Highlights of 2011 - Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern ...

Poverty, Race, AND Inequality
Race, Poverty, and “Choice” Policies
Sociologist and IPR associate Mary Pattillo shares some of her
research on “choice” policies with IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian
before his talk on segregation and poverty concentration.
will better inform policymakers about whether, when, and how
they should intervene in housing markets or tailor educational
processes to reduce any negative effects that housing transitions
might cause.
MacArthur Network on How Housing
Matters for Families and Children
With a major grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, IPR social psychologist Thomas D. Cook is
leading an interdisciplinary team of social scientists in carrying
out a longitudinal study of how housing matters for families and
children. The network is comprised of some of the nation’s top
researchers in housing, poverty, and child development. Through
a random-assignment study of 2,650 families and 3,450 children
in four cities (Seattle, Dallas, Denver, and Cleveland), the network
will gain a more direct understanding of how housing makes
families stronger and improves outcomes for children. The signature
study will span three and a half years, with three waves of
data collection. In particular, the researchers will observe housing
effects on children from birth until age 8 and try to understand
questions left unanswered in previous housing studies. Until now,
research has developed theories for why housing matters, but
there is, as of yet, little evidence of the ways in which children’s
lives are improved because of better housing. As a result of the
inability to definitively link specific housing characteristics to child
outcomes, housing is rarely considered in policy decisions about
child welfare. This study takes a broad, multidisciplinary approach,
pulling together theoretical perspectives from a variety of disciplines,
including statistics, sociology, economics, urban studies,
education, and child development, to investigate how housing
and the surrounding social, institutional, and family environment
can affect children’s health, education, behavior, and life outcomes.
Cook is Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice.
“Choice” has become a buzzword across the policy spectrum,
especially in housing, schools, and healthcare. Richard Thaler and
Cass Sunstein’s book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health,
Wealth, and Happiness, makes a case for “nudging” people
toward choices that are in their best interest, but the authors
do not address inequalities that inevitably arise when relying
on a choice framework. Sociologist and African American
studies researcher Mary Pattillo, Harold Washington Professor
and an IPR associate, questions the assumptions, ideology,
and philosophy that undergirds “choice.” She has conducted
two small qualitative studies—one on parents choosing high
schools for their children and the other on individuals using a
housing choice voucher to search for an apartment. Preliminary
results suggest that many on the receiving end of these policies
are not even aware that they have a choice, that there are
socioeconomic differences in who chooses, and that there is
a misalignment in what policymakers and the targets of these
policies deem important.
Destabilizing America’s Racial Order
A recent article in Daedalus co-authored by political scientist and
IPR associate Traci Burch, with Harvard’s Jennifer Hochschild
and Vesla Weaver of the University of Virginia, examines
changes in the racial divide since the 1960s. The authors argue
that younger Americans were raised in a different racial context
and think about race differently than their older counterparts
do. Young Americans’ racial attitudes are usually more liberal
than those of older Americans, and their social networks are
more intertwined. According to the authors, these changes in
the views and behaviors of young people have the potential to
produce a new American racial order—but only if Americans
take the political and policy steps needed to diminish barriers
that still block the chances of many young Americans.
Changing Race and Class Dynamics
IPR anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo is currently working
on a book manuscript titled “The View from Cavallaro’s,” in
which she provides a cross-class, cross-race, feminist historical
ethnography of political economy and public culture in New
Haven, Conn. Through decades of fieldwork, di Leonardo has
been able to map shifting public/media consciousness of the
city and its residents—especially varied and changing visions
of political-economic movements and their effects on the
quality of life for New Haveners. The final manuscript will also
include recent data on how the city’s residents have weathered
unemployment and other challenges of the economic recession.
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