Racial Glass Ceilings,Gendered Responses: Taiwanese American Professionals’ Experiences of Otherness

This article examines Taiwanese American professionals’ interpretations of the glass ceiling to illuminate the manifestations of structural inequality at the micro-level of social life. Data are based on 40 in-depth interviews in the Chicago metropolitan area. Findings suggest that racial inequalities are experienced through race relations. Ethnic cultures construct relational fences along racial lines that designate the place of each group in the racial hierarchy. Although frustrated and alienated by their marginalized position, women and men use different strategies to negotiate the meaning of being an “other.” Women act confrontationally to transgress social boundaries, while men adopt acquiescent and coalitional approaches to dwell in their designated territories. I argue that race intersects with gender and citizenship in shaping the salience of individuals’ social identities, which affects their responses to racial inequality in the white-collar workplace.     

Racial,Ethnic, and National Boundaries: Sexual Intersections and Symbolic Interactions

Sex and race are strained, if not strange, bedfellows. Sexual depictions and denigrations of racial, ethnic, and national “others” and the regulation of in‐group sexual behavior are important mechanisms by which ethnic boundaries are constructed, maintained, and defended. Race, ethnicity, and the nation are sexualized, and sexuality is racialized, ethnicized, and nationalized. The sexual systems that prop up ethnic boundaries and define ethnic identities and communities tend to be inherently conservative blueprints for ethnosexual living. These systems stress endogamy, heterosexuality and reproduction under the rubric of traditional, often patriarchal family life for ethnic group members and tend to demonize and denigrate the sexuality of those outside ethnic boundaries or of those within ethnic communities who do not conform to heteronormative, heteroconventional models of sexuality. I present several examples of the intersections of race, ethnicity, nationalism, and sexuality/ies from U.S. and international settings, and I argue that the symbolic interaction between ethnicity and sexuality is central to their mutual constitution.     

Bridging the Border between Work and Family: The Effects of Supervisor‐Employee Similarity*

We examine the relationship between supervisor‐employee race/ethnicity, gender, and caregiving similarity and employees’ perceptions that supervisors provide support for bridging the border between work and family life. Employees report greater net perceived supervisor interactional support, but not instrumental support, when the immediate supervisor is the same race/ethnicity or the same gender as the employee, but not when they have similar caregiving responsibilities. Having a supervisor of the same gender is more salient for women and race/ethnic similarity is more salient for men. We also find patterns of difference in the relative salience of gender and race/ethnic similarity within race/ethnic/gender groups.     

Drawing the Line: An Exploratory Study of Single College Student Perceptions of Marital Boundaries in Opposite Sex Relationships

Marital boundary expectations among single young adults are examined within the context of gender and religiosity among a diverse single young adult sample (n = 422) consisting of college students residing in California, Utah, and Nebraska. Participants (ages 18–29, M = 22.42) completed an online survey and were given extra credit for their participation. The results show that these young adults tend to perceive the need for communication and gift-giving boundaries within the context of heterosexual marriages. Analyses also indicate a trend for women to have higher perceptions of marital boundaries than men and for religiosity (assessed in two different ways) to be linked with marital boundaries. Limitations and recommendations are discussed.     

Ethnic Community and Ethnic Boundaries in a “Sauce‐Scented Neighborhood”1

This article investigates the problem of ethnic boundary making in a changing context. Our case is Boston’s North End, a historically Italian neighborhood undergoing changes to its social and physical environment, making the ethnic definition of neighborhood identity and belonging more difficult though not less salient. Consequently, participants in the workings of the neighborhood—residents, business owners, politicians—face challenges of both boundary placement (who is Italian and who is not?), as well as cultural content (what does it mean to be “Italian”?). Rather than viewing Italian ethnicity as simply weakening over time, we argue that the North End shows ethnicity is in a stage of category divergence, where the still‐dominant ethnic identity is juxtaposed not against another ethnic out‐group, but at various times against boundaries of class and race, commercial and community values, even city political boundaries. Drawing on ethnographic research and in‐depth interviews, we describe three group identity frames that illustrate these processes and reveal how Italian ethnicity continues to animate discourse and action in the neighborhood.     

