging, is that even for police violence, we are seeing rural areas deteriorate as urban areas improve, despite a media that still insists on glamorizing small-town life and viewing our cities as on fire. This is a pattern:

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · last mo.

As violent crime in America falls, especially in urban areas of the Northeast and Midwest, homicides perpetrated by police officers skyrocket and American police establish themselves as the most violent part of US society. It seems to be a function of the legal doctrine of impunity.

These are WILD turnout numbers. When AOC upset Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democratic Primary, she got a bit more than half as many votes as Goldman just got to lose by 32%.

Nick@sregorn.bsky.social · last mo.

lander won by 32 💀💀💀💀

Spot on from @saigrundy.bsky.social and @gauthamrao.bsky.social. From an organizing vantage point, I still believe we need to make something of the delta between whites who choose to vote and those who sit it out. I offer some examples of how this might look in sup.org/books/sociology/white-flank

Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5)@gauthamrao.bsky.social · last mo.

Thank you @saigrundy.bsky.social for this thoughtful engagement with my book, White Power: Policing American Slavery "a universal right to anti-Black violence and a state-backed justification...obligations as citizens to protect the white man’s property" www.theguardian.com/inequality/n...

For #Juneteenth: 70+ years after the Civil War, the WPA's Federal Writers' Project began interviewing elderly Americans who remembered being enslaved. These moving narratives & photos are now held here at the Library. Narratives: www.loc.gov/collections/... Photos: www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

anyways. i used to find academic citation practices extremely tedious. i still find them tedious! but there's a point to them: a discipline of the mind. sometimes what you think just is... isn't. sometimes what you want your interlocutors to say... just ain't what they said.

This is obviously a very important german court ruling. AI providers are liable for false information given by AI. But I'd like to draw your attention to the original cause of the court case. It's something I noticed often, and I feel it's very dangerous. 1/ www.wired.com/story/a-cour...

A Court Has Ruled That Google Is Liable for False Statements Generated by AI Overviews

The ruling holds that a company that designs, trains, operates, and manages an AI system must assume legal liability for any damages caused by the responses it generates.

wired.com

So many questions about the ICE custody death of Philly immigrant Tuan Van Bui, child of the Vietnam War, welcomed here in 1990, violently arrested in 2025 The biggest: Why do other detainees tell such a different story from ICE about how he died? My special report www.inquirer.com/opinion/tuan...

The U.S. welcomed this child of the Vietnam War. Why did he die in ICE custody? | Will Bunch

In 1990, the U.S. welcomed Tuan Van Bui, other young Amerasians. In 2025, ICE violently arrested him. Why did he die in custody?

inquirer.com

I talked with NBC for this report on Medicare Advantage denials. When I say the prior authorization denial rates are staggering in this area of health care, I mean it. Among many other things, it calls attention to the need to get service-level, not just aggregate reporting of denials and reversals

NBC News@nbcnews.com · 2mo ago

Patients enrolled in some of the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage plans were denied requests for rehabilitation and other critical services at unusually high rates, HHH report finds.