Oxford University Press's Blog, page 298

The value of mistakes

John Pierre, a renowned pastry chef, is making a new batch of chocolate. Not paying attention, he leaves the chocolate in the oven for an extra five minutes by mistake, resulting in the chocolate having a different taste than he had intended. In light of this chef’s mistake, how interested are you in buying this chocolate?

Companies, in general, hesitate to release mistakes, much less advertise them to consumers as a unique product. John Pierre’s first instinct, in this case, may be to throw the chocolate away and whip up a new batch before customers come in for the day seeking his award-winning creations. But what if John Pierre viewed this mistake as a way to attract consumers? Would they, in fact, line up to purchase his “made by mistake” creation? Findings suggest the answer is yes.

Imagine, now, that a mistake did not result in a delicious new batch of chocolate, but a tainted product. Would consumers still prefer a product made by mistake even when the mistake made the product worse? In a recent study, consumers viewed a work of art that contained a mark that took away from its aesthetic quality. However, when the detracted artwork was framed as having been made by mistake (the artist accidentally marked the artwork by dropping his pen on it) versus intentionally (the artist decided to add the mark with his pen), consumers were more likely to purchase the artwork made by mistake—and were willing to pay more for it.

What explains the allure of products made by mistake? At the core of this preference is people’s tendency to assume that others do what they intend to do—a psychological phenomenon called the “intentionality bias.” In other words, people assume products are made intentionally, thus when products are made by mistake their creation seems more improbable and the products are subsequently perceived as more unique.

We value products made by mistake because they seem more unique, but does that higher desire to purchase translate across all product categories? Would learning that a heart monitor or household appliance was made by mistake increase its appeal? How does the product category impact the desire to own or use a “made by mistake” version of the product? Indeed consumers were found to prefer products made by mistake in product domains in which uniqueness is valued (i.e., hedonic products, like art, food, and music) but not in domains in which uniqueness is less central (i.e., utilitarian products, which are products purchased for their practical uses).

Mistakes are typically viewed negatively, however, learning that a product was “made by mistake” attracts consumers because it enhances perceptions of the product’s uniqueness. While companies might fear that advertising their mistakes could be costly, we suggest that it would be a mistake not to do so.

Featured image credit: gummibärchen fruit gums bear by Ronile. Public domain via Pixabay.

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Tired spirits? What happens when Pentecostalism becomes middle class?

Pentecostalism is a Christian revival movement. It emerged at the beginning of the 20th century and is marked by a focus on the Holy Spirit and its gifts. Pentecostals believe that the Holy Spirit can award them specific gifts such as the gifts of healing, prophecy, and speaking in tongues. In terms of membership growth, Pentecostalism has been the most successful religious movement in the 20th century, counting around 600 million members worldwide in 2010. In Latin America, the mass-expansion of Pentecostalism created a new religious landscape: while previously dominated by Catholicism, Pentecostalism has become a viable religious option for many Latin Americans. In particular, it has appealed to the lower classes with its expressive and emotional church services and its focus on spiritual healing practices. During the emotional and highly expressive church services members can feverously shout out their problems, pray in tongues, and seek spiritual healing. The movement’s success among the lower classes was attributed to its ability to help those affected by poverty to cope with their living conditions. During my research in Argentina, I witnessed spiritual healing practices and the expressiveness of Pentecostalism. Church services in lower class neighborhoods resembled an emotional roller-coaster ride with moments of quietness and contemplation, forceful prayers, loud singing, shouting of affirmations such as “hallelujah”, dancing in the Spirit, collective ecstasy with participants trembling, crying and dropping to the ground.

However, today, Pentecostalism is increasingly becoming middle class. But what does this mean for a religious movement that holds particular appeal to the lower classes? Academic narratives suppose that upward social mobility leads to social adaptation: more affluent and educated members want to engage with wider society and seek approval from their social environment. This would mean that Pentecostalism would have to become less fervent and more socially appropriate in its forms of expression.

