Chapter 1

“Classified” Information: Forming Impressions

- Humans tend to define, classify, and categorize (pg. 14)
- Do it to group themselves and others
- Classification differs across different human societies
- Process begins early in life
- Children learn about categorizing tangible objects but also humans
- Preschoolers tend to categorize according to racial and ethnic concepts
- Hierarchy begins in third grade
- Young people group by labels and lifestyle traits (eg. jocks, emo, geeks)
- We eventually realize that the cliques that are ‘so important’ in our teen years are based on superficial information
(ie. outward appearance)
Variation Between Groups, Variation Within Groups
- We tend to think about between group differences across broad groups of race, gender, sexual orientation, and
class (men and women, poor and rich) and not within group differences
- Can obscure both between and within group differences but also their similarities
- Assumption that experiences of members of a particular group are so similar that one person can represent
the group as a whole
- More likely to look at diversity of our own group
The Power of “Normal”: All Differences are Not Created Equal
- “Vary” means to deviate from what is expected/normal
- In all societies, distinctions of ‘normal’ and ‘diverse’ is arranged vertically
- Some people make the rules, and others have to follow the rules
- Standard of social comparison remains as white, heterosexual, middle-class, and male
- Due to historical arrangement of power relations
- “Systems of difference are always associated with systems of power and privilege” (pg. 19)
Stratification, Power, and Privilege
- Stratification: “ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal rewards and life chances” (pg. 21)
- Can be ranked by ascribed statuses
- Ascribed status: social identity or position that is acquired at birth or developed into subconsciously as
we grow older
- Eg. race, sex, ethnicity, religion, family status, ‘teenager’, ‘middle-aged person’
- Achieved status: social position or identity taken voluntarily or earned through one’s own efforts or
accomplishments
- Ascribed vs achieved status is not always clear
- Socioeconomic status: prestige, honor, respect, and power associated with different social class positions in
society
- Used in most western societies to stratify groups and individuals
- Commonly influenced by wealth and income, but can be influenced by achieved and ascribed
characteristics
 - Eg. teachers have a much higher occupational prestige than mechanics and carpenters, but earn much less
- Eg. organized criminals may be incredibly rich, but lack honor and prestige - and thus socioeconomic
status in mainstream society
Theories of Inequality - Structural Functionalism
- A society is made up of its individual parts
- If one part does not contribute to social order or society’s survival, it will eventually disappear
- An aspect of society that is present in society exists, harmful or not, because it contributes to the existence of
society
- Society benefits from inequality
- Roles are allocated through a strictly defined division of labour
- Eg. teaching and medicine are more important to a society because it requires greater ability and training
- Society strives to make sure the most competent people fulfill these roles
- Done through distribution of higher rewards to attract those individuals
- Eg. better pay, prestige, more social privileges
- A position that can be easily filled, despite how important it is to society, may not be heavily rewarded
- Training or ability is not strict
- Eg. garbage pickup, janitors
- Davis and moore, 1945
- Society can’t assign equal importance to all roles in society
- Inequality is inevitable
- Stratification can be unjust and divisive
- Not everyone has access to the training needed to become doctors
- People are treated differently within stratified groups
- Women, racial and ethnic minorities are paid significantly lower than their counterparts
- Inequality and stratification doesn’t necessarily serve the needs of everyone in society
- Slavery benefits one group at the expense of the other
- In class-stratified societies, those that receive the greatest rewards have the resources to continue receiving those
rewards
- Over-time, desirable positions will become less open and competitive (pg. 24)
- More attributed to ascription than achievement
- High-status is more important than talent
- Criticized for accepting that inequality is built into our systems
- Does not look into how the less privileged are exploited
Theories in Inequality - Conflict Theories
- Inequality is a product of the structure of society
- Benefits some groups at the expense of others
- Social inequality is a reflection of the unequal distribution of power in society
- Primary source of conflict, coercion, and unhappiness
- Stratification relies on unequal distribution of resources
- According to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- People who have resources can control people who don’t
- Guarantees that there will be competition between groups/classes
- A systems will always serve the interests of those at the top
- Main point of conflict theory
- Marx’s original theory mainly critiqued capitalism
- Capitalists: “those who own the means of producing goods and services society needs, and to whom
others must sell their labour in order to survive” (pg. 25)
 - Great influence over what is produced, how it is produced, who gets it, etc
- Can control workers
- Controls people’s livelihoods, the communities in which people live, and the economic decisions
that affect the entire society
- Marx and Engels added a third tier - petite bourgeoisie
- Transitional group of people that own their own production but don’t pay anyone for their labour
