National Academies Press: OpenBook

Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy (2014)

Chapter: Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members

« Previous: Appendix E: November 2011 Civic Engagement Supplement to the Current Population Survey
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×

Appendix F

Biographical Sketches of Panel Members

KENNETH PREWITT (Chair) is the vice president for Global Centers and the Carnegie professor at Columbia University. He previously held teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Washington University, and in Kenya and Uganda. His other previous positions include director of the U.S. Census Bureau, director of the National Opinion Research Center, and dean at the New School University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Russell Sage Foundation. He has received honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Southern Methodist University and a lifetime career award from the American Political Science Association. He has authored and coauthored a dozen books and more than 100 articles and book chapters, most recently What is Your Race? The Flawed Effort of the Census to Classify Americans (Princeton Press). He has a B.A. from Southern Methodist University, an M.A. from Washington University, and a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.

MICHAEL X. DELLI CARPINI is professor of communication and Walter H. Annenberg dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to this position, he was director of the public policy program of the Pew Charitable Trusts and a member of the Political Science Department at Barnard College and the graduate faculty of Columbia University. His research explores the role of the citizen in

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×

American politics, with particular emphasis on the impact of the mass media on public opinion, political knowledge, and political participation. His research also looks at political knowledge and democratic engagement, generational differences in civic and political participation, and the extent, sources, and impact of public deliberation in the United States. Among his many awards, he received the Fontaine award for exemplary teaching and the Murray Edelman career achievement award. He has a B.A. in political science and English literature and an M.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota.

ROBERT W. EDWARDS is an independent consultant in the field of official statistics, with clients that include national statistics offices and a number of international and supranational agencies. Previously, he served as director of the Statistics Department at the International Monetary Fund and deputy Australian statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). In the latter position, he was responsible the full ABS program of economic censuses and surveys, national and international accounts, prices, public and private finance statistics, and statistics on international trade in goods and services. He has written and spoken extensively on statistical governance, monetary and fiscal statistics, and data quality and analysis. He received the Australian Public Service Medal for distinguished service in economic statistics in Australia and in the international statistical community. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics (commerce) from Melbourne University.

MORRIS P. FIORINA, Jr., is the Wendt Family professor of political science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He previously held teaching positions at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University. His current research focuses on elections and public opinion, with particular attention to the quality of representation—how well the positions of elected officials reflect the preferences of the public. He has written widely on American government and politics, with special emphasis on topics in the study of representation and elections. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals in the fields of political science, economics, law, and public policy, and has served as chair of the Board of Overseers of the American National Election Studies. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. He has a B.A. in political science from Allegheny College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×

JEREMY FREESE is a professor and the department chair in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University and a faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research. His current research seeks to connect biological, psychological, and social processes: he is especially interested in how such connections are altered by large-scale social or technological changes. His work evaluates different prospective contributions of evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics to social science. With an interest in policy innovations that emphasize individual informed choice, such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit, he studies whether and how such innovations might lead to differences in how much people benefit from them. He is the recipient of several awards and honors, including a 2-year fellowship from the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Program at Harvard University and the Clifford C. Clogg award (methodology section). He has a B.A. from the University of Iowa, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University.

CHARLOTTE B. KAHN cofounded and directs the Boston Indicators Project at The Boston Foundation. In partnership with the city of Boston and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the Boston Indicators Project tracks change across a comprehensive framework of ten sectors through an award-winning Website and issues a “report card” tracking progress on a shared civic agenda. Prior to this position, she directed the Boston Persistent Poverty Project, part of a six-city Rockefeller Foundation initiative. She has also served as the executive director of a nongovernmental organization dedicated to improving the quality of urban life, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. She is a founding member of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and of the Community Indicators Consortium, a global community of practice for people and organizations interested in advancing the art and science of community indicators. She attended Cornell University, has an M.A. from Antioch University, and was awarded a Loeb fellowship in advanced environmental studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

JAMES M. LEPKOWSKI is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research and a professor in the Department of Biostatistics, both at the University of Michigan. He also serves as a research professor at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland and directs the Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Michigan. As a survey methodologist, he specializes in sampling and survey analysis and developing new survey sampling methods and applying them to diverse problems. His current research focuses on telephone sampling methods, methods to compensate for missing survey data, and methods to analyze

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×

survey data that take account of the complexity of the survey sample design. He has served on a variety of national and international advisory committees on survey research methods for organizations, including the National Center for Health Statistics, the Food and Drug Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the World Health Organization. He has a B.S. in mathematics from Illinois State University and an M.P.H. and a Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Michigan.

