Sanford Schram

Sanford Schram
File:Sanford Schram.JPG
Born	(1949-01-18)January 18, 1949
Nationality	American
Fields	Political Science Sociology
Alma mater	St. Lawrence University State University of New York

Sanford Francis Schram (born January 18, 1949) is an American political scientist and author based in New York City. He is Professor of Political Science at Hunter College where he also teaches public policy in Roosevelt House. His research and scholarship are focused on the politics of welfare, poverty and related topics regarding the subjugation of subordinate populations in the U.S in particular.

Schram is the author of six books and co-author, co-editor or editor of eight others. He is the only person to have twice received the American Political Science Association's Michael Harrington award for his books Words of Welfare and Disciplining the Poor. In 2012, he received the Charles McCoy Career Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association.

Education

Schram received his Bachelor of Arts with a major in Government in 1971 from St. Lawrence University, which awarded him a distinguished alumnus award in 2008. He received his M.A. and his Ph.D. in Political Science in 1973 and 1978 respectively, from Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University of Albany, State University of New York, which also awarded him a distinguished alumnus award in 1988.

Career

While completing his Ph.D., Schram became an instructor at Nasson College in Springvale, Maine. In 1978, he became a faculty member of the State University of New York College at Potsdam, where he taught till 1989. At SUNY-Postdam, he was the Chairperson of the Department of Political Science from 1985 to 1989. In 1989, he joined the faculty of Macalester College, ending his appointment at Potsdam and becoming an Associate Professor at Macalester in 1991. After leaving Macalester in 1995, he taught political science and social work at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for two years and also served as the Director of the Public Policy Center at the School of Social Work. From 1997 until 2013, Schram was a visiting professor teaching social theory and policy in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College. He also taught undergraduate courses in political science and sociology at Bryn Mawr and occasionally Haverford College. While at Bryn Mawr he served as the Co-director of the Center on Ethnicities, Communities and Social Policy.

In 2013, Schram became a professor of political science at Hunter College (CUNY) where he also teaches public policy in Roosevelt House.

Schram has lectured and made public presentations at many universities around the world including the University of Vienna, Yale University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, University of Nebraska, Columbia University, University of Michigan, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, University of Strasbourg, University of Aarhus, Johannes Kepler University, Queensland University of Technology, Hebrew University, Haifa University and elsewhere. In the summer of 2013 he taught undergraduate and graduate courses on public-private partnerships at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark; and in the spring semester 2014 he was visiting fellow at the US Study Centre, University of Sydney, in Australia.

Books and research

Schram is the author of six books and co-author, co-editor or editor of eight others. He is also the author or co-author of over 170 articles. Schram is the only person to have twice received the American Political Science Association's Michael Harrington award for his books Words of Welfare and Disciplining the Poor.

His research and scholarship are focused primarily on the politics of welfare and poverty. His research is interdisciplinary and multi-methodological, using history, political theory, psycho-analysis, discourse analysis, ethnography, visual culture, quantitative analysis and other forms of data analysis to examine multiple dimensions of the political economy of poverty and inequality in the US and elsewhere. A key concept Schram develops in a number of his publications is "radical incrementalism," where activists, including those doing research, work within the existing system to disrupt power relationships with an eye to laying the basis for more transformational change.

Schram's first book, Words of Welfare: The Poverty of Social Science and the Social Science of Poverty was published in 1995. A few years later he published After Welfare: The Culture of Postindustrial Social Policy in 2000 (where he first introduces the idea of "radical incrementalism"), and then in 2002 Praxis for the Poor: Piven and Cloward and the Future of Social Science in Social Welfare which uses the example of his mentors Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward to further pursue the idea of "radical incrementalism." Library Journal called Praxis for Poor a "necessary reading for political scientists, sociologists, social workers, social welfare activists, policy-makers, and anyone concerned with the plight of the poor and oppressed..." and Mary Jo Deegan reviewing the book in American Journal of Sociology wrote that "I recommend reading this book, and I applaud Schram’s many accomplishments..."

In 2006, he wrote Welfare Discipline: Discourse, Governance and Globalization and then in 2011, he co-authored Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race with Joe Soss and Richard C. Fording. That book won the 2012 Oliver Cromwell Cox Award from the American Sociological Association for the best book for combating racism and several other awards since. It was selected as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine. Rose Ernst, writing in Perspectives on Politics in 2012, wrote that the book is "...comprehensive and far-reaching in its significance to scholars, activists, and policymakers."

