Cameron Macdonald

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Cameron Macdonald, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, teaches courses in social theory, the sociology of work and families, and qualitative methods. She applies her expertise in her research on multiple aspects of paid and unpaid care work. During her Bunting year she will complete her book, Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs, and the Social Construction of Mothering, forthcoming with University of California Press. In this project, she investigates how working mothers negotiate the division of mothering labor with a paid caregiver, exploring the conflicts and contradictions inherent in commodified mother-work, and suggests possible solutions. In addition, she is currently conducting a comparative study of organizing efforts by childcare workers and nurses and is beginning a project exploring how working families care for critically ill members in an age of managed care.

Macdonald received her PhD in sociology from Brandeis University. Her dissertation, “Working Mothers and Mother-Workers,” led to her current book in progress. Prior to her employment at the University of Connecticut, Macdonald taught in the Social Studies Department of Harvard University and was a teaching assistant at Brandeis University and at the University of California, Berkeley.