Results by title
828 books match the query 'Research' and 86 start with r
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Administrative Burden and Inequality in Policy implementationPamela Herd
Russell Sage Foundation, 2023
Copy refers to RSF, Volume 9, issues 4 & 5
Administrative burdens are the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that individuals incur during encounters with public services. While some burdens are created unintentionally, others are deliberately constructed as barriers to limit claims to programs and services. Often, burdens fall most heavily on marginalized groups, preventing them from resources they need. In this double issue of RSF public administration scholar Pamela Herd, economist Hilary Hoynes, political scientists Jamila Michener and Donald Moynihan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how administrative burdens shape inequality.
Issue 1 examines how administrative burdens impact Medicaid and health inequality, student loan repayment programs, and immigration to the U.S. Emily Rauscher and Ailish Burns find that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens in the late 1980s increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. Adam Goldstein and colleagues show that administrative burdens in enrolling in income-driven repayment student loan programs causes borrowers with lower socioeconomic status to be disproportionately excluded from these programs. Lilly Yu finds that dramatic changes to immigration law and policy during the Trump Administration led immigration lawyers to inadvertently exacerbate inequality among undocumented and vulnerable immigrants’ access to legal representation.
Issue 2 looks at the role of administrative burdens in experiences with child and family support programs, the child welfare system, disaster and housing relief programs, and housing support programs. Carolyn Barnes and colleagues find that mothers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) vary over time and influence whether they choose to enroll or continue participating in the program. Ethan J. Raker and Tyler M. Woods find applications from poor communities of color for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disproportionately denied or delayed due to burdensome program requirements and implementation. Stephanie Casey Pierce and Stephanie Moulton reveal that reforms to reduce administrative burden in foreclosure programs are associated with a significant increase in the rate of benefit receipt and decrease in the foreclosure rate. Frank Edwards and colleagues show child welfare system-involved parents must navigate considerable administrative burdens in order to retain custody of their children.
This volume of RSF sheds light on the origins, experiences, and consequences of administrative burdens.
Administrative burdens are the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that individuals incur during encounters with public services. While some burdens are created unintentionally, others are deliberately constructed as barriers to limit claims to programs and services. Often, burdens fall most heavily on marginalized groups, preventing them from resources they need. In this double issue of RSF public administration scholar Pamela Herd, economist Hilary Hoynes, political scientists Jamila Michener and Donald Moynihan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how administrative burdens shape inequality.
Issue 1 examines how administrative burdens impact Medicaid and health inequality, student loan repayment programs, and immigration to the U.S. Emily Rauscher and Ailish Burns find that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens in the late 1980s increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. Adam Goldstein and colleagues show that administrative burdens in enrolling in income-driven repayment student loan programs causes borrowers with lower socioeconomic status to be disproportionately excluded from these programs. Lilly Yu finds that dramatic changes to immigration law and policy during the Trump Administration led immigration lawyers to inadvertently exacerbate inequality among undocumented and vulnerable immigrants’ access to legal representation.
Issue 2 looks at the role of administrative burdens in experiences with child and family support programs, the child welfare system, disaster and housing relief programs, and housing support programs. Carolyn Barnes and colleagues find that mothers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) vary over time and influence whether they choose to enroll or continue participating in the program. Ethan J. Raker and Tyler M. Woods find applications from poor communities of color for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disproportionately denied or delayed due to burdensome program requirements and implementation. Stephanie Casey Pierce and Stephanie Moulton reveal that reforms to reduce administrative burden in foreclosure programs are associated with a significant increase in the rate of benefit receipt and decrease in the foreclosure rate. Frank Edwards and colleagues show child welfare system-involved parents must navigate considerable administrative burdens in order to retain custody of their children.
This volume of RSF sheds light on the origins, experiences, and consequences of administrative burdens.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Administrative Burden and Inequality in Policy implementationPamela Herd
Russell Sage Foundation, 2023
Copy refers to RSF, Volume 9, issues 4 & 5
Administrative burdens are the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that individuals incur during encounters with public services. While some burdens are created unintentionally, others are deliberately constructed as barriers to limit claims to programs and services. Often, burdens fall most heavily on marginalized groups, preventing them from resources they need. In this double issue of RSF public administration scholar Pamela Herd, economist Hilary Hoynes, political scientists Jamila Michener and Donald Moynihan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how administrative burdens shape inequality.
Issue 1 examines how administrative burdens impact Medicaid and health inequality, student loan repayment programs, and immigration to the U.S. Emily Rauscher and Ailish Burns find that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens in the late 1980s increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. Adam Goldstein and colleagues show that administrative burdens in enrolling in income-driven repayment student loan programs causes borrowers with lower socioeconomic status to be disproportionately excluded from these programs. Lilly Yu finds that dramatic changes to immigration law and policy during the Trump Administration led immigration lawyers to inadvertently exacerbate inequality among undocumented and vulnerable immigrants’ access to legal representation.
Issue 2 looks at the role of administrative burdens in experiences with child and family support programs, the child welfare system, disaster and housing relief programs, and housing support programs. Carolyn Barnes and colleagues find that mothers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) vary over time and influence whether they choose to enroll or continue participating in the program. Ethan J. Raker and Tyler M. Woods find applications from poor communities of color for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disproportionately denied or delayed due to burdensome program requirements and implementation. Stephanie Casey Pierce and Stephanie Moulton reveal that reforms to reduce administrative burden in foreclosure programs are associated with a significant increase in the rate of benefit receipt and decrease in the foreclosure rate. Frank Edwards and colleagues show child welfare system-involved parents must navigate considerable administrative burdens in order to retain custody of their children.
This volume of RSF sheds light on the origins, experiences, and consequences of administrative burdens.
Administrative burdens are the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that individuals incur during encounters with public services. While some burdens are created unintentionally, others are deliberately constructed as barriers to limit claims to programs and services. Often, burdens fall most heavily on marginalized groups, preventing them from resources they need. In this double issue of RSF public administration scholar Pamela Herd, economist Hilary Hoynes, political scientists Jamila Michener and Donald Moynihan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how administrative burdens shape inequality.
Issue 1 examines how administrative burdens impact Medicaid and health inequality, student loan repayment programs, and immigration to the U.S. Emily Rauscher and Ailish Burns find that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens in the late 1980s increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. Adam Goldstein and colleagues show that administrative burdens in enrolling in income-driven repayment student loan programs causes borrowers with lower socioeconomic status to be disproportionately excluded from these programs. Lilly Yu finds that dramatic changes to immigration law and policy during the Trump Administration led immigration lawyers to inadvertently exacerbate inequality among undocumented and vulnerable immigrants’ access to legal representation.
Issue 2 looks at the role of administrative burdens in experiences with child and family support programs, the child welfare system, disaster and housing relief programs, and housing support programs. Carolyn Barnes and colleagues find that mothers’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) vary over time and influence whether they choose to enroll or continue participating in the program. Ethan J. Raker and Tyler M. Woods find applications from poor communities of color for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) housing aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were disproportionately denied or delayed due to burdensome program requirements and implementation. Stephanie Casey Pierce and Stephanie Moulton reveal that reforms to reduce administrative burden in foreclosure programs are associated with a significant increase in the rate of benefit receipt and decrease in the foreclosure rate. Frank Edwards and colleagues show child welfare system-involved parents must navigate considerable administrative burdens in order to retain custody of their children.
This volume of RSF sheds light on the origins, experiences, and consequences of administrative burdens.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Anti-poverty Policy Initiatives for the United StatesLawrence M. Berger
Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
Note: The catalog copy refers to both issues 2 and 3.
Over 40 million Americans live in poverty with limited opportunities for upward mobility. With an economy characterized by large numbers of unstable and low-wage jobs, a fraying social safety net, and stagnant wages, what public policy reforms might increase the number of low-income families and individuals escaping poverty? This special double issue of RSF, edited by poverty researchers Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, and Katherine A. Magnuson, includes many innovative, evidence-based anti-poverty policy proposals crafted by leading social science researchers and policy analysts.
The first issue highlights initiatives that restructure tax and transfer programs to extend greater support to low-income families, regardless of work status. H. Luke Shaefer and colleagues would replace the current child tax credit and child tax exemption in the federal income tax with an unconditional universal child allowance. They estimate that this would reduce child poverty by about 40 percent. Maria Cancian and Daniel Meyer propose a new child support initiative that institutes a guaranteed minimum monthly support payment for every child living with a single parent, using public funds to bridge the gap when that amount exceeds what the noncustodial parent can reasonably pay. Sara Kimberlin and colleagues propose a renter’s tax credit in the federal income tax for poor households facing increasing rental costs that would benefit 70 percent of renters struggling with high rents.
The second issue analyzes policies that would reduce the extent of low-wage work by boosting education, training, and access to better jobs. Teresa Eckrich Sommer and colleagues propose expanding the Head Start program to combine parental education, job training, and employment opportunities along with existing early childhood education programs to better serve the needs of both parents and children. Mark Paul and colleagues propose a federal jobs guarantee of full-time employment, at a living wage and with benefits, for all adults seeking work. Diana Strumbos and colleagues propose a national community college program, based on a successful model used by the City University of New York, to provide disadvantaged students who enroll full-time with advising, academic, career, and financial supports.
Together, the policies proposed in this double issue provide an evidence-based blueprint for anti-poverty reforms that would benefit millions of people in need.
Over 40 million Americans live in poverty with limited opportunities for upward mobility. With an economy characterized by large numbers of unstable and low-wage jobs, a fraying social safety net, and stagnant wages, what public policy reforms might increase the number of low-income families and individuals escaping poverty? This special double issue of RSF, edited by poverty researchers Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, and Katherine A. Magnuson, includes many innovative, evidence-based anti-poverty policy proposals crafted by leading social science researchers and policy analysts.
The first issue highlights initiatives that restructure tax and transfer programs to extend greater support to low-income families, regardless of work status. H. Luke Shaefer and colleagues would replace the current child tax credit and child tax exemption in the federal income tax with an unconditional universal child allowance. They estimate that this would reduce child poverty by about 40 percent. Maria Cancian and Daniel Meyer propose a new child support initiative that institutes a guaranteed minimum monthly support payment for every child living with a single parent, using public funds to bridge the gap when that amount exceeds what the noncustodial parent can reasonably pay. Sara Kimberlin and colleagues propose a renter’s tax credit in the federal income tax for poor households facing increasing rental costs that would benefit 70 percent of renters struggling with high rents.
The second issue analyzes policies that would reduce the extent of low-wage work by boosting education, training, and access to better jobs. Teresa Eckrich Sommer and colleagues propose expanding the Head Start program to combine parental education, job training, and employment opportunities along with existing early childhood education programs to better serve the needs of both parents and children. Mark Paul and colleagues propose a federal jobs guarantee of full-time employment, at a living wage and with benefits, for all adults seeking work. Diana Strumbos and colleagues propose a national community college program, based on a successful model used by the City University of New York, to provide disadvantaged students who enroll full-time with advising, academic, career, and financial supports.
Together, the policies proposed in this double issue provide an evidence-based blueprint for anti-poverty reforms that would benefit millions of people in need.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Anti-poverty Policy Initiatives for the United StatesLawrence M. Berger
Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
Note: The catalog copy refers to both issues 2 and 3.
Over 40 million Americans live in poverty with limited opportunities for upward mobility. With an economy characterized by large numbers of unstable and low-wage jobs, a fraying social safety net, and stagnant wages, what public policy reforms might increase the number of low-income families and individuals escaping poverty? This special double issue of RSF, edited by poverty researchers Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, and Katherine A. Magnuson, includes many innovative, evidence-based anti-poverty policy proposals crafted by leading social science researchers and policy analysts.
The first issue highlights initiatives that restructure tax and transfer programs to extend greater support to low-income families, regardless of work status. H. Luke Shaefer and colleagues would replace the current child tax credit and child tax exemption in the federal income tax with an unconditional universal child allowance. They estimate that this would reduce child poverty by about 40 percent. Maria Cancian and Daniel Meyer propose a new child support initiative that institutes a guaranteed minimum monthly support payment for every child living with a single parent, using public funds to bridge the gap when that amount exceeds what the noncustodial parent can reasonably pay. Sara Kimberlin and colleagues propose a renter’s tax credit in the federal income tax for poor households facing increasing rental costs that would benefit 70 percent of renters struggling with high rents.
The second issue analyzes policies that would reduce the extent of low-wage work by boosting education, training, and access to better jobs. Teresa Eckrich Sommer and colleagues propose expanding the Head Start program to combine parental education, job training, and employment opportunities along with existing early childhood education programs to better serve the needs of both parents and children. Mark Paul and colleagues propose a federal jobs guarantee of full-time employment, at a living wage and with benefits, for all adults seeking work. Diana Strumbos and colleagues propose a national community college program, based on a successful model used by the City University of New York, to provide disadvantaged students who enroll full-time with advising, academic, career, and financial supports.
Together, the policies proposed in this double issue provide an evidence-based blueprint for anti-poverty reforms that would benefit millions of people in need.
Over 40 million Americans live in poverty with limited opportunities for upward mobility. With an economy characterized by large numbers of unstable and low-wage jobs, a fraying social safety net, and stagnant wages, what public policy reforms might increase the number of low-income families and individuals escaping poverty? This special double issue of RSF, edited by poverty researchers Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, and Katherine A. Magnuson, includes many innovative, evidence-based anti-poverty policy proposals crafted by leading social science researchers and policy analysts.
The first issue highlights initiatives that restructure tax and transfer programs to extend greater support to low-income families, regardless of work status. H. Luke Shaefer and colleagues would replace the current child tax credit and child tax exemption in the federal income tax with an unconditional universal child allowance. They estimate that this would reduce child poverty by about 40 percent. Maria Cancian and Daniel Meyer propose a new child support initiative that institutes a guaranteed minimum monthly support payment for every child living with a single parent, using public funds to bridge the gap when that amount exceeds what the noncustodial parent can reasonably pay. Sara Kimberlin and colleagues propose a renter’s tax credit in the federal income tax for poor households facing increasing rental costs that would benefit 70 percent of renters struggling with high rents.
The second issue analyzes policies that would reduce the extent of low-wage work by boosting education, training, and access to better jobs. Teresa Eckrich Sommer and colleagues propose expanding the Head Start program to combine parental education, job training, and employment opportunities along with existing early childhood education programs to better serve the needs of both parents and children. Mark Paul and colleagues propose a federal jobs guarantee of full-time employment, at a living wage and with benefits, for all adults seeking work. Diana Strumbos and colleagues propose a national community college program, based on a successful model used by the City University of New York, to provide disadvantaged students who enroll full-time with advising, academic, career, and financial supports.
Together, the policies proposed in this double issue provide an evidence-based blueprint for anti-poverty reforms that would benefit millions of people in need.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Asian Americans and the Immigrant Integration AgendaJennifer Lee
Russell Sage Foundation, 2021
Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. and the only majority foreign-born group in the country. With immigration fueling most of the growth, Asians are projected to surpass Hispanics as the largest immigrant group by 2055. Yet, “Asian” is a catch-all category that masks tremendous diversity. In this issue of RSF, sociologist Jennifer Lee and political scientist Karthick Ramakrishnan and an interdisciplinary roster of experts present nuanced narratives of Asian American integration that correct biased assumptions and dispel dated stereotypes. The result is an issue that makes an original and vital contribution to social science research on this understudied population.
Rather than treating Asian Americans as a monolithic group, the contributors use the 2016 National Asian American Survey to pinpoint areas of convergence and divergence within the U.S. Asian population. Despite their diversity, Asian Americans share many attitudes, behavior, and experiences in ways that exceed expectations based on socioeconomic status alone— what Lee and Ramakrishnan refer to as the “diversity-convergence paradox.” This paradox — of convergence despite divergence in national origins and socioeconomic status — is the animating question of this issue of RSF.
Contributors Janelle Wong and Sono Shah find strong political consensus within the Asian American population, particularly with regard to a robust government role in setting public policies ranging from environmental protection to gun control to higher taxation and social service provision, and even affirmative action. Wong and Shah posit that political differences within the Asian American community are between progressives and those who are even more progressive. Analyzing where policy opinions converge and diverge, Sunmin Kim finds that while many Asian Americans support government interventions in health care, education, and racial justice, some diverge sharply with regard to Muslim immigration. Lucas G. Drouhot and Filiz Garip construct a novel typology of five subgroups of Asian immigrants spanning class, gender, region, and immigrant generation to examine varied experiences of immigrant inclusion. They show how different subgroups contend with the effects of racialized othering and inclusion simultaneously at play. Van C. Tran and Natasha Warikoo analyze both interracial and intra-Asian attitudes toward immigration and find diversity among Asians’ views by national origin: As labor migrants, Filipinos support Congress increasing the number of annual work visas; as economic migrants, Chinese and Indians support an increase in annual family visas; and as refugees, Vietnamese are least supportive of pro-immigration policies.
Placing Asian Americans at the center of their analyses, the contributors illuminate how such a broadly diverse population shares similar attitudes and experiences in often surprising ways. By turning a lens on the richly diverse U.S. Asian population, this issue of RSF unveils comprehensive, compelling narratives about Asian Americans and advances our understanding of race and immigrant integration in the 21st century.
Rather than treating Asian Americans as a monolithic group, the contributors use the 2016 National Asian American Survey to pinpoint areas of convergence and divergence within the U.S. Asian population. Despite their diversity, Asian Americans share many attitudes, behavior, and experiences in ways that exceed expectations based on socioeconomic status alone— what Lee and Ramakrishnan refer to as the “diversity-convergence paradox.” This paradox — of convergence despite divergence in national origins and socioeconomic status — is the animating question of this issue of RSF.
Contributors Janelle Wong and Sono Shah find strong political consensus within the Asian American population, particularly with regard to a robust government role in setting public policies ranging from environmental protection to gun control to higher taxation and social service provision, and even affirmative action. Wong and Shah posit that political differences within the Asian American community are between progressives and those who are even more progressive. Analyzing where policy opinions converge and diverge, Sunmin Kim finds that while many Asian Americans support government interventions in health care, education, and racial justice, some diverge sharply with regard to Muslim immigration. Lucas G. Drouhot and Filiz Garip construct a novel typology of five subgroups of Asian immigrants spanning class, gender, region, and immigrant generation to examine varied experiences of immigrant inclusion. They show how different subgroups contend with the effects of racialized othering and inclusion simultaneously at play. Van C. Tran and Natasha Warikoo analyze both interracial and intra-Asian attitudes toward immigration and find diversity among Asians’ views by national origin: As labor migrants, Filipinos support Congress increasing the number of annual work visas; as economic migrants, Chinese and Indians support an increase in annual family visas; and as refugees, Vietnamese are least supportive of pro-immigration policies.
