Barrie Thorne

Who is Barrie Thorne?

Barrie Thorne is a Professor of Sociology and of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Her work focuses on the sociology of gender, feminist theory, the sociology of age relations, childhood, and families, and ethnographic methods. She is perhaps best known as author of the widely read book Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School which has been cited in over 170 books and over 500 publications.

In 2002, she received the American Sociological Association’s Jessie Bernard Award for lifelong achievement in opening sociology to the role of women in society.

Thorne is part of the generation of academic feminists who brought attention to women and gender into traditional fields of study and who created interdisciplinary programs and departments in gender and women's studies. She also helped bring the study of children and childhoods into the field of sociology, in her own research and teaching, as an editor of Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, and, from 1995 to 2003, as a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood.