My research has focused on race and ethnic differences in various metrics of social inequality – ranging from poverty and welfare to education and employment – to address how ascribed attributes acquire their social and economic significance.
Through various studies of immigration, population diversification and concentrated poverty, I have documented social arrangements and life course trajectories that both perpetuate and reshape socioeconomic inequality. I recently completed a decade-long study about the effectiveness of social policy in broadening access to higher education.
Currently I am developing two research initiatives about age and immigration. One is a comparative study of child migration in traditional and new immigrant nations; the second focuses on late-age immigration to the United States.