Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

Join the ISSI team!

We're looking for an Associate Director to oversee our programs and research centers and lead our Graduate Fellows Program.

➡️ Apply: issi.berkeley.edu/hiring

🏳️‍🌈Pride Month🏳️‍🌈 is an opportunity to recognize the scholars and advocates whose work strengthens LGBTQ+ communities and advances equity and belonging.

Congratulations to Eric Stanley, recipient of UC Berkeley's Chancellor's Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence and Equity! 🌟

A leading scholar in trans studies, Stanley's research and teaching have had a profound impact on students and colleagues both on and off campus. With support from this award, they will organize a series of dialogues on trans studies in today's political climate.

We celebrate Stanley's ongoing commitment to justice and collective care. ❤️💛💚💙💜 Division of Equity and Inclusion, UC Berkeley

Two ISSI faculty affiliates and one ISSI graduate student affiliate are among the 2026 recipients of UC Berkeley Graduate Division's mentorship awards! 🎉

🏆 2026 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards
Early-Career Faculty Winner: Maya Elizabeth Carrasquillo, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

🏆 2026 Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs
Ricarda Hammer, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

🏆 2026 Outstanding Graduate Peer Mentor Award
Emily Fjaellen Thompson, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology

Congratulations to these outstanding faculty and graduate students:

Celebrate Mentorship at Cal for 2026! - Berkeley Graduate Division These outstanding faculty and graduate students will be honored on Wednesday, April 16 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. at the Alumni House, Toll Room. We hope you will join us to recognize their accomplishments.

Minoo Moallem and Paola Bacchetta, ISSI faculty affiliates and Gender & Women's Studies professors at UC Berkeley, co-edited a book, Fatema Mernissi for Our Times, from Syracuse University Press.

The book dives into the work of the celebrated Moroccan feminist sociologist, essayist, and creative writer. Bringing together an international group of scholars, it explores pressing issues of women, gender, and sexuality in Muslim and Arab countries and their diasporas, engaging in a dynamic dialogue
with Mernissi's work.

Learn more:

Fatema Mernissi for Our Times – Syracuse University Press Google PreviewRequest Exam or Desk Copy Exam and Desk Copies Please complete this form to request an exam or desk copy of a currently in-print book. An exam copy is a complimentary digital copy used to review a book for possible course adoption. A desk copy is a complimentary digital or physical cop...

Welcome to the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI)!

If you're new here, ISSI is UC Berkeley's home for interdisciplinary, transformative social change research.

Through 8 research centers and a dynamic network of faculty, students, and community partners, we connect research on structural inequality to meaningful policy and community impact.

Follow us for:
📚 research highlights, events, and programs
✨ scholar and community spotlights
🌍 conversations shaping social change

We're also on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Instagram. Learn more about us!
https://issi.berkeley.edu/

Photo: current first-year graduate fellows

New book! 🎉 📚

We are excited to share that ISSI alum Jocyl Sacramento co-edited a new book titled, Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies: Decolonial Love, Knowledge, and Revolution (Routledge).

The book guides instructors and students through an intersectional and comparative approach to understanding key theories, practices, and movements in Ethnic Studies. Jocyl Sacramento is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University, East Bay.

Learn more: https://www.routledge.com/Introduction-to-Comparative-Ethnic-Studies-Decolonial-Love-Knowledge-and-Revolution/Salomon-Sacramento-Tran-BahamIII/p/book/9780367699376

Author and ISSI alum Caleb E. Dawson wrote an article that Sociology of Race and Ethnicity published as their feature article of the April 2026 print issue!

"Trauma Pouring: The Uses, Costs, and Risks of Retelling Trauma"

Listen to the Sage Sociology Podcast episode featuring an interview with Caleb about the article: https://journals.sagepub.com/page/sre/podcasts

Rachel Morello-Frosch, Berkeley Center for Social Medicine faculty affiliate, will be the inaugural associate provost for energy, climate, and environment at UC Berkeley. An environmental health scientist and epidemiologist, Professor Morello-Frosch is jointly appointed in the Rausser College’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and in the School of Public Health. For over 25 years, her research has examined structural determinants of environmental health and how co-exposures to environmental and social stressors shape health inequities.

UC Berkeley appoints Rachel Morello-Frosch as inaugural associate provost for energy, climate, and environment - Berkeley News The public health expert and Berkeley professor will unite scholars across campus to address crucial environmental challenges.

G. Cristina Mora and Tianna S. Paschel, Center for Research on Social Change faculty affiliates, co-authored a new book, Normalizing Inequality: How Californians Make Sense of the Growing Divide, published by Russell Sage Foundation. The sociologists illuminate how middle-class Californians perceive and come to accept the inequalities that surround them. They find that Californians are keenly aware of the systemic causes of inequality—they recognize policies engineered to benefit the wealthy, and they acknowledge how structural racism makes it hard for some groups to get ahead—yet they consistently minimize these forces. Normalizing Inequality offers an incisive examination of how ordinary citizens make sense of inequality and, through that very process of sense-making, how they tolerate and passively reproduce the conditions they often claim to deplore.

Normalizing Inequality | Russell Sage Foundation Main navigation Bookstore Search All Books Book Series About the RSF Journal Information for Authors RSF Journal: Call for Papers Books Normalizing Inequality How Californians Make Sense of the Growing Divide Authors G. Cristina Mora Tianna S. Paschel Paperback $42.50 Add to Cart Publication Date Ap...

Pablo Gonzalez, co-director of ISSI's Graduate Fellows Program, edited the sixth volume of Digna Rabia, a journal of oral histories and research papers by Chicana/o/x Studies students. "Taken from the Zapatista slogan, Digna Rabia, believes that our word is truly our weapon. But our stories also heal. They also keep our word alive. […] Authors kept this in mind as they asked parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends, questions about their lives. The oral histories and research papers in this journal dig deep into not only the migration stories of those interviewed but also their labor history, their first-time crossing, discrimination faced, what the 'American Dream' means to them, the gendered differences of crossing, and recollections of their own lives across time and space.”

Digna Rabia Journal Vol 6 Issue 1 Spring 2026 The sixth volume of the Digna Rabia Journal in Chicanx and Latinx Studies at UC Berkeley