A struggle on two fronts: boundary drawing in the lower region of the social space and the symbolic market for ‘down‐to‐earthness’

In this article we use qualitative interviews to examine how Norwegians possessing low volumes of cultural and economic capital demarcate themselves symbolically from the lifestyles of those above and below them in social space. In downward boundary drawing, a range of types of people are regarded as inferior because of perceived moral and aesthetic deficiencies. In upward boundary drawing, anti‐elitist sentiments are strong: people practising resource‐demanding lifestyles are viewed as harbouring ‘snobbish’ and ‘elitist’ attitudes. However, our analysis suggests that contemporary forms of anti‐elitism are far from absolute, as symbolic expressions of privilege are markedly less challenged if they are parcelled in a ‘down‐to‐earth’ attitude. Previous studies have shown attempts by the privileged to downplay differences in cross‐class encounters, accompanied by displays of openness and down‐to‐earthness. Our findings suggest that there is in fact a symbolic ‘market’ for such performances in the lower region of social space. This cross‐class sympathy, we argue, helps naturalize, and thereby legitimize, class inequalities. The implications of this finding are outlined with reference to current scholarly debates about politics and populism, status and recognition and intersections between class and gender in the structuring of social inequalities. The article also contributes key methodological insights into the mapping of symbolic boundaries. Challenging Lamont's influential framework, we demonstrate that there is a need for a more complex analytical strategy rather than simply measuring the ‘relative salience’ of various boundaries in terms of their occurrence in qualitative interview data. In distinguishing analytically between usurpationary and exclusionary boundary strategies, we show that moral boundaries in particular can take on qualitatively different forms and that subtypes of boundaries are sometimes so tightly intertwined that separating them to measure their relative salience would neglect the complex ways in which they combine to engender both aversion to and sympathies for others.     

The push for transgender inclusion: Exploring boundary spanning in the gay–straight alliance

Gay–straight alliance (or gender‐sexuality alliance; GSA) is a high‐school based club aimed at providing a safer environment for sexual and gender minority youth as well as their straight allies. Yet, as a club historically rooted in addressing sexual orientation‐related concerns, less attention has been given to understanding the changing relational dynamics of internal GSA activities aimed at expanding membership boundaries through the promotion of transgender inclusivity. I address this by bridging existing scholarship on GSAs, social movements, and the sociology of culture to showcase the impact boundary‐spanning strategies are having on GSA mobilization, in‐group solidarity, and external political and social activism. My findings reveal that membership boundary negotiations around gender diversity issues are shifting the social landscape of these clubs. Emerging barriers that impede boundary‐spanning efforts are also highlighted and discussed. More broadly, I generate new theoretical insights into how boundary spanning can shape political and social activism as well as offer promising future research directions in this area.     

On Boundaries

In this essay, I discuss the consequences of establishing boundaries and categories and the consequences for peoples, the need to consider insider and outsider categories in the sociological endeavor, and some of the current problems in our society that have been revealed by research and the communication of boundary research.     

Changing Boundaries: Sorting Space,Class, Ethnicity and Race in Ontario*

This essay examines the components of space, class, ethnicity and race. The focus is on the Ontario urban system, including Toronto, Ottawa‐Hull, Hamilton and London. The emphasis is on how social class, ethnicity and race influence spatial residential differentiation. Toronto appears as a “Visible Minority” type. London follows an early British/Loyalist type, Hamilton an industrial blue‐collar type, and Thunder Bay a northwestern fringe. Urban areas in Ontario seem to serve a variety of functions, in line with Innis's conception of a core, semi‐core and fringe. Toronto acts as a magnet for immigrants. London is located in the agricultural base, Hamilton is a supplier of industrial jobs, and Thunder Bay provides staples supporting northern populations. Moreover, ethnicity and race are crucial indicators of boundaries, which must be accounted for in understanding urban communities.     

Sibling Family Practices: Guidelines for Healthy Boundaries

A questionnaire was given to 500 mental health and child welfare professionals asking for maximum acceptable ages for siblings to engage jointly in certain family practices related to hygiene, affection, and privacy. A large proportion of respondents felt it was never acceptable for siblings to take showers together (40%), kiss on the mouth (37%), or toilet together (32%). Some significant differences occurred based on the gender of the older sibling within sets of same gender or mixed gender pairs, with older brothers being acceptable up to lower ages than older sisters. The effects of child abuse, age, race, and the amount of education on the respondents' answers are investigated. The limitations of the age guidelines are discussed.     

"That's When the Neighborhood Went South": How Middle Class Blacks and Whites Police Racial Boundaries of Stigmatized Blackness

Drawing on evidence from a case study of a racially transitioning suburb of Chicago, we argue that both blacks and whites discursively form, maintain, protect, and navigate contradictory class and racial identities. The interactions between race and class are complex, but how do these complexities manifest themselves? We contend that racial groups utilize discursive storytelling to maintain boundaries, and that this is one of the ways in which racial and class inequalities are created and preserved. Furthermore, we explore the interworking of race and class, focusing on how class location helps mediate self-proclaimed middle class blacks’ and whites’ discourse on stigmatized forms of blackness. We conclude with a discussion of the sociological implications of this boundary maintenance, focusing on the ways in which whites and blacks in the middle class utilize various forms of capital to preserve status and power.     

