Betsy Lucal

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE GENDERED ME: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System

What are the implications of living in a gender system that recognizes “two and only two” genders? For those individuals whose “gender displays” are inappropriate, there can be a variety of consequences, many of them negative. In this article, the author provides an analysis of her experiences as a woman whose appearance often leads to gender misattribution. She discusses the consequences of the gender system for her identity and her interactions. The author also examines Lorbers assertion that “gender bending” actually serves to perpetuate gender categories rather than to break them down, and she suggests how her experiences might contradict Lorbers argument. Using her biography to examine the social construction of gender, she both illustrates and extends theoretical work in this area.

Teachers’ recognition and reporting of child abuse: a factorial survey☆

OBJECTIVEnThe major aim of this study was to determine the effect of characteristics of the case, the teacher, and the organizational setting on recognition and reporting of child abuse.nnnMETHODnA factorial survey design was employed in which a probability sample of teachers (N = 480) responded to vignettes in which case characteristics were systematically manipulated.nnnRESULTSnAnalysis using OLS regression showed that case characteristics alone accounted for 50.30% of the variance in recognition and 51.08% of the variance in reporting: the strongest effects were from type and seriousness of abuse, positive behavior of the victim and positive psychology of the perpetrator. The inclusion of variables describing the teachers and the school explained only a very small additional proportion of the variance in teachers responses.nnnCONCLUSIONSnTeachers responses to child abuse are relatively unbiased by either the extraneous characteristics of the perpetrator or victim, the responding teacher, or the school setting. The findings do not appear to support the problem of overreporting. There is evidence for underreporting, particularly in less serious cases involving physical and emotional abuse. Teachers are undeterred by the many problems and fears that may accompany a report of child abuse to Child Protective Services. Teachers use discretion in reporting abuse they recognize.

Oppression And Privilege: Toward a Relational Conceptualization of Race.

LA. affirme que la notion de race constitue une des notions les plus controversees, qui pose le plus de difficultes sur le plan de lenseignement de la sociologie. Il souligne que lon tend trop souvent a reduire son approche en la mettant en relation avec les mecanismes doppression. Il propose une perspective qui met sur laccent sur lideologie de la suprematie et du privilege lie a la race blanche. Il presente un modele relationnel de la notion de race et sefforce denvisager son utilite en matiere pedagogique

Faculty assessment and the scholarship of teaching and learning: Knowledge available/knowledge needed

This article addresses the relationship between the scholarship of teaching and learning (STL) and faculty assessment. We examine issues related to the way STL is handled within faculty assessment as well as aspects of faculty assessment that could be topics for STL. Topics suggested for STL on assessment (student evaluations, teaching and learning styles, distance education, and faculty sociodemographics) would contribute to our understanding the evaluation of teaching. Consideration of the knowledge currently available and the knowledge needed in these areas leads us to two conclusions. First, there is considerable opportunity for sociologists to contribute to STL within faculty assessment. Contributions can be made in understanding what constitutes STL and methods for assessing contributions in this area of research. Second, both conceptual and empirical STL can be conducted within a sociological framework to improve methods of assessing teaching during faculty assessment.

Tapping into Parallel Universes: Using Superhero Comic Books in Sociology Courses.

that sociology instructors need not follow the traditional teaching model of lecturing to a captive audience. Fiction, film, and music are popular culture media that have been suggested as means for establishing links between sociology and the real world outside our classrooms (Laz 1996; Loewen 1991; Martinez 1995; Pescosolido 1990). Given the visibility of comic book characters in American culture, it is surprising that more sociologists have not looked to comic books as another resource for teaching. A common goal in teaching is to connect the parallel universes of sociology and everyday life to show students the relevance of the sociological perspective. Sociology provides a unique perspective on popular culture items such as comic books. By using comic books in class, instructors can provide students with an illustration of how sociology is applicable even in places where they may least expect it to be relevant. As a universe within everyday life, and an accessible medium, comic books can provide illustrations of a variety of sociological concepts and topics. Their stories and settings parallel life, offering an analytical milieu that, while exaggerated in some ways, shows some of the same phenomena that exist in contemporary culture. Incorporating the exercise we present below provides an easy way to give students some hands-on experience doing sociology and some further insight into the pertinence of a sociological perspective. In this note, we provide objectives and guidelines for preparing and executing a classroom exercise using superhero comic books. We describe variations of the exercise and make specific suggestions about how to use it in different sociology courses. Finally, we discuss where to obtain comic books and the costs involved in purchasing them.

Class Stratification in Introductory Textbooks: Relational or Distributional Models?.

