Paula D. McClain, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor

Contact Info:

Teaching (Spring 2024):

• POLSCI 205.01, RACIAL/ETH MINORITIES AMER POL Synopsis

  Reuben-Coo 129, MW 11:45 AM-01:00 PM

• POLSCI 505S.01, RACE IN COMP PERSPECTIVE Synopsis

  Gross Hall 111, M 03:05 PM-05:35 PM

• POLSCI 525S.01, RACE AND AMERICAN POLITICS Synopsis

  Perkins 070, W 02:00 PM-04:00 PM; Perkins 070, W 09:30 AM-11:30 AM

• POLSCI 205.01, RACIAL/ETH MINORITIES AMER POL Synopsis

  Physics 259, MW 11:45 AM-01:00 PM

• POLSCI 216.01, FILM, RACE, AND POLITICS Synopsis

  TBA, M 03:05 PM-05:35 PM

Education:

Ph.D., Howard University, 1977

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Analysis Center, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1982

University of Michigan, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1979

University of Michigan, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1978

M.A., Howard University, 1974

B.A., Howard University, 1972

Specialties:

American Politics
Political Institutions
Behavior & Identities

Research Interests: Racial politics and Urban politics

She moved to Duke from the University of Virginia in 2000 and became Dean of The Graduate School on July 1, 2012. She also directs the American Political Science Association’s Ralph Bunche Summer Institute hosted by Duke University, and funded by the National Science Foundation and Duke University. A Howard University Ph.D., her primary research interests are in racial minority group politics, particularly inter-minority political and social competition, and urban politics. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals, including the Journal of Politics, American Political Science Review, Urban Affairs Review, and The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race. Her 1990 book, Race, Place and Risk: Black Homicide in Urban America, co-authored with Harold W. Rose, won the National Conference of Black Political Scientists' 1995 Best Book Award for a previously published book that has made a substantial and continuing contribution. Westview Press published the sixth edition of her book, “Can We All Get Along?" Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics, coauthored with Joseph Stewart, Jr. in 2013. The first edition in 1995 won the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America Award for Outstanding Scholarship on the Subject of Intolerance, 1996. American Government in Black and White, co-authored with Steven Tauber, won the American Political Science Association’s Race, Ethnicity and Politics Organized Section Best Book Award for a book published in 2010. The 2nd edition of the book was published by Oxford University Press in July 2013, and Oxford will publish the 2014 election update in early 2015. She is president-elect of the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), a past president of the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA), a past president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, a past vice president of the American Political Science Association (APSA), has served as Program Co-Chair for meetings of the APSA, the MPSA, and the International Political Science Association World Congress held in Durban, South Africa. She also served on the Advisory Committee of the Directorate of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation, and served on the Board of Overseers for the American National Election Study for both the 2008 and 2012 elections. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Duke University Blue Ribbon Diversity Award (2012), the Graduate School Mentoring Award (2010), the American Political Science Association’s Frank J. Goodnow Award for contributions to the profession of political science (2007), and a Meta Mentoring Award from the Women’s Caucus for Political Science of the American Political Science Association (2007). She was recently notified that she is the recipient of the biennially awarded Mannie Dauer Award from the Southern Political Association for exceptional service to the profession that will be given in 2015. McClain is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, having been elected in 2014.

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. McClain, PD, Crises, race, acknowledgement: The centrality of race, ethnicity, and politics to the future of political science, Perspectives on Politics, vol. 19 no. 1 (March, 2021), pp. 7-18 [doi]  [abs].
2. McClain, PD, “Trump and racial equality in America? No pretense at all!”, Policy Studies, vol. 42 no. 5-6 (January, 2021), pp. 491-508 [doi]  [abs].
3. Brady, DW; Hanlon, AR; McClain, PD; Pitney, JJ, The ethical dilemma for professors, in Trumping Ethical Norms: Teachers, Preachers, Pollsters, and the Media Respond to Donald Trump (January, 2018), pp. 75-108 [doi]  [abs].
4. McClain, PD; Johnson Carew, JD, CAN WE ALL GET ALONG?: RACIAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN AMERICAN POLITICS, SEVENTH EDITION (January, 2018), pp. 1-374 [doi]  [abs].
5. McClain, PD; Ayee, GYA; Means, TN; Reyes-Barriéntez, AM; Sediqe, NA, Race, power, and knowledge: tracing the roots of exclusion in the development of political science in the United States, Politics, Groups, and Identities, vol. 4 no. 3 (July, 2016), pp. 467-482, Informa UK Limited [doi] .