David Pettinicchio

David Pettinicchio joined the Sociology Department as assistant professor in 2014. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2012, Professor Pettinicchio took a two-year position as sociology postdoctoral fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. At UTM, Professor Pettinicchio currently teaches Measuring the Social World, Crises, Health, and Disability, and Disability, Politics and Society. He has recently published in Gender and Society, Canadian Public Policy, The Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Perspectives, Canadian Review of Sociology, and the Journal of Consumer Culture. His book, Politics of Empowerment (Stanford University Press), examines the back-and-forth dynamics between political mobilization and policymaking. He is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Disability (Oxford University Press) scheduled to be released in 2023. His work has also been featured in popular press including the Toronto Star, The Conversation, The Globe and Mail, USA Today, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post.

As a political sociologist interested in health, inequalities, culture, race, gender, and disability, Professor Pettinicchio studies the development of political constituencies and their ongoing interaction with a variety of social institutions. More recently, he has embarked in a nationwide study about how policy responses to COVID-19 shaped public perceptions about government and policy. Part of his focus is the way in which people with disabilities and chronic health conditions are economically impacted by the pandemic and the effects on mental health. Continuing with his focus on social inequalities, Pettinicchio is also working with a graduate student examining how fashion and cosmetic industry insiders in different cultural contexts think diversity should look and how diversity is received by consumers. Drawing from production-consumption dynamics, he seeks to identify mechanisms that lend sustained support for diversity campaigns while uncovering more pessimistic views of diversity around race, age, sexuality, disability, and body size – that these are merely performative and that brands either “get woke or go broke.”