Placing Asian Americans at the center of their analyses, the contributors illuminate how such a broadly diverse population shares similar attitudes and experiences in often surprising ways. By turning a lens on the richly diverse U.S. Asian population, this issue of RSF unveils comprehensive, compelling narratives about Asian Americans and advances our understanding of race and immigrant integration in the 21st century.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Beyond Deaths of Despair: New Research on the Health and Well-Being of Low- and Moderately-Educated AmericansAnne Case
Russell Sage Foundation, 2026
The term “deaths of despair” was coined in 2015 by economists Anne Case and Agnus Deaton to describe the increasing mortality rate for White Americans without college degrees due to drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease. These deaths were attributed to the despondency experienced by the White working class, who were left behind by changes in the American economy. However, the mortality picture has changed since then. Mortality rates are now rising among both Black and White Americans without a college degree. Nearly all major causes of death are increasing more, or decreasing less, for people without college degrees. The educational gap in mortality has become so severe that, in 2021, adult life expectancy was more than eight years higher among college graduates. In this double issue of RSF, Case, Deaton, sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors move beyond the concept of “deaths of despair” to explore the widening educational gap in mortality.
Issue 1 provides new perspectives on the education gap in mortality as well as new viewpoints on the non-college population. Christopher L. Foote and colleagues show that much of the educational gap in mortality may be due to smoking. One of the most popular explanations for the growing mortality gap is that college unlocks better job opportunities. However, Sam Arenberg and Sam Stripling find that what may matter for longer life expectancy is not so much having a “good” job as having a job at all, as high school dropouts with jobs have lower mortality rates than college graduates without them. Victor Tan Chen and colleagues reveal that people with opioid use disorders experience “precarity chains:” overlapping, connected hazards that combine to put people at increased risk of substance abuse.
Issue 2 also gives new viewpoints on the non-college population and examines geographic and international variation in mortality. Grace Landrum-Hall and colleagues discover that men with health issues repeatedly enter and exit the formal labor force—referred to as “churning”—due to inflexible employer policies and income support program policies. Jennifer Karas Montez and colleagues show that rural areas and small cities have seen increases in mortality, while large urban areas have seen decreases. Iliya Gutin and colleagues find that the educational gap in health and wellbeing is typically larger in the U.S. than in Britian. This may be because education in the U.S.—and the resulting higher salaries—allows for more access to health-promoting resources.
This double issue of RSF provides fascinating insights into the stark and alarming mortality gap between those with and without a college degree in the U.S.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Beyond Deaths of Despair: New Research on the Health and Well-Being of Low- and Moderately-Educated AmericansAnne Case
Russell Sage Foundation, 2026
The term “deaths of despair” was coined in 2015 by economists Anne Case and Agnus Deaton to describe the increasing mortality rate for White Americans without college degrees due to drug overdoses, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease. These deaths were attributed to the despondency experienced by the White working class, who were left behind by changes in the American economy. However, the mortality picture has changed since then. Mortality rates are now rising among both Black and White Americans without a college degree. Nearly all major causes of death are increasing more, or decreasing less, for people without college degrees. The educational gap in mortality has become so severe that, in 2021, adult life expectancy was more than eight years higher among college graduates. In this double issue of RSF, Case, Deaton, sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors move beyond the concept of “deaths of despair” to explore the widening educational gap in mortality.
Issue 1 provides new perspectives on the education gap in mortality as well as new viewpoints on the non-college population. Christopher L. Foote and colleagues show that much of the educational gap in mortality may be due to smoking. One of the most popular explanations for the growing mortality gap is that college unlocks better job opportunities. However, Sam Arenberg and Sam Stripling find that what may matter for longer life expectancy is not so much having a “good” job as having a job at all, as high school dropouts with jobs have lower mortality rates than college graduates without them. Victor Tan Chen and colleagues reveal that people with opioid use disorders experience “precarity chains:” overlapping, connected hazards that combine to put people at increased risk of substance abuse.
Issue 2 also gives new viewpoints on the non-college population and examines geographic and international variation in mortality. Grace Landrum-Hall and colleagues discover that men with health issues repeatedly enter and exit the formal labor force—referred to as “churning”—due to inflexible employer policies and income support program policies. Jennifer Karas Montez and colleagues show that rural areas and small cities have seen increases in mortality, while large urban areas have seen decreases. Iliya Gutin and colleagues find that the educational gap in health and wellbeing is typically larger in the U.S. than in Britian. This may be because education in the U.S.—and the resulting higher salaries—allows for more access to health-promoting resources.
This double issue of RSF provides fascinating insights into the stark and alarming mortality gap between those with and without a college degree in the U.S.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Big Data in Political EconomyHoward Rosenthal
Russell Sage Foundation, 2016
Rapid technological advances since the 1980s have revolutionized data gathering and changed the nature of many day-to-day transactions. Today, nearly every economic and financial transaction is recorded and can be linked to the individuals involved. This proliferation of “big data” makes it possible for economists and political scientists to empirically analyze the spending behavior of far greater numbers of individuals and firms, over much longer periods of time, than ever before. In “Big Data in Political Economy,” edited by Atif Mian and Howard Rosenthal, a group of quantitative researchers explore the possibilities and challenges of this data boom for the social sciences, focusing on how big data can help us gain new insights into such issues as social inequality, political polarization, and the influence of money in politics.
Among other topics, the articles in this issue demonstrate how large-scale data sources can be used to analyze campaign contributions and political participation. Adam Bonica outlines the development of a comprehensive “map” of the American political system that collects, processes, and organizes data on politicians’ campaign finances, policy positions, and voting records, and makes such information available to voters. Drew Dimmery and Andrew Peterson show how web-based data-gathering techniques can augment such a map to include political contributions made by nonprofits, which are often overlooked or not fully transparent. Deniz Igan links campaign contribution data to both policymakers’ voting records and financial institutions’ lending behavior and shows that legislators who were heavily lobbied by institutions engaging in risky lending, such as subprime lenders, were more likely to vote for deregulation. Chris Tausanovitch connects big data on voters’ income and policy preferences to the voting records of their congressional representatives in order to study how effectively the political system represents voters of different income levels. And Sharyn O’Halloran and coauthors discuss how big data can augment traditional observational research by replacing tedious hand coding of volumes of text with automated procedures.
As research in political economy increasingly focuses on the role of money in shaping the outcomes of elections and policymaking, new methods of aggregating and examining financial data have become central. Together, the papers in this volume show how big data provides unprecedented opportunities for social scientists to better understand the links between politics and markets.
Among other topics, the articles in this issue demonstrate how large-scale data sources can be used to analyze campaign contributions and political participation. Adam Bonica outlines the development of a comprehensive “map” of the American political system that collects, processes, and organizes data on politicians’ campaign finances, policy positions, and voting records, and makes such information available to voters. Drew Dimmery and Andrew Peterson show how web-based data-gathering techniques can augment such a map to include political contributions made by nonprofits, which are often overlooked or not fully transparent. Deniz Igan links campaign contribution data to both policymakers’ voting records and financial institutions’ lending behavior and shows that legislators who were heavily lobbied by institutions engaging in risky lending, such as subprime lenders, were more likely to vote for deregulation. Chris Tausanovitch connects big data on voters’ income and policy preferences to the voting records of their congressional representatives in order to study how effectively the political system represents voters of different income levels. And Sharyn O’Halloran and coauthors discuss how big data can augment traditional observational research by replacing tedious hand coding of volumes of text with automated procedures.
As research in political economy increasingly focuses on the role of money in shaping the outcomes of elections and policymaking, new methods of aggregating and examining financial data have become central. Together, the papers in this volume show how big data provides unprecedented opportunities for social scientists to better understand the links between politics and markets.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Biosocial Pathways of Well-Being Accross the Life CourseThomas W. McDade
Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
Poverty, discrimination, and other social and economic inequalities have serious consequences for individuals’ physical and mental well-being. Recently, social scientists have collaborated with biological scientists to better understand the mechanisms that reproduce social stratification within and across generations. In this issue of RSF, edited by anthropologist Thomas McDade and sociologist Kathleen Mullan Harris, and a multi-disciplinary group of scholars integrate theory, data, and methods from the social and biological sciences to advance our understanding of how social and biological processes interact to shape individuals’ health outcomes and life chances.
Several articles explore the effects of disadvantage and discrimination on individuals’ health. Douglas Massey and colleagues find that residential segregation and concentrated poverty—which disproportionately affects African Americans—contribute to more rapid cellular aging, a condition associated with a higher risk of disorders such as diabetes and heart disease. Bridget Goosby and colleagues track the sleep patterns of adolescents and find that compared to their white peers, African American and biracial youth who report experiencing frequent discrimination have worse sleep, which is associated with longer-term negative physical and mental health outcomes.
Other contributors explore the extent to which social and family environments influence biological processes. Yang Qu and colleagues study the cognitive development of Mexican American youth, focusing on the hippocampus, a region of the brain that produces improved memory and learning. They find that teens who were able to navigate between the cultural values of their parents and fitting in with their peers had different hippocampus volume and higher academic achievement. Other researchers explore the relationship between individuals’ genes and their environments. Melinda Mills and colleagues examine the role of genes in reproductive behavior. They find that while social and behavioral factors are strongly associated with when mothers first give birth and how many children they have, genetic factors are related to other fertility traits, such as childlessness and menopause.
The findings in this issue demonstrate the value of integrating the social and biological sciences for understanding how biological mechanisms influence, and are influenced by, socioeconomic conditions and lay the foundation for further advances in biosocial scholarship.
Several articles explore the effects of disadvantage and discrimination on individuals’ health. Douglas Massey and colleagues find that residential segregation and concentrated poverty—which disproportionately affects African Americans—contribute to more rapid cellular aging, a condition associated with a higher risk of disorders such as diabetes and heart disease. Bridget Goosby and colleagues track the sleep patterns of adolescents and find that compared to their white peers, African American and biracial youth who report experiencing frequent discrimination have worse sleep, which is associated with longer-term negative physical and mental health outcomes.
Other contributors explore the extent to which social and family environments influence biological processes. Yang Qu and colleagues study the cognitive development of Mexican American youth, focusing on the hippocampus, a region of the brain that produces improved memory and learning. They find that teens who were able to navigate between the cultural values of their parents and fitting in with their peers had different hippocampus volume and higher academic achievement. Other researchers explore the relationship between individuals’ genes and their environments. Melinda Mills and colleagues examine the role of genes in reproductive behavior. They find that while social and behavioral factors are strongly associated with when mothers first give birth and how many children they have, genetic factors are related to other fertility traits, such as childlessness and menopause.
The findings in this issue demonstrate the value of integrating the social and biological sciences for understanding how biological mechanisms influence, and are influenced by, socioeconomic conditions and lay the foundation for further advances in biosocial scholarship.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Building an Open Qualitative Social ScienceKathryn Edin
Russell Sage Foundation, 2024
Note the catalog copy refers to both issues of this double issue of the journal.
In recent decades, the social sciences have struggled to predict, monitor, and understand ongoing social crises. This is due in part to a lack of infrastructure to adequately do so. The American Voices Project (AVP), an experimental public-use platform for collecting qualitative data, was designed to expand the capacity of social science research by complementing existing research methods examining the everyday lives of Americans. The AVP was fielded in 2019-2022 as the country’s first nationally-representative, large-scale, multiple-domain qualitative data collection effort. In this double issue of RSF, sociologists Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen Olson, and Charles Varner, computer scientist Jure Leskovec, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors utilize data from the AVP to determine whether the platform can provide insight into the lives of Americans and address social science’s current shortcomings.
Issue 1 examines Americans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifies and explores emerging crises in the U.S., and includes the first set of classical interpretive studies based on a public-use dataset. Kyle Fee and colleagues find that job loss during the pandemic was associated with declines in financial and mental wellbeing, that expanded safety net programs did not disincentivize work, and that existing survey-based monitoring is missing important pockets of deprivation. Katherine Cramer and colleagues discover a more thoroughgoing “disaffection crisis” than has been appreciated to date, a crisis in which low- and middle-income earners often feel profoundly disconnected from politics and have little confidence in their ability to meaningfully effect change. Josephina Flores Morales shows that healthcare costs – even after recent and ongoing reforms in healthcare – remain insurmountable for many Latinx Americans, who must then rely on family for unexpected medical costs. Brandon A. Jackson finds that higher income gig workers hold surprisingly positive views of platform work as a way to explore their community, while lower income gig workers are less keen and focus on the financial benefits of gig work.
Issue 2 illustrates how the AVP can be used to uncover hidden populations and to explore how some types of crises, mindsets, or sensibilities can have cascading effects that impact multiple areas of people’s lives. Corey M. Abramson and colleagues use the AVP to uncover the population of Americans experiencing physical pain, showing that while pain is very prevalent, it has larger negative effects on the life trajectories of women and those without a college degree than on other groups. James Hiebert and colleagues uncover the large population of individuals who left the labor market due to a health condition and describe their strategies for reducing stigma when explaining why they are no longer working. Shira Zilberstein and colleagues discover that when individuals discuss their lives they feature “agentic moments” in which they can claim agency despite facing constraints that could be seen as limiting choice and agency.
This volume of RSF provides compelling insights into the lives of Americans and convincingly makes the case for building a permanent public-use platform for qualitative research.
In recent decades, the social sciences have struggled to predict, monitor, and understand ongoing social crises. This is due in part to a lack of infrastructure to adequately do so. The American Voices Project (AVP), an experimental public-use platform for collecting qualitative data, was designed to expand the capacity of social science research by complementing existing research methods examining the everyday lives of Americans. The AVP was fielded in 2019-2022 as the country’s first nationally-representative, large-scale, multiple-domain qualitative data collection effort. In this double issue of RSF, sociologists Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen Olson, and Charles Varner, computer scientist Jure Leskovec, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors utilize data from the AVP to determine whether the platform can provide insight into the lives of Americans and address social science’s current shortcomings.
Issue 1 examines Americans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifies and explores emerging crises in the U.S., and includes the first set of classical interpretive studies based on a public-use dataset. Kyle Fee and colleagues find that job loss during the pandemic was associated with declines in financial and mental wellbeing, that expanded safety net programs did not disincentivize work, and that existing survey-based monitoring is missing important pockets of deprivation. Katherine Cramer and colleagues discover a more thoroughgoing “disaffection crisis” than has been appreciated to date, a crisis in which low- and middle-income earners often feel profoundly disconnected from politics and have little confidence in their ability to meaningfully effect change. Josephina Flores Morales shows that healthcare costs – even after recent and ongoing reforms in healthcare – remain insurmountable for many Latinx Americans, who must then rely on family for unexpected medical costs. Brandon A. Jackson finds that higher income gig workers hold surprisingly positive views of platform work as a way to explore their community, while lower income gig workers are less keen and focus on the financial benefits of gig work.
Issue 2 illustrates how the AVP can be used to uncover hidden populations and to explore how some types of crises, mindsets, or sensibilities can have cascading effects that impact multiple areas of people’s lives. Corey M. Abramson and colleagues use the AVP to uncover the population of Americans experiencing physical pain, showing that while pain is very prevalent, it has larger negative effects on the life trajectories of women and those without a college degree than on other groups. James Hiebert and colleagues uncover the large population of individuals who left the labor market due to a health condition and describe their strategies for reducing stigma when explaining why they are no longer working. Shira Zilberstein and colleagues discover that when individuals discuss their lives they feature “agentic moments” in which they can claim agency despite facing constraints that could be seen as limiting choice and agency.
This volume of RSF provides compelling insights into the lives of Americans and convincingly makes the case for building a permanent public-use platform for qualitative research.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Building an Open Qualitative Social ScienceKathryn Edin
Russell Sage Foundation, 2024
Note catalog copy relates to both issues of this double issue of the journal.
In recent decades, the social sciences have struggled to predict, monitor, and understand ongoing social crises. This is due in part to a lack of infrastructure to adequately do so. The American Voices Project (AVP), an experimental public-use platform for collecting qualitative data, was designed to expand the capacity of social science research by complementing existing research methods examining the everyday lives of Americans. The AVP was fielded in 2019-2022 as the country’s first nationally-representative, large-scale, multiple-domain qualitative data collection effort. In this double issue of RSF, sociologists Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen Olson, and Charles Varner, computer scientist Jure Leskovec, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors utilize data from the AVP to determine whether the platform can provide insight into the lives of Americans and address social science’s current shortcomings.
Issue 1 examines Americans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifies and explores emerging crises in the U.S., and includes the first set of classical interpretive studies based on a public-use dataset. Kyle Fee and colleagues find that job loss during the pandemic was associated with declines in financial and mental wellbeing, that expanded safety net programs did not disincentivize work, and that existing survey-based monitoring is missing important pockets of deprivation. Katherine Cramer and colleagues discover a more thoroughgoing “disaffection crisis” than has been appreciated to date, a crisis in which low- and middle-income earners often feel profoundly disconnected from politics and have little confidence in their ability to meaningfully effect change. Josephina Flores Morales shows that healthcare costs – even after recent and ongoing reforms in healthcare – remain insurmountable for many Latinx Americans, who must then rely on family for unexpected medical costs. Brandon A. Jackson finds that higher income gig workers hold surprisingly positive views of platform work as a way to explore their community, while lower income gig workers are less keen and focus on the financial benefits of gig work.
Issue 2 illustrates how the AVP can be used to uncover hidden populations and to explore how some types of crises, mindsets, or sensibilities can have cascading effects that impact multiple areas of people’s lives. Corey M. Abramson and colleagues use the AVP to uncover the population of Americans experiencing physical pain, showing that while pain is very prevalent, it has larger negative effects on the life trajectories of women and those without a college degree than on other groups. James Hiebert and colleagues uncover the large population of individuals who left the labor market due to a health condition and describe their strategies for reducing stigma when explaining why they are no longer working. Shira Zilberstein and colleagues discover that when individuals discuss their lives they feature “agentic moments” in which they can claim agency despite facing constraints that could be seen as limiting choice and agency.
This volume of RSF provides compelling insights into the lives of Americans and convincingly makes the case for building a permanent public-use platform for qualitative research.
In recent decades, the social sciences have struggled to predict, monitor, and understand ongoing social crises. This is due in part to a lack of infrastructure to adequately do so. The American Voices Project (AVP), an experimental public-use platform for collecting qualitative data, was designed to expand the capacity of social science research by complementing existing research methods examining the everyday lives of Americans. The AVP was fielded in 2019-2022 as the country’s first nationally-representative, large-scale, multiple-domain qualitative data collection effort. In this double issue of RSF, sociologists Kathryn J. Edin, Corey D. Fields, David B. Grusky, Marybeth J. Mattingly, Kristen Olson, and Charles Varner, computer scientist Jure Leskovec, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors utilize data from the AVP to determine whether the platform can provide insight into the lives of Americans and address social science’s current shortcomings.
Issue 1 examines Americans’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifies and explores emerging crises in the U.S., and includes the first set of classical interpretive studies based on a public-use dataset. Kyle Fee and colleagues find that job loss during the pandemic was associated with declines in financial and mental wellbeing, that expanded safety net programs did not disincentivize work, and that existing survey-based monitoring is missing important pockets of deprivation. Katherine Cramer and colleagues discover a more thoroughgoing “disaffection crisis” than has been appreciated to date, a crisis in which low- and middle-income earners often feel profoundly disconnected from politics and have little confidence in their ability to meaningfully effect change. Josephina Flores Morales shows that healthcare costs – even after recent and ongoing reforms in healthcare – remain insurmountable for many Latinx Americans, who must then rely on family for unexpected medical costs. Brandon A. Jackson finds that higher income gig workers hold surprisingly positive views of platform work as a way to explore their community, while lower income gig workers are less keen and focus on the financial benefits of gig work.
Issue 2 illustrates how the AVP can be used to uncover hidden populations and to explore how some types of crises, mindsets, or sensibilities can have cascading effects that impact multiple areas of people’s lives. Corey M. Abramson and colleagues use the AVP to uncover the population of Americans experiencing physical pain, showing that while pain is very prevalent, it has larger negative effects on the life trajectories of women and those without a college degree than on other groups. James Hiebert and colleagues uncover the large population of individuals who left the labor market due to a health condition and describe their strategies for reducing stigma when explaining why they are no longer working. Shira Zilberstein and colleagues discover that when individuals discuss their lives they feature “agentic moments” in which they can claim agency despite facing constraints that could be seen as limiting choice and agency.
This volume of RSF provides compelling insights into the lives of Americans and convincingly makes the case for building a permanent public-use platform for qualitative research.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Changing Job Quality: Causes, Consequences, and ChallengesDavid R. Howell
Russell Sage Foundation, 2019
Over the last forty years, U.S. workers have faced stagnant or falling wages, growing wage inequality, and an increasing incidence of low and poverty-wage jobs. Young workers who lack advanced degrees and workers of color have been the hardest hit. In this issue of RSF, edited by economist David R. Howell and sociologist Arne L. Kalleberg, an interdisciplinary group of contributors analyze the state of job quality, especially for low-wage workers and those in nonstandard work arrangements. Howell and Kalleberg’s introductory article suggests that leading explanations for worsening job quality can be organized into three broad views of the labor market: a competitive market model; a contested markets model, where wage-setting takes place in firms that operate in imperfect markets and where employers have substantial bargaining power; and social-institutional approaches that underscore the importance of social, political, and structural forces.
As a result of technological changes and outsourcing, unpredictable and uncertain work schedules are now widespread. Contributors Cathy Yang Liu and Luísa Nazareno demonstrate that workers in nonstandard employment arrangements earn less and work fewer hours than full-time workers. Susan Lambert, Julia Henly, and Jaesung Kim demonstrate that in addition to the financial insecurity caused by precarious work schedules, those who experience shortfalls in hours are increasingly distrustful of societal institutions. Other contributors examine job quality for women and people of color. David S. Pedulla and Katariina Mueller-Gastell study the rates at which various groups of workers apply for nonstandard jobs, and find that black and Hispanic workers are overrepresented in such positions. Michael Schultz examines mobility out of low-wage work and finds that women and nonwhites are the most entrenched in such jobs. He shows that there is greater mobility out of low-wage work where unions foster the use of job ladders and pay scales.
The issue recommends a slate of policies for creating better jobs, including increasing the federal minimum wage; strengthening collective and individual bargaining, especially through unions; and widening access to health insurance, paid sick and family leave, and childcare. In the absence of family-friendly policies at the federal level, sociologists Rachel Dwyer and Erik Olin Wright propose investments in the “social and solidarity” economy, including NGOs, nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, and worker cooperatives.
Given the centrality of work to human welfare, enhancing the quality of jobs is of urgent concern to workers, employers, and society at large. This issue of RSF helps us better understand the reasons for and consequences of declining job quality and suggests policies that would protect the most vulnerable workers.
As a result of technological changes and outsourcing, unpredictable and uncertain work schedules are now widespread. Contributors Cathy Yang Liu and Luísa Nazareno demonstrate that workers in nonstandard employment arrangements earn less and work fewer hours than full-time workers. Susan Lambert, Julia Henly, and Jaesung Kim demonstrate that in addition to the financial insecurity caused by precarious work schedules, those who experience shortfalls in hours are increasingly distrustful of societal institutions. Other contributors examine job quality for women and people of color. David S. Pedulla and Katariina Mueller-Gastell study the rates at which various groups of workers apply for nonstandard jobs, and find that black and Hispanic workers are overrepresented in such positions. Michael Schultz examines mobility out of low-wage work and finds that women and nonwhites are the most entrenched in such jobs. He shows that there is greater mobility out of low-wage work where unions foster the use of job ladders and pay scales.
The issue recommends a slate of policies for creating better jobs, including increasing the federal minimum wage; strengthening collective and individual bargaining, especially through unions; and widening access to health insurance, paid sick and family leave, and childcare. In the absence of family-friendly policies at the federal level, sociologists Rachel Dwyer and Erik Olin Wright propose investments in the “social and solidarity” economy, including NGOs, nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, and worker cooperatives.
Given the centrality of work to human welfare, enhancing the quality of jobs is of urgent concern to workers, employers, and society at large. This issue of RSF helps us better understand the reasons for and consequences of declining job quality and suggests policies that would protect the most vulnerable workers.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Criminal Justice Contact and InequalityKristin Turney
Russell Sage Foundation, 2019
Policymakers and the public are increasingly aware of the dire consequences of mass incarceration for millions of individuals and families. However, incarceration is only one component of the larger criminal justice system. Many more individuals have contact with the criminal justice system through arrests, misdemeanor convictions, and the accumulation of fines and fees, without spending time behind bars. In this issue of RSF, editors sociologist Kristin Turney and criminologist Sara Wakefield and a multi-disciplinary group of authors analyze how the range of criminal justice contact create, maintain, and exacerbate inequalities. Contributors show that the vast scope of the criminal justice system disproportionately targets low-income and minority populations, with serious consequences across the life course.
Several articles explore the ramifications of ongoing surveillance. Amanda Geller and Jeffrey Fagan survey adolescents who come into contact with law enforcement and find that intrusive police stops contribute to heightened cynicism toward the legal system, suggesting that aggressive policing weakens youths’ deference to law and legal authorities. Robert Vargas and coauthors study police-dispatcher radio communications and show that data breaches where the dispatcher reveals confidential identifying information about individuals reporting criminal activity are more common in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods. Because police scanners are accessible by the public, these breaches make residents more vulnerable to criminals, gangs, or predatory businesses. Other contributors explore the effects of criminal justice contact on family life. Frank Edwards examines how families’ interactions with the child welfare system differ by race and shows that black and Native American families living in counties with high arrest rates are more likely to be investigated for child abuse and neglect than similar families in counties with low arrest rates. For whites, by contrast, poverty—rather than arrests—is the strongest predictor for contact with the child welfare system. In an ethnographic study of bail bond agents, Joshua Page and coauthors find that this industry uses predatory methods to extract bail from the female relatives and partners of incarcerated individuals, increasing financial hardship particularly among low-income women of color.
The criminal justice system is an institution of social stratification in the United States. By documenting how regimes of punishment and surveillance extend far beyond prison, this issue advances our understanding of how social inequalities are perpetuated by a supposedly impartial system.
Several articles explore the ramifications of ongoing surveillance. Amanda Geller and Jeffrey Fagan survey adolescents who come into contact with law enforcement and find that intrusive police stops contribute to heightened cynicism toward the legal system, suggesting that aggressive policing weakens youths’ deference to law and legal authorities. Robert Vargas and coauthors study police-dispatcher radio communications and show that data breaches where the dispatcher reveals confidential identifying information about individuals reporting criminal activity are more common in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods. Because police scanners are accessible by the public, these breaches make residents more vulnerable to criminals, gangs, or predatory businesses. Other contributors explore the effects of criminal justice contact on family life. Frank Edwards examines how families’ interactions with the child welfare system differ by race and shows that black and Native American families living in counties with high arrest rates are more likely to be investigated for child abuse and neglect than similar families in counties with low arrest rates. For whites, by contrast, poverty—rather than arrests—is the strongest predictor for contact with the child welfare system. In an ethnographic study of bail bond agents, Joshua Page and coauthors find that this industry uses predatory methods to extract bail from the female relatives and partners of incarcerated individuals, increasing financial hardship particularly among low-income women of color.
The criminal justice system is an institution of social stratification in the United States. By documenting how regimes of punishment and surveillance extend far beyond prison, this issue advances our understanding of how social inequalities are perpetuated by a supposedly impartial system.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Financial Reform: Preventing the Next CrisisMichael S. Barr
Russell Sage Foundation, 2017
The 2008 financial crash and the ensuing Great Recession resulted from decades of unconstrained excess and failures of risk management on Wall Street and complacency in Washington. While the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act sought to curtail these abuses, more work remains to be done. This issue of RSF, edited by Michael S. Barr, sets out proposals for comprehensive financial reform. Contributors suggest how to improve financial regulation, make markets more resilient, and increase protections for consumers and investors in order to lower the likelihood of a future crisis.
Several contributors evaluate the Dodd-Frank bill which mandated greater federal oversight of banks, increased regulation of credit rating agencies, and established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), among other measures. Martin Baily and coauthors conclude that measures that require greater transparency and oversight in derivatives transactions have made financial institutions more resilient. Yet, the bill’s attempts to consolidate the fragmented financial regulatory system have not gone far enough.
Lauren Willis argues that instead of simply issuing disclosures, financial service providers should be required to meet more rigorous performance standards, such as proving through third-party testing that customers understand their fees and surcharges. John Macey advocates reforms that would afford home mortgage borrowers the same protections as investors in the securities market, including regulations that prevent brokers from encouraging borrowers to refinance their mortgages to collect fees.
The issue also addresses global financial regulation. Viral Achara examines the financial sectors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and assesses their vulnerability to capital shortfalls in the event of a future crisis. Niamh Moloney finds that institutions established in the wake of the crash, such as the European Supervisory Authorities, have improved European-level prudential and consumer financial regulations and have the potential to increase the EU’s influence in international financial governance.
The effects of the financial crisis continue to reverberate around the world today. Together, the articles in this issue document the steps necessary for creating a more robust financial system that works better for all consumers, investors and the financial system itself.
Several contributors evaluate the Dodd-Frank bill which mandated greater federal oversight of banks, increased regulation of credit rating agencies, and established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), among other measures. Martin Baily and coauthors conclude that measures that require greater transparency and oversight in derivatives transactions have made financial institutions more resilient. Yet, the bill’s attempts to consolidate the fragmented financial regulatory system have not gone far enough.
Lauren Willis argues that instead of simply issuing disclosures, financial service providers should be required to meet more rigorous performance standards, such as proving through third-party testing that customers understand their fees and surcharges. John Macey advocates reforms that would afford home mortgage borrowers the same protections as investors in the securities market, including regulations that prevent brokers from encouraging borrowers to refinance their mortgages to collect fees.
The issue also addresses global financial regulation. Viral Achara examines the financial sectors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and assesses their vulnerability to capital shortfalls in the event of a future crisis. Niamh Moloney finds that institutions established in the wake of the crash, such as the European Supervisory Authorities, have improved European-level prudential and consumer financial regulations and have the potential to increase the EU’s influence in international financial governance.
The effects of the financial crisis continue to reverberate around the world today. Together, the articles in this issue document the steps necessary for creating a more robust financial system that works better for all consumers, investors and the financial system itself.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Growing Up Rural: Education, Health, Family, and Economic OutcomesShelley Clark
Russell Sage Foundation, 2022
Note copy pertains to both volumes of this double issue:
Nearly 46 million Americans live in rural counties – areas with small populations that are often located far from large cities. Yet we know relatively little about how living in a rural area influences child and adolescent life trajectories and adult outcomes when compared to their urban counterparts. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Shelley Clark, epidemiologist Sam Harper, and agricultural economist Bruce Weber, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive look at the impact that growing up rural has across the lifespan, examining both the challenges and advantages of growing up in rural America.
The 15 articles in this double issue explore the effects of rural life on family, educational attainment, economic security, and health. Issue 1 looks at the impact of rural families and schools on children’s and adolescents’ educational aspirations and wellbeing. Contributors Jennifer Sherman and Kai A. Schafft find that while rural gentrification brings needed resources to struggling communities, it can also exacerbate educational inequality. Jessica C. Drescher and colleagues reveal that only modest differences in educational outcomes exist between rural and non-rural students overall and that socioeconomic status is less predictive of academic achievement in rural areas compared to non-rural areas. Ryan Parsons shows that rural students with college aspirations, particularly students of color, incur social and emotional costs in pursuing upward mobility not experienced by their urban counterparts, such as having to permanently relocate to more advantaged areas.
Issue 2 examines transitions to adulthood in rural areas and the longer-term influences of growing up in rural areas on adults’ health and economic attainment. Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin find that low-income rural young adults have children and marry earlier than their peers, but achieve other markers of adulthood, such as leaving the parental home, more slowly and often only tentatively. Robert D. Francis shows that rural, working-class men will employ various strategies to improve their employment opportunities in ways that support their identities as rural, working-class men. For example, they pursue additional education and training in fields that will allow them to continue to hold traditionally masculine, working-class jobs, such as obtaining credentials to be truck drivers or mechanics. Evan Roberts and colleagues find that growing up on or moving to a farm were associated with better health outcomes. Emily Parker and colleagues find that rural residents who live in counties that receive a higher amount of federal funding and moved from their home county in adulthood were more likely to achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than those in counties that received less funding.
This volume of RSF provides a more nuanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantage of growing up in rural areas and how it shapes the life trajectories of rural Americans.
Nearly 46 million Americans live in rural counties – areas with small populations that are often located far from large cities. Yet we know relatively little about how living in a rural area influences child and adolescent life trajectories and adult outcomes when compared to their urban counterparts. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Shelley Clark, epidemiologist Sam Harper, and agricultural economist Bruce Weber, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive look at the impact that growing up rural has across the lifespan, examining both the challenges and advantages of growing up in rural America.
The 15 articles in this double issue explore the effects of rural life on family, educational attainment, economic security, and health. Issue 1 looks at the impact of rural families and schools on children’s and adolescents’ educational aspirations and wellbeing. Contributors Jennifer Sherman and Kai A. Schafft find that while rural gentrification brings needed resources to struggling communities, it can also exacerbate educational inequality. Jessica C. Drescher and colleagues reveal that only modest differences in educational outcomes exist between rural and non-rural students overall and that socioeconomic status is less predictive of academic achievement in rural areas compared to non-rural areas. Ryan Parsons shows that rural students with college aspirations, particularly students of color, incur social and emotional costs in pursuing upward mobility not experienced by their urban counterparts, such as having to permanently relocate to more advantaged areas.
Issue 2 examines transitions to adulthood in rural areas and the longer-term influences of growing up in rural areas on adults’ health and economic attainment. Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin find that low-income rural young adults have children and marry earlier than their peers, but achieve other markers of adulthood, such as leaving the parental home, more slowly and often only tentatively. Robert D. Francis shows that rural, working-class men will employ various strategies to improve their employment opportunities in ways that support their identities as rural, working-class men. For example, they pursue additional education and training in fields that will allow them to continue to hold traditionally masculine, working-class jobs, such as obtaining credentials to be truck drivers or mechanics. Evan Roberts and colleagues find that growing up on or moving to a farm were associated with better health outcomes. Emily Parker and colleagues find that rural residents who live in counties that receive a higher amount of federal funding and moved from their home county in adulthood were more likely to achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than those in counties that received less funding.
This volume of RSF provides a more nuanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantage of growing up in rural areas and how it shapes the life trajectories of rural Americans.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Growing Up Rural: Education, Health, Family, and Economic OutcomesShelley Clark
Russell Sage Foundation, 2022
Note copy refers to both issues. This is a double issue.
Nearly 46 million Americans live in rural counties – areas with small populations that are often located far from large cities. Yet we know relatively little about how living in a rural area influences child and adolescent life trajectories and adult outcomes when compared to their urban counterparts. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Shelley Clark, epidemiologist Sam Harper, and agricultural economist Bruce Weber, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive look at the impact that growing up rural has across the lifespan, examining both the challenges and advantages of growing up in rural America.
The 15 articles in this double issue explore the effects of rural life on family, educational attainment, economic security, and health. Issue 1 looks at the impact of rural families and schools on children’s and adolescents’ educational aspirations and wellbeing. Contributors Jennifer Sherman and Kai A. Schafft find that while rural gentrification brings needed resources to struggling communities, it can also exacerbate educational inequality. Jessica C. Drescher and colleagues reveal that only modest differences in educational outcomes exist between rural and non-rural students overall and that socioeconomic status is less predictive of academic achievement in rural areas compared to non-rural areas. Ryan Parsons shows that rural students with college aspirations, particularly students of color, incur social and emotional costs in pursuing upward mobility not experienced by their urban counterparts, such as having to permanently relocate to more advantaged areas.
Issue 2 examines transitions to adulthood in rural areas and the longer-term influences of growing up in rural areas on adults’ health and economic attainment. Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin find that low-income rural young adults have children and marry earlier than their peers, but achieve other markers of adulthood, such as leaving the parental home, more slowly and often only tentatively. Robert D. Francis shows that rural, working-class men will employ various strategies to improve their employment opportunities in ways that support their identities as rural, working-class men. For example, they pursue additional education and training in fields that will allow them to continue to hold traditionally masculine, working-class jobs, such as obtaining credentials to be truck drivers or mechanics. Evan Roberts and colleagues find that growing up on or moving to a farm were associated with better health outcomes. Emily Parker and colleagues find that rural residents who live in counties that receive a higher amount of federal funding and moved from their home county in adulthood were more likely to achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than those in counties that received less funding.
This volume of RSF provides a more nuanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantage of growing up in rural areas and how it shapes the life trajectories of rural Americans.
Nearly 46 million Americans live in rural counties – areas with small populations that are often located far from large cities. Yet we know relatively little about how living in a rural area influences child and adolescent life trajectories and adult outcomes when compared to their urban counterparts. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologist Shelley Clark, epidemiologist Sam Harper, and agricultural economist Bruce Weber, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors provide a comprehensive look at the impact that growing up rural has across the lifespan, examining both the challenges and advantages of growing up in rural America.
The 15 articles in this double issue explore the effects of rural life on family, educational attainment, economic security, and health. Issue 1 looks at the impact of rural families and schools on children’s and adolescents’ educational aspirations and wellbeing. Contributors Jennifer Sherman and Kai A. Schafft find that while rural gentrification brings needed resources to struggling communities, it can also exacerbate educational inequality. Jessica C. Drescher and colleagues reveal that only modest differences in educational outcomes exist between rural and non-rural students overall and that socioeconomic status is less predictive of academic achievement in rural areas compared to non-rural areas. Ryan Parsons shows that rural students with college aspirations, particularly students of color, incur social and emotional costs in pursuing upward mobility not experienced by their urban counterparts, such as having to permanently relocate to more advantaged areas.
Issue 2 examines transitions to adulthood in rural areas and the longer-term influences of growing up in rural areas on adults’ health and economic attainment. Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin find that low-income rural young adults have children and marry earlier than their peers, but achieve other markers of adulthood, such as leaving the parental home, more slowly and often only tentatively. Robert D. Francis shows that rural, working-class men will employ various strategies to improve their employment opportunities in ways that support their identities as rural, working-class men. For example, they pursue additional education and training in fields that will allow them to continue to hold traditionally masculine, working-class jobs, such as obtaining credentials to be truck drivers or mechanics. Evan Roberts and colleagues find that growing up on or moving to a farm were associated with better health outcomes. Emily Parker and colleagues find that rural residents who live in counties that receive a higher amount of federal funding and moved from their home county in adulthood were more likely to achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than those in counties that received less funding.
This volume of RSF provides a more nuanced understanding of the advantages and disadvantage of growing up in rural areas and how it shapes the life trajectories of rural Americans.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Higher Education EffectivenessSteven G. Brint
Russell Sage Foundation, 2016
The American system of higher education includes over 5,000 degree granting institutions, ranging from small for-profit technical training schools up to the nation’s elite liberal arts colleges and research universities. Over 20 million students are enrolled, with federal, state, and local governments spending almost 3 percent of GDP on higher education. Yet how can we evaluate the effectiveness of such a large, fragmented system? Are students being adequately prepared for today’s labor market? Is the system accessible to all? Are new business methods contributing to greater efficiency and better student outcomes? In Higher Education Effectiveness, editors Steven Brint and Charles Clotfelter and a group of higher education experts address these questions with new evidence and insights regarding the effectiveness of U.S. higher education.
Beginning with the editors’ authoritative introduction, the contributors assess the effectiveness of U.S. higher education at the national, state, campus, and classroom levels. Several focus on the effects of the steep decline in state funding in recent years, which has contributed to rising tuition at most state universities. Steven Hemelt and David Marcotte find that the financial burdens of attendance, even at public institutions, is a significant and growing impediment for students from low-income families. John Witte, Barbara Wolfe, and Sara Dahill-Brown analyze 36 years of enrollment trends at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and find increased enrollment of upper-income students, suggesting widening inequality of access.
James Rosenbaum and his coauthors examine the effectiveness of “college for all” policies and find that on a wide range of economic and job satisfaction measures, holders of sub-baccalaureate credentials outperform those who start but do not complete four-year colleges. Two papers – by Kevin Dougherty and coauthors and Michael Kurlaender and coauthors – find that the use of new regulatory mechanisms such as performance funding and rating systems are plagued by unintended consequences that can provide misleading measures of institutional effectiveness. Lynn Reimer and co-authors examine the effectiveness of the “promising practices” in STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) promoted by the National Academy of Sciences, and find that they can increase completion rates among low-income, first-generation, and under-represented students.
Expanding college access and effectiveness is a key way to promote economic mobility. The important findings in this issue illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. system of higher education and suggest new avenues for improving student outcomes.
Beginning with the editors’ authoritative introduction, the contributors assess the effectiveness of U.S. higher education at the national, state, campus, and classroom levels. Several focus on the effects of the steep decline in state funding in recent years, which has contributed to rising tuition at most state universities. Steven Hemelt and David Marcotte find that the financial burdens of attendance, even at public institutions, is a significant and growing impediment for students from low-income families. John Witte, Barbara Wolfe, and Sara Dahill-Brown analyze 36 years of enrollment trends at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and find increased enrollment of upper-income students, suggesting widening inequality of access.
James Rosenbaum and his coauthors examine the effectiveness of “college for all” policies and find that on a wide range of economic and job satisfaction measures, holders of sub-baccalaureate credentials outperform those who start but do not complete four-year colleges. Two papers – by Kevin Dougherty and coauthors and Michael Kurlaender and coauthors – find that the use of new regulatory mechanisms such as performance funding and rating systems are plagued by unintended consequences that can provide misleading measures of institutional effectiveness. Lynn Reimer and co-authors examine the effectiveness of the “promising practices” in STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) promoted by the National Academy of Sciences, and find that they can increase completion rates among low-income, first-generation, and under-represented students.
Expanding college access and effectiveness is a key way to promote economic mobility. The important findings in this issue illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. system of higher education and suggest new avenues for improving student outcomes.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: New Immigrant Labor Market NichesSusan Eckstein
Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
Today there are over 40 million immigrants living in the United States, most of whom come seeking work to improve their earnings and living conditions. Depending on their education and skills, their social networks, government regulations, and other factors, immigrant groups tend to concentrate in specific sectors of the labor market. The articles in this issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Susan Eckstein and economist Giovanni Peri, explore how new immigrant groups navigate the opportunities and constraints presented by various niches in the labor market and how they influence the economic and social fabric of American society.
Several articles survey the history of immigrant labor market niches and how they have affected local economies. Siobhan O’Keefe and Sarah Quincy investigate a labor niche—farming—created by Russian Jews in rural New Jersey in the nineteenth century that revitalized local markets and reduced the outmigration of natives from the area. Zai Liang and Bo Zhou study the occupational niches held by Chinese immigrants from the turn of the century to present day. They show that restaurants have historically provided, and continue to provide, a major source of employment for low-skilled Chinese immigrants and that these immigrants tend to use new job-finding services such as employment agencies and internet advertising. These services have also allowed Chinese-owned restaurants to expand into new geographical locations.
Other contributors analyze the divisions between high and low-skill labor market niches. In his ethnographic study of restaurants in Los Angeles, Eli Wilson finds that Mexican immigrants primarily work “back of the house” jobs performing low-wage manual labor with few opportunities for advancement, while English-speaking whites hold higher-paid “front of the house” jobs interacting with customers. However, bilingual second-generation Latinos are often able to bridge these two roles, increasing their chances for promotions and greater job responsibilities. Yasmin Ortiga explores the effects of programs designed to recruit middle-skill nurses from the Philippines. She finds that because the United States only accepts a certain number of nurses, these programs have contributed to an oversupply of trained nurses in the Philippines and increased joblessness and underemployment there.
Together, the studies in this issue contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why new immigrants gravitate to specific lines of work. They also reveal how these labor niches influence markets both within the United States and abroad.
Several articles survey the history of immigrant labor market niches and how they have affected local economies. Siobhan O’Keefe and Sarah Quincy investigate a labor niche—farming—created by Russian Jews in rural New Jersey in the nineteenth century that revitalized local markets and reduced the outmigration of natives from the area. Zai Liang and Bo Zhou study the occupational niches held by Chinese immigrants from the turn of the century to present day. They show that restaurants have historically provided, and continue to provide, a major source of employment for low-skilled Chinese immigrants and that these immigrants tend to use new job-finding services such as employment agencies and internet advertising. These services have also allowed Chinese-owned restaurants to expand into new geographical locations.
Other contributors analyze the divisions between high and low-skill labor market niches. In his ethnographic study of restaurants in Los Angeles, Eli Wilson finds that Mexican immigrants primarily work “back of the house” jobs performing low-wage manual labor with few opportunities for advancement, while English-speaking whites hold higher-paid “front of the house” jobs interacting with customers. However, bilingual second-generation Latinos are often able to bridge these two roles, increasing their chances for promotions and greater job responsibilities. Yasmin Ortiga explores the effects of programs designed to recruit middle-skill nurses from the Philippines. She finds that because the United States only accepts a certain number of nurses, these programs have contributed to an oversupply of trained nurses in the Philippines and increased joblessness and underemployment there.
Together, the studies in this issue contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why new immigrants gravitate to specific lines of work. They also reveal how these labor niches influence markets both within the United States and abroad.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Plessy v. Ferguson and the Legacy of "Separate but Equal" After 125 yearsjohn a. powell
Russell Sage Foundation, 2021
The notorious Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson made state-sanctioned racial segregation the law of the land in the United States in 1896. While the Civil Rights movement and subsequent Supreme Court decisions in the twentieth century did much to mitigate its effects, its consequences reverberate in ways large and small today. This special volume of RSF revisits the legacy of the decision on its 125th anniversary to consider the connection between constitutionally imposed segregation, institutionalized white supremacy, and enduring racial inequality. Edited by john a. powell, Samuel L. Myers, and Susan T. Gooden – eminent scholars in constitutional law, economics, and public administration respectively – the volume includes contributions from an interdisciplinary roster of experts, each offering fresh insights on the doctrine of “Separate but Equal” as it relates to citizenship, colorism, and civil rights in the United States.
The contributors grapple with a central overarching question: How is it that a court decision from 125 years ago still has such an enduring impact on racial disparities? john a. powell provides a nuanced overview of the legal context of the case to show that segregation was not only about separating people by race but was primarily about preserving White supremacy. The wide latitude for judicial interpretation granted to judges means that who decides matters, and today, just as much as in 1896, the justices sitting on the Supreme Court matter. If the views of Justice Harlan – the lone dissenter in Plessy – had prevailed, U.S. jurisprudence would look very different today.
Thomas J. Davis discusses how control over personal identity lay at the heart of Plessy, and how its denial of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms reverberates today. From sex and marriage to adoption, gender recognition, employment, and voting, persistent discrimination turns in various degrees on state authority to define, categorize, and deny freedom of personal identity. To ensure personal autonomy in such domains requires the continual reevaluation of U.S. law to recognize the freedom of individuals to define and express their own identities.
Looking at enduring educational impact of “Separate but Equal,” which was not entirely rectified by the 1954 decision outlawing school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, Dania V. Francis and William A. Darity, Jr., link today’s ongoing within-school segregation to the legacy of racialized tracking born from White resistance to desegregation. They demonstrate how a short-term, concerted effort to increase the number of Black high school students taking advanced courses could lead to long-term benefits in closing the educational achievement gap and eliminating institutionalized segregation within our schools.
Plessy rightfully stands as one of the continuing stains on the history of our country in its ambivalence and unwillingness to address White dominance. This issue of RSF both corrects and expands the narrative around the Plessy decision, and provides important lessons for addressing the nation’s continuing racial travails. It is ideal for use by scholars, community leaders, and policy makers alike.
The contributors grapple with a central overarching question: How is it that a court decision from 125 years ago still has such an enduring impact on racial disparities? john a. powell provides a nuanced overview of the legal context of the case to show that segregation was not only about separating people by race but was primarily about preserving White supremacy. The wide latitude for judicial interpretation granted to judges means that who decides matters, and today, just as much as in 1896, the justices sitting on the Supreme Court matter. If the views of Justice Harlan – the lone dissenter in Plessy – had prevailed, U.S. jurisprudence would look very different today.
Thomas J. Davis discusses how control over personal identity lay at the heart of Plessy, and how its denial of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms reverberates today. From sex and marriage to adoption, gender recognition, employment, and voting, persistent discrimination turns in various degrees on state authority to define, categorize, and deny freedom of personal identity. To ensure personal autonomy in such domains requires the continual reevaluation of U.S. law to recognize the freedom of individuals to define and express their own identities.
Looking at enduring educational impact of “Separate but Equal,” which was not entirely rectified by the 1954 decision outlawing school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, Dania V. Francis and William A. Darity, Jr., link today’s ongoing within-school segregation to the legacy of racialized tracking born from White resistance to desegregation. They demonstrate how a short-term, concerted effort to increase the number of Black high school students taking advanced courses could lead to long-term benefits in closing the educational achievement gap and eliminating institutionalized segregation within our schools.
Plessy rightfully stands as one of the continuing stains on the history of our country in its ambivalence and unwillingness to address White dominance. This issue of RSF both corrects and expands the narrative around the Plessy decision, and provides important lessons for addressing the nation’s continuing racial travails. It is ideal for use by scholars, community leaders, and policy makers alike.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Severe Deprivation in AmericaMatthew Desmond is associate professor of sociology and social sciences at Harvard University and codirector of the Justice and Poverty Project.
Russell Sage Foundation, 2015
Copy refers to RSF, Volume 1, issues 1 & 2
Widening inequality has received much attention recently, but most of the focus has been on the top one percent or the middle class. The problems of those at the very bottom of society remain largely invisible. Along with the Great Recession, factors such as rising housing costs, welfare reform, mass incarceration, suppressed wages, and pervasive joblessness have contributed to deepening poverty in America. In this inaugural double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a distinguished roster of poverty scholars from multiple disciplines focuses on families experiencing “severe deprivation”: acute, compounded, and persistent economic hardship.
Over twenty million families in America live in deep poverty, on incomes below half the federal poverty threshold, yet Liana Fox and colleagues find that government taxes and transfers lift millions of families out of deep poverty each year. Searching even further below the poverty line, Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, and Elizabeth Talbert find that the number of children in households experiencing chronic extreme poverty—living on $2 or less per day—increased by over 240 percent between 1996 and 2012. Focusing on the elderly, Helen Levy shows that failing health exacerbates low-income seniors’ hardship by driving up their out-of-pocket medical spending. Other contributors examine the relationship between violence and severe deprivation.
Through longitudinal interviews with former prisoners in Boston, Bruce Western reveals the ubiquity of violence in the life course of disadvantaged young men. And Laurence Ralph draws on years of ethnography in Chicago to document how families and communities cope with the trauma of gun violence. Other studies in this
issue show that mass incarceration has changed the nature of poverty in recent decades, with consequences ranging from increased levels of deprivation among children of incarcerated parents to housing insecurity among parolees, which increases their risk for recidivism. Finally, several papers devise novel methods and concepts relevant to the study of severe deprivation. Kristin Perkin and Robert Sampson develop an innovative measure of “compounded disadvantage” that groups individual and ecological hardship, while Megan Comfort and colleagues pioneer a new approach to ethnographic fieldwork that combines embedded social work with participant observation.
This issue provides in-depth analyses of the causes and human costs of extreme disadvantage in one of the richest countries in the world and offers a new paradigm for understanding the changing face of poverty in America. In an age of economic extremes, understanding how and why severe deprivation persists will be vital for policymakers and practitioners attempting to deliver relief to the nation’s most marginalized families.
Widening inequality has received much attention recently, but most of the focus has been on the top one percent or the middle class. The problems of those at the very bottom of society remain largely invisible. Along with the Great Recession, factors such as rising housing costs, welfare reform, mass incarceration, suppressed wages, and pervasive joblessness have contributed to deepening poverty in America. In this inaugural double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a distinguished roster of poverty scholars from multiple disciplines focuses on families experiencing “severe deprivation”: acute, compounded, and persistent economic hardship.
Over twenty million families in America live in deep poverty, on incomes below half the federal poverty threshold, yet Liana Fox and colleagues find that government taxes and transfers lift millions of families out of deep poverty each year. Searching even further below the poverty line, Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, and Elizabeth Talbert find that the number of children in households experiencing chronic extreme poverty—living on $2 or less per day—increased by over 240 percent between 1996 and 2012. Focusing on the elderly, Helen Levy shows that failing health exacerbates low-income seniors’ hardship by driving up their out-of-pocket medical spending. Other contributors examine the relationship between violence and severe deprivation.
Through longitudinal interviews with former prisoners in Boston, Bruce Western reveals the ubiquity of violence in the life course of disadvantaged young men. And Laurence Ralph draws on years of ethnography in Chicago to document how families and communities cope with the trauma of gun violence. Other studies in this
issue show that mass incarceration has changed the nature of poverty in recent decades, with consequences ranging from increased levels of deprivation among children of incarcerated parents to housing insecurity among parolees, which increases their risk for recidivism. Finally, several papers devise novel methods and concepts relevant to the study of severe deprivation. Kristin Perkin and Robert Sampson develop an innovative measure of “compounded disadvantage” that groups individual and ecological hardship, while Megan Comfort and colleagues pioneer a new approach to ethnographic fieldwork that combines embedded social work with participant observation.
This issue provides in-depth analyses of the causes and human costs of extreme disadvantage in one of the richest countries in the world and offers a new paradigm for understanding the changing face of poverty in America. In an age of economic extremes, understanding how and why severe deprivation persists will be vital for policymakers and practitioners attempting to deliver relief to the nation’s most marginalized families.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Severe Deprivation in AmericaMatthew Desmond is associate professor of sociology and social sciences at Harvard University and codirector of the Justice and Poverty Project.
Russell Sage Foundation, 2015
Copy refers to RSF, Volume 1, issues 1 & 2
Widening inequality has received much attention recently, but most of the focus has been on the top one percent or the middle class. The problems of those at the very bottom of society remain largely invisible. Along with the Great Recession, factors such as rising housing costs, welfare reform, mass incarceration, suppressed wages, and pervasive joblessness have contributed to deepening poverty in America. In this inaugural double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a distinguished roster of poverty scholars from multiple disciplines focuses on families experiencing “severe deprivation”: acute, compounded, and persistent economic hardship.
Over twenty million families in America live in deep poverty, on incomes below half the federal poverty threshold, yet Liana Fox and colleagues find that government taxes and transfers lift millions of families out of deep poverty each year. Searching even further below the poverty line, Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, and Elizabeth Talbert find that the number of children in households experiencing chronic extreme poverty—living on $2 or less per day—increased by over 240 percent between 1996 and 2012. Focusing on the elderly, Helen Levy shows that failing health exacerbates low-income seniors’ hardship by driving up their out-of-pocket medical spending. Other contributors examine the relationship between violence and severe deprivation.
Through longitudinal interviews with former prisoners in Boston, Bruce Western reveals the ubiquity of violence in the life course of disadvantaged young men. And Laurence Ralph draws on years of ethnography in Chicago to document how families and communities cope with the trauma of gun violence. Other studies in this
issue show that mass incarceration has changed the nature of poverty in recent decades, with consequences ranging from increased levels of deprivation among children of incarcerated parents to housing insecurity among parolees, which increases their risk for recidivism. Finally, several papers devise novel methods and concepts relevant to the study of severe deprivation. Kristin Perkin and Robert Sampson develop an innovative measure of “compounded disadvantage” that groups individual and ecological hardship, while Megan Comfort and colleagues pioneer a new approach to ethnographic fieldwork that combines embedded social work with participant observation.
This issue provides in-depth analyses of the causes and human costs of extreme disadvantage in one of the richest countries in the world and offers a new paradigm for understanding the changing face of poverty in America. In an age of economic extremes, understanding how and why severe deprivation persists will be vital for policymakers and practitioners attempting to deliver relief to the nation’s most marginalized families.
Widening inequality has received much attention recently, but most of the focus has been on the top one percent or the middle class. The problems of those at the very bottom of society remain largely invisible. Along with the Great Recession, factors such as rising housing costs, welfare reform, mass incarceration, suppressed wages, and pervasive joblessness have contributed to deepening poverty in America. In this inaugural double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a distinguished roster of poverty scholars from multiple disciplines focuses on families experiencing “severe deprivation”: acute, compounded, and persistent economic hardship.
Over twenty million families in America live in deep poverty, on incomes below half the federal poverty threshold, yet Liana Fox and colleagues find that government taxes and transfers lift millions of families out of deep poverty each year. Searching even further below the poverty line, Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, and Elizabeth Talbert find that the number of children in households experiencing chronic extreme poverty—living on $2 or less per day—increased by over 240 percent between 1996 and 2012. Focusing on the elderly, Helen Levy shows that failing health exacerbates low-income seniors’ hardship by driving up their out-of-pocket medical spending. Other contributors examine the relationship between violence and severe deprivation.
Through longitudinal interviews with former prisoners in Boston, Bruce Western reveals the ubiquity of violence in the life course of disadvantaged young men. And Laurence Ralph draws on years of ethnography in Chicago to document how families and communities cope with the trauma of gun violence. Other studies in this
issue show that mass incarceration has changed the nature of poverty in recent decades, with consequences ranging from increased levels of deprivation among children of incarcerated parents to housing insecurity among parolees, which increases their risk for recidivism. Finally, several papers devise novel methods and concepts relevant to the study of severe deprivation. Kristin Perkin and Robert Sampson develop an innovative measure of “compounded disadvantage” that groups individual and ecological hardship, while Megan Comfort and colleagues pioneer a new approach to ethnographic fieldwork that combines embedded social work with participant observation.
This issue provides in-depth analyses of the causes and human costs of extreme disadvantage in one of the richest countries in the world and offers a new paradigm for understanding the changing face of poverty in America. In an age of economic extremes, understanding how and why severe deprivation persists will be vital for policymakers and practitioners attempting to deliver relief to the nation’s most marginalized families.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: State Monetary Sanctions and the Costs of the Criminal Legal System: How the System of Monetary Sanctions OperatesAlexes Harris
Russell Sage Foundation, 2022
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: State Monetary Sanctions and the Costs of the Criminal Legal System: The Consequences of Monetary SanctionsAlexes Harris
Russell Sage Foundation, 2022
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Suburban InequalityL'Heureux Lewis-McCoy
Russell Sage Foundation, 2023
Note this copy pertains to two issues. This is a double issue.
Suburbs are home to almost half of all Americans and have undergone dramatic demographic shifts over the past 20 years. Yet, suburbs remain understudied, and we know little about the changes taking place in these communities. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologists R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, education scholar Nadirah Farah Foley, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how suburbs have evolved and growing suburban inequality.
Issue 1 looks at the diversification of suburbs as well as inequality in suburban housing. Daniel T. Litcher and colleagues find that a majority of residents living in metropolitan areas now live in suburbs and this change has been driven by a migration of ethnic and racial minorities to suburban areas. Devin Q. Rutan and colleagues reveal that the number of suburban evictions has steadily risen over time, even as urban evictions have remained stable. Jennifer Girouard finds that while the state of Massachusetts passed Chapter 40B in 1969, a law that ensures affordable housing is built in the suburbs, local residents and leaders use tactics such as creating narratives of the town being victimized by predatory developers to resist the law and the development of affordable housing.
Issue 2 examines suburban schools, how community institutions function in suburban areas, and suburban politics. Shruti Bathia and colleagues find that between 2000 and 2015 Latino children attending elementary school in the suburbs had more exposure to White peers than their counterparts attending urban schools. However, suburban Latino children’s exposure to White students declined during that same time period. Scott W. Allard and Elizabeth Pelletier reveal that the nonprofit safety net is less responsive in suburban areas than urban centers and that nonprofit services are less robust in high poverty suburban areas and suburban areas with larger Black populations. Brenden Beck shows that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and that municipalities that rely more on monetary sanctions have more police killings. Kiara Wyndham Douds finds that incorporated suburbs are Whiter and less racially diverse than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation has been an effective strategy for racial exclusion.
This volume of RSF investigates the underexamined and pressing issue of inequality in suburbs and explores how it develops within and between suburban communities.
Suburbs are home to almost half of all Americans and have undergone dramatic demographic shifts over the past 20 years. Yet, suburbs remain understudied, and we know little about the changes taking place in these communities. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologists R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, education scholar Nadirah Farah Foley, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how suburbs have evolved and growing suburban inequality.
Issue 1 looks at the diversification of suburbs as well as inequality in suburban housing. Daniel T. Litcher and colleagues find that a majority of residents living in metropolitan areas now live in suburbs and this change has been driven by a migration of ethnic and racial minorities to suburban areas. Devin Q. Rutan and colleagues reveal that the number of suburban evictions has steadily risen over time, even as urban evictions have remained stable. Jennifer Girouard finds that while the state of Massachusetts passed Chapter 40B in 1969, a law that ensures affordable housing is built in the suburbs, local residents and leaders use tactics such as creating narratives of the town being victimized by predatory developers to resist the law and the development of affordable housing.
Issue 2 examines suburban schools, how community institutions function in suburban areas, and suburban politics. Shruti Bathia and colleagues find that between 2000 and 2015 Latino children attending elementary school in the suburbs had more exposure to White peers than their counterparts attending urban schools. However, suburban Latino children’s exposure to White students declined during that same time period. Scott W. Allard and Elizabeth Pelletier reveal that the nonprofit safety net is less responsive in suburban areas than urban centers and that nonprofit services are less robust in high poverty suburban areas and suburban areas with larger Black populations. Brenden Beck shows that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and that municipalities that rely more on monetary sanctions have more police killings. Kiara Wyndham Douds finds that incorporated suburbs are Whiter and less racially diverse than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation has been an effective strategy for racial exclusion.
This volume of RSF investigates the underexamined and pressing issue of inequality in suburbs and explores how it develops within and between suburban communities.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Suburban InequalityL'Heureux Lewis-McCoy
Russell Sage Foundation, 2023
Note this copy pertains to two issues. This is a double issue.
Suburbs are home to almost half of all Americans and have undergone dramatic demographic shifts over the past 20 years. Yet, suburbs remain understudied, and we know little about the changes taking place in these communities. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologists R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, education scholar Nadirah Farah Foley, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how suburbs have evolved and growing suburban inequality.
Issue 1 looks at the diversification of suburbs as well as inequality in suburban housing. Daniel T. Litcher and colleagues find that a majority of residents living in metropolitan areas now live in suburbs and this change has been driven by a migration of ethnic and racial minorities to suburban areas. Devin Q. Rutan and colleagues reveal that the number of suburban evictions has steadily risen over time, even as urban evictions have remained stable. Jennifer Girouard finds that while the state of Massachusetts passed Chapter 40B in 1969, a law that ensures affordable housing is built in the suburbs, local residents and leaders use tactics such as creating narratives of the town being victimized by predatory developers to resist the law and the development of affordable housing.
Issue 2 examines suburban schools, how community institutions function in suburban areas, and suburban politics. Shruti Bathia and colleagues find that between 2000 and 2015 Latino children attending elementary school in the suburbs had more exposure to White peers than their counterparts attending urban schools. However, suburban Latino children’s exposure to White students declined during that same time period. Scott W. Allard and Elizabeth Pelletier reveal that the nonprofit safety net is less responsive in suburban areas than urban centers and that nonprofit services are less robust in high poverty suburban areas and suburban areas with larger Black populations. Brenden Beck shows that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and that municipalities that rely more on monetary sanctions have more police killings. Kiara Wyndham Douds finds that incorporated suburbs are Whiter and less racially diverse than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation has been an effective strategy for racial exclusion.
This volume of RSF investigates the underexamined and pressing issue of inequality in suburbs and explores how it develops within and between suburban communities.
Suburbs are home to almost half of all Americans and have undergone dramatic demographic shifts over the past 20 years. Yet, suburbs remain understudied, and we know little about the changes taking place in these communities. In this special double issue of RSF, sociologists R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Natasha Warikoo, Stephen A. Matthews, education scholar Nadirah Farah Foley, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how suburbs have evolved and growing suburban inequality.
Issue 1 looks at the diversification of suburbs as well as inequality in suburban housing. Daniel T. Litcher and colleagues find that a majority of residents living in metropolitan areas now live in suburbs and this change has been driven by a migration of ethnic and racial minorities to suburban areas. Devin Q. Rutan and colleagues reveal that the number of suburban evictions has steadily risen over time, even as urban evictions have remained stable. Jennifer Girouard finds that while the state of Massachusetts passed Chapter 40B in 1969, a law that ensures affordable housing is built in the suburbs, local residents and leaders use tactics such as creating narratives of the town being victimized by predatory developers to resist the law and the development of affordable housing.
Issue 2 examines suburban schools, how community institutions function in suburban areas, and suburban politics. Shruti Bathia and colleagues find that between 2000 and 2015 Latino children attending elementary school in the suburbs had more exposure to White peers than their counterparts attending urban schools. However, suburban Latino children’s exposure to White students declined during that same time period. Scott W. Allard and Elizabeth Pelletier reveal that the nonprofit safety net is less responsive in suburban areas than urban centers and that nonprofit services are less robust in high poverty suburban areas and suburban areas with larger Black populations. Brenden Beck shows that suburbs with large Black populations rely the most on fine-and-fee revenue and that municipalities that rely more on monetary sanctions have more police killings. Kiara Wyndham Douds finds that incorporated suburbs are Whiter and less racially diverse than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation has been an effective strategy for racial exclusion.
This volume of RSF investigates the underexamined and pressing issue of inequality in suburbs and explores how it develops within and between suburban communities.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Coleman Report and Educational Inequality Fifty Years LaterKarl Alexander
Russell Sage Foundation, 2016
The 1966 Equality of Educational Opportunity Report (EEO)—also known as the Coleman Report—is one of the most important education studies of the twentieth century. Commissioned by Congress as part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the report revealed pervasive school segregation by race, among other inequalities, and began a national dialogue on educational opportunity for minority children. On the fiftieth anniversary of the EEO report, leading scholars revisit its legacy in this special issue of RSF, edited by Karl Alexander and Stephen Morgan. The contributors examine the report’s methods and conclusions through the lens of social science advances over the past half century, and analyze issues such as school reform, persistent racial segregation, and changing educational standards to provide a thoughtful analysis of barriers to educational opportunity today.
The issue begins with a reassessment of the EEO’s major findings. Karl Alexander analyzes the report’s conclusion that families exert greater influence on children’s school performance than the schools themselves. He finds that family, school, and neighborhood all interact to shape children’s academic development in ways that are not always separable. Other contributors investigate how racial achievement gaps have changed since the report’s release. Sean Reardon finds that disparities in average school poverty rates between white and black students’ schools are the most powerful correlate of achievement gaps. Barbara Schneider and Guan Saw show that while blacks aspire to attend college at greater rates than whites, fewer blacks than whites now attend four-year colleges in part due to lesser access to college preparation activities, such as advanced-level academic courses.
Contributors also evaluate and update the EEO’s proposals to reduce longstanding socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps. Prudence L. Carter argues that effective policies for ending racial disparities must account for inequalities within schools as well as between them. Brian Jacob and coauthors explore whether technological advances since the EEO, including online courses, have the potential to reduce some of the educational inequalities associated with residential segregation. Ruth Turley shows how renewed partnerships between education researchers and policymakers at the local, regional, and national levels can improve disadvantaged students’ educational outcomes and increase racial and economic integration. By looking forward as well as back, this issue of RSF documents what educators and scholars have learned from fifty years of social science research on educational opportunity.
The issue begins with a reassessment of the EEO’s major findings. Karl Alexander analyzes the report’s conclusion that families exert greater influence on children’s school performance than the schools themselves. He finds that family, school, and neighborhood all interact to shape children’s academic development in ways that are not always separable. Other contributors investigate how racial achievement gaps have changed since the report’s release. Sean Reardon finds that disparities in average school poverty rates between white and black students’ schools are the most powerful correlate of achievement gaps. Barbara Schneider and Guan Saw show that while blacks aspire to attend college at greater rates than whites, fewer blacks than whites now attend four-year colleges in part due to lesser access to college preparation activities, such as advanced-level academic courses.
Contributors also evaluate and update the EEO’s proposals to reduce longstanding socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps. Prudence L. Carter argues that effective policies for ending racial disparities must account for inequalities within schools as well as between them. Brian Jacob and coauthors explore whether technological advances since the EEO, including online courses, have the potential to reduce some of the educational inequalities associated with residential segregation. Ruth Turley shows how renewed partnerships between education researchers and policymakers at the local, regional, and national levels can improve disadvantaged students’ educational outcomes and increase racial and economic integration. By looking forward as well as back, this issue of RSF documents what educators and scholars have learned from fifty years of social science research on educational opportunity.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Criminal Justuce System as a Labor Market InsitutionSandra Susan Smith
Russell Sage Foundation, 2020
Inmate labor fuels prisons. The incarcerated work in prison industries that collaborate with private corporations. Fair labor laws do not apply to prisons, where it is common for inmates to earn less than one dollar per hour. But involvement with the criminal justice system continues to shape and hinder the future employment and earnings of the formerly incarcerated long after they have been released. In this issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Sandra Susan Smith and legal scholar Jonathan Simon, an interdisciplinary group of scholars analyze how the criminal justice system acts as a de facto labor market institution by compelling or coercing labor from the justice-involved.
The social and economic effects of criminal justice involvement are widespread, with almost seven million people under some form of direct supervision. The contributors to this issue examine how the criminal justice system affects the livelihood and families of both the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. Cody Warner, Joshua Kaiser, and Jason Houle explore how “hidden sentences” --restricted access to voting rights, public housing, and professional licensing--negatively impact labor market outcomes for young adults with criminal records. Michele Cadigan and Garbriela Kirk look at the burden of court fees and fines, or legal financial obligations, that place a strain on the work commitments and resources of low-income people. Joe LaBriola sheds new light on how employment affects recidivism; he shows that parolees who find high-quality jobs, such as in the manufacturing industry, are less likely to return to prison than those employed in low-quality jobs. Noah Zatz and Michael Stoll demonstrate how the threat of imprisonment for nonpayment of child support coerces labor among noncustodial fathers, particularly African-American men. Allison Dwyer Emory and her coauthors show that previously incarcerated fathers are less likely to pay either formal or informal cash child support or offer in-kind assistance to their children’s mothers.
This issue of RSF is a timely contribution to the field of scholarly literature that illuminates the far and often destructive reach that the criminal justice system has on those whose lives it touches. It advances our understanding of how the system functions as a labor market institution and the price it extracts from those involved with it.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Kerner Commission ReportSusan T. Gooden
Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate the causes of the more than 150 urban riots sweeping cities throughout the nation. In 1968, the commission released its findings, widely known as the Kerner Report, and warned that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” This special issue of RSF, edited by political scientist Susan Gooden and economist Samuel Myers, revisits the Kerner Report’s conclusions and recommendations on the fiftieth anniversary of its publication. How far have we come? What worked and what didn’t? How does the Kerner Report help us understand racial disparities in the twenty-first century?
Articles in the issue examine the extent to which the recommendations in the Kerner Report contributed to policy changes and improvements in the social and economic well-being of urban residents . In their introduction, Gooden and Myers analyze changes in socioeconomic inequality between whites and blacks over the last five decades. They find that while the black poverty rate has declined and black educational attainment has increased, disparities still remain. Additionally, the income gap and disparities in unemployment between blacks and whites remain virtually unchanged. Rick Loessberg and John Koskinen similarly note the persistence of these disparities, but also show that some of the Kerner Report’s recommendations were adopted at local levels and have provided the foundation for increased racial diversity in media, law enforcement reforms, and public housing desegregation.
Other contributors study the urban areas that were sites of the riots. Reynolds Farley shows that in Detroit, residential segregation has declined and interracial marriage has increased over the last fifty years. However, on key economic measures such as income and wealth, African Americans have fallen even further behind whites than they were in 1967 due to dramatic changes in Detroit’s labor market. In their study of wealth inequality in Los Angeles, Melany De La Cruz-Viesca and coauthors show that much of the wealth gap between blacks and whites is due to disparities in home ownership, a subject neglected in the Kerner Report. Marcus Casey and Bradley Hardy study the evolution of African American neighborhoods since the Kerner Report and find that neighborhoods directly affected by riots in the 1960s still remain among the most economically disadvantaged today.
