Sociology Department Colloquium: Jeremy Freese

Please join us for a colloquium being given by Jeremy Freese, Ethel and John Lindgren Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University.

"Six Durées of Separation: Causal Mutualisms and Pervasive Divergence in Life Outcomes"

Abstract:

Casual mutualisms are sets of properties that have substantial reciprocal influence on one another.  This may sound abstruse, but various big constructs in behavioral science, including "heritability," "SES", "health", and "achievement," exhibit clear signs of instantiating massive mutualisms and yet many implications of their doing so remain largely unpursued.  The talk will describe the problem and several routes into it by reference to a series of projects that might otherwise appear unrelated, on intellectual achievement, educational attainment, health disparities, and even the job market for academic sociologists.  Together these examples are used to argue for a more strongly integrative and developmental social science.