Bio

Matthew Jerome Schneider is a sociologist and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. His work is situated in the areas of race and racism, environmental sociology, community and civic engagement, and homelessness. A simple but central narrative in his academic work is that justice, antiracism, and even community service are easier said than done. His current book project, Serving the Street, for example, explores how homeless service volunteers in St. Louis, Missouri both undermine and reproduce problems related to homelessness. Similarly, in an interview study of international missionaries and volunteers in Honduras, he explored how ideas about race, national origin, and class work to create a network of exclusionary spaces reserved for privileged travelers.  

Schneider has also conducted work on environmental politics. He has used survey data to better understand public opinion about hydraulic fracturing, and more recently, has taken an interest in a growing U.S. wind industry. With two coastal energy development projects in the early stages of development near Kitty Hawk and Wilmington, he is currently monitoring policy decisions and public opinion about wind energy in North Carolina.

As a professor at UNC-Pembroke, Schneider teaches courses on Race and Racism, Social Inequalities, Environmental Sociology, Community Resource Development, and Social Research Methods. He also takes an active role in promoting social justice efforts, creating a more inclusive campus, engaging students in the community, and finding innovative ways to teach and use sociology.

Schneider earned his B.S. (2013) in Sociology and History from Illinois College, a small liberal arts college in Jacksonville, IL. He earned is M.A. (2016) and Ph.D. (2020) in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.