Understanding Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality: Case Studies

These eight case studies can be used for to analyze race, class, gender, and sexuality dynamics in the United States today. Each case is accompanied by questions that address the five themes in the conceptual framework presented in the companion textbook, Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework, by Lynn Weber. Cases were carefully selected to represent a wide range of group experiences cross-cutting race, class, gender, and sexuality; institutional arenas; regional locations; and thematic foci. In each case, students are asked to analyze both the foregrounded dimensions of oppression and privilege as well as those that are less apparent. Questions ask students to consider the implications for social action and social justice embedded in the story and their analysis.

Lynn Weber has been the Director of Women’s Studies and a Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina since 1996. She went to South Carolina after serving two years as Distinguished Professor in Race, Class, and Gender at the University of Delaware and having spent the previous thirteen years directing the Center for Research on Women at the University of Memphis. Founded in 1982, by Weber and others, the Center for Research on Women was the first in the nation to focus on women of color and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Over the years, Weber and others provided pioneering scholarship on race, class, and gender and served as a leader in innovative teaching and curriculum changed focus on race, class, and gender. For the pioneering research of the center, Weber and other affiliates received the Jessie Bernard Award of the American Sociological Association in 1993, and for innovative pedagogical work, received the ASA’s Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award also in 1993—a dual honor never before or since bestowed.

Heather Dillaway received her Masters degree in Sociology from University of Delaware in Summer 1997. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University. She is currently working on a dissertation on women’s experiences with menopause and how this reproductive experience is affected by women’s social locations (race, class, gender, sexuality, family situation, etc.). Her major areas of interest include: race/class/gender/sexuality studies, sociology of the family (in particular, the sociology of motherhood/fatherhood), sociology of reproduction, and women’s health.