CH-11-12 Racial and Ethnic Inequality – Sociology : Chapter Notes

This Document Contains Chapters 11 to 12 CHAPTER 11 RACIAL AND ETHNIC INEQUALITY CHAPTER OUTLINE MINORITY, RACIAL, AND ETHNIC GROUPS Minority Groups Race Ethnicity PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Prejudice Color-Blind Racism Discriminatory Behavior The Privileges of the Dominant Institutional Discrimination SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON RACE AND ETHNICITY Functionalist Perspective Conflict Perspective Labeling Perspective Interactionist Perspective SPECTRUM OF INTERGROUP RELATIONS Amalgamation Assimilation Segregation Pluralism RACE AND ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES African Americans Native Americans Asian Americans Arab Americans Latinos Jewish Americans White Ethnics SOCIAL POLICY AND RACIAL AND ETHNIC INEQUALITY: GLOBAL IMMIGRATION Boxes Trend Spotting: Members of the Board Taking Sociology to Work: Prudence Hannis, Liaison Officer, National Institute of Science Research, University of Québec Sociology in the Global Community: The Aboriginal People of Australia Research Today: Latinos in the Voting Booth LEARNING OBJECTIVES WHAT’S NEW IN CHAPTER 11 1. Define the terms racial group, ethnic group, and minority group. 2. Discuss the social construction of race. 3. Discuss prejudice and its relationship to discrimination. 4. Discuss what is meant by “institutional discrimination.” 5. Discuss the views of functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism regarding racial and ethnic inequality. 6. Describe the various patterns of intergroup relations. 7. Describe patterns of racial/ethnic diversity in the United States as well as unique challenges facing various groups. 8. Describe patterns of global immigration. • Discussion of the 2010 Census findings regarding minority children • Discussion of the finding that in 2009, Asian American men earned slightly higher than White men • Trend Spotting Box, “Members of the Board” • Discussion of France’s expulsion of the ethnic Roma (Gypsies) • Coverage of secession as a pattern of intergroup relations • Figure, “Spectrum of Intergroup Relations” • Discussion of recent Census data on the segregation of U.S. cities • Discussion of federal government’s recent settlement of Native Americans’ lawsuit for recovery of lease payments for public use of tribal lands • Subsection on Filipino Americans • Figure, “Arab American Religious Affiliations” • Research Today Box, “Latinos in the Voting Booth” • Subsection on Central and South Americans • Discussion of the perception of race relations as a zero-sum game • Coverage of Arizona’s law empowering police to detain without authorization those suspected of illegal immigration CHAPTER SUMMARY Sociologists distinguish between racial and ethnic groups. The term racial group is used to describe a group that is set apart from others because of obvious physical differences. Ethnic groups are set apart from others primarily because of their national origin or distinctive cultural patterns. A minority group is a subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than members of a dominant group or majority group. It should be noted that a minority group could be either a race or an ethnic group (or that of another population). The social construction of race refers to the process by which people come to define a group as a race based in part on physical characteristics, but also on historical, cultural, and economic factors. Racial formation refers to the sociohistorical process in which racial categories are created, changed, and destroyed. As exemplified by Tiger Woods, Mariah Cary, and President Barack Obama, in the U.S. there is a trend towards societal recognition and acceptance of multiple identities. Prejudice is a negative attitude toward an entire category of people. Sometimes prejudice results from ethnocentrism—the tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to all others. Racism is one important and widespread form of prejudice that fosters a belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior. Discrimination is the denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups based on some type of arbitrary bias. The glass ceiling refers to an invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of qualified people in a work environment based on one’s gender, race, or ethnicity. Dominant groups enjoy privileges at the expense of others. Sociologists are becoming increasingly interested in what it means to be “White,” for White privilege is the other side of the coin of racial discrimination. Institutional discrimination is the denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups, which results from the normal operations of society. Functionalists observe that racial prejudice and discrimination serve positive functions for dominant groups, whereas conflict theorists see the economic structure as a central factor in the exploitation of minorities. The interactionist view stresses the manner in which everyday contact between people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds contributes to tolerance or leads to hostility. According to the contact hypothesis, in cooperative circumstances, interracial contact between people of equal status will cause them to become less prejudiced and to abandon old stereotypes. There are four identifiable patterns that are used to describe typical intergroup relations. Amalgamation describes the end result of intermarriage over several generations when a majority and a minority group combine to form a new group. Assimilation is the process by which a person forsakes his or her own cultural tradition to become part of a different culture, as is practiced by minorities when conforming to the standards of the dominant group. Segregation refers to the physical separation of two groups of people in terms of residence, workplace, and social functions. Pluralism is based on the mutual respect between various cultural groups within a society. Globalization has had a major impact on immigration patterns. One consequence of global immigration is the emergence of transnationals—people or families who move across borders multiple times in search of better jobs and education. African Americans are the largest racial minority in the United States. One out of every four Blacks in the United States is poor, compared to one out of every 12 Whites. Native Americans represent a diverse array of cultures. There are approximately 2.2 million Native Americans in the United States. Asian Americans are considered an ideal minority group because they have succeeded economically, socially, and educationally without resorting to confrontations with Whites. By some estimates, there are up to 3 million Arab Americans in the United States. Most are not Muslim. Latinos and Hispanics represent the largest minority in the United States. Jewish Americans constitute almost 3 percent of the population of the United States. Like some Asian Americans, many came to this country and became white-collar professionals in spite of prejudice and discrimination. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. What is a racial group? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: racial group, ethnic group, minority group Visual Support: Table 11-1 “Racial and Ethnic groups in the US 2007”; Figure 11-1 “Racial and Ethnic Groups in the US 1500-2100”; Photos of children of mixed-race family IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: 11-1, 11-2 Classroom Discussion Topics: 11-2 Video Resources: Domino; A Question of Race 2. What is an ethnic group? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: ethnic group, minority group Visual Support: Table 11-1; Figure 11-1; Photos of children of mixed-race family IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: 11-1 3. In what ways do minorities experience prejudice and discrimination? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: prejudice, ethnocentrism, racism, color-blind racism, hate crime, discrimination, glass ceiling, institutional discrimination, affirmative action Box: Taking Sociology to Work, “Prudence Hannis, Liaison Officer, National Institute of Science Research, University of Quebec” Visual Support: Figure 11-2 “Categorization of Reported Hate Crimes”; Figure 11-3 “US Median Income by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender”; Figure 11-4; Cartoon featuring President Obama; Photo of people waiting for public assistance; Photo of dentist; Photo of drinking fountains for “White” and “Colored” IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: 11-9, 11-10 Topics and Sources for Student Research: White Racism; Institutional Discrimination in Developing Countries Video Resources: Skin Deep; Suspino; Where Do We Go From Here? REEL SOCIETY CD Topic Index: Stratification—Race/Ethnicity; Stratification—Religion 4. What are the sociological perspectives on race and ethnicity? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: exploitation theory, racial profiling, contact hypothesis Visual Support: Photo of retail shoppers; Table 11-2 “Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity” IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: 11-3, 11-7 5. What are the major patterns of intergroup relations? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: genocide, amalgamation, assimilation, segregation, apartheid, pluralism Visual Support: Photo of immigrant studying for citizenship test; Photo of handshake IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: 11-6 Topics and Sources for Student Research: Segregation, Cross-Cultural; Arabs in Israel LECTURE LAUNCHER NBC NEWS VIDEO CLIPS Volume 1: Author Blauner about Black-White Relationships Volume 2: Separate Lives 6. What are the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: Black power, model or ideal minority, anti-Semitism, symbolic ethnicity Box: Sociology in the Global Community, “The Aboriginal People of Australia,” Research Today, “Social Mobility among Latino Immigrants” Visual Support: Figure 11-4 Mapping Life Nationwide “Census 2000,” Figure 11-5 “Major Asian American Groups,” Figure 11-6 “Distribution of the Arab American Population by State,” Figure 11-7 “Major Hispanic Groups in the US, 2007,” Figure 11-8 “Legal Migration to the US,1820-2010”; Photo of Aboriginal family; Photo of Chinatown; Photo of deaf students learning Hebrew; Photo of White ethnics IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Video Resources: Arab Americans; Becoming American; Between the Cracks; Chicano!; Horizons and Homelands; Korean Americans in Chicago LECTURE LAUNCHER NBC NEWS VIDEO CLIPS Volume 1: Hispanic Power LECTURE OUTLINE I. Minority, Racial, and Ethnic Groups • A racial group is a group that is set apart from others because of physical differences that have taken on social significance. Examples: Whites, African Americans, and Asian Americans. • Ethnic groups are set apart primarily because of national origin or distinctive cultural patterns. Examples: Jewish Americans or Polish Americans. A. Minority Groups • A numerical minority is a group that makes up less than half of some larger population. • A minority in the sociological sense is a subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than members of the dominant or majority group have over theirs. • Sociologists have identified five basic properties of minorities groups: (1) members of a minority group experience unequal treatment; (2) minority group members share physical or cultural characteristics different from the dominant group; (3) minority group membership is not voluntary (ascribed); (4) minority members have a strong sense of group solidarity; and (5) minority members generally marry from within the same group. B. Race • Social differentiation based on physical traits. Example: Black, White, and Asian. 