Dr. Maloney’s research addresses the sociology of education and teacher preparation, consequences of charter schools, and the sociology of morality. Her research and teaching focus on aspects of teacher training and attitudes and examine why certain national programs, among them Teach For America, fail or succeed in producing quality teachers. Dr. Maloney has a special interest in qualitatively examining how educators react to (and sometimes circumvent) educational laws and policies that they see as harmful to their students. Specifically, she is currently writing about how teachers cheat on standardized exams, as well as how teachers and administrators actively engage in either keeping immigrant students out of a school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline or strategically act to use the fear of that pipeline to cause “problem students” to drop out.