B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A., University of California-Berkeley
Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley

Christel Kesler joined the Colby faculty in 2017. She previously taught at Barnard College and conducted postdoctoral work at Oxford University.

Professor Kesler's research focuses on cross-national comparisons of social inequality. She is particularly interested in how political-economic institutions and social policies shape the experiences of immigrants and their host societies in North America and Western Europe. She has worked on several projects that consider immigrant socioeconomic incorporation in various countries. Other recent projects examine immigration-driven diversity's effects on social solidarity and the welfare state and patterns of racial, ethnic, and national belonging among immigrants' descendants. Professor Kesler's work has appeared in journals such as the International Migration Review, Social Science Research, and Social Forces. She is currently a commissioning editor for the American Sociological Association's public sociology blog Work in Progress and has been a consulting editor for the American Journal of Sociology.

Professor Kesler teaches numerous courses on social inequality, social policy, international migration, methods for social research, and data analysis.

Recent publications include:

Kesler, Christel. 2020. “Maternal Employment When Children Are in Preschool: Variations by Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity.” Social Science Research 85: 102349.

Kesler, Christel. 2018. “Gender Norms, Work-Family Policies, and Labor Force Participation among Immigrant and Native-born Women in Western Europe.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 4: 1-16.

Kesler, Christel and Mirna Safi. 2018. “Immigrants in the Labour Markets of France and the United Kingdom: Integration Models, Institutional Variations, and Ethnic Inequalities.” Migration Studies 6(2): 225-250.

Kesler, Christel and Luisa Farah Schwartzman. 2015. “From Multi-Racial Subjects to Multi-Cultural Citizens: Social Stratification and Ethnic and Racial Classification among Children of Immigrants in the United Kingdom.” International Migration Review 49(3): 790-836.

Kesler, Christel. 2015. “Welfare States and Immigrant Poverty: Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in Comparative Perspective.” Acta Sociologica 58(1): 39-61.