As a scholar, my substantive interests include gender, race, class, sexuality and the connection between education and work. I am interested in how inequalities are produced through interactions and how interactions within groups simultaneously shape and are shaped by organizations such as education and work. I approach these areas through symbolic interactionism, multi-level gender theory, intersectionality and qualitative methods.
My dissertation, The Deferential Kitchen: (Re)production of Gender and Class in Culinary Arts School, exemplifies my interest in intersectionality, interactions, and inequalities within education. Using qualitative methodology my research examines how race, class, gender, professional networks, student peer culture, and organization of culinary program shape students’ experiences in culinary arts programs. Specifically, I draw on fifteen months of ethnographic observations at a culinary arts program in a Midwestern urban environment and 60 interviews with students and chef instructors to examine how race, class, and gender identities shape and are shaped by the occupational socialization students undergo in culinary arts schools. The interviews provide insights to respondents’ attitudes towards their school and peer group interactions which will allow me to triangulate my data. My dissertation investigates how race, class, gender, professional networks, student peer culture, and organization of culinary program shape students’ experiences. The study asks and answers the following questions: 1) How does the organization of culinary arts schools contribute to the (re)production of race, class and gender? 2) How do interactions and student experiences in culinary arts differ by race, class, and gender? 3) How do students’ gendered experiences in the culinary classroom context effect their development of peer and professional networks?
In answering these questions I argue external forces play a role in how students construct their chef identities and race, class and gender matter in kitchen environments. Further, some gender and class backgrounds may limit students’ opportunities for informal learning and socialization. My first substantive chapter I address my first and second research questions by examining he gendered construction of chef identities. Specifically I investigate how students, culinary arts programs, and external influences play a role in constructing the rules of chef behaviors and standards. The next chapter examines the idea of “class neutrality” in kitchen classrooms which connects to my first research question. Students and chefs draw from the discourse of gender neutrality to suggest that socioeconomic status and background is not relevant in the kitchen setting, yet based on my data I argue they use discussions of food and style that are bound to social class, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. For example, the kitchen courses I observed were taught by chefs with different types of experience in the food industry creating situations where some were well connected in the higher end food scene while others had fewer connections. In my final substantive chapter I address my second and third research questions. Based on my data I argue participation in “kitchen talk” or the sexualized discourses differs by students’ gender and race which are tied to the politics of respectability and gender expectations. For women, opportunities to participate in career socialization activities may be limited based on others’ assumptions of sexual tensions emerging. Sexualized discourses become a prominent aspect of the group culture within culinary kitchen classrooms; often the discourses took on gendered and racialized components. For culinary students, the options to participate in sexualized discourses and the consequences of their participation differ by students’ gender and race. Women and men have different approaches to negotiating interactions which were based on a culture of competition and crass conversations in the kitchen classroom. I argue that students learn the nuances of “kitchen talk” in kitchen classrooms through their interactions with chef instructors and classmates. While some of this kitchen talk sets students up to understand how to communicate cooperatively in groups while working, other forms of kitchen talk are gendered and sexualized. At times participation in kitchen talk was limited by politics of respectability and gender expectations.
My dissertation research has implications for literatures on intersectionality, higher education, occupational socialization, symbolic interactionism, and gender. This study contributes to the understanding of the educational experience of women entering male-dominated professions and examines how the experience of becoming a chef is gendered; specifically, how students negotiate gender during their interactions, what influences their understanding of their role as a chef, and how gender effects their development of peer and professional networks. For women, formal education in culinary school may not necessarily have financial payoffs but instead contributes to establishing industry contacts and building confidence in their culinary skills.
Gender and Sexuality
Part of my research agenda involves exploring the connection between gender and sexuality, and how these relationships are constructed and understood by individuals. Elizabeth Armstrong, another graduate student, and I published an article in the Journal of Sex Research. In Women’s Negotiations of Cunnilingus, we examined the interactional challenges of cunnilingus in college hookups and relationships and we found that women who desired cunnilingus in hookups had to be assertive to get it. In relationships, the taken-for-granted nature of cunnilingus was a source of pleasure for women who enjoyed it and of difficulty for women who wished to avoid it. In this article we build on existing scholarship by furthering the understanding of relationships and sexual pleasure among college age women. This experience also built on research I conducted at Indiana University Northwest (IUN) where I used survey data to analyze college students’ attitudes towards “friends with benefits” relationships and found that men are more likely than women to engage in friends with benefits relationships. In 2008, this paper turned into a co-authored publication in the College Student Journal. Both projects highlight my interest in student peer culture in the context of higher education, which also ties into my dissertation as the sexualized environment and “kitchen talk” found in the culinary kitchen classroom demonstrate.
