...What is race? Is race a product of social construct? In short, race can be described as an ideological force. People use the concept of race as defining and differentiating one group of people from another. In reality, race is merely a made up concept, and the differentiating traits are varying physical phenotypes. So why does the idea of race exist within society? Darder and Torres would argue that the existence of race is likely due to the “race relations paradigm”. Race relations can be described as the relations between different “racial and ethnic” groups and societal influences such as politics, economics, and or social issues. How do different classes of people and or minorities relate to these issues? What are the social norms associated between different groups of people (or classes) and these issues? These predetermined notions tend to be harmful in modern society, as they appear to promote segregation, whether inadvertently or intentionally. Throughout history a paradigm has been created within race relations. Meaning that patterns have emerged throughout time when handing racial issues. Oppression continues in differing forms and there is no true acceptance or even acknowledgement when regarding racial issues and stereotypes....
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...What is race? Common responses in the Sociology 222 class were, 'race is something we are born with' and 'race is the same as skin colour'. When looking at these statements from a Sociological perspective, we have to ask ourselves a few relevant questions. Why are sociologists critical of the above statements? How do research writers challenge ideas about social construction and institutionalisation of race under apartheid and colonialism? This essay is going to discuss a number of readings in order to answer the above questions. This essay will also look at the relevance of the Jane Elliot experiment for thinking about, and understanding of race as a social construction. Lastly, this essay will discuss what we can learn about the dynamics of apartheid from the experiences of Sandra Laing in the film 'Skin'. In conclusion this essay will evaluate the various opinions and research done on the matter of race, and how race is socially constructed. Firstly, we have to look at how and why sociologists are critical of race as a biological phenomenon. Race is widely discussed and debated all over the world. The main sociological focus is the effects of social race and how race is used to categorize people into groups. When we look back in history, we see that race was seen as a biological factor for many centuries. When explorers from Europe in the New World discovered people who looked different, raised questions such as ‘Did God only make one species of humanity?’ and ‘Where...
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...Critical social theorists have a desire to influence and change social problems occurring in society and inform disciplines including human services practice, and guide practitioners through critical social theories to explain and understand social phenomenon (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2015, p. 130). Past sociological theories were created in a different era where Eurocentric ideologies were favoured to explain social issues and inform human services practice. However, since progression of evolution, globalisation and racial activism, theorists are presenting new social theories to inform disciplines of new developments and applying these theories to social problems. Critical race theory (CRT), acts to provoke change from macro structures by advocating...
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...In today's society, many of us are label gay or straight, black or white . Do these labels define who we are? Does a specific genre of music or style of cooking belong to a specific group of people? Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses the issues of identity, race and culture in his essay "Racial Identities". Appiah uses references from poets and scholars who see different or similar views on race and culture. Matthew Arnold, Thomas Sowell, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charles Taylor are few of the scholars and poets that are used in "Racial Identities" and how their literary texts, views and issues contributed to Appiah's essay. Matthew Arnold poem was used as a reference in the "Racial Identities", where he discusses culture. Arnold was born on December...
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...their scheduled discussion sections and take the second part of the exam. Format: 3 mini-essay answer; 40-60 multiple-choice questions; 5-10 fill-in-the-blank questions; and 5-10 two-sentence answers. Short-essay answer: concisely answer the following questions. Be prepared to answer all of them. ACTUAL QUESTIONS FOR THE EXAM 1) Consider what you learned in lecture and from the readings by Rohter, Guimarães, Goldstein, Vaughan, and Stout. Discuss how people are racialized in Brazil and Cuba. Be sure to cover the following issues: a. What historical conditions explain the high level of inequality in these countries? Why are socio-economic conditions connected to race? (10 pts) b. Provide one concrete example from the readings that shows how constructions of race in Brazil and Cuba are similar, and one concrete example from the readings to show how they are different (10 pts) c. Discuss why identities are mediated and how media is used as part of the process of racialization (10 pts). Use one example provided in class to explain your argument (10 pts). 2) Considering the movie “Even the Rain” and from the readings by Barron, Thomson, Spronk, and Monasterios discuss the connections between extraction process, natural resources and social movements in Bolivia. a. Explain what the connections are between the extraction process, natural resources and social movements in Bolivia? Use one example from the movie and one example from the readings to develop...
