Research Studies (also see Research Briefs)
American Jewish Identity Survey
2001
American Religious Identification
Survey 2001
Changing Minds: The Impact
of College in a Maximum-Security Prison
Computers and Young Children: Social Benefit or Social
Problem?
Echoes of Brown: The Faultlines
of Racial Justice and Public Education
An Exploratory
Case Study of 16-20 Year-Old Students in Adult Education Programs
First Comprehensive National Study Finds Centers Safest Form of Childcare
Latino
Data Project
New York Airline Workers in the Aftermath of
9/11
The Path to Employment: Higher
Education for Welfare Recipients
Pathways For Change: Philanthropy Among African
American, Asian American, and Latino Donors in the New York Metropolitan
Region
Profile of the US Muslim
Population (ARIS Report No. 2)
Report on
the Clinton HDFCs
Understanding Responses to the Threat of Foreclosure among Low-Income Homeowners
Understanding Responses to the Threat of Foreclosure among Low-Income Homeowners
A recent study by the Housing Environments Research Group
Excerpt from the introduction:
Foreclosure rates have risen steadily over the course of a generation, and the trend appears to be accelerating. In 2006 foreclosure filings totaled 1.2 million, up 42% over one year and involving one in every 92 U.S. mortgage holders. Not only are homeowners losing their homes and suffering financial and emotional damage, but whole neighborhoods must bear the blight and crime often accompanying foreclosed properties. Neighborhoods and cities can experience weak or collapsed housing markets and damage to their reputations. If foreclosures continue to increase, significant expenses may be incurred by the mortgage industry, including investors,
insurers of securities, and loan servicers, as well as local governments.
A number of causes of rising foreclosure have been advanced including:
- Increases in adjustable rate and subprime loans;
- Higher incidence of trigger events such as job loss or divorce;
- Entry into loan market of lower income households with different
trigger events, and more frequent disruptive life events;
- Increased risk tolerance;
- Changing structure of loan servicing;
- Relaxed underwriting criteria with resultant smaller financial
cushions among many new homeowners;
- Fraudulent practices within the real estate and financial sectors;
- Lack of consumer financial literacy among first-time homeowners,
especially those with lower income, less education, and
members of minority groups.
While various researchers favor one or the other of these explanations, limitations on existing data prevent a clear answer from emerging, although there is strong evidence for a relationship between subprime loans and foreclosure rates.
Read the Study
First Comprehensive National Study Finds Centers Safest Form of Childcare
Child care centers are much safer than all other forms of child care, according to a new national study.
Sociologists Julia Wrigley and Joanna Dreby of the City University of New York Graduate Center created a comprehensive database of child care failures, including fatalities, between 1985 and 2003. They found that child care is quite safe overall, and child care fatalities are rarer than outside of paid care. But the fatality rate for children who receive child care in private homes is sixteen times higher than the fatality rate for children in child care centers.
The study appears in the October issue of the American Sociological Review . It was funded by the Foundation for Child Development.
Read the Press
Release.
Read the Study.
Pathways For
Change: Philanthropy Among African American, Asian American, and Latino
Donors in the New York Metropolitan Region
A
groundbreaking new study has found that charitable giving levels among
African-American, Asian-American and Latino donors interviewed in the
New York metropolitan region were higher, with an overall average
(median) of $5,000, than the national averages for households that give
but do not volunteer ($1,620) as well as for households that practice
both ($2,295). In addition, while there were differences in giving
across ethnic lines, the most substantial differences were between older
and younger generations -- those born before and after the enactment of
the Civil Rights legislation and immigration reforms in the mid-1960s.
The study was conducted by the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society
at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in partnership
with the Coalition for New Philanthropy, an initiative to advance
philanthropy in communities of color.
The study, Pathways for Change: Philanthropy among African
American, Latino, and Asian American Donors in the New York Metropolitan
Region is the first of its kind in New York. The study was
undertaken to create a better understanding of philanthropy among donors
of color as these communities grow in size and -- due to increased
educational, professional and financial success -- in wealth and assets.
