Professor, Graduate Program Director
pbennett@umbc.edu
CV
Education
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
M.A., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
B.A., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Research Interests
social stratification; racial and ethnic inequality; social class; education; residential segregation
Select Recent Publications
- Bennett, Pamela R. and Amy Lutz. 2022. “Bans and Signals: Racial and Ethnic Differences in Applications to Elite Public Colleges in States With and Without Affirmative Action.” Harvard Educational Review 92(3):361–390.
- Bennett, Pamela R., Amy Lutz, and Lakshmi Jayaram. 2021. Parenting in Privilege and Peril: How Social Inequality Enables and Derails the American Dream. New York: Teachers College Press.
- Lutz, Amy, Pamela R. Bennett, and Rebecca Wang. 2019. “How Affirmative Action Context Shapes Collegiate Outcomes at America’s Selective Colleges and Universities.” Journal of Law and Social Policy 31(1):71-91.
- Lutz, Amy, Pamela R. Bennett, and Rebecca Wang. 2018. “Mismatch and Academic Performance at America’s Selective Colleges and Universities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 41(14):2599-2614.
- Bennett, Pamela R., Amy Lutz, and Lakshmi Jayaram. 2012. “Beyond the School Yard: The Contributions of Parenting Logics, Financial Resources, and Social Institutions to the Social Class Gap in Structured Activity Participation.” Sociology of Education 85(2):131-157.
- Reprinted in Schools and Society (5th ed). Edited by Jeanne H. Ballantine and Joan Z. Spade. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. 2015. Pp. 259-271.
- de Bodman, Florent and Pamela R. Bennett. 2011. “Mr. Secretary, Tear Down This Wall: Can and Should the Federal Government Use Affirmative Action in Housing to Promote Residential Integration?” The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 8(2): 441-466.
- Bennett, Pamela R. 2011. “The Relationship Between Neighborhood Racial Concentration and Verbal Ability: An Investigation Using the Institutional Resources Model.” Social Science Research 40:1124-1141.
- Bennett, Pamela R. 2011. “The Social Position of Multiracial Groups in the United States: Evidence from Residential Segregation.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34(4):707-729.
- Bennett, Pamela R. and Amy Lutz. 2009. “How African American is the Net Black Advantage? Differences in College Attendance between Whites, Immigrant and Native Blacks.” Sociology of Education 82:70-100.
- Bennett, Pamela R. and Yu Xie. 2003. “Revisiting Racial Differences in College Attendance: The Role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” American Sociological Review 68:567-580.
Experience and Honors
- Doctoral Faculty in Sociology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2014-2016
- Founding Director, Research Initiatives on Race and Ethnicity, Queens College, CUNY, New York, 2013-2016
- Associate Professor, Queens College, City University of New York, 2012-2016
- Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2012-2013
- Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 2004-2012
- Associate, Hopkins Population Center, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 2007-2012
- Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. Department of Sociology and Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 2002-2004
Bio
Pamela R. Bennett studies social stratification issues centered on race, ethnicity, and social class. She is Professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Bennett received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where she specialized in social stratification and social demography. She held a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship and, subsequently, positions at the Johns Hopkins University, Queens College, and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York prior to moving to UMBC. Bennett’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the American Sociological Association among other entities. She has served on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review and Sociology of Education. Her new book, Parenting in Privilege and Peril: How Social Inequality Enables or Derails the American Dream, is a mixed-methods study that analyzes the sources of social class differences in mobility-relevant parenting practices. It argues that the differential resources that working- and middle-class parents possess, and the divergent social contexts those resources make available, give rise to different parenting approaches that she and her co-authors call defensive parenting among the former and strategic parenting among the latter. Bennett’s current research focuses on the pathways that African Americans and black immigrants take into the middle class.