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Seed Grants Awarded in 2007-2008

  • Tracy Gordon (Public Policy)
    When Government Isn’t Enough: Public and Private Responses to Population Heterogeneity
    Rising income inequality in the United States has sparked concern about disparities in not only economic well-being but also political participation and efficacy. These concerns have prompted inquiries into the consequences of inequality for national politics and policies, such as federal taxation and immigration (e.g., McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal, 2006; Bartels, 2004). To date, however, there has not been a comparable effort to study the political consequences of income inequality at the local level. This proposal seeks funding to initiate a research agenda on links between income inequality, political behavior, and policy outcomes in local government. The first project in this agenda will be an examination of whether income inequality in California cities affects the level and composition of local public spending as well as the prevalence of so-called “private governments,” or homeowner associations performing municipal functions.

  • Judith Hellerstein (Economics)
    Property Division upon Divorce and Women and Children’s Subsequent Behavior and Wellbeing
    When two parties divorce marital property is divided, child custody (if any) is awarded, and, in some cases, alimony and child support payments are determined. This project will employ a novel identification strategy to address many unresolved questions concerning both the determinants of and the consequences of this division.

  • David Kirk (Criminology)
    Social Context, Crime, and Educational Outcomes
    The aim of this proposed study is to integrate the neighborhood effects and school effects lines of research by exploring the differential influences of each context on youth behavioral outcomes: first, it seeks to determine which social organizational factors of school and neighborhood environments independently and jointly influence juvenile arrest and school dropout (Aim 1); second, it seeks to determine to what extent juvenile arrest contributes to educational failure above and beyond the common set of correlates which contribute to both outcomes (Aim 2).

  • Laura Mamo (Sociology)
    HPV Risk Perceptions and Barriers to the Gardasil Vaccine: A Qualitative Analysis of Mothers, Girls and Health Care Professionals
    Sexually active girls are at higher risk (than older adults) for acquiring sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including the genital human papillomavirus (HPV). Although most people who become infected with HPV will not have any symptoms and will clear the infection on their own, others may develop life-threatening cancers of the cervix and other genital areas.i As a result, reducing the risk and preventing HPV in girls is of great public health concern. Since 2006, Gardasil® has been FDA approved as an HPV vaccine for girls ages nine to 26 (FDA 2006). This vaccine protects females from the four types of HPV that cause most cervical cancers and genital warts. Nonetheless, not all girls are being vaccinated against HPV and not all parents or doctors support this recommendation. This proposed project seeks to understand the ways HPV vaccination is perceived by parents of girls, girls themselves, and pediatricians – the primary care providers of young women – in an effort to better meet the health care needs of U.S. Adolescent girls.

  • Odis Johnson (African American Studies)
    Seasonal Learning Differences in Neighborhoods, Social Class & Race
    This study examines how the impact of the social organization of learning differs within neighborhoods across two seasonal periods and between them according to their racial and social class composition. The study’s central premise is that the unacknowledged yet fairly systematic seasonal variation in the neighborhood social organization of learning presents an opportunity to measure a neighborhood’s impact when its orientation toward learning is characterized less by “directed development” and more by an “ecological curriculum.” Having these qualities, estimates of summer learning might suggest a more prominent role for neighborhoods than typically found in neighborhood effects research.

  • Hanno Petras (Criminology)
    Official records of juvenile delinquency in an epidemiologically defined cohort of predominately urban and minority youth
    This proposal seeks funding to match data on the complaint, probation and placement history received from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (MDJS) with data from a cohort of 799 individuals who participated in a larger randomized control trial conducted by the Baltimore Prevention Program at Johns Hopkins University led by Dr. Ialongo. Briefly, this cohort is a representative sample of urban first graders from 9 elementary schools in predominantly low to lower middle income areas in Baltimore. These children were first assessed in the 1993/94 school year and are followed-up with yearly assessments until 12th grade with additional assessments planned in young adulthood.

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