%0 Journal Article
%J California Law Review
%D Forthcoming
%T The Future of Felon Disenfranchisement Reform: Evidence from the Campaign to Restore Voting Rights in Florida
%A Michael Morse
%X This Article offers an empirical account of felon disenfranchisement and legal financial obligations in the era of mass incarceration. It focuses on a 2018 ballot initiative, known as Amendment 4, which sought to end lifetime disenfranchisement in Florida. At the time, the Republican-controlled state accounted for more than a quarter of the six million citizens disenfranchised across the United States. Marshaling hundreds of public information requests, the Article analyzes the petitions collected to qualify the initiative for the ballot, the ballots cast for its remarkable bipartisan victory, the voter registration records of people whose voting rights were restored, and the outstanding fines and fees that still prevent most people with felony convictions from voting. Part I offers a history of the campaign and the tradeoffs it made to win Republican support, including its decisions to deemphasize race and limit the scope of reform. Part II validates the campaign’s effort to depoliticize disenfranchisement by demonstrating the limited partisan consequences of restoring the right to vote to people with felony convictions. Finally, Part III shows how unpaid fines and fees undermined the campaign’s attempt to dismantle disenfranchisement. Despite Amendment 4, Florida continues to disenfranchise more citizens than any other state.
%B California Law Review
%V 109
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Political Science
%D Forthcoming
%T Public Money Talks Too: How Public Campaign Financing Degrades Representation
%A Mitchell Kilborn
%A Arjun Vishwanath
%X Does public campaign financing improve representation by reducing politicians’ re-liance on wealthy donors as advocates claim, or does it worsen representation by ex-panding the candidate marketplace to give extreme and non-representative candidatesan electoral boost? We conduct a novel analysis of public financing programs in Ari-zona, Connecticut, and Maine to causally identify the effect of a legislator’s fundingstatus on how closely she represents constituent preferences. Using multiple identifica-tion strategies, we show that candidates who exclusively use public campaign financingare more extreme and less representative of their districts than non-publicly financedcandidates. Our findings add new evidence to the electoral reform debate by demon-strating how replacing private campaign donations with public financing can actuallydamage substantive representation. We also advance the scholarship on how institu-tions affect substantive representation and candidate positioning as they respond tonew campaign financing structures.
%B American Journal of Political Science
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Review: Insights
%D Forthcoming
%T The Liquidity Sensitivity of Healthcare Consumption: Evidence from Social Security Payments
%A Tal Gross
%A Timothy J. Layton
%A Daniel Prinz
%X Insurance is typically viewed as a mechanism for transferring resources from good to bad states. Insurance, however, may also transfer resources from high-liquidity periods to low-liquidity periods. We test for this type of transfer from health insurance by studying the distribution of Social Security checks among Medicare recipients. When Social Security checks are distributed, prescription fills increase by 6–12 percent among recipients who pay small copayments. We find no such pattern among recipients who face no copayments. The results demonstrate that more-complete insurance allows recipients to consume healthcare when they need it rather than only when they have cash.
%B American Economic Review: Insights
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Population Studies
%D Forthcoming
%T Life expectancy inequalities in Hungary over 25 years: The role of avoidable deaths
%A Anikó Bíró
%A Tamás Hajdu
%A Gábor Kertesi
%A Dániel Prinz
%X Using mortality registers and administrative data on income and population, we develop new evidence on the magnitude of life expectancy inequality in Hungary and the scope for health policy in mitigating this. We document considerable inequalities in life expectancy at age 45 across settlement-level income groups, and show that these inequalities have increased between 1991–96 and 2011–16 for both men and women. We show that avoidable deaths play a large role in life expectancy inequality. Income-related inequalities in health behaviours, access to care, and healthcare use are all closely linked to the inequality in life expectancy.
%B Population Studies
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Consumer Research
%D Forthcoming
%T Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News
%A Kate Barasz
%A Serena F. Hagerty
%X Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—for example, hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the research demonstrates that people may hope for relatively worse (vs. better) news in an effort to preemptively avoid subjectively difficult decisions (studies 1 and 2). This is because when worse news avoids a choice (study 3A)—for example, by “forcing one’s hand” or creating one dominant option that circumvents a fraught decision (study 3B)—it can relieve the decision-maker’s experience of personal responsibility (study 3C). However, because not all decisions warrant avoidance, not all decisions will elicit a preference for worse news; fewer people hope for worse news when facing subjectively easier (vs. harder) choices (studies 4A and B). Finally, this preference for worse news is not without consequence and may create perverse incentives for decision-makers, such as the tendency to forgo opportunities for improvement (studies 5A and B). The work contributes to the literature on decision avoidance and elucidates another strategy people use to circumvent difficult decisions: a propensity to hope for the worst.
%B Journal of Consumer Research
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B The Oxford Handbook of Race and Law in the United States
%D Forthcoming
%T Race and Technology
%A Cierra Robson
%A Ruha Benjamin
%E Khiara Bridges
%E Emily Houh
%E Devon Carbado
%B The Oxford Handbook of Race and Law in the United States
%I Oxford University Press
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society
%D Forthcoming
%T Broken Mirrors: Surveillance in Oakland as both Reflection and Refraction of California’s Carceral State
%A Cierra Robson
%E Stephanie DIck
%E Janet Abbate
%B Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society
%I Johns Hopkins University Press
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Public Economic Theory
%D Forthcoming
%T Redistribution under general decision rules
%A Girl Parameswaran
%A Hunter Rendleman
%X
We study the political economy of redistribution over a broad class of decision rules. Since the core is generically non-unique, we suggest a simple and elegant procedure to select a robust equilibrium. Our selected policy depends on the full income profile, and in particular, on the preferences of two decisive voters. The effect of increasing inequality on redistribution depends on the decision rule and the shape of the income distribution; redistribution will increase if both decisive voters are 'relatively poor', and decrease if at least one is sufficiently 'rich'. Additionally, redistribution decreases as the polity adopts increasingly stringent super-majority rules.
%B Journal of Public Economic Theory
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Political Behavior
%D Forthcoming
%T Immigration Policies and Access to the Justice System: The Effect of Enforcement Escalations on Undocumented Immigrants and Their Communities
%A Reva Dhingra
%A Mitchell Kilborn
%A Olivia Woldemikael
%X Does intensifying immigrationenforcement lead to under-reporting of crime among undocumented immigrants and their communities? We empirically test the claims of activists and legal advocates that the escalation of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in 2017 negatively impacted the willingness of undocumented immigrants and Hispanic communities to report crime. We hypothesize that ICE cooperation with local law enforcement, in particular, discourages undocumented immigrants and their Hispanic community members from reporting crime. Using a difference-in-difference approach and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data at the county level, we find that total reported crime fell from 2016 to 2017 in counties with higher shares of Hispanic individuals and in counties where local law enforcement had more cooperation with ICE. Using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), we show that these declines in the measured crime rate are driven by decreased crime reporting by Hispanic communities rather than by decreased crime commission or victimization. Finally, we replicate these results in a second case study by leveraging the staggered roll-out of the 2008–2014 Secure Communities program across US counties. Taken together, our findings add to a growing body of literature demonstrating how immigration enforcement reduces vulnerable populations’ access to state services, including the criminal justice system.
%B Political Behavior
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2023
%T Seeing Others: How Recognition Works - And How It Can Heal a Divided World
%A Lamont, Michèle
%I Atria/One Signal Publishers
%C New York
%P 272
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2022
%T Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth
%E Chetty, Raj
%E John N. Friedman
%E Janet C. Gornick
%E Barry Johnson
%E Arthur Kennickell
%I University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%P 792
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2022
%T Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success
%A Ran Abramitzky
%A Leah Boustan
%I PublicAffairs
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2022
%T The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age of Fear
%A Tara Watson
%A Kalee Thompson
%X An eye-opening analysis of the costs and effects of immigration and immigration policy, both on American life and on new Americans.
For decades, immigration has been one of the most divisive, contentious topics in American politics. And for decades, urgent calls for its policy reform have gone mostly unanswered. As the discord surrounding the modern immigration debate has intensified, border enforcement has tightened. Crossing harsher, less porous borders makes unauthorized entry to the United States a permanent, costly undertaking. And the challenges don’t end on the other side.
At once enlightening and devastating, The Border Within examines the costs and ends of America’s interior enforcement—the policies and agencies, including ICE, aimed at removing immigrants already living in the country. Economist Tara Watson and journalist Kalee Thompson pair rigorous analysis with deeply personal stories from immigrants and their families to assess immigration’s effects on every aspect of American life, from the labor force to social welfare programs to tax revenue. What emerges is a critical, utterly complete examination of what non-native Americans bring to the country, including immigration’s tendency to elevate the wages and skills of those who are native-born.
News coverage has prompted many to question the humanity of American immigration policies; The Border Within opens a conversation of whether it is effective. The United States spends billions each year on detention and deportation, all without economic gain and at a great human cost. With depth and discipline, the authors dissect the shock-and-awe policies that make up a broken, often cruel system, while illuminating the lives caught in the chaos. It is an essential work with far-reaching implications for immigrants and non-immigrants alike.
%I University of Chicago Press
%P 304
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Population and Environment
%D 2021
%T Childhood exposure to polluted neighborhood environments and intergenerational income mobility, teenage birth, and incarceration in the USA
%A Robert Manduca
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%X This paper joins a growing body of research linking measures of the physical environment to population well-being, with a focus on neighborhood toxins. Extending a national database on the social mobility of American children growing up in over 70,000 Census tracts, we explore the association between childhood exposure to two forms of pollutants and three socioeconomic outcomes for African Americans, whites, and Latinos. We find that children who grew up in Census tracts with higher levels of traffic-related air pollution and housing-derived lead risk experienced lower adult incomes on average relative to their parents and higher likelihoods of being incarcerated as an adult or having children as teenagers, after controlling for standard socio-demographic characteristics and metropolitan-level effects. The spatial distribution of these two pollutants is surprisingly different, however, with air pollution varying mostly between regions of the country while lead risk varies dramatically between neighborhoods within the same city. Yet, each pollutant predicts the three aspects of social mobility similarly, and we show important disparities in exposure by race. Differential exposure to environmental toxins in childhood may be a contributor to racial inequality in socioeconomic outcomes among adults.
%B Population and Environment
%V 42
%P 501–523
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Science Advances
%D 2021
%T The racial burden of voter list maintenance errors: Evidence from Wisconsin’s supplemental movers poll books
%A Huber, Gregory A.
%A Marc Meredith
%A Michael Morse
%A Katie Steele
%X Administrative records are increasingly used to identify registered voters who may have moved, with potential movers then sent postcards asking them to confirm their address of registration. It is important to understand how often these registrants did not move, and how often such an error is not corrected by the postcard confirmation process, because uncorrected errors make it more difficult for a registrant to subsequently vote. While federal privacy protections generally prevent researchers from observing the data necessary to estimate these quantities, we are able to study this process in Wisconsin because special poll books, available via public records requests, listed those registrants who were identified as potential movers and did not respond to a subsequent postcard. At least 4% of these registrants cast a ballot at their address of registration, with minority registrants twice as likely as white registrants to do so.
%B Science Advances
%V 7
%G eng
%N 7
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
%D 2021
%T Who Votes Without Identification? Using Individual-Level Administrative Data to Measure the Burden of Strict Voter Identification Laws
%A Phoebe Henninger
%A Marc Meredith
%A Michael Morse
%X Legal disputes over laws that require certain forms of identification (ID) to vote mostly focus on the burden placed on people who do not possess ID. We contend that this singular focus ignores the burden imposed on people who do possess ID, but nonetheless cannot access it when voting. To measure this alternative conception of burden, we focus on Michigan, which allows anyone who lacks access to ID to vote after signing an affidavit. A sample of affidavits filed in the 2016 presidential election from a random set of precincts reveals that about 0.45 percent of voters lacked access to ID. Consistent with our broader conception of the burden of voter ID laws, nearly all voters who filed an affidavit were previously issued a still-active state ID. Importantly, we show minority voters were about five times more likely to lack access to ID than white voters. We also present survey evidence suggesting that people who live in states where voters are asked to show ID, as in Michigan, are more likely to incorrectly believe that access to ID is required to vote than are people who live in states that do not ask voters to show ID.
%B Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
%V 18
%P 256-286
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
%D 2021
%T The spatial structure of US metropolitan employment: New insights from administrative data
%A Robert Manduca
%X Urban researchers have long debated the extent to which metropolitan employment is monocentric, polycentric, or diffuse. In this paper I use high-resolution data based on unemployment insurance records to show that employment in US metropolitan areas is not centralized but is spatially concentrated. Unlike residents, who form a continuous surface covering most parts of each metropolitan area, jobs have a bimodal spatial distribution, with most blocks containing no jobs whatsoever and a small number having extremely high employment densities. Across the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas, about 75% of jobs are located on the 6.5% of built land in Census blocks with at least twice as many jobs as people. These relative proportions are extremely consistent across cities, even though they vary greatly in the physical density at which they are constructed. Motivated by these empirical regularities, I introduce an algorithm to identify contiguous business districts and classify them into four major types. Based solely on the relative densities of employment and population, this algorithm is both simpler to implement and more flexible than current approaches, requiring no metro-specific tuning parameters and no assumptions about urban spatial layout.
%B Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
%V 48
%P 1357-1372
%G eng
%N 5
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociological Science
%D 2021
%T Which Data Fairly Differentiate? American Views on the Use of Personal Data in Two Market Settings
%A Kiviat, Barbara
%X Corporations increasingly use personal data to offer individuals different products and prices. I present first-of-its-kind evidence about how U.S. consumers assess the fairness of companies using personal information in this way. Drawing on a nationally representative survey that asks respondents to rate how fair or unfair it is for car insurers and lenders to use various sorts of information—from credit scores to web browser history to residential moves—I find that everyday Americans make strong moral distinctions among types of data, even when they are told data predict consumer behavior (insurance claims and loan defaults, respectively). Open-ended responses show that people adjudicate fairness by drawing on shared understandings of whether data are logically related to the predicted outcome and whether the categories companies use conflate morally distinct individuals. These findings demonstrate how dynamics long studied by economic sociologists manifest in legitimating a new and important mode of market allocation.
%B Sociological Science
%V 8
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Nature Human Behavior
%D 2021
%T Banks, Alternative Institutions, and the Spatial-Temporal Ecology of Racial Inequality in US Cities
%A Mario L. Small
%A Armin Akhavan
%A Mo Torres
%A Wang, Qi
%B Nature Human Behavior
%V 5
%P 1622-1628
%8 Dec 2021
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociological Methods & Research
%D 2021
%T Using Interviews to Understand Why: Challenges and Strategies in the Study of Motivated Action
%A Mario L. Small
%A Jenna M. Cook
%X This article examines an important and thorny problem in interview research: How to assess whether what people say motivated their actions actually did so? We ask three questions: What specific challenges are at play? How have researchers addressed them? And how should those strategies be evaluated? We argue that such research faces at least five challenges—deception, recall error, reasonableness bias, intentionality bias, and single-motive bias—that more than a dozen strategies have been deployed to address them; that the strategies have been external, internal, or interactional in nature; and that each class of strategies demands distinct evaluation criteria. Researchers will likely fail to uncover motivation if they ignore the possibility of each challenge, conflate one challenge with another, or deploy strategies unmatched to the challenge at hand. Our work helps systematize the evaluation of interview-based studies of motivated action and strengthen the scientific foundations of in-depth interview research.
%B Sociological Methods & Research
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Public Health
%D 2021
%T Physical Health Symptoms and Hurricane Katrina: Individual Trajectories of Development and Recovery More Than a Decade After the Storm
%A Meghan Zacher
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Mariana C. Arcaya
%A Sarah R. Lowe
%A Jean Rhodes
%A Waters, Mary C.
%X Objectives. To examine how physical health symptoms developed and resolved in response to Hurricane Katrina.
Methods. We used data from a 2003 to 2018 study of young, low-income mothers who were living in New Orleans, Louisiana, when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 (n = 276). We fit logistic regressions to model the odds of first reporting or “developing” headaches or migraines, back problems, and digestive problems, and of experiencing remission or “recovery” from previously reported symptoms, across surveys.
Results. The prevalence of each symptom increased after Hurricane Katrina, but the odds of developing symptoms shortly before versus after the storm were comparable. The number of traumatic experiences endured during Hurricane Katrina increased the odds of developing back and digestive problems just after the hurricane. Headaches or migraines and back problems that developed shortly after Hurricane Katrina were more likely to resolve than those that developed just before the storm.
Conclusions. While traumatic experiences endured in disasters such as Hurricane Katrina appear to prompt the development of new physical symptoms, disaster-induced symptoms may be less likely to persist or become chronic than those emerging for other reasons.
%B American Journal of Public Health
%V 111
%P 127–135
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Political Science Quarterly
%D 2021
%T Loyalists and Switchers: Characterizing Voters’ Responses to Donald Trump’s Campaign and Presidency
%A Meredith Dost
%A Ryan Enos
%A Hochschild, Jennifer
%X Meredith Dost, Ryan Enos, and Jennifer Hochschild look at the crucial segment of American voters who have changed their views about Donald Trump since the 2016 presidential election. Using two original surveys, they find that attitudes on race and immigration, populism and authoritarianism, and the nation’s and their own economic well-being are all associated with loyalty to and switching from this divisive president.
%B Political Science Quarterly
%V 136
%P 81-103
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J British Journal of Political Science
%D 2021
%T Locked Out of College: When Admissions Bureaucrats Do and Do Not Discriminate
%A Jacob R. Brown
%A Hanno Hilbig
%X How does an individual's criminal record shape interactions with the state and society? This article presents evidence from a nationwide field experiment in the United States, which shows that prospective applicants with criminal records are about 5 percentage points less likely to receive information from college admission offices. However, this bias does not extend to race: there is no difference in response rates to Black and White applicants. The authors further show that bias is all but absent in public bureaucracies, as discrimination against formerly incarcerated applicants is driven by private schools. Examining why bias is stronger for private colleges, the study demonstrates that the private–public difference persists even after accounting for college selectivity, socio-economic composition and school finances. Moving beyond the measurement of bias, an intervention designed to reduce discrimination is evaluated: whether an email from an advocate mitigates bias associated with a criminal record. No evidence is found that advocate endorsements decrease bureaucratic bias.
%B British Journal of Political Science
%P 1-11
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Nature Human Behavior
%D 2021
%T The measurement of partisan sorting for 180 million voters
%A Jacob R. Brown
%A Ryan D. Enos
%X Segregation across social groups is an enduring feature of nearly all human societies and is associated with numerous social maladies. In many countries, reports of growing geographic political polarization raise concerns about the stability of democratic governance. Here, using advances in spatial data computation, we measure individual partisan segregation by calculating the local residential segregation of every registered voter in the United States, creating a spatially weighted measure for more than 180 million individuals. With these data, we present evidence of extensive partisan segregation in the country. A large proportion of voters live with virtually no exposure to voters from the other party in their residential environment. Such high levels of partisan isolation can be found across a range of places and densities and are distinct from racial and ethnic segregation. Moreover, Democrats and Republicans living in the same city, or even the same neighbourhood, are segregated by party.
%B Nature Human Behavior
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Science Advances
%D 2021
%T Childhood cross-ethnic exposure predicts political behavior seven decades later: Evidence from linked administrative data
%A Jacob R. Brown
%A Ryan D. Enos
%A Feigenbaum, James
%A Soumyajit Mazumder
%X Does contact across social groups influence sociopolitical behavior? This question is among the most studied in the social sciences with deep implications for the harmony of diverse societies. Yet, despite a voluminous body of scholarship, evidence around this question is limited to cross-sectional surveys that only measure short-term consequences of contact or to panel surveys with small samples covering short time periods. Using advances in machine learning that enable large-scale linkages across datasets, we examine the long-term determinants of sociopolitical behavior through an unprecedented individual-level analysis linking contemporary political records to the 1940 U.S. Census. These linked data allow us to measure the exact residential context of nearly every person in the United States in 1940 and, for men, connect this with the political behavior of those still alive over 70 years later. We find that, among white Americans, early-life exposure to black neighbors predicts Democratic partisanship over 70 years later.
%B Science Advances
%V 7
%G eng
%N 24
%0 Book
%D 2021
%T What's the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics
%A Andrew Leigh
%X Why catastrophic risks are more dangerous than you think, and how populism makes them worse.
Did you know that you're more likely to die from a catastrophe than in a car crash? The odds that a typical US resident will die from a catastrophic event—for example, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or out-of-control artificial intelligence—have been estimated at 1 in 6. That's fifteen times more likely than a fatal car crash and thirty-one times more likely than being murdered. In What's the Worst That Could Happen?, Andrew Leigh looks at catastrophic risks and how to mitigate them, arguing provocatively that the rise of populist politics makes catastrophe more likely.
Leigh explains that pervasive short-term thinking leaves us unprepared for long-term risks. Politicians sweat the small stuff—granular policy details of legislation and regulation—but rarely devote much attention to reducing long-term risks. Populist movements thrive on short termism because they focus on their followers' immediate grievances. Leigh argues that we should be long-termers: lengthen our thinking and give big threats the attention and resources they need.
Leigh outlines the biggest existential risks facing humanity and suggests remedies for them. He discusses pandemics, considering the possibility that the next virus will be more deadly than COVID-19; warns that unchecked climate change could render large swaths of the earth inhabitable; describes the metamorphosis of the arms race from a fight into a chaotic brawl; and examines the dangers of runaway superintelligence. Moreover, Leigh points out, populism (and its crony, totalitarianism) not only exacerbates other dangers, but is also a risk factor in itself, undermining the institutions of democracy as we watch.
%I MIT Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2021
%T The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power
%E Jacob S. Hacker
%E Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%E Pierson, Paul
%E Thelen, Kathleen
%X This volume brings together leading political scientists to explore the distinctive features of the American political economy. The introductory chapter provides a comparatively informed framework for analyzing the interplay of markets and politics in the United States, focusing on three key factors: uniquely fragmented and decentralized political institutions; an interest group landscape characterized by weak labor organizations and powerful, parochial business groups; and an entrenched legacy of ethno-racial divisions embedded in both government and markets. Subsequent chapters look at the fundamental dynamics that result, including the place of the courts in multi-venue politics, the political economy of labor, sectional conflict within and across cities and regions, the consolidation of financial markets and corporate monopoly and monopsony power, and the ongoing rise of the knowledge economy. Together, the chapters provide a revealing new map of the politics of democratic capitalism in the United States.
- Provides a comprehensive analysis of the American political economy in comparative perspective
- Develops a theoretical framework that emphasizes how distinctive features of the US political economy have interacted with one another over time to produce unique patterns of inequality, power, and precarity
- Sheds new light on under-examined institutions, actors, and arenas of conflict, generating insights for the study of both American politics and comparative politics
%I Cambridge University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2021
%T Constructing Community: Urban Governance, Development, and Inequality in Boston
%A Jeremy R. Levine
%X Who makes decisions that shape the housing, policies, and social programs in urban neighborhoods? Who, in other words, governs? Constructing Community offers a rich ethnographic portrait of the individuals who implement community development projects in the Fairmount Corridor, one of Boston’s poorest areas. Jeremy Levine uncovers a network of nonprofits and philanthropic foundations making governance decisions alongside public officials—a public-private structure that has implications for democratic representation and neighborhood inequality.
Levine spent four years following key players in Boston’s community development field. While state senators and city councilors are often the public face of new projects, and residents seem empowered through opportunities to participate in public meetings, Levine found a shadow government of nonprofit leaders and philanthropic funders, nonelected neighborhood representatives with their own particular objectives, working behind the scenes. Tying this system together were political performances of “community”—government and nonprofit leaders, all claiming to value the community. Levine provocatively argues that there is no such thing as a singular community voice, meaning any claim of community representation is, by definition, illusory. He shows how community development is as much about constructing the idea of community as it is about the construction of physical buildings in poor neighborhoods.
Constructing Community demonstrates how the nonprofit sector has become integral to urban policymaking, and the tensions and trade-offs that emerge when private nonprofits take on the work of public service provision.
%I Princeton University Press
%P 280
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2021
%T Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing
%A Chris Bail
%X In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves.
Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research.
Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts.
%I Princeton University Press
%P 240
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2021
%T Organizational Imaginaries
%A Chen, Victor Tan
%E Katherine K. Chen
%X Our everyday lives are structured by the rhythms, values, and practices of various organizations, including schools, workplaces, and government agencies. These experiences shape common-sense understandings of how “best” to organize and connect with others. Today, for-profit managerial firms dominate society, even though their practices often curtail information-sharing and experimentation, engender exploitation, and exclude the interests of stakeholders, particularly workers and the general public.
This Research in the Sociology of Organizations volume explores an expansive array of organizational imaginaries, or conceptions of organizational possibilities, with a focus on collectivist-democratic organizations that operate in capitalist markets but place more authority and ownership in the hands of stakeholders other than shareholders. These include worker and consumer cooperatives and other enterprises that, to varying degrees:
- Emphasize social values over profit
- Are owned not by shareholders but by workers, consumers, or other stakeholders
- Employ democratic forms of managing their operations
- Have social ties to the organization based on moral and emotional commitments
Organizational Imaginaries explores how these enterprises generate solidarity among members, network with other organizations and communities, contend with market pressures, and enhance their larger organizational ecosystems. By ensuring that organizations ultimately support and serve broader communities, collectivist-democratic organizing can move societies closer to hopeful “what if” and “if only” futures.
This volume is essential for researchers and students seeking innovative and egalitarian approaches to business and management.
%I Emerald Publishing Limited
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2021
%T Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World
%A Valerie Hannon
%A Amelia Peterson
%X Every generation faces challenges, but never before have young people been so aware of theirs. Whether due to school strikes for climate change, civil war, or pandemic lockdowns, almost every child in the world has experienced the interruption of their schooling by outside forces. When the world we have taken for granted proves so unstable, it gives rise to the question: what is schooling for? Thrive advocates a new purpose for education, in a rapidly changing world, and analyses the reasons why change is urgently needed in our education systems. The book identifies four levels of thriving: global – our place in the planet; societal – localities, communities, economies; interpersonal – our relationships; intrapersonal – the self. Chapters provide research-based theoretical evidence for each area, followed by practical international case studies showing how individual schools are addressing these considerable challenges. Humanity's challenges are shifting fast: schools need to be a part of the response.
%I Cambridge University Press
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2020
%T Getting Eyes in the Home: Child Protective Services Investigations and State Surveillance of Family Life
%A Kelley Fong
%X Each year, U.S. child protection authorities investigate millions of families, disproportionately poor families and families of color. These investigations involve multiple home visits to collect information across numerous personal domains. How does the state gain such widespread entrée into the intimate, domestic lives of marginalized families? Predominant theories of surveillance offer little insight into this process and its implications. Analyzing observations of child maltreatment investigations in Connecticut and interviews with professionals reporting maltreatment, state investigators, and investigated mothers, this article argues that coupling assistance with coercive authority—a hallmark of contemporary poverty governance—generates an expansive surveillance of U.S. families by attracting referrals from adjacent systems. Educational, medical, and other professionals invite investigations of families far beyond those ultimately deemed maltreating, with the hope that child protection authorities’ dual therapeutic and coercive capacities can rehabilitate families, especially marginalized families. Yet even when investigations close, this arrangement, in which service systems channel families to an entity with coercive power, fosters apprehension among families and thwarts their institutional engagement. These findings demonstrate how, in an era of welfare retrenchment, rehabilitative poverty governance renders marginalized populations hyper-visible to the state in ways that may reinforce inequality and marginality.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 85
%P 610-638
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Iowa Law Review
%D 2020
%T Picking Prosecutors
%A Carissa Byrne Hessick
%A Michael Morse
%X The conventional academic wisdom is that elections for local prosecutor are little more than empty exercises. Using the results of a new, national survey of local prosecutor elections––the first of its kind––this Article offers a more complete account of the legal and empirical landscape. It confirms that incumbent prosecutors rarely face challengers and almost always win. But it moves beyond extant work to consider the nature of local political conflict, including how often local prosecutors face a contested election or any degree of competition. It also demonstrates a significant difference in the degree of incumbent entrenchment based on time in office. Most importantly, it reveals a stark divide between rural and urban prosecution. Urban areas are more likely to hold a contested election than rural areas. Rural areas, in which very few lawyers live, rarely hold contested elections and sometimes are not able to field even a single candidate for a prosecutor election. The results suggest that the nascent movement to use prosecutor elections as a source of criminal justice reform may have success, at least in the short term. But elections are, as of now, not a likely source of reform in rural areas—the very areas where incarceration rates continue to rise.
%B Iowa Law Review
%V 105
%P 1537-1590
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J American Political Science Review
%D 2020
%T One Person, One Vote: Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections
%A Sharad Goel
%A Marc Meredith
%A Michael Morse
%A David Rothschild
%A Houshmand Shirani-Mehr
%X Beliefs about the incidence of voter fraud inform how people view the trade-off between electoral integrity and voter accessibility. To better inform such beliefs about the rate of double voting, we develop and apply a method to estimate how many people voted twice in the 2012 presidential election. We estimate that about one in 4,000 voters cast two ballots, although an audit suggests that the true rate may be lower due to small errors in electronic vote records. We corroborate our estimates and extend our analysis using data from a subset of states that share social security numbers, making it easier to quantify who may have voted twice. For this subset of states, we find that one suggested strategy to reduce double voting—removing the registration with an earlier registration date when two share the same name and birthdate—could impede approximately 300 legitimate votes for each double vote prevented.
