socialization – Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions

Galentine’s Day has become a thing – why hasn’t Malentine’s Day?

This first posted on February 13, 2020. On Feb. 13, women will celebrate Galentine’s Day, a holiday trumpeting the joys of female friendships. The holiday can trace its origins to a 2010 episode of “Parks and Rec,” in which the main character, Leslie Knope, decides that the day before Valentine’s Day should be an opportunity to celebrate…

After Biden column, I now use ‘Dr.’ when referring to my colleagues. Here’s why.

This piece first appeared on the Tallahassee Democrat. A national firestorm has erupted over a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal over Jill Biden’s use of “Dr.” as a prefix to her name. I now use the honorific, which is common in higher education, but I largely ignored it prior to coming to Florida State University…

Immigrants Fitting In: Challenging the All-Or-Nothing View of Acculturation

But when you move half-way around the world to start a new life in a strange foreign land, this process of trying to fit in is called acculturation. Researchers who studied the last great wave of immigrants to America, writing two or three generations ago in the mid-20th century, tended to give an either-or answer to this question. You could be either German or American. You could be either Chinese or American. We often assumed that becoming an American meant giving up on being German or Chinese.