Bruce Western

Member of Faculty, HKS
Professor of Sociology, FAS
Harvard Kennedy School
Office Address
Taubman-452
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox NR
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Phone: 617-495-3879
Email: Bruce_Western@ksg.harvard.edu
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Profile

Bruce Western is Professor of Sociology. His research interests are in the field of social stratification and inequality, political sociology, and statistical methods. He is the author of Punishment and Inequality in America, a study of the growth and social impact of the American penal system. His first book, Between Class and Market, examined the development and decline of labor unions in the postwar industrialized democracies. He is currently studying the social impact of rising income inequality in the United States. Western taught at Princeton from 1993 to 2007 and received his PhD in sociology from UCLA.

 

Courses

Fall

  • HLE-511 Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy I

Spring

  • CCJ-202 Sociology of Crime and Punishment

Research

For a complete list of faculty citations from 2001 - present, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School Research Report Online.

Selected Publication Citations:

  • Academic Journals
    • Western, Bruce, and Deirdre Bloom. "Variance Function Regressions for Studying Inequality." Sociological Methodology 39.1 (August 2009): 293-326.
    • Western, Bruce. "Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment." American Sociological Review 74.5 (October 2009): 777-799.
  • Magazine and Newspaper Articles
    • Western, Bruce. "Reversing Mass Imprisonment." Boston Review. July/August 2008.
  • Research Papers/Reports
    • Western, Bruce. "From Prison to Work: A Proposal for a National Prisoner Reentry Program." Hamilton Project Discussion Paper, The Brookings Institution 2008-16, December 2008.
  • Reviews
    • Western, Bruce. "Lone Pursuit: Distrust and Defensive Individualism Among the Black Poor." Review of Distrust and Defensive Individualism Among the Black Poor, by Sandra Susan Smith. Contemporary Sociology, 38.1, January 2009: 71-72.