The Kerner Report endures as a classic touchstone in the nation’s search for a path toward equality. Together, the articles in this special issue demonstrate the long-term influence of the report and show where further progress is needed to close the racial divide.
Articles in the issue examine the extent to which the recommendations in the Kerner Report contributed to policy changes and improvements in the social and economic well-being of urban residents . In their introduction, Gooden and Myers analyze changes in socioeconomic inequality between whites and blacks over the last five decades. They find that while the black poverty rate has declined and black educational attainment has increased, disparities still remain. Additionally, the income gap and disparities in unemployment between blacks and whites remain virtually unchanged. Rick Loessberg and John Koskinen similarly note the persistence of these disparities, but also show that some of the Kerner Report’s recommendations were adopted at local levels and have provided the foundation for increased racial diversity in media, law enforcement reforms, and public housing desegregation.
Other contributors study the urban areas that were sites of the riots. Reynolds Farley shows that in Detroit, residential segregation has declined and interracial marriage has increased over the last fifty years. However, on key economic measures such as income and wealth, African Americans have fallen even further behind whites than they were in 1967 due to dramatic changes in Detroit’s labor market. In their study of wealth inequality in Los Angeles, Melany De La Cruz-Viesca and coauthors show that much of the wealth gap between blacks and whites is due to disparities in home ownership, a subject neglected in the Kerner Report. Marcus Casey and Bradley Hardy study the evolution of African American neighborhoods since the Kerner Report and find that neighborhoods directly affected by riots in the 1960s still remain among the most economically disadvantaged today.
The Kerner Report endures as a classic touchstone in the nation’s search for a path toward equality. Together, the articles in this special issue demonstrate the long-term influence of the report and show where further progress is needed to close the racial divide.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Legal Landscape of U.S. Immigration in the Twenty-First CenturyKatharine M. Donato
Russell Sage Foundation, 2020
Immigration has long been viewed as both essential to American society and a polarizing political issue. Recent flashpoints around immigration include a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the legality of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), enacted in 2012, to provide a pathway to citizenship for young, undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration has limited visas for foreign workers, banned travelers from predominantly Muslim countries, narrowed asylum-seeking procedures, and increased immigration enforcement. In this issue of RSF, edited by demographer Katharine M. Donato and economist Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, an interdisciplinary group of scholars traces the history and contemporary landscape of legal immigration to the United States.
Donato and Amuedo-Dorantes outline American immigration policies from 1880 to the present and consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigration. They underscore the fact that many recent immigration policies have been a result of presidential executive orders rather than legislative acts, making families and workers who enter the country without proper documentation especially vulnerable. They also examine how and why these orders are often racist and xenophobic, privileging some racial and ethnic groups and excluding others.
Contributors to the issue investigate the various ways in which immigrants secure visas, working permits, and citizenship in the United States, including through employment and family ties, as well as special statuses for military veterans, refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors. Daniel Costa writes about how temporary migrant workers’ precarious immigration status makes them particularly likely to experience workplace abuse because they fear losing their jobs and being deported if they complain about unfair labor practices. Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny consider the substantial increase in employer demand for temporary work visas, demonstrating how improved economic conditions have led to this surge, creating a viable alternative to hiring unauthorized workers. Julia Gelatt uses employment and economic data analysis to compare multiple classes of legal immigrants. Her research demonstrates that employer-sponsored immigrants are better educated, exhibit higher English proficiency, and work in more highly skilled jobs than other types of immigrants (including family-sponsored, humanitarian, and diversity visa immigrants).
Other contributors examine the experiences of immigrants with special statuses, including veterans. Cara Wong and Jonathan Bonaguro find that Americans are more likely to support a path to citizenship via military service for immigrants who entered the country with the appropriate documentation, and that many Americans believe that undocumented migrants should be barred from the military, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and firefighting. Van C. Tran and Francisco Lara-García find little variation in early socioeconomic outcomes between refugee groups from various countries. They show that schooling and employment, along with strategic financial, community building, and other support services, are critical factors in the successful integration and improved socioeconomic outcomes of refugees. Luis Edward Tenorio finds that the patchwork of legal systems, including family, immigration, and federal courts that adjudicate the laws for children with special immigrant juvenile status, make for the uneasy and uneven integration of unaccompanied minors into key social institutions.
This issue of RSF is a timely contribution that will invigorate the field of scholarly work on the American legal immigration system.
Donato and Amuedo-Dorantes outline American immigration policies from 1880 to the present and consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigration. They underscore the fact that many recent immigration policies have been a result of presidential executive orders rather than legislative acts, making families and workers who enter the country without proper documentation especially vulnerable. They also examine how and why these orders are often racist and xenophobic, privileging some racial and ethnic groups and excluding others.
Contributors to the issue investigate the various ways in which immigrants secure visas, working permits, and citizenship in the United States, including through employment and family ties, as well as special statuses for military veterans, refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors. Daniel Costa writes about how temporary migrant workers’ precarious immigration status makes them particularly likely to experience workplace abuse because they fear losing their jobs and being deported if they complain about unfair labor practices. Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny consider the substantial increase in employer demand for temporary work visas, demonstrating how improved economic conditions have led to this surge, creating a viable alternative to hiring unauthorized workers. Julia Gelatt uses employment and economic data analysis to compare multiple classes of legal immigrants. Her research demonstrates that employer-sponsored immigrants are better educated, exhibit higher English proficiency, and work in more highly skilled jobs than other types of immigrants (including family-sponsored, humanitarian, and diversity visa immigrants).
Other contributors examine the experiences of immigrants with special statuses, including veterans. Cara Wong and Jonathan Bonaguro find that Americans are more likely to support a path to citizenship via military service for immigrants who entered the country with the appropriate documentation, and that many Americans believe that undocumented migrants should be barred from the military, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and firefighting. Van C. Tran and Francisco Lara-García find little variation in early socioeconomic outcomes between refugee groups from various countries. They show that schooling and employment, along with strategic financial, community building, and other support services, are critical factors in the successful integration and improved socioeconomic outcomes of refugees. Luis Edward Tenorio finds that the patchwork of legal systems, including family, immigration, and federal courts that adjudicate the laws for children with special immigrant juvenile status, make for the uneasy and uneven integration of unaccompanied minors into key social institutions.
This issue of RSF is a timely contribution that will invigorate the field of scholarly work on the American legal immigration system.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Social and Political Impact of the Covid-19 PandemicBeth Redbird
Russell Sage Foundation, 2022
In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created large-scale disruptions in American society almost overnight. Yet the federal government provided little coordination or guidance in the face of the crisis. State and local governments found themselves primarily responsible for enacting policies and communicating information about the virus with the public,resulting in a wide variety of responses to the pandemic, including in public health recommendations and mandates. In this issue of RSF sociologist Beth Redbird, political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong, communications expert Rachel Davis Mersey, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors explore how social and political factors shaped the initial responses to the pandemic and how this impacted individuals and communities.
The 11 articles in this issue examine how information about the pandemic was disseminated, the disparate impacts of COVID-19 on different groups, and the government’s response to the pandemic. Courtney Page-Tan and colleagues find that people who relied on information from close social networks and trusted formal institutions, such as the CDC, were more likely to engage in behavior aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, such as staying home and avoiding crowded areas. Laura E. Evans and colleagues find that while Native Americans were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, states in which Native Americans had greater representation and political power in state politics saw fewer COVID-19 cases on tribal lands. They also find that there were fewer COVID-19 cases on tribal lands with strong networks of community-based and tribally controlled health facilities. Claire Kamp Dush and colleagues find that individuals who identify as non-White or non-heterosexual experienced higher levels of COVID-19 stress and racial trauma stress, both of which are associated with poorer mental health outcomes. Sarah James and colleagues find that state variation in the collection and publication of COVID-19 data reflected state capacity. Yet the main driver of variation in state policy response and implementation of mitigation measures was primarily partisanship. Elizabeth Suhay and colleagues find that trust in federal, state, and local government all fell during the first year of the pandemic. However, individuals with more trust in state government and local health officials were more likely to engage in protective health behaviors, while those with higher trust in the federal government were less likely to engage in such behaviors.
While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue for years to come, this volume of RSF begins the investigation into how the pandemic has altered social, cultural, and political dynamics in American society.
The 11 articles in this issue examine how information about the pandemic was disseminated, the disparate impacts of COVID-19 on different groups, and the government’s response to the pandemic. Courtney Page-Tan and colleagues find that people who relied on information from close social networks and trusted formal institutions, such as the CDC, were more likely to engage in behavior aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, such as staying home and avoiding crowded areas. Laura E. Evans and colleagues find that while Native Americans were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, states in which Native Americans had greater representation and political power in state politics saw fewer COVID-19 cases on tribal lands. They also find that there were fewer COVID-19 cases on tribal lands with strong networks of community-based and tribally controlled health facilities. Claire Kamp Dush and colleagues find that individuals who identify as non-White or non-heterosexual experienced higher levels of COVID-19 stress and racial trauma stress, both of which are associated with poorer mental health outcomes. Sarah James and colleagues find that state variation in the collection and publication of COVID-19 data reflected state capacity. Yet the main driver of variation in state policy response and implementation of mitigation measures was primarily partisanship. Elizabeth Suhay and colleagues find that trust in federal, state, and local government all fell during the first year of the pandemic. However, individuals with more trust in state government and local health officials were more likely to engage in protective health behaviors, while those with higher trust in the federal government were less likely to engage in such behaviors.
While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue for years to come, this volume of RSF begins the investigation into how the pandemic has altered social, cultural, and political dynamics in American society.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Social, Political, and Economic Effects of the Affordable Care ActAndrea Campbell
Russell Sage Foundation, 2020
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as the ACA or Obamacare, was enacted in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession. The law transformed the way that Americans access healthcare, nearly halving the ranks of the 49 million uninsured Americans. Edited by political scientist Andrea Louise Campbell and economist Lara Shore-Sheppard, this issue of RSF examines the social, political, and economic effects of this landmark legislation.
This journal issue explores the political dimensions of the rollout of the ACA and the attendant backlash. Contributors Helen Levy, Andrew Ying, and Nicholas Bagley argue that despite repeated efforts at repeal, over 80 percent of the Act has been implemented as it was originally intended. Julianna Pacheco, Jake Haselswerdt, and Jamila Michener show that when Republican governors support Medicaid expansion, Republican voters become more favorable toward the ACA, and polarization between Republican and Democrat voters decreases. Yet Charles Courtemanche, James Marton, and Aaron Yelowitz find little impact of the ACA on voter participation. Lisa Beauregard and Edward Miller examine states’ adoption of the ACA’s home and community-based care services for the elderly and people with disabilities, finding that states with more liberal elected officials and more fiscal capacity were more likely to adopt these provisions. Paul Shafer, David Anderson, Seciah Aquino, Laura Baum, Erika Franklin Fowler, and Sarah Gollust probe the role of different types of health insurance and political advertising on insurance enrollment. Richard Fording and Dana Patton explain the emergence of contentious Medicaid work requirements and patient co-pays that limit access to Medicaid.
Other contributors address how the ACA affects marginalized populations. Carrie Fry, Thomas McGuire, and Richard Frank link Medicaid expansion to lower rates of recidivism among the formerly incarcerated. Radhika Gore, Ritu Dhar, Sadia Mohaimin, Priscilla Lopez, Anna Divney, Jennifer Zanowiak, Lorna Thorpe, and Nadia Islam study primary care practices serving South Asian immigrants in New York City and highlight the importance of social context and organizational constraints in designing population health interventions. The issue also examines the economic effects of the ACA, especially on access to private and public health insurance. Both Mark Hall and Jean Abraham study instability in ACA health insurance markets, with Hall focusing on uncertainty arising from political factors and Abraham examining the factors that lead local markets to face high premiums and low insurer participation. Philip Rocco and Andrew Kelly explore the mechanisms included in the ACA to try to spur innovations in care delivery that both improve health and generate long-term cost savings.
As the COVID-19 pandemic affects healthcare in unprecedented ways, affordable healthcare access is critical. This RSF journal issue offers a timely, thoughtful consideration of one of the most pressing issues in American life.
This journal issue explores the political dimensions of the rollout of the ACA and the attendant backlash. Contributors Helen Levy, Andrew Ying, and Nicholas Bagley argue that despite repeated efforts at repeal, over 80 percent of the Act has been implemented as it was originally intended. Julianna Pacheco, Jake Haselswerdt, and Jamila Michener show that when Republican governors support Medicaid expansion, Republican voters become more favorable toward the ACA, and polarization between Republican and Democrat voters decreases. Yet Charles Courtemanche, James Marton, and Aaron Yelowitz find little impact of the ACA on voter participation. Lisa Beauregard and Edward Miller examine states’ adoption of the ACA’s home and community-based care services for the elderly and people with disabilities, finding that states with more liberal elected officials and more fiscal capacity were more likely to adopt these provisions. Paul Shafer, David Anderson, Seciah Aquino, Laura Baum, Erika Franklin Fowler, and Sarah Gollust probe the role of different types of health insurance and political advertising on insurance enrollment. Richard Fording and Dana Patton explain the emergence of contentious Medicaid work requirements and patient co-pays that limit access to Medicaid.
Other contributors address how the ACA affects marginalized populations. Carrie Fry, Thomas McGuire, and Richard Frank link Medicaid expansion to lower rates of recidivism among the formerly incarcerated. Radhika Gore, Ritu Dhar, Sadia Mohaimin, Priscilla Lopez, Anna Divney, Jennifer Zanowiak, Lorna Thorpe, and Nadia Islam study primary care practices serving South Asian immigrants in New York City and highlight the importance of social context and organizational constraints in designing population health interventions. The issue also examines the economic effects of the ACA, especially on access to private and public health insurance. Both Mark Hall and Jean Abraham study instability in ACA health insurance markets, with Hall focusing on uncertainty arising from political factors and Abraham examining the factors that lead local markets to face high premiums and low insurer participation. Philip Rocco and Andrew Kelly explore the mechanisms included in the ACA to try to spur innovations in care delivery that both improve health and generate long-term cost savings.
As the COVID-19 pandemic affects healthcare in unprecedented ways, affordable healthcare access is critical. This RSF journal issue offers a timely, thoughtful consideration of one of the most pressing issues in American life.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The U.S. Labor Market During and After the Great RecessionArne L. Kalleberg
Russell Sage Foundation, 2017
The Great Recession was the most disastrous economic upheaval in the U.S. since the Great Depression. Nearly nine million jobs were lost, median family incomes declined by about 8 percent, and the rate of long-term unemployment reached historic highs. Although the recession was officially declared over in June 2009, its effects on the labor market lingered long after. In this issue of RSF, edited by Arne L. Kalleberg and Till M. von Wachter, scholars analyze the longer-term impacts of the Great Recession on jobs, workers, and economic security.
Contributors explore a number of changes to the labor market and union density during and after the Great Recession. Jesse Rothstein investigates the factors contributing to persistently high unemployment and finds that reduced employer demand for workers was more important than labor mismatch—or unemployed workers lacking the appropriate skills for available jobs. Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce find increased hostility to unions among employers and steep job losses in traditionally unionized industries, both of which constricted organized labor during and after the Great Recession.
Other articles examine the effects of job loss on unemployed individuals’ mental health and family lives. Kelsey J. O’Connor finds that declining income and rising unemployment contributed to the lowest level of reported happiness in 2010, particularly for men, older people, and Hispanics. William Dickens and coauthors evaluate families’ ability to weather job losses during the Great Recession by relying on savings and find that most had insufficient wealth to buffer large earnings losses for more than a short period of time. Gokce Basbug and Ofer Sharone explore the extent to which the negative emotional toll of long-term unemployment is shaped by gender and marital status. They find that marriage tends to boost the well-being of both men and women during times of unemployment. Among married men, however, this benefit disappeared when controlling for household income, suggesting that the benefits of marriage are related more to additional income than to other forms of intangible or emotional support.
The duration and severity of the Great Recession sets it apart from earlier economic downturns and, as this issue shows, it has had long-term consequences for workers and their families.
Contributors explore a number of changes to the labor market and union density during and after the Great Recession. Jesse Rothstein investigates the factors contributing to persistently high unemployment and finds that reduced employer demand for workers was more important than labor mismatch—or unemployed workers lacking the appropriate skills for available jobs. Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce find increased hostility to unions among employers and steep job losses in traditionally unionized industries, both of which constricted organized labor during and after the Great Recession.
Other articles examine the effects of job loss on unemployed individuals’ mental health and family lives. Kelsey J. O’Connor finds that declining income and rising unemployment contributed to the lowest level of reported happiness in 2010, particularly for men, older people, and Hispanics. William Dickens and coauthors evaluate families’ ability to weather job losses during the Great Recession by relying on savings and find that most had insufficient wealth to buffer large earnings losses for more than a short period of time. Gokce Basbug and Ofer Sharone explore the extent to which the negative emotional toll of long-term unemployment is shaped by gender and marital status. They find that marriage tends to boost the well-being of both men and women during times of unemployment. Among married men, however, this benefit disappeared when controlling for household income, suggesting that the benefits of marriage are related more to additional income than to other forms of intangible or emotional support.
The duration and severity of the Great Recession sets it apart from earlier economic downturns and, as this issue shows, it has had long-term consequences for workers and their families.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Three Decades Since 'Making Ends Meet': What We Know about How Single Mothers Survive TodayElizabeth O. Ananat
Russell Sage Foundation, 2026
In their seminal 1995 book Making Ends Meet: How Low-Income Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Employment, Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein laid bare the strategies and challenges of low-income single mothers who were struggling to provide for their families. Even in an era when cash welfare was a federal entitlement, these women struggled to get by. In the thirty years since the book’s publication, many single parents wrestle with volatility and precarious resources from work, informal and formal supports. In this double issue of RSF, economist Elizabeth O. Ananat, political scientist and public policy scholar Carolyn Y. Barnes, sociologists Sandra K. Danziger and Kathryn Edin, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how the policy landscape has changed since welfare reform and how it impacts low-income single mothers’ ability to make ends meet today.
