Ep. 27: Studying Implicit Bias with Melissa Ferguson, Cornell University

This month guest host and BCTR associate director Maria Fitzpatrick chats with Will Hobbs about his research on sudden changes and how people adapt to them. The change in question could be personal, like the death of a friend, or societal, like a governmental policy shift. As a researcher, he's most often associated with methods such as data science using complex data sources and causal inference. William Hobbs is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development at Cornell University. He is also in the Department of Government and on the graduate field faculty in Information Science. Hobbs studies politics and health, especially the social effects of government actions and how small groups of people adapt to sudden changes in their lives. His recent projects have studied the development of public attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act, how social networks heal after a death, and unintended consequences of online censorship in China.

15 Jul 201917min

This month we welcome Lonnie Berger, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and Ph.D. Program Chair at the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His work aims to inform public policy in order to improve its capacity to assist families in accessing resources, improving family functioning and wellbeing and ensuring that children are able to grow and develop in the best possible environments. Lonnie and Chris discuss the intersection of public policy, family structures and family resources and how those affect child wellbeing. How Lonnie's grounding in social work, as opposed to a social science disipline, informs and broadens his research. Lonnie has extensive experience working with state agencies in Wisconsin around child wellbeing generally and also the foster system. He descibes specific examples of issues and successes in partnering with state agencies to further child wellbeing. Lonnie Berger is the director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and Ph.D. Program Chair at the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is engaged in studies in three primary areas: (1) examining the determinants of substandard parenting, child maltreatment, and out-of-home placement for children; (2) exploring associations among socioeconomic factors, parenting behaviors, and children’s care, development, and wellbeing; and (3) assessing the influence of public policies on parental behaviors and child and family well-being.

15 Jun 201927min

This month Chris chats with political scientist Jamila Michener. Jamila gets into her interest in politics and inequality from an early age; how public policy plays a role in alienating people at the economic and racial margins; and how connections to stakeholders shape her work. Jamila Michener is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Her research focuses on poverty, racial inequality and public policy in the United States. Her recent book, "Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism and Unequal Politics," examines how Medicaid affects democratic citizenship. "Fragmented Democracy" assesses American political life from the vantage point(s) of those who are living in or near poverty, (disproportionately) Black or Latino, and reliant on a federated government for vital resources.

15 Mai 201923min

This time Chris is joined by his collaborator, political scientist Peter Enns. They get into Peter's work examining how how policy can be informed by public opinion in such areas as mass incarceration and unerstanding election resutls. He also explains why it's a good time for criminal justice reform. Peter K. Enns is an associate professor in the Department of Government and executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University. His research focuses on public opinion, representation, mass incarceration and inequality. His recent book "Incarceration Nation" explains why the public became more punitive in the 1960s, 70s, 80, and 90s, and how this increasing punitiveness led to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States.

15 Apr 201918min

Shannon Gleeson studies workplace rights, the experiences of immigrant workers and the role of advocacy organizations in holding government bureaucracies accountable. She and Chris discuss the overlap between immigration and labor policy, immigrant labor rights, the often-overlooked importance of policy implementation and working with various stakeholders. Shannon describes her experiences working with communities, including the importance of finding the gatekeepers and not over-promising as researchers, Shannon Gleeson is an associate professor of labor relations, law, and history in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Gleeson’s first book, "Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston," was published in 2012 by Cornell University Press. Her second book, "Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States," (forthcoming, University of California Press) examines U.S. labor and employment laws, the challenges low-wage workers face when they come forward to file a claim and their experiences in fighting for justice.

14 Mar 201923min

This month we happily welcome Phyllis Moen, current McKnight Endowed Presidential Chair in Sociology at the University of Minnesota, and former Cornell faculty and founding director of the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center at Cornell. Chris and Phyllis discuss her research on the mismatch between outdated work-time and career/retirement scripts and 21st century workforce and economic realities. She also studies gender differences and disparities at all stages of the changing life course. The old templates of work life no longer fit changing demographics and culture. Trying to apply these old work formats today leads to issues in the health, mental health, and family life of workers. Moen specifically discusses the problem areas and how to update our ideas of how work should work. Phyllis Moen is a life course scholar interested in the mismatch between 20th century clocks and calendars shaping work, careers and the gendered life course and 21st century demographies, technologies, risks and realities. She directs the Life Course Center, holds a McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair, and is a professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, following 25 years at Cornell University. While at Cornell, Dr. Moen founded the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center as well as the first Alfred P. Sloan Center on Work and Families, the Cornell Careers Institute. Dr. Moen’s latest book is the award-winning "Encore Adulthood: Boomers on the Edge of Risk, Renewal, and Purpose" (2016). Her newest project, the University of Minnesota Advanced Careers Initiative (UMAC), aims to reimagine higher education to include intergenerational relationships and to serve as an innovative catalyst promoting meaningful encores for Boomers.

25 Jan 201921min

Amanda Purington is our guest this episode. She and host Janis Whitlock discuss Amanda's work on Social Media TestDrive, a program that gives youth a safe, simulated online experience. TestDrive also sparks conversations between youth, youth practitioners and parents about online safety, cyberbullying, and positive online experiences. Amanda has long-standing relationships with various non-researcher stakeholders and talks about the ways those rich connections improve both practice and research. Amanda Purington is the director of evaluation and research for ACT for Youth within the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. She also studies communication as a PhD student within the Social Media Lab at Cornell University. Professionally and academically, Amanda is passionate about using research and evaluation to promote the health and well-being of youth.

7 Des 201815min