Thomas J. Espenshade (born March 17, 1943) is an American sociologist known for his work on social demography. He is an emeritus professor of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

Office of Population Research The Office of Population Research (OPR) at Princeton University is the oldest population research center in the United States. Founded in 1936, the OPR is a leading demographic research and training center. Recent research activity has primarily f ...

, as well as the director of the National Study of College Experience and the Campus Life in America Student Survey. He received his Ph.D. in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

from Princeton in 1972 and joined their faculty in 1988.

Research

Espenshade is known for his work in the field of social demography, and is especially known for his work on

population economics Demographic economics or population economics is the application of economic analysis to demography, the study of human populations, including size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics. Aspects Aspects of the subject include * m ...

demography Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and Population dynamics, dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups ...

and

racial diversity A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. His 2009 book ''No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life'', co-authored with Alexandria Walton Radford, explores the issue of

affirmative action in the United States Affirmative action in the United States is a set of laws, policies, guidelines, and administrative practices "intended to end and correct the effects of a specific form of discrimination" that include government-mandated, government-approved, an ...

from a quantitative perspective. The book concluded that

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

applicants to United States colleges were much more likely to be rejected by seven elite colleges than were similar members of any other race. It received the

American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...

Award, which is given to the year's best book on

sociology of education The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is mostly concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of ...

, in 2011.

References

External links

Faculty pageCurriculum vitae
1943 births Living people Princeton University faculty Princeton University alumni American demographers College of Wooster alumni Yale University alumni 21st-century American economists {{US-sociologist-stub