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...The essay focuses on the social construction of crime, and the possible reasons for these social constructions. In the first section, the essay explains what crime is, and the constructionist perspective theory. In the Second section my essay focuses on the crime as socially constructed and why it is socially constructed. In the third section essay explains, three levels of explanation in the study of deviant and criminal behaviour. In the final section, it focuses on the historical theoretical periods, which plays an important role in revitalising past discoveries. Crime is a term that refers to many types of misconduct that is forbidden by law. There are a number of different reasons as to why crime can be viewed as a social construction. There cannot be 'social problems' that are not the product of social construction - naming, labelling, defining and mapping them into place - through which we can 'make sense' of them' (Clarke, 2001). In this essay I will explain what is social construction, also what crime is, and why we think, that crime is socially constructed. Furthermore, I will explain how media construct crime and the stigma of black crime. In the last paragraph I will explore the importance of Marxist and Durkheim's theories on the emergence of crime....
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...Comparing and Contrasting Essentialist Approaches to Social Psychology with Social Constructionist Approaches to Social Psychology. A widely recognised definition of social psychology is “an effort to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others” (Allport, 1985). However, how to measure this, the research methods to be used and what constitutes useful evidence has caused much debate in the history of social psychology. This essay will compare and contrast the two epistemologies of essentialist and social constructionist approaches to social psychology and the research methods of quantitative and qualitative used in each approach. Essentialists’ view of the world is that the properties possessed by a group are universal in that group and do not depend on context. However, a member of a group may possess other characteristics that are not required to include it as a group member but, it must not have characteristics that preclude it from being a member of the group (Burr, 1995). For example, essentialists believe that personality consists of a number of traits and personality of an individual is established by the level of each of these traits. Essentialists also believe that these traits remain more or less stable over time and it is our personality that influences behaviour (Maltby, 2010). As essentialists are able to classify groups as such, they use quantitative research...
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...Assignment: Write an essay discussing how a trial by jury is a small-scale example of social constructionism. Social construction is the frame through which society views an idea. It could be the idea of a crime (for example, drug abuse is a socially constructed crime not an inherent crime) or the idea of an event (for example, the beating of Rodney King as police brutality instead of necessary to protect the officers). Nothing is black-and-white, there are many different ways to view a situation. Juries are selected to be a group of peers – this is what our justice system is based off of. If an objective peer would do the same thing in the same situation, perhaps you’ll be acquitted. However, the peer-based system is flawed. The first reason is because it can be hard to find a peer for some groups. The more educated a person is, the less likely it is that their jury will be intellectual equals. On the flip side, with an extremely under-educated person, the same principle applies. The juried system works best with an average person sitting before an average group of peers. However, this same idea – of average juries for average citizens – can skew the trial in an unfair direction. Legal studies professor Hiroshi Fukurai wrote about the peer trial being a detriment to justice, giving the example of Ku Klux Klansman trials shortly after the Civil War. These men were tried for murder and torture of abolitionists and escaped slaves, and many were found not-guilty by...
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...Introduction The social construction of the “Muslim race” has influenced the racialisation of the community on the basis of their Muslim identity. The racialisation process has been exacerbated by the recent terror attacks in France and Belgium, resulting in the unjust attachment of these acts to the Muslim community. Anti-Muslim racism is now the predominant form of racism in Britain, manifesting itself on an institutional and individual level (Mahamadille, 2005). This essay aims to discuss the reality of anti-Muslim racism in Britain through processes of racialisation and through manifestations of anti-Muslim hostility and discrimination. But first emphasis is placed on how “the Muslim race” has become socially constructed by mainstream British society. Social Construction of “Muslim Race” Social constructionists share the belief that categorisation on the basis of biologically transmitted traits is a pseudo that traditionally was used to justify the unequal treatment of certain groups by others (mainly relating to skin colour) (Machery, 2005). Biology, religion and culture merely provide the materials from which we socially construct the ideas of difference and community. Scholars now widely believe that race is socially constructed as opposed to biologically based (Bonilla, 1997). The “Muslim Race” is arguably the greatest example of a socially constructed race in recent times. Despite major differences in skin colour, nationality and culture, the Muslim community have...
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...which had been accelerated as a consequence of the First World War. It can also be seen as specifically African-American response to an expression of the great social and cultural change taking place in America in the early 20th century under the influence of industrialization and the emergence of a new mass culture. This movement impacted urban centers throughout the United States. Across the cultural spectrum (literature, drama, music, art, dance) and also in social thought (sociology, philosophy), artists and intellectuals found new ways to explore the historical experiences of black America and the contemporary experiences of black life in the urban North. Challenging white superiority and racism, African-American artists and intellectuals rejected merely imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans and instead celebrated black dignity and creativity. Asserting their freedom to express themselves on their own terms as artists, they explored their identities as black Americans, celebrating the black culture that had emerged out of slavery and their cultural ties to Africa. According to Marshall Bialosk, Although both Alain Locke and W.E.B Dubois wrote about African American music, the common wisdom about Harlem Renaissance is that it was primarily a literary movement whose purpose was to secure economic, social and cultural...
