Week 4
Types of Evidence
Empirical (Factbased)
 Demographic data
 Statistical data
 Interviews
 Ethnographic observations
 Historical analysis
 Media analysis
 Meta analysis
Theoretical (Argumentbased)
 Narratives that explain
existing data
 Narratives that predict
beyond what is currently
known
 Narratives that infer what
has happened
 Can be macro, meso, or
micro
 Often rely on “ideal types”
Major Theoretical
Perspectives
Social Constructionism (i.e., “the social world is a social
product”)
Performative/Interactionist Theories (e.g., society is something
we act/“do” everyday)
Labelling Theories (i.e., “you name it, you make it”)
Formation/Reification Theories (e.g., “we have made social
world via our socio-historical institutions”)
Essentialism (i.e., “social reality is an extension of innate
predispositions”)
Sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, eugenics
“Folk theories” of social world (“boys don’t cry”; “ladies don’t
hit”; “men are the head of the family, women are the neck”)
Religious ideologies (often reify gender roles and ethnoracial
hierarchies; provide social control)
Major Theoretical
Perspectives (Cont.)
Conflict Theories (e.g., Marxism, feminism, queer theory,
critical race theory)
 Can be reductive and overextended, but give you the best causal logic
(i.e., the “why”)
Social Deviance and Resistance Theories (i.e., “humans
have agency and often deviate and/or resist social
norms”)
 Best at explaining change(s) in society (via protests, social movements,
revolutions, etc.)
Functionalist Theories (i.e., “societies are like machines
and all institutions, including the family, serve a role in
keeping it going”)
 Best at explaining status quo
 Weak when it comes to understanding social change and/or dysfunction
Doing the Work of Family
 Many types of
work (both paid
and unpaid) are
necessary to keep
a family operating.
 These tasks can be
either instrumental
or expressive.
5
Doing the Work of Family
 Instrumental tasks refer to the practical
physical tasks necessary to maintain family life
(washing dishes and cutting grass).
 Expressive tasks refer to the emotional work
necessary to support family members
(remembering a relative’s birthday or playing
with the kids).
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Doing the Work of Family
(cont’d)
 Men and women have always performed different roles to
ensure the survival of their families, but these roles were not
considered unequal until after the Industrial Revolution.
 Work started taking place outside of the home, for a paid wage.
 As a result, the kind of work that became valuable was the kind
that happened outside of the home.
 This is when “housework” became unvalued, because it was not
associated with a wage.
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Doing the Work of Family
(cont’d)
 Women nowadays
have two jobs: paid
labor outside the
home and unpaid
labor inside the
home.
 Second shift
(unpaid labor
inside the home
that is often
expected of
women after they
get home from
working at paid
labor outside the
Many women juggle fulltime jobs with caring for
their children and running
their home with little help
from their spouses.
According to Arlie
Hochschild, what are the
consequences of the
supermom strategy?
8
The “stalled revolution”
 Sociologists use the term “stalled revolution” to
describe how current state of the feminist
movement.
 It’s “stalled” in that, while women are (mostly)
free to do what men do, men have been much
more reluctant to do what women have
traditionally done.
 This makes sense because masculine things are
generally valued and feminine things are not.
 Like housework
Mother/daughter bonding... Over
cleaning
Trends in Housework since 1900
12
Eat Dinner at Home or Eat
Out?
15
U.S. Family Poverty Rates
by Race/Ethnicity, 2011
Race and Ethnicity as
Essentialist Social Ideologies
Affiliated and Conflated Identity Terms
Race
Ethnicity
Nationality
Religious identity
Tribal Affiliation
Caste
Political group (in hyper partisan contexts)
Panethnicity
Civilization
Geographic Origin
Cultural background
Genetic Differences
(Biological Determinism)
The genetic or biological argument is the
most controversial
Arthur Jensen (1969) argued that unequal
performance due to genetic differences in
intelligence
Preponderance of research suggests that the
most significant factor affecting intelligence
is social
The Bell Curve (1994) Herrnstein and Murray
made a similar argument
Cultural Deprivation Theories
(Cultural Determinism)
 Argued that students came to school without the
requisite intellectual and social skills necessary
for school success
 Working class and nonwhite families seen as
lacking the cultural resources, having a deprived
culture and inappropriate values for success
 Project Head Start based on this theory
 Some scholars have argued that “model
minority” groups have heightened cultural
practices in parenting that explain achievement
gaps
Cultural Difference
Theories
Attribute cultural differences to social forces such
as poverty, racism, discrimination and unequal life
chances
Tension between standard English required for
school success and “slang-English”
Linguistic codes are at the heart of unequal power
relations
Subordinate groups often see little reason to
embrace the culture of schooling…labor market
barriers exist regardless of schooling
Model minorities are used as “wedge group”
Expansion on Chinese
Cultural Exceptionalism
Backlash Against Model
Minorities
 From model minority to yellow peril (U.S.
