Devah Pager
Encyclopedia
Devah Pager is an American sociologist
best known for her research on racial discrimination in employment and the American criminal justice system. She is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at Princeton University.
Pager earned her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. Prior to that she received Masters degrees from Stanford University
and the University of Cape Town
in South Africa. As part of her doctoral dissertation research Pager conducted an experiment in which she enlisted young men to pose as job applicants with similar characteristics. She found that a black applicant received a callback or job offer half as often as an equally qualified white applicant. A black applicant with a clean record got a callback or job offer about as often as a white applicant with a felony conviction. She later replicated the experiment in New York City and found similar results. The dissertation was awarded the "Best Dissertation Prize" by the American Sociological Association
and was later published as a series of articles and a book, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration (University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Pager's work has been widely featured in the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and in CNN's documentary Black in America.
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
best known for her research on racial discrimination in employment and the American criminal justice system. She is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at Princeton University.
Pager earned her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. Prior to that she received Masters degrees from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
in South Africa. As part of her doctoral dissertation research Pager conducted an experiment in which she enlisted young men to pose as job applicants with similar characteristics. She found that a black applicant received a callback or job offer half as often as an equally qualified white applicant. A black applicant with a clean record got a callback or job offer about as often as a white applicant with a felony conviction. She later replicated the experiment in New York City and found similar results. The dissertation was awarded the "Best Dissertation Prize" by the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
and was later published as a series of articles and a book, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration (University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Pager's work has been widely featured in the media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and in CNN's documentary Black in America.
Selected bibliography
- Pager, Devah. 2003. “The Mark of a Criminal Record.” American Journal of Sociology 108(5):937-975.
- Pager, Devah, Bruce Western, and Bart Bonikowski. 2009. "Discrimination in a Low Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment." American Sociological Review 74(October):777-799
- Pager, Devah. 2007. MARKED: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- Quillian, Lincoln and Devah Pager. 2010. "Estimating Risk: Stereotype Amplification and the Perceived Risk of Criminal Victimization." Social Psychology Quarterly 73(1):79-104
- Grodsky, Eric and Devah Pager. 2001. “The Structure of Disadvantage: Individual and Occupational Determinants of the Black-White Wage Gap.” American Sociological Review:66(4):542-567