1. Social Construction of Race • The social construction of race is the process by which people come to define a group as a race based on physical characteristics, as well as historical, cultural, and economic factors. • Racial formation refers to the sociohistorical process in which racial categories are created, changed, and destroyed. There appears to be a trend in the U.S. towards accepting multiple identities. Examples: Tiger Woods, Mariah Cary, and President Barack Obama. • About 2.6 percent of people in the United States report they are of two or more races. Half of those classified as multiracial are under 18 years. • William I. Thomas suggested that personality could be molded by the “definition of a situation.” • Stereotypes are unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences within the group. C. Ethnicity • Ethnic groups are set apart from others based on national origin or distinctive cultural patterns. • Stratification along racial lines is more resistant to change than stratification along ethnic lines. II. Prejudice and Discrimination A. Prejudice • Prejudice is a negative attitude toward an entire category of people. • Prejudice tends to perpetuate false definitions of individuals and groups. • Ethnocentrism is the tendency to assume one’s own culture and way of life are superior to all others. • Racism is a form of widespread prejudice that fosters a belief that one race is supreme over all others. Example: hate crimes. • The Internet may be allowing race-hate groups to expand their traditional base. B. Color-Blind Racism • Color-blind racism is the use of the principle of race neutrality to defend a racially unequal status quo. • Proponents of race neutrality oppose affirmative action but not policies such as “legacy” status in college admissions. The net result is continued inequality. C. Discriminatory Behavior • Discrimination: denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups because of prejudice or other arbitrary reasons. Example: hiring practices based on race. • Glass ceiling refers to an invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified individual because of gender, race, or ethnicity. D. The Privileges of the Dominant • Advantages of being White include not having to feel different from everyone else; being considered financially reliable; race isn’t a negative factor in obtaining a job or buying a home; being able to be seated without difficulty in a restaurant; being able to express an opinion without others assuming it is the opinion of all Whites. E. Institutional Discrimination • Refers to the denial of opportunities and equal rights for individuals and groups which results from the normal operations of society. • Affects some minorities more than others. • Includes rules requiring that only English be spoken at a place of work; admission practices commonly used by law and medical schools; restrictive employment-leave policies. • Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations and publicly owned facilities on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, and gender) was an attempt to eradicate discrimination. • Affirmative action programs are aimed at recruiting minority members for jobs, promotions, and educational opportunities. Some argue that advancing one’s group over another merely shifts the discrimination to another group. III. Studying Race and Ethnicity A. Functionalist Perspective • Manning Nash identified three functions of racially prejudiced beliefs: (1) provides a moral justification for maintaining inequality; (2) discourages subordinate minorities from questioning their lowly status; and (3) an end to discrimination would bring greater poverty to minorities and would lower the majority’s standard of living. • Racial prejudice may also be seen as dysfunctional for a society. Example: Arnold Rose’s four dysfunctions. B. Conflict Perspective • Exploitation theory suggests racial subordination keeps minorities in low- paying jobs, thereby supplying the capitalist ruling class with a pool of cheap labor. By forcing minorities to accept low wages, capitalists can restrict wages of all members of the proletariat. Example: clash over keeping Chinese immigrant labor out of the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century. C. Interactionist Perspective • Contact hypothesis states that in cooperative circumstances, interracial contact between people of equal status will cause them to become less prejudiced and to abandon previous stereotypes. The trend in U.S. society is toward increasing contact between those from dominant and subordinate groups. • Another possible way to eliminate or reduce stereotyping and prejudice is the establishment of interracial coalitions that would be built on equal roles for all members. IV. Patterns of Intergroup Relations • Genocide is the deliberate, systematic killing of an entire people or nation. • Expulsion is the driving of people from their homes for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. Example: Serbs driving Croats and Muslims from the former Yugoslavia. A. Amalgamation • Majority and minority group combine to form a new group. Example: A+B+C=D. • The term melting pot is not an adequate description of the United States. B. Assimilation • Process by which a person forsakes his or her own cultural tradition to become part of a different culture. Example: A+B+C=A. • Name changing to hide religious or ethnic heritage. C. Segregation • Physical separation of two or more groups in terms of residence, workplace, and social events. Example: apartheid in South Africa. • Residential segregation is still the norm in the United States. The average White lives in an area that is at least 83 percent White; the average African American in a neighborhood that is mostly Black; the average Latino in an area that is 42 percent Hispanic. D. Pluralism • Pluralism is based on mutual respect among various groups. Example: A+B+C=A+B+C. • Pluralism is more of an ideal than a reality in the U.S. • Switzerland exemplifies the modern pluralistic state. V. Race and Ethnicity in the United States A. Racial Groups 1. African Americans • Institutional discrimination and individual prejudice against Blacks is rooted in the history of slavery. • Enslaved Blacks could not own property or pass on the benefits of their labor to children. • End of the Civil War did not bring real freedom and equality. Southern states passed “Jim Crow” laws to enforce official segregation; upheld by Supreme Court as constitutional in 1896. • Informal control forced segregation through vigilante terror. Example: Ku Klux Klan. • Landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), outlawed segregation of public school students: “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” • During the 1960s, a vast civil rights movement emerged. Examples: Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). • Black power movement rejected the goal of assimilation into White middle-class society and defended the beauty of Black and African cultures. • Blacks represent 6 percent or less of all physicians, engineers, scientists, lawyers, judges, and marketing managers. 2. Native Americans • Today, 2.2 million Native Americans represent a diverse array of cultures, distinguishable by language, family organization, religion, and livelihood. • 554 tribal groups in the United States. • Since 1960, the count of Native Americans has tripled, suggesting Native Americans are no longer concealing their identity. • Introduction of gambling on Indian reservations provokes controversy. See Box 10-2. 3. Asian Americans • Diverse group, and one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population (up 69 percent between 1990 and 2000). • Held as a model or ideal minority group. • Southeast Asians living in the U.S. have the highest rate of welfare dependency of any racial or ethnic group. • Work in the same occupations as Whites but still experience the glass ceiling. a. Vietnamese Americans • Came to U.S. largely after Vietnam War and U.S. withdrawal in 1975. • Have gravitated toward larger urban areas. b. Chinese Americans • Encouraged to immigrate to U.S. from about 1850 to 1880. Thousands were lured by job opportunities created by the discovery of gold. But as competition for jobs grew, they became targets of bitter efforts to limit their numbers and restrict their rights. Example: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). • Currently, about 2.8 million live in the U.S. c. Japanese Americans • About 1.3 million live in the U.S. The first generation Issei were largely males seeking employment opportunities. • Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had severe repercussions. Detention of Japanese Americans in “evacuation” camps caused them severe financial and emotional hardship. • In 1988, the Civil Liberties Act required reparations and apologies from the federal government for interned Japanese Americans. d. Korean Americans • Nearly 1.3 million live in the U.S. • The initial wave of immigration occurred between 1903 and 1910 with laborers going to Hawaii. The second wave occurred following the Korean War. Most were wives of U.S. servicemen and war orphans. The third wave is ongoing, with immigrants holding professional skills. 4. Arab Americans • Immigrants and their descendents from 22 countries in North Africa and the Middle East. • Estimated population of up to 3 million Arab Americans. • The Arab-American population is concentrated in certain areas of the U.S. See Figure 10-6. • For years, especially after 9/11, Arab Americans have been subject to profiling and surveillance by law enforcement. • Most Arab Americans are not Muslims. B. Ethnic Groups 1. Latinos • Represent the largest minority in the U.S. More than 40 million in the U.S. in 2002. See Figure 10-7. • Rise in Latino populations is due to high birthrates and immigration. • Language barriers contribute to educational problems and low economic status of Hispanics. a. Mexican Americans • The largest of Latino populations. • Largely Roman Catholic, which increases conflicts with White Protestants. However, the Church does help many immigrants develop a sense of identity and assimilate into the norms and values of the dominant culture. b. Puerto Ricans • Second-largest segment of Latinos in the U.S. Have held American citizen status since 1917. • Many have migrated to New York and other eastern cities. • Those living in the continental U.S. earn barely half the family income of Whites. Reverse migration began in the 1970s, when more Puerto Ricans left for the island than were coming to the mainland. • Statehood discussions have resulted in continuing commonwealth status. c. Cuban Americans • Immigration began to flourish after Castro’s assumption of power in 1959. First wave included many professionals; more recent waves have been less likely to be skilled professionals. • Florida has been largest center of immigrant populations. 2. Jewish Americans • Almost 3 percent of U.S. population. Many became white-collar professionals. • Anti-Semitism refers to a prejudice directed toward Jews. • A 2003 study suggested that 47 percent of Jews who married in the past five years married non-Jews. 3. White Ethnics • 43 million of German ancestry, 31 million of Irish ancestry, 16 million of Italian ancestry, and 9 million of Polish ancestry. • Many identify only sporadically with their heritage: Symbolic ethnicity refers to an emphasis on concerns such as ethnic food or political issues rather than on deeper ties to one’s ethnic heritage. VI. Social Policy and Racial and Ethnic Inequality: Global Immigration A. The Issue • Worldwide immigration is at an all-time high, raising questions for the countries to which people immigrate. B. The Setting • People migrate into countries where there is perceived economic opportunity. • Seven countries, including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, shelter one-third of the world’s immigrants. Many of these people are transnationals, people who move across borders many times in search of jobs and education. • Entrance policies in the U.S. favor family members and skilled workers. This results in increasing proportion of immigrants from Latin America and Asia. C. Sociological Insights • Immigration is functional. Immigrants adapt to U.S. society and become assets to the economy, alleviate labor shortages, remittances help the country of origin. • Dysfunctions include short-term stress on social services in communities with high concentrations of immigrants and loss of family members, skilled workforce for the sending country. • Conflict theorists note that racial and ethnic hostilities can be hidden in economic arguments. •Feminists note that immigrant women face economic hardship as well as the stress of negotiating the new system on behalf of their children. D. Policy Initiatives • Increased public perception that the U.S. has lost control of its borders has led to increased pressure for immigration control. • Legal consequences of