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Kelley Fong

Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California Irvine
Chapter Member: Los Angeles Unified SSN

Connect with Kelley

About Kelley

Fong's research examines poverty, social policy, children and youth, education, and family life. Specifically, she studies how families engage with state systems, how these systems affect families, and how these processes perpetuate adversity and inequality. Much of her current work focuses on Child Protective Services, drawing on administrative data as well as fieldwork with mothers, child welfare agency staff, and professionals mandated to report child maltreatment. Other projects examine school choice and residential decision-making.

In the News

"New Research: How Fear of CPS Harms Families," Kelley Fong, Interview with Keyna Franklin and Careena Farmer, Rise Magazine, January 22, 2020.
Kelley Fong quoted by Latoya Gayle, "Frustrated by Boston’s Public School Registration Process? You’re Not Alone" Perspective / Magazine, November 20, 2019.
Kelley Fong quoted by James Vaznis, "Late Registrations Complicate the Start of School for Many Boston Families" Boston Globe, September 5, 2019.

Publications

"Neighborhood Inequality in the Prevalence of Reported and Substantiated Child Maltreatment" Child Abuse & Neglect 90 (2019): 13-21.

Draws on administrative data from Connecticut, revealing substantial inequality in the prevalence of Child Protective Services contact by the demographic characteristics of children's residential neighborhoods (poverty rate and racial composition).

"Child Welfare Involvement and Contexts of Poverty: The Role of Parental Adversities, Social Networks, and Social Services" Children and Youth Services Review 72 (2017): 5-13.

Draws on in-depth interviews with poor parents to discuss contexts of poverty that provided pathways to child welfare involvement. Poverty created environments of desperation and disadvantage, combined with reliance on supports that reported parents to child welfare agencies.

"Getting Eyes in the Home: Child Protective Services Investigations and State Surveillance of Family Life" American Sociological Review 85, no. 4 (2020): 610-638.

Analyzes fieldwork in Connecticut to examine the wide reach of child protective services intervention and its implications for families.

"Subject to Evaluation: How Parents Assess and Mobilize Information From Social Networks in School Choice†" Sociological Forum 34, no. 1 (2018): Pages 158-180.

 Analyzes interviews in Boston and examines how parents selecting schools assess their social network ties as information sources. The study finds that parents privilege information from those they perceive to have affinity and authority, and these evaluative criteria map onto disparate networks to engender unequal mobilization of information from social networks in school choice.

"Concealment and Constraint: Child Protective Services Fears and Poor Mothers' Institutional Engagement" Social Forces 97, no. 4 (2019): 1785-1810 .

Argues based on in-depth interviews that concerns about Child Protective Services reports shape low-income mothers' engagement with educational, medical, social services, and other systems in ways that may preclude opportunities for assistance and reinforce a sense of constraint in families' institutional interactions.
 

"Timing Is Everything: Late Registration and Stratified Access to School Choice" (with Sarah Faude). Sociology of Education 91, no. 3 (2018): : 242-262.

Discusses how school choice deadlines constrains access to highly-desired schools for students registering late. Drawing on administrative, survey, and interview data in Boston, this study finds that late registration is common and highly stratified. Contexts of instability and bureaucratic complexity serve as barriers to registering months in advance, and parents describe disengagement from the school system following their late registration.