People

Research Interests:

Dr. Armstrong’s scholarship focuses on the reproduction of gender, class, and race inequalities. She examines these processes in the domain of sexuality and within the organizational context of the university. Her co-authored book, Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2013), followed a cohort of young women through their experiences at a large Midwestern state university. The book challenges the claim that college equalizes the life chances of college graduates. The authors demonstrated that the most well-resourced and seductive route through this university was a “party pathway” anchored in the Greek system and facilitated by the administration. This pathway benefited the affluent, while disadvantaging the majority. Her current project, with Sandra Levitsky, investigates university responses to campus sexual assault.