Rebecca A London
Biographic Data
| ID | 278948 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rebecca A London |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rebecca A |
| FAMILY NAME | London |
| SIGNATURE | LONDON R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Cruz |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6369-9280 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Creating Lasting Conditions for Meaningful Recess Reform: A 5‐School Exploration
BACKGROUND: When well implemented, recess is a critical part of the school day for children's healthy development. We explored the implementation of a recess improvement process in 5 elementary schools across 3 states. METHODS: We conducted a mixed-methods implementation study in which we visited each school 3 times over 1 school year, collecting observational, interview, survey, and focus group data. Qualitative data were coded thematically and …
Community-Engaged Scholarship and Its Implications for Public Sociology and the Discipline
This article provides an overview of research, practice, and theory in community-engaged scholarship as a means to expand our understanding of public sociology and its broader implications for sociology as a discipline. We begin with an overview of community-engaged scholarship and how it is related to and distinct from public sociology. Five main principles of community-engaged work are highlighted: (1) reciprocity and mutual benefit; (2) ethics…
Playing for Keeps: A Long‐Term Community‐Engaged Research Partnership to Support Safe and Healthy Elementary School Recess
The field of community‐engaged research emphasizes the importance of creating long‐lasting, mutually beneficial, and reciprocal collaborations. However, many issues prevent collaborations from reaching this goal, including institutional structures at universities, power dynamics between research and community partners, and the project‐based nature of research funding. In this article, the authors reflect on the 15‐year research collaboration they…
Las Voces de Mujercitas Empoderadas: Documenting Support for Youth with Youth Participatory Action Research
Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is a critical approach that engages youth as collaborative partners in research. It acknowledges the unique expertise that youth have on the adversities and assets that are present in their familiar systems, such as schools and the community. These projects are often designed to identify and address community problems; however, our projects with local youth aimed to shed light on a pre-existing community…
Making Space: Exploring the 'Thirdspace' of Breaktime in Middle School
Although scholars are attuned to the particular transitional dilemmas faced by middle school students, inquiry into middle school breaktimes is largely limited to research on bullying and peer victimization. This study interrogates the geography of middle school breaktime to expand understanding of student safety and recognize the ways that the state's intervention in school spaces creates particular challenges for young learners. By investigatin…
It Is Not Called Recess Anymore: Breaktime in Middle School
BACKGROUND: School recess offers students a break from the rigors and immobility of academic learning, and a chance for social interaction, play, and physical activity. The recess literature is based on elementary schools, with little attention to older students. Early adolescents also need school breaks, and this study offers some of the first findings on how to organize this time to best support the developmental needs of middle schoolers. METH…
Recess in the 21st Century Post‐Covid World
The abrupt onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into frenzied action, creating a series of ongoing stressors: school/work closings, remote learning, canceled events, family strife, fear, and a significant loss of social interactions. It is now unsurprising to learn that children's mental health has suffered. As social connection is tightly entwined with children's mental health, supporting school-based spaces for quality social interac…
‘First publics’ as knowledge producers
While public sociology has enjoyed a resurgence and rigorous debate since Michael Burawoy’s celebrated 2004 American Sociological Association presidential address, one area that has curiously lacked attention has been what most agree is academic sociology’s ‘first public’ – undergraduate students. Recent writings on public sociology recognize students as one of multiple publics; however, it is a public often defined as distinct and separate, ackn…
Learning in the Counterspace of Not School
This article considers the way that intergenerational familial settings have functioned as counterspaces where deficit narratives are challenged and youth identities are affirmed. These counterspaces support minoritized young people in particular as they learn in socio-spatial and cultural historical contexts, especially during the pandemic. We set out to consider this: What does family as counterspace contribute to our understanding of what it m…
Getting Connected: The Expanding Use of Technology among Latina Girls
When schools reopen, don’t neglect recess
When schools reopen in the fall, students and adults will return carrying stress and trauma arising from the sudden school closings, the social isolation, and the illness and unrest that many experienced over the summer. Rebecca London urges elementary school leaders to attend to students’ mental health and emotional needs by offering recess time every day. The need for play will be especially great among students of color and students in low-inc…
Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research: Expanding Undergraduate Teaching and Learning through Public Sociology