Read the Press
Release.
Read the Executive
Summary.
Echoes of Brown: The
Faultlines of Racial Justice and Public Education
 |
Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation in
Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. society still finds itself struggling
over the meaning and fulfillment of that landmark decision.
Recently, the national discussion about educational equity has focused
narrowly on the "achievement gap" between racial/ethnic groups. In 2001,
a group of school districts in New York and New Jersey formed the
Regional Minority Achievement Network to study this "gap." At their
invitation, we created a multigenerational, multi-site team of
researchers--adult and youth, suburban and urban--to research broadly
how urban and suburban teens perceive the processes and consequences of
the gap. In January of 2002, the Opportunity Gap Project was born.
Students from urban and suburban high schools in New York and New
Jersey joined researchers from the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York to form a participatory action-research team.
Over the course of 18 months, more than 100 highschool students
participated in a series of research "camps" in which they were immersed
in methods training, learning about interviews, focus groups, survey
design and participant observation. We taught social theory, educated
them in contemporary studies of educational policies and practices, and
trained them in a series of research methodologies.
Our
goal was to produce a regional analysis of youth perspectives on
secondary schooling and racial justice in the New York City metropolitan
area. The result is a statistical and qualitative mapping of
contemporary urban and suburban youth perspectives, drawn from diverse
racial and ethnic groups, collectively rich in shared aspirations for
higher education and civic engagement, even as some begin to confront
specific and real obstacles to opportunity and the advancement of their
goals.
Read Echoes of Brown: The
Faultlines of Racial Justice and Public Education.
Latino Data Project
Senator Charles Schumer
was on hand Friday, January 30, to help The CUNY Graduate Center launch
its new Latino Data Project, a joint venture of the Center for Latin
American, Latino and Caribbean Studies (CLACLS) and the Center for Urban
Research. An extensive, initial statistical profile of the Latino
population in the New York Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area
(CMSA) was released at the event.
The data presented in the initial report were derived from the Public
Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) of the U.S. Census Bureau. These data sets
contain detailed information on individual households and individuals
including ancestry and place of birth. They were analyzed by the
project research team to produce a more accurate assessment of the
characteristics of each Latino nationality than the official data
released by the Census Bureau.
Read the press
release, including a summary of the data.
You can find the full report at web.gc.cuny.edu/lastudies/latinodataproject.pdf.
An Exploratory Case
Study of 16-20 Year-Old Students in Adult Education Programs
Problems that have been plaguing urban secondary schools may be shifting
to adult education venues, according to a new study conducted by The
Graduate Center, City University of New York, and commissioned by the
U.S. Department of Education. Researchers from the Center for Advanced
Study of Education (CASE) at The Graduate Center examined five urban
adult education programs and discovered a rise in enrollment among 16-20
year-old high school dropouts along with increases in the difficulties
those students brought. Overall, the results seem to indicate a
lose-lose situation, with teenagers not getting the support services
they need and adults being disrupted in their learning by needy
teenagers.
An exploratory case study, the report was
commissioned to examine a perceived trend in the increasing effect of
high school dropouts on adult education and to see if that perception
held up and warranted further concern. The results serve as an alert to
policymakers that this trend must be more comprehensively identified,
evaluated, and remedied.
incipal Investigators included: Bert Flugman, Ph.D., Director, Center for Advanced Study in
Education, Graduate Center of the City University of New York; Dolores Perin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Teachers College,
Columbia University; and Seymour Spiegel, M.Ed., Project
Director, Center for Advanced Study in Education, Graduate Center of the
City University of New York. The study was funded by The Office of
Vocational and Adult Education of the U.S. Department of Education.
Read the complete press release.
Read the Full Exploratory Case Study.
Computers and Young
Children: Social Benefit or Social Problem?
