June 2013
Maryann Bylander, University of London, $6,390, Borrowing Across Borders: Migration, Credit and Microfinance. This study explores how expanding access to credit interacts with international migration in rural Cambodia, specifically focusing on microfinance. There is increasing evidence that the growth of microfinance has resulted in the presence of migra-loans—microfinance loans that are used in tandem with household strategies of international migration. The author argues that little is known about how credit might enable or mediate migration decision-making, how it shapes migration experiences, or what the consequences of these connections might be. Through a household survey and life histories in areas where access to credit has recently increased (primarily through microfinance institutions), it explores two related questions: 1) how does increased access to credit shape migration decision-making, ability, and experience and 2) how and why are various forms of credit used in tandem with migration. Through a greater understanding of the links between microfinance, credit, and migration, this project is expected to provide insight into current debates of rural development, international migration, and microfinance.
Jonathan Eastwood and Peter Grajzl, Washington and Lee University; Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl, Virginia Military Institute; Nicolas Prevelakis Harvard University, $5,400, Tracing the Global Spread of National Identity: A Pilot Study. The purpose of this study is to gather the data needed to systematically test theories about the relationship between national identity, the modern state, and the modern economy. Rather than relying on archival sources, this pilot study will focus on Europe and recruit a series of experts to provide knowledge about specific cases. According to the lead author, there are a variety of theories about these processes and relationships and which are causal, but none has been subjected to systematic empirical tests. To develop the data for empirical tests the author proposes to code the entire set of European national identities from 1500 to the present. Eventually, a database tracking the global spread and development of national identity itself with be created and made publicly available.
Wendy Roth, University of British Columbia; Jenifer Bratter, Rice University; and Mary Campbell, Texas A&M University, $7,000, Measuring the Diverging Components of Race in Multiracial America. This project’s goal is to hold a two-day conference on the measurement of race and ethnicity as a multi-layered and complex social construction rather than a single dimensional variable. The conference will bring together faculty who work in this area but have differing perspectives as well as graduate students. A major purpose of the conference is to “interrogate measures” and provide guidance for improving social science data collection. For example, different measures may be needed for different race and ethnic groups. The conference will include paper presentations and a website to serve as a forum for analyzing the quality of measures that are available to the public. A second goal of the conference is to theorize the multiple aspects of race that can be measured. A third goal is to train students on using appropriate measures for different problematics.
Aliya Saperstein, Stanford University and Laurel Westbrook, Grand State Valley University, $7,000, Surveying the Surveyors: Trends in Measurement and Knowledge Production in U.S. Social Surveys. This research project will analyze taken for granted social science knowledge in construcing common race, ethnicity, and gender and sexuality categories on national surveys and whether these measurements have changed over time. The study traces varying constructions of these common categories of difference, through a systematic examination of questionnaires, manuals, and other technical materials from the longest-running and most widely used social surveys. The authors will conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of the questionnaires, codebooks, interviewer instructions, and user’s guides produced by the American National Election Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the General Social Survey, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The authors seek to uncover the assumptions about what it means to be a member of a particular race, sex, or sexual orientation implied by aspects of survey design. These processes not only shape the types of responses that can be recorded, they also constrain the kinds of analysis researchers can conduct.
Amy Lianne Stone, Trinity University, $7,000, Hidden in Plain Sight: Gay and Lesbian Inclusion in Urban Festivals of the South and Southwest. This study examines the involvement of gay men and lesbians in southern and southwestern urban festivals, focusing on cities that do not support gay rights and have low scores on the Municipal Equality Index. This is a study of public participation rather than of how minority communities position themselves separate, or in opposition to, dominant urban culture. The project uses mixed methods, including an emphasis on historical processes through archival work and oral histories as well as content analysis, interviews, and participant observation in current-day festivals. The archival research can help to identify how these rituals may be related to gay/lesbian political presence in these settings and can help create a visible LGBT presence.
James Michael Thomas, University of Missisippi, $7,000, The Co-Discursive Formation of Racial Civility and Racial Violence within U.S. Institutions of Higher Education.This project explores the contradictions between racist incidents and current narratives of diversity and civility at four public universities that have been responding to racial unrest. Using interviews and participant observation, the PI seeks to illuminate how institutional narratives of racial civility enable and constrain episodes of racial violence among American colleges and universities.
