Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-rvxtl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-22T02:51:26.163Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

INTERSECTIONALITY AND SOCIAL EXPLANATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2014

Averil Y. Clarke  and
Leslie McCall
Averil Y. Clarke*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Suffolk University
Leslie McCall*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
*
Professor Averil Y. Clarke, Department of Sociology, Suffolk University, 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108. Email: [email protected]
Professor Leslie McCall, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 1810 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To the extent that intersectionality is becoming a common term in mainstream social science, it is as a methodological justification to separate out different racial, ethnic, gender, class, and other social groups for empirical analysis. One might call this the “intersectionality hypothesis,” and in its best incarnation, it is about getting the facts right and finding the differences that matter. But an intersectional analysis in the social sciences often involves more than this. An intersectional approach also leads to potentially different interpretations of the same facts, or what we term a different social explanation. It is not only the intersection of categories that defines an intersectional project, then, but the theoretical framing that informs the analysis and interpretation of the subject under study. This framing often leads to an analysis of multiple and even conflicting social dynamics that enable certain kinds of social understanding that are otherwise invisible when scholars focus on a single set of social dynamics. Because the social theoretical aspects of research on intersectionality are rarely discussed, relative to the more methodological and ontological aspects of intersectionality, this is our main subject matter in this article. We focus on the process of developing social explanations rooted in the intersection of multiple social dynamics in several examples from our own research and across a variety of topics in social science research.

