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 26

Faculty Mentoring Best Practices
(2019-01-01) Misra, Joya
All faculty members need mentoring. Ideally, your unit will offer mentoring across rank. Assistant Professors (most commonly targeted for tenure) Clinical/NTT Faculty (professional development) Associate Professors (key to ensuring smooth progression to Full) Associate/Full Professors (progressing into leadership positions) Members of groups that are underrepresented in your field – by gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, first-generation status, religion, ability status, etc. – are least likely to receive mentoring and career advice. Mentoring programs ensure that all faculty members are able to access mentoring support.
Shared Decision Making Best Practices
(2020-01-01) Misra, Joya
There are many potential topics for shared decision-making in departments. Some of the most common, and most challenging, include: Recommending faculty hires to Dean Suggesting Chair appointments to Dean Adopting/amending bylaws Tenure and promotion deliberation process Electing faculty to committees Changing curricula Recommending office space/lab allocations Merit deliberations Faculty can be involved in many other different kinds of decisions, such as identifying speakers to invite to campus, student awards, ensuring faculty and student success, and other activities.
Creating Diverse Departments: Best Practices
(2020-01-01) Wingfield, Adia Harvey; Misra, Joya
Currently, most universities have relatively limited diversity. The National Center for Education Statistics shows that in 2018, more than two thirds of all university faculty are white, 10% are Asian and Pacific Islanders, 5% are Latinx, 1% are Multiracial, .4% are Indigenous and 5.5% are Black. Black and Latinx faculty are particularly underrepresented among STEM fields.
Equitable Evaluation During COVID
(2021-01-01) Misra, Joya
Evaluating faculty must evolve, given that faculty experiences have differed during the pandemic. Yet, faculty need an opportunity to document their contributions and achievements, as well as the pandemic-related limitations they have experienced. The goal is to enter this information into the record in a way that recognizes how each faculty member’s workload (how much they were doing in different areas) and work context (where and how they did their work) have differed due to the pandemic, and that allows the university to account for the pandemic’s long-term effects. Memories are short. When faculty are evaluated years down the road, the constraints they operated under must be recognized.
Mentoring Plan Template
(2019-01-01) Misra, Joya
Mentoring plans allow departments to articulate how new faculty members will receive the mentoring and support that they need to be successful. While mentoring may happen “organically” for some faculty members, research shows that there are significant differences among faculty members in how much support and mentoring they receive, and even in how much honest feedback they receive.
Research Collaboration Best Practices
(2020-01-01) Misra, Joya
Time is a critical resource necessary to creating new collaborations. Faculty members need opportunities to interact, informally as well as formally, to develop ideas, and work well together. Developing shared language is especially necessary for interdisciplinary collaborations. Equity can be challenging; collaborations may appear “predatory,” with unequal involvement in the research, or unfair recognition of time and effort in PI/co-PI roles or in authorship. Collabora-tions should fairly credit researchers for the work they do, regardless of rank, gender, race, etc. Inclusion is another key approach. This matters both in collaborators treating each other’s insights with respect, and identifying the contributions diverse collaborators can make. Intellectual and demographic diversity is likely to lead to greater creativity and insight. Good communication and trust characterize the most successful research teams. While funding opportunities sometimes require developing new collaborations speedily, teams that have already developed strategies for working together effectively are more likely to win funding.
Inclusive Departments Best Practices
(2019-01-01) Misra, Joya
Most faculty members want to feel respected and included in their departments, engaged in positive professional interactions with colleagues, and consulted and heard by their department Chairs/Heads. Yet, many faculty members do not feel included in their departments. Research at UMass shows that among STEM faculty, White women, Asian women, and women from underrepresented minority groups feel much less connected to their departments and less valued by their colleagues and Chairs/Heads than men, particularly in the area of research. In addition, women STEM faculty rate their departments as less collegial, respectful, cooperative, supportive, equitable, fair, and inclusive than men STEM faculty.
Equitable Faculty Evaluation Practices
(2023-01-01) Mitchneck, Beth; Misra, Joya
Faculty evaluation is central to universities, but many strategies for evaluating faculty reflect gender and racial biases. These biases in evaluation help explain the lack of progress most academic institutions have made toward greater representation and inclusion. This makes it urgent for universities to create more equitable review procedures. It is also important to remember that faculty evaluation is a continual process, and not simply a set of discrete, formal, evaluative events. Thus, to improve evaluation of faculty, we need to target how we evaluate faculty in formal and informal ways. The good news is that relatively simple changes in process and practice can enhance equity and inclusion in faculty evaluation.
Documenting Pandemic Impacts: Best Practices
(2020-01-01) Misra, Joya
The COVID-19 pandemic immediately impacted faculty members’ workloads. Most faculty members have had to do significantly more work, moving courses online, mentoring students in need, reworking university programs and addressing COVID-19 risks, and helping communities manage current realities. At the same time, many faculty members are experiencing damage to their productivity and research record, due to lack of access to labs and facilities, research sites, and research subjects, as well as canceled conferences and inability to travel to conduct research and meet with collaborators.
Continuing Research Collaboration Relationships
(2023-01-01) Mickey, Ethel L.; Misra, Joya; Normanly, Jennifer; Smith-Doerr, Laurel
This tool–Continuing equitable research collaboration relationships–is part 2 of a three tool series for embedding equity into all phases of research collaboration. See also Creating equitable research collaborations (part 1) and Crediting collaboration equitably (part 3).