MARK HUGO LOPEZ is associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., and research professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. His current research focuses on labor economics, civic engagement, voting behavior, and the economics of education. His work also covers such topics as the earnings differential between U.S.born Hispanic faculty and other faculty, the impact of bilingual education programs on long-term student achievement, estimating the returns to individuals who speak a second language, and the neighborhood effects of immigrants on the educational achievement of natives. Prior to joining the Pew Hispanic Center, he served as research director at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). Through his work at CIRCLE, he has studied young people’s electoral participation, the civic engagement of immigrants, young people’s views of the First Amendment, and the link between college attendance and civic engagement. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.

NORMAN H. NIE is a research professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago. He also serves as chief executive officer and president of Revolution Analytics, a commercial software support company. Prior to his teaching positions at Stanford and Chicago, he cofounded SPSS and served as chair of its board (which was sold to IBM in 2009). He is a co-inventor of SPSS, the predictive analytics product, and was a product design innovator for the SPSS company. He is a two-time winner of the Woodrow Wilson award for the best book published in political science and a recipient of a lifetime achievement award by the American Association of Public Opinion Research for his contributions to survey analytics, as well as his works in political behavior. He is an appointed fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences. He has a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.

PAMELA M. PAXTON is professor of sociology and government and Christine and Stanley E. Adams, Jr., centennial professor in liberal arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, she held professor positions

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×

in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Political Science and associate dean in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Ohio State University. Her research interests are in pro-social behavior, politics, gender, and methodology; and she has published numerous books and articles on social capital, women in politics, and quantitative methodology. She has served on many advisory boards and committees including, including an advisory panel to the National Science Foundation and the executive council of the women and politics section of the American Political Science Association. She has a B.A. in economics and sociology from the University of Michigan and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

STANLEY PRESSER is a professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Maryland and professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology. Prior to these positions, he was director of the Survey Research Center at the University of Maryland and director of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology of the University of Maryland and University of Michigan. His current research focuses on social psychology and survey measurement, with an emphasis on questionnaire design and testing, the accuracy of survey responses, nonresponse, and ethical issues stemming from the use of human subjects. He is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Health Statistics and a member of the advisory Committee for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, and he served as president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He has an A.B. degree in sociology from Brown University and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.

JOEL SOBEL is professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, and he previously served as chair of the Department of Economics. Prior to his positions in San Diego, he held teaching and visiting positions at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of California, Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Oxford University, and at universities in Barcelona and Paris. His current research focuses on microeconomic theory, with an emphasis on game theory and reciprocity and polarization in group decision making. He has published widely on communication, stability, and game theory. He is an elected fellow of the Econometrics Society. He has a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Michigan, an M.A. in economics, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×

SIDNEY VERBA is Carl H. Pforzheimer professor emeritus in the Department of Government at Harvard University and director emeritus of the Harvard University Library. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, he taught at the universities of Stanford, Princeton, and Chicago. His current research focuses on political equality and includes a large-scale study of the role of interest organizations in American politics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He serves as president emeritus of the American Political Science Association. He received numerous awards from the American Political Science Association, including its highest one, the James Madison prize, and the Johan Skytte prize, the major international prize in political science, from the Skytte Foundation at Uppsala University. Much of his writing has focused on the role of citizen engagement and activism in a democracy, with an emphasis on issues of equality in political, social, and economic life. He has a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×
Page 177
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×
Page 178
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×
Page 179
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×
Page 180
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×
Page 181
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2014. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18831.
×
Page 182
Next: Committee on National Statistics »
Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion: Measuring Dimensions of Social Capital to Inform Policy Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $54.00 Buy Ebook | $43.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

People's bonds, associations and networks - as well as the civil, political, and institutional characteristics of the society in which they live - can be powerful drivers affecting the quality of life among a community's, a city's, or a nation's inhabitants and their ability to achieve both individual and societal goals. Civic engagement, social cohesion, and other dimensions of social capital affect social, economic and health outcomes for individuals and communities. Can these be measured, and can federal surveys contribute toward this end? Can this information be collected elsewhere, and if so, how should it be collected?

Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion identifies measurement approaches that can lead to improved understanding of civic engagement, social cohesion, and social capital - and their potential role in explaining the functioning of society. With the needs of data users in mind, this report examines conceptual frameworks developed in the literature to determine promising measures and measurement methods for informing public policy discourse. The report identifies working definitions of key terms; advises on the feasibility and specifications of indicators relevant to analyses of social, economic, and health domains; and assesses the strength of the evidence regarding the relationship between these indicators and observed trends in crime, employment, and resilience to shocks such as natural disasters. Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion weighs the relative merits of surveys, administrative records, and non-government data sources, and considers the appropriate role of the federal statistical system. This report makes recommendations to improve the measurement of civic health through population surveys conducted by the government and identifies priority areas for research, development, and implementation.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!