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.
2022-2023 Cohort

Front Row (L-R): Lauren Kinnard, Dr. Rashmita Mistry, Amaesha Durazi, Stephanie Nguyen
Not Pictured: Qiana Duru
In the News
Awards
- Amaesha Durazi, Lauren Kinnard, and Tammy Yabiku received the 2023 UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award
- Lauren Kinnard and Melanie Seyarto received the 2023-2024 UCLA Graduate Research Mentorship Award
Milestones
- Congratulations to Qiana Duru who successfully proposed her dissertation: “Experiences of Students with Disabilities and Transition Support Services in Postsecondary Settings: A Proposed Study of Perspectives on Financial Planning as well as Student Self-Perceptions of their Own Financial Decision-Making Abilities”
- Congratulations to Jeffrey Yo who successfully proposed his dissertation: “Bridging the Gap: The Influence of Teacher-Child Racial Matching in Addressing STEM Underrepresentation Among High School Students of Color”
Recent Publications
Understanding Families’ Experiences of Poverty: Results of a Qualitative Study Exploring the Perspectives of Children and Their Parents