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Paul H. O’Neill
School of Public and Environmental Affairs

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  • Jennifer Silva

Jennifer Silva

Assistant Professor

Headshot
Phone:
(812) 856-4647
Email:
jensilv@iu.edu
Research areas:
Civil Society Civic Engagement and Volunteering
Local Governance
Policy Analysis
Social Policy and Health
Areas of Interest:
Social determinants of health
Social class and inequality
Qualitative methods
Family and intimate life

Curriculum Vitae

SPEA 410J

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2010
  • M.A., University of Virginia, 2006
  • B.A., Wellesley College, 2004

Courses

  • Social Policy
  • Performance Evaluation and Program Management
  • Honors Thesis

Biography

Print-quality photo

Jennifer Silva joined the O’Neill School as an assistant professor in 2019. Her research interests include political culture, social class, inequality, transitions to adulthood, qualitative methods, and family and intimate life.

Previously, Silva taught sociology at Bucknell University. She was also a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, where she studied the impact of economic insecurity and social isolation on the transition to adulthood for working-class youth.

Silva has authored two books exploring American working-class culture, including We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty (Oxford University Press, 2013).

She is currently funded by the Russell Sage Foundation on a project that integrates women’s electronic health records and in-depth interviews to uncover social determinants of health and barriers to well-being among women living in a disadvantaged rural community.

Silva has also collaborated with research institutions including Brookings and the American Enterprise Institute, bringing expertise in qualitative methods to policy-makers. Her research has been covered by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Atlantic, Boston Review, and NPR’s On Point. She’s been interviewed on Marketplace, WAMC’s The Roundtable, WITF’s Smart Talk, and two programs on SiriusXM—Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang and P.O.T.U.S.

Silva earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from the University of Virginia. She also studied sociology at the undergraduate level at Wellesley College.



Highlights

  • Honorable Mention, Outstanding Book Award, Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section, American Sociological Association, 2020
  • Russell Sage Foundation Awarded Scholar, Linking Electronic Health Records and In-depth Interviews to Uncover Barriers to Social Mobility and Health in a Declining Coal Mining Community (2020)
  • Consumers and Consumption Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award, American Sociological Association, 2019
  • Member, Transition to Adulthood Research Network, facilitated by the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), 2017-21
  • Bucknell Geisinger Research Initiative Grant, 2017
  • American Sociological Association and National Science Foundation Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline Grant, 2016
  • Saguaro Seminar Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard University, 2012-14
  • American Sociological Association and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2010-12

In the News

  • “The Morning Newsletter” - New York Times, October 9, 2020
  • “The most essential books of the Trump era are barely about Trump at all” - Washington Post, October 1, 2020
  • “Left Behind” - The New York Review, March 26, 2020
  • “A scholar finds fatalism where faith in the American Dream once thrived” - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 21, 2019
  • “They don’t think there is any America left” - Slate, September 4, 2019
  • “Why do so many working class Americans feel politics is pointless?” - The Conversation, August 5, 2019
  • “What if sociologists had as much influence as economists?” - New York Times, March 17, 2017
  • “What's killing white middle-aged American women?” - BBC, May 11, 2016

Selected Works

  • “Resisting Despair: Narratives of Shame, Pain, and Transformation among White Working-Class Women in a Declining Coal-Mining Community,” (with Kait Smeraldo Schell) Gender & Society 34(5):736-759 (2020)
  • “What if something happens? A Qualitative Study of the Hopes and Anxieties of the American Middle Class Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” (with Isabel Sawhill, Morgan Welch, and Tiffany N. Ford), Brookings Report, a collaboration with the Brookings’ Future of the Middle Class Initiative, (2020)
  • American Family Diaries: Can Ethnographic Research Help Shape Public Policy? (with co-editor Aparna Mathur), American Enterprise Institute, (2019)
  • We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America, Oxford University Press (2019)
  • Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty, Oxford University Press (2013)
  •  “Salvation or Safety Net? Converging Aspirations and Diverging Narratives of College Among Working- and Middle-Class Young Adults,” (with K. Snellman), Social Forces (2018) 
  • “Consuming for an Imagined Future: Middle Class Consumer Lifestyle and Exploratory Experiences in the Transition to Adulthood,” (with M. Weinberger and J. Zavisca), Journal of Consumer Research (2017)
  • “The Engagement Gap: Social Mobility and Extracurricular Participation among American Youth,” (with K. Snellman, C. Frederick, and R. Putnam), ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2015)
  • “Constructing Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty,” American Sociological Review 78(4): 505-522 (2012) 
  • “‘A New Generation of Women’? How Female ROTC Cadets Negotiate the Tension between Masculine Military Culture and Traditional Femininity,”Social Forces 87(2): 937-960 (2008)

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