DYC Sociology Professor Tapped for Three Scholarly Books

DYC Sociology Professor Tapped for Three Scholarly Books

Noted Academic Sociologist to Focus on Human Rights

Buffalo, New York – November 12, 2012 – Dr. Julia Hall, associate professor of sociology at D'Youville College, has been signed by two leading publishers to write three books in her specialty, human rights.

Routledge Publishers and Sense Publishers will publish and market her works in 2013. Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online references. Sense Publishers, an international academic publishing house, produces books in the field of sociological educational research.

Her book, "Children's Human Rights and Public Schooling in the U.S." addresses the "serious human rights violation taking place among children everywhere including in the U.S." I think it's important for the public to know that as the economy continues to constrict, more and more young people find themselves struggling to grow up on these razor thin margins of survival," she said.

She argues that public schools could be the very place where children come to understand they have rights but many do not get this information.

Hall's second book, "Low Income Children and the Assault on Dignity: Policy Challenges and Resistance in the Current Political Economy" focuses on low income school children in Chicago as an example of schools and communities "in which silencing, limitations, despair, and lack of dignity is a 'normal' part of life." Outside reviewers say the book will present a more dimensional and dynamic understanding of how the dignity of youth is being eroded.

Her third book, "Urban Girls and Cultures of Violence and Silencing in an Era of Public Repression" will focus on the results of her extensive research on violence in the lives of girls, which indicates an escalation of the problem in conjunction with shifts in the economy.

"Increasing numbers of urban girls struggle to negotiate their lives at home, in their neighborhoods, and in their schools as those spaces are becoming saturated with violence," she said.

According to her national peers, "The book will put the reality of violence in the lives of urban school girls as shaped by the economy back on the map..."

Hall has been a D'Youville faculty member since 2001 and teaches undergraduate courses in sociology, including research methods, social problems, principals of sociology, cultural diversity, human rights and other related courses.

She has received four large competitive grants from external agencies to fund her research. Two were co-authored with Dr. Donald F. Sabo, a professor in the Health Services Administration at D'Youville and a nationally-known sociologist.

Hall was voted the "Scholar of the Year" by the college faculty in 2005 and has published approximately 40 articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and books. She also serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies, a leading public policy publication.

Hall started and oversees an initiative in that has obtained $3.7 million in scholarships for low-income high school and college youth in Buffalo. This program is currently ongoing.

Active in community service, she is involved with various community organizations including working with city children in an after school program at the Valley Community Center, helping prepare entries for art contests. Dr. Hall is an organizing member for the annual Prader-Willi Syndrome Research Foundation walk and race held at Chestnut Ridge Park, and is a former board member of the Literacy Volunteers of Buffalo and Erie County.

A graduate of the University at Buffalo (UB), she earned her master's degree at McGill University in Montreal and her Ph.D. at UB.