%B American Political Science Review
%V 114
%P 456–469
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
%D 2020
%T How Do Low-Income People Form Survival Networks? Routine Organizations as Brokers
%A Mario L. Small
%A Leah E. Gose
%X While supportive social ties help to buffer against the consequences of poverty, few researchers have examined how people form such ties. New ties are often formed in routine organizations such as businesses, churches, and childcare centers, which, beyond being places to work, shop, or receive services, are institutionally governed spaces of social interaction. Based on the notion of organizational brokerage, we introduce a perspective that specifies when routine organizations contribute to tie formation and use it to reexamine data from existing qualitative studies of such organizations among the poor. We argue that successful brokerage will depend on the degree to which an organization’s institutional norms render interaction among participants frequent, long-lasting, focused on others, and centered on joint tasks; and that the ensuing networks may differ from other supportive ties in the sense of belonging they may cultivate, the form of generalized exchange they may engender, and the organizational connections they may create.
%B The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
%V 689
%P 89-109
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Health Affairs
%D 2020
%T Mitigating Health Disparities After Natural Disasters: Lessons From The RISK Project
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Mariana C. Arcaya
%A Sarah R. Lowe
%A Meghan Zacher
%A Jean Rhodes
%A Waters, Mary C.
%X Climate change exacerbates the severity of natural disasters, which disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Mitigating disasters’ health consequences is critical to promoting health equity, but few studies have isolated the short- and long-term effects of disasters on vulnerable groups. We filled this gap by conducting a fifteen-year (2003–2018) prospective study of low-income, predominantly Black parents who experienced Hurricane Katrina: the Resilience in Survivors of Katrina (RISK) Project. Here we describe this project and synthesize lessons from work that has resulted from it. Our findings can guide policy makers, service providers, and health officials in disaster planning and response. We synthesize them into an organizational schema of five priorities: Primary efforts should be aimed at preventing exposure to trauma through investments in climate resilience and by eliminating impediments to evacuation, health care policies should promote uninterrupted and expanded access to care, social services should integrate and strive to reduce the administrative burden on survivors, programs should aid survivors in forging or strengthening connections to their communities, and policy makers should fund targeted long-term services for highly affected survivors.
%B Health Affairs
%V 39
%P 2128-2135
%G eng
%N 12
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Traumatic Stress
%D 2020
%T A Life-Course Model of Trauma Exposure and Mental Health Among Low-Income Survivors of Hurricane Katrina
%A Sarah R. Lowe
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Mariana C. Arcaya
%A Meghan L. Zacher
%A Waters, Mary C.
%A Jean E. Rhodes
%X Prior research has provided robust evidence that exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) during a disaster is predictive of adverse postdisaster mental health outcomes, including posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and nonspecific psychological distress (PD). However, few studies have explored the role of exposure to other PTEs over the life-course in shaping postdisaster mental health. Based on the broader literature on trauma exposure and mental health, we hypothesized a path analytic model linking predisaster PTEs to long-term postdisaster PTSS and PD via predisaster PD, short-term postdisaster symptoms, and disaster-related and postdisaster PTEs. We tested this model using data from the Resilience in Survivors of Katrina study, a longitudinal study of low-income, primarily non-Hispanic Black mothers exposed to Hurricane Katrina and assessed before the disaster and at time points 1, 4, and 12 years thereafter. The models evidenced a good fit with the data, RMSEA < .01–.04, CFIs > .99. In addition, 44.1%–67.4% of the effect of predisaster PTEs on long-term postdisaster symptoms was indirect. Descriptive differences were observed across models that included PTSS versus PD, as well as models that included all pre- and postdisaster PTEs versus only those that involved assaultive violence. The results suggest the importance of incorporating disaster preparedness in clinical work with trauma survivors and the value in attending to other lifetime PTEs when working in postdisaster contexts.
%B Journal of Traumatic Stress
%V 33
%P 950-961
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J PLoS ONE
%D 2020
%T Predisaster predictors of posttraumatic stress symptom trajectories: An analysis of low-income women in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
%A Sarah R. Lowe
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Waters, Mary C.
%A Jean E. Rhodes
%B PLoS ONE
%V 15
%G eng
%N 10
%0 Journal Article
%J Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%D 2020
%T Lessons from Hurricane Katrina for predicting the indirect health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Meghan Zacher
%A Sarah R. Lowe
%X Beyond their immediate effects on mortality, disasters have widespread, indirect impacts on mental and physical well-being by exposing survivors to stress and potential trauma. Identifying the disaster-related stressors that predict health adversity will help officials prepare for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Using data from a prospective study of young, low-income mothers who survived Hurricane Katrina, we find that bereavement, fearing for loved ones’ well-being, and lacking access to medical care and medications predict adverse mental and physical health 1 y postdisaster, and some effects persist 12 y later. Adjusting for preexisting health and socioeconomic conditions attenuates, but does not eliminate, these associations. The findings, while drawn from a demographically unique sample, suggest that, to mitigate the indirect effects of COVID-19, lapses in medical care and medication use must be minimized, and public health resources should be directed to those with preexisting medical conditions, their social networks, and the bereaved.
%B Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%V 117
%P 12595-12597
%G eng
%N 23
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2020
%T De-gendered Processes, Gendered Outcomes: How Egalitarian Couples Make Sense of Non-egalitarian Household Practices
%A Allison Daminger
%X Despite widespread support for gender-egalitarianism, men’s and women’s household labor contributions remain strikingly unequal. This article extends prior research on barriers to equality by closely examining how couples negotiate contradictions between their egalitarian ideals and admittedly non-egalitarian practices. Data from 64 in-depth interviews with members of 32 different-sex, college-educated couples show that respondents distinguish between labor allocation processes and outcomes. When they understand the processes as gender-neutral, they can write off gendered outcomes as the incidental result of necessary compromises made among competing values. Respondents “de-gender” their allocation process, or decouple it from gender ideology and gendered social forces, by narrowing their temporal horizon to the present moment and deploying an adaptable understanding of constraint that obscures alternative paths. This de-gendering helps prevent spousal conflict, but it may also facilitate behavioral stasis by directing attention away from the inequalities that continue to shape domestic life.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 85
%P 806-829
%G eng
%N 5
%0 Journal Article
%J Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
%D 2020
%T The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis
%A Anna Stansbury
%A Lawrence H. Summers
%X Rising profitability and market valuations of U.S. businesses, sluggish wage growth and a declining labor share of income, and reduced unemployment and inflation have defined the macroeconomic environment of the last generation. This paper offers a unified explanation for these phenomena based on reduced worker power. Using individual, industry, and state-level data, we demonstrate that measures of reduced worker power are associated with lower wage levels, higher profit shares, and reductions in measures of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU). We argue that the declining worker power hypothesis is more compelling as an explanation for observed changes than increases in firms’ market power, both because it can simultaneously explain a falling labor share and a reduced NAIRU and because it is more directly supported by the data.
%B Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Public Economics
%D 2020
%T Disentangling policy effects using proxy data: Which shutdown policies affected unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic?
%A Edward Kong
%A Daniel Prinz
%X We use high-frequency Google search data, combined with data on the announcement dates of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic in U.S. states, to disentangle the short-run direct impacts of multiple different state-level NPIs in an event study framework. Exploiting differential timing in the announcements of restaurant and bar limitations, non-essential business closures, stay-at-home orders, large-gatherings bans, school closures, and emergency declarations, we leverage the high-frequency search data to separately identify the effects of multiple NPIs that were introduced around the same time. We then describe a set of assumptions under which proxy outcomes can be used to estimate a causal parameter of interest when data on the outcome of interest are limited. Using this method, we quantify the share of overall growth in unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic that was directly due to each of these state-level NPIs. We find that between March 14 and 28, restaurant and bar limitations and non-essential business closures can explain 6.0% and 6.4% of UI claims respectively, while the other NPIs did not directly increase own-state UI claims. This suggests that most of the short-run increase in UI claims during the pandemic was likely due to other factors, including declines in consumer demand, local policies, and policies implemented by private firms and institutions.
%B Journal of Public Economics
%V 189
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Health Policy
%D 2020
%T Healthcare spending inequality: Evidence from Hungarian administrative data
%A Anikó Bíró
%A Daniel Prinz
%X Using administrative data on a random 50% of the Hungarian population, including individual-level information on incomes, healthcare spending, and mortality for the 2003–2011 period, we develop new evidence on the distribution of healthcare spending and mortality in Hungary by income and geography. By linking detailed administrative data on employment, income, and geographic location with measures of healthcare spending and mortality we are able to provide a more complete picture than the existing literature which has relied on survey data. We compute mean spending and 5-year and 8-year mortality measures by geography and income quantiles, and also present gender and age adjusted results.
We document four patterns: (i) substantial geographic heterogeneity in healthcare spending; (ii) positive association between labor income and public healthcare spending; (iii) geographic variation in the strength of the association between labor income and healthcare spending; and (iv) negative association between labor income and mortality. In further exploratory analysis, we find no statistically significant correlation between simple county-level supply measures and healthcare spending. We argue that taken together, these patterns suggest that individuals with higher labor income are in better health but consume more healthcare because they have better access to services.
Our work suggests new directions for research on the relationship between health inequalities and healthcare spending inequalities and the role of subtler barriers to healthcare access.
%B Health Policy
%V 124
%P 282-290
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%D 2020
%T Inequality in socially permissible consumption
%A Serena F. Hagerty
%A Kate Barasz
%X Contributing to the burgeoning discourse on economic inequality, we expose an inequality in what the poor are socially permitted to buy. Across 11 experiments (n = 4,179), we demonstrate that lower-income individuals are held to more restrictive standards of permissible consumption, judged negatively for purchasing the same items as their higher-income peers. We rule out the explanation that higher-income people are socially permitted to consume more simply because they can afford more; instead, we find lower-income people are socially permitted to consume less because they are presumed to need less. These findings suggest that—in addition to economic disparities that restrict what lower-income individuals financially can consume—there is an inequality in what they are socially permitted to consume.
%B Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%V 117
%P 14084-14093
%G eng
%N 25
%0 Book Section
%B Upending American Politics
%D 2020
%T The Texas-Sized Impact of Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate Campaign
%A Eliza Oehmler
%A Michael Zoorob
%E Skocpol, Theda
%E Caroline Tervo
%B Upending American Politics
%I Oxford University Press
%P 237-258
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B Upending American Politics
%D 2020
%T Saving America Once Again, from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance
%A Leah E. Gose
%A Skocpol, Theda
%A Williamson, Vanessa
%E Skocpol, Theda
%E Caroline Tervo
%B Upending American Politics
%I Oxford University Press
%P 191-212
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B Upending American Politics
%D 2020
%T Trump's Trump: Lou Barletta and the Limits of Anti-Immigrant Politics in Pennsylvania
%A Elizabeth Thom
%A Skocpol, Theda
%E Skocpol, Theda
%E Caroline Tervo
%B Upending American Politics
%I Oxford University Press
%P 127-150
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B Upending American Politics
%D 2020
%T The Overlooked Organizational Basis of Trump’s 2016 Victory
%A Michael Zoorob
%A Skocpol, Theda
%E Skocpol, Theda
%E Caroline Tervo
%B Upending American Politics
%I Oxford University Press
%P 79-100
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J PS: Political Science & Politics
%D 2020
%T Going National: Immigration Enforcement and the Politicization of Local Police
%A Michael Zoorob
%X This article develops a theory of when and how political nationalization increases interest in local elections using evidence from county sheriff elections. A quintessentially local office, the sheriff has long enjoyed buffers from ideological or partisan politics. However, many sheriff elections since 2016 were waged on ideological grounds as progressive challengers—often backed by outside money—linked their campaigns to opposition to President Trump. I argue that this “redirected nationalization” becomes possible when a salient national issue impinges on a local government service, enabling challengers to expand the scope of conflict against valence-advantaged incumbents. In the highly nationalized 2018 midterm election, the question of cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the nation’s jails provided a compelling link between local sheriffs and national politics, infusing new interest and energy in these races. Although redirected nationalization can help align local policies with voter preferences, the politicization of local law enforcement also might undermine police professionalism and credibility.
%B PS: Political Science & Politics
%V 53
%P 421–426
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Political Behavior
%D 2020
%T Resisting Broken Windows: The Effect of Neighborhood Disorder on Political Behavior
%A Jacob R. Brown
%A Michael Zoorob
%X Concurrent housing and opioid crises have increased exposure to street-crime, homelessness and addiction in American cities. What are the political consequences of this increased neighborhood disorder? We examine a change in social context following the relocation of homelessness and drug treatment services in Boston. In 2014, an unexpected bridge closing forced nearly 1000 people receiving emergency shelter or addiction treatment to relocate from an island in the Boston Harbor to mainland Boston, causing sustained increases in drug-use, loitering, and other features of neighborhood disorder. Residents near the relocation facilities mobilized to maintain order in their community. In the subsequent Mayoral election, their turnout grew 9% points while participation in state and national elections was unchanged. However, increased turnout favored the incumbent Mayor, consistent with voter learning about candidate quality following local shocks. Voters responded to neighborhood changes at the relevant electoral scale and rewarded responsive politicians.
%B Political Behavior
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective
%A Gidron, Noam
%A James Adams
%A Will Horne
%X American political observers express increasing concern about affective polarization, i.e., partisans' resentment toward political opponents. We advance debates about America's partisan divisions by comparing affective polarization in the US over the past 25 years with affective polarization in 19 other western publics. We conclude that American affective polarization is not extreme in comparative perspective, although Americans' dislike of partisan opponents has increased more rapidly since the mid-1990s than in most other Western publics. We then show that affective polarization is more intense when unemployment and inequality are high; when political elites clash over cultural issues such as immigration and national identity; and in countries with majoritarian electoral institutions. Our findings situate American partisan resentment and hostility in comparative perspective, and illuminate correlates of affective polarization that are difficult to detect when examining the American case in isolation.
%I Cambridge University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T Reconnected: A Community Builder's Handbook
%A Andrew Leigh
%A Nick Terrell
%X We're all in this together.
Strong social connections make communities more resilient. But today Australians have fewer close friends and local connections than in the past, and more of us say we have no-one to turn to in tough times. How can we turn this trend around?
In Reconnected, Andrew Leigh and Nick Terrell look at some of the most successful community organisations and initiatives – from conversation groups to community gardens, from parkrun to Pub Choir – to discover what really works. They explore ways to encourage philanthropy and volunteering, describe how technology can be used effectively, and introduce us to remarkable and inspirational leaders.
Reconnected is an essential guide for anyone interested in strengthening social ties.
%I La Trobe University Press
%P 288
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T After PrisonNavigating Adulthood in the Shadow of the Justice System
%A Harding, David J.
%A Heather M. Harris
%X The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation, with a prison population of approximately 2.3 million in 2016. Over 700,000 prisoners are released each year, and most face significant educational, economic, and social disadvantages. In After Prison, sociologist David Harding and criminologist Heather Harris provide a comprehensive account of young men’s experiences of reentry and reintegration in the era of mass incarceration. They focus on the unique challenges faced by 1,300 black and white youth aged 18 to 25 who were released from Michigan prisons in 2003, investigating the lives of those who achieved some measure of success after leaving prison as well as those who struggled with the challenges of creating new lives for themselves.
The transition to young adulthood typically includes school completion, full-time employment, leaving the childhood home, marriage, and childbearing, events that are disrupted by incarceration. While one quarter of the young men who participated in the study successfully transitioned into adulthood—achieving employment and residential independence and avoiding arrest and incarceration—the same number of young men remained deeply involved with the criminal justice system, spending on average four out of the seven years after their initial release re-incarcerated. Not surprisingly, whites are more likely to experience success after prison. The authors attribute this racial disparity to the increased stigma of criminal records for blacks, racial discrimination, and differing levels of social network support that connect whites to higher quality jobs. Black men earn less than white men, are more concentrated in industries characterized by low wages and job insecurity, and are less likely to remain employed once they have a job.
The authors demonstrate that families, social networks, neighborhoods, and labor market, educational, and criminal justice institutions can have a profound impact on young people’s lives. Their research indicates that residential stability is key to the transition to adulthood. Harding and Harris make the case for helping families, municipalities, and non-profit organizations provide formerly incarcerated young people access to long-term supportive housing and public housing. A remarkably large number of men in this study eventually enrolled in college, reflecting the growing recognition of college as a gateway to living wage work. But the young men in the study spent only brief spells in college, and the majority failed to earn degrees. They were most likely to enroll in community colleges, trade schools, and for-profit institutions, suggesting that interventions focused on these kinds of schools are more likely to be effective. The authors suggest that, in addition to helping students find employment, educational institutions can aid reentry efforts for the formerly incarcerated by providing supports like childcare and paid apprenticeships.
After Prison offers a set of targeted policy interventions to improve these young people’s chances: lifting restrictions on federal financial aid for education, encouraging criminal record sealing and expungement, and reducing the use of incarceration in response to technical parole violations. This book will be an important contribution to the fields of scholarly work on the criminal justice system and disconnected youth.
%I Russell Sage Foundation
%P 304
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T Measuring Culture
%A John W. Mohr
%A Christopher A. Bail
%A Margaret Frye
%A Jennifer C. Lena
%A Omar Lizardo
%A Terence E. McDonnell
%A Ann Mische
%A Iddo Tavory
%A Frederick F. Wherry
%X Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects of measurement—people, objects, and relationships—and then discusses how to pivot effectively between subjects and methods. Measuring Culturetakes the reader on a tour of the state of the art in measuring meaning, from discussions of neuroscience to computational social science. It provides both the definitive introduction to the sociological literature on culture as well as a critical set of case studies for methods courses across the social sciences.
%I Columbia University Press
%P 256
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T Common-Sense Evidence: The Education Leader’s Guide to Using Data and Research
%A Nora Gordon
%A Carrie Conaway
%X Written by two leading experts in education research and policy, Common-Sense Evidence is a concise, accessible guide that helps education leaders find and interpret data and research, and then put that knowledge into action.
In the book, Nora Gordon and Carrie Conaway empower educators to address the federal Every Student Succeeds Act mandate that schools use evidence-based improvement strategies.
The authors walk readers through the processes for determining whether research is relevant and convincing; explain useful statistical concepts; and show how to quickly search for and scan research studies for the necessary information.
The book directs readers through case studies of typical scenarios including a superintendent trying to reduce chronic absenteeism; a middle school math department chair trying to improve student performance on exams; and a chief state school officer attempting to recruit teachers for rural schools.
Common-Sense Evidence helps education leaders build capacity for evidence-based practice in their schools and
%I Harvard Education Publishing Group
%P 240
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T Confronting inequality: How policies and practices shape children's opportunities
%E Tach, Laura
%E Rachel Dunifon
%E Douglas L. Miller
%X All children deserve the best possible future. But in this era of increasing economic and social inequality, more and more children are being denied their fair chance at life.
This book examines the impact of inequality on children’s health and education, and offers a blueprint for addressing the impact of inequality among children in economic, sociological, and psychological domains.
Chapters examine a wide range of studies including exposure to stress and its biological consequences; the impact of federal programs offering access to nutrition for mothers and children; the impact of parental decision-making and child support systems; the effects of poverty on child care and quality of education, parental engagement with schools, parent-child interactions, friendship networks, and more.
The book concludes with commentaries from leading scholars about the state of the field, and efforts to help mitigate the effects of inequality for children in the U.S. and throughout the world.
%I American Psychological Association
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Demography
%D 2020
%T Natural Hazards, Disasters, and Demographic Change
%A Ethan J. Raker
%X Natural hazards and disasters distress populations and inflict damage on the built environment, but existing studies yield mixed results regarding their lasting demographic implications. I leverage variation across three decades of block group exposure to an exogenous and acute natural hazard—severe tornadoes—to focus conceptually on social vulnerability and to empirically assess local net demographic change. Using matching techniques and a difference-in-difference estimator, I find that severe tornadoes result in no net change in local population size but lead to compositional changes, whereby affected neighborhoods become more white and socioeconomically advantaged. Moderation models show that the effects are exacerbated for wealthier communities and that a federal disaster declaration does not mitigate the effects. I interpret the empirical findings as evidence of a displacement process by which economically disadvantaged residents are forcibly mobile, and economically advantaged and white locals rebuild rather than relocate. To make sense of demographic change after natural hazards, I advance an unequal replacement of social vulnerability framework that considers hazard attributes, geographic scale, and impacted local context. I conclude that the natural environment is consequential for the socio-spatial organization of communities and that a disaster declaration has little impact on mitigating this driver of neighborhood inequality.
%B Demography
%V 57
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2020
%T The Social Consequences of Disasters
%A Mariana Arcaya
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Waters, Mary C.
%X We review the findings from the last decade of research on the effects of disasters, concentrating on three important themes: the differences between the recovery of places vs. people, the need to differentiate between short and long term recovery trajectories, and the changing role of government and how it has exacerbated inequality in recovery and engendered feedback loops that create greater vulnerability. We reflect the focus of the majority of sociological studies on disasters by concentrating our review on studies in the United States, but we also include studies on disasters throughout the world if they contribute to our empirical and theoretical understanding of disasters and their impacts. We end with a discussion of the inevitability of more severe disasters as climate change progresses and call on social scientists to develop new concepts and to use new methods to study these developments.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 46
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T The Voucher Promise: "Section 8" and the Fate of an American Neighborhood
%A Eva Rosen
%I Princeton University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T Black Privilege: Modern Middle-Class Blacks with Credentials and Cash to Spend
%A Cassi Pittman Claytor
%I Stanford University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2020
%T Canada at a Crossroads: Boundaries, Bridges, and Laissez-Faire Racism in Indigenous-Settler Relations.
%A Jeffrey S. Denis
%I University of Toronto Press
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2020
%T Do Police Brutality Stories Reduce 911 Calls? Reassessing an Important Criminological Finding
%A Michael Zoorob
%X This paper reassesses the prominent claim from Desmond, Papachristos, and Kirk (2016) that 911 calls plummeted – and homicides surged – because of a police brutality story (the Jude story). The results in DPK depend on a substantial outlier 47 weeks after the Jude story, the final week of data. Identical analyses without the outlier final week show that the Jude story had no statistically significant effect on either total 911 calls or violent crime 911 calls. Modeling choices which do not extrapolate from data many weeks after the Jude story – including an event study and "regression discontinuity in time" – also find no evidence that calls declined, a consistent result across predominantly Black neighborhoods, predominantly White neighborhoods, and citywide. Finally, plotting the raw data demonstrates stable 911 calls in the weeks around the Jude story. Overall, the existing empirical evidence does not support the theory that publishing brutality stories decreases crime reporting and increases murders.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 85
%P 176-183
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Political Science
%D 2020
%T Does Public Opinion Affect Elite Rhetoric?
%A Anselm Hager
%A Hanno Hilbig
%X Does public opinion affect elite rhetoric? This central question of political science has received little empirical scrutiny. Of particular interest is whether public opinion af- fects i) what topics elites address and ii) what positions they endorse. We add to this debate by drawing on unique evidence from Germany. In 2015, a legal ruling forced the German government to declassify all its public opinion research. Our causal identifica- tion strategy exploits the demonstrably exogenous timing of the reports’ dissemination to cabinet members within a window of a few days. We find that exposure to the public opinion reports leads elites to change their rhetoric markedly. Specifically, lin- guistic similarity between elite speech and public opinion increases significantly after reports are disseminated—a finding that points toward rhetorical agenda setting. By hand-coding a subset of 2,000 report-speech pairs, we also demonstrate that elites sub- stantively adapt their rhetoric to majority opinion.
%B American Journal of Political Science
%V 64
%P 921-937
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Forces
%D 2020
%T Forever Homes and Temporary Stops: Housing Search Logics and Residential Selection
%A Hope Harvey
%A Kelley Fong
%A Edin, Kathryn
%A Stefanie DeLuca
%X Residential selection is central in determining children’s housing, neighborhood, and school contexts, and an extensive literature considers the social processes that shape residential searches and attainment. While this literature typically frames the residential search as a uniform process oriented around finding residential options with desired characteristics, we examine whether individuals may differentially conceive of these searches in ways that sustain inequality in residential attainment. Drawing on repeated, in-depth interviews with a stratified random sample of 156 households with young children in two metropolitan counties, we find that parents exhibit distinct residential search logics, informed by the constraints they face. Higher-income families usually engage in purposive searches oriented around their residential preferences. They search for “forever homes” that will meet their families’ needs for years to come. In contrast, low-income parents typically draw on a logic of deferral. While they hope to eventually search for a home with the unit, neighborhood, and school characteristics they desire, aspirations for homeownership lead them to conceive of their moves (which are often between rental units) as “temporary stops,” which justifies accepting homes that are inconsistent with their long-term preferences. In addition, because they are often “pushed” to move by negative circumstances, they focus on their immediate housing needs and, in the most extreme cases, adopt an “anywhere but here” approach. These logics constitute an unexamined mechanism through which economic resources shape residential searches and ultimate attainment.
%B Social Forces
%V 98
%P 1498–1523
%8 Jun 2020
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J The Review of Economics and Statistics
%D 2020
%T Gender Bias in Rumors among Professionals: An Identity-Based Interpretation
%A Alice H. Wu
%X This paper measures gender bias in discussions about women versus men in an online professional forum. I study the content of posts that refer to each gender, and the transitions in the topics between consecutive posts once attention turns to one gender or the other. Discussions about women tend to emphasize their personal characteristics instead of professional accomplishments. Posts about women are also more likely to lead to deviations from professional topics than posts about men. I interpret these findings through a model that highlights posters' incentives to boost their own identities relative to the underrepresented out-group in a profession.
%B The Review of Economics and Statistics
%V 102
%P 867–880
%G eng
%N 5
%0 Journal Article
%J Ethnic and Racial Studies
%D 2020
%T DACAmented in the age of deportation: navigating spaces of belonging and vulnerability in social and personal lives
%A Gonzales, Roberto G.
%A Kristina Brant
%A Benjamin Roth
%B Ethnic and Racial Studies
%V 43
%P 60-79
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Public Administration Review
%D 2020
%T Thick Red Tape and the Thin Blue Line: A Field Study on Reducing Administrative Burden in Police Recruitment
%A Linos, Elizabeth
%A Nefara Riesch
%X Police departments struggle to recruit officers, and voluntary drop‐off of candidates exacerbates this challenge. Using four years of administrative data and a field experiment conducted in the Los Angeles Police Department, the authors analyze the impact of administrative burden on the likelihood that a candidate will remain in the recruitment process. Findings show that reducing friction costs to participation and simplifying processes improve compliance, as behavioral public administration would predict. Applicants who were offered simpler, standardized processes completed more tests and were more likely to be hired. Later reductions to perceived burden led to an 8 percent increase in compliance, with a 60 percent increase in compliance within two weeks. However, removing steps that would have allowed for better understanding of eligibility kept unqualified candidates in the process for longer, reducing organizational efficiency. These results extend the field's understanding of how administrative burden can impact the selection of talent into government.
%B Public Administration Review
%V 80
%P 92-103
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Socio-Economic Review
%D 2019
%T The art of deciding with data: evidence from how employers translate credit reports into hiring decisions
%A Kiviat, Barbara
%X About half of US employers consider personal credit history when hiring, a practice that connects individuals’ prospects for employment to their financial pasts. Yet little is known about how employers translate credit reports, complicated financial documents, into hiring decisions. Using interviews with 57 hiring professionals, this paper offers the first in-depth look at how employers move from document to decision. Faced with the context-free numbers of a credit report, and without predictively valid credit scores to fall back on, hiring professionals struggle to make sense of financial data without knowing the details of job candidates’ lives. They therefore reach beyond credit reports, both by inferring events that led to delinquent debt and by testing to see if candidates can offer morally redeeming accounts. A process of moral storytelling re-inflates credit reports with social meaning and prevents people with bad credit from getting jobs. This process carries implications for the reproduction of economic disadvantage since judgments about when it is and is not legitimate to have unpaid debt seem to at least partly depend on social background.
%B Socio-Economic Review
%V 17
%P 283–309
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2019
%T The Moral Limits of Predictive Practices: The Case of Credit-Based Insurance Scores
%A Kiviat, Barbara
%X Corporations gather massive amounts of personal data to predict how individuals will behave so that they can profitably price goods and allocate resources. This article investigates the moral foundations of such increasingly prevalent market practices. I leverage the case of credit scores in car insurance pricing—an early and controversial use of algorithmic prediction in the U.S. consumer economy—to unpack the premise that predictive data are fair to use and to understand the conditions under which people are likely to challenge that moral logic. Policymaker resistance to credit-based insurance scores reveals that contention arises when predictions depend on mathematical distinctions that do not align with broader understandings of good and bad behavior, and when theories about why predictions work point to the market holding people accountable for actions that are not really their fault. Via a de-commensuration process, policymakers realign the market with their own notions of moral deservingness. This article thus demonstrates the importance of causal understanding and moral categorization for people accepting markets as fair. As data and analytics permeate markets of all sorts, as well as other domains of social life, these findings have implications for how social scientists understand the novel forms of stratification that result.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 84
%P 1134-1158
%G eng
%N 6
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T Stagnant Dreamers: How the Inner City Shapes the Integration of Second-Generation Latinos
%A María G. Rendón
%I Russell Sage Foundation
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis
%A Einstein, Katherine Levine
%A David M. Glick
%A Maxwell Palmer
%I Cambridge University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T Responsive States: Federalism and American Public Policy
%A Karch, Andrew
%A Shanna Rose
%I Cambridge University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future That Is More Star Trek Than Terminator
%A Joshua Gans
%A Andrew Leigh
%I The MIT Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T Remaking a Life: How Women Living with AIDS Confront Inequality
%A Watkins-Hayes, Celeste
%I University of California Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T Social Poverty: Low-Income Parents and the Struggle for Family and Community Ties
%A Halpern-Meekin, Sarah
%I New York University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake American High Schools
%A Mehta, Jal
%A Sarah Fine
%I Harvard University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students
%A Anthony Abraham Jack
%I Harvard University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States — and the Nation
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%I Oxford University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2019
%T On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration
%A Harding, David J.
