About

Kim Ebert is an Associate Head and Director of Undergraduate Programs in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at NC State University. Her research focuses on race and ethnicity, immigration, political sociology, collective action and social movements, as well as urban and community groups. She has contributed to understanding ideological legitimacy, color-blindness, and the dynamics of immigration control, including media coverage of immigration legislation and the social boundaries surrounding immigrant communities. Ebert has been involved in funded research examining legitimating strategies in privatized immigration control, supported by the National Science Foundation. Her work emphasizes the social and political processes affecting immigrant civic engagement and the role of organizations in shaping racial and ethnic relations.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Computer Security
• Gender studies
• Criminology
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Psychoanalysis
• Cartography
• Geography
• Economic geography

Selected publications

• Anti-Immigrant Ordinances and Discrimination in New and Established Destinations

  2025-08-21

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Immigrants and their children come to the U.S. in search of upward mobility, but in many contexts they experience discrimination and restrictive political climates. Contexts vary widely, however, given the growing number of new immigrant destinations. Past studies tend to focus on what immigrants and their children are (or are not) doing to adapt to local contexts, a focus which strengthens the perception that immigrants are a “problem” group. In this paper, we move the debate away from more familiar economic analyses to assess how destination type and exclusionary ordinances, defined as laws that restrict the rights of and services accorded to immigrant groups, influence “subjective” outcomes, including reports of discrimination among Mexican Americans. Our results reveal three main findings that illustrate the importance of local context. First, individuals living in a county with a greater share of co-ethnics report fewer experiences with discrimination. Second, in counties with an exclusionary ordinance, share of co-ethnics increases reports of discrimination. Finally, being born in the U.S. and speaking English do not provide protection from discrimination; rather, such characteristics shield Mexican Americans from discrimination only in supportive co-ethnic contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• “A Future for White Children”: Examining Family Ideologies of White Extremist Groups at the Intersection of Race and Gender

  Social Currents · 2024-08-28 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Many White Americans believe that racism, racial violence, and hate groups are relics of the past, and yet we have witnessed the resurgence of White extremist groups and overt racism in recent years. This resurgence requires an examination of White extremist ideologies, particularly as they center traditional family values in justifying their extremism. In this study, we utilize a content analysis of the websites of six White extremist organizations to examine ideologies surrounding the family at the intersection of race and gender. Furthermore, we question why these ideologies take shape as they do and the potential implications of espousing family values with a rise in White extremism. Our study addresses the gender gap in existing White extremist research and highlights the need for an intersectional approach in understanding how ideologies differ between a White extremist group specifically for women and those under the leadership of men.

  PublisherDOI

• Migration and Racialization Part II: The Light and Shadow of Inclusion

  American Behavioral Scientist · 2022 · 2 citations

  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Criminology
  PublisherDOI

• Migration and Racialization Part I: Constructing and Navigating a Hostile Terrain

  American Behavioral Scientist · 2022 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Computer Security
  • Computer Science
  PublisherDOI

• “BRAINWASHING FOR THE RIGHT REASONS WITH THE RIGHT MESSAGE”: IDEOLOGY AND POLITICAL SUBJECTIVITY IN BLACK ORGANIZING*

  Mobilization An International Quarterly · 2021-12-01 · 9 citations

  articleSenior author

  Media outlets and academics often oversimplify and mischaracterize current manifestations of Black mobilization as a movement that opposes police violence against Black men, supports police reform, and desires assimilation and integration into the state. In reality, however, the movement is much more complex. We examine how Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), a prominent organization in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), creates, teaches, and negotiates ideology. Drawing on fieldwork with Black organizers involved in the M4BL, in-depth interviews and conversations with Black organizers, and a content analysis of primary documents from the movement, we find that rather than promote assimilation, Black organizers use intersectional ideology to socialize members into an understanding of a racialized state. This socialization allows members to develop political subjectivity that not only challenges the state but also transforms their everyday lives and relationships.

