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

With factors such as increased immigration and interracial unions propelling racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S., many have predicted that the nation will become “majority minority” in a few decades’ time. Yet, some researchers, such as former Visiting Scholar Richard Alba (CUNY Graduate Center), have argued that the U.S. is likely to remain majority-white as racial boundaries shift and more groups are incorporated into the mainstream. In other words, our idea of diversity today is contingent upon our society’s perception of who “counts” as white.

Perceptions of diversity also deeply inform how we view our environments at the individual level. Visiting Scholar Cara Wong (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is currently studying individuals’ ideas about the racial and ethnic diversity of their neighborhoods. Using a new map‐drawing measure of people’s “local communities” and multiple survey datasets, Wong and her colleagues are exploring how individuals’ perceptions of the racial makeup of their locales affect their intergroup attitudes.

In an interview with the Foundation, Wong explained how the social sciences have traditionally examined people’s neighborhoods, and discussed how further investigation of people’s perceptions of race and diversity can help provide new frameworks for more effective housing policies.

Q. Your current research examines the gap between people's "objective" neighborhood contexts and their perceptions of those contexts, focusing in particular on race and ethnicity. What kinds of problems do social scientists face when they attempt to analyze people's environments, and how does studying perceptions add a new dimension to research on racial inequality?

On Thursday, February 4, RSF president Sheldon Danziger, Visiting Scholar Ron Mincy (Columbia University), and RSF grantee Lawrence Mead (New York University) will join a number of other experts on a panel discussion hosted by the Ford Foundation and Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. The panel will discuss findings from a report, “Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security,” which was released by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute in December 2015.

The report outlines a comprehensive, non-partisan plan for addressing poverty and economic mobility and was authored by an interdisciplinary working group of researchers, including Danziger, Mincy, Mead, and a number of other RSF scholars and grantees. The report can be downloaded in full from both the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute.

The February 4 panel discussion will take place at the Ford Foundation from 9am-12pm EST and is free to the public. Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity will livestream the event from their site.

With the Iowa caucuses only a few days away, the candidates for both the Democratic and Republican 2016 presidential nominations have found themselves in the midst of tight races. Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have sparred over issues such as health care, gun control, and affordable college education, while GOP contenders including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have promised to crack down on undocumented immigrants and combat terrorism.

A number of RSF authors and grantees recently spoke to the press about these leading election issues. In an interview with the International Business Times, Arne Kalleberg, author of the RSF book Good Jobs, Bad Jobs and an incoming Visiting Scholar, commented on the Democratic candidates’ promises to raise wages and create jobs for the middle class. He noted that although 2015 saw modest job growth, wages have remained stagnant. “There’s been a growing divide,” said Kalleberg, “in the quality of jobs that people have. People are falling way behind.”

In interviews with the New York Times, RSF trustee Richard Thaler and RSF grantees Nicholas Bloom and David Autor discussed the persistence of economic inequality, which has emerged as the central focus of Sanders’s campaign. In one study, Bloom and his colleagues analyzed 35 years of Social Security data and found that most of the economic gains over the last few decades have been going to those at the very top of the income distribution. Even now, Thaler added, “It’s pretty much indisputable that the percentage of income being earned by the top 1 percent, or the top quarter of 1 percent, is going up.” Research by RSF grantees Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page—cited in a recent column by Nicholas Kristof—has further shown that the wealthy hold disproportionate influence over public policy, in part because politicians seeking office rely so heavily on fundraising.

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

In a time of rising college tuitions and soaring student loan debt, higher education has become increasingly inaccessible to all but the affluent. Though a number of policymakers—including several of the 2016 presidential candidates—have sought to make post-secondary education more affordable for the middle class, new research shows that college campuses themselves may play a role in exacerbating inequality.

At the Foundation, Visiting Scholar Tali Mendelberg (Princeton University) is conducting an in-depth analysis of the consequences of affluence on U.S. college campuses, looking at how concentrations of high-income students at universities may reinforce economic inequality. She is exploring whether the presence of many affluent students creates social norms on campuses that prioritize the wealthy and marginalize low-income students, thereby leading to lower rates of leadership and future political participation among low-income young adults.

In an interview with the Foundation, Mendelberg explained how these norms are established, how they exacerbate inequality, and what kinds of policies might ameliorate them. A paper on this topic will be published later this year (a working paper can be found here).

Q. Recent studies of social inequality, including work by RSF author Martin Gilens, have shown that affluent Americans (those in the top 10% of the income distribution) hold significant influence over public policy and tend to oppose policies that reduce inequality. Your current work expands this body of research to look at the role of college campuses in shaping the economic preferences of the affluent. Although colleges have long been thought to "liberalize" students' beliefs, you've found that they can also conservatize. How has this worked in terms of students' economic beliefs? What kinds of norms around money and affluence are established on college campuses?