Grace Kao, Sociology
Grace Kao may be the first Asian American woman to hold tenure in sociology departments at two Ivy League universities: the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale, where she became the first woman of color to hold tenure in the Sociology Department in 2017. She is also the first woman of color to chair a department in the Social Sciences Division, serving as chair of the department since 2018. Kao employs quantitative sociological methods to conduct research on race, ethnicity, and immigrant adaptation, and how these relate to education and the experiences of young people.
Kao understands how important representation on the senior faculty can be for students, especially female students and students of color. Her own graduate advisor, a Mexican-American woman, was extremely important in preparing Kao for her early career in academia. And something as seemingly minor as seeing other people of color in faculty and other high-level university positions can contribute to a sense of belonging for prospective students: “It just helps when people are looking around campus and they see other bodies that look like them… [it] makes them feel like, ‘my race is not an issue, or less of an issue than in other departments.’” She also feels important to protect students of color who are attacked for doing “me-search” – that is, they may be penalized for doing work on what are perceived to be their own communities,” despite the fact that there is often a great need for sociological research into communities of color and other populations that are underrepresented in the field.
The field of sociology, on its face, seems a relative success in terms of gender and racial equality, especially when compared to STEM fields and some other social sciences. However, sociology is not immune to the “pipeline problem,” when proportions of women and people of color shrink as one advances from undergraduate to graduate education and from junior to senior faculty positions. Women’s participation in the field has increased over the past few decades, to the point where women now make up about 55% of the members of the American Sociological Association. But while women may outnumber men in this field, a woman receiving a B.A. in sociology is still less likely than a man with the same degree to continue on to a PhD. Bachelor’s degree recipients are about 70% female, but only 60% of Doctoral degrees conferred are to women. Likewise, while about 55% of Bachelor’s degree recipients identify as non-white, only 32.5% of Doctoral recipients do.
Still, gender and racial disparities in sociology have seen modest improvement over the past decades. Unfortunately, this comes with some resistance from older generations. When faced with this pushback, Kao is philosophical, saying: “They’re not really targeting [me], but they’re targeting the change that I and others represent.”
Selected works of Grace Kao:
- Tessler, H., Choi, M. & Kao, G. (2020). The Anxiety of Being Asian American: Hate Crimes and Negative Biases During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Am J Crim Just. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09541-5
- Kao, G., Joyner, K., & Balistreri, K. S. (2019). The Company We Keep: Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships from Adolescence to Adulthood. Russell Sage Foundation.
- Ho, Phoebe and Grace Kao. Forthcoming 2020. “Are All Immigrant Families Created Equal? The Acculturation and Social Integration of Mixed-Nativity Families.” Journal of Family Issues.
- Zimmermann, Calvin and Grace Kao. 2019. “Unequal Returns to Children’s Efforts: Race and Gender Disparities in Teachers’ Evaluations of Children’s Noncognitive Skills and Academic Ability.” Du Bois Review. 16(2): 417-438.
- Kao, G., & Thompson, J. S. (2003). Racial and ethnic stratification in educational achievement and attainment. Annual review of sociology, 29(1), 417-442.
Profile by Sarah Babinski, PhD candidate in Linguistics