TC Affiliations:
Educational Background
Ph.D. Cornell University, Sociology with a minor in Demography
B.A. University of Michigan, Sociology and Women's Studies
Scholarly Interests
Stratification and Inequality; Sociology of Education; Community and Urban Sociology; Public Policy; Social and Spatial Demography; Quantitative Methods.
Selected Publications
Tach, Laura, Emily Parker, Alexandra Cooperstock, and Samuel Dodini. 2026. “Federal Place-Based Policy and the Geography of Inequality in the United States, 1990-2019.” Social Forces 104(3):1202-1231.
Rauscher, Emily and Alexandra Cooperstock. 2026. “Spending in Rural and Non-Rural Districts.” Chapter 2, pages 33-70 in The Rural Blind Spot: Bridging the Knowledge Gap in Education Finance & Policy, edited by Thomas Downes and Kieran Killeen. Oxford, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing.
Alvarado, Steven Elías and Alexandra Cooperstock. 2024. “The Echo of Neighborhood Disadvantage: Multigenerational Contextual Hardship and Adult Income for Whites, Blacks, and Latinos.” City & Community 23(1):47-80.
Cooperstock, Alexandra. 2023. “The Demographics of School District Secession.” Social Forces 101(4):1976-2012.
Sassler, Sharon and Alexandra Cooperstock. 2023. “The Various Roles of Cohabitation in the United States.” Chapter 18, pages 388-418 in The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy Over the Life Course, edited by Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas Besharov. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
McCauley, Erin and Alexandra Cooperstock. 2022. “Differential Self-Reported COVID-19 Impacts Among U.S. Secondary Teachers by Race/Ethnicity.” Frontiers in Education 7:931234.
Alvarado, Steven Elías and Alexandra Cooperstock. 2021. “Context in Continuity: The Enduring Legacy of Neighborhood Disadvantage Across Generations.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 74:100620.
Biographical Information
Alexandra Cooperstock is an award winning sociologist who explores how ethnoracial and social class inequalities are produced and perpetuated in neighborhoods and schools, and how policy contexts influence the neighborhood-school nexus and create stratified opportunity structures. This work contributes to research on inequality and stratification, the sociology of education, community and urban sociology, public policy, and the field of social and spatial demography. Her research has been funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the American Educational Research Association, and the National Science Foundation. She has been published in general interest, special interest, and interdisciplinary journals including Social Forces, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, City & Community, and Frontiers in Education as well as the Oxford Handbook of Family Policy and an edited volume on Contemporary Issues in Rural Education Finance.
Before joining Teachers College, Alexandra was a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University affiliated with the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Population Studies and Training Center. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with a minor in Demography from Cornell University, and a B.A. in Sociology and Women's Studies from the University of Michigan where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She was formerly a K-12 teacher and worked in both public and charter schools.