Contact Information
702 South Wright Street
Biography
My work is rooted in the understanding that democracy is a way of managing disagreement, not a mechanism for settling it.
American institutions have increasingly forgotten the distinction. Courts, schools, corporations, and universities treat contested moral and causal claims — about discrimination, fairness, and harm — as already decided, and treat democratic life as the apparatus for enforcing the decision. My work examines how that shift happened, what it has cost, and what it would take to recover.
The Certainty Trap (2024) explained why questioning and clarifying our thinking is a democratic and civic skill, not just a personal virtue. Presumption of Guilt (coming in spring 2027), examines how the loss of that skill became institutional rather than individual.My work is rooted in the understanding that democracy is a way of managing disagreement, not a mechanism for settling it.
American institutions have increasingly forgotten the distinction. Courts, schools, corporations, and universities treat contested moral and causal claims — about discrimination, fairness, and harm — as already decided, and treat democratic life as the apparatus for enforcing the decision. My work examines how that shift happened, what it has cost, and what it would take to recover.
The Certainty Trap (2024) explained why questioning and clarifying our thinking is a democratic and civic skill, not just a personal virtue. Presumption of Guilt (coming in spring 2027), examines how the loss of that skill became institutional rather than individual.
Research Interests
Political theory
Moral psychology
Philosophy
Education
Courses Taught
SOC 230, Sociology of Political Polarization: Bigots and Snowflakes
SOC 163, Social Problems
SOC 280, Introduction to Social Statistics
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Sociology
Affiliate, Social & Behavioral Science Institute
External Links
Highlighted Publications
Redstone, I., & Villasenor, J. (2020). Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190078065.001.0001
Recent Publications
Redstone, I. (2026). Ideological Conditioning in Education. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 46(2), 220-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2026.2634637
Redstone, I. (2025). Democracy and the problem of certainty. Theory and Society, 54(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-025-09592-9
Redstone, I. (2025). Response to Commentaries. Theory and Society, 54(1), 51-55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-025-09600-y
Redstone, I. (2024). The Certainty Trap: Why We Need to Question Ourselves More — and How We Can Judge Others Less. Pitchstone Publishing.
Akresh, I. R., & Massey, D. S. (2023). Duration of Residence Measurement. In Selected Topics in Migration Studies (pp. 205-206). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19631-7_35