Heather Beth Johnson

Heather Beth Johnson graduated from Colby College in 1994, earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northeastern University in 2001, and immediately joined the Lehigh University faculty as Assistant Professor of Sociology. She specializes in race and class inequality in the contemporary United States, the sociology of wealth, the sociology of childhood, ideology, and qualitative methodology.  She received the Alfred Noble Robinson Award for “outstanding performance and unusual promise of professional achievement,” by Lehigh University in May 2003. In October 2003 she was awarded the Frank R. Hook Assistant Professorship, an endowed chair “awarded to Lehigh’s most outstanding junior scholar teachers who also foster personal interaction and mentoring relationships with students.” She regularly gives professional presentations on her work, and is the author of several scholarly papers and book chapters including, “Good Neighborhoods, Good Schools: ‘Good’ Choices and Race in the Minds of Whites,” in White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism (2003). She recently finished her first book, The American Dream and the Power of Wealth: Choosing Schools and Inheriting Inequality in the Land of Opportunity.
 

Summary of Sociological Interests

Race and class inequality and the processes by which these forms of stratification are transmitted throughout generations are fundamental questions in American sociology. The goal underlying my research agenda is to contribute in significant and relevant ways to understanding how race and class stratification are perpetuated in contemporary American society.  This focus is driven by an intellectual effort to understand the persistence of intergenerational, systematic inequality through meticulous empirical research grounded with methodological rigor.  I aim to consistently build upon and expand my scholarship to create an ever-growing body of relevant, meaningful, important, and high-quality work.
 

Areas of Specialization

Link to purchase book:

• Order The American Dream and the Power of Wealth on Amazon.com

Abstract:
In the contemporary United States, the structure of family wealth systematically transmits race and class inequalities through generations despite deep-rooted belief in otherwise.  In the post-civil rights era, the growing racial wealth gap defies our conviction in the principles of individualism, equal opportunity, and meritocracy at the heart of the American Dream.  This study draws on in-depth interviews with 200 black and white families in order to address this paradox, focusing on how parents in particular make sense of the discordance between the principles of dominant ideology and the realities of structured inequality.  Education, the “Great Equalizer,” is supposed to level out the playing field ensuring that each child – regardless of family of origin – gets an equal chance at success.  But the way wealth is acquired and the way it is used categorically puts children from different families on vastly different educational trajectories with uneven sets of opportunities.  Family wealth plays a pivotal role in parents’ capacities to access the schools they would like for their children.  Yet these same families rely on their belief in meritocracy to explain that each of us single-handedly earns, and deserves, where we end up.  Focusing especially on privileged families, who have directly benefited from inherited wealth and are disproportionately white, this book examines how they reconcile wealth privilege with their belief in egalitarian values.  Ultimately, families upheld the contradiction between the American Dream and the power of wealth— with serious ramifications:  In defending so staunchly the legitimacy of meritocracy and in focusing so intently on advantaging their own children, American families perpetuate patterns of inequality for a whole new generation.

Links To Articles, Press, Etc. Related To Heather Johnson's Research & Scholarship

• "Outstanding Faculty Honored," Lehigh University --University Relations

• "Assets, Race, and Educational Choices." 2000, Shapiro & Johnson. Center for Social Development, Working Paper 00-7.

• "School Violence Starts Early: NU Researchers Say More After-School Activities Must Be Developed." Meghan Erica Irons, The Northeastern Voice.