Barrie Thorne
(University of California,
Berkeley)
Unpacking School
Lunch Time: Daily Rituals and the Negotiation of Childhoods
Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2003: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Over the last three decades the contours of childhood in urban
California have been dramatically reconfigured by high rates
of immigration, widening gaps of household income, and by the
deterioration of state and civic support for "other peoples'"
children. These trends frame Professor Barrie Thorne's ethnographic
study of the daily lives of children and families in a mixed-income,
ethnically diverse area of Oakland. How do children and adults
mark, mute, and negotiate boundaries related to social class,
immigration, racial ethnicity, gender, and age? Thorne will
address that theme by analyzing lunchtime in the public elementary
school that anchors her research site. Like the Balinese cockfight
as analyzed by Clifford Geertz, school lunchtime is a public
and collective "text" with many layers of meaning.
Kids and adults mark and negotiate differences and inequalities
in the course of talking about food, choosing eating
companions, deploying state-initiated categories ("free/reduced
price/reguar"), and through processes of food sharing,
trading, and begging.
Thorne is professor of women's studies and sociology
at the University of California at Berkeley, where she was also
co-director of the Sloan Center for Working Families. It closed
in August 2002, but much of the research continues. Her research
interests include the social construction of childhoods, theorizing
age relations, feminist theory, the sociology of gender (across
institutional domains and in the constitution of discourses,
identities, and everyday life) and ethnographic methods. Within
the area of children and gender, Professor Thorne has published
the acclaimed work Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School
(1993), and she is co-editor of Rethinking the Family: Some
Feminist Questions (1993) and Language, Gender and Society
(1983).
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The MARIAL Center
Emory West, 4th Floor, Room 415E
Open to the public
Refreshments will be served
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DIRECTIONS TO THE MARIAL CENTER
The MARIAL Center is located on the 4th floor
of the main building of Emory's Briarcliff Campus, 1256 Briarcliff
Rd. From the main campus, take North Decatur Road to Briarcliff
Road, turn left, and the Briarcliff Campus will be on your right.
There is ample parking close to the building. The Emory shuttle
(Route A) provides transportation from the main campus to the
MARIAL Center every 20 minutes (a 5-10 minute ride). For the
shortest travel time, board the shuttle in front of the B. Jones
Center or at the corner of Dowman and Fishburne (across from
Glenn Memorial) at approximately 4, 24, and 44 minutes after
each hour. A complete schedule and the route map are available
on the web at http://www.epcs.emory.edu/AltTransp/route-a.htm
Please tell the receptionist at the front window
that you are here for the MARIAL Center lecture.
