Faculty Spotlight: May the Social Forces be With You

The key to fighting challenges like public health, climate change and national security, is understanding the forces that shape societal inequality, according to Daniel Auguste, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Dorothy F. College of Arts and Letters.

Growing up in Haiti, Auguste witnessed poverty first-hand, which shaped his passion for combatting inequality and poverty reduction through community and business development. After graduating high school, he studied economics at Covenant College in Georgia. He also earned both a master’s degree and doctoral degree in sociology, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“During my studies, I learned that in a society characterized by high economic inequality, and low and unequal educational opportunities, individuals are less likely to see a way out,” Auguste said. “It was not only my modest town in Haiti that saw increasing economic inequality and declining social mobility, but other parts of the world experience this issue as well, including rich democracies like the United States.”

Auguste’s dissertation research examined the structural factors that promote or undermine entrepreneurial development and success.

Now, as a professor at FAU, Auguste continues to examine the consequences of economic inequality for entrepreneurial development and success.

Q: What is your research focus?

A: My current research includes projects that investigate the importance of entrepreneurship for economic well-being among low- and moderate-income households in the United States, the link between racial-wealth inequality and racial inequality in entrepreneurial entry and success, the role of the state in shaping entrepreneurship development, and the link between religion and economic inequality.

Q: Why do you have an interest in this research?

A: I am interested in understanding the consequences of social inequalities for entrepreneurship because I believe that entrepreneurship is one of the most effective tools that we have, as a society, to address some of the most important challenges like public health, environmental issues and national security concerns that we face in our communities and beyond. Because extreme economic inequality is linked to low social mobility and the shrinking of the middle class, it can undermine our ability as a society to fully develop our entrepreneurial and innovative capacity necessary to meet these challenges.

Q: Do you have any advice for becoming a researcher in your field?

A: My advice is to identify the issues that you are passionate about, and then find the appropriate sociology department and university where you can learn the necessary tools to empirically investigate these issues.

Q: What are some major milestones throughout your career?

A: I served as an associate editor of Social Forces, a peer-reviewed academic journal, while I worked on my doctorate degree. I have also won multiple awards for my research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Association of Black Sociologists and International Honor Society of Sociology where I was also an Alpha Kappa Delta. I earned a two-year World Peace Fellowship from Rotary International, during which I studied international development, and international peace and conflict resolution at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Q: What are your greatest goals and ambitions you set for yourself?

A: One of the key motivations of my research is to be able to demonstrate and convince people in positions to influence economic and other social policies that creating inequality-reducing and opportunity-equalizing policies is indispensable for the evolution and survival of our capitalist mode of production.