Journal Articles

Byng, M. (2008). Complex Inequalities: The Case of Muslim Americans After 9/11. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(5), 659-674.

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 to Consider:

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?

Bell, J., & Hartman, D. (2007). Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of "Happy Talk". American Sociological Review, 72(6), 895-914.

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 to Consider:

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 “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.

MacLean, V., & Williams, J. (2008). Shifting Paradigms: Sociological Presentations of Race. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(5), 599-624.

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 to Consider:

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?

Thomas, J. (2014). Affect and the Sociology of Race: A Program for Critical Inquiry. Ethnicities, 14(1), 72-90.

This article details the idea that race remains a centrally important issue within the social sciences.  However, there are two key problems that continue to surface, particularly in the US context: a reductivist account of the role of culture in the production of race and racism and the essentializing of the political identity of racial others.  The author proposes an affective program in order to correct these key problems.

Questions to Consider:

1. Define and detail the 2 key problems relative to race in the social sciences.
2. Describe the affective program as proposed by the author.  Do you think this is a reasonable way to address the problems of race in the social sciences?  Why or why not?

 

Lee, E., Edwards, S., & La Ferlee, C. (2014). Dual Attitudes Toward the Model's Race in Advertising. Journal of Black Studies, 45(6), 479-506.

This article looks at the way a model’s race can affect the way that advertising is viewed and internalized.  The authors compared responses to both African American and Caucasian American models and the responses of both African American and Caucasian participants.  They found that the amount of time the participants were given to view the advertisements directly affected the attitudes they reported towards the ads.

Questions to Consider:

1. What were the main differences in the models the researchers chose?  Why were these differences important to the study?
2. Do you agree with the researchers’ conclusions about the dual attitudes of participants in this study?  Why or why not?

Journal Articles

 

Glenn, E. (2011). Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion, Subordination, and Resistance. American Sociological Review, 76(1), 1-24.

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 to Consider:

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?

 

 

Klandermans, B., Van der Toorn, J., & Van Stekelenburg, J. (2008). Embeddedness and Identity: How Immigrants Turn Grievances into Action. American Sociological Review, 73(6), 992-1012.

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 to Consider:

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?

 

 

Iceland, J., & Nelseon, K. (2008). Hispanic Segregation in Metropolitan America: Exploring the Multiple Forms of Spatial Assimilation. American Sociological Review, 73(5), 741-765.

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 to Consider:

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?

 

 

Restifo, S., Roscigno, V., & Qian, Z. (2013). Segmented Assimilation, Split Labor Markets, and Racial/Ethnic Inequality: The Case of Early-Twentieth-Century New York. American Sociological Review, 78(5), 897-924.

This article examines the intersection of labor markets and employment trajectories and rewards by analyzing racial and ethnic inequalities as they were found in New York City in the years 1910 to 1930.  The authors ask whether there is a clear and demonstrated racial/ethnic hierarchy and group-level variations relative to industrial concentration, segregation, and discrimination.  They illustrate the exclusionary constraints as experienced by both new white ethnics and African Americans.  They conclude with an examination of the embedded nature of assimilation in the context of labor market opportunities and relative to historical and contemporary eras.

Questions to Consider:

1. What is segmented assimilation as defined by the authors?  How was this experienced by racial/ethnic minorities in New York?
2. What is a split labor market?  Have the authors supported their point that there was a clear racial/ethnic hierarchy?
3. Explain what the authors mean by “the embedded nature of assimilation in the context of labor market opportunities and relative to historical and contemporary eras.”

 

 

DiPietro, S., Slocum, L., & Esbensen, F. (2014). School Climate and Violence: Does Immigrant Status Matter? Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 1-24.

This article takes up the question of whether and to what extent school context is a predictor of violent delinquency for both immigrant and nonimmigrant youth.  Using data from several programs for at-risk youth, the authors assess the impact of four measures of school climate on violent delinquency.

Questions to Consider:

1. What specifically do the authors mean by school context?
2. Why is school context an important predictor of student behavior?
3. What were the authors’ findings about school context and violent delinquency?

Journal Articles

Swim, J., Hyers, L., Fitzgerald, D., & Bylsma, W. (2003). African American College Students' Experiences with Everyday Racism: Characteristics of and Responses to These Incidents. Journal of Black Psychology, 29(1), 38-67.

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.

Questions to Consiser:

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

 

 

Winslow, M., Aaron, A., & Amadife, E. (2011). African Americans' Lay Theories about the Detection of Prejudice and Nonprejudice. Journal of Black Studies, 42(1), 43-70.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Pager, D., Western, B., & Bonikowski, B. (2009). Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment. American Sociological Review, 74(5), 777-799.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Berrey, E. (2009). Sociology Finds Discrimination in the Law. Contexts, 8(2), 28-32.

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 to Consiser:

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”?

Hawkins, D. (2011). Things Fall Apart: Revisiting Race and Ethnic Differences in Criminal Violence Amidst a Crime Drop. Race and Justice, 1(1), 3-48.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Ford, T., Woodzicka, J., Triplett, S., Kochersberger, A., & Holden, C. (2014). Not All Groups are Equal: Differential Vulnerability of Social Groups to the Prejudice-Releasing Effects of Disparagement Humor. Group Processes Intergroup Relations, 17(2), 178-199.

This article examines the causal connections between humor that disparages some groups leads to heightened discrimination while humor that disparages other groups does not.  The authors detail 3 experiments, each designed to test these connections.

Questions to Consiser:

1. Describe experiment. What were the findings?
2. In general, what did the authors conclude about disparaging humor?  What social conditions foster a greater level of discrimination as the result of disparaging humor?

Ghumman, S., & Ryan, A. (2013). Not Welcome Here: Discrimination Towards Women Who Wear the Muslim Headscarf. Human Relations, 66(10), 671-698.

This article describes a study of the discrimination faced by individuals who wear religious attire when they are applying for employment.  In particular, the author focuses Muslim women wearing the Hijabi, comparing the rates of call backs, formal discrimination, interpersonal discrimination, and low expectations demonstrated by hiring entities.

Questions to Consiser:

1. Was the discrimination faced by Muslim women greater when they wore the Hijabi?
2. Are there other types of religious garb that might lead to equal levels of discrimination?  Why?  If not, why not?
3. How is employee diversity related to the kinds of discrimination the Muslim women experienced?

Journal Articles

Harris, L. (2004). Slavery, Emancipation, and Class Formation in Colonial and Early National New York City. Journal of Urban History, 30(3), 339-359.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Shah, H., & Nah, S. (2004). Long Ago and Far Away: How US Newspapers Construct Racial Oppression. Journalism, 5(3), 259-278.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Farr, J. (2008). Locke, Natural Law, and New World Slavery. Political Theory, 36(4), 494-522.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Moore, J. (2010). Darwin's Progress and the Problem of Slavery. Progress in Human Geography, 34(5), 555-582.

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 to Consiser:

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?

Pargas, D. (2009). Disposing of Human Property: American Slave Families and Forced Separation in Comparative Perspective. Journal of Family History, 34(3), 251-274.

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.

Questions to Consiser:

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?

Hollis, S. (2009). Neither Slave nor Free: The Ideology of Capitalism and the Failure of Radical Reform in the American South. Critical Sociology, 35(1), 9-27.

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).

Questions to Consiser:

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?

Noel, H. (2013). Which Long Coalition The Creation of the Anti-Slavery Coalition. Party Politics, 19(6), 962-984.

This article explores the question of how party coalitions are shaped and reshaped by elected officials, non-elected political actors, and intellectuals.  Taking the question of slavery the author examines the ideological divisions in Congress and among intellectuals to illustrate these processes.

Questions to Consiser:

1. What does the author suggest about how party coalitions are shaped by elected officials?
2. How are party coalitions shaped differently by non-elected actors?
3. Why is the slavery question of the mid-1800s a good demonstration of these processes?  Are there any contemporary racial/ethnic “problems” being dealt with on the world stage that could be used as effectively?

Androff, D. (2011). The Problem of Contemporary Slavery: An International Human Rights Challenge for Social Work. International Social Work, 54(2), 209-222.

This article examines the literature on human trafficking to support the argument that this violent exploitation persists.  While conventional wisdom has suggested the eradication of slavery for decades, it is clear from this author’s work that that is simply not the case.  The article investigates other forms of economic exploitation which are essentially slavery and details the range of public policy options necessary for ameliorating the problem.

Questions to Consiser:

1. What is the extent of contemporary slavery according to Androff?
2. Why does contemporary slavery represent a human rights challenge for social work in particular?
3. What are the programmatic and policy solutions to the problem of contemporary slavery?  How likely is it that governments, including our own, will address these solutions?

Journal Articles

Cable, S., & Mix, T. (2003). Economic Imperatives and Race Relations: The Rise and Fall of the American Apartheid System. Journal of Black Studies, 34(2), 183-203.

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 to Consider:

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?

Fischer, M. (2008). Shifting Geographies: Examining the Role of Suburbanization in Blacks' Declining Segregation. Urban Affairs Review, 43(4), 475-496.

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 to Consider:

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?
2. Why are there different rates of urban/suburban segregation in different geographic regions of the country?

Baumle, A., & Fossett, M. (2005). Statistical Discrimination in Employment: Its Practice, Conceptualization, and Implications for Policy. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(9), 1250-1274.

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

Questions to Consider:

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?

Schiele, J. (2005). Cultural Oppression and the High-Risk Status of African American. Journal of Black Studies, 35(6), 802-826.

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 to Consider:

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?

