Rory Kramer, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | Villanova University
Villanova, PA, UNITED STATES
Rory Kramer, PhD, is an expert on racial inequality, race and education, police use of force and segregation and the physical environment.
Media
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Areas of Expertise (8)
Criminology
Urban neighborhoods
Urban Sociology
Education and inequality
Racial identity
Social Mobility
Segregation
Sociology
Biography
Do physical barriers impact the pattern and spread of racial segregation in cities? Dr. Kramer is an authoritative voice on how segregated neighborhoods are formed in urban areas and the influence that roads and other blockades play in their development. His work includes examining spatial segregation that better represents the growth of multi-race residential areas and the complexity of racial segregation in the United States and analysis of police use of force. He can also speak to the racial and class identities of socially mobile students, and whether or not multiracial individuals benefit from having fluid or stable racial self-identities.
Education (3)
University of Pennsylvania: PhD
University of Pennsylvania: MA
Williams College: BA
Links (1)
Select Media Appearances (6)
New Jersey Takes On Vestige Of Three-Fifths Clause: Prison Gerrymandering
The Appeal online
2020-01-16
“A recent study about Pennsylvania’s state legislative districts by Villanova University associate professors highlights the impact this process can have on the political voice of incarcerated people’s home communities,” NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang reported last month.
How We Count People Skews Political Power
The Appeal
2019-05-07
A new study of Pennsylvania shows the extent to which prison gerrymandering dilutes the political power of non-white residents and urban communities. Brianna Remster and Rory Kramer of Villanova University looked at every Pennsylvania district and examined the effect of counting people in their home districts rather than where they were incarcerated.
Study shows prisons give home districts power, leach it from poor urban areas
WITF
2019-04-26
Remster and co-author Rory Kramer, a Villanova associate professor, found that counting inmates as part of their prison's district actually adds about 59 people to the average white person's district, and takes 353 and 313 people away from the average black and Latino voters', respectively.
Gentrification: What's Really Happening?
Science Vs
2018-10-11
So we asked Rory Kramer, a professor of sociology at Villanova University in Philly, about this and this is what he told us. “I’ll put it really bluntly, I don’t think long-time predominantly minority residents call police to their neighborhood nearly as often for things like noise complaints as new white neighbors.”
Why did Baltimore riots prompt 'Blue Alert' in Los Angeles?
The Christian Science Monitor
2015-04-28
The Los Angeles Police Department has ordered officers to ride in pairs after the Baltimore police sent out a coast-to-coast “Blue Alert” warning of what they call “a credible threat” against all police nationwide. ... “It’s an embarrassment that an Instagram picture and a truce between gangs gets police all the way across the country to reform their practices,” says Rory Kramer, a professor in Villanova University’s Department of Sociology and Criminology who specializes in how segregated neighborhoods are formed in urban areas. “It’s sad that the reform only serves to promote and reinforce an antagonistic view of the community from the police.”
How Ferguson could be America's future
CNN
2014-08-23
The protests in Ferguson, Missouri, have been described as a mirror into contemporary America, but they are also something else: A crystal ball. ... A dramatic increase in interracial marriages will change the racial landscape as more people cross racial and ethnic lines to marry. But that change won't be a cure-all, says Rory Kramer, a sociology and criminology professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He says racial progress is not inevitable with the browning of America. "I don't want to deny the optimism," Kramer says. "I deny the assumption that it will happen without effort."
Research Grants (2)
Pollak Grant
University of Pennsylvania
2011 A Socio-Spatial Exploration of Racial Residential Boundaries on Philadelphia.
Pollak Grant
University of Pennsylvania
2006 Preparing for Entrance: Non-elite student preparation for elite boarding school.
Select Academic Articles (5)
Defensible Spaces in Philadelphia: Exploring Neighborhood Boundaries Through Spatial Analysis
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social SciencesRory Kramer
2017
Racial rigidity in the United States: comment on Saperstein and Penner
American Journal of SociologyRory Kramer, Robert DeFina, Lance Hannon
2016
Intragroup heterogeneity and Blackness: Effects of racial classification, immigrant origins, social class, and social context on the racial identity of elite college students
Race and Social ProblemsCamille Z Charles, Rory A Kramer, Kimberly C Torres, Rachelle J Brunn-Bevel
2015
When change doesn’t matter: Racial identity (in) consistency and adolescent well-being
Sociology of Race and EthnicityRory Kramer, Ruth Burke, Camille Z Charles
2015
Out with the old, in with the new? Habitus and social mobility at selective colleges
Sociology of EducationElizabeth M Lee, Rory Kramer
2012
Social