| |
Home
Statement of Purpose
Conference
Membership Directory
Journal
Book Series
Bibliography
Teaching
Links
Subscription to Journal
Editor:
Jean
Ait Belkhir
jbelkhir@uno.edu
Managing Editor:
Christiane Charlemaine
Race, Gender & Class
Sociology Department
College of Liberal Arts
(COLA)
Milneburg Hall Room 170
2000 Lakeshore Drive
The
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, LA 70148
Phone: (504) 280-1209
Fax: (504) 280-6302
|
|
Editors: Christiane Charlemaine, Michael O'Loughlin, and Evangeline A. Wheeler
Jean Ait Belkhir and Lenus Jack, Jr. Introduction (p3-8)
Christiane Charlemaine What Might MZ Twin Research Teach us about RGC Issues (p9-29)
Since the publication of Francis
Galton’s work, monozygotic (MZ) twins have been studied as a living experiment
to try and to clarify the nature/nurture controversy, and have been used and
abused to support genetic determinism. Indisputably the twin method has been the
workhorse of genetic determinism. This article addresses the more intriguing
relationships between twins research and race, gender and class issues. As a
subject of research, twin studies from a race, gender and class perspective are
a complex and multidisciplinary pursuit. Genetic determinism drawn from twin
studies based on the assumption that genetics predominates our environment in
the transmission of human intelligence (often indexed by intellectual quotient
[IQ] scores) is particularly suspect because it has circuitously become the core
of racism, sexism and classism. The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the
mainstream twin studies and to show the relationship between twin studies and
race, gender and class issues related to intelligence and IQ measures. Keywords: twin studies, monozygotic, monochorionic, dichorionic, race, gender, class,
genetic determinism, intelligence, intellectual quotient
Evangeline A. Wheeler "And, does it matter if he was racist?":Deconstructing Conceptsin Psychology (p33-44)
In teaching about theoretical concepts
in psychology, we often fail to first consider the sociohistorical background in
which those concepts were developed. If we conduct analyzes of the origin of
many of the concepts used frequently in the field of psychology, we often
uncover the insidious influence of race, gender, class and culture biases. The
author proposes a three-part model to be used as a tool of race, gender, class
and culture analysis, and suggests it be used in psychology and other academic
disciplines to deconstruct the concepts we take for granted. Keywords: racism, teaching, Sankofa
Judith K. Bernhard Toward a 21st
Century Developmental Theory: Principles to Account for Diversity in
Children's Lives (p45-60)
If ‘culture’ is not simply treated
as an additional influence or variable, as in Developmentally Appropriate
documents and DSM-IV, then cultural studies lead one to conclude there is
essential diversity in human development. The cultural context establishes the
objectives which define individual and social development. Based on our studies
of Latino immigrants, we propose principles providing a basis for a deep
revision of developmental theory: some deal with knowledge production; others
specify fundamental assumptions of systems theory—hierarchical organization,
multiple pathways of development. We supply illustrative cases, which suggest,
besides theoretical plausibility, the usefulness of the principles in
understanding such situations. Keywords: developmental theory, innovation
and revision, psychology, cultural issues, knowledge production, diversity,
theories and practice, Latino studies, education
Ronald E. Hall The Class
Initiatives of Intelligence Rhetoric: Implications of Racism for
Scientific Inquiry ;(p61-70)
In a society that is not totalitarian,
class disparities are enabled institutionally by science. A capital driven
nation that associates intelligence with class and race can determine overall
quality of life. Thus, perception of intelligence is an extremely powerful tool
for reinforcing class. Seldom have scientists been more controversial than in
their attempts to quantify intelligence on the basis of race. Racial models of
intelligence provide a paradigm for class and given the correlation reflects a
vivid illustration of how classism pervades the scientific community. In order
to be better informed, scientists who conduct intelligence research must resist
bias. In the aftermath, science will remain subject to flaws but enabled in its
attempt to gather an accurate set of facts. Keywords: race,
racism, class, intelligence, science
Lisa J. Schulte Similarities and Differences in Homophobia
Among African Americans versus Caucasians (p71-93)
Three studies were conducted to
examine both similarities and differences in homophobia among African Americans
versus Caucasians. Study 1 focused on replicating past findings with Caucasian
subjects, among African American subjects. Study 2 examined whether African
Americans, compared to Caucasians, express greater negativity toward
homosexuals. Study 3 focused on an explanation of differences in the level of
negativity among African Americans versus Caucasians. In general, results
suggest that while there are similarities in homophobia among African Americans
versus Caucasians, differences exist in the level of negativity expressed.
