Research Expertise and Interest

sociology, labor, social movements, inequality, higher education

Research Description

Kim Voss's  current research investigates the immigrant rights movement, examines dilemmas currently facing the U.S. labor movement, and analyzes the shifting terrain of U.S. higher education. In addition to publishing in academic journals in sociology, political science, and demography, she has written or edited six books: Rallying for Immigrant Rights (2011, with I. Bloemraad), Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement (2006, with R. Fantasia), Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Movement (2004, with R. Milkman), Des Synidcats Domestiques: Repression Patronale et Resistance Syndicale Aux Etas-Unis (2003, with R. Fantasia), Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth (1996, with five Berkeley colleagues), and The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993).

Her latest publications are a forthcoming article in Social Problems: “Persistent Inequalities in College Completion, 1980–2010” (with Michael Hout and Kristin George), two 2020 articles in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies: “Movement or Moment? Lessons from the pro-immigrant movement in the United States and contemporary challenges,” (with I. Bloemraad) and “The Limits of Rights: Claims-making on behalf of immigrants” (with F. Silva and I. Bloemraad), and one (2020), “Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me: Shifting Targets, Changing Repertoires, and Internal Democracy in the U.S. Labor Movement” (with Pablo Gaston), in James Jasper and Braydon King, Protesters and Their Targets, Temple University Press. 

She has also co-written two recent research briefs with Tipping Point Community and three colleagues: Taking Count 2021: A Study on Poverty in the Bay Area and Taking Count 2020: A Study on Poverty in the Bay Area.