Margins in Movement

This report chronicles more than two years of research with the people of the Inland Empire — the two-county region of Southern California often seen as a periphery “at the margins” of Los Angeles. This research seeks to understand prevailing beliefs and narratives across different groups on ideas of community, economic opportunity, government, and more.

Reimagining Revenue Measures by Centering Community Voices

Introduction California’s convoluted system for raising revenue is not transparent, and confusing to the general public. Unless they closely follow wonky budgeting and legislative news, most people typically don’t learn about upcoming revenue...

Redefining Who Belongs

Recent acute instances of failed political leadership—particularly around the pandemic and an ongoing lack of action to protect Black lives—have shone a bright light on questions essential to our future as a country: Who are we? Who are we becoming? Who must we become if we are to create a different world where everyone belongs?

Roots of Structural Racism

Introduction In June of this year, we published the “Roots of Structural Racism” project examining the persistence and harmful effects of racial residential segregation in the United States from a number of angles. We examined trends, ranked cities...

What the 2020 Census reveals about segregation

As part of our ongoing research into racial residential segregation, we offer two new reports based on the latest demographic data of the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally using the recently-released 2020 Census. We've also significantly revamped our interactive web tool.

The Most Segregated Cities and Neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area

Introduction From 2018 to 2020, we undertook a five-part investigation of racial residential segregation in the San Francisco Bay Area. We studied the nature and extent of racial residential segregation, demographic change, and harmful effects, using...

Housing Affordability in the Wake of COVID-19

This paper begins by describing current housing affordability dynamics across Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. Although rent burden metrics help identify households vulnerable to instability, it is the underlying housing and work conditions that...

Islamophobia Through the Eyes of Muslims

The Othering & Belonging Institute developed and administered this national survey between October 14 and November 2, 2020, among the US Muslim population (citizens and noncitizen residents who live and/or work in the US) to understand the prevalence...

Fighting Poverty with SNAP

This report accounts for the value of SNAP in helping low-income individuals and families acquire food, particularly during times of economic hardship.

Policing Students Online: The Increasing Threat of School-Sanctioned Digital Surveillance

School closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic created yet another opportunity for the surveillance industry to profit off of a national crisis and exacerbate harm to already marginalized students.

Leaving Surveillance Tech Behind in Higher Education: Towards Trust and Abolition

Just a few years ago, using software for remote test proctoring was rare, but since COVID-19 forced most schools to move online, remote test-proctoring software is now used by millions of students every month.

Technology and the COVID-19 Era

This report provides an overview of the current public conversation as it relates to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and algorithm-based artificial intelligence used in three interrelated domains that impact public health and social equity: the use of automated decision systems, surveillance, and social media.

The Roots of Structural Racism Project

The Roots of Structural Racism Project was unveiled in June 2021 after several years of investigating the persistence of racial residential segregation across the United States.

Decoding Zoning

As part of our racial segregation report series, we mapped exclusionary zoning, analyzed its association with racial segregation in the Bay Area, and offered recommendations for exclusionary zoning reform.

Voters Rising Up

This report reviews the central work of the newly founded Rise Up for Justice Narrative Hub. The Hub brought together researchers, strategists, creatives, and digital communication specialists to support the civic participation of underrepresented groups and engage some of the leading Black- and Latinx-led power building organizations across the country.

Explore Othering and Belonging

The Power of Bridging

A research-backed guide for building bridges across difference in any area of our lives, from esteemed civil rights scholar john a. powell. We don't want to live in a society in turmoil. In the US, 93 percent of people want to reduce divisiveness...
Apr
6

Depolarization Day

Want a chance to hear from experts studying the root of what’s driving us apart and how we come back together? Eager to build the skills to listen empathetically, elicit narratives of connection, and interview professionally? Looking for a chance...

Belonging Without Othering

The root of all inequality is the process of othering – and its solution is the practice of belonging We all yearn for connection and community, but we live in a time when calls for further division along the well-wrought lines of religion, race...