%A Jeffrey D. Morenoff
%A Jessica J.B. Wyse
%I University of Chicago Press
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
%D 2019
%T Screening in Contract Design: Evidence from the ACA Health Insurance Exchanges
%A Michael Geruso
%A Timothy Layton
%A Daniel Prinz
%X We study insurers' use of prescription drug formularies to screen consumers in the ACA Health Insurance exchanges. We begin by showing that exchange risk adjustment and reinsurance succeed in neutralizing selection incentives for most, but not all, consumer types. A minority of consumers, identifiable by demand for particular classes of prescription drugs, are predictably unprofitable. We then show that contract features relating to these drugs are distorted in a manner consistent with multidimensional screening. The empirical findings support a long theoretical literature examining how insurance contracts offered in equilibrium can fail to optimally trade off risk protection and moral hazard.
%B American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
%V 11
%P 64-107
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J American Behavioral Scientist
%D 2019
%T A Look to the Interior: Trends in U.S. Immigration Removals by Criminal Conviction Type, Gender, and Region of Origin, Fiscal Years 2003-2015
%A Margot Moinester
%X Over the past two decades, the U.S. federal government has sought to increase its capacity to find, apprehend, and deport noncitizens residing in the United States who have violated federal immigration laws. One way the federal government has done this is by partnering with state and local law enforcement agencies on immigration enforcement efforts. The present study analyzes the records of all 1,964,756 interior removals between fiscal years 2003 and 2015 to examine how, if at all, the types of criminal convictions leading to removal from the U.S. interior have changed during this period of heightened coordination between law enforcement agencies and whether there are differences by gender and region of origin in the types of convictions leading to removal. Findings show that as coordination between law enforcement agencies intensified, the proportion of individuals removed from the U.S. interior with either no criminal convictions or with a driving-related conviction as their most serious conviction increased. Findings also show that the proportion of individuals removed with no criminal convictions was greater for women than for men and that the share of individuals removed with a driving-related conviction as their most serious conviction was greater for Latin Americans than for individuals from all other regions. Given renewed investment in these types of law enforcement partnerships under the Trump administration, the patterns presented in this article may foreshadow trends to come.
%B American Behavioral Scientist
%V 63
%P 1276-1298
%G eng
%N 9
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2019
%T Twelve years later: The long-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A Sarah R. Lowe
%A Mariana C. Arcaya
%A Sydney T. Johnson
%A Jean Rhodes
%A Waters, Mary C.
%X In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused unprecedented damage, widespread population displacement, and exposed Gulf Coast residents to traumatic events. The hurricane's adverse impact on survivors' mental health was apparent shortly after the storm and persisted, but no study has examined the long-term effects now that more than a decade has transpired. Using new data from a panel study of low-income mothers interviewed once before Hurricane Katrina and now three times after, we document changes in mental health, and estimate the sociodemographic and hurricane-related factors associated with long-term trajectories of mental health. We find that post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) declined at each of the three post-Katrina follow-ups, but 12 years after the hurricane, one in six still had symptoms indicative of probable post-traumatic stress disorder. The rate of non-specific psychological distress (PD) remained consistently higher in all three follow-ups, compared to the pre-disaster period. In full covariate-adjusted models, no sociodemographic variables predicted long-run combinations of PTSS and PD. However, 12 years later, exposure to hurricane-related traumatic events and pre-disaster PD significantly predicted co-occurring PTSS and PD. Hurricane-related housing damage predicted PTSS in earlier follow-ups, but no longer predicted PTSS in the long-term. Furthermore, hurricane-related traumatic events significantly differentiated the risk of having persistent PTSS, relative to recovering from PTSS. The results suggest that there is still a non-negligible group of survivors with continued need for recovery resources and that exposure to traumatic events is a primary predictor of adverse mental health more than a decade post-disaster.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 242
%P 112610
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J International Journal of Drug Policy
%D 2019
%T Fentanyl shock: The changing geography of overdose in the United States
%A Michael Zoorob
%X Background: Rapid increases in drug overdose deaths in the United States since 2014 have been highly regionally stratified, with the largest increases occurring in the eastern and northeastern states. By contrast, many western states saw overdose deaths plateau. This paper shows how the differential influx of fentanyl and fentanyl ana- logues in the drug supply has reshaped the geography and demography of the overdose crisis in the United States.
Methods: Using all state lab drug seizures obtained by Freedom of Information Act request, I analyze the re- gionally distinctive presence of fentanyl in the US drug supply with descriptive plots and statistical models. Main analyses explore state-year overdose trends using two-way fixed effects ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and two-stage least squares regression (2SLS) instrumenting for fentanyl exposure with state-longitude times a linear trend.
Results: First, fentanyl exposure is highly correlated with geography and only weakly explained by overdose rates prior to 2014. States in the east (higher degrees longitude) are much more heavily affected. Second, fentanyl exposure exhibits a statistically significant and important effect on overdose mortality, with model- predicted deaths broadly consistent with official death statistics. Third, fentanyl exposure explains most of the variation in increased overdose mortality between 2011 and 2017. Consequently, the epicenter of the overdose crisis shifted towards the eastern United States over these years.
Conclusion: These findings shed light on the “third-wave” of the overdose epidemic, characterized by rapid and geographically disparate changes in drug supply that heighten the risk of overdose. Above all, they underscore the urgency of adopting evidence-based policies to combat addiction in light of the rapidly changing drug environment.
%B International Journal of Drug Policy
%V 70
%P 40-46
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J PS: Political Science and Politics
%D 2019
%T Blue Endorsements Matter: How the Fraternal Order of Police Contributed to Donald Trump’s Victory
%A Michael Zoorob
%X Conventional accounts of Donald Trump’s unexpected electoral victory stress idiosyncratic events and media celebrity because most observers assume this unusual candidate won without much organized support. However, considerable evidence suggests that the support of conservative organizational networks, including police unions such as the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), propelled Trump to victory. The FOP is both a public-sector union and a conservative, mass-membership fraternal association that was courted by the Trump campaign at a time of politically charged debates about policing. Four years before, the FOP had refused to endorse Republican candidate Mitt Romney because he opposed public-sector unionism, which provided fruitful and rare variation in interest-group behavior across electoral cycles. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that FOP lodge density contributed to a significant swing in vote share from Romney to Trump. Moreover, survey evidence indicates that police officers reported increased political engagement in 2016 versus 2012. Belying the notion that Trump lacked a “ground game,” this research suggests that he tapped into existing organizational networks, showing their enduring importance in electoral politics.
%B PS: Political Science and Politics
%V 52
%P 243-250
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Political Science
%D 2019
%T Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality?
%A Anselm Hager
%A Hanno Hilbig
%X Why are some societies more unequal than others? The French revolutionaries believed unequal inheritances among siblings to be responsible for the strict hierarchies of the ancien régime. To achieve equality, the revolutionaries therefore enforced equal inheritance rights. Their goal was to empower women and to disenfranchise the noble class. But do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field? We study Germany—a country with pronounced local‐level variation in inheritance customs—and find that municipalities that historically equally apportioned wealth, to this day, elect more women into political councils and have fewer aristocrats in the social elite. Using historic data, we point to two mechanisms: wealth equality and pro‐egalitarian preferences. In a final step, we also show that, counterintuitively, equitable inheritance customs positively predict income inequality. We interpret this finding to mean that equitable inheritances level the playing field by rewarding talent, not status.
%B American Journal of Political Science
%V 63
%P 758-773
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
%D 2019
%T Shooting the Messenger
%A Leslie K. John
%A Hayley Blunden
%A Heidi Liu
%X Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to “shoot the messenger,” deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable. In a preregistered lab experiment, participants rated messengers who delivered bad news from a random drawing as relatively unlikeable (Study 1). A second set of studies points to the specificity of the effect: Study 2A shows that it is unique to the (innocent) messenger and not mere bystanders. Study 2B shows that it is distinct from merely receiving information that one disagrees with. We suggest that people’s tendency to deem bearers of bad news as unlikeable stems in part from their desire to make sense of chance processes. Consistent with this account, receiving bad news activates the desire to sense-make (Study 3A), and in turn, activating this desire enhances the tendency to dislike bearers of bad news (Study 3B). Next, stemming from the idea that unexpected outcomes heighten the desire to sense-make, Study 4 shows that when bad news is unexpected, messenger dislike is pronounced. Finally, consistent with the notion that people fulfill the desire to sense-make by attributing agency to entities adjacent to chance events, messenger dislike is correlated with the belief that the messenger had malevolent motives (Studies 5A, 5B, & 5C). Studies 6A & 6B go further, manipulating messenger motives independently from news valence to suggest its causal role in our process account: the tendency to dislike bearers of bad news is mitigated when recipients are made aware of the benevolence of the messenger’s motives.
%B Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
%V 148
%P 644–666
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
%D 2019
%T The Great Decoupling: The Disconnection Between Criminal Offending and Experience of Arrest Across Two Cohorts
%A Vesla M. Weaver
%A Papachristos, Andrew
%A Michael Zanger-Tishler
%X Our study explores the arrest experiences of two generational cohorts—those entering adulthood on either side of a large shift in American policing. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979 and 1997), we find a stark increase in arrest odds among the later generation at every level of offending, suggesting a decoupling between contact with the justice system and criminal conduct. Furthermore, this decoupling became racially inflected. Blacks had a much higher probability of arrest at the start of the twenty-first century than both blacks of the generation prior and whites of the same generation. The criminal justice system, we argue, slipped from one in which arrest was low and strongly linked to offending to one where a substantial share of Americans experienced arrest without committing a crime.
%B RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
%V 5
%P 89-123
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Organizational Ethnography
%D 2019
%T We can help, but there’s a catch: Nonprofit organizations and access to government-funded resources among the poor
%A Andreja Siliunas
%A Mario L. Small
%A Joey Wallerstein
%X Today, low-income people seeking resources from the federal government must often work through non-profit organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the constraints that the poor must face today to secure resources through non-profit organizations. This is a conceptual paper. The authors review cases of non-profit organizations providing federally supported resources to the poor across multiple sectors.The authors find that to accept government contracts serving the poor, nonprofit organizations must often engage in one or several practices: reject clients normally consistent with their mission, select clients based on likely outcomes, ignore problems in clients’ lives relevant to their predicament, or undermine client progress to manage funding requirements. To secure government-supported resources from nonprofits, the poor must often acquiesce to intrusions into one or more of the following: their privacy (disclosing sensitive information), their self-protection (renouncing legal rights), their identity (avowing a particular self-understanding) or their self-mastery (relinquishing authority over daily routines). The authors show that the nonprofits’ dual role as brokers, both liaisons transferring resources and representatives of the state, can complicate their relation to their clients and the predicament of the poor themselves; the authors suggest that two larger trends, toward increasing administrative accountability and demonstrating deservingness, are having both intended and unintended consequences for the ability of low-income individuals to gain access to publicly funded resources.
%B Journal of Organizational Ethnography
%V 8
%P 109-128
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Political Science Quarterly
%D 2019
%T Beyond Likely Voters: An Event Analysis of Conservative Political Outreach
%A Angie M. Bautista-Chavez
%A Sarah E. James
%X Angie M. Bautista-Chavez and Sarah E. James look at the constituency-building strategies of three politically conservative organizations designed to reach veterans, millennials, and Latinos. They show how these organizations vary their outreach tactics to align the target audience with the political right.
%B Political Science Quarterly
%V 134
%P 407-443
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Book Section
%B Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth
%D 2019
%T Productivity and Pay: Is the Link Broken?
%A Anna Stansbury
%A Lawrence H. Summers
%X Median compensation in the U.S. has diverged starkly from labor productivity since 1973, and average compensation from productivity since 2000. In this paper, we ask: holding all else equal, to what extent does productivity growth translate into compensation growth for typical American workers? We regress median, average, and production/nonsupervisory compensation growth on productivity growth in various specifications, finding substantial evidence of linkage between productivity and compensation. Over 1973–2016, one percentage point higher productivity growth was associated with 0.7-1 percentage points higher median and average compensation growth and with 0.4-0.7 percentage points higher production/nonsupervisory compensation growth. Further, we do not find strong evidence of co-movement between productivity growth and either the labor share or the mean/median compensation ratio. Our results tend to militate against pure technology-based theories of the productivity-compensation divergence, which would suggest that periods of higher productivity growth should also be periods of higher productivity-pay divergence. They suggest that factors orthogonal to productivity have been acting to suppress typical compensation even as productivity growth has been acting to raise it, and that faster future productivity growth is likely to boost median and average compensation growth close to one-for-one
%B Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth
%I Peterson Institute for International Economics
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2019
%T The Organization of Neglect: Limited Liability Companies and Housing Disinvestment
%A Travis, Adam
%X Sociological accounts of urban disinvestment processes rarely assess how landlords’ variable investment strategies may be facilitated or constrained by the legal environment. Nor do they typically examine how such factors might, in turn, affect housing conditions for city dwellers. Over the past two decades, the advent and diffusion of the limited liability company (LLC) has reshaped the legal landscape of rental ownership. Increasingly, rental properties are owned by business organizations that limit investor liability, rather than by individual landlords who own property in their own names. An analysis of administrative records and survey data from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, demonstrates that signs of housing disinvestment increase when properties transition from individual to LLC ownership. This increase is not explained by selection on property characteristics or by divergent pre-transfer trends. Results affirm that real estate investors are responsive to changes in the legal environment and that the protective structure of the LLC facilitates housing disinvestment in Milwaukee. Elaborating the role of real estate investors can deepen accounts of neighborhood change processes and help explain variation in local housing conditions. Ultimately, public policies that enable business operators to circumscribe or reallocate risk may generate unintended costs for consumers and the public.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 84
%P 142-170
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociological Forum
%D 2019
%T Subject to Evaluation: How Parents Assess and Mobilize Information from Social Networks in School Choice.
%A Kelley Fong
%X A rich literature examines how information spreads through social networks to influence life opportunities. However, receiving information does not guarantee its use in decision making. This article analyzes information evaluation as a fundamental component of social network mobilization. The case of school choice, where the value of information may be more uncertain, brings this evaluative dimension to the forefront. Interviews with 55 parents in Boston show how parents selecting schools assess their social network ties as information sources, privileging information from those they perceive to have affinity and authority. These evaluative criteria map onto disparate networks to engender unequal mobilization of this information. The findings illuminate mechanisms sustaining inequality in social network mobilization and reorient scholars to consider processes underlying information use alongside information diffusion to attain a more complete understanding of how network resources are mobilized in action.
%B Sociological Forum
%V 34
%P 158-180
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Forces
%D 2019
%T Concealment and Constraint: Child Protective Services Fears and Poor Mothers’ Institutional Engagement
%A Kelley Fong
%X With the expansion of state surveillance and enforcement efforts in recent decades, a growing literature examines how those vulnerable to punitive state contact strategize to evade it. This article draws on in-depth interviews with eighty-three low-income mothers to consider whether and how concerns about Child Protective Services (CPS), a widespread presence in poor communities with the power to remove children from their parents, inform poor mothers’ institutional engagement. Mothers recognized CPS reports as a risk in interactions with healthcare, educational, and social service systems legally mandated to report suspected child abuse or neglect. Departing from findings on responses to policing and immigration enforcement, I find that CPS concerns rarely prompted mothers to avoid systems wholesale. Within their system participation, however, mothers engaged in a selective or constrained visibility, concealing their hardships, home life, and parenting behavior from potential reporters. As reporting systems serve as vital sources of support for disadvantaged families, mothers’ practices of information management, while perhaps protecting them from CPS reports, may preclude opportunities for assistance and reinforce a sense of constraint in families’ institutional interactions.
%B Social Forces
%V 97
%P 1785–1810
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%D 2019
%T Punishing and toxic neighborhood environments independently predict the intergenerational social mobility of black and white children
%A Robert Manduca
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%X We use data on intergenerational social mobility by neighborhood to examine how social and physical environments beyond concentrated poverty predict children’s long-term well-being. First, we examine neighborhoods that are harsh on children’s development: those characterized by high levels of violence, incarceration, and lead exposure. Second, we examine potential supportive or offsetting mechanisms that promote children’s development, such as informal social control, cohesion among neighbors, and organizational participation. Census tract mobility estimates from linked income tax and Census records are merged with surveys and administrative records in Chicago. We find that exposure to neighborhood violence, incarceration, and lead combine to independently predict poor black boys’ later incarceration as adults and lower income rank relative to their parents, and poor black girls’ teenage motherhood. Features of neighborhood social organization matter less, but are selectively important. Results for poor whites also show that toxic environments independently predict lower social mobility, as do features of social organization, to a lesser extent. Overall, our measures contribute a 76% relative increase in explained variance for black male incarceration beyond that of concentrated poverty and other standard characteristics, an 18% increase for black male income rank (70% for whites), and a 17% increase for teenage motherhood of black girls (40% for whites).
%B PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%V 116
%P 7772-7777
%G eng
%N 16
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Forces
%D 2019
%T The Contribution of National Income Inequality to Regional Economic Divergence
%A Robert Manduca
%X After more than a century of convergence, the economic fortunes of rich and poor regions of the United States have diverged dramatically over the last 40 years. Roughly a third of the US population now lives in metropolitan areas that are substantially richer or poorer than the nation as a whole, almost three times the proportion that did in 1980. In this paper I use counterfactual simulations based on Census microdata to understand the dynamics of regional divergence. I first show that regional divergence has primarily resulted from the richest people and places pulling away from the rest of the country. I then estimate the relative contributions to regional divergence of two major socioeconomic trends of recent decades: the sorting of people across metro areas by income level and the national rise in income inequality. I show that the national rise in income inequality is sufficient on its own to account for more than half of the observed divergence across regions, while income sorting on its own accounts for less than a quarter. The major driver of regional economic divergence is national-level income dispersion that has exacerbated preexisting spatial inequalities.
%B Social Forces
%V 98
%P 622-648
%8 Mar 2019
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Quarterly Journal of Economics
%D 2019
%T Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation
%A Alex Bell
%A Chetty, Raj
%A Xavier Jaravel
%A Neviana Petkova
%A John Van Reenen
%X We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability (“nature”) versus environment (“nurture”). Using deidentified data on 1.2 million inventors from patent records linked to tax records, we first show that children’s chances of becoming inventors vary sharply with characteristics at birth, such as their race, gender, and parents’ socioeconomic class. For example, children from high-income (top 1%) families are 10 times as likely to become inventors as those from below-median income families. These gaps persist even among children with similar math test scores in early childhood—which are highly predictive of innovation rates—suggesting that the gaps may be driven by differences in environment rather than abilities to innovate. We directly establish the importance of environment by showing that exposure to innovation during childhood has significant causal effects on children’s propensities to invent. Children whose families move to a high-innovation area when they are young are more likely to become inventors. These exposure effects are technology class and gender specific. Children who grow up in a neighborhood or family with a high innovation rate in a specific technology class are more likely to patent in exactly the same class. Girls are more likely to invent in a particular class if they grow up in an area with more women (but not men) who invent in that class. These gender- and technology class–specific exposure effects are more likely to be driven by narrow mechanisms, such as role-model or network effects, than factors that only affect general human capital accumulation, such as the quality of schools. Consistent with the importance of exposure effects in career selection, women and disadvantaged youth are as underrepresented among high-impact inventors as they are among inventors as a whole. These findings suggest that there are many “lost Einsteins”—individuals who would have had highly impactful inventions had they been exposed to innovation in childhood—especially among women, minorities, and children from low-income families.
%B Quarterly Journal of Economics
%V 134
%P 647–713
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of the European Economic Association
%D 2019
%T Do Tax Cuts Produce more Einsteins? The Impacts of Financial Incentives Versus Exposure to Innovation on the Supply of Inventors
%A Alex Bell
%A Chetty, Raj
%A Xavier Jaravel
%A Neviana Petkova
%A John Van Reenen
%X Many countries provide financial incentives to spur innovation, ranging from tax incentives to research and development grants. In this paper, we study how such financial incentives affect individuals’ decisions to pursue careers in innovation. We first present empirical evidence on inventors’ career trajectories and income distributions using deidentified data on 1.2 million inventors from patent records linked to tax records in the United States. We find that the private returns to innovation are extremely skewed—with the top 1% of inventors collecting more than 22% of total inventors’ income—and are highly correlated with their social impact, as measured by citations. Inventors tend to have their most impactful innovations around age 40 and their incomes rise rapidly just before they have high-impact patents. We then build a stylized model of inventor career choice that matches these facts as well as recent evidence that childhood exposure to innovation plays a critical role in determining whether individuals become inventors. The model predicts that financial incentives, such as top income tax reductions, have limited potential to increase aggregate innovation because they only affect individuals who are exposed to innovation and have essentially no impact on the decisions of star inventors, who matter most for aggregate innovation. Importantly, these results hold regardless of whether the private returns to innovation are fully known at the time of career choice or are fully stochastic. In contrast, increasing exposure to innovation (e.g., through mentorship programs) could have substantial impacts on innovation by drawing individuals who produce high-impact inventions into the innovation pipeline. Although we do not present direct evidence supporting these model-based predictions, our results call for a more careful assessment of the impacts of financial incentives and a greater focus on alternative policies to increase the supply of inventors.
%B Journal of the European Economic Association
%V 17
%P 651–677
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
%D 2019
%T Antitrust Enforcement as Federal Policy to Reduce Regional Economic Disparities
%A Robert Manduca
%X Regions of the United States have seen their incomes diverge dramatically over the last four decades. This article makes the empirical and political case for treating regional economic disparities as a national phenomenon best resolved through federal policy, rather than exclusively as a matter of local responsibility. It then considers reinvigorated antitrust enforcement as an example of a federal policy that would strengthen local economies while benefiting from policy feedback effects.
%B The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
%V 685
%P 156-171
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2019
%T The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor
%A Allison Daminger
%X Household labor is commonly defined as a set of physical tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping. Sociologists sometimes reference non-physical activities related to “household management,” but these are typically mentioned in passing, imprecisely defined, or treated as equivalent to physical tasks. Using 70 in-depth interviews with members of 35 couples, this study argues that such tasks are better understood as examples of a unique dimension of housework: cognitive labor. The data demonstrate that cognitive labor entails anticipating needs, identifying options for filling them, making decisions, and monitoring progress. Because such work is taxing but often invisible to both cognitive laborers and their partners, it is a frequent source of conflict for couples. Cognitive labor is also a gendered phenomenon: women in this study do more cognitive labor overall and more of the anticipation and monitoring work in particular. However, male and female participation in decision-making, arguably the cognitive labor component most closely linked to power and influence, is roughly equal. These findings identify and define an overlooked—yet potentially consequential—source of gender inequality at the household level and suggest a new direction for research on the division of household labor.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 84
%P 609-633
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Report
%D 2019
%T The Long-Term Impact of DACA: Forging Futures Despite DACA's Uncertainty. Findings from the National UnDACAmented Research Project (NURP).
%A Gonzales, Roberto G.
%A Sayil Camacho
%A Kristina Brant
%A Carlos Aguilar
%B Immigration Initiative at Harvard
%7 Special Report 1
%I Harvard University
%P 1-45
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Public Economics
%D 2019
%T Unemployment insurance and reservation wages: Evidence from administrative data
%A Thomas Le Barbanchon
%A Roland Rathelot
%A Roulet, Alexandra
%X Although the reservation wage plays a central role in job search models, empirical evidence on the determinants of reservation wages, including key policy variables such as unemployment insurance (UI), is scarce. In France, unemployed people must declare their reservation wage to the Public Employment Service when they register to claim UI benefits. We take advantage of these rich French administrative data and of a reform of UI rules to estimate the effect of the Potential Benefit Duration (PBD) on reservation wages and on other dimensions of job selectivity, using a difference-in-difference strategy. We cannot reject that the elasticity of the reservation wage with respect to PBD is zero. Our results are precise and we can rule out elasticities larger than 0.006. Furthermore, we do not find any significant effects of PBD on the desired number of hours, duration of labor contract and commuting time/distance. The estimated elasticity of actual benefit duration with respect to PBD of 0.3 is in line with the consensus in the literature. Exploiting a Regression Discontinuity Design as an alternative identification strategy, we find similar results.
%B Journal of Public Economics
%V 171
%P 1-17
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2018
%T Environmental Inequality: The Social Causes and Consequences of Lead Exposure
%A Christopher Muller
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%A Alix S. Winter
%X In this article, we review evidence from the social and medical sciences on the causes and effects of lead exposure. We argue that lead exposure is an important subject for sociological analysis because it is socially stratified and has important social consequences—consequences that themselves depend in part on children's social environments. We present a model of environmental inequality over the life course to guide an agenda for future research. We conclude with a call for deeper exchange between urban sociology, environmental sociology, and public health, and for more collaboration between scholars and local communities in the pursuit of independent science for the common good.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 44
%P 263-282
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Criminology
%D 2018
%T Poisoned Development: Assessing Childhood Lead Exposure as a Cause of Crime in a Birth Cohort Followed Through Adolescence
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%A Alix S. Winter
%X he consequences of lead exposure for later crime are theoretically compelling, but direct evidence from representative, longitudinal samples is sparse. By capitalizing on an original follow-up of more than 200 infants from the birth cohort of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods matched to their blood lead levels from around age 3 years, we provide several tests. Through the use of four waves of longitudinal data that include measures of individual development, family background, and structural inequalities in how lead becomes embodied, we assess the hypothesized link between early childhood lead poisoning and both parent-reported delinquent behavior and official arrest in late adolescence. We also test for mediating developmental processes of impulsivity and anxiety or depression. The results from multiple analytic strategies that make different assumptions reveal a plausibly causal effect of childhood lead exposure on adolescent delinquent behavior but no direct link to arrests. The results underscore lead exposure as a trigger for poisoned development in the early life course and call for greater integration of the environment into theories of individual differences in criminal behavior.
%B Criminology
%V 56
%P 269-301
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J State Politics and Policy Quarterly
%D 2018
%T Public Campaign Financing, Candidate Socioeconomic Diversity, and Representational Inequality at the U.S. State Level: Evidence from Connecticut
%A Mitchell Kilborn
%X Conventional wisdom holds that public campaign financing can diversify the socioeconomic makeup of candidate pools and, therefore, of U.S. elected officials, which could make U.S. public policy more responsive to lower socioeconomic status (SES) citizens. I argue that in addition to the absence of a positive relationship between public financing and candidate socioeconomic diversity, public financing, depending on the program design, may, in fact, reduce candidate socioeconomic diversity. Using occupational data on state legislative candidates in public financing state Connecticut and two paired control states to execute a difference in difference analysis, I demonstrate that when public financing is available, fewer low SES candidates run for state legislative office, and those who do run are not more likely to win and are less likely to utilize public financing.
%B State Politics and Policy Quarterly
%V 18
%P 296-323
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in Diversifying America
%A Bernard L. Fraga
%I Cambridge University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T Améliorer les appariements sur le marché du travail
%A Roulet, Alexandra
%I Les Presses de Sciences Po
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Are Changing Our World
%A Andrew Leigh
%I Yale University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T Navigation by Judgment: Why and When Top-down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn’t Work
%A Dan Honig
%I Oxford University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T Education in a New Society: Renewing the Sociology of Education
%E Mehta, Jal
%E Scott Davies
%I University of Chicago Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized
%A Daniel J. Hopkins
%I University of Chicago Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Their Workers into Lobbyists
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%I Oxford University Press
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2018
%T Environmental Inequality: The Social Causes and Consequences of Lead Exposure
%A Christopher Muller
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%A Alix S. Winter
%X In this article, we review evidence from the social and medical sciences on the causes and effects of lead exposure. We argue that lead exposure is an important subject for sociological analysis because it is socially stratified and has important social consequences—consequences that themselves depend in part on children's social environments. We present a model of environmental inequality over the life course to guide an agenda for future research. We conclude with a call for deeper exchange between urban sociology, environmental sociology, and public health, and for more collaboration between scholars and local communities in the pursuit of independent science for the common good.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 44
%P 263-282
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Economics of Education Review
%D 2018
%T Introducing a performance-based component into Jakarta's school grants: What do we know about its impact after three years?
%A Samer Al Samarrai
%A Unika Shrestha
%A Amer Hasan
%A Nozomi Nakajima
%A Santoso Santoso
%A Wisnu Harto Adi Wijoyo
%X Using administrative data, this paper evaluates the early impact of introducing a performance-based component into Jakarta's long-standing school grant program on learning outcomes. The authors use difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity approaches to identify the component's impact on both government primary and junior secondary schools. Learning outcomes improved in primary schools at the bottom of the performance distribution, which narrowed the performance gaps between schools. However, the component had a negative impact on the better performing primary schools. Overall, primary examination scores fell slightly but this effect was only temporary. In contrast, the performance-based component improved examination scores in junior secondary schools. This impact seems to have been greatest among better-performing schools, thus widening the performance gap between these schools and those whose performance was worse. The data suggest that the main impact of the performance-based grant in terms of learning outcomes operated through an increase in competition among schools to earn the performance-based grant rather than through receipt of the actual grant funds.
