Associate Professor Desmond Upton Patton examines pathways to violence, both on- and offline, among low-income youth of color.

Associate Professor Desmond Upton Patton’s research uses qualitative and computational data collection methods to examine the relationship between youth and gang violence and social media; how and why violence, grief, and identity are expressed on social media; and the real-world impact these expressions have on well-being for low-income youth of color. He studies the ways in which gang-involved youth conceptualize threats on social media, and the extent to which social media shapes and facilitates youth and gang violence.

Dr. Patton is the founding director of SAFElab, a member of the Data Science Institute, and a faculty affiliate of the Social Intervention Group (SIG). He holds a courtesy appointment in the department of Sociology. He is the recipient of the 2018 Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work Research (SSWR) and was named a 2017-2018 fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

In partnership with the Data Science Institute, he is developing an online tool for detecting aggression in social media posts. Dr. Patton’s research on “internet banging” has been featured in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, NPR, Boston magazine, ABC News, Nature, and Vice. It was cited in an amici curiae brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in Elonis v. United States, which examined the interpretation of threats on social media.

Computational Social Science. Desmond Upton Patton. Associate Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work. Research Interest. Qualitative Methods. Sport; AFL; news; Ex-cop calls for AFL to act on players ‘sexting’ In the wake of the Jonathon Patton lewd image allegations, a former police officer says the AFL must make an example of players.

Patton studies the ways in which gang involved youth conceptualize threats on social media, and the extent to which social media shapes and facilitates youth and gang violence. In partnership with the Data Science Institute, he is developing an online tool for detecting aggression in social media posts.

Before coming to Columbia, Dr. Patton was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and School of Information. He holds a BA in Anthropology and Political Science with honors from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, an MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work, and a PhD in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago.

p.9 That there will be unanticipated consequences is the one sure thing we can anticipate. -Halcolm

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p.22 The key to making a good forecast is weighing quantitative and qualitative information appropriately. -Nate Silver (2012, p. 100)

p.147 Patterns emerge from self-organization among interacting agents. Each agent or element pursues its own path, but as that path intersects with, and the agent interacts with, others, also pursuing their own paths, patterns of interaction emerge

p.346 Rapid appraisal studies, also called rapid reconnaissance and rapid assessment, are aimed at quick, low-cost data collection to answer specific, urgent questions. The purpose is to obtain a narrow, but in-depth understanding of the conditions and needs of the targeted group in a specific area to inform immediate decisions.

p.347 Rapid appraisals respond to increasing demands for 'real-time' data. Where decisions have to be taken with imperfect data, some data are better than none, and timely findings are better than reports that come in after a decision has been taken. While speed can contribute to utility, the quality and selectivity of rapid recon data can raise credibility questions.

p.358 Experienced observers often use 'sensitizing concepts' to orient fieldwork... More generally, 'a sensitizing concept is a starting point in thinking about the class of data of which the social researcher has no definite idea and provides an initial guide to her research' (van den Hoonaard, 1997, p. 2). Sensitizing concepts in the social sciences include loosely defined notions like victim, stress, stigma, and learning organization, which can provide some initial direction to a study as a fieldworker inquires into how the concept is given meaning in a particular place or set of circumstances being studied (Schwandt, 2001).

p.358-359 Qualitative methodologist Norman Denzin (1978a) has captured the essence of how sensitizing concepts guide fieldwork:

The observer moves from sensitizing concepts to the immediate world of social experience and permits that world to shape and modify his conceptual framework. In this way he moves continually between the realm of more general social theory and the worlds of native people. Such an approach recognizes that social phenomena, while displaying regularities, vary by time, space, and circumstance. The observer, then, looks for repeatable regularities. He uses ritual patterns of dress and body-spacing as indicators of self-image. He takes special languages, codes and dialects as indicators of group boundaries. He studies his subject's prized social objects as indicators of prestige, dignity and esteem hierarchies. He studies moments of interrogation and derogation as indicators of socialization strategies. He attempts to enter his subject's closed world of interaction so as to examine the character of private versus public acts and attitudes. (p. 9)

p.361 Quantitative inquiry requires converting concepts into operationalized (measurable) variables. Qualitative inquiry leaves concepts open for exploration and illumination in the field.

p.361 Operationalization involves translating an abstract construct into concrete measures for the purpose of gathering data on the construct. Through operationalization, a concept becomes a variable, and if the operationalization gains wide acceptance and use, the operational definition becomes the standard measurement of the concept

p.362 A sensitizing concept raises consciousness about something and alerts us to watch out for it within a specific context as we undertake fieldwork. That's what the concept of context does... Watch out for those interactions and their effects. Pay attention. Something important may be happening.

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p.362-363 Don't judge the maturity and utility of the concept by whether it has 'achieved' a standardized and universally accepted operational definition. Judge it instead by its utility in sensitizing us to how people experience the worlds in which they live and work.

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p.541 The ability to use thematic analysis appears to involve a number of underlying abilities, or competencies. One competency can be called patterns recognition. It is the ability to see patterns in seemingly random information. -Boyatzis