Using time-diary data from a national sample of young school-age
children, we examine the correlates of time spent at home on computing
for cognitive and other measures of well-being. We observe modest
benefits associated with home computing on three tests of cognitive
skill, and on a measure of self-esteem. Most young children who spend
time at home on computer-based activities spend no less time on
activities such as reading, sports or outside play than children without
home computers. However, young children who use home computers a lot,
for over 8 hours a week, spend much less time on sports and outdoor
activities than non-computer-users. They also have substantially heavier
body mass index than children who do not use home computers.
Read the press release.
Computers and Young Children:
Social Benefit or Social Problem? (Adobe Acrobat file)
(74k)
The Path to Employment:
Higher Education for Welfare Recipients
Model State Legislation, College Programs, and Advocacy Organizations
that Support Access to Post-Secondary Education for Public Assistance
Recipients
This report
highlights innovative approaches to providing opportunities for public
assistance recipients and low-income single parents to earn
post-secondary education credentials within the policy framework of
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). We have identified
relevant legislation, programs, and organizations that facilitate
participation of public assistance recipients and low-income single
parents in post-secondary education. Our report is not a state-by-state
account or evaluation of every policy, program, or organization.
Instead, it focuses only on those policies, programs and organizations
where innovative programs for students on public assistance have been
successfully designed and implemented. However, it is crucial to show
policymakers, legislators, and others how states, colleges and
universities, and citizens have toiled to expand higher education
opportunities for public assistance recipients.
Access to higher education is critical for low income people because it
continues to be a primary means to increase earnings and improve social
mobility. Under PRWORA, short-term training has been favored over
education and training that takes longer to complete. While some
short-term programs have been quickly declared a success, too often a
minor increase in earnings is presented by researchers as significant
while the issue of what constitutes long-term success is left
unaddressed. Often immediate wage increases are offset by decreases in
assistance. Other concerns, such as improving a welfare recipient?
earning power, career mobility, and standard of living remain
unaddressed.
Using data collected from interviews with public officials, program
directors and staff, college faculty, legal aid centers, public policy
institutions and other sources, we identify models for future efforts
and valuable lessons learned from existing programs and organizations.
We hope that the lessons and models presented in this report are useful
to a variety of stakeholders who have an interest in educational access
and equity, and who are interested in developing a diverse, highly
skilled, adaptive workforce that incorporates those who have
traditionally been left out of policy efforts to enhance social
mobility.
Read the press release.
Continuing a Commitment to the
Higher Education Option (Adobe Acrobat file)
(975k)
Report on the Clinton HDFCs
 This study by the CUNY Graduate Center shows that low-income, limited
equity cooperative housing in New York City's Clinton/Hell's Kitchen
area helps preserve the community's diversity while, at the same time,
actually improves the physical condition of the neighborhood. The danger
is that the housing is so attractive that higher income purchasers will
eventually take charge and force out the lower income owners for whom
the option was created.
The study was commissioned by the Clinton Seed Fund (CSF) from the
Housing Environments Research Group (HERG), part of the Center for Human
Environments at The Graduate Center, directed by Environmental
Psychology Professor Susan Saegert. The report is particularly timely in
light of Mayor Bloomberg's recently announced proposal to build or
rehabilitate 65,000 new low- to middle-income housing units over the
next five years.
Read the press release.
Report on the Clinton HDFCs
(Adobe Acrobat file)
(865k)
New York Airline Workers in the Aftermath of 9/11
 A year after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, 54 percent
of airline workers in the metropolitan New York area who were displaced
remain unemployed. Overall, unemployment in the New York region remains
high, at 7.4 percent, and recent data shows that approximately 40
percent of those laid off after 9/11 are still without work, but this is
a far lower proportion than persists for the region's airline workers.
This report explores the situation of unemployment among these airlines
workers and documents some of their social and psychological experiences
since the original terrorist attack.
Although billions of dollars in federal aid have been allocated to
assist the airlines affected by the terrorist attack, displaced airline
workers have generally failed to benefit so far from this assistance. At
this writing, their extended unemployment benefits are about to
terminate and economic hardship for many will increase. In its final
section, the report offers some evaluation of formal efforts initiated
since 9/11, which are designed to assist displaced airline workers and
their families.