Drawing on a multiyear local research project on the affordable housing crisis, this article outlines a pedagogical approach we call Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research, or CISER. The CISER model brings together three key groups of actors—undergraduate students, university researchers, and community organizations—drawing on and extending the powers of cooperative “dyads” between them. This model aims to improve pedagogical and sociologic…
Reinventing the Role of the University Researcher
This study examines the structuring of university–community research partnerships that facilitate theoretically grounded research while also generating findings that community partners find actionable. We analyze one partnership that positions university-based researchers as members of a team working to create, maintain, and use a longitudinal multiagency data source. Through our focus on the evolution of this university–community collaboration, …
The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Community College Students
There is no clear theoretical prediction regarding whether home computers are an important input in the educational production function. To investigate the hypothesis, we conduct a field experiment involving the random provision of free computers to low‐income community college students for home use. Although estimates for a few measures are imprecise and cannot rule out zero effects, we find some evidence that the treatment group achieved better…
The Role of Community Technology Centers in Promoting Youth Development
Recent data suggest that the digital divide between White and minority youth persists, particularly in terms of home access to computers and the Internet. Community technology centers (CTCs) are an important alterative access point, especially for low-income youth of color. Such institutions, however, do much more, providing not just access, but general youth development, including the opportunity for youth to voice their stories, contribute to c…
The Role of Postsecondary Education in Welfare Recipients' Paths to Self-Sufficiency
Today's welfare system does not encourage postsecondary education, focusing instead on immediate employment. The loss of postsecondary education as a route out of poverty may be detrimental to some women. College graduation is associated with lower rates of recidivism and post-welfare poverty than attendance without graduation or no attendance
Welfare Recipients' College Attendance and Consequences for Time‐Limited Aid
Objective. I examine the association between total time on welfare and recipients' college attendance and graduation over a 20‐year period. Methods. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I model the determinants of college enrollment and graduation among welfare recipients, and the association between the total number of months a recipient receives aid and her college attendance and graduation. Models examine separately the e…
Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing
Which Tanf Applicants Are Diverted, and What Are Their Outcomes
Thirty‐four states have diversion programs in place that offer lump‐sum payments or service vouchers to applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) who have short‐term needs, enabling them to avoid beginning a spell of aid. Using data from the National Survey of America’s Families, I find that diversion programs appear to target applicants at the high and low ends of the educational spectrum, as well as Hispanic and married fami…
The interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and welfare participation
This article examines the interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and their welfare participation, taking into account the endogeneity embedded in the two decisions. Using data from the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation, I estimate a two-stage instrumental variables model and simulate the effects of partial- and full-family benefit reductions on both the distribution of living arrangements and the rate of welfare par…
The dynamics of single mothers' living arrangements
Trends in single mothers’ living arrangements from 1970 to 1995: Correcting the Current Population Survey
I examine trends in single mothers’ living arrangements using data from the 1970–1995 Current Population Surveys. I create a consistent trend by correcting a coding problem that stemmed from the misidentification of children living in multigenerational households before 1984. Revised estimates show that the number of single mothers in each of these years was undercounted by 200,000–300,000. All of these women were subfamily heads living with thei…
The effect of incremental benefit levels on births to AFDC recipients
We examine the relationship between fertility and incremental AFDC benefits using the 1990 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Estimating a logit equation for the probability of a higher-order birth among a sample of AFDC recipients, we find a positive coefficient (although statistically insignificant) on the incremental AFDC benefit level. However, we find a positive correlation between incremental benefits and fertil…
The Difference Between Divorced and Never-Married Mothers' Participation in the Aid to Families With Dependent Children Program
In this study, I examine the way in which divorced and never-married single mothers differ in their decisions to participate in Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), I find that divorced mothers are twice as likely to receive AFDC benefits than never-married mothers. When the gap between the participation rates is decomposed, I find that at most 25% is due to differe…
Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research: Expanding Undergraduate Teaching and Learning through Public Sociology
Drawing on a multiyear local research project on the affordable housing crisis, this article outlines a pedagogical approach we call Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research, or CISER. The CISER model brings together three key groups of actors—undergraduate students, university researchers, and community organizations—drawing on and extending the powers of cooperative “dyads” between them. This model aims to improve pedagogical and sociologic…
