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Department of

Sociology

Lisa M. Nunn, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Lisa Michele Nunn joined the Department of Sociology at the University of San Diego as an Assistant Professor in 2009.  Professor Nunn teaches in the Department's Community, Urbanization, and Culture concentration.  Her research areas include Sociology of Education; Organizations; Cultural Sociology; Gender and Sexuality; Identity; and Social Psychology.

Education

Professor Nunn earned her B.A. in Literature and Theater from Whittier College in 1997.  She earned her M.A. in Sociology in 2005 and her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2009 from the University of California, San Diego.

Scholarly and Creative Work

Professor Nunn is currently working on a book manuscript based on her dissertation, "Identity and the Pursuit of School Success:  Understandings of Intelligence and Effort in Three High Schools."  This manuscript investigates how both schools (organizations) and students (individuals) refine and adapt cultural ideas that are passed down to them from above, while at the same time perpetuating existing social inequality through educational outcomes.  Professor Nunn is also currently working on two additional papers from the same research project:  "Classrooms as Racialized Spaces:  Dynamics of Collaboration, Tension, and Student Attitudes in Three High Schools" and "Intelligence and School Success:  A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective."

Professor Nunn's scholarly interests also include filmmaking.  She is currently working on the third segment of a seven-year longitudinal film project that chronicles the struggles of a gay bi-national couple (one partner is a U. S. citizen and the other is a German citizen) as they face immigration limitations due to the U. S. federal policy that excludes gay and lesbian citizens from obtaining visas to bring their foreign partners into the U. S.

Teaching Interests

Professor Nunn teaches introductory courses such as Statistical Methods and Introduction to Sociology, as well as upper-division courses in the Community, Urbanization, and Culture concentration, such as Sociology of Education.