My research in Argentina reveals that middle-class Pentecostalism is, indeed, different from mass Pentecostalism that we can find in Argentina’s lower class neighborhoods and slums. Middle-class followers of the movement frequently gather in specific churches in middle-class neighborhoods. During the church services, they avoid performing strong spiritual practices such as faith healing, speaking in tongues, and exorcisms that mark mass-Pentecostalism. Their church services are almost as quiet as those of Lutherans and Calvinists, and lack the stereotypical expressivity and emotionality of Pentecostalism. The original spirit seems to have faded away: having developed a more socially appropriate style of Pentecostalism, these middle-class churches appear to have become less Pentecostal.

However, at a second glance, middle-class Pentecostals aren’t any less Pentecostal than others in Argentina. They believe as much as other Pentecostals in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the importance of spiritual practices. Taking a closer look at their practices, they perform the “inappropriate” spiritual practices of Pentecostalism in spaces hidden from the view of others. As such, many middle-class Pentecostals state that they in speak in tongues in the privacy of their home. Furthermore, their churches create specific spaces where members can get involved in emotional and expressive styles: during spiritual retreats or at specific moments after the church services, members may gather together to conduct faith-healing practices and exorcisms. These spiritual practices aren’t absent, but they are banned from the church service. It appears this is to provide a “certain image” to those who may visit the church but aren’t Pentecostal, as one pastor states. To be socially acceptable for their wider social environment, middle-class Pentecostals withdraw practices from church services that may appear as inappropriate to their non-Pentecostal peers.

So, in evaluating the nature of middle-class Pentecostalism, it depends on where one looks: Looking at the more publicly visible church services, one finds a socially accommodated style of Pentecostalism. In contrast, in the more hidden spaces of these churches, the expressive, emotional aspects of Pentecostalism continue to be present. Pentecostalism isn’t turning any less Pentecostal when becoming middle class. It is simply that middle-class Pentecostals are more guarded about which aspects of their Pentecostal practice they allow others to see.

What does this mean for the social mobility of religion more generally? When fervorous religious movements become more middle class, they appear to adapt to their social environment: they withdraw practices that might appear inappropriate to outsiders. However, this is only one part of the story: while adapting to their social environment and becoming socially more acceptable, movements may evolve specific spaces that allow them to maintain original, unadapted elements. As such, becoming more affluent and educated doesn’t necessarily imply an encompassing adaptation process or even secularization. Instead, we may find an adaptation and secularization of visible performances while the given movements remain spiritual and unadapted in the less visible spaces. The spirits don’t become tired, but hide.

Featured image credit:  Church service in Buenos Aires, Argentina, photographed by Jens Koehrsen. Used with permission.

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Multiple choice questions for the MRCP Part 1 [quiz]

The MRCP (UK) Part 1 exam set by the Royal College of Physicians is designed to test doctors on a wide range of topics to determine if they have the required level of knowledge to begin their postgraduate training as physician. The exam, which is sat over one day and features 200 multiple-choice (best of five) questions, can first seem very daunting; that’s why we’ve created this quiz to fit easily into your revision schedule. The quiz is composed of test questions and explanations from the Best of Five MCQs for the MRCP Part 1 three volume series, selected by the editor Iqbal Khan, enabling you to test your knowledge and gain confidence with the exam structure.

Featured image credit: ‘Man Writing In Notebook’ by Matthew Henry. CC0 via Burst.

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The politics of contamination

Since entering office, the Trump administration has diverged from its predecessor on many fronts. Environmental regulation and drug control are two prime examples. Under Scott Pruitt, the EPA has loosened or eliminated numerous Obama administration rules on pollution and jettisoned climate-change research. At the Department of Justice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has instructed federal prosecutors to seek maximum penalties for drug-law offenders and indicated a willingness to use federal powers to counter state and local marijuana decriminalization and legalization measures. These actions are at odds with prior Attorney General, Eric Holder, who sought to curtail mandatory-minimum charges and who generally declined to interfere with marijuana initiatives.

