Haskins wins William T. Grant Foundation research grant

Anna Haskins, an assistant professor of sociology in the College of Arts & Sciences, recently received a research grant of $350,000 from the William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Program for her work on parental involvement in education.

The program aims to support early-career researchers who focus on the foundation’s target issues: reducing inequality and improving the use of research evidence. Applicants submit a five-year research and mentoring plan and are selected based on their potential to become influential researchers.

Haskins joined Cornell’s faculty in 2014 after working as a postdoctoral research assistant at Columbia University. She teaches multiple courses in the sociology department, including Introduction to Sociology, Controversies about Inequality, Mass Incarceration and Family Life and Sociology of Race and Institutions. She was a faculty fellow on the 2015-2018 Institute for the Social Sciences theme project on the Causes, Consequences and Future of Mass Incarceration in the United States as well as an affiliate of the Cornell Prison Education Program, the Cornell Population Center, and is actively involved in the Center for the Study of Inequality, teaching its capstone course “Controversies about Inequality.”

Her scholarly interests are in the areas of educational inequality, social stratification, race and ethnicity, and the intergenerational social consequences of mass incarceration.

Her W. T. Grant Foundation research project, “School Engagement and Avoidance among System-Involved Parents with Young Children,” aims to address the ways the rapid rise of surveillance, policing and involvement in punitive systems (such as criminal justice, immigration enforcement or child welfare) has undermined parental involvement in children’s schooling. The study will take place at three field sites in New York State that highlight racial, ethnic and geographic variation. Haskins will interview parents, teachers, principals, social workers and resource officers, as well as conduct school environment walk-throughs to collect qualitative data on these issues.

Haskins is honored and says the award gives “early career scholars the opportunity to expand their research expertise and agendas into new arenas with the support of mentors and a vibrant community of current and former William T. Grant Scholars,” noting she “can’t imagine a better way to embark on a new strand of research than this, and am so grateful to the W.T. Grant Foundation for this opportunity and show of support.”