Afin dapprehender quelle representation de la stratification sociale est offerte aux etudiants, lA. a examine 15 manuels scolaires americains dintroduction a la sociologie. Deux approches peuvent etre distinguees : lapproche distributionnelle, la plus representee, est essentiellement descriptive ; lapproche relationnelle met en lumiere les relations de controle et de subordination, les conflits et les systemes doppressions et de privileges. Le choix de lune ou lautre approche nest pas sans influence sur la representation sociale des etudiants

THE PEDAGOGY OF (IN)VISIBILITY: TWO ACCOUNTS OF TEACHING ABOUT SEX, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY

As teachers who use both our theoretical (academic) and practical (empirical) knowledge to entice our students to peer outside of the seemingly clear-cut boxes of the two-and-only-two dichotomies of sex, gender, and sexuality, we attempt to problematize not only sexuality categories but also gender categories (specifically, the category “woman”). While “coming out” complicates heterosexuality, it does little to question how non-normative sexual identities continue to be rendered and re-negotiated once sexual identity claims are made or are perceived to have been made. Moreover, as teachers concerned with gendered identities, we find it imperative in both our classroom and other academic settings to make the connection between gendered identities and sexual(ized) identities. For example, if a feminine woman who is married to a man comes out as bisexual, she may disrupt students assumptions about the lives of bisexual people. The pedagogical effects of such a performance of bisexuality are clear: students can rethink their assumptions about bisexuality. However, if a masculine woman comes out as a lesbian, she may reinforce students assumptions about the lives of lesbians. The pedagogical effects, therefore, are less clear. These experiences have forced us to rethink how we might continue to eradicate gender and sexuality inequality in the classroom. This has meant that we must deal with the social fact that our bodies embody (in)visibility politics whether we decide to “come-out” to our students and colleagues or if we are intent on “keeping them guessing.”

2014 Hans O. Mauksch Address: Neoliberalism and Higher Education How a Misguided Philosophy Undermines Teaching Sociology

This article argues that neoliberalism is a critical public issue influencing the apparently private troubles of college students and teachers. For example, earning a college degree has become ever more important for success; yet, because of declining state support for public education, students are taking on extraordinary levels of debt. As a result, learning is being pushed aside by vocational and other considerations that result from neoliberal policy imperatives. For teachers, the decline of the tenure system means fewer full-time faculty members to do more work and fewer people who have the protection to speak out against neoliberal excess. Unless sociology teachers (along with teachers in other disciplines) do something to change the current system, higher education will continue to decline.

Better Informed, Still Skeptical: Response to Machalek and Martin

After accepting the editor’s invitation to write a response to Richard Machalek and Michael W. Martin’s ‘‘Evolution, Biology, and Society: A Conversation for the 21st-Century Sociology Classroom,’’ I took up their recommendation to learn more about recent work on biology and social behavior. I considered seriously the authors’ observation that it might not be simple ‘‘biophobia’’ (Ellis 1996) that had resulted in my distaste for biological explanations but my ignorance of recent developments in the field. Perhaps I was not so much a dogmatic ‘‘secular creationist’’ (Ehrenreich and McIntosh 1997) but someone who suffered from ‘‘bioilliteracy’’ (Machalek and Martin 2004). Thus began my quest to overcome my ignorance, to understand the five concepts Machalek and Martin cite as central to sociobiology: epigenesis, the interaction principle, the norm of reaction, prepared learning, and emergence. The authors seemed to be arguing that armed with such knowledge, I would conclude that the four criticisms of biological approaches often leveled by bioilliterate sociologists are based on stereotypes that result in misrepresentations of the ‘‘logic and substance of evolutionary theory.’’ In other words, as the authors put it in an earlier article, I would see that much criticism of sociobiology ‘‘appears to target a ‘straw man’’’ (Machalek and Martin 2004:459). Of course, given that they have chosen to write an article for Teaching Sociology, Machalek and Martin also hope that as a result of my transformed understanding, I would decide to spend more time on these perspectives in my courses. So I began to read. Lots of journal articles, following a trail from Machalek and Martin’s list of references to the works cited in those articles. Chapters and sections in introductory textbooks (Nolan and Lenski 2009; Stark 2007; Turner 2006) recommended by Machalek and Martin. Newsletters of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) section on Evolution, Biology and Society. When the ASA’s Members’ News and Notes for July featured an article from Sociological Theory titled ‘‘Toward a Unified Stratification Theory: Structure, Genome and Status across Human Societies’’ (Adkins and Vaisey 2009), I added it to my reading list, too. Frankly, I became a bit obsessed with the topic. Along the way, I found myself agreeing with former ASA president Douglas Massey (2000:700, 701) when he noted that sociologists need a better understanding of ‘‘human beings as biological organisms’’; I was even willing to consider the idea that humans ‘‘have inherited certain predispositions to thought and behavior’’ (see Massey 2002 for an extended discussion). I nodded when Freese, Li, and Wade (2003) launched into an examination of ‘‘some of the varying ways in which the specific materiality of the human actor—our ‘biology’—can be asserted to be relevant toward understanding why we behave as we do or why human societies are organized as they are’’ (p. 234). I fondly recalled my high school biology classes when Robinson, Grozinger, and Whitfield (2005) referred to research on Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) in their review; they conclude their discussion with the point that ‘‘the genome is highly sensitive to social influence’’ and that ‘‘flexibility is the hallmark of behaviour’’ (p. 268). I even stuck with Masters’s (2001) article ‘‘Biology and Politics: Linking Nature and

Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

selects an array of organizational theories to sample without a clear logic as to how they fit together or why and how different theories may lead to different hypotheses. While one comes away with a sense that UMDNJ was a bad medical school that deserved to be shut down by the federal and state governments, the book leaves the reader to ponder the ‘‘so what?’’ question. Despite the attempts to make wider claims, the information presented and lack of data (and analysis based on sociological literature) to the contrary means that the message a reader might get from this book is that the system works—the bad apple (troubled university) was discarded.