%B Economics of Education Review
%V 67
%P 110-136
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Demography
%D 2018
%T Beyond the Border and Into the Heartland: Spatial Patterning of U.S. Immigration Detention
%A Margot Moinester
%X The expansion of U.S. immigration enforcement from the borders into the interior of the country and the fivefold increase in immigration detentions and deportations since 1995 raise important questions about how the enforcement of immigration law is spatially patterned across American communities. Focusing on the practice of immigration detention, the present study analyzes the records of all 717,160 noncitizens detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2008 and 2009—a period when interior enforcement was at its peak—to estimate states’ detention rates and examine geographic variation in detention outcomes, net of individual characteristics. Findings reveal substantial state heterogeneity in immigration detention rates, which range from approximately 350 detentions per 100,000 noncitizens in Connecticut to more than 6,700 detentions per 100,000 noncitizens in Wyoming. After detainment, individuals’ detention outcomes are geographically stratified, especially for detainees eligible for pretrial release. These disparities indicate the important role that geography plays in shaping individuals’ chances of experiencing immigration detention and deportation.
%B Demography
%V 55
%P 1147-1193
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science Quarterly
%D 2018
%T Attitudes Toward Mass Arrivals: Variations by Racial, Spatial, and Temporal Distances to Incoming Disaster Evacuees
%A Ethan J. Raker
%A James R. Elliott
%X Objective
Disasters can send large numbers of evacuees into new contexts of reception, where attitudes toward them can vary significantly by perceived social distance. To conventional assessment of such distance along racial lines, we add spatial and temporal distance from point of central arrival.
Methods
A novel research design combines the natural experiment triggered by Hurricane Katrina with five consecutive Kinder Houston Area Surveys (2006–2010), which gather data on attitudes toward arrived evacuees as well as tract‐level data on residential context.
Results
Regression analyses reveal that spatial and temporal distance act similarly to racial distance in predicting negative attitudes toward evacuees. Results also show these effects are moderated by the racial context of incumbents’ residential neighborhoods.
Conclusions
Social distance exerts a multifaceted influence on evacuee reception in ways that become especially pertinent in the arrival of communities from large‐scale, urban evacuations.
%B Social Science Quarterly
%V 99
%P 1200-1213
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Occupational and Environmental Medicine
%D 2018
%T Does ‘right to work’ imperil the right to health? The effect of labour unions on workplace fatalities
%A Michael Zoorob
%X Objective Economic policies can have unintended consequences on population health. In recent years, many states in the USA have passed ‘right to work’ (RTW) laws which weaken labour unions. The effect of these laws on occupational health remains unexplored. This study fills this gap by analysing the effect of RTW on occupational fatalities through its effect on unionisation.
Methods Two-way fixed effects regression models are used to estimate the effect of unionisation on occupational mortality per 100 000 workers, controlling for state policy liberalism and workforce composition over the period 1992–2016. In the final specification, RTW laws are used as an instrument for unionisation to recover causal effects.
Results The Local Average Treatment Effect of a 1% decline in unionisation attributable to RTW is about a 5% increase in the rate of occupational fatalities. In total, RTW laws have led to a 14.2% increase in occupational mortality through decreased unionisation.
Conclusion These findings illustrate and quantify the protective effect of unions on workers’ safety. Policymakers should consider the potentially deleterious effects of anti-union legislation on occupational health.
%B Occupational and Environmental Medicine
%V 75
%P 736-738
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Political Science
%D 2018
%T The Persistent Effect of U.S. Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes
%A Soumyajit Mazumder
%X Protests can engender significant institutional change. Can protests also continue to shape a nation's contemporary politics outside of more formalized channels? I argue that social movements can not only beget institutional change, but also long‐run, attitudinal change. Using the case of the U.S. civil rights movement, I develop a theory in which protests can shift attitudes and these attitudes can persist. Data from over 150,000 survey respondents provide evidence consistent with the theory. Whites from counties that experienced historical civil rights protests are more likely to identify as Democrats and support affirmative action, and less likely to harbor racial resentment against blacks. These individual‐level results are politically meaningful—counties that experienced civil rights protests are associated with greater Democratic Party vote shares even today. This study highlights how social movements can have persistent impacts on a nation's politics.
%B American Journal of Political Science
%V 62
%P 922-935
%G eng
%U https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12384
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2018
%T Political Consequences of Survival Strategies among the Urban Poor
%A Desmond, Matthew
%A Travis, Adam
%X Combining ethnographic and statistical methods, this study identifies interlocking mechanisms that help explain how disadvantaged neighborhoods influence their residents’ political capacity. Support systems that arise in low-income neighborhoods promote social interaction that helps people make ends meet, but these systems also expose residents to heavy doses of adversity, which dampens perceptions of collective political capacity. For the poorest residents of these neighborhoods in particular, the expected positive effect of informal social support is suppressed by the negative effect of perceived trauma. These findings present a micro-level account of poverty, social interaction, and political capacity, one that holds implications for scholarship and public policy on participatory inequality.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 83
%P 869–896
%G eng
%N 5
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociological Science
%D 2018
%T Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities
%A Robert Manduca
%X More than 50 years after the Civil Rights Act, black–white family income disparities in the United States remain almost exactly the same as what they were in 1968. This article argues that a key and underappreciated driver of the racial income gap has been the national trend of rising income inequality. From 1968 to 2016, black–white disparities in family income rank narrowed by almost one-third. But this relative gain was negated by changes to the national income distribution that resulted in rapid income growth for the richest—and most disproportionately white—few percentiles of the country combined with income stagnation for the poor and middle class. But for the rise in income inequality, the median black–white family income gap would have decreased by about 30 percent. Conversely, without the partial closing of the rank gap, growing inequality alone would have increased the racial income gap by 30 percent.
%B Sociological Science
%V 5
%P 182-205
%G eng
%N 8
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Review
%D 2018
%T Team Specific Capital and Innovation
%A Xavier Jaravel
%A Neviana Petkova
%A Alex Bell
%B American Economic Review
%V 108
%P 1034-73
%G eng
%N 4-5
%0 Book
%D 2018
%T Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence
%A Sharkey, Patrick
%X Beginning in the mid-1990s, American cities experienced an astonishing drop in violent crime. By 2014, the United States was safer than it had been in sixty years. Sociologist Patrick Sharkey gathered data from across the country to understand why this happened, and how it changed the nature of urban inequality. He shows that the decline of violence is one of the most important public health breakthroughs of the past several decades, that it has made schools safer places to learn and increased the chances of poor children rising into the middle class. Yet there have been costs, in the abuses and high incarceration rates generated by aggressive policing.
Sharkey puts forth an entirely new approach to confronting violence and urban poverty. At a time when inequality, complacency, and conflict all threaten a new rise in violent crime, and the old methods of policing are unacceptable, the ideas in this book are indispensable.
%I W.W. Norton & Company
%P 256
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Political Behavior
%D 2018
%T Is Running Enough? Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom about Women Candidates
%A Peter BucchianerI
%X The conventional wisdom in the literature on women candidates holds that “when women run, they win as often as men.” This has led to a strong focus in the literature on the barriers to entry for women candidates and significant evidence that these barriers hinder representation. Yet, a growing body of research suggests that some disadvantages persist for Republican women even after they choose to run for office. In this paper, I investigate the aggregate consequences of these disadvantages for general election outcomes. Using a regression discontinuity design, I show that Republican women who win close House primaries lose at higher rates in the general election than Republican men. This nomination effect holds throughout the 1990s despite a surge in Republican voting starting in 1994. I find no such effect for Democratic women and provide evidence that a gap in elite support explains part of the cross-party difference.
%B Political Behavior
%V 40
%P 435-466
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2018
%T Racialized legal status as a social determinant of health
%A Asad L. Asad
%A Matthew Clair
%X This article advances the concept of racialized legal status (RLS) as an overlooked dimension of social stratification with implications for racial/ethnic health disparities. We define RLS as a social position based on an ostensibly race-neutral legal classification that becomes colored through its disparate impact on racial/ethnic minorities. To illustrate the implications of RLS for health and health disparities in the United States, we spotlight existing research on two cases: criminal status and immigration status. We offer a conceptual framework that outlines how RLS shapes disparities through (1) direct effects on those who hold a legal status and (2) spillover effects on racial/ethnic in-group members, regardless of these individuals' own legal status. Direct effects of RLS operate by marking an individual for material and symbolic exclusion. Spillover effects result from the vicarious experiences of those with social proximity to marked individuals, as well as the discredited meanings that RLS constructs around racial/ethnic group members. We conclude by suggesting multiple avenues for future research that considers RLS as a mechanism of social inequality with fundamental effects on health.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 199
%P 19-28
%8 10 Mar 2017
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Law & Social Inquiry
%D 2018
%T Jurors' Subjective Experiences of Deliberations in Criminal Cases
%A Alix S. Winter
%A Matthew Clair
%X Research on jury deliberations has largely focused on the implications of deliberations for criminal defendants' outcomes. In contrast, this article considers jurors' outcomes by integrating subjective experience into the study of deliberations. We examine whether jurors' feelings that they had enough time to express themselves vary by jurors' gender, race, or education. Drawing on status characteristics theory and a survey of more than 3,000 real-world jurors, we find that the majority of jurors feel that they had enough time to express themselves. However, blacks and Hispanics, and especially blacks and Hispanics with less education, are less likely to feel so. Jurors' verdict preferences do not account for these findings. Our findings have implications for status characteristics theory and for legal cynicism among members of lower-status social groups.
%B Law & Social Inquiry
%V 43
%P 1458-1490
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Legal Studies
%D 2017
%T Discretionary Disenfranchisement: The Case of Legal Financial Obligations
%A Marc Meredith
%A Michael Morse
%X Conditioning voting rights on the payment of legal financial obligations (LFOs) may be unconstitutional if there are no exceptions for indigency. Appellate courts, though, generally have upheld felon-disenfranchisement laws that withhold voting rights until all fees, fines, and restitution are paid in full. These decisions, however, have been made with limited evidence available about the type, burden, and disparate impact of criminal debt. We address this by detailing who owes LFOs, how much they owe, and for what purpose using representative statewide samples in Alabama. The median amount of LFOs assessed to discharged felons across all of their criminal convictions is $3,956, more than half of which stems from court fees. As a result, most ex-felons remain disenfranchised after completing their sentences. People who are disproportionately indigent—blacks and those utilizing a public defender—are even less likely to be eligible to restore their voting rights.
%B Journal of Legal Studies
%V 46
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of International Economics
%D 2017
%T Measuring the natural rate of interest: International trends and determinants
%A Kathryn Holston
%A Thomas Lobach
%A John C. Williams
%X U.S. estimates of the natural rate of interest – the real short-term interest rate that would prevail absent transitory disturbances – have declined dramatically since the start of the global financial crisis. For example, estimates using the Laubach–Williams (2003) model indicate the natural rate in the United States fell to close to zero during the crisis and has remained there into 2016. Explanations for this decline include shifts in demographics, a slowdown in trend productivity growth, and global factors affecting real interest rates. This paper applies the Laubach–Williams methodology to the United States and three other advanced economies – Canada, the Euro Area, and the United Kingdom. We find that large declines in trend GDP growth and natural rates of interest have occurred over the past 25 years in all four economies. These country-by-country estimates are found to display a substantial amount of comovement over time, suggesting an important role for global factors in shaping trend growth and natural rates of interest.
%B Journal of International Economics
%V 108
%P S59-S75
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Book
%D 2017
%T Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty
%A Frank Baumgartner
%A Marty Davidson
%A Kaneesha R. Johnson
%A Arvind Krishnamurthy
%A Colin Wilson
%I Oxford University Press
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Science
%D 2017
%T The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940
%A Chetty, Raj
%A David Grusky
%A Maximilian Hell
%A Nathaniel Hendren
%A Robert Manduca
%A Jimmy Narang
%X We estimated rates of “absolute income mobility”—the fraction of children who earn more than their parents—by combining data from U.S. Census and Current Population Survey cross sections with panel data from de-identified tax records. We found that rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. Increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates alone cannot restore absolute mobility to the rates experienced by children born in the 1940s. However, distributing current GDP growth more equally across income groups as in the 1940 birth cohort would reverse more than 70% of the decline in mobility. These results imply that reviving the “American dream” of high rates of absolute mobility would require economic growth that is shared more broadly across the income distribution.
%B Science
%V 356
%P 398-406
%G eng
%N 6336
%0 Book
%D 2017
%T The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life
%A Tomás R. Jiménez
%X The immigration patterns of the last three decades have profoundly changed nearly every aspect of life in the United States. What do those changes mean for the most established Americans—those whose families have been in the country for multiple generations?
The Other Side of Assimilation shows that assimilation is not a one-way street. Jiménez explains how established Americans undergo their own assimilation in response to profound immigration-driven ethnic, racial, political, economic, and cultural shifts. Drawing on interviews with a race and class spectrum of established Americans in three different Silicon Valley cities, The Other Side of Assimilation illuminates how established Americans make sense of their experiences in immigrant-rich environments, in work, school, public interactions, romantic life, and leisure activities. With lucid prose, Jiménez reveals how immigration not only changes the American cityscape but also reshapes the United States by altering the outlooks and identities of its most established citizens.
%I University of California Press
%C Oakland, CA
%P 296
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2017
%T (Re)Generating Inclusive Cities: Poverty and Planning in Urban North America
%A Zuberi, Dan
%A Ariel Judith Taylor
%X As suburban expansion declines, cities have become essential economic, cultural and social hubs of global connectivity. This book is about urban revitalization across North America, in cities including San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, Vancouver, New York and Seattle. Infrastructure projects including the High Line and Big Dig are explored alongside urban neighborhood creation and regeneration projects such as Hunters Point in San Francisco and Regent Park in Toronto. Today, these urban regeneration projects have evolved in the context of unprecedented neoliberal public policy and soaring real estate prices. Consequently, they make a complex contribution to urban inequality and poverty trends in many of these cities, including the suburbanization of immigrant settlement and rising inequality.
(Re)Generating Inclusive Cities wrestles with challenging but important questions of urban planning, including who benefits and who loses with these urban regeneration schemes, and what policy tools can be used to mitigate harm? We propose a new way forward for understanding and promoting better urban design practices in order to build more socially just and inclusive cities and to ultimately improve the quality of urban life for all.
%I Routledge
%P 144
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Sociology
%D 2017
%T Does Consumer Demand Reproduce Inequality? High-Income Consumers, Vertical Differentiation, and the Wage Structure
%A Nathan Wilmers
%X This article considers the effects on the wage structure of the U.S. economy’s growing reliance on demand from high-income consumers. Relative to the mass consumers that defined the post–World War II U.S. economy, high-income consumers are willing to pay for high-quality and high-status products. These spending patterns split producers into up-market and down-market segments and stoke winner-take-all dynamics among up-market producers. Economic dependence on high-income consumers could thus lead to a new form of industrial segmentation, based on vertical differentiation by product quality or status. To test these predictions, data from consumer expenditure and wage surveys are linked using input-output tables and used to fit variance function regressions. Results show that industries more dependent on high-income consumers have greater wage inequality. This analysis identifies a new structural source of wage inequality not considered in previous research: the increasingly unequal composition of consumer demand reproduces wage inequality.
%B American Journal of Sociology
%V 123
%P 178-231
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Book
%D 2017
%T Someone To Talk To
%A Small, Mario Luis
%X When people are facing difficulties, they often feel the need for a confidant-a person to vent to or a sympathetic ear with whom to talk things through. How do they decide on whom to rely? In theory, the answer seems obvious: if the matter is personal, they will turn to a spouse, a family member, or someone close. In practice, what people actually do often belies these expectations.
In Someone To Talk To, Mario L. Small follows a group of graduate students as they cope with stress, overwork, self-doubt, failure, relationships, children, health care, and poverty. He unravels how they decide whom to turn to for support. And he then confirms his findings based on representative national data on adult Americans.
Small shows that rather than consistently rely on their "strong ties," Americans often take pains to avoid close friends and family, as these relationships are both complex and fraught with expectations. In contrast, they often confide in "weak ties," as the need for understanding or empathy trumps their fear of misplaced trust. In fact, people may find themselves confiding in acquaintances and even strangers unexpectedly, without having reflected on the consequences.
Someone To Talk To reveals the often counter-intuitive nature of social support, helping us understand questions as varied as why a doctor may hide her depression from friends, how a teacher may come out of the closet unintentionally, why people may willingly share with others their struggle to pay the rent, and why even competitors can be among a person's best confidants.
Amid a growing wave of big data and large-scale network analysis, Small returns to the basic questions of who we connect with, how, and why, upending decades of conventional wisdom on how we should think about and analyze social networks.
%I Oxford University Press
%P 288
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Yale Law Journal
%D 2017
%T Police Reform and the Dismantling of Legal Estrangement
%A Monica C. Bell
%X In police reform circles, many scholars and policymakers diagnose the frayed relationship between police forces and the communities they serve as a problem of illegitimacy, or the idea that people lack confidence in the police and thus are unlikely to comply or cooperate with them. The core proposal emanating from this illegitimacy diagnosis is procedural justice, a concept that emphasizes police officers’ obligation to treat people with dignity and respect, behave in a neutral, nonbiased way, exhibit an intention to help, and give them voice to express themselves and their needs, largely in the context of police stops. This Essay argues that legitimacy theory offers an incomplete diagnosis of the policing crisis, and thus de-emphasizes deeper structural, group-centered approaches to the problem of policing. The existing police regulatory regime encourages large swaths of American society to see themselves as existing within the law’s aegis but outside its protection. This Essay critiques the reliance of police decision makers on a simplified version of legitimacy and procedural justice theory. It aims to expand the predominant understanding of police mistrust among African Americans and the poor, proposing that legal estrangement offers a better lens through which scholars and policymakers can understand and respond to the current problems of policing. Legal estrangement is a theory of detachment and eventual alienation from the law’s enforcers, and it reflects the intuition among many people in poor communities of color that the law operates to exclude them from society. Building on the concepts of legal cynicism and anomie in sociology, the concept of legal estrangement provides a way of understanding the deep concerns that motivate today’s police reform movement and points toward structural approaches to reforming policing.
%B Yale Law Journal
%V 126
%P 2054-2150
%G eng
%N 7
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2017
%T Wealth Inequality and Accumulation
%A Alexandra Killewald
%A Fabian T. Pfeffer
%A Jared N. Schachner
%X Research on wealth inequality and accumulation and the data upon which it relies have expanded substantially in the twenty-first century. Although the field has experienced rapid growth, conceptual and methodological challenges remain. We begin by discussing two major unresolved methodological concerns facing wealth research: how to address challenges to causal inference posed by wealth’s cumulative nature and how to operationalize net worth, given its highly skewed distribution. Next, we provide an overview of data sources available for wealth research. To underscore the need for continued empirical attention to net worth, we review trends in wealth levels and inequality and evaluate wealth’s distinctiveness as an indicator of social stratification. We then review recent empirical evidence on the effects of wealth on other social outcomes, as well as research on the determinants of wealth. We close with a list of promising avenues for future research on wealth, its causes, and its consequences.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 43
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Peace Research
%D 2017
%T Autocracies and the international sources of cooperation
%A Soumyajit Mazumder
%X Under what conditions do autocracies peacefully settle disputes? Existing studies tend to focus on the domestic factors that shape conflict initiation. In this article, I show how domestic institutions interact with international institutions to produce more cooperative outcomes. Particularly, this study argues that as autocracies become more central in the network of liberal institutions such as preferential trade agreements (PTAs), they are less likely to initiate a militarized interstate dispute (MID). As a state becomes more democratic, the effect of centrality within the PTA network on the peaceful dispute settlement dissipates. This is because greater embeddedness in the PTA regime is associated with enhanced transparency for autocracies, which allows autocracies to mitigate ex ante informational problems in dispute resolution. Using a dataset of MID initiation from 1965 to 1999, this study finds robust empirical support for the aforementioned hypothesis. Moreover, the results are substantively significant. Further analysis into the causal mechanisms at work provides evidence in favor of the information mechanism. Autocrats who are more embedded in the PTA network tend to have higher levels of economic transparency and economic transparency itself is associated with lower rates of conflict initiation. The results suggest that an autocrat’s structural position within the international system can help to peacefully settle its disputes.
%B Journal of Peace Research
%V 54
%P 412-426
%G eng
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343316687018
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Sociology
%D 2017
%T One Egalitarianism or Several? Two Decades of Gender-Role Attitude Change in Europe
%A Carly R. Knight
%A Brinton, Mary C.
%X This article challenges the implicit assumption of many cross-national studies that gender-role attitudes fall along a single continuum between traditional and egalitarian. The authors argue that this approach obscures theoretically important distinctions in attitudes and renders analyses of change over time incomplete. Using latent class analysis, they investigate the multidimensional nature of gender-role attitudes in 17 postindustrial European countries. They identify three distinct varieties of egalitarianism that they designate as liberal egalitarianism, egalitarian familism, and flexible egalitarianism. They show that while traditional gender-role attitudes have precipitously and uniformly declined in accordance with the “rising tide” narrative toward greater egalitarianism, the relative prevalence of different egalitarianisms varies markedly across countries. Furthermore, they find that European nations are not converging toward one dominant egalitarian model but rather, remain differentiated by varieties of egalitarianism.
%B American Journal of Sociology
%V 122
%P 1485-1532
%G eng
%N 5
%0 Journal Article
%J RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
%D 2017
%T Urban Income Inequality and the Great Recession in Sunbelt Form: Disentangling Individual and Neighborhood-Level Change in Los Angeles
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%A Jared N. Schachner
%A Robert L. Mare
%X New social transformations within and beyond the cities of classic urban studies challenge prevailing accounts of spatial inequality. This paper pivots from the Rust Belt to the Sunbelt accordingly, disentangling persistence and change in neighborhood median income and concentrated income extremes in Los Angeles County. We first examine patterns of change over two decades starting in 1990 for all Los Angeles neighborhoods. We then analyze an original longitudinal study of approximately six hundred Angelenos from 2000 to 2013, assessing the degree to which contextual changes in neighborhood income arise from neighborhood-level mobility or individual residential mobility. Overall we find deep and persistent inequality among both neighborhoods and individuals. Contrary to prior research, we also find that residential mobility does not materially alter neighborhood economic conditions for most race, ethnic, and income groups. Our analyses lay the groundwork for a multilevel theoretical framework capable of explaining spatial inequality across cities and historical eras.
%B RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
%V 3
%P 102-128
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Forces
%D 2017
%T Labor Unions as Activist Organizations: A Union Power Approach to Estimating Union Wage Effects
%A Nathan Wilmers
%X Amid the long decline of US unions, research on union wage effects has struggled with selection problems and inadequate theory. I draw on the sociology of labor to argue that unions use non-market sources of power to pressure companies into raising wages. This theory of union power implies a new test of union wage effects: does union activism have an effect on wages that is not reducible to workers’ market position? Two institutional determinants of union activity are used to empirically isolate the wage effect of union activism from labor market conditions: increased union revenue from investment shocks and increased union activity leading up to union officer elections. Instrumental variable analysis of panel data from the Department of Labor shows that a 1 percent increase in union spending increases a proxy for union members’ wages between 0.15 percent and 0.30 percent. These wage effects are larger in years of active collective bargaining, and when unions increase spending in ways that could pressure companies. The results indicate that non-market sources of union power can affect workers’ wages and that even in a period of labor weakness unions still play a role in setting wages for their members.
%B Social Forces
%V 95
%P 1451-1478
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
%D 2017
%T Can States Take Over and Turn Around School Districts? Evidence From Lawrence, Massachusetts
%A Beth E. Schueler,
%A Joshua S. Goodman
%A David J. Deming
%X The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around struggling schools, with federal school improvement money required to fund evidence-based policies. Most research on turnarounds has focused on individual schools, whereas studies of district-wide turnarounds have come from relatively exceptional settings and interventions. We study a district-wide turnaround of a type that may become more common under ESSA, an accountability-driven state takeover of Massachusetts’s Lawrence Public Schools (LPS). A differences-in-differences framework comparing LPS to demographically similar districts not subject to state takeover shows that the turnaround’s first 2 years produced sizable achievement gains in math and modest gains in reading. We also find no evidence that the turnaround resulted in slippage on nontest score outcomes and suggestive evidence of positive effects on grade progression among high school students. Intensive small-group instruction over vacation breaks may have led to particularly large achievement gains for participating students.
%B Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
%V 39
%P 311-332
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Book
%D 2017
%T Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes
%A Vanessa S. Williamson
%X Conventional wisdom holds that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Bringing together national survey data with in-depth interviews, Read My Lips presents a surprising picture of tax attitudes in the United States. Vanessa Williamson demonstrates that Americans view taxpaying as a civic responsibility and a moral obligation. But they worry that others are shirking their duties, in part because the experience of taxpaying misleads Americans about who pays taxes and how much. Perceived "loopholes" convince many income tax filers that a flat tax might actually raise taxes on the rich, and the relative invisibility of the sales and payroll taxes encourages many to underestimate the sizable tax contributions made by poor and working people.
Americans see being a taxpayer as a role worthy of pride and respect, a sign that one is a contributing member of the community and the nation. For this reason, the belief that many Americans are not paying their share is deeply corrosive to the social fabric. The widespread misperception that immigrants, the poor, and working-class families pay little or no taxes substantially reduces public support for progressive spending programs and undercuts the political standing of low-income people. At the same time, the belief that the wealthy pay less than their share diminishes confidence that the political process represents most people.
Upending the idea of Americans as knee-jerk opponents of taxes, Read My Lips examines American taxpaying as an act of political faith. Ironically, the depth of the American civic commitment to taxpaying makes the failures of the tax system, perceived and real, especially potent frustrations.
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton, NJ
%P 304
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality
%D 2017
%T The Historical Origins of Global Inequality
%A Ellora Derenoncourt
%E Heather Boushey
%E J. Bradford DeLong
%E Marshall Steinbaum
%X Economist Ellora Derenoncourt addresses the deep historical and institutional origins of wealth inequality, which she argues may be driven by what Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson identify as "extractive" versus "inclusive" institutions. Derenoncourt's core point is that while institutions underlying wealth accumulation may be inclusive for "citizens", or those individuals granted rights in the body politic, they may at the same time be extractive for "subjects," including slaves, members of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups, and others not accorded equal legal status. Derenoncourt discusses several examples of this dichotomy playing out, with documented ramifications for the current distribution of wealth.
%B After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality
%I Harvard University Press
%C Cambridge
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B Oxford Handbook of U.S. Judicial Behavior
%D 2017
%T New Measurement Technologies: A Review and Application to Nuremberg and Justice Jackson
%A Daniel Ho
%A Michael Morse
%E Lee Epstein
%E Stefanie A. Lindquist
%B Oxford Handbook of U.S. Judicial Behavior
%I Oxford University Press
%C Oxford
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
%D 2017
%T Voting But For the Law: Evidence from Virginia on Photo Identification Requirements
%A Daniel J. Hopkins
%A Marc Meredith
%A Michael Morse
%A Sarah Smith
%A Jesse Yonder
%X One contentious question in contemporary election administration is the impact of voter identification requirements. We study a Virginia law which allows us to isolate the impact of requiring voters to show photo identification. Using novel, precinct-level data, we find that the percentage of registered voters without a driver's license and over age 85 are both positively associated with the number of provisional ballots cast due to lacking a photo ID. To examine the law's impact on turnout, we associate precinct-level demographics with the change in turnout between the 2013 gubernatorial and 2014 midterm elections. All else equal, turnout was higher in places where more active registered voters lacked a driver's license. This unexpected relationship might be explained by a targeted Department of Elections mailing, suggesting that the initial impact of voter ID laws may hinge on efforts to notify voters likely to be affected.
%B Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
%V 14
%P 79-128
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
%D 2017
%T Surprising Ripple Effects: How Changing the SAT Score-Sending Policy for Low-Income Students Impacts College Access and Success
%A Michael Hurwitz
%A Preeya P. Mbekeani
%A Margaret M. Nipson
%A Lindsay C. Page
%X Subtle policy adjustments can induce relatively large “ripple effects.” We evaluate a College Board initiative that increased the number of free SAT score reports available to low-income students and changed the time horizon for using these score reports. Using a difference-in-differences analytic strategy, we estimate that targeted students were roughly 10 percentage points more likely to send eight or more reports. The policy improved on-time college attendance and 6-year bachelor’s completion by about 2 percentage points. Impacts were realized primarily by students who were competitive candidates for 4-year college admission. The bachelor’s completion impacts are larger than would be expected based on the number of students driven by the policy change to enroll in college and to shift into more selective colleges. The unexplained portion of the completion effects may result from improvements in nonacademic fit between students and the postsecondary institutions in which they enroll.
%B Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
%V 39
%P 77-103
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J American Journal of Political Science
%D 2017
%T Cities as Lobbyists
%A Rebecca Goldstein
%A Hye Young You
%X Individual cities are active interest groups in lobbying the federal government, and yet the dynamics of this intergovernmental lobbying are poorly understood. We argue that preference incongruence between city and its parent state government leads to under-provision of public goods, and cities need to appeal to the federal government for additional resources. We provide evidence for this theory using a dataset of over 13,800 lobbying disclosures filed by cities with populations over 25,000 between 1999 and 2012. Income inequality and ethnic fragmentation are also highly related to federal lobbying activities. Using an instrumental variables analysis of earmark and Recovery Act grant data, we show that each dollar a city spends on lobbying generates substantial returns.
%B American Journal of Political Science
%V 61
%P 864-876
%8 Oct 2017
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis
%D 2017
%T Effects of a Summer Mathematics Intervention for Low-Income Children: A Randomized Experiment
%A Kathleen Lynch
%A Kim, James S.
