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Rebecca Karam

Rebecca Karam
  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of Sociology
  • PhD City University of New York, 2020

LINKS

www.rebeccakaram.com

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vSEnqpoAAAAJ&hl=en

BIOGRAPHY

Rebecca Karam (PhD CUNY Graduate Center) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University and affiliated faculty with MSU Muslim Studies. Her research is situated at the intersection of race and ethnicity, the sociology of religion, and immigration to the United States.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Dr. Karam’s research examines the intersections of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, and religion in the United States with a particular focus on Muslim and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Americans. Her forthcoming book, Making Muslim Americans (under contract with NYU Press), examines the intergenerational transmission of religion and parenting strategies among second-generation Muslim American adults. Drawing on qualitative data, the book explores how parents navigate race, religion, and politics while raising children in contexts shaped by discrimination, surveillance, and political polarization. Her work highlights how broader social and political structures shape everyday parenting practices, including processes of religious and racial socialization.

PUBLICATIONS

Gambol, Brenda, Rebecca A. Karam, and Andrew Taeho Kim. 2026. “Nursing as Ethnic Capital: Perceptions of Intergenerational Niching among Filipino Americans.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 52(5), 1218–1242. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2584342 
Karam, Rebecca A. 2025. “Uncertain Safety: Uncovering the Religious Racial Socialization Process among Muslim American Families.” Journal of Family Studies 31(2): 226-250.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2024.2433488
Karam, Rebecca A. 2025. “Soccer Moms and Social Justice: Concerted Cultivation among Affluent Arab Muslim American Families” in Arab Detroit: Rights, Respect, Responsibility, edited by A. Shryock and S. Howell. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.