Media and Public Relations
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George Mason University
Media Sources Guide
CATEGORY: Society and Culture
Society and Culture: Sub-Categories:
Amy Best
Associate Professor of Sociology
Expertise: Youth culture, proms, car culture, teens, social identity
Best is interested in the study of youth, culture and social inequalities.
She earned her PhD in Sociology in 1998 from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She is author of "Prom Night: Youth, Schools and Popular Culture" (2000 Routledge), which was selected for the 2002 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award and "Fast Cars: Cool Rides: The Accelerating World of Youth and Their Cars" (NYU Press 2005) in addition to several articles and book chapters.
Media Contact: Tara Laskowski, 703-993-8815, tlaskows@gmu.edu
Shannon Davis
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Expertise: Families, Adolescents, Division of household labor, Gender inequality
Davis' research focuses on the creation of families and the negotiation of family life. Specifically, she is interested in how adolescents create and maintain relationships, how family members negotiate the intersection of paid and unpaid work in their daily lives, and how gender inequality is reproduced in families.
She also looks at the construction and maintenance of beliefs about gender, or gender ideologies.
Recent research has focused on testing the predictive power of theories on divorce, the division of household labor, and perceptions of fairness of the division of household labor using cross-national samples.
Davis received her BA in Sociology in 1997 from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and her PhD in Sociology in 2004 from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University.
Media Contact: Tara Laskowski, 703-993-8815, tlaskows@gmu.edu
Mark Goodale
Assistant Professor of Conflict Analysis and Anthropology
Expertise: Bolivia, Latin America
Goodale is an anthropologist who specializes in international law, human rights and culture, morality across cultures, and different types of conflict.
He has been conducting research in Bolivia since 1996 and as a Fulbright scholar he studied Romania’s efforts to reform their political and legal institutions in preparation for accession to the European Union in 2007.
He is the author of two books: Surrendering to Utopia: An Anthropology of Human Rights (Stanford University Press, 2009) and Dilemmas of Modernity: Bolivian Encounters with Law and Liberalism (Stanford University Press, 2008).
He is currently writing two new books, one a volume of essays on human rights and moral creativity, the other a study of revolution and counterrevolution in contemporary Bolivia. In 2007 he became the series editor of Stanford Studies in Human Rights, a book series with Stanford University Press.
Media Contact: James Greif, 703-993-9118, jgreif@gmu.edu
Todd Kashdan
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Expertise: Science of Happiness, Relationships, Strengths, Social Anxiety, Curiosity, Mindfulness, Emotions, Personality
Dr. Kashdan is the author of the book, "Curious?" (Harper Collins 2009). He has published more than 80 original publications in peer-reviewed journals or edited volumes that mostly focus on anxiety disorders, self-regulation, positive emotions, how personal strengths operate in everyday life, interpersonal relationships, and the assessment and cultivation of well-being, curiosity, gratitude, and meaning and purpose in life. His research has been funded by grants from the National Institute of Health, Veterans Integrated Service Network, Anxiety Disorder Association of America, Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology, and the Positive Psychology Network.
He has been active in the positive psychology movement since 2000, when he taught one of the first college courses on the science of happiness. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Positive Psychology and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Behavior Therapy, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality, and Self and Identity. He is on the Advisory Board for the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology in the United Kingdom.
His research has been featured in several popular media outlets including a feature article in the New York Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, The Tavis Smiley Show, Oprah Magazine, Montel Williams Radio Show, Reader’s Digest, Psychology Today, Prevention Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Parenting Magazine, Talking with America, and Green America Radio, MSNBC.com, FoxNews.com, and The Guardian among others.
Listen to Dr. Kashdan on NPR's Kojo Nnamdi show.
Media Contact: Tara Laskowski, 703-993-8815, tlaskows@gmu.edu