About

Sally A. Nuamah is an associate professor of urban politics in Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on the intersections of race, gender, education policy, and political behavior. She completed her Ph.D. in political science at Northwestern University in June 2016. Nuamah has held positions as an assistant professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, a Women and Public Policy fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a predoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book, 'Closed for Democracy,' investigates the political consequences of mass closures on Black Americans' relationship with government. Her work explores the political implications of education policies and their impact on marginalized communities, contributing to the understanding of how race and gender influence political and educational outcomes.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Public administration
• Social Science
• Economics
• Political economy
• Law
• Public relations
• Demographic economics

Selected publications

• Claiming Citizenship: The Political Labor of Black Women’s Resistance

  Du Bois Review Social Science Research on Race · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st author

  Abstract In what ways, if any, do justice-involved Black women make political demands? How do they understand their role and rights as citizens? Previous work has focused on identifying forms of political behavior, both formal and deviant (i.e., resistance, subversive acts), and the degree to which different groups participate in these behaviors. Few studies have focused on the sensemaking and ideologies likely motivating the behavior of justice-involved Black women both within and outside the formal political realm (e.g., elections). Drawing on the responses of Black women residents of an urban prison reentry facility, this article illustrates how this group engages in what we describe as “political claimsmaking,” a type of deviant discourse in which participants negotiate the power dynamics informing their social reality to make political demands. Further, we argue that while this political claimsmaking acts as a form of resistance and assertion of citizenship, it is simultaneously a form of inequitable political labor. Understanding Black women’s political claims, and the labor involved in making them, has serious implications for imagining more liberatory futures in which the benefits associated with citizenship are more freely accessed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Closed for Democracy

  2022 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Every year, over 1,000 public schools are permanently closed across the United States. And yet, little is known about their impacts on American democracy. Closed for Democracy is the first book to systematically study the political causes and democratic consequences of mass public school closures in the United States. The book investigates the declining presence of public schools in large cities and their impacts on the Americans most directly affected – poor Black citizens. It documents how these mass school closure policies target minority communities, making them feel excluded from the public goods afforded to equal citizens. In response, targeted communities become superlative participators to make their voices heard. Nevertheless, the high costs and low responsiveness associated with the policy process undermines their faith in the power of political participation. Ultimately, the book reveals that when schools shut down, so too does Black citizens' access to, and belief in, American democracy.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: Close to Home: Place-Based Mobilization in Racialized Contexts

  Harvard Dataverse · 2021-04-02 · 1 citations

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Replication Data for: Close to Home: Place-Based Mobilization in Racialized Contexts

  PublisherDOI

• Close to Home: Place-Based Mobilization in Racialized Contexts

  Harvard Dataverse · 2021-01-01

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  How do racially concentrated policy changes translate to political action? Using official election returns, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and original data on the unprecedented mass closure of schools in segregated, predominantly Black neighborhoods across Chicago, we demonstrate that those living in the communities affected: 1) increase their attendance at political meetings; 2) mobilize in support of ballot measures to avert future closings; and 3) increase their participation in the subsequent local election, while decreasing their support for the political official responsible for the policy on the ballot¬—at a higher rate than every other group. These findings shed light on how groups that previously participated at the lowest rates go on to participate at the highest rates on community issues that matter to them. We develop a theory of place-based mobilization to explain the role of “the community” in acting as a site of co-identification and political action for marginalized groups.

  PublisherDOI

• Close to Home: Place-Based Mobilization in Racialized Contexts

  American Political Science Review · 2021 · 52 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  How do racially concentrated policy changes translate to political action? Using official election returns, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and original data on the unprecedented mass closure of schools in segregated, predominantly Black neighborhoods across Chicago, we demonstrate that those living in the communities affected (1) increase their attendance at political meetings; (2) mobilize in support of ballot measures to avert future closings; and (3) increase their participation in the subsequent local election, while decreasing their support for the political official responsible for the policy on the ballot—at a higher rate than every other group. These findings shed light on how groups that previously participated at the lowest rates go on to participate at the highest rates on community issues that matter to them. We develop a theory of place-based mobilization to explain the role of “the community” in acting as a site of coidentification and political action for marginalized groups.

