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Family Research Scholars Program
FAMILY RESEARCH SCHOLARS 2006-2007
Michelle Budig, Associate Professor of Sociology
545-5972, budig@soc.umass.edu
Michelle Budig's research interests focus on gender, employment, labor markets, earnings, stratification, and family. Her work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, Gender & Society, Social Science Research, and the International Journal of Sociology.
As a scholar, Budig will be working with 2006-2007 Family Research Scholar, Jennifer Hickes Lundquist on two projects. In the first project, they will investigate how work-family reconciliation policies affect women's family formation patterns across twenty-two countries. Governments have enacted many of these policies to slow or reverse fertility decline, but little research has directly examined the effects of policies, such as paid maternity leave, publicly subsidized day care, or leave targeted for fathers, on women's fertility. In the second project, they will investigate the growing differences in family formation patterns among social groups in the U.S. Their research to date suggests that socioeconomic opportunity and race shape the "opportunity costs" associated with childbearing. They will be extending this research to examine how state-level family policies shape family formation across differing states and regions within the U.S. They will pay close attention to how these policies differently impact racial/ethnic groups.
Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Assistant Professor of Sociology
545-5977, lundquist@soc.umass.edu
A social demographer with an emphasis on race and ethnic stratification, family formation patterns and immigration, Lundquist evaluates racial disparities along a variety of demographic outcomes, including marriage, family stability, fertility and health. Her work in this area extends to an exploration of the neighborhood effects of residential segregation as well as a re-evaluation of race relations from a social contact hypothesis perspective. Lundquist's research also seeks to uncover the relationship between U.S. community racial segregation and racial disparities. She also explores the socioeconomic similarities and differences between white and black women who are childless, mothers of only children, and mothers of two or more children. She will be working with Michelle Budig this year as they pursue a collaborative research initiative.
Jennifer Foster, Assistant Professor of Nursing
545-1243, jwfoster@nursing.umass.edu
Jennifer Foster holds a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology and is certified as a Nurse-Midwife. Her academic teaching and research interests include reproductive health, midwifery and health care, social inequality, medical anthropology, gender relations, and Latin America and Latino populations in the US.
As a CRF Family Research Scholar, Foster will be conducting a two phase project to reduce maternal mortality in the Dominican Republic. The project will include an assessment of barriers to acceptable quality prenatal care during the first phase, followed by prospectively testing the public health midwifery intervention of case management with linkages to delivery providers, in a sample of adolescent pregnant girls in the Dominican Republic.
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Brenda Bushouse, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy
545-1453, bushouse@polsci.umass.edu
Brenda Bushouse's primary research and teaching interest centers around the role of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. Her previous research focused on understanding nonprofit delivery of human services in industries also populated by public and for-profit providers, such as child care. Currently her nonprofit research is focused on governance issues and how they impact nonprofit accountability, effectiveness, and decision making in nonprofit organizations.
Bushouse's main policy interest is in federal, state, and local policy solutions to child care problems. As a scholar, she will examine early education and care in the United States by analyzing the impacts of different policy designs on program implementation outcomes. The research will inform how governmental action results in dynamic industry change with both intended and unintended consequences.
Nilanjana Dasgupta, Associate Professor of Psychology
545-0049, dasgupta@psych.umass.edu
Nilanjana Dasgupta's research focuses on beliefs and attitudes toward social groups, with special attention to mental processes that promote intergroup stereotypes and prejudices that guide social behavior. Her recent projects focus on: (a) specifying factors that create and magnify stereotypes and prejudice without people's awareness or control, (b) examining their influence on behavior, and (c) developing strategies aimed at undermining such biases. Dasgupta recently recieved a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate what enhances or constrains female students in studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
As a CRF scholar, Dasgupta will continue her work examining how the culture in which people live shapes their overt and covert judgments and behavior toward ingroups (social groups to which they belong) and outgroups (social groups to which they don't belong).
Maureen Perry-Jenkins, Associate Professor of Psychology
545-0258, mpj@psych.umass.edu
Maureen Perry-Jenkins is a nationally renowned scholar whose contributions on the national, state, regional, and university levels have had profound impact. Her work focuses on the ways in which socio-cultural factors such as race, gender, and social class, shape the mental health and family relationships of parents and their children. Using a longitudinal research methodology, Perry-Jenkins' research examines the work and family experiences of blue-collar families, with particular attention to the experiences of people transitioning to parenthood, their early return to paid employment, and the effects on working-class parents' psychological well-being and personal relationships.
As a CRF Scholar, Dr. Perry-Jenkins will continue to examine the unique challenges facing low-income families as they juggle the demands of work and new parenthood. This project builds on an eight year NIH-funded study and will examine how early work conditions of parents are related to parents' and children's changes in mental health over time, with an eye towards the ways in which socio-cultural factors shape these relationships.
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