Claudia Buchmann CV

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Dr. Buchmann focuses on comparative and international sociology, social stratification, education, gender, race and ethnicity. Her current research focuses on gender, race and class inequalities in education in the United States and internationally, with a particular focus on the growing female advantage in college completion. Her prior research includes cross-national and comparative studies of the impact of economic policies and institutional forces on educational outcomes and social well-being and case studies of stratification and mobility in Africa. She has served as deputy editor of the American Sociological Review and chair of the Sociology of Education Section of the American Sociological Association.  

 As a sociologist of stratification, I have long been interested in who gets ahead in society and who falls behind. I have found the educational system to be a very interesting institution to focus on in order to answer this question.  In the past decade much of my research has examined gender, race and class inequalities in higher education with the specific goal of figuring out why women have come to be the majority of college degree holders in both the U.S. and other industrialized countries. I am also a proponent of comparative and international research because I believe a comparative lens can provide fresh insights to longstanding sociological questions and refine and expand existing theories. A theme that unites my varied research projects is a concern for the intersection of institutional and ecological factors with family- and individual-level processes in determining social inequalities.