people

Maria Charles

Maria Charles Sociology professor
Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Professor
Broom Center Affiliation(s)

Area Director, Sex and Gender Theme

Maria Charles is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UCSB (Chair 2012-2016) and a founding member of the Broom Advisory Board (Director 2016-21; Area Director for Sex and Gender Research 2010-24). Her research explores how gender inequalities and gender beliefs vary within and across countries, with particular attention to the cultural and structural forces that sustain gender segregation in families, educational systems, and labor markets. Recent projects, with graduate students and other collaborators, include analyses of gender-related beliefs in Europe, United States, Africa, and the Middle East, and cross-national differences in the gender gap in engineering, computing, and other STEM fields. Professor Charles is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Sociological Research Association.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:

US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. 2019-2023. Why Do More Palestinian than Jewish Girls Study STEM? Assessing Effects of Material Insecurity and Self-expressive Culture on Curricular Paths in Israel.”With Yariv Feniger and Halleli Pinson. $171,000.

UCSB Academic Senate. 2021-2022. Sex, Gender, and Islam: An Online Survey of Women and Men in Eight MENASA Societies. With Janet Afary and Roger Friedland. $8,000.

US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. 2019-2022. Why Do More Arab than Jewish Girls Study STEM? Assessing Effects of Material Insecurity and Self-expressive Culture on Curricular Paths in Israel. With Yariv Feniger and Halleli Pinson. $171,000.

Carsey-Wolf Center, UCSB. 2019-2020. Private Lives-Public Politics: Gender Relations and Gender Ideologies in Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian Countries. With Janet Afary and Roger Friedland. $8,000.

Carsey-Wolf Center Faculty Research Support Grant, UCSB. 2019. Private Lives-Public Politics: Gender Relations and Gender Ideologies in Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian Countries. Afary, Charles, Friedland. $5,000.

Collaborative Research Initiative Grant (C-RIG), UCSB 2019. Private Lives-Public Politics: Gender Relations and Gender Ideologies in Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian Countries. Afary, Charles, Friedland. $8,000

US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. 2019. Why Do More Arab than Jewish Girls Study STEM? Assessing Effects of Material Insecurity and Self-expressive Culture on Curricular Paths in Israel. Feniger, Charles, Pinson. $171,000

mcharles@soc.ucsb.edu
http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/maria-charles-chair
Family Demography
Sex and Gender
Immigration, Race and Ethnicity

Publications

Maria Charles, Roger Friedland, Janet Afary, and Rujun Yang. 2023. 
"Complicating Patriarchy: Gender Beliefs of Muslim Facebook Users in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. "
Gender & Society 37:91-123, https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432221137909.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Budge, Jason, Maria Charles, Yariv Feniger, and Halleli Pinson. 2023
"The Gendering of Tech Selves: Aspirations for Computing Jobs among Jewish and Arab/Palestinian Adolescents in Israel."
Technology in Society 73:102245.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
Thébaud, Sarah and Maria Charles. 2022. 
"Who’s a Good Fit? Segregation, Stereotypes and STEM. "
Social Stratification: Class Race and Gender in Sociological Perspective, David Grusky, Nima Dahir and Claire Daviss, Editors. Routlege.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Carmel Blank, Maria Charles, Yariv Feniger, Halleli Pinson. 2022. 
"Context Matters: The Gendering of Physics Coursework in Arabic-speaking, Hebrew-speaking, and Single-sex School Sectors in Israel. "
Sex Roles 86:620-33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-022-01292-3.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
Yang, Rujun, and Maria Charles. 2021. 
"Traditional Asians? Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Policy Attitudes in the United States. "
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 7:130–53. Special issue on Asian Americans and the Immigrant Integration Agenda.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria. 2020. 
"Gender Attitudes in Africa: Liberal Egalitarianism across 34 Countries. "
Social Forces
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Wong, Yan Ling Anne, and Maria Charles. 2020. 
"Gender and Occupational Segregation. "
Pp. 305-325 in Companion to Women’s & Gender Studies, Nancy A. Naples, ed. Hoboken, NJ: W
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Chow, Tiffany and Maria Charles. 2020. 
"An Inegalitarian Paradox: On the Uneven Gendering of Computing Occupations around the World."
In Cracking the Digital Ceiling. Carol Frieze and Jeria Quesenberry, eds. Cambridge University Press.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Budge, Jason and Maria Charles. 2020. 
"Trends in Support for Stay-at-Home Mothering. "
Contexts 19(2): 71-73.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Thébaud, Sarah and Maria Charles. 2018. 
"Segregation, Stereotypes, and STEM."
 Social Sciences 7(7):1-19.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria and Sarah Thébaud, eds. Forthcoming. 
"Gender and STEM: Understanding Segregation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics."
Basel: MDPI Press.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Anna H. Chatillon, Maria Charles, and Karen Bradley. 2018. 
"Gender Ideology."
Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, Pp. 217-226, Barbara J. Risman, Carissa Froyum, and William Scarborough, eds. NY: Springer.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Thébaud, Sarah and Maria Charles. 2018. 
"Segregation, Stereotypes, and STEM."
Social Sciences 7(7):1-19.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria. 2017
"Venus, Mars, and Math: Gender, Societal Affluence and Eighth Graders' Aspirations for STEM"
SOCIUS3:1-16.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria and Amber Lopez. 2017. 
"Division of Labor, Gender."
Bryan S. Turner, Chang Kyung-Sup, Cynthia Epstein, Peter Kivisto, William Outhwaite, and J. Michael Ryan, eds. Encyclopedia of Sociological Theory. Wiley-Blackwell.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Hendley, Alexandra and Maria Charles. 2016. 
"Gender Inequality in Education."
In Nancy Naples, ed. Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Wiley-Blackwell.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Hendley, Alexandra and Maria Charles. 2015.
"Gender Segregation in Higher Education"
In Robert A. Scott and Stephen M. Kosslyn, eds. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria, Corrie Ellis Grosse and Paula England. 2015.
"Is There a Caring Class? Intergenerational Transmission of Care Work."
Sociological Science. 2:527-43.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria, Bridget Harr, Erin Cech and Alexandra Hendley. 2014. 
"Who Likes Math Where?"
Gender Differences in Eighth-graders' Attitudes around the World. International Studies in Sociology of Education 24:85-112. 
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria.
"The Local Joneses: Household Consumption and Income Inequality in Large Metropolitan Areas"
Forthcoming. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility.
Research Themes:
Family Demography, Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria. 2013. 
"Sex Typing."
In Vicki Smith and J. Geoffrey Golson, eds. Sociology of Work. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications. 
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria. 2013. 
"Review of Conflict and Concord"
in Work and Family: Family Policies and Individuals' Subjective Experiences, by Ida Öun. Sociologisk Forskning. 
Research Themes:
Family Demography, Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria.
"Global Sex Segregation"
In George Ritzer, ed. Encyclopedia of Globalization. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 2012.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria.
"Review of Framed by Gender: Why Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World, by Cecilia Ridgeway."
European Sociological Review. 2012.
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
Charles, Maria
"What Gender is Science?"
Contexts 22-28. 2011
Research Themes:
Sex and Gender
PDF
Charles, Maria
"A World of Difference: International Trends in Women's Economic Status"
Annual Review of Sociology 37:355-72. 2011
Research Themes:
Family Demography, Sex and Gender
PDF