- Involves self-employed skilled laborers and businesspeople who are economically self-sufficient
but don’t have a staff of subordinate workers
- Rich and politically powerful individuals work together to create or maintain privilege
- Often disadvantaging middle and lower class
- Acknowledges interconnected roles that economic and political institutions play to create and maintain a stratified
society
- Rich get richer, use their wealth to become wealthier
- False consciousness
- Argued by Marx and Engels
- Those in power are able to create and promote a reality that justifies exploitative actions
- This reality is so influential that those disadvantaged by it just accept it
- Main way in which the rich and powerful have prevented revolutions
- “As long as large numbers of poor people continue to believe that wealth and success are solely the
products of individual hard work and effort rather than of structured inequalities in society - that is what
in the United States has been called the American Dream - resentment and animosity toward the rich will
be minimized and people will perceive the inequalities as fair and deserved” (pg. 26)
- Marx’s theory was based on 19th century economic systems
- Who owned property, and controlled labour in a capitalist system were the same
- Nowadays, ownership and management are separated
- Erik Olin Wright and colleagues, developed a model that incorporates both the ownership of means of
production and management
- Capitalist and petite bourgeoisie classes are the same
- Marx and Engel’s worker class in this model are split into two classes - managers and workers
- Wright’s approach emphasizes that societies have multiple lines of class conflict (economic, political,
administrative, social)
- Some positions fall between two major classes
- Called contradictory class locations by Wright
- Some individuals have trouble identifying with one class or the other
- Eg. managers and supervisors can ally with workers because they are both subordinates of
capitalist owners, but since they also have control over some workers, they share similarities with
owners
- Some sociologists criticize Marx for relying on economic factors to explain inequality
- Max Weber identified two other sources of inequality - prestige and power
- Prestige: amount of honor and respect people receive from others
- Can be influenced by class position, but also family background, physical appearance,
intelligence, etc
- Power: ability to influence others and to pursue and achieve one’s own goals
- Prestige and power do not always coincide
- Eg. minorities that successfully protest
- If workers in scarce jobs see their main threat as those who are competing with them for the same jobs, their anger
will be directed towards those workers rather than those in positions of power
 - Downward mobility and rapid influx of new ethnic groups into a community are associated with higher levels or
ethnic hostility, conflict, and backlash violence
- Feminist perspective
- More focused on gender than class or socioeconomic status
- Women’s lower wages outside of the household are justified by the assumption that their paid labour is
secondary to that of their husband’s labour
- Early feminist thinking was criticized for ignoring race and class and downplaying experiences of poor
women and women of colour
- Recent feminists focus on complex connections between inequalities based on sex and gender,
and inequalities based on race, ethnicity, social class, and sexuality
The Privilege of Cultural Capital
- Family name can serve as cultural capital
- Beauty premium has been referred to the economic advantages attractive people enjoy
Chapter 2
Perspectives on Identity
Essentialism
- ‘Inherent’ characteristics can be used to justify inequality
- Believing men are born to be assertive can lead one to think they are more suited for certain social
positions
Constructionism
- William and dorothy thomas: “If [people] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”
- We respond to situations based on the meanings we attach to them
- Social construction of identity can be changed
Definitions of Differences and Identities
- Society attach, organize, and alter meanings to what makes races different from each other
- We learn three important things when forming an identity for ourselves (cornell and hartman)
1. Boundaries that distinguish group members from nonmembers
2. Perceived position of our group within society
3. Whether membership in our group is something to take pride in or be ashamed in
- Reflect what we think is socially significant in “the prevailing culture” (pg. 45)
- “Used to organize experiences, to form social relations to evaluate others, and to determine social
rankings and access to important resources” (pg. 45)
- Race can be categorized as different skin colours but also changes in socioeconomic status
Chapter 3
Symbols and Language
- Used to allow us to agree on something together
- Eg. what about green makes it mean “go” - it doesn’t we all just agreed that it does
- Can elicit powerful emotions
- Importance of language
- Helps us communicate, express ourselves, and evoke strong emotions
- Essentialists argue what we call something isn’t important, rather what it actually is
- Constructionists argue how we label things is a direct reflection of and influences society and ourselves
Slurs
- Create and enforces social inequality
 - Becomes derogatory when used on people that aren’t members of the group the term refers to
- Meanings can change as society changes
- Linguistic reclamation: when a group takes a term used against them and turns it into a marker of pride
- Eg. the n word
- Happens through group identity
The Language of Difference
Gendered Language

