Publications
Reframing Gendered Issues: Intersectional Identity Frames & Policy Agendas
Policy agendas are a critical feature of the political work that advocacy organizations do, and how they are framed matters for garnering public support. These framing tactics are particularly relevant for women's advocacy groups that appeal to diverse constituencies with different racial and class identities. In this paper, the identity framing of policy agendas is examined to understand its effects on women’s willingness to get more politically involved in issues. Drawing on original data from a survey experiment with a national sample of 926 highly educated white women, these effects are delineated by race and class to highlight the ways in which policy is framed to appeal to women’s unique identities. The findings of this study suggest that intersectional identity framing, i.e. messaging by advocacy organizations that connect the relevance of policy issues to people’s multiple identity characteristics, has substantial effects on their reported political engagement and disengagement. In framing the impact of policy agendas by gender, race and class, this study demonstrates how these characteristics work together to either motivate or disincentivize potential supporters to get more involved in these issues. Data / R Script
Young Adults of Color, Urban Divestment & Political Socialization in Neighborhoods with David J. Knight
While urban inequalities are well studied and understood by scholars, less is known about how these inequalities are localized within a neighborhood context, especially among young adults of color who are most susceptible to the effects of these inequalities. In this paper, we argue that in order to better understand the political development of young adults by race and ethnicity, more attention should be given to how local neighborhoods frame experiences of divestment and racial inequality in a city. Drawing from a large-scale, interview-based study with 160 young adults, we find that neighborhood context is a critically important space for understanding how young people of color are politicized as they transition into adulthood. We argue that neighborhoods are mini publics within a broader city that both exacerbate urban and racial inequalities and yet also serve as spaces for political development and innovation among young adults.
Opportunity Structures for Student Activism, Diversity, & Institutional Change with J. Kyle Upchurch
College students across the United States are engaging in protests, sit-ins, and walk-outs, but when do these political acts result in tangible institutional policy changes? This paper draws on qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with 502 participants across the United States to examine when and why college student political behaviors influence institutional changes on college campuses. Cases were selected using quantitative and qualitative purposeful sampling. Findings from this study suggest that higher education institutions present different political opportunity structures for students to engage in activism. In this paper, a typology of these structures is presented to explain when student activism shapes college policies and programs.
Pathways & Barriers: How Young Women of Color are Politicized in Chicago
How do young women of color in Chicago learn about and participate in politics? This is a chapter about how young Asian, Black, and Latina women grow up in the city of Chicago and how gendered, racial, and class contexts frame their understandings of and experiences with politics. While their participation in politics is not uniform and certainly varies even within these categories, in this chapter, their shared experiences by race and ethnicity are homed in to underscore common pathways and barriers to politics. In doing so, the chapter highlights how shared experiences among Asian, Latina, and Black women contribute to their involvement in political campaigns, social movements, and community activism. By also examining when women of color do not participate in politics, these analyses bring attention to the aspects of politics that discourage their participation.
What’s Policy Got To Do With It? Race, Gender & Economic Inequality in the United States with Jamila Michener
In the United States, economic inequality is both racialized and gendered, with Black and Latina women consistently at the bottom of the economic hierarchy. Relative to men (across racial groups) and White women, Black and Latina women often have less-desirable jobs, lower earnings, and higher poverty rates. In this article, we draw attention to the role of the state in structuring such inequality. Specifically, we examine how public policy is related to racial inequities in economic positions among women. Applying an intersectional lens to the contemporary landscape of economic inequality, we probe the associations between public policies and economic outcomes. We find that policies have unequal consequences across subgroups of women, providing prima facie evidence that state-level decisions about how and where to invest resources have differential implications based on women’s race and ethnicity. We encourage scholars to use aspects of our approach as springboards for better specifying and identifying the processes that account for heterogeneous policy effects across racial subgroups of women.
Student Choice and Social Mobility Through Institutional Policy: An Examination of Loan Repayment Assistance Programs with Jon McNaughtan & Betty Overton
The cost of higher education continues to rise, forcing many students to seek financial support to pursue their education. Many countries have utilized national systems of student aid to help mitigate the increasing costs. However, these financial aid systems often lead to significant student debt. Guided by restrained choice theory, this study analyzes innovative institution-level policies in the United States called LoanRepayment Assistance Programs (LRAPs), and provides insight into how these policies affect traditionally disadvantaged students’ choice to enroll in a university.Findings suggest that disadvantaged students, specifically first-generation students, are more cognizant and have a better understanding of innovative financial policies(e.g., LRAPs), and the use of such programs could increase student choice and retention, based on their subsequent enrollment satisfaction.
Conceptualizing and Assessing Campus Climates for Political Learning and Engagement in Democracy with Nancy Thomas
Educating for political engagement in democracy has become simultaneously more urgent and more challenging in the current, contentious, and highly polarized context. To improve student political learning, discourse, agency, and participation, colleges and universities should critically examine and improve their campus climates, the complex ecosystem of interconnected structural, cultural, human, and political factors that provide the foundation for civic learning and engagement. Filling a gap in the literature, this article presents a theoretical framework for understanding and gauging how an institution’s climate can promote or dissuade student political learning and participation. Using the protocols provided here, researchers and institutions can replicate the study methods used to test and refine this framework.
Politics 365: Fostering Campus Climates for Political Learning & Engagement with Nancy Thomas
All college level learning for political knowledge and engagement happens in the context of a campus climate, a combination of the norms, behaviors, attitudes, structures, and external influences that shape the student experience. In this chapter, the authors argue for attention to improving the campus environment as a means to increasing the pervasiveness and effectiveness of student development for civic engagement, political activism, and social action. This chapter reviews the findings from a nine-campus qualitative study of institutional climates for political learning and engagement in democracy, and the essential role faculty members, particularly political science professors, play in fostering a robust climate for learning for democracy.
The Politically Engaged Classroom with Nancy Thomas
Although college and university professors utilize many different styles of teaching, pedagogies, and approaches to learning in the classroom, some are ideal for fostering student political interest, knowledge, and agency. This chapter focuses on discussion-based teaching as a pedagogical approach for faculty members to create political learning opportunities for their students across disciplines. The chapter draws from five qualitative case studies of colleges and universities with higher levels of student political participation. These case studies provide a deeper understanding of how faculty members from across different disciplinary fields can integrate political learning into their classrooms through discussions on controversial social and political issues among students with diverse social identities, ideological perspectives, and lived experiences.
Political Citizenship: Whether and Why College Students Vote with Jodi Benenson & Nancy Thomas
This book chapter draws from the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement dataset, which is the first actual measure of voter registration and voting rates among college students. The authors provide an analysis of this data to explain voting rates among college students across the country and posit why voting rates are lower among some institutions compared to others. The chapter ends with a discussion of what institutions can do to increase voting turnout among their college student population.