A collaboration of the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers and the Graduate Center of the City University of New
York, funded by The Fiscal Policy Institute, this report is based on a
sample survey of 609 airline workers from United and TWA/American
Airlines, who lost their jobs after 9/11 or who lost their opportunities
for recall at existing levels of seniority because of the events. The
research team was headed by Professor William Kornblum.
Read the press release.
New York Airline Workers in the Aftermath of 9/11 (Adobe Acrobat file) (186k)
American Jewish Identity Survey 2001
 America's
Jews are divided, perhaps as never before, over a question that would
surprise most other Americans who are not familiar with the Jewish
heritage or the Jewish community in any way. That question is, quite
simply: "Who is Jewish?" At a more subtle level, the questions asked
are, "What does 'Jewish' mean?" and "Who gets to decide?" or "How are
those who call themselves 'Jewish' or are labeled as such by others
signify that identity or social status to themselves and others?"
This report addresses who is Jewish in America today and what that means
with respect to adherence to Judaism. What segments of the population
adhere to Judaism as the basis of their religious identification, and
what segments describe themselves as being of Jewish parentage or
upbringing (origins) without any explicit adherence to Judaism as a
religion? What is the relative size of those different segments of the
over-all American Jewish population? Put somewhat differently, the
study addresses the tri-fold question: What do Jews believe? To what do
Jews belong? And how do Jews behave? Each of these questions is explored
with respect to how its answers help define the contours of Jewish
identification and the Jewish population in the United States today.
Exploration of those questions is animated here by a broad observation
that has emerged from American Religious Identification Survey 2001 (see
below). .
American Jewish Identity Survey 2001
(Adobe Acrobat file) (549k)
Changing Minds: The Impact of College in a Maximum-Security Prison
 Inmates who take college classes while in
prison are four times more likely to remain out of prison once released,
according to a groundbreaking study conducted by The Graduate Center of
The City University of New York. Changing Minds: The Impact of
College in a Maximum-Security Prison --- the first study to examine
the impact of college in prison since government funding of such
programs was withdrawn in 1994 --- shows that college prison programs
can save taxpayers millions of dollars in reincarceration costs. The
study is also the first to go beyond recidivism rates and qualitatively
examine the effects of college on the women in prison and after release,
on their children, and on the prison environment.
Changing Minds was conducted at Bedford Hills Correctional
Facility (BHCF), New York's only maximum-security women's prison.
Reincarceration data were supplied by the New York State Department of
Correctional Services (NYSDOC).
Read the full press
release.
Changing Minds: The Impact of
College in a Maximum-Security Prison
American Religious Identification Survey 2001
 Fifty-two percent of adults in America are
Protestant, 24.5% are Catholic, and 14.1% adhere to no religion,
according to the latest American Religious Identification Survey, 2001
("ARIS 2001") just released by The Graduate Center of the City
University of New York. Those giving their religion as Jewish are 1.3%
and those as Muslim or Islamic are 0.5%.
With a sample of over 50,000 randomly selected respondents aged 18 or
over, ARIS 2001 is the most comprehensive portrait of religious
identification in the U.S. today. First conducted in 1990 and repeated
this year, the survey fills a gap left by the Census, which does not ask
about religion. Nearly 95% of those interviewed were willing to
indicate their religious identification and views on important questions
about their beliefs. The findings, weighted to be representative of the
208 million U.S. adult population, include national and state-by-state
examinations of religious identification in relation to racial/ethnic
identification, education, age, marital status, voter registration
status and political party preference.
Read the full press
release.
American
Religious Identification Survey 2001 (Adobe Acrobat file) (450k)
American
Religious Identification Survey 2001 (HTML version)
Also available is a special second report which focuses on the
Muslim population in the Unites States:
Profile of
the US Muslim Population (ARIS Report No. 2)
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