The “Peculiar Eclipsing” of Women in Sociological Theory: Moving from Nearly Total to Partial

This paper revisits the observation made by Ward and Grant (Current Perspective in Social Theory 11:117–140, 1991) that there had been a “peculiar eclipsing” of women in sociological theory. It provides longitudinal studies of women’s participation and recognition in three conventional outlets for sociological theorizing: the theory section of the American Sociological Association (ASA); sociological theory textbooks; and sociological theory journals. It finds that the percentage of ASA Theory Section members who were women increased from 12% in 1982 to 31% in 2008, but is not nearly as high as the 53% in all ASA sections taken together; that women’s recognition in sociological theory textbooks grew, more between the 1980s and the 2000s than between the 1960s and the 1980s, undoubtedly reflecting the increasing respectability of feminist theory within the profession; and that women’s relative participation as authors in sociology theory journals increased from the 1980s to the 2000s by about 33%, but nowhere near as much as their participation as authors in the American Sociological Review, where their relative participation in the 2000s was more than three times what it had been in the 1980s. We speculate that, given women’s increasing leadership roles in both the Theory section and the theory journals, women may be using less conventional outlets for their theorizing than is offered by either the section or the journals.     

Graduate education in an age of decline

In the 1980s, sociology departments in a number of universities have been caught up in a deteriorating educational environment. Many have experienced reduced numbers of faculty and students, often becoming little more than service departments. This article looks at this process as it occurred at a midwestern university noted for its strong theoretical tradition in graduate education. How this happened and the effects it had on graduate students is the focus of this work. Barbara Ryan graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1986 and presently is teaching in the Department of Sociology at Northern Illinois University. Her specialty area is social movements and her dissertation was an analysis of change in the contemporary women’s movement.     

Are minority women sociologists in double jeopardy?

We examine whether minority women in academic sociology face disadvantages that exceed those that would be expected by simply compounding the disadvantage of being a woman with that of being nonwhite or Hispanic. In a national survey of sociology departments, evidence of such “double jeopardy” appears in minority women’s severe underrepresentation among full professors, in both very small and very large departments, in undergraduate programs, in the Northeast, and in public institutions. Minority women are somewhat better represented among graduate students, but disadvantaged relative to minority men in their share of financial support. A pool of doctoral students now exists from which minority women faculty may be recruited, but these women appear to be leaving faculties faster than they are being replaced. His research interests include intergenerational family structure, social support across the life course, and U.S. antipoverty policy. He is currently collaborating on a longitudinal study of institutional predictors of the pace of affirmative action for women faculty in sociology. Her major research interest is in the area of work and personality. She is collaborating on a longitudinal study of women and minorities in U.S. sociology departments.     

Occupational feminization, occupational decline? Sociology’s changing sex composition

In recent years, research and popular wisdom have often linked the feminization of sociology with discussions of sociology's decline. In light of these concerns, this article examines recent data on the influx of women into sociology's graduate programs and academic positions, women’s position in the field, and the health of the field itself. The data show that women have made notable progress moving into academic sociology's recruitment pool, and lower level academic positions. As well, the gender gap in earnings has narrowed, real annual earnings continue to increase, and underemployment and underutilization continue to decline. All these are strong indicators that the field is on the upswing, and women's position in it improving. Despite these successes, gender boundaries remain in the sociological workplace. Women are not represented in the numbers one would expect in the tenured associate and full professor ranks, and all races have not benefited equally from the declining earnings gap. Intellectual boundaries also persist, as men and women often operate in different sociological spheres. This article is a revision of a talk given at the 1995 Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Washington, D.C., August. An abridged version (without tables) was published in the Newsletter of the American Sociological Association's Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work. I wish to thank Lee Clarke, Helmut Anheier, and Judith Gerson for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and Carla Howery and Michael Schuchert for providing data from ASA data bases.     