African Americans, compared to Caucasians, express greater negativity. A social
role theory explanation of this difference is presented and tested in Study
3. Keywords: African American, Caucasian, deviation,
gender role, homophobia, sex role theory
James E. Smith Race, Emotions, and Socialization (p94-110)
The connection between emotions and
behavior is well documented. Emotions are an integral and significant aspect of
human nature and the motivation for behavior. Research suggest that when people
understand their own emotions, they have a chance to act appropriately on that
understanding, connect with other people emotionally, and effectively interact
to meet their needs and life’s goals. Gender and race were also associated
with emotional intelligence (EQ-i). Females reported higher mean interpersonal
score while males reported higher intrapersonal score. African-American subjects
reported lower interpersonal, intrapersonal scores and lower total EQ-i scores
than Caucasians. The empirical data and research suggest that the dynamics of
the socialization process with regards to emotion and their behavioral
expression are different for men and women and that the same is true for race.
Thus understanding that men and women, and people or color are socialized
differently and how they are socialized with respect to emotions can provide
insight and meaning into the of behavior people, for more effective
interpersonal and intrapersonal interaction. The results of this research
further indicate that emotion as measured by the Bar-On EQ-i is a complex
construct that has differential implications for people based on gender and
race; which may have significant influence on the development and effectiveness
of social, emotional learning and thus social interaction within multiple social
levels and systems and for the practice effectiveness of social work and
psychology. Keywords: emotion, behavior, emotional, social
emotional learning, justice, race
Shanette M. Harris Father Absence in the African
American Community: Toward a New Paradigm (p111-133)
This paper provides a critical review
of African American father absence research and calls for a paradigmatic shift
that emphasizes the value of investigating the effects of father absence as part
of a transactional process. Existing theories have not adequately examined
personal, interpersonal and family factors and specified how such variables
might interact with other environmental factors to shape the father absence
experience. This article views father absence as a stressor that can potentially
give rise to additional stressors that can each increase childhood risks for
maladaptive psychosocial and developmental outcomes. Empirical studies are
reviewed and research directions are recommended. Keywords: father absence, family structure, paternal absence, father-child relations,
African Americans, Blacks, socioeconomic status, fathers, parental role, child
socialization, father involvement, mother headed households, mother-child
families
Karen L. Lombardi Eracing the Simple Certainty of
Difference: A Psychoanalytic Contribution (p134-146)
Racism, classism, and sexism are
fostered not only through material conditions, but also through the privileging
of difference common to Western intellectual thought. This essay turns to the
unconscious of psychoanalytic theory, and especially to the theories of Melanie
Klein and Ignacio Matte Blanco, with the hope of providing an alternate
discourse on race, gender, and class within psychology. Racism, sexism, and the
objectifications of class can be seen as thriving through what Klein describes
as the projective identifications of the paranoid-schizoid position. Parts of
the self, when split off or splintered and seen to reside only in the other,
take the form of paranoid identifications, and relationships are impoverished.
