Utilizing qualitative methods, Dr. Ardoin's scholarship explores how social class and classism show up in higher education spaces for both students and employees. This includes everything from admissions and hiring practices that favor wealthy applicants’ attributes to sense of belonging barriers on campus for students, staff, and faculty to completion and employee retention gaps between social class groups. Further, Dr. Ardoin studies first-generation college student status, rurality, and race. She often conducts research and publishes at the intersections of these identity aspects. Dr. Ardoin has published widely on social class, including three books: one focused on college access (College Aspirations and Access in Working-Class, Rural Communities, 2018), another on belonging (Straddling Class in the Academy, 2019), and a third on scalable institutional supports (Social Class Supports, 2021). She also has two recent co-edited books, one centering race within rurality (Race and Rurality, 2024) and one highlighting the experiences of marginalized and minoritized faculty across social identities (Creating Space for Ourselves as Minoritized and Marginalized Faculty, 2024).