Last week we introduced the idea of socialization and today we’re talking a little more about how it works, including an introduction to five main types of socialization. We’ll explore anticipatory socialization from your family, the...

TEDmakes a documentary films that explore trauma

For nearly half a century, scientists have been trying to create a process for transplanting animal organs into humans, a theoretical dream that could help the hundreds of thousands of people in need of a lifesaving transplant. But the...

In which John Green teaches you about the Wild, Wild, West, which as it turns out, wasn't as wild as it seemed in the movies. When we think of the western expansion of the United States in the 19th century, we're conditioned to imagine...

The abrupt shift to online learning due to COVID-19 rocked the US education system, unearthing many of the inequities at its foundation. Educator Nora Flanagan says we can reframe this moment as an opportunity to fix what's long been...

A white, puffy dress. Eternal love. A joint tax return. Marriage means something different to everyone and has changed over time and across cultures. Alex Gendler traces the history of getting hitched, providing insights on polygamy,...

In which John Green teaches you about the United States as it was in the 1990s. You'll remember from last week that the old-school Republican George H.W. Bush had lost the 1992 presidential election to a young upstart Democrat from...

A phone call to a US prison or jail can cost up to a dollar per minute -- a rate that forces one in three families with incarcerated loved ones into debt. In this searing talk about mass incarceration, criminal justice advocate and TED...

What does it look like when someone in Sweden brushes their teeth or when someone in Rwanda makes their bed? Anna Rosling Rönnlund wants all of us to find out, so she sent photographers to 264 homes in 50 countries (and counting!) to...

While we know that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, we don't think much about the ones that lived alongside them, and they are a hot topic amongst paleontologists today.

When teachers and families work together, everyone wins, says education technology entrepreneur and TED Fellow Heejae Lim. She shines a light on an underutilized resource in US public education -- a family's love for their children --...

China's one-child policy ended in 2015, but we're just beginning to understand what it was like to live under the program, says TED Fellow and documentary filmmaker Nanfu Wang. With footage from her film "One Child Nation," she shares...

One way of thinking about family life says that there are stages that families move through: courtship, marriage, child-rearing, and family life in your later years. We’ll also discuss changing patterns of marriage and childbearing in...

Please Note: This episode contains post-mortem photographs: those of people taken after their death. If you would prefer not to see those images, please feel welcome to look away from the screen at 0:17 to 0:27 and listen...

In which John asks whether globalization is a net positive for humanity. While the new global economy has created a lot of wealth, and lifted a lot of people out of poverty, it also has some effects that aren't so hot. Wealth disparity,...

For children growing up in refugee camps, education is a powerful tool of liberation. In this inspiring talk, Makhtoum Abdalla, displaced as a child in Sudan and now living with his family in the Otash camp in Darfur, shares his biggest...

Today we’ll explore how sociology defines family and the different terms used to describe specific types of family. We’ll look at marriage in different societies, as well as marital residential patterns and patterns of descent. And, of...

In Guatemala's 36-year conflict, 200,000 civilians were killed — and more than 40,000 were never identified. At the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, Fredy Peccerelli and his team use DNA, archeology and storytelling to help...

Due to a revolution in our understanding of the tree of life, birds are dinosaurs, while dimetrodons are not.

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FYI: We try to leave jargon out...

The weekend. Social Security. Health insurance. What do these things have in common? They all exist thanks to the advocacy of labor unions. Political economist Margaret Levi explains how these organizations forge equality and protect...

Neglect in the first few years of a child’s life can have many adverse consequences, and one of the largest studies on these effects occurred after the Romanian Revolution in 1989.

It's 1762 BCE. As dawn breaks in the Babylonian city of Sippar, Beltani— a priestess and businesswoman— receives an urgent visit from her brother. He makes a troubling accusation: her tavern keeper has been undermining the business...

"Co-parenting" isn't a buzzword -- it's a way of showing up for your family openly, consistently and lovingly, says storyteller and father Joel Leon. In this moving talk, he challenges all parents to play an equal, active role in their...

In 1848, Europe experienced a wave of revolutions. Last week we covered some of the reform movements that presaged these uprisings. This week, we're learning about what the people wanted from the revolutions, who was involved, and how...