Thirty years ago, a similar period of flux occurred concerning drug policy and the United States’ commitment to environmental regulation at home and internationally. Between 1977 and 1979, charged debate about the extent to which the nation’s premier environmental law, the 1969 National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), applied outside of US territory collided with controversy over the US’s backing for spraying the herbicide paraquat on Mexican marijuana. At the time, and relating to today’s opioid crisis, the United States was in the midst of a wave of heroin abuse and since 1975 had partnered with Mexico to defoliate the poppies being converted into heroin. Washington supplied Mexico with helicopters, airplanes, spraying equipment, training, and funds in hopes of eliminating the poppies.

When not dowsing poppies, the Mexican government sprayed marijuana fields. While the herbicide 2,4-D was used on poppies, paraquat was applied to marijuana. Both herbicides were commonly used in each country, but paraquat was notably more toxic to human health. Unconsidered was whether any toxicity would persist if paraquat-coated marijuana was smoked. This question came to light in 1977 when reports of “paraquat pot” and afflicted smokers surfaced.

For marijuana-law reform advocates, namely the National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the spraying was an affront from a Carter administration that had indicated support for rethinking marijuana regulation. Like today, a wave of decriminalization had occurred in the 1970s on state and local levels, with eleven states implementing forms of decriminalization by 1978. US underwriting of the paraquat program was a reversal of progress and NORML sought to hamper the spraying. Assisting NORML were other critics, including Congressional members from both parties who charged the Carter White House and the State Department—which oversaw the program—with endangering public health. In 1978 the controversy led to government studies which determined that some risk existed from smoking “paraquat pot” and resulting bi-partisan action soon threatened operations. Given today’s acidic politics, such a move seems downright bizarre—but Democrats, responding to outraged constituents and environmental concerns, and Republicans who wanted to damage the Democratic administration, came together to alter foreign-assistance legislation so that US aid for paraquat spraying was suspended. Aid for poppy eradication, though, continued unimpeded.

NORML tried to hobble the herbicide program with NEPA. The law required federal agencies to conduct environmental reviews of their actions (federal programs or programs receiving federal funding) that could affect the US environment, its citizen’s health, or the global environment (e.g. international waters). What was unclear, and the subject of multiple court cases during the 1970s, was if and how NEPA applied to US actions in foreign territory. Citing the studies on paraquat’s risk to marijuana users, NORML filed suit again the State Department for failing to comply with NEPA’s environmental review requirement before initiating the program in 1975. NORML demanded a suspension of operations until reviews were completed.

“tumult over toxic chemicals in the 1970s provided a powerful backdrop to the paraquat scare and helps explain why environmental concerns could disrupt drug control”

The suspension of aid to paraquat spraying was temporary and the NORML lawsuit only momentarily challenged the government’s ability to use herbicides in the drug war. What’s revealing are the debates within foreign-policy and enforcement agencies about how NEPA cases (such as NORML’s) were viewed as potentially serious impediments to government action. Likewise, tumult over toxic chemicals in the 1970s provided a powerful backdrop to the paraquat scare and helps explain why environmental concerns could disrupt drug control.

The outcomes of these episodes had significant ramifications. Environmental legislation never again stalled US support for defoliating drug crops (marijuana, poppies, and coca) and from the 1980s through the 2000s, herbicide spraying became a fixture in US drug control abroad. In the United States, the paraquat scare coincided with a shift away from relaxing marijuana laws and larger conservative resurgence. Over the next two decades, the reliance on punitive law enforcement, criminalization, and incarceration escalated. As in the 1970s, we are at a toggle point in our long war on drugs. The scale and demographics of the opioid crisis may offer a way to shift policy toward a public-health approach that emphasizes the role of social setting in drug abuse. But what’s clear is that a renewed drug war is wrongheaded.

