This feature is part of a new RSF blog series, Work in Progress, which highlights some of the ongoing research of our current class of Visiting Scholars.

Visiting Scholar Dalton Conley is well acquainted with working across disciplines: He currently holds multiple appointments at NYU, including in the Sociology Department, the School of Medicine, and the Wagner School of Public Service. In his time in residence at the Russell Sage Foundation, he is examining the impact of genetics on socioeconomic attainment. Using genetic markers—genes or DNA sequences that can be used to identify particular inherited characteristics—in nationally representative data sets, Conley will attempt to construct genetic risk scores and use them to deepen our understanding of the relationship between genetic endowment and socioeconomic status.

In a new interview with the Foundation, Conley discussed the history of merging genetics with the social sciences, and offered ways of using new genetics data to enrich the way we form policies to address social inequality.

Q. Your research examines the intersection of biology and the social sciences, and in particular, tries to understand how molecular genetics can help explain social stratification. Due to historical misuses of science to justify social inequality (as with the eugenics movement in the nineteenth century or, more recently, Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve) this has been such a controversial area that many social scientists now steer clear of biological explanations altogether. How do you reconcile this fraught history with your own work, and what's new about your research?

With the Foundation’s support, political scientists Alex Street and Chris Zepeda-Millán, in collaboration with Michael Jones-Correa, conducted an online survey of more than 1200 second generation Latinos to test whether socialization experiences are shaped by the responses of parents, children, and other political actors to the unique situation of U.S. citizens with undocumented parents. Among other consequences, they explore the effects of knowledge of deportations among second generation Latinos, especially on the evaluations of Democratic and Republican parties.

They “find that when young Latino citizens become aware of the Obama administration’s deportation policies, they view the Democratic Party as significantly less welcoming. Given that partisan attachments formed by young adulthood tend to persist through voters’ lives, this suggests that current deportation policies have the potential to alienate Latino voters from the Democratic Party for decades.”