Trends in single mothers’ living arrangements from 1970 to 1995: Correcting the Current Population Survey
I examine trends in single mothers’ living arrangements using data from the 1970–1995 Current Population Surveys. I create a consistent trend by correcting a coding problem that stemmed from the misidentification of children living in multigenerational households before 1984. Revised estimates show that the number of single mothers in each of these years was undercounted by 200,000–300,000. All of these women were subfamily heads living with thei…
Reinventing the Role of the University Researcher
This study examines the structuring of university–community research partnerships that facilitate theoretically grounded research while also generating findings that community partners find actionable. We analyze one partnership that positions university-based researchers as members of a team working to create, maintain, and use a longitudinal multiagency data source. Through our focus on the evolution of this university–community collaboration, …
The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Community College Students
There is no clear theoretical prediction regarding whether home computers are an important input in the educational production function. To investigate the hypothesis, we conduct a field experiment involving the random provision of free computers to low‐income community college students for home use. Although estimates for a few measures are imprecise and cannot rule out zero effects, we find some evidence that the treatment group achieved better…
Which Tanf Applicants Are Diverted, and What Are Their Outcomes
Thirty‐four states have diversion programs in place that offer lump‐sum payments or service vouchers to applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) who have short‐term needs, enabling them to avoid beginning a spell of aid. Using data from the National Survey of America’s Families, I find that diversion programs appear to target applicants at the high and low ends of the educational spectrum, as well as Hispanic and married fami…
The Role of Community Technology Centers in Promoting Youth Development
Recent data suggest that the digital divide between White and minority youth persists, particularly in terms of home access to computers and the Internet. Community technology centers (CTCs) are an important alterative access point, especially for low-income youth of color. Such institutions, however, do much more, providing not just access, but general youth development, including the opportunity for youth to voice their stories, contribute to c…
The Role of Postsecondary Education in Welfare Recipients' Paths to Self-Sufficiency
Today's welfare system does not encourage postsecondary education, focusing instead on immediate employment. The loss of postsecondary education as a route out of poverty may be detrimental to some women. College graduation is associated with lower rates of recidivism and post-welfare poverty than attendance without graduation or no attendance
Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing
The Difference Between Divorced and Never-Married Mothers' Participation in the Aid to Families With Dependent Children Program
In this study, I examine the way in which divorced and never-married single mothers differ in their decisions to participate in Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), I find that divorced mothers are twice as likely to receive AFDC benefits than never-married mothers. When the gap between the participation rates is decomposed, I find that at most 25% is due to differe…
Las Voces de Mujercitas Empoderadas: Documenting Support for Youth with Youth Participatory Action Research
Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is a critical approach that engages youth as collaborative partners in research. It acknowledges the unique expertise that youth have on the adversities and assets that are present in their familiar systems, such as schools and the community. These projects are often designed to identify and address community problems; however, our projects with local youth aimed to shed light on a pre-existing community…
Learning in the Counterspace of Not School
This article considers the way that intergenerational familial settings have functioned as counterspaces where deficit narratives are challenged and youth identities are affirmed. These counterspaces support minoritized young people in particular as they learn in socio-spatial and cultural historical contexts, especially during the pandemic. We set out to consider this: What does family as counterspace contribute to our understanding of what it m…
Community-Engaged Scholarship and Its Implications for Public Sociology and the Discipline
This article provides an overview of research, practice, and theory in community-engaged scholarship as a means to expand our understanding of public sociology and its broader implications for sociology as a discipline. We begin with an overview of community-engaged scholarship and how it is related to and distinct from public sociology. Five main principles of community-engaged work are highlighted: (1) reciprocity and mutual benefit; (2) ethics…
Playing for Keeps: A Long‐Term Community‐Engaged Research Partnership to Support Safe and Healthy Elementary School Recess
The field of community‐engaged research emphasizes the importance of creating long‐lasting, mutually beneficial, and reciprocal collaborations. However, many issues prevent collaborations from reaching this goal, including institutional structures at universities, power dynamics between research and community partners, and the project‐based nature of research funding. In this article, the authors reflect on the 15‐year research collaboration they…
