Becky Pettit

Elizabeth M. "Becky" Pettit (born February 4, 1970)[1] is an American sociologist with expertise in demography.[2] She has been a professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin, as well as an affiliate at its Population Research Center, since 2014.[3] She is an advocate for decarceration in the United States.[4]

Elizabeth M. Pettit
Born (1970-02-04) February 4, 1970
EducationUniversity of California at Berkeley (B.A. 1992), Princeton University (M.A., 1997; Ph.D., 1999)
AwardsJames Short paper award from the American Sociological Association's Crime, Law, and Deviance Section
Scientific career
FieldsSociology, demography
InstitutionsUniversity of Texas-Austin, University of Washington
ThesisNavigating networks and neighborhoods: an analysis of the residential mobility of the urban poor (1999)
Doctoral advisorSara McLanahan

Education

Pettit received her B.A. summa cum laude from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992. She went on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1997 and 1999, respectively.[3]

Career

In 1999, Pettit joined the faculty of the University of Washington as an assistant professor of sociology, where she became an associate professor in 2007 and a full professor in 2011. For two years (2009-2011), she was the associate chair of the University of Washington's sociology department. In 2014, she left the University of Washington for the University of Texas-Austin.[3]

Research

Pettit's research focuses on various aspects of social inequality.[2] For instance, in her 2012 book Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress, she argues that mass incarceration in the United States has distorted our perception of racial equality because government surveys tend to undercount prisoners.[5][6] When, in this book, she added prisoners to these surveys, she found that the status of black Americans has not significantly improved since the 1960s.[7][8] She has also studied the effects of incarceration on families and racial inequality.[9] With Bruce Western, she has also studied other social consequences of incarceration, such as decreased earnings for former prisoners.[10][11]

Editorial activities

From 2011 to 2014, Pettit was the editor-in-chief of Social Problems.[2] She is currently an advisory editor for Social Problems[12] and a member of the editorial board of American Sociological Review.[13]

References
  1. "Becky Pettit". Library of Congress.
  2. "Becky Pettit". Department of Sociology. University of Texas at Austin.
  3. "Becky Pettit CV". University of Texas-Austin. Archived from the original on 2017-03-29. Retrieved 2017-03-28.
  4. "Profile for Becky Pettit, PhD at UT Austin". liberalarts.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
  5. "Presenter Information". Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program. University of Michigan School of Public Health. 2013. Archived from the original on 2015-10-29. Retrieved 2017-03-28.
  6. Roberts, Sam (27 October 2012). "How Prisoners Make Us Look Good". The New York Times.
  7. Harris, Paul (13 October 2012). "Barack Obama's presidency 'has not helped cause of black people in US'". The Guardian.
  8. Healy, Kieran (11 January 2013). "Invisible Men". Crooked Timber.
  9. "US children cope with parents behind bars". BBC News. 21 December 2010.
  10. Tierney, John (18 February 2013). "Prison and the Poverty Trap". The New York Times.
  11. Abramsky, Sasha (8 October 2010). "Toxic Persons". Slate.
  12. "Social Problems Advisory Editors". Society for the Study of Social Problems.
  13. "American Sociological Review Editorial Board Members". American Sociological Association.
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