attitude towards China and Asians more broadly)
 Rise in anti-Semitism in U.S. and Europe
 Muslim ban harmed Iranians/Iranian-Americans
(a prominent model minority)
 Anti-immigrant sentiment also harm other model
minorities like Cubans (end of political asylum)
 Nigerians, often seen as the African model
minority, also face racism despite their attempts
to distance from African American community
History of Affirmative
Action
 Huge success for reducing gender performance
gap in higher education
 Historically benefited white women the most
 Many Asian/Asian-American communities helped
break into elite colleges
 Backlash against it led by both white women
and Asian groups (legally backed by wealthy
white men)
 Beyond schooling: glass ceiling, glass escalators
and bamboo ceiling (and sexism and racism)
National fight against
preferential treatment
 Based on notions of “meritocracy”
 Other forms of wider preferential treatment that
primarily help wealthy white applicants not
challenged (legacy admissions, college sports
spots, music, geography, direct donations, etc)
 College admissions scandal shed new
mainstream light into issue
 Showcases narrow focus on issues of merit and
advancement purely on academic realm
worldwide use money to
buy prestige
Human Capital and Social
Fields (“Marketplaces”)
 Having human capital is only half of the
equation for social transactions
 A marketplace that is willing to “buy what you
are selling” is central
 Families operate within these marketplaces
actively
 Particularly the education and residential
marketplaces
 Idea is that this will help their kids in the dating
marketplace and labor marketplace, as well (the
central pillars of social mobility and/or
NYU Professor Lawrence
Mead on Global Inequality
Institution-Centered Explanations
(Structural Determinism)
 School financing…generally vast differences
between districts
 Socio-economic stratification/inequality in
resource distribution
 Institutions of discrimination, such as K-12,
policing, banking, labor market, etc. (based on
race, ethnicity, migration status, etc.)
 Inequality of funding not a moral issue alone but
also a political issue…does the political will exist
to close the monetary gaps between schools
Socieoconomic Status and
SAT
 Socioeconomic status (SES) and SAT scores
are positively correlated
 Students from higher income backgrounds
generally achieve higher scores
 According to a study analyzing 2006 College
Board data and 1996-1999 University of
California data: “21.2% of variance
in SAT scores is shared with SES, as measured
here as a composite of mother's education,
father's education, and parental income.”
Berkeley School:
Inequality By Design
 Ethno-racial gaps are explained by centuries of
U.S. and broad international policies
 Intergenerational inequality has three central
components:
 Socioeconomic deprivation
 Segregation (residential, institutional, social)
 Stigmas of inferiority (many oppressed groups
internalize negative stereotypes of themselves)
 Similar parallels to human capital theories, but
with determinative psychological components
(stereotype threat, self-fulfilling prophecy,
implicit biases etc.)
Gender and Schooling
 Second wave of feminism began in 1960s and
challenged the view that biology is destiny…
differences between men and women more
cultural than biological
 Gilligan sees women as valuing connectedness
and caring rather than Kohlberg’s justice
orientation…different not less than…schools
tend to reinforce stereotypes through hidden
curriculum
 Women now outperform men in overall school
performance up to university
 STEM fields remain an exception
Families, Social Class,
Mobility, and Culture
Two Perspectives on Social
Class
Families and Social Class:
Social Capital Definition
 Theories of Social Class
 Division of Labor
 The social process of determining who does what work
and for what rewards
 Exploitation
 The process by which the labor of some people
produces wealth that is controlled by others
 Social Capital
 The access to resources people have by virtue of
relationships and connections within a social network
 Life Chances
 The practical opportunity to achieve desired material
conditions and personal experiences
An Elite Extended Family
Families in Social Class
Networks
Increasing Diversity
of U.S. Families
Assimilation: Conformity of ethnic group members to
culture of dominant group, including intermarriage.
Cultural pluralism: Maintaining aspects of one’s
original culture, including language, while living
peacefully with host culture.
Acculturation: Adopting language, values, beliefs,
and roles of host culture.
 Newcomers merge with host culture in most ways
Assimilation
Cultural pluralism
Acculturation
Changes in Immigration
Percent of U.S. population that was
foreign born:
1900 ~15%
2008 ~11%
Origin of Immigrants to the U.S.
1900: 85% from Europe, 2% from
Latin America and Asia
2008: 13% from Europe, 81% from
Latin America and Asia
Consequences for (Illegal)
Immigrant Families
Fear that parent(s) will be arrested
and/or deported
Family Break Up
Parent(s) arrested and/or deported
Children drop out of school to work
Who cares for children when parents
deported