Faculty

Waldo E. Johnson, Jr., Ph.D.

Waldo JohnsonWaldo E. Johnson, Jr. is Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration (SSA) and Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture (CSRPC). At SSA, Professor Johnson teaches social welfare policy and human behavior in the social environment in the M.A. program and research methods in the M.A. and Ph.D. programs. A family research scholar, his substantive research focuses on male roles and involvement in African American families, nonresident fathers in fragile families, and the physical and psychosocial health statuses of African American males. As a research methodologist, he is interested in the use of qualitative research methods in guiding policy and practice research.

He is a research consultant to Strengthening Healthy Marriage (SHM), a seven-year longitudinal research and evaluation study of strategies for enhancing couple relationships among low-income married parents in the United States, led by the Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC), ChildTrends, and Optimal Solutions Group, and also funded by ACF. He has been a research consultant for the Young Fathers Initiative (YFI); a community-based family intervention aimed at young urban fathers (ages 18-25) designed to enhance father involvement with their children and families of procreation. In addition to a parenting knowledge and development component, program participants are also provided assistance in securing employment and provided ongoing program and peer support and is funded by the Administration on Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Professor Johnson was co-principal investigator for Time, Love, Cash, Care, and Children (TLC3): A Qualitative Study of Family Dynamics in Families with Young Children, which examines the norms and expectation about the rights and obligations of unmarried parents; co-principal investigator for the Fathers and Child Welfare Study, which examines paternal participation among unwed nonresident fathers in case planning and permanency provision in child welfare activities of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and an investigator for the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a longitudinal study of the circumstances of unmarried parenthood among 5,000 African American, Hispanic, and White families in 20 U.S. cities and the impact of these circumstances on child well-being.

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture (CSRPC) at the University of Chicago is an interdisciplinary program dedicated to promoting engaged scholarship and debate around the topics of race and ethnicity. Researchers affiliated with the Center recognize the significance of the black/white paradigm in the United States, however, we are committed to expanding the study of race and ethnicity beyond the black/white paradigm. Broadly, our research program encourages the study of race and processes of racialization in comparative and transnational frameworks. Thus, the work of faculty affiliates ranges from an examination of processes of racialization among dominant groups to the study of racialized minorities within the United States and black and/or indigenous populations in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Asian Pacific, and Europe.  We are especially interested in how these ideas and their structural manifestations impact and shape people’s daily lives. Central to our work is the acknowledgement that race and ethnicity intersect with other primary identities such as gender, class, sexuality and nationality, necessitating the exploration of social and identity cleavages within racialized communities.

Professor Johnson earned a B.A. degree at Mercer University and M.S.W. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago respectively. He was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Poverty Research and Training Program and the Program for Research on Black Americans at the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan. He was also a NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow in the Minority Training Program in HIV/AIDS Research at the University of Michigan. He is also affiliated with the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy (CHPPP) of the Harris School of Public Policy Studies and Chapin Hall Center for Children (CHCC) at the University of Chicago. He is also a research affiliate of the Program for Research on Black Americans.

He is a consulting editor of Social Work: Journal of the National Association of Social Workers and serves of the board of directors of the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) and the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR). He chairs SSWR’s Best Scholarly Research Contribution and Dissertation Award Recognitions. He chaired the 2005 Annual Education Institute of the National Association of Black Social Workers-Chicago Chapter. His other professional activities include board of directors of the African American Family Research Institute and advisory board chair, Family and Health Services of the Chicago Urban League. His professional memberships also include the Association of Public Policy and Management, Council on Social Work Education, and the Society for Research on Child Development. He served on the board of advisors, Porter Cason Institute for Advance Family Practice at the Tulane University School of Social Work (1999-2005), the Taskforce for Research and Effective Programs of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (1996-1999), and the Male Family Formation and Fertility Working Group of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, Family, and Child Well-Being Research Network National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1996-1997).