Featured image credit: Poppy Sprayed with 2,4-D. Opium Destruction Slide: 170-S-4850-15, 35 mm Color Slides: Drug & Drug Law Enforcement Activities 1973–80, 4640 thru 5310, box 11, folder: RG 170-S-4850, Record Group 170-S Records of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, USNA.

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Announcing the Place of the Year 2017 shortlist: vote for your pick

As we approach the end of 2017, we are also winding down our search for the Place of the Year. Thank you to those of you who participated in the voting period for our Place of the Year 2017 longlist, which took us from Puerto Rico in the tropics to the Arctic further north, to beyond our planet and into the Sun.

The top four contenders have moved on to the next round into our shortlist, and we need your help again. Take a moment to re-familiarize yourself with each place and why they have been nominated for Place of the Year 2017 and vote below for your pick in this year’s shortlist by 27 November. The Place of the Year 2017 will be announced on 4 December.

Place of the Year 2017 shortlist

Featured image credit: Geography by rawpixel. CC0 public domain via Pixabay.


Place of the Year 2017 shortlist

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To be or not to ‘be’: 9 ways to use this verb [excerpt]

As short as it is, the verb ‘be’ has a range of meanings and uses that have developed over the last 1,500 years. It is—after ‘the’—the second most frequent word in the English language, and if you’re not afraid to use it, it can help you become a better writer. For National Novel Writing Month, we’ve laid out the various uses of ‘be’, taken from the Story of Be, to help aid you with your writing. Take a look at the list below and explore some of the different shades of ‘be.’

To be or not to be

Existential be

The bare be. Capable of being used as a single-word sentence—in grammatical terms, as an imperative. For those imagining a primordial act of creation, a word that brings everything into existence.

Business is business

Identifying be

To identify someone or something, or to assert an identity. Or as the OED definition puts it: ‘To exist as the person or thing known by a certain name or term; to coincide with, to be identical with.’ That seems to sum it up.

I am to resign

Obligational be

When ‘be’ is followed by an infinitive, it often expresses obligation or necessity. If chairman John returns to his office after a board meeting and announces ‘I am to resign’, the implication is that he has no choice in the matter, that circumstances have put him in this position.

The verb ‘be’ has a remarkable history, and a wider range of meanings, uses, and forms than any other English word.

Has the doctor been?

Visitational be

In the form has/have/had been, and followed by the preposition ‘to’ before a noun phrase, ‘be ‘takes on the meaning of ‘gone to visit’ a place. We’re unlikely to use it for unexpected or unwelcome visitors. In talking about a burglary to a neighbor, we could easily say ‘The police have been.’ But would you ever say ‘The burglars have been’? Unless it was a regular occurrence….

How are you?

Circumstantial be

‘Be’ is the default verb when we want to express the idea of being in a particular condition, as when we make a general enquiry about health or the weather.

I’ve been with someone

Sexual be

For centuries, a sentence such as ‘I’ve been with someone’ could only have had an innocent, traveller meaning, with the geographical destination known from the previous context. But during the early nineteenth century, ‘to have been with’ developed the meaning of ‘to have had sexual intercourse with.’ It was a euphemism that well suited the Victorian era because its ambiguity conveyed a sense of mystery.

Wannabes and has-beens

Nominal be

It wasn’t until the 1980s that somebody in the USA first used wanna with ‘be’ to form a noun—a ‘nominal’ use—meaning (as the OED definition sedately puts it) ‘an admirer or fan who seeks to emulate a particular celebrity or type, esp. in matters of appearance or dress.’ The Spice Girls seemed to bring the usage to a peak with their hit song Wannabe in 1996, but the word continues to be popular.

