Ron Akers
My current research interests are focused on further specification and  testing of the Social Structure Social Learning (SSSL) model (Akers, Social Learning and Social Structure, Northeastern University Press, 1998).  This model proposes that the effects of social structural factors and variables on individuals' criminal, delinquent, and deviant behavior are mediated primarily by variables in the social learning process (mainly differential association, differential reinforcement, definitions, and imitation).  I and my doctoral students have re-analyzed data from the Boystown study of adolescent substance use and from the Iowa teenage smoking study, have collected original data, and have recently published journal articles and chapters on this model. (Updated: November 16, 2003)

Monika Ardelt
My research focuses on successful human development across the life course with particular emphasis on the relations between wisdom, purpose and meaning in life, spirituality, aging well, and dying well. My overall goal is to identify factors that lead to both aging and dying well and that might help families and institutions to facilitate well-being and psychological growth for the elderly until the very end of life under conditions that are more cost-effective and humane than customary practice.
(Updated: May 4, 2004)

Leonard Beeghley
I am currently thinking about the relationship among social structure, social problems, and social policies in modern societies.  Modern life can be seen as a movement from fate to choice.  The implications are profound (and frightening) because we sometimes have to choose among competing moral values.  I am curious about how these choices are (or are not) resolved.  This topic reflects a long-standing interest in the relationship between social structure and a variety of issues, such as homicide, divorce, political participation, and poverty.  It also reflects my interest in sociological theory and the origins of sociology.  All of the classical theorists were responding, in different ways, to the rise of modern societies. (Updated: October 12, 2005)

Marian Borg
My research interests focus on examining various process of social control, including those involving the law, confrontation, surveillance and mediation. The central question I address in my research is: How does the structure of social relationships influence the strategies used by individuals or groups to respond to deviance. My work has examined juvenile violence as conflict management; the use of the death penalty as a legal mechanism of social control; small-claims mediation processes; and employee drug-testing as organizational surveillance. My most recent research (with graduate students) involves examining variation in police response to domestic violence cases and organizational factors influencing legal responses to allegations of police misconduct. I teach courses in criminology, deviance, and the sociology of social control. (Updated: February 3, 2004)

Kendal Broad
In general, my research has focused on interpretive and identity work in social movements. Presently my work centers on a little-researched but increasingly vocal group -- heterosexual allies in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement. Specifically, my work details the interpretive practice of parents who have LGBT (adult) children, discussing the processes by which they produce social movement meanings and identities. (Updated: November 21, 2003)

Regina Bures
My research interests include life course transitions and historical patterns of family change, the social and spatial dimensions of inequality, and urbanization processes. My NSF ADVANCE Fellows project focuses on the relationship between historic preservation, segregation, and 20th century urban change in Charleston, South Carolina. I am also examining the relationship between family transitions and life course changes using data from the Health and Retirement Study. (Updated: October, 2004)

Alin Ceobanu
My current research focuses on social and political order and change, particularly on post-communist societies of Europe, as well as on intergroup relations. Most recently, I have investigated the relationship between various micro-level (e.g., various instances of nationalist sentiment) and macro-level (societal) factors and public opinion on immigrants and immigration policies in Central and Eastern European countries. I am actively involved in research projects with Prof. James R. Kluegel (Univ. of Illinois), Xavier Escandell (Grinnell College) and Michael Sobczak (Univ. of Illinois). A second research path focuses on collective action and the life course of temporary gatherings (rallies, marches, etc.), and continue collaboration with Prof. Emeritus Clark McPhail (Univ. of Illinois) and David Schweingruber (Iowa State Univ.). (Updated: October, 2004)

Charles Gattone
My current research focuses on the question of the role of intellectuals in politics, and involves assessing the relationship of social science to the contemporary economic and political order. It includes an overview of the ideas of seminal thinkers in the twentieth century such as Weber, Veblen, Mannheim, Schumpeter, Mills, Galbraith, and Bourdieu. My other research interests are in the area of media studies and the sociology of knowledge, and center on the connections between media messages and trends in popular belief. (Updated: November 21, 2003)

John C. Henretta
My research in the sociology of aging over the last decade has focused on life course dynamics related to retirement, health, family structure, and intergenerational transfers.  My primary current projects focus on topics of family intergenerational transfers and family demography.

Between-family differences:  Intergenerational transfers occur within a family context, but most research on the topic focuses on the differences among family members and not on family environment itself. While family characteristics, such as size or composition, are often examined, they are seldom conceptualized in the broader context of a family culture or family environment that defines each family’s variant on the norms of kinship. Yet, aspects of family culture may define notions of obligation, expectation, and responsibility that distinguish the transfer behaviors of one family from another and define the environment within which individuals act.  As a complement to the predominant approach to examining within-family processes, I am examining (with Beth Soldo) why similarly-configured families differ in their kin exchange behaviors and why individual characteristics have variable effects across families.

