The Harvard University Department of Sociology

Harvard Sociology News


The Yard“The New Social Science” was the focus of the fall/winter 2007 issue of The Yard, highlighting the research being done by Harvard social scientists.  See: “America’s rising inequality and what we can do about it”; Knowledge in action: Confronting social problems; and “Challenging assumptions.”

Lawrence D. Bobo was quoted in the New York Times op-ed piece "Blacks
Debate Civil Rights Risk in Obama's Rise" (August 25, 2008).

Ezra Vogel, Henry Ford II research professor of the social sciences emeritus, was one of four notables to receive a Centennial Medal, the GSAS alumni/ae achievement award. To read his comments, see the summer 2008 issue of the GSAS Alumni Quarterly, Colloquy.

Helen B. Marrow (Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy, '07) has won the American Sociological Association's 2008 Dissertation Award. Helen's thesis, "Southern Becoming: Immigrant Incorporation and Race Relations in the Rural U.S. South," will be formally recognized at the 103rd ASA Annual Meeting, to be held in Boston Aug 1-4, 2008. Her dissertation committee consisted of Mary Waters, Chair; Jennifer Hochschild, and William Julius Wilson.

Theda Skocpol was one of eight Harvard researchers elected to the National Academy of Sciences. See the May 1, 2008 issue of the Harvard Gazette.

The Red Phone in Black and White (op-ed., New York Times, March 11, 2008) is the most recent op-ed contribution by Orlando Patterson. Professor Patterson has also been invited by Princeton University to give the Stafford Little Lecture series next spring. His topic will be "A Short History of Freedom". This series is one of Princeton's most prestigious university wide events going back over a century. Previous lecturers in the series have included Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Thurgood Marshall, Seymour Hersh and James Fallows.

A conference on “The Moynihan Report Revisited: Lessons and Reflections after Four Decades” was held at Harvard from September 27-29.  For a summary of the conference see the October 4 issue of the Harvard Gazette or visit the conference website to download or listen to podcasts of the talks and panels. Of related interest see "Forty Acres and a Gap in Wealth" (New York Times Op. Ed., November 18, 2007 by Henry Louis Gates.

Orlando Patterson's op-ed on Jena, O. J. and the Jailing of Black America (September 30, 2007 New York Times) was selected as one of the top 16 op-eds of 2007.

"The Rise of Faculty Centrism" (Harvard Magazine, January-February 2008 featured the conclusions of a major new national study of professors and their politics by Neil Gross and Solon J. Simmons.

Bruce Western was highlighted in the January-February 2008 issue of Harvard Magazine. See "Harvard Portrait: Bruce Western". His research was also featured in the article Life Sentence (Ideas, Boston Globe, September 23, 2007)

Lauren A. Rivera was quoted in the New York Times ("The Falling-Down Professions," Style, January 6, 2008) about her research and the decline in status of traditionally prestigious professions such as medicine and law.

"Living in disadvantaged neighborhood equivalent to missing a year of school" (HarvardScience) discusses findings of a recent study led by Robert Sampson, with Patrick Sharkey of New York University and Stephen Raudenbush of the University of Chicago.

On facebook, scholars link up with data (New York Times, December 17) features the facebook research project of collaborators Nicholas Christakis, Jason Kaufman, Marco Gonzalez, and Kevin Lewis and UCLA's Andreas Wimmer.

Nicholas Christakis was profiled in the "Meeting the Minds" feature of the Boston Globe of November 12, 2007. His latest study on the spread of obesity through social networks has received widespread major coverage in the media, including New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe.

Jason Kaufman and Matt Kaliner presented their research on understanding the forces behind the cultural and political divergence of Vermont and New Hampshire in a lecture sponsored by Harvard's Center for American Political Studies. See "Vermont and New Hampshire, geographic twins, cultural aliens" (Harvard University Gazette, November 1, 2007).

Frank Dobbin is featured in an article in the New York Times, November 1, 2007. "Is There Room at the Top for Black Executives?".

Wendy Roth, PhD '06 (Sociology and Social Policy), Wins ASA Dissertation Prize

Orlando Patterson on Jena, O. J. and the Jailing of Black America (September 30, 2007 New York Times) was selected as one of the top 16 op-eds of 2007.

Larry Bobo to return to Harvard January 2008.

Michele Lamont's book The Dignity of Working Men (2000) was discussed by columnist David Brooks in his opinion column in the New York Times on Tuesday, August 14.

A podcast of an interview with Mary Waters, coeditor of "The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965" is featured in the Harvard University Press.

5 New Sociologists at Harvard. We are delighted to announce the successful recruitment of five new sociologists (Jason Beckfield, Kathryn Edin, Filiz Garip, Jocelyn Viterna, and Bruce Western) to our faculty ranks, effective July of 2007

Sociological Methods and Research (SMR), edited by Christopher Winship since 1995, has been ranked second in terms of its impact factor among social science methods journals and fourth among sociology journals, according to the 2006 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) data report conducted by Thomson Scientific.  The impact factor measures the relative number of citations to articles published in a journal over the last two years. This year's score for SMR is 2.355, which is more than double the 2005 score of 1.032.

