Since 2014, the Foundation has called on social scientists to shift their orientation from understanding the causes and consequences of inequality to examining ways to reduce it. And we provide research funding to help investigators to meet this challenge.
We make a four-point case for supporting this research: 1) Inequality in the U.S. is excessive; 2) Excessive inequality is economically and socially harmful; 3) Inequality responds to social policy and is not inevitable; and 4) We need research to identify promising policies and practices to reduce inequality and its pernicious effects.
The Foundation has funded nearly 200 reducing inequality projects since we awarded the first grants in this focus area, demonstrating increased interest in such research over time. But how has the field at large responded?
To begin answering this question, I recently analyzed articles (with the help of AI) from the last 25 years of Social Stratification and Mobility, the official journal of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility (RC28), to glean the frequency of articles with an orientation toward either understanding or reducing inequality. On August 5, I am excited to share what I found as I address the summer meeting of the RC28, the theme of which is aptly titled “Pathways from Understanding Inequality to Reducing It.”
Later in the week, on August 8, I will join many of you at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Another long-held premise at the Foundation is that, just as researchers need to move from understanding to reducing inequality, the field also needs to move from communicating research to building engagement with research. I am looking forward to unpacking some of this point of view at ASA as I speak on the panel “Communicating Research Results for the Public and Policymakers.” Also at ASA, I will participate in a presidential session on “Putting Sociology to Work in Research Funding.” This panel includes sociologists who have worked in university, government, and philanthropic settings to discuss how sociology affects the mission of these organizations, and what research funding for sociology has accomplished.
When researchers pursue rigorous, solutions-focused research and engage in mutual relationships with decision-makers so that questions and findings are relevant to issues on the ground, we can get closer to the ultimate goal of improving youth outcomes.
