About

Joe Sageman is a postdoctoral researcher in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His research investigates the relationship between educational systems and social inequality, drawing on insights from the sociology of education, urban sociology, and economic sociology. Specifically, he focuses on how school policies, structures, and demographics influence students' long-run outcomes. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University in 2025 and is currently adapting his dissertation into a book manuscript. The book draws on draws on over 100 in-depth interviews with students and educators in the Philadelphia area to understand how urban schools facilitate social mobility for their students and better explain the substantial between-school variation in college-going rates. He uses a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and has published his work in peer-reviewed outlets including Social Problems, Sociological Inquiry, and Rural Sociology.