Dr. Judith Sedaitis (Judita Sedaitis) (born 1956) is a sociologist, born and raised in a Lithuanian family in Chicago. In 2014 m. she visited Vytautas Magnus university as Fulbright visiting professor. This year she will participate in VMU World Lithuanian University Symposium.
Judith’s family migrated from Lithuania during WWII. Therefore, dr. J. Sedaitis started and continued her career in America – she graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and psychology and a master’s degree in sociology. She studied at the Harriman Institute for Advanced Studies of the Soviet Union at Columbia University, in New York City, where she received her doctorate in sociology.
As Fulbright visiting professor, on 22 May 2014 she held a lecture „Social Networks, Ethnicity, Migration, & Education“. She overviewed the dynamics of social networks in everyday life; talked about overlap of social ties that offers insight into how individuals access institutional resources and social capital such as ethnic identity. The researcher also questioned why do some ethnic groups more successfully negotiate migration than others? How social ties help mediate the promise of education is explained as only part of the dynamic of migration and social mobility?
Here is a recording of the lecture in Lithuanian.