Ann Owens
Biography
Ann Owens is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research centers on the causes and consequences of social inequality, with a focus on neighborhoods, housing, education, and geographic and social mobility. Ann has particular expertise on neighborhood and school segregation, and her research also examines how housing and educational policies cause or alleviate social inequalities.
Ann is a recipient of the William T. Grant Foundation Scholar award, Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the 2022 William Julius Wilson Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in 2024-25.
With sean f. reardon, Ann co-leads the Segregation Tracking Project, aimed at generating comprehensive residential and school segregation data and new research on the causes, consequences, and policy solutions to segregation.
With Brian McCabe, Ann will co-edit City & Community, the journal of the American Sociological Association’s Community and Urban Sociology Section, beginning in 2026.
Ann received her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, Ann was a faculty member at the University of Southern California.
Photo credit: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University
Degrees
PhD, Sociology & Social Policy, Harvard University, 2012
AM, Sociology, Harvard University, 2009
AB, Sociology, University of Chicago, 2004
Publications
Selected Publications (non-paywalled articles available at LINK)
Segregation
Schachner, Jared N., Gary Painter, and Ann Owens. 2024. “The Implications of Digital School Quality Information for Neighbourhood and School Segregation: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Los Angeles.” Urban Studies 61(16): 3145-3166 (LINK)
Owens, Ann and Peter Rich. 2023. “Little Boxes All The Same? Racial/Ethnic Segregation and Educational Inequality across the Urban-Suburban Divide.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9(2): 26-54. (LINK)
Bischoff, Kendra, Ann Owens, Sean F. Reardon, and Joseph B. Townsend. 2022. “Comment on ‘The Uptick in Income Segregation: Real Trend or Random Sampling Variation?’” American Journal of Sociology 127(5): 1664-1674. (LINK)
Owens, Ann, Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, Heewon Jang, and Thalia Tom. 2022. “Trends in Racial/Ethnic and Economic School Segregation, 1991-2020.” The Segregation Tracking Project.
Owens, Ann, Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, Heewon Jang, and Thalia Tom. 2022. “Measuring Segregation with the Normalized Exposure Index.” The Segregation Tracking Project.
Rich, Peter M., Jennifer Candipan, and Ann Owens. 2021. “Segregated Neighborhoods, Segregated Schools: Do Charters Break a Stubborn Link?” Demography 58(2): 471-498. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2020. “Unequal Opportunity: School and Neighborhood Segregation in the U.S.” Race and Social Problems 12: 29-41. (LINK)
Bischoff, Kendra, and Ann Owens. 2019. “The Segregation of Opportunity: Social and Financial Resources in the Educational Contexts of Lower- and Higher-Income Children, 1990-2014.” Demography 56(5): 1635-1664. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2019. “Building Inequality: Housing Segregation and Income Segregation.” Sociological Science 6:497-525. (LINK)
Reardon, Sean F., Kendra Bischoff, Ann Owens, and Joseph B. Townsend. 2018. “Has Income Segregation Really Increased? Bias and Bias Correction in Sample-Based Segregation Estimates.” Demography 55(6): 2129-2160. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2018. “Income Segregation between School Districts and Inequality in Students’ Achievement.” Sociology of Education 91(1): 1-27. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2017. “Racial Residential Segregation of School-Age Children and Adults: The Role of Schooling as a Segregating Force.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3(2): 63-80. (LINK)
Owens, Ann, Sean F. Reardon, and Christopher Jencks. 2016. “Income Segregation between Schools and School Districts.” American Educational Research Journal 53(4): 1159-1197. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2016. “Inequality in Children’s Contexts: Income Segregation of Households With and Without Children.” American Sociological Review 81(3): 549-574.(LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2016. “Double Disadvantage: Rising Income Segregation in Children’s Neighborhood and Schools.” Poverty & Race 25(3).
