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Biography

Faculty Member Since 2021

Bailey A. Brown is an assistant professor of sociology in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½. Brown researches and teaches on the sociology of education, research methods, urban sociology, race and ethnicity, and inequality. Prior to her position at Spelman, Brown was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University. She holds a PhD, a MPhil, and an M.A. in sociology from Columbia University and a B.A. in sociology with minors in urban education and Africana studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Brown was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, a Leadership Alliance Fellow, graduated cum laude, and received top departmental honors for her senior thesis.

Brown is the author of Kindergarten Panic: Parental Anxiety and School Choice Inequality (2025) which explores how school choice policy reproduces inequality by extending parents’ school decision-making labor. Brown’s peer-reviewed publications appear in Sociology of Education, TRAILS, and the Georgia Educational Researcher. She has also published book chapters and articles in edited volumes and collaborative papers in refereed conference proceedings. Brown is the recipient of multiple internal and external grant awards including the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation and Rockefeller Foundation and Spelman’s Gordon-Zeto Center for Global Education.

Personal Website

Books

Kindergarten Panic: Parental Anxiety and School Choice Inequality
How school choice reproduces inequality by creating gendered and socioeconomic decision-making labor for parents.
( ISBN: 9780691269795 , Published: Aug 19, 2025,  Copyright: 2025 )

Education

• PhD Sociology, Columbia University, 2020
• MPhil Sociology, Columbia University, 2017
• MA Sociology, Columbia University, 2015
• BA Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, 2013

Courses Taught

• SOC 330 Sociology of Education
• SOC 352 Urban Sociology
• SOC 335 Survey of Research Methods
• SOC 432 Senior Thesis

Research Interests

• Sociology of Education
• Race, Gender, Class
• Family
• Community and Urban Sociology
• Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility
• Research Methods
• Teaching and Learning in Sociology

Selected Publications

• Brown, Bailey A. 2025. Kindergarten Panic: Parental Anxiety and School Choice Inequality. Princeton University Press.
• Brown, Bailey, Rebecca Zarch, Amanda Menier, Talia Goldwasser, Megean Garvin, Celeste Lee, Jayce Warner, and Tamara Pearson. 2024. “Reaching Black Women Interested in Computing: The Importance of Organizational Ties.” Pp. 151–57 in Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1.
• Brown, Bailey A., and Amber R. Reed. 2023. “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks.” Georgia Educational Researcher 20(2):2.
• Brown, Bailey A. 2022. “Intensive Mothering and the Unequal School-Search Burden.” Sociology of Education 95(1):3–22.