- Pervades English despite it not being a gendered language like French or Spanish
- Man is used to refer to all humans
- Eg. chairman, brotherhood, freshman
- Female pronoun is used to refer to inanimate objects
- Eg. using ‘she’ to refer to cars or boats
- Priority of men is reinforced by creating female versions of certain words
- Eg. hostess, majorette, female entrepreneur, University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers
- Some societies lack words that communicate female respect and authority
- Eg. in China, women with power are granted the term xiansheng, a term to address men
- Gender-biased language reflects and perpetuates underlying societal beliefs about relative roles of men and
women
Ethnoracial Language

- Some words are used as codes to refer to certain groups

- Eg. New Yorker → Jews, thug → young black person
The Use of Language to Conceal Variation
- Linguistic terminology marks groups as different but can also overlook internal variation
- Groups together differing groups with different languages, cultures, religious beliefs, and histories
- Panethnic labels: broad terms applied to diverse subgroups that are assumed to have something in common
- Used by people outside of those groups because they find it easier
- Eg. 574 Native nations referred to as “Indian”
- Does not acknowledge the unique experiences, and cultures of each individual group
- Reduces them to one identity
- Maintains the idea that there is a dominant group
- Assimilation: process by which members of minority groups alter their ways to conform to those of the dominant
culture
- Seen in the use of a hyphenated label
- Eg. Chinese-Canadian
- US society seeks ultimate absorption of groups into mainstream society
- Multiculturalism emphasizes the importance of maintaining diverse cultural elements that make us different
from one another
The Differences of Language
- Closeted gays and lesbians often alter how they speak to conceal their identities
- Eg. saying partner instead of boyfriend/girlfriend
- Gender-type conversational styles reflect power differences rather than gender differences
- Eg. interrupting, being unresponsive are attributed to men, but they are better understood as a result of
power differences
- Notion that women’s language is more emotionally vulnerable makes them less powerful
The Battle Over “Politskinned Counterpartsical Correctness”
- “Political correctness”: effort to promote polite and respectful interactions by discouraging language that can be
interpreted as demeaning
- Not very common in English
- Eg. using more polite terms for racial, ethnic, gender, religious, sexual, and ability groups, or not using
sexually exclusive terms
- Some argue that some people have become too sensitive to benign words, scared that they might offend
- Terms might not be harmful on their own, but could become offensive when paired with stereotypical symbols of
a group’s culture
- Focuses on the socially constructed nature of reality and the relationship between language and social inequality
- Stirs debates on rights of free speech and the rights of people who are the target of “free speech”
Media Representation of Identities
Gender in the Media
- Women are very underrepresented in media
- Media promotes gender stereotypes
- Can choose which men and women to show, but also which stories and programs to run
Children’s Gender Exposure

- Children's book that claim to be “nonsexist” only portray female characters taking on male roles, but usually
never the other way around
- Children who watch television are more likely to hold gender stereotypes than children who do not watch
television
- A study showed that girls began to show stereotypical notions of gender 2 years after watching heavy
television
Media-Reinforced Masculinity

- Male portrayal in media is more difficult to identify since because of their advantaged status, they don’t need to be
identified
- Jokes about men are less harmful and demeaning since it doesn’t bear any historical or cultural weight like that of
women
Race and Ethnicity in the Media
- Media plays a big role in information about race since race is a social construction
- Television invented symbols of Black success and racial harmony
- There are tv shows that portray Blacks as strong, smart, complex, and multidimensional
- Most researchers argue that media presence of POC has improved over time
Sexuality in the Media
- Early gay characters in television were portrayed as victims
- Media fostered the idea that HIV/AIDS was a “gay disease”
- Homosexuality was more openly displayed in the 1990s
- But portrayed as one-dimensional
- Gays and lesbians are still extremely or moderately preoccupied with sex
- Media is slow in portraying actual expressions of gay intimacy
- Stereotypes of gay and lesbians are more tolerated than other groups
Social Class in the Media
- Difficult to separate media portrayals of the working-class from gender or race/ethnicity
- Tends to focus on the interests and lifestyles of middle and upper class
 - Ads for expensive cars and goods
Chapter 4
Identity Socialization in Families
Learning Genders
Biological Predispositions?

- Urdy concluded that biological predispositions can limit the effects of gender socialization
- Higher exposure levels of testosterone in fetuses had more “masculine” traits and behaviours than women
who had lower levels
- Same findings in women whose mothers encouraged them to be “feminine” as children
- Behaviours as newborns and infants identified as male and female showed biological determinants of gender
- Eg. smiling, standing up
- Boys tended to reach milestones earlier than girls
- Could attribute to social environment
- But due to early occurrence, it is more attributed to genetics, hormonal, or prenatal
influences
- Some researchers argue that other factors other than biology can influence physical development
- Eg. how parents encourage a child, and how much opportunity the child has to learn the skills
- Children who enter the crawling stage in colder months begin crawling later than those in warmer months
- Sociologist Steven Goldberg 1999 argues that because male rule and male dominance seem to characterize the
vast majority of human societies, this gender difference must be rooted in evolutionary biology
- Margaret mead’s work shows that biological predispositions can be modified and overcome by culture
- Media emphasizes gender differences
- Research shows that men and women are much more similar than different
- Some women may be more aggressive than men, thus social circumstances may overpower biological
traits.
Gender Guidance

- Neurosexism: the belief that differences between different sexes is natural and due to differences in the brain
- With this belief, parents tend to unknowingly attribute this to their children
- Gender differences are also reflected by the type of information parents seek in their children
- Eg. parents of daughters are more likely to search for information about weight or physical attraction,
while parents of sons are more likely to search for information about intelligence or being a leader
- Gender stereotypes were less severe for infants in the 2000s than 1970s, but they were still there
- Children are gender-socialized through what they are provided with
- Eg. dolls are more typically given to girls, and action figures for boys
- 6-12 month old babies were given their gender-typical toys
- Gender differences in toy and recreational preferences can change over time
- A study found that for children 5-13, boys’ toy preferences became slightly more masculine, and girls’
toy preferences became less stereotypical, turning to more gender neutral or masculine toys
- Parents and other relatives enforce gender differences
- Enforcing these differences have caused girls and boys to internalize gender as a part of their identity
- Between 18-24 months of age, children start to develop the ability to label gender
- In speech, groups, and self-identity
- But don’t understand the concept of gender - it’s just a category to them
- By 3 y/o, they understand the activities and stereotypes associated with gender
- Begin to form impressions of others and guide their own behaviour
 - Think that gender is fixed and permanent
- Begin to gain flexibility in their concept of gender a few years later
- Cannot apply it to their own gender though
- Lack gender constancy - realization that even if they change their gender expressions
and behaviour, they still remain in that gender group
- Children actively construct gender as a social category
Gender Neutrality

