This provocative story of contemporary high school argues that a shallow culture of kindness can do more lasting harm than good.Based on two years of research, Nice Is Not Enough shares striking dispatches from one high school's "regime of kindness" to underline how the culture operates as a Band-Aid on persistent inequalities. Through incisive storytelling and thoughtful engagement with students, this brilliant study by C.J. Pascoe exposes uncomfortable t...

When it first appeared in 1993, Barrie Thorne’s Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School became an instant classic in the budding fields of feminist sociology and childhood studies. Through detailed first-hand observations of fourth and fifth graders at play, she investigated questions like: Why do girls and boys tend to self-segregate in the schoolyard? What can playful teasing and ritualized games like “cooties” and “chase and kiss” teach us about how children perform gendered iden...

High school and the difficult terrain of sexuality and gender identity are brilliantly explored in this smart, incisive ethnography. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class high school, Dude, You're a Fag sheds new light on masculinity both as a field of meaning and as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe's unorthodox approach analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process but also a sexual one. She demonstrates how the "specter of the fag...

Winner, 2026 Outstanding Scholarly Contribution: Edited Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association, Section on Children and YouthThe first book-length critical reception of Barrie Thorne’s classic book, Gender PlayBarrie Thorne’s Gender Play was a landmark study of the social worlds of primary school children that sparked a paradigm shift in our understanding of how kids and the adults around them ...

This provocative story of contemporary high school argues that a shallow culture of kindness can do more lasting harm than good.Based on two years of research, Nice Is Not Enough shares striking dispatches from one high school's "regime of kindness" to underline how the culture operates as a Band-Aid on persistent inequalities. Through incisive storytelling and thoughtful engagement with students, this brilliant study by C. J. Pascoe exposes uncomfortable ...

High school and the difficult terrain of sexuality and gender identity are brilliantly explored in this smart, incisive ethnography. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class high school, Dude, You're a Fag sheds new light on masculinity both as a field of meaning and as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe's unorthodox approach analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process but also a sexual one. She demonstrates how the "specter of the fag...

Are today's young adults gender rebels or returning to tradition? In Where the Millennials Will Take Us, Barbara J. Risman reveals the diverse strategies youth use to negotiate the ongoing gender revolution. Using her theory of gender as a social structure, Risman analyzes life history interviews with a diverse set of Millennials to probe how they understand gender and how they might change it. Some are true believers that men and women are essentially different and should be so. ...

Winner, 2019 PROSE Award for Anthropology, Criminology and Sociology, presented by the Association of American PublishersA groundbreaking look at the lives of transgender children and their familiesSome “boys” will only wear dresses; some “girls” refuse to wear dresses; in both cases, as Travers shows in this fascinating account of the lives of transgender kids, these are often more than just wardrobe choices. Travers shows that fr...

Feminist parenting creates unique challenges. As women experience the unique powerlessness of motherhood, they also hold the uncomfortable power of acting as advocates for and as agents of socialization and social control over their children. Fathers may feel the desire for feminist parenting whilst experiencing a backlash and a lack of support, while some parents may attempt to resist the binaries of mothering and fathering in their feminist parenting journey. Feminist parents may attempt...

This groundbreaking collection offers a complicated portrait of girls in the 21st Century. These are the riot grrls and the Spice Girls, the good girls and the bad girls who are creating their own "girl" culture and giving a whole new meaning to "grrl" power. Featuring provocative essays from leaders in the field like Michelle Fine, Angela McRobbie, Valerie Walkerdine, Nancy Lesko, Niobe Way and Deborah Tolman, this work brings to life the ever-changing identities of today's young women. T...

The authors in this edited volume reflect on their experiences with culturally relevant pedagogy_as students, as teachers, as researchers_and how these experiences were often at odds with their backgrounds and/or expectations. Each of the authors speaks to the complexity and difficulty in attempting to address students' cultures, create learning experiences with relevance to their lives and experiences, and enact pedagogies that promote academic achievement while honoring students. At the ...

Queering Elementary Education is not about teaching kids to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight. It's not part of a sinister stratagem in the “gay agenda.” Instead, these provocative and thoughtful essays advocate the creation of classrooms that challenge categorical thinking, promote interpersonal intelligence, and foster critical consciousness.Queer elementary classrooms are those where parents and educators care enough about their children to trust the human capacity...