David Pettinicchio

Biography

David Pettinicchio joined the department of sociology in 2014, where he teaches courses in quantitative methods, social policy and political sociology.

He received his B.A. (2003) and M.A. (2004) in sociology from McGill University and his PhD (2012) in sociology from the University of Washington. In 2013-2014, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Prof. Pettinicchio’s interests lie at the intersection of inequality, politics/social movements and social policy. His current book project, “Empowering Government” with Stanford Press, is about the struggle in entrenching civil rights policies – namely, disability rights in the U.S. – and how political back-stepping generates social movement mobilization whereby advocacy groups through the use of institutional and direct-action tactics seek to ward off efforts to rollback rights. His research team is also undertaking a major quasi-experimental audit study of disability-based employment discrimination in Canada. Our project is funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant and an Ontario Early Researcher Award. In addition to publishing in peer-reviewed journals like Gender and Society, Law and Policy and the British Journal of Social Psychology, he also regularly contributes policy briefs to Scholars Strategy Network and essays in Mobilizing Ideas. His op-eds have appeared in Huffington Post, USA Today and the Washington Post, as well as The Hill and The Globe and Mail.

Courses Taught
PPG 1005H:
The Social Context of Policy-Making