Irvine, Janice M. 1951-

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IRVINE, Janice M. 1951-

PERSONAL: Born August 1, 1951, in Pittsburgh, PA; daughter of William and Elvera (Siket) Irvine. Education: Pennsylvania State University, B.A., 1973, M.Ed., 1975; Brandeis University, M.A., 1981, Ph.D., 1984; Boston University, M.P.H., 1992.

ADDRESSES: Home—25 Oak St., Watertown, MA 02172.

CAREER: Counselor of emotionally disturbed adolescent girls at a school in Philadelphia, PA, 1973; Juniata Valley Mental Health, Huntington, PA, assistant director of community residence, 1974-76; Preterm, Inc., Brookline, MA, assistant coordinator of counseling, 1976-77; University of Massachusetts, Boston, health education coordinator, 1978-80; Tufts University, Medford, MA, health and sexuality educator, 1984-87, instructor at Experimental College, 1985-87, lecturer in community health and internship coordinator, 1988—. Therapist, Gender Identity Service, Boston, 1976-80; director of rehabilitation, Merrimack Valley Rehabilitation, 1977-79; community educator, Quincy Family Planning, 1984; lecturer in women's studies, Wellesley College, 1985-88; coordinator of women's education and community education, AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Inc., 1988; ethnographer, Nova/Project Warn, 1991—; consultant to Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, AIDS Action Committee of the National Institute of Mental Health, and Sexual Attitude Reassessment Workshops.

MEMBER: Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sociology, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1990.

(Editor) Sexual Cultures and the Construction of Adolescent Identities, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1994.

Talk about Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2002.

Contributor to Journal of Sex Research.

SIDELIGHTS: Janice M. Irvine writes on the attitudes towards sex and adolescence in American culture. In Sexual Cultures and the Construction of Adolescent Identities, "Irvine has gathered writings that probe the experiential and subjective worlds of adolescent sexual cultures," according to Arlene Stein in Signs. Stein went on to note that the essays collected by Irvine "encompass a range of different topics, from cross-cultural considerations in sexuality education, to lesbian and gay adolescents, to sexuality in adolescent fiction." She concluded by praising "the careful, compassionate feminist scholarship" of the volume.

Irvine's 2002 work, Talk about Sex, laments the domination of sexual education dialogue by the forces of the religious right. She describes how this trend has evolved, from the 1960s through the more conservative 1980s, to the present day. A Publishers Weekly reviewer described Talk about Sex as a "closely observed analysis." Similarly, Martha Cornog in the Library Journal praised it as "indispensable for anyone concerned with sexual policy and for social history collections in public and academic libraries."