Andrew J. Perrin, Ph.D. Ruel W. Tyson Distinguished Professor of the Humanities Professor of Sociology Director, Institute for the Arts and Humanities University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill CB#3210, 159 Pauli Murray (formerly Hamilton) Hall Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 andrew_perrin@unc.edu - (919) 962-6876 - fax (919) 962-7568

This site is out of date. You probably are looking for my current site: https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/perrin/ .

Professional Information

I am a cultural and political sociologist. Broadly speaking, I study and teach democratic citizenship in the United States. I focus on the cultural and social underpinnings of democracy: what do people need to know, be, and do to make democracy work? My current research is on public opinion, letters to the editor, and democratic citizenship. I am the Ruel W. Tyson Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

I am a regular contributor to Scatterplot, the sociology blog, and I read a variety of other social scientific, academic, and political blogs. I've been on the faculty of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, since 2001.

You can view my Curriculum Vitae by clicking here. You'll need to download a suitable PDF reader, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader or XPDF to view them.

My Classes

Books

• Perrin, Andrew J. American Democracy: From Toqueville to Town Halls to Twitter. Polity Press (London), 2014.
• Pollock, Friedrich, Theodor W. Adorno, and the Frankfurt School. Group Experiment and Other Writings: The Frankfurt School on Public Opinion in Postwar Germany. Edited, Translated, and Introduced by Andrew J. Perrin and Jeffrey K. Olick. (Harvard University Press, 2011)
• Adorno, Theodor W., edited, translated, and with an introduction by Jeffrey K. Olick and Andrew J. Perrin. Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany (Harvard University Press, 2010)
• Perrin, Andrew J. Citizen Speak: The Democratic Imagination in American Life (University of Chicago Press, 2006)
• Coser, Rose Laub, Laura Anker, and Andrew J. Perrin. Women of Courage: Jewish and Italian Immigrant Women in New York

Papers Available

• Perrin, Andrew J., and Mosi Adesina Ifatunji. "Race, Immigration, and Support for Donald Trump: Evidence From the 2018 North Carolina Election." Sociological Forum 2020. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., and Alanna Gillis. "How College Makes Citizens: Higher Education Experiencs and Political Engagement." Socius 5 (2019). Available here.
• White, Michelle J., Andrew J. Perrin, Neal Caren, and Eliana M. Perrin. "Back in the Day: Nostalgia Frames Rural Residents' Perspectives on Diet and Physical Activity." \emph{Journal of Nutrition and Behavior} 2019. Available here.
• Wood CT, Skinner AC, Brown JD, Brown CL, Howard JB, Steiner MJ, Perrin AJ, Levine C, Ravanbakht SN, Perrin EM. "Concordance of Child and Parent Reports of Children's Screen Media Use." Academic Pediatrics 19:5 (July, 2019), 529-533. Available here.
• Howard JB, Skinner AC, Ravanbakht SN, Brown JN, Perrin AJ, Steiner MJ, Perrin EM. "Obesogenic Behavior and Weight-Based Stigma in Children's Movies, 2012-2015." Pediatrics December, 2017. Available here.
• Skinner A.C., Payne K., Perrin A.J., Panter A.T., Howard J.B., Bardone-Cone A., Bulik C.M., Steiner M.J., Perrin E.M. "Implicit weight bias in children age 9-11 years." Forthcoming, Pediatrics.
• Brown CL, Matherne CE, Bulik CM, Howard JB, Ravanbakht SN, Skinner AC, Wood CT, Bardone-Cone AM, Brown JD, Perrin AJ, Levine C, Steiner MJ, Perrin EM. "Influence of product placement in children's movies on children's snack choices." Appetite 2017; 144:118-24. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., Neal Caren, Asheley C. Skinner, Adebowale Odulana, and Eliana M. Perrin. "The unbuilt environment: culture moderates the built environment for physical activity." BMC Public Health 16:1227 (December, 2016). Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "'Since this is the editorial section I intend to express my opinion': Inequality and expressivity in letters to the editor." The Communication Review 19:1 (2016), 55-76. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "Reductionism and its Critics in Political Science." Contemporary Sociology 44:6 (November, 2015), 759-763. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., Steven J. Tepper, Neal Caren, and Sally Morris. "Political and Cultural Dimensions of Tea Party Support, 2009-2012." The Sociological Quarterly 55:4 (2014), 625-652. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., J. Micah Roos, and Gordon W. Gauchat. "From Coalition to Constraint: Modes of Thought in Contemporary American Conservatism." Sociological Forum 29:2 (2014), 285-300. Available here.
• Throop, Elizabeth M., Asheley Cockrell Skinner, Andrew J. Perrin, Michael J. Steiner, Adebowale Odulana, and Eliana M. Perrin. "Pass the Popcorn: 'Obesogenic' behaviors and stigma in children's movies." Obesity 22:7 (July, 2014), 1694-1700. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., Philip N. Cohen, and Neal Caren. "Are Children of Parents Who Had Same-Sex Relationships Disadvantaged? A scientific evaluation of the no-differences hypothesis." Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health, September, 2013. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., Steven J. Tepper, Neal Caren, and Sally Morris. "Cultures of the Tea Party." Conference Presentation, American Sociological Association, Las Vegas, August, 2011. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "Public Opinion". In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Sociology, Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., and Katherine McFarland. "Social Theory and Public Opinion." Annual Review of Sociology 37 (2011). Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., Steven J. Tepper, Neal Caren, and Sally Morris. "Cultures of the Tea Party." Contexts Spring, 2011. Available here.
• Evans, John H., Sally T. Hillsman, Andrew Perrin, Mario L. Small, and Sandra S. Smith. "Report to the American Sociological Association Council Regarding the 2010 National Research Council Assessment of Doctoral Programs." February, 2011. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew. "Grasping for authenticity." (review of Bender, Courtney, The New Metaphysicals). The Immanent Frame, June 22, 2010. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "Comment on Anna Carola Fresci and Vittorio Mete, 'Conjuring Politics.'" Sociologica 2-3, 2009. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "Why You Voted." Contexts, Fall, 2008. Available here or here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., and Katherine McFarland. "The Sociology of Political Representation and Deliberation." Sociology Compass, June, 2008. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., and Sondra J. Smolek. "Who Trusts? Race, Gender, and the September 11 Rally Effect Among Young Adults." Social Science Research 38:1 (March, 2009), 134-145. Available here.
• Prasad, Monica, Andrew J. Perrin, Kieran Bezila, Kate Kindleberger, Steve Hoffman, Kim Manturuk, and Ashleigh Smith Powers. "'There Must be a Reason': Osama, Saddam, and the Social Psychology of False Beliefs." Sociological Inquiry 79:2 (May, 2009). Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., and Stephen B. Vaisey. "Parallel Public Spheres: Distance and Discourse in Letters to the Editor." American Journal of Sociology 114:3 (November, 2008). Available here.
• Prasad, Monica, Andrew J. Perrin, Kieran Bezila, Steve Hoffman, Kate Kindleberger, Kim Manturuk, and Ashleigh Smith Powers. "The Undeserving Rich: 'Moral Values' and the White Working Class." Sociological Forum 24:2 (2009): 225-253. Available here.
• Hipp, John, and Andrew J. Perrin. "The Simultaneous Effect of Social Distance and Physical Distance on the Formation of Neighborhood Ties." City and Community 8:1 (2009): 5-25. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., and Hedwig Lee. "The Undertheorized Environment: Sociological Theory and the Ontology of Behavioral Genetics." Sociological Perspectives 50:2 (Summer, 2007), 303--322. Available here.
• Hipp, John, and Andrew J. Perrin. "Nested Loyalties: Local Networks' Effects on Neighbourhood and Community Cohesion." Urban Studies 43: 13 (December, 2006), 2503--2523. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J., Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Lindsay Hirschfeld, and Susan Wilker. "Contest Time: Time, Territory, and Representation in the Postmodern Electoral Crisis." Theory & Society 35 (2006), 351--391. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "Political Microcultures: Linking Civic Life and Democratic Discourse." Social Forces 84:2 (December, 2005), 1049--1082. Available here.
• Adorno, Theodor W. "Opinion Research and Publicness," translated, and with an introduction, by Andrew J. Perrin and Lars Jarkko. Sociological Theory 23:1 (March, 2005), 116--123. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "National Threat and Political Culture: Authoritarianism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and the September 11 Attacks." Political Psychology 26:2 (April, 2005), 167--194. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "Making 'Silicon Valley': Culture, Representation, and Technology at the Tech Museum." The Communication Review 5:1 (2002), 65--81. Available here.
• Perrin, Andrew J. "CodeRead: Using Natural Language Processing for Automatic Coding of Textual Data." Social Science Computer Review 19:2 (2001), 213--220. Available here.
• Klinenberg, Eric, and Andrew J. Perrin. "Symbolic Politics in the Information Age: The 1996 Presidential Campaign in Cyberspace." Information, Communication, and Society 1:3 (2000), 17--38. Available here.
• Terror, Fetish, Fantasy, and Reification: Violence and Meaning in the Namibian Independence Movement, from the (Dis)Placing Nationalisms Conference at UC Irvine in 1996.
• Election Fetishism: Perceptions of Southern African Democratization. From the New York African Studies Association 19th Annual Conference, New York City, April, 1995.

