When “American Sabor” at what was then the Experience Music Project a decade ago, its 91探花 creators saw it as a chance to celebrate the extensive Latino contribution to popular music. It was a product of years of interviews and research, and an often challenging exercise in collaboration and presentation.

But that was just the beginning for and , both ethnomusicologists in the 91探花School of Music, and , a professor in the 91探花Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies. Their multimedia showcase of Latino performers and genres since World War II then went on to becoming a of the Smithsonian, visiting 18 cities in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Now “American Sabor: Latinos and Latinas in US Popular Music” is a , published this month by 91探花 Press. It’s a guide to the artists, communities and wide range of musical styles, from salsa to punk, Tejano to mambo, iazz to hip hop. It’s a bilingual experience 鈥� Spanish on the left-facing pages, English on the right 鈥� filled with photos and the occasional icon alerting the reader to a song available on the American Sabor on iTunes and Spotify.

Here’s an excerpted conversation with the authors:

Describe the process of turning a sound-based exhibit into a book.

Marisol Berr铆os-Miranda: The sound is paramount. You read the book and you get these descriptions, but there’s no substitution for hearing the music, the melodies, rhythms, harmonies and breaks. The different colors of the instruments and the excitement of the music — there’s no substitute. I come from the music. Since my inception, I’ve been dancing and listening to the music. So for me, a lot of it is very personal. I wanted to keep the music in the front, always in the front. I am also the only Spanish speaker on the whole project, so that took on more responsibility. We’d always intended for the book to be bilingual, and my sister [Angie Berr铆os-Miranda] is the translator. I wanted the Spanish to be beautiful, and well-written. I also did 20 in-person interviews with musicians.

Shannon Dudley: I’ve taught the American Popular Song class for many years, a class that thousands of students take here at the 91探花every year. So I had a sort of narrative in my own head that had taken shape from teaching this class, and that really helped with the signposts of the development of American pop that this book follows, and connecting the Latino story to that larger narrative. 聽Ethnomusicology is the study of culture; you want people to understand not just what music sounds like but who made it and what it means to people. This book really is about a lot of different local communities and stories that are woven together in a larger picture.

In every chapter there are a couple of places where we focus on a particular song, say, one by . We very briefly narrate the song in a way that you could read it and hear the music, the history and the personality. Then if people read the book and hear another song by Eddie Palmieri, they’ll remember these things. When they go out and hear music, even music that’s not cited on this [American Sabor] playlist, they’re going to be hearing with ears that are attuned to new things and learning more as they listen more.

What gets overlooked when people think of Latino music?

Michelle Habell-Pall谩n: Often they’re not thinking that it’s coming from inside of the U.S., rather than outside of the U.S. You look at the scene in New York 鈥� the Nuyoricans, Puerto Ricans living in New York — these young people growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, surrounded by music, the way they put sounds together and used instruments that were not used in the more traditional way. They really changed the sounds.

These were young people, taking the music of their parents, and making something different out of it when they got here. Same with the West Coast and Texas: They were taking all kinds of influences 鈥� African-American, Afro-Caribbean, country — and making something completely different, a new sound. Then you had the early punk scenes in Hollywood and East Los Angeles that were deeply influenced by Mexican American youth living in Los Angeles County. That’s not what people are thinking about when they think of Latino music.

How does the book reflect gender and sexuality studies?

MHP: I’m looking at cultural studies and cultural politics — how people make meaning out of music but not necessarily as music-makers, which is what Shannon and Marisol do. I have a very feminist critique, and at the beginning that was difficult to merge the two methods. I felt that if we were going to include a certain song, for example, then we needed to talk about how deeply it objectifies women. Maybe the rhythm that was embedded in the song was important, or it was a popular song, and people needed to know about it, but at the same time layered on it were these really sexist lyrics. We needed to figure out how to talk about both at the same time 鈥� how a good song can reproduce gender ideas that are not good.

