Simone Ispa-Landa, Assistant Professor, Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University, conducts research that examines reproduction of social exclusion and how excluded groups understand and combat their status. She investigates how people in stigmatized communities understand dominant ideologies. She will discuss these topics as they relate to a school racial integration program and an organization that offers legal services to those with criminal records.

She will talk about how race and gender hierarchies constrain black adolescents’ social roles within majority-white suburban schools.