Jessica Fields, Acting Director and Research Associate

Curriculum Vitae

Jessica Fields is a Research Associate and the Acting Director at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality (CRGS) and an Assistant Professor of Sociology at San Francisco State University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001. Her studies of sex education focus on the lessons that students take away about sexual difference and inequality; the intersections of sexuality, race, and gender inequalities; people’s claims to membership and belonging in social contexts; and their own and others’ entitlement to sexual pleasure and respect. Dr. Fields explores these questions in middle-school classrooms, community sexuality education debates, peer sexuality education programs for and by youth, and—most recently—HIV/AIDS education for women in jail. Her studies of youth have led to her work on an international collaborative study of race, gender, and sexuality in the lives of young adults. Project sites include Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Chicago, and San Francisco; Dr. Fields leads the San Francisco effort. At the CRGS, Dr. Fields pursues her research program with RISE: Research in Inequality, Sexuality, and Education, a team of SFSU undergraduate and graduate student researchers from Sociology, Human Sexuality Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Psychology. At SFSU, she is an active mentor to graduate and undergraduate students and teaches courses on research methods; race, sexuality, class, and gender; youth; and sexuality education. Dr. Fields is a board member at Health Initiatives for Youth, a San Francisco-based community organization. Her book, Sexual Subjects: Race, Gender, Youth, and Sex Ed, is forthcoming from Rutgers University Press. She has published in Social Problems, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, and Symbolic Interaction.