Bailey, A., Tolnay, S., Beck, E., & Laird, J. (2011). Targeting Lynch Victims: Social Marginality or Status Transgressions? American Sociological Review, 76(3), 412-436.

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 to Consider:

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.

Grant, E. (2005). Race and Tourism in America's First City. Journal of Urban History, 31(6), 850-871.

This article details the first effort by a major US city to attract minority tourists.  The author argues that African American tourists to Philadelphia increased dramatically during the monitoring period, and that this increase represents a fusion of politics and racial formation.

Questions to Consider:

1. What was the Multicultural Affairs Congress (MAC)? When was it established, by whom, and what were its central goals?
2. What city policies were changed in order to encourage minority tourism?  What other kinds of changes were instituted?
3. What new plane of urban racial politics does the author state that these successes may allow?

O'Hara, S. (2011). "The Very Model of Modern Urban Decay": Outsiders' Narratives of Industry and Urban Decline in Gary, Indiana. Journal of Urban History, 37(2), 135-154.

This article details the narratives of decline deployed by residents of Gary, Indiana.  The author describes compelling links between these narratives and exigent racial issues and prejudices during the industrial and postindustrial periods.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are the different types of narratives of decline described by the author?
2. What do these narratives share or have in common?  What are the most significant differences among them?

How is race used to vilify different racial and ethnic actors’ roles in the decline and deindustrialization of Gary?

Journal Articles

Hamlet, J. (1996). Fannie Lou Hamer: The Unquenchable Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement. Journal of Black Studies, 26(5), 560-576.

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 to Consider:

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?

1. How does Hamer's work continue to impact the current situation for African American women around the country?

Jones, A. (2006). Race and the "I Have a Dream" Legacy: Exploring Predictors of Positive Civil Rights Attitudes. Journal of Black Studies, 37(2), 193-208.

 

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

Questions to Consider:

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.

Moore, K. (2008). Class Formations: Competing Forms of Black Middle-Class Identity. Ethnicities, 8(4), 492-517.

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 to Consider:

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?

 

Eichenlaub, S., Tolnay, S., & Alexander, J. (2010). Moving Out but Not Up: Economic Outcomes in the Great Migration. American Sociological Review, 75(1), 101-125.

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 to Consider:

1. What were the social, economic, and political factors that caused Southerners to fee the South beginning in the turn of the 20^th 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?

Cooke, A. (2011). Black Community, Media, and Intellectual Paranoia-as-Politics. Journal of Black Studies, 42(4), 609-626.

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 to Consider:

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?

Irons, J. (1998). The Shaping of Activist Recruitment and Participation: A Study of Women in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Gender & Society, 12(6), 692-709.

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 to Consider:

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?

Robinson, G., & Nelson, B. (2008). Pursuing Upward Mobility: African American Professional Women Reflect on their Journey. Journal of Black Studies, 40(6), 1168-1188.

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 to Consider:

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.

Brown, D., & Tylka, T. (2011). Racial Discrimination and Resilience in African American Young Adults: Examining Racial Socialization as a Moderator. Journal of Black Psychology, 37(3), 259-285.

This article examines the risks of psychological distress and low levels of well-being among African Americans who experience racial discrimination.  The author asks the question of whether racial socialization messages preserved African Americans’ resilience and well-being in the face of discrimination.  The author details the results of research among young African American college students to both overall racial socialization messages and also specific messages about race.

Questions to Consider:

1. What does the author mean by racial socialization messages?  How often do young people experience these kinds of messages?  What are the primary sources?
2. Did your opinion about the impact of these messages change after reading this article?
3. What were the author’s findings about the relationship between racial socialization messages, discrimination, psychological distress and well-being?  Were you surprised or were these results what you expected?

Roscigno, V., Williams, L., & Byron, R. (2012). Workplace Racial Discrimination and Middle Class Vulnerability. American Behavioral Scientist, 56(5), 696-710.

The authors have set out to challenge the assumptions that middle class minority workers are protected by their status and thus have a share of significant workplace power.  By examining cases of workplace racial discrimination and the vulnerability of middle-class African American workers, they illustrate significant levels of both firing discrimination and day-to-day harassment.

Questions to Consider:

1. What do the authors say should protect middle-class minority workers from discrimination in the workplace?  Why do these protections fail?
2. What specific types of discrimination do middle-class African American workers experience?  Is this different from other minority workers?
3. What do they mean by “qualitative case immersion”?  Is this an effective method to illustrate how discrimination occurs in the workplace?  Why or why not?

 

Meyers, M. (2004). Crack Mothers in the News: A Narrative of Paternalistic Racism. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28(3), 194-216.

This article examines the ways in which a media focus on “crack mothers” worked to disenfranchise black mothers from their rights and their children.  Focusing on a newspaper series, the authors explore this phenomenon using both critical cultural studies and feminist theory.  They argue that race cannot be separated from gender and class, and thus media representations that do so are indeed operating from a paradigm of paternalistic racism.

Questions to Consider:

1. What were the specific narratives present in the newspaper series on “crack mothers”?  What was the stated goal of this series?
2. How have both gender and class been downplayed in this series, and what effect does that have on an exploration of race, according to the authors?
3. How can recognizing and making visible the intersectionality of gender, race, and class both reinforce negative stereotypes about African American women (as it did in the newspaper series) and also work to demolish those stereotypes according to the authors?

 

Journal Articles

Staurowsky, E. (2007). "You Know, We Are All Indian": Exploring White Power and Privilege in Reactions to the NCAA Native American Mascot Policy. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 31(1), 61-76.

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 to Consider:

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"?

 Warner, L., & Grint, K. (2006). American Indian Ways of Leading and Knowing. Leadership, 2(2), 225-244.

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 to Consider:

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?  

D'Arcus, B. (2010). The Urban Geography of Red Power: The American Indian Movement in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, 1968-70. Urban Studies, 47(6), 1241-1255.

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 to Consider:

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?

Gilley, B. (2010). Native Sexual Inequalities: American Indian Cultural Conservative Homophobia and the Problem of Tradition. Sexualities, 13(1), 47-68.

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 to Consider:

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?

 

French, L. (2003). Wounded Knee II And the Indian Prison Reform Movement. The Prison Journal, 83(1), 26-37.

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 to Consider:

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?

Lomawaima, K., & McCarty, T. (2002). When Tribal Sovereignty Challenges Democracy: American Indian Education and the Democratic Ideal. American Educational Research Journal, 39(2), 279-305.

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 to Consider:

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?

Hormel, L., & Norgaard, K. (2009). Bring the Salmon Home! Karuk Challenges to Capitalist Incorporation. Critical Sociology, 35(3), 343-366.

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 to Consider:

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?

 

Matamonasa-Bennett, A. (2014). "A Disease of the Outside People": Native American Men's Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1-17.

This article investigates “one of the most serious issues facing Native American women” – that of intimate partner violence.  The author used qualitative and ethnographic methods to examine the beliefs of Native American men who had experience with intimate partner violence.  Highlighting the participatory nature of ethnographic work, the author works to come to a consensus with her study participants about not only the root causes of this violence, but also culturally sensitive ways to approach both treatment and prevention.

Questions to Consider:

1. What does the author cite as the estimated pre-contact rates of intimate partner violence?  What factors do you think have led to the current epidemic rates in both urban and reservation communities?
2. What did the men that the author worked with propose as the roots of the problem of intimate partner violence?  In particular, how have the experience and consequences of colonization produced a cultural environment where violence is largely ignored?
3. What does the author propose as important factors in prevention and treatment of intimate partner violence?

Merskin, D. (2014). How Many More Indians? An Argument for a Representational Ethics of Native Americans. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 38(3), 184-203.

This article explores the persistence of stereotypical representations of Native Americans as brand images and situates a call for change within an ethics of representation. American Spirit Cigarettes are used as an illustrative case study to demonstrate that these representations cannot be relegated to less enlightened times, rather endure because naturalization is part of commodified racism. The present essay argues for engagement in representational ethics on the part of communicators to interrupt the contribution of stereotypes to the maintenance of colonial ideologies.

This article discusses the persistence of stereotypical representations of Native Americans in advertising and branding of products.  The author joins the increasingly loud calls for a reorientation in the ethics that govern the creation and use of such representations.  Arguing that such branding is in fact commodified racism, the author argues for an ethical awareness intended to interruption and dissolution of these stereotypes.

Questions to Consider:

1. What does the author mean by “an ethics of representation”?  How have Native Americans been used as brand images and what impact on personhood do these stereotypical representations have?
2. How does the author use American Spirit cigarettes as an illustrative case study?  Is this effective in your opinion?  Why or why not?

Reference Articles :

Martha May. "Mexican American and Access to Equal Education 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.

 

CQ Researcher:

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

Journal Articles:

Lohmeier, C. & Pentzold, C. (2014). Making Mediated Memory Work: Cuban-Americans, Miami Media and the Doings of Diaspora Memories.  Media Culture Society, 36(6), 776-789.

This article explores the memories of Cubans in Miami. This work examines the role of media in maintaining diasporic memories for the Cuban community.

Questions to Consider:

1. What population is presented in this article? Consider if this population is native or foreign-born. How is this group understood in American mainstream media versus what the research suggests?
2. How does this article explain diaspora for the Cuban population? Discuss examples.

Dorsey, M. & Díaz-Barriga, M. (2007). Senator Barack Obama and Immigration Reform. Journal of Black Studies, 38(1), 90-102.

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 to Consider:

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?