hiring illegal aliens have increased, leading to protests by illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and other citizens on both sides of the issue. • European Union is struggling with immigration policy. • Terrorist attacks of 2001 caused increased government scrutiny of immigrants as they attempt to travel to many nations. KEY TERMS Affirmative action Positive efforts to recruit minority group members or women for jobs, promotions, and educational opportunities. Amalgamation The process through which a majority group and a minority group combine to form a new group. Anti-Semitism Anti-Jewish prejudice. Apartheid A former policy of the South African government, designed to maintain the separation of Blacks and other non-Whites from the dominant Whites. Assimilation The process through which a person forsakes his or her own cultural tradition to become part of a different culture. Black power A political philosophy promoted by many younger Blacks in the 1960s that supported the creation of Black-controlled political and economic institutions. Color-blind racism The use of race-neutral principles to defend a racially unequal status quo. Contact hypothesis An interactionist perspective which states that in cooperative circumstances, interracial contact between people of equal status will reduce prejudice. Discrimination The denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups because of prejudice or other arbitrary reasons. Ethnic group A group that is set apart from others primarily because of its national origin or cultural patterns. Ethnocentrism The tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to all others. Exploitation theory A Marxist theory that views racial subordination in the United States as a manifestation of the class system inherent in capitalism. Genocide The deliberate, systematic killing of an entire people or nation. Glass ceiling An invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified individual in a work environment because of the individual’s gender, race, or ethnicity. Hate crime A criminal offense committed because of the offender’s bias against a race, religion, ethnic group, national origin, or sexual orientation. Institutional discrimination The denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups that results from the normal operations of a society. Minority group A subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than the members of a dominant or majority group have over theirs. Model or ideal minority A minority group that, despite past prejudice and discrimination, succeeds economically, socially, and educationally without resorting to confrontations with Whites. Nisei Children born in the United States to the Issei. Pluralism Mutual respect for one another’s cultures among the various groups in a society, which allows minorities to express their own cultures without experiencing prejudice. Prejudice A negative attitude toward an entire category of people, often an ethnic or racial minority. Racial formation A sociohistorical process in which racial categories are created, inhibited, transformed, and destroyed. Racial group A group that is set apart from others because of obvious physical differences. Racial profiling Any arbitrary action initiated by an authority based on race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than on a person’s behavior. Racism The belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior. Segregation The physical separation of two groups of people in terms of residence, workplace, and social events; often imposed on a minority group by a dominant group. Stereotype An unreliable generalization about all members of a group that does not recognize individual differences within the group. Symbolic ethnicity An ethnic identity that emphasizes such concerns as ethnic food and political issues rather than deeper ties to one’s ethnic heritage. Transnational An immigrant who sustains multiple social relationships that link his or her society of origin with the society of settlement. White privilege Rights or immunities granted to people as a particular benefit or favor simply because they are White. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 11-1: The Complexity of Racial and Ethnic Identity Race and ethnicity are not static, biological categories. They are very fluid and socially constructed. The diversity of the United States today has made it more difficult for many people to view themselves clearly on the racial and ethnic landscape. Obviously, the reason is that this “landscape” is not naturally but socially constructed and is therefore subject to change and to different interpretations. While our focus is on the United States, every nation faces the same dilemmas. Within little more than a generation, we have witnessed changes in labeling subordinate groups from Negroes to Blacks to African Americans, from American Indians to Native Americans or Native People. However, more Native Americans prefer the use of their tribal name, such as Seminole, instead of a collective label. The old 1950s statistical term of “people with a Spanish surname” has long been discarded, yet there is disagreement over a new term: Latino or Hispanic. As with Native Americans, Hispanic Americans tend to avoid such global terms and prefer the use of their native names, such as Puerto Ricans or Cubans. People of Mexican ancestry indicate preferences for a variety of names, such as Chicano, Mexican American, or, simply, Mexican. Some advocates for racial and ethnic groups consider names a very important issue with great social significance. If nothing else, others argue, changes in names reflect people taking over the power to name themselves. Still others see this as a nonissue, or as editor Anna Maria Arias of Hispanic magazine termed the debate, “It’s stupid. There are more important issues we should be talking about” (Bennett 1993:A10). In the United States and other multiracial, multiethnic societies, panethnicity has emerged. Panethnicity is the development of solidarity among ethnic subgroups. The coalition of tribal groups as Native Americans or American Indians to confront outside forces, notably the federal government, is one example of panethnicity. Hispanics/Latinos and Asian Americans are other examples of panethnicity. Is panethnicity a convenient label for “outsiders” or is it a term that reflects a mutual identity? Certainly, many people are unable or unwilling to recognize ethnic differences and prefer umbrella terms like “Asian Americans.” For some small groups, combining with others is emerging as a useful way to make themselves heard, but there is always a fear that their own distinctive culture will become submerged. While many Hispanics share the Spanish language and many are united by Roman Catholicism, only one in four native-born people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban descent prefers a panethnic label over nationality or ethnic identity. Yet the growth of a variety of panethnic associations among many groups, including Hispanics, continues. There is even less agreement about how to identify oneself in racially conscious America if one is of “mixed ancestry.” Roberto Chong, who immigrated to the United States, has a Chinese father and a Peruvian mother. He considers himself “Hispanic,” but others view him as “Asian” or “Latino Asian American.” Few intermarriages exist in America, and social attitudes discourage them, but such unions are on the increase. Interracial marriages have climbed from 44,598 in 1970 to 54,251 in 1994 and interracial births doubled from 63,700 in 1978 to 133,200 in 1992. In a race-conscious society, how are we going to respond to these multiracial children? As the mother of one such child, Hannah Spangler, noted, how is she to complete the school form as Hannah starts first grade in Washington, DC? Hannah’s father is White and her mother is half Black and half Japanese. We may be slowly recognizing that the United States is a multiracial society, but we are not prepared to respond to such a society. Add to this cultural mix the many peoples with clear social identities who are not yet generally recognized in the United States. Arabs are a rapidly growing segment whose identity is heavily subject to stereotypes or, at best, is still ambiguous. Haitians and Jamaicans affirm they are Black but rarely accept the identity of African Americans. Brazilians, who speak Portuguese, often object to being called Hispanic because of that term’s association with Spain. Similarly, there are White Hispanics and non-White Hispanics, some of the latter being Black, and others, like Robert Chong, Asian. As the future of African-American people in the United States unfolds, one element of the population complicating racial identity, generally unnoticed thus far, may move into prominence. An ever-growing proportion of the Black population consists of people of foreign birth. In the 1980 census, 816,000 foreign-born Blacks were counted, or 3.1 percent of the Black population, the highest ever recorded. Yet by 1994, the number had nearly doubled to 1,596,000, which constituted 5.1 percent of the Black population. Fully 10 percent of the foreign-born population arrived in the preceding four years with the primary sources of the immigration being the island nations of the Caribbean. The numbers are expected to increase, as is the proportion of the African-American population that is foreign-born. Diversity exists to a significant degree within the Black community today, reaffirming the notion that race is socially constructed. Another challenge to identify is marginality, which refers to the status of being between two cultures, as in the case of an individual whose mother is a Jew and whose father is a Christian. Incomplete assimilation, as in a Korean woman’s migrating to the United States, also results in marginality. While she may take on the characteristics of her new host society, she may not be fully accepted and may therefore feel neither Korean nor American. The marginal person finds himself or herself being perceived differently in different environments, with varying expectations. In a family circle, the marginal person’s ethnic heritage is clear, but in the workplace, different labels may be used to identify this person. As we seek to better understand diversity in the United States, we must be mindful that ethnic and racial labels are just that: labels that have been socially constructed. Yet these social constructs can have a powerful impact, whether self-applied or applied by others. Sources used for this essay include the following: Philip Bennet, “Ethnic Labels Fail to Keep Up with Reality,” Cincinnati Enquirer (November 8, 1993): A10; Janet Marcini Bilson, “No Owner of Soil: The Concept of Marginality Revisited on Its Sixtieth Birthday,” International Review of Sociology 18 (Autumn 1988): 183–204; Bureau of the Census. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 55; Rodolfo O. de la Garza, Louis De Sipio, F. Chris Garcia, and Angelo Falcon. Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992; Yen Le Espiritu. Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992; Kristian A. Hansen and Amara Bachu, “The Foreign-Born Population: 1994,” Current Population Reports, ser. p-20, no. 486. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995; Susan Kalish, “Multiracial Births Increase as U.S. Ponders Racial Definitions,” Population Today 24 (April 1995): 1–2; David Lopez and Yen Espiritu, “Panethnicity in the United States: A Theoretical Framework,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 13 (April 1990): 198–224; Joanne Nagel, “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Re-creating Ethnic Identity and Culture,” Social Problems 41 (Spring 1994): 152–176; Michael Omi and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge, 1994; Robert E. Park, “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” American Journal of Sociology 33 (May 1928): 881–893; Everett V. Stonequist. The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture Conflict. New York: Scribners, 1937. 