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Gail Kligman
University of California, Los Angeles
Visiting Scholar
2004 to 2005
Gail Kligman, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Katherine Verdery, Eric R. Wolf Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, will conduct a joint study of how a nation’s concept of property as being either private or public influences people’s sense of identity.
Issa Kohler-Hausmann
Yale University
Visiting Scholar
2017 to 2018
Kohler-Hausmann will complete a book on how New York City’s signature policing tactics—including “broken windows” and “quality-of-life” policies—have contributed to mass misdemeanor arrests. Drawing from three years of fieldwork, unique datasets, and interviews with prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and defendants, she will study how misdemeanor cases contribute to racial and class inequalities despite the fact that they often do not result in criminal convictions or jail sentences.
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz
University of Maryland, College Park
Visiting Scholar
2006 to 2007
Roberto Korzeniewicz, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Timothy Moran, Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY, Stony Brook form a working group that will be at the Foundation in the fall to write a book examining inequality from a global perspective, focused on rising economic disparities among countries around the world. They will argue that trends in the last century have led to reduced inequality within wealthy nations, but accentuated inequality between rich and poor nations.
Maria Krysan
Pennsylvania State University
Visiting Scholar
1998 to 1999
Maria Krysan, assistant professor of sociology at Pennsylvania State University, will study the role of residential preferences in perpetuating racial segregation. Whereas research on segregation has often focused on discrimination in the housing search process, Krysan employs survey research to investigate the role of white and minority attitudes toward living in racially mixed or homogeneous neighborhoods. She explores how groups differ in their preferences, and the degree to which such preferences arise from racial bias, fear of harassment, or other causes.
Karyn Lacy
Emory University
Visiting Scholar
2003 to 2004
Karyn Lacy, assistant professor of sociology at Emory University, will write a book that examines the formation of class-based identity among participants in an elite African American mothers' organization and the cultural consequences for their children. Many of these organizations were originally created to counteract the effects of segregation and to surround children with appropriate role models.
Michèle Lamont
Harvard University
Visiting Scholar
2019 to 2020
Lamont will work on a book that explores how Americans conceive of their self-worth in the context of growing economic inequality. Drawing from interviews with individuals from across the class spectrum, she will explore whether Americans increasingly understand their own “worthiness” through their socioeconomic success, self-reliance, and competitiveness, and analyze implications for the hardening of class and ethno-racial boundaries. She will propose ways to foster greater social inclusion by promoting more hopeful narratives and meaningful engagement of stigmatized groups.
Michèle Lamont
Princeton University
Visiting Scholar
1996 to 1997
Michele Lamont, associate professor of sociology at Princeton University, worked on a book that will examine the class, racial, and cultural differences among low-status white-collar and blue-collar workers residing in the suburbs of New York and Paris. She completed the analysis of 150 interviews, on which the work is based, and wrote two RSF working papers, "The Rhetoric of Racism and Anti-Racism in France and the United States" and "Above People Above: Status and Worth among White and Black Workers."
Annette Lareau
University of Pennsylvania
Visiting Scholar
2012 to 2013
Lareau will explore how parents of young children choose where to live and where to send their children to school. She argues that school selection is not a matter of individual parents making a decision in isolation but instead a socially-shaped dynamic through which parents seek to transmit advantages to their school-aged children. She will draw on interviews with parents in three suburban neighborhoods to analyze school-choice decisions.
Edward J. Lawler
Cornell University
Visiting Scholar
2007 to 2008
Edward J. Lawler, Martin P. Catherwood Professor, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, will write a book on the role of emotion in forming group attachments. He will examine how emotional processes among individuals in a group generate positive or negative sentiments about the group itself – whether among immediate local groups of neighbors or coworkers or among larger social entities such as a multi-national corporations or nations.
Catherine Lee
Rutgers University
Visiting Scholar
2009 to 2010
Catherine Lee, assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers University, will write a book that examines how and why family and family reunification have been central to the regulation of immigration throughout U.S. history. Lee will trace the development of immigration policies from 1865 on, analyzing the ways in which constructs of the family and nation have shaped policymaking and continue to influence current efforts at reform.
