Sara McClelland, PhD

Ways to Contact Me

Email | 734-763-9618 | Academia.edu | Google Scholar

204 S. State St. Lane Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Overview

  • Professor, Women’s & Gender Studies Dept. and Psychology Dept. at the University of Michigan

  • PhD in Social/Personality Psychology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York (2009)

  • Postdoctoral Fellow in the University of Michigan’s Society of Fellows (2009-2012)

Teaching

I teach courses on the Psychology of Women & Gender; Adolescent Sexuality; Feminist Methods; and Sex, Sexuality & Public Policy. For more information on the courses I teach, see the Teaching page.

Departmental Affiliations

I am a feminist psychologist who studies stigma and discrimination, with a focus on issues of reproductive justice and critical sexuality studies.

My research examines how social and political environments unevenly shape people’s intimate lives. In addition, I critically evaluate how research methods too often obscure the effects of chronic discrimination and structural inequalities. I've studied this often in the domain of women's sexual health, including national and institutional policies that structure how information is provided (or not), how outgroups are treated, and how stereotypes make mistreatment and injustice appear to be expected and even deserved. My current research focuses on how people in the U.S. think about abortion, particularly at the intersection of race and gender. I focus on the role of everyday attitudes, beliefs, and emotions that continually shape the environment around those who seek abortion care. See this talk from the 2024 SPSSI Annual Conference for an overview of this research on abortion attitudes.

I often design research with translational aims, particularly in medicine, education, and policy. This has included: studying the role of racist stereotypes in abortion attitudes, the effects of abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education on young adults, and gaps in clinical care for women diagnosed with cancer. Examples of the impact my research has had include Peggy Orenstein's best-selling book, Girls & Sex and her TED talk, which relied on my theory of intimate justice to examine young women's sexual development.

A major focus of my research has been the development of “critical methods,” which are methods that look beyond traditional evaluation procedures to assess subtle information about the role of imagination, history, and political rights in psychological data. For examples, see my work on the self-anchored ladder, survey marginalia, item bank analysis, and research using Q methods.

For a description of some of the kind of research and questions I work with, see the following:

This encyclopedia entry about my research (written by ProgressLab alum Leanna Papp & Harley Dutcher) offers an excellent overview of my work related to sex ed and critical sexuality studies:

Recent Awards:

  • 2025 Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Mentoring in Qualitative Inquiry Award (APA Div 5)

  • 2025 Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award (University of Michigan)

  • 2023 The Lynn Stuart Weiss Lecturer (APA)

  • 2018 Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Award from the American Psychological Association (APA)

  • 2018 Distinguished Early Career Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award (APA Div 5)

  • 2016 Mary Walsh Roth Teaching the Psychology of Women Award (APA Div 35)

  • 2014 Michele Alexander Early Career Award for Scholarship and Service (SPSSI, APA Div 9)


Recent Press mentions can be found here

Recent ProgressLab Honors can be found here