My critical analysis had to be adapted for this book because we decided early on that we wanted people to read the book and enjoy it, and to reach a large audience beyond the university. So as a writer, saying this is a sexist song, this is what’s wrong with it, this is what this means — that’s not going to fly in this kind of narrative, but that intention is still there in the background. It’s more about asking questions. And we made sure to highlight women and to talk about what the barriers to them in the music business have been.

What did you learn from the process, and from each other?

SD: I write very differently now 鈥� less academic. I continue to write in academic publications, but in a way that a lot of people can read. And the museum exhibit was the first place where I was really challenged to do that: shorter sentences, more direct, visually provocative language. It was a lot harder to write 30 words [for a display] about than 200 words. For me, that was a huge part of the experience. In writing the book, we had regular meetings where we鈥檇 go over drafts, and I’d get immediate feedback about how what I said was perceived, or what was missing. Ultimately, to write a book with three authors is about three times as hard as writing a book by yourself.

MBM: That was an incredible learning experience. And I’m very grateful for Michelle bringing her gender side to things. The attention to female musicians wouldn’t be half what it is if it weren’t for her. We have different styles, but her contribution, puts women right up front, women with attitude — and their stories are so beautiful. And I taught her music, and what to listen for in a sound story. We discovered many things together. Our relationship has been really productive.

What do you hope people take away from the book?

MBM: I am teaching with the book. What I gather is that people are seeing with new eyes who Latinos are. All this stereotyping that’s going on right now, the backlash against Latinos as “criminals” and “rapists.” Many of my students who read the book said the narrative is accessible. A lot of people can read this book and take something out of it, but the basic idea is to make sure that Latinos are considered equal partners in the production of music in the U.S. They did it with incredible talent, invention and initiative vis-脿-vis all the terrible discrimination that they have suffered, and yet there is the joy of the music. The music is so delicious.

Children鈥檚 knowledge and use of race and gender labels have been well-explored by researchers, but how kids think about their own identities in those contexts, especially before adolescence, is less clear.

A new from the 91探花 provides a rare glimpse into how children perceive their social identities in middle childhood. The research found that children age 7 to 12 rate gender as more important than race 鈥� and that their perceptions of both are woven together with personal and societal influences.

“Kids are thinking about race and gender, and not just in terms of being able to identify with these social categories, but also what they mean and why they matter,” said lead author , a former postdoctoral fellow at the UW鈥檚 (I-LABS) who is now an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern University.

, co-director of I-LABS and co-author on the paper, said, “Children are bombarded by messages about race, gender and social stereotypes. These implicit and explicit messages rapidly influence their self-concepts and aspirations.

“We were able to catch a glimpse of how culture influences children at a tender time in their lives. Kids talk about race and gender in different ways as early as age 7.”

Published online last month in the journal , the research involved interviews with 222 children in grades two through six at three racially diverse public schools in Tacoma, Washington. None of the schools had more than 50 percent of one racial group, and more than 75 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

The children were first shown cards with different identity labels 鈥� boy, girl, son, daughter, student, Asian, Hispanic, Black, White and athlete 鈥� and asked to place each card in a “me” pile if the card described them or in a “not me” pile if it did not.

Children were then asked to rank the “me” cards by importance, and then to separately rate how important racial and gender identities were to them on a three-point scale 鈥� either “not much,” “a little bit” or “a lot.” The rankings were done separately so children could rate race and gender as equally important.

The children were then asked two open-ended questions 鈥� “what does it mean to be a (boy/girl)”? and “what does it mean to be (Black/White/Mixed)”? All 222 responses to each question were then sorted into five broad categories that reflect the wider meaning behind these responses, including physical appearance, inequality and group difference, equality or sameness, family, and pride and positive traits. The codes were not mutually exclusive, so a single response might reference multiple topics.

