Amy Schalet

Associate Professor

Amy T. Schalet, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Sociology at UMass Amherst.  Dr. Schalet is a specialist in culture and adolescent sexuality in comparative perspective, and author of Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex.  Not Under My Roof is an award-winning study of culture, sexuality, and institutions. It has been used as a tool to inform policy and practice by physicians, policymakers, parents, social workers, and other youth-serving professionals. In March, 2022, Not Under My Roof was named one of the five best books on Teenagers and Sex on Five Books In addition, Schalet has co-authored several influential review articles synthesizing scientific evidence pertinent to sexual health policy making.  Funded by two dissemination grants from the Ford Foundation, she has shared her research with over 40 policy, clinical, education, and other practitioner groups, including at the Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Massachusetts and Colorado Departments of Public Health, and the Friends School of Portland. Schalet's public scholarship on sexuality, culture, and health has appeared in the New York TimesWashington Post, ConversationHuffington PostNBC Think.  Schalet contributes to national and international media conversations on topics related to gender, sexuality, the transition into adulthood, and parenting, including on CNN, Marketplace, the New York Times, CosmopolitanStuff (New Zealand), Wired Magazine, and USA Today

Dr. Schalet is also a recognized expert in the practicemethods, theory, and evaluation of public scholarship, and the public communication of academic knowledge. Dr. Schalet was a co-author of the American Sociological Association’s 2016 white paper, “What Counts? Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion," which has drawn attention from the Paradigm Project, the media, and other scholarly societies. Schalet has been invited to speak on the cultivation and evaluation of public engagement at the American Educational Research Association, Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the University of Michigan Meetings, and public engagement initiatives of the American Sociological Associations.

At the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Schalet served as the inaugural director of the UMass Public Engagement Project. Pioneering the Public Engagement Project Faculty Fellowship, Schalet provided peer mentoring to thirty-one faculty fellows from across the social and natural sciences, education, engineering, and the humanities.  PEP fellows gained media citations, testified in front of the UN, collaborated with community groups, and effectively engaged diverse non-academic constituencies.  For this work, Schalet was honored with a Provost's citation and the 2021 ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentoring Award in the College for Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Within the PhD program, Schalet teaches the Sociology of Culture, the Sociology of Sexualities, and In-Depth Interviewing as a Methodology. She also developed a graduate seminar on public engagement as a scholar, entitled, Making Research Public.  In the undergraduate program, Schalet teaches Sexuality and Society, Society and the Individual, and Generation Z Culture.  She is an enthusiastic mentor of undergraduate researchers, offering one-on-one supervision in theses, portfolios, and research apprenticeships, as well as leading teams of undergraduate researchers.  

Schalet is at work on her book, Talking Our Way Toward Democracy, and a series of articles, about how to use sociology to create transformative communities in the classroom and the world.  

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Sociology, University of California–Berkeley, 2003

A.B., Social Studies, Harvard College, 1992.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Sociology of Culture, Sexuality, Gender, Political Sociology; Methodology; Public and Applied Sociology; Practice, Theory, and Evaluation of Public Engagement as a Scholar

INTERVIEWS

Elizabeth Banks My Body, My Podcast (Audible)

July, 2021

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Oct. 16, 2016

CNN

January, 2021

Wired Magazine

Oct. 5, 2016

Talking to Teens Podcast

June, 2020

Parent.Co

April 28 2016

NPR’s Market Place

July 28, 2020

PBS News Hour

May 27, ‘15

New York Times

February 7, 2019

Alternet,

March 19, ‘15

Cosmopolitan

November 2, 2018

Atlantic Monthly

Dec. 28, 2014

Top of Mind

December 20, 2016

New York Times

Dec 9, 2014

 

 

SCHOLARSHIP

Schalet, Amy T. 2022. The Why, What, and How of Engaging the Media as a Scholar [PowerPoint Presentation is licensed under a CC-BY-NC 4.0]. Public Engagement Project Faculty Fellowship.

 

'Nurturing through Normalization, Endangering through Dramatization: Approaches to Teen Sex and Love. 2022.  Nancy L. Fischer and Laurel Westbrook, eds. Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays, 4th edition. Routledge.

