Consent Law/Sexual Regulation- Limited in Sociology?

[Beals]

Hi folks,

My area is sexual regulation and sexual consent legislation.  This is quite topical, but my problem is that most of the American scholars writing are based in law schools, where I cannot study unless I'd like to spend about a billion dollars on a JD (I don't, even if it magically placed me on Janet Halley's door).  

I'm looking at both interdisciplinary legal studies departments (UCI's Criminology & Law, and Berkeley's JSP), and programs with Sociology of Law (eg., Northwestern, NYU, and Vanderbilt).  

While those departments all have strong fits in terms of research methods/general subject area, I'm struggling to find POIs that already do work in my area.  So I'm soliciting advice and opinions from all you wise people.

1) Can you recommend profs?  I've read fairly broadly in the field but I am sure I've missed someone somewhere who's hosted in a Soc dept!

2) Can you recommend programs? Soc, policy, law, I'm very flexible, I just want fit!

3) I keep hearing 'fit' is everything.  Is it enough that the program methods/general focus and POIs general interest match?  

[rising_star]

If you're concerned about fit, then is it enough to find someone who focuses on legal studies in sociology? I'd start my search there and then gauge interest in your more narrow topic.

[Beals]

9 minutes ago, rising_star said:

If you're concerned about fit, then is it enough to find someone who focuses on legal studies in sociology? I'd start my search there and then gauge interest in your more narrow topic.

Thanks for replying!  That's what I've done so far.... several people in Northwestern's, Vandy's, and NYU's sociology departments focus on legal studies in general, but not my topic specifically.  I'm just concerned that's not good enough?  

Personally, I consider that a good enough fit (because who knows if I'll even stay with the topic of sexual consent law by the time I'm writing my dissertation) but I'm worried the adcomms would disagree.

Perhaps I need to revise my original question and ask "when is fit 'good enough'"!??

[rising_star]

I wish I could easily find one of my old previous posts about fit but, here goes the abbreviated version. I found both MA and PhD advisors who shared my general interests, theoretical framework, and methodology, rather than focusing on specific topical fit. That is, my PhD advisor and I both worked within the same broad subfield (let's just call it "organic agriculture"). However, we studied different practices (PhD advisor did large-scale farmers, I did small-scale) and in different contexts (PhD advisor did Australia, I did Albania). But in terms of methods used, the methods we use are similar because it's all work done within the same subfield, with the same underlying theoretical framework. I had committee members with expertise in the Balkans, another who worked with small-scale farmers in the US, and a third who specialized in some of the methods I was using.

All of this is made-up, obviously, but my point is that you don't need an advisor who works on exactly the same topic as you. In fact, I think it's better (in the social sciences) not to have someone who does exactly what you want to do because they won't necessarily ask you the same kinds of questions as someone coming at the subject as a bit of an outsider. 

[Beals]

Rising_Star, thank you so much for the advice!  That strategy seems perfectly sound to me, especially because I'm a pretty independent researcher and worry about having a supervisor that wants my work to be an extension of their own.  It's good to get a little more input regarding what 'fit' means

[seekingsun]

Sandy Levitsky @ Michigan works in Sociology of Law and Social Movements.   She and Elizabeth Armstrong (Gender, Education, Organizations) have a giant Title IX project going on right now that might be relevant to your interests.

Edited August 3, 2016 by seekingsun

[Beals]

Thanks seekingsun, I'll take a look!