Dr. Jodie M. Lawston is the Chair and Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has a BA in Psychology and Women’s Studies from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego.

Her textbook, Sociology: Structure and Change, was published by Pearson in 2018, and she is Pearson's first female introduction-to-sociology textbook author.

Dr. Lawston's research interests center on the issues of women’s incarceration, immigrant detention, political and social activism, and women’s health. And, she loves road cycling, rollerskating, dancing, and traveling.

Read more about her experience with Pearson in the CSUSM News Center and visit her author website.

Dr. Lawston's research interests center on the issues of women’s incarceration, immigrant detention, political and social activism, and women’s health.

Most recently, she authored the textbook, Sociology: Structure and Change, published by Pearson in 2018. She is Pearson's first female introduction-to-sociology textbook author.

She is also the author of Sisters Outside: Radical Activists Working for Women Prisoners (SUNY Press 2008); the co-editor of Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars, and Artists (SUNY Press 2011), which has a blog of the same name; and the co-editor with April Shueths of Living Together, Living Apart: Mixed Status Families and US Immigration Policy (University of Washington Press 2015).

Dr. Lawston's other scholarly publications include articles in the anthologies (Re) Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience; Milestones for American Women: Our Defining Passages; Beyond Walls and Cages: Bridging Prison Abolition and Immigrant Justice Movements; and Women, Punishment, and Community Sanctions: Human Rights and Social Justice. She has peer-reviewed articles published in Gender & Society, Sociological Focus, Social Justice, Sage Open, and the National Women's Studies Association Journal (Now Feminist Formations).

In addition to Razor Wire Women, she has edited several projects, including a special issue of the National Women’s Studies Association Journal entitled “Women and Criminal Justice: Policing, Prosecution, and Incarceration” (with Ashley Lucas), and with Martha Escobar a special issue of Social Justice entitled “Policing, Detention, Deportation, and Resistance: Situating Immigrant Justice and Carcerality in the 21st Century.”

• WGSS 490: Senior Seminar in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• WGSS 424: Women and Health
• WGSS 401: Seminar in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• WGSS 345: Gender and Violence
• WGSS 304: Ecofeminism
• WGSS 301: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Societies
• WGSS 205: Gender and Sexual Identity in Popular Culture and the Media