The Stigma of Being Young on the Experience of Rate-Busting as Positive Deviance

ABSTRACT

This study compares younger and older librarians with regard to how they experience age-related stigma. The purpose was to show how youth, although a culturally valued attribute, can be experienced as stigmatizing (i.e., as a form of positive deviance known as rate-busting). We conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 librarians who ranged in age from 27 to 64. Although both younger and older librarians reported feeling stigmatized because of their age, only younger librarians reported instances of other people drawing unwanted attention to their age. Because librarians are an older demographic, the attention young librarians receive as rate-busters may be due to disconfirming expectations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samantha McClellan

SAMANTHA McCLELLAN is an Assistant Professor and Social Sciences Teaching and Faculty Outreach Librarian at the University of Louisville. She earned her M.L.S. at Indiana University in 2013. Her research interests include information literacy theory and practice and organizational processes associated with library management.

James K. Beggan

JAMES K. BEGGAN is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Louisville. He earned his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1989. In addition to work on positive deviance, his research interests include the development and maintenance of the sexual self-concept, the way women cope with the inherent sexism of social dancing, and the representation of gender in sexually explicit media.