Unlocking the Benefits of Diversity: All-Inclusive Multiculturalism and Positive Organizational Change
Flannery G. Stevens, Victoria C. Plaut, and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (2008) 44, p. 116 (14 pages)

This article explores the various ways that organizations are coping with recent demographic changes in the U.S. – specifically, the strategies of colorblindness and multiculturalism. As you read this article, consider the author's discussion of each of the organizational models discussed (e.g., colorblindness, multiculturalism, the AIM model, etc.).

Questions:

1. What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of each of these initiatives?
2. Do you agree with the author's conclusion on which approach or approaches is/are most effective? Why or why not?

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Complex Inequalities : The Case of Muslim Americans After 9/11
Michelle D. Byng
American Behavioral Scientist 2008 51: 659 (17 pages)

This article discusses the redefining of religious minority identity for Muslim Americans after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, arguing that when religious identities become a central focus in American political conflict, they shift from supporting incorporation into society to facilitating inequality.  The article analyzes the ways in which Muslim religious identity has come to mimic the inequality of race identity, supporting her broader argument that any identity that designates a group boundary has come to be the ground upon which social inequality is organized.

Questions:

1. What specific markers does Byng propose as those most clearly indicative of Muslim religious identity?
2. How are these identity markers used to construct essentialist images of Islam?
3. In what critical ways do the inequalities focused at Muslim religious identity work like the inequalities that are racially oriented?
4. How do these kinds of inequalities, either racially based or religiously based, prevent a society from even beginning a policy of social justice?

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Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ''Happy Talk''
Joyce M. Bell and Douglas Hartmann
American Sociological Review 2007 72: 895 (21 pages)

The authors conduct interviews in four major metropolitan areas to explore popular conceptions of diversity, detailing how their research revealed understandings that were undeveloped and often contradictory.  On critical point they address is the conflict generated by the group oriented nature of most rhetorics of diversity, and the deeply embedded notions of individualism that ground American core values, allowing diversity to be an abstract concept that is not actualized in individual interactions, particularly with racialized others.  The authors deconstruct the whiteness rubric in order to understand their findings relative to the intersections of racism and colorblindness in the contemporary moment.

Questions:

1. Define diversity, first academically (look in a good sociology text) and second according to popular interpretation (Google the term).
2. How do you see the individualism that is central to the American mainstream as being specifically in conflict with these definitions of diversity? 
3. What do you think best explains the difference between respondents abstract definitions of the term diversity (generally positive), and the more ambiguous responses to questions about respondents’ experiences of diversity?
4. The authors claim that “People have the ability to explicitly talk about race without ever acknowledging the unequal realities and experiences of racial differences in American society.”  Explain what they mean by this statement, and discuss why this would hamper a non-racist public discourse about race.

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Promoting Respect for Difference on the College Campus : The Role of Interdependence Gordana Rabrenovic, Jack Levin and Nelly M. Oliver
American Behavioral Scientist 2007 51: 294 (9 pages)

The authors describe an experiment to determine the impact of cooperation and fear of terrorism on student support for Muslims on a college campus.  Designed to test the impact of interdependence on intergroup relations, particularly on the willingness of students to support or oppose public policy adversely affecting the lives of Muslim and Arab students, the study found that participants whose fear of terrorism was low expressed significantly greater support for Muslim students than did their more fearful counterparts.

1. How well do you think the methods used in this study got at the underlying premise that fear of terrorism would be a significant indicator of how supportive other students would be of Muslim students?
2. What specific ways could colleges and universities encourage cooperation among diverse groups of students?
3. What role do community service programs, like those discussed in this article, have in education in general?  Are these kinds of programs important to students specifically studying sociology?

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Shifting Paradigms : Sociological Presentations of Race
Vicky M. MacLean and Joyce E. Williams
American Behavioral Scientist 2008 51: 599 (27 pages)

This article provides a brief history of theories of race and race relations in the United States, arguing that the “new” racial paradigms in sociology have been repackaged around the same background assumptions that grounded the “old.” 

Questions:

1. Define the term “paradigm.”  How are paradigms a product of the social context within which they are devised?
2. What does this brief history of the theories of race and race relations tell us about the way these concepts have changed in their deployment in the sociological realm?
3. Why is it important to understand the trajectory of change in the paradigms of race and race relations?  What does this understanding enable us to do?

Embrick, David G. "US AND THEM." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 6 Aug. 2011.

Clarke, Simon. "Culture and Identity." The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis. 2008. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011

Joppke, Christian. "Multicultural Citizenship."Handbook of Citizenship Studies. 2003. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011.

Gay Rights: Has the movement’s success sparked a backlash?

The Obama Presidency: Can Barack Obama deliver the changes he promises?

New Immigrants in Minnesota: The Somali Immigration and Assimilation
Kebba Darboe
Journal of Developing Societies(2003) 19, p. 458 (12 pages)

In this article, the author looks at some of the unique challenges faced by recent Somali immigrants to the United States.

Questions:

1. As you read this article, think about how each of the different models of the assimilation discussed in textbook would account for these challenges.

The Role of Religion in the Process of Segmented Assimilation
R. Stephen Warner
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and SocialScience (2007) 612, p. 100 (12 pages)

This article discusses the theory of Segmented Assimilation, and proposes ways that religion can be incorporated into this theory.

Questions:
1.  What are some examples of the "diverse paths" that assimilation can take in today's immigrants?

1. Why does the author believe religion should be incorporated into this process, and what are some of the benefits and drawbacks of doing so?
2. Does this article advocate assimilation, pluralism, or some combination of these themes?

Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion, Subordination, and Resistance
Evelyn Nakano Glenn
American Sociological Review 2011 76: 1 (25 pages)

This article, the 2010 Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association, examines the sociological concept of citizenship, arguing that citizenship is not simply a fixed legal status, but is actually a fluid status that is produced through everyday practices and struggles.  Supported by historical examples, the author’s argument that the boundaries of membership are critically reinforced, challenged, and articulated in everyday practice, leads to her contention that undocumented college students experience a form of insurgent citizenship, one that challenges dominant ideology and demands an inclusive reconceptualization of the basic tenets of citizenship.

Questions:

1. Define: formal citizenship, substantive citizenship, and insurgent citizenship.  Why are these distinctions important?
2. How is citizenship “continually constituted and challenged through political struggle”?
3. Why are immigrants entitled to full civil, political, and social rights, including higher education?

Embeddedness and Identity: How Immigrants Turn Grievances into Action
Bert Klandermans, Jojanneke van der Toorn and Jacquelien van Stekelenburg
American Sociological Review 2008 73: 992 (22 pages)

Arguing that the social and political integration of Muslim immigrants into Western societies is among the most pressing problems of today, the authors detail research that documents how immigrant communities are increasingly under pressure to assimilate to their “host” societies. 

Questions:

1. What special risks do immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants, face when they begin any form of collective action?
2. What are the five different antecedents of protest participation identified by the authors?  How does each increase the investment of the individual in collective action?
3. How does the increased pressure to assimilate lead immigrants into engaging in collective action?
4. What are the factors the authors extracted as meaningful from the literature on collective action?  What are the moderator and mediator effects that qualify these relationships?

Hispanic Segregation in Metropolitan America: Exploring the Multiple Forms of Spatial Assimilation
John Iceland and Kyle Anne Nelson
American Sociological Review 2008 73: 741 (26 pages)

Using data from the 2000 Census, the authors calculate Hispanics’ levels of residential segregation by race and nativity to examine the association of group characteristics with those patterns.  They find that Hispanics experience multiple and concurrent forms of spatial assimilation across generations, with some exceptions, suggesting that race continues to influence segregation despite the general strength of assimilation-related factors.

Questions:

1. Why is the term “Hispanic” ambiguous?  What social factors does the term mask?
2. Describe the general patterns of segregation found in this study.
3. Why do Hispanic race groups show particularly low levels of segregation from native-born Hispanics not of their own race?  What specific social and cultural factors explain this phenomenon?

