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Michael Brown, Ferguson, and why race matters for policy research

February 9, 2016

Urban Institute | By Steven Brown, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and an affiliated scholar and contributor to the Inequality and Mobility Initiative at the Urban Institute. "We cannot fully put an end to unequal opportunities until we better understand and address how race shapes those factors."



Mexico's Next Big Chance to Tackle Corruption

February 8, 2016

America's Quarterly | By Viridiana Rios.  Rios (Ph.D. '13), now a research fellow at the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., writes that Mexico's citizen initiative, Ley 3de3, represents the first time in Mexico's history that civil society has come together to take legislative processes against corruption into their own hands. Mexico's civil society, she argues, is leading the fight against corruption not by choice, but by necessity.



Sociology's Truth? W.E.B. Du Bois and the Origins of Sociology

February 9, 2016

Los Angeles Review of Books | By Monica Bell, Ph.D. candidate in Sociology & Social Policy. Reviewing Aldon Morris's The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, Bell argues Morris evokes the challenges of black and activism-oriented scholars today.



Money Interests are Blocking US Action on Climate Change

February 8, 2016

Aljazeera America | Opinion piece by Sean McElwee of Demos draws on data from recent work  by Theda Skocpol (Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government & Sociology) and Alex Hertel-Fernandez (Ph.D. candidate in Government & Social Policy).  Skocpol and Hertel-Fernandez are presenting the latest version of their paper,"The Koch Effect: The Impact of a Cadre-Led Network on American Politics," at the Harvard Center for American Political Studies, Feb 12, 2016.



Getting to Win-Win

February 8, 2016

Harvard Kennedy School Magazine | Jane Mansbridge on the vanishing art and science of political compromise. Mansbridge and Cathie Jo Martin (Boston University) are the editors of Political Negotiation, published by Brookings Institution Press in December 2015.  Doctoral fellow Chase Foster (Ph.D. candidate in Government), Mansbridge, and Martin co-authored chapter 4 in the book, "Negotiation Myopia."

"The stakes are now higher than ever, Mansbridge argues...'The idea is that when we design institutions we should be thinking consciously of how to design them to be partial cures for the mistakes our brains habitually make,' says Mansbridge. 'That’s how you get the rules of political engagement.'"



Are Conservative Groups Better Than Their Liberal Equivalents At Shaping Legislation?

January 13, 2016

Wisconsin Public Radio—The Kathleen Dunn Show | Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (Ph.D. candidate in Government & Social Policy) guests. [audio: 50 min].



New Koch: Rebranding the Koch Brothers

January 25, 2016

The New Yorker | Highlights new, data-rich study by Theda Skocpol (Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology) and Alex Hertel-Fernandez (Ph.D. candidate in Government & Social Policy) on grassroots mobilizations by the Koch Network. Read their paper, “The Koch Effect: The Impact of a Cadre-Led Network on American Politics and Policy," which includes early results from a collaborative study of “The Shifting U.S. Political Terrain” under way at Harvard University.




Can States Take Over and Turn Around School Districts?

January 28, 2016

Harvard EdCast [audio: 10:33 min] | David Deming (Ph.D. '10 and faculty) and Beth Schueler (Ed.D. candidate) reflect on lessons learned from the state's successful school takeover in Lawrence, MA. Read the research by Beth Schueler, Joshua S. Goodman (HKS faculty), and David Deming in their just released NBER Working Paper.



Takeover to Turnaround: What States and Schools Can Learn from the Massachusetts Takeover of Lawrence Public Schools

January 28, 2016

HGSE Usable Knowledge | Spotlights new research by Inequality Fellow Beth Shueler (Ed.D. candidate), Joshua Goodman (Associate Professor, Harvard Kennedy School), and David Deming (Ph.D. '10 and Associate Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education), which found achievement gains from state takeover and district-level turnaround of Lawrence public schools  in a new working paper that may serve as a blueprint for other districts and states.



District in Turnaround: Ed.D. candidate's study on Massachusetts' Lawrence Public Schools shows improvements for turnaround district.

January 26, 2016

Harvard Graduate School of Education | New research by Inequality Fellow Beth Schueler (Ed.D. candidate), co-authored by Joshua Goodman (Associate Professor, Harvard Kennedy School) and David Deming (Ph.D. '10 and Associate Professor, HGSE), demonstrates the direct impact of state takeover of the Lawrence Public School district on student performance and outcomes.

“While researchers can point to several successful efforts to improve individual schools serving primarily low-income students, examples of district-wide turnaround have been frustratingly few and far between,” said Schueler. “Lawrence is an exciting case because it provides an encouraging proof point that accountability-driven improvement of a chronically low-performing school district is indeed possible.”... Read more about District in Turnaround: Ed.D. candidate's study on Massachusetts' Lawrence Public Schools shows improvements for turnaround district.

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