Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe and former students Madeline Carrola ’19, Dakota Cortez ’19, and Mary Jalufka ’18 published a peer-reviewed article titled “‘I Live Here’: How Residents of Color Experience Racialized Surveillance and Diversity Ideology in a Liberal Predominantly White Neighborhood” in the journal Social Currents. In the article, they identify digital and in-person racialized surveillance as a key mechanism that enforces racialized boundaries in publicly accessible neighborhood spaces and highlight how Black and Latinx residents in particular navigate these practices.

Professor of Sociology and Morenz Endowed Professor Maria Lowe has been invited to serve a three-year term on the American Sociological Association’s Honors Program Advisory Panel (2022–2024) and a one-year term on the Southern Sociological Society’s Program Committee (2022). 

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe, Associate Professor of Sociology Reggie Byron, and student coauthors Holly O’Hara ’17 and Dakota Cortez ’19 had a peer-reviewed article titled “Neutralized Hegemonic Banter: The Persistence of Sexist and Racist Joking among Undergraduate Students” accepted for publication in Sociological Inquiry. This is the fourth such coauthored campus climate–related study that Lowe and Byron have published.

Sociology alumna Samantha Pentecost ’19 has had her capstone paper, “Gendering the Boy Scouts: Examining Hegemonic Masculinity at a Coed Backpacking Camp,” accepted for publication in the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography(vol. 10, no. 2). In addition, sociology alumna Madeline Carrola ’19 received the best undergraduate paper award for her capstone paper, “Performing TheHandmaid’s Tale: The Use of Dystopian Literature at Political Protests,” at the October 2019 Mid-South Sociological Association meeting. Both capstone papers were written under the direction of Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe.

Southwestern faculty and students attended the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Annual Meeting, August 10–13. 

• Associate Professor of Sociology Reggie Byron gave a presentation titled “Workplace Discrimination and the Racialized Character of Organizations.” He also sat on an ASA panel of the Task Force on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology for the second year in a row.
• Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe and Madeline Carrola ’19 gave a presentation titled “Racialized Surveillance of Parks and Pools in a Liberal, Predominantly White Neighborhood.” 
• Four sociology majors participated in the 2019 ASA’s Honors Program and presented their papers. Madeline Carrola ’19 and Molly McConnell ’20 presented their capstone and research-methods papers, which were the basis of their admission to the program. Samantha Pentecost 19 and Veronica Ciotti ’19 presented their capstone papers and were admitted by virtue of their second- and third-place wins in the annual Alpha Kappa Delta International Honor Society of Sociology undergraduate paper competition.
• In addition, Savannah Scott  ’19 received the ASA Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities 2019 Joe Feagin Distinguished Undergraduate Student Paper Award for her capstone project, “Medically Policing Black Female Bodies: Black Women’s Experiences with Birth Control in Austin, Texas.”