Academics

Faculty & Staff

photo of Keith Bentele

Keith Bentele, PhD

  • Assistant Professor of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts
  • Telephone: 617-287-4056
  • Fax: 617-287-6288
  • Office Location: Wheatley Hall,04,00018

Areas of Expertise

Stratification, Inequality, Political Sociology, Public Policy

Degrees

PhD, University of Arizona

Professional Publications & Contributions

  • Bentele, Keith G. & Alexander Ibsen. (forthcoming) “Exploring the Patent Surge: Increased Incentives or Multiplying Motives?” Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society.

  • Bentele, Keith G., Rebecca Sager, Gary Adler Jr., & Sarah A. Soule. 2013. “Breaking Down the Wall Between Church and State: State Adoption of Religious Inclusion Legislation, 1995-2009” Journal of Church and State.

  • Bentele, Keith G. and Lane Kenworthy. 2013. “Globalization and Earnings Inequality in the United States.” In Robert Rycroft (Ed.) The Economics of Inequality, Poverty and Discrimination in the 21st Century. Praeger.

  • Bentele, Keith G. & Lisa Thiebaud Nicoli. 2012. “Ending Access as We Know It: State Welfare Benefit Coverage in the TANF Era.” Social Service Review, 86 (2): 223-268.

  • Lane Kenworthy and Keith G. Bentele. 2011. "How Trickle Down Can Fail: The U.S. Case." in Progress for the Poor. Oxford University Press, pp. 19-33.

  • Sager, Rebecca & Keith G. Bentele. “State Faith-Based Practices and the Dual Cultural Processes of Desecularization and Devolution of the Public Sector.” Paper presented at Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management annual meeting in November 2008, Los Angeles, CA.

  • Bentele, Keith G. & Lisa Theibaud. “Ending Access as We Know It? Determinants of State Welfare Benefit Coverage in the TANF Era” Paper presented at American Sociological Association annual meeting in August 2008, Boston, MA.

  • Bentele, Keith G. “Distinct Paths to Higher Inequality? Earnings Inequality in the United States, 1980-2005” Paper presented at American Sociological Association annual meeting in August 2008, Boston, MA.

  • King, Brayden G, Keith G. Bentele, and Sarah A. Soule. 2007. “Protest and Policymaking: Explaining Fluctuation in Congressional Attention to Rights Issues, 1960-1986.” Social Forces, 86:137-164.

Additional Information

View Professor Bentele's Curriculum Vitae

Current Research

An examination of the impact of the 2007-09 recession on both racial and ethnic wealth inequality and the performance of U.S. safety net programs. A project exploring the causes of dramatic reductions in the number of TANF caseloads. Research on the determinants of earnings inequality, incarceration rates, and the proliferation of faith-based legislation at the U.S. state-level.