Sharon S Oselin
Biographic Data
| ID | 84790 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sharon S Oselin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sharon S |
| FAMILY NAME | Oselin |
| SIGNATURE | OSELIN S S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Riverside |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1515-5385 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 138 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Minority threat and social context: Global value chains and the carceral effect of ethnic polarization in rich democracies
Integrating minority threat theory with the political economy of globalization, this study theorizes and empirically tests how macrostructural changes via global value chains (GVCs) shape the carceral consequences of rising ethnic polarization in rich democracies. GVC integration should increase economic insecurity, activate and escalate latent racial and ethnic tensions, intensify dominant groups' perceptions of minority threat, and shift state …
Legal Changes and the Decline of Sex Work Arrests in Toronto Neighborhoods, 1992–2020
In recent decades, sex work in Canada has faced legal changes with efforts to enhance the criminalization of buyers and court challenges to uphold sex workers’ human rights. What are the consequences of these legal changes and challenges on the streets of Toronto where sex work and its enforcement have also changed? Leveraging an intersectional framework with annual data on Toronto police–recorded sex work occurrences and census data from 1992 to…
Gendered Vice Complaints: 911 Calls Reporting Sex Work in Chicago Neighborhoods, 2017-2020
Urban communities use 911 to demand "quality-of-life" police responses and control neighborhood "disorder." Less is known about the neighborhoods calling 911 to report sex work perceived as disorderly. We investigate the frequency and spatiality of 911 calls reporting sex work across Chicago census tracts relative to arrests and model the relationships between these and neighborhood characteristics. We find that 911 calls spread across Chicago wi…
Day Reporting Centers and Recidivism: The Role of Social Support
Day reporting centers (DRCs) are increasingly popular alternative to traditional forms of supervision. Yet, studies that describe a fairly common set of programs and services among DRCs produce conflicting results regarding their efficacy, suggesting that as yet unobserved characteristics of DRCs might explain their varying efficacy. This article relies on a mixed-methods analysis of DRCs. Using quasi-experimental regression techniques and a cons…
Fair Chance Act failures? Employers’ hiring of people with criminal records
Research summary We examine the efficacy of the California Fair Chance Act (CFCA) policy—legislative stipulations regarding employers’ hiring of individuals with criminal records—on practices and outcomes in two Southern California counties during 2021. We rely on survey and experiment data with 542 hiring decision makers to investigate employer and personal compliance with the CFCA, whether applicant appeals affect employers’ willingness to hire…
The Power of Self-Labels: Examining Self-Esteem Consequences for Youth with Mental Health Problems
New evidence on a classic sociological debate allows for a test of the consequences of self-labeling with mental illness. While a medicalized 'insight' perspective emphasizes the importance of self-labeling for psychological well-being and recovery, a sociologically informed 'outsight' perspective draws from modified labeling, self-labeling, and stigma resistance theories to suggest that self-labeling can generate negative consequences for self-e…
It's Not Just Sex: Relational Dynamics between Street-Based Sex Workers and Their Regular Customers
Establishing regular customers is an integral aspect of any service industry since they can increase profits and referrals. Most research on regulars within sex work focuses on indoor, high-end workers, who cultivate them through relational work practices. Yet very little is known about whether street-based sex workers employ these same tactics or even seek out regulars. This article draws upon interviews with 36 street-based sex workers in Washi…
Different Strolls, Different Worlds? Gentrification and its Impact on Outdoor Sex Work
Research reveals mixed findings regarding gentrification's effects on longtime residents and legal small businesses. There is only minimal examination of the ways in which urban redevelopment impacts illicit outdoor marketplaces, and the studies that do rarely employ a comparative analysis or focus on individual perceptions regarding such changes. Using the case of street-based sex work, this study illuminates how workers in the outdoor trade ass…
Still getting on: Embracing a new role and identity
Methodological appendix
Borrowing Privilege: Status Maneuvering among Marginalized Men
Research shows people confront social marginalization through work, yet this scholarship largely ignores people working in illicit markets. We address this gap by investigating how and to what end men in street prostitution 'borrow' privilege from their more structurally advantaged clients. Drawing from interviews with men of color in street sex work, we show how they 'status maneuver' to offset stigmatized identities tied to prostitution and to …
Challenging Stigma: Identity Talk among Male Sex Workers in a Recovery Program
Research shows that stigma can generate severe and prolonged negative consequences for particular groups. Affected populations often attempt to mitigate stigma and its effects by implementing various management tactics, such as concealment and resistance. Due to its illegality and the taboo surrounding it, people involved in street-based prostitution are especially susceptible to stigmatization. This article extends knowledge on how male sex work…
