Catherine Harnois

My scholarship is rooted in Sociology and Psychology, combining insights and approaches from both disciplines as they concern issues of social psychology, research methodology, law and society, and social inequality, and prejudice and discrimination.

One branch of my work investigates how taken-for-granted research practices, particularly within survey research, can obscure diversity and reproduce social inequality. I aim to identify and develop methodological tools,( e.g., measures) and practices (e.g., e.g., statistical analysis) that are more inclusive, valid and reliable. 

A second branch focuses on perceptions of discrimination — particularly discrimination based on multiple social statuses (e.g., gendered racism; gendered ageism). I ask questions like: How do diverse groups and people understand the term, “discrimination”? How do different understandings of discrimination affect people’s responses to mistreatment when it occurs? And how do these differing responses link to societal inequalities?

A third branch of my work focuses on issues of freedom of expression, speech regulation, and censorship. I am the editor of the (forthcoming) Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Speech and Censorship, which seeks to develop a polyvocal sociological approach for understanding and analyzing speech and censorship.

Selected Publications:

Harnois, C.E.  (Ed) Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Speech and Censorship. (in press) OxfordUniversity Press.

Harnois, C.E.  2023  “The Multiple Meanings of Discrimination” Social Psychology Quarterly. DOI10.1177/01902725221134266

Harnois, C.E.  2022. “What Do We Measure When We Measure Everyday Discrimination?” Social Science & Medicine. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114609

Harnois, C.E.; Bastos, J. L. and Shariff-Marco, S. 2020. “Intersectionality, Contextual Specificity and Everyday Discrimination: Assessing the difficulty associated with identifying a main reason for discrimination among racial/ethnic minority respondents.” Sociological Methods & Research.  DOI: 10.1177/0049124120914929

Bastos, J.L. and Harnois, C. E.. “Does the Everyday Discrimination Scale generate meaningful cross-group estimates? A psychometric evaluation” Social Science & Medicine. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113321

Harnois, C. E. 2013.  Feminist Measures in Survey Research. Sage.