There are two central goals:  1) To describe how families differ in their collective orientation to intra-family transfers; that is, what measured aspects of family transfer culture distinguish among families in terms of the type, direction, or intensity of transfers?  2)  To examine how the macro-level changes in American family demography across cohorts have affected patterns of intergenerational transfers.  To date, our research has shown a correlation in family transfers across multiple generations of a family, an observation consistent with between-family variation in the norms of kinship (Henretta and Soldo 2005).  We have also examined the effect of family structure on transfer behavior, finding that children in a home with a step mother are equally likely to attend college but receive less tuition help from parents compared to biological children of both spouses or children with a step father (Henretta, Soldo and Van Voorhis 2006). This line of research builds on earlier intergenerational transfer research that used a within-family framework to show long-term reciprocity in the selection of a particular child in a family to provide care to an infirm parent (Henretta, et al. 1997) and establish the relative success of a wife’s mother in the competition between husband's and wife's mother for coresidence (Soldo, Wolf, and Henretta 1999).

Cross-national difference in family structure and transfers: A second project (with Emily Grundy) is a comparison of family structure and transfer patterns in the U.S. and Britain.   There are two goals: understanding the ways that demographic regimes produce differences in family structure – hence potentially different demand for private family transfers – and examining the relationship of transfers to education and income in the two countries.  Results indicate that U.S. adults have more living children and more elderly parents as a result of higher U.S. fertility, a lower age of childbearing, and lower death rates among very old (Henretta, Grundy, and Harris 2001).  Further work has examined cross-national differences in transfers to adult children and elderly parents  (Henretta, Grundy, and Harris, 2002; Grundy and Henretta, 2004).

Marital and Fertility History and Health:  Recent years have seen a growing appreciation of the influence of early life course health events and socioeconomic status on mid-life health and mortality, thus extending the standard sociological life course analysis of the effects of early events to include the complex long-term relationship between social and biological processes.  While there is substantial research on short-term effects of fertility on health and the effects of current marital status on mid-life health, little attention has been given to the long run effects of these characteristics.  This project (with Emily Grundy and others)  focuses on the effects of fertility history and marital history on health and mortality.  My work to date on this project (Henretta 2006) indicates that, consistent with research in other countries, having a birth before age 20 is associated with a higher hazard of dying after age 50 among a US cohort surviving to that age.

Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox
Currently my research focuses on the parenthood, childlessness, and their implications for older adults. I am continuing a study of the psychosocial consequences of childlessness over the life course and in later life, using both quantitative analyses of U.S. survey data and qualitative analyses of life histories and in-depth interviews with older men and women.  I have extended this research to examine the implications of childlessness cross-nationally in collaboration with Emily Agree (Johns Hopkins University) and Nikolai Botev (U.N. Economic Commission for Europe, Geneva). This research is comparing the living arrangements, kin networks, and community contexts of elderly men and women in Central and Eastern Europe.  I am also continuing a collaborative research project with Robin Rogers-Dillon (Queens College) and others investigating the mental and physical health outcomes and subjective well-being assessments of two generations of African American mothers and their children over a span of nearly 30 years.

Anthony LaGreca 
I am currently doing research in three main areas: 1) Aging: with Dr. Ron Akers I am analyzing data to assess the relationship between religiosity and alcohol use/non-use; 2) with Professor Jo Hassell in the College of Architecture, I am studying the impact that normative structure has on understanding the role of the "Americans with Disabilities Act" in the workplace; 3) I am also looking at how the imager/message of urban growth is interpreted by different segments of our society.

William Marsiglio
Most of my research and teaching focuses on the social psychology of men’s sexuality/reproduction, fathering, and paid/volunteer work with children outside the home.  In general, I am interested in how men socially construct their identities as persons capable of creating and caring for human life in various settings.  My books include: Situated Fathering: A Focus on Physical and Social Spaces (Ed. with Kevin Roy and Greer Litton Fox, 2005); Stepdads: Stories of Love, Hope, and Repair (2004); Sex, Men, and Babies: Stories of Awareness and Responsibility, (with Sally Hutchinson, 2002); Procreative Man (1998), and Fatherhood: Contemporary Theory, Research, and Social Policy (Ed. 1995).  Recently, most of my research has been based on qualitative in-depth interviews.  One empirical study with teenage and young adult men focused on how they described their romantic relationships, sex lives, and procreative experiences.  It provided the foundation for my Procreative Identity Framework—a model exploring how men become aware of their ability to procreate and its meaning for them over time.  My research with stepfathers considers how they develop and manage their involvement with stepchildren and the “family” network (mother, biological father, own children).  I am also interested in how physical and social spaces affect fathers’ identity work and involvement with their children.  Currently, I am in the field interviewing men for a book project examining men’s perceptions of and interactions with children in diverse areas (e.g., coaches, teachers, youth ministers, probation officers, Big Brothers, Boy Scout leaders, 4-H club leaders, youth intervention specialists). (Updated: October 13, 2005)