Alcoff, L.M. (2005). Latino vs. Hispanic: The Politics of Ethnic Names. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 31(4), 395-402.

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

Questions to Consider:

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?

Romo, R. (2011). Between Black and Brown: Blaxican (Black-Mexican) Multiracial Identity in California. Journal of Black Studies, 42(3), 402-27.

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 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 to Consider:

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)?

Garcia, M. & Patricia, O. (2011). Gender Digital Divide: The Role of Mobile Phones among Latina Farm Workers in Southeast Ohio. Gender Technology and Development, 15(1), 53-73.

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 to Consider:

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?

Irlbeck, D. (2008). Latino Police Officers: Patterns of Ethnic Self-Identity and Latino Community Attachment Police Quarterly, 11(4), 468-96.

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 to Consider:

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?

Agius Vallejo, J. & Lee, J. (2009). Brown picket fences:  The immigrant narrative and ‘giving back’ among the Mexican-origin middle class. Ethnicities, 9(1), 5-34.

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 to Consider:

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.

Sandoval Jr., T.F.S. (2008). Disobedient Bodies: Racialization, Resistance, and the Mass (Re)Articulation of the Mexican Immigrant Body. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(4), 580-598.

 

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 to Consider:

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 significant about the protests of 2006?

Bacon, D. (2008). Living Under the Trees. Contexts, 7(4), 50-58.

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 to Consider:

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.

Brown, H.E. (2013). Race, Legality, and the Social Policy Consequences of Anti-Immigration Mobilization. American Sociological Review, 78(2), 2-26.

This article examines the how the dramatic rise in the U.S. Hispanic population, affects the development of American racial lines beyond the Black-White divide. This study uses a comparative analysis of welfare reforms in California and Arizona to examine how anti-Hispanic stereotypes affect social policy formation. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and newspaper content analysis, findings include that animus toward Hispanics is mobilized through two collective action frames: a legality frame and a racial frame. The legality frame contributes to the discourse of demonizing illegal immigrants. Racial framing by White citizens uses explicit racial language labelling Hispanics as undeserving.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the arguments employed by White Americans about why Hispanics are unwanted as American immigrants?
2. Apply race theory to the racialization of immigrants, in states like Arizona? Do some research to find if there are other states in the U.S. that have similar rules of law, as Arizona has implemented in the last few years that carry anti-immigrant sentiment.

Bean, F.D. (2010). Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times. [Review by Massey, Douglas S., and Sánchez R. Magaly].Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 40(4), 467-469.

The negotiation of identity for immigrants who are experiencing anti-immigrant sentiments is explored. This review outlines theoretical support for arguments presented that offers insight into nativist sentiments.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the arguments the review focuses on? Consider what was discussed in the original article and what was chosen by these authors to review.
2. How does the review explain Anti-Immigrant times? What are some of the arguments used to explain these brokered boundaries. Consider symbolic ethnicity.

 

Reference Articles

Wang, Yu-Wei Shen, Frances "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.

CQ Researcher Articles

US-China Relations: Is a future confrontation looming?

 

Journal Articles

Fung, K. & Wong, Y.R.. (2007). Factors Influencing Attitudes towards Seeking Professional Help among East and Southeast Asian Immigrant and Refugee Women. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 53(3), 216-18.

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 to Consider:

1. What are some of the cultural and economic reasons behind these lower rates? How is professional help understood within these communities? Provide examples.
2. What can be done to increase mental health care with these populations? Does the article recommend any programs to increase factors influences towards seeking help?

Nogawa, H. & Suttie, S. (1984). A Japanese-American Basketball League and the Assimilation of its Members into the Mainstream of United States Society. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 19 (3-4), 259-267.

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 to Consider:

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?

Pyke, K.D. & Johnson, D.L. (2003). Asian American Women And Racialized Femininities: “Doing” Gender across Cultural Worlds. Gender & Society, 17(1), 33-54.

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. 

Questions to Consider:

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?

Nopper, T.K. (2010). Colorblind Racism and Institutional Actors’ Explanations of Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship. Critical Sociology, 36(1), 65-84.

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 to Consider:

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.

Reyes, Angela. (2011). 'Racist!': Metapragmatic regimentation of racist discourse by Asian American youth. Discourse Society, 22(4), 458-75.

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.  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 to Consider:

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?

1. 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?

 

Yoshihama, M., Ramakrishnan, A., Hammock, A.C. & Khaliq, M. (2012). Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Program in an Asian Immigrant Community Integrating Theories, Data, and Community. Violence Against Women, 18(7), 7-17.

This research project aims to fill an existing gap in research and practice on intimate partner violence (IPV) in immigrant communities.  The authors developed an IPV prevention program in an Asian Indian community in the Midwest. Building on the notion of “cherished value and strength of the community” (2) they created targeted campaign aimed at community-based participation.

