Analyzing Controversial Issues
Sociology 220
Prof. Pamela Oliver
Pamela Oliver Sociology 220
Issues
• Is it appropriate to use race or ethnic profiling in
policing and security enforcement?
• Should race or ethnicity be taken into account in
college admissions?
• Should U.S. immigration law be changed to allow
more workers from Mexico?
• Should English be the only language of instruction
in U.S. public schools?
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Major Dimensions
1. Group boundaries: defining what the
“sides” are
2. Interests: who stands to gain/lose
3. Factual claims: assertions about reality
4. Value claims: assertions about justice or
morality
5. Rhetoric/framing: positioning the issue
with respect to other issues or principles
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Sources
• We are looking for opinionated or “biased”
sources, people who really advocate each
side
• We want opinions from BOTH sides
• You want to sort your sources into “sides”
and notice what kinds of claims are being
made on each side
• Library Lecture Feb 6
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Group Boundaries
• Clarify the “sides”
• Racial/ethnic groups are related to these
“sides” but not usually identical
• Sometimes there are more than two, or there
are shades of opinion
• People often cast their opponents as
homogeneous
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Interests
• Who stands to gain/lose?
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Money
Jobs
Political Power
Prestige, sense of superiority
• People often disguise their interests under
claims of general principles
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Factual Claims
• What people say “the facts” are
• Most times, the different sides disagree
about facts
• People may make factual claims about
which the evidence is non-existent, in
dispute, or contrary
• Important to look for factual claims & the
evidence supporting them
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Value Claims
• Assertions about core principles of justice,
fairness, equality, morality
• Both sides generally advocate positive
values
• The sides may invoke different values or
weigh them differently, or may agree on
values but disagree on how to accomplish
them
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Rhetoric/Framing
• The use of language to advocate a position
• Non-ethnic example: pro-life vs pro-choice.
Different ways of framing what abortion is
“about”
• Those advocating points of view typically
choose their language & framing
purposefully to make a point
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Racial/Ethnic Profiling:
1. Defining Sides
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Whites vs. 1) Blacks, Hispanics, 2) Arabs
& Muslims?
Police vs. 1) Blacks, Hispanics, 2)
Arabs/Muslims?
Real differences in crime vs.
discrimination? (vs. “both”?)
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Racial/Ethnic Profiling:
2. Interests
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Potential crime victims
Law-abiding people hassled by police
Innocent people improperly arrested
More subtle/complex understandings of interest:
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Political uses of “tough on crime” rhetoric
Prison-industrial complex
Maintain boundaries of segregation
Comfort majority with image of criminals as “others”
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Racial/Ethnic Profiling:
3. Factual Claims
• Assertions about differential crime rates
– Arab / Muslim & “terrorism”
• Ethnicity of terrorists vs. probabilities
• White anti-government terrorists (e.g. Timothy McVeigh et al)
– Black/Hispanic drug incarcerations vs. data on actual
patterns of usage
– Black/Hispanic violent, property crime data
• Assertions about police bias, e.g. “driving while
black” & New Jersey turnpike data
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Racial/Ethnic Profiling:
4: Value Claims
• Equality, fairness, presumption of
innocence, justice
• Security, crime control
– Security for whom?
– Crime control for whom?
• Punitive vs. restorative principles of justice
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Racial/Ethnic Profiling:
5. Rhetoric/Framing
• National security
– War against evil (?)
– Anti-terrorism
• Tough on crime
– Do the crime, do the time
• “Driving while black”
• Discrimination, racism, prejudice
• Profiling: from neutral term to synonym for
discrimination (example of language evolution in
process of struggle)
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College Admissions:
1. Groups
• Racial/ethnic groups
– Blacks & Hispanics
– Whites
– Asians
• Class/educational backgrounds
– Parents college educated
– Parents not college educated (educationally
disadvantaged)
• College administrators
• Politicians, parents, “general public”
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College Admissions:
2. Interests
• Students wanting to be admitted to selective colleges
– Think they would benefit
– Think they would lose
• Communities, groups with shortage of collegeeducated members
– Services (e.g. doctors)
– Earners (add to overall community well-being)
• Employers of low-wage workers
• Society members (effect of greater/lesser racial/ethnic
equality on society as a whole)
• Educational value of diversity
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College Admissions:
3. Factual Claims part 1
• About procedures: “Admitted solely on the basis of race” vs.
“considered as one factor among many, like trumpet playing or
child of alumni.” What the facts are.