Leaving Prostitution: Getting Out and Staying Out of Sex Work
You Catch More Flies With Honey: Sex Work, Violence, and Masculinity on the Streets
Violence among inner‐city men is a pressing social concern, and the central focus of much academic research. Many frame it as a phenomenon that certain men perpetuate—those who inhabit disadvantaged, impoverished communities—and argue it is linked to performances of “street” masculinity. In this article, I examine male street‐based sex workers’ willingness to become embroiled in violent exchanges. In a departure from theoretical predictions, my f…
Leaving Prostitution: Getting Out and Staying Out of Sex Work
While street prostitutes comprise only a small minority of sex workers, they have the highest rates of physicaland sexual abuse, arrest and incarceration, drug addiction, and stigmatization, which stem from both their public visibility and their dangerous work settings. Exiting the trade can be a daunting task for street prostitutes; despite this, many do try at some point to leave sex work behind. Focusing on four differentorganizations based in…
Organizations working on behalf of prostitutes: An analysis of goals, practices, and strategies
Views on female prostitution are diverse and often hotly contested, both inside and outside academic circles. Some contend that prostitutes are universally exploited, while others argue that they are workers and should be recognized as such. Yet there is little analysis of the role that service-providing organizations play in this larger debate. This article examines programs that offer direct services to prostitutes–which we call prostitute-serv…
Contending with Violence: Female Prostitutes' Strategic Responses on the Streets
Female street prostitutes often work within environments where violence is a prominent feature of daily life. Consequently, they experience high rates of physical and sexual assault. While scholars debate whether they are victims or empowered agents, we find neither category accurately captures their experiences with work-related violence. Drawing on interviews and informal conversations with 17 female street prostitutes, we illustrate they engag…
Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking
It's Not Only for the Money: An Analysis of Adolescent versus Adult Entry into Street Prostitution
Numerous studies examine the causal factors of entrance into prostitution and find economic marginalization, substance addiction, and interpersonal networks are common reasons women enter the trade. However, we know less about the role that age of onset plays in shaping female pathways into prostitution. Here, we build from insights into previous research by analyzing not only entry pathways but also how age categories are linked to time spent in…
A Battle for Authenticity: An Examination of the Constraints on Anti-Iraq War and Pro-Invasion Tactics
Social movements are arenas where individuals can voice concerns about politics, culture, and social change. Movements work to create frames and collective identities that resonate with the public and bind participants together. However, movement participants are not always completely free to cultivate and adopt frames and identities. The emergence of countermovements, in particular, can fundamentally affect these tactics. However, we find that f…
Weighing the Consequences of a Deviant Career: Factors Leading to an Exit from Prostitution
Research on how individuals leave sex work examines this transition by focusing on either structural/economic conditions that keep them in the trade or internal changes that prompt exiting. Leaving certain roles, such as those deemed criminal and deviant, may be more challenging due to labeling, stigma, and a lack of resources. In this study, the author analyzes the particular factors that lead women to exit street prostitution via enrollment in …
Leaving the Streets: Transformation of Prostitute Identity Within the Prostitution Rehabilitation Program
This article examines the process of identity transformation among prostitutes immersed in the Prostitution Rehabilitation Program (PRP). I assess how residents transition from a deviant to a non-deviant identity by examining their talk (biographical reconstruction) and behavior (role embracement) through participant observation and in-depth interviews over an extended period of time. Departing from extant literature that focuses on identity chan…
Gender and the Education-Employment Paradox in Ethnic and Religious Contexts: The Case of Arab Americans
Education is weakly related to employment for some groups of U.S. women. As such, it may be less of a resource for reducing gender inequality than commonly believed. Drawing on ethnographic field notes and in-depth interviews with Arab Americans, we recast the motivations and consequences of female education in terms of cultural schemas and resources and then analyze the processes that underlie the education-employment link in ethnic and religiou…
Gender and the Education-Employment Paradox in Ethnic and Religious Contexts: The Case of Arab Americans
Education is weakly related to employment for some groups of U.S. women. As such, it may be less of a resource for reducing gender inequality than commonly believed. Drawing on ethnographic field notes and in-depth interviews with Arab Americans, we recast the motivations and consequences of female education in terms of cultural schemas and resources and then analyze the processes that underlie the education-employment link in ethnic and religiou…