Integrating feminist and sociological thought: The life and work of helena Znaniecka Lopata

This work is a biographical essay on the academic career of Helena Znaniecka Lopata, a noted sociologist in her own right and the daughter of Florian Znaniecki, a principal contributor to qualitative and humanistic sociology. Lopata’s story documents the difficulties of establishing a career in a social climate that did not place high value on women beyond their wife and mothering roles. Once she defied her cultural expectations, she also had to overcome the shadow of her father’s legacy and, finally, she had to find acceptance for doing research on women’s everyday life experiences. Lopata’s work provides important insights into the sociological study of social roles and of gender as a structural component of stratified social systems. She has published articles on the women’s movement, politics and the family, and the abortion controversy. Her book,Feminism and the Women’s Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism, is forthcoming from Unwin Hyman. A version of this paper was presented at the 1989 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA.     

Departmental quality ratings and visibility: The advantages of size and age

In this article I argue that quality ratings can be conceptualized as reflecting the extent to which departments are visible to outside raters. Using cross-sectional as well as panel data on sociology departments from the two latest surveys of graduate education published by the National Research Council in 1982 and 1995, I explain departmental quality ratings in terms of measures that reflect a department’s visibility, such as its faculty productivity, size, age, and location at an elite-status university. While the results of the cross-sectional and the longitudinal models tell different stories, the two are not incompatible. Specifically, both models suggest strong effects of departmental size and age. By comparison, the estimated effects of faculty productivity and location at an elite-status university are weaker and significant only in the cross-sectional model. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY, August 1996. This research was conducted under a FLAS fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education. I wish to thank Lowell Hargens for helpful comments and advice.     

Productivity of women scholars and gender researchers: Is funding a factor?

Articles by women scholars and proportions of articles focused on gender have increased steadily in major sociology journals since 1974. Women are more heavily represented as journal authors than as members of graduate-program departments, the institutional bases where most published work originates. We consider whether funding might account for these patterns by examining acknowledgement of support in published articles. We find no significant relationships among author gender, article topic, and notation of internal funding. Male-authored articles focused on nongender topics acknowledge external funding significantly more often than women-authored works and articles focused on gender written by women or men. Funding patterns therefore do not appear to account for increased productivity by women and gender researchers. She is currently studying the educational achievement of immigrant students. Linda Grant is an assistant professor of sociology and faculty associated of the Institute of Behavioral Research at the University of Georgia. Her current research focuses on gender and academic careers and gender relationships in schools. Her current research includes the feminist critique of sociology and publishing, and the U.S. women’s movement.     

If and When Sociology Becomes a Female Preserve

This article investigates recent data on the prevalence of women in the field of sociology in order to understand whether or not the discipline has become a female preserve. Data on the top sociology departments in the USA were collected in 2007. For each university, we document the number of full time, tenured and tenure-track faculty members and present the gendered makeup of the department. Our data present mixed findings with regard to the question of whether the field is tipping toward female. Women, overall, are underrepresented in the sociology programs sampled, but a larger percentage of women occupy tenured positions within the top liberal arts programs than at the top graduate programs. And, women occupy a slim majority of assistant professor positions but have lower numbers at higher academic ranks. We can say with reasonable certainty that, while the proportion of women doctorates and assistant professors indicate a feminization of sociology, the entire discipline has not yet tipped toward female.     

TRENDS IN RANKINGS OF ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS IN THE U.S.: AN UPDATE

Economics departments in the U.S. are ranked based on (1) the number of pages published in thirty-six economics journals, (2) publications in five of the top journals, (3) output per faculty member, and (4) an index of the concentration of research in a department. Evidence shows that the top twenty departments have generally retained their positions since the 1970s, but rather large changes have occurred in departments ranked from 240 to 100. An "Economists Hall of Fame" is developed listing the top fifty individual producers of research in the thirty-six journal set and the top five journals.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Faculty Women’s Academic–Parental Role Balancing

This paper examines antecedents and consequences of faculty women’s academic–parental role balancing, defined as the process of experiencing greater interrole facilitation/enhancement than interrole conflict/depletion. It is posited that childcare responsibilities affect the career–family challenges academic women face, i.e., dueling tenure and biological clocks, reduced mobility for faculty women with children, and the illusion that a flexible academic schedule permits one to perform all the responsibilities of a full-time academic and a full-time parent. The paper presents a theoretical model of factors that serve either to contribute to or complicate academic–parental role balancing. Propositions about the relationships between these antecedents and role balancing, and between role balancing and its consequences, are identified. Practical implications of academic–parental role balancing are also considered.

Changes in the stratification structure of sociology, 1964–1992

Early sociological studies of the American higher education system noted that despite a widespread ideology of egalitarianism, both individuals and departments are highly stratified. Their main findings were that 1) the distribution of Ph.D. departments in any given field tended to cluster at the low end of the prestige hierarchy; 2) a few elite graduate programs graduated the vast majority of all Ph.D.’s awarded in the United States; 3) downward mobility for all but a handful of Ph.D.’s was inevitable; and 4) elite graduate programs protected their prestige through inbreeding. Since those studies there have been few attempts to document changes in the structure of stratification in scientific disciplines in general, and sociology in particular. I use longitudinal data on departments and individual data on recent sociology Ph.D.’s to study changes in the structure of the stratification system in sociology over the past 30 years. My results reflect a mixed picture of change and stability; while the distribution of departmental prestige, the production of Ph.D.’s, and inbreeding mechanisms have shifted since 1964, the pattern of placement of new Ph.D’s in doctorate-granting departments has changed very little. Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Baltimore, MD, March 1994.     

Marital Stability in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do Women’s Autonomy and Socioeconomic Situation Matter?

One key hypothesis that has received considerable attention in recent family discourse is the notion that improvements in women’s socioeconomic circumstances (also called female autonomy) has a positive effect on familial processes and outcomes such as marital instability. Absent from this debate are cross-cultural research that test the applicability of these findings with non-U.S. data. We use representative data from Ghana to explore whether dimensions of women’s autonomy have the hypothesized positive effect on divorce processes in Africa. Consistent with findings from the United States, results from our African data demonstrate that women’s autonomy has a positive effect on divorce. This observation is true not only with the use of conventional autonomy measures such as work and education, but also with regard to institutional measures of autonomy such as matrilineal kinship ties.Baffour K. Takyi, Department of Sociology, Olin 266, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-1905; e- mail: btakyi@uakron.edu.Christopher L. Broughton, Department of Sociology, Olin 266, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-1905; e-mail: Christopher.L.Broughton@cmsdnet.net.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the North Central Sociological Society, April 13–16, 2000, Pittsburgh, PA. We are grateful to several anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

The salary structure of sociology departments

Department chairs have recently expressed concerns over the phenomenon of salary compression, or the narrowing of the gap between the salaries of assistant professors and those of senior faculty. Such a compression is thought to lower senior faculty morale. The paper explores salary data organized by academic rank (professors, associate professors, and assistant professors) on a sample of 78 graduate departments drawn from the 1988 ASAGuide to Graduate Departments. Significant differences in the highest, lowest, and average salaries of assistant, associate, and full professors exist between public and private universities and between schools in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. Few differences are found among regions of the country and between terminal M.A.- and Ph.D.-granting departments, the latter perhaps due to the shortfall in the supply of new assistant professors. Analysis of salary data reported over a fifty-year period by AAUP suggests that salary compression is not a recent problem in academia. Rather, it has typified academic salary structures for at least a half-century. Salary compression in sociology is somewhat less severe than in other fields, but effects of a lag in supply may eventually be felt in the 1990s. His most recent publications areTeacher Burnout in the Public Schools (1987), and a forthcoming book,Giving Up in School (1990) with Margaret LeCompte. He is working on the third edition of his text,The Minority Report, with Rosalind J. Dworkin. He serves as editor of a book series entitled “The New Inequalities” published by the State University of New York Press, and is president of the Southwestern Sociological Association.     

“Whoa! They Could’ve Arrested <Emphasis Type="Italic">Me</Emphasis>!”: Unsuccessful Identity Claims of Women During Police Response to Intimate Partner Violence

Many jurisdictions in the U.S. have implemented mandatory arrest policies in an attempt to limit police officers’ discretion in their arrest decisions when responding to intimate partner violence calls. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with female victims of intimate partner violence, I explore the ways in which mandatory arrest policies have influenced the identity work of women during their interactions with police officers. I focus specifically on women’s “unsuccessful” identity claims: situations where women are unable to convince police officers that they are victims and situations where women are unable to convince officers that they are not victims. I examine the strategies that women use during their identity work and explore the consequences of women’s failed self presentations under mandatory arrest policies, the most significant of which is a woman’s arrest. I argue that under mandatory arrest policies, for many women, the risk of failed identity work is even more consequential than before these policies were established.     

