Annette Nierobisz

Education & Professional History

Queen's University, MA; University of Toronto, PhD

Annette Nierobisz, Professor of Sociology, joined Carleton College in 2000. She teaches a variety of courses, from Introduction to Sociology and the A&I seminar Sociology of COVID-19 to upper-level courses including Growing Up in an Aging Society, Working in the 21^st Century, and Sociology of Mass Incarceration. She enjoys helping students discover their sociological imagination, refine their methodological techniques, and embark on their own investigations of the social world.

Professor Nierobisz’s publications have examined a broad range of topics, from fear of crime among women who encounter sexual harassment in public spaces to the role played by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in the 2005 legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada. In a current book project, American Idle: Late Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era, soon to be published by Rutgers University Press, Professor Nierobisz and her co-author investigate how a select group of older workers interpret their experience of losing a job in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession. The manuscript extends Professor Nierobisz’s longstanding research focus in the sociology of work and occupations.

American Idle: Job Loss Among Aging Americans

American Idle: Job Loss Among Aging Americans is a research study exploring the experiences of white-collar workers, specifically those 50 years of age or older, who reported job loss between 2007 and 2014. These years were marked by severe economic recession, a subsequent long-term jobless recovery, decline of longstanding institutional protections for American workers, and a growing inversion of the population age demographic.

In-depth interviews were conducted with individuals residing within a 75 mile radius of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Engaged in the formal economy as long-term employees, temporary employees, and independent contractors, interviewees encountered job loss due to downsizing, reorganization, businesses closing, and other significant responses to the Great Recession and its sluggish recovery. The project broadly explores how individuals navigated job loss against the backdrop of an unprecedented and volatile confluence of socio-economic conditions.

A first paper from the project, “Religious Coping and Older, Unemployed Workers: Narratives of the Job Loss Experience,” is published by the Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging. The project will also yield a book that’s currently titled, American Idle: Late Career Job Loss in a Neo-Liberal Era. This book is under contract with Rutgers University Press.

Previous Courses

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College

Introductory courses
• Introduction to Sociology; Sociology of COVID-19 (A&I Seminar); Working Across Our Lives (A&I Seminar)

Required SOAN courses
• Methods of Social Research; Sociological Thought and Theory

Aging and the Life Course
• Growing Up in an Aging Society

Law, Crime, and Deviance
• Law and Society; Girls Gone Bad: Women, Crime and Criminal Justice; Myths of Crime; Criminology; Contemporary Issues in Critical Criminology; X = Crime; Sociology of Mass Incarceration;

Work and Occupations
• Work and Occupations in Contemporary Society; Working in the New Economy; Critical Perspectives on Work in the 21st Century

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, St. Olaf College

Work and Career in Modern Society, Law and Society, Introduction to Sociology

Teaching and Research Experience

Director, Summer Quantitative Reasoning Institute, Carleton College, 2019
Broom Fellow for Public Scholarship, 2016-2019
Professor of Sociology, Carleton College, 2014-
Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College, 2011-2016
Associate Professor of Sociology, Carleton College, 2007-2017
Posse Mentor, Posse Foundation (Chicago) and Carleton College, 2008-2012
Senior Researcher, Research and Statistical Analysis Division, Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2006-2008
Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Law and Society, University of California, Berkeley, 2003
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Carleton College, 2000-2007
Visiting Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, St. Olaf College, 1999-2000
Research Assistant, Department of Sociology and the Institute for Human Development, Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto, 1995-98
Teaching Assistant, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 1994-1998
Research Assistant, Departments of Sociology and Political Science, Queen’s University at Kingston, 1993-94
Teaching Assistant, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, 1992-1994
Research Associate, Prairie Research Associates, Winnipeg, MB, 1992
Teaching Assistant, Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg, 1991-1992
Student Policy Analyst, Department of Family Services, Government of Manitoba, 1991

Publications

Journal Articles

Annette Nierobisz and Dana Sawchuk. 2018. “Religious Coping and Older, Unemployed Workers: Narratives of the Job Loss Experience.” Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging 30(4): 325-353.

Charles Seguin, Annette Nierobisz and Karen Phelan Kozlowski. 2017. “Seeing Race: Teaching Racial Segregation with the Racial Dot Map.” Teaching Sociology 45: 142-151.

Annette Nierobisz. 2010. “Wrestling with the New Economy: Judicial Rhetoric in Canadian Wrongful Dismissal Claims.” Law and Social Inquiry 35: 403-449.

Annette Nierobisz, Mark Searl and Charles Théroux. 2008. “Human Rights Commissions and Public Policy: The Role of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Advancing Sexual Orientation Equality Rights in Canada.” Canadian Public Administration Journal 51: 239-263.

Annette Nierobisz and John Hagan. 2005. “Shooting the Messenger and the Message: The Social Basis of Authority Challenges in Canadian Law School Settings.” Advances in Gender Research 9: 239-267.

Sandy Welsh, Myrna Dawson and Annette Nierobisz. 2002. “Legal Factors, Extra-Legal Factors, or Changes in the Law? Using Criminal Justice Research to Understand the Resolution of Sexual Harassment Complaints.” Social Problems 48: 605-623.

Ross Macmillan, Annette Nierobisz, and Sandy Welsh. 2000. “Experiencing the Streets: Harassment and Perceptions of Safety Among Women.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 37: 306-322.

Sandy Welsh and Annette Nierobisz. 1997. “How Prevalent is Sexual Harassment? A Research Note on Measuring Sexual Harassment in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 22: 505-522.

Reviews and Short Pieces

“Eleanor Roosevelt, It’s Up to the Women,” in Every Book, a Tale: Selections from Special Collections in the Laurence McKinley Gould Library of Carleton College. Pp. 88-89 in John Roger Paas, ed. Northfield, MN: Trustees of Carleton College, 2010.

When Crime Waves, by Vincent F. Sacco. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Reviewed by Annette Nierobisz for International Review of Modern Sociology, vol. 32, no.1, pp 155-156, Spring 2006.

Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar, by John P. Heinz, Robert L. Nelson, Rebecca L. Sandefur, and Edward O. Laumann. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Reviewed by Annette Nierobisz for Law and Society Review, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 738-740, September 2006.

Teaching Materials

Annette Nierobisz. 2008. “The Myths of Crime, Course Assignments.” In the American Sociological Association’s Teaching Criminology: A Collection of Syllabi, Assignments, and Other Resources and Issues. Edited by Tim Brezina.

Erik Larson and Annette Nierobisz. 2006. “Advising Undergraduate Students about Law School.” Amici: The American Sociological Association Sociology of Law Section Newsletter, Vol. 13 (Fall): 5-8.

Annette Nierobisz. 2004. “Work and Occupations: Contemporary Society. Course Syllabus and Introductory Assignment.” In the American Sociological Association’s The Sociology of Work and Occupations: Syllabi and Other Instructional Materials, 5th Edition. Edited by Carol Auster.

Research Reports

Annette Nierobisz and Charles Théroux. 2009. Disability Complaints Submitted to the Canadian Human Rights Commission: An Analysis of Systemic Barriers Reported by Complainants. Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ottawa, Ontario.

Sandy Welsh and Annette Nierobisz. 1997. Sexual Harassment Complaints and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, 1978-1995. Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ottawa, Ontario.

Sandy Welsh and Annette Nierobisz. 1996. Complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission: A Preliminary Report. Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ottawa, Ontario.