11-2: The Shared History of Blacks and Irish Americans Americans’ conceptualization of race, and of how the Irish fit into racial categories, has changed a great deal in the past 150 years. Chronicling the intertwined history of Irish Americans and African Americans is an excellent way to illustrate the social construction of race. Both racially and socio-economically, Blacks and Irish Americans today would seem to be two very distinctive groups. African Americans experience significant racial discrimination, and are impacted by the residual effects of past institutional discrimination. By contrast, Irish Americans are not socially stigmatized for their Irish ancestry, as is suggested by the wide acceptability of intermarriage between Irish Americans and other White ethnics. Irish Americans have also been economically and politically successful, as indicated by the fact that a prominent Irish American (John F. Kennedy) was elected president. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, Irish immigrants and freed Black slaves had far more in common. Like Blacks, Irish immigrants were subject to a great deal of racial discrimination. Although considered White, as Celts they were believed to be racially different from Whites of Anglo-Saxon descent. Descriptions of Irish at the time even gave them physical traits that made them distinct from “other” White people, like a low brow, upturned nose, dark skin, and small physical size (Jacobson 1998). Moreover, free Blacks and Irish immigrants suffered the same racial discrimination and low social status. Both groups were subject to derogatory names that referenced the other group. Blacks were called “smoked Irish,” while Irish were called “niggers turned inside out” (Ignatiev 1995:41). Irish and Blacks often lived together in the same neighborhoods, where the Irish were just as impoverished as the Blacks. One study found a high concentration of both Blacks and Irish in a nineteenth-century neighborhood with the highest mortality rate—and one of the highest crime rates—in all of New York City. Both groups competed for the same jobs, and even lived together in the same homes (Hodges 1996). Not surprisingly, interracial couplings were fairly common as well, both in the United States and in Jamaica, where Black slaves and Irish indentured servants were sent to labor (Blockson 1977; Jamison 2003). The sources listed below—including a website documenting the intertwined history of these two groups—address both the shared history of Blacks and Irish, and the eventual political efforts of Irish Americans to extricate themselves from the association with African Americans. Sources used for this essay include: Charles L. Blockson. Black Genealogy. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977; Graham Hodges. “‘Desirable Companions and Lovers’: Irish and African Americans in the Sixth Ward, 1830-1870.” Pp. 107-124 in The New York Irish, edited by Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996; Noel Ignatiev. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge, 1995; Matthew Frye Jacobson. Whiteness of a Different Color. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998; S. Lee Jamison, “How Green Was My Surname,” New York Times (March 17, 2003); Tangled Roots website, www.yale.edu/glc/tangledroots. 11-3: Interactionist Approach to Reducing Social Conflict: Robber’s Cave Experiment Social psychologists Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Sherif and their colleagues created three summer camps for boys (in Connecticut, upstate New York, and Robber’s Cave, Oklahoma) in order to see how group harmony could be established or reestablished. Although somewhat different experiments were conducted at each camp, the central findings were identical. Boys aged 11 or 12 were chosen from different schools to attend what they thought was a typical summer camp. Upon arrival, the boys were separated into two groups: the Eagles and the Rattlers. They were occasionally brought together to compete. As the competition grew fiercer, physical encounters and raids followed. Intergroup conflict, even though experimentally created, clearly led to mutual disrespect between the two groups, just as it does in society. The question of greatest interest to Sherif and Sherif was how to reduce conflict. Appeals to higher values were found to be of limited value, just as “be good to your neighbor” messages do not remake society. Conferences between group leaders did not work; when some boys who were leaders agreed to stop the hostilities, their followers showered them with green apples, feeling that they had given up too much. (White, Black, Hispanic, and American Indian leaders who compromised also encountered antagonism.) When the two groups of campers were brought together in highly pleasant situations, such as meals with special desserts and movies, food and garbage fights took place. (Similarly, in society, when both majority and minority groups interact in rewarding circumstances, such as receiving federal aid, group competition continues.) Sherif and Sherif finally succeeded in reducing conflict by introducing a common task, a superordinate goal that needed to be reached. A superordinate goal is an objective of great significance that overshadows other aims. For example, the experimenters told the boys that the water supply had been “mysteriously” cut off; only if everyone helped could the source of the cutoff be located. A series of such events brought the boys together with no sign of the previous hostility. Interviews with the boys verified that a reduction in intergroup conflict had occurred; instead of selecting their best friends almost exclusively from their own group, Eagles chose Rattlers and Rattlers chose Eagles. Other studies using adults, sometimes in multiracial groups, have had similar results. However, great care has to be taken in generalizing from this type of study. First, Sherif and Sherif note that the goal cannot simply be a common goal that either group could attain on its own. The superordinate goal must be a compelling one for the groups involved and unattainable except by joint effort. Second, it is not enough to manipulate words and make people think that intergroup cooperation is necessary; common efforts and a concerted plan of action are also necessary. Third, the research setting does not make clear what would happen if the superordinate goal were not reached. Research needs to be conducted to see if each group would blame the other, leading to a rise in tension, or if mutual sympathy would improve relations. In terms of the larger society, the Robber’s Cave study cautions us against optimism about the effectiveness of appealing to higher values, holding “brotherhood” conferences, or rewarding everyone equally. Furthermore, the likelihood of positive change is nil so long as Blacks and Whites view life as a “zero-sum game,” a game in which someone’s gain is automatically someone else’s loss. (A federal grant to an Italian neighborhood, for instance, may be seen by Blacks as less money available for them.) In our society, competitiveness is difficult to escape. Superordinate goals would have to be identified and made attractive to everyone. To achieve this would, admittedly, require a restructuring of a society whose very foundations often encourage racism. Sherif and Sherif. Social Psychology. New York: Harper and Row, 1969, pp. 228–266. 11-4: Partial Assimilation—Jews During Christmastime Sociologist Walter M. Gerson has examined the cross-pressures experienced by Jewish-American families at Christmas, pressures that have been termed the “December dilemma” and “coping with Christmas.” The pressures vary by age (the Jewish child versus adult), residence (living in a Jewish or non-Jewish community), type of business, and type of Jewish faith. Gerson details the strain-reducing mechanisms Jewish people use to deal with the difficulties they experience during Christmas. These include: 1. Value hierarchy. Jews can teach their children that Hanukkah is extremely important for Jews, while Christmas is equally important for Christians. 2. Insulation. To some extent, Jews can isolate themselves from Christians during the holiday season by remaining in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods or traveling to areas where many Jews are likely to be on vacation. 3. Compartmentalization. Some Jews, while maintaining their traditional religious beliefs, may “pick and choose” among Christmas festivities in order to resolve cross-pressures. For example, they may decide to send out Christmas cards while refusing to buy Christmas trees. 4. Redefinition. Some Jews view most aspects of the Christmas celebration as social, and not religious, symbols. This may also be true for some Christians because of the development of Christmas as a highly commercialized holiday. 5. Patterned evasions. Jewish families may keep their children home from school when there are classroom Christmas parties. Such actions often have the tacit approval of school officials. 6. Hanukkah. The Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which often occurs shortly before Christmas, may take on greater significance in societies in which Jews live among a Christian majority. Hanukkah can serve as an alternative rationale for exchanging gifts, sending cards, and decorating homes. These adjustments vary with each individual and family and are not the same for all Jewish Americans. Nevertheless, the Christmas season is a time when many Jews feel marginal, or like outsiders, in an overwhelmingly Christian nation. See Walter Gerson, “Jews at Christmas Time: Role-Strain and Strain Reducing Mechanisms.” In Gerson (ed.), Social Problems in a Changing World. New York: Crowell, 1969, pp. 65–76. 11-5: The New Immigrants Not since 1910, at the peak of the last century’s great wave of immigration, has the ratio of newcomers to U.S. citizens been as high as it is today. In particular, those new immigrants who are remaining in the New York City metropolitan area are more diverse, have changed traditional settlement patterns, and have not followed the traditional politics of the earlier immigrants. Classic old ethnic neighborhoods that had successfully resisted change for half a century now belong to no one and to everyone. They are a clashing, colorful, polyglot, multiethnic collection of microcommunities, whose members sometimes come together on neutral ground. The earlier wave of immigrants was largely composed of Italians, Jews, Irish, Polish, and German ethnics, but the new wave includes Koreans, Hmong, Chinese, Ecuadorians and other Latin and South Americans, Indians, various Middle Easterners, West Indians, and Africans from numerous countries. They are oftentimes moving into the same ethnic neighborhoods that housed the earlier immigrants, but the communities are no longer as homogeneous as they once were. For example, in one Queens elementary school, Spanish-speaking children leave for special instruction with a Spanish-speaking teacher in their academic subjects, and in the afternoon the Korean and Chinese children are pulled out of the classroom to study in Korean and Chinese. While those children are gone, other teachers rotate in the class to help those who speak Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, and other languages. The new wave of immigrants has altered traditional settlement patterns. Earlier immigrants settled in relatively homogeneous inner-city communities and did not venture to the suburbs until their second or third generation. However, many new immigrants are moving directly to the suburbs surrounding New York City and bypassing the inner-city enclaves. In addition, these new immigrants are breaking the stereotypes of being poor, uneducated, huddled masses. Many of the new immigrants are economically diverse, equipped with graduate degrees and work visas, and gifted in science and technology. In one middle-class New Jersey suburb of New York City, the Asian population has climbed from 1 percent to 10 percent since 1980. Almost 10 percent of the children in the school system are not native speakers of English, and 41 languages are represented in the community, including 11 from the Indian subcontinent and four from China and Taiwan. One consequence of the changing characteristics of the immigrants and their settlement patterns has been in the area of community politics. Since the new immigrants are more fractured and diverse, it has been more difficult for them to unite into a political movement. For example, Dominicans comprise roughly 6 percent of the New York City population, West Indians about 8 percent, Chinese about 4 percent. Unifying these and many other groups is a politician’s nightmare. Nevertheless, coalitions are forming that are spanning ethnic divides, as the new immigrants realize that they share common problems in the changing political landscape. See Susan Sachs, “From a Babel of Tongues, a Neighborhood,” New York Times (December 26, 1999): 1, 32; also see David Chen, “Asian Middle Class Alters a Rural Enclave,” New York Times (December 27, 1999): 1, B9; also see James Dao, “Immigrant Diversity Slows Traditional Political Climb,” New York Times (December 28, 1999): 1, B11. 11-6: School Desegregation and the Hmong Community Wausau (population 30,060) is a community located in rural Wisconsin best known, perhaps, for the insurance company bearing its name that advertises on television. To sociologists, it is distinctive for its sizeable Hmong population. Wausau finds itself with the greatest percentage of Hmong of any city in Wisconsin. These Southeast Asians are 10 percent of the city’s population and 22 percent of its kindergarten pupils. But because the Hmong are concentrated in the more affordable downtown area, they constitute as much as 62 percent of the students in some schools. The Hmong immigrated to the United States from Laos and Vietnam among the refugees who came following the April 1975 end of the United States involvement in Vietnam. In the view of school officials, progress in teaching the Hmong English in Wausau was stymied because the newcomers associated mainly with each other and spoke only their native tongue. The Wausau school board decided in the fall of 1993 to distribute the Hmong and other poor students more evenly by restructuring its elementary schools in a scheme that requires two-way busing. The desegregation result has divided the city, with residents voting in a 1993 special recall election to decide whether to fire the five board members who backed the plan. “People feel this decision was just stuffed down their throats,” said Peter Beltz, director of Families Approve Neighborhood Schools (FANS), which fielded candidates and gathered the signatures for the recall. Wausau school officials said their plan, which is not federally mandated, is aimed less at achieving a more equitable socioeconomic balance and learning environment. The busing, they say, was begun as a convenience for parents, whose children now travel an average of two miles farther than before. Recalls are rare, but in December 1993, opponents of the busing plan that integrates Asian-American youngsters into mostly White grade schools won a majority on the Wausau school board by ousting five incumbents in a recall election. “Busing and partner schools as envisioned is [sic] over,” Don Langlois, one of the winners, declared after the votes were counted on a Tuesday night. “We plan to have a neighborhood school plan for the fall 1994 school year,” Langlois said. But board president Richard Allen, one of those defeated, said he expected supporters of the busing plan to take the matter to court with a lawsuit claiming that to remove busing would cause segregation. Christopher Ahmuty, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, said after the successful recall effort that his group was willing to file a lawsuit to stop the school board from overturning the changes. “Where a governmental body by law engages in an intentional act of resegregation, that would violate all kinds of constitutional standards.” See “Victors in Recall Plan to End School Busing,” Chicago Tribune (December 16, 1993): 3; Rogers Worthington, “School Desegregation Efforts Divide Town,” Chicago Tribune (December 13, 1993): 4. Except for Beltz, all quotations are from the December 16 article. 11-7: The Complexities of Race and Nationality: The Case of Peruvian Japanese Miscarriages of justice have frequently befallen some racial groups. As noted in the text, the 1988 Civil Liberties Act authorized payments and a presidential apology to each surviving Japanese-American World War II internee beginning in 1990. Japanese Peruvians in the United States have not received the same positive, though belated, treatment. Approximately 1,800 Japanese Peruvians were brought from South America to the United States during World War II, with the full cooperation and involvement of United States officials, and sent to internment camps. In her book, Years of Infamy, Michi Weglyn speculates that the United States wanted the Japanese Peruvians for potential hostage exchanges with Japan or as a possible “reprisal reserve.” One of the Japanese Peruvian internees, Libia Yamamota of Richmond, California, spoke of her experiences at “day of remembrance” programs in San Francisco and San Jose in 1993. These programs are annual events held in remembrance of the internment. In 1943, Yamamota was only seven and a half years old and lived with her parents and two siblings in Chiclayo in northern Peru. In January 1943, Peruvian authorities took her father into custody. The rest of the family was rounded up in July and sent to the Justice Department’s internment camp at Crystal City, Texas. They were to remain there for four years, until 1947. Their ordeal did not end with the war and the closure of the camps. After 1945, Japanese Peruvians were caught in a complicated legal tangle because Peru would not allow them back, and the United States government, despite having brought the Japanese Peruvians here and holding them in custody, decided that they were in the United States illegally and could not stay. According to a government commission, most were deported to Japan, the only country that would accept them, even though many of them had never been to Japan. After years of legal uncertainty, in 1952 many Japanese Peruvians finally won permanent resident status from the U.S. government. After the Civil Liberties Act was enacted in 1988, Yamamota applied for and was ruled eligible for redress payments. Yet, the Office of Redress Administration (ORA) has ruled that many other Japanese Peruvians are not eligible. The difference is apparently a legal technicality involving whether they were granted permanent resident status retroactive to their date of entry to the United States. The ORA estimates that about 20 percent of the approximately 330 formerly interned Japanese Peruvians who remain in the United States are not eligible for redress payments. “We are all in the same situation,” says Yamamota, referring to the Japanese Peruvian internees. “It’s not fair that some are included [in the redress payments] and some are not” (Ota, p. 20). See John Ota, “50 Years Later, Many Internees from Peru Still Denied Redress,” Asian Week (February 12, 1993): 1, 20; Michi Weglyn. Years of Infamy. New York: Quill, 1976. 11-8: Immigrant Views of the United States Typically, surveys ask adults their views of immigration or their attitudes toward immigrants themselves. However, a 1995 Gallup survey asked a representative nationwide sample of foreign-born adults about their views of the United States. In descending order, the most important reasons for coming to the United States were these: better job, 26 percent; be with family, 23 percent; school, 19 percent; political freedom, 13 percent; marriage, 3 percent; religious freedom, 2 percent. Interestingly, 48 percent felt the “moral values” were better in their homeland, 33 percent said they were better in the United States, and 14 percent of the respondents said they were the same. Immigrants from Asia and Canada were particularly strong in endorsing the moral values of their homeland. Only those who are 65 and older are more likely to believe that U.S. society is morally stronger than their former homelands. Source: “Many Immigrants Believe Moral Values Are Lacking in the United States,” Emerging Trends 17 (November 1995): 5. CLASSROOM DISCUSSION TOPICS 11-1. Stimulating Classroom Discussions about Asian American Dreams: Questions for stimulating a classroom discussion about this excerpt from Helen Zia’s book could include: Why do we automatically assume that anyone who looks foreign is not a native speaker of English? Why do we not usually feel guilty about stereotyping? Would any of the class members care to share experiences of prejudice, discrimination, or stereotyping they have experienced? What does stereotyping tell us about ethnocentrism and ourselves? 11-2. Social Construction of Race: For activities to help teach how race is socially constructed, see Brian K. Obach, “Demonstrating the Social Construction of Race,” Teaching Sociology 27 (July 1999): 252–257. 11-3. Race and Popular Culture: The author explains the use of top-40 pop, folk, rhythm and blues, new age, and rap music to provoke discussions about race and ethnicity. Similar strategies may be utilized to teach other substantive areas in an introductory sociology course. See Theresa A. Martinez, “Race and Popular Culture: Teaching African American Leadership Styles through Popular Music,” Teaching Sociology 26 (July 1998): 207–214. 11-4. Stereotypes—A Class Activity: Before doing this class activity, stress to students that this is an exercise in stereotyping, and that they should refrain from making comments. List the various ethnic and racial groups that are discussed in the text on the board. Have students take a piece of paper and write down stereotypes they hold about the various groups. Stress to students not to identify themselves in any way. Collect the papers. List some of the stereotypes on the board. This activity will be more effective if you do it toward the end of class. Let students leave the room thinking about the stereotypes the class holds. 11-5. Race—Autobiographies: Linda Marie Fritschner has developed a discussion format that allows students to reveal their impressions about race in the United States, anonymously, and that lets the instructor use these impressions as a means of better understanding the state of past and present race relations in the U.S. Linda Marie Fritschner, “Lessons About Race in Introductory Sociology,” Teaching Sociology 29 (January 2001): 110-115. 11-6. Picturing Stereotypes: Jacqueline Simpson describes an activity through which student-drawn pictures illustrate basic race and gender stereotypes. See James Sikora and Teodora O. Amoloza (eds.), Introductory Sociology Resource Manual (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2000, p. 203. 11-7. Museums as a Useful Tool for Exploring Ethnic Diversity: See Edith W. King, “Using Museums for More Effective Teaching of Ethnic Relations,” Teaching Sociology 20 (April 1992): 114–120. 11-8. Social Distance Scale: See Marietta Morrissey, “Exploring Social Distance in Race and Ethnic Relations Courses,” Teaching Sociology 20 (April 1992): 121–124. 11-9. Discrimination on Television: Does the popular television program Jeopardy! discriminate in its recruitment? Poet Maya Angelou—a self-professed fan of the game show—thought so, and is now working with the program to bring on more African-American contestants. See Lisa Miller and Ileane Rudolph, “Jeopardy! Seeks Answers to Questions of Bias,” TV Guide 44 (February 17, 1996): 46. 11-10. Institutional Discrimination: Use this exercise as an interesting way to illuminate the concept of institutional discrimination. Brian K. Orbuch, “Teaching about Institutional Discrimination and the Controversies of Affirmative Action,” Teaching Sociology 28 (January 2000): 50-55. 11-11. Using Humor: Joseph E. Faulkner has produced a monograph that includes funny examples that could be incorporated into lectures associated with Chapter 10. See Chapter 7 in Faulkner, Sociology Through Humor. New York: West, 1987. This book is out of print, but used copies are readily available. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to search for evidence of racial stereotyping in television shows and commercials, and discuss institutionalized discrimination. 2. Ask students to research Department of Justice statistics on hate crimes for frequency and geographic patterns, and discuss how prejudice leads to discriminatory behaviors. 3. Ask students to provide examples of how government officials may try to justify racial profiling in the aftermath of 9/11, and discuss the Social Policy section on racial profiling. 4. Ask students to report on any past experiences in which they changed their opinion about a person after working or socializing with them, and discuss the contact hypothesis. 