Research Interests: social psychology, stratification, race/ ethnicity

Rashawn Ray's work addresses three key areas: the determinants and consequences of self-evaluated social class, men’s treatment of women, and how racial stratification structures social life. He is currently examining how racially mixed and segregated communities influence physical activity levels across racial/ethnic groups and contribute to healthy lifestyles and obesity rates. Ray has been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship Program, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Ford Foundation. He is currently on a two-year Robert Wood Johnson post-doctoral fellowship at Berkeley.

He is editor of the recently published Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century: History, Theory, Institutions, and Policy. This book examines the major theoretical and empirical approaches regarding race/ethnicity. Its goal is to continue to place race and ethnic relations in a contemporary, intersectional, and cross-comparative context and progress the discipline to include groups past the Black/White dichotomy. Using various sociological theories, social psychological theories, and subcultural approaches, this book gives students a sociohistorical, theoretical, and institutional frame with which to view race and ethnic relations in the twenty-first century.