Abstract: Racial homophily – the tendency to form ties with same-race colleagues – is common in workplace networks, including schools. But we know less about how it varies across relationship types and organizational racial composition. We examine racial homophily in teachers’ instructional advice, disciplinary advice, and friendship networks, comparing Black and White teachers in majority-White and majority-Black schools. Using pooled network models across four schools, we find that homophily patterns vary systematically by tie type and context. In instructional advice networks, White teachers show same-race homophily in both majority-White and majority-Black faculty contexts, while Black teachers do not show a clear same-race pattern in either context. In disciplinary advice networks, both groups show context-sensitive homophily: Black teachers show homophily in both contexts but more strongly in majority-White schools, whereas White teachers show homophily only in majority-Black schools. In friendship networks, Black and White teachers show homophily in both contexts, and for both groups it is stronger when they are in the numerical minority. These findings show that racial boundary-making in schools is not uniform: it depends on the social content of ties and the organizational composition in which those ties form.
Variations in the Centrality/Trust Relationship in Network Communities (With Karen A. Hegtvedt, chapter forthcoming in the Handbook of Trust and Social Networks)
Abstract: Prior research suggests that the relationship between network centrality and trust at the individual level is positive: occupying positions of higher centrality is associated with having perceptions of higher trust in others. However, broader research on meso-level networks suggests that communities within a wider network also exert their own influence over network outcomes, creating conditions that structure individual action. We draw upon rich qualitative data from a study of teachers’ coworker relationships in four public high schools to examine how belonging to a central or peripheral community of close contacts is related to perceptions of generalized trust in colleagues averaged across group members. We find that the relationship between centrality and trust at the group level varied by school. Mechanisms that appeared to drive distrust among central groups at two schools included negative evaluations of coworkers’ contributions and internal threats, whereas at the other two schools, defending against an external threat affected trust-building. Such patterns highlight how factors characterizing network communities aid in understanding the relationship between centrality and trust, beyond the individual level.
- Pre-registered at REES under #6641.1v1 “Social dynamics in the school workplace”
Abstract: Metastereotypes—an individual’s or group’s projection of what members of outgroups think about that individual or group (e.g., “I think they think I’m ignorant”)—are an important factor in intergroup interactions, particularly interracial interactions. Metastereotype content varies by race of the perceiver, yet research has not yet explained the mechanisms of this variation, nor has research determined how context might shape metastereotype activation. We examine these questions of mechanisms and contextual activation in the case of manager-employee interactions, as managers are especially important in advancing workplace diversity and inclusion. Our original vignette experiment explores how White and Black teachers interpret a potentially racially biased action by a school principal, and how the workplace racial composition and principal’s race moderate teachers’ perceptions of the scenario. We find that differing awareness of other groups’ perspectives, akin to Du Bois’ double-consciousness, helps explain diverging metastereotype content between White and Black teacher respondents. Further, we find that workplace racial composition and the principal’s race independently and additively activated Black teachers’ threat-based metastereotypes. White teachers’ threat-based metastereotypes, in contrast, were not influenced by contextual factors. Our findings extend metastereotype theory by addressing predictors of metastereotype content and activation and showing that these operate asymmetrically across dominant and dominated racial groups. We conclude by considering practical contributions of our findings in terms of the need for more contextually informed managerial approaches to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Abstract: Prior research on school reform implementation has demonstrated that school leaders may translate policies into practice in ways that either promote or undermine the policy’s goals. To generate a more in-depth understanding about how principal attitudes toward policies relate to how they implement them, we applied insights from the sociological theory of professional control. We drew on interviews with 30 school administrators who were experiencing the rollout of a more rigorous and centralized screening protocol for teacher applicants in the Los Angeles Unified School District. We found that principals’ perceptions of the policy ranged from positive to very negative, and they also varied in how much discretion they exercised in their own subsequent hiring practices. Perhaps counterintuitively, principals with positive perceptions of the district’s protocols enacted the most assertive strategies to recruit teachers. Our findings advance research and theory on how school leaders’ attitudes about policies influence policy implementation.
