RESEARCH
"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."
- James Baldwin
Peer-Reviewed Articles & Book Chapters
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Houghteling, Clara & Prentiss A. Dantzler. "Taking a Knee, Taking a Stand: Social Networks and Identity Salience in the 2017 NFL Protests." Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, (Forthcoming).
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Beginning with President Trump’s speech against the national anthem protestors in September of 2017, this study considers how external sociopolitical events interacted with the network structure of the 2017 National Football League (NFL) to alter the salience of member identities and the resultant patterns of protest activity within the league. Using group membership data on the full population of 2,453 football players, the analysis tracks protest participation by membership in race and status groups and by the network variables of degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality. Black and elite players are both overrepresented among protesters throughout the season. The margins of overrepresentation narrowed during an increase in demonstrations after Trump’s first criticisms but had widened by the end of the season. The mean centralities of the protesting groups varied from week to week due to an increase in the salience of the NFL player identity and to its interaction with racial identities. In general, protesters had lower mean degree and closeness centralities and a higher mean betweenness centrality than players who abstained from protest. Those who participated in high-risk forms of activism also tended to have lower mean degree and closeness centralities and a higher mean betweenness centrality than those who opted for low risk demonstrations. These findings indicate that sociopolitical events can implicate different identities, changing their salience in the decision to join or abstain from a social movement.
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Dantzler, Prentiss A. "Reconsidering Poverty Dynamics by Analyzing Housing Spells." Social Science Journal, (Forthcoming).
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This note reconsiders Bane and Ellwood's (1983) research on poverty spells. Instead of focusing on cash benefits as a form of public assistance, this note uses time periods on housing assistance as an alternative way to understand poverty dynamics. Housing expenses are the largest costs for families through the United States. Using data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics from 1987 to 2011, this note undertakes an alternative methodological technique for understanding the dynamics of poverty spells: calculating the probabilities of exiting public housing through analyzing spell durations. The results suggest that most individuals that enter public housing tend to have spells of less than 5 years. Moreover, only 12% of the original sample live in public housing for more than 10 years. Given the precocity of public assistance for low-income populations, scholars must consider alternative ways to understand how long and to what extent people live in poverty.
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The rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM), as an intentionally intersectional movement, challenges us to consider the ways in which BLM is reimagining the lines of Black activism and the Black Liberation Movement. BLM may be considered the “next wave” of the Civil rights movement, guiding how and with whom the movement will progress. We use a content analysis of public statements and interviews of the founding members from October 2014-October 2016 to discuss the ways in which the funders of BLM frame the group’s actions. We bring together the critical feminist concept of intersectionality with framing theory to show how the founders of BLM have strategically framed the movement as one that honors past Black Liberation struggles, but transforms traditional framing of those struggles to include all Black lives inclusive of differences based on gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, or criminal status.
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This article seeks to understand how public housing residents’ mobility intentions affect their actual exits. The results suggest that mobility intentions do have a significant effect on public housing exits. However, the rate of exit among those who intend to move out of public housing was similar to those who did not intend to leave. In addition, tenure had a significant effect on the odds of exiting alluding to issues of duration dependence. However, neighbourhood conditions did not fully explain public housing exits. Our proxy for policy reform had a large effect on the odds of exiting of public housing. This result suggests that changes in housing assistance programmes and urban housing policy could largely account for public housing exits. Overall, the results imply that while public housing residents may have positive and negative mobility intentions, their exits may primarily be due to shifts in housing policy and social welfare programmes versus individual characteristics and neighbourhood conditions.
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Dantzler, Prentiss A. (2018). “American Dream, Democratic Nightmare: Refocusing Governmental Approaches to Housing Policy.” In Ashley E. Nickels and Jason D. Rivera (Eds.), Community Development and Public Administration Theory: Promoting Democratic Principles to Improve Communities. Routledge.
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This chapter has three central arguments related to housing as a primary focus of community development. First, I argue that the persistent lack of federal support for low-income, subsidized housing is a direct result of false notions of dependency and continued debates of deservedness. Second, I critique homeownership as a tool of community development, specifically highlight the ways in which it has often put property owners and renters against each other. Third, I argue that instead of promoting homeownership, community development must draw its focus to residential stability as the ultimate form of community and neighborhood stabilization, regozning that renting is an important function of neighborhoods. I briefly share ways in which governments and communities can foster more community-centered neighborhoods, inclusive of a myriad of housing options.
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This article discusses the findings from a study on neighborhood satisfaction conducted within the North Camden neighborhood context. Using data from the 2011 North Camden Resident Satisfaction Survey, the study examined the subjective measures of neighborhood-level characteristics to identify the determinants of neighborhood satisfaction. A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that the quality of social networks, neighborhood physical conditions, neighborhood safety, and quality of public services are positively associated with neighborhood satisfaction. Surprisingly, the analysis showed that the extent of social networks and access to transportation have an inverse relationship with the satisfaction of residents with their neighborhood. The article discusses these findings and the way in which the results can inform practitioners about policies and programs that need to be developed and implemented to improve neighborhood satisfaction and, ultimately, individual and community well-being.
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This article discusses the actions surrounding the Mount Laurel doctrine, including the causes of concern and subsequent legal responses. This decision is paramount to understanding not only the processes by which it was adopted into law, but the continued responses of communities to deflect the encroachment of the poor unto their normal exercises of life. It also describes a specific case where the judicial branch of the government provided remedies in an environment where the other two branches of government failed to act. A historical analysis of such events demonstrates the position of the justices and uncovers the motivations by which the Mount Laurel cases were decided on state constitutional grounds and not on federal grounds. Mount Laurel proves useful in that the ongoing litigation between New Jersey municipalities and residents of the municipalities and numerous civic organizations is the foundation of national attention on the use of exclusionary zoning practices.
