Emily Walton
Associate Professor
Appointments
Associate Professor of Sociology
Faculty Director, Society of Fellows
Area of Expertise
Health Disparities,
Race and Ethnicity,
Urban, Suburban, and Rural Places,
Ethnic Neighborhoods,
Asian America,
Multiethnic Communities
Biography
At my core, I am a race scholar. My work brings a racial lens and a broad methodological toolkit to bear on enduring questions in sociology's health and community subfields. The increased immigration of people of color to the United States over the past half-century demands a rethinking of longstanding sociological theories and conventional wisdom regarding racial integration and immigrant assimilation. My research raises important questions about the consequences of this demographic transition, offers novel theoretical frameworks for addressing these questions, and provides new empirical evidence about racial disparities and inequality in the United States.
Education
Ph.D., University of Washington
M.A., University of Washington
B.S. The Evergreen State College
Taught Courses
Publications
Walton, Emily. November 2025. Homesick: Race and Exclusion in Rural New England. Stanford University Press. https://www.sup.org/books/sociology/homesick
Walton, Emily. Forthcoming 2025. "Drawing Citizenship Boundaries to Exclude in Rural Northern New England." Seeing Race in Rural Space: Racialized Structures and Frames in the United States. Kenneth Robinson, Angie Carter, Keiko Tanaka, and Mark Harvey, eds. University of North Carolina Press.
Tseng, Marilyn, Emily Walton, Brian Egleston, and Carolyn Fang. 2024. "Pandemic Effects on Social Capital in Residents and Non-Residents of Chinese Immigrant Enclaves in Philadelphia." Wellbeing, Space & Society. 6(2024) online first: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wss.2024.100185
Walton, Emily. 2023. "Misrecognition and Well-being in Culturally White Northern New England." Rural Sociology. 88(3): 895-927 https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12505
Walton, Emily. 2021. "A Culture of Whiteness: How Integration Failed in Cities, Suburbs, and Small Towns." Sociology Compass. 15(11).
Walton, Emily. 2021. "Habits of Whiteness: How Racial Domination Persists in Multiethnic Neighborhoods." Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. 7(1):71-85.
Walton, Emily. 2018. "A Guest in Someone's House? Asian Americans in Small Town America." Contexts. 7: 18-23.
Walton, Emily. 2018. "The Meaning of Community in Diverse Neighborhoods: Stratification of Influence and Mental Health." Health & Place 50:6-15.
Walton, Emily. 2017. "Be a Good Neighbor! Mind (Y)Our Business." Contexts. 16: 70-71.
Walton, Emily. 2017. "Spatial Assimilation and its Discontents: Asian Ethnic Neighborhood Change in California." Urban Geography. 38: 993-1018.
Walton, Emily and Mae Hardebeck. 2016. "Multiethnic Neighborhoods on the Ground: Resources, Constraints, and Sense of Community." Du Bois Review. 13: 345-363.
Walton, Emily. 2016. "'It's Not Just a Bunch of Buildings': Investment, Sense of Community, and Collective Efficacy in a Multiethnic Public Housing Neighborhood" City & Community. 15: 231-263.
Walton, Emily. 2015. "Making Sense of Asian American Ethnic Neighborhoods: A Typology and Application to Health." Sociological Perspectives. 58: 490-515.
Public scholarship
Walton, Emily. December 16, 2019. Trump and Stephen Miller capitalize on white America's fear its racial identity is losing value. NBC Think.
Walton, Emily. November 4, 2019. What's It Like to Be a Person Of Color in Rural New England? Basically Invisible. WBUR Cognoscenti.
Walton, Emily. September 23, 2019. All college students should take a mandatory course on black history and white privilege. USA Today.
Walton, Emily. June 7, 2019. Dear White People: Moving to a Diverse Neighborhood Isn't Enough. WBUR Cognoscenti.
Interview. April 11, 2021. As New Hampshire diversifies, who gets to belong?
Contact