Issue 1 has 8 articles that examine how the traditional safety net has evolved and new supports that have been developed since Making Ends Meet. For example, Sarah K. Bruch and colleagues assess changes to the social safety net since welfare reform in the 1990s and find that benefits have become more exclusive, have more constraints, and are less generous. Kelley Fong and Nora McCarthy reveal that, in an attempt to decrease child maltreatment, the child welfare system increasingly provides material resources to system-involved parents, including in-kind donations and assistance accessing childcare. However, parents often avoid obtaining resources through the system because it opens them up to increased state surveillance. Heather D. Hill and colleagues show that access to paid family and medical leave (PFML) varies greatly for single mothers, with two-thirds of single mothers living in states without PMFL. For those who live in states with PFML, the accessibility and generosity of benefits vary greatly.
Issue 2 has 5 articles that look at lessons that can be learned from COVID Era policies, how single mothers currently try to make ends meet, and men’s contributions to families. For example, Natasha V. Pilkauskas and Kevin Bruey find that low-income single mothers, with and without employment, utilize a variety of public and private resources to make ends meet. Despite this, both groups face high levels of material hardship, including food and housing insecurity. Hope Harvey examines how members of doubled up households understand their economic and social relationships and reveals that there are often disagreements about shared resources, such as money and food. However, it is not just the precise contributions that cause conflict, but how the exchanges are interpreted within the context of household members’ relationships. Allison Dwyer Emory and colleagues show that nonresident fathers often have trouble making ends meet themselves and are unable to make up for the loss of cash support post-welfare reform.
This double issue of RSF showcases the persistence of precarity that low-income families face since Making Ends Meet.
Note: This copy refers to both issues of the journal double issue.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Three Decades Since 'Making Ends Meet': What We Know about How Single Mothers Survive TodayElizabeth O. Ananat
Russell Sage Foundation, 2026
In their seminal 1995 book Making Ends Meet: How Low-Income Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Employment, Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein laid bare the strategies and challenges of low-income single mothers who were struggling to provide for their families. Even in an era when cash welfare was a federal entitlement, these women struggled to get by. In the thirty years since the book’s publication, many single parents wrestle with volatility and precarious resources from work, informal and formal supports. In this double issue of RSF, economist Elizabeth O. Ananat, political scientist and public policy scholar Carolyn Y. Barnes, sociologists Sandra K. Danziger and Kathryn Edin, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how the policy landscape has changed since welfare reform and how it impacts low-income single mothers’ ability to make ends meet today.
Issue 1 has 8 articles that examine how the traditional safety net has evolved and new supports that have been developed since Making Ends Meet. For example, Sarah K. Bruch and colleagues assess changes to the social safety net since welfare reform in the 1990s and find that benefits have become more exclusive, have more constraints, and are less generous. Kelley Fong and Nora McCarthy reveal that, in an attempt to decrease child maltreatment, the child welfare system increasingly provides material resources to system-involved parents, including in-kind donations and assistance accessing childcare. However, parents often avoid obtaining resources through the system because it opens them up to increased state surveillance. Heather D. Hill and colleagues show that access to paid family and medical leave (PFML) varies greatly for single mothers, with two-thirds of single mothers living in states without PMFL. For those who live in states with PFML, the accessibility and generosity of benefits vary greatly.
Issue 2 has 5 articles that look at lessons that can be learned from COVID Era policies, how single mothers currently try to make ends meet, and men’s contributions to families. For example, Natasha V. Pilkauskas and Kevin Bruey find that low-income single mothers, with and without employment, utilize a variety of public and private resources to make ends meet. Despite this, both groups face high levels of material hardship, including food and housing insecurity. Hope Harvey examines how members of doubled up households understand their economic and social relationships and reveals that there are often disagreements about shared resources, such as money and food. However, it is not just the precise contributions that cause conflict, but how the exchanges are interpreted within the context of household members’ relationships. Allison Dwyer Emory and colleagues show that nonresident fathers often have trouble making ends meet themselves and are unable to make up for the loss of cash support post-welfare reform.
This double issue of RSF showcases the persistence of precarity that low-income families face since Making Ends Meet.
Note: This copy refers to both issues of the journal double issue.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: U.S. Census 2020: Continuity and ChangeZhenchao Qian
Russell Sage Foundation, 2025
Catalog copy pertains to both volumes 11.1 and 11.2
The census has registered more than two centuries of growth and transformation in America’s political, social, and economic life. It traditionally gives us the opportunity to ask big questions about and measure changes in American society. Sociologist and demographer Zhenchao Qian, economist Trevon Logan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how American society has changed — or stayed the same — from 2010-2020.
Topics examined in Issue 1 include the impact of census counts, changes in neighborhood demographics, gender inequality in education, and racial inequality in employment. Lisa Neidert and colleagues find that the census consistently undercounts Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans and overcounts Whites and Asians, which has negative impacts on state and federal funding for vulnerable communities. Nima Dahir shows the arrival of Black immigrants into Black American neighborhoods often results in a decline in the native Black American population and an increase in White residents. Claudia Buchmann and colleagues reveal that women are now earning more advanced degrees than men in the U.S., however rising shares of women, including those who are pursing advanced degrees, are attending for profit institutions and carrying student debt. Julie Y. Cai and Marybeth J. Mattingly find that workers with variable hours have lower incomes than those who have more stable hours and Black workers earn substantially less than their White counterparts when working jobs with volatile hours.
Themes explored in Issue 2 include changes in living arrangements, divergent families, and rural America. Hyunjoon Parkand colleagues find that despite growing public concern about the potential rise in solitary living, the likelihood of living alone has not changed much over the last four decades except for older men, who have an increased likelihood of living alone. Christopher S. Carpenter and colleagues show that gender minority individuals, including transgender and nonbinary individuals, are less likely to be married, more likely to be widowed, and less likely to live in a traditional two-adult household compared to their cisgender counterparts. Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson reveal that while rural America is often envisioned as a monolith, it is made up of complex and diverse economic, social, and demographic conditions.
This volume of RSF provides an updated and insightful snapshot of American society in the 2010s.
The census has registered more than two centuries of growth and transformation in America’s political, social, and economic life. It traditionally gives us the opportunity to ask big questions about and measure changes in American society. Sociologist and demographer Zhenchao Qian, economist Trevon Logan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how American society has changed — or stayed the same — from 2010-2020.
Topics examined in Issue 1 include the impact of census counts, changes in neighborhood demographics, gender inequality in education, and racial inequality in employment. Lisa Neidert and colleagues find that the census consistently undercounts Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans and overcounts Whites and Asians, which has negative impacts on state and federal funding for vulnerable communities. Nima Dahir shows the arrival of Black immigrants into Black American neighborhoods often results in a decline in the native Black American population and an increase in White residents. Claudia Buchmann and colleagues reveal that women are now earning more advanced degrees than men in the U.S., however rising shares of women, including those who are pursing advanced degrees, are attending for profit institutions and carrying student debt. Julie Y. Cai and Marybeth J. Mattingly find that workers with variable hours have lower incomes than those who have more stable hours and Black workers earn substantially less than their White counterparts when working jobs with volatile hours.
Themes explored in Issue 2 include changes in living arrangements, divergent families, and rural America. Hyunjoon Parkand colleagues find that despite growing public concern about the potential rise in solitary living, the likelihood of living alone has not changed much over the last four decades except for older men, who have an increased likelihood of living alone. Christopher S. Carpenter and colleagues show that gender minority individuals, including transgender and nonbinary individuals, are less likely to be married, more likely to be widowed, and less likely to live in a traditional two-adult household compared to their cisgender counterparts. Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson reveal that while rural America is often envisioned as a monolith, it is made up of complex and diverse economic, social, and demographic conditions.
This volume of RSF provides an updated and insightful snapshot of American society in the 2010s.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: U.S. Census 2020: Continuity and ChangeZhenchao Qian
Russell Sage Foundation, 2024
Catalog copy pertains to both volumes 11.1 and 11.2
The census has registered more than two centuries of growth and transformation in America’s political, social, and economic life. It traditionally gives us the opportunity to ask big questions about and measure changes in American society. Sociologist and demographer Zhenchao Qian, economist Trevon Logan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how American society has changed — or stayed the same — from 2010-2020.
Topics examined in Issue 1 include the impact of census counts, changes in neighborhood demographics, gender inequality in education, and racial inequality in employment. Lisa Neidert and colleagues find that the census consistently undercounts Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans and overcounts Whites and Asians, which has negative impacts on state and federal funding for vulnerable communities. Nima Dahir shows the arrival of Black immigrants into Black American neighborhoods often results in a decline in the native Black American population and an increase in White residents. Claudia Buchmann and colleagues reveal that women are now earning more advanced degrees than men in the U.S., however rising shares of women, including those who are pursing advanced degrees, are attending for profit institutions and carrying student debt. Julie Y. Cai and Marybeth J. Mattingly find that workers with variable hours have lower incomes than those who have more stable hours and Black workers earn substantially less than their White counterparts when working jobs with volatile hours.
Themes explored in Issue 2 include changes in living arrangements, divergent families, and rural America. Hyunjoon Parkand colleagues find that despite growing public concern about the potential rise in solitary living, the likelihood of living alone has not changed much over the last four decades except for older men, who have an increased likelihood of living alone. Christopher S. Carpenter and colleagues show that gender minority individuals, including transgender and nonbinary individuals, are less likely to be married, more likely to be widowed, and less likely to live in a traditional two-adult household compared to their cisgender counterparts. Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson reveal that while rural America is often envisioned as a monolith, it is made up of complex and diverse economic, social, and demographic conditions.
This volume of RSF provides an updated and insightful snapshot of American society in the 2010s.
The census has registered more than two centuries of growth and transformation in America’s political, social, and economic life. It traditionally gives us the opportunity to ask big questions about and measure changes in American society. Sociologist and demographer Zhenchao Qian, economist Trevon Logan, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine how American society has changed — or stayed the same — from 2010-2020.
Topics examined in Issue 1 include the impact of census counts, changes in neighborhood demographics, gender inequality in education, and racial inequality in employment. Lisa Neidert and colleagues find that the census consistently undercounts Hispanics, Blacks, and Native Americans and overcounts Whites and Asians, which has negative impacts on state and federal funding for vulnerable communities. Nima Dahir shows the arrival of Black immigrants into Black American neighborhoods often results in a decline in the native Black American population and an increase in White residents. Claudia Buchmann and colleagues reveal that women are now earning more advanced degrees than men in the U.S., however rising shares of women, including those who are pursing advanced degrees, are attending for profit institutions and carrying student debt. Julie Y. Cai and Marybeth J. Mattingly find that workers with variable hours have lower incomes than those who have more stable hours and Black workers earn substantially less than their White counterparts when working jobs with volatile hours.
Themes explored in Issue 2 include changes in living arrangements, divergent families, and rural America. Hyunjoon Parkand colleagues find that despite growing public concern about the potential rise in solitary living, the likelihood of living alone has not changed much over the last four decades except for older men, who have an increased likelihood of living alone. Christopher S. Carpenter and colleagues show that gender minority individuals, including transgender and nonbinary individuals, are less likely to be married, more likely to be widowed, and less likely to live in a traditional two-adult household compared to their cisgender counterparts. Daniel T. Lichter and Kenneth M. Johnson reveal that while rural America is often envisioned as a monolith, it is made up of complex and diverse economic, social, and demographic conditions.
This volume of RSF provides an updated and insightful snapshot of American society in the 2010s.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Undocumented Immigrants and Their Experience with IllegalityRoberto G. Gonzales
Russell Sage Foundation, 2017
Today, an estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants live in the U.S. Most have family members who are citizens or lawful permanent residents, and over half have lived here for at least thirteen years. Yet, the threat of deportation and lack of citizenship rights have profound effects on the well-being of both undocumented individuals and their families. In this issue of RSF, editors Roberto G. Gonzales and Steven Raphael and an interdisciplinary team of scholars examine the lives of undocumented immigrants and the challenges that confront them.
Caitlin Patler and Nicholas Branic find that undocumented individuals in immigrant detention facilities that are privately operated are less likely to be visited by family members than those in county or city jails, in part because private facilities have restricted visiting hours and are more difficult to access via public transportation. Lauren Heidbrink finds that unaccompanied minors in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are less likely to be released to guardians or reunited with family members because ORR standards are much tougher than those used by child protective services for minor citizens.
Lauren E. Gulbas and Luis H. Zayas find that many children with undocumented parents experience symptoms of anxiety and depression due to fears about their parents’ status. Yet, increased access to financial, educational, legal, and other immigration-related resources for these families can help buffer these children against trauma related to deportation and family separations. Susan K. Brown and Alejandra J. Sanchez focus on children with undocumented mothers and show that because having an undocumented mother is associated with a reduction in children’s years of schooling, it also indirectly lowers their levels of voting, activism, and political awareness as young adults.
Although undocumented immigrants are more enmeshed in the U.S. than they have been in the past, their status prevents further integration into society. This issue reveals the consequences of illegality not just for undocumented immigrants, but also for their families and their communities.
Caitlin Patler and Nicholas Branic find that undocumented individuals in immigrant detention facilities that are privately operated are less likely to be visited by family members than those in county or city jails, in part because private facilities have restricted visiting hours and are more difficult to access via public transportation. Lauren Heidbrink finds that unaccompanied minors in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are less likely to be released to guardians or reunited with family members because ORR standards are much tougher than those used by child protective services for minor citizens.
Lauren E. Gulbas and Luis H. Zayas find that many children with undocumented parents experience symptoms of anxiety and depression due to fears about their parents’ status. Yet, increased access to financial, educational, legal, and other immigration-related resources for these families can help buffer these children against trauma related to deportation and family separations. Susan K. Brown and Alejandra J. Sanchez focus on children with undocumented mothers and show that because having an undocumented mother is associated with a reduction in children’s years of schooling, it also indirectly lowers their levels of voting, activism, and political awareness as young adults.
Although undocumented immigrants are more enmeshed in the U.S. than they have been in the past, their status prevents further integration into society. This issue reveals the consequences of illegality not just for undocumented immigrants, but also for their families and their communities.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Using Administrative Data for Science and PolicyAndrew M. Penner
Russell Sage Foundation, 2019
Note: The catalog copy refers to both issues 2 and 3.
In the twenty-first century, administrative data collected by the government, schools, hospitals, and other institutions are essential for effectively managing and evaluating public programs. Yet the U. S. lags behind many other countries when it comes to organizing these data and making linkages across different domains, such as education, health, and the labor market. This double issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Andrew Penner and developmental psychologist Kenneth Dodge, illustrates the tremendous potential of administrative data and provides guidance for the researchers and policymakers. Contributors across multiple disciplines demonstrate how linking disparate sources of administrative data can help us better understand the challenges faced by people in need, thereby improving the reach and efficiency of policy solutions.
Several contributors show how databases tracking educational attainment yield new insights into the role of schools in either ameliorating or perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities. Sean Reardon analyzes standardized test scores of roughly 45 million K-12 students nationwide to explore how educational opportunity varies by school districts over time. He finds that while affluent districts typically provide high levels of early childhood learning opportunities, there are some schools in high-poverty districts that do have increased average test scores between third and eighth grade. However, this growth still does not close the large achievement gap between low-and high-socioeconomic-status students. Megan Austin and coauthors, using student-level longitudinal data from Indiana, analyze the effects of school voucher programs on academic achievement and find that students who switch from a public to a private school with a voucher experience significant declines in achievement, particularly in math.
Other articles demonstrate how the analysis of administrative data can further our understanding of racial and gender inequality. Janelle Downing and Tim Bruckner link housing foreclosure records and birth records to show that foreclosures and related stresses during the Great Recession contributed to premature births and lower birth weights, particularly for Hispanic mothers and their children. Roberto Fernandez and Brian Rubineau investigate hiring data to explore how network recruitment, or recruitment through employer referrals, affects the “glass ceiling” in the workplace. They show that network recruitment increases women’s representation strongly at lower job levels, and to a lesser extent at higher levels.
Researchers now have unprecedented access to administrative data. As this issue shows, finding innovative ways to combine multiple data sets can facilitate partnerships between social scientists, administrators, and policymakers and extend our understanding of pressing social issues.
In the twenty-first century, administrative data collected by the government, schools, hospitals, and other institutions are essential for effectively managing and evaluating public programs. Yet the U. S. lags behind many other countries when it comes to organizing these data and making linkages across different domains, such as education, health, and the labor market. This double issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Andrew Penner and developmental psychologist Kenneth Dodge, illustrates the tremendous potential of administrative data and provides guidance for the researchers and policymakers. Contributors across multiple disciplines demonstrate how linking disparate sources of administrative data can help us better understand the challenges faced by people in need, thereby improving the reach and efficiency of policy solutions.
Several contributors show how databases tracking educational attainment yield new insights into the role of schools in either ameliorating or perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities. Sean Reardon analyzes standardized test scores of roughly 45 million K-12 students nationwide to explore how educational opportunity varies by school districts over time. He finds that while affluent districts typically provide high levels of early childhood learning opportunities, there are some schools in high-poverty districts that do have increased average test scores between third and eighth grade. However, this growth still does not close the large achievement gap between low-and high-socioeconomic-status students. Megan Austin and coauthors, using student-level longitudinal data from Indiana, analyze the effects of school voucher programs on academic achievement and find that students who switch from a public to a private school with a voucher experience significant declines in achievement, particularly in math.
Other articles demonstrate how the analysis of administrative data can further our understanding of racial and gender inequality. Janelle Downing and Tim Bruckner link housing foreclosure records and birth records to show that foreclosures and related stresses during the Great Recession contributed to premature births and lower birth weights, particularly for Hispanic mothers and their children. Roberto Fernandez and Brian Rubineau investigate hiring data to explore how network recruitment, or recruitment through employer referrals, affects the “glass ceiling” in the workplace. They show that network recruitment increases women’s representation strongly at lower job levels, and to a lesser extent at higher levels.
Researchers now have unprecedented access to administrative data. As this issue shows, finding innovative ways to combine multiple data sets can facilitate partnerships between social scientists, administrators, and policymakers and extend our understanding of pressing social issues.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Using Administrative Data for Science and PolicyAndrew M. Penner
Russell Sage Foundation, 2019
Note: The catalog copy refers to both issues 2 and 3.
