Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC) UC Berkeley

Center for the Comparative Study of Right-wing Movements
Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention
Youth Experiences of Neighborhood Change
Health Consequences of Berkeley’s School Lunch Initiative
Health and Immigration Consortium
Immigration, Acculturation and Health Disparities Initiative
Measure for Measure: Social Ontologies of Classification
Mission District Radio Documentary Project
Participatory Research for Environmental and Economic Justice Working Group
Political Socialization in Mixed-status Immigrant Families Project
Singles Studies Project

In 2004, ISSC launched a major interdisciplinary research program: the New Metropolis Initiative. This initiative examines the social, economic, and political trends that have been transforming urban life in the United States. Researchers from a wide array of fields explore the complex and interconnected changes in the urban social landscape, their implications for conditions of inequality, and the potential for effective reform. A major focus of our current research is how immigration, globalization, economic restructuring, and development of new technologies intersect with and shape the social, political, educational, and health trajectories of youth and young adults, as well as youth culture and the daily practices of youth and their families.

Right-wing movements are notably diverse. Various movements focus on social or religious issues, some on nationalism or race, sometimes with militaristic tendencies, others on economic doctrines. The most successful right-wing movements manage to assemble coalitions which include elements from more than one of these categories. For most of the twentieth century, the Right in the industrialized West, including such satellite areas as Latin America, had a transcendent issue, one which easily overcame the particular claims of individual movements and points of view, and created a unified lens through which the world was perceived and which directed action. This was anti-communism. So transcendent an issue was anti-communism in the twentieth century, it also united the Right with the major political parties and movements on the center-left, parties like the Democratic Party in the USA and social democratic parties in Europe. With the end of the cold war, anti-communism was spent as a unifying force. Pent-up for decades, particular right-wing movements now spun on to the political stage with centripetal energy. In a few cases, these groups have managed to find a basis for alliance and have come to power. Others have created chaotic international hot spots.

The mission of the Center is twofold: first, to identify these movements, flesh out their twentieth-century histories—how they aligned and how they survived—and at the same time isolate what is novel in the twenty-first century; and second, to develop and apply principles of how right-wing thought, ideology and organizational capacities operate to understand the state of the contemporary Right and identify its likely directions and successes. The Center will achieve this mission by encouraging and nurturing comparative scholarship on right-wing movements both in the U.S. and abroad during the 20th and 21st centuries. The Center will promote research, publish research findings, support graduate and undergraduate training, and host conferences, colloquia and other public events that bring together leading scholars to share new research and engage in interdisciplinary dialog related to this field of study.

Executive Director and Lead Researcher:
Dr. Lawrence Rosenthal, Visiting Research Sociologist, ISSC

Program Manager:
Dr. Christine Trost, Assistant Director, ISSC

Graduate and Undergraduate Mini-grant Program – 2009-2010

The Center for the Comparative Study of Right-wing Movements invites graduate and undergraduate students to apply for grants to assist with the development of student research projects on issues related to right-wing movements in the U.S. and other regions of the world.

Established in February 2009, the mission of the Center is to encourage and nurture comparative scholarship on right-wing movements in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and other regions of the world over the past hundred years. The Center is especially interested in supporting research that examines the diversity of right-wing movements and their respective emphasis on social and religious issues, nationalism and race, and economic doctrines. The Center promotes research, offers mini-grants, fellowships, and training opportunities to Berkeley students, publishes findings, and brings together leading scholars through conferences, colloquia, and other public events in order to engage in a comparative and interdisciplinary dialogue on right-wing ideology, politics, and organizational forms and their likely directions in the 21st century.

Eligibility:

Full-time UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students who are conducting individual research projects on right-wing movements in the U.S. and/or other parts of the world are eligible to apply. Proposals that support undergraduate thesis or graduate dissertation research are strongly encouraged. Undergraduates may apply for grants up to $500. Graduate students may apply for grants up to $1,000.

