معرفی
Rima Wilkes is a Professor and Graduate Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Arts. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of Toronto and a B.A. in Sociology from Queen's University. Her research focuses on how politics relates to racial and ethnic inequality, examining how people think, the actions they take, and where they live.
Her research interests fall primarily within Political Sociology, Race and Ethnicity, Indigeneity, Public Opinion (particularly regarding immigration and trust), Media Coverage, and Collective Action/Social Movements. She has developed innovative approaches to studying Indigenous resistance through media analysis, creating the first quantitative dataset focusing solely on Indigenous resistance in Canada. Her work on public opinion examines different kinds of racism, racial and ethnic group trust, and attitudes toward immigration across multiple nations.
Professor Wilkes' publications demonstrate a consistent pattern of examining the intersection between media representation, political trust, and racial/ethnic dynamics. Her research often employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze media content, public opinion trends, and social movement dynamics, with particular attention to Indigenous resistance movements in Canada and immigration attitudes in Western societies.
She has supervised numerous graduate students through both Master's and Ph.D. programs, with current students working on topics related to Indigenous resistance, immigration, trust, and social movements. Her students have completed theses on diverse topics including media representation, immigration attitudes, Indigenous politics, and social movement dynamics.
As Graduate Chair for the Department of Sociology, she plays a significant role in the academic leadership of the department while maintaining an active research program that bridges sociology, political science, media studies, and Indigenous studies.