  PublisherDOI

• “Every year they ignore us”: public school closures and public trust

  Politics Groups and Identities · 2020 · 25 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  How do citizens’ experiences with public schools shape their feelings about politics? Over the past two decades, public schools have closed at an increasing rate across the United States. In 2013, US history was made in Chicago, Illinois, when the most public schools in a single year were closed. Despite the large number of school closures nationwide, there is a little research on what citizens think about them and their potential political effects. Utilizing qualitative data from community meeting transcripts, ethnographic observations, and interviews related to the historic school closures by Chicago Public Schools, this paper reveals that the inconsistencies experienced by citizens affected by school closures contribute to distrust of the real objectives behind the policy. Citizens’ mistrust of the policy, likely shapes negative perceptions of the policy implementers and politics, at large. This paper has important implications for studies that seek to understand how and why citizens oppose policies that are framed as advantageous to them. Additionally, this paper provides significant insights into the ways in which citizen engagement with educational policies can act as a process of political learning, specifically related to public trust.

  PublisherDOI

• The Paradox of Educational Attitudes: Racial Differences in Public Opinion on School Closure

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In 2009, the federal government proposed the “turn-around” of the nation’s 5000 lowest performing public schools. In 2013, nearly 2000 public schools were closed, in part, due to this turn-around effort. Increasingly, these school closures have occurred in urban city centers where nearly 90% of the public school population is black and latino. This paper examines the effect of school closures on racial attitudes. The quantitative analysis reveals that whites express high levels of support for school closure despite having very little experiences of their schools being closed. These attitudes are in direct contrast to blacks and latinos, who absorb nearly 90% of school closures and express low levels of support towards it. Through a close examination of qualitative data, I attribute these differences to each group’s variable experiences as policy targets of the school closure process, in particular, and education, more broadly. More specifically, I find that because the closure policy disproportionately targets minority communities, and the process they are subjected to results in negative experiences, in spite of its nominally non-¬racial framing, interpretations of the closure policy quickly become racialized; meaning that interpretations of the policy place racial bias at the center of its intent. These racialized interpretations, further facilitated by external groups with political efficacy, contribute to blacks and latinos negative attitudes toward the policy and politics, generally.

  Publisher

• 3. Becoming Achievement Oriented

  Harvard University Press eBooks · 2019-04-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• “A Spoke In A Wheel”

