This article traces the transatlantic diffusion of Pierre Bourdieu's ideas into American sociology. We find that rather than being received as abstract theory, Bourdieu has been actively put to use to generate new empirical research. In addition, American sociologists have used their findings to problematize and extend his theory. Bourdieu's sociology, in other words, has inspired a progressive research program in the United States. We trace this process in the two main forums for presenting research: journal articles and books. Content analysis of articles published in four major sociology journals reveals that, far from a recent fad, Bourdieu's ideas steadily diffused into American sociology between 1980 and 2004. Case studies of four influential books in turn illustrate how researchers have used Bourdieu's key concepts (capital, field, habitus, and symbolic power) to inform debates in four core subfields (political, economic, cultural, and urban sociology).

Selecting between competing Structural Equation Models (SEMs) is a common problem. Often selection is based on the chi square test statistic or other fit indices. In other areas of statistical research Bayesian information criteria are commonly used, but they are less frequently used with SEMs compared to other fit indices. This article examines several new and old Information Criteria (IC) that approximate Bayes Factors. We compare these IC measures to common fit indices in a simulation that includes the true and false models. In moderate to large samples, the IC measures outperform the fit indices. In a second simulation we only consider the IC measures and do not include the true model. In moderate to large samples the IC measures favor approximate models that only differ from the true model by having extra parameters. Overall, SPBIC, a new IC measure, performs well relative to the other IC measures.

This study examines middle-class consumption and lifestyle during the transition to adulthood in the United States. Based on analysis of qualitative data from interviews with emerging adults between adolescence and settled adulthood, we argue that middle-class emerging adulthood is marked by a focus on exploratory experience consumption: the consumption of novel experiences with cultural capital potential. This tacit, embodied orientation is rooted in a habitus developed during entitled childhoods but is also shaped by an anticipated shortage of opportunities for exploration after they marry and have children. Accordingly, middle-class emerging adults voraciously consume exploratory experiences in the present with their imagined future selves in mind. The class basis for this orientation is examined through our analysis of interviews with working-class emerging adults whose lifestyles are characterized not by exploratory experience consumption but by a desire for the familiar, a fear of the unknown, and a longing for stability. The discussion focuses on how the middle-class consumer orientation toward exploratory experiences reinforces class (dis)advantage, life trajectories, and inequality.

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Few sociologists treat housing as a key independent variable, despite the emergence of disparate bodies of research analyzing how housing affects outcomes that traditionally interest sociologists. Scholars across the social sciences have proposed and tested mechanisms whereby housing could shape subjective wellbeing, socioeconomic status, demography, and politics. We review the evidence for causal effects across these domains. Next, we make recommendations for research designs to advance this literature. Most studies only test effects of homeownership, and most are focused on the United States and Western Europe. The evidence for causation is often weak, although studies increasingly employ complex techniques for identifying effects. Throughout, we emphasize studies beyond the United States, and we conclude by discussing distinctive insights yielded by comparative research. We advocate for a comparative perspective and more expansive conceptualization of housing status as a means to build theory and evidence regarding the conditions under which housing exerts effects.

Nearly half of urban Russian households grow food on their dacha plots. This study investigates the meaning of this activity for both those who embrace it and those who reject it. Existing scholarship frames the post-Soviet dacha as a survival strategy and debates its efficiency. Ethnographic evidence reveals that the dacha provides not simply a source of food but a discursive arena for debating the rationality and morality of the transition to a market economy. Due to their rich history, dachas may be interpreted as sites of production or of consumption, as economic necessities or status signifiers. This ambiguity makes dachas particularly salient in disputes over the proper relationship between economic power and social esteem in the shifting stratification order.

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Bayes Factors play an important role in comparing the fit of models ranging from multiple regression to mixture models. Full Bayesian analysis calculates a Bayes Factor from an explicit prior distribution. However, computational limitations or lack of an appropriate prior sometimes prevent researchers from using an exact Bayes Factor. Instead, it is approximated, often using Schwarz's (1978) Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), or a variant of the BIC. In this paper we provide a comparison of several Bayes Factor approximations, including two new approximations, the SPBIC and IBIC. The SPBIC is justified by using a scaled unit information prior distribution that is more general than the BIC's unit information prior, and the IBIC approximation utilizes more terms of approximation than in the BIC. In a simulation study we show that several measures perform well in large samples, that performance declines in smaller samples, and that SPBIC and IBIC can provide improvement to existing measures under some conditions, including small sample sizes. We then illustrate the use of the fit measures in an empirical example from the crime data of Ehrlich (1973). We conclude with recommendations for researchers.