Andrea Voyer’s research explores cultural processes of inequality, focusing on social inclusion, exclusion, and the construction of solidaristic communities. Her work addresses core sociological issues such as intergenerational economic inequality, immigrant integration, and the roles of race, ethnicity, and class in society. By connecting micro-level behaviors and judgments with persistent structures of inequality, Voyer employs a range of methods, including interviews, ethnographic research, and computational text analysis.

Etiquette as Data  
One of Voyer's research initiatives investigates etiquette and manners as indicators of social organization and change. This work began with a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project, “Social Norms, Social Boundaries, and Inequality,” and continues through ongoing and planned studies using “Normative Text Data” from Sweden. Using computational text analysis, Voyer examines changes in social norms over a century of Emily Post’s Etiquette editions. Recent publications, such as “Symbols of Class” (Poetics, 2022) and “From Strange to Normal” (Sociological Methods and Research, 2022), analyze how markers of class and immigrant integration have shifted over time. Future research will extend these findings to investigate topics like changing gender norms and race representation in etiquette, including cross-national comparisons. 

Cultural Sociology of Immigrant Integration  
In the area of migration, Voyer’s book Strangers and Neighbors (Cambridge, 2013) explores immigrant integration through cultural frameworks in a U.S. town with a significant Somali community. Building on her earlier research on multiculturalism, Voyer has expanded her work to Sweden. Recent studies, including “Recognition Gaps and COVID Inequality” (Cultural Sociology, 2023), use recognition theory to address cultural stigmatization and racialization in immigrant communities. Through this research, she demonstrates that cultural processes of inequality, such as recognition gaps, are crucial factors affecting integration outcomes.

Educational Transitions of Immigrant Youth  
As part of a research environment examining the educational transitions of immigrant youth in three Swedish municipalities. In her work for this environment, Voyer explores the aspirations-attainment paradox, where immigrant and minority youth exhibit high educational aspirations but lower attainment levels. Voyer identifies two processes that shape this paradox: “branching out,” where students broaden their career aspirations based on new information and opportunities, and “cooling out,” where students adjust aspirations downward due to perceived barriers. By conducting interviews with students and school personnel, this project sheds light on how immigrant youth navigate educational choices and adapt their aspirations in response to barriers they encounter in the Swedish educational system.

Integration Challenges of High-Skilled Migrants 
Voyer is participating in an interdisciplinary investigation of the integration challenges faced by high-skilled migrants (HSMs) in Sweden. The study, which will begin in 2025, challenges the assumption of "meritocratic integration," which suggests that professional credentials ensure seamless integration for HSMs. By examining public attitudes, organizational practices, and HSMs’ perspectives, this project aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of the role of merits in integration, offering insights for more inclusive migration policies.

Cultural Theory  
Voyer contributes to theoretical debates and theoretical development in cultural sociology. In a co-edited volume on civil sphere theory in the Nordic context (Polity, 2019), she examines the unique societal structures of Nordic countries. Her theoretical work extends to epistemic normativity, where she argues that the social role of shared meanings underpins both public and personal culture. Her ongoing research in this area seeks to bridge cognitive and macro-cultural theories, advancing our understanding of how collective meanings shape social reality.
 

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Elite integration through volunteerism: the case of a New York City parent-teacher association

  2024. Andrea Voyer. Civil society elites, 117-135

  Chapter

  In this chapter, I examine the case of elite integration through parental involvement in a paradigmatic civil society organisation, namely the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of a New York City Public Elementary School. On the one hand, PTAs are seen as a classic example of US civic engagement and community-building. On the other hand, research suggests that volunteerism can be a source of social inequality. These two different views demonstrate the issues associated with the integration of civil society elites via PTAs. Through the case of a New York City PTA and its parent volunteers, I show that elite integration through the PTA is enabled by the increased influence of the organisation resulting from policy decisions and economic realities that make PTAs central to school funding and status. These developments centralise the power and influence of parents from the economic and cultural elite and supplant the PTAs’ stated democratic civic goals.

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• From incorporation to emplacement in the cultural sociology of immigration

  2024. Andrea Voyer. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 12 (3), 557-573

  Article

  Cultural sociology can be useful for uncovering factors facilitating and hindering immigrant incorporation. The process of incorporation blends different logics and pressures, where the work of incorporation is divided between immigrants who pursue incorporation, and social groups (from nations, to communities, and from classrooms to corporations) that facilitate, hinder, and shape trajectories of inclusion. Cultural sociology has much to contribute to our understanding of the relation between immigrants and the role of others in the process of incorporation. In this essay, I first summarize underlying ideas in the cultural sociology of immigration and immigrant incorporation. I argue that incorporation entails two types of agency on the part of immigrants: mastery and change-making. I then bring three books, Elizabeth Becker’s (Mosques in the metropolis: incivility, caste, and contention in Europe. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2021), Nancy Foner’s (One quarter of the nation: immigration and the transformation of America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2022), and Heba Gowayed’s (Refuge: how the state shapes human potential. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2022), into conversation with cultural theory, reflecting on how the theory challenges the books, and also how the books challenge the theory. I conclude with a proposal for a new approach to thinking about processes of incorporation as consisting of emplacement and acceptance. Adopting this approach contributes to cultural theory by eliminating the need for an outgroup in the construction of the social solidarity.