Racial Homogenization and Stereotypes: Black American College Students’ Stereotypes About Racial Groups
Shayla C. Nunnally
Journal of Black Studies 2009 40: 252 (15 pages)

This article uses the results of the 2004 Black American Socialization and Trust Survey (BASTS) to examine whether Black American college students view other racial groups in stereotypic ways.  They hypothesize that first, Black college students perceive racial group-specific stereotypes, and second, that Blacks will esteem their own group in a more positive light than out-groups.   They conclude that “BASTS respondents think of people generally and Whites specifically as being both less honest and trustworthy than other Black American, Asian American, and Latino group members,” which suggests that “Black college students may be less trusting of people generally and Whites specifically” (262). 

Questions:

1. Why is an understanding of how Black Americans perceive positive and negative stereotypes about other racial groups critically important to the general discourse on race in America?
2. The author has based her conclusions on “a localized convenience sample of Black undergraduates.”  Do you think the study method and the study results are generalizable to other college campuses?  To other regions of the United States?
3. Did the study confirm the 2 central hypotheses: a) Black college students perceive racial group-specific stereotypes; and b) that Blacks will esteem their own group in a more positive light than out-groups?
4. What explanation(s) are given for the fact that BASTS respondents think of people generally and Whites specifically as being both less honest and trustworthy than other Black American, Asian American, and Latino group members?  Is/are these reasons compelling?  Why?

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How does the nation become pluralist?
ELKE WINTER
Ethnicities 2007 7: 483 (34 pages)

This article proposes a sociological framework for the constitution of pluralism within the nation state, showing that processes of racialization and ethnicization are at the heart of social relations. Second, it argues that nations are constituted in inter- and intra-national relations of conflict and power.  Finally, normative pluralism is defined as being produced through conflict and struggle between the dominant group and various minorities.

Questions:

1. What is the process of ethnicization described here?  How is it related to Weber’s process of social closure, as described by the author?
2. What processes does the author propose as constituting the creation of majority and minority groups?
3. How are ethnic nations and civic nations fundamentally different?
4. What ways does the author suggest to form a stable pluralist society?  Are these methods and practices feasible, in your opinion, particularly given the level of ethnic violence in the world today?

Austin, Eric K. "Pluralism." Encyclopedia of Governance. 2006. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011.

Gamarnikow, Eva. "Social Capital and Human Capital." Encyclopedia of Community. 2003. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011.

Hashima, Lawrence. " AMERICAN DILEMMA, AN ." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 6 Aug. 2011

Bilingual Education vs. English Immersion: Which is better for student s with limited English?

'I Know, 'cos I Was There': How Residence Abroad Students Use Personal Experience to Legitimate Cultural Generalizations.
Karen Tusting, Robert Crawshaw, & Beth Callen
Discourse & Society (2002) 13, p. 651 (18 pages)

Karen Tusting and colleagues document a process through which individuals, even those who should know better, resort to stereotyping and generalizations based on limited knowledge.

Questions:

1. The textbook mentions several other studies that point out people's willingness to stereotype other people. Why do you think this is so? What are some explanations for why people do this?

Contemporary Sexism and Discrimination: The Importance of Respect for Men and Women
Lynne Jackson, Victoria Esses, & Christopher Burris
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2001) 27, p. 48 (12 pages)

In this article, the authors explore the issue of "contemporary sexism," which is also called "modern sexism" in the textbook. The article presents three studies on hiring preferences for men over women.

Questions:

1. Were all three of the studies conducted in similar ways, and were there similarities and/or differences in their findings?
2.  What suggestions do the authors make in order to reduce the kinds of stereotypes present in contemporary sexism?

African American College Students' Experiences with Everyday Racism: Characteristics of and Responses to These Incidents
Janet K. Swim, Lauri Hyers, Laurie Cohen, Davita Fitzgerald, & Wayne H. Bylsma
Journal of Black Psychology (2003) 29, p. 38 (26 pages)

Janet Swim and her coauthors provide accounts of encounters with "everyday racism" by African American college students. Their description of these experiences and the details of students' responses to them are eye opening.

1. What are some examples of the interactions between race, gender, and class that are evident in the experiences presented?

 

African Americans' Lay Theories About the Detection of Prejudice and Nonprejudice
Matthew P. Winslow, Angela Aaron and Emmanuel N. Amadife
Journal of Black Studies 2011 42: 43 (29 pages)

This article examines the dynamics of social perceptions of prejudice and non-prejudice among African American university students.  Pointing out that most previous studies presented participants with fictional, researcher-constructed situations, the authors suggest that prompting real-life descriptions from people who have been the targets of prejudice is the necessary complement to older studies.  Thus, they designed their study to focus on the most common behaviors that indicate prejudice and the most common indications of non-prejudice, using open-ended questions to elicit how African Americans perceive prejudice.

Questions:

1. What are the most common indicators of prejudice that the study found?
2. What are the most common  indicators of non-prejudice?
3. What do the authors mean by “Whites’ impression management behavior related to prejudice”?  Can you think of any specific examples of this kind of behavior?
4. What advice do the study participants give to Whites in order to be convincingly non-prejudiced?

Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market : A Field Experiment
Devah Pager, Bruce Western and Bart Bonikowski
American Sociological Review 2009 74: 777 (24 pages)

This article describes a field experiment to study contemporary discrimination in the low-wage labor market in New York City.  The racially diverse study participants were given equivalent resumes and sent to apply for entry-level jobs.  Results from the study show that race plays a significant part in whether applicants receive a callback or job offer.

Questions:

1. How do the authors break discrimination into component factors (vs. as a single decision)?  What are these factors?
2. What are the new incentives and opportunities for employers to enact racial preferences in hiring described by the authors?
3. Summarize the basic findings of the study.  Would these results have been similar in other major cities in the United States?  Why or why not?

Sociology Finds Discrimination in the Law
Ellen Berrey
Contexts 2009 8: 28

This article describes the experience of Chris Burns, an African American man who was fired after being injured on the job and requesting different work responsibilities.  Burns’ experience illustrates the fact that workplace inequalities persist despite civil rights reforms.  Berrey uses this case to open a rigorous discussion of the complex ways that sociology can be used to reveal the deeper workings of social institutions such as the law and employment.  She also makes the critical point that sociology poses as many new questions as it answers old ones.

Questions:

1. What were the findings of the study relative to workplace discrimination?
2. Why is it so difficult to be successful when litigating a discrimination complaint?  What role do judges in discrimination cases take in obscuring workplace discrimination?
3. What are the specific new employer interventions that the author cites as “promising alternatives”?

Things Fall Apart : Revisiting Race and Ethnic Differences in Criminal Violence amidst a Crime Drop
Darnell F. Hawkins
Race and Justice 2011 1: 3

This article discusses the relationship between race/ethnicity and criminal violence, posing the question of what factors account for ethnic and racial disparities in criminal offending.  Presenting the answer in terms of long-term experiences of a particular form of institutional discrimination – internal colonialism – the author argues that little progress has been made in the ways that the social sciences (sociology and criminology in particular) provide explanations for these disparities. 

Questions:

1. What are the ‘‘real world’’ developments related to criminal violence and other crime in the United States that the author cites?  What was the response to these events from American social science/criminology?
2. What are the phenomena of “the crime drop” and/or “the great crime decline”?  Why are these phenomena important to the general argument of this article?
3. What does the author mean when he argues that there is much evidence that the structure of our academic discipline[s] itself retards such progress?

WILSON, FRANK HAROLD. "The Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations." 21st Century Sociology. 2006. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Sampson, William Alfred. "INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 6 Aug. 2011

Hate Groups: Is extremism on the rise in the United States?

Slavery, Emancipation, and Class Formation in Colonial and Early National New York City
Leslie Harris
Journal of Urban History (2004) 30, p. 339 (16 pages)
 
In this article, Leslie Harris gives us insight into conditions of slavery and its aftermath in an area we don't typically associate with slavery – New York City. She presents the connections between the slave system and its dissolution and how classes were formed in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Questions:

1. What were some of the reasons given for and against abolishing slavery in New York?
2. What eventually led to the eradication of the institution of slavery?
3. What are some examples of the political and economic inequalities faced by blacks even after slavery ended?