Additional Information for Studies

• Survey questions (interview schedule) for Spring, 2010, North Carolina and Tennessee issues poll, available here. This survey is the primary data for our 2011 Contexts/ASA paper, "Cultures of the Tea Party," and for ongoing research on the Tea Party.
• Texts of the scenarios used for my 2000 focus groups in Alameda County, California, can be found here.
• Methodological details and appendix for my 2008 AJS article, "Parallel Public Spheres," can be found here.

Hats I Wear

• Director, Institute for the Arts and Humanities
• Director, Carolina Seminars Program

Public Information

• A statement by 112 UNC faculty on principles for athletics at UNC
• A May, 2008, press release showing relatively long-term, broad support for North Carolina public employee collective bargaining is here.
• Click here for the open letter to Chancellor Moeser regarding funding proposals that affect the curriculum.
• Click here for an informal questionnaire and responses from candidates for faculty governance office in spring, 2006.

A short biography

I graduated from Swarthmore College in 1994 and spent the following summer working for the Grassroots Policy Project on labor-environment coalition building in the Great Lakes. I am now a Senior Research Fellow at GPP. I then moved to Rochester, New York, where I worked for Tex-Port, Inc., doing computer repairs and support. My biggest customer was Electronic Data Systems (EDS), which in turn was under contract to support three General Motors units in the Rochester area.

I got my Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. In addition, I used to do various computer work for the Demography department and consulting work for DHL World Airways.

Personal Information

Computer Tips

Some of my most commonly used free software packages are:

• Debian Linux
• GNU Emacs
• LaTeX
• Perl
• PostgreSQL
• R
• OpenOffice.org

I've posted some random computer tips, many of them relating to Perl and Samba. There's also some information on using linux, particularly Debian, on the UNC campus and on UNC's CCI desktops. You can get that stuff here.

Websites I maintain or am involved with include Culture Web, the official site of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association; and North Carolina At Work, a clearinghouse for information on unions and workplace issues in North Carolina.

Other Websites Hosted Here