In 2013, Schram wrote Becoming a Footnote: An Activist-Scholar Finds His Voice, Learns to Write, and Survives Academia, an account of his journey from a graduate student to a published scholar. James C. Scott wrote that "this book drew me in and works as a narrative on two levels. First, it is disarmingly and convincingly self-deprecating about the struggle to become a critical thinker, to write well, and to devise research programs that would shed light on major questions. Second, it is a valuable history of the central debates around social welfare policy, neoliberalism, and racial stigma." Schram's next book, The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy was published in 2015. In the book, he explained how neoliberalism has come to be the prevailing political-economic logic and recommended strategies for working through neoliberalism (via "radical incrementalism"). Wendy Brown called the book "clear, unpretentious, and unafraid...this is a work for Occupy's next round." and Jamie Peck wrote about the book that "...Schram delivers an acute, unflinching, and provocative analysis of our shared conjunctural predicament. In the face of the brutal restoration of business-as-usual capitalism and the widespread intensification of neoliberalized rule, Schram matches incisive analytical critique with a plea to push beyond the politics of left melancholia. The charge here is not only to envisage-but to grasp-radical potentialities on the terrain of the here and now."

Schram's latest book, the edited volume Neoliberalizing the University: Implications for American Democracy, was published in 2016.

Activism

Throughout his career as an academic, Schram has worked with various groups to promote welfare rights and address issues of poverty. Most prominently, he testified about his research before Congress on welfare reform. His published empirical research on welfare migration was used before the U.S Supreme Court in the case "Saenz v. Roe," which overturned state and national residency requirements for welfare recipients.

Awards and honors

Year	Award	Awarding Body	Work
2015	Herbert A. Simon Book Award	American Political Science Association	Disciplining the Poor
2013	Outstanding Academic Title	CHOICE Magazine	Disciplining the Poor
2011	Beryl Radin Award	Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory	The Organization of Discipline: From Performance Management to Perversity and Punishment (article)
2012	Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award	Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities (SREM) of the American Sociological Association	Disciplining the Poor
2012	Charles McCoy Career Achievement Award	American Political Science Association
2011	Michael Harrington Award	American Political Science Association	Disciplining the Poor
2007	Best Paper Award	American Political Science Association	Deciding to Discipline: A Multi Method Study of Race, Choice, and Punishment at the Frontlines of Welfare Reform (conference paper)
2006	Best Paper on Public Policy Award	American Political Science Association	The Color of Devolution: The Politics of Local Punishment in an Era of Neoliberal Welfare Reform (conference paper)
1995	Michael Harrington Award	American Political Science Association	Words of Welfare

Bibliography

• Words Of Welfare: The Poverty of Social Science and the Social Science of Poverty (Archaeology) (1995). ISBN 978-0816625789
• Tales of the State co-edited with Philip T. Neisser (1997). ISBN 978-0847685035
• Welfare Reform: A Race to the Bottom? co-edited with Samuel H. Beer (1999). ISBN 978-0943875934
• After Welfare: The Culture of Postindustrial Social Policy (2000). ISBN 978-0814797556
• Praxis for the Poor: Piven and Cloward and the Future of Social Science in Social Welfare (2002). ISBN 978-0814798188
• Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform co-edited with Joe Soss and Richard C. Fording (2003). ISBN 978-0472068319
• Welfare Discipline: Discourse, Governance and Globalization (2006). ISBN 978-1592133024
• Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method co-edited with Brian Caterino (2006). ISBN 978-0814740330
• Change Research: A Case Study on Collaborative Methods for Social Workers and Advocates co-authored with Corey S. Shdaimah and Roland W. Stahl (2011). ISBN 978-0231151795
• Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race co-authored with Joe Soss and Richard C. Fording (2011). ISBN 978-0226768779
• Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis’’ co-edited with Bent Flyvbjerg and Todd Landman (2012). ISBN 978-0521468503
• Becoming a Footnote: An Activist-Scholar Finds His Voice, Learns to Write, and Survives Academia (2013). ISBN 978-1438447742
• The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy (2015). ISBN 978-0190253028
• Neoliberalizing the University: Implications for American Democracy edited (2016). ISBN 978-1138194748

External links

• Page at Hunter College

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