200 Years of Forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian Revolution
Thomas Reinhardt
Journal of Black Studies (2005) 35, p. 246 (8 pages)
 
Thomas Reinhardt discusses the slave-led revolution in Haiti, and explores why this significant historical event is often left out of Western History.

Questions:

1. What are some of the reasons cited for the absence of the Haitian slave revolt in history accounts?
2. Does the author provide an explanation of what led to a massive slave revolt in Haiti but not in the U.S.?
3. What do you see as some similarities and differences between the situation in Haiti and the U.S. in the past and today?

Long Ago and Far Away: How US Newspapers Construct Racial Oppression
Hemant Shah & Seungahn Nah
Journalism (2004) 5, p. 259 (17 pages)

In this article, the authors look at U. S. newspapers' coverage of racial oppression. They see that often it is presented as "long ago and far away," rather than something real, current, and active in U. S. society.

Questions:

1. What are some limitations of this study, particularly, the way newspaper articles were found and classified for the study?
2. If racial oppression is presented as something that occurred in the past, what impact might that have on people's awareness of prejudice and inequality in today's society?

Locke, Natural Law, and New World Slavery
James Farr
Political Theory 2008 36: 495 (29 pages)

This article first serves as an historical overview of theory making about slavery, and second takes on the theoretical construct of new world slavery as proposed by sociopolitical philosopher John Locke.  Long standing controversy over Locke’s work has focused on the questions of whether Locke intended to justify new world slavery and his role in it, or was his theorizing limited to a natural law theory that explained and justified slavery as a consequence of just war.

Questions:

1. What does an understanding of the theories of slavery, particularly theories that served to justify the institution, add to our sociological understanding of the construction of race and persistent inequality  in America?
2. Do you find Farr’s argument compelling in light of the way your author presents the inception and working of slavery in America?

Darwin's progress and the problem of slavery
James Moore
Progress in Human Geography 2010 34: 555 (29 pages)

The author addresses Charles Darwin’s possible response “ at three critical moments, in 1838, in 1854 and during the US Civil War in the 1860s, to the greatest moral challenge of his age, the urgent agonizing problem of black chattel slavery” (557).  Illustrating Darwin’s abolitionist beliefs through an examination of his theory of evolution, Moore adroitly reveals that Darwin’s theorizing was both a product of that particular social moment, and of his own moral understandings of the world, grounded in a belief in “a Creator-God, in mechanical laws of nature, in real historical time and in the common descent or ‘brotherhood’ of the human races” (558).

Questions:

1. Moore argues that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a product of the historical moment in which it was created.  Do you agree? 
2. How did abolitionist thinking inform Darwin’s theory?  Why is this important to an understanding of contemporary theories of evolution?

Disposing of Human Property: American Slave Families and Forced Separation in Comparative Perspective
Damian Alan Pargas
Journal of Family History 2009 34: 251 (25 pages)

This article addresses one of the foundational issues for African American families during the period of American slavery: “the dismemberment of slave families that was often the result of their being forcibly and arbitrarily separated by their owners” (252).  The author examines records from two separate communities in the antebellum South, one in northern Virginia and one in southern Louisiana, to support his argument that time and place mattered in the way slave families were treated because the threat of forced separation varied for families living in different communities.

1. What are the significant differences in the ways that slave families were treated in Virginia and Louisiana?
2. What role does agricultural subsistence base play in the differences in forced separations of families?
3. What does an understanding of the long-term patterns of family dismemberment give to a contemporary assessment of family among African Americans?

Neither Slave nor Free: The Ideology of Capitalism and the Failure of Radical Reform in the American South
Shirley A. Hollis
Critical Sociology 2009 35: 9 (20 pages)

This article looks at the conditions under which Blacks experienced the “freedoms” of Emancipation in the American South.  Despite being promised “40 acres and a mule,” most freedmen were turned out with little or no possessions, and no prospects to secure either income or land other than sharecropping or moving North.  Hollis argues that “structures of inequality deeply embedded in Southern colonial and post-colonial relations with Europe continued after the Civil War to block changes that would have given access to resources and development opportunities to large sectors of the population, particularly the freed slaves” (11).  She goes on to demonstrate that, rather than being strategies localized to the American South, these forces must best be understood within the ideologies that ground Western capitalism in general.  Rather than granting freedom to slaves as a basic human right, the ultimate aim of Emancipation in the American South was “the diversification of Southern capitalism and the construction of a labor force that was a favorable alternative to slavery” (24).

1. What specific social forces does that author point to that effectively served as barriers to radical change, to shape local, state, and federal policy, and to block changes that might have altered the South’s way of life?
2. Why did property ownership for blacks in Southern states increase at a rate far below that of their white counterparts 1880 and 1910? (The author outlines several critical factors)
3. Why does the author describe the free labor in the South as a myth?  What were the factors that entrapped freedman into peonage?

Olson, Joel. "Slavery in the United States." Encyclopedia of Political Theory. 2010. SAGE Publications. 16 Aug. 2011.

Roberson, Gloria Grant. "Underground Railroad." Encyclopedia of Black Studies. 2004. SAGE Publications. 16 Aug. 2011.

Saving Indigenous Peoples: Can native cultures survive in the modern world?

Economic Imperatives and Race Relations: The Rise and Fall of the American Apartheid System
Sherry Cable & Tamara Mix
Journal of Black Studies (2003) 34, p. 183 (18 pages)

In this article, the authors discuss the legal and systematic separation that characterized U. S. society, looking at both the reasons for its formation and the events that helped to bring about its decline.

Questions:

1. What evidence is present to support the author's claim that U.S. institutions – such as education, politics, economics, and neighborhoods – continue to produce racial differences?

Shifting Geographies: Examining the Role of Suburbanization in Blacks' Declining Segregation
Mary Fischer
Urban Affairs Review (2008) 43, p. 475 (17 pages)

This article examines recent trends in blacks' moves to the suburbs, and their continued urban segregation. Although this article features some extensive statistical analysis, it does explore a very interesting phenomenon in the current racial segregation of living spaces.

Questions:

1. What are some explanations for the uneven distribution of black in urban areas, and what are some causes for their increasing move to the suburbs? Also, why are there different rates of urban/suburban segregation in different geographic regions of the country?

Statistical Discrimination in Employment: Its Practice, Conceptualization, and Implications for Public Policy
Amanda Baumle & Mark Fossett
American Behavioral Scientist (2005) 48, p. 1250 (20 pages)

In this article, the authors explore how the phenomenon of statistical discrimination may begin to replace more traditional forms of "prejudice-based discrimination."

Questions:

1. What is statistical discrimination, and how is it different from other forms of discrimination?
2. What suggestions do the authors make for combating racial discrimination in employment?

Cultural Oppression and the High-Risk Status of African Americans
Jerome H. Schiele
Journal of Black Studies 2005 35: 802 (26 pages)

The author makes that argument that, while much attention has been paid to political and economic oppression faced by African Americans, less attention has been paid to cultural oppression, particularly to the view that cultural oppression is foundational in explaining high social vulnerability.  He argues that cultural oppression, tied to more obvious forms of economic and political oppression, has produced specific risk factors that inhibit both individual and group attainment and prosperity. 

Questions:

1. How does the author define cultural oppression/imperialism?  What are the general consequences of cultural oppression/imperialism?  What are the 3 risk factors identified by the author?
2. What is cultural amnesia?  Why is it devastating to oppressed populations?
3. The author argues that one consequence of cultural oppression is a tendency toward compromising the overall vision of group advancement in order to maximize personal gain.  Do you agree?  How could this phenomenon be tied to industrial market/consumer capitalism?
4. What are the consequences of spiritual alienation?

Targeting Lynch Victims : Social Marginality or Status Transgressions?
Amy Kate Bailey, Stewart E. Tolnay, E. M. Beck and Jennifer D. Laird
American Sociological Review 2011 76: 412 (26 pages)

This article uses Census data and on-line genealogical records to identify Black male lynching victims in order to link the selection of lynching victims to social marginality. Their study covered 10 states in the American South between 1882 and 1930. Their findings demonstrate that social marginality significantly increased the likelihood of being targeted for lynching.

