Robert J. Sampson
Encyclopedia
Robert J. Sampson is the Henry Ford II
Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University
and Chair of the Department of Sociology
. Before joining Harvard he taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago
for twelve years and before that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
for seven years. Sampson was a Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation
from 1994–2002, and in the 1997-98 and 2002-03 academic years he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
in Stanford, California
. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 2005 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences
in 2006. Sampson is a New York
product from birth to Ph.D. – he grew up in Utica, New York
, and attended the State University of New York
for his university degrees in two other distressed cities (Buffalo
and Albany
).
Professor Sampson has published widely in the areas of crime and deviance, the life course, neighborhood effects, and the social organization of cities. In the area of neighborhood effects and urban studies his current work is focusing on race/ethnicity and social mechanisms of ecological inequality, immigration and crime, the meanings and implications of "disorder," spatial disadvantage, collective civic engagement, and other topics linked to the general idea of community-level social processes. Much of this work stems from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) for which Sampson serves as Scientific Director.
Winner of the 2006 Robert Park Award, Community and Urban Sociology Section, American Sociological Association. Revised version reprinted as Neighborhood Stigma and the Perception of Disorder in Focus 24: 7-11.
Another aim of the CCCP is to argue that the disproportionate attention accorded the struggles of the sixties has created a stylized image of social movements that threatens to distort our understanding of popular contention, not only in earlier periods and in non-democratic contexts, but also in the contemporary U.S. This stylized view tends to equate movements with (a) disruptive protest in public settings, (b) loosely coordinated national struggles over political issues, (c) urban and/or campus based protest activities, and (d) claims-making by disadvantaged minorities. Drawing on nearly 1,000 protest events between 1970-2000 collected in the Chicago Chicago Civic Participation Study, we find the data do not support the common imagery of social movements. Since 1980 there has been a marked transformation of the movement form to the point where public protest is now largely peaceful, routine, suburban, local in nature, and initiated by the advantaged. We discuss the implications of these findings for the rise of a "movement society" in the U.S. and suggest directions for future research.
The first article from this volume can be directly downloaded from the Annals: "A Life Course View of the Development of Crime."
Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II , commonly known as "HF2" and "Hank the Deuce", was the son of Edsel Ford and grandson of Henry Ford...
Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Chair of the Department of Sociology
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...
. Before joining Harvard he taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
for twelve years and before that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
for seven years. Sampson was a Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation
American Bar Foundation
Established in 1952, the ' is an independent, nonprofit national research institute located in Chicago, Illinois committed to objective empirical research on law and legal institutions...
from 1994–2002, and in the 1997-98 and 2002-03 academic years he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
in Stanford, California
Stanford, California
Stanford is a census-designated place in Santa Clara County, California, United States and is the home of Stanford University. The population was 13,809 at the 2010 census....
. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 2005 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in 2006. Sampson is a New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
product from birth to Ph.D. – he grew up in Utica, New York
Utica, New York
Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....
, and attended the State University of New York
State University of New York
The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...
for his university degrees in two other distressed cities (Buffalo
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
and Albany
University at Albany, SUNY
The State University of New York at Albany, also known as University at Albany, State University of New York, SUNY Albany or simply UAlbany, is a public university located in Albany, Guilderland, and East Greenbush, New York, United States; is the senior campus of the State University of New York ...
).
Professor Sampson has published widely in the areas of crime and deviance, the life course, neighborhood effects, and the social organization of cities. In the area of neighborhood effects and urban studies his current work is focusing on race/ethnicity and social mechanisms of ecological inequality, immigration and crime, the meanings and implications of "disorder," spatial disadvantage, collective civic engagement, and other topics linked to the general idea of community-level social processes. Much of this work stems from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) for which Sampson serves as Scientific Director.
Race, Immigration & Crime
- Sampson, Robert J., 2008. "Rethinking Crime and Immigration." Contexts (Vol. 7:28-33).
- Sampson, Robert J., "Open Doors Don't Invite Criminals: Is Increased Immigration Behind the Drop in Crime?," New York Times, March 11, 2006, p. A27 (OP-ED).