Leaving the Streets: Transformation of Prostitute Identity Within the Prostitution Rehabilitation Program
This article examines the process of identity transformation among prostitutes immersed in the Prostitution Rehabilitation Program (PRP). I assess how residents transition from a deviant to a non-deviant identity by examining their talk (biographical reconstruction) and behavior (role embracement) through participant observation and in-depth interviews over an extended period of time. Departing from extant literature that focuses on identity chan…
It's Not Only for the Money: An Analysis of Adolescent versus Adult Entry into Street Prostitution
Numerous studies examine the causal factors of entrance into prostitution and find economic marginalization, substance addiction, and interpersonal networks are common reasons women enter the trade. However, we know less about the role that age of onset plays in shaping female pathways into prostitution. Here, we build from insights into previous research by analyzing not only entry pathways but also how age categories are linked to time spent in…
Borrowing Privilege: Status Maneuvering among Marginalized Men
Research shows people confront social marginalization through work, yet this scholarship largely ignores people working in illicit markets. We address this gap by investigating how and to what end men in street prostitution 'borrow' privilege from their more structurally advantaged clients. Drawing from interviews with men of color in street sex work, we show how they 'status maneuver' to offset stigmatized identities tied to prostitution and to …
Challenging Stigma: Identity Talk among Male Sex Workers in a Recovery Program
Research shows that stigma can generate severe and prolonged negative consequences for particular groups. Affected populations often attempt to mitigate stigma and its effects by implementing various management tactics, such as concealment and resistance. Due to its illegality and the taboo surrounding it, people involved in street-based prostitution are especially susceptible to stigmatization. This article extends knowledge on how male sex work…
Different Strolls, Different Worlds? Gentrification and its Impact on Outdoor Sex Work
Research reveals mixed findings regarding gentrification's effects on longtime residents and legal small businesses. There is only minimal examination of the ways in which urban redevelopment impacts illicit outdoor marketplaces, and the studies that do rarely employ a comparative analysis or focus on individual perceptions regarding such changes. Using the case of street-based sex work, this study illuminates how workers in the outdoor trade ass…
You Catch More Flies With Honey: Sex Work, Violence, and Masculinity on the Streets
Violence among inner‐city men is a pressing social concern, and the central focus of much academic research. Many frame it as a phenomenon that certain men perpetuate—those who inhabit disadvantaged, impoverished communities—and argue it is linked to performances of “street” masculinity. In this article, I examine male street‐based sex workers’ willingness to become embroiled in violent exchanges. In a departure from theoretical predictions, my f…
Weighing the Consequences of a Deviant Career: Factors Leading to an Exit from Prostitution
Research on how individuals leave sex work examines this transition by focusing on either structural/economic conditions that keep them in the trade or internal changes that prompt exiting. Leaving certain roles, such as those deemed criminal and deviant, may be more challenging due to labeling, stigma, and a lack of resources. In this study, the author analyzes the particular factors that lead women to exit street prostitution via enrollment in …
It's Not Just Sex: Relational Dynamics between Street-Based Sex Workers and Their Regular Customers
Establishing regular customers is an integral aspect of any service industry since they can increase profits and referrals. Most research on regulars within sex work focuses on indoor, high-end workers, who cultivate them through relational work practices. Yet very little is known about whether street-based sex workers employ these same tactics or even seek out regulars. This article draws upon interviews with 36 street-based sex workers in Washi…
Contending with Violence: Female Prostitutes' Strategic Responses on the Streets
Female street prostitutes often work within environments where violence is a prominent feature of daily life. Consequently, they experience high rates of physical and sexual assault. While scholars debate whether they are victims or empowered agents, we find neither category accurately captures their experiences with work-related violence. Drawing on interviews and informal conversations with 17 female street prostitutes, we illustrate they engag…
A Battle for Authenticity: An Examination of the Constraints on Anti-Iraq War and Pro-Invasion Tactics
Social movements are arenas where individuals can voice concerns about politics, culture, and social change. Movements work to create frames and collective identities that resonate with the public and bind participants together. However, movement participants are not always completely free to cultivate and adopt frames and identities. The emergence of countermovements, in particular, can fundamentally affect these tactics. However, we find that f…
Fair Chance Act failures? Employers’ hiring of people with criminal records
Research summary We examine the efficacy of the California Fair Chance Act (CFCA) policy—legislative stipulations regarding employers’ hiring of individuals with criminal records—on practices and outcomes in two Southern California counties during 2021. We rely on survey and experiment data with 542 hiring decision makers to investigate employer and personal compliance with the CFCA, whether applicant appeals affect employers’ willingness to hire…
