Research Interests

• Race, Ethnic and Minority Relations
• Law and Society
• Cultural Sociology
• Gender
• Qualitative Methods
• Community and Citizenship
• Communication and Information Technology

Courses Taught at Texas A&M

• SOCI 210: Sociology of Science and Technology
• SOCI 212: Sociology of Popular Culture
• SOCI 315: The Marriage Institution
• SOCI 404: Sociology of Community
• SOCI 445: Sociology of Law
• SOCI 603: The Contemporary Family
• SOCI 624: Qualitative Methods
• SOCI 629: Sociology of Law
• SOCI 651: Sociology of Culture
• SOCI 657: Popular Culture

Bio

I am most interested in how people organize themselves in terms of community and citizenship. These two concepts both run parallel to one another, and are two ends of a continuum. Because “community” and “citizenship” are broad, contested processes, there are many ways one can study them. I focused my analyses initially upon gender and race as they intersect with these processes. I am also concerned with their significance as cultural systems, and as ideologies that permeate all our lives. I have moved back and forth from a focus on policy and law, and thus the more formal process of citizenship, to a more generalized focus on the micro- to macro-level processes of identity, community, and citizenship, and the connections between these processes.

Representative Publications

• Gatson SN (2011). “The Methods, Ethics, and Politics of Representation in Online Ethnography,” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, Eds. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, 4th Edition, Sage, 513-527.
• Gatson SN (2011). “Self-Naming Practices on the Internet: Identity, Authenticity, and Community.” Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 11 (3): 224-235.
• Gatson SN and Zweerink A (2004). Interpersonal Culture on the Internet – Television, the Internet, and the Making of a Community, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press: Studies in Sociology Series, no. 40.