Current Sociology PhD Students

Sociology: Sociology of education; school discipline and governance; restorative justice in K–12 institutions; racial inequality and racialized organizations; educational policy and organizational change; quantitative program evaluation.

Isabella Burns is a doctoral student in sociology at George Mason University and a graduate teaching assistant. Her research centers on educational equity, school discipline, and restorative justice, with a particular focus on how institutional practices shape students’ experiences of authority, punishment, and belonging. She examines how equity-oriented reforms are implemented in K–12 schools and whether they produce substantive change or symbolic compliance, drawing on quantitative and institutional approaches to evaluate policy impact.

Isabella currently works as a graduate researcher on the Fairfax County Economic Mobility Project, where she conducts qualitative analyses and memo writing for research briefs examining structural barriers and policy interventions related to education, housing, and intergenerational mobility. Her recent work also includes serving on the Sociological Forum Pedagogy Committee, where she helped translate sociological scholarship into classroom-ready teaching modules. She has previously served as a student trainee at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Before beginning her Ph.D., she spent two years as an early intervention literacy instructor, an experience that continues to inform her research and teaching.