Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit

by Helen Rose Ebaugh

The experience of becoming an ex is common to most people in modern society. Unlike individuals in earlier cultures who usually spent their entire lives in one marriage, one career, one religion, one geographic locality, people living in today's world tend to move in and out of many roles in the course of a lifetime. During the past decade there has been persistent interest in these "passages" or "turning points," but very little research has dealt with what it means to leave behind a major role or incorporate it into a new identity. Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh's pathbreaking inquiry into the phenomenon of becoming an ex reveals the profundity of this basic aspect of establishing an identity in contemporary life.

Ebaugh is herself an ex, having left the life of a Catholic nun to become a wife, mother, and professor of sociology. Drawing on interviews with 185 people, Ebaugh explores a wide range of role changes, including ex-convicts, ex-alcoholics, divorced people, mothers without custody of their children, ex-doctors, ex-cops, retirees, ex-nuns, and—perhaps most dramatically—transsexuals. As this diverse sample reveals, Ebaugh focuses on voluntary exits from significant roles. What emerges are common stages of the role exit process—from disillusionment with a particular identity, to searching for alternative roles, to turning points that trigger a final decision to exit, and finally to the creation of an identify as an ex.

Becoming an Ex is a challenging and influential study that will be of great interest to sociologists, mental health counselors, members of self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Parents Without Partners, those in corporate settings where turnover has widespread implications for the organization, and for anyone struggling through a role exit who is trying to establish a new sense of self.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Sociology

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Professor Ebaugh received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University in 1975 with specialties in Organizational Sociology and the Sociology of Religion. In addition to five books, she has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, including The American Sociological Review, Social Forces, the Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Sociological Analysis and The Journal For The Scientific Study of Religion.

Dr. Ebaugh served as president of the National Association for the Sociology of Religion, helped organize and served as the first chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on the Sociology of Religion and is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Ebaugh received two consecutive research grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts to study religion and the new immigrants in the United States. The results from the first grant that focused on the role of religious congregations in the incorporation of new immigrants is described in Religion and the New Immigrants: Adaptations and Continuities in New Immigrant Congrations (AltaMira Press, 2000). The second book from the project, Religion Across Borders: Transnational Religious Networks (AltaMira Press, 2002) is an analysis of the impact of religious ties among immigrants in the United States and family/friends in their home countries.

With a major grant from the Lilly Endowment, Dr. Ebaugh studied inter-faith coalitions and their provision of social services. In addition to a national survey of these coalitions, she and her research team conducted fieldwork in 10-12 coalitions across the country, with focus upon the inter-relationships between coalitions and the religious congregations with which they partner in their joint effort to provide social services to the needy. In 2009, Dr. Ebaugh published a book on the Gulen Movement, a transnational moderate Islamic movement devoted to education and interfaith dialog.

Reviews

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the topic of role exit fascinating, and Ebaugh's work equally fascinating. An ex-nun (whoa!!), Ebaugh, now a sociologist, became interested in the process of role exit, or, the movement from one social role to another. She distinguishes between institutionalized role exit (i.e., the often chronological movement from, say, medical student to intern to resident) and non-institutionalized exit (i.e., exit from the role of the doctor entirely). She also distinguishes between socially acceptable exits (from alcoholic to ex-alcoholic) and those that are not looked favorably upon (i.e., sex change surgery). She highlights the fact that some role exits have become so institutionalized and accepted that we have different words for them: alumna (ex-student); divorce (ex-husband); retiree (ex-employee).

Though Ebaugh collected survey data from specific populations many of whom who went through unusual role exit processes, what stands out about her research is her finding that most processes follow the same patterns or framework. Before (voluntarily) exiting a role, people begin considering alternatives, experience ambivalence, research alternative roles, reach a turning point when they finally move forward with the exit, until, ultimately, they find themselves in a new role and social and institutional context to which they must adjust.

Worth considering is to what extent Ebaugh's framework applies to non-voluntary role exit, due to death (e.g., widows) or other unexpected events (e.g., those who get fired). In any event, most people go through multiple role exits during the course of their lives, and the life course consequences run the gamut. (Fun fact: Ebaugh's data on nuns illustrate how much hair, makeup and clothing presented challenges to ex-nuns, not to mention how on earth to date men.) It really makes you think about how much of your life is or can be compartmentalized and institutionalized, and how much your identification with a specific role can really color how you interact with and are perceived by others and the world at large.

[Johan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book sort of by chance in a second hand book store, so I didn't really now what to expect, but since it has a foreword by renowned sociologist Robert Merton it looked pretty promising. Ebaugh is an ex-nun, something that clearly was of great use when writing this study of role exiting, that is leaving a role that is central to your identity for another one. Her team interviewed quite a few ex-roles, among others such that are rather institutionalised like widows, retirees and divorcées and those that are more recent phenomena like transsexuals and mothers without custody.

Role exit is here described in more or less four steps, first doubts about that the role you´re in might not be what you want, the seeking of alternatives to the role, turning points like triggering events and finally creating the ex-role. As Ebaugh points out, role-exit is sociologically interesting because it happens in a continuum that includes the past role, the current situation and the future role one is contemplating.

I really liked this study, the examples from the interviews really lifts the reading, especially when she writes very clearly and interestingly about the ex-nuns and also about the transsexuals. It should be said that this research is rather much anchored in the school of symbolic interactionism and relates heavily on American social psychologist and sociologist like Merton, Goffman, Garfinkel and Glaser and Strauss's grounded theory. Recommended is the final part about interviewing when doing research, connecting this to therapeutic notions for the interviewees and eventual problems with handling emotional outpouring during the interview.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some useful and provocative information, but I forget sometimes just how repetitive and therefore how boring the basic template for academic writing in the social sciences really is.

Also: why on earth is there no attention to veterans? It's a hugely important group of exes that are chronically under-valued and under-acknowledged.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this book when it was referenced by Caroline Elton in Also Human. As someone who has been in the ‘doubting stage’ of a role exit for over a decade, a lot of it hit home. Now, this is essentially the publication of a thesis, and reads as such. It’s not supposed to be pop science and nor does it cater to a wider audience. Still, it was a relief to feel less alone, even if most of the exiters in question were alcoholics or nuns in the 1970s.

“Social systems provide structural mechanisms for dealing with such conflicts. Giving priority to certain social roles, isolating roles spatially by providing offices or conference rooms, and even explicit or implicit norms of appropriate dress for given social roles are examples of ways in which social systems deal with role conflict.”

“For most people, master statuses involve sex roles, familial roles, and primary occupational rose. Master roles help to prioritise and integrate our other roles and are a way of preventing overload and role conflict.”

“[…] all careers where individuals are entrapped because of the lack of job options or because they have built up such substantial side bets in terms of investment of time, benefits, skills, or personal obligations that make exiting too costly.”

“The potential exiter is likely to have his or her doubts reinforced and to be encouraged to seek alternatives, while in the latter case the person is likely to reevaluate the reality and seriousness of the situation and to be less encouraged to admit a problem.”

“The more control individuals perceive they have in the choice, the shorter the doubting stage.”

“Many of the people we interviewed expressed relief when someone they valued sympathised with their current role situation and encouraged them to seek alternatives.”

[Imogen]

Ok: I went straight to the index at the end and only read the parts that were about transsexual women, so sue me. I only got it to see what sociologists were saying about trans women in 1989 anyway. Short answer: nothing I didn't know; everything depressing.

[Mills College Library]

305.3 E152 1988