• About qualifications
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Overall contrasts by race/ethnicity in test scores, grades
Debates about value of test scores vs. grades
Success rates of “minorities”
Comparisons with the “bottom 10%” of whites
Weight of overcoming individual disadvantage in projecting
native ability, probability of future success
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College Admissions:
3. Factual Claims part 2
• About equality of opportunity in pre-college
schooling
– Whether there is disadvantage (vs. entirely due to
individual motivation)
– Whether people from disadvantaged backgrounds can
succeed if given a chance (“Bell Curve” biological
determinism? Vs. Bok & Bowen’s )
• About “campus climate” and whether there needs
to be a critical mass of a minority group for
students to feel comfortable & succeed
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College Admissions:
4. Value Claims
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Equality: procedural vs. substantive
Justice: overcoming past wrongs
Cultural diversity in education
Individual claims vs. group claims
Whether society as a whole should have
more racial/ethnic (or class) equality
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College Admissions:
5. Rhetoric/Framing
• “Reverse discrimination” seeks to name whites as
victims
• Quotas are illegal, but critics of “affirmative
action” paint it as a quota program
• The icon of the “highly qualified white” – there
are no mediocre or marginally qualified whites?
• The icon of the “unqualified minority” – there are
no qualified minorities?
• Drawing comparison to alumni preferences
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Mexican Immigration:
1. Sides
1. Immigration should be low & more
enforcement to keep Mexican workers out
2. Mexican workers are part of economy,
their immigration should be made legal
NOTE: “Illegal immigration” as a problem is
caused by immigration laws and can be
fixed by making immigration legal.
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Mexican Immigration:
2. Interests
• Mexicans: work in US, make money to send back to
Mexico. (Or immigrate & stay here.)
• US workers: concern that wages are undercut by larger
supply of low-wage workers or that Mexicans take jobs that
would go to US-born (especially African Americans)
• US employers & others who benefit from low-wage work
– Those exploiting undocumented workers, circumvent
minimum wage & working condition laws, Social
Security taxes etc.
– Those who benefit from inexpensive services, e.g. fast
food, child care, cleaning services
• Cultural interests: Spanish vs. English speakers
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Mexican Immigration:
3. Factual Claims
• Effect of Mexican workers on wages of US workers
• Effect of Mexicans on educational, social service
budgets vs. taxes paid
• Effects of Mexicans on general health of the
economy
• Effects of wage/economy differentials on migrant
flows
• Whether Mexicans are involved in crime, drug trade
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Mexican Immigration:
4. Value Claims
• Illegal immigration is “breaking the law”
vs. “we make the laws”
• Preserve what we have from outside
competition vs. international justice
• Society is better off if culturally
homogenous vs. culturally heterogeneous
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Mexican Immigration:
5. Rhetoric/framing
• “Illegal immigrant” stresses criminal vs.
“Undocumented worker” stresses worker
• Immigrants as dangerous vs. nation of
immigrants
• Whether hostility to Mexican (or Asian)
immigration is racial
– Debates among Mexican Americans about this
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English:
1. Sides
• “English only”: teach in English
– Isolationist: it is the kid’s problem if s/he cannot speak
English
– Integrationist: English immersion is educationally best
• “Bilingual”
– Separatist: OK if primary language is not English, but
learn English as second language (nobody in the US
advocates not knowing English)
– Integrationist: bilingual instruction is the best way to
learn content + English and end up well-educated
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English:
2. Interests
• Educating children: what method works best
– For overall education (math, science, history, etc.)
– For English
• Language dominance: being able to conduct
business in your first language without having to
accommodate others
– Threat of hearing foreign language in “your” territory
• Taxes: paying for children’s education
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English:
3. Factual Claims – part 1
• Which educational methods work best
– For English
• When the school is majority English-speaking
• When the majority in school speak a single other
language
• When the children speak many different languages
• How affected by age, prior literacy of children (and
adults)
– For other content (math, science, history, etc.)
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English:
3. Factual Claims – part 2
• How educational assessment are affected by ongoing
immigration
• How educational programs work in practice
– English immersion as cultural oppression
– Bilingual education as ghetto-ization; assumption that all
Latinos speak Spanish
– Impact of funding programs
• Educational history of European immigrants (the myth
that they all learned English fast and did well in school)
• Ethnic differences in bilingual education
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English:
4. Value Claims
• English language unifies the country
• People who do not speak English (or do not
want to speak English) should stay out of
the US
• Knowing multiple languages is good in a
global world
• Language is important to a person’s sense of
self, not easily changed
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English:
5. Rhetoric/Framing
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English First, English Only,
US for English-speakers
Cultural diversity, multiculturalism
“Educationally best”
What is best for the children?
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