Doris R. Entwisle (1924–2013) was an educational sociologist known for her research on the impact of sociological factors on academic achievement, notably the longitudinal Beginning School Studies conducted in Baltimore, MD.
The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood, co-authored by Entwisle, Karl Alexander and Linda Olson, received the Grawemeyer Award in Education from the University of Louisville in 2015.
To honor her contributions, the American Sociological Association has given The Doris Entwisle Award to outstanding researchers in the field every two years since 2015.
Her long-time collaboration with Karl L. Alexander, the Beginning School Studies, has yielded fruitful results on factors shaping life outcomes for disadvantaged youth.
[14] Based on these findings, the authors developed a life-course perspective on dropping out, viewing it as a culminating effect of personal and familial resources.