- Child development experts suggest gender-neutral socialization - raising children to have masculine and
feminine traits and behaviours
- Gender-neutral socialization is hard to put into practice
- 4 and 5 y/o usually engage in strongly gender-stereotypical play, regardless of the attitudes and
behaviours expressed by parents
- Some researchers argue that it is shown later in life, when the child has developed the cognitive maturity
and confidence to incorporate nontraditional gender attitudes and beliefs in their lives
- Gender expectations before a child is born also plays into this
- “I always wanted a son…I wanted to teach [him] to play basketball…” vs “I wanted [a girl]...to
dress her up and to buy the dolls…”
- Even though society is making an effort to steer away from simple binary assumptions about gender, it is
built into society’s organization and structure
- Gender-neutral socialization always involves some violation of gender norms
- Social costs of violating gender norms is not equal
- E.g tomboys are usually accepted, “sissies” are usually made fun of
- Partly due to gender differences and inequalities that exist in society
- In a society built around men, what is valued culturally and interpersonally, are stereotypically
masculine traits
- Why women state that their success is due to stereotypical masculine traits
- Children quickly learn that “boy” traits are viewed more highly than “girl” traits
Learning Races
- Some research shows that children as young as 3 y/o recognize skin colour differences, and hold a wide array of
racial attitudes, assumptions, and behaviours
- Groups hold their racial identity to different degrees of importance
- More advantaged groups hold less important racial identification in the socialization of children in their
group
- Learning to be white is more about what to do with the privileges and behaviours associated with
whiteness in society
- More focused on the racial identity of others, rather than their own
- “The entitlement to racial comfort”: the assumption that race is not important to their identity,
and that race is not an important topic of discussion
- Children live simultaneously in two different worlds: their family and community
- Likely to be exposed to three types of socialization experiences:
1. Information about the mainstream culture
2. Information that focuses on their minority status in society
3. Information that focuses on the history and cultural heritage of their ethnoracial group
- For groups that have been able to achieve high may focus just on the values of their culture of origin
- Groups that remain disadvantaged, socialize their children to prepare for possible prejudice and
mistreatment from a society built against them
- Racial socialization still varies within particular groups
 - Ethnoracial socialization can be problematic when racial identity is complicated
- Eg. adopted kids
- Children of colour placed in white homes seem to do just as well as other adopted children
- For self-esteem, ethnoracial identity, and strategies for living in a racist society, children adopted
by families of the same race or ethnicity tend to do better
Learning Sexualities
- Information that children receive about sex tend to be informal, and peer-driven, and given gradually
- Information about sex is rarely taught by parents directly
- Usually talk about what not to do rather than what they should do
- Intercourse and contraceptive use is typically taught by older siblings
- Typically heterosexual
Born This Way?
- Some research supports that sexual orientation could be linked to biology
- A neuroscientist found that the hypothalamus region in the center of the brain was drastically smaller in
gay men than in heterosexual men
- These studies only focus on homosexuality
- Some argue that understanding sexual orientation as an innate characteristic could make people more open about
the equality of and protecting the civil rights of LGTBQ+ individuals
Learning Social Classes
- Social class can affect a child even before they are born
- Can influence how a child is socialized
- Eg. middle-class families are more likely to follow the parenting styles of professional philosophies about
appropriate child care
- Influences socialization based on values held by parents, who pass these same values to their children
- Relationship between social class and socialization exist in western and non-western societies
- As families climb the class ladder, children’s sense of entitlement based on their class identity tend to increase
- Eg. taking part in organized sports, music lessons, summer school
- Greater in upper-class families
Identity Socialization Outside Families
Peer Influence
- Peers provide people with lots of information about social identities
- Peers interact everywhere
- Parents don’t usually see their children when they’re at school, and teachers don’t usually see
their students when they’re at home
- Peer groups reinforce lessons about social identity taught at home, but also resist the efforts of families to
socialize them
- Development of sexual identities tend to be peer-driven
- Parental influence of sexual behaviour is often weak or nonexistent
- Pressure on teens to be sexually active is sometimes direct and specific
- While also pressuring one to announce one’s sexual identity
- Pressure is also seen in teen lifestyles (eg. music, social media, fashion, etc)
- Exclusively heterosexual
- Conformity is the major characteristic of peer groups
- Gain a sense of belonging, and see commonalities between themselves and others who claim similar
identities
- Peer groups can be stratified, and put against each other
 - Divided by attractiveness, prestige, desirability
- Could be reflected by divisions in the larger society (ie. race, gender, ethnicity, social class, and sexuality)
- Could be reflected by vague and arbitrary criteria (eg. logos on clothing)
- Acceptance leads to power and status
- Rejection is like a social death sentence
- Can lead to poor school performance, depression, physical illness
Gendered Lesson Plans in School
- Educational system is the most powerful institutional agent of identity socialization
- Solidifies identities developed in families
- All levels at school have a subtle way of teaching females and males what is appropriate and inappropriate
behaviour
- “...Boys and girls receive very different educations” (myra and david sadker, 2002, p. 147)
- In elementary, middle, and highschool, girls outperform boys in every standard of academic achievement
- Boys are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out, be put in special education, or be diagnosed as having an
emotional problem or ADHD
- Still have higher expectations for themselves, and higher self-esteem than girls
- Race and class can play a role in math performance in different genders
- Boys in wealthy, predominantly white, suburban school districts tend to perform better than girls
- Girls do better in poorer, and predominantly african american districts
- Girls outperform boys in english and language arts in all school districts
Segregating the Sexes?

