Dr. Joanna Sikora

Biography

Joanna Sikora is an Associate Professor at the Australian National University specializing in Sociology. Her main research interests include educational inequalities, social stratification, and family sociology with a particular focus on how these areas intersect with class, gender, and ethnicity. She investigates the formation of adolescents' career expectations and the factors that determine young people's ability to realize their aspirations. Her work examines the role of ethnic capital and scholarly culture, particularly in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and how these can shape long-term educational and occupational outcomes. Sikora employs quantitative analysis techniques on large cross-national surveys and longitudinal datasets to inform policy and advance debates on social mobility and educational equity. She has also completed consultancies with organizations such as the OECD Directorate for Education and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. As a Vice President for Oceania and a board member of the Research Committee 04 of the International Sociological Association, she actively participates in the academic community and supervises research using various methodologies.

Research Interests