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People in Sociology - Faculty


Joey Sprague

Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Fall 2008 Office Hours:
9:00-10:00 T
2:30-3:30 TR
Email
Phone: (785) 864-9407

Professor Sprague (PhD Wisconsin) is most interested in the ways gender, class, and race structure knowledge, from the social organization of the academy to perceptions in the broader culture. She is author of Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). Other recent publications include “The Impact of Gender on the Evaluation of Teaching:  What We Know and What We Can Do” (with Heather Laube, Kelley Massoni, and Abby Ferber, National Women’s Studies Association Journal, 2007) and  "Student Evaluations and Gendered Expectations: What We Can''t Count Can Hurt Us" (with Kelley Massoni, Sex Roles, 2005). She teaches feminist theory, research methods, sociology of knowledge, and social psychology.  She is President-Elect of Sociologists for Women in Society and co-editor of The Gender Lens book series (Rowman & Littlefield). Areas: Sex and Gender, Sociology of Knowledge, Methodology, and Social Theory

ARE THE WAYS WE MAKE SENSE OF OUR LIVES THE ONLY WAYS, OR EVEN THE BEST WAYS TO DO SO?

.........I want to understand how taken for granted conceptual frameworks, from common sense to professional scholarship, are socially shaped and distorted, particularly by inequalities of class, gender, and race.  While I have analyzed a wide variety of discourses, from public debates over abortion to how disability professionals talk about self-determination, my major focus has been on the social construction of knowledge in the social sciences. 
.........In Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers, I analyze the hidden assumptions and limitations of both mainstream and feminist discourses about how best to do research and develop guidelines that take into account the workings of social power so as to minimize bias.  I am in the beginning stages of a new project that examines the workings of the social institutions that organize the production of knowledge--the discipline and the academy.

Professor Joey Sprague Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences

 

Classes for Fall 2008
  • Soc 310 Introduction to Social Research
  • Soc 601 Introduction to Feminist Social Theory