RESEARCH
As a scholar I am interested in how culture, the professions, and inequality can be (re)produced through interactions within organizations. As a result I have developed several lines of research examining culture, organizations, and interaction. To conduct my research I use methods ranging from ethnography to content analysis.
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
My current research stems from a two year ethnographic project examining professional education in a Masters of Public Affairs (MPA) program at a large Midwestern University. It is in collaboration with Tim Hallett (Professor, Indiana University). Through the project we are interested in examining how professional education could be considered as an inhabited institution. In other words, we explore how professional education is a result of people doing things together in the context of larger institutional pressures and logics.
The most recent publication from the project explores the role of economic rationality within the program and how the MPA students responded to those rationales in an ambivalent manner. Ultimately, this ambivalence reproduced the role of economics in the policy making process. This paper, "Learning to Think Like an Economist Without Becoming One" was recently published in American Sociological Review.
The next paper from the project explores the moral boundaries MPA students drew against MBA students and the implication of those boundaries for understanding dynamics within the system of 'hybrid' professions. We have a forthcoming chapter that explores the role of quantitative reasoning and accountability within the program, "Accounting for Socialization: Professional Education and the Spread of Quantitative Governance," in a volume on educational governance. We have published a chapter on the overall theoretical framework of the project in a volume on the new sociology of education (Education in a New Society: Renewing the Sociology of Education edited by Jal Mehta and Scott Davies). The chapter offers a way forward for the study of professional education.
NUCLEAR ENERGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURE
I am conducting a case study of the organizational failure of the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS). During the 1970s and 80s the organization planned to construct five nuclear power plants in Washington State. What resulted was cost overruns, delays, one nuclear plant, and at the time the United States’ largest municipal bond default. The organization colloquially became known as “Whoops”. Using the sociological perspectives of inhabited institutionalism, pragmatist sociology, and actor network theory, along with insights from the sociological literature on organizational failure and energy, I address the following questions: How do commentators construct and attribute blame for complex organizational failure? What causes energy forecasts and processes related to quantification and commensuration to fail? What role did economic styles of reasoning play in the creation of the forecasts?
I am collecting and analyzing primary and historical documents related to the organization. This case study will provide insights into the development of nuclear power and the potential pitfalls it may run into, while helping reinvigorate the sociology of energy use/energy policy and organizational failure.
INEQUALITY IN INTERACTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
Another strand of my research develops and expands existing theoretical frameworks within organizational sociology and symbolic interactionism. In one paper, with Tim Hallett, we revisit Paul Willis' Learning to Labor using various interactionist frameworks. This was published in Studies in Symbolic Interaction.
Tim and I have a chapter expanding Bourdieu's work to organizations. In the paper examine the promises and pitfalls of Bourdieu’s micro sociology for organizational sociology. This paper was published in the Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu, edited by Jeff Sallaz and Tom Medevetz.
CULTURAL OBJECTS AND CONSUMPTION
My final line of research explores depictions of race, class, and gender in various cultural objects. In one study, with Jennifer Puentes, we use content analysis to explore the messages about race, class, and gender in introductory sociology textbooks. We published the results in Teaching Sociology. This also served as the foundation for the open introductory text we developed.
More recently we have been exploring what contemporary etiquette books say about race, class, and gender. In our analysis of 45 books we found that the books encourage readers to craft demeanors that will allegedly receive deference from others. Overall, we argue that etiquette involves taking the arbitrary culture of one group (the white middle class) and presenting it as a universal that can be used to evaluate other groups.
As a scholar I am interested in how culture, the professions, and inequality can be (re)produced through interactions within organizations. As a result I have developed several lines of research examining culture, organizations, and interaction. To conduct my research I use methods ranging from ethnography to content analysis.
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
My current research stems from a two year ethnographic project examining professional education in a Masters of Public Affairs (MPA) program at a large Midwestern University. It is in collaboration with Tim Hallett (Professor, Indiana University). Through the project we are interested in examining how professional education could be considered as an inhabited institution. In other words, we explore how professional education is a result of people doing things together in the context of larger institutional pressures and logics.
The most recent publication from the project explores the role of economic rationality within the program and how the MPA students responded to those rationales in an ambivalent manner. Ultimately, this ambivalence reproduced the role of economics in the policy making process. This paper, "Learning to Think Like an Economist Without Becoming One" was recently published in American Sociological Review.
The next paper from the project explores the moral boundaries MPA students drew against MBA students and the implication of those boundaries for understanding dynamics within the system of 'hybrid' professions. We have a forthcoming chapter that explores the role of quantitative reasoning and accountability within the program, "Accounting for Socialization: Professional Education and the Spread of Quantitative Governance," in a volume on educational governance. We have published a chapter on the overall theoretical framework of the project in a volume on the new sociology of education (Education in a New Society: Renewing the Sociology of Education edited by Jal Mehta and Scott Davies). The chapter offers a way forward for the study of professional education.
NUCLEAR ENERGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURE
I am conducting a case study of the organizational failure of the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS). During the 1970s and 80s the organization planned to construct five nuclear power plants in Washington State. What resulted was cost overruns, delays, one nuclear plant, and at the time the United States’ largest municipal bond default. The organization colloquially became known as “Whoops”. Using the sociological perspectives of inhabited institutionalism, pragmatist sociology, and actor network theory, along with insights from the sociological literature on organizational failure and energy, I address the following questions: How do commentators construct and attribute blame for complex organizational failure? What causes energy forecasts and processes related to quantification and commensuration to fail? What role did economic styles of reasoning play in the creation of the forecasts?
I am collecting and analyzing primary and historical documents related to the organization. This case study will provide insights into the development of nuclear power and the potential pitfalls it may run into, while helping reinvigorate the sociology of energy use/energy policy and organizational failure.
INEQUALITY IN INTERACTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
Another strand of my research develops and expands existing theoretical frameworks within organizational sociology and symbolic interactionism. In one paper, with Tim Hallett, we revisit Paul Willis' Learning to Labor using various interactionist frameworks. This was published in Studies in Symbolic Interaction.
Tim and I have a chapter expanding Bourdieu's work to organizations. In the paper examine the promises and pitfalls of Bourdieu’s micro sociology for organizational sociology. This paper was published in the Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu, edited by Jeff Sallaz and Tom Medevetz.
CULTURAL OBJECTS AND CONSUMPTION
My final line of research explores depictions of race, class, and gender in various cultural objects. In one study, with Jennifer Puentes, we use content analysis to explore the messages about race, class, and gender in introductory sociology textbooks. We published the results in Teaching Sociology. This also served as the foundation for the open introductory text we developed.
More recently we have been exploring what contemporary etiquette books say about race, class, and gender. In our analysis of 45 books we found that the books encourage readers to craft demeanors that will allegedly receive deference from others. Overall, we argue that etiquette involves taking the arbitrary culture of one group (the white middle class) and presenting it as a universal that can be used to evaluate other groups.