DATE: Friday, March 25, 2022
TIME: 11:00 a.m. - 12 noon
LOCATION: Please email socevent@uwo.ca for the Zoom link
Christina Cross is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University (beginning 2022). Her research falls at the intersection of families, race/ethnicity, and social inequality. She examines how family structure, change, and dynamics influence individuals’ life chances, particularly among minoritized and/or low-income populations. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Social Problems, Demography, and the Journal of Marriage and Family. Her research has been supported by organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the JPB Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. It has received awards from the American Sociological Association, including the 2020 ASA Dissertation Award, the Population Association of America, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, ProQuest, and the Midwest and Southern Sociological Societies. Cross holds a PhD in Public Policy and Sociology from the University of Michigan.
Over the last six decades, researchers have documented a steady decline in the share of U.S. children living in two-parent families, a widening racial gap in the proportion of children who live apart from a parent, and a persistent negative effect of parental absence on child outcomes. Combined, these trends have fuelled a national debate about whether racial differences in family structure exacerbate existing inequalities in children’s life chances. However, there has been little research to explain an important set of findings: living apart from a biological parent is less negatively consequential for children of colour compared to their white peers and growing up in a two-parent family yields significantly lower returns. In this presentation, Dr. Cross will discuss why family structure matters differently for the academic success of racialized groups. She has empirically tested hypotheses that have been put forward to account for racial differences in family structure effects and identified factors that explain variation in outcomes. Additionally, she will discuss how we can expand the existing conceptual framework linking family structure and child outcomes to incorporate the significance of macro-level factors, namely structural racism.
We would love to see you all there! RSVP to socevent@uwo.ca for Zoom link.
Contact socevent@uwo.ca if you require information in an alternate format, or if any other arrangements can make these events accessible to you.
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