RESEARCH:
Kayla Kesselring is a Master’s student in the sociology graduate program. She graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology. Her research interests include gender and education, focusing on the ways that adolescent students develop academic identities. She is interested in the social psychological pathways that students utilize to understand who they are in an academic context. Her Master’s Thesis focuses on the mediating effects of self-concepts, forms of social capital, and cognitive framing that might explain gender differences in science identity among middle school aged youth. Additionally, she is currently conducting a project examining the gender- and race-stereotypical representations of youth in middle school science textbooks.
TEACHING:
Kayla’s teaching interests include the sociology of education, as well as the sociology of gender, especially as these topics are understood from an historical lens. She enjoys working with students, and taking on challenges in programming and curricula. During her time at the University of Nebraska, she has taught multiple sections of Introduction to Sociology as a Teaching Assistant. She has also co-taught an after-school science club for middle schoolers in an instructional context.