15 Facts About Barrie Thorne

Barrie Thorne was born on 1942 and is a professor of sociology and of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Barrie Thorne's work focuses on the sociology of gender, feminist theory, the sociology of age relations, childhood, and families, and ethnographic methods.

Barrie Thorne 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.

Barrie Thorne 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.

Barrie Thorne conducted graduate work in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics from 1964 to 1965.

From 1971 to 1985, Barrie Thorne was a member of the Sociology faculty at Michigan State University, moving from assistant to associate to full professor; she helped create the MSU Women's Studies Program.

Barrie Thorne was appointed Chair of the Gender and Women's Studies Department in 2003 and, from 1998 to 2002, served as Director of the UC Berkeley Center for Working Families.

Barrie Thorne was elected to membership in the honorary society, Sociological Research Association, in 1993.

Barrie Thorne was Vice President of the American Sociological Association from 1993 to 1994.

Barrie Thorne's late husband, Peter Lyman, was a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information until he retired in 2006.

Barrie Thorne's siblings are Dr Avril Thorne, a professor at University of California, Santa Cruz in the field of personality, and Nobel Prize winner Dr Kip Thorne, a professor at California Institute of Technology in the field of gravity.

Barrie Thorne is well known for her upper division undergraduate courses in the gender and women's studies and sociology departments that focus on the division of gender and on feminist theory.

Barrie Thorne teaches courses on the sociology of childhood, family, and the practices of ethnography.

Barrie Thorne has won awards for her teaching and mentoring, including Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award from the Graduate Assembly at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, the Mentor of the Year Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in 1998, the Sociologists for Women in Society Outstanding Mentorship Award in 1993, and the University of Southern California Raubenheimer Award for Outstanding Teaching, Research, and Service to the university in 1992.

Barrie Thorne has written and edited a number of books, chapters, and journal articles.