Joel Mittleman

@joeljm.bsky.social

Associate Professor of Sociology at Penn. Studying gender, education, ML and LGBTQ+ populations. He/him. https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/people/joel-mittleman

I reanalyzed the CDC data behind the LGB “free fall” headline. It rests on a change in bisexual identification among one grade, in one wave, of one survey. Gay or lesbian identification did not change significantly. Calling it a "free fall" is sensational and just gives bad actors talking points.

Six small line charts showing the percent of U.S. high school students choosing each sexual identity response option by grade (9th to 12th), 2015 to 2025, with 95% confidence intervals. Heterosexual falls from about 85 to 90 percent before 2021 to about 73 percent in 2021 and 2023, then rises to about 78 to 80 percent in 2025. Gay or lesbian stays between about 2 and 5 percent throughout. Bisexual rises to about 12 percent in 2021 in every grade, then among 9th graders falls to about 7 percent in 2025, its 2019 level, while other grades stay near 10 percent. “Some other way,” added in 2021, falls from about 4 percent to about 2.5 percent. “Not sure” stays near 3 to 5 percent. A dotted line marks 2021, when CDC changed the response options.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 3d ago

Young teenagers are less likely to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual than a few years ago, according to a new analysis. “It really does look like a free fall,” Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology, said. “But what’s causing it is unclear.”

Two extraordinary charts from today’s PISA test results: 1) School test scores continue to collapse internationally, underscoring how this is no longer a Covid effect but sustained decline. Those falls in reading and maths are equivalent to about two years of lost schooling.

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As of today, Diversityland is officially out! It’s exciting/terrifying/relieving to let the book you spent years writing out into the world. I’m so deeply grateful for the village of people that helped me make it to this point.

Screenshot of Diversityland available  for sale at Bookshop.org.

Wow, I didn't expect our paper on iPhones and fertility to generate this much buzz—thanks for all the feedback! Rather than scattershot replies, here's a compilation of thoughts and new robustness checks. 🧵1/15

Three things said about AI and social science: it's a topic to study, a thing to critique, a tool to use. My new Daedalus essay argues these aren't three conversations; they're one. A 🧵 on "Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object, and Tool." www.amacad.org/publication/...

Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool

Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools...

amacad.org

👋 Meet the Sociological Science Accelerator (SSA), a network for collaborative experimental sociology. Members propose research ideas 💡, the community votes 🗳️to select projects, and winning studies run across multiple labs/online using shared protocols. experimentalsociology.github.io

Sociological Science Accelerator

The Sociological Science Accelerator coordinates rigorous, reproducible experimental sociology across a global network.

experimentalsociology.github.io

On this day in 1946, Claudia Goldin was born. In 2023, she became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics. In 2026, she helped the players’ union for the Women’s National Basketball Association negotiate a nearly 400% raise by demonstrating that the women were woefully underpaid. #WeTheMen

Claudia Goldin throws ceremonial pitch at 2024 Red Sox game. She threw a strike.

25 years ago, marriage equality wasn't a possibility. Today, it's the law, thanks, in part, to research by the Williams Institute. Our studies & expertise informed policymakers & courts that turned a movement into a right, now embraced by hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples across the country.

1/ Safe travels to all heading to @aefpweb.bsky.social 2026! There are so many awesome panels this year. If you have time, please drop by the paper (2.13) & poster session where my PhD advisees present new work we're super excited for about immigrant-origin youth and their acculturation in the US.

Excited to see Aven Peters' innovative & rigorous study of embodiment and trans identification out in the latest AJS. Aven's study adds an essential new piece to our understanding of contemporary population patterns of trans identification and announces @avenpeters.bsky.social as a major new talent.

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