Grant Period and Use of Funds:

Funds may be used only to pay direct costs related to the proposed project, such as travel to research sites, research supplies, Xeroxing, transcription services, and equipment rental. Funds may not be used for equipment purchases, stipends, living expenses, conference attendance or educational travel. Grant payments will be made in the form of reimbursement for expenses.

Requirements:

All graduate students must work with a faculty mentor. Undergraduate students may work with a faculty mentor or with the Center for the Comparative Study of Right-wing Movement’s Program Director, Dr. Christine Trost. The student’s mentor must commit to supporting and advising the applicant throughout the research project.

All grantees must submit a brief midterm report describing progress made on their research goals, along with an evaluation form completed by the student’s mentor assessing the grantee’s progress to date.

Students must submit a final report no later than October 15, 2010 containing an itemized expense report, a statement of what was accomplished, and a list of papers and/or publications that directly or indirectly result from the grant.

Application Process:

click here

Applicant Information and Agreement Form
250-word Abstract of the project
Project Description: The project description should be no more than 1,000 words. It should include a description of the problem being studied, the research question and hypotheses, a description of the research methodology, and the contribution the research will make to the study of right-wing movements.
Budget and Explanation of Budget
Project Timeline
Protection of Human Subjects Compliance (if relevant)
Curriculum Vitae or Resumé
Signed Mentor Agreement Form

(Incomplete applications will not be considered.)

Please send one single-sided copy of your application materials to:

Dr. Christine Trost
Center for the Comparative Study of Right-wing Movements
Institute for the Study of Social Change
2420 Bowditch Street, MC 5670
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-5670

All application materials must be received by 4pm on Thursday, October 1, 2009, or they will not be considered.

For more information about the Center for the Comparative Study of Right-wing Movements and its Mini-grant Program, please contact Dr. Christine Trost, ctrost@berkeley.edu; 510.643-7237.

For more information, please contact Dr. Christine Trost: ctrost@berkeley.edu (510) 643-7237.

The Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention (the Center) is a project of the Institute for the Study of Social Change, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Law (Boalt Hall), and the University of California, San Francisco. The Center is one of eight Academic Centers for Excellence nationwide funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to address youth violence. Other Center partners include researchers from local institutions, community organizations, and state, local, and federal agencies. The Center’s goal is to reduce youth violence, especially among Asian/Pacific Islander (API) and Latino immigrant populations in Oakland, California.

Research

Roosevelt Village Center (RVC) Evaluation
Located in the Lower San Antonio district of Oakland, RVC is an after-school program primarily serving Latino and API youth. Using an integrated, multicultural theoretical framework to address youth violence, RVC works to prevent problematic behaviors while promoting positive ones. Led by Thao Le, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Colorado State University, the evaluation uses community-based participatory research to examine the effectiveness of RVC’s program.

School-Based Violence Prevention Research Project
The School-Based Violence Prevention Research Project, led by Emily Ozer, Assistant Professor of Public Health at UC Berkeley, uses youth action research to help address gaps in the integration of research and practice in school-based violence prevention in urban secondary schools serving immigrant youth and their families.

Youth Experiences of Neighborhood Change

While an extensive body of research documents links between neighborhood characteristics and youth outcomes, including education, health, and delinquency, the effects of neighborhood change on youth are unknown. In the summer of 2008, Jonathan Simon, UC Berkeley Professor of Law, is leading a pilot project, “Youth Violence and Neighborhood Change: New Immigrants in Oakland, California.” The pilot study, funded by the Berkeley Population Center, is focused on the San Antonio neighborhood of Oakland, is based on interviews with forty young adults about their experiences from ages 13-21. Findings from the pilot will be used to apply for additional funding to expand the study to include survey methods and to include gentrifying and stable neighborhoods in West Oakland.

Community Mobilization
A key project of the Center is to coordinate youth violence prevention efforts for the API and Latino communities of Oakland. These two communities share commonalities as immigrant and refugee groups working toward civic engagement and political representation. Through community mobilization efforts, the Center’s goal is to enhance community capacity to prevent and reduce youth violence through data gathering, information dissemination, and youth and community involvement.

