C. J. Pascoe

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C. J. Pascoe
CJPascoe.JPG
Born (1974-06-03) June 3, 1974 (age 48)
Nationality American
Alma mater University of California at Berkeley
Scientific career
Fields Sociology
Institutions University of Oregon
Website https://sociology.uoregon.edu/profile/cpascoe/

Cheri Jo Pascoe (born June 3, 1974) is an American sociologist and author. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on gender, youth, homophobia, sexuality and news media. She is currently one of the editors of the journal Socius .

Contents

Early life and education

Pascoe was born in Seattle, Washington and raised in San Juan Capistrano, California. She has one younger brother.

She received her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. After college she coordinated an eating disorder program in Boston. She then received her PhD in Sociology from University of California, Berkeley. She was drawn to Berkeley because of their strong gender studies program, and attended from 1997 to 2007. [1]

Academic career

Pascoe started her career as a sociologist right out of graduate school, working as a consultant for the Digital Youth Project in California founded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Digital Youth Project, based out of UC Berkeley, studies how youth use new media and addresses three main objectives: “The first objective is to describe kids as active innovators using digital media rather than as passive consumers of popular culture or academic knowledge. The second objective is to think about the implications of kids' innovative cultures for schools and higher education and to engage in a dialogue with educational planners. The third objective is to advise software designers about how to use kids' innovative approaches to knowledge and learning in building better software.” [2] While Pascoe was working with the Digital Youth Project, she studied teens and how they used new media. She found that they were mostly using forms of new media throughout their romantic and dating lives.

Pascoe is especially interested in how teenage boys think of themselves as masculine. She spent a year and a half following teenage boys in a high school in California and found that they prove their masculinity by calling each other negative homosexual slurs. She found that these teenage boys prove themselves by calling others unmasculine or "fags" when they behave in unmasculine ways. “To call someone gay or fag is like the lowest thing you can call someone. Because that’s like saying that you’re nothing,” is how one teenage boy put it to Pascoe. [3]

She has also been interested in the subculture of pro-ana websites create and how women with anorexia use the web as a way to connect and encourage anorexia and other eating disorders. “This is by all means not all anorexics; I wouldn't even say the majority of anorexics or people with eating disorders are in this kind of community. These are primarily women who set out to have an eating-disordered lifestyle. This is not a teenager who's gone on a diet and taken it too far and is getting help. There's a difference between those two things. These are, again, primarily women who take pride in their ability to deny themselves food and to keep their weight at this artificially low and dangerous level”. [4]

Pascoe's research has been featured in the New York Times, [5] The Wall Street Journal, [6] The Toronto Globe and Mail, American Sexuality Magazine and Inside Higher Ed.

Teaching career

Pascoe was an assistant professor at Colorado College. Pascoe is now an associate professor at the University of Oregon. She teaches courses in sexuality, social psychology, deviance, gender and education. [7]

She has also taught sociology at Mills College and the University of California, Berkeley.

Books

Pascoe has published a variety of books, including:

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Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School is a 2007 book by the sociologist C. J. Pascoe. Through ethnographic research, Pascoe examines masculinity in high schools. Pascoe's work proposes that masculinity is defined primarily through dominance and control. Further, masculinity is established by high school boys through their use of the fag (faggot) epithet. This book explores masculinity as enacted by male- and female-bodied students, the consequences of a strict gender system, heteronormativity within the school system, racialized masculine ideals, and acts of resistance to the gendered social order. Pascoe conducted fieldwork for a year and a half at "River High School", conducted formal interviews with fifty students, and informal interviews with many other students, administrators and faculty members.

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References

  1. Personal Interview February 26, 2010
  2. ABOUT DIGITAL YOUTH | DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH." DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH | Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media. Web. February 26, 2010
  3. Dude, Youve Got Problems – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com." Opinion – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.
  4. "FRONTLINE: growing up online: interviews: c.j. pascoe |." PBS. Web. February 20, 2010.
  5. Dude, Youve Got Problems – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.
  6. "Sexting, an Epidemic of Fuzzy Math – WSJ.com." Business News & Financial News – The Wall Street Journal – WSJ.com
  7. CJ Pascoe, PhD." Colorado College Faculty
  8. Amazon.com: Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School (9780520252301): C. J. Pascoe: Books."
  9. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Awards; About AERA Awards; Outstanding Book Award." AERA Homepage. Web. February 27, 2010.
  10. "Amazon.com: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning) (9780262013369): Mizuko Ito, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Rachel Cody, Becky Herr-Stephenson, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Z. Martinez, C. J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims, Lisa Tripp: Books."