Recently, there has been a rapid proliferation of scholarship on resistance but little consensus on its definition. In this paper, we review and synthesize the diverse literatures that invoke the concept of resistance. This review illuminates both core elements common to most uses of the concept and two central dimensions on which these uses vary: the questions of whether resistance must be recognized by others and whether it must be intentional. We use these two dimensions to develop a typology of resistance, thereby clarifying both the meaning and sociological utility of this concept.Resistance is a fashionable topic. In sociology, as in many other disciplines, attention has recently expanded from issues of social control and social structure to issues of agency. As a result, we are now experiencing a flood of research and theory which purports to speak to the issue of resistance. This new attention spans many subdisciplines in sociology. At the 2001 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, for example, papers on resistance were presented in sessions on social movements, gender, sport, technology, and political sociology, among others. This is true across disciplines as well; resistance has received increasing attention in disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, geography, political science, and women's studies.Although this rapid proliferation of scholarship on resistance is both exciting and productive, different authors who use the language of resistance 1 A version of this paper was presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association.

This article argues that focus group discussions are shaped by multiple social contexts, a fact that is often ignored by researchers. Using data from a focus group study of the effects of violence on everyday life, this article provides an analysis of four such contexts: the associational, status (especially gender), conversational, and relational contexts. These multiple and overlapping contexts foster both problematic silences (lack of disclosure) and problematic speech (strategic shaping of comments) in group discussions. These processes limit the usefulness of focus groups as a tool for understanding individual thoughts, feelings, or experiences. However, they make focus groups an excellent site for analyzing the processes of social interaction. The article concludes with suggestions for improving the implementation and interpretation of focus groups in light of this analysis.

Sexual assault prevention on college campuses often includes programming directed at men, women, and all students as potential bystanders. Problematically, specific types of sexual assault prevention are often implemented on campuses in isolation, and sexual assault risk reduction and resistance education programs for women are rarely integrated with other approaches. With increasing focus on the problem of sexual assault on college campuses, it is timely to envision a comprehensive and interconnected prevention approach. Implementing comprehensive prevention packages that draw upon the strengths of existing approaches is necessary to move toward the common goal of making college campuses safer for all students. Toward this goal, this commentary unpacks the models and mechanisms on which current college sexual assault prevention strategies are based with the goal of examining the ways that they can better intersect. The authors conclude with suggestions for envisioning a more synthesized approach to campus sexual assault prevention, which includes integrated administration of programs for women, men, and all students as potential bystanders on college campuses.

Self-defense classes are offered across the nation as a strategy for reducing women's vulnerability to sexual assault. Yet there has been little systematic research assessing the effectiveness of these classes. In this article, I use data from a mixed methods study of a 10-week, university-based, feminist self-defense class to examine the effectiveness of self-defense training over a 1-year follow-up period. My analyses indicate that women who participate in self-defense training are less likely to experience sexual assault and are more confident in their ability to effectively resist assault than similar women who have not taken such a class.

Those who teach or research women's self-defense often encounter significant resistance from others. In this article, the author discusses three major types of resistance to women's self-defense (and to women's resistance to violence more generally): the belief that women's resistance is impossible, that it is too dangerous, and that it risks blaming the victim. The author argues that one source of these reactions is people's taken-for-granted beliefs about gender, which limit their ability to understand the research on women's resistance and self-defense-and, indeed, prevent them from being able to conceptualize women as strong and competent social actors.