Timothy Hallett

I do research at the intersections of culture, organizations, and social psychology, coalescing in a theoretical approach known as “inhabited institutionalism” (Theory and Society 2021 with Amelia Hawbaker). In other words, I examine how institutions such as education are inhabited by people doing things together-at times in concert and at times in conflict-and how these interactions matter for organizational life. I argue that a focus on these interactions is essential for our understanding of how organizations operate. Such research typically involves field observations of what people actually do inside of organizations, and interviews with the inhabitants. For example, I've published research on institutional recoupling in schools (American Sociological Review 2010), the inhabited nature of institutions (Theory and Society 2006 with Marc Ventresca), how people gossip at work (Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 2009 with Brent Harger and Donna Eder), organizational culture (Sociological Theory 2003), and how symbolic power is created in social interactions and used to shape organizations (Social Psychology Quarterly 2007). Currently I am developing an inhabited institutional approach to understanding professional socialization, based on a 2-year ethnographic study of a Masters of Public Affairs program (American Sociological Review 2024 with Matt Gougherty). Another line of work examines how social science ideas become public ideas (American Sociological Review 2019 with Orla Stapleton and Michael Sauder), with the goal of building a sociology of public social science.