The Power of Self-Labels: Examining Self-Esteem Consequences for Youth with Mental Health Problems
New evidence on a classic sociological debate allows for a test of the consequences of self-labeling with mental illness. While a medicalized 'insight' perspective emphasizes the importance of self-labeling for psychological well-being and recovery, a sociologically informed 'outsight' perspective draws from modified labeling, self-labeling, and stigma resistance theories to suggest that self-labeling can generate negative consequences for self-e…
Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking
Gender and the Education-Employment Paradox in Ethnic and Religious Contexts: The Case of Arab Americans
Education is weakly related to employment for some groups of U.S. women. As such, it may be less of a resource for reducing gender inequality than commonly believed. Drawing on ethnographic field notes and in-depth interviews with Arab Americans, we recast the motivations and consequences of female education in terms of cultural schemas and resources and then analyze the processes that underlie the education-employment link in ethnic and religiou…
Leaving the Streets: Transformation of Prostitute Identity Within the Prostitution Rehabilitation Program
This article examines the process of identity transformation among prostitutes immersed in the Prostitution Rehabilitation Program (PRP). I assess how residents transition from a deviant to a non-deviant identity by examining their talk (biographical reconstruction) and behavior (role embracement) through participant observation and in-depth interviews over an extended period of time. Departing from extant literature that focuses on identity chan…
A Battle for Authenticity: An Examination of the Constraints on Anti-Iraq War and Pro-Invasion Tactics
Social movements are arenas where individuals can voice concerns about politics, culture, and social change. Movements work to create frames and collective identities that resonate with the public and bind participants together. However, movement participants are not always completely free to cultivate and adopt frames and identities. The emergence of countermovements, in particular, can fundamentally affect these tactics. However, we find that f…
Weighing the Consequences of a Deviant Career: Factors Leading to an Exit from Prostitution
Research on how individuals leave sex work examines this transition by focusing on either structural/economic conditions that keep them in the trade or internal changes that prompt exiting. Leaving certain roles, such as those deemed criminal and deviant, may be more challenging due to labeling, stigma, and a lack of resources. In this study, the author analyzes the particular factors that lead women to exit street prostitution via enrollment in …
It's Not Only for the Money: An Analysis of Adolescent versus Adult Entry into Street Prostitution
Numerous studies examine the causal factors of entrance into prostitution and find economic marginalization, substance addiction, and interpersonal networks are common reasons women enter the trade. However, we know less about the role that age of onset plays in shaping female pathways into prostitution. Here, we build from insights into previous research by analyzing not only entry pathways but also how age categories are linked to time spent in…
Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking
Organizations working on behalf of prostitutes: An analysis of goals, practices, and strategies
Views on female prostitution are diverse and often hotly contested, both inside and outside academic circles. Some contend that prostitutes are universally exploited, while others argue that they are workers and should be recognized as such. Yet there is little analysis of the role that service-providing organizations play in this larger debate. This article examines programs that offer direct services to prostitutes–which we call prostitute-serv…
Contending with Violence: Female Prostitutes' Strategic Responses on the Streets
Female street prostitutes often work within environments where violence is a prominent feature of daily life. Consequently, they experience high rates of physical and sexual assault. While scholars debate whether they are victims or empowered agents, we find neither category accurately captures their experiences with work-related violence. Drawing on interviews and informal conversations with 17 female street prostitutes, we illustrate they engag…
Leaving Prostitution: Getting Out and Staying Out of Sex Work
While street prostitutes comprise only a small minority of sex workers, they have the highest rates of physicaland sexual abuse, arrest and incarceration, drug addiction, and stigmatization, which stem from both their public visibility and their dangerous work settings. Exiting the trade can be a daunting task for street prostitutes; despite this, many do try at some point to leave sex work behind. Focusing on four differentorganizations based in…
You Catch More Flies With Honey: Sex Work, Violence, and Masculinity on the Streets
Violence among inner‐city men is a pressing social concern, and the central focus of much academic research. Many frame it as a phenomenon that certain men perpetuate—those who inhabit disadvantaged, impoverished communities—and argue it is linked to performances of “street” masculinity. In this article, I examine male street‐based sex workers’ willingness to become embroiled in violent exchanges. In a departure from theoretical predictions, my f…
