NCID-1011
Alford Young Jr.
Arthur F Thurnau Professor, Professor of Sociology, Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, Associate Director, Center for Social Solutions, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy
National Center for Institutional Diversity; Edgar G. Epps Collegiate and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Sociology and Afroamerican Studies at the University of Michigan
Education/Degree:
1 Sociology Sociology (University of Chicago)
About
Alford A. Young, Jr. is Edgar G. Epps Collegiate and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He also holds an appointment at that institution's Department of Afro-America and African Studies (DAAS). He completed his PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago in 1996. He also received his MA in sociology at the University of Chicago in 1992, and his BA in sociology, psychology, and African American studies (with honors) at Wesleyan University in 1988. His primary area of research has been on low-income African American men, where his emphasis has been on how they construct understandings of various aspects of social reality (i.e., notions of how social mobility, social inequality, and social structure unfolds in American society, of good jobs and work opportunity, of fatherhood and family living). Young has published The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances.
Current Work
Dr. Young is completing three book projects:Black Men Rising: Navigating Race in Pursuit of the American Dream (based on an exploration of how twenty-six Chicago-based young black men, born into poverty but now tracked for white collar and skilled blue-collar careers, utilized family, school, and community experiences to conceptualize and then confronted race-based obstacles pertaining to socio-economic mobility).The Politics of Black Scholarship: African American Scholars on the Social Utility of Knowledge. (based on assessments of how 100 African American social science and humanities scholars regard the social utility of scholarship about African Americans in terms of how audiences are conceived of for it, how roles and possibilities for this scholarship are conceptualized, and whether and how this scholarship is viewed as a tool for social change).How It Feels To Be A Problem: Black Men in Crisis on the Crisis of Black Men. (addresses how socio-economically marginalized African American men assess the social condition of men like themselves and the possibilities for resolving it).
Research Area Keyword(s)
Culture, poverty, race, theory, watching sports