Janice McCabe

Gender in Twentieth-Century Children’s Books Patterns of Disparity in Titles and Central Characters

Gender representations reproduce and legitimate gender systems. To examine this aspect of the gendered social order, we analyze the representation of males and females in the titles and central characters of 5,618 children’s books published throughout the twentieth century in the United States. Compared to females, males are represented nearly twice as often in titles and 1.6 times as often as central characters. By no measure in any book series (i.e., Caldecott award winners, Little Golden Books, and books listed in the Children’s Catalog) are females represented more frequently than males. We argue that these disparities are evidence of symbolic annihilation and have implications for children’s understandings of gender. Nevertheless, important differences in the extent of the disparity are evident by type of character (i.e., child or adult, human or animal), book series, and time period. Specifically, representations of child central characters are the most equitable and animals the most inequitable; Little Golden Books contain the most unequal representations; and the 1930s-1960s—the period between waves of feminist activism—exhibits greater disparities than earlier and later periods. Examining multiple types of books across a long time period shows that change toward gender equality is uneven, nonlinear, and tied to patterns of feminist activism and backlash throughout the century.

Managing Emotional Manhood: Fighting and Fostering Fear in Mixed Martial Arts.

Based on two years of fieldwork and over 100 interviews, we analyze mixed martial arts fighters’ fears, how they managed them, and how they adopted intimidating personas to evoke fear in opponents. We conceptualize this process as “managing emotional manhood,” which refers to emotion management that signifies, in the dramaturgical sense, masculine selves. Our study aims to deepen our understanding of how men’s emotion work is gendered and, more generally, to bring together two lines of research: studies of gendered emotion management and studies of emotional identity work. We further propose that managing emotional manhood is a dynamic and trans-situational process that can be explored in diverse settings.

Doing Multiculturalism: An Interactionist Analysis of the Practices of a Multicultural Sorority

Despite the many references to multiculturalism in academic works and media accounts, we know little about what it is like in practice. Drawing on data from interviews, ethnographic observations, and archival materials from a multicultural sorority chapter, this article highlights three main ways its members do multiculturalism: (1) recognizing and valuing differences, (2) teaching and learning about differences, and (3) bridging differences via personal friendships and organizational alliances. Broad racial ideologies and the culture of the university and the Greek system, however, created the conditions under which sorority members do multiculturalism, including their focus on some differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, and sexual identity) and neglect of others (i.e., class and gender). While the multicultural sorority sought to lessen racial divisions on campus and their approach opposed colorblind ideology, they presented little challenge to the hegemony of the campus Greek system. This study has implications for understanding Greek Letter Organizations, multiculturalism as a collective practice, and how countering colorblind ideology can reproduce other inequality-legitimating ideologies.

Pathways to Financing College Race and Class in Students’ Narratives of Paying for School

Researchers have investigated many aspects of college financing. Yet, we know little about the processes involved—that is, the details of students’ understandings and experiences, intersectional differences by race and first-generation-student background, and changes over students’ college careers. Based on students’ narratives, this article addresses these gaps in the literature by developing the concept of pathways to financing college to capture race- and class-based inequalities in the financial, cultural, and social capital students draw on as they navigate college costs and how these resources change over time. We find four pathways: (1) white students whose parents attended college relied on their parents’ financial and cultural capital; (2) white first-generation students initially received financial help from parents, but these resources ran out, leaving a burden on students in the later years of college; (3) black students whose parents attended college pieced together capital from multiple sources, including social capital from parents’ networks; and (4) black and Latina/o first-generation students shouldered the burden themselves. Our qualitative, intersectional, and longitudinal approach sheds new light on the social reproduction of inequalities by documenting inconsistencies in financial, cultural, and social capital provided by parents and counselors throughout students’ college careers and how students lacking such resources often muddle through alone.

Making Theory Relevant: The Gender Attitude and Belief Inventory.

This article describes and evaluates the Gender Attitude and Belief Inventory (GABI), a teaching tool designed to aid students in (a) realizing how sociological theory links to their personal beliefs and (b) exploring any combination of 11 frequently used theoretical perspectives on gender, including both conservative theories (physiological, sociobiological, and structural functionalist) and feminist ones (liberal, socialist, Marxist, radical, separatist, cultural, multicultural/black, and postmodern feminism). In this article, I discuss the inventory, how I use it in my sociology of gender class, and how it could be adapted for use in other classes. I also analyze qualitative and quantitative evaluations of its effectiveness based on responses from students at two universities (N = 603) and pretest and posttest results of its impact on student learning immediately following the activity (N = 161) and at the end of the semester (N = 33). These data suggest that the GABI increases students’ understanding of theoretical perspectives on gender, encourages them to reflect on their own views and (mis)perceptions of theories, and is an engaging exercise for students. Most importantly, this is a valuable exercise to aid students in realizing how sociological theory links to their everyday lives.

Friends with Academic Benefits

College students’ friendship networks are associated with specific social and academic benefits, and their friends are both resources and liabilities in academic achievement.

Methodological Considerations from a Kinsey Institute Mixed Methods Pilot Project

Abstract Despite the growth of mixed methods, little attention has focused on the specific challenges of conducting mixed methods research on sexual experience and perceptions of sexuality. This paper’s purpose is to discuss the exploratory sequential design of, and methodological considerations originally arising from, a mixed methods pilot project that explored the possibility of updating components of Alfred Kinsey’s mid-20th century research on US men and women. This pilot project consisted of three phases: (1) cognitive interviews, (2) two modalities of computer-based surveys conducted in two settings with two samples, and (3) debriefing interviews with selected survey participants from phase two coupled with ethnographic observations. We describe the phases, focusing on how multiple methods facilitated the design and assessment of our pilot project. We end by highlighting methodological considerations relevant to our mixed methods approach – phase timing, research environment, longitudinal design, data security and privacy, and cost – and their implications for sexuality researchers.

Activism and the Academy

Janice McCabe interviews public intellectual Cornel West.