Children’s Understanding of Economic and Social Inequality Lab

Dr. Rashmita Mistry
Human Development & Psychology
School of Education & Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Mistry and her students study children’s experiences of social inequality and its influences on their academic and social outcomes.

Our research has three principal foci:

Investigating the development, consequences, and malleability of children’s beliefs about social inequality.

Examining the extent to which contextual factors such as poverty, immigration, and social policies, influence family dynamics and, in turn, children’s developmental outcomes.

Understanding children’s racial-ethnic and social class identity development, consequences, and intergroup attitudes.

2023-2024 Cohort

Back Row (L-R): Anna Kimura, Asil Yassine, Jeffrey Yo, Melanie Seyarto
Front Row (L-R): Stephanie Nguyen, Amaesha Durazi, Dr. Rashmita Mistry, Lauren Kinnard
Not Pictured: Qiana Duru

In the News

Awards

  • Dr. Rashmita Mistry was nominated for the 2025 UCLA Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring.
  • Dr. Rashmita Mistry was awarded the 2024 CSES Award for Distinguished Leadership in Psychology. 2023 from the American Psychological Association’s Committee on Socioeconomic Status.
  • Dr. Rashmita Mistry was recently appointed to serve on the Board of Directors for MDRC

Milestones

  • Congratulations to Dr. Stephanie Nguyen for successfully defending her dissertation, “Perceived Closeness and Connectedness Between Vietnamese American Parents and their Adolescent Children”
  • Congratulations to Dr. Melanie Seyarto for successfully defending her dissertation, “Centering Early Educators’ Wellbeing: Understanding the Role of Compensation and Implications for Children’s Development”

Recent Publications

Engaging or waiting: Variations in Asian American parents’ motivations and approaches to racial socialization during middle childhood and early adolescence

Social class group identity, intergroup attitudes, and views on social mobility and inequality in the U.K. and the U.S.

Toolkit on raising Asian American children: Resources designed for parents, educators, and other caregivers who play meaningful roles in the lives of young Asian American children

Recent Presentations

  • Lauren Kinnard presented at the 2025 Summer School on Socioeconomic Opportunity and Inequality at the Institute of Applied Economic Research in Brasilia, Brazil
  • Dr. Rashmita Mistry served as a discussant for the Presidential Symposium on “Wealth Inequality, Asset Building, and Child Development: Implications for Policy and Practice” at the SRCD Biennial Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Amaesha Durazi, Lauren Kinnard, Stephanie Nguyen, and Melanie Seyarto presented at the SRCD Biennial Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota