American Mosaic Project

The American Mosaic Project, a multi-method study in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, examines American's attitudes towards racial and religious diversity. Funded by the David Edelstein Family Foundation, the project’s principal investigators include Professors Penny Edgell, Douglas Hartmann, and Joseph Gerteis. The link below provides a summary of the project. 
Summary of the American Mosaic Project

I had the pleasure of working on the qualitative part of the project. For this component, graduate students collected qualitative data in four American Cities: Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and the Twin Cities. We examined issues of difference, inclusion, and diversity in neighborhoods (both diverse and homogeneous); religious organizations (liberal/interfaith and conservative); and festivals. I served as a site leader in the Twin Cities focusing on neighborhoods and festivals. In this role, I was responsible for making contacts and gaining entrance into neighborhood organizations, conducting fieldwork and interviews, writing field-notes, and training fellow graduate students onto the project in the Twin Cities.

My interest in the project, and in particular focusing on neighborhoods and questions of what bring people together, stems from my experiences living in a racially/ethnically and economically diverse neighborhood. My understanding of neighborhood organizations, based on community work in my neighborhood organizations, was an asset in both facilitating contacts for the project and in building rapport with those I worked with in the field.

In my work with the project, I analyzed two neighborhoods in the Twin Cities. One is racially homogeneous in being predominately white, while the other is more diverse with approximately one-third Latino, White, and African American respectively. In a paper I am working on based on this data, “Drawing Boundaries: Comparing Neighborhoods and Diversity”, I examine how diversity is a unifying or divisive force as people develop community in neighborhoods. My analysis show that perceptions of diversity differ across the types of neighborhoods. Homogeneous neighborhoods tend to have more distinct racial and class boundaries rooted in lifestyle concerns. Diverse neighborhoods tend to embrace their diversity, but have pragmatic issues implementing social cohesion across diverse lines. Below is a link to a presentation I have given on this paper.

Drawing Boundaries: Comparing Neighborhoods and Diversity Powerpoint Presentation