Research Expertise and Interest

education policy, institutional change, organizational theory, civil society, sociology of education

Research Description

Jose Eos Trinidad is an Assistant Professor in the Policy, Politics, and Leadership cluster of the University of California Berkeley School of Education. He is a sociologist with expertise in the study of organizations outside schools and the study of schools as organizations. He received his Joint PhD in Sociology and Comparative Human Development from The University of Chicago.

Integrating the sociologies of organizations and education, his research primarily interrogates the interaction between schools and "outside" research, philanthropic, and nonprofit organizations--with consequences for our understanding of public policy, school improvement, and civil society. His current research looks at these school-nonprofit interactions (1) in large urban school districts like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City, (2) with quantitative datasets assembled from US nonprofit tax records, and (3) in an ambitious project looking at the creation of new civic organizations in American and British postcolonies like the Philippines, Malaysia, and India. To understand policies and politics holistically, he is a multi-method researcher using quantitative causal inference strategies, qualitative interviews, network analysis, and comparative historical methods. 

His research has been published in more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles such as in Educational Policy, Educational Researcher, Socius, Sociological Inquiry, Race Ethnicity & Education, and Social Science & Medicine.  He is also author of two research methods books, one of which won the Philippine National Book Award. His research has been supported by the National Academy of Education/ Spencer Foundation, American Sociological Association/ National Science Foundation, Asian Development Bank, RAND Corporation, and Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation.