DAWN MARIE DOW 

Dr. Dawn Marie Dow is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. During its inaugural cohort of Racial Equity Scholars from 2022 to 2023, Dr. Dow served as a Principal Research Associate and Racial Equity Scholar at the Urban Institute's Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population and the Office of Race and Equity Research. She has continued as a nonresident fellow in the Family and Financial Well-Being Division.  ​Dr. Dow was formerly the faculty director of the Critical Race Initiative from 2019 to 2021, which annually held the Parren J. Mitchell Conference focusing on a topic through which scholars examine systemic inequality in contemporary society. She is a Faculty Associate in the Maryland Population Research Center. Dr. Dow previously served as the deputy editor for the Journal of Marriage and Family and on the editorial board of Contexts.  ​

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Using primarily qualitative methods, Dow's research and writing examine intersections of race, class, and gender within the context of the family, educational settings, the workplace, the law, political mobilization, and popular culture. She is particularly interested in how these intersections complicate long-standing debates regarding the relative influence of economic and cultural resources on the experiences and life trajectories of members of the expanding African American middle and upper-middle-class. 

Dr. Dow's award-winning book, Mothering While Black: The Boundaries and Burdens of Middle-Class Parenthood, was published in March 2019 with the University of California Press. It examines African American middle and upper-middle-class mothers’ approaches to parenting their children and their views and decision-making about work, family, and childcare. Dr. Dow’s work has also appeared in journals including Gender & Society, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Science Advances, and Mobilization.

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Dr. Dow is currently the Chair-elect for the Sex and Gender Section of the American Sociological Association.

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Dr. Dow received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, a JD from Columbia University School of Law, and a BA in sociology from Bryn Mawr College.