Questions to Consider:

1. What were some of the reasons for the authors’ program implementation within the target community? Provide background from the article and connect to the textbook themes.
2. What are some of the limitations of the IPV program? How did the program identify potential clients (participants) within the community. How was the program received by the community.

 

Lee, J. and Bany, J.A. (2009). Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 38(5), 428-429.

This work explores the facets of Korean migration and experienced faced in their host location. Discussions about race are centerpointe in the nuances of contemporary immigrants and Korean immigrants’ experiences are depicted in this work.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the reasons Koreans immigrated to the U.S.? What were some of the examples provided within the article? Consider if this is what is understood by mainstream America.
2. How do Koreans make sense of their place within American race discourse? What does the article say about race? Consider the distancing hypothesis.

Journal Articles

Fetveit, A. (1999). Reality TV in the Digital Era: a Paradox in Visual Culture? Media Culture Society, 21(6), 787-804.

This article examines reality TV and the social phenomena created by the digital era.  This examination of modern media looks at various forms of culture presented visually in the digital era.

Questions to Consider:

1. What reality shows are examined in this work? Consider sources and population studied.
2. In 1999 reality shows were in their development stage, arguably. What did the article miss due to the date of this study that we find today with reality shows?

Michaels, E. (2014). New Immigrant Destinations in Small-Town America: Mexican American Youth in Junior High. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 43(6), 720-745.

This work examines the new places that Mexican American Youth are coming of age. It explains some of the challenges and processes involved with new destinations.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the positive aspects, the author discusses, about these new destinations?
2. How would you apply this article’s findings to old destinations? Consider some of the urban zones like, Los Angeles, New York, Miami.

Schrauf, R. (1999). Mother Tongue Maintenance among North American Ethnic Groups. Cross-Cultural Research, 33(2), 175-192.

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

Questions to Consider:

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?
4. Can you think of other ways of researching this topic that might be informative?

Steuter, E. & Wills, D. (2010). 'The Vermin Have Struck Again': Dehumanizing the Enemy in Post 9/11 Media Representations. Media, War & Conflict, 3(2), 152-168.

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 to Consider:

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?

Tyree, T.C. M. & Krishnasamy, A. (2011). Bringing Afrocentricity to the Funnies: An Analysis of Afrocentricity within Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks. Journal of Black Studies, 42(1), 23-43.

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 to Consider:

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?

Mehra, B., Merkel, C. & Bishop, A.P. (2004). The Internet for Empowerment of Minority and Marginalized Users. New Media Society, 6(6), 781-803.

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 to Consider:

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?

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Brettell, C.B. (2006). Political Belonging and Cultural Belonging:  Immigration Status, Citizenship, and Identity among Four Immigrant Populations in a Southwestern City. American Behavioral Scientist 50(1), 70-99.

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 to Consider:

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?

Littlefield, M.B. (2008). The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African American Women and the New Racism. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(5), 675-685.

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 to Consider:

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?

Reference Articles

Fish, Julie, and Susan Bewley. "Lesbian" In Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, edited by Jodi O'Brien, 486-88. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2009.

Dowsett, Gary W. "Gay Communities" In Encyclopedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World, edited by Karen Christensen and David Levinson, 530-34. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2003.

Bronson, J. (2005).  In N. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human development. (pp. 181-184). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

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Journal Articles

Wolfram, H. & Gratton, L. (2014). Gender Role Self-Concept, Categorical Gender, and Transactional-Transformational Leadership: Implications for Perceived Workgroup Performance. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(4), 338-353.

This study aims to address the roles of female managers in leadership roles. Findings show that gender roles are fundamental to advantages in the workplace.

Questions to Consider:

1. How do gender roles affect perceived success of managers according to gender? Is there any effect on success by gender?
2. What leadership roles were studied? Explain and provide examples from the article.

Hengstebeck, N.D., Helms, H.M. & Rodriguez, Y. (2014). Spouses’ Gender Role Attitudes, Wives’ Employment Status, and Mexican-Origin Husbands’ Marital Satisfaction. Journal of Family Issues, 36(1), 111-132.

This work examines the gender roles of wives’ examined according to employment status. Husbands’ views on marital satisfaction are examined.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are the articles main arguments? Consider research questions and hypothesis/es.
2. How do the findings of the article speak about gender roles and marital satisfaction? Provide examples that support your answer.

Reference Articles

Usunier, J. (2011). Cross-national/cultural comparisons. In L. Moutinho, & G. Hutcheson (Eds.), The SAGE dictionary of quantitative management research. (pp. 66-68). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

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. SA

CQ Researcher Articles

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

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

Journal Articles

Lytle, M.C., Foley, P.F. & Aster, A.M. (2013). Adult Children of Gay and Lesbian Parents: Religion and the Parent-Child Relationship. The Counseling Psychologist, 41(4), 530-567.

