Tracy Garnar, Sione Lynn Pili Lister, and I used South Carolina state legislation from 1850-1920 to understand how changes in the division of labor, and changes in the distribution of power, shaped racial labeling practices over time. The article, “Putting a Label on It: Racial Labels in South Carolina State Laws from 1850 to 1920,” is published online at Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (free pre-print version here). We build on the old sociological idea that social classification practices, in this case racial labels, are rooted in the organization of people into a division of labor (DOL).

Contradicting old Durkheimian theories, we find that racial labeling became more prevalent as South Carolina’s DOL advanced, but they adapted to use more abstract, general racial labels. This allowed power holders to adjust classification processes strategically as ideas about who did what in society changed. For instance, racist legislation shifted from distinguishing rights and responsibilities assigned to specific groups and toward language that enshrined different rights and responsibilities to “the races.” We also show how these labeling practices differed during the Reconstruction Era, when reformers pursued race-neutral legislation, and during periods of escalating threats to the interest of white elites, when distinctions among “whites” and all others escalated.

My new article in EEPA (free pre-print version HERE) examines unintended effects of Automatic Admissions Policies (AAPs, a.k.a. “percent plans”). AAPs leverage high school racial segregation to diversify state university admissions by guaranteeing students above a class rank threshold (e.g., top 10%) in their high school admission to state universities. People may respond by “gaming” the policy, choosing less academically competitive high schools. Given stereotypes about predominantly minority schools being less competitive, white students could become more prone to attend those schools, which could reduce segregation but threaten to undermine the ability to reduce racial inequality in college-going opportunities.

I find some evidence that AAPs in Texas and California led to declines in segregation in highly segregated districts, but maybe not on a scale to severely undermine the policy. This highlights the complex relationship between segregation and equality of opportunity, and the need to attend to the ways students sort across schools in response to egalitarian policies. More info here: https://jeremyefiel.com/school-segregation/.

In a new paper out at Sociology of Education, “Social Capital and Student Achievement: An Intervention-Based Test of Theory” (free pre-print version here), Adam Gamoran, Hannah Miller, Jessa Valentine, and I used a field experiment to examine the effects of social capital on elementary school students’ academic achievement. The Families and Schools Together (FAST) intervention was randomly assigned to schools and implemented for two cohorts of first graders. Although the intervention built sustained relationships among parents (what James Coleman called intergenerational closure), we found no evidence of any impact on math or reading test scores at the end of third grade. Read more here or check out the article at the links above.

I have a new theoretical article at Sociological Theory (free pre-print version here). It lays out themes for a relational perspective of segregation, which challenges some of our common assumptions about what causes segregation and how it affects social life. It includes “A Rant on Homophily,” Aesop’s Fables, and some interesting historical examples of medieval European religious relations and U.S. race relations. You can also read more about it on my segregation page. Hope you’ll check it out!

I went to UNC as an undergrad (class of ’06). I loved it instantly and ever sense. Great people from all walks of life and from all over the world, great ideas and brilliant thinkers, and great basketball. It was never a perfect institution, but it seemed like as close to perfect as an institution could get for me.

I am saddened and embarrassed by the ongoing debacle surrounding Nikole Hannah-Jones’s tenure case. Given Nikole Hannah-Jones’s exceptional professional accomplishments, the impact of her work on the public (and in my own sociological research on school segregation), and the widespread reports that the academic experts charged with assessing her work judged her to be easily worthy of tenure, it is inescapable that her tenure case was derailed by some combination of racism and political suppression. This is an embarrassment to UNC and a threat to academic freedom and freedom of the press everywhere. 

This has made me realize more than ever that UNC was near-perfect for me while (and because) students and faculty of color were putting up with hostility and discrimination that I didn’t fully grasp at the time. The UNC professor who impacted me the most, who inspired me to be an academic, and who has supported me ever since is a black woman. I can’t stop thinking about all that she and many other students, faculty, and staff likely put up with while they were contributing so much to make UNC a special place. I can only hope that, going forward, and starting with a fair outcome in the Hannah-Jones tenure case, UNC can be accountable for its shortcomings and work to be better for everyone.

I sent a longer and more personal version of this to the Board of Trustees (https://bot.unc.edu) and the Office of Faculty Governance (facgov@unc.edu). I hope you will consider doing so too if you have a connection to UNC. 

Out now at Population Research and Policy Review with Christina Diaz (Rice University), “When Size Matters: IV Estimates of Sibship Size on Educational Attainment in the U.S.” (pre-print version). We use multiple (twin) birth events as natural experiments to detect sibship size effects on older siblings. We don’t find much until the addition of a fifth sibling.

UA Sociology Statement on Black Lives Matter

The School of Sociology at the University of Arizona condemns the white supremacy, institutionalized racism, and state-sanctioned violence responsible for the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Dion Johnson, Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks, and thousands of other Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color. Black lives matter.

More…

Yongjun Zhang and I just finished a new article trying to understand how local circumstances influence the survival (or dismissal) of school desegregation cases. You can read more about this and other school segregation research here or view this article at the American Journal of Sociology.

New evidence about how educational inequality is transmitted from grandparents to parents to children. Read in Social Forces.