%X Prior research suggests that summer learning loss among low-income children contributes to income-based gaps in achievement and educational attainment. We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high-poverty urban public school district. Children in the third to ninth grade (N = 263) were randomly assigned to an offer of an online summer mathematics program, the same program plus a free laptop computer, or the control group. Being randomly assigned to the program plus laptop condition caused children to experience significantly higher reported levels of summer home mathematics engagement relative to their peers in the control group. Treatment and control children performed similarly on distal measures of academic achievement. We discuss implications for future research.
%B Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis
%V 39
%P 31-53
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Urban Affairs Review
%D 2017
%T Concentrated Foreclosure Activity and Distressed Properties in New York City
%A Perkins, Kristin L.
%A Michael J. Lear
%A Elyzabeth Gaumer
%X Recent research suggests that foreclosures have negative effects on homeowners and neighborhoods. We examine the association between concentrated foreclosure activity and the risk of a property with a foreclosure filing being scheduled for foreclosure auction in New York City. Controlling for individual property and sociodemographic characteristics of the neighborhood, being located in a tract with a high number of auctions following the subject property’s own foreclosure filing is associated with a significantly higher probability of scheduled foreclosure auction for the subject property. Concentration of foreclosure filings prior to the subject property’s own foreclosure filing is associated with a lower probability of scheduled foreclosure auction. Concentrated foreclosure auctions in the tract prior to a subject property’s own filing is not significantly associated with the probability of scheduled foreclosure auction. The implications for geographic targeting of foreclosure policy interventions are discussed.
%B Urban Affairs Review
%V 53
%P 868-897
%G eng
%N 5
%0 Journal Article
%J RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
%D 2016
%T Does Your Home Make You Wealthy?
%A Alexandra Killewald
%A Bryan, Brielle
%X Estimating the lifetime wealth consequences of homeownership is complicated by ongoing events, such as divorce or inheritance, that may shape both homeownership decisions and later-life wealth. We argue that prior research that has not accounted for these dynamic selection processes has overstated the causal effect of homeownership on wealth. Using NLSY79 data and marginal structural models, we find that each additional year of homeownership increases midlife wealth in 2008 by about $6,800, more than 25 percent less than estimates from models that do not account for dynamic selection. Hispanic and African American wealth benefits from each homeownership year are 62 percent and 48 percent as large as those of whites, respectively. Homeownership remains wealth-enhancing in 2012, but shows smaller returns. Our results confirm homeownership’s role in wealth accumulation and that variation in both homeownership rates and the wealth benefits of homeownership contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in midlife wealth holdings.
%B RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
%V 2
%P 110–128
%G eng
%N 6
%0 Journal Article
%J Connecticut Law Review
%D 2016
%T The Growing and Broad Nature of Legal Financial Obligations: Evidence from Court Records in Alabama
%A Claire Greenberg
%A Marc Meredith
%A Michael Morse
%X In 2010, Harriet Cleveland was imprisoned in Montgomery, Alabama for failing to pay thousands of dollars in fines and fees stemming from routine traffic violations. More than thirty years after a series of Supreme Court rulings outlawed debtor's prisons, Ms. Cleveland's case brought national attention to both the sheer amount of lega lfinancial obligations (LFOs) that could be accrued, even in cases without a criminal conviction, and the potential consequences of non-payment. But it has been nearly impossible to know how common Ms. Cleveland's experience is because of a general lack of individual-level data on the incidence and payback of LFOs, particularly for non-felonies.
In this vein, we gather about two hundred thousand court records from Alabama over the last two decades to perform the most comprehensive exploration of the assessments and payback of LFOs to date across an entire state. Consistent with conventional wisdom, we demonstrate that the median LFOs attached to a case with a felony conviction nearly doubled between 1995 and 2005, after which it has remained roughly steady. But a felony-centric view of criminal justice underestimates the extent of increasing LFOs in the United States. Our systematic comparison of LFOs in felony, misdemeanor, and traffic cases across Alabama demonstrates how the signficant debt Ms. Cleveland accumulated for a series of minor traffic offenses is not such an aberration. We show that only a minority of LFOs are assessed in cases where someone was convicted of a felony and incarcerated. Rather, most LFOs are assessed in cases without an imposed sentence, in cases with a misdemeanor or traffic violation, or even in cases that did not result in a conviction at all. These case records also reveal substantial heterogeneity in the assessment of LFOs-both within and across local judicial districts-even in cases in which defendants were convicted on exactly the same charge.
%B Connecticut Law Review
%V 48
%P 1079-1120
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J AERA Open
%D 2016
%T Predicting Freshman Grade Point Average From College Admissions Test Scores and State High School Test Scores
%A Koretz, Daniel
%A Yu, Carol
%A Preeya P. Mbekeani
%A Langi, Meredith
%A Dhaliwal, Tasmin
%A Braslow, David
%X The current focus on assessing “college and career readiness” raises an empirical question: How do high school tests compare with college admissions tests in predicting performance in college? We explored this using data from the City University of New York and public colleges in Kentucky. These two systems differ in the choice of college admissions test, the stakes for students on the high school test, and demographics. We predicted freshman grade point average (FGPA) from high school GPA and both college admissions and high school tests in mathematics and English. In both systems, the choice of tests had only trivial effects on the aggregate prediction of FGPA. Adding either test to an equation that included the other had only trivial effects on prediction. Although the findings suggest that the choice of test might advantage or disadvantage different students, it had no substantial effect on the over- and underprediction of FGPA for students classified by race-ethnicity or poverty.
%B AERA Open
%I SAGE Publications
%V 2
%P 1-13
%G eng
%N 4
%R 10.1177/2332858416670601
%0 Book Section
%B From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Translating Science of Learning for Teachers
%D 2016
%T Teaching for Good Work, Teaching as Good Work
%A Amelia Peterson
%A Danny Mucinskas
%A Gardner, Howard
%E Jared Cooney Horvath
%E Jason M. Lodge
%E John Hattie
%B From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Translating Science of Learning for Teachers
%I Routledge
%C London and New York, NY
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Review
%D 2016
%T Creative Destruction and Subjective Wellbeing
%A Aghion, Philippe
%A Ufuk Akcigit
%A Deaton, Angus
%A Roulet, Alexandra
%X In this paper we analyze the relationship between turnover-driven growth and subjective wellbeing. Our model of innovation-led growth and unemployment predicts that: (i) the effect of creative destruction on expected individual welfare should be unambiguously positive if we control for unemployment, less so if we do not; (ii) job creation has a positive and job destruction has a negative impact on wellbeing; (iii) job destruction has a less negative impact in US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) within states with more generous unemployment insurance policies; (iv) job creation has a more positive effect on individuals that are more forward-looking. The empirical analysis using cross-sectional MSA-level and individual-level data provide empirical support to these predictions.
%B American Economic Review
%V 106
%P 3869-97
%G eng
%N 12
%0 Journal Article
%J Du Bois Review
%D 2016
%T The Racial Ecology of Lead Poisoning: Toxic Inequality in Chicago Neighborhoods, 1995-2013
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%A Alix S. Winter
%X This paper examines the racial ecology of lead exposure as a form of environmental inequity, one with both historical and contemporary significance. Drawing on comprehensive data from over one million blood tests administered to Chicago children from 1995-2013 and matched to over 2300 geographic block groups, we address two major questions: (1) What is the nature of the relationship between neighborhood-level racial composition and variability in children’s elevated lead prevalence levels? And (2) what is the nature of the relationship between neighborhood-level racial composition and rates of change in children’s prevalence levels over time within neighborhoods? We further assess an array of structural explanations for observed racial disparities, including socioeconomic status, type and age of housing, proximity to freeways and smelting plants, and systematic observations of housing decay and neighborhood disorder. Overall, our theoretical framework posits lead toxicity as a major environmental pathway through which racial segregation has contributed to the legacy of Black disadvantage in the United States. Our findings support this hypothesis and show alarming racial disparities in toxic exposure, even after accounting for possible structural explanations. At the same time, however, our longitudinal results show the power of public health policies to reduce racial inequities.
%B Du Bois Review
%V 13
%P 1-23
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Book
%D 2016
%T Children of the Great Recession
%A Wimer, Christopher
%E Irwin Garfinkel
%E Sara McLanahan
%X Many working families continue to struggle in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the deepest and longest economic downturn since the Great Depression. In Children of the Great Recession, a group of leading scholars draw from a unique study of nearly 5,000 economically and ethnically diverse families in twenty cities to analyze the effects of the Great Recession on parents and young children. By exploring the discrepancies in outcomes between these families—particularly between those headed by parents with college degrees and those without—this timely book shows how the most disadvantaged families have continued to suffer as a result of the Great Recession.
Several contributors examine the recession’s impact on the economic well-being of families, including changes to income, poverty levels, and economic insecurity. Irwin Garfinkel and Natasha Pilkauskas find that in cities with high unemployment rates during the recession, incomes for families with a college-educated mother fell by only about 5 percent, whereas families without college degrees experienced income losses three to four times greater. Garfinkel and Pilkauskas also show that the number of non-college-educated families enrolled in federal safety net programs—including Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or food stamps)—grew rapidly in response to the Great Recession.
Other researchers examine how parents’ physical and emotional health, relationship stability, and parenting behavior changed over the course of the recession. Janet Currie and Valentina Duque find that while mothers and fathers across all education groups experienced more health problems as a result of the downturn, health disparities by education widened. Daniel Schneider, Sara McLanahan and Kristin Harknett find decreases in marriage and cohabitation rates among less-educated families, and Ronald Mincy and Elia de la Cruz-Toledo show that as unemployment rates increased, nonresident fathers’ child support payments decreased. William Schneider, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Jane Waldfogel show that fluctuations in unemployment rates negatively affected parenting quality and child well-being, particularly for families where the mother did not have a four-year college degree.
Although the recession affected most Americans, Children of the Great Recession reveals how vulnerable parents and children paid a higher price. The research in this volume suggests that policies that boost college access and reinforce the safety net could help protect disadvantaged families in times of economic crisis.
%I Russell Sage Foundation
%C New York
%P 248
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2016
%T Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets
%A Boustan, Leah Platt
%X From 1940 to 1970, nearly four million black migrants left the American rural South to settle in the industrial cities of the North and West. Competition in the Promised Land provides a comprehensive account of the long-lasting effects of the influx of black workers on labor markets and urban space in receiving areas.
Traditionally, the Great Black Migration has been lauded as a path to general black economic progress. Leah Boustan challenges this view, arguing instead that the migration produced winners and losers within the black community. Boustan shows that migrants themselves gained tremendously, more than doubling their earnings by moving North. But these new arrivals competed with existing black workers, limiting black–white wage convergence in Northern labor markets and slowing black economic growth. Furthermore, many white households responded to the black migration by relocating to the suburbs. White flight was motivated not only by neighborhood racial change but also by the desire on the part of white residents to avoid participating in the local public services and fiscal obligations of increasingly diverse cities.
Employing historical census data and state-of-the-art econometric methods, Competition in the Promised Land revises our understanding of the Great Black Migration and its role in the transformation of American society.
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton, NJ
%P 216
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2016
%T Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel
%A Lamont, Michèle
%A Moraes Silva, Graziella
%A Jessica S. Welburn
%A Guetzkow, Joshua
%A Mizrachi, Nissim
%A Herzog, Hanna
%A Reis, Elisa
%X Racism is a common occurrence for members of marginalized groups around the world. Getting Respect illuminates their experiences by comparing three countries with enduring group boundaries: the United States, Brazil and Israel. The authors delve into what kinds of stigmatizing or discriminatory incidents individuals encounter in each country, how they respond to these occurrences, and what they view as the best strategy—whether individually, collectively, through confrontation, or through self-improvement—for dealing with such events.
This deeply collaborative and integrated study draws on more than four hundred in-depth interviews with middle- and working-class men and women residing in and around multiethnic cities—New York City, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv—to compare the discriminatory experiences of African Americans, black Brazilians, and Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as Israeli Ethiopian Jews and Mizrahi (Sephardic) Jews. Detailed analysis reveals significant differences in group behavior: Arab Palestinians frequently remain silent due to resignation and cynicism while black Brazilians see more stigmatization by class than by race, and African Americans confront situations with less hesitation than do Ethiopian Jews and Mizrahim, who tend to downplay their exclusion. The authors account for these patterns by considering the extent to which each group is actually a group, the sociohistorical context of intergroup conflict, and the national ideologies and other cultural repertoires that group members rely on.
Getting Respect is a rich and daring book that opens many new perspectives into, and sets a new global agenda for, the comparative analysis of race and ethnicity.
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton, NJ
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%D 2016
%T The base rate principle and the fairness principle in social judgment
%A Jack Cao
%A Mahzarin R. Banaji
%X Meet Jonathan and Elizabeth. One person is a doctor and the other is a nurse. Who is the doctor? When nothing else is known, the base rate principle favors Jonathan to be the doctor and the fairness principle favors both individuals equally. However, when individuating facts reveal who is actually the doctor, base rates and fairness become irrelevant, as the facts make the correct answer clear. In three experiments, explicit and implicit beliefs were measured before and after individuating facts were learned. These facts were either stereotypic (e.g., Jonathan is the doctor, Elizabeth is the nurse) or counterstereotypic (e.g., Elizabeth is the doctor, Jonathan is the nurse). Results showed that before individuating facts were learned, explicit beliefs followed the fairness principle, whereas implicit beliefs followed the base rate principle. After individuating facts were learned, explicit beliefs correctly aligned with stereotypic and counterstereotypic facts. Implicit beliefs, however, were immune to counterstereotypic facts and continued to follow the base rate principle. Having established the robustness and generality of these results, a fourth experiment verified that gender stereotypes played a causal role: when both individuals were male, explicit and implicit beliefs alike correctly converged with individuating facts. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate that explicit beliefs uphold fairness and incorporate obvious and relevant facts, but implicit beliefs uphold base rates and appear relatively impervious to counterstereotypic facts.
%B Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
%V 113
%8 7475-7480
%G eng
%N 27
%0 Journal Article
%J City and Community
%D 2016
%T Are Landlords Overcharging Housing Voucher Holders?
%A Desmond, Matthew
%A Perkins, Kristin L.
%X The structure of rental markets coupled with the design of the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP), the largest federal housing subsidy for low-income families in the United States, provides the opportunity to overcharge voucher holders. Applying hedonic regression models to a unique data set of Milwaukee renters combined with administrative records, we find that vouchered households are charged between $51 and $68 more in monthly rent than unassisted renters in comparable units and neighborhoods. Overcharging voucher holders costs taxpayers an estimated $3.8 million each year in Milwaukee alone, the equivalent of supplying 620 additional families in that city with housing assistance. These findings suggest that the HCVP could be made more cost-effective—and therefore more expansive—if overcharging were prevented.
%B City and Community
%V 15
%P 137-162
%8 Jun 2016
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Book
%D 2016
%T The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities
%A Natasha K. Warikoo
%X We’ve heard plenty from politicians and experts on affirmative action and higher education, about how universities should intervene—if at all—to ensure a diverse but deserving student population. But what about those for whom these issues matter the most? In this book, Natasha K. Warikoo deeply explores how students themselves think about merit and race at a uniquely pivotal moment: after they have just won the most competitive game of their lives and gained admittance to one of the world’s top universities.
What Warikoo uncovers—talking with both white students and students of color at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford—is absolutely illuminating; and some of it is positively shocking. As she shows, many elite white students understand the value of diversity abstractly, but they ignore the real problems that racial inequality causes and that diversity programs are meant to solve. They stand in fear of being labeled a racist, but they are quick to call foul should a diversity program appear at all to hamper their own chances for advancement. The most troubling result of this ambivalence is what she calls the “diversity bargain,” in which white students reluctantly agree with affirmative action as long as it benefits them by providing a diverse learning environment—racial diversity, in this way, is a commodity, a selling point on a brochure. And as Warikoo shows, universities play a big part in creating these situations. The way they talk about race on campus and the kinds of diversity programs they offer have a huge impact on student attitudes, shaping them either toward ambivalence or, in better cases, toward more productive and considerate understandings of racial difference.
Ultimately, this book demonstrates just how slippery the notions of race, merit, and privilege can be. In doing so, it asks important questions not just about college admissions but what the elite students who have succeeded at it—who will be the world’s future leaders—will do with the social inequalities of the wider world.
%I University of Chicago Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2016
%T Urban Citizenship and American Democracy
%E Amy Bridges
%E Fortner, Michael Javen
%X After decades of being defined by crisis and limitations, cities are popular again—as destinations for people and businesses, and as subjects of scholarly study. Urban Citizenship and American Democracy contributes to this new scholarship by exploring the origins and dynamics of urban citizenship in the United States. Written by both urban and nonurban scholars using a variety of methodological approaches, the book examines urban citizenship within particular historical, social, and policy contexts, including issues of political participation, public school engagement, and crime policy development. Contributors focus on enduring questions about urban political power, local government, and civic engagement to offer fresh theoretical and empirical accounts of city politics and policy, federalism, and American democracy.
%I State University of New York Press
%G eng
%0 Generic
%D 2016
%T Putting America to Work, Where? The Limits of Infrastructure Construction as a Locally-Targeted Employment Policy
%A Andy Garin
%X Is infrastructure construction an effective way to boost employment in distressed local labor markets? I use new geographically-detailed data on highway construction funded by the American Recovery and Recovery Act to study the relationship between construction work and local employment growth. I show that the method for allocating funds across space facilitates a plausible selection-on-observables strategy. However, I find a precisely-estimated zero effect of spending on road construction employment–or other employment–in the locale of the construction site. Reported data on vendors reveal this is because the majority of contractors–selected by competitive bidding–commute from other local labor markets. I also find no robust effect in the locales of the contractors’ offices, but argue that this source of variation does not capture an economically meaningful local demand shock. I conclude that infrastructure construction is not effective as a way to stimulate local labor markets in the short-run so long as projects are allocated by competitive bidding.
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Law and Society Review
%D 2016
%T Situational Trust: How Disadvantaged Mothers Reconceive Legal Cynicism
%A Monica C. Bell
%X Research has shown that legal cynicism is pervasive among residents of poor, black neighborhoods. However, controlling for crime rates, these residents call police at higher rates than whites and residents of middle-class neighborhoods, and ethnographic research suggests that mothers in particular sometimes exact social control over partners and children through police notification. Given these findings, how might researchers better understand how legal cynicism and occasional reliance on police fit together? Drawing on interviews with poor African-American mothers in Washington, DC, this article develops an alternative conception of cultural orientations about law: situational trust. This concept emphasizes micro-level dynamism in cultural conceptions of the police, expanding the literature on police trust by emphasizing situational contingency. Mothers deploy at least four alternative strategies that produce moments of trust: officer exceptionalism, domain specificity, therapeutic consequences, and institutional navigation. These strategies shed light on the contextual meanings of safety and legitimacy.
%B Law and Society Review
%V 50
%P 314-347
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J UCLA Law Review
%D 2016
%T Citizens Coerced: A Legislative Fix for Workplace Political Intimidation Post-Citizens United
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%A Paul Secunda
%X This Essay examines the growing threat of workplace political coercion, such as when employers attempt to threaten or coerce their workers into supporting firm-favored issues, policies, or political candidates. We describe, for the first time, the prevalence of such coercion, and propose a relatively straightforward legislative fix that would protect private-sector workers from the risk of political intimidation from their employers.
This Essay responds to an earlier piece published by Professor Secunda in the YLJ Forum that described how the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FECopened up the possibility for employers to hold mandatory “captive audience” meetings for workers, in which managers could endorse candidates for elected office. Managers, Secunda noted, could discipline workers who refused to participate in such firm-sponsored partisan activities. Accordingly, Secunda recommended federal legislation that would ban the use of mandatory political meetings in the private sector.
At the time that Secunda’s Essay was published, however, we lacked any systematic evidence of the prevalence or characteristics of employer political coercion in the American workforce, and so his recommendations could not be tailored to the specifics of employer political recruitment. New survey research from an ongoing academic project from Mr. Hertel-Fernandez, however, has provided precisely that information, documenting the extent to which workers have experienced political coercion from their employers. Our present Essay summarizes that survey evidence, using the empirical data to craft a bipartisan policy proposal that would address employer political coercion in the private sector by adding political opinions and beliefs to the list of protected classes in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lastly, we draw on survey research to describe why this proposal could attract bipartisan political support.
%B UCLA Law Review
%V 64
%8 May 2016
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J American Behavioral Scientist
%D 2016
%T Network Effects in Mexico—U.S. Migration: Disentangling the Underlying Social Mechanisms
%A Garip, Filiz
%A Asad L. Asad
%X Scholars have long noted how migration streams, once initiated, obtain a self-feeding character. Studies have connected this phenomenon, called the cumulative causation of migration, to expanding social networks that link migrants in destination to individuals in origin. While extant research has established a positive association between individuals’ ties to prior migrants and their migration propensities, seldom have researchers interrogated how multiple social mechanisms—as well as exposure to common environmental factors—might account for these interdependencies. This article uses a mixed-methods strategy to identify the social mechanisms underlying the network effects in Mexico–U.S. migration. Three types of social mechanisms are identified, which all lead to network effects: (a) social facilitation, which is at work when network peers such as family or community members provide useful information or help that reduces the costs or increases the benefits of migration; (b) normative influence, which operates when network peers offer social rewards or impose sanctions to encourage or discourage migration; and (c) network externalities, which are at work when prior migrants generate a pool of common resources that increase the value or reduce the costs of migration for potential migrants. The authors first use large-sample survey data from the Mexican Migration Project to establish the presence of network effects and then rely on 138 in-depth interviews with migrants and their family members in Mexico to identify the social mechanisms underlying these network effects. The authors thus provide a deeper understanding of migration as a social process, which they argue is crucial for anticipating and responding to future flows.
%B American Behavioral Scientist
%V 60
%P 1168-1193
%G eng
%N 10
%0 Journal Article
%J Studies in American Political Development
%D 2016
%T Explaining Durable Business Coalitions in U.S. Politics: Conservatives and Corporate Interests across America's Statehouses
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%X Scholars of business mobilization emphasize that national, cross-sector employer associations are difficult to create and maintain in decentralized pluralist polities like the United States. This article considers an unusual case of a U.S. business group—the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—that has succeeded in creating a durable coalition of diverse firms and conservative political activists. This group has emerged since the 1970s as an important infrastructure for facilitating corporate involvement in the policymaking process across states. Assessing variation within this group over time through both its successes and missteps, I show the importance of organizational strategies for cementing political coalitions between otherwise fractious political activists and corporate executives from diverse industries. A shadow comparison between ALEC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce further serves to reinforce the importance of organizational structure for business association management. My findings engage with literatures in both American business history and comparative political economy, underscoring the difficulties of forming business coalitions in liberal political economies while also showing how savvy political entrepreneurs can still successfully unite otherwise fragmented corporate interests. These conclusions, in turn, have implications for our understanding of business mobilization and corporate influence in politics.
%B Studies in American Political Development
%V 30
%P 1-18
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Criminology
%D 2016
%T How Judges Think About Racial Disparities: Situational Decision-Making in the Criminal Justice System
%A Matthew Clair
%A Alix S. Winter
%X Researchers have theorized how judges’ decision-making may result in the disproportionate presence of Blacks and Latinos in the criminal justice system. Yet, we have little evidence about how judges make sense of these disparities and what, if anything, they do to address them. By drawing on 59 interviews with state judges in a Northeastern state, we describe, and trace the implications of, judges’ understandings of racial disparities at arraignment, plea hearings, jury selection, and sentencing. Most judges in our sample attribute disparities, in part, to differential treatment by themselves and/or other criminal justice officials, whereas some judges attribute disparities only to the disparate impact of poverty and differences in offending rates. To address disparities, judges report employing two categories of strategies: noninterventionist and interventionist. Noninterventionist strategies concern only a judge's own differential treatment, whereas interventionist strategies concern other actors’ possible differential treatment, as well as the disparate impact of poverty and facially neutral laws. We reveal how the use of noninterventionist strategies by most judges unintentionally reproduces disparities. Through our examination of judges’ understandings of racial disparities throughout the court process, we enhance understandings of American racial inequality and theorize a situational approach to decision-making in organizational contexts.
%B Criminology
%V 54
%P 332-359
%8 May 2016
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J International Journal of Research and Method in Education
%D 2016
%T Getting 'What Works' working: Building blocks for the integration of experimental and improvement science
%A Amelia Peterson
%X As a systemic approach to improving educational practice through research, ‘What Works’ has come under repeated challenge from alternative approaches, most recently that of improvement science. While ‘What Works’ remains a dominant paradigm for centralized knowledge-building efforts, there is need to understand why this alternative has gained support, and what it can contribute. I set out how the core elements of experimental and improvement science can be combined into a strategy to raise educational achievement with the support of evidence from randomized experiments. Central to this combined effort is a focus on identifying and testing mechanisms for improving teaching and learning, as applications of principles from the learning sciences. This article builds on current efforts to strengthen approaches to evidence-based practice and policy in a range of international contexts. It provides a foundation for those who aim to avoid another paradigm war and to accelerate international discussions on the design of systemic education research infrastructure and funding.
%B International Journal of Research and Method in Education
%V 39
%P 299-313
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Politics
%D 2016
%T Intergroup Behavioral Strategies as Contextually Determined: Experimental Evidence from Israel
%A Ryan D. Enos
%A Gidron, Noam
%X Why are the negative effects of social diversity more pronounced in some places than in others? What are the mechanisms underlying the relationship between diversity and discriminatory behaviors and why do they vary in prevalence and strength across locations? Experimental research has made advances in examining these questions by testing for differences in behavior when interacting with individuals from different groups. At the same time, research in American and comparative politics has demonstrated that attitudes toward other groups are a function of context. Uniting these two lines of research, we show that discriminatory behaviors are strongly conditioned by the ways in which groups are organized in space. We examine this claim in the context of intra-Jewish conflict in Israel, using original data compiled through multi-site lab-in-the-field experiments and survey responses collected across 20 locations.
%B Journal of Politics
%V 78
%P 851-867
%G eng
%U http://people.hmdc.harvard.edu/~renos/papers/EnosGidron/EnosGidronAppendix.pdf
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Forces
%D 2016
%T The Populist Style in American Politics: Presidential Campaign Rhetoric, 1952-1996
%A Bonikowski, Bart
%A Gidron, Noam
%X This paper examines populist claims-making in US presidential elections. We define populism as a discursive strategy that juxtaposes the virtuous populace with a corrupt elite and views the former as the sole legitimate source of political power. In contrast to past research, we argue that populism is best operationalized as an attribute of political claims rather than a stable ideological property of political actors. This analytical strategy allows us to systematically measure how the use of populism is affected by a variety of contextual factors. Our empirical case consists of 2,406 speeches given by American presidential candidates between 1952 and 1996, which we code using automated text analysis. Populism is shown to be a common feature of presidential politics among both Democrats and Republicans, but its prevalence varies with candidates' relative positions in the political field. In particular, we demonstrate that the probability of a candidate's reliance on populist claims is directly proportional to his distance from the center of power (in this case, the presidency). This suggests that populism is primarily a strategic tool of political challengers, and particularly those who have legitimate claims to outsider status. By examining temporal changes in populist claims-making on the political left and right, its variation across geographic regions and field positions, and the changing content of populist frames, our paper contributes to the debate on populism in modern democracies, while integrating field theory with the study of institutional politics.
%B Social Forces
%V 94
%P 1593-1621
%8 Jun 2016
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociology of Education
%D 2016
%T (No) Harm in Asking: Class, Acquired Cultural Capital, and Academic Engagement at an Elite University
%A Anthony Abraham Jack
%X How do undergraduates engage authority figures in college? Existing explanations predict class-based engagement strategies. Using in-depth interviews with 89 undergraduates at an elite university, I show how undergraduates with disparate precollege experiences differ in their orientations toward and strategies for engaging authority figures in college. Middle-class undergraduates report being at ease in interacting with authority figures and are proactive in doing so. Lower-income undergraduates, however, are split. The privileged poor—lower-income undergraduates who attended boarding, day, and preparatory high schools—enter college primed to engage professors and are proactive in doing so. By contrast, the doubly disadvantaged—lower-income undergraduates who remained tied to their home communities and attended local, typically distressed high schools—are more resistant to engaging authority figures in college and tend to withdraw from them. Through documenting the heterogeneity among lower-income undergraduates, I show how static understandings of individuals’ cultural endowments derived solely from family background homogenize the experiences of lower-income undergraduates. In so doing, I shed new light on the cultural underpinnings of education processes in higher education and extend previous analyses of how informal university practices exacerbate class differences among undergraduates.
%B Sociology of Education
%V 89
%P 1-15
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J American Political Science Review
%D 2016
%T Parties, Brokers and Voter Mobilization: How Turnout Buying Depends Upon the Party's Capacity to Monitor Brokers
%A Horacio Larreguy
%A John Marshall
%A Pablo Querubin
%X Despite its prevalence, little is known about when parties buy turnout. We emphasize the problem of parties monitoring local brokers with incentives to shirk. Our model suggests that parties extract greater turnout buying effort from their brokers where they can better monitor broker performance and where favorable voters would not otherwise turn out. Exploiting exogenous variation in the number of polling stations—and thus electoral information about broker performance—in Mexican electoral precincts, we find that greater monitoring capacity increases turnout and votes for the National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Consistent with our theoretical predictions, the effect of monitoring capacity on PRI votes varies nonlinearly with the distance of voters to the polling station: it first increases because rural voters—facing larger costs of voting—generally favor the PRI, before declining as the cost of incentivizing brokers increases. This nonlinearity is not present for the PAN, who stand to gain less from mobilizing rural voters.