December 2013
Amanda K. Damarin, Georgia Perimeter College, $7,000, Employer Use of Internet-Based Labor Market Intermediaries: Consequences for Inequality. Labor market intermediaries affect employment inequality because of the unevenness with which they connect workers with jobs and through their impact on perceptions of job candidates. This project’s researchers question the assumption that the anonymity of the Internet minimizes discrimination, especially due to new Internet-based intermediaries, including job posting sites, social networking services, and search engines, that can act as both levelers and reinforcers of inequality. They suggest decisions about hiring strategies vary along several dimensions including required skill-level, type of position, and ascribed identities. The PI will collect and analyze data via semi-structured, in-depth interviews with human resource personnel, hiring managers, and employment recruiters in the Atlanta area.
Sean Kelly, Michael Lovorn, Melanie Hughes, and John Weidman, University of Pittsburgh, $7,000, Enhancing the Sociology Pipeline: A Capacity-Building Workshop for Secondary Social Studies Teachers. Degree growth in sociology has failed to keep pace with rising enrollment trends in higher education. This proposal seeks to promote sociology concepts and skills across the high school social studies curriculum to better prepare high school students for college, and to positively impact the number of students who consider sociology a viable field for their advanced study (college majors and minors). To accomplish this, the project co-PIs will conduct a workshop for 25 social studies teachers in a school district in Pennsylvania. The authors seek to expose project participants to various ASA-endorsed sociology teaching materials and ideas, to facilitate their sustained use of these materials long after completion of the workshop, and to encourage their contributions of additional materials and lesson ideas to the existing repository. This project may serve as a model for other such workshops to promote sociology early in the educational pipeline.
Jennifer Karas Montez, Case Western Reserve University, $6,950, Explaining Inequalities in Women’s Mortality across U.S. States. Women’s mortality increased in over 40 percent of U.S. counties between 1992 and 2006, with a strong geographic pattern. This research project seeks to explain the geographic pattern at the state level by analyzing the restricted-use National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File. The researcher hypothesizes that behaviors linked to premature death, such as smoking, are a function of a state’s structural characteristics. She predicts that regional variation and educational attainment will explain a large portion of the variance in mortality rates. This proposal targets a relatively new area of interdisciplinary research on health disparities in which sociologists are becoming more central.
Emily Ryo, University of Southern California, $7,000, Immigrant Detention Study. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates the largest detention and supervised release program in the United States. This study will focus on family members of detainees using legal documents to examine bond hearings availability and the legal process for detainees and their families, as well as conducting a survey and interviews with families. The author proposes to investigate three questions about long-term immigration detention in the United States: What are the social, economic, legal, and health consequences of long-term detention on immigrants, their families, and their communities? What is the nature of bond hearings available to long-term immigrant detainees, and how do the detainees and their families experience and navigate this legal process? What is the feasibility of applying methodological innovations in research on incarceration/reentry to a longitudinal study of difficult-to-reach immigrant populations?
Michaela Soyer and Gary Zajac, Justice Center for Research, Penn State University, $7,000, Fatal Choices? – Investigating the Emergence of Negative Turning Points in the Lives of Young Male Offenders. The project uses a life course approach to focus on the social processes surrounding the development of negative turning points in the life of 25 juvenile offenders who were sentenced as adults. The authors will investigate how negative turning points manifest, using a research design consisting of interviews and content analysis The interviews will solicit information about periods in the offenders’ lives, including family status, activities, schooling, confrontations with the law, what they might have done differently, and what might have helped them to move to a different path. The primary purpose of the project is to connect juvenile justice policy with theoretical advances in life course research and to move juvenile justice policy away from its reliance on actuarial methods.
Zulema Valdez, University of California-Merced and Nancy Plankey Videla, Texas A&M University, $5,570, The Effects of Legal Status on the Social and Economic Incorporation of Mexican-Origin Mixed Status Families in the Southwest. The proposal’s authors suggest that unauthorized Mexican immigrants face barriers in the United States based on their legal status, which affects their social and economic integration. Yet, the investigators claim that few researchers have examined “unauthorized status” as a central determinant of Mexican incorporation in the United States; fewer researchers address how unauthorized status affects the incorporation trajectories of families and households, especially “mixed status” households. This study highlights the role of family and household structure on trajectories of integration, including the uneven incorporation experiences of family members within the same household. The researchers will conduct focus groups to extend their survey work on the household strategies used to overcome the stigma of an unauthorized status.
