Individual Listing

1142 WATKINS HALL
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Pyke, Karen D

Associate Professor of Sociology

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Sociology


Biography

Karen Pyke, Ph.D., an associate professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside, studies Asian Americans, families, and systems of inequality. Her current projects on second generation Korean and Vietnamese Americans, "parachute" children, racialized body self-image, and biracial and multi-racial Asian Americans use intensive interview data to examine transnational families, adaptation, internalized racial and gendered oppression, and the construction of identity. A book, tentatively titled The Hidden Injuries of Racism: Internalized Racial Oppression and Asian Americans, examines various aspects of internalized racial oppression among second generation Asian Americans, and links the taboo on the study of internalized racism to identity politics and the essentializing of race. Her project on "parachute" children examines the adaptation of minor-aged children from East Asia (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea) living in the U.S. apart from their parents. Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, includes the study of the "normal American family" as an ideology shaping the meaning children of Asian immigrants give to their family lives; sibling acculturative differences, adaptation, and power in Asian immigrant families; racialized gender stereotypes in the construction of Asian American female identities, and internalized racism and sub-ethnic identities in Asian American peer groups. Her earlier research examined gender, class, and power in remarriage, and the impact of eldercare on power in aging parent/adult child relations. Pyke received the Jessie Bernard Award for Outstanding Contribution to Feminist Scholarship from the National Council on Family Relations in 1995 for "Class-based Masculinities: The Interdependence of Gender, Class, and Interpersonal Power." A recipient of the Junior Faculty Teaching Award from her university in 2003, Pyke is deputy editor for Journal of Family Issues and a member of the Council on Contemporary Families. She was a NIH post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California's Institute of Gerontology from 1993-1996, and an assistant professor in sociology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, prior to joining UC-Riverside in 2000.

Former Institution

 University of Florida

Degrees

BA Women's Studies/History 1981

University of Michigan

MA Sociology 1989

University of California, Irvine

PhD Sociology 1993

University of California, Irvine

Awards

Distinguished Paper Award, American Sociological Association, Sex and Gender Section for "Asian American Women and Racialized Femininities," 2006
Junior Faculty Teaching Award, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Science, University of California Riverside, 2003.
Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Southern California, Andrus Gerontology Center. Award from the National Institute on Aging, Multidisciplinary Training Program in Aging Research
Jessie Bernard Outstanding Contribution to Feminist Scholarship, National Council on Family Relations, 1995


Research Area

Race, Gender, Family, Asian Americans, Power, Qualitative Methods

Publications

"'Generational Deserters' and 'Black Sheep': Acculturative Differences Among Siblings in Asian Immigrant Families." 2005. Journal of Family Issues. 26: 1-27.

“Asian American Women and Racialized Femininities: ‘Doing’ Gender Across Cultural Worlds.” Feb. 2003 Gender & Society 17:33-53 (with Denise Johnson).

"'FOB' and ‘Whitewashed’: Identity and Internalized Racism Among Second Generation Asian Americans” Qualitative Sociology 26:147-172 (with Tran Dang).

“Immigrant Families in the U.S.” in Jacqueline L. Scott, Judith Treas, and Martin P.M. Richards (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of the Family. New York: Blackwell Publishers. 2004, pp. 253-269.

“Racial Stereotypes and the Formation of Sub-ethnic Identities Among New Asian Americans” Spanish translation: “Esterotipos racialies y formacióón de identidades subéétnicas entre nuevos estadounidenses de origen asiáático.” 2002. Araucaria. 3: 113-127.

“The Normal American Family’’ as an Interpretive Structure of Family Life Among Children of Korean and Vietnamese Immigrants.” (2000). Journal of Marriage and the Family 62: 240-255.

“The Micro-politics of Parent Care: Individualism, Collectivism and Power in Late-life Families.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, (1999) 61:661-672.

“Class-based Masculinities: The Interdependence of Gender, Class, and Interpersonal Power,” Gender and Society, (1996) 10:527-549.