Reardon, Sean F. and Ann Owens. 2014. “60 Years After Brown: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation.” Annual Review of Sociology 40: 199-218. (LINK)
Neighborhoods and Schools
Peter Rich and Ann Owens. 2023. “Neighborhood-School Structures: A New Approach to the Joint Study of Social Contexts.” Annual Review of Sociology 49: 297-317. (LINK)
Owens, Ann, and Jennifer Candipan. 2019. “Social and Spatial Inequalities of Educational Opportunity: A Portrait of Schools Serving High- and Low-Income Neighborhoods in U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” Urban Studies 56(15): 3178-3197. (LINK)
Levy, Brian, Ann Owens, and Robert J. Sampson. 2019. “The Varying Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage on College Graduation: Moderating and Mediating Mechanisms.” Sociology of Education 92(3): 269-292. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2010. “Neighborhoods and Schools as Competing and Reinforcing Contexts for Educational Attainment.” Sociology of Education 83(4): 287-311. (LINK)
Housing and Homelessness
Owens, Ann and Rebecca Brooks Smith. Forthcoming. “Producing Affordable Housing in Higher-Opportunity Neighborhoods: Incentives in California’s LIHTC Program.” Journal of Urban Affairs. (LINK)
DeGregorio, Soledad, Tasminda K. Dhaliwal, Ann Owens, and Gary Painter. 2022. “Timing and Duration of Student Homelessness and Educational Outcomes in Los Angeles.” Educational Researcher 51(6): 376-386. (LINK)
Besbris, Max, John Kuk, Ann Owens, and Ariela Schachter. 2022. “Predatory Inclusion in the Market for Rental Housing: A Multi-City Empirical Test.” Socius 8:1-16. (LINK)
Dhaliwal, Tasminda K., Soledad De Gregorio, Ann Owens, and Gary Painter. 2021. “Putting Homelessness in Context: The Schools and Neighborhoods of Students Experiencing Homelessness.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 693(1): 158-176. (LINK)
Owens, Ann, and Susan Clampet-Lundquist. 2017. “Housing Mobility and the Intergenerational Durability of Neighborhood Poverty.” Journal of Urban Affairs 39(3):400-420. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2017. “How Do People-Based Housing Policies Affect People (and Place)?” Housing Policy Debate 2(1): 266-281. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2016. “Assisted Housing and Neighborhood Poverty Dynamics, 1977 to 2008.” Urban Affairs Review 52(3): 287-322. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2015. “Housing Policy and Urban Inequality: Did the Transformation of Assisted Housing Reduce Poverty Concentration?” Social Forces 94(1): 325-348. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2015. “Assisted Housing and Income Segregation between Neighborhoods in U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 660(1): 98-116. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2013. “Perceptions of Disorder and Safety amidst the Transformation of Assisted Housing.” Cityscape 15(3): 77-103. (LINK)
Edin, Kathryn, Stefanie DeLuca, and Ann Owens. 2012. “Constrained Compliance: Solving the Puzzle of MTO’s Lease-Up Rate and Why Mobility Matters.” Cityscape 14(2): 181-194. (LINK)
Educational Inequality
Owens, Ann and Thalia Tom. 2024. “Intersecting Inequalities: Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Differences in Math Achievement and School Contexts in California.” Social Problems 71(3):720-747. (LINK)
Atteberry, Allison, Kendra Bischoff, and Ann Owens. 2021. “Identifying Progress Toward Ethnoracial Achievement Equity across U.S. School Districts: A New Approach.” Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 14(2): 410-441. (LINK)
Owens, Ann. 2023. “Separate and Unequal: The Need for a Nuanced Accounting of the Inequities Created by Segregation.” Poverty & Race 32(2).
Neighborhood Change
Owens, Ann, and Jennifer Candipan. 2019. “Racial/Ethnic Transition and Hierarchy among Ascending Neighborhoods.” Urban Affairs Review 55(6): 1550-1578. (LINK)
Owens, Ann and Robert J. Sampson. 2013. “Community Well-being and the Great Recession.” Pathways Spring 2013: 3-7. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Owens, Ann. 2012. “Neighborhoods on the Rise: A Typology of Neighborhoods Experiencing Socioeconomic Ascent.” City & Community 11(4): 345-369. (LINK)
Awards & Grants
Fellowships and Awards
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, 2024-25
ASA Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility’s William Julius Wilson Early Career Award, 2022
William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Award, 2019-24
Raubenheimer Award for Outstanding Junior Faculty Member for the Social Sciences, University of Southern California, 2017
National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, 2016-17
