Research Initiatives

Inclusive Community Building in the Rural U.S. South

Inclusive Community Building in the Rural U.S. South—Dan Cornfield (PI). Arts organization leaders in Cotton County (pseudonym) have been envisioning and helping to realize an inclusive community in this rural, cotton-producing county in the “Lower Mississippi Delta Region” of the U.S. South. Over the last half-century, Black and white Cotton County community leaders have engaged in arts-based economic development to overcome the county’s Jim Crow history, realize racial unity, and to revitalize the county whose population decline accompanied the mechanization of agriculture. Today, Cotton County comprises a population of some 18,000 residents, as well as multiple arts initiatives designed to encourage social interactions in public spaces among demographically diverse local residents, and to attract tourists and corporate investment—including automotive assembly plants—to the county. Dan Cornfield and his research team of VU sociology doctoral students Katie Beekman, Basma El-Bathy, and Vivian Sun are presently conducting and analyzing in-depth career-biographical interviews of Cotton County leaders and preparing papers on how change agents emerge in a rural community undergoing profound change.

Local Arts Agency Research Group

The Local Arts Agency Research Group project – Dan Cornfield (PI) and Alexandre Frenette (co-PI), in collaboration with Americans for the Arts and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vanderbilt University Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy –examines organizational and community sociodemographic determinants of variations in grant-making policies and practices for supporting under-represented artists across more than 500 U.S. local arts agencies. Presently, the team is examining how the racial-ethnic composition of a local community may shape local arts agency grantmaking policies geared toward artists of under-represented groups. University of North Carolina-Wilmington sociologist Meagan Rainock (VU sociology Ph.D., 2023) leads this research team of Dan Cornfield, VU sociology doctoral student Basma El-Bathy, and former VU undergraduate sociology major Eli Crenshaw-Smith. Recently, Dan Cornfield published with two former VU sociology doctoral students—Chancey Herbolsheimer (Texas Tech University) and Savannah Bastian (Vanderbilt University) the article “In Pursuit of Cultural Equity: DEI Grantmaking Practices of U.S. Local Arts Agencies in Community Context” in the American Behavioral Scientist.

Nashville Civil Rights Movement Research Group

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Nashville became a pulsating hub of nonviolent activism to dismantle Jim Crow not only in Nashville, but nationally as the core cadre of Nashville activists went on to play a key role in spearheading the southern movement, culminating, as some argue, in the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Based primarily on original interviews with former Nashville activists, our project examines pathways to activism and the origins and impact of the Nashville movement. The project is a collaboration among movement leader the Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr., Vanderbilt Professors Dan Cornfield, Dennis Dickerson (history department) and Larry Isaac, Oklahoma State sociologist Jonathan Coley (VU sociology Ph.D., 2016), VU Sociology Doctoral Student Matthew Tarrizo, and Vanderbilt undergraduate Logan Cromeens and supported by the Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies, Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt endowment, and Vanderbilt Commons.

Population Health and Inequality Group (PHIG)

PHIG, led by Rachel Donnelly and Lucie Kalousova, is a community of graduate students and faculty interested in population health research. Our group comprises scholars who aim to understand and document the processes contributing to health inequities by race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and socioeconomic status. The goals of PHIG are to advance student and faculty research, foster research collaborations, build connections within and outside Vanderbilt, discuss cutting-edge population health research, and share resources related to the profession.

Communities, Environment, and Justice Project

This project examines conflicts over justice and local environments. Recent projects include graduate students and undergraduates who have assembled data and case studies of opposition to energy infrastructure such as pipelines, powerlines, and solar and wind farms. It also includes collaboration with doctoral student Alina Caulfield, who works on women, health, and environmental justice.

Research on Women, Protest, and Law

Research on Women, Protest, and Law is a research collaborative led by Professor Holly McCammon in the Department of Sociology. The goal of the collaborative is to examine U.S. women’s protest and women’s interactions with law, both the ways in which women have influenced law and how the law shapes women’s lives.  Both graduate students and undergraduates at Vanderbilt are involved in research projects associated with the collaborative. Professor McCammon regularly teaches both a Women & the Law course (Soc 3611) and a Research on Women, Protest, and the Law course (Soc 4981), the latter which allows undergraduates to pursue their own research projects in this area. Current collaborative participants are:

Graduate Research Assistants: Gavin Riley, Hayoung Seo

Undergraduate Research Assistant: Shayda Oliaei

Social Networks and Inequalities Lab (SNAIL)

The SNAIL, led by Lijun Song, focuses on social networks, social relationships, and inequalities. Social networks refer to the webs of social ties linking individuals, directly and indirectly. Social relationships include romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships, work relationships, neighbor relationships, online relationships, and other types of relationships. The SNAIL has three major research themes: how social networks and social relationships produce health and well-being inequalities, how social networks and social relationships generate social inequalities, and how social forces create social network inequalities and social relationship inequalities.

We boldly propose theories, hypotheses, and research questions but examine them carefully, just like snails that move forward courageously, determinedly, and patiently.

Sociology Lab

The Sociology Lab, led by Bianca Manago, is dedicated to understanding social psychological phenomena using experimental and quasi-experimental methods. We conduct research on a wide variety of topics, including small group processes and cognitive bias. Our studies take place both in our on-campus laboratory (Garland Hall) and online through various platforms such as Prolific Academic. To conduct our research, we have received funding from the American Sociological Association and National Science Foundation’s Fund for Advancement of the Discipline.

STICKER Lab

The Sociology Department’s Socio-Technical Inequality, Change, Knowledge, Environment, and Resilience Research Group (STICKER group) is an environmental sociology research group that includes Professors Joe Bandy, David Hess, and Zdravka Tzankova.

Current research areas include:

social movements and the environment, climate, and justice
migration, health, and climate change
the politics of science, expertise, and infrastructure
education and the environment
business and civil society roles in environmental and climate governance
public-private governance interactions

Professor Hess has current research on energy transitions and science, technology, and social movements. Professor Tzankova co-runs the Climate, Health, and Energy Equity Lab (CHEEL Lab) at the Wondr’y in close collaboration with colleagues from the Vanderbilt School of Nursing. Grounded in community-engaged actionable research, work in the CHEEL Lab is focused on designing climate mitigation projects that deliver tangible economic, environmental and health co-benefits for marginalized communities in the U.S., and conducted with major research contributions from undergraduate students. Professor Bandy has co-directed the Cumberland Project, which assists with curricular and instructional development for environmental education. Professors Sana and McCammon include environmental topics in their undergraduate courses, and the university recently launched the new Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy, and Climate.

With respect to students, graduate student Kaelee Belletto is working on her dissertation on environmental justice in Appalachia; graduate student Qingyao Sun is conducting field research on the long-term impacts of displacement for dam construction; and graduate student Alina Caulfield is working on gender, inequality, and climate change. Recent Ph.D. graduates include Kate Pride Brown (Georgia Tech), Dasom Lee (KAIST), Lacee Satcher (Boston College), and Rachel McKane (Brandeis University). Undergraduates participate in various research projects either as part of their Immersion requirements or as paid research assistants, and environmental sociology majors have written a variety of senior theses.

Work and Occupations Journal

Work and Occupations

Dan Cornfield, Editor-in-Chief

Vanderbilt faculty members of the 31-member international editorial board:

Vanderbilt sociology doctoral student team members:

Matthew Tarizzo, Book Review Editor

Katherine Beekman, Associate Editor

Basma El-Bathy, Associate Editor

Zheng Lian, Associate Editor

Hayoung Seo, Associate Editor

Qingyao Sun, Associate Editor

Zhe Zhang, Associate Editor