Ann Mullen

Ann Mullen
Associate Professor
Telephone number
(416) 287-7307
Building HL 456

Professor Ann Mullen joined the sociology department at the University of Toronto in 2003, after holding a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the National Center for Education Statistics and then serving as a Senior Research Associate at the U.S. Department of Education.  Her research interests include culture, social inequality, gender and higher education.  Her work has examined access to higher education, the role of elite institutions, the gendered segregation of fields of study, and competing cultural narratives about the purpose and value of higher education. Her first book, Degrees of Inequality: Culture, Class and Gender in American Higher Education, was published by Johns Hopkins University press in 2010. The book was awarded the Outstanding Publication in Postsecondary Education, by the American Educational Research Association, and the Educators Award, by the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International.  She is currently conducting two studies: an audit study to assess the relative value of bachelors’ degrees from three Ontario universities in terms of labour market pay-offs, and an ethnographic study of conceptual artists and art galleries in San Francisco.

Education

Ph.D., Yale University

Teaching Interests

  • Gender and Education
  • Sociology of Culture
  • Research methods
  • Gender and Work

Research Interests

  • Culture
  • Higher Education
  • Gender

Awards and Grants

Professor Mullen held a National Academy of Education / Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and was also awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grant (with collaborator Kimberly A. Goyette), for a project titled “Access to Higher Education: Application and Admission to Top-Tier American Universities.”

Publications

  • Mullen, Ann L. and Jayne Baker. Forthcoming. "Participation without Parity in U.S. Higher Education: Gender, Fields of Study, and Institutional Selectivity." NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education.
  • Mullen, Ann L. 2014. "Gender, Social Background, and the Choice of College Major in a Liberal Arts Context." Gender & Society 28(2): 289-312.
  • Mullen, Ann L. 2013. "Gender Equity In Higher Education: From Undergraduates to Presidents.” UTSC Commons Spring 2013, p. 23-24.
  • Mullen, Ann L. 2012. "The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower." Contexts 11(4): 34-38.
  • Mullen, Ann L. 2010. Degrees of Inequality: Culture, Class and Gender in American Higher Education. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. (Paperback edition published in 2011.)
  • Mullen, Ann L. 2009. "Elite Destinations: Pathways to attending an Ivy League University." British Journal of Sociology of Education 30(1):15-27. Reprinted in The Sociology of Higher Education: Reproduction, Transformation and Change in a Global Era. Routledge. Miriam David and Rajani Naidoo, eds. 2013. 
  • Mullen, Ann L. and Jayne Baker, 2008. "Gender, Race and Ethnic Segregation of Science Fields in U.S. Universities." Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 14(2):159-176.
  • Goyette, Kimberly A. and Ann L. Mullen. 2006. "Who Studies the Arts and Sciences? Social Background and the Choice and Consequences of Undergraduate Field of Study." Journal of Higher Education 77(3): 497-538.
  • Gaskell, Jane and Ann L. Mullen. 2006. “Women in Teaching: Participation, Power and Possibility.” In the SAGE Handbook of Gender and Education, edited by Christine Skelton, Becky Francis and Lisa Smulyan. London: Sage Publications, pp. 453-468.