Questions:

1. What social functions did lynching serve?  What are the 6 factors that placed African Americans at the most risk for lynching?
2. What are the 2 theoretical perspectives on vulnerability discussed by the authors?  Outline the hypotheses used to test these two perspectives.
3. What findings do the authors present?  Are these findings compelling?

"Reconstruction." Encyclopedia of War & American Society. 2005. SAGE Publications. 18 Aug. 2011.

"Great Migration, The." Encyclopedia of African American Society. 2005. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Tillman, Linda C. "Brown v. Board of Education." Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice. 2007. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Income Inequality: Is the gap between the rich and the poor getting wider?

Gender Pay Gap: Are women paid fairly in the workplace?

Fannie Lou Hamer: The Unquenchable Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement
Janice Hamlet
Journal of Black Studies (1996) 26, p. 560 (15 pages)

This article is a brief biography of the life and work of Fannie Lou Hamer – one of the most influential women in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Questions:

1. As you read this article, think about a few of these questions: How did Hamer become involved in the movement? What inspired her to keep working for equal rights, despite all of the challenges she faced?
2. Were there any similarities or differences between Hamer and King?
3. Why was Hamer's involvement and commitment to civil rights largely unrecognized until her death in 1977?
4. How does Hamer's work continue to impact the current situation for African American women around the country?

Race and the "I Have a Dream" Legacy: Exploring Predictors of Positive Civil Rights Attitudes
Antwan Jones
Journal of Black Studies (2006) 37, p. 193 (12 pages)

In this study, the author looks at the relationship between racial attitudes towards blacks and attitudes towards civil rights.

Questions:

1. What are some of the other factors that are also related to one's attitude toward civil rights and acceptance of blacks? What are some explanations for negative attitudes toward civil rights and blacks?
2. Also, considering where people in the sample were from, how many people were studied, and how old they were, what are some possible limitations to this study?

Class formations : Competing forms of black middle-class identity
Kesha S. Moore
Ethnicities 2008 8: 492 (27 pages)

This article uses the perspective that race and class stratification are interlocking systems, examining the importance of culture in understanding the relationships between a racialized class structure and identity.  Thus, the author presents a cogent account of the ways in which class shapes the articulation of black racial identity.

Questions:

1. Describe the two distinct versions of Black middle-class identity as presented by the author.  How does racism shape the structure and meaning of class in the Black community?
2. What does the author mean by ‘black habitus’?  What are the specific features of black habitus?
3. What is a qualitative study?  What has this author discovered using ethnographic fieldwork that might be masked in a more quantitative methodology?
4. Discuss the author’s and her respondents’ distinctions between “ghetto” and “poor.” How are these concepts related to class position and prospects?

Moving Out but Not Up: Economic Outcomes in the Great Migration
Suzanne C. Eichenlaub, Stewart E. Tolnay and J. Trent Alexander
American Sociological Review 2010 75: 101 (27 pages)

Between 1910 and 1970 millions of Black southerners migrated out of the South, intent on garnering better work and life opportunities.  This article reviews a study of upward mobility using data from the US Census to compare migrants who left the South with their southern contemporaries who remained.  The study found that migrants who left the South did not benefit appreciably in terms of employment status, income, or occupational status.  These findings, according to the authors, demand a reconfiguration of the conventional wisdom that suggests migrants, particularly Blacks, found substantial opportunity and prosperity as a result of migration.

Questions:

1. What were the social, economic, and political factors that caused Southerners to fee the South beginning in the turn of the 20th century?  Which of these factors were exclusively experienced by Blacks?
2. What are the four dependent variables selected by the authors to measure the economic and occupational benefit of migration?  What are the key independent variable they selected?  What other potential variables can you think of that could have been used?  What differences in outcomes do you speculate these other variables might have shown?
3. What were the short-term benefits of migration?  The long-term benefits?
4. The authors conclude that “raise several questions that can help establish the agenda for future research into this important socio-demographic phenomenon that has had such profound consequences for American society, both South and North” (121).  What might some of these questions be?

Black Community, Media, and Intellectual Paranoia-as-Politics
Anthony C. Cooke
Journal of Black Studies 2011 42: 609 (19 pages)

This article begins by discussing a particularly contested moment in Black history: the extreme disparity in federal funding of  the Apollo 11 moon launch and federal funding for civil rights issues, citing that “in the early 1960s, despite all the nonviolent protests and other activist measures, nothing in the way of education, employment, living conditions, or law enforcement–community relations altered for Blacks” (611).  Looking at literary, psychological, cultural, and scientific/technological perspectives, both historical and contemporary, the author explores the issue of “of the post–civil rights “death” of the utility of appeals for full enfranchisement from the federal government and its subsequent impact on Black community life and cultural production” (610).  These events led to the rise of sociocultural paranoia as a cultural and political survival tool among Blacks in America, according to the author.

Questions:

1. What is ‘agency panic’?  How is it related to the kinds of paranoia the author is ascribing to the Black community?
2. What specific conspiracies does the author point to in this article?  How compelling do you find those ideas?  Does the author adequately explain the root causes of these forms of paranoia?
3. Does this article present any positive possibilities for Black empowerment, through any form – political, social, cultural, or economic?

The Shaping of Activist Recruitment and Participation: A Study of Women in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement
JENNY IRONS
Gender & Society 1998 12: 692 (19 pages)

This article discusses the ways that gender and race intersected and produced varied experiences in women’s recruitment and participation in the civil rights movement of Mississippi.  Using 13 interviews with both African American and white women, the author seeks to illuminate the ways that recruitment and participation were racially structured.

Questions:

1. What were the 2 primary patterns of recruitment discussed here?
2. Describe the three types of women’s participation that the author distinguishes.
3. Could these patterns be generalized to other locales in the South during the Civil Rights Movement?  Could they be generalized to other forms of women’s mobilization, such as the women’s rights movement of the 1970s or the contemporary women’s mobilizations around the issues of pro-choice/pro-life?  Why or why not?

Pursuing Upward Mobility: African American Professional Women Reflect on Their Journey
Gail Robinson and Barbara Mullins Nelson
Journal of Black Studies 2010 40: 1168 (22 pages)

This article discusses a study conducted to examine the intersections of race, gender, and class as they are experienced by African American women.  The authors concentrated on detailing the strategies their informants used to overcome the multiple barriers due to these intersections of social positioning.  Their participants pointed to gender as being the major obstacle to upward mobility.

Questions:

1. The authors have chosen to use the term “African American,” except as noted in the article.  What are their reasons for this choice?  What other terms could they have used?  What do these terms connote that “African American” does not?
2. What was their selection strategy for identifying participants for their study?  How many women were selected?  What impact could this sample size have on their results?
3. What was the central finding of the study?  Do you agree with their analysis?

Murray, Paul T. "CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Lindsey, Fred. "African-American Vote." Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

O'Brien, Timothy J. "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." Encyclopedia of American Urban History. 2006. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Affirmative Action: Is it Time to End Racial Preferences?

"You Know, We Are All Indian": Exploring White Power and Privilege in Reactions to the NCAA Native American Mascot Policy
Ellen J. Staurowsky
Journal of Sport and Social Issues (2007) 31, p. 61 (13 pages)

This article explores the controversy that started in 2005 when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced that it would no longer allow schools with Native American mascots to display those images during NCAA events, and those schools would also be barred from hosting NCAA championships.

Questions:

1. What does the author claim this case tells us about White power, racism, and using Native American symbols as mascots?
2.  Also, what do exceptions to the NCAA's rule tell us about "the continuum of sustainable racism"?

Treaty Rights and the Right to Culture: Native American Subsistence Issues in US Law
Jennifer Sepez
Cultural Dynamics (2002) 14, p. 143 (15 pages)

In this article, the author explores the legal and ethical rights to traditional hunting or gathering practices, also known as "subsistence issues", of Native American groups.

Questions:

1. What are some of the cultural controversies that arise in issues such as fishing and whaling?
2. Does the author believe that laws passed by the U.S. government are more or less important than Native American cultural traditions? Does she propose a way to accommodate them both?