The responses, which Rogers collected over the course of a year spent in the schools, found that:

• Of the five social identities represented in the “me/not me” test (gender, race, family, student and athlete), family 鈥� being a son or daughter 鈥� was on average the most important to children
• Being a student was ranked second, followed by gender, then athlete
• Race was most consistently selected last, as the least important identity
• Black and Mixed-Race children ranked race as more important than White children
• In response to the open-ended questions, Black and Mixed-Race children mentioned racial pride much more often than White children did
• Family identity was more important to girls than boys
• Boys ranked being an athlete higher than girls did, and Black boys ranked it significantly higher than did all other children
• The meanings children ascribed to gender identity tended to emphasize inequality and group differences, while meanings of race emphasized physical appearance and equality
• There was no difference between boys and girls about how important gender was, but girls mentioned physical appearance as part of their gender identity much more often than boys
• Girls made up 77 percent of the references to physical appearance when defining what gender means (for example, 鈥淚 think [being a girl] means glam. Like looking glamorous and pretty for everyone.鈥�)

About half of Black and Mixed-Race children ranked race as “a lot” or a “little” important, while 89 percent of White children considered race a “not important” part of their identity. That gap is telling, Rogers said, particularly given that the schools involved are highly diverse.

“In some ways, it suggests that White kids and kids of color are navigating very different worlds when it comes to race and they鈥檙e thinking about race in very different terms,” said Rogers. “Most White kids would say [race] is not important, it doesn鈥檛 matter, but kids of color would say, 鈥榊es, race does matter to me.鈥�”

In the open-ended question about racial identity, 42 percent of responses that defined the meaning of race through values of equality or humanism came from White children (for example, “I believe race doesn鈥檛 matter at all. It just matters about who you are.”). By contrast, just one-quarter of Black and Mixed-Race children mentioned equality when talking about race.

While the emphasis on equity among White children may seem encouraging, Rogers said some White children interviewed were reluctant to broach the subject of race. When asked what it meant to be White, she recalled, one White third-grader refused to talk about it.

“The idea that talking about race is taboo was prevalent,” she said. “Surprisingly, that is not uncommon in diverse schools. The narrative of multiculturalism is really stressed in such a way that everybody鈥檚 the same and differences are minimized.”

“That typically derives from the good motivation of encouraging kids to treat each other respect and not allowing discrimination to occur,” Rogers said. “But it might also communicate racial silence, that race is something that鈥檚 not OK to talk about.”

By contrast, she said, it makes sense that children view gender as more important than race, since gender differences are openly discussed, accepted and celebrated in the broader society, for better or worse.

“Kids are sorted by girls and boys all the time,” she said. “It would be egregious to do such a thing based on race today. There is a way we premeditate gender divisions and accept them as fact. Some kids push back on that, but it means there is a space to talk about it, that it鈥檚 not a taboo conversation.”

The research dovetails with two online developed by Rogers and the I-LABS team focused on how children learn about race and how parents and teachers can talk with them about race in a helpful way. The modules are free and come with discussion guides intended to facilitate personal reflections and group conversations.

“As parents, we teach values through the conversations we have with our children,” Meltzoff said. “We鈥檙e hoping that these modules can help enrich parent-child talk about socially sensitive issues.”

Overall, Rogers said, the study reinforces the need to better understand how multiple factors, from school culture to societal stereotypes, influence the formation of children鈥檚 social identities.

“The issue is not that we鈥檙e different. It鈥檚 in the hierarchy and the value that鈥檚 placed on those differences,” Rogers said. “We really need more data and understanding of which messages promote social justice and equity, and which promote blindness, avoidance and silence.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (SMA-1303753) and the Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education.

For more information, contact Rogers at onnie.rogers@northwestern.edu or 847-467-1331.

Female college students are more likely to abandon studies in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines than their male classmates, and new research from the 91探花 suggests that those male peers may play a key role in undermining their confidence.

Published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, found that males enrolled in undergraduate biology classes consistently ranked their male classmates as more knowledgeable about course content, even over better-performing female students.

The over-ranking equated to males ranking their male peers smarter by three-quarters of a GPA point than their equally-performing female classmates, showing what researchers say amounts to a clear and consistent gender bias. Female students, on the other hand, repeatedly showed no significant bias in whom they picked as knowledgeable.