You’re cheeky, you are

Repetitive be

Colloquial speech often repeats a form of ‘be’ as a way of adding emphasis or drawing special attention to something that’s been said, or is about to be said. The emphatic use has been recorded since the early nineteenth century, and appears with all persons. It was a major hit when Gloria Gaynor recorded (…), to the delight of the international gay pride movement: ‘I am what I am / And what I am needs no excuses / I deal my own deck sometimes / The aces something the deuces.’

So I was, like, ‘wow’

Quotative be

Exactly where and when the usage actually began isn’t known—presumably during the 1970s—but what is clear is that it quickly spread, becoming a feature of ‘Valleyspeak’ or ‘Valspeak.’ Although ‘like’ has been the word that has attracted all the publicity, it’s the ‘be’-form that gives it the force of introducing a quotation (‘quotative like’)—something that would normally be shown in writing using inverted commas. Not everyone shares the gloom of those who see quotative forms as a sign of poor speech ability. It’s an increase—a tiny one, but an increase nonetheless—in the expressive richness of English.

Featured image credit: “creepy dark eerie scary skull” by Pexels. CC0 via Pixabay.

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Place of the Year nominee spotlight: Russia

This year, Russia was chosen as one of the nominees for Oxford University Press’s Place of the Year. Russia dominated the news cycle throughout the year—from investigations on their interference in the 2016 US elections to Kremlin’s interventions in Ukraine and Syria.

The following excerpt from Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know provides an overview of President Vladimir Putin and his meteoric rise to power.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (b. 1952 in Leningrad), was the first ruler of Russia to be a child of the latter half of the twentieth century; the first since Lenin to be city- born, to be fluent in a foreign language, and to have lived abroad; the first to have cut his teeth in the special services; and the first to enter politics after Soviet rule capsized.

Putin’s working- class father was gravely wounded during World War II, behind enemy lines; his mother almost starved during the Nazi siege, and an older brother died of diphtheria. Putin was a “hoodlum” as a boy, he said; only in his teens did he buckle down to his books and to workouts in martial arts clubs. “You can consider me,” he went on about his political attitudes, “the product of a patriotic Soviet upbringing.” Animated by “romantic tales about the work of secret service agents,” the ninth- grader asked a desk officer at the city KGB office if he could train as a spy. He would need a college education, he was told. In 1975, when Putin got his law diploma from Leningrad State University, al­ready a member of the CPSU, the KGB recruited him.

Vladimir Putin at school age, date unknown. Image credit: “Vladimir Putin as a child” provided by kremlin.ru. CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Little has come to light about the decade and a half in the KGB. After six months monitoring foreign tourists and Soviet dissidents, Putin was appointed to the intelligence director­ate, boned up on his grade-school German, and attended the agency’s Red Banner Institute; he was de-enrolled from the institute after one year as punishment for getting into a fist­fight with hoodlums on the Leningrad subway. In August 1985 Putin was sent to Dresden, East Germany’s third city, where he liaised with the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) of the German Democratic Republic. Posting to a backwater was not the badge of a wunderkind. Putin missed out on perestroika back home—he and his wife, Lyudmila, “watched it only on television,” she says in From the First Person—but he did express support for Gorbachev’s political reforms. Dresden was a hothouse for the local opposition. When the Stasi compound was stormed by protesters in December 1989, Putin requested instructions from Moscow; he was aghast that no one picked up the phone. “I realized that the Soviet Union was ill. It had a terminal, incurable disease called paralysis, a paralysis of power.”

Putin was stoical about the downfall of Soviet Communism, doomed by the system’s congenital imperfections, as he saw it. But when it came to results, he felt the losses more than the gains, above all in geopolitics.

“To be honest, I had nothing but regret for the loss of the Soviet Union’s position in Europe, although I understood intellectually that any position based on walls and barriers cannot last forever. But I had hoped that something different would rise in its place, and nothing dif­ferent was proposed. That’s what hurt. All we did was toss everything away and leave.” 