This work explores the impact of religion on the parent-child relationships of adult children with gay or lesbian parents. Adult children are interviewed and asked to retrospectively look at how religion impacted their parent-child relationships. Many themes emerged, some as expected and some unexpected.

Questions to Consider:

1. What were some of the reasons this study was developed? What was different about the research purpose for this study versus the studies cited within this work?
2. Why is religion a social institution that we should consider when studying parenting? How has religion shaped other family events in heterosexual parent homes? Do we know?

Bos, H.M.W., Picavet, C. & Sandfort, T.G.M. (2012). Ethnicity, Gender Socialization, and Children’s Attitudes toward Gay Men and Lesbian Women. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(7), 1082-1094.

This study was designed to assess whether children’s attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women differ according to their ethnic backgrounds and social understandings of gender roles.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some examples of the expected gender roles that children may have regarding gay men and lesbian women?
2. How did these attitudes vary according to age group? Was this covered or inferred?

Rothblum, E. (2010). Where is the ‘Women’s Community?’ Voices of Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Women and Heterosexual Sisters. Feminism & Psychology, 20(4), 454-472.

This study examined the definition of and connection to ‘community’ of women (28 lesbian, 19 bisexual, three queer, and 10 heterosexual). The research found that “women feel excluded or isolated from community, and this has implications for their needs for connectedness.”(3)

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the conceptions of bisexual women? Does this article address any of those misconceptions? Explain.
2. What does ‘community’ mean for the women in this study? Is there an agreed upon meaning for this term? Provide context and explain.

Reference Articles

Cho, Andrew. "Reparations, Slavery." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Neville, Helen A. "Color-Blind Racial Ideology." Encyclopedia of Counseling. 2008. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

Karenga, Maulana. "Revisiting Brown, Reaffirming Black: Reflections on Race, Law, and Struggle." Handbook of Black Studies. 2006. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

CQ Researcher Articles

Women's Rights: Are violence and discrimination against women declining? 

Journal Articles

Bandopadhyaya, J. (1977). Racism and International Relations. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 3(1), 19-48.

This study focuses on racism based on colour as a factor in international relations. The premise of this work is that “Neither the ‘class theory’ nor the ‘caste theory’ explains the social stratification represented by contemporary colour racism; it must be regarded as an independent sociological category.” (2)

Questions to Consider:

1. How is racism operationalized? Does it differ from how American race is understood.
2. Class and Caste systems are not really discussed in the U.S. How would these concepts be understood if applied to American inequality?

Gobodo, P. (1990). Notions about Culture in Understanding Black Psychopathology: Are We Trying to Raise the Dead? South African Journal of Psychology, 20(2), 93-98.

This project examines the various mental health settings in South Africa have to deal with patients from black population groups. The author further proposes that such assumptions have race and class implications in that they reflect antiquated racial and class attitudes.

Questions to Consider:

1. Considering the nation where this project is based? What if anything surprises you of the target population and the arguments surrounding the choice in target population.
2. Is the target population a minority group? Explain.

 

Journal Articles

Norrander, B. & Manzano, S. (2010). Minority Group Opinion in the U.S. States. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 10(4), 446-483.

This work looks at opinions regarding politics in the United States. The added perk of this work is that the reader gets to read about what minority groups have to offer regarding U.S. political polarization. This work delves into the common misnomer that all minorities are simply just liberals, therefore lack political will.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the common misconceptions about minority groups and political polarization?
2. How did the author address the assumption made by most Americans that minorities think in a vacuum, as a homogenous group?

Guajardo, S.A. (1996). Minority Employment in U.S. Federal Agencies: Continuity and Change. Public Personnel Management, 25(2), 199-208.

Federal Agencies have not always held a reputation for being melting pots of change.  What this work does is present the way that change and continuity of change is taking shape within Federal employment.

Questions to Consider:

1. What federal agencies were included in this study? What types of work positions are discussed in this work?
2. What would Simmel have to say about or contribute to this research? Consider other classical theorists.

Jalata, A. (2002).Revisiting the Black Struggle: Lesson for the 21st Century. Journal of Black Studies, 33(1), 86-111.

This article examines the successes and failures of African Americans in achieving equality in the United States. Specifically, it looks at why the Black movement was able to legally eliminate direct institutional racism, but why it was unable to eliminate indirect institutional racism.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some examples of "direct" and "indirect" institutional racism?
2. What does the author suggest to help aid in the struggle for economic development, self-determination, and multicultural democracy?

Johnson, K. (2004). Law and Politics in Post-Modern California: Coalition or Conflict between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latina/os? Ethnicities, 4(3), 381-394.

In this article, the author explores the relations between several minority groups in the political process, and evaluates the prospects for social change. The study looks at minority groups in California, because that state is often seen as being a "microcosm" of American life, and perhaps reflects the racial diversity that will be the norm for American in the future.

Questions to Consider:

1. Why and how does the author suggest we "redefine" the traditional "civil rights discourse" to reflect changes in the socio-economic landscape?
2. Does the author support a "grassroots" approach to this change, or something else? Would his suggestions be applicable to other parts of the United States right now?
3. Does the author's discussion leave room for later immigrants and possibly new minority groups in the future of American society?

Germain, F. (2010). ''Presidents of Color,'' Globalization, and Social Inequality. Journal of Black Studies, 40(3): 445-461.

This article highlights the persistence of racism and social inequality, despite global trends of racial and/or ethnic diversity in leadership in many nations that contain populations that are racially and ethnically dissimilar.  A central feature of the contemporary global racial/ethnic landscape investigated by the author is “the transnational discourses of reverse discrimination that result from the election of ‘presidents of color’” (445).  He argues that accomplishing the goals of reducing social inequalities and racism in modern societies, as promised by “presidents of color” such as Barack Obama and other leaders from racially underrepresented groups, involves working counter to the logics of globalization.  His central goal is to examine the presidency of Barak Obama from a global perspective as a phenomena produced by the context of the reproduction of racism and social inequality in the United States.

Questions to Consider:

1. What does a global analysis of “presidents of color” demonstrate?  What are the two challenges that Germain argues “remain insurmountable”?
2. Summarize the pro-globalization and anti-globalization perspectives presented by the author.  Which is more compelling to you?  Why?
3. How did globalization limit the successes of both Nelson Mandela and Evo Morales?  What does the author mean by reverse discrimination and how did this impact their presidencies?
4. How have accusations of reverse discrimination played out in Barak Obama’s presidency?  How have these accusations limited the programmatic successes of his presidency?

Read, J.G. (2008). Muslims in America. Contexts, 7(39), 39-43.

This article documents changes in the public perception of and expression of anti-Muslim sentiment since September of 2001.  The author points to the ungrounded nature of these prejudices and stereotypes, demonstrating that most Americans actually know very little about Islam and have very little interaction, even of a superficial nature, with American Muslims. 

Questions to Consider:

1. What are the socio-economic characteristics of Muslims in America?  What do these characteristics tell you about Muslims as a social group?
2. The central difference among Muslims and Christians highlighted in the data presented here is of an ecumenical nature.  Summarize the author’s findings and speculate as to why, in a social context of decreasing commitment to church among Christians, religious difference has become so important.
3. Summarize the views on social issues as presented by the author.  What could potentially account for the differences between Muslims and “US average” that are documented here?

Teasley, M. & Ikard, D. (2010). Barack Obama and the Politics of Race:  The Myth of Postracism in America. Journal of Black Studies, 40(3): 411-425.

This article examines the perception that the election of Barack Obama represents the “dawning of a postracial era” in the United States, arguing that despite this historic event, “there seems to be a glaring ideological disconnect between the desire and reality of a race-free society” (411).  Using the framework of “hope” as constituted by the Obama electoral campaign, the authors argue that there are many problems with a total investment in postracial thinking.  “Chief among the questions that the authors ask is how African Americans can productively address the continuing challenges of race-centric oppression under an Obama administration that is itself an embodiment of this postrace thinking” (411).

Questions to Consider:

1. How does not seeing race, a postracial perspective, act to privilege a White perspective and de-privilege Black experience?  How does this demonstrate the central flaw in postracial thinking?  (Pay careful attention to the discussion of James Baldwin’s critique of John Kennedy.)
2. Summarize the authors’ discussion of the dynamics of race and politics in America.  What should an appropriate analysis of race and social outcomes contain?  Why is a postracial society a myth?  Why is it critical to challenge this myth?
3. What are “the best- and worst-case scenarios based on what we have witnessed thus far in Obama’s presidency” (418)?  How have the media worked to sustain the image of a postracial hopefulness?
4. List and discuss the “three inherent challenges to postracial thinking and discourse and subsequent public policy analysis” (422). 

Piazza, J.A. (2011). Poverty, Minority Economic Discrimination, and Domestic Terrorism. Journal of Peace Research 48(3): 339-353.

This study examines the relationship between poverty and terrorism, arguing that a central explanatory factor of domestic terrorism in minority economic discrimination.  Thus, the author argues, the economic status of politically, socially, and economically marginalized groups is a crucial potential predictor of terrorist activities. 

Questions to Consider:

1. Describe Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation, which the author uses to link minority economic discrimination and domestic terrorist activity.  What specific parts of Gurr’s model does Piazza utilize?  How does he then establish this link?  Do you find this compelling or believable?
2. What are the” three points that lend themselves to empirical evaluation” (342)?  How does he structure his analysis, particularly the choice of variables, to test his hypotheses?
3. Summarize the two main conclusions the author found.  Do you find these conclusions to be compelling in explaining new root causes for domestic terrorist activity?