Schalet, Amy T. August. 2021. Transforming Academic Research into Knowledge that Improves Lives [PowerPoint Presentation is licensed under a CC-BY-NC 4.0]. American Sociological Association Virtual Event.

Schalet, Amy T., Linda R. Tropp, and Lisa M. Troy.  2020. "Making Research Usable Beyond Academic Circles: A Relational Model of Public Engagement." Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy.

Schalet, Amy. 2020. "U.S. Teens Are Having Less Sex - but Stigmatizing Their Sexuality Does More Harm Than Good." NBC THINK. October 6. 

Schalet, Amy. 2018. "The Media: Helping Journalists Use and Interpret Your Research." In Making Research Matter: A Psychologist's Guide to Public Engagement. Tropp, Linda (Ed). Washington DC: APA Books.

Santelli, John S., et al. 2017. "Abstinence-only-until-marriage: An updated review of US policies and programs and their impact." Journal of Adolescent Health. 61(3): 273-280.

 

Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Policies and Programs: An Updated Position Paper of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2017. 61(3):400-403.

McCall, Leslie, et al. 2016. “What Counts? Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion. Final Report of the ASA Subcommittee on the Evaluation of Social Media and Public Communication in Sociology. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.

Schalet, Amy. 2016. “Why Boys Need to Have Conversations about Emotional Intimacy in Classrooms.” The Conversation, February 25.

  • -- Repub. in The Goodmen Project, Yes! Magazine, Huffington Post, Society Pages

Schalet, Amy. 2016. “Should Writing for the General Public Count Toward Tenure?” The Conversation. August 19.

Schalet, Amy T. et al. 2014.  "Invited commentary: Broadening the Evidence for Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Education in the United States."  Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 43 (10): 1595-1610.

Schalet, Amy. 2012. “Caring, Romantic American Boys.” New York Times,” April 6.

Schalet, Amy T. 2011.  Not under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of SexChicago: University of Chicago Press.

-- Winner: 2013 William J. Good Best Book Award, ASA Family Section; 2012 Distinguished Scholarly Research Award, ASA Children & Youth Section; Carol Mendez Cassell Award for Excellence in Sexuality Education, the Healthy Teen Network;

-- Featured: CNN, Washington Post, Washington Times, Time, Salon, MacLeans Magazine (CA), Financial Times, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Boston Globe, Huffington Post, Albuquerque Journal, The Wall Street Journal, the Take Away, BBC, and on Public Radio: Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Minnesota, Southern California, and New England.

-- Chapter 1 reprinted in Buzzard, Laura, Don LePan, Nora Ruddick, and Alexandria Stuart, eds. The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose. Broadview Press, 2016

Schalet, Amy T. 2011. "Beyond Abstinence and Risk: A New Paradigm for Adolescent Sexual Health. Women's Health Issues. 21 (3S); S5-S7.

Schalet, Amy. 2011, “Glee Teens ‘Lose It’ with Love: Why the Controversy” Huffington Post, November 12.

Schalet, Amy. 2011. “The Sleepover Question.” New York Times,” July 23, SR9.

Schalet, Amy. 2011. “The New ABCDs of Talking about Sex to Teenagers.” Huffington Post. November 3.

Schalet, Amy T. 2010. “Sexual Subjectivity Revisited: The Significance of Relationships in Dutch and American Girls’ Experiences of Sexuality.” Gender & Society 24 (3):  304-329.

Schalet, Amy. 2009. “Subjectivity, Intimacy and the Empowerment Paradigm of Adolescent Sexuality: The Unexplored Room.” Feminist Studies 35 (1): 133-160.

Schalet, Amy. 2008. “A Question for Sarah Palin.” Washington Post, November 9, A21.

Schalet, Amy. 2004. “Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality?” Medscape General Medicine 6

***Named Best Article of 2004 in Women’s Health, Medscape General Medicine***

Schalet, Amy, Geoffrey Hunt and Karen Joe-Laidler. 2003. “Respectability and Autonomy: The Articulation and Meaning of Sexuality among the Girls in the Gang.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 32 (1): 108-143.

Schalet, Amy T. 2000. “Raging Hormones, Regulated Love:  Adolescent Sexuality and the Constitution of the Modern Individual in the United States and the Netherlands.” Body and Society 6 (1): 75-105.