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Author: Branigan, Amelia R.

Resulting in 6 citations.

1.	Branigan, Amelia R.
1.	(How) Does Obesity Harm Academic Performance? Stratification at the Intersection of Race, Sex, and Body Size in Elementary and High School Sociology of Education 90,1 (January 2017): 25-46. Also: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038040716680271 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Discrimination, Body weight; Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study; Gender Differences; Obesity; Racial Differences; School Performance Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. In this study I hypothesize a larger penalty of obesity on teacher-assessed academic performance for white girls in English, where femininity is privileged, than in math, where stereotypical femininity is perceived to be a detriment. This pattern of associations would be expected if obesity largely influences academic performance through social pathways, such as discrimination and stigma. In the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (age ~9) and the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (age ~18), I find obesity to be associated with a penalty on academic performance among white girls in English but not in math, while no association is found in either subject for white boys or for black students net of controls. Findings suggest that the relationship between obesity and academic performance may result largely from how educational institutions interact differently with bodies of different sizes rather than primarily via constraints on physical health.
	Bibliography Citation Branigan, Amelia R. "(How) Does Obesity Harm Academic Performance? Stratification at the Intersection of Race, Sex, and Body Size in Elementary and High School." Sociology of Education 90,1 (January 2017): 25-46.

2.	Branigan, Amelia R.
2.	(How) Does Obesity Harm GPA? Stratification at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Body Size Presented: Chicago IL, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2015 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Gender Differences; Grade Point Average (GPA)/Grades; High School; Obesity; Racial Differences Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. While the physical body is now broadly accepted as a sociological entity, conversation between researchers quantifying bodily characteristics and those theorizing the social construction of the body remains limited. In this study I bridge these literatures, drawing on feminist theory and education research to hypothesize a larger negative association between obesity and GPA for girls in English, where femininity is privileged, than in math, where stereotypical femininity is perceived to be a detriment. Among White girls in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997, I find obesity in high school to be associated with a one-quarter standard deviation penalty on cumulative GPA in English, whereas any penalty of obesity on GPA in math is substantively small and statistically non-significant. In contrast, the negative relationship between obesity and GPA for White boys remains stable across course subjects. Net of controls, associations between obesity and GPA are not significant for Black or Hispanic students of either sex in either course subject. This study adds to a growing literature suggesting that the relationship between obesity and socioeconomic outcomes may result in large part from how institutions interact differently with bodies of different sizes, while challenging explanations that eschew social pathways altogether. It additionally emphasizes the need to better engage sociological theories of the body in quantitative inequality research, as doing so may alter both interpretation of results, and the questions that we ask.
	Bibliography Citation Branigan, Amelia R. "(How) Does Obesity Harm GPA? Stratification at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Body Size." Presented: Chicago IL, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2015.

3.	Branigan, Amelia R.
3.	The Penalty of Obesity on Grade Point Average: Evaluating Mechanisms through Variation by Gender, Race, and School Subject Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): Gender Differences; Grade Point Average (GPA)/Grades; High School Curriculum; Obesity; Racial Differences Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Why obesity would be associated with grade point average (GPA) but not with test-based measures of achievement remains a puzzle. Here, I test whether the associations between obesity and GPA across race, sex, and academic course subjects follow patterns expected if the relationship functions largely through social pathways. I hypothesize a larger negative association between obesity and GPA for girls in English, where femininity is privileged, than in math, where femininity is perceived to be a detriment. Among White girls in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997, obesity in high school is associated with a significantly larger GPA penalty in English than in math, while no subject difference is found for White boys or minorities of either sex. This study adds to a growing literature suggesting that the relationship between obesity and socioeconomic outcomes may result in large part from how institutions interact differently with bodies of different sizes.
	Bibliography Citation Branigan, Amelia R. "The Penalty of Obesity on Grade Point Average: Evaluating Mechanisms through Variation by Gender, Race, and School Subject." Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014.

4.	Branigan, Amelia R.
4.	The Social Relevance of Visible Physical Characteristics for Educational Outcomes Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 2014 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Body Mass Index (BMI); Educational Attainment; Grade Point Average (GPA)/Grades; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); Obesity; Racial Differences; Skin Tone Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. In this dissertation, I use educational performance outcomes to assess the sociological relevance of two visible physical characteristics--skin color and body fat--addressing challenges of accurate measurement and of variation in the salience of these characteristics across cohorts. I argue that the visible body is itself a social fact, and that by omitting physical variation from quantitative analysis of inequality, social scientists render invisible systems of inequality that persist within categories such as sex and race, seeing only disparities between them. Through three studies using large national datasets, I demonstrate such within-sex and within-race variation in educational attainment and achievement by phenotype, and offer suggestions for better engaging the visible body in sociological research on inequality.
	Bibliography Citation Branigan, Amelia R. The Social Relevance of Visible Physical Characteristics for Educational Outcomes. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 2014.

5.	Branigan, Amelia R. Freese, Jeremy Sidney, Steven
5.	The Shifting Salience of Skin Color for Educational Attainment Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2018 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Skin Tone Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Whereas findings of an association between skin color and educational attainment have been fairly consistent among Americans born in the 1960s and earlier, little is known regarding the persistence of this relationship among Americans born after the Civil Rights era. Here we address that question, asking whether the association between skin color and educational attainment has changed between black American Baby Boomers (the CARDIA Study) and black American Millennials (the NLSY97). We find that this association has seen a modest and non-significant decline among black men between the two cohorts, while it has declined to near-zero among black women net of parental socioeconomic status. Results emphasize the need to conceptualize colorism as an intersectional problem, varying by both race and also gender, and highlight the importance of temporal context for understanding the social salience of the physical body.
	Bibliography Citation Branigan, Amelia R., Jeremy Freese and Steven Sidney. "The Shifting Salience of Skin Color for Educational Attainment." Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2018.

6.	Branigan, Amelia R. Freese, Jeremy Sidney, Steven Kiefe, Catarina I.
6.	The Shifting Salience of Skin Color for Educational Attainment Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World published online (19 December 2019): DOI: 10.1177/2378023119889829. Also: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023119889829 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Sage Publications Keyword(s): Black Studies; Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Skin Tone Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Findings of an association between skin color and educational attainment have been fairly consistent among Americans born before the civil rights era, but little is known regarding the persistence of this relationship in later born cohorts. The authors ask whether the association between skin color and educational attainment has changed between black American baby boomers and millennials. The authors observe a large and statistically significant decline in the association between skin color and educational attainment between baby boomer and millennial black women, whereas the decline in this association between the two cohorts of black men is smaller and nonsignificant. Compared with baby boomers, a greater percentage of the association between skin color and educational attainment among black millennials appears to reflect educational disparities in previous generations. These results emphasize the need to conceptualize colorism as an intersectional problem and suggest caution when generalizing evidence of colorism in earlier cohorts to young adults today.
	Bibliography Citation Branigan, Amelia R., Jeremy Freese, Steven Sidney and Catarina I. Kiefe. "The Shifting Salience of Skin Color for Educational Attainment." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World published online (19 December 2019): DOI: 10.1177/2378023119889829.

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