Background
James David Wright was born on November 6, 1947, in Logansport, Indiana, United States. He is the son of James F. and Helen L. (Moon) Wright.
Purdue University
University of Wisconsin
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Tulane University
University of Central Florida
('The Handbook of Survey Research, Second Edition' builds ...)
'The Handbook of Survey Research, Second Edition' builds on its widely-recognized 1983 predecessor by updating its previous historical account of the development of survey research and the evolution of social science before going on to examine new and expanded usages of survey research during the past half century. Editors Peter Marsden (Harvard University) and James D. Wright (University of Central Florida), long-time editor of Elsevier's Social Science Research, have created an authoritative reference book and an excellent starting point for anyone requiring a broad examination of the field. Detailed chapters include: sampling; measurement; questionnaire construction and question writing; survey implementation and management; survey data analysis; special types of surveys; and integrating surveys with other data collection methods. This handbook is distinguished from other texts by its greater comprehensiveness and depth of coverage including topics such as measurement models, the role of cognitive psychology, surveying networks, and cross-national/cross-cultural surveys. Timely and relevant it includes materials that are only now becoming highly influential topics.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1848552246/?tag=2022091-20
1983
(In 1978, the Social and Demographic Research Institute of...)
In 1978, the Social and Demographic Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to undertake a comprehensive review of the literature on weapons, crime, and violence in the United States. The purpose of the project is best described as a "sifting and winnowing" of the claims and counterclaims from both sides of the Great American Gun War - the perennial struggle in American political life over what to do, if anything, about guns, about violence, and about crime. The review and analysis of the available studies consumed the better part of three years; the results of this work are contained in this volume.The intention of any review is to take stock of the available fund of knowledge in some topical area. Under the Gun is no different: our goal has been to glean from the volumes of previous studies those facts that, in our view, seem firmly and certainly established; those hypotheses that seem adequately supported by, or at least approximately consistent with, the best available research evidence; and those areas or topics about which, it seems, we need to know a lot more than we do. One of our major conclusions can be stated in advance: despite the large number of studies that have been done, many critically important questions have not been adequately researched, and some of them have not been examined at all.Much of the available research in the area of weapons and crime has been done by advocates for one or another policy position. As a consequence, the manifest intent of many "studies" is to persuade rather than to inform. We have tried to approach the topic from a purely agnostic point of view, treating as an open question what policies should be enacted with regard to gun, or crime, control. Thus, we have tried to judge each study on its own merits, on the basis of the routine standards normally applied to social-scientific research, and not on the basis of how effectively it argues for a particular policy direction. It would, of course, be presumptuous to claim that we have set aside all our own biases in conducting this study. Whether or not our treatment is fair and objective is clearly something for the reader, and not us, to decide.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0761XV62W/?tag=2022091-20
1983
(Drawing upon their research in the most extensive study t...)
Drawing upon their research in the most extensive study to date, the authors here describe the means and methods of gun-related violence among urban youth. Using data collected from juvenile male inmates and male students in inner-city high schools, Sheley and Wright focus on the number, type, and method of acquisition of firearms, as well as the varying reasons given for carrying arms. The book concludes by challenging some stereotypes, and urging a policy aimed at reducing the motivation for gun possession by youth, rather than simply attempting to remove guns from their hands.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0202305481/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(James Wright's Address Unknown: The Homeless in America f...)
James Wright's Address Unknown: The Homeless in America focused on the problem of homelessness during the mid-to-late 1980s, making an important contribution to the then-emerging public debate of a rapidly growing and increasingly visible social problem. Beside the Golden Door updates the story and our knowledge of homelessness through the middle 1990s, advancing the thesis that an emphasis on factors such as mental illness or substance abuse is descriptively accurate but fails as a causal account of the rise of homelessness as a social problem. The authors reject efforts to cast the issue in "either-or" terms, as social structure versus individual deficiencies, arguing that poverty and housing trends have created a situation where some people are destined to be homeless, but personal factors such as mental illness or substance abuse are critical in predicting who those people turn out to be. Beside the Golden Door details numerous dimensions of the homelessness issue: the rise in poverty; the decline of low-income housing; conceptual, measurement, and practical problems of counting the homeless and the Census Bureau's ill-fated 1990 effort to do so; the role of familial estrangement, mental illness, and substance abuse; and health status and behaviors. It concludes with discussions and comparisons of rural versus urban homelessness, street children in North and Latin America, and homelessness in post-industrial societies. The material in Beside the Golden Door will be accessible to undergraduate students and interested lay readers as well as specialists. "Both the content and style of this book make an excellent instructive read for students, practitioners, and scholars, alike."--Social Forces James D. Wright is Charles and Leo Favrot Professor of Human Relations, Department of Sociology, Tulane University and author of over thirteen books including Address Unknown and Crime and Violence in America. Beth A. Rubin is associate professor, Department of Sociology, Tulane University. She is the author of Shifts in the Social Contract: Understanding Change in American Society. Joel A. Devine is professor, Department of Sociology, Tulane University, and coauthor of The Greatest of Evils: Urban Poverty and the American Underclass.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0202306135/?tag=2022091-20
1998
(Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Po...)
Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Politics of Hazard Mitigation presents a research project that emerged from a concern for estimating the balance of support versus opposition to prospective social policies that aim to reduce the risks of damage or injuries from major natural hazard events via the regulation of land use and establishment of building and occupancy standards in high-risk areas. The volume begins with an overview of the research project and the main findings. Separate chapters describe the study design; assess the views of politically influential people regarding the seriousness of natural hazards; measure the support for federal disaster policies; and consider public opinion on hazards-mitigation issues in California. Subsequent chapters cover the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP); patterns of activity, influence, and power among key positions and groups in local communities with respect to issues involving disasters; and hazard mitigation activities at the state level.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DUEBDK8/?tag=2022091-20
2013
(Describes the nature of homelessness, its multiple causes...)
Describes the nature of homelessness, its multiple causes, and its demographic, economic, sociological, and social policy antecedents. Finding the origins of the problem to be social and political rather than economic, Wright (human relations, Tulane) outlines remedies based on existing and modified.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073RQBTFN/?tag=2022091-20
2017
(A witty history of the state that's always in the news, f...)
A witty history of the state that's always in the news, for everything from alligator attacks to zany crimes. There's an old clip of Bugs Bunny sawing the entire state of Florida off the continent—and every single time a news story springs up about some shenanigans in Florida, someone on the internet posts it in response. Why are we so ready to wave goodbye to the Sunshine State? In A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State, James D. Wright makes the case that there are plenty of reasons to be scandalized by the land and its sometimes-kooky, sometimes-terrifying denizens, but there's also plenty of room for hilarity. Florida didn't just become weird; it's built that way. Uncharted swampland doesn't easily give way to sprawling suburbia. It took violent colonization, land scams to trick non-Floridians into buying undeveloped property, and the development of railroads to benefit one man's hotel empire. Even the most natural parts of Florida are unnatural. Florida citrus? Not from here, but from China. Gators? Oh, they're from Florida all right, but that doesn't make having 1 per every 20 humans normal. Animals...in the form of roadkill? Only Florida allows you to keep anything you kill on the road (and anything you find). Yet everyone loves Florida: tourists come in droves, and people relocate to Florida constantly (only 36% of residents were born there). Crammed with unforgettable stories and facts, Florida will show readers exactly why.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D2C2BYJ/?tag=2022091-20
2018
James David Wright was born on November 6, 1947, in Logansport, Indiana, United States. He is the son of James F. and Helen L. (Moon) Wright.
Wright received his bachelor's degree from Purdue University in 1969. He then obtained a Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 and received his doctorate from it three years later.
Wright started his career joining the faculty of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst as an assistant professor in 1973. He remained there until 1988 when he joined the faculty of Tulane University.
In 2001 Wright joined the sociology department of the University of Central Florida and now holds the position of the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor there.
He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences at the university, as editor-in-chief of the journal Social Science Research, and as editor-in-chief of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
(Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Po...)
2013('The Handbook of Survey Research, Second Edition' builds ...)
1983(In 1978, the Social and Demographic Research Institute of...)
1983(James Wright's Address Unknown: The Homeless in America f...)
1998(Drawing upon their research in the most extensive study t...)
1995(Describes the nature of homelessness, its multiple causes...)
2017(A witty history of the state that's always in the news, f...)
2018Wright is a member of the American Sociological Association, American Political Science Association and Society for the Study of Social Problems.
Wright married S. R. Rosenbaum on December 23, 1969. However, the marriage ended in a divorce. In 1987, he married his current wife Christine Ellen Stuart. They have 2 children: Matthew James and Derek William.