Race, Class, and Gender
In my work, I conceptualize race, class, and gender as salient identities which individuals actively perform and to which they are held accountable. I examine this though the framework of intersectional and multi-level gender theory. My dissertation focuses on aspects of intersectionality within the context of educational inequality, but in other work I have examined the intersection of race, class, and gender within cultural objects, specifically textbooks and etiquette books.
My interest in race, class, and gender carries over into my pedagogical research. In the article “Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class in Introductory Textbooks” published with Matthew Gougherty in Teaching Sociology, we used index citations and content analysis of a sample of popular introductory sociology textbooks to determine the relationship between categories of gender, race, and class and levels of analysis. We found that gender continues to be linked to socialization much more than race and class. Social class is still more likely to be discussed as a macro level concept. Our findings demonstrate that intersectionality is slowly making its way into introductory textbooks, which is a slight improvement over previous findings. While there is some incorporation of current sociological theory into texts, our findings indicate that in many cases the responsibility of integrating discussions of contemporary theory falls solely on educators. In the paper we discuss the pitfalls of relegating gender, race, and class to different levels of analysis, why that pattern continues to occur and what instructors can do in the classroom to overcome this distortion.
Another research project focuses on the intersection of race, class, and gender with culture and inequality. In this project (with Matt Gougherty), we analyze discussions of race, class, and gender in etiquette books. We examined discussions of appearances and clothing in contemporary etiquette books by focusing on their implicit discussions of gender, class and race using content analysis. Combining Goffman’s arguments about deference and demeanor with recent scholarship on gender, class, and race we argue that etiquette books encourage readers to create gendered and classed demeanors that will allegedly gain deference from others. Overall, we argue that etiquette books spread messages that reinforce hegemonic gender ideologies and class and racial privilege. The books emphasize conventional understandings of what it means to be masculine and feminine through the lens of the white middle class experience. We found that the books emphasize the display and consumption of particular symbols associated with the upper and middle classes. The few books directed towards African Americans reinforced messages about respectability. Our findings indicate that cultural objects like etiquette books perpetuate arbitrary standards of behavior and dress which then serve as powerful tools to reinforce social stratification.
Selected Publications
Puentes, Jennifer and Matthew Gougherty. 2013. “Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class in Introductory Textbooks.” Teaching Sociology 41(2):159-171.
Backstrom, Laura, Elizabeth Armstrong and Jennifer Puentes. 2012. “Women’s Negotiations of Cunnilingus.” Journal of Sex Research 49(1):1-12.
My dissertation, The Deferential Kitchen: (Re)production of Gender and Class in Culinary Arts School, exemplifies my interest in intersectionality, interactions, and inequalities within education. Using qualitative methodology my research examines how race, class, gender, professional networks, student peer culture, and organization of culinary program shape students’ experiences in culinary arts programs. Specifically, I draw on fifteen months of ethnographic observations at a culinary arts program in a Midwestern urban environment and 60 interviews with students and chef instructors to examine how race, class, and gender identities shape and are shaped by the occupational socialization students undergo in culinary arts schools. The interviews provide insights to respondents’ attitudes towards their school and peer group interactions which will allow me to triangulate my data. My dissertation investigates how race, class, gender, professional networks, student peer culture, and organization of culinary program shape students’ experiences. The study asks and answers the following questions: 1) How does the organization of culinary arts schools contribute to the (re)production of race, class and gender? 2) How do interactions and student experiences in culinary arts differ by race, class, and gender? 3) How do students’ gendered experiences in the culinary classroom context effect their development of peer and professional networks?
In answering these questions I argue external forces play a role in how students construct their chef identities and race, class and gender matter in kitchen environments. Further, some gender and class backgrounds may limit students’ opportunities for informal learning and socialization. My first substantive chapter I address my first and second research questions by examining he gendered construction of chef identities. Specifically I investigate how students, culinary arts programs, and external influences play a role in constructing the rules of chef behaviors and standards. The next chapter examines the idea of “class neutrality” in kitchen classrooms which connects to my first research question. Students and chefs draw from the discourse of gender neutrality to suggest that socioeconomic status and background is not relevant in the kitchen setting, yet based on my data I argue they use discussions of food and style that are bound to social class, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. For example, the kitchen courses I observed were taught by chefs with different types of experience in the food industry creating situations where some were well connected in the higher end food scene while others had fewer connections. In my final substantive chapter I address my second and third research questions. Based on my data I argue participation in “kitchen talk” or the sexualized discourses differs by students’ gender and race which are tied to the politics of respectability and gender expectations. For women, opportunities to participate in career socialization activities may be limited based on others’ assumptions of sexual tensions emerging. Sexualized discourses become a prominent aspect of the group culture within culinary kitchen classrooms; often the discourses took on gendered and racialized components. For culinary students, the options to participate in sexualized discourses and the consequences of their participation differ by students’ gender and race. Women and men have different approaches to negotiating interactions which were based on a culture of competition and crass conversations in the kitchen classroom. I argue that students learn the nuances of “kitchen talk” in kitchen classrooms through their interactions with chef instructors and classmates. While some of this kitchen talk sets students up to understand how to communicate cooperatively in groups while working, other forms of kitchen talk are gendered and sexualized. At times participation in kitchen talk was limited by politics of respectability and gender expectations.
