Research Areas
Political Communications, Race and Gender Politics, Public Opinion, and Political Psychology
Political Communications, Race and Gender Politics, Public Opinion, and Political Psychology
Selected Works in Progress
“The Contingency of Compassion: Media Depictions of Drug Addiction” (Job Market Paper)
Previous work suggests that media coverage of policy issues is primarily driven by stereotypes of groups, which unconsciously inform editorial choices. While this work presents a compelling account of the role of group-level racial stereotypes on the content of news coverage, I argue that it underestimates the ways in which the spatial areas where people reside are also stereotyped and may lead to individuals from the same racial group being depicted in divergent ways. Through a content analysis of news coverage during two recent drug scares, I find support for the important role that racial-group stereotypes play on media depictions of policy issues. At the same time, results of the analysis indicate an important role of stereotypes of spatial areas. More specifically, I find that substantive boosts in compassionate depictions of drug use are primarily targeted toward (presumably White and affluent) drug users living in suburban areas as compared to drug users who reside in either rural areas (disproportionately White but presumably less affluent) or urban areas (disproportionately non-White). My findings suggest that future work on race and media should investigate group-level racial stereotypes as well as widely-shared perceptions of the areas where policy beneficiaries are thought to reside. View the latest version of this paper here.
"Does Feminist Identification Prompt Racial Awareness? A Study of White American Respondents" (with Michele Margolis)
A long line of research finds that feminist identification correlates strongly with liberal values and policy preferences. This work suggests that this relationship is driven by feminists' stronger sense of egalitarianism, lack of symbolic racism, tendency to reject moral traditionalism, and adoption of modern conceptions of gender roles. However, for the most part, work in this area has focused on the relationship between feminist identification and attitudes about gender issues. In this paper, we extend this scholarship by asking: does identifying as a feminist increase White respondents' willingness to acknowledge inequities along racial lines? We argue that if feminist identification is an indicator of awareness of systemic inequities and a broader commitment to minimizing their harmful implications, there should be distinguishable differences in non, weak, and strong feminists' willingness to acknowledge racial discrimination. We conduct correlational and experimental analyses to test our hypotheses. Results of these analyses provide suggestive evidence that Whites who identify as strong feminists are more likely than their non and weak feminist counterparts to perceive racial discrimination. Thus, our study contributes to the existing literature by showing that Whites may adopt intersecting social identities that increase their willingness to acknowledge the role of racial bias in social situations. View the latest version of this paper here.
Teaching Race, Racism, and Racial Justice: Pedagogical Principles and Strategies (with Amie Thurber and Joe Bandy)
Teaching on topics of race and racism presents unique challenges to leaders in the university classroom setting. Despite an increasing number of instructors bringing a critical analysis of racial in/justice to their curriculum, many report challenges in teaching this content effectively. Drawing on a systematic review of work that grapples with issues of difference within the university classroom setting, we summarize the common challenges in teaching racial content, describe ways that instructors can be proactive about addressing these challenges in the course planning phase, and define five pedagogical strategies, and supporting classroom practices, that will help instructors effectively manage everyday classroom interactions.