Department of Sociology

This paper examines how a politics of solidarity is forged between Puerto Ricans and Latinos in Orlando metro. To do so, it focuses on how Puerto Ricans in Orlando think about immigration rights and how Puerto Ricans negotiate the issue of immigration with issues affecting Puerto Ricans. To conduct the analysis, I draw on in-depth interviews and participant observations I conducted in Orlando metro during the 2016 election cycle. I find a politics of solidarity between Puerto Ricans and Latinos in Orlando metro is cultivated and challenged at various levels: by Latino political elites, organizations and funders, and individual views on immigration. I contend these findings capture the complexity of forging and enacting a politics of solidarity on-the-ground—that is, they elucidate tensions, negotiations, and cooperation in the bridging of Puerto Rican and Latino politics in a critical region of the state and one that is consequential for national politics.

Despite dramatic changes since the 1970s, gender and educational gaps in gender egalitarian attitudes have persisted while the racial gap (with Blacks leading) has narrowed. We apply interest-based and socialization mechanisms to predict the differential influences of labor market influences on changing gender attitudes for different races, genders, and educational groups. Using 21 waves of the General Social Survey, 1977–2018 (N = 27,662), and cross-classified age-period-cohort models, we examine the effects of two known labor market dynamics that shifted Americans’ gender attitudes, gender equality in the labor force and men’s overwork, on egalitarian gender attitudes among different racial, gender, and educational groups. The findings indicate that rising labor force gender equality is associated with stronger shifts toward gender egalitarianism among whites, bringing their attitudes more in line with Blacks and closing the racial gap. The rise of men’s overwork in the mid-1990s coincided with the “stalled gender revolution” and is associated with rising conservatism among whites and the college-educated. The gender gap in attitudes has persisted in the last four decades and neither of these labor market dynamics has exerted any impact. Results align with the socialization perspective that individuals respond to labor market dynamics more in accordance with their socially prescribed roles than their self-interests.

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We examine whether the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with changes to daily activity limitations due to poor physical or mental health and whether those changes were different within and between gendered and racialized groups. We analyze 497,302 observations across the 2019 and 2020 waves of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey. Among White men and women, the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with fewer days of health-related activity limitations and decreased frequent activity limitation (≥14 days in the past month) compared to the prepandemic period. By contrast, Latina and Black women experienced increased days of activity limitation and greater likelihood of frequent activity limitation, and these changes were significantly different than for White women. These findings are robust to the inclusion of structural inequality measures and demonstrate how systemic racism and sexism likely exacerbate a myriad of pandemic-related health problems.

Chemotherapy can cause many distressing side effects, potentially impacting treatment completion and quality of life in adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients with cancer. To identify ways to help mitigate chemotherapy-related symptoms, we sought to elicit barriers and facilitators to managing symptoms experienced by AYAs with cancer through interviews. Qualitative thematic analysis identified three main domains: (1) managing chemotherapy symptoms (e.g., medication, home remedies), (2) anticipating and mitigating symptoms (e.g., management of symptoms at home, anticipatory guidance), and (3) knowing when to seek care (e.g., unexpected and unusual symptoms). This study elucidated that AYAs can successfully manage symptoms at home when given the proper guidance and this could be a focus of future efforts to improve outcomes in this population. The Clinical Trial Registration number is NCT04594096.

The US is the world leader in imprisoning immigrants. Its mass immigration detention system emerged as an extension of mass incarceration, rooted in a legacy of racist US immigration and criminal laws. Immigration policy is a structural determinant of health that negatively affects the health of imprisoned immigrants, their families, and their communities. The systemic harms of detention facilities, which we refer to as immigration prisons, have been extensively documented, yet incrementalist reforms have failed to result in improved outcomes for immigrants. We argue that ending the practice of immigrant imprisonment is the most effective solution to mitigating its harms. Community-based programs are safer and less expensive than imprisonment, while also being effective at ensuring compliance with government requirements. We identify several priorities for researchers and policy makers to tackle the health inequities resulting from this structurally racist system. These include applying a critical, intersectional lens to studying the policies and practices that drive imprisonment, engaging affected communities in research and policy development, and creating an accountable and transparent system of data collection and release to inform health interventions. The reliance of the US on immigrant imprisonment is a policy choice with immense social and economic costs; dismantling it is critical to advancing health equity.

As postdoctoral training has become a requirement in many STEMM fields the influence of postdoc hiring on STEMM labor force inclusion and diversity has increased, yet postdoc hiring processes have received only limited attention from researchers. Drawing on status theory and data for 769 postdoctoral recruitments, we systematically analyze the relationship between gender, race-ethnicity, and postdoctoral hiring. The findings show: (1) differences by gender and race-ethnicity in application rates, and in whether an applicant is seriously considered, interviewed, and offered the postdoc position; (2) hiring disparities correlate with between-group differences in applicants' network connections, referrer prestige, and academic human capital; (3) between-group differences in network connections have the greatest power to account for hiring disparities; and (4) hiring processes may differ by applicant gender or race-ethnicity, the female representation in the STEMM field and the race of the search committee chair. We discuss competing interpretations of the results and highlight directions for future research.