Laura Tach
Graduate Student in Sociology and Social Policy
Biographical Note
Laura received her B.A. with Honors in Sociology from the Pennsylvania State University, with minors in Statistics and African American Studies. She is currently a fifth year doctoral candidate in Sociology and Social Policy and a doctoral fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy. She will be a research fellow at the Weatherhead Center’s Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics during the 2008-2009 academic year. Laura’s research focuses on how new social phenomena force us to rethink classic sociological theories. Her current work examines changes in neighborhoods, family structures, and public policies over the past three decades and how they affect individual and collective outcomes. Her dissertation research challenges the discipline’s focus on high poverty neighborhoods and economic segregation by examining mixed income neighborhoods in America. She has also researched the consequences of HOPE VI mixed income redevelopment in Boston. Additionally, Laura is interested in the causes and consequences of complex family structures. She is presently working on several projects that examine how classic sociological theories about resource specialization, single parent families, marital quality, and father involvement play out in complex family structures such as cohabiting unions and blended families.
11/23/2008
- Research Interests
- Inequality & Poverty Urban Sociology Demography & Family Sociology Quantitative & Mixed Methods Social Policy
- Previous Degrees
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B.A. Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, with minor in Statistics
A.M. Sociology, Harvard University
Papers available in Portable Document Format (PDF)
Presentations and Publications
| Tach, Laura, Ronald Mincy, and Kathryn Edin. Forthcoming. "Parenting as a Package Deal: Relationships, Fertility, and Nonresident Father Involvement among Unmarried Parents." Demography. |
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| Tach, Laura. Forthcoming. "More than Bricks and Mortar: Neighborhood Frames, Social Processes, and the Mixed-Income Redevelopment of a Public Housing Project." City & Community. |
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| Tach, Laura and Sarah Halpern-Meekin. Forthcoming. "How Does Premarital Cohabitation Affect Trajectories of Marital Quality? Journal of Marriage and Family. |
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| Edin, Kathryn, Laura Tach, and Ronald Mincy. Forthcoming. “Claiming Fatherhood: Race and the Dynamics of Paternal Involvement among Unmarried Fathers.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science . |
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| Firebaugh, Glenn and Laura Tach. Forthcoming. “Income, Age, and Happiness in America.” In Peter V. Marsden (Ed.) Trends in the United States, 1972-2006: Evidence from the General Social Survey . |
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| Halpern-Meekin, Sarah and Laura Tach. 2008. "Heterogeneity in Two-Parent Families and Adolescent Well-Being." Journal of Marriage and Family 72(2): 435-451. |
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| Tach, Laura and George Farkas. 2006. "Learning-related behaviors, cognitive skills, and ability grouping when schooling begins." Social Science Research 35(4): 1048-1079. |
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| Jencks, Christopher and Laura Tach. 2006. “Would Equal Opportunity Mean More Mobility?” in Stephen Morgan and David Grusky (eds.) Mobility and Inequality: Frontiers of Research from Sociology and Economics. CA: Stanford University Press. |
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Miscellaneous Additional Information
- Conferences at Which I've Made Presentations
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American Sociological Association (2003-2008)
Population Association of America (2004,2007-2008)
- Grants Received
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National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2004-2007)
HUD Early Doctoral Student Research Grant (2005-2006)
Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality & Social Policy Doctoral Fellow (2007-2008)
Weatherhead Center Justice, Welfare, and Economics Research Fellow (2008-2009) Taubman Center for State & Local Government Research Grant (2008-2009)
Real Estate Academic Initiative Research Grant (2008-2009)
Contact
617-496-5794 (FAX)
421 Taubman Kennedy School of Government 79 John F. Kennedy St