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And she really looks out for the subjects of her research. For her latest book project, an examination of government policies regarding the inner-city poor, Fernández-Kelly spent 10 years tracking the experiences of 50 African-American families in West Baltimore -- and ended up paying the tuition for several youngsters in those families to attend parochial school.
Getting personally involved with her subjects was "a highly intentional decision ... I thought of it as a political decision -- putting my money where my mouth is. It was not an emotional decision on my part. I saw it very much as a decision based on research. Good research is about interacting with people."
Worked as a seamstress
Doing firsthand research is not new for Fernández-Kelly. In 1979, while completing her dissertation at Rutgers University, she spent two months working as a seamstress in a clothing factory in Chihuahua, Mexico, where she was paid 59 cents an hour. Fernández-Kelly, who grew up in Mexico City, was investigating the effects of globalization on women and their families. Her research, which included interviews with 500 women, became a book, "For We Are Sold, I and My People: Women in Industry in Mexico's Frontier," which was published in 1983.
This year Fernández-Kelly is teaching "The Sociological Perspective," an introductory course, and "Urban Sociology: The City and Social Change in the Americas." Her project in West Baltimore was predicated on her belief that the poor need human involvement, not handouts. "I developed this idea that what these children needed was not an additional government-funded program to stigmatize them," said Fernández-Kelly, who was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University for 10 years before coming to Princeton in 1997. "What they needed were connections with the outside world. All families benefit from additional adults in their circle."
Getting directly involved with the subjects of her research and taking moral positions are requisites for rigorous research, according to Fernández-Kelly. "Close interactions raise ethical dilemmas, but so do aloofness and distance," she said. "The kind of research I do forces me to take personal positions with respect to such issues as violence and justice. To me these are not abstractions, but concerns of the deepest personal character. Morality need not be in conflict with the observance of scientific standards."
Fernández-Kelly writes movingly in her book manuscript about Clarise, a skinny 8-year-old who had rummaged for food in dumpsters while living with her mother, who was addicted to cocaine. Her life had improved since she moved in with her great-aunt, and Clarise had become a chatty young girl who loved school and swimming. For four years, Clarise flourished at the Catholic school where Fernández-Kelly enrolled her.
But when the girl's great-aunt decided to send her back to public school at the age of 12, Clarise fell in with a wild crowd, tried drugs and was attacked by a young man who tried to rape her. She ended up giving birth to a son at the age of 18.
Fernández-Kelly learned firsthand how difficult it is for children to overcome the negative influences around them. "I felt that I was constantly competing with the playground" where drugs were sold, Fernández-Kelly said. "(These kids) were living in a minefield." During the 10 years she spent doing research in West Baltimore, she met only a handful of children who completed high school and an even smaller number who attended college.
Clarise's brother, Little Floyd, initially flourished at the parochial school where Fernández-Kelly sent him. But the years he spent being shuffled between relatives and foster-care families, usually living in public housing where violence was an everyday occurrence, took their toll. He ended up dropping out of school and living on the streets.
Painful research
Immersing herself in the lives of her research subjects was often painful for Fernández-Kelly. "Would I have done it knowing the pain I would go through? Perhaps not," she said. Nevertheless, she concluded, "Their stories are not lacking in hope. On the contrary, I continue to marvel at how much they do with so little. What seems hopeless is the environment ... in which they are trapped."
And Fernández-Kelly learned a great deal from her close connection with the families. She saw, for example, how challenging it was to navigate the intricate web of government agencies that offer help to the poor. "Even with two Ph.D.s and my affiliation (with Johns Hopkins), you find out that you have a great deal of difficulty negotiating the paths of these cities. If I cannot do it, I find it hard to believe that families with few resources can do it. The problem was not lack of love (from their families) but parents who didn't have the resources."
The book project, tentatively titled "The Hero's Fight: Endurance and Survival in West Baltimore," will contain several narratives of the life experiences of the children she came to know. She hopes to provide a more nuanced and detailed understanding of what it's like to grow up in an inner city.
"The role that academics can play in terms of societal change is rather limited," she said, "but we are in a sense the memory of society, and we cannot allow people to forget that there are huge social inequities."
November 25, 2002
Vol. 92, No. 11
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Contents
Page one
•Gossman expresses gratitude through book on WWII rescue
•University to 'redouble' diversity efforts with dialogue
Inside
•Personal involvement provides inside view
•Enthusiasm for biology is contagious
People
•Healy named director of public safety
•Taylor to step down as dean of the faculty; search committee formed
•New associate, assistant professors appointed to faculty
•People, spotlight, retirements, briefs
•Obituaries
Sections
•Nassau Notes
•By the numbers
•Calendar of events
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