I recently published a book review of Francesco Duina’s new sociological investigation on competition in the latest issue of International Review of Modern Sociology. You can read the review by CLICKING HERE. While it did appear in an academic journal, I believe the review (and the book itself!) should be accessible to a non-academic audience. [...]
I was honored to participate in an “online roundtable” panel of experts over at Boston Magazine related to overparenting. The question I was asked to answer, along with four experts in psychology and social work, was “Are We Overparenting Our Kids?” This roundtable was tied to a feature story written by Katheine Ozment called “Welcome [...]
One weekend I went shopping at a mall in downtown Boston—and was transported into another culture. A hotel, connected to the mall, was hosting an Irish dancing competition (or “feis”). My friend turned to me and asked, “Wait, is this a child beauty pageant, or something else?” With the bobbing heads full of Shirley Temple-like [...]
Back in March I started a monthly feature on my blog: Shrinking and Pinking. This series focuses on female athletes, who often have to fight against the literally shrinking and pinking of their sports, uniforms, and professional lives/opportunities. The past few months a different definition of “shrinking” has been creeping into my posts– child athletes. [...]
I admit that I am a Scrabble tournament virgin. I’ve only ever seen a Scrabble tournament while watching the documentary Word Wars, and I’ve read about this particular subculture in Stefan Fatsis’ delighful Word Freak. But in many ways the Scrabble tournament world doesn’t seem to differ too much from its intellectual cousins, or “sports [...]
Earlier this week Forbes ran an article entitled “The Secret to Being a Power Woman: Play Team Sports.” The piece has certainly struck a chord with many women– and it struck a chord with me as it dovetails nicely with some of my research on girls and competitive afterschool activities. In my work I find [...]
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: In the US, we can make anything into a competition. The competitive activity de jour? Extreme gardening. Or, the race to grow the the one-ton pumpkin. These are not the kinds of pumpkins Charlie Brown and Linus saw in the pumpkin patch. In fact, you can’t [...]
During the summer of stage mothers, Lifetime’s Dance Moms emerged as a breakout hit for the network. From its debut in mid-July 2011 to its season finale this past week, the show steadily attracted more viewers (up 62% since its premiere). With about 1.6 million watching each episode, it’s not surprising that the network has [...]
If you missed Atul Gawande’s recent New Yorker piece on personal coaching, you should check it out (“Personal Best”). I think writers/academics have understood some of these ideas for some time (even tenured profs get regular feedback on their work from colleagues and in seminars, for example), but he presents a lot of interesting insights [...]
Kids and reality television are a popular, if controversial, mix. What happens when you add competition to the mix? The situation can become volatile. It seems that kids are appearing more often in what are “competitive reality shows,” as opposed to “candid reality shows.” What’s the difference? Candid reality shows, which would include the Real [...]