%B American Political Science Review
%V 110
%P 160-179
%G eng
%N 01
%0 Journal Article
%J Public Opinion Quarterly
%D 2016
%T Sticker Shock: How Information Affects Citizen Support for Increased Public School Funding
%A Beth Schueler
%A West, Martin R
%X This study examines the role of information in shaping public opinion in the context of support for education spending. While there is broad public support for increasing government funding for public schools, Americans tend to underestimate what is currently spent. We embed a series of experiments in a nationally representative survey administered in 2012 (n= 2,993) to examine whether informing citizens about current levels of education spending alters public opinion about whether funding should increase. Providing information on per-pupil spending in a respondent’s local school district reduces the probability that he or she will express support for increasing spending by 22 percentage points on average. Informing respondents about state-average teacher salaries similarly depresses support for salary increases. These effects are larger among respondents who underestimate per-pupil spending and teacher salaries by a greater amount, consistent with the idea that the observed changes in opinion are driven, at least in part, by informational effects, as opposed to priming alone.
%B Public Opinion Quarterly
%V 80
%P 90-113
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Book Section
%B Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
%D 2016
%T Beyond the Culture of Poverty: Meaning-Making Among Low-Income Populations Around Family, Neighborhood, and Work
%A Monica Bell
%A Nathan Fosse
%A Lamont, Michèle
%A Eva Rosen
%X Understanding social life requires attending to the cultural dimension of reality. Yet, when it comes to the study of low-income populations, factoring in culture has often been a contentious project. This is because explaining poverty through culture has been equated with blaming the poor for their predicaments. Scholars have moved the debate forward by making a case for integrating culture in explanations of poverty. This requires drawing on analytical devices such as frames, narratives, institutions, repertoires, and boundaries that capture intersubjective definitions of reality. These concepts have been useful for identifying a diversity of frameworks through which low-income populations understand their reality and develop paths for mobility. This entry builds on these contributions by exploring the place of culture in studies of American low-income populations in three important areas of social life: family, neighborhood, and work.
%B Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
%I Wiley-Blackwell
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Labor Economics
%D 2016
%T Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston’s Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice
%A Joshua D. Angrist
%A Sarah R. Cohodes
%A Susan M. Dynarski
%A Parag A. Pathak
%A Christopher R. Walters
%X We use admissions lotteries to estimate effects of attendance at Boston's charter high schools on college preparation and enrollment. Charter schools increase pass rates on Massachusetts' high-stakes exit exam, with large effects on the likelihood of qualifying for a state-sponsored scholarship. Charter attendance boosts SAT scores sharply, and also increases the likelihood of taking an Advanced Placement (AP) exam, the number of AP exams taken, and AP scores. Charters induce a substantial shift from two- to four-year institutions, though the effect on overall college enrollment is modest. Charter effects on college-related outcomes are strongly correlated with gains on earlier tests.
%B Journal of Labor Economics
%I NBER Working Paper 19275
%V 34
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Education Finance and Policy
%D 2016
%T Teaching to the Student: Charter School Effectiveness in Spite of Perverse Incentives
%A Sarah Cohodes
%X Recent work has shown that Boston charter schools raise standardized test scores more than their traditional school counterparts. Critics of charter schools argue that charter schools create those achievement gains by focusing exclusively on test preparation, at the expense of deeper learning. In this paper, I test that critique by estimating the impact of charter school attendance on subscales of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System and examining them for evidence of score inflation. If charter schools are teaching to the test to a greater extent than their counterparts, one would expect to see higher scores on commonly tested standards, higher-stakes subjects, and frequently tested topics. Despite incentives to reallocate effort away from less frequently tested content to highly tested content, and to coach to item type, I find no evidence of this type of test preparation. Boston charter middle schools perform consistently across all standardized test subscales.
%B Education Finance and Policy
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Labor Economics
%D 2016
%T Unhappy Cities
%A Edward L. Glaeser
%A Joshua D. Gottlieb
%A Ziv, Oren
%X There are persistent differences in self-reported subjective well-being across US metropolitan areas, and residents of declining cities appear less happy than others. Yet some people continue to move to these areas, and newer residents appear to be as unhappy as longer-term residents. While historical data on happiness are limited, the available facts suggest that cities that are now declining were also unhappy in their more prosperous past. These facts support the view that individuals do not maximize happiness alone but include it in the utility function along with other arguments. People may trade off happiness against other competing objectives.
%B Journal of Labor Economics
%V 34
%8 April 2016
%G eng
%N S2
%0 Journal Article
%D 2015
%T Compounded Deprivation in the Transition to Adulthood: The Intersection of Racial and Economic Inequality Among Chicagoans, 1995–2013
%A Perkins, Kristin L.
%A Sampson, Robert J.
%X This paper investigates acute, compounded, and persistent deprivation in a representative sample of Chicago adolescents transitioning to young adulthood. Our investigation, based on four waves of longitudinal data from 1995 to 2013, is motivated by three goals. First, we document the prevalence of individual and neighborhood poverty over time, especially among whites, blacks, and Latinos. Second, we explore compounded deprivation, describing the extent to which study participants are simultaneously exposed to individual and contextual forms of deprivation—including material deprivation (such as poverty) and social-organizational deprivation (for example, low collective efficacy)—for multiple phases of the life course from adolescence up to age thirty-two. Third, we isolate the characteristics that predict transitions out of compounded and persistent poverty. The results provide new evidence on the crosscutting adversities that were exacerbated by the Great Recession and on the deep connection of race to persistent and compounded deprivation in the transition to adulthood.
%V 1
%P 35-54
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Studies in American Political Development
%D 2015
%T Asymmetric Interest Group Mobilization and Party Coalitions in U.S. Tax Politics
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%A Skocpol, Theda
%X Arguments about national tax policy have taken center stage in U.S. politics in recent times, creating acute dilemmas for Democrats. With Republicans locked into antitax agendas for some time, Democrats have recently begun to push back, arguing for maintaining or even increasing taxes on the very wealthy in the name of deficit reduction and the need to sustain funding for public programs. But the Democratic Party as a whole has not been able to find a consistent voice on tax issues. It experienced key defections when large, upward-tilting tax cuts were enacted under President George W. Bush, and the Democratic Party could not control the agenda on debates over continuing those tax cuts even when it enjoyed unified control in Washington, DC, in 2009 and 2010. To explain these cleavages among Democrats, we examine growing pressures from small business owners, a key antitax constituency. We show that organizations claiming to speak for small business have become more active in tax politics in recent decades, and we track the ways in which constituency pressures have been enhanced by feedbacks from federal tax rules that encourage individuals to pass high incomes through legal preferences for the self-employed. Comparing debates over the inception and renewal of the Bush tax cuts, we show how small business organizations and constituencies have divided Democrats on tax issues. Our findings pinpoint the mechanisms that have propelled tax resistance in contemporary U.S. politics, and our analysis contributes to theoretical understandings of the ways in which political parties are influenced by policy feedbacks and by coalitions of policy-driven organized economic interests.
%B Studies in American Political Development
%V 29
%P 235-249
%G eng
%N 2
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2015
%T Toward a Multidimensional Understanding of Culture for Health Interventions
%A Asad L. Asad
%A Kay, Tamara
%X Although a substantial literature examines the relationship between culture and health in myriad individual contexts, a lack of comparative data across settings has resulted in disparate and imprecise conceptualizations of the concept for scholars and practitioners alike. This article examines scholars and practitioners’ understandings of culture in relation to health interventions. Drawing on 169 interviews with officials from three different nongovernmental organizations working on health issues in multiple countries—Partners in Health, Oxfam America, and Sesame Workshop—we examine how these respondents’ interpretations of culture converge or diverge with recent developments in the study of the concept, as well as how these understandings influence health interventions at three different stages—design, implementation, and evaluation—of a project. Based on these analyses, a tripartite definition of culture is built—as knowledge, practice, and change—and these distinct conceptualizations are linked to the success or failure of a project at each stage of an intervention. In so doing, the study provides a descriptive and analytical starting point for scholars interested in understanding the theoretical and empirical relevance of culture for health interventions, and sets forth concrete recommendations for practitioners working to achieve robust improvements in health outcomes.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 144
%P 79-87
%G eng
%U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615301180
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment
%A Fortner, Michael Javen
%X Often seen as a political sop to the racial fears of white voters, aggressive policing and draconian sentencing for illegal drug possession and related crimes have led to the imprisonment of millions of African Americans—far in excess of their representation in the population as a whole. Michael Javen Fortner shows in this eye-opening account that these punitive policies also enjoyed the support of many working-class and middle-class blacks, who were angry about decline and disorder in their communities. Black Silent Majority uncovers the role African Americans played in creating today’s system of mass incarceration.
Current anti-drug policies are based on a set of controversial laws first adopted in New York in the early 1970s and championed by the state’s Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller. Fortner traces how many blacks in New York came to believe that the rehabilitation-focused liberal policies of the 1960s had failed. Faced with economic malaise and rising rates of addiction and crime, they blamed addicts and pushers. By 1973, the outcry from grassroots activists and civic leaders in Harlem calling for drastic measures presented Rockefeller with a welcome opportunity to crack down on crime and boost his political career. New York became the first state to mandate long prison sentences for selling or possessing narcotics.
Black Silent Majority lays bare the tangled roots of a pernicious system. America’s drug policies, while in part a manifestation of the conservative movement, are also a product of black America’s confrontation with crime and chaos in its own neighborhoods.
%I Harvard University Press
%C Cambridge
%G eng
%U http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674743991
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy
%A Chen, Victor Tan
%X Years after the Great Recession, the economy is still weak, and an unprecedented number of workers have sunk into long spells of unemployment. Cut Loose provides a vivid and moving account of the experiences of some of these men and women, through the example of a historically important group: autoworkers. Their well-paid jobs on the assembly lines built a strong middle class in the decades after World War II. But today, they find themselves beleaguered in a changed economy of greater inequality and risk, one that favors the well-educated—or well-connected.
Their declining fortunes in recent decades tell us something about what the white-collar workforce should expect to see in the years ahead, as job-killing technologies and the shipping of work overseas take away even more good jobs. Cut Loose offers a poignant look at how the long-term unemployed struggle in today’s unfair economy to support their families, rebuild their lives, and overcome the shame and self-blame they deal with on a daily basis. It is also a call to action—a blueprint for a new kind of politics, one that offers a measure of grace in a society of ruthless advancement.
%I University of California Press
%C Oakland, California
%G eng
%U http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520283015
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T The Luck of Politics: True Tales of Disaster and Outrageous Fortune
%A Andrew Leigh
%X A delightful look at chance and outrageous fortune
In 1968, John Howard missed out on winning the state seat of Drummoyne by just 420 votes. Howard reflects: ‘I think back how fortunate I was to have lost.’ It left him free to stand for a safe federal seat in 1974 and become one of Australia’s longest-serving prime ministers.
In The Luck of Politics, Andrew Leigh weaves together numbers and stories to show the many ways luck can change the course of political events.
This is a book full of fascinating facts and intriguing findings. Why is politics more like poker than chess? Does the length of your surname affect your political prospects? What about your gender?
And who was our unluckiest politician? Charles Griffiths served as the Labor member for Shortland for 23 years. It was an unusually long career, but alas, his service perfectly coincided with federal Labor’s longest stint out of power: 1949 to 1972!
From Winston Churchill to George Bush, Margaret Thatcher to Paul Keating, this book will persuade you that luck shapes politics – and that maybe, just maybe, we should avoid the temptation to revere the winners and revile the losers.
%I Black, Inc.
%G eng
%U http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/luck-politics
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T Schooling the Next Generation: Creating Success in Urban Elementary Schools
%A Zuberi, Dan
%X Public schools are among the most important institutions in North American communities, especially in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods. At their best, they enable students to overcome challenges like poverty by providing vital literacy and numeracy skills. At their worst, they condemn students to failure, both economically and in terms of preparing them to be active participants in a democratic society.
In Schooling the Next Generation, Dan Zuberi documents the challenges facing ten East Vancouver elementary schools in diverse lower-income communities, as well as the ways their principals, teachers, and parents are overcoming these challenges. Going beyond the façade of standardized test scores, Zuberi identifies the kinds of school and community programs that are making a difference and could be replicated in other schools. At the same time, he calls into question the assumptions behind a test score-driven search for “successful schools.” Focusing on early literacy and numeracy skills mastery, Schooling the Next Generation presents a slate of policy recommendations to help students in urban elementary schools achieve their full potential.
%I University of Toronto Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History
%A Schlozman, Daniel
%X Throughout American history, some social movements, such as organized labor and the Christian Right, have forged influential alliances with political parties, while others, such as the antiwar movement, have not. When Movements Anchor Parties provides a bold new interpretation of American electoral history by examining five prominent movements and their relationships with political parties.
Taking readers from the Civil War to today, Daniel Schlozman shows how two powerful alliances—those of organized labor and Democrats in the New Deal, and the Christian Right and Republicans since the 1970s—have defined the basic priorities of parties and shaped the available alternatives in national politics. He traces how they diverged sharply from three other major social movements that failed to establish a place inside political parties—the abolitionists following the Civil War, the Populists in the 1890s, and the antiwar movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Moving beyond a view of political parties simply as collections of groups vying for preeminence, Schlozman explores how would-be influencers gain influence—or do not. He reveals how movements join with parties only when the alliance is beneficial to parties, and how alliance exacts a high price from movements. Their sweeping visions give way to compromise and partial victories. Yet as Schlozman demonstrates, it is well worth paying the price as movements reorient parties’ priorities.
Timely and compelling, When Movements Anchor Parties demonstrates how alliances have transformed American political parties.
Daniel Schlozman is assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton, NJ
%G eng
%U http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10628.html
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Politics
%D 2015
%T How Legislators Respond to Localized Economic Shocks: Evidence from Chinese Import Competition
%A James J. Feigenbaum
%A Andrew B. Hall
%X We explore the effects of localized economic shocks from trade on roll-call behavior and electoral outcomes in the US House, 1990–2010. We demonstrate that economic shocks from Chinese import competition—first studied by Autor, Dorn, and Hanson—cause legislators to vote in a more protectionist direction on trade bills but cause no change in their voting on all other bills. At the same time, these shocks have no effect on the reelection rates of incumbents, the probability an incumbent faces a primary challenge, or the partisan control of the district. Though changes in economic conditions are likely to cause electoral turnover in many cases, incumbents exposed to negative economic shocks from trade appear able to fend off these effects in equilibrium by taking strategic positions on foreign-trade bills. In line with this view, we find that the effect on roll-call voting is strongest in districts where incumbents are most threatened electorally. Taken together, these results paint a picture of responsive incumbents who tailor their roll-call positions on trade bills to the economic conditions in their districts.
%B Journal of Politics
%V 77
%P 1012-1030
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Service Review
%D 2015
%T Forced Relocation and Residential Instability among Urban Renters
%A Desmond, Matthew
%A Carl Gershenson
%A Kiviat, Barbara
%X Abstract Residential instability often brings about other forms of instability in families, schools, and communities that compromise the life chances of adults and children. Social scientists have found that low-income families move frequently without fully understanding why. Drawing on novel data of more than 1,000 Milwaukee renters, this article explores the relationship between forced relocation and residential instability. It finds that low incomes are associated with higher rates of mobility due to poorer renters’ greater exposure to forced displacement. Not only do higher rates of formal and informal eviction, landlord foreclosure, and building condemnation directly increase the mobility of poorer renters, but forced displacement also increases subsequent unforced mobility. A forced move often compels renters to accept substandard housing, which drives them to soon move again. This article reveals mechanisms of residential mobility among low-income renters, identifies previously undocumented consequences of forced displacement, and develops a more comprehensive model of residential instability and urban inequality.
%B Social Service Review
%I The University of Chicago Press
%V 89
%P pp. 227-262
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B College Students’ Experiences of Power and Marginality: Sharing Spaces and Negotiating Differences
%D 2015
%T Crisscrossing Boundaries: Variation in Experiences with Class Marginality among Lower-Income, Black Undergraduates at an Elite College
%A Anthony Abraham Jack
%E Elizabeth Lee
%E Chaise LaDousa
%X Scholars argue that lower-income undergraduates’ transition from segregated, distressed communities to college fosters heightened senses of difference and alienation in college. I call undergraduates socialized and educated in these contexts the Doubly Disadvantaged. Extant research, however, overlooks undergraduates who participate in pipeline initiatives that place lower-income students in elite boarding, day, and preparatory schools, permitting them greater exposure to wealth, whites, and privilege. I call undergraduates who travel this alternative route the Privileged Poor. This chapter investigates how differences in the Doubly Disadvantaged and Privileged Poor’s precollege experiences influence their experiences with class marginality and culture shock in college.
%B College Students’ Experiences of Power and Marginality: Sharing Spaces and Negotiating Differences
%I Routledge
%C New York
%P 83-101
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociology of Education
%D 2015
%T Do Differences in School Quality Matter More Than We Thought? Educational Opportunity in the 21st Century
%A Jennifer L. Jennings
%A David Deming
%A Christopher Jencks
%A Maya Lopuch
%A Beth Schueler
%B Sociology of Education
%V 88
%P 56-82
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Urban Affairs Review
%D 2015
%T The Social Construction of a Gentrifying Neighborhood: Reifying and Redefining Identity and Boundaries in Inequality
%A Jackelyn Hwang
%X This study draws upon cognitive maps and interviews with 56 residents living in a gentrifying area to examine how residents socially construct neighborhoods. Most minority respondents, regardless of socioeconomic status and years of residency, defined their neighborhood as a large and inclusive spatial area, using a single name and conventional boundaries, invoking the area’s black cultural history, and often directly responding to the alternative way residents defined their neighborhoods. Both longterm and newer white respondents defined their neighborhood as smaller spatial areas and used a variety of names and unconventional boundaries that excluded areas that they perceived to have lower socioeconomic status and more crime. The large and inclusive socially constructed neighborhood was eventually displaced. These findings shed light on how the internal narratives of neighborhood identity and boundaries are meaningfully tied to a broader structure of inequality and shape how neighborhood identities and boundaries change or remain.
%B Urban Affairs Review
%P 1-31
%G eng
%U http://uar.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/27/1078087415570643.full.pdf+html
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Forces
%D 2015
%T Racial and Spatial Targeting: Segregation and Subprime Lending within and across Metropolitan Areas
%A Jackelyn Hwang
%A Michael Hankinson
%A Kreg Steven Brown
%X Recent studies find that high levels of black-white segregation increased rates of foreclosures and subprime lending across US metropolitan areas during the housing crisis. These studies speculate that segregation created distinct geographic markets that enabled subprime lenders and brokers to leverage the spatial proximity of minorities to disproportionately target minority neighborhoods. Yet, the studies do not explicitly test whether the concentration of subprime loans in minority neighborhoods varied by segregation levels. We address this shortcoming by integrating neighborhood-level data and spatial measures of segregation to examine the relationship between segregation and subprime lending across the 100 largest US metropolitan areas. Controlling for alternative explanations of the housing crisis, we find that segregation is strongly associated with higher concentrations of subprime loans in clusters of minority census tracts but find no evidence of unequal lending patterns when we examine minority census tracts in an aspatial way. Moreover, residents of minority census tracts in segregated metropolitan areas had higher likelihoods of receiving subprime loans than their counterparts in less segregated metropolitan areas. Our findings demonstrate that segregation played a pivotal role in the housing crisis by creating relatively larger areas of concentrated minorities into which subprime loans could be efficiently and effectively channeled. These results are consistent with existing but untested theories on the relationship between segregation and the housing crisis in metropolitan areas.
%B Social Forces
%V 93
%P 1081-1108
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T Do facts matter?: Information and misinformation in American politics
%A Hochschild, Jennifer L.
%A Einstein, Katherine Levine
%K Decision making -- Political aspects.
%K Democracy -- United States.
%K Judgment -- Political aspects.
%K Political participation -- United States.
%I University of Oklahoma Press
%C Norman
%@ 9780806146867
%G eng
%< Includes bibliographical references and index.
%0 Journal Article
%J American Political Science Review
%D 2015
%T What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials
%A Faller, Julie
%A Nathan, Noah
%A White, Ariel
%X Do street-level bureaucrats discriminate in the services they provide to constituents? We use a field experiment to measure differential information provision about voting by local election administrators in the United States. We contact over 7,000 election officials in 48 states who are responsible for providing information to voters and implementing voter ID laws. We find that officials provide different information to potential voters of different putative ethnicities. Emails sent from Latino aliases are significantly less likely to receive any response from local election officials than non-Latino white aliases and receive responses of lower quality. This raises concerns about the effect of voter ID laws on access to the franchise and about bias in the provision of services by local bureaucrats more generally.
%B American Political Science Review
%G eng
%U http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9462412&fileId=S0003055414000562&utm_source=First_View&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=PSR
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
%D 2015
%T Complex Tax Incentives
%A Johannes Abeler
%A Simon Jäger
%X How does tax complexity affect people’s reaction to tax changes? To answer this question, we conduct an experiment in which subjects work for a piece rate and face taxes. One treatment features a simple, the other a complex tax system. The payoff-maximizing output level and the incentives around this optimum are, however, identical across treatments. We introduce the same sequence of additional taxes in both treatments. Subjects in the complex treatment underreact to new taxes; some ignore new taxes entirely. The underreaction is stronger for subjects with lower cognitive ability. Contrary to predictions from models of rational inattention, subjects are equally likely to ignore large or small incentive changes.
%B American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
%V 7
%P 1-28
%G eng
%U http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jaeger/files/abeler_jaeger_2015_complex_tax_incentives_0.pdf?m=1438731722
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2015
%T When Does Education Matter? The Protective Effect of Education for Cohorts Graduating in Bad Times
%A David M Cutler
%A Huang, Wei
%A Adriana Lleras-Muney
%X Using Eurobarometer data, we document large variation across European countries in education gradients in income, self-reported health, life satisfaction, obesity, smoking and drinking. While this variation has been documented previously, the reasons why the effect of education on income, health and health behaviors varies is not well understood. We build on previous literature documenting that cohorts graduating in bad times have lower wages and poorer health for many years after graduation, compared to those graduating in good times. We investigate whether more educated individuals suffer smaller income and health losses as a result of poor labor market conditions upon labor market entry. We confirm that a higher unemployment rate at graduation is associated with lower income, lower life satisfaction, greater obesity, more smoking and drinking later in life. Further, education plays a protective role for these outcomes, especially when unemployment rates are high: the losses associated with poor labor market outcomes are substantially lower for more educated individuals. Variation in unemployment rates upon graduation can potentially explain a large fraction of the variance in gradients across different countries.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 127
%P 63-73
%G eng
%U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614004961
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Labor Economics
%D 2015
%T Collaborating with People Like Me: Ethnic Co-authorship within the US
%A Richard B. Freeman
%A Huang, Wei
%X By examining the ethnic identity of authors in over 2.5 million scientific papers written by US-based authors from 1985 to 2008, we find that persons of similar ethnicity coauthor together more frequently than predicted by their proportion among authors. The greater homophily is associated with publication in lower-impact journals and with fewer citations. Meanwhile, papers with authors in more locations and with longer reference lists get published in higher-impact journals and receive more citations. These findings suggest that diversity in inputs by author ethnicity, location, and references leads to greater contributions to science as measured by impact factors and citations.
%B Journal of Labor Economics
%V 33
%P S289-S318
%8 Jul 2015
%G eng
%N S1
%0 Journal Article
%J Population and Environment
%D 2015
%T Contexts of Reception, Post-Disaster Migration, and Socioeconomic Mobility
%A Asad L. Asad
%X Current theories conceptualize return migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as an individual-level assessment of costs and benefits. Since relocation is cost prohibitive, return migration is thought to be unlikely for vulnerable populations. However, recent analyses of longitudinal survey data suggest that these individuals are likely to return to New Orleans over time despite achieving socioeconomic gains in the post-disaster location. I extend the “context of reception” approach from the sociology of immigration and draw on longitudinal data from the Resilience in the Survivors of Katrina Project to demonstrate how institutional, labor market, and social contexts influence the decision to return. Specifically, I show how subjective comparisons of the three contexts between origin and destination, perceived experiences of discrimination within each context, and changing contexts over time explain my sample’s divergent migration and mobility outcomes. I conclude with implications for future research on, and policy responses to, natural disasters.
%B Population and Environment
%V 36
%P 279-310
%G eng
%U http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11111-014-0221-4
%N 3
%0 Book Section
%B Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences
%D 2015
%T Migrant Networks
%A Garip, Filiz
%A Asad L. Asad
%X Migrant networks—webs of social ties between migrants in destination and individuals in origin—are a key determinant of the magnitude and direction of migration flows, as well as migrants’ adaptation outcomes. The increasing emphasis on migrant networks represents a new approach to migration research, which until the late 1980s, had been dominated by economic or political explanations of migration. This entry summarizes findings on migrant networks from relevant areas of research in anthropology, sociology, demography and economics; identifies the promising lines of inquiry recently undertaken; and points to key issues for future research, such as understanding how migrant networks impact migration behavior and migrants’ experiences. Such research into the specific mechanisms of social transmission will need to engage with the on-going discussions on networks effects and their identification in the social science literature at large, and will necessarily require the interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers.
%B Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences
%I Wiley
%P 1-13
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Economic Inquiry
%D 2015
%T Do ABCs Get More Citations Than XYZs?
%A Huang, Wei
%X Using a sample of US-based scientific journal articles, I examine the relationship between author surname initials and paper citations, finding that the papers with first authors whose surname initials appear earlier in the alphabet get more citations, and that this effect does not exist for non-first authors. Further analysis shows that the alphabetical order effect is stronger in those fields with longer reference lists, and that such alphabetical bias exists among citations by others and not for self-citations. In addition, estimates also reveal that the alphabetical order effect is stronger when the length of reference lists in citing papers is longer. These findings suggest that the order in reference lists plays an important role in the alphabetical bias.
%B Economic Inquiry
%V 53
%P 773-789
%G eng
%U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.12125/abstract
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T The Cultural Matrix : Understanding Black Youth
%E Patterson, Orlando
%E Fosse, Ethan
%X The Cultural Matrix seeks to unravel a uniquely American paradox: the socioeconomic crisis, segregation, and social isolation of disadvantaged black youth, on the one hand, and their extraordinary integration and prominence in popular culture on the other. Despite school dropout rates over 40 percent, a third spending time in prison, chronic unemployment, and endemic violence, black youth are among the most vibrant creators of popular culture in the world. They also espouse several deeply-held American values. To understand this conundrum, the authors bring culture back to the forefront of explanation, while avoiding the theoretical errors of earlier culture-of-poverty approaches and the causal timidity and special pleading of more recent ones. There is no single black youth culture, but a complex matrix of cultures—adapted mainstream, African-American vernacular, street culture, and hip-hop—that support and undermine, enrich and impoverish young lives. Hip-hop, for example, has had an enormous influence, not always to the advantage of its creators. However, its muscular message of primal honor and sensual indulgence is not motivated by a desire for separatism but by an insistence on sharing in the mainstream culture of consumption, power, and wealth. This interdisciplinary work draws on all the social sciences, as well as social philosophy and ethnomusicology, in a concerted effort to explain how culture, interacting with structural and environmental forces, influences the performance and control of violence, aesthetic productions, educational and work outcomes, familial, gender, and sexual relations, and the complex moral life of black youth.
%I Harvard University Press
%C Cambridge
%@ 9780674728752
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2015
%T It's not like I'm poor: How working families make ends meet in a post-welfare world
%A Halpern-Meekin, Sarah
%A Edin, Kathryn
%A Tach, Laura
%A Sykes, Jennifer
%K Public Welfare – United States – History – 20th Century
%K Tax Credits – United States
%K Working Poor – United States – History – 20th Century
%I University of California Press
%C Oakland, California
%@ 9780520275348
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T Law and Neuroscience
%A Owen D. Jones
%A Jeffrey D. Schall
%A Francis X. Shen
%I Aspen Publishers
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T The Economics of Just About Everything : The hidden reasons for our curious choices and surprising successes
%A Andrew Leigh
%X Did you know that another 10 cm of height boosts your income by thousands of dollars per year? Or that a boy born in January is nearly twice as likely to play first grade rugby league as a boy born in December? Or that natural disasters attract more foreign aid if they happen on a slow news day? And that a perfectly clean desk can be as inefficient as a messy one?
%I Allen & Unwin
%C Sydney
%@ 9781743314715 : 174331471X 9781743314715
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T Democracy, Inequality and Corruption
%A You, Jong-sung
%I Cambridge University Press
%@ 9781107078406
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
%D 2014
%T Administrative Burden: Learning, Psychological, and Compliance Costs in Citizen-State Interactions
%A Moynihan, Donald
%A Pamela Herd
%A Hope Harvey
%X This article offers two theoretical contributions. First, we develop the concept of administrative burden as an important variable in understanding how citizens experience the state. Administrative burden is conceptualized as a function of learning, psychological, and compliance costs that citizens experience in their interactions with government. Second, we argue that administrative burden is a venue of politics, that is, the level of administrative burden placed on an individual, as well as the distribution of burden between the state and the individual, will often be a function of deliberate political choice rather than simply a product of historical accident or neglect. The opaque nature of administrative burdens may facilitate their use as forms of “hidden politics,” where significant policy changes occur without broad political consideration. We illustrate this argument via an analysis of the evolution of Medicaid policies in the state of Wisconsin. Across three Governorships, the level of burden evolved in ways consistent with the differing political philosophies of each Governor, with federal actors playing a secondary but important role in shaping burden in this intergovernmental program. We conclude by sketching a research agenda centered on administrative burden.
