Southeast Asian immigrants are four times more likely to be deported for previous criminal convictions than any other immigrant group. Yet, their experiences are rendered invisible in conversations on criminal justice, immigration, and race. Sociologist Jennifer Huynh will explore the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Hmong refugees awaiting deportation. She will conduct interviews and community-based participatory research for her study.
New York City is presently facing an immigrant crisis unlike any that the city has ever seen. Since 2022, more than 200,000 asylum-seeking migrants were routed to New York City and as of May 30, 2024, over 65,000 migrants are under the care of the city. Sociologist Edwin Grimsley will investigate the challenges migrants face in New York City, focusing on the effectiveness of service providers to address their needs.
Inadequate nutrition can harm children’s health and development, including academic outcomes. A promising way to boost child nutrition is through home meal programs. Psychologists Rebecca Ryan, Ariel Kalil, and Anna Gassman-Pines, sociologist Pamela Herd, political scientist and public policy scholar Carolyn Barnes, and public policy scholar and behavioral scientist Elizabeth Linos will evaluate the effects of a home meal program on student academic outcomes in a low-income community. They will conduct a field experiment for their study.
One common form of criminal punishment involves monetary sanctions, or legal financial obligations (LFOs). LFOs impact millions of people experiencing economic instability. Some evidence suggests that eliminating or reducing financial barriers can improve reintegration, but few studies have identified policies that can lessen the disparate impacts of LFOs. Criminologist Brittany Martin will investigate the effects of recent LFO policy reform in Rhode Island, which aims to alleviate court-related debt.
Critical historical events leave a lasting impact on individuals’ developmental trajectories and there is reason to expect that young adults were particularly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sociologists Megan Iantosca, Shelley Kimelberg, and Kristen Schultz Lee will examine how young adults, age 18 to 24, navigated the challenges of school and work during the COVID-19 pandemic and how their experiences impacted their understandings of career paths and social mobility.
Higher education trajectories are often interrupted or incomplete. Thirty percent of students “stop out” of college—taking breaks between enrollments—and 31-percent drop out and do not complete their degree within eight years of entering college. Sociologist Christina Ciocca Eller will examine the decision-making processes of students who start but do not finish their college degree, with a focus on reenrollment decisions. She will conduct 180 in-depth interviews with students who have some college but no credential for her study.
This grant is funded in part by the Spencer Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation.
This grant is funded in part by the Spencer Foundation.
Many universities have adopted race-neutral admissions policies in response to the 2023 Supreme Court decision in the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) cases. Sociologist Steven Dandaneau and education scholar Bryan Cook will examine the impact of the SFFA case on incoming class diversity and undergraduate admissions policies. They will collect and analyze new institutional data along with National Association for College Admission Counseling survey data on admissions policies and practices for their study.
This grant is funded in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Worker cooperatives are mostly small firms that account for a very small proportion of the economy. Although proponents claim they are associated with higher pay, job security, and job satisfaction, there is little research on the extent to which they benefit workers and whether they are a viable business model.