Higher education lacks an intellectually coherent sociology; varied research on colleges and universities is dispersed widely throughout the discipline. This review initiates a critical integration of this scholarship. We argue that sociologists have conceived of higher education systems as sieves for sorting and stratifying populations, incubators for the development of competent social actors, temples for the legitimation of official knowledge, and hubs connecting multiple institutional domains. Bringing these lines of scholarship together facilitates new theoretical insights and research questions.

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Research on the relationship between schools and communities has reemerged as a principal focus of the sociology of education. Current research, however, rejects earlier conceptualizations of school communities as being organized locally and identifiable by reference to demographic and neighborhood characteristics. Neoinstitutional research on schools has focused examination instead on school communities defined as organizational fields. From this perspective, state regulation, professional associations, and market competition are institutional forces that combine with local neighborhood characteristics to shape school-level practices. The historical development of this theoretical approach is first discussed; current research on neighborhood effects is then critiqued for ignoring how schools vary in response to institutional environments; finally, examples of the utility of a broader institutional conceptualization of community are suggested in five current areas of educational research: racial segregation, resource inequality, curriculum variation, school-to-work transitions, and school discipline.

This study assesses the effects of high school educational experiences on the risk of incarceration for young men aged 19–36 using event history analysis and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data. High school education serves as a defining moment in an individual's life course. Young men who enroll in secondary occupational course work significantly reduce their likelihood of incarceration both overall and net of differences in the adult labor market. High school student/teacher ratios and student composition also significantly affect an individual's risk of incarceration.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities were forced to adopt a remote learning model, which introduced a number of stressors into college students' everyday life and study habits. The current study investigates if students' study-related stress increased after the pandemic's onset and how individual and contextual factors moderate this potential stress increase. Longitudinal survey data about students' stress levels and self-efficacy in self-regulation were collected before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic at a public university (N = 274). Regression analysis results show an overall increase in studyrelated stress levels after the onset of the pandemic.Students with self-efficacy in self-regulation reported lower stress increases; students with higher mental health impairment and limited time for coursework reported larger stress increases. To address students' stress levels and strengthen coping resources, universities should consider providing students with resources to improve their self-regulation and time-management skills.

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