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Paul S. DeanPaul Dean is Professor of Sociology and Adviser for the Social Justice major. His teaching and research areas include Stratification and Inequality; Race and Ethnicity; First-Gen Students; Social Justice; Social Movements; Economic Sociology; Socially Responsible Business; Sociological Theory; Globalization; and Service Learning. Along with co-author George Ritzer, he has written two books: Globalization: A Basic Text (2015, 2022) and Globalization: The Essentials (2019). His third book focuses on first-gen college graduates and will be published with Rutgers University Press in 2025. Dr. Dean has also published on corporate social responsibility, stratification across race and class, educational travel, service learning, and even Jack Kerouac's On the Road.
In his current research (an upcoming book with Rutgers University Press), Dr. Dean explores the differences between working-class and middle-class cultures, and how first-gen graduates manage the cultural experience of their upward journey. On the one hand, working-class first-gen students face a cultural mismatch in higher education and the professional world, which can take a heavy emotional toll. On the other hand, there are a variety of ways that upwardly mobile first-gen grads have turned their working-class roots into an asset. Drawing upon 37 in-depth interviews, the book reveals how first-gen graduates use their working-class cultural capital across a variety of occupational backgrounds. It examines the role that working-class cultural capital plays in professional work, and how upwardly mobile first-gen graduates navigate middle-class contexts while lifting up others around them.
At OWU, Dr. Dean has won the Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award for Encouragement of Teachers (2018), Presidential Award for Racial and Cultural Diversity (2017), and Bishop Francis Emner Kearns Faculty of the Year Award (2016). He was also co-creator of The Sociological Cinema, an award-winning website for using video and popular culture to teach and learn sociology.
You will often see Dr. Dean on campus with his dog, Kerouac. When he's not working with students or on his research, Dr. Dean loves hiking, relaxing with his family, watching live music, and playing with Kerouac.
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)