Training and Internship Opportunities

Youth Violence Prevention Graduate Fellows Program
The Youth Violence Prevention Graduate Fellows Program is located at ISSC. For more than 30 years, ISSC has provided an interdisciplinary research and training environment as a complement to, and resource for, graduate programs in the social sciences and professional schools. The newly formed Youth Violence Prevention Graduate Fellows Program builds on these traditions. Fellows present their research at an academic symposium and publish working papers available through the California Digital Library.

Click here for more information about the Youth Violence Prevention Graduate Fellows Program or contact Dr. Deborah Lustig: dlustig@berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7238.

University-Community Network Internship Program
The U-C Network internship program is a year-long class for UC Berkeley undergraduate students. The class provides students interested in community-based, participatory research in youth violence prevention with research training and internships at community-based organizations in Oakland. For more information contact Caroline Glesmann, NCCD: cglesmann@sf.nccd-crc.org, (510) 208-0500.

NCCD Research/Policy Internship Program
NCCD interns assist with research, coordinate meetings, and conduct outreach. For more information contact Caroline Glesmann, NCCD: cglesmann@sf.nccd-crc.org, (510) 208-0500.

Events

Through events at UC Berkeley and in Oakland, the Center draws attention to youth violence and publicizes promising new directions in research, programs, and policy. Visit the Center’s website at www.yvpcenter.org for a calendar of events.

For more information, please download the Executive Summary, visit the Center website at www.yvpcenter.org, or contact Dr. Deborah Lustig: dlustig@berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7238.

Principal Investigators:
Franklin Zimring, William G. Simon Professor of Law, Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley
Thao Le, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University
Emily Ozer, Professor of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Jonathan Simon, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley

Research Affiliates and Staff:
Isami Arifuku, Senior Researcher, National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, Associate Professor of Education, UC Berkeley
Angela Gallegos-Castillo, Senior Research Associate, National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Caroline Glesmann, Research Associate, National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Barry A. Krisberg, President, National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Deborah Freedman Lustig, Research Associate and Training Coordinator, Institute for the Study of Social Change
Howard Pinderhughes, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UC San Francisco
Victor Rios, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Assistant Professor of Education, UC Berkeley

For a complete list please visit http://www.yvpcenter.org/people

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This project seeks to understand youth experiences of neighborhood change and how neighborhood change is associated with youth violence and other life outcomes. While much is known about neighborhood effects on youth; little is known about how neighborhood change may impact violence, education, employment, or other outcomes. The interview-based study focuses on young adults (ages 21-22) and their life experiences since age 13. Pilot funding has been obtained from the Berkeley Population Center to begin the research in the Lower San Antonio neighborhood of Oakland, a neighborhood experiencing a shift in racial/ethnic demographics. Grant proposals are under review at the Spencer Foundation and the National Science Foundation to expand the research to include a stable and a gentrifying neighborhood of West Oakland.

Co-investigators:
Dr. Jonathan Simon, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley
Dr. Victor Rios, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara
Dr. Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, Associate Professor of Education, UC Berkeley
Dr. Howard Pinderhughes, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UC San Francisco
Dr. Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Assistant Professor of Education, UC Berkeley
Dr. Deborah Lustig, Research Associate, Center on Culture, Immigration, and Youth Violence Prevention, UC Berkeley

Graduate Student Researchers:
Nicole Lindahl (Jurisprudence and Social Policy)
Kenzo Sung (Education)
Alex Schafran (City and Regional Planning)
Nicol U (Ethnic Studies)
Miranda Ritterman (Public Health)

Undergraduate Researchers:
Jennifer Millman
Luis Morales
Kyla Searle
Morgan Elam
Shafinaaz Kamrul
Dena Fehrenbacher
Laure Kohne
Mitzi Iniguez
Sandra Yang
Zachary Taylor

For more information, please contact Dr. Deborah Lustig: dlustig@berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7238.