American Indian Ways of Leading and Knowing
Linda Sue Warner & Keith Grint
Leadership (2006) 2, p. 225 (15 pages)

This study looks at the differences between American Indian and Western styles of leadership, and doesn't see one as being "better" than the other, but simply "different."

Questions:

1. How do these leadership and communication styles differ, especially when it comes to writing versus speaking?
2. The textbook mentions that there are hundreds of different American Indian tribes, each with their own unique languages and cultures. As you read this article, consider where the study's sample was taken from. Where are the American Indians in the study from, and where are the Westerners from?
3. Could there be differences in leadership styles among different tribes?
4. Also, did the study find any gender differences in leadership and communication?

The Urban Geography of Red Power: The American Indian Movement in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, 1968-70
Bruce D'Arcus
 Urban Studies, May 2010; vol. 47, 6: pp. 1241-1255. (16 pages)

This article examines the role of urbanism and city life as a center of socio-political activism.  Using as example the ‘Red Power’ movement, a significant period of indigenous rights activism between 1964 and 1973 in the United States, the author argues that while most scholars have focused on the rural aspects of this movement, it is the city that is “a crucial site in geographies of resistance” (1243), providing the critical factors and spaces necessary for mobilization, recruitment  and sustainment of a social movement.

Questions:

1. How does D’Arcus reconceptualize the traditional concept of resistance in this article?
2. How did the Red Power movement use historical narratives, usually turned on their heads, in order to highlight and subvert the traditional practices of treaty-making between Indians and the US federal government?
3. The author argues that AIM in Minneapolis sought to bring to public attention “a number of different but interconnected issues, as well as the spaces in which they were rooted” (1251).  What were these issues?
4. “The tactics they [AIM] used to bring about the heightened political visibility of the American Indian within urban life were often controversial” (1251).  How and why were AIM’s tactics controversial?

Native Sexual Inequalities: American Indian Cultural Conservative Homophobia and the Problem of Tradition
Brian Joseph Gilley
 Sexualities, February 2010; vol. 13, 1: pp. 47-68 (23 pages)

This article discusses the struggle for social acceptance and the restoration of a place of honor within the community by gay – Two-Spirited – American Indian men.  The central strategy in this struggle has been the role of ceremonial and social practice, with the goal of proving themselves as culturally competent contributors.  The alienation for these men, produced by a homophobia that was not a part of the American Indian cultural milieu, has pushed many into an activist stance focused on publicly questioning mainstream contemporary Native attitudes about gender and sexuality.

Questions:

1. What are the critical differences that the author cites between mainstream ideas of traditional conservatism and Native American conservatism?  How are these differences reflected in attitudes towards gay and Two-Spirit people?
2. What are “the ways in which Two-Spirit men use American Indian conservatism to creatively engage their social alienation and secure a place for their social identity” (49)?  How do Two-Spirit men ”demonstrate  their perfection of conservative ideals” (67)?
3. What is the common response of non-gay Indians to the demand to incorporate all Indians in cultural and ceremonial/religious practices?

Wounded Knee Ii And The Indian Prison Reform Movement
Laurence Armand French
 The Prison Journal, March 2003; vol. 83, 1: pp. 26-37.  (13 pages)

This article maps out some of the most significant American Indian responses to judicial abuse and punishment perpetrated by the United States government, beginning with the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, moving through the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington in 1972, the taking of Wounded Knee in 1973, and culminating in some of the contemporary legal battles conducted by the Native American Rights Fund ant other reform efforts.   One of the central issues that American Indian activism has focused on has been prison reform, particularly reform coupled with treatment for alcohol and substance abuse. 

Questions:

1. Describe the ‘contemporary warriors’ that the author discusses.
2. How were Indian prisoners subjected to assimilationist policies in the penal system, particularly in Nebraska?  What was AIM’s response to these practices?
3. What is the ‘survival school method’?  How was this strategy used in the penal system?
4. Why did the ‘Swift Bird Endeavor’ fail?

When Tribal Sovereignty Challenges Democracy: American Indian Education and the Democratic Ideal
K. Tsianina Lomawaima and Teresa L. McCarty
American Educational Research Journal, June 20, 2002; vol. 39, 2: pp. 279-305. (29 pages)

This article discusses the role of standardization in American Indian education, with an eye towards postulating a more equitable educational system, not only for Indian students, but for all students.  The authors present the history and “lessons” of American Indian education as “a grand experiment in standardization ,” making the argument that a system that makes diversity its central tenet creates a “just multicultural democracy” (279).
Questions:

1. The authors state:  “American Indian education teaches us that nurturing “places of difference” within American society is a necessary component of a fully functional democracy” (280).  Explain this argument in sociological terms.
2. What is the “Indian problem” as the author defines it?  How are diversity and democracy linked in this argument?  Explain the author’s concept of “‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’ difference.”  How has Indian education worked to promote the first and constrain the second?
3. What does the author mean by self –determination in education?  How is it related to linguistic and cultural self-determination?

Bring the Salmon Home! Karuk Challenges to Capitalist Incorporation
Leontina M. Hormel and Kari M. Norgaard
Critical Sociology 2009 35: 343 (25 pages)

In this article the authors ask questions about “about the long term ecological sustainability of capitalism, and its relationship to culture, values, political participation and human well-being” (344).  Using Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems theory, they argue that “Despite the impacts of 150 years of direct genocide, Karuk people continue to survive and are revitalizing culture and community, which supports the idea that capitalist incorporation is not fully complete but partial. Karuk resistance and revitalization is epitomized in the campaign to remove four dams on the Klamath River and thereby ‘Bring the Salmon Home’ to the upper basin” (352).

Questions:

1. How do the authors use the world systems concept of incorporation in this study?  How have the Karuk been incorporated?
2. The authors ascribe three broad shifts in Karuk subsistence as a result of capitalist incorporation.  Describe each in its impact on Karuk culture and lifeway.
3. What is the central difference between the Karuk and the capitalist conceptions of land, fish and river?
4. What is the lesson, according to the authors, of the Karuk experience with capitalist incorporation?

Campbell, Gregory R. "AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Cheyfitz, Eric. "SOVEREIGNTY, NATIVE AMERICAN." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Akers, Donna L. "RESERVATION SYSTEM." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

American Indians: Are they making progress at last?

Senator Barack Obama and Immigration Reform
Margaret Dorsey & Miguel Díaz-Barriga
Journal of Black Studies (2007) 38, p. 90 (12 pages)

This article explores Senator Barack Obama's views on immigration reform, and details his history of support for bipartisan legislation to overhaul current laws and restrictions.

Questions:

1. What does the proposed legislation of "comprehensive immigration reform" suggest changing about the U.S.'s immigration laws, and why?
2.  What is the opinion of Senator Obama and others on these proposals?
3. What are some of the benefits and drawbacks cited by the authors of this new legislation?

Latino vs. Hispanic: The Politics of Ethnic Names
Linda Martín Alcoff
Philosophy and Social Criticism (2005) 31 , p. 395 (10 pages)

In this article, the author contemplates the question of ethnic names.

Questions:

1. What are the power issues and meanings associated with the name a group is called?
2. Does Alcoff's article agree or disagree with the textbook on ethnic terminology?
3. What evidence does she cite to support her argument?
4. Also, what does she say about the "colonial relations" still present in the Americas today?

Gender Digital Divide: The Role of Mobile Phones among Latina Farm Workers in Southeast Ohio
Olga Patricia Mendez Garcia
Gender Technology and Development 2011 15: 53 (23 pages)

The author uses a feminist perspective to examine whether mobile phone technology is empowering for immigrant women, to discover whether Latina farm workers enjoy the same kinds of empowerments that communications technology has afforded other poor communities.  Her findings show that “gender structures in the immigrant farm worker community have been reinforced by masculinity and femininity discourses.  Mobile phones reinforce gender structures and patriarchal hierarchies by adapting them to women’s roles in the household and community” (72). 

Questions:

1. How do most immigrant women perceive migration?  Do they experience social problems to a greater or lesser degree than immigrant men?  How are the problems they encounter complicated by gender structures in the immigrant community?
2. This study used six women as informants.  While the intimacy of the group probably gave greater depth to the data, can you  think of any downside to using such a small sample?  How do the authors explain the small sample size?