%B Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social SciencesAnnals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences
%D 2014
%T The Family-Go-Round: Family Complexity and Father Involvement from a Father's Perspective
%A Tach, Laura
%A Edin, Kathryn
%A Hope Harvey
%A Bryan, Brielle
%X Men who have children with several partners are often assumed to be “deadbeats” who eschew their responsibilities to their children. Using data from the nationally representative National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort (NLSY-97), we show that most men in complex families intensively parent the children of one mother while being less involved, or not involved at all, with children by others. Repeated qualitative interviews with 110 low-income noncustodial fathers reveal that men in complex families often engage with and provide, at least to some degree, for all of the biological and stepchildren who live in one mother’s household. These activities often exceed those extended to biological children living elsewhere. Interviews also show that by devoting most or all of their resources to the children of just one mother, men in complex families feel successful as fathers even if they are not intensively involved with their other biological children.
%B Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social SciencesAnnals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences
%V 654
%P 169-184
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2014
%T Divergent Pathways of Gentrification: Racial Inequality and the Social Order of Renewal in Chicago Neighborhoods
%A Jackelyn Hwang
%A Robert J. Sampson
%X Gentrification has inspired considerable debate, but direct examination of its uneven evolution across time and space is rare. We address this gap by developing a conceptual framework on the social pathways of gentrification and introducing a method of systematic social observation using Google Street View to detect visible cues of neighborhood change. We argue that a durable racial hierarchy governs residential selection and, in turn, gentrifying neighborhoods. Integrating census data, police records, prior street-level observations, community surveys, proximity to amenities, and city budget data on capital investments, we find that the pace of gentrification in Chicago from 2007 to 2009 was negatively associated with the concentration of blacks and Latinos in neighborhoods that either showed signs of gentrification or were adjacent and still disinvested in 1995. Racial composition has a threshold effect, however, attenuating gentrification when the share of blacks in a neighborhood is greater than 40 percent. Consistent with theories of neighborhood stigma, we also find that collective perceptions of disorder, which are higher in poor minority neighborhoods, deter gentrification, while observed disorder does not. These results help explain the reproduction of neighborhood racial inequality amid urban transformation.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 79
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Qualitative Sociology
%D 2014
%T Winning to Learn, Learning to Win: Evaluative Frames and Practices in Urban Debate
%A Asad L. Asad
%A Monica C. Bell
%X Sociologists of (e)valuation have devoted considerable attention to understanding differences in evaluative practices across a number of fields. Yet, little is understood about how individuals learn about and navigate multivalent valid group styles within a single setting. As a social phenomenon, many accept how central processes of evaluation are to everyday life. Accordingly, scholars have attempted to link research on evaluation to processes of inequality. Nevertheless, the sociology of evaluation only has tenuous, often implicit connections to literature on inequality and disadvantage. This article addresses these two gaps. Drawing on over two hundred hours of ethnographic fieldwork in an urban high school debate league (“League”), twenty-seven semi-structured interviews with League judges, and archival data, we illustrate how high school policy debate judges employ evaluative frames and link them to the implementation of evaluative practices in a disadvantaged setting. We show that the cultural meanings that emerge within the evaluation process—in this case, urban uplift and competition—stem from the conflicted context in which evaluation is occurring. We also make a first step toward applying the conceptual tools within the sociology of evaluation to a disadvantaged setting, and more broadly, suggest that micro-processes of evaluation are important to the study of urban inequality.
%B Qualitative Sociology
%V 37
%P 1-26
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociological Forum
%D 2014
%T From Political to Material Inequality: Race, Immigration, and Requests for Public Goods
%A Jeremy R. Levine
%A Carl Gershenson
%B Sociological Forum
%V 29
%P 607-627
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Sociological Forum
%D 2014
%T Culture Shock Revisited: The Social and Cultural Contingencies to Class Marginality
%A Anthony Abraham Jack
%X Existing explanations of class marginality predict similar social experiences for all lower-income undergraduates. This paper extends this literature by presenting data highlighting the cultural and social contingencies that account for differences in experiences of class marginality. The degree of cultural and social dissimilarity between one’s life before and during college helps explain variation in experiences. I contrast the experiences of two groups of lower-income, black undergraduates—the Doubly Disadvantaged and Privileged Poor. Although from comparable disadvantaged households and neighborhoods, they travel along divergent paths to college. Unlike the Doubly Disadvantaged, whose precollege experiences are localized, the Privileged Poor cross social boundaries for school. In college, the Doubly Disadvantaged report negative interactions with peers and professors and adopt isolationist strategies, while the Privileged Poor generally report positive interactions and adopt integrationist strategies. In addition to extending present conceptualizations of class marginality, this study advances our understanding of how and when class and culture matter in stratification processes in college.
%B Sociological Forum
%V 29
%P 453-475
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2014
%T Who Donates Their Bodies to Science? The Combined Role of Gender and Migration Status among California Whole-Body Donors
%A Asad L. Asad
%A Anteby, Michel
%A Garip, Filiz
%X The number of human cadavers available for medical research and training, as well as organ transplantation, is limited. Researchers disagree about how to increase the number of whole-body bequeathals, citing a shortage of donations from the one group perceived as most likely to donate from attitudinal survey data - educated white males over 65. This focus on survey data, however, suffers from two main limitations: First, it reveals little about individuals’ actual registration or donation behavior. Second, past studies’ reliance on average survey measures may have concealed variation within the donor population. To address these shortcomings, we employ cluster analysis on all whole-body donors’ data from the Universities of California at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Two donor groups emerge from the analyses: One is made of slightly younger, educated, married individuals, an overwhelming portion of whom are U.S.-born and have U.S.-born parents, while the second includes mostly older, separated women with some college education, a relatively higher share of whom are foreign-born and have foreign-born parents. Our results demonstrate the presence of additional donor groups within and beyond the group of educated and elderly white males previously assumed to be most likely to donate. More broadly, our results suggest how the intersectional nature of donors’ demographics - in particular, gender and migration status - shapes the configuration of the donor pool, signaling new ways to possibly increase donations.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 106
%P 53-58
%G eng
%U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614000689
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2014
%T Theorizing the Relationship between NGOs and the State in Medical Humanitarian Development Projects
%A Asad L. Asad
%A Kay, Tamara
%X Social scientists have fiercely debated the relationship between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the state in NGO-led development projects. However, this research often carries an implicit, and often explicit, anti-state bias, suggesting that when NGOs collaborate with states, they cease to be a progressive force. This literature thus fails to recognize the state as a complex, heterogeneous, and fragmented entity. In particular, the unique political context within which an NGO operates is likely to influence how it carries out its work. In this article, we ask: how do NGOs work and build relationships with different types of states and – of particular relevance to practitioners – what kinds of relationship building lead to more successful development outcomes on the ground? Drawing on 29 in-depth interviews with members of Partners in Health and Oxfam America conducted between September 2010 and February 2014, we argue that NGOs and their medical humanitarian projects are more likely to succeed when they adjust how they interact with different types of states through processes of interest harmonization and negotiation. We offer a theoretical model for understanding how these processes occur across organizational fields. Specifically, we utilize field overlap theory to illuminate how successful outcomes depend on NGOs’ ability to leverage resources – alliances and networks; political, financial, and cultural resources; and frames – across state and non-state fields. By identifying how NGOs can increase the likelihood of project success, our research should be of interest to activists, practitioners, and scholars.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 120
%P 325-333
%G eng
%U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614002834
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2014
%T Immigrants and African Americans
%A Mary C. Waters
%A Philip Kasinitz
%A Asad L. Asad
%X We examine how recent immigration to the United States has affected African Americans. We first review the research on the growing diversity within the black population, driven largely by the presence of black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. As their children and grandchildren come of age, relations between immigrants and African Americans are complicated by the fact that a growing portion of the African American community has origins in both groups. We then review literature on both new destinations and established gateway cities to illustrate the patterns of cooperation, competition, and avoidance between immigrants of diverse races and African Americans in neighborhoods, the labor market, and politics. We explore the implications of the population’s increasing racial diversity owing to immigration for policies that aim to promote racial equality but that are framed in terms of diversity. We conclude with suggestions for new areas of research.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 40
%P 369-390
%G eng
%U http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-soc-071811-145449
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
%D 2014
%T Merit Aid, College Quality and College Completion: Massachusetts’ Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy
%A Sarah Cohodes
%A Joshua Goodman
%B American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
%I HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP13-005
%V 6
%P 251-285
%G eng
%U https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.6.4.251
%0 Journal Article
%J British Journal of Political Science
%D 2014
%T Compensation or Constraint? How Different Dimensions of Economic Globalization Affect Government Spending and Electoral Turnout
%A John Marshall
%A Fisher,Stephen D.
%X ABSTRACT This article extends theoretical arguments regarding the impact of economic globalization on policy making to electoral turnout and considers how distinct dimensions of globalization may produce different effects. It theorizes that constraints on government policy that reduce incentives to vote are more likely to be induced by foreign ownership of capital, while compensation through increased government spending is more likely (if at all) to be the product of structural shifts in production associated with international trade. Using data from twenty-three OECD countries from 1970–2007, the study finds strong support for the ownership-constraint hypothesis in which foreign ownership reduces turnout, both directly and – in strict opposition to the compensation hypothesis – indirectly by reducing government spending (and thus the importance of politics). The results suggest that increased foreign ownership, especially the most mobile capital flows, can explain up to two-thirds of the large declines in turnout over recent decades.
%B British Journal of Political Science
%V FirstView
%P 1–37
%8 1
%G eng
%U http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0007123413000422
%R 10.1017/S0007123413000422
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Economics
%D 2014
%T Growth and the Smart State
%A Aghion, Philippe
%A Roulet, Alexandra
%X As countries develop, the main driver of economic growth shifts from imitation to innovation. These two sources of growth require different policies and institutions. In particular, in this article we argue that the transition from an imitation-based to an innovation-based economy calls the old welfare state model into question. It is not so much the size of the state that is at stake but rather its governance. What we need to foster economic growth in developed economies is not a reduced state but a strategic state, which acts as a catalyst using selective and properly governed support to the market-driven innovation process. This idea of a strategic state that targets its investments to maximize growth in the face of hard budget constraints departs both from the Keynesian view of a state sustaining growth through demand-driven policies and from the neoliberal view of a minimal state confined to its regalian functions.
%B Annual Review of Economics
%V 6
%P 913-926
%G eng
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080213-040759
%R 10.1146/annurev-economics-080213-040759
%0 Journal Article
%J Nature
%D 2014
%T Collaboration: Strength in diversity
%A Richard B. Freeman
%A Huang, Wei
%B Nature
%V 513
%P 305
%G eng
%U http://www.nature.com/news/collaboration-strength-in-diversity-1.15912
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Quantitative Criminology
%D 2014
%T Deterring Gang-Involved Gun Violence: Measuring the Impact of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire on Street Gang Behavior
%A Braga, Anthony
%A Hureau, David
%A Papachristos, Andrew
%K Deterrence
%K Gang violence
%K Guns
%K Problem-oriented policing
%B Journal of Quantitative Criminology
%C Boston
%V 30
%P 113-139
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Perspectives on Politics
%D 2014
%T Who Passes Business’s “Model Bills”? Policy Capacity and Corporate Influence in U.S. State Politics
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%X ABSTRACT Which policymakers are most likely to enact legislation drafted by organized business interests? Departing from the business power scholarship that emphasizes structural, electoral, or financial mechanisms for corporate influence, I argue that lawmakers are likely to rely on businesses' proposals when they lack the time and resources to develop legislation on their own, especially when they also hold an ideological affinity for business. Using two new datasets of “model bills” developed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a policy group that promotes pro-business legislation across the states, I find strong support for this theory. These results indicate that ALEC provides private policy capacity to state legislators who would otherwise lack such support, and relatedly, that low state policy capacity may favor certain organized interests over others—namely the business interests affiliated with ALEC. My findings have implications for the study of business influence in policymaking, as well as for state politics.
%B Perspectives on Politics
%V 12
%P 582–602
%8 9
%G eng
%U http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S1537592714001601
%R 10.1017/S1537592714001601
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T Arresting citizenship : the democratic consequences of American crime control
%A Lerman, Amy E
%A Weaver, Vesla M
%K Administration of – United States.
%K Criminal justice
%K Discrimination in criminal justice administration – United States.
%X "Argues that the broad reach of the criminal justice system has fundamentally recast the relation between citizen and state, resulting in a sizable–and growing–group of second-class citizens."
%I The University of Chicago Press
%@ 9780226137667
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T Human capital in history : the American record
%E Boustan, Leah Platt
%E Frydman, Carola
%E Margo, Robert A
%K Human capital – United States.
%K Labor supply – United States – History.
%I The University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 9780226163895
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T Teachers versus the Public: What Americans Think about Schools and How to Fix Them
%A Paul E Peterson
%A Henderson, Michael B
%A West, Martin R
%I Brookings Institution Press
%P 177
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2014
%T Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream
%A Bail, Christopher
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton
%@ 9780691159423
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Psychological Assessment
%D 2013
%T Measuring Parent Perceptions of School Climate
%A Beth E. Schueler
%A Lauren Capotosto
%A Sofia Bahena
%A Joseph McIntyre
%A Hunter Gehlbach
%B Psychological Assessment
%V 26
%P 314-320
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Public Administration Review
%D 2013
%T Shifting Administrative Burden to the State: The Case of Medicaid Take‐Up
%A Pamela Herd
%A Thomas DeLeire
%A Hope Harvey
%A Donald P. Moynihan
%X Administrative burden is an individual's experience of policy implementation as onerous. Such burdens may be created because of a desire to limit payments to ineligible claimants, but they also serve to limit take-up of benefits by eligible claimants. For citizens, this burden may occur through learning about a program; complying with rules and discretionary bureaucratic behavior to participate; and the psychological costs of participating in an unpopular program. Using a mixed-method approach, the authors explain process changes that reduced individual burden and demonstrate how this resulted in increased take-up in Medicaid in the state of Wisconsin. The findings inform the planned expansion of Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A key design principle for Medicaid and other means-tested programs is that it is possible to increase program take-up while maintaining program integrity by shifting administrative burdens from the citizen to the state.
%B Public Administration Review
%V 73
%P S69-S81
%G eng
%N s1
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2013
%T Spatial clusters of autism births and diagnoses point to contextual drivers of increased prevalence
%A Soumya Mazumdar
%A Alix S. Winter
%A Ka-Yuet Liu
%A Peter S. Bearman
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 95
%P 87-96
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Problems
%D 2013
%T Class in Name Only: Subjective Class Identity, Objective Class Position, and Vote Choice in American Presidential Elections
%A Sosnaud, Benjamin
%A Brady, David
%A Frenk, Steven M.
%X Partly because of the widespread tendency for Americans to think of themselves as “middle class,” subjective class identity often does not correspond to objective class position. This study evaluates the extent to which American voters' subjective class identities differ from their objective class positions. We then evaluate the implications of such differences for voting behavior using American National Election Studies data from eight recent presidential elections. Coding respondents according to whether subjective class identity is higher or lower than objective class position, we construct a novel schema of inflated, deflated, and concordant class perceptions. We find that there are substantial differences between Americans' subjective and objective social class: over two-thirds of the upper-middle class have a deflated perception of their class position, only half of the middle class have concordant perceptions, and more than a third of the working class have inflated perceptions. We also find that this divergence varies depending on sociodemographic factors, and especially race and education. The analyses initially show a pattern that those with inflated class perceptions are more likely to vote Republican. However, this relationship is not significant once we control for race and income.
%B Social Problems
%I University of California Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems
%V 60
%P pp. 81-99
%G eng
%U http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2013.60.1.81
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2013
%T Healthcare Systems in Comparative Perspective: Classification, Convergence, Institutions, Inequalities, and Five Missed Turns
%A Beckfield, Jason
%A Olafsdottir, Sigrun
%A Sosnaud, Benjamin
%X This article reviews and evaluates recent comparative social science scholarship on healthcare systems. We focus on four of the strongest themes in current research: (a) the development of typologies of healthcare systems, (b) assessment of convergence among healthcare systems, (c) problematization of the shifting boundaries of healthcare systems, and (d) the relationship between healthcare systems and social inequalities. Our discussion seeks to highlight the central debates that animate current scholarship and identify unresolved questions and new opportunities for research. We also identify five currents in contemporary sociology that have not been incorporated as deeply as they might into research on healthcare systems. These five missed turns include emphases on social relations, culture, postnational theory, institutions, and causal mechanisms. We conclude by highlighting some key challenges for comparative research on healthcare systems.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 39
%P 127-146
%G eng
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145609
%R 10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145609
%0 Book Section
%B The Oxford Handbook on Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration
%D 2013
%T The Politics of Immigration and Crime
%A Simes, Jessica T
%A Mary C. Waters
%B The Oxford Handbook on Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration
%I Oxford University Press
%C New York
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Urban Affairs
%D 2013
%T Poverty, Politics, and a ‘Circle of Promise’: Holistic Education Policy in Boston and the Challenge of Institutional Entrenchment.”
%A Jeremy R. Levine
%A William Julius Wilson
%B Journal of Urban Affairs
%V 35
%P 7-24
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J City & Community
%D 2013
%T Organizational Parochialism: ’Placing’ Interorganizational Network Ties
%A Jeremy R. Levine
%B City & Community
%V 12
%P 309-334
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%D 2013
%T Mexico-U.S. Migration in Time: From Economic to Social Mechanisms
%A Garip, Filiz
%A Asad L. Asad
%X Scholars have long noted how migration streams, once initiated, obtain a self-feeding character. Studies have attributed this phenomenon – the cumulative causation of migration – to expanding social networks that connect migrants in destination to individuals in origin. Studies however, often disagree on how social networks influence migration decisions. While many establish a positive association between individuals’ ties to prior migrants and their migration propensities, only few acknowledge that multiple social mechanisms might account for these interdependencies. To address this issue, we adopt a typology developed by DiMaggio and Garip (2012) and consider three mechanisms by which social ties may influence individuals’ migration choices. We study the prevalence of these mechanisms in the Mexico-US migration context using a mixed methods approach. First, analyzing data from more than 90,000 individuals surveyed by the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) we establish the presence of network effects in migration and test how prior migrants in the family or community increase individuals’ migration propensities, and whether prior migrants reduce the effect of economic or political indicators on migration propensities. Second, we analyze qualitative data from 120 in-depth interviews to determine the different mechanisms that lead to interdependencies in individuals’ migration choices. We thus provide a deeper understanding of migration as a social process, which we contend is crucial for anticipating future flows and policy responses.
%G eng
%U http://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/pdfs/wp/wp-67-2013-mexico2013us-migration-in-time
%0 Journal Article
%J Electoral Studies
%D 2013
%T Do Conditional Cash Transfers Shift Votes? Evidence from the Honduran PRAF
%A Linos, Elizabeth
%X How do national social programs influence local voting? This study utilizes the experimental set up of a conditional cash transfer program to show that small, targeted cash transfers can have large electoral effects. The Honduran PRAF program allocated an average of $18 per capita per year to poor households within municipalities that were randomly assigned to receive the program. Although the program was administered at the national level, the program increased an incumbent mayor’s re-election probabilities by 39%, without significantly influencing voting behavior in presidential elections. Moreover, the evidence suggests that transferring cash to poor households were more effective at increasing political support than interventions providing public goods for poor villages.
%B Electoral Studies
%V 32
%P 864-874
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Service Review
%D 2013
%T Dismantling Policy through Fiscal Constriction: Examining the Erosion in State Unemployment Insurance Finances
%A Hertel-Fernandez,Alexander
%X Abstract A common proposition in welfare state research is that programs financed through dedicated payroll taxes tend to be more durable. This article examines American unemployment insurance (UI) as an exception to this proposition. UI is a self-financed social insurance program whose benefits have been dismantled over time because of an inability to maintain a constant revenue base. The study first examines the long-run decline in UI finances and concludes that changes in UI taxes are associated with the largest declines in state finances. It then examines why more states have not pursued reforms to strengthen UI finances and finds that opponents of more generous UI benefits have generally succeeded in preventing such measures, thus constricting UI finances and gradually retrenching benefits. These findings have implications for those seeking to improve UI solvency, as well as for the study of welfare state retrenchment more generally.
%B Social Service Review
%I The University of Chicago Press
%V 87
%P pp. 438-476
%G eng
%U http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/672460
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science & Medicine
%D 2013
%T Effects of Education on Cognition at Older Ages: Evidence from China’s Great Famine
%A Huang, Wei
%A Zhou, Yi
%X This paper explores whether educational attainment has a cognitive reserve capacity in elder life. Using pilot data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we examined the impact of education on cognitive abilities at old ages. OLS results showed that respondents who completed primary school obtained 18.2 percent higher scores on cognitive tests than those who did not. We then constructed an instrumental variable (IV) by leveraging China’s Great Famine of 1959e1961 as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of education on cognition. Two-stage least squares (2SLS) results provided sound evidence that completing primary school significantly increases cognition scores, especially in episode memory, by almost 20 percent on average. Moreover, Regression Discontinuity (RD) analysis provides further evidence for the causal interpretation, and shows that the effects are different for the different measures of cognition we explored. Our results also show that the Great Famine can result in long-term health consequences through the pathway of losing educational opportunities other than through the pathway of nutrition deprivation.
%B Social Science & Medicine
%V 98
%P 54-62
%G eng
%U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953613004735
%0 Journal Article
%J American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
%D 2013
%T Health, Height, Height Shrinkage, and SES at Older Ages: Evidence from China
%A Huang, Wei
%A Xiaoyan Lei
%A John Strauss
%A Geert Ridder
%A Yaohui Zhao
%X In this paper, we build on the literature that examines associations between height and health outcomes of the elderly. We investigate the associations of height shrinkage at older ages with socioeconomic status, finding that height shrinkage for both men and women is negatively associated with better schooling, current urban residence, and household per capita expenditures. We then investigate the relationships between pre-shrinkage height, height shrinkage, and a rich set of health outcomes of older respondents, finding that height shrinkage is positively associated with poor health outcomes across a variety of outcomes, being especially strong for cognition outcomes.
%B American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
%V 5
%P 86-121
%G eng
%U https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.5.2.86
%0 Journal Article
%J Quarterly Journal of Political Science
%D 2013
%T The Vicious Cycle: Fundraising and Perceived Viability in US Presidential Primaries
%A James J. Feigenbaum
%A Cameron A. Shelton
%X Scholars of presidential primaries have long posited a dynamic positive feedback loop between fundraising and electoral success. Yet existing work on both directions of this feedback remains inconclusive and is often explicitly cross-sectional, ignoring the dynamic aspect of the hypothesis. Pairing high-frequency FEC data on contributions and expenditures with Iowa Electronic Markets data on perceived probability of victory, we examine the bidirectional feedback between contributions and viability. We find robust, significant positive feedback in both directions. This might suggest multiple equilibria: a candidate initially anointed as the front-runner able to sustain such status solely by the fundraising advantage conferred despite possessing no advantage in quality. However, simulations suggest the feedback loop cannot, by itself, sustain advantage. Given the observed durability of front-runners, it would thus seem there is either some other feedback at work and/or the process by which the initial front-runner is identified is informative of candidate quality.
%B Quarterly Journal of Political Science
%V 8
%P 1-40
%G eng
%U http://nowpublishers.com/articles/quarterly-journal-of-political-science/QJPS-11094
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J American Sociological Review
%D 2013
%T The Corner and the Crew: The Influence of Geography and Social Networks on Gang Violence
%A Papachristos, Andrew V
%A Hureau, David M
%A Braga, Anthony A
%K Intergroup Conflict
%K Neighborhoods
%K Social Networks
%K Spatial Analysis
%K Street Gangs
%K Violent Crime
%X Nearly a century of empirical research examines how neighborhood properties influence a host of phenomena such as crime, poverty, health, civic engagement, immigration, and economic inequality. Theoretically bundled within these neighborhood effects are institutions’ and actors’ social networks that are the foundation of other neighborhood-level processes such as social control, mobilization, and cultural assimilation. Yet, despite such long-standing theoretical links between neighborhoods and social networks, empirical research rarely considers or measures dimensions of geography and social network mechanisms simultaneously. The present study seeks to fill this gap by analyzing how both geography and social networks influence an important social problem in urban America: gang violence. Using detailed data on fatal and non-fatal shootings, we examine effects of geographic proximity, organizational memory, and additional group processes (e.g., reciprocity, transitivity, and status seeking) on gang violence in Chicago and Boston. Results show adjacency of gang turf and prior conflict between gangs are strong predictors of subsequent gang violence. Furthermore, important network processes, including reciprocity and status seeking, also contribute to observed patterns of gang violence. In fact, we find that these spatial and network processes mediate racial effects, suggesting the primacy of place and the group in generating gang violence.
%B American Sociological Review
%V 78
%P 417-447
%G eng
%N 3
%0 Journal Article
%J Education Finance and Policy
%D 2013
%T The Strategic Data Project's Strategic Performance Indicators
%A Lindsay C. Page
%A Jon Fullerton
%A Sarah R. Cohodes
%A West, Martin R
%A Andrew Bacher-Hicks
%A Antoniya Owens
%A Sarah Glover
%B Education Finance and Policy
%V 8
%P 435-456
%G eng
%U http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/EDFP_a_00105
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T The allure of order : high hopes, dashed expectations, and the troubled quest to remake American schooling
%A Mehta, Jal
%K Education and state – United States.
%K Educational change – United States.
%K Public schools – United States.
%X "Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush agreed on little, but united behind the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Passed in late 2001, it was hailed as a dramatic new departure in school reform. It would make the states set high standards, measure student progress, and hold failing schools accountable. A decade later, NCLB has been repudiated on both sides of the aisle. According to Jal Mehta, we should have seen it coming. Far from new, it was the same approach to school reform that Americans have tried before. In The Allure of Order, Mehta recounts a century of attempts at revitalizing public education, and puts forward a truly new agenda to reach this elusive goal. Not once, not twice, but three separate times-in the Progressive Era, the 1960s and '70s, and NCLB-reformers have hit upon the same idea for remaking schools.
%I Oxford University Press
%@ 9780199942060
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Bankers, bureaucrats, and central bank politics: The myth of neutrality
%A Christopher Adolph
%K Banks and banking
%K Bureaucracy.
%K Central – Political aspects.
%K Monetary policy.
%I Cambridge University Press
%C New York
%@ 9781107032613
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Battlers & Billionaires: the story of Inequality in Australia
%A Andrew Leigh
%K Australia – Social Conditions
%K Equality – Australia
%K Income Distribution – Australia
%K Social Classes – Australia
%@ 9781863956079
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Cleaning Up - How Hospital Outsourcing Is Hurting Workers and Endangering Patients
%A Zuberi, Dan
%K Health Sciences Political Science Sociology
%K Hospital care – British Columbia – Vancouver – Safety measures
%K Hospital care – Contracting out – British Columbia – Vancouver
%K Hospital housekeeping – British Columbia – Vancouver
%K Hospitals – British Columbia – Vancouver – Employees
%K Nosocomial infections – British Columbia – Vancouver
%X To cut costs and maximize profits, hospitals in the United States and many other countries are outsourcing such tasks as cleaning and food preparation to private contractors. In, the first book to examine this transformation in the healthcare industry, Dan Zuberi looks at the consequences of outsourcing from two perspectives: its impact on patient safety and its role in increasing socioeconomic inequality. Drawing on years of field research in Vancouver, Canada as well as data from hospitals in the U.S. and Europe, he argues that outsourcing has been disastrous for the cleanliness of hospitals-leading to an increased risk of hospital-acquired infections, a leading cause of severe illness and death-as well as for the effective delivery of other hospital services and the workers themselves.
%@ 9780801450723
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T The Democratic Foundations of policy diffusion : how health, family and employment laws spread across countries
%A Linos, Katerina
%K Comparative law.
%K Democracy.
%K Family policy.
%K Health care reform.
%K Law – Foreign influences.
%K Law – Mobility.
%K Public opinion.
%X "Why do law reforms spread around the world in waves? Leading theories argue that international networks of technocratic elites develop orthodox solutions that they singlehandedly transplant across countries. But, in modern democracies, elites alone cannot press for legislative reforms without winning the support of politicians, voters, and interest groups. As Katerina Linos shows in The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion, international models can help politicians generate domestic enthusiasm for far-reaching proposals. By pointing to models from abroad, policitians can persuade voters that their ideas are not radical, ill-thought out experiments, but mainstream, tried-and-true solutions. Through the ingenious use of experimental and cross-national evidence, Linos documents voters' response to international models and demonstrates that governments follow international organization templates and imitate the policy choices of countries heavily covered in national media and familiar to voters. Empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated, The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion provides the fullest account to date of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon."–page [4] of cover.
%I Oxford University Press
%@ 9780199967865
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Early start : preschool politics in the United States
%A Karch, Andrew
%K Early childhood education – United States.
%K Education and state – United States.
%X A political history of the debate over preschool education policy in the United States. In the United States, preschool education is characterized by the dominance of a variegated private sector and patchy, uncoordinated oversight of the public sector. Tracing the history of the American debate over preschool education, the author argues that the current state of decentralization and fragmentation is the consequence of a chain of reactions and counterreactions to policy decisions dating from the late 1960s and early 1970s, when preschool advocates did not achieve their vision for a comprehensive national program but did manage to foster initiatives at both the state and national levels. Over time, beneficiaries of these initiatives and officials with jurisdiction over preschool education have become ardent defenders of the status quo. Today, advocates of greater government involvement must take on a diverse and entrenched set of constituencies resistant to policy change. In his close analysis of the politics of preschool education, the author demonstrates how to apply the concepts of policy feedback, critical junctures, and venue shopping to the study of social policy. – From book jacket.