Obesity as a serious health problem has increased significantly over the past decades, affecting two out of three U.S. adults and now becoming a pandemic among school-aged children, with one out of eight children now classified as obese, twice the number it was in 1980. While individual exhortation and prescription drugs have been the medical establishment’s major responses to this crisis, this project focuses on social and environmental approaches to altering the consumption patterns that are associated with obesity. Specifically, the research chronicles, documents and assesses the normative environment around a bold and innovative food consumption school intervention project – Berkeley’s School Lunch Initiative.

There are several school lunch initiatives around the country aimed at reducing students’ consumption of fast food – a direct response to a growing recognition of the escalating problem of childhood obesity and Type II diabetes in the United States. However, none is as comprehensive as the Berkeley Unified School District’s program, which integrates curricular development with engaged learning about growing food and the biochemical basis of its nutrients.

This study uses field observations, group interviews and ethnography to evaluate how culture, ethnicity and gender mediate food-related norms and practices and thus may lead different groups of students to respond differently to the transformation of their school/food environment. The second and more long-range goal is to measure the extent to which normative environmental change leads to changed eating behaviors. While some modest changes in select parts of the school population (based upon such factors as social class and parental attitudes) are to be expected, the pivotal research questions of this project revolve less around individual changed behavior and more directly on changes in the social environment which are likely to impact eating and health behaviors in the future.

Principal Investigators:
Troy Duster, Chancellor’s Professor, UC Berkeley
Deborah Woo, Professor of Community Studies, UC Santa Cruz

Project Directors:
David Minkus, Research Associate, UC Berkeley
Christine Trost, Research Associate, UC Berkeley

For more information, please contact Dr. Christine Trost: ctrost@berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7237.

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In Fall 2006, ISSC and the Center for Health Research founded the Health and Immigration Consortium, which is made up of organized research units and departments at UC Berkeley. The goal of the H&I Consortium is to produce research directed at improving the health of America’s im/migrant populations and the public policies that affect them. It seeks to do this by developing a series of interdisciplinary, collaborative, extramurally-funded projects related to health and im/migration and involving faculty and graduate students from across campus and the UC system. The Consortium also sponsors conferences, working groups, guest lectures and seminars, in addition to offering a bi-weekly graduate student workshop on health and immigration where graduate students present their work and hear informal presentations by academic researchers and policy makers.

H&I Steering Committee Co-Chairs:
Will Dow, Professor of Public Health and Vice-Chair, Berkeley Population Center
Rachel Moran, Professor of Law, Boalt Hall; Director, Institute for the Study of Social Change

H&I Steering Committee Members:
Lia Fernald, Professor of Public Health
Mary Louise Frampton, Director, Center for Social Justice, Boalt Hall
Sylvia Guendelman, Professor of Public Health
Denise Herd, Professor of Public Health
Andrés Jiménez, Director, California Policy Research Center, UC Office of the President
David Levine, Professor, Haas School of Business; Chair, Center for Health Research
David Montejano, Professor of Ethnic Studies; Director, Center for Latino Policy Research
Kurt Organista, Professor of Social Welfare
Emiliy Ozer, Professor of Public Health
Steve Raphael, Professor of Public Policy
Jeff Selbin, Clinical Professor of Law, Boalt Hall

H&I Steering Committee Support Staff:
Bob Barde, Deputy Director, Institute of Business and Economic Research
Peg Farrell, Program Manager, Center for Health Research
Christine Trost, Assistant Director, Institute for the Study of Social Change

For more information, please visit the Health and Immigration Consortium website at http://popcenter.berkeley.edu/research/immigration or contact Dr. Christine Trost: ctrost@berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7237.

