Sociology Faculty

Martha Balshem, Professor, Special Assistant to the President for Diversity.

Ph.D. Indiana University in Bloomington, 1985

Interests: Social inequalities. Class, race, and gender. Sociology of higher education.

Projects: In my early career, I taught Anthropology and did research in medical social science. In the 1990s, I helped develop a new general education program at Portland State, served as Freshman Inquiry Coordinator, worked in program assessment, and headed the American Studies course cluster. After a brief stint as an Associate Director in an accreditation agency, I returned to Portland State. I am thrilled to be in the Sociology Department, with colleagues who are collegial, collaborative, and deeply engaged in both teaching and research. I work half time as Special Assistant to the President for Diversity (see our website at http://diversity.pdx.edu/), a position that offers a window seat on class, race, and gender inequalities within the academy.

Randy Blazak, Associate Professor.

Ph.D., Emory University, 1995.

Research Interests: Juvenile delinquency, hate crimes, theory, popular culture and youth subcultures, masculinity, racism and religion, prisons, constructions of whiteness.

Current projects: Current projects: Researching the transitioning of white supremacist inmates back into the community after their release from prison and writing a juvenile delinquency textbook.

Matthew Carlson, Associate Professor.

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1996.

Interests: Racial and Ethnic Disparities, access to health and behavioral health care, quality of health and behavioral health care delivered to vulnerable populations

Projects: 1) Assessing health care access and quality provided to Oregon Health Plan Enrollees. A three year cohort study in collaboration with the Oregon Health Research and Evaluation Collaborative and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, and AHRQ. 2) Assessing the social and economic impact of eliminating Medicaid dental benefits for the Oregon Office of Health Policy and Research in collaboration with Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. 3) Oregon Health Plan disenrollment survey.

Peter Collier, Associate Professor.

Ph.D. Portland State University, 1997

Interests: Sociology of Higher Education, Identity development, and Service Learning. More specific areas of interest: role transitions within higher education, role mastery and the development of expertise, community-based learning, and assessment.

Projects: 1) "Students First: Improving First Generation Student Retention in Higher Education," a four-year intervention project, funded by the Department of Education’s FIPSE program, to improve low-income, first generation student performance and persistence 2) "Improving First-Generation, Low-Income Student Retention in Higher Education: Examining the Persistence of Role-Mastery based Advising and Telementoring Intervention Effects," a two-year qualitative follow-up study of a cohort of students from the Students First Program to determine if positive program effects persist beyond the students' participation year, funded by NACADA (National Academic Advising Association). 3) Consultant on the Lumina Foundation-funded Urban Transfer Resource Network project, a multi state, multi-site study that is examining how community college and university transfer policies impact the likelihood of transfer student success at the university and Bachelor's degree completion. 4) Collaborating with University Studies faculty to integrate specific elements from the Students First project into PSU’s first year general education experience -- Freshmen Inquiry – with the goal of improving performance and persistence for all freshmen. 5) Collaborating on a project to convert the present Students First program into an interactive, web-based format that promotes self-directed learning while continuing to support first generation students. 6) Exploration of student adjustment issues associated with undergraduate-graduate school transition

Veronica Dujon, Associate Professor & Chair.

Ph.D. University of Wisconsin -- Madison, 1995.

Interests: 1) Environmental sociology; 2) sociology of globalization; 3) women in the global economy; 4) tensions between national development strategies and forces of globalization.

Projects: 1) Water rights in the Klamath Basin: this study examines whether under conditions of diminishing supplies of water, a shared commitment to a sense of place and community among competing interest groups may be a major factor in the redefinition of the conflict over water rights in ways that override narrow sub-group interests. 2) Ecotourism as development strategy: as export crop economies fail in developing countries can ecotourism be a viable alternative to economic growth? 3) Social Sustainability: How should it be defined and what conditions promote it, with a focus on Third World Countries. 4) Government Distrust and Alienation Among Gillnetters and Trollers in Oregon: Overcoming Barriers to Cooperation in Resource-Based Coastal Communities. This research addresses the gap in our understanding of the causes of trust and distrust of government in general, and of management agencies in particular, among groups of community stakeholders whose cooperation is essential to the success of strategies for sustainable fisheries management. Joint project with José A. Padín

Margaret Everett, Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies

Ph.D. Yale, 1996.