Welfare Recipients' College Attendance and Consequences for Time‐Limited Aid
Objective. I examine the association between total time on welfare and recipients' college attendance and graduation over a 20‐year period. Methods. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I model the determinants of college enrollment and graduation among welfare recipients, and the association between the total number of months a recipient receives aid and her college attendance and graduation. Models examine separately the e…
The dynamics of single mothers' living arrangements
The Difference Between Divorced and Never-Married Mothers' Participation in the Aid to Families With Dependent Children Program
In this study, I examine the way in which divorced and never-married single mothers differ in their decisions to participate in Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), I find that divorced mothers are twice as likely to receive AFDC benefits than never-married mothers. When the gap between the participation rates is decomposed, I find that at most 25% is due to differe…
The effect of incremental benefit levels on births to AFDC recipients
We examine the relationship between fertility and incremental AFDC benefits using the 1990 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Estimating a logit equation for the probability of a higher-order birth among a sample of AFDC recipients, we find a positive coefficient (although statistically insignificant) on the incremental AFDC benefit level. However, we find a positive correlation between incremental benefits and fertil…
Trends in single mothers’ living arrangements from 1970 to 1995: Correcting the Current Population Survey
I examine trends in single mothers’ living arrangements using data from the 1970–1995 Current Population Surveys. I create a consistent trend by correcting a coding problem that stemmed from the misidentification of children living in multigenerational households before 1984. Revised estimates show that the number of single mothers in each of these years was undercounted by 200,000–300,000. All of these women were subfamily heads living with thei…
The interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and welfare participation
This article examines the interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and their welfare participation, taking into account the endogeneity embedded in the two decisions. Using data from the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation, I estimate a two-stage instrumental variables model and simulate the effects of partial- and full-family benefit reductions on both the distribution of living arrangements and the rate of welfare par…
The dynamics of single mothers' living arrangements
Which Tanf Applicants Are Diverted, and What Are Their Outcomes
Thirty‐four states have diversion programs in place that offer lump‐sum payments or service vouchers to applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) who have short‐term needs, enabling them to avoid beginning a spell of aid. Using data from the National Survey of America’s Families, I find that diversion programs appear to target applicants at the high and low ends of the educational spectrum, as well as Hispanic and married fami…
Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing
Welfare Recipients' College Attendance and Consequences for Time‐Limited Aid
Objective. I examine the association between total time on welfare and recipients' college attendance and graduation over a 20‐year period. Methods. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I model the determinants of college enrollment and graduation among welfare recipients, and the association between the total number of months a recipient receives aid and her college attendance and graduation. Models examine separately the e…
The Role of Postsecondary Education in Welfare Recipients' Paths to Self-Sufficiency
Today's welfare system does not encourage postsecondary education, focusing instead on immediate employment. The loss of postsecondary education as a route out of poverty may be detrimental to some women. College graduation is associated with lower rates of recidivism and post-welfare poverty than attendance without graduation or no attendance
The Role of Community Technology Centers in Promoting Youth Development
Recent data suggest that the digital divide between White and minority youth persists, particularly in terms of home access to computers and the Internet. Community technology centers (CTCs) are an important alterative access point, especially for low-income youth of color. Such institutions, however, do much more, providing not just access, but general youth development, including the opportunity for youth to voice their stories, contribute to c…
The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Community College Students
There is no clear theoretical prediction regarding whether home computers are an important input in the educational production function. To investigate the hypothesis, we conduct a field experiment involving the random provision of free computers to low‐income community college students for home use. Although estimates for a few measures are imprecise and cannot rule out zero effects, we find some evidence that the treatment group achieved better…
Reinventing the Role of the University Researcher
This study examines the structuring of university–community research partnerships that facilitate theoretically grounded research while also generating findings that community partners find actionable. We analyze one partnership that positions university-based researchers as members of a team working to create, maintain, and use a longitudinal multiagency data source. Through our focus on the evolution of this university–community collaboration, …
Getting Connected: The Expanding Use of Technology among Latina Girls
When schools reopen, don’t neglect recess
