Research

My research explores the contours of racial inequality among youth in the American education and justice systems—especially as it concerns their interactions with authority figures. In my primary project, I examine the role of trust in student-educator relationships, the salience of trust for student outcomes, and racial differences in trust among youth. This work draws on longitudinal data from the NYC Department of Education and interviews in high schools. In a second strand of my research, I examine how urban youth manage involuntary contact with police officers and how they cope in the aftermath of an encounter. A third strand of my work surveys Sociology’s stance on inequality reduction and the discipline’s impact on this effort.

DiPrete, Thomas A. and Brittany N. Fox-Williams. 2021. “The Relevance of Inequality Research in Sociology for Inequality Reduction.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 7: 1-30. (Open Access Article)

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Fox-Williams, Brittany N. 2019. “The Rules of (Dis)Engagement: Black Youth and Their Strategies for Navigating Police Contact.” Sociological Forum 34(1): 115-37. 

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Fox-Williams, Brittany N. “Behind the Cultural Veil.” Book Review of The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth by Derron Wallace. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2023. Sociological Forum. 

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Fox-Williams, Brittany N. and R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy. 2017. “Race and Education” edited by G. Ritzer. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. 

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Bosworth, Ixchel, Jacqueline Brown, Brittany N. Fox-Williams, and August G. Smith. “Blurred Boundaries: Reconstructing Teacher Authority in the Age of Social and Emotional Learning.”