Neil Gross's research on Faculty Faith was featured in the July-August 2007 issue of Harvard Magazine. Also, a survey he conducted has been sited in the Washington Post, May 5, 2007 edition, "Is There Disdain for Evangelicals in the Classroom?".

Research by Frank Dobbin is highlighted in the May 7, 2007 edition of Time Magazine (Vol. 169 No. 19). "Employee Diversity Training Doesn't Work" looks at the effect diversity training has had on the racial and gender mix of top ranked companies.

The cover article of the May-June 2007 issue of Harvard Magazine entitled "End of the Melting Pot? The new wave of immigrants presents new challenges" features the research of Professors Mary C. Waters, William Julius Wilson, and Sociology Ph.D. candidate, Helen Marrow.

Research by Nicholas Christakis on obesity and social networks was featured in the March 8, 2007 issue of the Harvard Gazette. See "Obesity runs in families - and friends."

Orlando Patterson. Harvard SociologistOrlando Patterson contributed several Op-Ed pieces to the New York Times: "Dollars in the Sand," on tourism in the Caribbean (January 2, 2007); "The Last Race Problem," on the isolation of blacks from the private life of the white majority (December 30, 2006); "Our Over-rated Inner Self" (December 26, 2006); "A Holiday for Us All" (December 23, 2006); and "God’s Gift?" on the Iraq war and the concept of freedom (December 19, 2006). See The New York Times website for a full list and access.

"Do Immigrants Make Us Safer?" in the "Idea Lab" section of the New York Times Magazine (Sunday, December 3, 2006) which highlighted the work of several ASA sociologists, including Robert J. Sampson.  

Restructuring the University: World-Wide Shifts in Academia in the 20th Century (Stanford University Press, 2006) by David John Frank and Jay Gabler was reviewed in Inside Higher Education, see: "The Rise of the Social Sciences" (August 21, 2006).

"Le mal américain" written by Michèle Lamont was published on Libératsion.fr (July 6, 2006).

Featured in the "Right Now" section of the September-October 2006 issue of Harvard Magazine, is "Latinos Nix Violence," an article by Robert J. Sampson.

The September 14, 2006 issue of the Harvard Gazette featured research of Frank Dobbin. See Diversity training fails to boost minorities into management.

Michele Lamont"France shows its true colors" is the title of an Op-Ed piece by Michèle Lamont and Éloi Laurent published in the June 3, 2006 issue of the Boston Globe.

A study by Jason Kaufman and Jay Gabler was the focus of an article What Really Counts in Getting In in Inside Higher Education, May 31, 2006. Their findings were published in Contexts (volume 5, number 2, spring 2006). Read the full article at "Chess, Cheerleading, Chopin: What Gets you into College?".

Lydia Bean and parentsLydia Bean and her parents, Rev. Alan Bean and Rev. Nancy Bean, were instrumental in overhauling the way law and order operates in Texas. The full account was reported in an article "The Beans of Tulia, Texas" in the April 27th issue of the Harvard Gazette.

"A Poverty of the Mind" (New York Times Op-Ed March 26, 2006) by Orlando Patterson offers a cultural explanation for the disconnect of black youth from the American mainstream. Patterson spoke on National Public Radio's "The Op-Ed Pages" on Monday, March 27. Click here to listen.

The March-April 2006 issue of Harvard Magazine featured graduate student Nathan Fosse's ongoing ethnographic study of sexual and romantic relationships of inner-city black men conducted with Michèle Lamont. (See Sex and the Inner City) in the "Right Now" section of the magazine's current issue.

Rob Sampson"Open Doors Don't Invite Criminals" is New York Times Op-Ed contribution (March 11, 2006) by Robert J. Sampson on data that supports how an increase in immigration population is related to a decrease in crime.

The March 2 issue of the Harvard Gazette featured a longitudinal study of 410,272 elderly American couples conducted by Felix Elwert and Nicholas Christakis which found the health effects of a spouse's death to differ radically between blacks and whites. Read the full article: "Whites more likely to die soon after spouse's death". Their findings have been published in an article in the February issue of the American Sociological Review. This research was also highlighted in the March 20, 2006 issue of the Boston Globe (Health and Science section).

Neil Gross's article "Right, Left, and Wrong" examines the research behind David Horowitz's book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America in the "Ideas" section of the Boston Globe, Sunday, February 26, 2006.

Research by Robert J. Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush (University of Michigan) was highlighted in an article "The Cracks in 'Broken Windows'" published in the February 19, 2006 Ideas section of the Boston Globe.

A new study conducted by Nicholas Christakis and Paul Allison of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Sociology highlights the importance of social networks and health. See February 16 Harvard Gazette article "Ties that Bind".

The New York Times Book Review of January 8, 2006 contained a review essay "Being and Blackness" by Orlando Patterson. The essay reviewed We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity by Tommie Shelby and Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present by Nell Irvin Painter.

Robert J. Sampson's article "Social Anatomy of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Violence" (authored with Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Stephen Raudenbush (American Journal of Public Health, 2005), was also featured as Surprising Social Factors Linked to Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Youth Violence by the Population Reference Bureau. See also the story Good Waves in the Ideas section of the Boston Globe, January 1, 2006.

Updated: March 4, 2008

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