Mario Luis Small

Mario L. Small, Ph.D., is an award-winning author who has made numerous contributions to research on urban neighborhoods, personal networks, and the relationship between qualitative and quantitative social science methods.  His work on poverty has demonstrated that how people regard their neighbrhood shapes how its conditions affect them, and that many misconceptions about low-income populations derive from how researchers have studied the poor (Villa Victoria: The transformation of social capital in a Boston barrio).  His work on networks has shown that people unwittingly build social capital to the extent they frequent everyday organizations such as churches, gyms, and childcare centers (Unanticipated Gains: Origins of network inequality in everyday life).  It has also shown that understanding how people use their networks on a regular basis helps explain why they so willingly confide their deepest worries to individuals they are not close to (Someone To Talk To: How networks matter in practice).  His latest work examines how networks affect financial decision-making among low-income populations.  His work has consistently been concerned with debunking misconceptions of the poor and using people's understanding of their circumstances to develop better social science.