- Related stories:
- "Good Waves" in The Boston Globe, January 1, 2006 ("Ideas" Section, p. 1);
- "Do Illegal Immigrants Burden the Justice System?" NPR Morning Edition, April 27, 2006;
- "Immigrant Effects: Latinos Nix Violence", Harvard Magazine, September–October, 2006, pp. 15–16; ***"Do Immigrants Make us Safer?" by Eyal Press, New York Times Magazine (December 3, 2006).
- Related stories:
- Sampson, Robert J., Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Stephen Raudenbush. 2005. "Social Anatomy of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Violence." American Journal of Public Health 95: 224-232.
- Sampson, Robert J. and Dawn Jeglum Bartusch. 1998. "Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance of Deviance: The Neighborhood Context of Racial Differences." Law and Society Review 32:777-804.
- Sampson, Robert J. and William Julius Wilson. 1995. "Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality." In Crime and Inequality, edited by John Hagan and Ruth Peterson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Inequality & Neighborhood Effects
- Sampson, Robert J., 2008. "Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Structure." American Journal of Sociology, in press.
- Sampson, Robert J., 2008. "Neighborhood Selection and the Social Reproduction of Concentrated Racial Inequality." Demography (Vol. 45: 1-29).
- Sampson, Robert J., 2008. "Durable Effects of Concentrated Disadvantage on Verbal Ability among African-American Children." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: January 22, 2008. Vol. 105 (3): 845-853.
- Sampson, Robert J., Jeffrey D. Morenoff and Thomas Gannon-Rowley. 2002. "Assessing Neighborhood Effects: Social Processes and New Directions in Research." Annual Review of Sociology 28:443-478.
- Sampson, Robert J., Stephen Raudenbush, and Felton Earls. 1997. "Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy." Science 277:918-24.
(Dis)order & Systematic Social Observation
- Sampson, Robert J. and Stephen W. Raudenbush. 2004. "Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of 'Broken Windows'." Social Psychology Quarterly 67: 319-342.
Winner of the 2006 Robert Park Award, Community and Urban Sociology Section, American Sociological Association. Revised version reprinted as Neighborhood Stigma and the Perception of Disorder in Focus 24: 7-11.
-
- Press related stories:
- "Reconsidering the Broken Windows Theory featured on NPR s Morning Edition
- "A Crack in the Broken-Windows Theory" in The Washington Post ***"The Cracks in 'Broken Windows'" in The Boston Globe.
- Press related stories:
- Sampson, Robert J. and Steve Raudenbush. 1999. "Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods." American Journal of Sociology 105: 603-651.
Spatial Dynamics
- Sampson, Robert J., "'After-School' Chicago: Space and the City." Special Issue on "Chicago and Los Angeles: Paradigms, Schools, Archetypes, and the Urban Process." Urban Geography (Vol. 29: 127-137, 2008).
- Sampson, Robert J. and Jeffrey Morenoff. 2006. "Durable Inequality: Spatial Dynamics, Social Processes, and the Persistence of Poverty in Chicago Neighborhoods." pp. 176–203 In Poverty Traps, edited by Samuel Bowles, Steve Durlauf, and Karla Hoff. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006.
- Morenoff, Jeffrey, Robert J. Sampson, and Stephen Raudenbush. 2001. "Neighborhood Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and the Spatial Dynamics of Urban Violence." Criminology 39:517-560.
- Sampson Robert J. Jeffrey Morenoff, and Felton Earls. 1999. "Beyond Social Capital: Spatial Dynamics of Collective Efficacy for Children." American Sociological Review 64: 633-660.
Ecometrics
- Raudenbush, Stephen and Robert J. Sampson. 1999. "'Ecometrics': Toward A Science of Assessing Ecological Settings, with Application to the Systematic Social Observation of Neighborhoods." Sociological Methodology 29:1-41.