5. Ask students to identify Black comedians who use racial humor as a base for their routine, and discuss whether Black comedians making fun of Blacks encourages amalgamation, assimilation, segregation, or pluralism. CHAPTER 12 STRATIFICATION BY GENDER CHAPTER OUTLINE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER Gender Roles in the United States Cross-Cultural Perspective SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER The Functionalist View The Conflict Response The Feminist Perspective Intersections with Race, Class, and Other Social Factors The Interactionist Approach WOMEN: THE OPPRESSED MAJORITY Sexism and Sex Discrimination The Status of Women Worldwide WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE OF THE UNITED STATES Labor Force Participation Compensation Social Consequences of Women's Employment EMERGENCE OF A COLLECTIVE-CONSCIOUSNESS SOCIAL POLICY AND GENDER STRATIFICATION: THE BATTLE OVER ABORTION FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Boxes Sociology in the Global Community: The Head Scarf and the Veil: Complex Symbols Research Today: Give Me a Male Boss, Please Trend Spotting: Working Mothers Taking Sociology to Work: Abigail E. Drevs, Former Program and Volunteer Coordinator, Y-ME Illinois LEARNING OBJECTIVES WHAT’S NEW IN CHAPTER 12 1. Describe the social construction of gender roles. 2. Discuss what is meant by gender role socialization. 3. Discuss the various sociological views used to explain gender stratification. 4. Define sexism and discuss examples and consequences of sex/gender discrimination. 5. Discuss the status of women in the U.S. and worldwide. 6. Discuss the position and consequences of women in today’s workforce. 7. Discuss the concept of collective consciousness within the context of the development of feminism in the U.S. 8. Discuss current controversies surrounding the issue of abortion globally. • Opening excerpt from “Skating Femininity: Gender Maneuvering in Women’s Roller Derby,” by Nancy J. Finley. • Subsection on gender and human sexuality • Discussion of gender inequality in housework among both the rich and the poor, with figure, “Gender Inequality in Housework” • Discussion of research showing small-investor bias against women who are members of corporate boards of directors • Trend Spotting Box, “Give Me a Male Boss, Please” • Updated Social Policy section, “The Battle over Abortion from a Global Perspective,” with discussion of the controversy over “womb lynchings” CHAPTER SUMMARY Gender roles are defined as the expectations regarding the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females. Social behavior is socially constructed so that male–female differences are either created or exaggerated. Gender-role socialization in the United States has followed a traditional pattern in that boys must be masculine, active, aggressive, tough, daring and dominant, whereas girls must be feminine, soft, emotional, sweet, and submissive. Gender-role socialization occurs through the influences of parents, older siblings, the mass media, religious and educational institutions, and other adults. An important element in traditional views of proper “masculine” and “feminine” behavior is homophobia, fear of and prejudice against homosexuals and homosexuality. Homophobia contributes to rigid gender-role socialization since many people associate male homosexuality with femininity and lesbianism with masculinity. As a result, men and women who deviate from traditional gender roles are often assumed to be homosexual. Sociologists have turned to the major sociological perspectives to understand stratification by gender. Functionalists maintain that gender differentiation has contributed to social stability. Some argue that in order to function most efficiently, the family requires adults who specialize in particular roles, and that the division of tasks between spouses is functional for the family unit. Expressiveness denotes concern for the maintenance of harmony, emotional closeness, and morale within the household. Instrumentalism, on the other hand, refers to an emphasis on specific tasks, concrete and/or long-range goals, and the relationship of one’s family to the outside world. Functionalists have long argued that women and men are better suited to perform the expressive and instrumental roles within a family, respectively. Conflict theorists see gender differences as a reflection of the subjugation of one group (women) by another group (men). A significant component of the conflict approach to gender stratification draws on the feminist perspective. The feminist perspective argues that the very discussion of women and society has been distorted by the exclusion of women from academic thought. Feminist scholars have also highlighted what is known as the matrix of domination, the convergence of social forces that contributes to the subordinate status of women of color, particularly those who are from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Interactionists examine gender stratification with a microlevel analysis. They suggest that cross-sex conversations and male-dominated behaviors are one more battleground in the struggle for sexual equality. Women are viewed as the oppressed majority when looking at the political structure of the United States, in that women are noticeably underrepresented. Sexism is the ideology that one sex is superior to the other. Men control all of the major institutions in our society. This general pattern of male dominance is found everywhere, with women in developing nations facing the most severe challenges. A majority of women are now members of the paid labor force. The glass ceiling refers to an invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified individual in a work environment. Women from all groups and men from minority groups sometimes encounter attitudinal or organizational bias that prevents them from reaching their full potential. There is a substantial gender gap in the median earnings of full-time workers. The phrase second shift refers to the double burden—work outside the home, followed by childcare and housework—that many women face and few men share equitably. Feminism is the belief in social, economic, and political equality for women. The first wave of feminists worked for voting and other rights for women, and won many victories, including the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The second wave of feminism emerged in the 1960s with the realization that suffrage had not led to social or economic equality. Women today do not necessarily call themselves feminists, but there is a growing acceptance of women in non-traditional roles. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. How is gender socially constructed? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: gender roles, homophobia, multiple masculinities Visual Support: Table 12-1 “An Experiment in Gender Norm Violation by College Students”; Photo of Miss America contestants; Photo of GI Joe dolls; Photo of man working in a daycare; Photo of transgendered individual; photo of taxi driver in Mexico IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: 12-2, 12-3, 12-4, 12-5, 12-7, 12-8, 12-9 Topics and Sources for Student Research: Social Construction of Gender in Sports; Non-Traditional Gender Roles; Gender Differences among Hispanics; Gender Differences in Emotions Video Resources: Gender and Communication; The Gender Tango; Price of Honor REEL SOCIETY CD Topic Index: Gender Roles 2. How do sociologists explain gender stratification? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: expressiveness, instrumentality, matrix of domination Visual Support: Photo of women working in a Texas factory; Figure 12-1 ‘Matrix of Domination’; Table 12-2 “Sociological Perspectives on Gender” IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: 12-1 Classroom Discussion Topics: 12-1, 12-2, 12-3, 12-10 Topics and Sources for Student Research: Social Construction of Gender in Sports; Women and Sports Video Resources: Beyond the Veil; Chasing Amy; In My Country; Price of Honor; Sex, Murder, and Videogames; Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America; Soldiers Raping Soldiers REEL SOCIETY CD Topic Index: Stratification—Gender 3. What are the basic patterns of gender inequality in the United States and worldwide? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: sexism, institutional discrimination Box: Sociology in the Global Community, “The Head Scarf and the Veil: Complex Symbols” Visual Support: Figure 12-2, “Gender Inequality in Housework” IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: 12-10, 12-11, 12-12 Topics and Sources for Student Research: Gender Dominance in Jobs Cross-Culturally Video Resources: A Darker Side of Fair; In My Country; Price of Honor; Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America LECTURE LAUNCHER NBC NEWS VIDEO CLIPS Volume 1: Role of Women in Japan Volume 2: New Anxieties for Educated Women in Iraq 4. Describe women’s participation in the workforce and resulting social issues. IN THE TEXT Key Terms: glass ceiling, second shift Box: Research Today, “Give Me a Male Boss, Please” Box: Trend Spotting, “Working Mothers” Visual Support: Figure 12-3, “Trends in US Women’s Participation in the Paid Labor Force, 1890-2008”; Table 12-3, “US Women in Selected Occupations: Women as a Percentage of All Workers in the Occupation”; Figure 12-4, “Why Leave Work” IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Additional Lecture Ideas: 12-2, 12-3, 12-4 Classroom Discussion Topics: 12-4, 12-11 Topics and Sources for Student Research: Gender Dominance in Jobs Cross-Culturally; The Glass Escalator; Women and Management; Policy Action; Household Tasks in Later Life Video Resources: Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America LECTURE LAUNCHER NBC NEWS VIDEO CLIPS Volume 2: Men Now Pursuing Jobs in Fields Previously Dominated by Women 5. Discuss the basics of the feminist movement and the emergence of a feminist collective conscience. IN THE TEXT Key Terms: Feminism Box: Taking Sociology to Work, “Abigail E. Deves, Former Program and Volunteer Coordinator, Y-ME Illinois” IN THE INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Classroom Discussion Topics: 12-3, 12-13 Topics and Sources for Student Research: Policy Action; Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions Video Resources: LECTURE OUTLINE I. Social Construction of Gender • Gender roles: expectations regarding the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females. • Gender roles are socially constructed so that male–female differences are either created or exaggerated. Example: In a heterosexual couple, the man should be taller than the woman. A. Gender Roles in the United States 1. Gender-Role Socialization • Boys must be masculine and girls must be feminine. • Homophobia contributes significantly to rigid gender-role socialization. Example: deviation from traditional expectations leads to presumption of being gay. • Parents play a critical role in guiding children into gender roles. • Boundaries of conventional gender behavior. See Table 11-1. 