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• Recognition Gaps and COVID Inequality: The Case of Immigrants in Sweden

  2023. Andrea Voyer, Vanessa Barker. Cultural Sociology

  Article

  In this article, we examine recognition gaps exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. We apply Lamont's cultural processes of inequality framework to the critical case of COVID inequality during the first wave of the pandemic in Sweden - a period in which COVID-19 cases were concentrated among immigrants. We identify recognition gaps associated with five key cultural processes of inequality. Counter to the dominant narrative of Sweden as an open and equal society, our analysis uncovers cultural processes of inequality theorists have identified in other contexts: the racialization of immigrants; and the stigmatization and evaluation of immigrant spaces. We identify two additional cultural processes: resignification in which the State's coronavirus response was directed toward ethnic Swedish people; and inversion, in which higher death rates among immigrants were relabeled as a natural and acceptable cause of COVID deaths. In addition to applying and extending the theory, we demonstrate the value of a focus on recognition for studies of health inequality. The recognition gaps we identify in this article are practical and solvable problems. In comparison with the challenges of managing large-scale economic redistribution or abolishing prejudice and stigmatization by addressing bias on a person-by-person basis, anticipating and counteracting the cultural processes of inequality is an actionable pathway to pursuing more just and equal societies.

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• From Strange to Normal: Computational Approaches to Examining Immigrant Incorporation Through Shifts in the Mainstream

  2022. Andrea Voyer (et al.). Sociological Methods & Research 51 (4), 1540-1579

  Article

  This article presents a computational approach to examining immigrant incorporation through shifts in the social “mainstream.” Analyzing a historical corpus of American etiquette books, texts from 1922–2017 describing social norms, we identify mainstream shifts related to long-standing groups which once were and may currently still be seen as immigrant outsiders in the United States: Catholic, Chinese, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Mexican, and Muslim groups. The analysis takes a computational grounded theory approach, combining qualitative readings and computational text analyses. Using word embeddings, we operationalize the chosen groups as focal group concepts. We extract sections of text that are salient to the focal group concepts to create group-specific text corpora. Two computational approaches make it possible to examine mainstream shifts in these corpora. First, we use sentiment analysis to observe the positive sentiment in each corpus and its change over time. Second, we observe changes in each corpus's position on a semantic dimension represented by the poles of “strange” and “normal.” The results indicate mainstream shifts through increases in positive sentiment and movement from strange to normal over time for most of the group-specific corpora. These research techniques can be adapted to other studies of social sentiment and symbolic inclusion.

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• Symbols of class: A computational analysis of class distinction-making through etiquette, 1922-2017

  2022. Andrea Voyer, Zachary D. Kline, Madison Danton. Poetics 94

  Article

  Social scientists of class and inequality have documented the rise of omnivorousness, informality, ordinariness, and emphasis on meritocracy. This apparent decline in class closure contrasts sharply with rising inequality and declining economic mobility. How are these competing developments reflected in everyday class distinction-making? In this article, we answer this question by applying Goffman's work on the symbols of class status to the analysis of unique data: a corpus of etiquette books published between 1922 and 2017. We use word embeddings to quantify the salience of six class concepts (affluence, cultivation, education, employment, morality, and status) in the corpus. We find that education and employment are increasingly salient while status, affluence, cultivation, and morality decline in their salience to class distinction-making. These results signal a decline of class operating as a status group through cultural closure, the rise of education and employment as the carriers of class in everyday life, and the corresponding legitimation of class position and class inequality based on supposedly meritocratic grounds. This research opens up new avenues for studies of class and the application of computational methods to investigations of social change.

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• “Do your part: Stay apart”: Collective intentionality and collective (in)action in US governor's COVID-19 press conferences

  2022. Zeynep Melis Kirgil, Andrea Voyer. Poetics 93

  Article

  This mixed-methods study examines how political leaders mobilize collective intentionality during the COVID-19 pandemic in nine US States, and how collective intentionality differs across republican and democratic administrations. The results of our computational and qualitative analyses show that i) political leaders establish collective intentionality by emphasizing unity, vulnerability, action, and community boundaries; ii) political leaders’ call to collective action clashes with the inaction required by health guidelines; iii) social inequalities received little attention across all states compared to other themes; and iv) collective intentionality in democratic administrations is linked to individuals’ agency and actions, suggesting a bottom-up approach. Conversely, in republican administrations individuals’ contributions are downplayed compared to work and state-level action, indicating a top-down approach. This study demonstrates the theoretical and empirical value of collective intentionality in sociological research, and contributes to a better understanding of leadership and prosociality in times of crisis.