“Fair Across the Board? Teachers’ Perceptions of Principal Versus Assistant Principals’ Leadership.” (2024, EAQ, with J. Ahn and K. Hegtvedt) (also here)
Little is known about how teachers view the leadership of assistant principals in comparison to that of principals, especially in relationship to teachers’ work outcomes. We examine whether a gap exists between teachers’ perceptions of fairness from principals and assistant principals, and whether this gap is associated with teachers’ commitment to their school. Research Methods: We employ mixed methods with a converging evidence model to understand the relationship between teachers’ perception gaps and commitment outcomes. We analyze interview data from 98 teachers across five high schools in one metropolitan area in the U.S. South to describe these gaps, and analyze survey data from 354 teachers from these same schools using structural equation modeling. Findings: Our qualitative analysis uses a typology to show examples of typical work scenarios where a teacher perceives a gap or no gap in fairness. Results from our quantitative data analysis suggest teachers express more commitment when they assess as fair (i.e., unbiased) the performance feedback from assistant principals rather than head principals. Yet, teacher commitment hinges on greater considerate interpersonal treatment from principals than from assistant principals. Overall, gaps in administrator fairness are associated with lower average teacher commitment. Implications for Research and Practice: Our investigation advances understandings of school leadership by clarifying role distinctions between principals and assistant principals that go beyond task types and considering expectations teachers hold of different school administrators. These perception differences matter as they appear associated with levels of teacher commitment.
How White Workers Navigate Racial Difference in the Workplace: Social-Emotional Processes and the Role of Workplace Racial Composition (2023, Work and Occupations, with Tiffany D. Johnson) (or preprint here)
Abstract: Research on racialized emotions and racialized organizations has begun to inform how we understand social interactions in the workplace and their implications for racial inequality. However, most research to date focuses on the experiences and coping strategies of racial minority workers, especially when confronted with instances of racial prejudice and discrimination. We extend research on racialized emotions in the workplace by mapping the stages of belonging/unbelonging white workers go through when they encounter instances of racial discomfort or perceived prejudice in the workplace. This is an important contribution to the study of race and work because existing research suggests the deleterious effects for people of color when white people experience negative emotions such as threat, fear, and anxiety in interracial encounters. Drawing on interview data with 56 white teachers in a metropolitan area in the U.S. Southeast, we document a process of racialized belonging. This is a process whereby white workers experienced varying degrees of surprise, confusion, frustration, and fear resulting from interracial experiences with coworkers as well as students. We note how the process is informed by racialized imprinting prior to workplace entry and followed by racialized emotions and racialized coping. Racial composition of the workplace also played a role, though the process looked similar across contexts. We argue that by accounting for white workers’ prior life experiences as well as organizations’ involvement in accommodating their emotional expectations, the way white workers behave when race becomes salient to them in service-based professional work can be better understood, anticipated, and addressed.
Race and Inequality at Work: An Occupational Perspective (2021, Sociology Compass, with S. Vallas) (also here)
Abstract: Recent research on racial inequality at work offers fruitful insights on the organizational conditions that reproduce racial segregation, racial disparities in wages, and racial hierarchies in the labor market and the workplace. Much less is known, however, about the specifically occupational influences that impinge on equitable work outcomes by race. In this paper, we explore three processes at the occupational level that relate to racial segregation, racialized access to resources, and status in one’s line of work. We review research on racial inequality at work over the last 20 years to elucidate what is known, and remains to be seen, about these occupational processes. First, we review how occupational members get selected, and attempt to self-select, into occupations via recruitment, licensing, credentialing, or certifications. Second, we consider how occupational incumbents teach, govern and evaluate new entrants, and with what consequences for racial inclusion/exclusion and retention in careers. Third, we examine research on client- or service-based work, and highlight how workers navigate not only their roles, but also racial dynamics, vis-a-vis clients. We conclude with suggestions for how future research can harness occupational analysis to advance understanding of racial inequality at work.
