Sarah Becker


Sarah Becker

Director of CCELL (Center for Community Engagement, Learning, and Leadership), Associate Professor of Sociology & Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies

Address:
141 Stubbs Hall

Email Address:
sbecker@lsu.edu

Office Phone:
225-578-7243

College:
Humanities & Social Sciences

Department:
Sociology; Women's and Gender Studies

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

  • Criminology
  • Intersectionality
  • Ethnography
  • Sexual Victimization
  • Community-based Reactions to Crime, Disorder, and Formal/Informal Policing Strategies
  • Education of Marginalized Youth

 

Biography

I am a gender and inequality scholar, criminologist, and ethnographer whose work focuses on the processes through which inequalities are enacted, reproduced, and/or challenged in various structural contexts.  I use qualitative and quantitative methodologies to study violent crime; sexual victimization; community-based reactions to crime, disorder, and formal/informal policing strategies; and the education of marginalized youth.  My work appears in journals such as Women’s Studies International Forum; The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography; Race and Justice; Sex Roles and Feminist Criminology

 

My approach to scholarship involves the tight integration of research, teaching, and community-based action.  This is reflected in my current primary research agenda: a multi-site collaborative ethnography of community gardens in the Southern United States.  I am also involved in a collaborative peer interview-based study of young people’s understandings of barroom aggression. I regularly involve students in my ongoing research agenda by providing opportunities to collect and analyze data in every single class I teach.  Mentoring is a priority for me.  I therefore work and co-author with my graduate students; supervise a wide variety of independent student research projects; and volunteer with the Ronald McNair Undergraduate Research Program, ASPIRE Undergraduate Research Program, and the Pre-Doctoral Scholars’ Institute (PDSI) in addition to engaging in a host of informal mentoring activities.

 

Education

PhD: University of Massachusetts Amherst (2008)

Curriculum Vitae

Courses recently taught at LSU

(Syllabi are for illustrative purposes and  subject to change)

  • SOCL 4463: Gender and Crime
  • SOCL 4465: Drugs and Society
  • WGS 2500: Intro. to Women's and Gender Studies
  • WGS 3150: Feminist Theory
  • WGS 4500: Gender, Crime, and Community