Keywords

IntersectionalitySocial TheoryFamilyIncome InequalityLiberalism
Type
Intersectionality
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 2013 , pp. 349 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Elijah (1989). Sex Codes and Family Life among Poor Inner-city Youths. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 501: 59–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Beth L. (1988). From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, Neil G., Bloom, David E., and Craig, Patricia H. (1989). The Divergence of Black and White Marriage Patterns. American Journal of Sociology, 95(3): 692–722.Google Scholar
Blossfeld, Hans-Peter and Huinink, Johannes (1991). Human Capital Investments or Norms of Role Transition? How Women's Schooling and Career Affect the Process of Family Formation. American Journal of Sociology, 97(1): 143–168.Google Scholar
Bogle, Kathleen A. (2008). Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Brand, Jennie and Davis, Dwight (2011). The Impact of College Education on Fertility: Evidence for Heterogeneous Effects. Demography, 48(3): 863–887.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caldwell, John C. and Schindlmayr, Thomas (2003). Explorations of the Fertility Crisis in Modern Societies: A Search for Commonalities. Population Studies, 57(3): 241–263.Google Scholar
Cancian, Maria and Reed, Deborah (1999). The Impact of Wives' Earnings on Income Inequality: Issues and Estimates. Demography, 36(2): 173–184.Google Scholar
Choo, Hae Yeon and Ferree, Myra Marx (2010). Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research: A Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions, and Institutions in the Study of Inequalities. Sociological Theory, 28(2): 129–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Averil (2011). Inequalities of Love: College-Educated Black Women and the Barriers to Romance and Family. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Cole, Elizabeth R. (2009). Intersectionality and Research in Psychology. American Psychologist, 64(3): 170–180.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill (1990). Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coontz, Stephanie (2005). Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 14: 139–167.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6): 1241–1279.Google Scholar
Edin, Kathryn and Kefalas, Maria (2005). Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
England, Paula and Farkas, George (1986). Households, Employment, and Gender. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Geronimus, Arline T. (1986). The Effects of Race, Residence, and Prenatal Care on the Relationship of Maternal Age to Neonatal Mortality. American Journal of Public Health, 76(12): 1416–1421.Google Scholar
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano (2002). Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hancock, Ange-Marie (2007). When Multiplication Doesn't Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm. Perspectives on Politics, 5(1): 63–79.Google Scholar
Hewlett, Sylvia Ann (2002). Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children. New York: Talk Miramax Books.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer L. (1998). Book Review of Civic Ideals by Rogers M. Smith. Political Science Quarterly, 113(2): 321–322.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Saul D. and Foster, E. Michael (2000). AFDC Benefits and Nonmarital Births to Young Women. The Journal of Human Resources, 35(2): 376–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Saul D., Foster, Michael, and Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr. (1993). Reevaluating the Costs of Teenage Childbearing. Demography, 30(1): 1–13.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie (2003). Democracy and the Foreigner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Juhn, Chinhui and Murphy, Kevin M. (1997). Wage Inequality and Family Labor Supply. Journal of Labor Economics, 15(1): 72–97.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Elaine Bell (1997). Not Our Kind of Girl: Unraveling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Deborah (1988). Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of Black Feminist Ideology. Signs, 14(1): 42–72.Google Scholar
Lichter, Daniel T., LeClere, Felicia B., and McLaughlin, Diane K. (1991). Local Marriage Markets and the Marital Behavior of Black and White Women. American Journal of Sociology, 96(4): 843–867.Google Scholar
McCall, Leslie (2005). The Complexity of Intersectionality. Signs, 30(3): 1771–1800.Google Scholar
McCall, Leslie (2008). What Does Class Inequality Among Women Look Like? A Comparison with Men and Families in the United States, 1970–2000. In Lareau, A. and Conley, D. (Eds.), Social Class: How Does It Work?, pp. 293–323. New York: Russell Sage Found.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. (1997). The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. (2008). Racial Liberalism. PMLA, 123(5): 1380–1397.Google Scholar
Musick, Kelly, England, Paula, Edgington, Sarah, and Kangas, Nicole (2009). Education Differences in Intended and Unintended Fertility. Social Forces, 88(2): 543–572.Google Scholar
Musick, Kelly, Brand, Jennie, and Davis, Dwight (2012). Variation in the Relationship Between Education and Marriage: Mismatch in the Marriage Market? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 74(1): 53–69.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Valerie Kincade, Kalmijn, Matthijs, and Lim, Nelson (1997). Men's Career Development and Marriage Timing during a Period of Rising Inequality: Economic Aspects of Marriage and Cohabitation. Demography, 34(3): 311–330.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole (1988). The Sexual Contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole and Mills, Charles (2007). Contract and Domination. Malden, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Raley, Sara B., Mattingly, Marybeth J., and Bianchi, Suzanne M. (2006). How Dual Are Dual-Income Couples? Documenting Change from 1970–2000. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 68: 11–28.Google Scholar
Rindfuss, Ronald R., Morgan, S. Philip, and Offutt, Kate (1996). Education and the Changing Age Pattern of American Fertility: 1963–1989. Demography, 33(3): 277–290.Google Scholar
Roberts, Dorothy (1997). Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Rogers, Stacy J. and DeBoer, Danelle D. (2001). Changes in Wives' Income: Effects on Marital Happiness, Psychological Well-Being, and the Risk of Divorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63: 458–472.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, Mark R. (1999). Welfare, Marital Prospects, and Nonmarital Childbearing. Journal of Political Economy, 107(S6, Part 2): S3–S32.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Christine (2010). Earnings Inequality and the Changing Association Between Spouses' Earnings. American Journal of Sociology, 115: 1524–1557.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. (1993). Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: the Multiple Traditions in America. American Review of Political Science, 87: 549–566.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers M. (1997). Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sorensen, Annemette and McLanahan, Sara (1987). Married Women's Economic Dependency, 1940–1980. American Journal of Sociology, 93(3): 659–687.Google Scholar
Stears, Marc (2007). The Liberal Tradition and the Politics of Exclusion. Annual Review of Political Science, 10: 85–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Charles W., Santelli, John S., Everett, Sherry A., Kann, Laura, Collins, Janet L., Cassell, Carol, Morris, Leo, and Kolbe, Lloyd J. (1998). Sexual Behavior among U.S. High School Students, 1990–1995. Family Planning Perspectives, 30(4): 170–200.Google Scholar
Weinberger, Mary Beth (1987). The Relationship Between Women's Education and Fertility: Selected Findings from the World Fertility Surveys. International Family Planning Perspectives, 13(2): 35–46.Google Scholar
Wilson, William Julius and Neckerman, Katheryn (1987). Poverty and Family Structure: The Widening Gap Between Evidence and Public Policy Issues. In The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy, pp. 63–92. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar