Misra, Joya

Job Title

Professor, Sociology & Public Policy, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences

Last Name

Misra

First Name

Joya

Discipline

Sociology

Expertise

Comparative historical sociology
Gender and social policy, world-system studies
Political & economic sociology
Race/gender/class
Welfare states

Introduction

My research and teaching primarily focuses on inequality. As a political sociologist, I try to understand why poverty and labor market inequalities differ across countries and over time, studying how politics, policies, social movements, and cultural contexts lead to different outcomes, with an aim to creating more equitable societies. In all of my work, I consider how policies may work to both reinforce and mediate inequalities. Gender is a central lens for my analyses, although I also explore class, race/ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, and the intersections of these statuses.
Currently, I am the editor of the journal, Gender & Society.

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Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 25

Open Access
Creating Inclusive Department Climates in STEM Fields: Multiple Faculty Perspectives on the Same Departments
(2022) Misra, Joya; Mickey, Ethel L.; Kanelee, Ember Skye W.; Smith-Doerr, Laurel
Climate studies that measure equity and inclusion among faculty reveal widespread gender and race disparities in higher education. The chilly departmental climate that women and faculty of color experience is typically measured through university-wide surveys. Although inclusion plays out at the department level, research rarely focuses on departments. Drawing from 57 interviews with faculty in 14 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) departments, we compare experiences with inclusion among faculty in the same departments and rank who differ by race and gender. Women of color perceive their departments as least inclusive, followed by White women, White men, and men of color (largely foreign born). Yet the organizational context of departments strongly shapes faculty perspectives on climate. Analyzing multiple perspectives on the same departments reveals inclusive, improving, and marginalizing departments, as explained by perceptions of representation, collegiality, and democratic leadership. Faculty across race and gender largely agree when they are in inclusive or marginalizing departments. In improving departments, there is greater disagreement. By focusing on faculty who share the same department and rank, but differ by race and gender, we identify key approaches leaders can take to create more inclusive departments. Our focus on the department level helps develop new insights about how inclusion operates in university settings.
Open Access
10 Small Steps for Department Chairs to Foster Inclusion
(2020) Mickey, Ethel L.; Kanelee, Ember Skye W.; Misra, Joya
In times of crisis, it becomes more important than ever, as stress can cause well-intentioned leaders to resort to bias and exclusion, write Ethel L. Mickey, Ember Skye Kanelee and Joya Misra.
Open Access
Institutional Approaches to Mentoring Faculty Colleagues
(2021) Misra, Joya; Kanelee, Ember Skye W.; Mickey, Ethel L.
To build an inclusive climate for faculty, colleges should develop formal programs for mentoring rather than just leave it to individuals, write Joya Misra, Ember Skye Kanelee and Ethel L. Mickey.
Open Access
Collaborations and Gender Equity among Academic Scientists
(2017) Misra, Joya; Smith-Doerr, Laurel; Dasgupta, Nilanjana; Weaver, Gabriela; Normanly, Jennifer
Universities were established as hierarchical bureaucracies that reward individual attainment in evaluating success. Yet collaboration is crucial both to 21st century science and, we argue, to advancing equity for women academic scientists. We draw from research on gender equity and on collaboration in higher education, and report on data collected on one campus. Sixteen focus group meetings were held with 85 faculty members from STEM departments, separated by faculty rank and gender (i.e., assistant professor men, full professor women). Participants were asked structured questions about the role of collaboration in research, career development, and departmental decision-making. Inductive analyses of focus group data led to the development of a theoretical model in which resources, recognition, and relationships create conditions under which collaboration is likely to produce more gender equitable outcomes for STEM faculty. Ensuring women faculty have equal access to resources is central to safeguarding their success; relationships, including mutual mentoring, inclusion and collegiality, facilitate women’s careers in academia; and recognition of collaborative work bolsters women’s professional advancement. We further propose that gender equity will be stronger in STEM where resources, relationships, and recognition intersect—having multiplicative rather than additive effects.
Open Access
Keeping COVID-19 From Sidelining Equity
(2021) Misra, Joya; Clark, Dessie; Mickey, Ethel L.
Without engaged interventions, higher education will most likely become less diverse and inclusive, given the pressure the pandemic is placing on women and faculty of color.
Open Access
Fostering Inclusion for Black Faculty
(2022) Kanelee, Ember Skye W.; Misra, Joya; Mickey, Ethel L.
In the midst of a global pandemic, people have been rallying across the world to protest the continual state-sanctioned violence against and the structural inequalities faced by Black people in the United States. In response to this, many non-Black academics within higher education have circulated reading lists and written statements at a dizzying rate. While reading lists are a good starting point, we encourage allyship in the form of praxis. This article offers concrete ways for faculty to engage in praxis to dismantle systems of oppression within higher education. We detail the unique challenges Black faculty experience within higher education and suggest specific ways non-Black faculty can support Black faculty at every stage of their career. Using data from interviews conducted with diverse faculty members, we suggest several action-oriented steps to address how organizational practices, policies, and culture in higher education may be altered to create more equitable and inclusive environments for Black faculty.
Open Access
Growing the roots of equity: The TREE model of institutional response to COVID-19
(2022) Clark, Dessie; Mickey, Ethel L.; Misra, Joya
Feminist scholars have long documented the complex, multiple ways in which academic institutions reproduce gender inequalities (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, & Institute of Medicine, 2007). In times of crisis, institutional commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion may be sidelined (Tulshyan, 2020). Academia must enact responses to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that retain and promote diverse women faculty who are already disadvantaged in their institution. This includes ensuring that structural shifts, such as policy changes, lead to deep, cultural change, embedding equity into the fabric of institutional norms and values. In this article, we outline a model for institutional change—the Thinking Ahead, Resource Provision, Evaluation, Equity (TREE) model—with the aim of informing diversity efforts in higher education more broadly during the pandemic.
Open Access
Addressing and Documenting Pandemic Impacts
(2020) Misra, Joya; Mickey, Ethel L.; Clark, Dessie
Crisis can easily sideline institutional commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, even as it exacerbates inequalities by gender, race, class, and other social locations. As members of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst ADVANCE-IT team, we were alert to the disparate impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on caregiving faculty, often women, and communities of color. We partnered with university leadership who, at the highest levels, recognized the importance of diversity, as well as the deeply engaged faculty union. Our immediate efforts have been to think creatively, adapt programming, create tools, and communicate clearly with our stakeholders to ensure that, over the long term, these disparate impacts do not lead to negative outcomes for STEM women regarding reappointment, tenure, and promotion, which would create a less diverse and inclusive university.
Open Access
The persistence of neoliberal logics in faculty evaluations amidst Covid-19: Recalibrating toward equity
(2022) Mickey, Ethel L.; Misra, Joya; Clark, Dessie
In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID-19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID-19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID-19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term.
Open Access
Reflections on Institutional Equity for Faculty in Response to COVID-19
(2020) Clark, Dessie; Mickey, Ethel L.; Misra, Joya
Feminist scholars have long documented the complex, multiple ways in which academic institutions reproduce gender inequalities (National Academy of Sciences2007). In times of crisis, institutional commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion may be sidelined (Tulshyan 2020). As institutions of higher education navigate the impacts of COVID-19, the need for gender equity projects is more urgent than ever. As members of the University of Massachusetts (UMass) ADVANCE team, we focus on institutional transformation by cultivating faculty equity through collaboration in three arenas –research, community building, and shared decision-making. In this reflection paper, we describe the role of a gender equity program at one large, public, research-intensive university in addressing the institutional response as the pandemic rapidly changed our community. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), ADVANCE Institutional Transformation(IT)grantsfund systemic solutions to increase the participation and advancement of women and underrepresented minorities in science and engineering faculty. Since 2001, ADVANCE-IT grants have fundedinterdisciplinary faculty teamstoaddress gender equity issuesat their universities through institutional solutions, includingevidence-based interventions to improve climate, policies,and opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities.But, how do we support faculty in ways that are equitable and foster inclusion when the very nature of faculty work has shifted, and the future of higher education is uncertain?