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Adverse environmental exposures—war and violence, natural disasters, escalating heat, worsening air quality—experienced in pregnancy are consequential for multiple domains of well-being over the life course, including health, cognitive development, schooling, and earnings. Though these environmental exposures become embodied via biological processes, they are fundamentally sociological phenomena: Their emergence, allocation, and impact are structured by institutions and power. As a result, consequential early-life environmental exposures are a critical part of the sociological understanding of social stratification, intergenerational mobility, and individual and cohort life course trajectories. We review theory and evidence on prenatal exposures, describe enduring methodological issues and potential solutions for elucidating these effects, and discuss the importance of this evidence for the stratification of opportunity and outcomes in contemporary societies.
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This content will become publicly available on July 30, 2026
The New Sociology of Bereavement
Bereavement—the loss of a loved one through death—is a common and consequential life course experience. Although bereavement, and the topic of death and dying more broadly, has remained on the margins of sociology, sociological research on bereavement has flourished in the wake of contemporary mortality crises. This review synthesizes the new sociology of bereavement. To contextualize contemporary advancements, we first describe the earlier dominance of psychopathology perspectives. We then review recent sociological contributions, which recognize the structural systems that underpin bereavement and shape its wide-ranging and long-lasting consequences for individuals, families, and communities. We emphasize how bereavement experiences provide a microcosm for understanding social inequalities, and how a life course perspective can provide an integrative framework for a comprehensive sociology of bereavement. We conclude by identifying promising areas for future conceptual and methodological advancements in this emerging field.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2322253
- PAR ID:
- 10624902
- Publisher / Repository:
- Annual Reviews
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annual Review of Sociology
- Volume:
- 51
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0360-0572
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 357 to 375
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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