Research Interests: Health and Migration, Diabetes, Nutrition, Medical Anthropology, Latin American Studies, Health Policy, New Genetics

Projects: 1) I am currently conducting research on the social determinants of diabetes in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the relationship between local beliefs and practices around diabetes management and the biomedical model. For the past two years I have conducted interviews with diabetics and doctors in a low-income clinic near the city of Oaxaca in order to better understand patient and physician “Explanatory Models” of the disease. 2) Qualitative assessment of the HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living) program in Northeast Portland (with Heather Hartley). The HEAL Program is a participatory, community-based approach to improving childhood nutrition and activity. Working with the Multnomah County Health Department, we will be conducting interviews with community partners in order to identify program successes and challenges. 3) Social and cultural implications of the New Genetics. I have written several articles about the rise of genetic privacy concerns in the U.S., including Oregon’s landmark Genetic Privacy Act. The mapping of the human genome has been accompanied by a proliferation of genetic explanations for everything from heart disease to mental illness and has sparked both hope for new medical treatments and anxiety about discrimination and loss of privacy. More recently, I have begun to look at how genetics and notions of family inheritance may or may not be meaningful to diabetics and physicians in Mexico, and how genetic explanations may impact family dynamics and management strategies.

Grant M. Farr, Professor and Associate Dean of College of Liberal Arts & Sciences,

Ph.D. University of Washington, 1974.

Interests: Middle East and Central Asian Societies, Islam, Research Methods

Projects: Professor Farr is presently working the role of the Islamic seminaries, or madrassas, in Afghanistan. This research is funded though a grant by the National Bureau of Asian Research and is a three year project to examine the role Islam and Islamic schools throughout South Asia. Two articles have been published on this topic. In addition, he has recently published an article on the Hazara, an ethnic group that lives in the high mountains of Central Afghanistan.

Bob Liebman, Professor

Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1981.

Interests: Social Movements, Religious Attachments and Group Identities, Comparative-Historical Analyses

Projects: 1. Balancing Acts: Determinants of difference in how faculty manage
work:family and teaching:research:service; 2. Schisms, mergers, and transformations in US religious bodies denominations and congregations; 3. Jews and Superheroes: The Beginning of Comic Books in the US

Jose Padin, Associate Professor

Ph.D. University of Wisconsin -- Madison, 1998

Interests: Visions of Power, Immigration, Race, and Gender in the Media; Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. and in Comparative Perspective; U.S. Power Elite; Educational Inequalities; International Political Economy

Projects:
1. Life in Racially Integrated Neighborhoods
2. Latino Immigrants and Children of Immigrants in New High Immigration States (focus: Pacific Northwest)
3. Hidden Curriculum of Power, Immigration, Race and Gender in Conservative Talk Radio All of this research offers the choice of working with quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods.
4. Government Distrust and Alienation Among Gillnetters and Trollers in Oregon: Overcoming Barriers to Cooperation in Resource-Based Coastal Communities. This research addresses the gap in our understanding of the causes of trust and distrust of government in general, and of management agencies in particular, among groups of community stakeholders whose cooperation is essential to the success of strategies for sustainable fisheries management. Joint project with Veronica Dujon

Alex Stepick, Professor & Director, Center for Health and Social Inequality Research

Ph.D. University of California, Irvine 1974

Interests: Social Inequalities, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity, Urban Studies, Mexico and Caribbean

Projects: My most recent book, Churches and Charity in the Immigrant City (Rutgers U Press, 2009) is an application of social capital theory to religious congregations. My previous work in general has been on immigrants, established residents, and power. With Carol Dutton Stepick I am writing a comprehensive review and revision of segmented assimilation theory. In Portland, my goal is to help the Sociology Department develop a research focus on Portland that examines immigration, ethnicity, and power. I am also working on a revision and update of my first book, Social Inequality in Oaxaca (Temple U Press, 1991).

Daniel Monroe Sullivan, Associate Professor

Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, 2000.

Interests: Urban neighborhoods, gentrification, racial and socio-economic segregation/integration, learner-centered approaches to teaching and learning.