Collective Civic Participation
The aim of the “Chicago Collective Civic Participation Project” (CCCP) is to develop a new theoretical approach and novel empirical strategy for tackling fundamental questions about the nature and changing structure of civic life in the modern city. By integrating key strengths of the social movements and urban sociological paradigms, this project recasts debates on civil society by giving priority to variations across time and space in robust mechanisms of collective engagement in the form of non-routine events not initiated by the State or political professionals, but by collectivities motivated by a particular issue to act together in public (i.e., civic) space. Analyzing over 4,000 events in the Chicago metropolitan area from 1970 to 2000, we find that civic engagement is by far the dominant form of collective action and is durable over time. Although "sixties style" protest declines, we also uncover the growth of a largely overlooked hybrid that combines public claims-making with civic forms of behavior—what we call "blended social action." Furthermore, we show that dense social ties, group memberships, and neighborly exchange do not predict a greater propensity for collective action at the community level in the city of Chicago. The density of community nonprofit organizations matters instead, suggesting that declines in many forms of traditional social capital may not be as consequential for civic capacity as commonly thought.- Sampson, Robert J., Doug McAdam, Heather MacIndoe, and Simon Weffer. 2005. "Civil Society Reconsidered: The Durable Nature and Community Structure of Collective Civic Action." American Journal of Sociology 111: 673-714.
- Sampson, Robert J., 2006. Commentary: "'Bowling Alone?': Civil Society May Not be in Such Bad Shape" in Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2006).
Another aim of the CCCP is to argue that the disproportionate attention accorded the struggles of the sixties has created a stylized image of social movements that threatens to distort our understanding of popular contention, not only in earlier periods and in non-democratic contexts, but also in the contemporary U.S. This stylized view tends to equate movements with (a) disruptive protest in public settings, (b) loosely coordinated national struggles over political issues, (c) urban and/or campus based protest activities, and (d) claims-making by disadvantaged minorities. Drawing on nearly 1,000 protest events between 1970-2000 collected in the Chicago Chicago Civic Participation Study, we find the data do not support the common imagery of social movements. Since 1980 there has been a marked transformation of the movement form to the point where public protest is now largely peaceful, routine, suburban, local in nature, and initiated by the advantaged. We discuss the implications of these findings for the rise of a "movement society" in the U.S. and suggest directions for future research.
- McAdam, Doug, Robert Sampson, Simon Weffer, and Heather MacIndoe. 2005. "There Will Be Fighting in the Streets: The Distorting Lens of Social Movement Theory." Mobilization 10:1-18.
The Life Course
Professor Sampson is engaged in a longitudinal study from birth to death of 1,000 disadvantaged men born in Boston during the Great Depression era. His first book from this project (Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life, Harvard University Press, 1993), written with John Laub, received the outstanding book award in 1994 from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Crime, Law, and Deviance Section of the American Sociological Association. A second book from this project, Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70, was published in December 2003, also from Harvard University Press. This follow-up study integrates narrative life-histories with the quantitative analysis of life-course trajectories across seven decades in the lives of formerly incarcerated and troubled adolescents. Shared Beginnings received the outstanding book award from the American Society of Criminology (2004), the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (2005), and the Crime, Law, and Deviance Section of the American Sociological Association (2005). Other selected articles and volumes related to this project:- Sampson, Robert J., John H. Laub and Christopher Wimer. 2006. "Does Marriage Reduce Crime? A Counterfactual Approach to Within-Individual Causal Effects." Criminology 44(3):465-508.
- "Developmental Criminology and Its Discontents: Trajectories of Crime from Childhood to Old Age." Special issue, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, edited by Robert J. Sampson and John H. Laub (Volume 602, November 2005).
The first article from this volume can be directly downloaded from the Annals: "A Life Course View of the Development of Crime."
- Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 2005. "A General Age-Graded Theory of Crime: Lessons Learned and the Future of Life-Course Criminology." In Advances in Criminological Theory, Volume 13: Testing Integrated Developmental/Life Course Theories of Offending, edited by David Farrington.
- Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 2003. "Life-Course Desisters? Trajectories of Crime among Delinquent Boys Followed to Age 70." Criminology 41: 319-339.