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The Chicago School of Sociology heralded a new age: that of the rise and establishment of sociology as an academic discipline in the US. It also spurred on an intellectual tradition in ethnography that focuses on a wide array of methodological tools and empirical data with a focus on the specificity of place that continues to live on in contemporary urban sociology. Yet, its traditions have also been extensively criticized. Burawoy (2000) is one preeminent scholar, who has denounced the Chicago School as being parochial, ahistorical, and decontextualized from the national and international processes that shape cities. Instead, he calls for a move toward “global ethnography,” one that focuses on “global processes, connections, and imaginations” (Burawoy et al., 2000). Increasingly, US urban sociologists study research sites that are located outside the US and pay attention to how global actors and/or transnational connections influence US dynamics. Given this trend, what, if any lessons can global and urban sociologists take away from the Chicago School? In this chapter, I highlight three such lessons: (1) the global is central to city life; (2) rooting our work in the specificities of place helps extend and build theory; and (3) the School still provides useful conceptual and methodological tools to study the global. In doing so, I argue that scholars should recognize the plurality of approaches to global ethnography and how each approach can further our understanding of how the global shapes social life.

In this chapter, I present a concept named Diversity Icebreaker® where the participants in a seminar are categorized along red, blue, and green dimensions based on a psychological assessment. The participants co-create the meaning of the dimensions in mono-colored groups due to their dominant scores where they describe themselves and others from inside and outside perspectives. Blue is more task and detail oriented. Green is more holistic and future oriented. Red is more social and communicative oriented. The language as a metaphorical structure as well as the seminar builds a culture of inclusivity. The simplicity and easiness of mastery of the categories make it easy for everyone to apply the categories. The social co-creation of the categories makes every participant at an even level. The colors are defined reciprocally strengthening the needs of the others. Everyone has all colors which makes it easier to connect and see commonalities that build cohesion. In the seminar, participants experience uncertainty followed by dialogues with others. Positive emotions and insight reinforce the script of “dialoguing with others when uncertainties arise.” The positivity and humor in the seminar reinforce the behavior of being together. The closure is a collective reflexivity process where all participants have even possibility to contribute due to their unique perspectives on their shared experience. I end this chapter with reflections and questions on leadership models in this seminar that has evolved in a Norwegian context and their relevance in a global context.

Purpose – It is often difficult to assign blame to youthful violent offenders, and journalists may be uncertain how to determine the moral culpability of performers of horrific crimes such as school shootings.

Methodology/approach – In order to examine journalists’ assignation of moral responsibility for school shooting events, this article examines the sequencing dynamic (i.e., the order in which elements of news reportage appear) present in article lead sections from 112 New York Times articles about nine rampage school shootings occurring in the United States between 1997 and 2001.

Findings – Analysis revealed that journalists initially tended to select sequences that more clearly assigned blame. Over time journalists tended to rely on details that highlighted the contextual elements, rhetorically reducing the moral responsibility of the perpetrators. School shootings may ultimately be remembered as horrible events, but the youthful nature of the offenders and other contexts of the events will tend to mitigate the shooters’ moral culpability.

Originality/value of chapter – This study is the first to apply Cerulo's (1998) concept of sequencing to glean information about the moral decision-making process involved in the production of news content about school shootings.

Purpose – Within cultural discourse, prescriptions for “good” motherhood exist. To further the analysis of these prescriptions, we examine how media conversations about Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign illustrate existing notions of good motherhood.Methods – Using qualitative content analysis techniques, we review media discourse about Palin, Clinton, and Obama during this campaign. We use existing feminist literature on motherhood and an intersectionality perspective to ground our analysis, comparing and contrasting discourse about these political figures.Findings – The 2008 campaign represented a campaign for good motherhood as much as it represented a campaign for the next president. Discourse on Palin, Clinton, and Obama creates three very different characterizations of mothers: the bad, working mother and failed supermom (Palin), the unfeeling, absent mother (Clinton), and the intensive, stay-at-home mother (Obama). The campaign reified a very narrow, ideological standard for good motherhood and did little to broaden the acceptability of mothers in politics.Value of paper – This article exemplifies the type of intersectional work that can be done in the areas of motherhood and family. Applying an intersectionality perspective in the analysis of media discourse allows us to see exactly how the 2008 campaign became a campaign for good motherhood. Moreover, until we engage in an intersectional analysis of this discourse, we might not see that the reification of good motherhood within campaign discourse is also a reification of hegemonic gender, race, class, age, and family structure locations.