All Research Topics

The USC Price Center for Social Innovation brings an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to social innovation research. Through relevant, rigorous research, Price Center faculty explore a variety of topics that seek to inform and advance new models of equity and opportunity for low-income children and families.

What Is Collective Impact

Year: 2018

A concise introduction to the concept of “collective impact” with two examples of significant initiatives in Los Angeles.


A Patchwork of Identities: Emergence of Charter Schools as a New Organizational Form

Emergence: Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 50

Year: 2017

This paper examines the emergence of an organizational form, charter schools, in Oakland, California. It links field-level logics to organizational founding identities using topic modeling. It finds corporate and community founding actors create distinct and consistent identities, whereas more peripheral … Continue reading


Opportunity Youth in the City of Los Angeles

USC Price Center for Social Innovation

Year: 2017

The term opportunity youth refers to individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither employed nor enrolled in school. Opportunity youth are disproportionately youth of color, live in low-income neighborhoods and face important barriers to job access … Continue reading


Racial Residential Segregation of School-Age Children and Adults: The Role of Schooling as a Segregating Force

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences

Year: 2017

Neighborhoods are critical contexts for children’s well-being, but differences in neighborhood inequality among children and adults are understudied. I document racial segregation between neighborhoods among school-age children and adults in 2000 and 2010 and find that though the racial composition … Continue reading


Evaluating Teachers in the Big Easy: How Organizational Context Shapes Policy Responses in New Orleans

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

Year: 2017

Although multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems have gained popularity in the United States, few studies have examined their implementation or how they are shaped by organizational context. New Orleans provides a strategic case to examine the enactment of a state teacher … Continue reading


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