%I The University of Michigan Press
%@ 9780472118724
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Education of Migrant Children and China's Future, The : The Urban Left Behind
%A Ming, Holly H
%I Routledge
%@ 9780415630344
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Outsiders No More? : Models of immigrant political incorporation
%E Hochschild, Jennifer L.
%E Chattopadhyay, Jacqueline
%E Gay, Claudine
%E Jones-Correa, Michael
%K Assimilation (Sociology)
%K Immigrants – Political activity.
%I Oxford University Press
%@ 9780199311316
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Stuck in place : urban neighborhoods and the end of progress toward racial equality
%A Sharkey, Patrick
%K African American neighborhoods – Economic aspects.
%K African American neighborhoods – Social aspects.
%K Discrimination in housing – United States.
%K Equality – United States.
%K Urban African Americans – Civil rights.
%K Urban African Americans – Social conditions.
%I The University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 9780226924243
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2013
%T Trading democracy for justice : criminal convictions and the decline of neighborhood political participation
%A Burch, Traci R
%K Administration of – Social aspects – United States.
%K African Americans – Suffrage.
%K Criminal justice
%K Political participation – United States.
%K Prisoners – Suffrage – United States.
%K Prisoners' families – Suffrage – United States.
%I The University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 9780226064765
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Pediatrics
%D 2012
%T Six Developmental Trajectories Characterize Children with Autism
%A Christine Fountain
%A Alix S. Winter
%A Peter S. Bearman
%B Pediatrics
%V 129
%P e1112-1120
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
%D 2012
%T The Establishment Clause and Public Education in an Islamophobic Era
%A Yaseen Eldik
%A Monica C. Bell
%X The public education system has often been considered a critically important site for inter-ethnic dialogue designed to root out the prejudice that leads to discrimination against ethnic minorities. However, the prohibition of certain religious practices in schools has placed the "celebration" of religious diversity in a more precarious position than the promotion of racial diversity in ways that have deleterious effects for Muslim Americans. This Essay argues that Supreme Court jurisprudence on religious establishment in public schools has contributed to public education’s inefficacy as a tool to dismantle fear and prejudice against Muslims. We explore judicial, political, and practical approaches to bringing constitutionally permissible religious education and interfaith dialogue into public schools.
%B Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
%V 8
%P 245-258
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Annual Review of Sociology
%D 2012
%T Economic Insecurity and Social Stratification
%A Western, Bruce
%A Bloome, Deirdre
%A Sosnaud, Benjamin
%A Tach, Laura
%X Economic insecurity describes the risk of economic loss faced by workers and households as they encounter the unpredictable events of social life. Our review suggests a four-part framework for studying the distribution and trends in these economic risks. First, a focus on households rather than workers captures the microlevel risk pooling that can smooth income flows and stabilize economic well-being. Second, insecurity is related to income volatility and the risk of downward mobility into poverty. Third, adverse events such as unemployment, family dissolution, or poor health commonly trigger income losses. Fourth, the effects of adverse events are mitigated by insurance relationships provided by government programs, employer benefits, and the informal support of families. Empirical research in these areas reveals high levels of economic insecurity among low-income households and suggests an increase in economic insecurity with the growth in economic inequality in the United States.
%B Annual Review of Sociology
%V 38
%P 341-359
%G eng
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071811-145434
%R 10.1146/annurev-soc-071811-145434
%0 Journal Article
%J Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
%D 2012
%T What We Face: Framing Problems in the Black Community
%A Nicole Arlette Hirsch
%A Anthony Abraham Jack
%X While many sociological studies analyze the causes, conditions, and mechanisms perpetuating American racial inequality, the literature on how African Americans understand and explain these inequalities is less developed. Drawing on 150 interviews with middle-class and working-class African American men and women, this paper analyzes inductively how respondents define and conceptualize the most pressing obstacles facing their group when probed on this question. We find that middle- and working-class respondents alike identify the problem of racism as the most salient obstacle facing African Americans. Class differences appear with respect to what other obstacles are singled out as salient: while middle-class respondents focus on lack of racial solidarity among Blacks and economic problems (in this order), working-class respondents are more concerned with the fragility of the Black family followed by the lack of racial solidarity. This analysis discusses the relevance of considering how groups make sense of obstacles, and of racism and discrimination in particular, for the study of destigmatization and antiracist strategies of stigmatized minorities.
%B Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
%V 9
%P 133-148
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Urban Health
%D 2012
%T Social Networks and the Risk of Gunshot Injury
%A Papachristos, Andrew
%A Braga, Anthony
%A Hureau, David
%K Firearms
%K Gun violence
%K Homicide
%K Social Networks
%K Street Gangs
%X Direct and indirect exposure to gun violence have considerable consequences on individual health and well-being. However, no study has considered the effects of one’s social network on gunshot injury. This study investigates the relationship between an individual’s position in a high-risk social network and the probability of being a victim of a fatal or non-fatal gunshot wound by combining observational data from the police with records of fatal and non-fatal gunshot injuries among 763 individuals in Boston’s Cape Verdean community. A logistic regression approach is used to analyze the probability of being the victim of a fatal or non-fatal gunshot wound and whether such injury is related to age, gender, race, prior criminal activity, exposure to street gangs and other gunshot victims, density of one’s peer network, and the social distance to other gunshot victims. The findings demonstrate that 85 % all of the gunshot injuries in the sample occur within a single social network. Probability of gunshot victimization is related to one’s network distance to other gunshot victims: each network association removed from another gunshot victim reduces the odds of gunshot victimization by 25 % (odds ratio = 0.75
%B Journal of Urban Health
%C Boston
%V 89
%P 992-1003
%G eng
%N 6
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T We shall not be moved : Rebuilding home in the wake of Katrina
%A Wooten, Tom
%K 2005 – Social aspects.
%K Community development – Louisiana – New Orleans.
%K Hurricane Katrina
%K Neighborhood government – Louisiana – New Orleans.
%K New Orleans (La.) – Economic conditions – 21st century.
%K New Orleans (La.) – Social conditions – 21st century.
%K Urban renewal – Louisiana – New Orleans – Citizen participation.
%I Beacon Press
%C Boston
%@ 9780807044636
%G eng
%U http://nolarecovers.com
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T Creating a new racial order : how immigration, multiracialism, genomics, and the young can remake race in America
%A Hochschild, Jennifer L.
%A Weaver, Vesla M
%A Burch, Traci R
%K United States – Population – History – 21st century.
%K United States – Race relations – History – 21st century.
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton, N.J.
%@ 9780691152998
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T The futures of school reform
%E Schwartz, Robert B
%E Hess, Frederick M
%E Mehta, Jal
%K Educational change.
%I Harvard Education Press
%C Cambridge, MA
%@ 9781612504728
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T New visions for market governance : crisis and renewal
%E Macdonald, Kate
%E Marshall, Shelley
%E Pinto, Sanjay
%K 1948-2009
%K Capitalism
%K Economic Policy
%K Finance
%K Financial Crises – Prevention
%K Financial Institutions – Government Policy
%K Free Enterprise
%I Routledge
%C Abingdon, Oxon
%@ 9780415691116
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T Race migrations : Latinos and the cultural transformation of race
%A Roth, Wendy D
%K Dominican Americans – Race identity.
%K Dominican Republic – Emigration and immigration – Social aspects.
%K Hispanic Americans – Race identity.
%K Hispanic Americans – Social conditions.
%K Puerto Ricans – Race identity – United States.
%K Puerto Rico – Emigration and immigration – Social aspects.
%K Race – Social aspects – United States.
%K United States – Emigration and immigration – Social aspects.
%I Stanford University Press
%C Stanford, California
%@ 9780804777957
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T The Tea Party and the remaking of Republican conservatism
%A Skocpol, Theda
%A Williamson, Vanessa
%K Conservatism – United States.
%K Tea Party movement.
%X On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ridiculing "losers" who could not pay their mortgages, Santelli called for "Tea Party" protests. Over the next two years, conservative activists took to the streets and airways, built hundreds of local Tea Party groups, and weighed in with votes and money to help right-wing Republicans win electoral victories in 2010. In this study, the author, a political scientists, and co-author go beyond the inevitable photos of protesters in Colonial costumes and tricorn hats and knee breeches to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising. Drawing on grassroots interviews and visits to local meetings in several regions, they find that older, middle-class Tea Partiers mostly approve of Social Security, Medicare, and generous benefits for military veterans. Their opposition to "big government" entails reluctance to pay taxes to help people viewed as undeserving "freeloaders" including immigrants, lower income earners, and the young. At the national level, Tea Party elites and funders leverage grassroots energy to further longstanding goals such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of business, and privatization of the very same Social Security and Medicare programs on which many grassroots Tea Partiers depend. Elites and grassroots are nevertheless united in hatred of Barack Obama and determination to push the Republican Party sharply to the right. This book combines portraits of local Tea Party members and chapters with an overarching analysis of the movement's rise, impact, and likely fate. The paperback edition will be updated to bring the discussion up to the present, including the Republican Presidential primary race in early 2012.
%I Oxford University Press
%C New York
%@ 9780199832637
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2012
%T Three worlds of relief : race, immigration, and the American welfare state from the Progressive Era to the New Deal
%A Fox, Cybelle
%K Immigrants – Government policy – United States – History – 20th century.
%K Immigrants – United States – Social conditions – 20th century.
%K United States – Race relations – History – 20th century.
%K Welfare state – United States – History – 20th century.
%X This book examines the role of race and immigration in the development of the American social welfare system by comparing how blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants were treated by welfare policies during the Progressive Era and the New Deal. Taking readers from the turn of the twentieth century to the dark days of the Depression, the author finds that, despite rampant nativism, European immigrants received generous access to social welfare programs. The communities in which they lived invested heavily in relief. Social workers protected them from snooping immigration agents, and ensured that noncitizenship and illegal status did not prevent them from receiving the assistance they needed. But that same helping hand was not extended to Mexicans and blacks. The author reveals, for example, how blacks were relegated to racist and degrading public assistance programs, while Mexicans who asked for assistance were deported with the help of the very social workers they turned to for aid. Drawing on archival evidence, the author paints a portrait of how race, labor, and politics combined to create three starkly different worlds of relief. She debunks the myth that white America's immigrant ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, unlike immigrants and minorities today. This book challenges us to reconsider not only the historical record but also the implications of our past on contemporary debates about race, immigration, and the American welfare state.
%I Princeton University Press
%C Princeton [N.J.]
%@ 9780691152233
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T Shattering Culture: American Medicine Responds to Cultural Diversity
%E Good, Mary-Jo DelVecchio
%E Sarah S. Willen
%E Seth Donal Hannah
%E Ken Vickery
%E Lawrence Taeseng Park
%I Russell Sage Foundation
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T Repenser l’Etat. Pour une social-démocratie de l’innovation.
%A Aghion, Philippe
%A Roulet, Alexandra
%I Éd. du Seuil
%C Paris
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T The Great Recession
%E Grusky, David B.
%E Western, Bruce
%E Wimer, Christopher
%K 2008-2009.
%K Financial crises – United States.
%K Global Financial Crisis
%K Recessions – United States.
%K United States – Economic conditions – 2009-
%K United States – Economic policy – 2009-
%X The consequences of the great recession / David B. Grusky, Bruce Western, and Christopher Wimer -- The roots of thegreat recession / Neil Fligstein and Adam Goldstein -- Job loss and unemployment / Michael Hout, Asaf Levanon, and Erin Cumberworth -- Poverty and income inequality in the early stages of the great recession / Timothy M. Smeeding, ... [et al.] -- How much wealth was destroyed in the great recession? / Edward N. Wolff, Lindsay A. Owens, and Esra Burak -- An analysis of trends, perceptions, and distributional effects in consumption / Ivaylo D. Petev, Luigi Pistaferri, and Itay Saporta-Eksten -- The surprisingly weak effects of recessions on public opinion / Lane Kenworthy and Lindsay A. Owens -- The great recession's influence on fertility, marriage, divorce, and cohabitation / S. Philip Morgan, Erin Cumberworth, and Christopher Wimer -- The federal stimulus programs and their effects / Gary Burtless and Tracy Gordon -- Has the great recession made Americans stingier? / Rob Reich,... [et al.].
%I Russell Sage Foundation
%C New York
%@ 9780871544216
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Critical Inquiry
%D 2011
%T The Wire's Impact: A Rejoinder
%A Anmol Chaddha
%A William Julius Wilson
%B Critical Inquiry
%V 38
%P 227-233
%G eng
%U http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661651
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Critical Inquiry
%D 2011
%T 'Way Down in the Hole': Systemic Urban Inequality and The Wire
%A Anmol Chaddha
%A William Julius Wilson
%B Critical Inquiry
%V 38
%P 164-188
%G eng
%U http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661647
%N 1
%0 Journal Article
%J Evaluation Review
%D 2011
%T An Ex Post Facto Evaluation Framework for Place-Based Police Interventions
%A Braga, Anthony A
%A Hureau, David M
%A Papachristos, Andrew V
%K Crime Hot Spots
%K Police
%K Propensity Scores
%K Quasi-Experimentation
%X Background: A small but growing body of research evidence suggests that place-based police interventions generate significant crime control gains. While place-based policing strategies have been adopted by a majority of U.S. police departments, very few agencies make a priori commitments to rigorous evaluations. Objective: Recent methodological developments were applied to conduct a rigorous ex post facto evaluation of the Boston Police Department’s Safe Street Team (SST) hot spots policing program. Research Design: A nonrandomized quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the violent crime control benefits of the SST program at treated street segments and intersections relative to untreated street segments and intersections. Propensity score matching techniques were used to identify comparison places in Boston. Growth curve regression models were used to analyze violent crime trends at treatment places relative to control places. Units of Analysis: Using computerized mapping and database software, a micro-level place database of violent index crimes at all street segments and intersections in Boston was created. Measures: Yearly counts of violent index crimes between 2000 and 2009 at the treatment and comparison street segments and intersections served as the key outcome measure. Results: The SST program was associated with a statistically significant reduction in violent index crimes at the treatment places relative to the comparison places without displacing crime into proximate areas. Conclusions: To overcome the challenges of evaluation in real-world settings, evaluators need to continuously develop innovative approaches that take advantage of new theoretical and methodological approaches.
%B Evaluation Review
%V 35
%P 592-626
%G eng
%N 6
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T No one had a tongue to speak: The untold story of one of history's deadliest floods
%A Sandesara, Utpal
%A Wooten, Tom
%K Dam failures – India – Morvi.
%K Disaster relief – India – Morvi.
%K Disaster victims – India – Morvi – Interviews.
%K Flood damage – India – Morvi.
%K Floods – India – Machchhu River.
%K Floods – India – Morvi.
%I Prometheus Books
%C Amherst, N.Y.
%@ 9781616144319
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
%D 2011
%T The relevance of micro places to citywide robbery trends: a longitudinal analysis of robbery incidents at street corners and block faces in Boston.(Special Issue on Crime and Place)(Author abstract)
%A Braga, Anthony A
%A Hureau, David M
%A Papachristos, Andrew V
%K Quality Of Life -- Research
%K Robbery -- Forecasts And Trends
%K Robbery -- Location
%X Robbery, and the fear it inspires, has a profound effect on the quality of life in certain urban neighborhoods. Recent advances in criminological research suggest that there is significant clustering of crime in micro places, or "hot spots," that generate a disproportionate amount of criminal events in a city. In this article, the authors use growth curve regression models to uncover distinctive developmental trends in robbery incidents at street segments and intersections in Boston over a 29-year period. The authors find that robberies are highly concentrated at a small number of street segments and intersections rather than spread evenly across the urban landscape over the study time period. Roughly 1 percent and 8 percent of street segments and intersections in Boston are responsible for nearly 50 percent of all commercial robberies and 66 percent of all street robberies, respectively, between 1980 and 2008. Our findings suggest that citywide robbery trends may be best understood by examining micro-level trends at a relatively small number of places in urban environments.
%B Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
%V 48
%P 7-32
%G eng
%N 1
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City
%A Warikoo, Natasha Kumar
%I University of California Press
%@ 9780520262119
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T Living faith : everyday religion and mothers in poverty
%A Sullivan, Susan Crawford
%K Church work with the poor – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Church work with women – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Low-income mothers – Religious life – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Parenting – Massachusetts – Boston – Religious aspects.
%K Religion and social problems – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Women and religion – Massachusetts – Boston.
%I University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 9780226781600
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T New destination dreaming : immigration, race, and legal status in the rural American South
%A Marrow, Helen B
%K etc. – Southern States.
%K Hispanic Americans – Legal status
%K Hispanic Americans – Southern States – Social conditions.
%K Immigrants – Southern States – Social conditions.
%K Latin Americans – Legal status
%K Latin Americans – Southern States – Social conditions.
%K laws
%K Southern States – Emigration and immigration.
%K Southern States – Race relations.
%K Southern States – Rural conditions.
%I Stanford University Press
%C Stanford, California
%@ 9780804773072
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2011
%T What works in work-first welfare : designing and managing employment programs in New York City
%A Feldman, Andrew R
%K Employees – Recruiting – New York (State) – New York.
%K Leadership – New York (State) – New York.
%K Local officials and employees.
%K Manpower policy – New York (State) – New York.
%K New York (N.Y.) – Social policy.
%K Personnel management – New York (State) – New York.
%K Public welfare – New York (State) – New York.
%I W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
%C Kalamazoo, Mich.
%@ 9780880993753
%G eng
%0 Book Section
%B Handbook of Politics
%D 2010
%T The Politics of Economic Inequality
%A Brady, David
%A Sosnaud, Benjamin
%E Leicht, KevinT.
%E Jenkins, J.Craig
%B Handbook of Politics
%S Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research
%I Springer New York
%P 521-541
%@ 978-0-387-68929-6
%G eng
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68930-2_28
%R 10.1007/978-0-387-68930-2_28
%0 Book
%D 2010
%T The casualty gap : the causes and consequences of American wartime inequalities
%A Kriner, Douglas L
%A Shen, Francis X
%K Battle casualties – United States.
%K War and society – United States.
%K War casualties – United States.
%X "The Casualty Gap shows how the most important cost of American military campaigns - the loss of human life - has been paid disproportionately by poorer and less-educated communities since the 1950s. Drawing on a rich array of evidence, including National Archives data on the hometowns of more than 400,000 American soldiers killed in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, this book is the most ambitious inquiry to date into the distribution of American wartime casualties across the nation, the forces causing such inequalities to emerge, and their consequences for politics and democratic governance." "Although the most immediate costs of military sacrifice are borne by service members and their families, The Casualty Gap traces how wartime deaths also affect entire communities. Americans who see the high price war exacts on friends and neighbors are more likely to oppose a war and its leaders than residents of low-casualty communities. Moreover, extensive empirical evidence connects higher community casualty rates in Korea and Vietnam to lower levels of trust in government, interest in politics, and electoral and non-electoral participation. A series of original survey experiments finds that Americans informed of the casualty gap's existence will accept substantially fewer casualties that those who are not told about inequality in sacrifice." "By presenting a wealth of evidence and analysis, this book seeks both to bolster public awareness of casualty inequalities and to spur critical dialogue about the nation's policy response. The Casualty Gap should be read by all who care about the future of America's military and the effects of war on society and democracy."–Jacket.
%I Oxford University Press
%C New York
%@ 9780195390964
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2010
%T Disconnected
%A Andrew Leigh
%K Interpersonal relations – Australia.
%K Social change – Australia.
%K Social ethics – Australia.
%X As Australians, we traditionally see ourselves as friendly, relaxed and connected people. But the data from our census and countless other surveys show that Australian society is shifting rapidly. These days, chances are you never quite get around to talking to your neighbours. You're always too busy to give blood. You might find that you've become disconnected
%I University of New South Wales Press
%C Sydney
%@ 9781742231532
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2010
%T Living the drama : community, conflict, and culture among inner-city boys
%A Harding, David J.
%K African American boys – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions – Case studies.
%K Boys – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions – Case studies.
%K City children – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions – Case studies.
%K Hispanic American boys – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions – Case studies.
%K Sociology
%K Urban poor – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions – Case studies.
%K Urban youth – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions – Case studies.
%K Urban – Massachusetts – Boston – Case studies.
%I The University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 9780226316642
%G eng
%0 Book
%B Mexican Americans, immigration, and identity
%D 2010
%T Replenished ethnicity : Mexican Americans, immigration, and identity
%A Jiménez, Tomás R
%K Mexican Americans – Cultural assimilation.
%K Mexican Americans – Race identity.
%K Mexicans – Cultural assimilation – United States.
%K Mexicans – Race identity – United States.
%K United States – Emigration and immigration – Social aspects.
%B Mexican Americans, immigration, and identity
%I University of California Press
%C Berkeley, Calif.
%@ 9780520946071
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2010
%T Sprawl, justice, and citizenship : the civic costs of the American way of life
%A Williamson, Thad
%K Cities and towns – United States – Growth.
%K Citizenship – United States.
%K Social justice – United States.
%X "Must the strip mall and the eight-lane highway define 21st century American life?" That is a central question posed by critics of suburban and exurban living in America. Yet despite the ubiquity of the critique, it never sticks–Americans by the scores of millions have willingly moved into sprawling developments over the past few decades. Americans find many of the more substantial criticisms of sprawl easy to ignore because they often come across as snobbish in tone. Yet as Thad Williamson explains, sprawl does create real, measurable social problems. Williamson's work is unique in two important ways. First, while he highlights the deleterious effects of sprawl on civic life in America, he is also evenhanded. He does not dismiss the pastoral, homeowning ideal that is at the root of sprawl, and is sympathetic to the vast numbers of Americans who very clearly prefer it. Secondly, his critique is neither aesthetic nor moralistic in tone, but based on social science. Utilizing a landmark 30,000-person survey, he shows that sprawl fosters civic disengagement, accentuates inequality, and negatively impacts the environment. Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship will not only be the most comprehensive work in print on the subject, it will be the first to offer a empirically rigorous critique of the most popular form of living in America today."–Publisher description.
%I Oxford University Press
%C New York
%@ 9780195369434
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2010
%T Who cares? : Public ambivalence and government activism from the New Deal to the second gilded age
%A Newman, Katherine S
%A Jacobs, Elisabeth S
%K Poverty -- Government policy -- United States -- 20th century.
%K Public opinion -- United States -- 20th century.
%K United States -- Economic policy -- 20th century.
%K United States -- Politics and government -- 1933-1945.
%K United States -- Politics and government -- 1945-1989.
%K United States -- Social policy -- 20th century.
%X "Americans like to think that they look after their own, especially in times of hardship. Particularly for the Great Depression and the Great Society eras, the collective memory is one of solidarity and compassion for the less fortunate. Who Cares? challenges this story by examining opinion polls and letters to presidents from average citizens. This evidence, some of it little known, reveals a much darker, more impatient attitude toward the poor, the unemployed, and the dispossessed during the 1930s and 1960s. Katherine Newman and Elisabeth Jacobs show that some of the social policies that Americans take for granted today suffered from declining public support just a few years after their inception. Yet Americans have been equally unenthusiastic abotu efforts to dismantle social programs once their are established. Again contrary to popular belief, conservative Republicans had little public support in the 1980s and 1990s for their efforts to unravel the progressive heritage of the New Deal and the Great Society. Whether creating or rolling back such programs, leaders like Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan often found themselves working against public opposition, and they left lasting legacies only by persevering despite it.""Timely and surprising, Who Cares? demonstrates not that Americans are callous but that they are frequently ambivalent about public support for the poor. It also suggests that presidential leadership requires bold action, regardless of opinion polls."--Jacket.
%I Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2010.
%C Princeton, N.J.
%@ 9780691135632
%G eng
%< Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-210) and index.
%0 Journal Article
%J Ethnography
%D 2009
%T The Role of Theory in Ethnographic Research
%A William Julius Wilson
%A Anmol Chaddha
%B Ethnography
%V 10
%P 549-564
%G eng
%U http://eth.sagepub.com/content/10/4/549
%N 4
%0 Journal Article
%J Social Science Journal
%D 2009
%T Does Anti-Semitism Among African Americans Simply Reflect Anti-White Sentiment
%B Social Science Journal
%V 46
%P 384-389
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
%D 2009
%T Controlling Violent Offenders Released to the Community: An Evaluation of the Boston Reentry Initiative
%A Braga, Anthony A
%A Piehl, Anne M
%A Hureau, David
%K Gangs
%K Recidivism
%K Reentry
%X Despite the high level of funding and policy interest in prisoner reentry, there is still little rigorous scientific evidence to guide jurisdictions in developing reentry programs to enhance public safety, particularly for managing those who pose the greatest safety risks. The Boston Reentry Initiative (BRI) is an interagency initiative to help transition violent adult offenders released from the local jail back to their Boston neighborhoods through mentoring, social service assistance, and vocational development.This study uses a quasi-experimental design and survival analyses to evaluate the effects of the BRI on the subsequent recidivism of program participants relative to an equivalent control group. The authors find that the BRI was associated with significant reductions—on the order of 30 percent—in the overall and violent arrest failure rates.
%B Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency
%V 46
%P 411-436
%@ 0022-4278
%G eng
%N 4
%0 Book
%B Judiciary's role in American education
%D 2009
%T From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: The judiciary's role in American education
%E Dunn, Joshua M
%E West, Martin R
%K Educational Law And Legislation – United States
%K Political Questions And Judicial Power – United States
%B Judiciary's role in American education
%I Brookings Institution Press
%C Washington, D.C.
%@ 9780815703075
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2009
%T The new welfare bureaucrats : entanglements of race, class, and policy reform
%A Watkins-Hayes, Celeste
%K Public welfare administration – United States.
%K Social case work – United States.
%K Social service and race relations – United States.
%I University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 9780226874913
%G eng
%0 Book
%B Origins of network inequality in everyday life
%D 2009
%T Unanticipated gains : origins of network inequality in everyday life
%A Small, Mario Luis
%K Day care centers – Case studies.
%K Social capital (Sociology)
%K Social networks.
%X "Social capital theorists have shown that some people do better than others in part because they enjoy larger, more supportive, or otherwise more useful networks. But why do some people have better networks than others? Unanticipated Gains argues that the practice and structure of the churches, colleges, firms, gyms, childcare centers, and schools in which people happen to participate routinely matter more than their deliberate "networking." Exploring the experiences of New York City mothers whose children were enrolled in childcare centers, this book examines why a great deal of these mothers, after enrolling their children, dramatically expanded both the size and usefulness of their personal networks. Whether, how, and how much the mother's networks were altered–and how useful these networks were–depended on the apparently trivial, but remarkably consequential, practices and regulations of the centers. The structure of parent-teacher organizations, the frequency of fieldtrips, and the rules regarding drop-off and pick-up times all affected the mothers' networks. Relying on scores of in-depth interviews with mothers, quantitative data on both mothers and centers, and detailed case studies of other routine organizations, Small shows that how much people gain from their connections depends substantially on institutional conditions they often do not control, and through everyday processes they may not even be aware of."–Jacket.
%B Origins of network inequality in everyday life
%I Oxford University Press
%C Oxford
%@ 9780195384352
%G eng
%0 Journal Article
%J City & Community
%D 2008
%T Reconsidering the 'Ghetto'
%A Anmol Chaddha
%A William Julius Wilson
%B City & Community
%V 7
%P 384-388
%G eng
%U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2008.00271_7.x/abstract
%N 4
%0 Book
%D 2007
%T The Education Mayor: Improving America's Schools
%A Kenneth K. Wong
%A Francis X. Shen
%A Dorothea Anagnostopoulos
%A Stacey Rutledge
%I Georgetown University Press
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2007
%T Democratic laboratories : policy diffusion among the American states
%A Karch, Andrew
%K Diffusion of innovations – United States.
%K Political planning – United States.
%I University of Michigan Press
%C Ann Arbor
%@ 047209968X
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2007
%T The Missing Class : Portraits of the Near Poor in America
%A Newman, Katherine S
%A Chen, Victor Tan
%K Poor – United States.
%K Poverty – United States.
%K United States – Economic conditions.
%K Working class – United States.
%I Beacon Press
%@ 9780807041390
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2006
%T Differences that matter : social policy and the working poor in the United States and Canada
%A Zuberi, Dan
%K Canada – Social policy.
%K Poverty – Government policy – Canada.
%K Poverty – Government policy – United States.
%K Public welfare – Canada.
%K Public welfare – United States.
%K United States – Social policy.
%K Working poor – Canada.
%K Working poor – United States.
%I ILR Press/Cornell University Press
%C Ithaca, N.Y.
%@ 0801444071
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2004
%T Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings
%A Katherine S. Newman
%A Fox, Cybelle
%A Harding, David
%A Mehta, Jal
%A Roth, Wendy
%I Basic Books
%G eng
%0 Book
%D 2004
%T Villa Victoria : the transformation of social capital in a Boston barrio
%A Small, Mario Luis
%K Mass.) – Social conditions.
%K Poor – Social networks – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Puerto Ricans – Massachusetts – Boston – Social conditions.
%K Social capital (Sociology) – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Social ecology – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K Social participation – Massachusetts – Boston.
%K South End (Boston
%I University of Chicago Press
%C Chicago
%@ 0226762912
%G eng