Back in the Soviet Union in 1990, Putin was reassigned to his alma mater, Leningrad State, as a low- status watchdog in the department handling contacts with foreigners—another sign of mediocre grades from the KGB. A turning point was the confidential relationship he struck up with Anatolii Sobchak, a department head in the law school where Putin had studied in the 1970s. Sobchak was a member of the USSR Congress and, with Yeltsin, of the Interregional Deputies Group; chair of city council in May 1990; and in June 1991 mayor of what was again St. Petersburg. Putin trailed him to city hall and “made himself indispensable” in a quiet way. By 1994 he was first deputy mayor. Putin’s remit, for international trade and invest­ment, put him in touch with Russia’s newfound capitalists— breeding possibilities for corruption about which biographers have endlessly conjectured. Putin also got his feet wet in elec­toral politics in Sobchak’s repeat campaign in May 1996.

Putin made it through a second career hiccup when Sobchak lost the election (he was to die in obscurity in 2000). Out of a job for three months, Putin made the trek to Moscow. Coworkers from St. Petersburg found a spot for him in the Kremlin business office. Over the next half- year he somehow ingratiated himself with Yeltsin, who in March 1997 made him deputy head of the presidential administration. In July 1998 Putin vaulted to directorship of the FSB.

President Boris Yeltsin meeting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, 31 December 1999. Image credit: “Vladimir Putin with Boris Yeltsin-1” provided by kremlin.ru. CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

What possessed Yeltsin to make the momentous decision to select Putin as his seventh prime minister and heir-apparent? Did an interested party put him up to it? Was it all because Putin promised Yeltsin and his biological family to exempt them from prosecution? This makes no sense. Any pretender to the brass ring would have agreed to the limited decree of 31 December 1999, which made no mention of family members. No one was so foolish as to think this scrap of paper would protect Yeltsin in a pinch.

Putin completed his meteoric ascent by working with a se­lectorate of one—Boris Yeltsin. His leverage inhered in being acceptant of Yeltsin’s endorsement but not presumptuous, and in satisfying the president’s desiderata for a successor. Yeltsin was adamant that the next leader be from the coming genera­tion of “new faces,” as he said in his goodbye speech, and have the qualities to keep Russia in one piece after its whirlwind of change. In 1998 he had appointed Nikolai Bordyuzha, a career KGB officer, as chief of Kremlin staff. Bordyuzha ran afoul of Yeltsin months later for being too cozy with Primakov, and was removed. As Yeltsin wrote in Presidential Marathon, he hoped for someone who combined an understanding of the un-Soviet Russia with a “steely backbone that would strengthen the political structure of authority.” “We needed a thinking person who was democratic and innovative, yet steadfast in the military manner. The next year such a person did appear … Putin.” In retrospect, “steely,” “thinking,” and “innovative” sit well with Putin; “democratic” does not.

Featured image credit: “President of Russia Vladimir Putin & Prime Minister Lebanon Saad Hariri in Sochi, 13 September 2017” provided by  kremlin.ru. CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Cheese and wine pairings for the holiday season [infographic]

Cheese continues to be a staple of dining and entertainment. In 2012, cheese consumption in the U.S. was 33.5 lbs per capita— a number that is set to increase to 36.5 lbs by 2024. Referencing The Oxford Companion to Cheese and The Oxford Companion to Wine, we’ve put together a selection of cheese and wine pairings for the holiday season.

Download the infographic as a PDF or JPG.

Featured image credit: “appetizer-biscuits-cheese-close-up” by Foodie Factor. CC0 via Pexels.

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Reinforcing the patriarchy: tricksters in literature and mythology

Have you ever noticed how much your favorite stories have in common? Boy meets girl, falls in love, gets married. Hero goes on a quest, meets a wise old man, and saves the day.

There’s a reason for this repetition, if you believe the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Jung found that his psychotherapy patients would tell stories containing elements of ancient mythology, even when they had never been exposed to these myths. These observations led him to conclude that some elements of human behavior and culture are universally shared. Jung theorized that these elements exist outside of our individual minds in a “collective unconscious,” that we can all access. Storytelling is a way of projecting this collective unconscious.

