This work uses gender and developmental theories to examine short- and long-term continuities in behavior and preference as a product of the sex composition of adolescent peer groups. Guided by gender theory on child and adolescent development and heteronormativity, I argue the transition from the same-sex culture of childhood (see: Maccoby 1998; Thorne 1993) to a mixed-sex culture in adolescence is a key site of socialization into deviant and delinquent behavior. Future iterations of this work will explore how schools and juvenile detention facilities reproduce sex-segregation among adolescent offenders and create barriers to entry into pro-social and platonic mixed-sex spaces.

This work uses theories on gender socialization and occupational selection (see: Correll 2004) to examine how the timing, content, and institutional contexts of adolescents' peer group sex composition influences the sex compostion of adults' occupations. I argue the timing and extent of the transition from the same-sex culture of childhood to mixed-sex cultures in adolescence helps explain selection into sex-segregated and/or gender atypical occupations. Ongoing research looks to replicate dissertation findings and to explore how career milestones and mobility are influenced by the sex composition of workers' social networks.

This work examines how race and gender dynamics intersect (see: Collins 2009, Crenshaw 1991) to produce patterns in the sentencing of monetary sanctions and the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of women. I combine administrative court data, census data, and audit data to describe how women in general, and Black women in particular, are disproportionately punished by the system of monetary sanctions. This project focuses on how the racialization of both people and physical spaces (see: McKittrick 2006) reflects the Anglo- and androcentric structure of the criminal legal system and deliberately punishes women and their communities.

This mixed-methods research uses Facebook data from a Chicago-area gang-affiliated online group to examine how girls and women reproduce and challenge gang culture and dynamics through their online personas and interactions. We examine the role of women and girls as both passive instruments used by male gang members to reinforce masculine gang identities, and as self-aware actors who adamantly police the boundaries of gang womanhood using racialized and gendered language and posturing. Using social network and hierarchical analyses and qualitative content analysis of thousands of online interactions, we demonstrate girls and women are rewarded with popularity and protection for upholding the gang patriarchy.