SESP Faculty

Simone Ispa-Landa

Faculty Profile

Simone Ispa-Landa is associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University. She also holds the position of associate professor of sociology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and is a faculty fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research.

Ispa-Landa’s publications cover topics of race and gender inequality and peer status hierarchies in educational settings. She employs qualitative methods to delve into the issues of isolation, exclusion, and violence in K-12 and higher education environments, exploring students’ and teachers’ lived experiences of social policies and potential avenues for change.

Her recent projects include partnership-oriented, engaged studies that focus on high school discipline and student attendance. Her projects have been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. 

Currently, Ispa-Landa is working on a book project that examines accountability policy, race, and gender inequality at a suburban high school. This book is under contract with the University of California Press. She was recently elected incoming chair of the Sociology of Education section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). In addition, she is a contributing member of several editorial boards, including Sociology of Education, Gender & Society, and AERA Open.

Race and ethnicity, gender, sociology of education, sociology of youth and childhood, qualitative research methods.

School Discipline

Derailed By the Data: School Discipline and Equity in US Suburbs (under contract with University of California Press) tells the story of Franklin High, a racially and socioeconomically diverse suburban high school in a self-consciously liberal school district that strives for racial equity in all aspects of the student experience.

Different from other books on school discipline that examine a particular policy, practice, program, or stakeholder group, Derailed by the Data offers insight into how the starkly different perspectives of administrators, teachers, students, and others – and the tensions between them – create a powerful backdrop that affects how discipline plays out and affects those most vulnerable.

The range of voices includes Black, White, and Hispanic administrators who want to ensure that the school does not feel like a “dress rehearsal for prison” for Black (especially male) students, White teachers who grew up in the upper-middle-class and see themselves as racial justice warriors, Black teachers who feel uniquely responsible for handling student misbehavior, working-class transgender students who face ongoing ridicule, students who face conditions such as autism, and community activists who protest the school-to-prison pipeline.

By uncovering how teachers respond to administrators’ efforts to improve racial equity (usually by collecting and interpreting vast amounts of discipline data), how students think and feel about safety and school discipline, and how communities demand action, this book ultimately reveals how big data and concerns about school reputation can interfere with meaningful reform.

Student Peer Cultures

How do organized extracurricular activities matter for how high school and college students form and maintain peer groups? What influence do race, gender, and social class have on students’ opportunities to benefit from high school and college extracurriculars?

And finally, how do college women and men navigate organized extracurriculars – such as historically white Greek life – that pose heightened risks of sexual violence and exposure to discrimination based on race and social class?

Ispa-Landa has developed a long-term project that tracks women who joined historically white sororities at an elite college. The project investigates whether, how, and to what extent women can benefit from participation in an organization that is high-status, yet also maintains deep-rooted traditions that put them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis fraternity men. The project is based on in-depth, intensive longitudinal interviews and tracks the women from their sophomore year of college to the year after college graduation. 

• 2022 – Mid-career Scholar, William T. Grant Institutional Challenge Grant
• 2018 – Northwestern University Women’s Center 30th Anniversary Gender Equity in Action Faculty Award
• 2018 – William T. Grant Scholar
• 2009 – Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
• 2008 – National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant

RACE, GENDER, AND SOCIAL STATUS HIERARCHIES

Ispa-Landa, Simone and Sara Thomas (2023) Navigating the Risks of Party Rape in Historically White Greek Life at an Elite College. Sociology of Education.

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Ispa-Landa, Simone and Mariana Oliver (2020). Hybrid Femininities: Making Sense of Sorority Rankings and Reputation.  Gender & Society.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone and Sara Thomas (2019). Race, Gender, and Emotion Work among School Principals.Gender & Society.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone (2016). Legitimizing Family Management: The Role of Adolescents’ Understandings of Risk. Journal of Marriage and Family.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone and Jordan Conwell (2015). Once You Go to a White School, You Kind of Adapt: Black Adolescents and the Racial Classification of Schools. Sociology of Education: 1-19.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone (2013). Gender, Race, and Justifications for Group Exclusion: Urban Black Students Bussed to Affluent Suburban Schools. Sociology of Education: 218-233.
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DISCIPLINE AND STIGMA

Ispa-Landa, Simone (2019). Believing in a Positive Future as a Form of Stigma Resistance: Narratives of Denied Expungement-Seekers. Deviant Behavior: 1-17.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone (2018). Persistently Harsh Punishments Amid Efforts to Reform: Using Tools From Social Psychology to Counteract Racial Bias in School Disciplinary Decisions. Educational Researcher: 1-7.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone (2017). Racial and Gender Inequality and School Discipline: Towards a More Comprehensive View of School Policy. Social Currents: 1-7.
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Ispa-Landa, Simone and Charles Loeffler (2016). Indefinite Punishment and the Criminal-Record: Stigma Reports among Expungement-seekers in Illinois. Criminology.
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