top of page

Research

Research Interests
 

Higher education, stratification, social class, gender, race/class/gender, family, civic engagement/ volunteering, social psychology, social justice, teaching and learning, mixed methods (qualitative and statistics)

Book Project: How to Succeed in College: A Research-Based Approach for Smart, Non-Rich Students

  • Book Overview:

     Success in college includes three legs: academic, social, and pre-career success. If a student is not coming from a rich family with social connections to professional industries, it is unlikely that they can be successful in one leg without being successful in others. However, success is not just about what a student does. Success requires understanding how each leg works–including norms, cultural expectations, and institutional set up. Success also requires learning to recognize and use available resources, even when doing so feels far outside one’s comfort zone. Even trickier? Institutions vary a lot, so the strategies that work at one university may not work at another. And student backgrounds will impact the barriers they must overcome and the resources they have available to push through obstacles.

     How to Succeed in College uses five waves of yearly longitudinal in-depth interviews with 80 students at two selective universities: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (a large public research university) and St Lawrence University (a small private liberal arts college). The interviews follow students from their first semester of college through a year out from graduation, generating a total of over 375 interviews. The samples are highly diverse by social class background, racial/ethnic identity, and other characteristics with rich data about the different students’ struggles at each stage and ultimately their triumphs or failures to achieve successful transitions out of college. How to Succeed in College will provide insightful analysis in accessible writing, combining detailed interviewee stories with sociological analysis to unpack how–despite the well-documented inequality in higher education–any student can potentially succeed.

  • Design: Yearly longitudinal in-depth interviews with 50 students at UNC-Chapel Hill (Fall 2018-Fall 2024) and 30 students at St Lawrence University (Fall 2020-Summer 2025)

  • Book Proposal in preparation 

Image by MD Duran

Moving Beyond the Gender Binary in Greek Organizations?

  • Case Study: A nonbinary student joined a sorority at St Lawrence University with widespread support and took on a leadership position. Nine months later they had their membership voided. This research tackles the before and after of this story.

  • Research questions: 

    • What barriers prevent nonbinary and gender diverse student participation in Greek life?

    • What changes would be needed to enable Greek organizations to move beyond the gender binary?

  • Research design at St Lawrence University: 

    • Part 1: Before the Void, Spring 2023: interviews ​with students in Greek life and campus staff; content analysis of policy documents

    • Part 2: After the Void, Spring 2025: interviews with student leaders in Greek organizations; survey of current student members in Greek organizations 

  • Manuscript in preparation

Image by Katie Rainbow 🏳️‍🌈

Pre-Health Professions & STEM Study Abroad Benefits and Inequalities

  • Research questions: 

    • How do health related international study abroad programs contribute to inequality among pre-health professions students?

    • What pathways lead students into participating in these types of study abroad programs? What different barriers made applying to and participating in the program easier or harder for some students than others?

    • How do students’ experiences within these study abroad programs differ by social characteristics, such as race, class, or gender?

  • Design: European Study Abroad case study

    • 31 interviews with students ​

    • 14 interviews with faculty/staff 

    • 23 observation hours in classrooms, labs, and student downtime

  • Conference presentations: 

    • 2024 Anna Wilkerson and Alanna Gillis. “Abroad Experiences Steepen the Ladder of Inequality Pre-Health Students Have to Climb.” Southern Sociological Society. New Orleans, LA.

    • 2024 Sophia Brigante and Alanna Gillis. “Pathways, Barriers, and Inequalities in STEM Study Abroad Experiences.” Southern Sociological Society. New Orleans, LA.

  • Manuscript(s) in preparation

Image by Febiyan

The Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact on Inequality of College Student Trajectories at Two Universities

  • Research questions: 

    • How do institutional policies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic differentially impact students? 

    • How does the timing of the pandemic in a student's college experience differentially impact their trajectory?

    • How does the pandemic generally, and university structures in particular, differentially impact students based on race, social class, and gender? 

  • Design: Yearly longitudinal in-depth interviews with 50 students at UNC-Chapel Hill (Fall 2018-Fall 2024) and 30 students at St Lawrence University (Fall 2020-Summer 2025)

  • Publications from project: 

    • Gillis, Alanna and Elena van Stee. 2024. “The Pact: Exploring the Racialized Consequences of Colorblind COVID-19 Campus Policies.” Socius 10: 1-18.

    • Gillis, Alanna, Renee Ryberg, Myklynn LaPoint, and Sara McCauley. 2024. “The COVID-19 Emergency Remote Transition on College Campus: Inequitable College Student Experiences and Policy Responses” Journal of Postsecondary Student Success 3(2): 56-80.

Covid-19 Image.png

Major Questions: Reproducing Inequality through College Major Decisions
 

  • Research questions: How do students choose their college majors? How does this process reproduce inequality by race, class, and gender? 
  • Design: Longitudinal surveys (n=1,1,00) and in-depth interviews (n=50) with first-year college students at UNC-Chapel Hill 
  • Major findings: 
    • Student orientations to choosing a major differ by race, class, and gender and these orientations change over time as students learn new schemas for choosing a major (i.e. based on career, intellectual interests, or match with student skillset)
    • Students often get stuck in ill-fitting majors because ​they feel compelled to choose a major before they have much (correct) knowledge about what that major means and entails
    • Students feel uncertainty during parts of the major choosing process, and these times of uncertainty are critical junctures for inequality reproduction 
  • Publications from project: 
    • Gillis, Alanna, and Renee Ryberg. 2021. “Is Choosing a Major Choosing a Career or Interesting Courses?: Stability and Change in Orientations to College Majors.” Journal of Postsecondary Student Success 1(2): 46-71.​

    • Gillis, Alanna. “Choosing a Major is Not an Individual Choice: How Institutions, Interactions, and Identity Processes Shape College Major Decisions.”  Working paper available: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/7as8y/ 

    • Gillis, Alanna. “Beyond Diverging Preferences and Chilly Climate: Why Gender and Racial Segregation in College Majors Increase During the First Year of College.” Working paper available: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/dsght/ 

Stick Figure Image.png

2010 - present

2010 - present

bottom of page