Performance, Process, and Interpersonal Relationships: Explaining Principals’ Perceptions of the Quality of Principal Evaluation. (2021, EAQ, with Grissom and Cameron) (also here)
How do principals feel about the process by which they are evaluated? In this article, we find that it depends on individual and school characteristics, but also on elements of the process itself. We bring insights from organizational justice theory – which highlights the importance of employees’ perceptions of fairness in distribution of rewards, evaluation processes, and how they are treated by their supervisors – to bear on this question. Using longitudinal survey data from Tennessee principals paired with administrative data about their evaluation ratings and the backgrounds of their evaluators, we find that high school and more experienced principals have more negative attitudes towards their evaluations; observation scores of performance had a positive relationship with attitudes; and working longer with one’s evaluator and perceiving they were evaluated more frequently benefits principal attitudes about evaluation.
Unequal Pay for Equal Work? The Gender Gap in Principal Compensation. (2021, Economics of Education Review, with Grissom, Timmer, and Blissett) (also here)
In this article, we use longitudinal administrative data from the state of Missouri and SASS/NTPS data to document systematic lower salaries to female principals in each context. We explore different supply-side explanations for this gap – human capital differences, differences in choice of hours work (via “extra duty pay”), differences in mobility across schools over their careers, differences in performance ratings – and find that while some of these explain a portion of the gap, an outstanding gender pay gap remains, suggesting evidence of demand-side drivers of the wage gap.
How Organizational Minorities Form and Use Social Ties: Evidence from Teachers in Majority-White and Majority-Black Schools (2019, AJS) (also here)
Abstract: This paper draws on 11 months of multi-site ethnographic fieldwork and 103 interviews to investigate how teachers in school faculty of varying racial compositions form and use their social ties to secure professional, political, and emotional resources at work. Findings show that in general, white teachers in the numerical minority in their schools secured all resource types through their same-race ties, while black teachers in the numerical minority secured primarily emotional resources from theirs. Given these observed differences, I show how the form and use of the two minority groups’ social ties stem from distinctive organizational practices. In turn, the tie differences can account for differences in social integration and resource-access in the organization. The data allow for comparisons to patterns among majority groups.
Trust and Respect at Work: Justice Antecedents and the Role of Coworker Dynamics (2019, Work & Occupations, with Hegtvedt, Haardörfer, and Hayward) (also here)
Abstract: In this article, we address three overlooked issues regarding the well-established organizational justice and trust relationship: how an authority’s enactment of fair outcomes, procedures, and interactions “trickles down” to the development of coworker trust; how trust and respect represent distinct interpersonal outcomes; and whether coworker dynamics mediate these relationships. Using original survey data collected at two time points from 354 high school teachers, the authors investigate justice antecedents and the mediating role of coworker dynamics using structural equation modeling. The authors find that the effects of the authority’s (i.e., principal’s) distributive and procedural justice actions on coworker trust and respect do “trickle down” and are mediated through coworkers’ collective responsibility and work communication. In contrast, principal’s interpersonal justice has no effect on coworker dynamics or interpersonal outcomes, but coworker interpersonal justice enhances these outcomes. The results of this study also provide empirical support for the conceptual distinctiveness of trust and respect in the workplace.
In this project, we build on cultural mismatch literature to address dynamics across home and school spheres among adolescents in an economically disadvantaged school context. Using in-depth ethnographic data from students in a Chicago public middle school, we propose a cultural alignment framework that considers the interaction between organizational routines, cultural practices, and the habits children carry across spheres to produce varying degrees of technological competence.
Pathways to Green(er) Pastures: Reward Bundles and Turnover Decisions in a Semi-Profession.” (2017, Qualitative Sociology) (earlier thesis version here)
In this study, my Master’s thesis, I conducted 40 structured interviews with urban school teachers and used Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to examine how work rewards bundle together and influence these workers’ staying and leaving decisions. This study received the Blyler Graduate Student Research Award from the Department of Sociology at Emory in 2013.