鈥淭his shows that there is a huge inequity in who male students think is strong in the class materials,鈥� said lead author , a doctoral candidate in the 91探花Department of Anthropology.

鈥淢ales were consistently nominated as being more knowledgeable by their male peers, regardless of performance.鈥�

The study involved surveying around 1,700 91探花students enrolled in the same undergraduate biology course. Students in three classes were asked to name the classmates they considered strongest in their understanding of class materials at multiple points in the course. Additionally, instructors were surveyed on which students were most outspoken in class 鈥� an effort to determine which students would be most visible to other students as knowledgeable, given the large class size. More males than females were considered outspoken by the instructors, the researchers found.

Even after accounting for differences in performance and outspokenness, male students got more recognition from other males than their female peers did, and the finding was consistent across 11 different class surveys. For an outspoken female student to be nominated by males at the same level as a male student, her performance would need to be more than three-quarters of a GPA point higher than the males.

鈥淯sing UW鈥檚 standard grade scale, that鈥檚 like believing a male with a B and a female with an A have the same ability,鈥� said co-lead author , who participated in the research as a 91探花postdoctoral biology researcher and is now a research scientist at the University of Texas, Austin.

On the other hand, females nominated their male and female peers almost equitably across all the surveys, after controlling for differences in performance and outspokenness. The researchers determined that the female bias was so small it could have arisen by chance, and they estimate that gender bias among male students was 19 times stronger than among females. The top three most-nominated students in all classes were male, even though there were also outspoken female students in the class with the same grades.

The findings are troubling, said Eddy, since peer support is a key factor in retaining women in STEM fields.

鈥淭o stay in STEM you have to believe you can do it, and one of the things that can convince you of that is your peers saying you can do it,鈥� she said.

鈥淗elping students find peers who believe in them is really important, especially for women, because they鈥檙e not likely to get that from males in their class.鈥�

The paper grew from research Eddy and other 91探花biology colleagues were doing on gender disparities in biology education. A previous by the group found male students entering biology with the same GPA level as their female peers performed better in introductory biology. They also found that female students generally felt speaking up in class.

Grunspan, meanwhile, was doing research on how undergraduates form study networks. He initially wasn鈥檛 focused on the gender makeup of those networks, but noticed a pattern of male students viewing their male peers as being stronger in course materials. As he dug further into the data, that pattern became even more pronounced.

鈥淚 realized that there was a really big problem,鈥� Grunspan said. 鈥淪omething is going on in the classroom that is either being influenced by currently held implicit biases or that is helping build implicit biases. We need to be thinking about what that means for the future.

鈥淪tudents are the future policymakers in the country,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey are the people who will someday be responsible for hiring and making other important decisions. Because these are millennials showing this pattern, it means the age-old problem of gender bias may not go away simply because we have a new generation in charge.鈥�

Previous research has focused on gender biases among faculty in STEM disciplines, but less is known about how current college students perceive women in STEM and how their views might impact female students. The researchers focused on biology, since females and males enroll equally in biology courses at the undergraduate level. The gender bias their study revealed, they say, could be even more pronounced in other STEM disciplines.

鈥淕iven that we typically think of biology as a STEM field without a gender gap, you could imagine that other fields like physics or mathematics or engineering, which numerically are very dominated by males, would have an even stronger effect than what we鈥檙e finding,鈥� Eddy said.

The researchers say gender bias in the classroom could be mitigated through simple measures such as fostering female study groups, using randomized class lists to call on students to participate and creating small-group discussions to establish a less intimidating environment for women.

But changing systemic gender biases, Eddy acknowledged, is a difficult challenge. The study鈥檚 authors and their colleagues are addressing that challenge through ongoing research that they hope will help inform inclusive teaching practices.

鈥淎s science instructors at the college level, you can only affect so much,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 been at least 18 years of socialization. You do what you can to interrupt that.鈥�

Other co-authors are , an assistant professor of biology at Arizona State University, Tempe; , an instructional coordinator in the 91探花Department of Biology; , a member of the 91探花Biology Education Research Group; and , a 91探花associate professor of anthropology.