About:

Martín Sánchez-Jankowski is Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley where he also directs the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and the Center for Ethnographic Research. He taught at Wellesley College and the University of New Mexico before coming to Berkeley in 1984. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on inequality in advanced and developing societies with a particular interest in the sociology of poverty and the social arrangements and behavior of people living in poverty. In 1991, the results of his research on urban gangs were published in Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society (UC Press). Subsequent studies have focused on analyzing the institutional and cultural aspects of social life in poor U.S. neighborhoods, with those results being published in Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods (UC Press, 2008), and ethnic school violence, the results of which can be found in Burning Dislike: Ethnic Violence in High Schools (forthcoming UC Press, Spring 2016). He is in the process of finishing two books that report the findings from his study of poverty’s impact on academic achievement and his research on the workings of the illicit underground economy. He is currently engaged in comparative field research on poverty among indigenous groups within the US, Fiji, and India.