When schools reopen in the fall, students and adults will return carrying stress and trauma arising from the sudden school closings, the social isolation, and the illness and unrest that many experienced over the summer. Rebecca London urges elementary school leaders to attend to students’ mental health and emotional needs by offering recess time every day. The need for play will be especially great among students of color and students in low-inc…
Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research: Expanding Undergraduate Teaching and Learning through Public Sociology
Drawing on a multiyear local research project on the affordable housing crisis, this article outlines a pedagogical approach we call Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research, or CISER. The CISER model brings together three key groups of actors—undergraduate students, university researchers, and community organizations—drawing on and extending the powers of cooperative “dyads” between them. This model aims to improve pedagogical and sociologic…
‘First publics’ as knowledge producers
While public sociology has enjoyed a resurgence and rigorous debate since Michael Burawoy’s celebrated 2004 American Sociological Association presidential address, one area that has curiously lacked attention has been what most agree is academic sociology’s ‘first public’ – undergraduate students. Recent writings on public sociology recognize students as one of multiple publics; however, it is a public often defined as distinct and separate, ackn…
Learning in the Counterspace of Not School
This article considers the way that intergenerational familial settings have functioned as counterspaces where deficit narratives are challenged and youth identities are affirmed. These counterspaces support minoritized young people in particular as they learn in socio-spatial and cultural historical contexts, especially during the pandemic. We set out to consider this: What does family as counterspace contribute to our understanding of what it m…
It Is Not Called Recess Anymore: Breaktime in Middle School
BACKGROUND: School recess offers students a break from the rigors and immobility of academic learning, and a chance for social interaction, play, and physical activity. The recess literature is based on elementary schools, with little attention to older students. Early adolescents also need school breaks, and this study offers some of the first findings on how to organize this time to best support the developmental needs of middle schoolers. METH…
Recess in the 21st Century Post‐Covid World
The abrupt onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into frenzied action, creating a series of ongoing stressors: school/work closings, remote learning, canceled events, family strife, fear, and a significant loss of social interactions. It is now unsurprising to learn that children's mental health has suffered. As social connection is tightly entwined with children's mental health, supporting school-based spaces for quality social interac…
Playing for Keeps: A Long‐Term Community‐Engaged Research Partnership to Support Safe and Healthy Elementary School Recess
The field of community‐engaged research emphasizes the importance of creating long‐lasting, mutually beneficial, and reciprocal collaborations. However, many issues prevent collaborations from reaching this goal, including institutional structures at universities, power dynamics between research and community partners, and the project‐based nature of research funding. In this article, the authors reflect on the 15‐year research collaboration they…
Las Voces de Mujercitas Empoderadas: Documenting Support for Youth with Youth Participatory Action Research
Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is a critical approach that engages youth as collaborative partners in research. It acknowledges the unique expertise that youth have on the adversities and assets that are present in their familiar systems, such as schools and the community. These projects are often designed to identify and address community problems; however, our projects with local youth aimed to shed light on a pre-existing community…
Making Space: Exploring the 'Thirdspace' of Breaktime in Middle School
Although scholars are attuned to the particular transitional dilemmas faced by middle school students, inquiry into middle school breaktimes is largely limited to research on bullying and peer victimization. This study interrogates the geography of middle school breaktime to expand understanding of student safety and recognize the ways that the state's intervention in school spaces creates particular challenges for young learners. By investigatin…
Community-Engaged Scholarship and Its Implications for Public Sociology and the Discipline
This article provides an overview of research, practice, and theory in community-engaged scholarship as a means to expand our understanding of public sociology and its broader implications for sociology as a discipline. We begin with an overview of community-engaged scholarship and how it is related to and distinct from public sociology. Five main principles of community-engaged work are highlighted: (1) reciprocity and mutual benefit; (2) ethics…
Creating Lasting Conditions for Meaningful Recess Reform: A 5‐School Exploration
BACKGROUND: When well implemented, recess is a critical part of the school day for children's healthy development. We explored the implementation of a recess improvement process in 5 elementary schools across 3 states. METHODS: We conducted a mixed-methods implementation study in which we visited each school 3 times over 1 school year, collecting observational, interview, survey, and focus group data. Qualitative data were coded thematically and …
Sociology (15 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Economics (11 works) · Demographic economics (9 works) · Developmental psychology (7 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (7 works) · Welfare (7 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (6 works) · Medicine (6 works)