Violating Boundaries

This essay begins by questioning the role that the word “boundary” plays when we say that a “sexual boundary violation” has occurred in an analytic treatment. Boundaries are bright lines drawn to separate lawful from unlawful, consensual from coerced, free from exploited, ownership from trespass, fantasy from reality. But the notion of boundaries fails in a profound and fateful way to capture the inescapable circulation of erotic transference and countertransference feelings in an analysis. Instead, this essay proposes that we look to the notion of sublimation for insights into the psychic dynamics of sexual behavior between analyst and analysand. It explores the ambivalence and mourning that surround the sublimation of desire. This discussion of sublimation sheds light on sexual violations in other types of professional relationships as well as recently adopted affirmative consent laws and policies on college campuses.     

Boundaries and the Functioning of Family and Business Systems

The purposes of the present study were to: (1) examine connections between performance success and the boundaries between families and the businesses they own and (2) explore whether boundary-performance links were mediated by satisfaction. Tests of the mediation hypothesis revealed that family satisfaction partially mediated connections between boundaries and family functioning. Business satisfaction fully mediated connections between boundary characteristics and business strengths, but did not mediate the relationship between boundary characteristics and cash flow problems. Although previous literature suggests that permeable boundaries (i.e. enmeshment) are especially problematic for family firms, this appears to be only partially true.     

Bodywork Boundaries: Power,Politics and Professionalism in Therapeutic Massage

In the last decade or so, complementary and alternative medicine generally, and therapeutic bodywork in particular, has been attempting to enhance its professional status and standing. By focusing upon the sex/gender dimensions of therapeutic massage and the wider historical, cultural and legal contexts in which such work is situated, this article explores and analyses the discursive formations and practices which women therapeutic massage practitioners deploy in the course of their attempts to achieve professional recognition. Drawing upon both primary and secondary data, it is argued that particular difficulties pertain in the case of the professionalization of therapeutic massage. Because of the widespread elisions between massage and sex work, women therapeutic massage practitioners have to mark out their professional distance from clients by deploying professional identifications and by using boundary‐setting devices or techniques which act to distinguish them from sex workers. This article explores these discursive formations and practices and argues that they act to create near‐intractable problems for women massage practitioners. The article concludes that, because these issues are not commonly acknowledged in much of the academic, policy or practitioner‐orientated literature, the neglect of sex/gender in the case of therapeutic massage has consequences not only for the professionaliza‐tion project of this particular therapeutic modality but for the ways in which various body work occupations in which women predominate tend to be seen as marginal and illegitimate ‘professions’.     

Parental responsibilities, social policy and the maintenance of boundaries

This article explores the theoretical, empirical and policy driven links between the idea of parental responsibility and the practice of boundary setting within the home. Two forms of boundary setting are initially described: first, parents’ attempts to draw boundaries between themselves and ‘external’ sources of child support such as the school and the social services; second, parents’ attempts to assert a clear hierarchical difference between themselves and their children. The article starts by assessing the extent to which boundaries are strengthened by recent education reform; and goes on to argue that a series of political and cultural demands on parents limit the success of any consistent boundary maintenance strategies adopted by parents. It finishes by reviewing the gendered nature of boundary setting within the home.     

The effects of interviewer race and child race on sexual abuse disclosures in forensic interviews

This study examined the impact of interviewer race and child race on disclosures by alleged child sexual abuse victims during forensic interviews. Despite findings that supportiveness of caretaker, gender of interviewer, gender of child, and age of child affect disclosure, previous studies have failed to examine race as a variable impacting disclosure in a real-world setting. The study examined 220 cases from an archive of reports generated from forensic interviews in an urban setting. The reports were reviewed and coded for degree of disclosure, focusing on African American and Caucasian children and interviewers. The results indicate that child race and the interaction of child race and interviewer race reliably distinguished between no disclosure, tentative disclosure, and disclosure with detailed account of activity, while interviewer race alone failed to serve as a significant predictor. The interaction between child race and interviewer race was not in the predicted direction, with cross-race dyads disclosing more than same-race dyads. Results are discussed in the context of real-world applications versus the previous analogue child sexual abuse literature.     

Spousal caregiving and crossing gender boundaries: Maintaining gendered identities

This study gathered in-depth interview data from a mostly rural sample (N = 22) of primary spousal caregivers for non-institutionalized persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. In exploring the ways gender might influence caregiving, we find that husbands and wives both cross gender boundaries in order to give care to their spouses; and such traversing presents different challenges to each. Not only must they take on responsibilities that their spouses used to perform, but we also point to a generally invisible but important form of crossing gender boundaries — the maintenance of the gender identities of their spouses. Doing so involves more than simply performing tasks; it involves an implicit recognition of the other as a gendered being and the importance of masculinity or femininity to personal identity. Uncovering this latter dimension, and understanding how men and women approach their new tasks has important implications for theory and policy, including intervention strategies.