Mark J Schafer
Associate Professor/Director of Graduate Studies
Contact
mschaf1@lsu.edu
225-578-5357
215 Martin D. Woodin Hall
After earning my BSEE in 1989, I joined the US. Peace Corps and served as a high school math teaching in Mwanza, Malawi for two years. I earned my master鈥檚 and PhD degrees in the 1990s at Indiana University. I have been a faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Economics with a minor, teaching appointment in the Department of Sociology since 2000. In addition to my split appointment, I became affiliated with the Department of African and African American Studies and with the International Studies Program. I currently serve as the Director of Graduate Studies in both Agricultural Economics and Sociology, and I also founded the 蘑菇tv Peace Corps Prep program in 2020.
Fujiyama, Hideki, Yoshinori Kamo, and Mark Schafer. 2021. 鈥淧eer Effects of Friend and Extracurricular Activity Networks on Students鈥� Academic Performance.鈥� Social Science Research 97.
Schafer, Mark J and Shana Khan. 2017. 鈥淔amily Economy, Rural School Choice, and Flexischooling Children with Disabilities.鈥� Rural Sociology 82:524-547.
Schafer, Mark J, Wesley Shrum, B. Paige Miller, Paul N. Mbatia, Antony Palackal, and Dan- Bright S. Dzorgbo. 2016. 鈥淎ccess to ICT and Research Output of Agricultural Researchers in Kenya鈥�. Science, Technology, & Society 21:250-270.
Perry, Ashley M. and Mark J. Schafer. 2014. 鈥淩esilience in Louisiana FEMA Parks: A Person-Centered, Fuzzy-Set Analysis.鈥� Sociological Spectrum 34:39-60.
My initial scholarship focused on educational expansion globally and within Africa, with a specific focus on family and community response to change. I later developed an interest in educational change within Louisiana, the impact of the 2005 hurricanes, and racial and ethnic changes in the Gulf of Mexico Region. More recently, I have focused on factors related to student academic performance, with a specific focus on the role of structured activities. In addition, I have contributed to a long-term research program focusing on how advances in information and communications technologies has shaped scientific research collaboration and productivity, and that team is currently researching the effects of Covid-19 on scientific collaboration. Finally, my research interests also include in various aspects of educational change within Louisiana and the United States, including trends toward virtual schooling and homeschooling, and how Covid-19 is still shaping those trends.
1999 PhD Department of Sociology, Indiana University
1995 MA Department of Sociology, Indiana University
1989 BS Electrical Engineering Department, GMI Engineering & Management Institute
SOCL 7591 Graduate Seminar on Globalization 2022
SOCL 7201 Research Methods in Sociology (statistics) 2021
SOCL 7491 Graduate Seminar on Educational Inequality 2017