Dr. Brianna Turgeon

Education

• Kent State University, Ph.D. Sociology
  Dissertation:  Talking About Accountability:  An Analysis of the Discourse of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers."

• Kent State University, MA, Sociology
  Thesis:  "Poor Women, Poor Workers, Poor Mothers:  Using Critical Discourse Analysis to examine Welfare-to-Work Program Managers' Expectations and Evaluations of their Clients' Mothering."

• Mississippi State University, BA, Sociology
  Minor:  Gender Studies

Courses Taught

• SY 195 - Explore Seminar: How to Be Anti-Racist
• SY 195 - Explore Seminar: Fandom and Activism
• SY 221 Introduction to Sociology
• SY 308 Pop Culture
• SY 310 Modern Family
• SY 313 Social Psychology
• SY 326 Sociology of Education 
• SY 356 Social Movements

Research and Teaching Interests

• Dr. Turgeon's teaching incorporates media, teaching activities, discussion, and writing to help students understand the social context in which they live and to critically consider social issues.  She strives to demonstrate how sociology is relevant to everyone's lives--regardless of the career they are pursuing.  

• Dr. Turgeon's interests include inequality, poverty, mothering, work, discourse, identity, and pop culture.  Her research focuses on discourse, ideology, and identity spanning a variety of contexts, including welfare, the work place, and pop culture.

• Research is important to me as a tool for sharing knowledge and creating change in the world. A common theme across all of my research projects is understanding the intersection of inequality and identity. I've explored these intersections by examining welfare, the workplace, and pop culture. In welfare, I've explored expectations that mothers on welfare face in how they should parent and work to succeed despite structural limitations. In the workplace, I've looked at how the gender composition of the workplace and the types of places people live impact equity in the workplace. In a new pop culture project, I'm examining how fans understand themselves when creators publicly espouse problematic discourse. Inequality and identity also inform my teaching practices and my service, where I work to serve as a mentor and improve the experiences of people across intersections of identity.

Publications

• (Forthcoming).  Taylor, Tiffany, Alison Buck, Katrina Bloch, and Brianna Turgeon. “Gender Composition and Share of Management: Tipping Points in US Workplaces, 1980-2005.” The Social Science Journal.
• (Forthcoming).  Brianna Turgeon and Kaitlyn Root. “Mothers on Welfare.” In Routledge Motherhood Companion, edited by Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Andrea O’Reilly, and Melinda Vandenbeld Giles. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing.
• 2018.  Turgeon, Brianna. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Expectations and Evaluations of their Clients’ Mothering.” Critical Sociology 44(1):127-140.
• 2018.  Taylor, Tiffany, Brianna Turgeon, and Christi Gross. “’Here on the Front Lines’: Welfare-to-Work Managers’ Moral Identity Work.” Symbolic Interaction 41(1): 45-61.
• 2018.  Taylor, Tiffany, Brianna Turgeon, and Christi Gross. “Becoming a Good Welfare Manager: Paternalistic Oppressive Othering and Boundary Maintenance.” Sociological Focus 
• 2017.  Taylor, Tiffany, Katrina Bloch, and Brianna Turgeon. “What Work/Life Balance? Ohio Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Focus on Paid Work.” In The Balancing Act: Intersections of Work-Life Balance in Communication across Identities, Genders, and Cultures, edited by Elizabeth Hatfield. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• Turgeon, Brianna and Sarah Donley. 2023. “Beyond Race, Class, and Gender: Integrating Intersectionality into Monopoly Simulations.”  TRAILS. https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/4048.
• Turgeon, Brianna, Kaitlyn Root, Kasey Ray, and Tiffany Taylor. 2022. “’It’s Embarrassing to Come Here’: Welfare-to-Work, Emotion Rules, and Emotional Capital” Poverty & Public Policy 14(1):8-24.
• Jason, Kendra and Brianna Turgeon. 2021. “Victim-Blaming in Disguise? Supervisors’ Accounts of Problems in Healthcare Delivery. Qualitative Sociology 44(2): 253-270.
• Brianna Turgeon. 2019.“When “Best I Can” is Not Enough: Welfare Managers’ Appraisal of Clients’ Mothering Practices.” Sociological Inquiry 90(4): 839-866.
• Taylor, Tiffany, Brianna Turgeon, Alison Buck, and Katrina Bloch. 2019. “Spatial Variation in U.S. Labor Markets and Workplace Sex Segregation: 1980-2000.” Sociological Inquiry 89(4): 569-572.
• Taylor, Tiffany, Alison Buck, Katrina Bloch, and Brianna Turgeon. 2019. “Gender Composition and Share of Management: Tipping Points in US Workplaces, 1980-2005.” Submitted to The Social Science Journal 56(1): 48-59.
• Brianna Turgeon and Kaitlyn Root. 2019. “Mothers on Welfare.” In Routledge Motherhood Companion, edited by Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Andrea O’Reilly, and Melinda Vandenbeld Giles. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing.
• Turgeon, Brianna. 2018. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Expectations and Evaluations of their Clients’ Mothering.” Critical Sociology 44(1):127-140.
• Taylor, Tiffany, Brianna Turgeon, and Christi Gross. 2018. “’Here on the Front Lines’: Welfare-to-Work Managers’ Moral Identity Work.” Symbolic Interaction 41(1): 45-61.
• Taylor, Tiffany, Christi Gross, and Brianna Turgeon. 2018. “Becoming a Good Welfare Manager: Paternalistic Oppressive Othering and Boundary Maintenance.” Sociological Focus 51(4): 335-349.
• Taylor, Tiffany, Katrina Bloch, and Brianna Turgeon. 2017. “What Work/Life Balance? Ohio Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Focus on Paid Work.” In The Balancing Act: Intersections of Work-Life Balance in Communication across Identities, Genders, and Cultures, edited by Elizabeth Hatfield. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• Turgeon, Brianna. 2015. “Power and Privilege.” TRAILS. (2017 – 7th most downloaded TRAILS resource, 2016 – 4th most downloaded TRAILS resource; 2015 - 8th most downloaded TRAILS resource)
• Gross, Christi, Brianna Turgeon, Tiffany Taylor, and Kasey Wilkes. 2014. “State Intervention in Intensive Mothering in the United States: Neoliberalism, New Paternalism, and Poor Mothers in Ohio.” In Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood, edited by Linda Ennis. Toronto, ON: Demeter Press.

Peer-Reviewed Teaching Activities

• Turgeon, Brianna, Tiffany Taylor, and Laura Niehaus. 2014. “Contrasts and Classtalk: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers.” Discourse & Society 25(5):1-16.
• Cossman, Lynne, Philip Mason, Brianna Turgeon, and David Lay. 2014. “The use of technology and perceptions of its effectiveness in training physicians.” Medical Teacher 36(4).