Within the collective unconscious, Jung identified archetypes, or universal patterns and images, and you’ll probably recognize many of them: archetypal events like birth, death, separation, and marriage; archetypal motifs of creation and the apocalypse; and archetypal figures such as mother, father, child, hero, wise old man, devil, god, and trickster.

Portrait of psychiatrist Carl G Jung. Credit: “CGJung” uploaded by Adrian Michael. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Across centuries and continents, these archetypes appear again and again in the stories we tell. For example, creation myths are a near-universal feature of mythologies around the world, and the archetype of the trickster can be seen in stories from traditional folklore and fairytales to theatre and religion. A small selection of tricksters from around the world might include the fox in Aesop’s fables, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rumpelstiltskin, Hermes, and the Polynesian god Maui, recently Disney-fied in Moana.    

What all these tricksters have in common is that they disrupt the established order and cross boundaries, both physically and metaphorically. Hermes, for example, moves freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, and he helps guide human souls to the afterlife. Maui also travels between the underworld and the world of mortals, in one story to steal fire and give it to humans.

While tricksters often use their ingenuity to help human beings, many are also amoral or immoral. Hermes is the inventor of music but also the god of thieves; Rumpelstiltskin helps the miller’s daughter spin straw into gold, but he is also a frightening figure who demands that she give him her firstborn child in exchange. Tricksters also symbolize sexuality—they have high sex drives and are often associated with phallic imagery. It’s not coincidental that Hermes’s symbols include the pillar, the club, and the wand, and depictions of Kokopelli, a trickster and deity of fertility venerated by some Native Americans in what is now the Southwestern United States, were traditionally ithyphallic.

There’s one more characteristic that you may have noticed all of these tricksters share: they are all male. Is this coincidence? Why can’t women play the role of the trickster and disrupt the established order too? In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde considers the possible reasons for this gender imbalance: most compellingly, the vast majority of the world’s surviving mythologies are patriarchal, and ideologies “contain their dissent”—which is to say that male tricksters challenge the established order, but they do so in a way that does not have the power to fundamentally overturn it. If Hermes is a troublemaker, he is not so much of one that Zeus’s power is ever at risk. 

And indeed, looking at trickster tales with this observation in mind, it becomes clear that tricksters don’t often subvert the established order in any kind of permanent way. They play their tricks, get caught or don’t, and the world goes back to the way it was—maybe a little better than it was before, thanks to the trickster, but not fundamentally different. Because trickster stories operate within their worlds’ established patriarchal frameworks, the stories, while entertaining, are not as subversive as their characters claim to be.

As we think about how the stories we read or write are challenging the status quo, remember that the illusion of rebellion may be the trickster’s greatest trick.

Featured image credit: Illustration of Rumpelstiltskin from Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Lucy Crane, illustrated by Walter Crane, first published by Macmillan and Company in 1886. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Does a student’s college funding source influence their field of study?

Higher Education has changed dramatically over the past few decades, and debates over college costs have intensified. Examining how college funding is associated with course selection, Social Forces Editor Arne L. Kalleberg interviews Natasha Quadlin about her research about the effects of college funding sources.

How do you situate your research in the broader, national conversation about the role or function of a college education? Specifically, do you believe family resources – both throughout the life course and throughout college – contribute to divergent narratives on this issue?

There are two dominant narratives about the function of higher education today. The first posits that college is primarily a place for students to learn critical thinking skills and develop new passions and ideas. The second–which has gained more traction in recent years–contends that college is primarily a form of workforce training, and colleges should play an integral role in helping students find jobs. My research suggests that the extent to which students see college as a place for “critical thinking” or “job training” is largely a function of how they’re paying for college, as well as their socioeconomic background. A logical extension is that this “job training” narrative may be gaining in popularity because the population of college-goers is becoming increasingly diverse. These students (and their families) may attach different job-related expectations to colleges than previous generations of students did.

