Robert D. Francis
Robert Francis (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington.
Bob’s research interests include U.S. poverty and inequality, work and occupations, the working class, social policy, and rural communities. His solo-authored work has appeared in The Journal of Working Class Studies, Socius, Teaching Sociology, and RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. He has co-authored pieces in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of Family Theory and Review, Sociology of Education, Socius, and Teaching Sociology. In 2023, he co-edited a special issue of Teaching Sociology “by, for, and about” first-generation and working-class people in sociology. He has co-authored chapters in Emerging Stronger: Lessons from the Pandemic that Improve Pedagogical Skills and Faith and Race in American Political Life, and he has a forthcoming chapter in the Handbook on Unemployment and Society. His work has been covered in The Atlantic and The New York Times.
Bob was a 2018-19 Annie E. Casey Foundation Rural Poverty Research Fellow and was a member of the American Sociological Association's (ASA) Task Force on First-Generation and Working-Class People in Sociology. He currently serves on the editorial board of the journal, Teaching Sociology.
Bob’s work has been awarded by the Rural Sociological Society (RSS), the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), and the District of Columbia Sociological Society (DCSS).
In Spokane, Bob serves on the Mission Leadership Cabinet of Lutheran Community Services Northwest and was formerly on the Board of Directors of the Liberty Park Community Development Center. He and his family are members of Haystack Heights Cohousing Community, Spokane’s first cohousing development.
Before attending Johns Hopkins, Bob spent seven years doing advocacy in Washington, DC for several national faith-based organizations (Sojourners, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Lutheran Services in America). He also spent many years in Chicago, where he worked as a junior high and high school teacher, case manager, and server of Chicago-style pizza.
Bob holds a B.A. in Sociology and Theological Studies from Wheaton College (IL) and an M.A. in Social Science from the University of Chicago. Bob is a compulsive list maker, a proud member of Steeler Nation, and an avid collector of Pokemon.