Anthony Johnson CV

My research broadly focuses on the cultural mechanisms of inequality reproduction in education. Specifically, my work uncovers new forms of inequality by social class, gender, and race/ethnicity through students’ interactions with peers in academic settings. I use the case of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs at selective colleges and universities, which increasingly promote collaborative approaches to learning. My book manuscript, Engineering Advantage: How Equity in Collaboration Gets Undermined in Elite STEM Programs (under contract with the University of Chicago Press), uses qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations to examine the lives of students in an engineering program at an elite private university. The book illuminates the unequal collaborative experiences students in selective STEM programs encounter and how the culture and structure of these programs play a role in creating these inequalities.

My work has appeared in leading academic journals (American Sociological Review and Sociology of Education) and has been funded by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral and Dissertation Fellowship Programs, the Student Experience Research Network (formerly Mindset Scholars Network), and the National Science Foundation. I have received awards for my scholarship from the section on Teaching and Learning in Sociology at the American Sociological Association and the Sociology of Education SIG at the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Most recently, I was the recipient of the 2026 emerging scholar award from the Multicultural/Multiethnic Education SIG at AERA. 

I served as a consulting editor for the American Journal of Sociology from 2022-2024. I completed my Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from Northwestern University and my B.A. in sociology from the University of Kansas. Prior to joining the faculty at Ohio State, I was an inaugural postdoctoral fellow in the Inequality in America Initiative at Harvard University.