Causal explanations are essential for theory building. In focusing on causal mechanisms rather than descriptive effects, the goal of this volume is to increase our theoretical understanding of the way gender operates in interaction. Theoretical analyses of gender's effects in interaction, in turn, are necessary to understand how such effects might be implicated with individual-level and social structural-level processes in the larger system of gender inequality. Despite other differences, the contributors to this book all take what might be loosely called a "microstructural" approach to gender and interaction. All agree that individuals come to interaction with certain common, socially created beliefs, cultural meanings, experiences, and social rules. These include stereotypes about gendered activities and skills, beliefs about the status value of gender, rules for interacting in certain settings, and so on. However, as individuals apply these beliefs and rules to the specific contingent events of interaction, they combine and reshape their implications in distinctive ways that are particular to the encounter. As a result, individuals actively construct their social relations in the encounter through their interaction. The patterns of relations that develop are not completely determined or scripted in advance by the beliefs and rules of the larger society. Consequently, there is a reciprocal causal relationship between constructed patterns of interaction and larger social structural forms. The constructed patterns of social relations among a set of interactants can be thought of as micro-level social structures or, more simply, "microstructures.

Causal explanations are essential for theory building. In focusing on causal mechanisms rather than descriptive effects, the goal of this volume is to increase our theoretical understanding of the way gender operates in interaction. Theoretical analyses of gender's effects in interaction, in turn, are necessary to understand how such effects might be implicated with individual-level and social structural-level processes in the larger system of gender inequality. Despite other differences, the contributors to this book all take what might be loosely called a "microstructural" approach to gender and interaction. All agree that individuals come to interaction with certain common, socially created beliefs, cultural meanings, experiences, and social rules. These include stereotypes about gendered activities and skills, beliefs about the status value of gender, rules for interacting in certain settings, and so on. However, as individuals apply these beliefs and rules to the specific contingent events of interaction, they combine and reshape their implications in distinctive ways that are particular to the encounter. As a result, individuals actively construct their social relations in the encounter through their interaction. The patterns of relations that develop are not completely determined or scripted in advance by the beliefs and rules of the larger society. Consequently, there is a reciprocal causal relationship between constructed patterns of interaction and larger social structural forms. The constructed patterns of social relations among a set of interactants can be thought of as micro-level social structures or, more simply, "microstructures.

In an advanced society like the U.S., where an array of processes work against gender inequality, how does this inequality persist? Integrating research from sociology, social cognition and psychology, and organizational behavior, Framed by Gender identifies the general processes through which gender as a principle of inequality rewrites itself into new forms of social and economic organization. Cecilia Ridgeway argues that people confront uncertain circumstances with gender beliefs that are more traditional than those circumstances. They implicitly draw on the too-convenient cultural frame of gender to help organize new ways of doing things, thereby re-inscribing trailing gender stereotypes into the new activities, procedures, and forms of organization. This dynamic does not make equality unattainable, but suggests a constant struggle with uneven results. Demonstrating how personal interactions translate into larger structures of inequality, Framed by Gender is a powerful and original take on the troubling endurance of gender inequality.

2011 Educator's Award. Delta Kappa Gamma Society International2011 Outstanding Publication in Postsecondary Education, American Educational Research Association, Division J Degrees of Inequality reveals the powerful patterns of social inequality in American higher education by analyzing how the social background of students shapes nearly every facet of the college experience. Even as the most prestigious institutions claim to open their doors to students from diverse backgrounds, class disparities remain. Just two miles apart stand two institutions that represent the stark class contrast in American higher education. Yale, an elite Ivy League university, boasts accomplished alumni, including national and world leaders in business and politics. Southern Connecticut State University graduates mostly commuter students seeking credential degrees in fields with good job prospects. Ann L. Mullen interviewed students from both universities and found that their college choices and experiences were strongly linked to social background and gender. Yale students, most having generations of family members with college degrees, are encouraged to approach their college years as an opportunity for intellectual and personal enrichment. Southern students, however, perceive a college degree as a path to a better career, and many work full- or part-time jobs to help fund their education. Moving interviews with 100 students at the two institutions highlight how American higher education reinforces the same inequities it has been aiming to transcend.

