Andrew Penner

In Prison, She Changed Constitutional Law. Meet the Trans Woman Behind the Case. Farmer v. Brennan is one of the most cited Supreme Court cases of all time. Few people know just how revolutionary Dee Farmer was.

Every jailhouse lawyer knows Dee Farmer’s name, even if they don’t know who she is.

What most of them don’t know is that the person who paved the road for them was a transgender woman who filed her suit from a federal prison cell, in an era when her gender identity was considered a mental illness.

Immigrants in Europe and North America earn 18% less than natives – here’s why Immigrants struggle to access higher-paying jobs, meaning their skills often go to waste.

Short piece about our @nature.com paper on the immigrant-native pay gap in The Conversation! Also broad coverage in (so far) German, Dutch, and Spanish central news outlets today!

Immigrant–native pay gap driven by lack of access to high-paying jobs - Nature Data from nine European and North American countries reveal that the disparity in earnings between immigrants and natives is largely a result of segregation of immigrant workers into lower-paying jobs...

IN OTHER NEWS: check out our new COIN paper on immigrant--native pay gaps in advanced economies published in @nature.com this afternoon! Specifically, we study the relative contribution of within-job unequal pay vs between-job segregation to earnings disparities across immigrant generations. 1/9

Immigrants in Europe and North America earn 18% less than natives – here’s why Immigrants struggle to access higher-paying jobs, meaning their skills often go to waste.

And you can read more of our thoughts at The Conversation.

Immigrant–native pay gap driven by lack of access to high-paying jobs - Nature Data from nine European and North American countries reveal that the disparity in earnings between immigrants and natives is largely a result of segregation of immigrant workers into lower-paying jobs...

The paper is available at Nature.

Very excited for the latest paper from the international administrative data network I am a part of!

Led by @aresherman.bsky.social we show that 75% of pay differences between immigrants and native-born workers arise because of sorting into different jobs, with 25% due to unequal pay within jobs.

Universal school masking reduced weekly COVID-19 deaths by 0.57 per 100k people. 50 percent of districts removed mask requirements by spring 2022 contributing to 9 percent of COVID deaths that year, from Guzman, Imberman, Filosa, Kilbride, and Malkus https://www.nber.org/papers/w33849

AERA: I'm looking forward to sharing a paper co-authored with @alexfreidus.bsky.social and @ericaoturner.bsky.social on how families of disabled children made school choices during the pandemic. Should be a stellar symposium on school choice for marginalized families! 8am Sunday in Meeting Room 712.

I love this assignment so much and can’t wait to use it (with attribution) the next time I teach Sociology of Education!

This made my day, and I love these answers so much!

I tell my students that one of the reasons that I remain an optimist is because of how thoughtful and creative they are.

Looking forward to seeing what else your students come up with 💜

Roundtable attendees watch a presentation on a laptop.

Roundtable attendees watch a presentation on a laptop.

So excited to present some great undergrad honors theses from UCI LIFTED students at #psa2025

Thanks to everyone who came for the great questions, and to the session organizers who helped make this happen!

A very old Soviet joke, from an especially dark time:

Foxes are fleeing the USSR in droves.
Q: Why are you running away?
Fox: The Soviets passed a new law that they’re going to arrest all camels.
Q: But you’re foxes!
Fox: Yeah, why don’t *you* try proving to the NKVD that you’re not a camel.

Okay, but how do you feel about steakholders?

I mean, nobody can get upset about researchers who want to communicate with folks carrying around slabs of red meat, right? 🥩

Allow me to nerd out a bit about the stats in our recent PNAS paper...

To make this graph, we calculated a 100-by-100 grid of the average proportion of peers in each income percentile for students in each percentile (i.e., average peer income distributions for each student percentile). [1/n]

What I keep turning over at 3am: How do we design an education system that cultivates people to have the courage to stand up, and stand together, for something greater than themselves?

Katie Porter for Governor | Official Campaign Website What California needs is a little bit of hope and a whole lot of grit. Join our team today to help Katie Porter stand up to Donald Trump and lower costs for Californians.

What California needs now is a little bit of hope and a whole lot of grit. That's why I'm running for Governor.

katieporter.com

Great job alert: ProPublica is hiring a computational journalist, "someone who will use technology and data to identify and unlock stories that would otherwise be out of reach."

Salary: $120K-$140K
Remote: ✅

Come join us!

The Urban Institute’s Education Data Portal offers users the ability to view data endpoints and select summary endpoints directly in their web browser. Users can access this application programming interface (API) by directly hitting a URL endpoint or by using Stata or R. All data are returned in JSON format and can be viewed directly in a web browser.

We’re trying to figure out if this reflects a decision by
@usedgov.bsky.social or is a mistake that will be corrected.

In the meantime (and always), CRDC data through 2020-21 are available from the Education Data Portal: educationdata.urban.org/documentation/

Schooled and Sorted In Schooled & Sorted, Thurston Domina, Andrew M. Penner, and Emily K. Penner, explore processes of educational categorization in order to explain the complex relationship between education and social

Hey! What are you doing Friday morning?

Attending the Schooled and Sorted "Author Meets Critics "session, obviously.

8AM, Boston Park Plaza, Brookline conference room.

#ESS2025

www.russellsage.org/publications...

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

Things I am excited to fly across the country and wake up at 8am EST for : )

#ESS2025

Come hang out with us and this dream team of critics at #ESS2025 next Friday.

There’s still time to get a copy of the book before hand.

www.russellsage.org/publications...

Attending #ESS2025 & interesting in donuts, education, and/ inequality?

Join us next Friday, 8AM for an author (me, @emilykpenner.bsky.social , @andrewpenner.bsky.social) meets critics (@rachelefish.bsky.social, @johndiamondphd.bsky.social, @jenjennings.bsky.social) discussion!

We're living through a highly polarized time, both economically and politically. Schools have the potential to bring us together, but are contributing to our separation.
In a new @pnas.org article, my colleagues and I document students' exposure to economically diverse school and classroom peers.
📄:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
When we abandon the common school ideal,
Our society turns to poo.

It was especially lovely to be at @casbsstanford.bsky.social to do this work—can’t think of a better place to do interdisciplinary social science research!

Thanks to @michspieg.bsky.social for leading this paper!

Working with Michelle, @leahclark.bsky.social @t-h-a-d.bsky.social @emilykpenner.bsky.social Paul Hanselman & Paul Yoo is always so enjoyable!

Students in the top 1% of the income distribution are highly isolated in affluent school enclaves.

💥6%💥 of these top 1% percentile kids’ peers are ALSO in the top income percentile.

💥20%💥 are in the top 5 income percentiles.

💥Nearly 50%💥come from the top 20 income percentiles.

When students from the top 1% of the family income distribution have as many classmates from from the top 10% as from the bottom 60% they are deprived of opportunities to learn with and from classmates who aren’t similarly high income.

Economic integration within schools is limited, UC Irvine-led study finds

Economic integration within schools is limited, @ucirvine.bsky.social-led study finds | Research, published in PNAS, highlights disproportionate isolation of students from families in highest income brackets
 
@uofcalifornia.bsky.social @andrewpenner.bsky.social @stanforduniversity.bsky.social