Social Sciences
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UC Santa Cruz sociologist sees ‘a real opportunity’ for labor power right now
Sociology Professor Steve McKay, director of the Center for Labor and Community, says union power helps to push back against increasingly precarious conditions in our country’s economy and society. “Unions are one of the only independent structures that actually fight that kind of precariousness and help empower workers,” he said. Additional coverage was included in…
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A major reset of higher education
Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh wrote an op-ed discussing how the Trump administration’s war on universities may be a harbinger of long-run structural changes in the world order when it comes to higher education leadership and opportunity.
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As investors fret over a coming recession, a UC Santa Cruz economist says it has already begun
U.S. financial markets have been in turmoil for weeks, as investors debate whether President Trump's trade war and falling consumer confidence could trigger a full-blown recession. But a UC Santa Cruz economist says that a model he helped develop, which is attracting growing attention, shows that the economy is already in a recession and has been for nearly a…
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Local promotores trained on climate change impacts are now teaching fellow farmworkers.
UC Santa Cruz has been working with local organizations for two years on Campo-Sano, a research project investigating the impact of climate change on the well-being of farmworkers. That work included development of a bilingual app with an anonymous tipline about unsafe conditions. Professor Matthew Sparke, leader of the project, says adoption of the app…
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Schools closed and went remote to fight COVID-19. The impacts linger 5 years later.
New research on the lingering effects of the pandemic on teachers from University of California, Santa Cruz Professor of Education Lora Bartlett and her colleagues show that the pandemic-era "hastened a downward spiral in career satisfaction and longevity for teachers. The biggest declines in satisfaction took place in places where teachers described experiencing a lack of support…
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Who Wants to Live in the Palisades Now?
Move everyone out of the wildland-urban interface and you may have taken away the people who were clearing brush and otherwise reducing the fire risk for the city nearby, said Miriam Greenberg, a sociology professor at UC Santa Cruz. Leaving these areas untouched, Greenberg said, means “the potential for future disasters increases significantly for those…
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Fact check: Trump falsely claims ‘I invaded Los Angeles.’ His water releases didn’t go to LA
President Donald Trump continues to claim that he sent fire-plagued Los Angeles the critical water he says California’s leaders refused to provide. In reality, the water was directed to a dry lake basin elsewhere in the Central Valley – more than 100 miles north of Los Angeles. “The only way that water got to LA is if an Angeleno…
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Toxic Waste Cleanups Take Longer in Marginalized Communities
Lindsey Dillon, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies the impact of toxic sites on surrounding communities, said the Public Press’ findings are consistent with academic literature on environmental justice. “Marginalized groups get fewer resources,” Dillon said.
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The problem with dating? Your standards might be too high.
Campbell Leaper, a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz commented on how dating expectations can clash with shifting gender norms and increased levels of education and employment for women. “A lot of these men who are not going on to college are often having trouble finding jobs and then resenting…
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Republicans want corporate oligarchy. We need economic democracy
Michael A McCarthy, director of the Community Studies Program at UC Santa Cruz, coauthored an opinion article with U.S. representative Rashida Harbi Tlaib about how to build an economic system that works for all Americans by advancing collective ownership models across sectors.
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Where were enslaved Africans taken from? The answer could be hidden in their bones.
Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze's groundbreaking map of strontium isotopes found across sub-Saharan Africa could help descendants of enslaved people reconstruct their family histories. By comparing strontium values found in a person's remains to strontium values across a landscape, scientists can gauge where that person is most likely from. "Individual histories are completely erased" by the slave trade, says…
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California’s effort to streamline wildfire prevention could have long-term consequences
Karen Holl, a distinguished professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle about the potential pitfalls Governor Newsom's executive order and emergency proclamation to suspend the California Environmental Quality Act, the Coastal Act and other longstanding regulations in order to remove red tape from projects to reduce fuels from…