Skip to main content

Steven Gold

Steven Gold
  • Professor
  • Department of Sociology
  • Ph.D. in Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1985
  • M.A. in Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1980
  • B.A. in Sociology and Psychology with highest honors and college honors, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1977
  • Sociology and Psychology major, Brandeis University, 1973-1975
  • 462 Berkey Hall
  • 509 E. Circle Drive
  • East Lansing, MI, 48823
  • 517-353-6352

CURRICULUM VITAE

Steven Gold

BIOGRAPHY

Steven J. Gold is professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Educated at Brandeis University, University of California Santa Cruz, and University of California Berkeley, his scholarly interests include international migration, ethnic economies, ethnic community development, qualitative field methods and visual sociology. Gold is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of nine books including The Israeli Diaspora (Routledge/University of Washington Press 2002) which won the Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the American Sociological Association’s International Migration Section for the best book on international migration in 2003. His book Ethnic Economies, co-authored with Ivan Light of UCLA, has received 1710 Google Scholar citations. His edited volume, Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration, (Purdue University Press 2020) was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice, a magazine that reviews academic books published by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association. Along with Rubén G. Rumbaut, Gold was Book Series Editor of The New Americans: Recent Immigration and American Society, LFB Scholarly Publishing, which published 116 volumes. Gold has served as Graduate Program Director of the MSU Sociology Department for 12 years, and has chaired 23 PhD dissertations. He is the author of over 150 journal articles, book chapters and book reviews. The past chair of the American Sociological Association, International Migration Section, and the former President of the International Visual Sociology Association, he received the Charles Horton Cooley Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Sociology from the Michigan Sociology Association in 2007. He was a Visiting Scholar for the Erasmus Mundus Joint European Master’s in International Migration and Social Cohesion program at the University of Amsterdam and University of Osnabruck during Fall 2014. He received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association, International Migration Section in 2019.

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS

  • Asian and Asian Pacific American Studies
  • Jewish Studies
  • Chicano Latino Studies

PUBLICATIONS

Selected Books 

Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration. Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, Annual Review, Volume 18, West Lafayette Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2020. 

The Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies, Second Edition (with Stephanie Nawyn) Routledge, 2019 

The Store in the Hood: A Century of Ethnic Business and Conflict, Lanham, MD:  Roman and Littlefield, 2010, Paperback edition, 2012 

From the Workers’ State to the Golden State: Jews from the Former Soviet Union in California, Allyn and Bacon, 1995. 

Refugee Communities: A Comparative Field Study, Sage, 1992. 

Selected Journal Articles 

"Israel’s evolving approach to citizens who have returned to the diaspora" Review of Nationalities, vol.12, no.1, 2022, pp.1-8. https://doi.org/10.2478/pn-2022-0001 

"Israeli Infotech Migrants in Silicon Valley,” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, New Immigrant Labor Market Niches Vol 4, Issue 1. Susan Eckstein and Giovanni Peri (editors) 4(1), 130–148 (2018). 

“A Critical Race Theory Approach to Black American Entrepreneurship” Ethnic and Racial Studies, special issue on Ethnic Entrepreneurship in Critical and Comparative Perspective, Zulema Valdez and Mary Romero (eds), Published online: 24 Mar 2016.DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2016.1159708 

“Patterns of Adaptation among Contemporary Jewish Immigrants to the US,” American Jewish Yearbook, Edited by Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin, Vol 115. 2016: Ch 1, 3-44, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-24505-8 

“Arab American Reflections on Documentary Images of their Community: A Photo-Elicitation Study,” Visual Studies 30:3, 228-243, DOI: 10.1080/1472586X.2015.1017348. Published on line 9-17-2015. 

“Contextual and Family Determinants of Immigrant Women's Self-Employment: The Case of Vietnamese, Russian-Speaking Jews, and Israelis.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, V.43, Issue 2 April 2014: 228-255. 

From Jim Crow to Racial Hegemony: Evolving Explanations of Racial Hierarchy” Ethnic and Racial Studies 27, 2004, pp. 1-18. 

 Selected Book Chapters 

The Decline in Migrants’ Health Due to Adverse Environments and Limited Options for Care. Ch23,  pp. 210-216 in Migration and Health Sandro Galea, Catherine K. Ettman, Muhammad H. Zaman (eds.) The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London. 2022. 

Exploring the Creative Israeli Diaspora: Reading Class and Profession in the Diaspora by Nir Cohen and Steven J. Gold Ch 18 in the Routledge Handbook on Middle Eastern Diasporas edited by Dalia Abdelhady, Ramy Aly. London: Routledge 2022, eBook ISBN9780429266102 

“The Jewish Israeli Diaspora,” Ch 26 in The Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora in Hasia R. Diner (ed)., New York and Oxford, Oxford Handbooks, Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190240943.013.1 

Adaptation and Identity Formation in the Israeli Diaspora. In: Johnson D.J., Chuang S.S., Glozman J. (eds) Re/Formation and Identity. Advances in Immigrant Family Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86426-2_11 2022. 

“Editorial Introduction: Recent Advancements in Jewish Migration Studies” pp.  ix-xviii in Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration. Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, Annual Review, Volume 18, West Lafayette Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2020. 

“Undocumented Immigrants and Self Employment in the Informal Economy,” pp 167-190 in Lois Ann Lorentzen (ed). Hidden Lives and Human Rights in the United States: Understanding the Controversies and Tragedies of Undocumented Immigration, Volume 3: Economic, Politics and Morality. Santa Barbara CA: Prager, 2014 

"After the Cold War: Comparing Soviet Jewish and Vietnamese Youth in the 1980s to Today’s Young Refugees," in How to Help Young Immigrants Succeed edited by Gerald Holton and Gerhard Sonnert, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 75-88, 2010 

“Middle East and North Africa” pp. 518-533. Mary Waters and Reed Ueda with Helen B. Marrow (eds.) The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2007 (with Mehdi Bozorgmehr) 

“Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Customers Throughout the 20th Century,” pp. 315-340 in Nancy Foner and George M. Fredrickson, editors, Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration, Race and Ethnicity in the United States, Russell Sage Foundation, 2004. (Book received Honorable Mention for the Thomas and Znaniecki Award, for Best book of 2005 from the ASA Section on International Migration).