| 1 | Name: | Dr. Christopher Jencks | |
| Institution: | Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University | ||
| Year Elected: | 2004 | ||
| Class: | 3. Social Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 301. Anthropology, Demography, Psychology, and Sociology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1936 | ||
For decades, Christopher Jencks has studied such controversial subjects as economic inequality, race, education and social mobility, and homelessness. His work is meticulously researched, methodologically ingenious, relentlessly logical, and consistently dispassionate. One of the world's most eminent social scientists engaged in policy research, he is perceptive in identifying the causes of social problems and adept in connecting evidence and policy choices. Recently, he has dealt with "paradoxes of welfare reform," the intractability of the black-white test score gap, the contributions of conservative and liberal policies to homelessness and why the United States generates so many low wage jobs. Whatever one's political predispositions, his studies are always illuminating and persuasive. Currently the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Jencks has also taught at Northwestern University (1980-96), and from 1961-63 he served as associate editor of The New Republic. His published works include Inequality (1972); Who Gets Ahead? (1979); Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty and the Underclass (1992); The Homeless (1994); and (with M. Phillips) The Black White Test Score Gap (1998). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1997). | |||