Jennifer Lee
University of California, Irvine
Visiting Scholar
2011 to 2012
Lee will write a book comparing the different mobility pathways of the adult children of Mexican, Chinese, and Vietnamese immigrants in Los Angeles. Departing from earlier studies, she will rely on the subjects’ assessments of success rather than normative definitions. Lee will bridge the immigration and culture literatures to illustrate how ethnicity can operate as a resource for the children of immigrants, particularly for those whose parents arrive with few skills and little education.
Richard O. Lempert
University of Michigan
Visiting Scholar
1998 to 1999
Richard O. Lempert, professor of Law and chair of the department of sociology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will complete a study of Honolulu's public housing eviction process between 1958 and 1987. The policies governing the Hawaii Housing Authority's eviction board have undergone numerous changes, and a once minimal eviction rate has grown to nearly 100% in non-payment of rent cases.
Judith Levine
Temple University
Visiting Researcher
Judith Levine will work on a book examining how college seniors transition to employment. Drawing on 280 interviews with over one hundred college seniors at an urban university in the Northeast, Levine will compare the experiences of first-generation and continuing-generation college students. She will also examine how the transition to employment varies for first-generation college students by race, ethnicity, and gender.
Zai Liang
State University of New York, Albany
Visiting Scholar
2014 to 2015
Liang will write a book on patterns of employment and settlement among recent low-skill Chinese immigrants in the U.S. The book will examine the role of employment agencies in the process of immigrant settlement in non-gateway destinations, as well as the challenges of securing jobs and operating businesses for immigrants in these locations.
Daniel T. Lichter
Ohio State University
Visiting Scholar
1999 to 2000
Daniel T. Lichter, professor of sociology at Ohio State University and associate of the Center for Human Resource Research, will examine the long-term consequences of increased childhood poverty and family instability in the 1980s and 1990s. Do "at risk" children necessarily become socially disadvantaged and disengaged adults? How great are the effects of poverty on children, and does any damage done persist into adulthood?
John R. Logan
State University of New York, Albany
Visiting Scholar
1996 to 1997
John R. Logan, professor of sociology and public administration and policy at the State University of New York, Albany, analyzed the historical origins of ethnic and racial segregation in New York City. He wrote two RSF Working papers, "White Ethnics in the New York Economy, 1920-1960" and "The Ethnic Neighborhood, 1920-1970," in which he concludes that disparities in assimilation of white ethnic groups early in the century were more pronounced than previously believed.
Vivian Louie
Harvard University
Visiting Scholar
2007 to 2008
Vivian Louie, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, will write a book on the transition from high school to college among second-generation Dominican and Colombian youth in New York City and Boston. She will analyze how the children of immigrants develop their own identities, how they see themselves as differing from their parents, and the extent to which they view the transition to higher education as becoming part of the American mainstream.
Yao Lu
Columbia University
Visiting Scholar
2012 to 2013
Lu and Neeraj Kaushal will complete a study comparing immigrant selection and assimilation in Canada and the U.S. Their research will systematically assess the relative selection of immigrants to these countries with respect to levels of education, host country language proficiency, and initial earnings. They will further examine the relative economic well-being of immigrants in these two countries after adjusting for different levels of immigrant selection. They will examine how these trends have shifted since 1990.
Amy Lutz
Syracuse University
Visiting Scholar
2012 to 2013
Lutz and Pamela R. Bennett will write a book that examines the different ways parents approach their children’s education. This working group will explore the sources of variation in parenting styles across class, race/ethnicity, and immigrant generations. They will draw on survey data, in-depth qualitative interviews, and academic data to analyze dynamics within families, schools, and neighborhoods and to better understand the roots of social behavior.
Jeff Manza
Northwestern University
Visiting Scholar
2005 to 2006
Jeff Manza, Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Northwestern University, will write a book and several journal articles on why industrial countries provide such widely varied levels of welfare benefits. Manza will examine how public opinion influences the size of a country’s welfare state, comparing public opinion and social spending data from 17 developed countries with varying degrees of social welfare provision.