Background

Before settling in Charm City for a position in sociology at Johns Hopkins, I spent all of my life in the Windy City. My undergraduate work was done at the University of Chicago (AB'97), where I studied psychology and sociology, and I completed my Ph.D. in Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University in 2002.

Current Research Interests and Activities

I am interested in the way social context (e.g. family, school, neighborhood, peers, teachers, popular culture) affects the outcomes of young people, primarily in adolescence and at the transition to adulthood. Using interdisciplinary frameworks and multiple methodologies to examine these issues, my current research focuses on the sociology of education, urban sociology, neighborhoods and social inequality in the life course. My research also involves the sociological consideration of education and housing policy. I am motivated by an interest in rigorous research designs for causal inference using both experimental and non-experimental data, as well as the use of qualitative work to understand causality and the effectiveness of social policies. My research has been made possible by generous support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Spencer Foundation, National Academy of Education, William T. Grant Foundation, Center for Research on Educational Opportunity at the University of Notre Dame, American Educational Research Association and the Department of Education.

One major area of research has focused on the determinants of educational attainment, such as social class, high school courses, noncognitive skills and the timing of educational investments. In a project funded by the Department of Education, we examined the state of vocational education, in light of legislation passed in the 1990s intended to reform vocational training into “career and technical education”.  In a recent Sociology of Education article, we move beyond traditional research on curricular tracking and show how a balance of academic and career preparation courses might reduce high school dropout. We suggest that the ‘new’ vocational education has potential to keep youth in school by engaging them with courses relevant for both work and college. In a recent Social Forces piece, we tested whether being a “day late” is worse than being “a dollar short” in terms of college enrollment. Even in an era of community college expansion, proprietary schools and evening programs, we found that it matters when you enroll in college; after accounting for socioeconomic, life course and institutional factors, youth who delay college significantly reduce their chances of attaining a bachelor’s degree, even within eight years. I have also been pursuing research that considers the role of noncognitive skills (e.g. motivation, self-discipline, risk taking), how patterns of noncognitive skills vary by levels of cognitive skills, and how different combinations of cognitive and noncognitive skills predict educational, occupational and delinquent pathways into adulthood.

An additional program of research examines transitions to work for young people who do not attend college, and more generally to question whether promoting college attendance for all is the best policy for students in America. A recent paper with Robert Bozick suggests heterogeneity in the motives of non-enrolled youth; these motives are partly driven by planful orientations toward work, economic resources and local labor market opportunities.  The second project is a book collaboration that will offer a critical empirical appraisal of the “college-for-all” ethos and consider why the college gamble only pays off for a minority of students. We examine whether focusing solely on college as the endgame for students harms those least prepared to succeed in college by offering them little preparation for alternative pathways into adulthood. The book will also include recommendations suggesting how career preparation, an integration of work-relevant and academic skills, and linkages with employers need not be mutually exclusive of college preparation. Two related articles in progress also consider the role of work and career preparation in helping young people transition to adulthood.

Three additional projects seek to understand the role of housing, neighborhood and social context on youth and family outcomes. For the last eleven years, I have studied the long-term effects of the Gautreaux residential mobility program in Chicago, which helped residents of public housing relocate to safer neighborhoods through housing vouchers. With colleagues, I assessed the impacts of changes in neighborhood quality on child and family outcomes such as welfare use, employment, special education, and subsequent mobility. Federal interest in the Gautreaux program led to the design and implementation of the Moving To Opportunity program, a randomized housing voucher experiment funded by HUD. In 2003-2004, I conducted interviews with mothers and teenagers from the Baltimore site of this MTO program, as well as teacher interviews and classroom observations for the younger children in those families. Currently, I am analyzing the interview data to understand how moving to better neighborhoods relates to school and neighborhood choice among poor parents. In 2006, I was hired by the Maryland ACLU to give expert witness testimony in a housing desegregation case (Thompson v HUD) very similar to the Gautreaux case in Chicago. Eligible families receive vouchers to move to communities that are less than 10% poor, less than 30% African American and less than 5% subsidized housing. With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, I am currently following the relocation of these public housing residents to more advantaged areas in the metro area.