In the bi-logic of Matte Blanco, to maintain rich relationships with other
people requires the simultaneous experience of the symmetry of empathic
identification and the asymmetry of individual, subjective experience. Likewise,
in Klein, the capacity simultaneously to identify with others and maintain the
negativity of difference moves the individual from paranoid-schizoid modes of
relating into more integrative and empathic modes. Personal examples are
provided as illustrations. Keywords: racism and
psychoanalysis, gender and psychoanalysis, Matte Blanco, Melanie Klein, David
Bohn, projective identification, introjective identification
Jerry Gold The Failed Social Legacy of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis (p147-157)
This article explores the work of the
founders of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis (Sullivan and Fromm), who expanded the
intra-psychic focus of classical psychoanalysis by identifying the ways that
social injustice and inequality eventuated in psychopathology. The failure of
this school of psychoanalytic thought to continue the pursuit of a socially
conscious theory and therapeutic system is discussed. Some of the professional,
theoretical, and political reasons for the failure of successive generations of
analysts to carry out this socially conscious legacy are explored. Finally, a
model of psychoanalysis is presented in which theory and clinical work are
informed by an in-depth exploration of each patient’s unique social, ethnic,
economic, and political background and experiences. Keywords: Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, racism, poverty, discrimination, Fromm, Sullivan
Theresa A. Martinez The Double-Consciousness of Du Bois and the
"Mestiza Consciousness" of Anzaldúa (p158-176)
Within sociology, the role of African
American thinker and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois, as theorist and activist is well
known. The work of Gloria Anzaldúa, however, while widely discussed in other
disciplines is only beginning to be recognized by sociologists as they begin to
review and discuss her work. Moreover, while African Americans and Latinos/as
are often linked by researchers discussions of major social problems including
housing inequity, drug use, and imprisonment rates, sociological researchers
have paid scant attention to the links between Black and Latino/a thinkers. This
paper provides an analysis of 19th century African American thinker
W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of the" double-consciousness" in relation to
20th century Chicana feminist thinker Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of
the "mestiza consciousness," among other aspects of their work,
and argues that their work is related and represents resonant forms of
oppositional culture or consciousness within a matrix of domination (Mitchell
& Feagin, 1995; Collins, 2000). It is suggested that common threads of
racial/ethnic and class oppression bind the works of these two thinkers, while
discussion of issues related to gender and sexuality, lacking for the most part
in Du Bois’ work, are developed more thoroughly by Anzaldúa. Keywords: African Americans, Latina/os, race and ethnic relations, matrix of dominations,
race, class and gender, deviance, popular culture
Michael O'Loughlin Is a Socially Responsible and Critical
Psychology of Difference Possible? (p177-192)
In this article the hegemony of
psychology, embodied in its power to "name, identify, classify, domesticate
and contain" the Others of our world is queried. Because of its
embeddedness in universalist and colonial scientistic epistemologies, psychology
has been burdened by a tendency to "obliterate, silence and negate"
the subjectivities of the non-normative Others of our societies. The case is
made here specifically for the exclusion of critical interrogation of race and
ethnicity from the daily discourses of psychology, though an equally forceful
case could be made for class- and gender-exclusions. The article concludes with
a series of recommendations that might set psychology on a path toward social
justice and inclusivity, thereby making some reparation for the role it has
historically played in contributing to the codification of difference and the
perpetuation of racial inequality. Keywords: critical
psychology, psychology of difference, critical race theory, postcolonial theory,
racial identity, psychoanalysis
Editors: Jean Ait Belkhir, Lenus Jack Jr. and Christiane Charlemaine
Jean Ait Belkhir, Lenus Jack Jr., and Christiane Charlemaine Introduction (p3-8)
Rodney L. Brod and Karen M. Foote Multinomial Logistic
Regression of Race and Gender Biases in Clerical Worker Wages (p9-29)
This article applies multinomial
logistic regression (MLR), a quantitative statistical method, to reveal
significant biases in beginning and current wages among race and gender groups
of bank clerical workers. These wage differences persist even when holding
constant education, previous work experience, age, and job seniority. This
research extends a series of studies that advocate and/or demonstrate this
quantitative method (Brod 1999; Brod and Fenelon 1999) applied to race, gender,
and class (RGC) research. Keywords: multinomial logistic regression, quantitative statistical methods, race, gender
and class, wage biases, clerical workers
Pamela N. Waldron-Moore Toward a Model of
Eco-Political Activism: Differentiating the Impact of
Race and Class (p31-60)
Efforts to determine what motivates
individuals to take political action on environmental issues have not been
wholly instructive. The vast literature on environmental behavior has identified
correlates of environmental concern and some explanations for why some modes of
political action are engaged in. This study attempts to develop a holistic
explanation of eco-political activism by identifying pathways to political
action. The results show that individual values and beliefs determine
environmental concern and help develop ecological consciousness in individuals.
