The Cook Center organizes its research, programmatic and scholarship activities into the following domains:
- Class, Wealth, & Social Mobility
- Education & Training
- Employment
- Health & Well-being
- Policing, Enforcement & Justice
Within the Center’s rich interdisciplinary community, our research scholars pursue projects across various fields of inquiry as well as with researchers at Duke and scholars throughout the world.
Major Research Questions
- How do group identities vary over time and space?
- What creates variations in group identity formation over time and space?
- What is the relationship between group identity established by self-classification, social-classification, and legal classification? Which is most salient, and in what contexts?
- How does intergroup inequality vary over time and space? What mechanisms affect the degree of this inequality?
- What are the consequences of the persistence of intergroup inequality over time and space? To what extent does intergroup inequality contribute to interethnic violence, trauma, and social instability?
- What are the policies that will best produce sustained reductions in the degree of intergroup inequality?