Catherine Riegle-Crumb

Research Interests

Educational Inequality; Social construction of gender; Racialized opportunities to learn

Dr. Riegle-Crumb’s research examines the social construction of gender and racial/ethnic inequality in educational opportunities and experiences.  As a sociologist of education, she investigates how educational inequality is created through both institutional structures and everyday individual interactions, with a particular focus on inequality in STEM fields. For example, her research considers how gender inequality in choice of college major and careers is perpetuated by biased beliefs and expectations, such as those dictating who belongs in STEM fields. Another major strand of her research examines how opportunities to learn are racialized, and vary across K-12 schools and classrooms. A recent strand of her research focuses on young people’s critical consciousness, or understandings of inequality among groups that are marginalized, as such awareness can serve to motivate and empower efforts to challenge it.

Much of Dr. Riegle-Crumb’s research entails statistical analysis of large secondary data, including national datasets from NCES (National Center for Educational Statistics). Her research also includes original survey design and longitudinal data collection from various populations of interest (such as middle school students in a large racially diverse school district to study the formation of career interests), as well as mixed-methods research design (including a study of women engineers in college to examine how social identities shape current understandings and future plans).

Her work has been published in top tier journals in sociology, gender studies, education, and psychology (e.g. Sociology of Education, Gender & Society, Sex Roles, Educational Researcher, American Journal of Educational Research, Frontiers in Psychology). Dr. Riegle-Crumb’s research has been supported by external grants from both public (National Science Foundation) and private foundations (Spencer Foundation, Kapor Foundation).

Dr. Riegle-Crumb received her PhD at the University of Chicago. As a graduate student there, she regularly attended the Midwest Sociology of Education Conference (MDWSOE). Before coming to Notre Dame, she was a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, and Sociology, at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also served as Graduate Adviser for over ten years.