Leaving Prostitution: Getting Out and Staying Out of Sex Work
Challenging Stigma: Identity Talk among Male Sex Workers in a Recovery Program
Research shows that stigma can generate severe and prolonged negative consequences for particular groups. Affected populations often attempt to mitigate stigma and its effects by implementing various management tactics, such as concealment and resistance. Due to its illegality and the taboo surrounding it, people involved in street-based prostitution are especially susceptible to stigmatization. This article extends knowledge on how male sex work…
Borrowing Privilege: Status Maneuvering among Marginalized Men
Research shows people confront social marginalization through work, yet this scholarship largely ignores people working in illicit markets. We address this gap by investigating how and to what end men in street prostitution 'borrow' privilege from their more structurally advantaged clients. Drawing from interviews with men of color in street sex work, we show how they 'status maneuver' to offset stigmatized identities tied to prostitution and to …
Still getting on: Embracing a new role and identity
Methodological appendix
It's Not Just Sex: Relational Dynamics between Street-Based Sex Workers and Their Regular Customers
Establishing regular customers is an integral aspect of any service industry since they can increase profits and referrals. Most research on regulars within sex work focuses on indoor, high-end workers, who cultivate them through relational work practices. Yet very little is known about whether street-based sex workers employ these same tactics or even seek out regulars. This article draws upon interviews with 36 street-based sex workers in Washi…
Different Strolls, Different Worlds? Gentrification and its Impact on Outdoor Sex Work
Research reveals mixed findings regarding gentrification's effects on longtime residents and legal small businesses. There is only minimal examination of the ways in which urban redevelopment impacts illicit outdoor marketplaces, and the studies that do rarely employ a comparative analysis or focus on individual perceptions regarding such changes. Using the case of street-based sex work, this study illuminates how workers in the outdoor trade ass…
Day Reporting Centers and Recidivism: The Role of Social Support
Day reporting centers (DRCs) are increasingly popular alternative to traditional forms of supervision. Yet, studies that describe a fairly common set of programs and services among DRCs produce conflicting results regarding their efficacy, suggesting that as yet unobserved characteristics of DRCs might explain their varying efficacy. This article relies on a mixed-methods analysis of DRCs. Using quasi-experimental regression techniques and a cons…
Fair Chance Act failures? Employers’ hiring of people with criminal records
Research summary We examine the efficacy of the California Fair Chance Act (CFCA) policy—legislative stipulations regarding employers’ hiring of individuals with criminal records—on practices and outcomes in two Southern California counties during 2021. We rely on survey and experiment data with 542 hiring decision makers to investigate employer and personal compliance with the CFCA, whether applicant appeals affect employers’ willingness to hire…
The Power of Self-Labels: Examining Self-Esteem Consequences for Youth with Mental Health Problems
New evidence on a classic sociological debate allows for a test of the consequences of self-labeling with mental illness. While a medicalized 'insight' perspective emphasizes the importance of self-labeling for psychological well-being and recovery, a sociologically informed 'outsight' perspective draws from modified labeling, self-labeling, and stigma resistance theories to suggest that self-labeling can generate negative consequences for self-e…
Gendered Vice Complaints: 911 Calls Reporting Sex Work in Chicago Neighborhoods, 2017-2020
Urban communities use 911 to demand "quality-of-life" police responses and control neighborhood "disorder." Less is known about the neighborhoods calling 911 to report sex work perceived as disorderly. We investigate the frequency and spatiality of 911 calls reporting sex work across Chicago census tracts relative to arrests and model the relationships between these and neighborhood characteristics. We find that 911 calls spread across Chicago wi…
Legal Changes and the Decline of Sex Work Arrests in Toronto Neighborhoods, 1992–2020
In recent decades, sex work in Canada has faced legal changes with efforts to enhance the criminalization of buyers and court challenges to uphold sex workers’ human rights. What are the consequences of these legal changes and challenges on the streets of Toronto where sex work and its enforcement have also changed? Leveraging an intersectional framework with annual data on Toronto police–recorded sex work occurrences and census data from 1992 to…
Minority threat and social context: Global value chains and the carceral effect of ethnic polarization in rich democracies
Integrating minority threat theory with the political economy of globalization, this study theorizes and empirically tests how macrostructural changes via global value chains (GVCs) shape the carceral consequences of rising ethnic polarization in rich democracies. GVC integration should increase economic insecurity, activate and escalate latent racial and ethnic tensions, intensify dominant groups' perceptions of minority threat, and shift state …
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Sex work and related issues (15 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Sex work (9 works) · Law (7 works)