Many studies document how social disasters generate a shock that unsettles political and cultural systems, generating opportunities for groups to mobilize for systemic change. Yet research also shows that social disasters amplify existing social inequalities, as in the pandemic’s disproportionate threat to Black and Brown youth, who found their life trajectories interrupted. Sociologist Hajar Yazdiha will examine how these competing perspectives might work in tandem by combining interviews with student activists and participant observation of two Los Angeles student activist organizations.
Sociologist Yolanda Wiggins will conduct a follow-up study to her previous research on intergenerational exchanges between college students and their families.
Sociologists Francis Prior and Steven Farough will examine how debt among formerly incarcerated fathers affects both their broader economic lives and their attempts to socially reintegrate. The researchers will conduct interviews with 60 formerly incarcerated fathers about their economic lives with respect to work expenses and debt, as well as their social lives with respect to their roles as fathers. The researchers will conduct participant observation by accompanying interviewees to legal bureaucracies to find out about their debts.
Sociologist Patrisia Macías-Rojas will build upon a previous study on the experiences of residents in southern Arizona border communities who experience civil justice problems related to U.S.-Mexico border security, including residents who are not undocumented migrants. After 9/11, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was reorganized under what is now known as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Macías-Rojas will examine the transformation of border security under DHS.
While scholarship often links attitudes towards police to demographic variables such as race, class, and age, sentiments towards police change over time. For example, surveys have shown that changes in sentiment towards police closely track the political cycle. Online media can drive moments of polarization during electoral cycles by amplifying and politicizing issues at a time when media consumption is high. Political scientist Shelley Liu and sociologist Tony Cheng will examine what aspects of online media shape polarization towards police.
Scholars argue that immigration status is important for the socioeconomic trajectories of young people, including their educational experiences. However, the importance of pre-migration social class, relative to immigration status, has yet to be fully examined. Sociologist Yader Lanuza will explore the case of undocumented students’ transition from high school to college to understand the consequences of pre-migration social class and immigration status on schooling.
Social science research has identified eviction from private rental properties as a critical factor in the maintenance and reproduction of hardship and inequality in American society. However, little is known about how the nation’s subsidized housing programs compare to the private rental market when it comes to evictions. Do these safety net programs shield tenants from eviction, or do public housing tenants remain exposed to eviction’s life-disrupting harm?
More creators are using platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or Twitch to publish content and connect with millions of daily users. However, women and people of color remain underrepresented on these content platforms. Thinking of such platforms as workplaces, sociologist Anne-Kathrin Kronberg investigates how platform policies and features affect women’s and people of color’s participation and viewership. Kronberg previously created a longitudinal career panel using daily Twitch activity logs of 2,000 creators, representing a random sample of creators on the platform.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is one of the largest and most prominent progressive social movements since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. While much research has been conducted on the political impact of BLM, less quantitative social science research examines the movement’s cultural impact or how it has shaped public discourse. Sociologists Jelani Ince and Fabio Rojas will examine how BLM protests and media attention have allowed BLM’s antiracist vocabulary to gain prominence and how this vocabulary is changing the ways in which Americans understand racial inequality.
Black and Latinx students are often regarded as an aside in research on transitions to postsecondary education and work. When they are centered, much of this literature focuses on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged youth and emphasizes their purported deficiencies. Few scholars have attempted to compare high achieving African Americans and Latinxs to Whites. Sociologist Tomeka Davis will examine the arc of high-achieving Black and Latinx students beginning in high school and throughout early adulthood.