Josipa Roksa

Josipa Roksa is Associate Professor of Sociology and Education at the University of Virginia. She is currently serving as Special Advisor to the Provost and Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

To what extent does education amplify, preserve, or reduce social inequality? This has been the central question guiding Professor Roksas scholarly inquiry. In addressing this question, she has aimed to extend the conversation beyond focusing on academics to consider broader social contexts of education. She has thus examined the role of state contexts in shaping access and attainment in higher education, the importance of life course transitions, including work, marriage/cohabitation and parenthood, for educational success, and the role of parenting in fostering academic achievement among K-12 students. Moreover, she has studied not only entry and completion in higher education (i.e., who enrolls and who graduates), but also what happens within colleges and universities, what activities students engage in and how that shapes their learning.

Professor Roksa is co-author of "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" (University of Chicago Press, 2011). Moreover, her research has been published in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including Social Forces, Sociology of Education, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Teachers College Record, Review of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, and Social Science Research.

Professor Roksa teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in social stratification, education, research methods, and statistics. She was named a University Teaching Fellow (UTF, 2008-2009), a Mead Honored Faculty (2010-2011), and a Fellow of the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education (2009-2012).