In the twenty-first century, administrative data collected by the government, schools, hospitals, and other institutions are essential for effectively managing and evaluating public programs. Yet the U. S. lags behind many other countries when it comes to organizing these data and making linkages across different domains, such as education, health, and the labor market. This double issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Andrew Penner and developmental psychologist Kenneth Dodge, illustrates the tremendous potential of administrative data and provides guidance for the researchers and policymakers. Contributors across multiple disciplines demonstrate how linking disparate sources of administrative data can help us better understand the challenges faced by people in need, thereby improving the reach and efficiency of policy solutions.
Several contributors show how databases tracking educational attainment yield new insights into the role of schools in either ameliorating or perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities. Sean Reardon analyzes standardized test scores of roughly 45 million K-12 students nationwide to explore how educational opportunity varies by school districts over time. He finds that while affluent districts typically provide high levels of early childhood learning opportunities, there are some schools in high-poverty districts that do have increased average test scores between third and eighth grade. However, this growth still does not close the large achievement gap between low-and high-socioeconomic-status students. Megan Austin and coauthors, using student-level longitudinal data from Indiana, analyze the effects of school voucher programs on academic achievement and find that students who switch from a public to a private school with a voucher experience significant declines in achievement, particularly in math.
Other articles demonstrate how the analysis of administrative data can further our understanding of racial and gender inequality. Janelle Downing and Tim Bruckner link housing foreclosure records and birth records to show that foreclosures and related stresses during the Great Recession contributed to premature births and lower birth weights, particularly for Hispanic mothers and their children. Roberto Fernandez and Brian Rubineau investigate hiring data to explore how network recruitment, or recruitment through employer referrals, affects the “glass ceiling” in the workplace. They show that network recruitment increases women’s representation strongly at lower job levels, and to a lesser extent at higher levels.
Researchers now have unprecedented access to administrative data. As this issue shows, finding innovative ways to combine multiple data sets can facilitate partnerships between social scientists, administrators, and policymakers and extend our understanding of pressing social issues.
In the twenty-first century, administrative data collected by the government, schools, hospitals, and other institutions are essential for effectively managing and evaluating public programs. Yet the U. S. lags behind many other countries when it comes to organizing these data and making linkages across different domains, such as education, health, and the labor market. This double issue of RSF, edited by sociologist Andrew Penner and developmental psychologist Kenneth Dodge, illustrates the tremendous potential of administrative data and provides guidance for the researchers and policymakers. Contributors across multiple disciplines demonstrate how linking disparate sources of administrative data can help us better understand the challenges faced by people in need, thereby improving the reach and efficiency of policy solutions.
Several contributors show how databases tracking educational attainment yield new insights into the role of schools in either ameliorating or perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities. Sean Reardon analyzes standardized test scores of roughly 45 million K-12 students nationwide to explore how educational opportunity varies by school districts over time. He finds that while affluent districts typically provide high levels of early childhood learning opportunities, there are some schools in high-poverty districts that do have increased average test scores between third and eighth grade. However, this growth still does not close the large achievement gap between low-and high-socioeconomic-status students. Megan Austin and coauthors, using student-level longitudinal data from Indiana, analyze the effects of school voucher programs on academic achievement and find that students who switch from a public to a private school with a voucher experience significant declines in achievement, particularly in math.
Other articles demonstrate how the analysis of administrative data can further our understanding of racial and gender inequality. Janelle Downing and Tim Bruckner link housing foreclosure records and birth records to show that foreclosures and related stresses during the Great Recession contributed to premature births and lower birth weights, particularly for Hispanic mothers and their children. Roberto Fernandez and Brian Rubineau investigate hiring data to explore how network recruitment, or recruitment through employer referrals, affects the “glass ceiling” in the workplace. They show that network recruitment increases women’s representation strongly at lower job levels, and to a lesser extent at higher levels.
Researchers now have unprecedented access to administrative data. As this issue shows, finding innovative ways to combine multiple data sets can facilitate partnerships between social scientists, administrators, and policymakers and extend our understanding of pressing social issues.
[more]
RSF
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: Wealth Inequality: Economic and Social DimensionsFabian T. Pfeffer
Russell Sage Foundation, 2016
It is widely acknowledged that over the last several decades wealth has become more concentrated at the very top. Less appreciated is the fact that wealth inequality is increasing across all households: extremely wealthy households are pulling away from the top, top households are pulling away from the middle, and middle households are pulling away from the bottom. This development has far-reaching implications for nearly all aspects of the economic and social lives of Americans. In this issue of RSF, edited by Fabian T. Pfeffer and Robert F. Schoeni, leading social scientists investigate the causes of wealth inequality and explore its consequences for social mobility, racial equity, education, marriage, and family well-being.
Several contributors investigate the growing chasm in wealth between the rich and the middle class. Edward Wolff attributes much of the recent wealth loss among the middle class to the housing market crash, as housing accounts for a much greater share of their total wealth than it does for the rich. Jonathan Fisher and coauthors show that wealth inequality is far higher than inequality in income and consumption, and argue that because wealth acts as a buffer to income changes, it is perhaps the most relevant measure of economic inequality. Others explore the persistent racial wealth gap. Alexandra Killewald and Brielle Bryan show that the average wealth return on home ownership for African Americans is only a quarter of the return for whites. Bryan Sykes and Michelle Maroto find that the incarceration of a family member is associated with reduced family wealth, exacerbating the racial wealth gap because of racial disparities in incarceration.
Other articles focus on the effects of wealth inequality on families and relationships. Emily Rauscher finds that that parents’ financial support for their children’s education, which has positive effects on children’s educational attainment, is increasingly connected to parental wealth, tightening the link between wealth inequality and inequality of opportunity. And Alicia Eads and Laura Tach find that while greater family wealth is associated with more stable marriages, lack of wealth—particularly in the form of unsecured debt—is associated with marital instability.
As wealth inequality has increased, it is increasingly important to understand its origins and manifold social and economic consequences for current and future generations.
Several contributors investigate the growing chasm in wealth between the rich and the middle class. Edward Wolff attributes much of the recent wealth loss among the middle class to the housing market crash, as housing accounts for a much greater share of their total wealth than it does for the rich. Jonathan Fisher and coauthors show that wealth inequality is far higher than inequality in income and consumption, and argue that because wealth acts as a buffer to income changes, it is perhaps the most relevant measure of economic inequality. Others explore the persistent racial wealth gap. Alexandra Killewald and Brielle Bryan show that the average wealth return on home ownership for African Americans is only a quarter of the return for whites. Bryan Sykes and Michelle Maroto find that the incarceration of a family member is associated with reduced family wealth, exacerbating the racial wealth gap because of racial disparities in incarceration.
Other articles focus on the effects of wealth inequality on families and relationships. Emily Rauscher finds that that parents’ financial support for their children’s education, which has positive effects on children’s educational attainment, is increasingly connected to parental wealth, tightening the link between wealth inequality and inequality of opportunity. And Alicia Eads and Laura Tach find that while greater family wealth is associated with more stable marriages, lack of wealth—particularly in the form of unsecured debt—is associated with marital instability.
As wealth inequality has increased, it is increasingly important to understand its origins and manifold social and economic consequences for current and future generations.
[more]
Race and the Forms of Knowledge
Technique, Identity, and Place in Artistic ResearchBen Spatz
Northwestern University Press, 2024
Enacts a radically interdisciplinary intersectionality to position performance-based research in solidarity with decoloniality
This boldly innovative work interrogates the form and meaning of artistic research (also called practice research, performance as research, and research-creation), examining its development within the context of predominately white institutions that have enabled and depoliticized it while highlighting its radical potential when reframed as a lineage of critical whiteness practice.
Ben Spatz crafts a fluid yet critical new framework, explored via a series of case studies that includes Spatz’s own practice-as-research, to productively confront hegemonic modes of white writing and white institutionality. Ultimately taking jewishness as a paradigmatically “molecular” identity—variously configured as racial, ethnic, religious, or national—they offer a series of concrete methodological and formal proposals for working at the intersections of embodied identities, artistic techniques, and alternative forms of knowledge.
Race and the Forms of Knowledge: Technique, Identity, and Place in Artistic Research takes inspiration from recent critical studies of blackness and indigeneity to show how artistic research is always involved in the production and transformation of identity. Spatz offers a toolkit of practical methods and concepts—from molecular identities to audiovisual ethnotechnics and earthing the laboratory—for reimagining the university and other contemporary institutions.
[more]
Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods
Alexandria Lockett
University Press of Colorado, 2021
Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods explores multiple antiracist, decolonial forms of study that are relevant to 21st-century knowledge production about language, communication, technology, and culture. The book presents a rare collaboration among scholars representing different racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders, and ranks within the field of Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (RCWS). In each chapter, the authors examine the significance of their individual experiences with race and racism across contexts. Their research engages the politics of embodiment, institutional critique, multimodal rhetoric, materiality, and public digital literacies. The book merges impassioned storytelling with unflinching analysis, offering a multi-voiced argument that spotlights the field's troubled history with theorizing about race and epistemology. Although the authors directly address aspiring and current RCWS professionals, they model how a comprehensive consideration of race adds legitimacy and integrity to any subject of study. This co-authored work charts uncommon paths forward, demonstrating reflexive engagement with legacies that are personal and transnational, as well as with technologies that are both dehumanizing and liberating.
[more]
Racial Science and Human Diversity in Colonial Indonesia
Fenneke Sysling
National University of Singapore Press, 2016
Indonesia is home to diverse peoples who differ from one another in terms of physical appearance as well as social and cultural practices. The way such matters are understood is partly rooted in ideas developed by racial scientists working in the Netherlands Indies beginning in the late nineteenth century, who tried to develop systematic ways to define and identify distinctive races. Their work helped spread the idea that race had a scientific basis in anthropometry and craniology, and was central to people’s identity, but their encounters in the archipelago also challenged their ideas about race.
In this new monograph, Fenneke Sysling draws on published works and private papers to describe the way Dutch racial scientists tried to make sense of the human diversity in the Indonesian archipelago. The making of racial knowledge, it contends, cannot be explained solely in terms of internal European intellectual developments. It was ‘on the ground’ that ideas about race were made and unmade with a set of knowledge strategies that did not always combine well. Sysling describes how skulls were assembled through the colonial infrastructure, how measuring sessions were resisted, what role photography and plaster casting played in racial science and shows how these aspects of science in practice were entangled with the Dutch colonial Empire.
In this new monograph, Fenneke Sysling draws on published works and private papers to describe the way Dutch racial scientists tried to make sense of the human diversity in the Indonesian archipelago. The making of racial knowledge, it contends, cannot be explained solely in terms of internal European intellectual developments. It was ‘on the ground’ that ideas about race were made and unmade with a set of knowledge strategies that did not always combine well. Sysling describes how skulls were assembled through the colonial infrastructure, how measuring sessions were resisted, what role photography and plaster casting played in racial science and shows how these aspects of science in practice were entangled with the Dutch colonial Empire.
[more]
Racing to a Cure
A Cancer Victim Refuses Chemotherapy and Finds Tomorrow's Cures in Today's Scientific LaboratoriesNeil Ruzic
University of Illinois Press, 2003
Racing to a Cure is not a cancer memoir. It is a cancer cure memoir. In 1998 Neil Ruzic was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma, the deadliest cancer of the lymph system, whose spread is reaching epidemic levels in the U.S. and Europe. Instead of following recommended courses of chemotherapy and radiation, he took control of his treatment by investigating cures being developed in the nation's cancer-research laboratories.
Although chemotherapy harms the immune system and is increasingly demonstrated to be an ineffective long-term cure for the vast majority of cancers, it remains the standard treatment for most cancer patients. Ruzic, a former scientific magazine publisher and originator of a science center, refused to accept this status quo, and instead plunged into the world of cutting-edge treatments, exploring the frontiers of cancer science with revolutionary results.
Ruzic went on the offensive: visiting scores of laboratories, gathering information, talking to researchers, and effectively becoming his own patient-care advocate. This book presents his findings. A scathing critique of the chemotherapy culture as well as unscientific "alternative" therapies, the book endorses state-of-the-art molecularly based technologies, making it an illuminating and necessary read for anyone interested in cancer research, especially patients and their families and physicians.
Neil Ruzic was expected to die within two years of his initial diagnosis. Five years later he has been declared cancer-free and considers himself cured.
[more]
Radicalisms in Transition, Volume 2002
Mansour Bonakdarian and Yvonne Lassalle, eds.
Duke University Press, 0
The radicalisms are broadly defined by a resistance to oppression and economic exploitation, as well as by a commitment to social justice and human rights. The transition refers to the various sociohistorical processes that have influenced the practice of politics during the last twenty-five years or so: changes in political structures, in geopolitical alignments, in the organization of the economy, in ideological commitments, and, more generally, in the culture of politics.
[more]
Rarities
Conservation Science in a Time of Unintended ConsequencesZoe Nyssa
University of Chicago Press, 2026
A sweeping study that reveals how conservation science does more than simply protect by inadvertently making nature valuable in new ways.
Climate change and other environmental transformations are causing species to go extinct at accelerating rates. What, then, should a science of saving nature look like? In Rarities, Zoe Nyssa traces how conservation emerged as a distinct scientific endeavor in the United States over the twentieth century and how this history has shaped environmental research practices and policy today. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research with leading conservation labs and programs, Nyssa explores how conservation science appears to generate contradictory, even counterintuitive, results as scientists, policymakers, and the public all take up, respond to, and repurpose scientists’ ideas about rarity, vulnerability, and endangerment. The designation of new nature reserves can lead to increased poaching and habitat destruction. The listing of a species as endangered fuels their black-market consumption as pets, food, or luxury items. Protection of natural resources can push resource extraction into unprotected areas. Other effects are less simple to calculate; persuading the public to care about one species might siphon support for another, and paying for one kind of conservation behavior can discourage other forms of conservation activity.
The science of saving nature spans a century of work by ecologists and others to develop a scientific basis for conservation. Yet Nyssa shows how their efforts to understand the natural world in terms of endangerment and extinction unleashed new ways for nonscientists to experience and understand nature as well. The scientific values that emerge, she argues, can transform the complex interconnections between human and nonhuman life. Rarities offers a framework for understanding these surprising socio-ecological dynamics and why they matter, both for contemporary science and for the planet.
[more]
Re/Orienting Writing Studies
Queer Methods, Queer ProjectsWilliam P. Banks
Utah State University Press, 2018
Re/Orienting Writing Studies is an exploration of the intersections among queer theory, rhetoric, and research methods in writing studies. Focusing careful theoretical attention on common research practices, this collection demonstrates how queer rhetorics of writing/composing, textual analysis, history, assessment, and embodiment/identity significantly alter both methods and methodologies in writing studies. The chapters represent a diverse set of research locations and experiences from which to articulate a new set of innovative research practices.
While the humanities have engaged queer theory extensively, research methods have often been hermeneutic or interpretive. At the same time, social science approaches in composition research have foregrounded inquiry on human participants but have often struggled to understand where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people fit into empirical research projects. Re/Orienting Writing Studies works at the intersections of humanities and social science methodologies to offer new insight into using queer methods for data collection and queer practices for framing research.
Contributors: Chanon Adsanatham, Jean Bessette, Nicole I. Caswell, Michael J. Faris, Hillery Glasby, Deborah Kuzawa, Maria Novotny, G Patterson, Stacey Waite, Stephanie West-Puckett
While the humanities have engaged queer theory extensively, research methods have often been hermeneutic or interpretive. At the same time, social science approaches in composition research have foregrounded inquiry on human participants but have often struggled to understand where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people fit into empirical research projects. Re/Orienting Writing Studies works at the intersections of humanities and social science methodologies to offer new insight into using queer methods for data collection and queer practices for framing research.
Contributors: Chanon Adsanatham, Jean Bessette, Nicole I. Caswell, Michael J. Faris, Hillery Glasby, Deborah Kuzawa, Maria Novotny, G Patterson, Stacey Waite, Stephanie West-Puckett
[more]
Reading Randomised Controlled Trials
Opening the BookRobert Savage, Amy Fox, Anneka Dawson, Helen Gray, and Clare Huxley
University College London, 2025
A behind-the-scenes look at a large-scale reading intervention trial, exposing the human decisions and real-world challenges that shape educational research.
Reading Randomised Controlled Trials presents an illuminating exploration of how large-scale educational trials unfold in real-world settings, displaying the often-overlooked human decisions that shape their outcomes. Using the Flexible Phonics trial—an ambitious study involving nearly 3,000 children in 118 schools across England—as a case study, the authors examine the practical and ethical problems with conducting randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in education. Unlike pharmaceutical trials, educational RCTs operate in dynamic environments where factors such as teacher decision-making and school culture play a crucial role.
This book depicts the inner workings of education research and also underlines its broader significance, particularly in the wake of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. By focusing on early childhood literacy and the long-term impact of evidence-based interventions, Reading Randomised Controlled Trials provides important insights for educators and researchers seeking to bridge the gap between rigorous research and meaningful classroom practice. A must-read for those invested in improving educational outcomes, this book contests assumptions about what works in education—and why.
Reading Randomised Controlled Trials presents an illuminating exploration of how large-scale educational trials unfold in real-world settings, displaying the often-overlooked human decisions that shape their outcomes. Using the Flexible Phonics trial—an ambitious study involving nearly 3,000 children in 118 schools across England—as a case study, the authors examine the practical and ethical problems with conducting randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in education. Unlike pharmaceutical trials, educational RCTs operate in dynamic environments where factors such as teacher decision-making and school culture play a crucial role.
This book depicts the inner workings of education research and also underlines its broader significance, particularly in the wake of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. By focusing on early childhood literacy and the long-term impact of evidence-based interventions, Reading Randomised Controlled Trials provides important insights for educators and researchers seeking to bridge the gap between rigorous research and meaningful classroom practice. A must-read for those invested in improving educational outcomes, this book contests assumptions about what works in education—and why.
[more]
Reading, Research, And Writing
Teaching InformationMary Snyder Broussard
Assoc of College & Research Libraries, 2017
[more]
Readings in Evaluation Research, 2ed
Francis G. Caro
Russell Sage Foundation, 1977
Affords a comprehensive overview of evaluative research, answering questions regarding the adequacy of organized programs in health, justice, education, employment, and welfare. Included are general statements about evaluative research, discussing the nature of the evaluative task, the role of evaluative research in programs for change, and appropriate methodological strategies. In this revised and expanded collection of readings, which includes more case materials and more illustrations of completed evaluations than the first edition, the editor presents a variety of viewpoints and a broad range of materials for the social planner, administrator, and social scientist.
[more]