The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality

by Ore, Tracy

• ISBN13: 9780073380087
• ISBN10: 0073380083
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-25
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages

Summary

This anthology examines the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality and the institutional bases for these relations. While other texts discuss various forms of stratification and the impact of these on members of marginalized groups, Ore provides a thorough discussion of how such systems of stratification are formed and perpetuated and how forms of stratification are interconnected. Critical thinking questions at the end of each reading and part opening essays aid students in understanding how the material relates to their lives and how their own attitudes, actions, and perspectives may serve to perpetuate a stratified system. 13 new readings have been added focusing on the experiences of immigrants, contemporary issues in social institutions, current examples of how the media portrays events and much more.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Constructing Differences	p. 1
Examining what categories are constructed, how this is done, and why such categories of difference are constructed.
Race and Ethnicity	p. 19
Racial Formations	p. 19
Optional Ethnicities: For Whites Only?	p. 29
Becoming Suspects	p. 42
How Did Jews Become White Folks?	p. 56
Social Class	p. 75
Race, Wealth, and Equality	p. 75
Media Magic: Making Class Invisible	p. 88
Doubly Divided: The Racial Wealth Gap	p. 97
Getting Corporations off the Public Dole	p. 104
Sex and Gender	p. 111
The Social Construction of Gender	p. 111
The Five Sexes, Revisited	p. 119
The Transgender Paradigm Shift toward Free Expression	p. 127
Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity	p. 132
Sexuality	p. 150
The Invention of Heterosexuality	p. 150
Sexuality and Gender in Children's Daily Worlds	p. 163
Sexual Identity and Bisexual Identities: The Struggle for Self-Description in a Changing Sexual Landscape	p. 183
Naming All the Parts	p. 201
Maintaining Inequalities: Systems of Oppression and Privilege	p. 213
Examining what elements of social structure work to maintain systems of stratification based on constructions of difference.
Social Institutions: Family	p. 239
Our Mothers' Grief: Racial-Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families	p. 239
Families on the Fault Line: America's Working Class Speaks about the Family, the Economy, Race, and Ethnicity	p. 260
Stability and Change in Chicano Men's Family Lives	p. 270
Gay and Lesbian Families Are Here	p. 292
Social Institutions: Education	p. 305
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools	p. 305
Preparing for Power: Cultural Capital and Curricula in America's Elite Boarding Schools	p. 312
Civilize Them with a Stick	p. 323
Missing in Interaction	p. 331
Schools and the Social Control of Sexuality	p. 344
Social Institutions: Work and Economy	p. 354
Jobless Ghettos: The Social Implications of the Disappearance of Work in Segregated Neighborhoods	p. 354
"We'd Love to Hire Them, But... ": The Meaning of Race for Employers	p. 365
The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the "Female" Professions	p. 375
Cause of Death: Inequality	p. 387
Social Institutions: The State and Public Policy	p. 392
Welfare Reform, Family Hardship, and Women of Color	p. 392
Beyond Crime and Punishment: Prisons and Inequality	p. 403
No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System	p. 410
The Effects of Affirmative Action on Other Stakeholders	p. 419
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the "White" Problem in American Studies	p. 432
Social Institutions: Media	p. 444
Five Decades and Three Hundred Sitcoms about Class and Gender	p. 444
Distorted Reality: Hispanic Characters in TV Entertainment	p. 463
Gay Characters in Conventional Spaces: Will and Grace and the Situation Comedy Genre	p. 477
Metaphors Matter: Disaster Myths, Media Frames, and Their Consequences in Hurricane Katrina	p. 498
Language and Culture	p. 524
Racism in the English Language	p. 524
Self, Identity, and the Naming Question: Reflections on the Language of Disability	p. 535
How to Tame a Wild Tongue	p. 548
The Dark Side of Sports Symbols	p. 558
Violence and Social Control	p. 566
Where Race and Gender Meet: Racism, Hate Crimes, and Pornography	p. 566
Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture: Why Are Some Fraternities More Dangerous Places for Women?	p. 570
The Construction of Masculinity and the Triad of Men's Violence	p. 584
Homophobia as a Weapon of Sexism	p. 601
Experiencing Difference and Inequality in Everyday Life	p. 612
Examining the impact of constructions of difference and maintaining inequalities on members of society.
Making Systems of Privilege Visible	p. 615
"Yes, I Follow Islam, But I'm Not a Terrorist"	p. 622
A Dozen Demons	p. 624
Always Running	p. 634
The Story of My Body	p. 640
Separated by Deportation	p. 649
"Gee, You Don't Seem Like an Indian from the Reservation"	p. 665
Living Fearlessly with and within Differences: My Search for Identity beyond Categories and Contradictions	p. 671
Nickel-and-Dimed On (Not) Getting by in America	p. 681
I Am Your Welfare Reform	p. 695
Learning to Fight	p. 697
Bisexuality, Feminism, Men and Me	p. 703
Resistance and Social Change	p. 708
Examining how people working within individual and institutional contexts transform difference from a system of inequality to a system of liberation.
Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection	p. 720
Cultural Resistance: Reconstructing Our Own Images	p. 735
Good for the 'Hood?	p. 745
Seeing More Than Black and White: Latinos, Racism, and the Cultural Divides	p. 752
How White People Can Serve as Allies to People of Color in the Struggle to End Racism	p. 759
Dismantling Noah's Ark: Gender and Equality	p. 768
Voices of a New Movimiento	p. 782
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