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Logo Sociology of Migration and Education
Department of Social Science
The green logo of TU Dortmund University is standing on a meadow. A smartphone is leaning against it. © archive​/​TU Dortmund

New international guest researcher at Sociology of Migration and Education

A full-body photo of Dr. Deborah Warnock with shoulder-length, wavy hair; she is standing in front of a light-colored wall. She is wearing a black dress with short, sheer sleeves and a polka-dot pattern. © Dustin Cirkel​/​TU Dortmund University
Sociology of Migration and Education is pleased to welcome Dr. Deborah Warnock (Vermont State University, USA) as a guest researcher in May and June 2026.

The two-month research stay is at the invitation of Dr. Frerk Blome and is embedded in the research project BiFam - Educationally successful families? Intergenerational and interdisciplinary perspectives on first generation students, funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR). 

Dr. Warnock's research examines the importance of social background for educational trajectories and academic careers in the US higher education system, with a particular focus on the experiences of first-generation students and working-class academics. She has made a much-noticed contribution to the debate on working-class academics with "Paradise Lost? Patterns and Precarity in Working-Class Academic Narratives" (Journal of Working-Class Studies, 2016), in which she develops a typology of recurring patterns of experience based on autoethnographic anthologies.
In a more recent study co-authored with Allison L. Hurst, Vincent J. Roscigno and others - "The Graduate School Pipeline and First-Generation/Working-Class Inequalities" (Sociology of Education, 2024) - this perspective is supplemented quantitatively and empirically. Dr. Warnock is actively involved in international research on class-specific inequalities in the higher education system, including as a member of the American Sociological Association's Task Force on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology.

During the visit, a public lecture and a professional exchange on a joint cooperation project are planned. The date and title of the lecture will be announced soon.

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