Michaela Simmons

Research Interest Statement:

Michaela’s research addresses the enduring consequences of racial inequality in the American welfare state through an examination of social citizenship, family, and childhood. Her dissertation is a study of the racial politics of foster care development in the early twentieth century. Specifically, the dissertation accounts for the vast demographic changes in foster care during the post-WWII decades, and examines how private and public child welfare services struggled to define the contours of racial responsibility during this era.

Education:

Ph.D. Sociology, University of California Berkely (2021)

Departmental Areas of Interest:

Family; Race and Ethnic Studies; Comparative-Historical Sociology

Other Campus Affiliations:

Center for Law, Society, and Justice

Institute for Research on Poverty

Selected Publications:

Simmons, M. (2023). The Racial Origins of Foster Home Care: Black Family Responsibility in the Early Welfare State, New York City, 1930s–1960s. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 1-23. doi:10.1017/S1742058X22000248

Simmons, M. C. (2020). Becoming Wards of the State: Race, Crime, and Childhood in the Struggle for Foster Care Integration, 1920s to 1960s. American Sociological Review, 85(2), 199–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420911062