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Sage College DEI - Putting Classic Research into Modern Context

From the Editor's Desk page

Putting Classic Research into Modern Context

When the social discourse has changed, how do we continue to incorporate older—but important—studies in our textbooks? 

By Tara Slagle, Content Development Editor
November 2022

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Classic research plays an important role in informing all social science disciplines and modern research. However, given that many frequently cited classic studies are decades old, they don’t always read the same to the modern eye as they did to the authors’ contemporaries. When the social discourse has changed, how do we continue to incorporate older—but important—studies in our textbooks? We must reframe the conversation around the classics and provide the proper context for today’s students. 

The recent revision process for a textbook in the marriage and families course area provides the perfect example. In a chapter covering sex and gender, a discussion of intersexuality includes the 1993 work of Anne Fausto-Sterling and Evan Balaban.

They rightly asserted that there exist more than two clearly defined sexes, and an entire group of people—those who are today called intersex—do not meet the binary idea of humans as either anatomical males or females. Nearly 30 years ago, the authors argued for an increased understanding of “sexual multiplicity,” which we today term “intersexuality.” In their work, Fausto-Sterling and Balaban proposed the idea of 5 biological sexes: “hermaphrodites” (people who have one ovary and one testicle), “ferms” (females with ovaries and some male genital characteristics), “merms” (males with testes and some female genital characteristics), traditional males, and traditional females.

While Fausto-Sterling and Balaban made clear that there exist people who do not meet our society’s strict definitions of male and female biological sex, the broad acceptance of five sexes did not come to pass. Today, the terms proposed by the authors are not widely used, nor the delineation between different types of intersex individuals. Their work is still important today, as one of very few studies around intersex people. Our text aims to take an intersectional approach and includes discussions throughout each chapter of the many different identities people hold; thus, the inclusion of research on intersex individuals was important for this chapter on sex and gender. Not all of what is outlined in Fausto-Sterling and Balaban’s nearly 30-year-old study holds the same weight as it once did, but eliminating it entirely would have instead provided an incomplete look at this group, a major oversight. Thus, there was a need for properly contextualizing this classic work for today’s readers.

Certain research studies are considered classic because they were the first of their kind or established solid evidence for what was only guessed at by others in their field. Such works often provided the foundation for other researchers to build off of and expand our knowledge of a given subject. As time passes, new findings are published, and societal views shift, classic research sometimes needs to be viewed through the modern reader’s eyes and put into the proper context. Our job as editors is to ensure that outdated ideas are not perpetuated or misinterpreted as current wisdom. Working closely with our authors to ensure the most recent research is incorporated in each edition of their textbooks to either support or refute classic studies is essential.

Published 11/22. © 2022 Sage Publishing. All rights reserved. All other brand and product names are the property of their respective owners.