This consciousness may lead to a perception of threat, which in turn influences
participation in environmental policy-making. To the extent that psychological
factors such as fear for the sustainability of the community and the nation are
present and individuals feel threatened by environmental conditions, they are
likely to take political action. Multivariate analysis revealed that individual
values and beliefs explain 45% of the variance in ecological concerns, which
explain 34% of the variance in publics’ perception of threat. The latter then
explains 14% of the variance in eco-political activism. Both race and class
offered interesting insight into why some may take eco-political action and
others may not, although class indicators seemed a bit more helpful. Keywords: race, class, political action, environmental policy, ecological concerns,
psychological factors, sustainability, politics and society
Richard K. Caputo Race, Region, and the Intergenerational
Transmission of Grandmother-Grandchild Co-Residency (p61-75)
This study extends recent research in
the area of grandparent-grandchildren relations. It uses National Longitudinal
Survey data and logistic regression analysis to determine the likelihood that
grandmothers who resided with grandchildren were also likely to have daughters
who resided with grandchildren. Of 1098 co-resident grandmothers in the present
study, 105 (9%) comprised the sub-sample of grandmother-grandchild
mother-daughter pairs. Intergenerational transmission of grandmother-grandchild
co-residency was four times more common among Blacks than among Whites, and
twice as likely to occur in the South. Age at the time of the birth of one’s
first child was inversely related to intergeneration transmission of
co-residency, while socioeconomic status was positively related to it. No
statistically significant differences were found by grandmother-grandchild
mother-daughter pair status in regard to physical or mental health among
co-resident grandmothers. Nonetheless, about 60% of older co-resident
grandmothers reported health limitations in 1997, while 11—18% depending on
grandmother-grandchild mother-daughter pair status reported levels of depressive
symptomatology that placed them at risk. Keywords: Grandmothers, grandchildren, grandparents, intergenerational families Race,
Region, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Grandmother-Grandchild
Co-Residency
R. Kirk Mauldin The Role of Humor in the Social
Construction of Gendered and Ethnic Stereotypes (p76-95)
Using content analysis, this article
examines the role of humor in the process of socialization. Close examination of
homophobic humor reveals a pattern of denigration which teaches individuals the
undesirability of the homosexual role. Jokes equating homosexuals with excrement
further reinforce their status as social pariahs, while another type of humor
graphically illustrates and reinforces both common stereotypes and the supposed
ability to recognize "hidden" homosexuals. While numerous stereotypes
are discussed, the article shifts focus to how humor shapes our
conceptualization of contextual power and our desire for the ultimate
destruction of the out-group. The article concludes by showing that humor
reflects the same socialization process with other disempowered groups, such as
African Americans. Keywords: Homosexuality, Humor,
Socialization, Stereotypes, Race
Ruby C. Lipscomb How to Help African American Daughters
Survive in the New Millennium: An Empowerment Perspective (p96-100)
Unlike tying her shoe, empowerment is
not something one can easily teach a daughter. Empowerment means nurturing
positive attributes so that individuals can control their destinies. It is a
cumulative process wherein lots of little successes lead a girl to expect
success. Empowerment is the strength African American daughters need to soar
against the wind of the new challenges in the New Millennium. In what ways can
African American parents be instrumental in inculcating their daughters with a
sense of inner strength and sense of empowerment as ballast against a society
that infrequently celebrates their beauty, intellect and talents?
Carolyn Whitson The Sexual Boundaries of Race and Class
in Working-Class Novels. Marrying Up and Living
it Down/Marrying Down and Living it Up (p101-120)
As with other novels that take class
issues for their emphasis, working-class novels with strong attention to sexual
politics are often categorized elsewhere. The novels to be discussed here are
more commonly examined as women’s literature, immigrant literatures or as
literature by people of color (or "ethnic" literature). Authors,
editors, publishers, and professors, in seeking a niche audience for these
texts, will usually opt for these labels, for the working-class as a topic of
discussion or analysis has rarely been seen (being perceived as limited in
financial and educational resources by definition) as of interest to its
subject-members. But these minority audiences or subjects are usually, due
to their marginal status, perceived as poor, so working class issues
(specifically poverty, violence, illness, oppression, struggle) are considered a
subject of the conditions of an African-American novel or a lesbian novel.
Norma Smith Oral History and Grounded Theory Procedures as Research Methodology for Studies
in Race, Gender and Class (p121-138)
This article describes a research
methodology, the combined use of oral history and grounded theory procedures,
that should be useful for the study of race, gender and class, and which, in
particular, supports the SUNO-RGC Project's approach to race, gender and class
studies as a foundation for strategizing social change/social justice. The
article draws attention to the coincidence of oral history and grounded theory
with principles of community organizing. It emphasizes the importance of
understanding history and ideology in any social research. Keywords: methodology,
oral history, grounded theory, activist scholarship, community scholarship
Jacqueline De Hon Identifying Links-of-Discrimination
Related to Race, Gender, and Class
(p139-158)
Identifying links-of-discrimination
related to race, gender, and class is vital to understanding ways cultural
stereotypes reinforce and perpetuate discrimination against certain groups. By
uniting—and by refusing to be "divided" and "ruled"—so-called
"minority" groups can take their proper places in society. As in the
movie, Revenge of the Nerds, groups can learn to see that—together—oppressed
groups are the majority. I discuss ways elite groups use the media, scare
tactics, fear, and ignorance to create and maintain separation between groups. I
suggest that bridges can be built through communication, education,
community-group-membership, diversified-neighborhood-pride, and so forth.