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...Introduction Richard Delgado and Jean Stefanic in their book Critical Race Theory (CRT) address different issues but the main focus was the product of social thought and power in our society through the scope of race and racism Delgado, & Stefancic, 2001). Critical race theory is a movement that both scholars and activists from different countries like Australia, Canada, India, England and Spain are involved in an attempt to address what they feel is one of society problem not only in the United States but also other countries: Race and its implication on society. The book challenges a different range of racial thinking by drawing ideas from a wide scope of modern scholars thoughts on CRT and the prevalence of racial inequality in...
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...Composition Pedagogy, Race, and the African American Student: An Annotated Bibliography Bernstein, Susan Naomi. “Writing and White Privilege: Beyond Basic Skills.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 4.1 (2004): 128-31. Evaluating the relationship between white, middle-class privilege and both standardized testing and standard conventions of writing, Bernstein offers a classroom strategy for underprivileged students (either from racial or class position or both) to counter the negative effects of academic standards in relegating them to remedial positions in order to acquire basic writing skills before being granted access to the university at large. Encouraging her students to explore their previous educational experiences related to both testing and writing through a workshop format, as well as to evaluate their own imaginative writing and the reading of creative texts, Bernstein found that these can be used as means of critical resistance to their remedial designations. Ultimately, though, she concludes that it is not the student’s responsibility alone to resist relegation but also educators as well, who need to address and seek to resolve the conditions that produce “basic writers” even before their arrival at the university, and this, according to the author, will produce an awareness and restructuring of white privilege in determining academic success. Campbell, Kermit E. “ ‘Real Niggaz’s Don’t Die’: African...
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...through social development and “nurture” of cultural adoption. Money and Erhardt (1972) suggest that biological gender is what a person perceives or assumes to expose and reveal that “he” or “she” has the sexual status of being male or female. Gender is more than that. It has more complexity that represents way of thinking, ideas, styles, patterns, habits, and many other aspects beyond biological sex status. One notion argues that gender in an essence is natural, stable and something given by God, which means that gender cannot be changed. Most scholars would perceive such theory as Gender Classification by Nature. Other argue that gender is a result of modification and influence of the shape of social institution that constructs and develops its profile on an individual. Thus, gender is based on social-view perception instead of being given and determined biologically. Gender also is recongnised as being derived from Nurture (Nurture Theory). This essays attempts to discuss the application of the above mentioned theories and ideas related to the writer’s social environment and cultural background in Indonesia, where gender is considered as a term derived naturally from God and granted as it is through biological status. Due to globalization and influence of international culture in Asian countries, this notion of gender has changed. In Indonesia, the interpretation of gender has been developed through social constructivism. In conclusive remarks, the essay will...
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...serious conflicts across the world. Due to incredibly violent and cruel events occurring in the past and present, simply discussing the issue of racial tension in some situations can lead to offense and outrage. These reactions to race can cause extreme divisions not only in our country but also our world resulting in prejudice and discrimination. There have been multiple events throughout history in which discrimination lead to widespread death. Prominent examples include the genocides of the Armenians, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and most recently, the Darfur genocide. While it may be hard to imagine that one group of people could find themselves so...
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...Department of History HIST*2800 Winter 2014 “The Trouble with Normal” Part One: Sample Outline (15%) Date Due: Drop Box Feb 24th Historically, social problems about youth and youth subcultures have been used as a wedge to pry open private family life and intimate relations, for public gaze or scrutiny. The purpose of this essay for you to play the role of an ANTHROPOLOGIST studying STRANGE popular cultural treatments of: A) youth subculture; or, B) the nuclear family unit. Your outline and final essay must view either topic A or B from three different social science theoretical perspectives or theories (suggestions: structural functionalism, Marxism, deviance or labeling theory, feminism, men’s movement, queer theory, marketing theory, youth transition theory, leisure or sub-cultural theory, etc.). The movies will provide opportunities for you to practice casting a “serious eye” on the historical and social construction of “normal” class, race and gender roles, and their links to social institutions (family and school). You should look/imagine how the film provide “primary source” evidence of particular norms, values, ideologies, rituals or worldviews, at a point in time. The sitcoms tend to take a light-heated or silly approach to dark and serious social issues. You should look/imagine how sitcoms over 3 decades have emphasized elite prejudices, stereotypes, punished nonconformity, and promoted or reinforced heterosexism, classism, sexism, etc. AND...
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