Michela Musto (pronounced Mai-kl-uh Muh-sto) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brown University, with expertise in the areas of gender & sexuality, race & ethnicity, education, children & families, and sport.

From K-12 schooling through professional sports, the notion of being “exceptional” permeates our daily lives. But who gets deemed exceptional, and how do these belief systems become gendered and racialized? Answering these questions forms the crux of Musto’s research agenda, which uses qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the social construction of exceptionalism in an array of settings. For instance, an article in American Sociological Review identifies how school processes shape middle school students’ gendered and racialized assessments of their and other students’ intelligence. A book project on this same topic is under advance contract with the University of Chicago Press.

Musto’s other work on the social construction of exceptionalism has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Social Forces, Gender & Society, The Sociology of Sport Journal, Communication & Sport, and Education Policy Analysis Archives. Additionally, Musto is the co-author of Child’s Play, an edited volume published with Rutgers University Press that takes social inequality in youth sport as its subject of inquiry.

In addition to receiving funding from the National Science Foundation, the NAEd/Spencer Foundation, the American Association for University Women, and the Haynes Foundation, Musto’s work has received awards from the ASA Sex & Gender and Children & Youth Sections.