Donald J. Hernandez
Donald J. Hernandez Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, received his B.A. in Sociology from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the faculty in September 2009. His research focuses on historical and contemporary change in the lives of children and families with particular attention to immigrants and public policy. He also has completed work on an alternative poverty measure for the U.S. that overcomes many limitations of the current official measure, and on research assessing the extent to which socioeconomic disparities versus cultural differences can account low enrollment in early education programs among Hispanic children in immigrant and native-born families. He currently is conducting research on disparities in child well-being by race-ethnic, immigrant, and socioeconomic status with funding from the Foundation for Child Development, and he is assessing features of family environments of at-risk children that foster resilience leading to success in reading by 3rd grade and, ultimately, high school graduation with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Donald Hernandez is the author or editor of nine books and monographs including Success or Failure: Family Planning Programs in the Third World (Greenwood Press, 1984), America’s Children: Resources from Family, Government, and the Economy (Russell Sage Foundation, 1993), From Generation to Generation: The Health and Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Families (edited with Evan Charney, National Academy Press, 1998), Children of Immigrants, Health, Adjustment, and Public Assistance (National Academy Press, 1999), and Children in Immigrant Families in Eight Affluent Countries: Their Family, National, and International Context (with Suzanne Macartney and Victoria Blanchard, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2009).
He also has authored more than 65 articles, chapters, and research briefs and reports. Recent publications include Diverse Children: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in America’s New Non-Majority Generation (Foundation for Child Development), Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation (Annie E. Casey Foundation), Declining Fortunes of Children in Middle-Class Families: Economic Inequality and Child Well-Being in the 21st Century (FCD), PreK-3rd: Next Steps for State Longitudinal Data Systems (FCD), “Early Childhood Education Programs: Accounting for Low Enrollment in Immigrant and Minority Families”, in The Next Generation: Immigrant Youth in Comparative Perspective (NYU Press).
His early book, America’s Children: Resources from Family, Government, and Economy was the first national research using children as the unit of analysis to document the timing, magnitude, and reasons for revolutionary changes experienced by children since the Great Depression in family composition, parent’s education, father’s and mother’s work, and family income and poverty. Professor Hernandez has conducted research using Census 2000 and the American Community Survey 2005-2007 to produce about 140 indicators of children’s family and economic circumstances for various race-ethnic and immigrant groups by detailed country of origin for the U.S., the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 200 metropolitan areas. For his most recent monograph Children in Immigrant Families in Eight Affluent Countries: Their Family, National, and International Context Professor Hernandez led a team of scholars from eight countries to develop internationally comparable indicators from census and registration systems of child well-being across affluent countries for children in immigrant and native-born families.
Among his other activities, Professor Hernandez has served as an advisor for activities of the Advertising Council; the Annie E. Casey Foundation; the Center for Law and Social Policy; the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics; the Foundation for Child Development; the National Council of La Raza, the Division of Nutrition of the New York Department of Health; National Center for Children in Poverty; the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Population Reference Bureau; the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute; the Urban Institute; and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. He also has served on Committees of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, and given testimony or served as an invited speaker for numerous Congressional Hearings and Briefings.
To support his research, Professor Hernandez has been awarded, as Principal Investigator, grants with a total value of more than $1,600,000. He also has made more than 180 invited presentations at professional meetings, universities, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations across the United States and in Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, England, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, and the Philippines. Professor Hernandez has been interviewed for stories featuring his research findings in Time, The Wall Street Journal, and U.S.A Today, as well as National Public Radio, and stories citing his research have been published in numerous regional and local newspapers and featured on many regional and local television and radio websites.
See Don Hernandez's CV here.
Selected Publications
Hernandez, Donald J. and Jeffery S. Napierala. Mother’s Education and Children’s Outcomes: How Dual-Generation Programs Offer Increased Opportunities for America’s Families. New York, Foundation for Child Development, July 2014.
Hernandez, Donald J. and Jeffery S. Napierala. Diverse Children: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in America’s New Non-Majority Generation New York, Foundation for Child Development, July 2013.
Hernandez, Donald J. and Jeffery S. Napierala. Children in Immigrant Families: Essential to America’s Future New York, Foundation for Child Development, June 2012.
Hernandez, Donald J. PreK-3rd: Next Steps for Longitudinal Data Systems New York, Foundation for Child Development, April, 2012.
Hernandez, Donald J. Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation. Baltimore: Annie E. Casey Foundation, April 2011.
Hernandez, Donald J. Declining Fortunes of Children in Middle-Class Families: Economic Inequality and Child Well-Being in the 21st Century. New York, NY: Foundation for Child Development, January, 2011.
Hernandez, Donald J., Nancy A. Denton, and Suzanne E. Macartney, “Early Childhood Education Programs: Accounting for Low Enrollment in Immigrant and Minority Families”. In Richard Alba and Mary A. Waters (eds.) The Next Generation: Immigrant Youth in Comparative Perspective, New York: NYU Press, 2011.
Hernandez, Donald J., Suzanne Macartney, and Victoria L. Blanchard. Children in Immigrant Families in Eight Affluent Countries: Their Family, National, and International Context, Florence, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2009.
Hernandez, Donald J., America's Children: Resources from Family, Government, and the Economy, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1993.
Hernandez, Donald J., Success or Failure? Family Planning Programs in the Third World, Studies in Population and Urban Demography, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984