Third Shift Women in Business-Owning Families

Using data from the 1997 National Family Business Survey (NFBS), this study identifies factors associated with married women’s employment involvement in business-owning families. While focusing on married women in a third shift situation—working for the family business, for the marketplace, and for managing the household—this study compares business and family characteristics by women’s employment status. The results of multinomial logit regression analysis indicated that family cash flow problems, presence of children age under 6, age of women, business assets, age of business, home-based family business, establishment of business, and industry type were significant predictors of women’s employment decision. The results of the study have further implications for women in a third shift situation among business-owning families.Yoon G. Lee, Utah State University, 2905 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-2905, USA; e-mail: yoonlee@cc.usu.edu.Gong-Soog Hong, The Ohio State University, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1295, USA; e-mail: ghong@hec.ohio-state.edu.Barbara R. Rowe, Utah State University, 2949 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-2949, USA; e-mail: browe@ext.usu.edu.     

Work–Family Conflict and Fertility Intentions: Does Gender Matter?

Fertility among employed women remains far below their desired preferences. Although research has shown that fertility intentions significantly predict subsequent behavior, little is known about the factors that contribute to intentions. We assess the impacts of perceived self and partner work-to-family and family-to-work conflict on the fertility intentions of both women and men. Using a national probability sample of men and women in dual-earner families (N = 630), we find that men’s perceptions of their wives’ work–family conflict significantly predict men’s fertility intentions, even though men’s own work–family conflict does not. Neither women’s own work–family conflict nor their perceptions of their husbands’ work–family conflict predicts women’s fertility intentions.     

The Effects of Traditional Family and Gender Ideology on Earnings: Race and Gender Differences

Despite increasing gains in labor market opportunities, women and racial minorities earn less than their white male counterparts. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study explores racial and gender variation in how family and gender ideology shape this wage gap. The findings reveal that traditional role attitudes reduce earnings for African American men, African American women, and white women. However, white women experience the largest threat to wages as a result of conventional gender ideology. Further, the number of children and the timing of childbearing are detrimental to black and white women’s earnings, while neither of these factors hampers men’s earnings.C. André Christie-Mizell, Department of Sociology, University of Akron, 258 Olin Hall, Akron, OH 44325-1905, USA; e-mail: mizell@uakron.edu.     

Do Regional Associations Meet the Career Needs of Teacher-Scholars?

Faculty members in tenure-track positions must demonstrate proficiency in teaching and scholarship, although different types of higher education institutions carry different sets of expectations and requirements in these areas. Teacher-scholars, who integrate teaching and research through diverse means, largely work at teaching focused institutions. Even in such teaching-focused institutions, however, there has been a growing demand for faculty to have high levels of scholarly productivity, typically in the form of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations...At the same time, teacher-scholars, due to limited resources, do not have great access to national conferences, leading them to rely more heavily on regional conferences to display their scholarly work. This study examines the utility of regional associations in meeting the career needs of teacher-scholars. Examining conference programs from the Pacific Sociological Association for five recent years, and comparing them to the national conference (the American Sociological Association) we show that teacher-scholars rely heavily on regional conferences to highlight their successes, often extending beyond scholarship. Regional conferences also offer a more flexible program than the national conference for defining the work of teacher-scholars. While teacher-scholars and Ph.D. granting faculty alike engage at both the national and regional conferences, both conferences tend to perpetuate a hierarchy of academia that emphasizes more traditional standards of scholarly success.     

Good Jobs, Good Deeds: The Gender-Specific Influences of Job Characteristics on Volunteering

While research has shown that having a “good” job significantly promotes formal volunteering, we have limited knowledge of how this paid work-to-volunteer work relationship may differ between men and women. Based on the gender-identification spillover theory, we hypothesize that because of the societal expectations that women should be caring, giving and communal, positive job traits such as authority and autonomy promote women’s volunteering more than men’s. Our analysis of data from the National Survey of Midlife in the United States shows that women who exercise supervisory authority on the job volunteer significantly more hours than women who do not, whereas job authority makes no difference in the number of hours volunteered for men. Meanwhile, job autonomy promotes men’s volunteering, but not women’s. Implications of these and related findings for future research on gender and volunteering are discussed.