  2019-04-15

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Since 2001, more than 100 traditional public schools have been closed across the Chicagoland area. Most recently, in 2013, 54 public schools were closed—the most schools closed in a single year in U.S history. Nearly 90% of those affected were either Black or Latino. Despite the large number of school closures and its targeted nature, there exist very few investigations on how those affected by closures think about them. This chapter investigates the relationship between education reform policy and public attitudes. Utilizing qualitative data from community meeting transcripts, ethnographic observations, and interviews, this chapter argues that community members’ encounters with the varied and multiple manifestations of education policy implemented by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) over the past decade are inconsistent with the stated objectives of the school closure policy. The inconsistencies experienced by citizens contribute to general Shuttered Schools, pages 259–285 Copyright © 2019 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. suspicion and distrust of the real objectives behind the 2013 school closing policy, its implementers, and politics, at large. Public schools have long acted as anchors of the community and cradles of democracy. Indeed, the relative size of the public school system as compared to any other institution of government is unmatched, nor is its normative value in the everyday lives of citizens (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). Yet, in part as a result of government efforts to “turn around”1 public schools in order resolve issues of economic crises, low performance, and under-enrollment, public schools have been closed at increasing rate in recent years (see U.S Department of Education—Blueprint for Reform, 2010; National Council for Education Statistics, n.d.). While schools are being closed across the United States, the CPS system made history in 2013 when it closed the most schools in a single year. Nearly 90% of the schools targeted for closure were attended by large majorities of low-income African-American students. Yet, in these same communities’ public school systems have become central to community empowerment, employment, and stability (Henig, Hula, Orr,& Pedescleaux, 2001). The targeted nature of school closure raises important questions about the fairness of how the American government distributes public goods among its citizenry, and the impact that these decisions have on the political beliefs of Americans most directly affected by them. Literature on policy feedback, provides a useful approach for examining the relationship between policy experience and political behavior, more generally. These works identify the ways in which consistent interactions with the design, framing, and discourse around policies can structure individuals’ experiences with the political process. Citizens’ use their encounters with policy as a lens for understanding their juxtaposition to the State at large. Thus, these experiences thus teach citizens important political lessons about government and democracy (i.e., Pierson, 1993; Soss, 1999; Mettler, 2005; Burch, 2013). In the case of Chicago, a group of people have been consistently affected by changes in the historical role and function of public schools—institutions through which citizens are most likely to experience government and acquire civic skills (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). Thus, one would expect citizens’ experiences with school closings to influence their political attitudes and reveal much about the state of American democracy today. Yet, despite the importance and direct consequence of the policy of public school closure on the lives of residents, these questions are yet to be taken on by policy feedback or even public opinion scholars. This chapter addresses these shortcomings through an analysis of attitudes toward school closures compiled from interview data, community meeting observations and transcripts on Chicago. This chapter analyzes how experiences with education shape public attitudes towards the school closure policy and its broader consequences for public trust. The analysis reveals that community members’ encounters with the various and multiple manifestations of education policy implemented by CPS contribute to general suspicion, and ultimately distrust, of the real objectives behind the current closing policy. In particular, this study demonstrates how citizens’ experiences with closure are inconsistent with the stated objectives of the policy. These inconsistencies have negative feedback effects on public attitudes as they appear reflective of the continued violation of public trust by CPS. Accordingly, citizens’ express oppositional attitudes towards the closure policy, as well as towards those policy actors involved in crafting and implementing it. The remainder of the chapter is divided into the following sections: The first section reviews the literature on attitudes toward education with a particular focus on school closure. This section is followed by a review of policy feedback literature and its relationship to education attitudes. The section that follows addresses theories of policy feedback in relation to public trust. The chapter then provides a brief overview of school closures in one case, Chicago, before delving into the data, methods, and strategies for analyzing the case. The next section describes the findings in relationship to the argument. The final section addresses alternative explanations and limitations and concludes with the implications of the findings on democratic society.

  PublisherDOI

• Who Governs? How Shifts in Political Power Shape Perceptions of Local Government Services

  Urban Affairs Review · 2019-06-14 · 15 citations

  articleSenior author

  What factors influence citizens’ perceptions of local government services? To answer this question, we examine citizens’ perceptions of public education in post-Katrina New Orleans. Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans began to transform most of its traditional public schools into charters. Although studies show that test scores have improved since the mass adoption of charters post-Katrina, surveys show that most Black citizens in New Orleans do not perceive that the New Orleans schools have improved post-Katrina. A majority of White residents, however, perceive that the schools are better post-Katrina. Relying on a survey of New Orleans residents, we argue that local shifts in political power by race help explain the racial differences in perceptions of the public schools. The study’s findings suggest that perceptions of the quality of public goods are shaped by perceptions of “who governs?”

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Candis Watts

  Yale University

  81 shared

• Christina M. Greer

  Fordham University

  81 shared

• Douglas W. Harris

  University of Chicago

  81 shared

• John Kincaid

  Lafayette College

  81 shared

• Jason Seawright

  Northwestern University

  81 shared

• Patrizia Longo

  81 shared

• Matthew J. A. Green

  University of Nottingham

  81 shared

• M. D. Desch

  81 shared