Barrie Thorne

Barrie Thorne (born 1942) is a professor of sociology and of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Her work focuses on the sociology of gender, feminist theory, the sociology of age relations, childhood, and families, and ethnographic methods.

She is perhaps best known as author of the widely read book Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School which has been cited in over 170 books and over 500 publications.

Born in Utah, Thorne attended Stanford University, receiving her bachelor's degree with Great Distinction and with Honors in Anthropology and Honors in Social Thought and Institutions in 1964.

She also conducted graduate work in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics from 1964 to 1965.

Thorne received her M.A. in sociology in 1967 and her Ph.D. in sociology in 1971, both from Brandeis University.

From 1971 to 1985, Thorne was a member of the Sociology faculty at Michigan State University, moving from assistant to associate to full professor; she also helped create the MSU Women's Studies Program.

During those years, she was also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1976–1977 and 1980–1981) and at Stanford University (1981–1982).

In 1987, she moved to the University of Southern California with an appointment as the Streisand Professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Men in Society and as a Professor of Sociology.

She was elected to membership in the honorary society, Sociological Research Association, in 1993.

She was also Vice President of the American Sociological Association from 1993 to 1994.

She also helped bring the study of children and childhoods into the field of sociology, in her own research and teaching, as an editor of Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, and, from 1995 to 2003, as a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood.

In 1995, she moved to University of California, Berkeley, to become Professor of Sociology and of Gender and Women's Studies, a position which she still holds today.

In 2002, she received the American Sociological Association’s Jessie Bernard Award for lifelong achievement in opening sociology to the role of women in society.

Thorne is part of the generation of academic feminists who brought attention to women and gender into traditional fields of study and who created interdisciplinary programs and departments in gender and women's studies.

She was appointed Chair of the Gender and Women's Studies Department in 2003 and, from 1998 to 2002, served as Director of the UC Berkeley Center for Working Families.

Thorne's late husband, Peter Lyman, was a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information until he retired in 2006.

They have two children, Dr. Andrew Thorne-Lyman, a nutrition scientist at WorldFish and Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Abigail Thorne-Lyman, Principal Planner at BART.

They also have four grandchildren.

Barrie Thorne's siblings are Dr. Avril Thorne, a professor at University of California, Santa Cruz in the field of personality, and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Kip Thorne, a professor at California Institute of Technology in the field of gravity.

Thorne is well known for her upper division undergraduate courses in the gender and women’s studies and sociology departments that focus on the division of gender and on feminist theory.

She also teaches courses on the sociology of childhood, family, and the practices of ethnography.

She has won awards for her teaching and mentoring, including Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award from the Graduate Assembly at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, the Mentor of the Year Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in 1998, the Sociologists for Women in Society Outstanding Mentorship Award in 1993, and the University of Southern California Raubenheimer Award for Outstanding Teaching, Research, and Service to the University in 1992.

Thorne has written and edited a number of books, chapters, and journal articles.