The Way She Became an Academic:

She began her academic career at Stanford and in 1964 she received a BA in anthropology. Thorne studied for a year in England at the London School of Economics. She had graduate training in sociology at Brandeis University, where she received her masters and a doctorate degree.
Barrie Thorne entered the realm of academia with a feminist purpose. Before her career at Berkley she taught at the University of Southern California, and at Michigan State University. During her time at the University of Michigan she helped create a women’s studies program. While she was creating a women’s studies department at Michigan State, her mother assisted in founding a women’s studies department at Utah State University. Thorne and her mother shared syllabi and sources.
In 1973 she co-taught her first introductory women’s studies course at Michigan State University. She taught this course with Joyce Ladenson, one of her colleagues who specialized in literature. Later at the University of Southern California she co-taught with Judith Resnick. The two women merged feminist theories with law school classes resulting in a class on feminist jurisprudence.
Thorne’s interest in studying family and children from a sociological perspective stemmed from her personal experience as a feminist mother. She also wanted to study children because in sociology children, like women, are excluded from the studies. Thorne’s main interest and reason for studying children was a result of her curiosity in how boys and girls experience growing up in a gendered world.

Sources:
Thorne, Barrie. "A Telling Time for Women's Studies." (2000).