‘I’m a Teacher, Not a Babysitter:’ Workers’ Strategies for Managing Identity-Related Denials of Dignity in the Early Childhood Workplace. (2016, Research in the Sociology of Work, with Amanda Lewis) (or preprint here)
In this study of how workplace context impacts early childhood educators’ identity strategies, my co-author and I conducted and analyzed ethnographic interviews with a sample of 27 preschool and preK teachers in the metro Atlanta area. We found that teachers navigate and solve identity problems they encounter in the course of doing their jobs by creatively converting these problems into resources with which to protect their occupational identities. However, the problems, resources, and identity strategies vary by work context (sector and school type).
WORKING PAPERS (SELECTION)
A State-by-State Study of Policy and Program Diffusion in Alternate Certification Programs, 1985-2012. With Anand Swaminathan and Demetrius Lewis. In progress.
This diffusion study seeks to understand what social-economic-political factors in each U.S. state predict its time of adoption of different forms of alternate route teacher certification laws. We use event history analysis to examine intrastate propensity factors versus interstate contagion factors that facilitate policy spread. Our unique dataset is drawn from annual volumes published by the National Center for Education Information (NCEI) for the years 1990-2010, and NCES, DES, Census, BLS, Statistical Abstracts, and Klarner for various state-level educational, social, economic and political statistics for those years.
Navigating cascades of change across workplace hierarchy: The case of an academic library as an educational organization. Under revision.
This study investigates how long reorganization periods in an educational organization affect its internal workplace dynamics, using an academic library within a university setting as an illustrative case. Current research on educational change, the purpose of education, and just learning environments pinpoint that professional and workplace dynamics of educational institutions are key to implementing change as well as reflecting and facilitating an inclusive organizational climate for students (Bryk and Schneider 2002; Labaree 1997; Masterson 2001). I endeavor to show how processes of structural change and systemic issues of equity in the educational workplace are mutually constituted. Drawing on organizational theory about the hazards of long and “cascading” reorganization periods (Hannan, Pólos, and Carroll 2003), I examine how multiple and different organizational changes within one time period affect professionals’ work processes and experiences, especially as they relate to fair working conditions for faculty and staff. The case of librarians and library employees is appropriate for a study of change as it is a university unit subject to many external (state-level or profession-level) and internal (university- or library-level) pressures for change. This study contributes to educational research on change and equity as it highlights how these are related, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting organizational goals.
Enacting occupational values in peripheral spaces: Teachers’ work in the hallways With Beth A. Bechky and Anne-Laure Fayard. Under review.
Abstract: Today’s occupations face conflicting demands in the workplace, leading to diverse expectations of how to do a good job. While we know that occupational communities shape their members’ development of skills and knowledge, scholars have paid less attention to the spaces in which occupational values are shaped. This study demonstrates how occupational values are shaped within peripheral spaces in organizations. Drawing on a year-long ethnographic study of teachers in two high schools, we show that despite working in organizationally and physically similar environments, teachers in each school attached different meanings to the halls about what was appropriate and normal to do in them, and in turn, enacted different values in those spaces. While teachers in both schools enacted their values through the same three modes of practice – tangible, symbolic and evaluative – the content of these practices differed. In one school, teachers’ practices were oriented towards the occupational value of discipline: they broke up fights, reinforced rules and maintained order in the hallway. In the other, the teacher community is oriented towards academics: they display student work and discuss pedagogy in the hall. These findings uncover a mechanism by which occupational communities shape, enact, and maintain varied occupational values: through shared spaces and the social designations that help communities negotiate values in those spaces. We also show how teacher’s values rested on the different ways occupational membership was constructed in their respective occupational communities. Our findings point to the importance of peripheral spaces for how work gets done and suggest how these overlooked spaces influence the development of occupational communities.