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In Fall 2007, ISSC was awarded a Berkeley Research Futures Grant to launch a new interdisciplinary research program on Immigration, Acculturation and Health Disparities. Under the leadership of Sylvia Guendelman (Public Health) and in partnership with Alicia Fernandez (Clinical Medicine) and other collaborators at UCSF, this research initiative, which will be housed at ISSC, will examine the role that acculturation plays in immigrant health.

Studies have shown that immigrant health declines over time and across generations. This is surprising, given that the longer immigrants live in the U.S. the greater the likelihood that they will experience better education, higher income, and improved access to health services – all of which are associated with better health outcomes in other populations. Assimilation to U.S. social norms and values, including negative health behaviors, have been suggested as one potential explanation for increases in risk factors and poor health outcomes among immigrants with increased time spent in this society. However, the process of acquiring values, norms and behaviors of a new society (i.e., acculturation) is complex and may not follow along a linear path for all immigrant groups. Acculturation is not well understood. There is controversy among researchers on what constitutes its key domains and how to measure it. Yet there is widespread agreement that it is at the core of the immigrant – and specifically Latino – health paradox.

The Immigration, Acculturation and Health Disparities Initiative brings together faculty from a wide array of fields, including public health, social psychology, sociology, social welfare, clinical medicine, economics, law, and public policy, who share expertise in and concern for the challenges faced by immigrant populations in the U.S. Together, they will develop an integrated, interdisciplinary research agenda that will lead to better tools for measuring acculturation, comprehensive assessments of the impacts of acculturation on immigrant health and health care delivery, and innovative policy solutions, informed by research and designed to address and ultimately reverse health disparities in immigrant populations.

Faculty and graduate students who are interested in joining this Initiative should contact Dr. Christine Trost, (510) 643-7237, ctrost@berkeley.edu.

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This study analyzes why certain measurement, ranking or valuation technologies emerge and gain social authority and efficacy in certain social contexts –but not others. How should we conceptualize cross-national differences in measurement technologies? How do they relate to (and also shape) the cultural and institutional make-up of societies? How do local ways of classifying, ranking and valuing evolve when confronted with rival measures in the context of global economic competition and international legal rules?

The research project is grounded in a series of three case studies comparing different ways of organizing and evaluating the world in France and the United States. The first study analyzes wine ranking systems in the two countries: the purpose here is to reveal the cultural and institutional assumptions that lie behind the way people in these two societies go about establishing and reproducing market hierarchies. The second study compares legitimate frameworks for the production and ordering of knowledge in the two societies and is based on an empirical investigation of book digitization projects. This particular research is being carried out together with the assistance of a graduate student from the Berkeley sociology department, Roi Livne. Finally, the third study analyzes attitudes and practices relating to monetary valuation and compares the willingness of people and institutions in each national context to put a price on the natural environment.

Principle Investigator:
Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley

Graduate Student Researcher:
Roi Livne (Sociology)

For more information, please contact Prof. Marion Fourcade: fourcade@berkeley.edu.

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The Mission District Radio Documentary Project is a collaboration between the ISSC and KALW public radio, 91.7 FM, in San Francisco. The project will result in a two hour radio documentary, broken into 15 minute installments, which explores the processes through which an Irish, unionist neighborhood was transformed into a working class Latino neighborhood. The documentary is tentatively titled "The New Public in the Old Neighborhood: Politics and Race in San Francisco's Mission District from the Great Quake to the Great Society."

Project Director::
Ocean Howell, Research Fellow, ISSC; Doctoral Candidate, Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley

Producer:
Thea Chroman, Associate Producer, KALW, 91.7 FM

For more information, please contact Thea Chroman at tchroman@gmail.com.

The Participatory Research for Environmental and Economic Justice Working Group is an interdisciplinary and multi-campus network of activist-scholars who are committed to engaging communities in the Bay Area and beyond in academic research that advances social, environmental, and economic justice.

