The three-term Proseminar in Inequality & Social Policy serves as the central vehicle for bringing students from different disciplines together in an intensive and sustained multidisciplinary learning experience. Doctoral Fellows enroll in the proseminar upon their selection to the program and move through the sequence as a cohort.

The first two terms of the Proseminar survey the central debates in the program’s eight substantive research areas (see research domains for full descriptions). Explicitly multidisciplinary in approach, the course is typically taught by a team of three faculty members, one from each disciplinary field. This group in recent years has included economists David Ellwood and Jeffrey Liebman; political scientists Jennifer Hochschild, Torben Iversen, and Theda Skocpol; and sociologists Kathryn Edin, Christopher Jencks, Bruce Western, William Julius Wilson. In 2009-2010, the course will be led by Kathryn Edin, Bruce Western, Christopher Jencks, and Theda Skocpol, and is expected to be held Wednesdays, 2:00-4:00 pm, in both the fall and spring terms.

A major focus in the first year of the Proseminar is the development of a major piece of publishable research, which often serves as the qualifying paper in the home department. Students receive extensive advising over the course of the year from a faculty reader in the program. The Proseminar thus offers participants a uniquely structured setting in which to undertake a significant research project of their own.

The third-term Proseminar, taken in the fall of the succeeding year, is is currently led by William Julius Wilson and dedicated to the presentation and advancement to publication of the research paper. Organized as a research workshop, it pairs each student with a faculty speaker from the Malcolm Wiener Inequality & Social Policy Seminar Series. The faculty visitor attends the student presentation with the class and serves as principal discussant for the student paper. The participation of these faculty visitors, selected for their expertise in the student’s research area, affords a rare opportunity for doctoral participants to engage in an extended discussion of their own research with leading experts from other institutions.

Prerequisite: Economics for Social Policy short course. For students without prior coursework (at an intermediate undergraduate level) in microeconomics and labor economics, there will be a short 4-5 day prerequisite class, which will likely be held in the week prior to start of the fall term.

This short course is designed to enable Proseminar participants to enter into a productive multidisciplinary dialogue from the outset, comfortable in the terminology and analytic conventions that particularly distinguish economics from other disciplines.

The program will coordinate with individual departments to avoid major scheduling conflicts (notably departmental general exams) and provide more specific scheduling information when the Doctoral Fellow selections are announced. All doctoral participants without prior background in this area should plan to attend if selected.

Research ethics module. All doctoral participants are required to participate in a short one-time research ethics module during their tenure in the program. This will likely take the form of a single workshop event that several program cohorts attend together. This is designed to be an occasion in which faculty and students explore normative and ethical issues that can arise when conducting empirical research in the social sciences, particularly where policy issues are at stake.

Faculty research apprenticeship. Students gain further training in multidisciplinary research through a paid research apprenticeship with a program faculty member. The apprenticeship requirement is designed to ensure that all doctoral participants benefit from a structured, collaborative experience in conducting advanced research. This may entail either a moderate time commitment over the course of an academic year or more intensive engagement in a summer research project.

In many cases, doctoral participants will have already worked as a research assistant with an affiliated faculty member, thereby satisfying the program requirement. In other cases, however, doctoral participants may find it useful to draw on the Multidisciplinary Program’s rich network of faculty beyond the home department, and the program can assist in this matching process. Funds for such research support will normally come from the faculty member’s own sponsored-research grants .

 

II. Seminar series

Doctoral Fellows are also expected to attend the Malcolm Wiener Inequality & Social Policy Seminar Series, a public research forum for leading scholars in their fields to share research with the Harvard and greater-Boston area Inequality & Social Policy community. Meeting weekly on Mondays from 12:00-1:45 p.m. over lunch, the seminar ensures exposure to a diverse set of research topics and methods. As with the proseminar, the series is explicitly cross-disciplinary in character, drawing liberally from economics, political science, and sociology to illuminate productive areas for cross-fertilization.

The seminar calendar highlights the range of substantive interests and modes of inquiry represented in the Multidisciplinary Program.

III. Special events and conferences

Doctoral Fellows will also participate in the program's special events and occasional conferences, such as the biennial Inequality Summer Institute.

Doctoral participants gain many opportunities, both at the Summer Institute and in the course of the academic year, to meet and interact with the program’s visiting seminar speakers and other guests.

IV. European Network on Inequality (ENI)

An unusual feature of the Inequality & Social Policy training program is that those fellows named as NSF-funded Doctoral Fellows—European specialists and non-specialists alike—undertake a two-month research project in residence at one of the 13 institutions of the European Network on Inequality, funded in full by the Multidisciplinary Program. We expect that most students will wish to take part in the ENI residency in the summer of the
G-2 or G-3 year, following completion of the first two terms of the Proseminar sequence.

This new European emphasis does not displace the program’s traditional strengths in the study of inequality and social policy in the U.S., but rather ensures that students who plan to devote their research careers to American social issues understand them in a more global and comparative context.

Doctoral Fellows will be matched to institutions on the basis of a research proposal process. Professor Michèle Lamont, Director of the European Network on Inequality, and the program’s International Coordinator, will work with students and the European partners to secure individual placements and identify prospective European mentors for Harvard participants.

Although the ENI research travel grants are reserved only for NSF-funded Inequality fellowship recipients, the 13 ENI institutions provide a network of scholarly resources and visitors that benefit all Inequality program affiliates.

Key program requirements summarized

• Enroll in three-term Proseminar course sequence • Attend weekly Inequality seminar series • Participate in special events and conferences organized by the Inequality program • (NSF-funded fellows only) Engage in a two-month research placement in a European Network on Inequality institution.

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