Andrew Penner
@andrewpenner.bsky.social
160 followers 83 following 31 posts
Professor of Sociology and administrative data infrastructure enthusiast at UC Irvine. My book (Schooled & Sorted) examines the role of categorization in education and how we can create more egalitarian categories.
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andrewpenner.bsky.social
Yet one more way that we are failing children.
erictopol.bsky.social
The accompanying editorial tells the sad truth that is largely being ignored
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
andrewpenner.bsky.social
We subsequently looked at a few of the images I have published, but none were deemed as cool as the Banff data🙃
andrewpenner.bsky.social
Kiddo was incredulous and excited when I noted that making pictures to help people understand the world better was my job, and said I could publish this. Kiddo then suggested a division of labor where they would bring me other tidbits like this for me to publish😍
andrewpenner.bsky.social
Baby’s first data visualization—was reading a book about the Banff wildlife crossings and wanted to understand the preferences of different animals.
Bar chart of Banff animal over and underpass crossing data. Table from book that inspired figure (Banff animal over and underpass crossing data).
Reposted by Andrew Penner
dmhouston.bsky.social
Fascinating work by Deven Carlson, @t-h-a-d.bsky.social, James Carter, @rachelmarisa.bsky.social, Vitali Radsky, and Andrew McEachin on both the potential of school choice for the purpose of desegregation and the disappointing reality that most school choice systems tend to exacerbate segregation
Reposted by Andrew Penner
themarshallproject.org
The Power of Attorney flourished when more Americans saw incarcerated people as more than their crimes.

Their career would be unthinkable today: Leaving prison under armed guards to play hundreds of concerts and record in major studios.
The Prison Soul Band That Opened for Stevie Wonder
The band The Power of Attorney flourished when more Americans saw incarcerated people as more than their crimes.
www.themarshallproject.org
andrewpenner.bsky.social
For me as a graduate student, @isa-rc28.bsky.social modeled the kind of large-scale, big team, data intensive, methodologically rigorous, theoretically meaningful research that I aspired to do, and so it was especially meaningful to have our work recognized by this award!
andrewpenner.bsky.social
It was such an honor to receive this award from @isa-rc28.bsky.social
on behalf of @oliviergodechot.bsky.social and other coauthors.
isa-rc28.bsky.social
The winner of this year’s significant contribution award goes to

The great separation: Top earner segregation at work in advanced capitalist economies

O Godechot, et al
American Journal of Sociology 130 (2), 439-495, 2024

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...
andrewpenner.bsky.social
As @oliviergodechot.bsky.social notes, in some ways this could be seen as an example of "big" science:
coauthors: 29
years it took: 9
countries: 12
pages (w/ appendices): 111
observations: 1,164,687,821

But it can be summarized in one 5-word sentence: Top earners increasingly work together. PERIOD.
andrewpenner.bsky.social
So excited to receive this award on behalf of @oliviergodechot.bsky.social and 27 other coauthors!
agamoran.bsky.social
Congrats to @andrewpenner.bsky.social and a host of co-authors on winning the award for significant scholarship from @isa-rc28.bsky.social, presented by RC president @jenniebrand.bsky.social.
Reposted by Andrew Penner
themarshallproject.org
Every jailhouse lawyer knows Dee Farmer’s name, even if they don’t know who she is.

What most of them don’t know is that the person who paved the road for them was a transgender woman who filed her suit from a federal prison cell, in an era when her gender identity was considered a mental illness.
In Prison, She Changed Constitutional Law. Meet the Trans Woman Behind the Case.
Farmer v. Brennan is one of the most cited Supreme Court cases of all time. Few people know just how revolutionary Dee Farmer was.
www.themarshallproject.org
Reposted by Andrew Penner
aresherman.bsky.social
Short piece about our @nature.com paper on the immigrant-native pay gap in The Conversation! Also broad coverage in (so far) German, Dutch, and Spanish central news outlets today!
Immigrants in Europe and North America earn 18% less than natives – here’s why
Immigrants struggle to access higher-paying jobs, meaning their skills often go to waste.
theconversation.com
Reposted by Andrew Penner
aresherman.bsky.social
IN OTHER NEWS: check out our new COIN paper on immigrant--native pay gaps in advanced economies published in @nature.com this afternoon! Specifically, we study the relative contribution of within-job unequal pay vs between-job segregation to earnings disparities across immigrant generations. 1/9
Immigrant–native pay gap driven by lack of access to high-paying jobs - Nature
Data from nine European and North American countries reveal that the disparity in earnings between immigrants and natives is largely a result of segregation of immigrant workers into lower-paying jobs...
www.nature.com
andrewpenner.bsky.social
Very excited for the latest paper from the international administrative data network I am a part of!

Led by @aresherman.bsky.social we show that 75% of pay differences between immigrants and native-born workers arise because of sorting into different jobs, with 25% due to unequal pay within jobs.
Reposted by Andrew Penner
nber.org
NBER @nber.org · May 31
Universal school masking reduced weekly COVID-19 deaths by 0.57 per 100k people. 50 percent of districts removed mask requirements by spring 2022 contributing to 9 percent of COVID deaths that year, from Guzman, Imberman, Filosa, Kilbride, and Malkus https://www.nber.org/papers/w33849
Reposted by Andrew Penner
rachelefish.bsky.social
AERA: I'm looking forward to sharing a paper co-authored with @alexfreidus.bsky.social and @ericaoturner.bsky.social on how families of disabled children made school choices during the pandemic. Should be a stellar symposium on school choice for marginalized families! 8am Sunday in Meeting Room 712.
andrewpenner.bsky.social
I love this assignment so much and can’t wait to use it (with attribution) the next time I teach Sociology of Education!
jenjennings.bsky.social
[email protected] @andrewpenner.bsky.social @emilykpenner.bsky.social's book argues for reclaiming absolute goods (vs positional goods) as the desired outcomes of public ed.

I've asked students to pick 2 domains to focus on & explain why. Truly moving responses. Will share when compiled.
andrewpenner.bsky.social
This made my day, and I love these answers so much!

I tell my students that one of the reasons that I remain an optimist is because of how thoughtful and creative they are.

Looking forward to seeing what else your students come up with 💜
andrewpenner.bsky.social
So excited to present some great undergrad honors theses from UCI LIFTED students at #psa2025

Thanks to everyone who came for the great questions, and to the session organizers who helped make this happen!
Roundtable attendees watch a presentation on a laptop. Roundtable attendees watch a presentation on a laptop.
Reposted by Andrew Penner
dmwoodruff.bsky.social
A very old Soviet joke, from an especially dark time:

Foxes are fleeing the USSR in droves.
Q: Why are you running away?
Fox: The Soviets passed a new law that they’re going to arrest all camels.
Q: But you’re foxes!
Fox: Yeah, why don’t *you* try proving to the NKVD that you’re not a camel.
timothysnyder.bsky.social
If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.
andrewpenner.bsky.social
Okay, but how do you feel about steakholders?

I mean, nobody can get upset about researchers who want to communicate with folks carrying around slabs of red meat, right? 🥩
Reposted by Andrew Penner
leahclark.bsky.social
Allow me to nerd out a bit about the stats in our recent PNAS paper...

To make this graph, we calculated a 100-by-100 grid of the average proportion of peers in each income percentile for students in each percentile (i.e., average peer income distributions for each student percentile). [1/n]
Students in the top 1% of the income distribution are highly isolated in affluent school enclaves.

💥6%💥 of these top 1% percentile kids’ peers are ALSO in the top income percentile.

💥20%💥 are in the top 5 income percentiles.

💥Nearly 50%💥come from the top 20 income percentiles.