Latino Police Officers: Patterns of Ethnic Self-Identity and Latino Community Attachment
Dawn Irlbeck
Police Quarterly 2008 11: 468 (29 pages)

This article tests the efficacy of the national wide policy of employing ethnic police officers to police ethnic communities.  Underlying this policy choice is the idea that such employment will enhance policing in ethnic communities due to a shared common ethnic identity and positive attitude towards the community.  However, the findings of this study “document the varied and complex ways in which Latino police officers negotiate ethnic categorization, revealing three generalized identity patterns” (489), and ultimately refute the perspective that like will police like in a more positive fashion.

Questions

1. The authors found 3 generalized identity patterns.  Name and describe each.  What are the significant differences among them?
2. The authors used 4 socio-demographic variables associated with the formation and negotiation of ethnic identities.  Name and discuss each.  Why were these factors particularly salient when working with Latino police officers?
3. How are the participants in ‘new’ immigration (after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965) different? 
4. What is ‘straight-line assimilation’?  What is ‘segmented assimilation’?  What are the key differences between them?

Brown picket fences:  The immigrant narrative and ‘giving back’ among the Mexican-origin middle class
Jody Agius Vallejo and Jennifer Lee
Ethnicities 2009 9: 5 (28 pages)

This article looks at an important sociological concern: the extent to which the adult children of Latino immigrants – they specifically focus on middle-class Mexican immigrants-incorporate into the social structure of the US.  Using a single aspect of incorporation – the extent to which they ‘give back’ to co-ethnics – the authors find a significant pattern of individuation among Mexican Americans who grew up in the middle class, detailing who they have moved away from the practices of giving that characterized their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.  However, their respondents who grew up poor and achieved middle-class status in one generation continued to exhibit a collectivist orientation, and continued to ‘give back’ to poorer kin, co-ethnics, and the larger ethnic community.

Questions:

1. What do the authors mean by ‘giving back’?  What are the “three hypotheses to explain the patterns of giving back among middle-class Mexicans” (7)?  What are the four research questions they pose?
2. Define individualism and collectivism.  How are these 2 very different orientations manifested in your own community?  Which orientation better demonstrates American core values?
3. What are the 4 paths to assimilation cited by the authors?  Which is most common for middle-class immigrants?  Why this difference?
4. Summarize the study’s findings.

Between Black and Brown: Blaxican (Black-Mexican) Multiracial Identity in California
Rebecca Romo
Journal of Black Studies 2011 42: 402 (26 pages)

This article examines racial/ethnic formation, challenging the Black/White color line that grounds much racial discourse in the United States.  Multi-racial identities are becoming significantly more common, however the ways that multi-racial people are categorized remains limited by older sociocultural formations.  The author interviews 12 “Blaxicans” – individuals who are both Black and Mexican –  to construct her argument that “choosing, accomplishing, and asserting a Blaxican identity challenges the dominant monoracial discourse in the United States, in particular among African American and Chicana/o communities. That is, Blaxican respondents are held accountable by African Americans and Chicanas/os/Mexicans to monoracial notions of “authenticity.” The process whereby Blaxicans move between these monoracial spaces to create multiracial identities illustrates crucial aspects of the social construction of race/ethnicity in the United States and the influence of social interactions in shaping how Blaxicans develop their multiracial identities” (402).

Questions:

1. What are the key questions of the author’s research?  From where did the author’s interest in this issue arise?
2. How does the author define the term Blaxican as a self-designation?  What other terms did the respondents use to describe their multi-racial identity?  Why are such racial/ethnic self-identifiers important to the sociological study of race and ethnicity?
3. The author states: “Interviews illustrate that Blaxican respondents are held accountable to the socially constructed meanings attached to Black and Mexican identities by their respective Black and Mexican peer groups even as they “do” a Blaxican identity” (42).  What does she mean by “doing” Blaxican identity? 
4. What are the “social constructs around race to which Blaxicans are held accountable” (42)?

Disobedient Bodies: Racialization, Resistance, and the Mass (Re)Articulation of the Mexican Immigrant Body
Tomás F. Summers Sandoval, Jr.
American Behavioral Scientist 2008 52: 580 (19 pages)

This article discusses immigrant activism intended to resist and derail Congressional policy-making in 2006.  The author particularly focuses on the politics of speech, “contend[ing] their mass participation provided a symbolic interjection of humanity, actively voicing disobedience to the current and proposed laws as well as the civic and social expectations informing immigrants’ public interactions within the larger society” (580). 

Questions:

1. What events prompted the waves of protest in 2006?  What sorts of people and organizations participated?  What was specifically challenged by these mobilizations?
2. What does the author mean by his description of immigrants as “disobedient bodies”?  How specifically is immigration “disobedient”?  How does the discourse of disobedience “undergird the rationale of the U.S. system of immigration regulation” (583)?
3. The author argues that “[t]his law-and-order feature of the national culture is problematic in multiple ways” (589).  How?
4. What is the “space” within which the Mexican illegal immigrant body is constructed?  What does the author argue is centrally significan about the protests of 2006?

Living Under the Trees
David Bacon
Contexts 2008 7: 50 (9 pages)

This photo essay discusses the extreme poverty that many Mexicans are burdened with, particularly focusing on people intending to or already having accomplished migration from the state of Oaxaca.  In particular, the author discusses the Living Under the Trees project, which “documents the experiences and conditions of indigenous farm worker communities. It focuses on social movements in indigenous communities and how indigenous culture helps communities survive and enjoy life. The project’s purpose is to win public support for policies to help those communities by putting a human face on conditions and providing a forum in which people speak for themselves” (50).

Questions:

1. What do Mexicans say about migration to the fields of the United States?  What are the prices they pay, particularly in terms of class status?
2. Do you find a photographic essay an easy way to visualize sociological concepts?  Why or why not?  If yes, provide some examples of concepts you can see operating in the photographs in this essay.

Tevis, Martha May. "Mexican Americans and Access to Equal Educational Opportunities." Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education. 2008. SAGE Publications. 16 Aug. 2011

Gelatt, Julia. "IMMIGRATION, U.S.." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 16 Aug. 2011.

Lammers, Matt. "Farm Worker Movement." Encyclopedia of Leadership. 2004. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Racial Diversity in Public Schools: Has the Supreme Court dealt a blow to immigration?

America’s Border Fence: Will it stem the flow of immigration?

Factors Influencing Attitudes towards Seeking Professional Help among East and Southeast Asian Immigrant and Refugee Women
Kenneth Fung & Yuk-Lin Renita Wong
International Journal of Social Psychiatry (2007) 53 , p. 216 (13 pages)

This article explores the attitudes of Asian American immigrants and refugees towards mental health care. The authors studied women from five ethnic minority communities because they have lower rates of mental health service utilization.

Questions:

1. What are some of the cultural and economic reasons behind these lower rates?
2. What can be done to increase mental health care with these populations?

A Japanese-American Basketball League and the Assimilation of its Members into the Mainstream of United States Society
Haruo Nogawa & Sandraj Suttie
International Review for the Sociology of Sport (1984) 19, p. 259 (9 pages)

This study examined the effects of participation in a Japanese-American youth basketball league on assimilation into the dominant American culture. Although participation in the league didn't seem to promote assimilation, it did appear to reflect an aspect of ethnic solidarity for Japanese-Americans.

Questions:

1. Because this study was done in 1984, based on the information in the textbook, do you think the results would be different if the study were conducted again today?
2. What aspects of Japanese Americans' immigration make their assimilation process different from that of other Asian Americans?

Asian American Women And Racialized Femininities: “Doing” Gender across Cultural Worlds
Karen D. Pyke and Denise L. Johnson
Gender & Society 2003 17: 33 (22 pages)

This article examines the ways that Asian American women ‘do’ gender across both ethnic Asian and mainstream social settings, looking more generally at the ways in which gendered cultural worlds are constructed.  The study finds that young Asian American women construct a highly rigid and patriarchal world that is named as Asian, and a more egalitarian and flexible world that is named as mainstream white and American.  The authors argue that “Asian American and white American women serve in these accounts as uniform categorical representations of the opposing forces of female oppression and egalitarianism” where “the relational construction of hegemonic and subordinated femininities, as revealed through controlling images that denigrate Asian forms of gender, contribute to internalized oppression and shape the doing of ethnicity” (33).

Questions:

1. What are the two orienting approaches that have guided research on gender in recent years?  How is the authors approach different?  How do they explain their choice of approach?
2. Describe the social construction of gender as the authors present it.  What do they mean by “gender displays”?
3. The authors used a “grounded method” in their research.  What is this?  How is it more relevant for what they are doing?
4. The authors state: “Our findings illustrate the powerful interplay of controlling images and hegemonic femininity in promoting internalized oppression” (51).  What do they mean?  Can you think of similar examples of controlling images and hegemonic gender definitions from other ethnic or racial groups?

Colorblind Racism and Institutional Actors’ Explanations of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship
Tamara K. Nopper
Critical Sociology 2010 36: 65 (22 pages)

This article discusses the role of both colorblind racial ideology and the disadvantage thesis in explaining the participation of immigrants in entrepreneurship, particularly as small business owners.  She also analyzes how the various dimensions of colorblind racial ideology are embedded in the ways respondents interpret their cultural worlds.

Questions:

1. What is the disadvantage thesis?  How is this thesis different from the more heavily used cultural approaches that have been deployed in the literature about Korean immigrant entrepreneurship?
2. What is colorblind racism?  What are the three dimensions of colorblind racism that are embedded in the disadvantage thesis as it is used in this study?
3. The author concludes that “Koreans’ cultural orientation and ethnic resources were considered mitigating factors” (82).  What in their cultural orientation mitigated the impact of immigrant disadvantage?  What does she mean by ethnic resources?  Provide an example.
4. The author also concludes that “the focus on Korean group characteristics drew from and reproduced colorblind racial ideology” (82).  Explain, and provide examples.

'Racist!': Metapragmatic regimentation of racist discourse by Asian American youth
Angela Reyes
Discourse Society 2011 22: 458  (17 pages)

This article discusses post-Jim Crow forms of racism such as color-blind and laissez-faire racism, and the post-racism of the contemporary moment, to illuminate the construction of perceptions of racism among contemporary youth.  The author first details instances in politics and entertainment where accusations of racism were leveled, and then examines the ways in which “Korean American boys ‘decode’ (Hill, 2009) certain uses of the term ‘black’ as ‘racist’” (458).  She argues “that ‘racist’ cries by Asian American youth challenge language ideologies of referentialism and personalism and racial ideologies of colorblindness and postrace. Crying ‘racist’ becomes a rich resource for achieving a number of interactional effects that renegotiate the position of Asian American youth with respect to the range of racial categories that circulate throughout US society” (458).

Questions:

1. The author discusses Hill’s “folk theory of racism.” Describe this theory.  How is racism portrayed from this perspective?  What solutions to the problem of racism fall directly out of the way racism is portrayed in this theory?
2. What are the “five examples in recent years (2005–9) that illustrate how cross-racial racist accusations operate in political commentary and studio entertainment”?  Summarize each.  How are these examples contradictory to the understanding of racism that underlies the “folk theory of racism”?  What purposes do these examples serve?
3. What is referentialism?  How does Reyes argue that referentialism allows contemporary racism to persist?
4. How does the author link the earlier examples of crying racist in entertainment and politics to the specific examples from her ethnographic data on Asian American youth?  Is her conclusion compelling?

Wang, Yu-Wei Shen, Frances C. "Model Minority Myth." Encyclopedia of Counseling. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

BANKSTON III, CARL L. HIDALGO, DANIELLE ANTOINETTE "Asian and Asian American Studies." 21st Century Sociology. 2006. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

US-China Relations: Is a future confrontation looming?

Mother Tongue Maintenance among North American Ethnic Groups
Robert Schrauf
Cross-Cultural Research (1999) 33, p. 175 (13 pages)

This study looks at the conditions under which some ethnic groups maintain their "mother tongues," while others completely lose their native languages.

Questions:

1. What are some of the factors behind both the loss and persistence of native languages?
2. Does losing or maintaining one's native language have any impact on one's degree of acculturation or assimilation?
3. What does the author suggest researching in the future in order to better understand this issue? Can you think of other ways of researching this topic that might be informative?

'The vermin have struck again': dehumanizing the enemy in post 9/11 media representations
Erin Steuter and Deborah Wills
Media, War & Conflict 2010 3: 152 (17 pages)

This article examines the ways in which the media uses dehumanizing rhetoric to re-construct “enemies and thus to generate and sustain public support for military engagement, particularly in the war on terror.  Beginning with the concept that language is an essential ingredient to the escalation and justification of conflict, the authors argue that propagandistic discourse, in its ability to disengage critical thought while engaging vitriolic emotion, has been deployed through the use of “a remarkably coherent and consistent set of metaphors which represent the enemy as animals, particularly noxious, verminous, or pestilential animals, or as diseases, especially spreading and metastatic diseases like cancers or viruses” (153).  Such depictions of any enemy serve to dehumanize those persons, to mark them as both different and lesser, and work to justify and sustain racially and ethnically grounded stereotypes.   “This dehumanization of an entire group or race encourages an unconscious transformation, the imaginative transference that is metaphor’s chief function (Hawkes, 1972: 1), and by which entire populations are collectively stripped of their humanity” (452).

Questions:

1. Explain how the “war on terror” metaphor works with the metaphor of the enemy as the author presents them.  What simplistic beliefs are grounded in the metaphors?  What do they promise?
2. “The language of annihilation, eradication, and extermination that so broadly circu­lates through mainstream news media echoes in unsettling ways the classically propa­gandistic language identified by scholars of genocide and the rhetoric that precedes and enables it. The coherent body of metaphors analyzed in this article has emerged without significant critical attention as a characteristic part of media discourse sur­rounding the war on terror” (164).  Looking at the lists of examples from newspaper headlines, discuss the various images that have been deployed and construct some general linguistic domains within which these metaphors exist.  What other kinds of people are these same domains applied to?  In general, is there a body of devalued images that is consistently used to mark “lesser” people?
3. Why is a concern about media depictions of marginalized groups important in the contemporary moment?

Bringing Afrocentricity to the Funnies: An Analysis of Afrocentricity Within Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks
Tia C. M. Tyree and Adrian Krishnasamy
Journal of Black Studies 2011 42: 23 (21 pages)

This article examines the cartoon strip (not the televised version) of The Boondocks, drawn by Aaron McGruder, to discover whether McGruder’s underlying rhetorical position is essentially Afrocentric.  They look for the principles and concepts of Afrocentricity, particularly the 10 principles of nommo - an Afrocentric word that refers to the power of a word or other kind of work to generate and create reality; nommo is also a communal event that moves toward the creation and maintenance of community, as well as the power of words to create balance and harmony in disharmony.

Questions:

1. The authors argue that humor is critically important to African Americans.  Detail the mechanics of this argument.  Is this perspective limited to African Americans?  What other groups could potentially use humor in these same ways?
2. Why has Aaron McGruder been described as "a ‘very dangerous Black man’ and the ‘most dangerous Black man in America’“ (26)?  Who does it appeal to, or reflect the perspectives of?  Who is not included in the targeted audience for this comic strip?
3. Summarize the qualities highlighted by the authors that authenticate the Afrocentricity of McGruder’s work.  In particular, detail the concept of nommo. 
4. The authors present the argument that “stylin’ out, soundin’, playing the dozens, repetition, and the creation of Ebonics, the language of Africans in the United States, are all important aspects of African American rhetoric” (39).  Summarize one or two of these sociocultural practices, focusing on how they serve to positively enhance interpersonal dynamics and reinforce identity for African Americans.  Do you agree that this cartoon strip is a positive contributor to African American identity?

The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users
Bharat Mehra, Cecelia Merkel and Ann Peterson Bishop
New Media Society 2004 6: 781 (23 pages)

This article examines the results from 3 digital divide studies to examine the ways that marginalized members of society utilize computers and communications technology as tools of empowerment.  Underlying their investigation is the critical concept that these technologies have the potential to allow people to create social equity, and that technology also can serve as a way to deconstruct the burdens of marginality and inequality.  Grounding their research is a commitment to engage researchers in a fundamental deconstruction of the digital divide.

