Dr. Ken Cai Kowalski蜜桃影像Lalumiere Hall, 363
MilwaukeeWI53201United States of Americaken.kowalski@marquette.eduProfessor Kowalski (PhD 2025, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is a sociologist who studies popular beliefs and moral judgments about the economy, especially how market outcomes are portrayed, evaluated, and anticipated. His research examines a range of questions about cultural reality that originate in social theory, centering on how perceptions of the economy relate to personal experiences and political ideologies. This work covers topics like Americans' interpretations of economic data, judgments about meritocratic achievement, and imagined futures of technological change. His award-winning scholarship appears in Socius, Work and Occupations, Quality & Quantity, New Media & Society, and Sociological Perspectives. Professor Kowalski's classes examine theories about the self and society, consumer culture, and political life.
SOCI 3000 Sociological Theory
SOCI 4700 Political Sociology
SOCI 4730 Capitalism and Socialism
Knowledge (economy and technology), economic sociology, political culture, social theory, qualitative methods
Recent research:
Kowalski, Ken Cai. 2025. 鈥淭he Double-Disconnect: Skepticism about Public Economic Data and Distrust in Media Discourse about the Economy.鈥� Socius 11:1-18. Open access:
Kowalski, Ken Cai and Andrew J. Perrin. 2024. 鈥溾�業 Have to Pick a Percentage Now鈥�: Indeterminate Meanings of Moderate Survey Responses.鈥� Quality & Quantity 58:3041-3061.
Ravenelle, Alexandrea J. and Ken Cai Kowalski. 2023. 鈥溾�業t鈥檚 Not Like Chasing Chanel鈥�: Spending Time, Investing in the Self, and Pandemic Epiphanies.鈥� Work and Occupations 50(2):284-309.
