 Prejudice and Discrimination
 Prejudice
 Widely held negative attitude toward a group and its individuals.
• Generalizations based on biased or insufficient information.
 Racism
 Is an extreme form of prejudice that assumes superiority of one group (race or ethnic
group) over others.
 Discrimination
 An act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or a group
 Stereotype
 a set of ides based on distortion, exaggeration, and over simplification that applies to all
members of a group.
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Characteristics of discrimination:
race
ethnicity
age
sex
height
weight
income
education
marital status
sexual orientation
disease
disability
religion
politics
 Hate Crimes: criminal act that is motivated by extreme prejudice.
 Involve bias related to race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or disability.
 Theoretical Perspectives on Hate Crimes:
 Functionalist:
• Bolstering sense of unity against common enemy.
 Conflict:
• Based on the belief that the victim is somehow threatening the persons
livelihood.
 Symbolic Interactionist:
• Hate crimes involve labeling.
 Sociological Perspective
 Sociologist focus on how environments foster prejudice
 Functionalism
• Focus on the dysfunctions caused by prejudice and discrimination.
• When minorities are exploited or oppressed the social political education and
economic costs to society are extremely high.
 Conflict Theory
• A majority uses prejudice and discrimination as weapons of power to control a
minority.
• The majority does this to increase its control over property, goods, and other
resources.
• Conflict between groups benefits those in power
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Example: African Americans accuse Latinos of using their political
clout to wind advantages for themselves.
 Symbolic Interactionists
• Focus on how the labels affect perception and create prejudice.
• Labels create prejudice and affects the way we see people.
• These labels are learned.
• Example: Members of a minority fail because of low expectations they
have for their own success.
 Segregation
 To separate or isolate from others
 Creates low self esteem
 Self-Segregation
 Minorities requesting to be segregated
 Prevents interaction with diverse groups
 Discrimination
 Individual Discrimination
 The negative treatment of one person by another person
• Primarily and issue between two individuals.
 Institutional Discrimination
 Negative treatment of a minority groups through society’s institutions
 Results from unfair practices that are part of the structure of society and that have grown
out of tradition .
• Inner city schools
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 Why are People Prejudice?
Psychological Perspective
 Frustration:
 People who cannot strike out at the real source of their frustration (low wages) look
for someone to blame.
 Scapegoats:
 Minorities become the target on which they can vent their frustrations.