Questions:

1. What is the digital divide?  Who are the groups most marginalized by the digital divide?
2. Summarize the findings of the CNI study on how low-income families utilize the Internet, Mehra’s study on how sexual minorities utilize the internet for social change, and the Afya/SisterNet study of Internet empowerment among African American women.  Were any of these findings particularly startling to you?  Why?
3. The authors argue that “What is common in these contexts is the vision of social equity and social justice via internet use” (795).  How is the Internet constructed by these marginalized groups as a vehicle for equity and justice?  Is this an effective use, i.e. are these visions realized through usage of the Internet?
4. What are the elements of the authors’ concrete agenda for both studying Internet use among marginalized populations, and deconstructing the digital divide?  Is this agenda implementable?

Political Belonging and Cultural Belonging:  Immigration Status, Citizenship, and Identity Among Four Immigrant Populations in a Southwestern City
Caroline B. Brettell
American Behavioral Scientist 2006 50: 70 (31 pages)

This article examines the concepts of political and cultural belonging through the dual lens of citizenship as composed of rights and responsibilities, and as an identity construction on the other.  Brettell argues that immigration status is critical in shaping national, local, and community attitudes towards naturalization and citizenship.  Demonstrating the constructed nature of identity, she argues that immigrants have a bifocal outlook on belonging that is grounded in the differences between citizenship as right and responsibility, and citizenship as identity.

Questions:

1. What role does the route of entrance into the US play in the paths immigrants use to seek naturalization? 
2. What are the differences in motivations for seeking citizenship and naturalization as demonstrated by the 4 immigrant groups that the author studied?  What socio-cultural factors explain those differences?
3. Why do you think the informants were puzzled by the last question on ethnic ancestry? 
4. What does the author mean when she states that the immigrants she worked with have “have a bifocality of outlooks and a dual sense of belonging” (96)?  How does this impact the identities they construct when they gain citizenship?

The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African American Women and the New Racism
Marci Bounds Littlefield
American Behavioral Scientist 2008 51: 675

This article presents the argument that “[US] society views a daily discourse on race, gender, and class that continues to reproduce dominant and distorted views of African American womanhood and sexuality” (675).  By linking these media representations in popular culture to social constructions of identity of African American women , the author argues that the media serves as a system of racialization that marginalizes, penalizes, and discriminates against these women as a way of constructing the broader racial discourse as a method of social control.

Questions:

1. How does the author say that American pluralism works against its own ideal of racial integration?  How does this lead to the construction of systems of racialization that destroy social justice?
2. What is the central image of African American women portrayed in the media?  How is this image related to the historical representations of African women in general, and Black American women in particular?
3. How does the media remake our understanding of the ways reality works?  How does this remaking directly impact African American women?
4. What is “the new racism”?  How can social justice strategies, such as those advocated by the author, work to deconstruct the new racism?

Abu-Lughod, Reem Ali. "Arab Americans." Encyclopedia of Race and Crime. 2009. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Sherif-Trask, Bahira. "Muslim Families in the United States." Handbook of Contemporary Families. 2004. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Carmen, Alejandro del. "Profiling, Racial: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives." Encyclopedia of Race and Crime. 2009. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Remembering 9-11: Is the U.S. safe from terrorist attacks?

Homegrown Jihadists: Can Muslims in the U.S. mount serious attacks?

Unlocking the Benefits of Diversity: All-Inclusive Multiculturalism and Positive Organizational Change
Flannery G. Stevens, Victoria C. Plaut, and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (2008) 44, p. 116 (14 pages)

This article explores the various ways that organizations are coping with recent demographic changes in the U.S. – specifically, the strategies of colorblindness and multiculturalism. As you read this article, consider the author's discussion of each of the organizational models discussed (e.g., colorblindness, multiculturalism, the AIM model, etc.).

Questions:

1. What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of each of these initiatives?
2. Do you agree with the author's conclusion on which approach or approaches is/are most effective? Why or why not?

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Complex Inequalities : The Case of Muslim Americans After 9/11
Michelle D. Byng
American Behavioral Scientist 2008 51: 659 (17 pages)

This article discusses the redefining of religious minority identity for Muslim Americans after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, arguing that when religious identities become a central focus in American political conflict, they shift from supporting incorporation into society to facilitating inequality.  The article analyzes the ways in which Muslim religious identity has come to mimic the inequality of race identity, supporting her broader argument that any identity that designates a group boundary has come to be the ground upon which social inequality is organized.

Questions:

1. What specific markers does Byng propose as those most clearly indicative of Muslim religious identity?
2. How are these identity markers used to construct essentialist images of Islam?
3. In what critical ways do the inequalities focused at Muslim religious identity work like the inequalities that are racially oriented?
4. How do these kinds of inequalities, either racially based or religiously based, prevent a society from even beginning a policy of social justice?

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Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ''Happy Talk''
Joyce M. Bell and Douglas Hartmann
American Sociological Review 2007 72: 895 (21 pages)

The authors conduct interviews in four major metropolitan areas to explore popular conceptions of diversity, detailing how their research revealed understandings that were undeveloped and often contradictory.  On critical point they address is the conflict generated by the group oriented nature of most rhetorics of diversity, and the deeply embedded notions of individualism that ground American core values, allowing diversity to be an abstract concept that is not actualized in individual interactions, particularly with racialized others.  The authors deconstruct the whiteness rubric in order to understand their findings relative to the intersections of racism and colorblindness in the contemporary moment.

Questions:

1. Define diversity, first academically (look in a good sociology text) and second according to popular interpretation (Google the term).
2. How do you see the individualism that is central to the American mainstream as being specifically in conflict with these definitions of diversity? 
3. What do you think best explains the difference between respondents abstract definitions of the term diversity (generally positive), and the more ambiguous responses to questions about respondents’ experiences of diversity?
4. The authors claim that “People have the ability to explicitly talk about race without ever acknowledging the unequal realities and experiences of racial differences in American society.”  Explain what they mean by this statement, and discuss why this would hamper a non-racist public discourse about race.

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Promoting Respect for Difference on the College Campus : The Role of Interdependence Gordana Rabrenovic, Jack Levin and Nelly M. Oliver
American Behavioral Scientist 2007 51: 294 (9 pages)

The authors describe an experiment to determine the impact of cooperation and fear of terrorism on student support for Muslims on a college campus.  Designed to test the impact of interdependence on intergroup relations, particularly on the willingness of students to support or oppose public policy adversely affecting the lives of Muslim and Arab students, the study found that participants whose fear of terrorism was low expressed significantly greater support for Muslim students than did their more fearful counterparts.

1. How well do you think the methods used in this study got at the underlying premise that fear of terrorism would be a significant indicator of how supportive other students would be of Muslim students?
2. What specific ways could colleges and universities encourage cooperation among diverse groups of students?
3. What role do community service programs, like those discussed in this article, have in education in general?  Are these kinds of programs important to students specifically studying sociology?

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Shifting Paradigms : Sociological Presentations of Race
Vicky M. MacLean and Joyce E. Williams
American Behavioral Scientist 2008 51: 599 (27 pages)

This article provides a brief history of theories of race and race relations in the United States, arguing that the “new” racial paradigms in sociology have been repackaged around the same background assumptions that grounded the “old.” 

Questions:

1. Define the term “paradigm.”  How are paradigms a product of the social context within which they are devised?
2. What does this brief history of the theories of race and race relations tell us about the way these concepts have changed in their deployment in the sociological realm?
3. Why is it important to understand the trajectory of change in the paradigms of race and race relations?  What does this understanding enable us to do?

Embrick, David G. "US AND THEM." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 6 Aug. 2011.

Clarke, Simon. "Culture and Identity." The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis. 2008. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011

Joppke, Christian. "Multicultural Citizenship."Handbook of Citizenship Studies. 2003. SAGE Publications. 8 Aug. 2011.

Gay Rights: Has the movement’s success sparked a backlash?

The Obama Presidency: Can Barack Obama deliver the changes he promises?