Nicole Deterding

Graduate Student in Sociology and Social Policy

Biographical Note

While I'm broadly interested in the sociology of education and American education policy, my current work focuses on the educational experiences of students who are not immediately bound for four-year college.

In the K-12 context, I have written on what we’ve learned from American school-to-work reforms of the mid-1990s. My qualifying paper used data from the NLSY97 and model-based clustering to identify four major patterns in how students prepared for life after high school. In conceptualizing high school preparation, I combine information on respondents’ early labor market participation, high school coursework, and participation in school-to-work linking activities like internships and job shadowing. I find that students with focus during the high school years--be it academic or work-oriented--are more successful in young adulthood. These students spend less time unemployed or out of the labor force than those with less focus during these critical years.

My other major project seeks to understand the postsecondary educational experiences of young, low-income mothers. This project uses data from the Post-Katrina Study of Resilience and Recovery, which began as a randomized experiment with performance-based scholarships in two New Orleans community colleges. The PKSRR's longitudinal mixed-methods design facilitates a rich analysis of young mothers’ educational trajectories over a 6-year period. I triangulate data from respondents’ longitudinal survey responses with narratives from in-depth interviews, highlighting important limitations to what we know about—and how students navigate—the increasingly complex landscape of 2-year colleges and technical certification programs.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and attended Wellesley College, where I earned a B.A. in Sociology. Before beginning my PhD, I worked as a Research Associate at The Urban Institute and earned an MA in Education Policy Studies at The George Washington University. During my time at Urban, I worked on several multi-site, mixed methods program evaluations of education interventions, in both K-12 and higher education settings. Research areas included underrepresented minorities in the math, science and engineering pipeline; data-based accountability and institutional change in higher education; and the educational segregation of limited English proficient students in K-12 schools.

In the 2011-12 school year, I am the Sociology Concentration Advisor for undergraduates in Adams, Quincy and Dudley houses. If you are a student in one of these houses with questions or feedback about the concentration, don't hesitate to email or schedule an appointment.

02/22/2012

Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests

Sociology of education, stratification and social mobility, immigration, organizations, multi-method research design

Previous Degrees

MA in Sociology, Harvard University
MA in Education, Education Policy Studies, The George Washington University
BA in Sociology, Magna Cum Laude, Wellesley College

Presentations and Publications

Miscellaneous Additional Information

Research Assistantships

• Mary Waters, Post-Katrina Study of Resilience and Recovery
• Mary Brinton, High School-to-Work Transition in Japan and the United States
• Jon Fullerton and Tom Kane, Project for Policy Innovation in Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Informing the Debate: Comparing Boston's Charter, Pilot and Traditional Schools.

Grants Received

Doctoral Fellow, Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Buckley Scholarship, Harvard-Manchester Summer Workshop on Inequality and Social Change

GSO/GSC Committee Positions Held

• Founding Student Coordinator, Harvard Workshop on Sociology of Education, 2011-2012
• GSO Professional Development Coordinator, 2011-2012
• Student Co-Coordinator, Harvard Migration and Immigrant Incorporation Workshop, 2008-2010
• GSO Social Co-Chair, 2008-09

House Tutor Position

• Non-Resident Tutor in Sociology, Adams House, 2010-2012
• Sociology Concentration Advisor: Adams, Quincy and Dudley

Contact

617-496-5794 (FAX)

536 William James Hall
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Office Hours

Tuesdays 2-3