UMass Boston

Research & Impact

Full-time Sociology faculty members have earned doctorates from major universities and are active researchers in their fields of study. Our lecturers are active in urban affairs, clinical settings, and criminal justice administration, and many conduct research as well. 

Faculty Research Specializations

Globalization, Immigration and Migration:
Capetillo, Montalva Barba, Okigbo, Solari

Criminology, Law and Punishment: 
Brown, Contreras, Gascón, Leverentz, Nevin, Zaykowski

Race/Ethnicity and Urban/Community: 
Contreras, Gascón, Okigbo

Critical Race Theory: 
Montalva Barba

Gender: 
Montalva Barba, Okigbo, Solari
Bobel

Culture, Group Processes, and Identity:  
Capetillo, Okigbo, Rodriquez, Solari, Stewart, Youngreen

Mental Health, Health and Aging:  
Contreras, Rodriquez
Burr, Mutchler, Stokes, Sprague

Political Sociology and Public Policy: 
Brown, Stewart
Kallman, MacIndoe, Warren

Research Methods:  

Current Funded Projects

Professor Daniel Gascón: 2022-2023 Principal Investigator, Moral Wars, Articulation, and Mass Criminalization in the United States. UMass Boston Labor Resource Center Faculty Research Grant, $2,500. UMass Boston Restorative Justice Commission Special Mention Award, $2,000. The study draws on newspaper articles and government reports to examine the institutional and organizational contexts of police brutality in Los Angeles and Boston during the height of the so-called "Superpredator" panic of the 1980s and 1990s.

Professor Russell Schutt: 2020–2023 Principal Investigator, Comparative Effectiveness of Cognitive Enhancement Therapy versus Social Skills Training in Serious Mental Illness. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (prime: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute), $177,707.

Professor Cinzia Solari: 2022-2023 Principal Investigator, Nonbinary and Transgender Students’ Experiences Navigating High School. UMass Boston Healey Grant, $7,176. The study aims to uncover school practices that support nonbinary and transgender students as well as propose new practices, derived from our data, that might increase inclusion.

Professor Evan Stewart: 2021–2023  Principal Investigator, Public Religious Repertoires in the United States. Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, $29,754. This project measures how people evaluate various public religious repertoires to determine which ones currently shape U.S. civic life and politics.

Recent Publications

Montalva Barba, Miguel. 2023. To move forward, we must look back: White supremacy at the base of urban studies. Urban Studies, 60(5), 791-810.

Okigbo, Karen Amaka. 2023. "Nigerian Intermarriage: Making Black Diversity Visible." Contexts, 22(1):60-62.

Rodriquez, Jason, Anmol Gupta, Staci Ballard, and Gary Siperstein. “Positive Identity Development through Community Engagement Among Emergent Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.” Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. 2023.

Solari, Cinzia D. “Gender, Modernity, and Russia’s War on Ukraine.” Footnotes: A Magazine of the American Sociological Association 51(1). 2023.

Radhakrishnan, Smitha and Cinzia D. Solari (equal coauthors). Forthcoming, 2023. The Gender Order of Neoliberalism. Polity Press.

Stewart, Evan. 2023. "Rethinking Religion & Political Participation: The Case of Voting Among Religiously Unaffiliated Americans." Sociology of Religion. Online first.

Stewart, Evan, Penny Edgell, and Jack Delehanty. “Public Religion and Gendered Attitudes.” Social Problems. 2023. Online first.

Stewart, Evan, and Diane Beckman. 2023. "Shifting or Settled? Tracking Racial Animus During COVID-19." Social Psychology Quarterly. 86(3):312-333.

Dacey, Timothy and Evan Stewart. 2023. "The Green Elephants in the Room: Perceived Environmental Harm and Support for Regulation Among Republicans." Sociological Inquiry 93(2):250-72.