Kate Ragon

Professional Bio

Kate Ragon is a labor educator and assistant clinical professor at Penn State's School of Labor and Employment Relations. Their areas of research and teaching expertise include social movements, organization studies, labor, and qualitative research methods. Prior to coming to Penn State, Ragon earned a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Connecticut and then served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin and Augustana Colleges. While working toward their Ph.D., they got their start in the labor movement working as a field organizer to help fellow graduate students form their union and was elected to the first Executive Board of UAW Local 6950. At Penn State you can find them developing and facilitating workshops and trainings with their colleagues in the LABOR School as well as teaching undergraduate courses LHR 136 Race, Gender, and Employment and LHR 468 American Labor Unions. Kate Ragon is also the faculty advisor for the student club United Students Against Sweatshops/Student Works at Penn State (USAS/SWAPS).

Recent Publications:

Ragon, Kate. 2024. “Unionization.” In Deric Shannon Ed. Inequality Around the World: Understanding the Rich-Poor Divide from America to Zimbabwe. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Ragon, Kathleen A. and Daisy Verduzco Reyes. 2023. “Insider-Outsider Dynamics and Identity in Qualitative Studies of Social Movements.” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change. Volume 47.

Ragon, Kathleen A., Al Evangelista, & Kip Hutchins. 2023. “Bringing Autoethnography to Undergraduates: An Interdisciplinary Course-Cluster and Lab at Oberlin College.” Journal of Autoethnography 4(2): 236–254.

Reyes, Daisy Verduzco and Kathleen Ragon. 2018. “Analyzing Ethnoracial Mobilization.” Sociology Compass. 12(10): 1-13.