Daniel Laurison, Ph.D.

Daniel Laurison, Ph.D.

Visiting Associate Professor; Department of Sociology

McNeil 291

Website

Daniel Laurison is a Visiting Scholar in the Sociology Department at Penn and an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College. He is also the Associate Editor of the British Journal of Sociology and a 2021-2022 Carnegie Fellow. His research is on issues of inequality and US politics, in various combinations. His work is rooted in understanding how the world looks different to people in different social positions, and a commitment to taking seriously the deep connections between economic inequality, racial inequality, and racism. His book, The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to Be Privileged (Polity Press 2019) co-authored with Sam Friedman, showed how class origins shape careers in high-end jobs. His next book, Producing Politics: Inside the Exclusive Campaign World Where the Privileged Few Shape Politics for All of Us will be published with Beacon Press in June 2022. 

Education
  • 2013 PhD in Sociology, University of California, Berkeley 
  • 2007 M.A. in Sociology, University of California, Berkeley 
  • 2000 B.A. in Sociology & Anthropology, Swarthmore College
Research Interests

His current project, funded through the Carnegie Fellowship, is an examination of the ways poor and working class people, in all racial-ethnic groups, engage with and disengage from electoral politics. 

Selected Publications

2022 Producing Politics: Inside the Exclusive Campaign World Where the Privileged Few Shape Politics for All of Us. In production with Beacon Press, due out late Spring 2022

2019 The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to Be Privileged. Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison. UK: Policy Press; US: University of Chicago. Reviewed in The American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, The London Review of Books, Sociology, Journal of Social Policy (partial list).

2015 Social Class in the 21st Century. Mike Savage, Sam Friedman, Daniel Laurison, Lisa McKenzie, Mark Taylor, Niall Cunningham, Helene Snee, Fiona Devine, Andrew Miles, Paul Wakeling. Penguin Publishing.

Affiliations

January 2017 onwards: Associate Editor, British Journal of Sociology 

August 2016 onwards: Assistant Professor of Sociology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA

June 2013 – July 2016: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Sociology, London School of Economics

 

 

CV (file)
CV (url)