Sociology Program Events

Colloquium Series Presentation: Dr. Mitchell Stevens

March 21, 2012 — Professor Stevens will give a talk entitled, "The Second Academic Revolution." Professor Stevens argues that we are in the midst of a second academic revolution--in which chronic contractions of public funding, the normalization of digital technology, the rise of for-profit providers, the imperative to measure organizational productivity, and activist philanthropies are transforming how higher education is produced, regulated, and experienced. As with the first academic revolution, the second one invites and probably requires a new social science.

Dr. Stevens is an organizational sociologist at the Stanford University School of Education with longstanding interests in the quantification of educational processes, alternative educational forms, and the formal organization of knowledge. Stevens is the author of Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites (Harvard University Press) and Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Home Schooling Movement (Princeton University Press). Currently, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Stevens is directing a project with Stanford colleague Michael Kirst to develop a more comprehensive "supply-side" social science of U.S. colleges and universities. He also is at work on a large-scale study of how U.S. universities organize research and instruction about the rest of the world.

 

Colloquium Series Presentation: Dr. Steven Brint

October 19, 2011 — Professor Brint will present his research, "The Market Model and the Growth and Decline of Academic Fields in U.S. Four-Year Colleges and Universities, 1980-2000."

Professor Brint is the director of the Colleges & Universities 2000 study, and also serves as Associate Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UC Riverside. Professor Brint works on topics at the intersection of the sociology of higher education, the sociology of professions, and middle-class politics. He is the author of three books (and numerous articles): The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1990-1985 (with Jerome Karabel) (Oxford University Press, 1989), In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics and Public Life  (Princeton University Press, 1994), and Schools and Societies (Pine Forge/Sage, 1998, second ed. Stanford University Press 2006).  He will be presenting his research on the factors influencing the growth and decline of academic fields over time.

Colloquium Series Presentation: Dr. Cecilia Menjívar

March 14, 2011 — Cecilia Menjívar will present her work, "Living in Legal Limbo: Latino Immigrants in Arizona's Immigration Regime Today." The presentation will examine how a multi-pronged legal regime – composed of laws at the federal, state, and local levels – shapes the everyday lives of Latino immigrants in Phoenix, Arizona. Based on fieldwork conducted over a decade, and moving away from a focus on undocumented statuses per se, the study shifts attention from individualized discussions of how legal status affects different aspects of life for immigrants to how the law, through the creation of various legal statuses, shapes the lives of immigrants. To capture this effect, I will focus empirically on two aspects of life: family and work. An important aspect of US immigration law is that its effects reach beyond the US territory to encompass the societies from which immigrants originate.

Dr. Menjívar is a leading sociologist in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, family, social networks, and violence against women. She has received dozens of national and university level awards for her research, mentoring, and teaching. Her books include:

• Enduring Violence: Ladina Women's Lives in Guatemala (UC Press 2011)
• Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America (UC Press 2000).

Colloquium Series Presentation: Dr. Ming Wen

February 28, 2011 — Ming Wen (University of Utah) will give a talk entitled, "Residential segregation and obesity in the United States: Findings from the 2003-2004 NHANES." In the United States, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been persistently high, with blacks and Latinos particularly afflicted with weight-related conditions. Individual factors can only partially explain these racial and ethnic disparities. It is possible that neighborhood environment, including residential segregation, plays a role in contributing to disparities in overweight and obesity. In this study, we use data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to examine the associations between residential concentration or isolation of Hispanics and blacks and risk of obesity after controlling for individual-level risk factors. Preliminary results show Latino residential isolation is significantly and positively associated with higher obesity risks for Latinos and this link is partly attributable to lower neighborhood socioeconomic status and higher prevalence rate of obesity. No segregation effect on obesity is found for whites and blacks.

Professor Wen received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Sociology. She specializes in the study of racial and ethnic disparities in health and how these are influenced by social conditions. She focuses on children's health in California, the United States, and China. She has published numerous articles in journals including Social Science and Medicine, Social Forces, and Demography.