The Working Group is currently organizing its activities.
These include:

A needs assessment of community groups and graduate students conducting participatory academic research;
A toolkit of contacts, best practices, and resources for activist-scholars doing community-engaged research;
A clearinghouse for community groups interested in collaborative research projects with graduate students;
An event series that convenes community groups and graduate students to dialogue about how to build more effective and accountable community-university research partnerships;
A space to exchange academic works-in-progress.

The Working Group meets monthly and is open to all with an interest in approaches to academic research that engage with communities and social movements for environmental and economic justice.

To join our meetings or get plugged into the group’s activities, please email Catalina Garzon at par_working_group@lists.berkeley.edu.

In December 2007, the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) awarded ISSC a large grant to study political socialization in mixed status families of Mexican, Chinese, and Vietnamese origin. Building upon an exploratory study of political socialization in Mexican-origin families with mixed citizenship status, which was also funded by RSF and housed at ISSC, this study examines the political socialization that children receive in mixed-status immigrant families and the ways in which native-born children might socialize their immigrant parents into American civic and political norms and behaviors.

Despite significant levels of Latino and Asian immigration, relatively low rates of political engagement and incorporation among these groups fuel an expanding gap between the new demographic reality of the United States and electoral participation. This project seeks to help explain this gap by re-considering an established literature on political socialization, which identifies families and parents’ as important socializing agents for their children. Through in-depth interviews with Asian and Latino teens and parents in mixed-status families, this project examines the intergenerational transfer of political information, the direction of political socialization in these families, and the effect of legal status on the civic and political engagement of immigrant parents and their adolescent children.

The findings of this study will contribute to the scholarly literature by showing how the immigrant experience complicates existing models of political socialization, especially by bringing in the agency of second-generation children, and by expanding the study of immigrant incorporation by considering political and civic engagement. It will also examine how differences in culture of origin and context of reception shape newcomers’ civic and political engagement. Beyond academia, the findings can inform the policies and practices of schools, government agencies, and other public and private institutions that seek to ensure a healthy future for our multicultural democracy.

Principal Investigator:
Irene Bloemraad, Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley

Project Director:
Christine Trost, Research Associate, UC Berkeley

Graduate Student Researchers:
Edwin Ackerman (Sociology)
Charlotte Chang (Public Health)
Ming Chen (JSP)
Julia Chuang (Sociology)
Angela Fillingim (Sociology)
Kimberly Hoang (Sociology)
Heidy Sarabia (Sociology)
Gordon Shen (Public Health)

Undergraduate Student Researchers:
Huan Jany Gao
Lucia Kuang
Annie Lin
Jinghan Liu
Xuan Vinh Luu
Ivy Ngo
Bao Chau Ngyuen
San Quintanar

Sociology Professor Irene Bloemraad (center, bright blue top) with her research team of Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students. (Dr. Christine Trost, Project Director and ISSC Assistant Director, in orange in the back row.)

To read more about the groundbreaking research of immigration scholar and UCB Sociology Professor Irene Bloemraad, click here. For more information about this project, please contact Dr. Christine Trost: ctrost@berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7237. , (510) 643-7237.

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The Singles Studies Project is a new initiative designed to address changing demographics in the United States and worldwide. Demographic trends show that the place of singles in American society (and many others) is becoming increasingly important. For example, more than 40% of the American adult population is divorced, widowed, or never married; Americans now spend more years of their adult life unmarried than married; and there are more single-person households than households comprised of mom, dad, and the kids. Yet, singles, and perspectives from single life, are not well-represented in scholarly research or teaching. This project encourages academics to integrate a singles perspective into their teaching and research. Ultimately, the project should promote interdisciplinary research, curricular change and policy reform.

Principal Investigators:
Bella DePaulo, Visiting Scholar of Psychology, UC Santa Barbara
Rachel F. Moran, Robert D. and Leslie-Kay Raven Professor of Law, Boalt Hall School of Law, and Director of ISSC
E. Kay Trimberger, Professor Emerita in Women’s and Gender Studies, Sonoma State College

For more information, please visit the Singles Studies website at: http://issc.berkeley.edu/singlesstudies .

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