Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship and Mentoring Program

Law And Society Association, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship and Mentoring Program We propose a Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship and Mentoring Program (LSS Fellowship) to be funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Bar Foundation (ABF). The NSF portion of the LSS Fellowship will be administered by the Law and Society Association (LSA), in partnership with ABF and the respective social science departments at the universities of selected fellows. NSF would provide a portion of each fellow's stipend. LSA would coordinate and lead a training program involving the fellow's home department with a dual focus on individual mentoring and collective networking. ABF would provide a portion of each fellow's stipend, a local faculty mentor, as well as residential support including office space, secretarial support and a residential academic environment. The program has two broad objectives. The first is to enhance the capacity for rigorous social scientific research on law and inequality. Given law's capacity both to ameliorate and to perpetuate inequality, there is a need for the law and social science field to increase the quantity and quality of research on the ways in which inequality is mediated through legal institutions; the impact of social inequality on legal outcomes; how various forms of inequality, broadly defined, interact with the creation of legal rules, decision making, and the operation of organizations; and how law may create differential expectations and experiences for members of different social groups. The second primary objective is to provide an institutional infrastructure for developing the field of law and social science by enhancing the incentives for young scholars studying law in disciplinary departments to learn about, interact with, and contribute to the interdisciplinary law and social science field. By exposing young scholars to two of the primary institutions that contribute to the sustenance and development of the law and social science field-- the Law and Society Association and the American Bar Foundation-- scholars who might otherwise remain limited to non-legal topics within their own disciplines will be encouraged to pursue research on law from a social scientific perspective. Through combining academic, professional, and networking opportunities, the program promises to: increase the vitality of the subfield of law and inequality by fostering the development of emerging scholars; strengthen law and social science overall by nurturing intellectual and professional connections among scholars new to the field; and nurture a cohort of researchers who will become role models and mentors for future students of law and inequality. Because the study of law and inequality often is undertaken by scholars of color, the program may also help to alleviate the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in the field of law and social science. We request funds for an initial five-year period to support a sequence of two-year fellowships for a total of eight graduate student fellows. In the first year of the grant, the program will award two fellowships; during the second, third, and fourth years, the program will award two new fellowships, for a minimum of eight LSS fellows over a 5 year period. We also will conduct annual evaluations of the program, and, early in the fourth year of funding, an independent team will undertake an evaluation that should be useful in seeking to continue the program beyond the initial five-year period (if warranted).