Projects: I am examining three Northeast Portland neighborhoods that are racially and socio-economically mixed, looking at residents, businesses, and community organizations. Using mixed methods, I am analyzing informal interactions, participation in neighborhood organizations, and view of neighborhood changes. This project has several facets that have already been completed: (1) 646 surveys of residents, (2) 111 follow-up interviews with residents who participated in the resident surveys, and (3) 164 surveys of businesses and organizations. I am currently using NSF funding to conduct (4) approximately 80 follow-up interviews with long-time organizations and businesses to examine whether and how they are adapting to neighborhood racial and socioeconomic changes. I am also part of a university-wide group of faculty who are discussing (5) ways of improving our teaching through learner-centered teaching and learning. Parts of this research have been funded by the National Science Foundation (Sociology), National Science Foundation (Research Experiences for Undergraduates), the American Sociological Association's Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline, and various grants from Portland State University.

Melissa Thompson, Assistant Professor

Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 2003.

Interests: Criminology, Gender, Sociology of Mental Illness, Sociology of Law, Illegal Substance Use.

Projects: (1) A study of the gendered relationship between mental illness, substance use, and crime. (2) Examining the effect of gender on illegal substance use and illegal earnings based on embeddedness in conventional and criminal activities and networks. (3) A project examining the effect of childhood ADHD symptoms and labeling on adult outcomes—including educational attainment, employment, income, and crime. (4) A project with Matt Carlson that will investigate health disparities experienced by African Americans caused by the criminal justice system. This project investigates the effects of prison and post-prison treatment for mental illness and drug abuse on rates of recidivism.

Michael A. Toth, Professor

Ph.D. University of Utah, 1973

Interests: Theory, religion, gender roles, organizations and leadership. Currently working on two manuscripts: (1) an exploration of the inverse relationship between necessity and illusion in contemporary society, (2) an attempt to articulate a comprehensive explanation for the universal predilection of humans to preferentially associate with “their own kind.”
Projects:

updating an article I originally published in Teaching Sociology in 1980, called "Figures of Thought: The Use of Diagrams in Teaching Sociology", with examples I have developed in teaching my sociological theory and sociology of religion classes over the past 40 years.
extending as essay I originally published in Great Debates and Ethical Issues: Weber State College Centennial Honors Lecture Series in 1989, called "The Decline of Necessity, the Incline of Illusion", which struggles with the Durkheimian question of how can modern (and more challengingly) postmodern societies hold together.
I am sporadically at work on two essays, one of which involves extending an article, also from some years past, called "The Decline of Necessity, The Incline of Illusion." which struggles with the Durkheimian question of how can modern (and more challengingly) postmodern societies hold together, the other tackling an equally difficult issue that inverts Rodney King's now famous plaint, "Why can't we just get along?", to examine and hopefully to explain why it is that there are very good reasons for "Why We Can't Just Get Along" (which at this point is the working title).

Finally, in the spring of '08 I will be teaching two courses in our Study Abroad Program in London. One course is called "Studies in Charismatic Leadership: Churchill and Hitler", which is self explanatory. The other course is called "Great Social Transformation: Precursors of the Present" which looks at some of the major social/historical shifts that transformed western society over the past 500 years, and increasingly have altered the rest of the world. These transformations include the rise of democratic government, the Protestant reformations, the scientific and industrial revolutions, the emergence of the middle class, Darwinism, the 30 years of world wars from 1914 to 1945, and the invention of the Middle East, all of which have deep roots in England. Both of these courses involve time not only in the classroom but more importantly on a variety of local and extended excursions in London and its surrounds. More information is directly available on my webpage.

Lindsey Wilkinson Assistant Professor

Ph.D, University of Texas, Austin, 2008

Interests: Educational stratification, race/ethnicity, immigrant adaptation, and transition to adulthood

Projects: 1) Effects of high school ESL placement on academic achievement, course taking, and language use in young adulthood, 2) Impact of neighborhood and school context on language use in young adulthood, 3) Understanding inconsistent reporting of race/ethnicity and its relationship to assimilation and measurement of race/ethnic differences in educational outcomes, 4) The well-being of sexual minority youth and heteronormativity within high schools

Hyeyoung Woo Assistant Professor

Ph.D, University of Texas, Austin, 2008

Interests: Health and Well-Being, Social Demography, Sociology of Family, Aging and the Life Course, Race and Ethnic Relations, and Quantitative Research Methods.

Projects: My research is centered on the topics of health and well-being, family behaviors, and race/ethnicity to better understand how social relations create and shape health inequalities. More specifically, I am currently working on several projects about: 1) the impacts of transitions to adulthood on health and well-being; 2) race and ethnic variations in family behaviors and their associations to health outcomes; and 3) changes in individual health and well-being consequences by social factors over the life course.