Cecilia Ridgeway

Cecilia L. Ridgeway is the Lucie Stern Professor of Social Sciences in the Sociology Department at Stanford University. She is particularly interested in the role that social hierarchies in everyday social relations play in the larger processes of stratification and inequality in a society. Ongoing projects include empirical tests of status construction theory, which is a theory about the power of interactional contexts to create and spread status beliefs about social differences. Examples of this work include “How Easily Do Social Differences Become Status Distinctions? Gender Matters,” a paper currently under review, “Consensus and the Emergence of Status Beliefs (Social Forces 2006), “Creating and Spreading Status Beliefs” (American Journal of Sociology, 2000), “How Do Status Beliefs Develop? The Role of Resources and Interaction (American Sociological Review, 1998), and “The Social Construction of Status Value: Gender and Other Nominal Characteristics” (Social Forces, 1991).

Another ongoing project addresses the role of interactional processes in preserving gender inequality despite major changes in the socioeconomic organization of society. A book manuscript in preparation on this topic is tentatively titled, Framed By Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World. Examples of other publications on social hierarchies, status, and gender inequality include :Gender as a Group Process: Implications for the Persistence of Inequality” (2007), “Sociological Approaches to Sex Discrimination” (2007), “Motherhood as a Status Characteristic” (Journal of Social Issues, 2004), “Unpacking the Gender System: A Theoretical Perspective on Cultural Beliefs and Social Relations” (Gender & Society, 2004)“Gender, Status, and Leadership” (Journal of Social Issues, 2001), “Interaction and the Conservation of Gender Inequality” (American Sociological Review, 1997), and Gender, Interaction, and Inequality (Springer-Verlag, 1992).

Newer projects include 1) the development of a theoretical analysis of the role of social coordination and accountability in the development and use of status information, and 2) a theoretical account of the processes that bind low status members to a group.

Curriculum Vitæ

Email Cecilia Ridgeway


 

RESEARCH AREAS

Social Psychology, Gender Stratification, Group Processes, Status Processes, Sociology of Culture.

PUBLICATIONS

Recent Books:

  • Cecilia Ridgeway. Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World. Book manuscript in preparation.


  • Cecilia Ridgeway (Ed.). Gender, Interaction and Inequality. NY: Springer-Verlag, 1992.
  • Edward Lawler, Barry Markovsky, Cecilia Ridgeway, and Henry Walker (Eds.). Advances in Group Processes Vol. 9. Greenwich, CT: JAI, 1992.


  • Edward Lawler, Barry Markovsky, Cecilia Ridgeway, and Henry Walker (Eds.). Advances in Group Processes Vol. 8. Greenwich, CT: JAI, 1991.
  • Edward Lawler, Barry Markovsky, Cecilia Ridgeway, and Henry Walker (Eds.). Advances in Group Processes Vol. 7. Greenwich, CT: JAI, 1990.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. The Dynamics of Small Groups. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983

Recent Papers:

  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Gender as a Group Process: Implications for the Persistence of Inequality.” Pp. 311-333 in The Social Psychology of Gender, edited by S. Correll. New York: Elsivier, 2007.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway and Paula England. “Sociological Approaches to Sex Discrimination in Employment.” Pp. 189-211 in Sex Discrimination in the Workplace: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by F. J. Crosby, M. S. Stockdale, and A. S. Ropp. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Status Construction Theory.” Pp. 4756-4759 in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Vol. IX, edited by G. Ritzer. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley J. Correll. “Consensus and the Creation of Status Beliefs.” Social Forces, 2006, 85(1-Sept): 431-454.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Expectation States Theory and Emotion” Pp. 347-367 in Handbook of Sociology of Emotions, edited by J. E. Stets and J. H. Turner. New York: Springer Press, 2006.
  • Cathryn Johnson, Timothy Dowd, and Cecilia Ridgeway. “Legitimacy as a Social Process.” Annual Review of Sociology, 2006, 32: 53-78.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Linking Social Structure and Interpersonal Relations: A Theoretical Perspective on Cultural Schemas and Social Relations.” Social Psychology Quarterly, 2006, 69:5-17.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Status Construction Theory.” Pp. 301-323 in Contemporary Social Psychological Theories, edited by P. J. Burke. Stanford University Press, 2006.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Gender as an Organizing Force in Social Relations: Implications for the Future of Inequality.” Pp. 265-287 in The Declining Significance of Gender?, edited by F. D. Blau, M. B. Brinton, and D. G. Grusky. New York: Russell Sage, 2006.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Social Relational Contexts and Self-Organizing Inequality.” Pp. 180-196 in Relational Perspectives in Organizational Studies, edited by M. Ozbilgin and O. Kyriakidou. London: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2006.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley J. Correll. “Motherhood as a Status Characteristic.” Journal of Social Issues, 2004, 60: 683-700.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley J. Correll. “Unpacking the Gender System: A Theoretical Perspective on Cultural Beliefs and Social Relations.” Gender and Society, 2004, 18: 510-531.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway. “Status Characteristics and Leadership.” Pp. 65-78 in Leadership and Power: Identity Processes in Groups and Organizations, edited by D. van Knippenberg and M. Hogg. London: Sage, 2004.
  • Cecilia Ridgeway and Chris Bourg. “Gender as Status: An Expectation States Approach.” Pp. 217-241 in Psychology of Gender, 2nd Ed., edited by A. H. Eagly, A. Beall, and R. J. Sternberg. New York: Guilford, 2004.
  • Shelley J. Correll and Cecilia Ridgeway. “Expectation States Theory.” Pp. 29-52 in The Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by J. Delamater. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2003.

 

Back to top