Leslie McCall

Leslie McCall is an American sociologist and political scientist. She is a Presidential Professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and the associate director of the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality there. She studies wealth and social inequality in American society, as well as opinions about inequality, from an intersectional perspective.

Education and early work McCall studied Computer Science and Economic Development Studies at Brown University, graduating with a BA in 1986. She then obtained an MA in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1990, followed by a PhD in sociology there in 1995.

In 1995, McCall became a professor of both sociology and women's studies at Rutgers University. as well as a fellow or visiting scholar at Princeton University and Stanford University. Using data from 1980 and 1990 across more than 500 local labor markets, McCall studies the relationship between gender inequality, class inequality, race, and level of education. The book also aims to inform policy proposals that account for the multidimensionality of inequality while seeking to reduce it. In particular, the book studies the paradox that despite the reality of growing wealth inequality in the US, American public opinion had not appeared to shift substantially on the issue, and there was no major sustained backlash to the increase in inequality.

McCall has been on the editorial board of several major journals, such as the American Sociological Review and the Socio-Economic Review. A 2019 citation analysis by the political scientists Hannah June Kim and Bernard Grofman listed McCall as one of the most cited political scientists working at an American university in 3 different categories: the top 40 most cited women scholars, the top 25 most cited political scientists who earned their PhD between 1995 and 1999 (inclusive), and the top 25 most cited political scientists working in the fields of Public Policy, Public Administration, Public Law, or Political Psychology. The New York Times, and CNN.

Selected works Complex Inequality: Gender, Class, and Race in the New Economy (2001) The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs about Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution (2013)