Sarah Becker

Biography

Dr. Sarah  Becker is 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; and Feminist Criminology.

Research Interest

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. Established and sustained with support from various granting agencies and the hard work of many LSU undergraduate/graduate students, the project is now entering its fourth year. My current “side” projects include a peer interview-based study of young people’s understandings of barroom aggression; an analysis of feminist/post-feminist thematics in the Bratz film series for young children; and an ethnographic investigation of the dynamics of cultural education in a Turkish Community Center.