Ellen Berrey
Assistant Professor
Education: Ph.D., Northwestern University
Research interests: Race and Ethnicity, Cities, Political Language, Law and Organizations, Inequality and Discrimination, Qualitative Methods
Recent Courses: Soc 315: Sociology of City Life, Soc 446: Environmental Sociology
Bio: Ellen Berrey's research examines political discourse, organizational politics, and social inequality. Her most recent project investigates diversity discourse in a university, a company, and a city neighborhood to understand how "diversity" became a dominant rhetoric on race. She is currently working on a book, tentatively titled How Diversity Transforms the Project of Racial Equality. She also works with scholars at the American Bar Foundation, Northwestern University, and other universities on a national study of employment discrimination. Her research has been published in Annual Review of Law & Social Science, City & Community, Contexts, Critical Sociology, and Law & Social Inquiry.
Recent Publications:
Berrey, Ellen C. (forthcoming). “Why Diversity Became Orthodox in Higher Education, and How It Changed the Meaning of Race on Campus.” Critical Sociology, issue on Critical Studies of Diversity in the Post-Civil Rights Era.
Berrey, Ellen. 2009. “Sociology Finds Discrimination in the Law.” Contexts. 8(2): 28-32.
Nelson, Robert, Ellen Berrey, and Laura Beth Nielsen. 2008."Divergent Paths: Conflicting Conceptions of Employment Discrimination in Law and the Social Sciences." Annual Review of Law & Social Science. 22(9).
Berrey, Ellen C. and Laura Beth Nielsen. 2007. "Rights of Inclusion: Reintegrating Identity at the Bottom of the Dispute Pyramid." Law & Social Inquiry 32(1): 233-260.
Berrey, Ellen C. 2005. "Divided over Diversity: Political Discourse in a Chicago Neighborhood." City & Community. 4(2): 143-170.
Berrey, Ellen C. 2004. "Field Note: The Drive for Diversity." Contexts. Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association. 3(1): 60-61.