
Sanford Schram
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About Sanford
Schram’s research and scholarship are focused on the politics of inequality. Schram's work is interdisciplinary, if primarily located in Political Science, Sociology, Public Affairs, Social Work and related disciplines especially as it relates to issues of social welfare policy, poverty studies, race, gender and class relations (subaltern studies). In Political Science, Schram’s work bridges the sub-fields of Public Policy, American Politics, Political Behavior, Race and Ethnic Politics, Gender Politics, Contemporary Political Theory, and Political Economy. Schram has testified before Congress on welfare policy, Schram's research on welfare migration has been used before the Supreme Court, and Schram is an active member of the Working Families Party in New York City. Schram has published 12 books, including Words of Welfare: The Poverty of Social Science and the Social Science of Poverty (1995) and Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race (2011), co-authored with Joe Soss and Richard Fording, both of which won the Michael Harrington Award from the American Political Science Association. His most recent book is co-authored with Richard Fording, Hard White: The Mainstreaming of Racism in American Politics (2020). Schram is the 2012 recipient of the Charles McCoy Career Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association.
Contributions
The Appeal and Limitations of Social Impact Bonds
In the News
Publications
Presents research on cognition and emotional appeal as strategies for swaying voters. Compares knowledge of U.S. politics among voters, and concludes that 'low information voters'—voters who are influenced by emotional appeal, as opposed to political research and ideas— make up a significant portion of Trump's support.
Comments on the book and on the broader question the book poses: Are we confronting a new form of capitalism that engenders new forms of politics, and if so, what does this mean for political science?