- Mixing genders in a classroom may actually disadvantage students, especially girls

- Reinforces gender stereotypes rather than reduce them
- Girls from same-sex schools are more assertive, confident, and more likely to take classes in math,
computer science, and physics
- Boys in same-sex schools are less likely to get into trouble and more likely to pursue interests in art,
music, and drama
- Students of same-sex schools are more likely to attend prestigious colleges, and graduate/professional
schools
- Critics argue that separating boys and girls based on the assumption that girls can’t learn effectively in the
presence of boys actually promote gender stereotypes
Coaching Masculinities

- Research around gender socialization has mainly focused on girls and the disadvantages they face growing up
- Boys were shown to have an egalitarian view on gender
- Considered their female classmates to be smart, competent, and fully entitled to leadership positions
- Were aware of dangers of toxic masculinity (mass shootings, domestic violence, etc)
- Boys are more likely to develop understandings of masculinity in athleticism
- Emphasis on aggression, competition, and conquest
- Pressure to win and be better than others to grant prestige and approval
- Family members of boys from all class families tend to respond positively to earlier indicators of good athleticism
- Male from lower classes or ethnoracial minorities treat athleticism as a survival strategy
- See it as the place to construct masculine identity
- Almost all boys who participate in competitive sports will fail at some point in their lives
Class and Race Lessons in School
- In public schools, poor and working class kids are subtly taught their place through authority relationships with
teachers and principles
 - Prepares them for subordinate positions they might occupy in the future
- Expected to follow formal and detailed rules
- More advantaged students are likely to present themselves in a way that displays them as “good students”
- Class identity that forms in school experiences creates an everlasting social, political, and economic bond among
all students
- African american and latinx students are more isolated from white students today than they were 15 years ago
- Average black and latinx student attends a school where at least 70 % of students are not white
- Schools where majority of students are not white are likely schools where poverty is concentrated
- Educational experts argue that standardized tests test more of an individual’s familiarity with white, middle-class
experiences rather than innate intelligence
- Except for asian americans, students of colour consistently score lower on such standardized tests than
white students
- Common institutional assumptions and practices within the educational system can lead to unequal outcomes
- Eg. black students are significantly more likely to be subjected to disciplinary practices in school
- Disciplinary inconsistency is more prominent for black girls
- Adults perceive them to need less protection and support, and are considered more knowledgeable about
adult topics
- Referred to as adultification
- Contributes to mistreatment of black girls by those in the education system