In addition to students’ individual decision-making, what do you think the role of parental or family influence may be in motivating students’ choice of majors and course in college? 

Parents play an enormous role in a student’s major choice. Parents can often steer their children’s thinking in terms of the resources (or lack thereof) the family has to support education, and whether the student can expect to receive financial support upon leaving college. Most of the information students have about a major being “practical” or “financially responsible” ultimately comes from their parents or family; whether that information is correct, of course, is a whole separate issue. Depending on the messages a student receives from their parents or guardian, and whether these conversations happen frequently or not at all, can have an enormous effect on a student’s choice of major and future career.

The extent to which students see college as a place for “critical thinking” or “job training” is largely a function of how they’re paying for college, as well as their socioeconomic background.

Do you believe that funding sources are an overlooked systemic barrier in the higher education system? Do they contribute to the lack of diversity and underrepresentation of key socioeconomic and minority groups in STEM fields within both academic and professional settings?

Absolutely. Most students have little information about degree options when they choose a major, especially when they are enrolling for the first time. Research has shown some don’t consider STEM degrees at all, or they consider them only briefly, because all they know is that STEM majors are “difficult” and they’ll have to weed-out classes where they might get bad grades. Research consistently shows that debt is a source of stress in people’s lives, and if students have to take out loans to pay for college, they may be wary of taking courses where success is uncertain. This is not to say that these students aren’t capable of succeeding in STEM–they absolutely are–but financial limitations may keep some students from taking risks they don’t necessarily need to take.

What might the role of colleges and loan/grant providers (both federal and private) be in leveraging their positions to increase students’ exposures to more diverse academic disciplines and intellectual pursuits?

Historically, loan providers have been pretty hands-off when it comes to students’ academics–and I could see how increased involvement could be problematic! But many colleges can do more to support students who have to incur debt to attend. There needs to be recognition that loans affect students long before they graduate; rather, loans affect many choices students make during college too, including their choice of major. Grant providers might be uniquely positioned to encourage students to do some exploratory course-taking because they hold the purse strings, so to speak. This might be something worth doing, especially if the grant is reserved for low-income or minority students, who might be hesitant to take a broad range of courses.

 Depending on the messages a student receives from their parents or guardian, and whether these conversations happen frequently or not at all, can have an enormous effect on a student’s choice of major and future career.

You note an interesting puzzle whereby the chances of majoring in STEM fields are mostly unrelated to funding sources. If Grants do not appear to increase the incentive to choose a STEM major, what other sorts of interventions might encourage greater diversity in the STEM fields?

Grants might be more effective if they’re specifically geared toward increasing student participation in STEM. Mentoring programs can also be effective if they provide students with personal attention. These programs don’t necessarily increase the incentive to major in STEM–because the incentives to major in STEM are already quite high–but they might give students the support they need to take advantage of those incentives.

Some readers might argue that low-income college students faced with post-graduation debt from loans are better off choosing majors in non-STEM applied fields (despite the lower long-term job growth potential) if the alternative option is to graduate with a non-STEM academic major with no clear path to initial employment. How would you respond to those comments?

I’m very sympathetic to arguments about practicality, and I agree with them for the most part. I become more hesitant when I think about students who, for example, majored in business and worked in accounting their whole lives because they were worried about being briefly unemployed after college. I don’t think “following your heart” is necessarily a perfect strategy when choosing a major, either, because lacking a clear path to employment is unsettling for many students. A good middle ground might be for students to find a field they’re passionate about, and then spend several years exploring career options and building a professional record, especially if a clear pathway to employment hasn’t been provided for them.

A version of this post was originally published on the Social Forces blog.

Featured image credit: Graduation university by ihsanaity. Public domain via Pixabay.

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