Public schools in early America were designed to ensure the reproduction of Eurocentric social values. It could be argued that little has changed. Gender Lessons takes an in-depth look at how schools institutionalize gender-how kids are taught the rules and expectations of performing masculinity and femininity. This work provides extensive examples of how elementary, middle, and high schools: sextype; defend and preserve patriarchy; weave gendered expectations in all things school related; promote inequity; and limit their students' potential by explicitly and implicitly teaching that they must fit into only one of two boxes..."girl" or "boy." Richardson argues that schools-a powerful and wide reaching publicly funded mechanism-should be engaged in social (re)imagination that disbands the antiquated girl/boy and feminine/masculine binary so that kids might have a chance at being themselves. This book is sure to provoke conversation in courses and professional communities interested in education, gender studies, social work, sociology, counseling and guidance. "In the 1970s, feminists fought to reform sexist school curricula and challenged taken-for-granted tracking of boys and girls. Forty years later, drawing from personal experiences and insightful research in schools, Scott Richardson shows us that the job is far from finished. Informal interactions and stubborn sexist beliefs about gender difference still press girls and boys in primary, middle and high schools into different-and highly constraining-gender boxes. Anyone who cares about taking the next steps toward gender equality in schools will find in Gender Lessons a useful and hopeful map to a better future for our kids." - Michael A. Messner, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women "This book is unique in that it includes data from elementary, middle, and high schools from both students' and teachers' perspectives. These examples are familiar to anyone working in K-12 schools, but his analysis offers a new lens for many that can expose the frustrating and often heartbreaking nature of these taken-for-granted cultural norms." - Elizabeth J. Meyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education at California Polytechnic State University and author of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools

Gender and Sustainability deals with women's struggles to contend with global forces—environmental change, economic development, discrimination and stereotyping about the roles of women, and diminishing access to natural resources—not in the abstract but in everyday life. It addresses the lived complexities of the relationship between gender and sustainability.

Curricula in U.S. public schools are often the focus of heated debate, and few subjects spark more controversy than sex education. While conservatives argue that sexual abstinence should be the only message, liberals counter that an approach that provides comprehensive instruction and helps young people avoid sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy is necessary. Caught in the middle are the students and teachers whose everyday experiences of sex education are seldom as clear-cut as either side of the debate suggests. Risky Lessons brings readers inside three North Carolina middle schools to show how students and teachers support and subvert the official curriculum through their questions, choices, viewpoints, and reactions. Most important, the book highlights how sex education's formal and informal lessons reflect and reinforce gender, race, and class inequalities. Ultimately critical of both conservative and liberal approaches, Fields argues for curricula that promote social and sexual justice. Sex education's aim need not be limited to reducing the risk of adolescent pregnancies, disease, and sexual activity. Rather, its lessons should help young people to recognize and contend with sexual desires, power, and inequalities.

Public schools in early America were designed to ensure the reproduction of Eurocentric social values. It could be argued that little has changed. Gender Lessons takes an in-depth look at how schools institutionalize gender—how kids are taught the rules and expectations of performing masculinity and femininity. This work provides extensive examples of how elementary, middle, and high schools: sextype; defend and preserve patriarchy; weave gendered expectations in all things school related; promote inequity; and limit their students’ potential by explicitly and implicitly teaching that they must fit into only one of two boxes...“girl” or “boy.” Richardson argues that schools—a powerful and wide reaching publicly funded mechanism—should be engaged in social (re)imagination that disbands the antiquated girl/boy and feminine/masculine binary so that kids might have a chance at being themselves. This book is sure to provoke conversation in courses and professional communities interested in education, gender studies, social work, sociology, counseling and guidance. “In the 1970s, feminists fought to reform sexist school curricula and challenged taken-for-granted tracking of boys and girls. Forty years later, drawing from personal experiences and insightful research in schools, Scott Richardson shows us that the job is far from finished. Informal interactions and stubborn sexist beliefs about gender difference still press girls and boys in primary, middle and high schools into different—and highly constraining—gender boxes. Anyone who cares about taking the next steps toward gender equality in schools will find in Gender Lessons a useful and hopeful map to a better future for our kids.” – Michael A. Messner, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women “This book is unique in that it includes data from elementary, middle, and high schools from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives. These examples are familiar to anyone working in K-12 schools, but his analysis offers a new lens for many that can expose the frustrating and often heartbreaking nature of these taken-for-granted cultural norms.” – Elizabeth J. Meyer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education at California Polytechnic State University and author of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools

Featuring lesson plans by educators from across North America, Teaching about Gender Diversity provides K–12 teachers with the tools to talk to their students about gender and sex, implement gender diversity–inclusive practices into their curriculum, and foster a classroom that welcomes all possible ways of living gender. The collection is divided into three sections dedicated to the elementary, middle, and secondary grade levels, with each containing teacher-tested lesson plans for a variety of subject areas, including English language arts, the sciences, and health and physical education. The lesson plans range widely in terms of grade and subject, from early literacy read-alouds to secondary mathematics.Written by teachers for teachers, this engaging collection highlights educators’ varied perspectives and specialized knowledge of pedagogical practices for the diverse contemporary classroom. Teaching about Gender Diversity is an ideal resource for teacher educators, teachers, and students taking education courses on equity, diversity, and social justice as well as curriculum and teaching methods. Visit the book’s companion website at teachingaboutgenderdiversity.com.

Meatloaf, fried chicken, Jell-O, cake--because foods are so very common, we rarely think about them much in depth. The authors of Cooking Lessons however, believe that food is deserving of our critical scrutiny and that such analysis yields many important lessons about American society and its values. This book explores the relationship between food and gender. Contributors draw from diverse sources, both contemporary and historical, and look at women from various cultural backgrounds, including Hispanic, traditional southern White, and African American. Each chapter focuses on a certain food, teasing out its cultural meanings and showing its effect on women's identity and lives. For example, food has often offered women a traditional way to gain power and influence in their households and larger communities. For women without access to other forms of creative expression, preparing a superior cake or batch of fried chicken was a traditional way to display their talent in an acceptable venue. On the other hand, foods and the stereotypes attached to them have also been used to keep women (and men, too) from different races, ethnicities, and social classes in their place.

Documents and reflects on the steps that researchers are taking to implement social and gender analysis, including questions of class, caste, and ethnicity, into their everyday work. Combines both learning experiences and scientific results, representing academic and nonacademic sectors, a variety of research organizations, and a number of natural resource management questions, including biodiversity conservation, crop and livestock improvement, and sustainable grassland development. The learning studies, from China, India, Mongolia, Nepal, and Viet Nam, illustrate challenges, opportunities, successes, and disappointments, and highlight the different methods used and adapted in the diverse contexts of South and Southeast Asia. Concludes with a comparative analysis of the learning studies, which highlights common issues and challenges.

A passionate advocate of identity studies and a keen reader of U.S. institutional politics, Robyn Wiegman turns her attention in Object Lessons to the critical practices and political ambitions of identity-based fields. In a series of case studies drawn from womens studies, queer studies, ethnic studies, and American studies, she examines the unspoken belief that better theory will produce progressive social change in order to consider the political desire that fuels current scholarly debate. Her metacritical analysis is neither a defense nor a dismissal of such political commitment but a sustained inquiry into the hope it generates, the thinking it inspires, and the conformity it inadvertently demands.

"Women in the Museum explores the professional lives of the sector's female workforce."--Provided by publisher.

From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women. “Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard.”—The New York Times Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.