Monthly Archives: June 2026

How Do (Human) Child Welfare Workers Respond to Machine-Generated Risk Scores?

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Eiermann, Martin, Maria Fitzpatrick, Katharine Sadowski, and Christopher Wildeman. “How Do (Human) Child Welfare Workers Respond to Machine-Generated Risk Scores?.” Sociological Science 13 (2026): 1-21.

Algorithmic risk scoring tools have been widely incorporated into governmental decision making, yet little is known about how human decision makers interact with machine-generated risk scores at the street level. We examined such human–machine interactions in the child welfare system, a high-stakes setting where caseworkers ascertain whether government interventions in family life are warranted. Using novel data—verbatim transcripts of caseworker discussions—we found that decision makers: (1) disregarded scores in the middle of the distribution while paying attention to extremely high or low risk scores and (2) rationalized divergences between human decisions and machine-generated scores by highlighting the algorithm’s overemphasis on historical data and specific risk factors and its lack of contextual knowledge. This meant that caseworkers were unlikely to modify their decisions so that they aligned with risk scores. However, we did not find evidence of principled resistance to algorithmic tools. Our findings advance research on such tools by specifying how human perceptions of the utility and limitations of novel technologies shape discretionary decision making by state officials; and they help to explain their uneven and potentially modest impact on the bureaucratic management of social vulnerability.

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Environments of Disbelief: Serbian Youth, Conspiracy Theory, and Practices of Digital Distrust

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Brandt, E.E.S. Environments of Disbelief: Serbian Youth, Conspiracy Theory, and Practices of Digital Distrust. Qual Sociol 48, 637–663 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-025-09610-3

Conspiracy theories are often understood as resulting from a lack of proper skepticism or an inability to approach narratives critically. This paper argues that we should instead see conspiracy theories as resulting from an excess of skepticism. Interviews with Serbian youth show how conspiracism coincides with other skeptical media practices, including fact-checking with Google, averaging for objectivity, and a preference for unmediated information. Living in an environment of disbelief, where institutions and official narratives cannot be trusted, young Serbians deploy conspiracy theories and related skeptical media practices as methods of political and social critique. More generally, this case study demonstrates the need for scholars to focus on conspiracy theories as part of a broader repertoire of media consumption practices characteristic of environments, rather than as pathologies of individuals.


Racial framing contests: How anti-Asian racism and its resistance enacted racial projects during COVID-19

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Regla-Vargas, Alejandra, A.J Alvero, & Hajar Yazdiha. 2026. “Racial framing contests: How anti-Asian racism and its resistance enacted racial projects during COVID-19.” Big Data & Society, 13(1). https://doi-org/10.1177/20539517261424160

This study examines the dynamics of racial framing contexts taking the case of anti-Asian hate speech and counter-hate speech on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the COVID-HATE dataset (n = 2,491,405 tweets posted 15 January 2020 to 26 March 2021), we analyze racial framing contests between movements and counter-movements. Through a mixed-methods approach, we find that: (1) hate frames deployed racial projects characterizing Asians as public health and national security threats, while counter-frames either directly challenged these characterizations or bypassed them to focus on systemic racism and (2) hate and counter-hate movements often “spoke past” each other rather than engaging in direct frame–counterframe dynamics as prevailing theories would predict. Counter-movements did not consistently produce opposing frames for each hate frame but rather developed independent messaging focused on combating racism itself. This study advances our understanding of how both hate and resistance operate through racial projects, with implications for theories of social movements, social media, and racial formation.

Red and Blue Immigrants: Political (Mis)Alignment, Immigration Attitudes, and the Boundaries of American National Inclusion

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Okura, Keitaro. 2026. “Red and Blue Immigrants: Political (Mis)Alignment, Immigration Attitudes, and the Boundaries of American National Inclusion.” American Journal of Sociology 131(4):729-772.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/739568

Conventional theories of attitudes toward immigrants emphasize either conflict between civic and ethnocultural conceptions of national identity or a consensus favoring highly skilled, culturally assimilable immigrants. This article advances an alternative paradigm: natives’ immigration attitudes are contingent on their perceived (mis)alignment with newcomers’ politics. Drawing on six descriptive and experimental studies across two surveys, I first document that Americans view immigrants as future Democrats who are culturally right-wing and economically left-wing. I then demonstrate that Americans’ receptiveness to immigrants, as well as judgments about their legal status and deservingness, are highly sensitive to whether newcomers are potential partisan allies or adversaries. Notably, the influence of perceived political (mis)alignment eclipses classic predictors of immigration attitudes. Contemporary debates over immigration further underscore the salience and potency of these political motivations. These findings offer a novel lens for understanding the modern foundations of immigration attitudes and the boundaries of national membership.