Assistant Professor

Department of Sociology
University of British Columbia

Office: AnSo 3115
Phone: (604) 822-4845

Email: wroth(at)interchange.ubc.ca

 

Education

Ph.D., A.M., Harvard University

M.Phil., Oxford University

B.A., Yale University

 

 

Teaching Areas

Ethnic and Racial Inequality, Immigration, Qualitative Research Methods.

Research Interests

Race and Ethnicity, Immigration, Latino/a Studies, Genetics and Society, Multiracial Identities and Populations, Racial Classification, Inequality, Social Stratification, Urban Poverty, Research Methods.

The interest that motivates much of my current research is how social processes like immigration, intermarriage, or interpretations of new technologies challenge racial boundaries and transform classification systems. My focus in this area is usually tied to its implications for stratification and race relations. I am interested in how concepts of race and ethnicity change and how those changes shape actual social interactions and relations between ethnic and racial groups.

My research is often multidisciplinary in orientation. I was a Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government from 2000-2006 and a Junior Early Career Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies in 2007-2008. My interests often lie in the intersection between sociology and such fields as political science, social policy, economics, anthropology, organizational behaviour, and biology.

I am also interested in comparative and transnational research, and in both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Projects

Some of my current and ongoing projects include:

A book manuscript on how migration to the mainland U.S. affects the racial identities Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. Where most research focuses solely on migrant outcomes, this project adopts a transnational perspective, using qualitative interviews and ethnography in San Juan, Santo Domingo, and New York City to show how migration simultaneously affects conceptions of race and ethnicity in both sending and receiving societies. The book examines whether emergent racial identities help explain the socioeconomic differences between light- and dark-skinned Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in the mainland U.S. This manuscript is based on my dissertation, which won the 2007 American Sociological Association Dissertation Award.

A longitudinal project to examine the effect of DNA ancestry testing (aka, genetic genealogy) on individuals' subjective identities, understanding of race and ethnicity, and relations with other social groups. This project is sponsored by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

A mixed-method case study (with Gerhard Sonnert, Harvard University) of how organizational structure contributes to gender inequity in a science research organization.

Quantitative analysis (with Marc-David Seidel, UBC Sauder School of Business, and UBC students Dennis Ma and Eiston Lo ) of how immigrants' social networks and social capital, particularly for those of different immigration classes (e.g. family class vs. skilled workers), facilitate economic integration across Canadian provinces. This project is sponsored by a grant from Metropolis BC.

Selected Publications

Roth, Wendy D. Forthcoming Dec. 2010. “Racial Mismatch: The Divergence Between Form and Function in Data for Monitoring Racial Discrimination of Hispanics.” Social Science Quarterly

Roth, Wendy D. 2009. "'Latino Before the World:' The Transnational Extension of Panethnicity." Ethnic and Racial Studies 32(6): 927-947.

Roth, Wendy D. 2009. "Transnational Racializations: The Extension of Racial Boundaries from Receiving to Sending Societies." Pp. 228-244 in How the United States Racializes Latinos: At Home and Abroad, edited by Jose A. Cobas, Jorge Duany, and Joe Feagin. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

Roth, Wendy D. 2008. "'There Is No Discrimination Here': Understanding Latinos' Perceptions of Color Discrimination through Sending-Receiving Society Comparison." Pp. 205-234 in Racism in the 21st Century: A Question of Color, edited by Ronald E. Hall. New York: Springer Press.

Roth, Wendy D. 2007. "United Kingdom." Pp.641-651 in The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965, edited by Mary C. Waters and Reed Ueda with Helen Marrow. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Roth, Wendy D. 2005. "The End of the One-Drop Rule? Labeling of Multiracial Children in Black Intermarriages." Sociological Forum, 20(1):35-67.

Newman, Katherine S., Cybelle Fox, David Harding, Jal Mehta, and Wendy Roth. 2004. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. New York: Basic Books.

Finalist for C. Wright Mills Book Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems

Read review of Rampage in Contexts (here)

Roth, Wendy D. and Jal D. Mehta. 2002. "The Rashomon Effect: Combining Positivist and Interpretive Approaches in the Analysis of Contested Events" Sociological Methods & Research 31(2):131-173.

Reprinted in Philosophical Foundations of Social Research Methods. 2005. Edited by Malcolm Williams. Benchmarks in Social Research Methods series. London: Sage Publications.

Fox, Cybelle, Wendy D. Roth, and Katherine S. Newman. 2002. "A Deadly Partnership: Lethal Violence in an Arkansas Middle School." Pp. 91-116 in Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence

 

Weblinks

Race Not a Black and White Issue, says Sociologist

Citation for American Sociological Association 2007 Dissertation Award

Metropolis British Columbia, Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Diversity

Berkeley Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop

American Sociological Association

Canadian Sociological Association

Canadian Population Society

IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series)

 

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)