Christina J. Cross is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and will begin her appointment as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard in July 2022. She studies the linkages between family background, poverty, race, and child well-being. The central question underlying her research asks: How do family structure, change, and dynamics influence individual well-being across the life course, particularly among low-income and/or minority populations? Much of Cross’s work focuses on childhood as a key stage in the life course for the emergence and accumulation of social advantages or disadvantages. Her research has three interrelated goals: (1) document the prevalence and predictors of previously underexplored family structures that are common among low-income and minority families; (2) investigate how the relationship between family structure and child outcomes is patterned by social class and race/ethnicity; and (3) document within-group differences in family processes among major racial/ethnic groups.
For the Spring 2022 IRP Visiting Poverty Scholars Program she chose to visit the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Christina Cross was a 2019–2020 IRP Emerging Poverty Scholar Fellow.
@christinajcross