The transformation of women's lives over the past century is among the most significant and far-reaching of social and economic phenomena, affecting not only women but also their partners, children, and indeed nearly every person on the planet. In developed and developing countries alike, women are acquiring more education, marrying later, having fewer children, and spending a far greater amount of their adult lives in the labor force. Yet, because women remain the primary caregivers of children, issues such as work-life balance and the glass ceiling have given rise to critical policy discussions in the developed world. In developing countries, many women lack access to reproductive technology and are often relegated to jobs in the informal sector, where pay is variable and job security is weak. Considerable occupational segregation and stubborn gender pay gaps persist around the world. The Oxford Handbook of Women and the Economy is the first comprehensive collection of scholarly essays to address these issues using the powerful framework of economics. Each chapter, written by an acknowledged expert or team of experts, reviews the key trends, surveys the relevant economic theory, and summarizes and critiques the empirical research literature. By providing a clear-eyed view of what we know, what we do not know, and what the critical unanswered questions are, this Handbook provides an invaluable and wide-ranging examination of the many changes that have occurred in women's economic lives.

Applying data from over 150 tribal societies to scales developed to measure power and dominance, Sanday offers answers to basic questions regarding male and female power. The view that emerges conforms to no particular theoretical perspective.

I. Social institutions and gender inequality -- 1. The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) -- 1.1. Introduction -- 1.2. The Database -- 1.3. Construction of the Subindices -- 1.3.1. Measuring the Association between Categorical Variables -- 1.3.2. Aggregating Variables to Build a Subindex -- 1.4. The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) -- 1.5. Results -- 1.5.1. Country Rankings and Regional Patterns -- 1.5.2. Simple Correlation with other Gender-related Indices -- 1.5.3. Regression Analysis -- 1.6. Conclusion -- 1.7. Tables -- 1.8. Figures -- 2. Why care about social inst. related to gender ineq. -- 2.1. Introduction -- 2.2. Social Institutions and Household Decisions -- 2.2.1. Social Institutions and Female Education -- 2.2.2. Social Institutions and Fertility and Child Mortality Rates -- 2.3. Social Institutions and the Society: Governance -- 2.4. Data -- 2.5. Empirical estimation and Results -- 2.5.1. Empirical estimation -- 2.5.2. Results -- 2.6. Conclusion -- 2.7. Tables -- 3. Reexamining the link between gender and corruption -- 3.1. Introduction -- 3.2. Empirical Estimation and Results -- 3.2.1. Data -- 3.2.2. Empirical Estimation -- 3.2.3. Results -- 3.3. Conclusion -- 3.4. Tables -- 3.5. Figures -- II. Regional growth convergence in Colombia -- 4. Regional convergence in Colombia: Income indicators -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.2. Motivation and Background -- 4.2.1. Economic Background -- 4.2.2. Data Issues Affecting Convergence Results in Colombia -- 4.3. The Solow Model and Its Estimation -- 4.3.1. The Solow Model -- 4.3.2. Absolute Beta-Convergence -- 4.3.3. Conditional Convergence -- 4.3.4. Parameter Heterogeneity: Are There Different Steady States? -- 4.3.5. Sigma-Convergence -- 4.4. Distributional Approach: Quah's Critique -- 4.5. Empirical Estimation and Results -- 4.5.1. Sigma-Convergence -- 4.5.2. Absolute Beta-Convergence -- 4.5.3. Conditional Beta-Convergence Using Control Variables -- 4.5.4. Beta-Convergence Using Time-Series Cross-Sectional Data -- 4.5.5. Kernel Density Estimators -- 4.6. Conclusions -- 4.7. Tables -- 4.8. Figures -- 5. Regional convergence in Colombia: Social indicators -- 5.1. Introduction -- 5.2. Motivation -- 5.3. Methods for Measuring Convergence -- 5.4. Data and Empirical Estimation -- 5.4.1. Data -- 5.4.2. Empirical estimation -- 5.5. Results -- 5.5.1. Literacy Rate -- 5.5.2. Infant Survival Rate -- 5.5.3. Life Expectancy at Birth -- 5.5.4. Nourishment -- 5.6. Conclusions -- 5.7. Tables -- 5.8. Figures -- Appendices -- Appendix to Essay 1.