Category Reflections & Critical Thinking

Thinking sociologically means questioning the world around us. Explore personal reflections, critical analysis, and book reviews that challenge conventional perspectives.

Quiet Neurodivergence, Spoons, and the Sociology of Invisible Struggle

Quietly Neurodivergent

This article develops quiet neurodivergence as a way of naming how some neurodivergent people appear to cope in education, work and civic life while absorbing hidden costs in masking, energy use and burnout. Drawing on neurodiversity, spoon theory, stigma and camouflaging research, and critical disability studies, it argues that quiet neurodivergence is produced by neuronormative institutions and patterned by class, race, gender and access to diagnosis.

Trading Places and the Myth of Meritocracy: A Sociological Analysis of Class, Race, and Capital

Trading Places Meritocracy

Watching Trading Places as a Christmas comfort film, it is hard not to see a ready-made sociological case study. The Dukes’ “experiment” looks like a simple nature-versus-nurture wager, but the life swap really turns on class, race and access to capital. This article uses Bourdieu’s framework to show how the film exposes—and then neatly smooths over—the myth of meritocracy.