Ann Mullen Headshot
Report a problem with this profile
[email protected]

Ann Mullen  

Sociology Professor at the University of Toronto; Social & Gender Inequality Researcher; Author of "Degrees of Inequality"

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.

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.”

Speech Topics


Elite destinations pathways to attending an Ivy League university

Degrees of Inequality Culture Class and Gender in American Higher Education

Cultural Capital and Elite Educational Attainment

Related Speakers View all


More like Ann