In this collection

How can applicants think about positionality and inclusion in their research teams? The academic enterprise is rife with practices, routines, and structures that replicate inequality along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, economic standing, language minority status, and immigration status…
Positionality and Inclusion in Research Teams
This winter I attended the William T. Grant Foundation convening for the Reducing Inequality Grants program. As I attended each of the sessions and listened to my colleagues share their …
“Building the plane as we fly it”: Conducting research on inequality in a turbulent environment
In reflecting on the Foundation’s convening of grantees and partners focused on research to reduce inequality in youth outcomes, I found myself thinking a lot about power as it relates to reducing inequality. These ideas and questions aren’t …
Power shifts: Expanding conceptual and methodological thinking about inequality
The William T. Grant Foundation encourages research on reducing inequality that is grounded in well-theorized, rich conceptualizations of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity (as well as other dimensions of inequality like immigrant origin and economic standing). In keeping with this interest, …
Theorizing Blackness, Indigeneity, and Racialization in Research on Reducing Inequality
Understanding why an intervention produces statistically significant outcomes requires moving away from studies that treat participation as the main variable of interest and toward those that analyze the materials and …
Proposing Research on Reducing Inequality: Studying Mechanisms and Investigating the “How and Why” Behind Intervention Outcomes
The recent special collection of Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World began with a question: “If research is to make a difference in reducing inequality… how?” Offering new perspectives on ways that the social sciences can drive action and …
Webinar: What is the Role for Social Science in Reducing Inequality? Four New Critiques
On October 28th, two panels of scholars participated in a virtual forum, From Understanding Inequality to Reducing Inequality. Exploring ways for social scientists to move beyond describing and quantifying the problem of inequality and to focus instead on ways to …
Forum: From Understanding Inequality to Reducing Inequality
Since 2014, the Foundation has focused much of its grantmaking toward supporting studies that examine programs, policies, and practices to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. Subtle as it is, the nuance here—calling for researchers to investigate specific strategies that can …
Special Collection: Sociology’s Role in Responding to Inequality
Race is a key dimension of inequality in youth outcomes. For researchers who seek to study ways to reduce racial inequality, the starting point is a well-conceived research question grounded in a rich understanding of what racial categories mean and …
How We Can Engage with Race and Racism in Research: Developing a Racial Analysis
As you prepare your LOI, ask yourself: what strategy will I test, build, improve, or identify through this project that might reduce unequal outcomes among youth ages 5-25 in the …
Letters of Inquiry to Propose Research on Reducing Inequality: Identifying the Lever for Change
While many macro-level policies and interventions to address poverty are essential to the survival of the poor, a closer consideration of how these policies or programs are experienced at the …
Inequality and Opportunity: The Role of Exclusion, Social Capital, and Generic Social Processes in Upward Mobility
Investing in Knowledge highlights the complexity of inequality by highlighting its different distinctions and definitions, and outlines the dominant approaches of funding organizations who support research on youth inequality in …
Investing in Knowledge: Insights on the Funding Landscape for Research on Inequality Among Young People in the United States
Margarita Alegría and colleagues investigate disparities in mental health and mental health services for minority youth. Taking a developmental perspective, the authors explore four areas that may give rise to inequalities in mental health outcomes, highlight specific protective factors …
Disparities in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Mental Health Services in the U.S.
Carola Suárez-Orozco and colleagues explore how inequality plays out along six dimensions of disadvantage particular to immigrant-origin families. The authors outline how developments in educational and family contexts can …
Intersecting Inequalities: Research to Reduce Inequality for Immigrant-Origin Children and Youth
In “The New Forgotten Half and Research Directions to Support Them,” James Rosenbaum and colleagues find that many young people who enroll in community college fail to complete their studies and attain a degree, and that these youth fare no …
The New Forgotten Half and Research Directions to Support Them
What do we know about inequality in the justice system? What can researchers do about it? John Laub, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland and former Director of the National Institute …
Understanding Inequality and the Justice System Response: Charting a New Way Forward
Talk of inequality, particularly economic inequality, in the public sphere is commonplace in twenty-first century America. Indeed, various aspects of social inequality—race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and immigrant status—have been the subject of protest, debate, legislation, and…
Inequality Matters

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