Jacob Hibel

Education

• Ph.D., Sociology and Demography, Pennsylvania State University, 2009
• M.A., Sociology and Demography, Pennsylvania State University, 2005
• B.A., Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, 2003

About

Jacob Hibel is a social demographer and inequality scholar whose research examines schooling’s role in producing, maintaining, and mitigating social inequalities. Current projects focus on identifying K-12 policies and practices that support positive adult outcomes among students with disabilities, tracing the development and diffusion of public education policy within California's Local Control Funding Formula framework, designing effective and equitable policies to support schools' adaptation to extreme heat exposure, and understanding how college students' sense of belonging shapes their academic and social experiences.

Hibel has been Co-Director of the UC Davis Center for Poverty & Inequality Research since 2019, and served as Associate Editor of the quantitative social science journal, Social Science Research from 2024-2026. Hibel has designed and directed multiple mentoring programs, including the UC-HBCU Summer Poverty Research Engagement Experience program, the UC-HSI Broadening Participation in Social Inequality Research program, and the National Research Center on Poverty and Economic Mobility Early-Career Mentoring Institute. 

Research Focus

• Sociology of Education: schooling and stratification; early childhood achievement gaps; disability and special education disparities; links between schooling and demographic change
• Quantitative Social Science: development and application of statistical and computational methods for analyzing large-scale administrative and text data

Additional information here: http://jhibel.faculty.ucdavis.edu/research/

Publications

Prim, J., Hibel, J. (2025). Security, Surveillance, Segregation, and Suspensions: The Context of Race Disparities in School Discipline. Race and Social Problems

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-025-09461-1 

Rose, H., Huddlestun, D., Hibel, J., Ebeler, S. E., & Trzesniewski, K. (2024). High School Choice and Expected College Belonging. Journal of School Choice, 18(3), 308-333.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15582159.2024.2375827 

Hibel, J. & Penn. D.M. (2020). Bad Apples or Bad Orchards? An Organizational Analysis of Educator Cheating on Standardized Accountability Tests. Sociology of Education.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038040720927234

Hall, M., & Hibel, J. (2017). Latino Students and White Migration from School Districts, 1980-2010. Social Problems, 64(4), 457-475.

https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/64/4/457/4259432 

Hibel, J., Penn, D. M., & Morris, R. C. (2016) Ethnoracial concordance in the association between academic self-efficacy and achievement during elementary and middle school. Sociological Studies of Children & Youth 20:31-63.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S1537-466120160000020002 

Hu, A., & Hibel, J. (2015) Where do STEM majors lose their advantage? Contextualizing horizontal stratification of higher education in urban China. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 41:66-78.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562415000414 

Hibel, J., & Hall, M. (2014) Neighborhood coethnic concentration and Mexican American children’s early academic trajectories. Population Research and Policy Review 33:365-391.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11113-013-9314-5 

Hu, A., & Hibel, J. (2014) Changes in college attainment and the economic returns to a college degree in urban China, 2003-2010: Implications for social equality. Social Science Research 40: 173-186.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X13001622 

Hibel, J., & Jasper, A. (2012) Delayed special education placement for learning disabilities among children of immigrants. Social Forces 91(2):503-530.

https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sos092

Hibel, J., Farkas, G., & Morgan, P. L. (2010) Who is placed into special education? Sociology of Education 83:312-332.

http://soe.sagepub.com/content/83/4/312.full.pdf+html 

Morgan, P. L., Frisco, M., Farkas, G., & Hibel, J. (2010) A propensity score matching analysis of the effects of special education services. The Journal of Special Education 43:236-254.

http://sed.sagepub.com/content/43/4/236.full.pdf+html 

Hibel, J. (2009) Roots of assimilation: Generational status differentials in ethnic minority children's school readiness. Journal of Early Childhood Research 7:135-152.

http://ecr.sagepub.com/content/7/2/135.abstract 

Teaching

Professor Hibel teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in quantitative research methods (i.e., statistics) and the sociology of education. Information about each of his courses can be found here: http://jhibel.faculty.ucdavis.edu/teaching/