Sarah Jane Brubaker, Ph.D.

Professor, Director of the Certificate in Gender Violence Intervention, Assistant Chair, Criminal Justice programs

EXPERTISE

• Sexual and domestic violence
• Race, gender and class in criminal and juvenile justice
• Intersectionality

EDUCATION

B.A., Sociology, James Madison University
M.S., Sociology, Virginia Commonwealth University
Ph.D., Sociology, University of Delaware

COURSES

Synthesizing seminar in public policy, theorizing gender violence, senior seminar in criminal justice, IPV policy and practice, qualitative research methods

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Sexual and domestic violence, adolescents at risk, social justice and social policy, reproductive and sexual health, intersectionality, criminalization of survival

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Brubaker created a post-baccalaureate certificate in gender violence intervention in 2003 and directs this program. She has received federal and state grants to improve efforts to prevent sexual and domestic violence on college campuses and to provide programming to young people involved in the juvenile justice system and trauma-informed training to juvenile justice staff. She is president-elect and chair of the anti-harassment committee of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Goodson, A., & Brubaker, S.J. 2024. “So just with every facet, every side of this journey, they have somebody walking alongside with them”: Practitioners’ perspectives of the Lethality Assessment Program as a collaborative model. Journal of Family Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-024-00716-w

Brubaker, S.J. (2024). Toward a critical sociology of campus sexual assault: Victim advocacy as the lifeworld resisting the system. Social Sciences 13(3), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13030125.

Brubaker, S.J., 2024. “From blame to criminalization: Black motherhood and intimate partner violence,” Pp. 3-9 in Agenda for Social Justice 3: Solutions for 2024, Edited by Kristen M. Budd, Heather Dillaway, David C. Lan, Glenn W. Muschert, Manjusha Nair, and Jason A. Smith. Briston, U.K.: Policy Press.

Brubaker, S.J., & Cleary, H. (2021). Conceptualizing and contextualizing treatment orientation: A mixed-method analysis of juvenile justice correctional staff under a therapeutic model. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 1-21.

Brubaker, S.J. (2021). Embracing and expanding feminist theory: (Re)conceptualizing gender and power. Violence Against Women. 27(5), 717-726.

Brubaker, S.J. (2019). Theorizing gender violence. Series on Family Violence, edited by Claire Renzetti. San Diego, CA: Cognella Press.

Brubaker, S.J., & Keegan, B. (2019). “Suddenly everyone’s an expert in our field:” Campus-based victim advocates and the promises and perils of professionalization. Violence Against Women, 25(9), 1116-1137.

Brubaker, S.J. (2019). Campus-based sexual assault victim advocacy and Title IX: Revisiting tensions between grassroots activism and the criminal justice system. Feminist Criminology 14(3), 307-329. 

Brubaker, S.J., Keegan, B., Guadalupe‐Diaz, X.L., & Beasley, B. (2017). Measuring and reporting campus sexual assault: Privilege and exclusion in what we know and what we do. Sociology Compass, 11(12).

Medicalization, natural childbirth and birthing experiences. Sociology Compass, 3(1): 31-48 (2009). With Heather Dillaway; reprinted in Weitz, Ruth and Samantha Kwan, (eds.) 2014. The Politics of Women’s Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior. Oxford University Press

Brubaker, Sarah Jane. 2007. Denied, embracing and resisting medicalization: African American teen mothers’ perceptions of formal pregnancy and childbirth care. Gender & Society 21: 528-552.

Brubaker, Sarah Jane and Wright, Christie A. 2006. Identity transformation and family caregiving: Narratives of African American teen mothers. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68: 1214-1228.