  PublisherDOI

• The House Is on Fire but We Kept the Burglars Out: Racial Apathy and White Ignorance in Pandemic-Era Immigration Detention

  Social Sciences · 2021-09-27

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Past research shows that crises reveal the sensitive spots of established ideologies and practices, thereby providing opportunities for social change. We investigated immigration control amid the pandemic crisis, focusing on potential openings for both challengers and proponents of immigration detention. We asked: How have these groups responded to the pandemic crisis? Have they called for transformative change? We analyzed an original data set of primary content derived from immigrant advocates and stakeholders of the immigration detention industry. We found as the pandemic ravaged the world, it did not appear to result in significant cracks in the industry, as evidenced by the consistency of narratives dating back to pre-pandemic times. The American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) criticisms of inhumane conditions in immigration detention resembled those from its pre-pandemic advocacy. Private prison companies, including CoreCivic and GEO Group, emphasized their roles as ordinary businesses rather than detention managers during the pandemic, just as they had before the crisis. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), however, manufactured an alternative storyline, emphasizing “COVID fraud” as the real threat to the “Homeland.” Although it did not call for radical change, it radically shifted its rhetoric in response to the pandemic. We discuss how these organizations’ indifference towards structural racism contributes to racial apathy and how the obliviousness and irresponsibility of industry stakeholders resembles white ignorance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Polarized Toward Apathy: An Analysis of the Privatized Immigration-Control Debate in the Trump Era

  PS Political Science & Politics · 2020-08-12 · 9 citations

  article

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

  PublisherDOI

• Ideological Legitimacy, Color-blindness, and Racially Conservative Organizations

  Social Problems · 2019-11-04 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Although scholars of racial inequality have investigated the transformation of racial ideologies in the post-Civil Rights Era, comparatively little research has been done on a corresponding transformation in racial advocacy organizing. Using an original dataset, I introduce racially conservative organizations, provide a history of their growth from 1960 to 2000, and estimate their formation in metropolitan areas over three decades to better specify the factors that led to their emergence. Measures of organizational strength, stability, and growth reveal that racially conservative organizations thrived relative to white extremist organizations in the second half of the 20th century, alongside the de-legitimation of explicit racism and rise of color-blind racism. The multivariate analysis indicates that metropolitan areas with increased political opportunities witnessed a greater likelihood of organizational formation among racial conservatives. In the 1970s, threats to dominant group interests emboldened racial conservatives and incited mobilization. However, in later decades, these conditions weakened dominant group interests in a way that deterred collective action. Racially conservative organizations are more likely to form in contexts that provide them with legitimacy to mobilize around racially sensitive issues. The findings challenge past research that conflates racial conservatism and white extremism and assumes that they share the same determinants.

  PublisherDOI

• Apathy and Color-Blindness in Privatized Immigration Control

  Sociology of Race and Ethnicity · 2019-05-07 · 35 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Despite several widely covered scandals involving the role of for-profit corporations in administering immigration policy, the privatization of immigration control continues apace with the criminalization of immigration. How does this practice sustain its legitimacy among the public amid so much controversy? Recent studies on the criminalization of immigration suggest that supporters would explicitly vilify immigrants to defend the privatization of immigration control. Research on racialized social control, on the other hand, implies that proponents would avoid explicit racism and vilification and instead rely on subtler narratives to validate the practice. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of over 600 frames derived from nearly 200 news media articles spanning over 20 years, we find that journalists and their sources rarely vilify immigrants to justify the privatization of immigration control. Instead, they frame the privatization of immigration detention as a normal component of population management and an integral part of the U.S. economy through what we call the apathy strategy—a pattern of void in which not only the systematic oppression of immigrants is underplayed, immigrant themselves also become invisible.

  PublisherDOI

• Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines

  Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2017-08-28 · 37 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Use of Legitimating Strategies in Control

  NSF · $119k · 2019–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Dina G. Okamoto

  10 shared

• Wenjie Liao

  Rochester Institute of Technology

  5 shared

• Emily P. Estrada

  State University of New York at Oswego

  5 shared

• Lisa Sun-Hee Park

  2 shared

• Drew Halfmann

  Harvard University

  2 shared

• Jesse Rude

  2 shared

• Sarah M. Ovink

  Virginia Tech

  2 shared

• Michelle Halla Lore

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• Funded Research: Legitimating Strategies in Privatized Immig…