2. Women’s Gender Roles • Girls identify in part with families, neighbors, and the media for their development of a feminine self-image. • Women are often portrayed in television and books as helpless, passive, and incompetent. • Women are expected to want to become mothers. • Success at work is not as important to their identity as it is for men. 3. Men’s Gender Roles • Socially constructed, much like those of women. • Prove one’s masculinity at work and in sports. • Aggressive and self-reliant. • Initiating and controlling sexual relations. • Men pursuing nontraditional jobs often encounter negative response from others. Examples: male nurses, preschool teachers. • Multiple masculinities – although society reinforces the dominant male role, most men do play other roles such as nurturer. B. Cross-Cultural Perspective • Margaret Mead points to importance of cultural conditioning—rather than biology—in defining social roles of males and females. Example: sex in New Guinea. • Peggy Reeves Sanday’s findings from West Sumatra describe gender roles based on partnership with women in control of the land through inheritance. These findings support the influential role of culture and socialization in gender- role differentiation, and negate innate or biological reasons. II. Explaining Stratification by Gender A. The Functionalist View • Gender differentiation contributes to stability. Family requires specialized roles. • Parsons and Bales contended women take the expressive role and men the instrumental. • Instrumentality refers to an emphasis on tasks, a focus on more distant goals, and a concern for the external relationship between one’s family and other social institutions. • Expressiveness denotes concern for maintenance of harmony and the internal emotional affairs of the family. Example: Women become anchored as wives. • Women’s interest in expressive goals frees men for instrumental tasks, and vice versa. B. The Conflict Perspective • Relationship between men and women has traditionally been one of unequal power. • Gender differences reflect the subjugation of one group (women) by another group (men). Example: Marx’s bourgeoisie and proletariat. C. The Feminist Perspective • Women’s subjugation is part of the overall exploitation and injustice inherent in capitalist societies. • Radical feminists view oppression of women as inevitable in all male-dominated societies. • Women have been excluded from academic thought. Example: Jane Addams and Ida Wells-Barnett. • Contemporary feminists describe a matrix of domination wherein several social factors, including race, ethnicity, and SES, combine with gender to further disadvantage low-status women, particularly women of color. • Gender stratification may be functional for men. D. The Interactionist Approach • Focus on the microlevel of everyday behavior, whereas functionalists and conflict theorists focus more on the macrolevel. • People can both conform to and challenge gender roles in day-to-day interactions. III. Women: The Oppressed Majority • Women remain noticeably underrepresented in political structures. Examples: As of mid-2006, only 8 of the nation’s 50 states had a female governor; mid-2007 there were only 16 women in the U.S. Senate, and 87 in the House of Representatives. A. Sexism and Sex Discrimination • Sexism is the ideology that one sex is superior to the other. • Institutional discrimination contributes to sexism. All major institutions are controlled by men, and are biased in their treatment of women. Examples: government, armed forces, large corporations, the media, and universities. B. Sexual Harassment • Behavior in which work benefits are contingent upon sexual favors, or when touching, lewd comments, or pornographic materials create a “hostile environment.” • Viewed as a continuing source of prejudice and discrimination against women. C. The Status of Women Worldwide • UN overview (2000) of the status of women worldwide found women live in a different world in terms of access to education, job opportunities, health, personal security, and human rights. • Regardless of culture, women everywhere suffer from second-class status. • Women rarely own land. • Women work in jobs with lower pay and lower status than men. • Female, single-parent households are typically found among the poorest segments of the population. • Feminization of poverty is a global phenomenon. • Much of the exploited labor in developing nations (especially in the nonindustrial sector) is performed by women. D. Women in the Workforce of the United States 1. Labor Force Participation • In 2007, 60 percent of adult women in the U.S. worked outside the home, vs. 41 percent in 1970. • Sixty-two percent of married mothers with children under 6 were in the labor force in 2007. • Occupational segregation: confinement to sex-typed “women’s jobs.” Example: In 2005, 99 percent of dental hygienists and 84 percent of librarians were women. See Table 11-3. • The glass ceiling prevents women from reaching their full potential. 2. Compensation • When men and women hold the same jobs, men usually make more money. • The gender gap persists even after controlling for age, education, and work experience. • While women are at a disadvantage in male-dominated occupations, men are at an advantage in female occupations (the “glass escalator”). 3. Social Consequences of Women’s Employment • Sociologist Arlie Hochschild describes the double burden of housework and childcare following work outside the home as the “second shift.” • Women spend 15 fewer hours per week in leisure activities compared to men. • Feminists have advocated greater government and corporate support for childcare, family leave policies, and other reforms. IV. Emergence of a Collective Consciousness • Feminism is the belief in social, economic, and political equality for women. • The first wave of feminists worked for voting and other rights for women, and won many victories, including the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. • The second wave of feminism emerged in the 1960s with the realization that suffrage had not led to social or economic equality. Women today do not necessarily call themselves feminists, but there is a growing acceptance of women in non-traditional roles. V. Social Policy and Gender Stratification: The Battle over Abortion from a Global Perspective A. The Issue • Legalized abortion. • Roe v. Wade, 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision; ruling was based on a woman’s right to privacy. B. The Setting • Pro-life side wants to prohibit abortion altogether or at least limit it. Example: Parental consent requirement in Missouri (1979) was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Parental notification and consent are very sensitive issues. • Advances in technology and pharmaceuticals have had an impact on the debate. Examples: “day-after” pills; RU-486; ultrasound. • In the U.S. people seem to support a woman’s right to a legal abortion, but with reservations. In a 2006 national survey, only 16 percent oppose a woman’s right to a legal abortion under all circumstances; however, only 19 percent think abortion should be legal under any circumstances. C. Sociological Insights • Gender and social class are defining issues surrounding abortion. • The conflict reflects broader differences over women’s position in society. Feminists largely defend abortion rights; antiabortion activists tend to believe that women are best suited to child rearing, and are troubled by women’s growing participation in work outside the home. • The Hyde Amendment in 1976 banned the use of Medicaid and other federal funding for abortion; many states also restrict public funding for abortion. • In 2001, only about 6 percent of specialists in the U.S. were trained or willing to perform abortions under any circumstances. Many medical schools have ceased to offer training in abortion. D. Policy Initiatives • Supreme Court majority of 5-4 supports abortion rights; however, recent appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court leaves the future status of Roe v. Wade in question. • Antiabortion members of Congress have often blocked foreign aid to countries that might use the funds to encourage abortion. • Forty percent of abortions worldwide are performed illegally, in many cases because the woman lives in a country where abortion is illegal or severely restricted. KEY TERMS Expressiveness Concern for maintenance of harmony and the internal emotional affairs of the family. Feminism The belief in social, economic, and political equality for women. Gender role Expectations regarding the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females. Glass ceiling An invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified individual in a work environment because of the individual’s gender, race, or ethnicity. Homophobia Fear of and prejudice against homosexuality. Institutional discrimination The denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups that results from the normal operations of a society. Instrumentality An emphasis on tasks, a focus on more distant goals, and a concern for the external relationship between one’s family and other social institutions. Matrix of domination The cumulative impact of oppression because of race and ethnicity, gender, and social class, as well as religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, social and citizenship status. Multiple masculinities A variety of male gender roles, including nurturing-caring and effeminate-gay roles, that men may play along with their more pervasive traditional role of dominating women. Second shift The double burden—work outside the home followed by childcare and housework—that many women face and few men share equitably. Sexism The ideology that one sex is superior to the other. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 12-1: Gendered Spaces The interactionist perspective on gender stratification often examines the microlevel of everyday behavior. Daphne Spain’s Gendered Spaces (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1992) is an example of such an approach. After dinner, the women gather in one group, perhaps in the kitchen, while the men sit together elsewhere in the house, perhaps watching a televised sporting event. Is this an accurate picture of day-to-day social life in the United States? According to architect Daphne Spain, it certainly is. Indeed, the physical separation of men and women has been common, whether in the Mongolian ger (or hut), the longhouses of the Iroquois tribes of North America, or recreational facilities on contemporary college campuses. Spain notes that gendered spaces in workplaces in the United States reflect our society’s traditional division of labor into “men’s work” and “women’s work.” But, as with historic patterns of racial segregation, the spatial segregation of women and men does not lead to “separate but equal” status. Instead, it serves to reinforce the dominant position of men in the workplace in terms of financial rewards, status, and power. Drawing on her own research and on studies in a variety of disciplines, Spain concludes that: • Women are more likely to supervise employees who share the same workspace or work in adjoining areas than men are. Men tend to supervise people who work elsewhere. These differences are evident even when both men and women have the same job descriptions. • Women in the workplace are often grouped in open spaces (in the “secretarial pool”) or are without offices altogether (nurses and schoolteachers). By contrast, men are more likely to work in “private” offices. These spatial arrangements have obvious implications in terms of status and power. • Even when women have private offices, the spatial characteristics of these offices often underscore their subordinate position in the workplace. Higher-status jobs within an organization, usually held by men, are accompanied by greater control of space. This is evident when an office has an entrance with a door that closes and locks, a back exit, no glass partition, soundproofing, a private telephone line, and so forth. In summary, Spain (227) found that “women typically engage in highly visible work—to colleagues, clients, and supervisors—subject to repeated interruptions.” Viewed from an interactionist perspective, these spatial conditions reflect and reinforce women’s subordinate status relative to men. The closed doors of men’s offices in managerial and professional jobs not only protect their privacy and limit other employees’ access to knowledge, but they also symbolize men’s dominant position in the workplace. 12-2: Feminization of the Banking Industry Sociologist Brian Rich looks at the growth of women’s participation in the banking industry between 1940 and 1980. Drawing on census and industry regulatory data, he examines “the feminization process,” which he defines as women’s proportional gains in a paid employment category. He notes that the banking workforce went from 30 percent female in 1940 to over 70 percent female in 1980. To consider the reason for this dramatic shift, he considers three models to explain the process: human capital, the dual labor market, and gender queuing. The human capital model would explain the change in sex composition of the banking labor force as the result of new job-to-worker matches. The substitution of female for male workers occurs when skill and other productivity characteristics of the jobs change in ways that favor the human capital stocks that women offer more than those offered by men. The dual labor market model would see the banking industry as becoming less desirable and therefore more likely to be filled by women, who are at a disadvantage in competing against men for more desirable jobs. The gender-queuing explanation would argue that employers came to prefer women in the labor force because of qualities that differentiate them from men, and that, at the same time, women were more likely to seek out those jobs. While similar to the dual labor market approach, queuing portrays the process as one in which the participants, men and women, play a more active role, rather than one in which changes comes from above (the banking industry). Source: Brian L. Rich, “Explaining Feminization in the U.S. Banking Industry, 1940–1980,” Sociological Perspectives 38 (Fall 1996): 357–380. 