Does teacher's gender impact students' evaluations? We critically evaluated the research literature and concluded that the form gender bias takes may not be easily detectible by quantitative scales. To explore this possibility, we did a qualitative analysis of the words that 288 college students at two campuses used to describe their best-and worst-ever teachers. Although we found considerable overlap in the ways that students talked about their male and female teachers, we also saw indications that students hold teachers accountable to certain gendered expectations. These expectations place burdens on all teachers, but the burdens on women are more labor-intensive. We also saw signs of much greater hostility toward women than toward men who do not meet students' gendered expectations.

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In this paper we offer a feminist analysis of talk about self-determination and empowerment in the context of disability, focusing on the case of developmental disabilities. We find strains of the same patterns feminist epistemologists have argued shape the organization of formal knowledge from the standpoint of the privileged. At the extreme, people with developmental disabilities appear as objects without selves, outside of the context of interpersonal and social structural relationships that constrain who they can be by defining them as other, often in multiple and interacting ways. Empowerment, from the dominant standpoint, becomes an abstract attribute or condition; something a person has or does not have. Taking the standpoint of women and other marginalized people offers a view of self-determination as a person's development of his or her self. Empowerment becomes a potential characteristic of a social relationship, one that facilitates the development of someone's self. The most empowering relationships are mutual, recognizing and building on the diverse contributions and needs of participants in ways that seek to minimize inequalities over time. The reason some of us are self-determining is that we are in interpersonal and social structural relationships that empower us. To construct interpersonal and social structural relationships that empower people with developmental disabilities requires challenging the way dominant conceptualizations of independence and productivity also express the standpoint of the privileged. The standpoint of women allows all of us to talk more of how we connect with and facilitate one another's developing selves within communities.

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In recent years, the discipline of sociology has seen an increased discussion of public sociology, but the discussion has focused on whether or not it is a good idea for sociologists to become more engaged with their various publics. A different question motivates this research: What are the institutional arrangements that make doing public sociology difficult, and thus less likely? Following Dorothy Smith, we start from the perspective of frontline actors and ask them about their experiences. We combine data from two sources: individual interviews with a sample of 50 academic feminists, a group that has theoretical motivation to be interested in public sociology and group interviews with 15 feminists engaged in some form of public sociology. These informants tell us about two related institutional barriers to doing public sociology: the culture of professional sociology and the standards we use for evaluating scholarship. The impact of these disciplinary barriers probably varies by institution type and career stage but there is reason to suspect they generate costs not just for individuals but for the discipline. Taking steps to break down these barriers would ameliorate concerns some have raised about public sociology.