My dissertation research has implications for literatures on intersectionality, higher education, occupational socialization, symbolic interactionism, and gender. This study contributes to the understanding of the educational experience of women entering male-dominated professions and examines how the experience of becoming a chef is gendered; specifically, how students negotiate gender during their interactions, what influences their understanding of their role as a chef, and how gender effects their development of peer and professional networks. For women, formal education in culinary school may not necessarily have financial payoffs but instead contributes to establishing industry contacts and building confidence in their culinary skills.
Gender and Sexuality
Part of my research agenda involves exploring the connection between gender and sexuality, and how these relationships are constructed and understood by individuals. Elizabeth Armstrong, another graduate student, and I published an article in the Journal of Sex Research. In Women’s Negotiations of Cunnilingus, we examined the interactional challenges of cunnilingus in college hookups and relationships and we found that women who desired cunnilingus in hookups had to be assertive to get it. In relationships, the taken-for-granted nature of cunnilingus was a source of pleasure for women who enjoyed it and of difficulty for women who wished to avoid it. In this article we build on existing scholarship by furthering the understanding of relationships and sexual pleasure among college age women. This experience also built on research I conducted at Indiana University Northwest (IUN) where I used survey data to analyze college students’ attitudes towards “friends with benefits” relationships and found that men are more likely than women to engage in friends with benefits relationships. In 2008, this paper turned into a co-authored publication in the College Student Journal. Both projects highlight my interest in student peer culture in the context of higher education, which also ties into my dissertation as the sexualized environment and “kitchen talk” found in the culinary kitchen classroom demonstrate.
Race, Class, and Gender
In my work, I conceptualize race, class, and gender as salient identities which individuals actively perform and to which they are held accountable. I examine this though the framework of intersectional and multi-level gender theory. My dissertation focuses on aspects of intersectionality within the context of educational inequality, but in other work I have examined the intersection of race, class, and gender within cultural objects, specifically textbooks and etiquette books.
My interest in race, class, and gender carries over into my pedagogical research. In the article “Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class in Introductory Textbooks” published with Matthew Gougherty in Teaching Sociology, we used index citations and content analysis of a sample of popular introductory sociology textbooks to determine the relationship between categories of gender, race, and class and levels of analysis. We found that gender continues to be linked to socialization much more than race and class. Social class is still more likely to be discussed as a macro level concept. Our findings demonstrate that intersectionality is slowly making its way into introductory textbooks, which is a slight improvement over previous findings. While there is some incorporation of current sociological theory into texts, our findings indicate that in many cases the responsibility of integrating discussions of contemporary theory falls solely on educators. In the paper we discuss the pitfalls of relegating gender, race, and class to different levels of analysis, why that pattern continues to occur and what instructors can do in the classroom to overcome this distortion.
Another research project focuses on the intersection of race, class, and gender with culture and inequality. In this project (with Matt Gougherty), we analyze discussions of race, class, and gender in etiquette books. We examined discussions of appearances and clothing in contemporary etiquette books by focusing on their implicit discussions of gender, class and race using content analysis. Combining Goffman’s arguments about deference and demeanor with recent scholarship on gender, class, and race we argue that etiquette books encourage readers to create gendered and classed demeanors that will allegedly gain deference from others. Overall, we argue that etiquette books spread messages that reinforce hegemonic gender ideologies and class and racial privilege. The books emphasize conventional understandings of what it means to be masculine and feminine through the lens of the white middle class experience. We found that the books emphasize the display and consumption of particular symbols associated with the upper and middle classes. The few books directed towards African Americans reinforced messages about respectability. Our findings indicate that cultural objects like etiquette books perpetuate arbitrary standards of behavior and dress which then serve as powerful tools to reinforce social stratification.
Selected Publications
Puentes, Jennifer and Matthew Gougherty. 2013. “Intersections of Gender, Race, and Class in Introductory Textbooks.” Teaching Sociology 41(2):159-171.
Backstrom, Laura, Elizabeth Armstrong and Jennifer Puentes. 2012. “Women’s Negotiations of Cunnilingus.” Journal of Sex Research 49(1):1-12.