12-3: Glass Ceiling Commission Concludes Study Created by the first President George Bush, the bipartisan Glass Ceiling federal commission investigating workplace discrimination concluded its work in 1995. During its three years of study, the Glass Ceiling Commission had identified a variety of major barriers to executive advancement for women and racial minorities. These included the following: • Lack of mentoring. • Initial placement and clustering in relatively dead-end staff jobs or highly technical professional jobs. • Lack of management training. • Lack of opportunities for career development. • Lack of opportunities for training tailored to the individual. • Lack of rotation to line positions or job assignments that are revenue producing. • Little or no access to critical development assignments, including service on highly visible task forces and committees. • Different standards for performance evaluation. • Biased rating and testing systems. • Little or no access to informal networks of communication. • Counterproductive behavior and harassment by colleagues. The final report called on chief executives of companies to take a variety of steps to remove these barriers, including the following: • To commit themselves to making the workforce more diverse. • To include diversity in all strategic business plans. • To use affirmative action as a tool to select, promote, and retain qualified individuals. • To prepare minorities and women for senior positions. • To educate the corporate ranks. • To adopt high performance practices in the decision-making process. • To share information about the organization. • To have policies that support family life. The report recommends that the federal government lead by example by promoting women and minorities to senior management and decision-making positions. See Department of Labor. Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation’s Capital. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office and Department of Labor, 1995; A Solid Investment: Making Full Use of the Nation’s Human Capital. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995. Also see Karen De Witt, “Jobs Cited for Minorities and Women,” New York Times (November 23, 1995): B14. 12-4: Work-Family Constraints for Women Chapter 11 describes some of the problems working women face as they try to juggle paid employment with household and family responsibilities. Some sociologists have tried to pinpoint the sorts of work accommodations that might allow women to balance work and life more easily. Attempting to do so is hardly an irrelevant, ivory-tower issue. Female labor force participation is already very high, and is projected to be even higher in the near future. By 2015, 80 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 54 will be in the labor force (Fullerton 1999). In addition, more women with small children are working than in the past. Among married women, 59.5 percent with children under the age of 6 are in the labor force, and 74.2 percent with children age 6-17 are in the labor force. Among unmarried women, the numbers are even higher. Sixty-seven percent of unmarried women with children under the age of 6 are in the labor force, and 78.8 percent of unmarried women with children aged 6-17 are in the labor force (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2000). Moreover, a high percentage of both men and women have care obligations to people other than their children (Moen 1999). High female labor force participation means that all work places will have to grapple with work-family constraints in the future. When women are unable to balance their work responsibilities with their home obligations, work organizations see increased turnover and absenteeism, lowered productivity, and have problems recruiting new employees (Glass and Estes 1997). Recent attempts by workplaces to accommodate women’s family needs have taken three key forms: 1) Allowing employees to reduce their work hours by working less than full-time, taking time off when a child is sick, or taking leave for childbirth. 2) Allowing employees flexibility in scheduling their work hours, or allowing them to work at home. 3) Providing programs that assist employees with childcare, or that promote a supportive work environment for mothers (Estes 2000). Are such programs effective? There is some empirical evidence that when employers allow employees to reduce their work hours and maintain a flexible schedule, this can result in reduced employee turnover. Other studies find that allowing employees to have a flexible work schedule reduces absenteeism. Finally, allowing employees to have reduced work hours is associated with increased productivity (Glass and Estes 1997). However, in a study of a major organization that had implemented numerous such family-friendly work policies, Arlie Hochschild found that there was tremendous social pressure among employees not to take advantage of these policies. This particular organization offered its employees part-time jobs and job shares, telecommuting, parental leaves, and flexible scheduling. Apart from the flexible scheduling, very few women—and even fewer men—took advantage of these policies. Hochschild found that the underlying culture of the workplace still dictated that employees should maintain slavish work schedules, regardless of their family obligations (Hochschild 2000). Sources used for this essay include: Howard N. Fullerton, “Labor Force Participation: 75 Years of Change, 1950-98 and 1998-2025,” Monthly Labor Review (December 1999): 3-12; Sarah Beth Estes. Family-Responsive Workplace Policies, Parenting, and Children’s Well-Being. Unpublished dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, 2000; Jennifer Glass and Sarah Beth Estes, “The Family Responsive Workplace,” Annual Review of Sociology 23 (1997): 289-313; Arlie Hochschild. The Time Bind. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000; Phyllis Moen. The Cornell Couples and Careers Study. Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute, 1990 (available online at http://www.blcc.cornell.edu/cci/reports.html). CLASS DISCUSSION TOPICS 12.1 Stimulating Classroom Discussions about Lipstick Jihad: Questions for stimulating a classroom discussion about Azadeh Moaveni’s book include these: What does Moaveni’s work tell you about variation in gender roles throughout the world, as well as historical changes in gender roles? Based on the excerpt from Moaveni’s book, what would you conclude about the position of women in the Iranian stratification system? Through what mechanisms might Iranian women have forced changes in acceptable dress and behavior in such a conservative society? What are the possible implications for models of political power? 12.2 Women’s Fashion: For a classroom exercise to sensitize students to the social impact of women’s fashion and of ideas of female beauty, see Technique No. 50 in Edward L. Kain and Robin Neas (eds.). Innovative Techniques for Teaching Sociological Concepts. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 1993. 12.3 Women—The Shadow Story of the Millennium: This is a series of articles that focuses on the changing roles of women during the last 1,000 years. Thirteen articles focus on topics that include gender and social status, changing images of women, gender inequality, gender socialization, women in history, and women and sex. See the New York Times Magazine, May 16, 1999. 12.4 Gender Differences in Childcare: Not only are there differences in how much time mothers and fathers spend in caring for their infants, but there are also significant differences in how much time they think about them when they are away from them. See Susan Walzer, “Thinking About the Baby: Gender and Divisions of Infant Care,” Social Problems (May 1996): 219–234. 12.5 Gender Socialization: Lada Gibson-Shreve describes how to use the game “Gender Gap” as a springboard for students to examine the extent of their own gender socialization. See James Sikora and Teodora O. Amoloza (eds.). Introductory Sociology Resource Manual (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2000, p. 168. 12.6 Women and Sports: For a provocative conflict approach to women at all levels of sports (individual, school, professional, and Olympic) see Mariah Burton Nelson. The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994. 12.7 Homophobia: Patricia Little and Marcia Marx list a number of questions that can be used to evoke discussion of contemporary U.S. attitudes toward homosexuality. Also listed are a number of out-of-class experiments designed to increase awareness of the social “work” that it takes to be gay or lesbian. These experiments could be discussed hypothetically, in class. See Peter Kaufman (ed.). Critical Pedagogy in the Sociology Classroom. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2002, pp. 117-121. 12.8 Superhero Comic Books and Gender Analysis: The authors demonstrate how instructors can stimulate class discussion using superhero comic books as a source of illustrations for the analysis of gender. See Kelley J. Hall and Betsy Lucal, “Tapping into Parallel Universes: Using Superhero Comic Books in Sociology Courses.” Teaching Sociology 27 (January 1999): 60–66. 12.9 Gender Stereotypes: This is an exercise in which students assign a gender to fictional characters based on their other traits (such as profession, romantic relationship, and hobbies). Class consensus or disagreement on the gender of these characters can be followed by a discussion of gender stereotypes. See Marybeth C. Stalp and Julie Childers (eds.). Teaching Sociological Concepts and the Sociology of Gender. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2000, pp. 37-38. 12.10 Gender Stratification on the Microlevel—A Class Activity: Some studies show that men initiate up to 96 percent of all interruptions in cross-sex (male-female) conversations. Assign students to observe cross-sex conversations for a specified amount of time, and count the number of male versus female interruptions. Stress to students that they, themselves, cannot be part of the conversations they are observing. Have them share their findings with the class. Before the assignment, remind students that they will be taking an interactionist approach to this form of gender stratification. 12.11 Gender Wage Gap: Jay Howard shows how to use AFL-CIO data to give a graphic illustration of the gender wage gap. See James Sikora and Teodora O. Amoloza (eds.). Introductory Sociology Resource Manual (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2000, pp. 174-175. 12.12 South Asian Women: This article includes extensive discussions of documentaries that may be used to teach about gender issues in South Asia. See Afroza Anwary, “Teaching about South Asian Women through Film,” Teaching Sociology (October 2003): 428-440. 12.13 Using Humor: Joseph E. Faulkner has produced a monograph that includes funny examples that could be incorporated into lectures associated with Chapter 11. See chapter 13 in Faulkner, Sociology Through Humor. New York: West, 1987. This book is out of print, but used copies are readily available. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to search for evidence in advertising, movies, and television shows that reinforce the traditional gender roles assigned to both men and women, and discuss the influence of social construction in the formation of gender roles. 2. Ask students to search for evidence of gender inequality in recent “reality” television shows, and discuss the various sociological views regarding gender roles. 3. Ask students to search for evidence of sexism in recent news stories (e.g., stories about divorces, lawsuits, or criminal cases), and discuss institutional discrimination directed toward women. 4. Ask students to research salary scales of traditional male and female occupations for comparisons, and discuss the disadvantages and advantages of gendered employment. Instructor Manual for Sociology Richard T. Schaefer 9780078026669