Jenn Jackson
Assistant Professor, Political Science
Degree
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2019
Specialties
Black Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Political Behavior, Public Opinion, Mixed Methods
Courses
Introduction to
American National Government, Gender and Politics, Black Feminist Politics
Publications
Jackson, Jenn M. (2018) “Black Americans and the
‘crime narrative’: comments on the use of news frames and their impacts on
public opinion formation,” Politics, Groups,
and Identities, DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2018.1553198
Jackson, Jenn M. (2018) “Breaking Out of the Ivory Tower:
(Re)Thinking Inclusion of Women and Scholars of Color in the Academy,” Journal of Women, Politics, and
Policy, DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2019.1565459
Jackson, Jenn M. (2020) “Private Selves as Public Property:
Black Women’s Self-Making in the Contemporary Moment” (Forthcoming: Public Culture, spring
2020)
Research Projects
Book Project: “Race, Risks, and Responses: Mapping Black
Americans’ Reactions to Group Threat”
In this project, I examine the role of group threat in
influencing young Black Americans’ political action. Specifically, I am
concerned with how socialization shapes daily perceptions of and responses to
group threat and how those perceptions affect the political behavior of
young Black Americans. My work draws on critical race theory, political
psychology, and political behavior literature to foreground the ways that the
threats associated with group membership uniquely shape the social and
political lives and choices of young Black Americans.
Methodologically, I utilize quantitative analyses of survey data
and experiments as well as qualitative analysis of 50 in-depth interviews
with young Black Americans ages 18 to 35 in the Chicago area to
investigate both intergroup and intragroup differences in responses to threat.
My hypotheses especially focus on variations in threat responses from women and
LGBTQI respondents. As such, I find that Black women are most likely to express
concerns about state-based and intragroup threat. Conversely, Black men vary
drastically in their responses to group threat depending on their sexual
orientation, gender expression, and vulnerability to stereotypes.