The Kaleidoscope of Gender: Prisms, Patterns, and Possibilities

The authors are proud sponsors of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop.

The Kaleidoscope of Gender: Prisms, Patterns, and Possibilities provides an accessible, timely, and stimulating overview of the cutting-edge literature and theoretical frameworks in sociology and related fields in order to understand the social construction of gender. The kaleidoscope metaphor and its three themes—prisms, patterns, and possibilities—unify topic areas throughout the book. By focusing on the prisms through which gender is shaped, the patterns which gender takes, and the possibilities for social change, the reader gains a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others, both locally and globally. 

Editors Catherine Valentine, Mary Nell Trautner, and the work of Joan Spade, focus on the paradigms and approaches to gender studies that are constantly changing and evolving.  The Sixth Edition includes incorporation of increased emphasis on global perspectives, updated contemporary social movements, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, and an updated focus on gendered violence.

Catherine (Kay) G. Valentine is Professor Emerita of sociology at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York. She received her PhD from Syracuse University and her BA from the State University of New York at Albany. Kay taught a wide range of courses, such as sociology of gender, senior seminar in sociology, sociology of bodies and emotions, sociology of consumerism, and human sexuality. Her publications include articles on teaching sociology, on women's bodies and emotions, on gender and qualitative research, and on the sociology of art museums. Kay is coeditor of Letting Go: Feminist and Social Justice Insight and Activism (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015). She is the founding director of women's studies at Nazareth College and a longtime member of Sociologists for Women in Society and the American Sociological Association. She has also served as president of the New York State Sociological Association. Kay and her life partner, Paul J. Burgett, University of Rochester vice president and professor of music, are devotees of the arts and world travel.

Mary Nell Trautner is Associate Professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She earned her PhD and MA from the University of Arizona and her BA from Southwestern University. She is an award-winning teacher of courses in sociology of gender, criminology, sociology of law, and social problems. Mary Nell is an author of a forthcoming active learning textbook on social problems, and has published a variety of articles on topics ranging from physical appearance bias and images of women in popular media to day labor workers' legal knowledge and environmental pollution. She is active in the American Sociological Association and Law & Society Association. In her free time, she enjoys travel and scuba diving.

Joan Z. Spade is Professor Emerita of sociology at The College at Brockport, State University of New York. She received her PhD from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York; her MA from the University of Rochester; and her BA from the State University of New York at Geneseo. In addition to courses on gender, Joan taught courses on education, family, research methods, and statistics. She published articles on rape culture in college fraternities and on work and family, including women's and men's orientations toward work. She has also coedited two books on education and published articles on education, including research on tracking, and gender and education. Joan was active in Sociologists for Women in Society, Eastern Sociological Society, and the American Sociological Association. In addition to visiting children and grandchildren with her significant other, she enjoys RVing, music and the arts, travel, and being outdoors.