October
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Lecture 5: Social Interaction and Social Differences
Homework:
 McIntosh “White Privilege”
http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf
Lecture Five
Social Interaction & the Construction of
Social Differences
Social Interaction
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Our day to day social interactions are part of
the process of socialization and shape our
individual identities
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Our social interactions shape reality, but
based on our social position in society we
often perceive reality differently
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Social roles & social status
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People
create
social
structure
through
their actions
and the
meaning
they give to
their actions
Culture & Ideology
Actions/Behavior
Social Structure
Ideology & Action
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Ideology is a system of beliefs, values, and
ideas that support a social system
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What ought to be, not necessarily what is
Ideology (how we think about things) and
action (our behavior, what we do) intersect to
create social differences
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Example: What sexual behavior do we expect
from a young woman? A young man?
Social categories of difference are:
Learned through the process of life-long
socialization
1.
Indirectly through representations of social life
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Mass Media
Directly through interaction with others
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Family, Work, Friends
“Doing” Difference: Gender, Race,
Sexuality
Differences are accomplished through our
actions and behavior, they are NOT the
cause of those actions and behaviors
Difference
NOT
↓
Behavior
Behavior/Actions
…But
↓
Difference
Othering
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Othering: is a way of defining and securing
one’s own positive identity through the
stigmatization of an “Other”
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What language is used to out down men?
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Pussy
Fag
“Girly-man”
“Planet of the Arabs”
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In American society, there has been a historic
vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and
Muslims in the Mass Media
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1ZNEjEa
rw
Doing Race: Defining the “Other”
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Stereotyping: exaggerated and inaccurate
generalizations about members of a group
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Prejudice: negative thoughts and feelings about
groups of people and to prejudge people based on
group membership
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Discrimination: unequal treatment of others based
on group membership
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Individual
Institutional
Race and Ethnicity
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Race: categorizing people or groups based on
phenotypical differences
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Four limits of biological definitions
1.
2.
3.
4.
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Physical clues
Fuzzy boundaries
Cross-cultural variation
Cross-time variation
Ethnicity: defines individuals who consider
themselves distinct in cultural terms
Homework #2: Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes:
Learning to Give Meaning to Differences
What does the video show us about:
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How do we learn racism?
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How did “differences” emerge through social
interaction?
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How did “othering” occur?