Christine Overdevest
My current research evaluates institutions of environmental governance that improve the democratic accountability and participatory nature and quality of environmental management.  Current research projects evaluate forest certification and participatory standard setting in the US, Sweden and Finland.  Publications include Overdevest, C. and M.G. Rickenbach.  In press. Forest Certification and Institutional Governance:  An Empirical Study of Forest Stewardship Council Certificate Holders in the United States.  Forest Policy & Economics,  Overdevest, C.  2005.  Information Politics, Treadmill Politics, and Public Policy:  Toward a Political Economy of Information.  Organization and Environment.  18: 72-90, Overdevest, C.  2004.  Codes of Conduct and Standard Setting in the Forest Sector:  Constructing Markets for Democracy?  Industrial Relations/Relations Industrielles.  59(1):172-198, and Overdevest, C.., Orr. C.S., and K. Stepenuck   2004.  Volunteer Stream Monitoring and Local Participation in Natural Resource Issues.   Human Ecology Review.  Winter 2004:177-185. (Updated: November 16, 2005)

Chuck W. Peek
My current research focuses on health and long-term care among older adults. I am currently developing dynamic conceptual and analytical models of functional health. Specific foci of this research program include projects that examine salient longitudinal patterns of disability, cohort variation in functional health, determinants of recovery from disability, and ethnoracial differences in disablement and long-term care arrangements. I teach courses in medical sociology, methods of social research, and social problems. (Updated: November 16, 2003)

Milagros Peña
My research interests are in social movement theory, the sociology of religion, ethnic and women’s studies.  In my research, I have looked at the role of ideas in social movements with a study on liberation theology in Peru, and in another project I pushed for the need to look at cultural dimensions in measures of religiosity. My current research project is titled “Latinas Beyond Borders” which focuses on Latina political activism and mobilization in Mexico and the U.S. Mexico border.

Stephen G. Perz
My research focuses on the social and demographic determinants of land use and land cover change in the Brazilian Amazon. Over the past eight years, I have conducted both field and statistical work in order to better understand household land use decisions. This interdisciplinary and international collaborative work has generated several scholarly publications and a proposal currently under review at NSF.

John Scanzoni
John Scanzoni's teaching and research interests focus on the changing meanings of "family" and "families" in Western societies. He is researching the theory of whether poor mothers in "fictive families" are more capable of becoming independent than those who are isolated.(Updated: February 9, 2004)

Constance Shehan
My research focuses on women’s experiences in “work” (both paid labor and unpaid labor in the home) and “family” life (written broadly to include a full range of intimate relationships and household living arrangements). Generally, I have pursued two basic themes: (1) the causes and consequences of the gendered division of household and family labor and (2) the relationship between women’s work and health. Over the past several years, I’ve been examining the impact of the structural characteristics of jobs on personal and family well-being, focusing on women and men in the ministry. Within the next few months I will begin a study of retired couples, focusing on the impact of job loss on men’s and women’s identities and psychological well-being.

Tamir Sorek
His interests center on the production of ethnic and national identities, as well as ethno-national conflicts. His study of these processes focuses on socio-historical dynamics, power relations, and the juncture of culture and politics. In his book on Arab soccer in Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Sorek illustrates how a seemingly innocent arena like sports is in effect a powerful political sphere, which has implications for ethnic, religious, civic and national identification and even political behavior. In his work, Sorek combines both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. His current project deals with the culture of commemoration of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and its dialogue with Zionist commemoration.

Hernan Vera
I am currently finishing a book on Sincere Fictions of the White Self in the American Cinema (Hernán Vera and Andrew Gordon, Rowman and Littlefield). The Second Edition of White Racism: The Basics (Joe R. Feagin, Hernán Vera and Pinar Batur, Routledge 2001) has now been released. Sociology of Liberation (Joe Feagin, Hernán Vera, Westview 2001) has gone into press. I am also involved in the beginning stages of a research project on racism in academia.

Charles Wood
My current research projects address the following issues: the bio-physical and socioeconomic determinants of deforestation in the Amazon; the relationship between tenure security and resource use among small farmers in Latin America; and race/ethnic inequality in Brazil.

Barbara Zsembik
Unequal opportunities for health and risks of illness and disability are unjust in a democratic society. I strive to bring the Latino experience into the mainstream of social science and epidemiological studies of health disparities. I work within a life course framework, evident in my past research focus on health and aging, and current attention to health among Latino adults and among Latino children. (Updated: November 23, 2003)