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• Hope and a horizon of solidarity: An interview with Jeffrey C. Alexander

  2020. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Anna Lund, Andrea Voyer. Sociologisk forskning 57 (2), 189-205

  Article

  In this interview, Jeffrey C. Alexander describes the development of cultural sociology, the importance of collaborative work, and the inspiration he takes from his political action, and from the art and humanities. The interview focuses primarily on civil sphere theory (CST), and Alexander’s goal in moving towards Durkheimian and away from Parsonian conceptions of solidarity. Alexander addresses common misunderstandings and critiques of CST, describes the current project of the internationalization of CST, and applies the theory to the present crisis of a global pandemic and the social movement of Black Lives Matter. Finally, Alexander reflects upon life in the academic world and the importance of not only analyzing meaning as a cultural sociologist but also working with meaningful projects in order to not be alienated. Alexander was invited keynote speaker at the Sociologidagarna in March in Stockholm 2020, but due to the Corona pandemic the conference was cancelled. This interview took place through Zoom in three different locations (Stockholm, New Haven, and Coventry, Connecticut) on 22 June 2020.

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• Importing American racial reasoning to social science research in Sweden

  2020. Andrea Voyer, Anna Lund. Sociologisk forskning 57 (3-4), 337-362

  Article

  How does one research racial categorizations and exclusions while remaining sensitive to context? How does one engage the social reality of racial categorizations and the history of racialized exclusions without falling into the trap of race essentialism? These concerns prompt debate about, and also resistance to, examining race in Swedish social science. In this article, Voyer and Lund offer American racial reasoning as one possible approach to researching race in the Swedish context. American racial reasoning means being attentive to how power and the processes of social inequality operate through categories of racial and ethnic difference, and also seeing the path to greater equality in the embrace of those categories. American racial reasoning is a valuable research tool that uncovers dynamics of social inequality and possibilities for social justice that are otherwise difficult to grasp. Taking up the topic of immigration in Sweden, Voyer and Lund demonstrate the analytical value of American racial reasoning for understanding persistent social inequality and exclusion even when explicit racial categories are not in wide use in everyday life. 

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• Book Review: Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence

  2019. Andrea Voyer. Cultural Sociology 13 (3), 372-374

  Article

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• Introduction: Civil Spheres, Pro-Civil States, and Their Contradictions

  2019. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Anna Lund, Andrea Voyer. The Nordic Civil Sphere, 1-11

  Chapter

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• The Nordic Civil Sphere

  2019. .

  Book (ed)

  The civil sphere is a distinctively democratic field in modern societies, one that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations and organizational structures and that has tense and uncertain boundaries with other spheres of social life, like the economy, religion, family, and state.  Unlike the latter, which are more particularistic and hierarchical in character, the civil sphere defines itself in terms of solidarity – the feeling of being connected with every other person in the collectivity.  The utopian ideals of democratic solidarity shape every modern society, even if they are often compromised by the messy realities of social life.

  This volume uses the theory of the civil sphere to shed new light on Nordic societies, while at the same time drawing on the distinctive experiences of the Nordic nations to reflect on and advance the theory of the civil sphere.  Nordic societies have long been admired for creating a distinctive form of social democracy, but this admirable achievement has not been well conceptualized theoretically.  Most attempts to explain Nordic social democracy focus on material and organizational factors.  This volume, by contrast, emphasizes the cultural foundations and characteristics of social democracy, demonstrating how civil sensibilities are necessary for the creation of an egalitarian and democratic state.  Nordic civil spheres, however, are not only pro-civil but also white in color, European in ethnicity, secular in character and gender-equal in a subtly restrictive manner.  Such primordialization of state civility is vividly on display in the sometime tense relationships that develop among natives and “foreigners” in Nordic countries, relationships that expose the primordial undersides of the social democratic codes and civil values that constitute the Nordic civil sphere.

  A major contribution to the theory of the civil sphere and to our understanding of the cultural and normative underpinnings of social and political life, this volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars of sociology and politics.

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• ‘They’re immigrants who are kind of Swedish’: Universalism, Primordialism, and Modes of Incorporation in the Swedish Civil Sphere

  2019. Anna Lund, Andrea Voyer. The Nordic Civil Sphere, 177-202

  Chapter

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• Sociology of Manners

  2018. Andrea Voyer. Oxford Bibliographies

  Chapter

  Generally speaking, the sociology of manners falls into four broad categories: explicit study of the role of manners in establishing and maintaining structures of power, social control, and the fit between individuals and society; consideration of manners as elements of social norms; study of the role of manners in interaction; and emphasis on manners as characteristics of particular social groups and indicating the boundaries between groups.

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