IU sociologists attended the 111th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Seattle this week.
During the meeting, Jessica Calarco, assistant professor of sociology, Emma Cohen, a doctoral candidate in sociology, and Natasha Quadlin, a doctoral student in sociology, presented their research findings.
Calarco researched behavior in education. Behaviors are closely correlated with school outcomes, according to an Aug. 23 press release.
Her study is called “Class Act: How Teachers Translate Students’ Non-Cognitive Skills Into Social Class Inequalities in School.” It investigates the possibilities of teachers’ biases against less privileged students. She looked at how students’ problem-solving behaviors vary among social classes, according to the release.
Calarco found teachers set middle-class expectations by expecting students to voice their needs, conveying expectations in ambiguous ways or granting middle-class students’ requests, despite teachers’ wanting to say no.
These inequalities result from teachers’ subconscious biases or time constraints and parents’ pressure.
Cohen researched how interactions differ between faculty and male and female college students, the first study to look at gender differences in terms of interactions between students and faculty, according to the release.
Cohen found women discuss grades, assignments and career plans more than men. Men work on activities other than coursework, such as committees and orientation, more than women.
“Freshmen men are also significantly more likely to plan to work on research with faculty, and senior men are significantly more likely to have actually done this,” she said in the release.
Women see professors as guides for course requirements and future plans while men see them as mentors and colleagues.
Quadlin researched how Americans favor gender roles for heterosexual and same-sex couples.
Qaudlin’s research, described in a paper titled “Making Money, Doing Gender, or Being Essentialist? Partner Characteristics and Americans’ Attitudes Toward Housework,” determined which characteristics shape Americans’ ideas about married couples and how they divide household labor, according to the release. The information was gathered in a survey of more than 1,000 adults in 2015.
“Nearly three-quarters of our respondents thought that the female partners in heterosexual couples should be responsible for cooking, doing laundry, cleaning the house and buying groceries,” Quadlin said in the release.
Almost 90 percent said they thought heterosexual men should be in charge of car repair and outdoor chores.
Participants said women in heterosexual relationships should handle most childcare tasks. More than half of the respondents said the more feminine partner in a same-sex couple should partake in childcare tasks.
“Even in same-sex couples, where there are not sex differences between partners, people use gender differences as a way to approximate sex differences,” Quadlin said.
Laurel Demkovich
