Examples Of Identity Marginalization

My own experience of identity marginalization motivates my study of racial and sexual minorities. Growing up going back and forth between the United States and South Korea, I struggled with racist, homophobic, and sexist discriminations. People continuously doubted my abilities and potentials as an individual because I am a woman, lesbian, and racial minority. As a sociologist in training, I now recognize that the “unfair treatments” I have endured as a racial and sexual minority are a part of complex social mechanisms fueled by power struggles and sociocultural forces. These experiences shape my scholarly identity and interests in sociology of culture, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. My ultimate goal is to obtain a tenure-track position at

Coming from an interdisciplinary humanities background in gender studies, I developed interests in how structural inequalities become materialized through socio-cultural understanding of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. UCI sociology hosts leading experts in the fields of race, ethnicity, immigration, and sociology of culture and provides diverse curricula that assist my development as a scholar focusing on racial and sexual minorities. Furthermore, UCI sociology offers extensive courses in quantitative analysis and qualitative data collection and analysis. I plan on taking courses in advanced regression modeling, interview, and ethnography to further develop my knowledge and skills in research methods to pursue my dissertation research project, which will incorporate original survey and interview data as well as analysis of nationally representative datasets. In sum, the program’s emphasis on theoretically informed and empirically grounded scholarship coupled with a broad range of faculty expertise in theory, substantive fields, and research methods presents opportunities to examine the production of inequality based on and nuanced differences across gender, race, ethnicity, and

Race research workshop, a weekly departmental workshop, brings together students pursuing research in race, ethnicity, and immigration to discuss their on-going projects, practice conference presentations, and give feedback to one another. During my first year in the program, I benefited greatly from watching more advanced students’ paper presentations and engaging in theoretical and analytical discussions of different methods and substantive areas at the race research workshop. This year, I plan on presenting my own project to the workshop to further refine my research focus and receive feedback on its theoretical and analytical development from peers and faculty members. UCI sociology also offers small funding for students to organize reading groups in different research areas. I am currently in the process of developing a reading group in race, ethnicity, and immigration to invite other graduate students in the department to review current literature, organize informal workshop, and discuss any hardships students experience or advices advanced students have for others in pursuing their research projects and other relevant career