Through education, aware-people can build bridges that link groups and form a
solid basis for strengthening the community as a whole. In particular, General
Semantics principles can be used as a tool to assist people in learning to
understand and to respect The Other. An application of what I call
"sympathetic-communication" can aid in achieving quality intercultural
communication. Keywords: race/sexism,
gender/sexism, class/classism, discrimination, stereotypes, dominant group,
oppressed groups divide-and-rule
Renny Christopher Springsteen, Diallo, and the NYC Police: An Intersection of Race,
Gender, and Class (p159-174)
Bruce Springsteen’s song,
"American Skin," was written in response to the killing of a black
immigrant from Guinea, Amadou Diallo, by four New York City cops. The NYC police
protested; Lt. George Mole published an op-ed piece in which he writes, "I
didn’t expect that Bruce Springsteen, poet of the working class, would turn
his back on the working men and women who wear the shield." Yet the song
does represent the police as well as the shooting victim, and places blame on
the system of white supremacy which victimizes both. The lines of controversy
surrounding Springsteen’s song bring together race, class and gender. The
protest by the cops is based in class; the defense of the song by critics of the
cops is based in race. The song, the protest and defense of the song, and the
incident on which the song is based are all about our "American Skin,"
our American wallets, our American guns. Keywords: rock
music, working class, immigrants, police brutality, African American
Marta López-Garza Convergence of the Public
and Private Spheres: Women in the Informal Economy (p175-192)
In this paper, I present a critical
finding of my research on the informal economy: the fluidity with which women
created and negotiated "space," crossing borders between the public
and private spheres. I provide the ways in which women in the study moved
between these spheres, spheres which overlapped one another—where public and
private responsibilities occurred in the same space, at the same time. In these
spaces, women combined their household obligations with their economic
responsibilities, brought children and work together and the private and public
into one sphere of negotiated space. Keywords: informal
economy, women's studies, immigration studies, chicano/latino studies, theories
of urban space
Editors: Jean Ait Belkhir, Lenus Jack Jr. and Christiane Charlemaine
Jean Ait Belkhir, Lenus Jack, Jr. and Christiane
Charlemaine Introduction (p3-7)
Clayton Dumont Jr. Dead Family or
Archaeological Collections?: On the Significance of Native Dead (p8-31)
The paper is an analysis of scientific
claims on Indian dead. I make three central arguments. First, the scientific
community must acknowledge the political, cultural, and historically-contingent
character of its claims on native remains. Secondly, until scientists are
willing to treat their epistemological desires as cultural phenomena, and
therefore as not inherently superior to Indian understandings, the
much-called-for cooperation with the tribes will not progress beyond its
current, very immature stage. Thirdly, few scientists have yet to enunciate a
desire for such equality of perspectives. The paper outlines the state of the
debate over repatriation and reburial of remains, contains extensive excerpts of
interviews with five Klamath Indians who share their perspectives on
archaeologists and anthropological desires, and concludes with a deconstruction
of recurring scientific arguments for resisting the return of ancestral dead to
living Native Americans. Keywords: Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act, archaeological ethics, Klamath Tribe, history
of science
Andrew Perchard 'Bonnie Fighters':
Class Consciousness and Solidarity in the Scots Coalfield, c.
1947-1960 (p32-46)
"We have always been proud of our
international connections, and the fact that we miners have always been at the
very vanguard of the working class." "Miners
had a special place in the mythology of struggle which set them apart from
others." Both of these remarks reflect the special status which
miners were viewed in and in which they viewed themselves. This paper will,
drawing on both existing literature and recently researched empirical material,
argue that Scots miners, sometimes in direct contrast to their counterparts
elsewhere in the British coalfield were particularly class conscious and
exhibited this through their solidaristic class actions on a local, national and
international basis. It will further argue that there were specific reasons for
a heightened sense of class consciousness in mining communities and
additionally, factors in the Scots coalfield which gave it its distinct radical
class hue. These in turn led to a highly developed set of community and union
based structures which reflected the symbiotic relationship between pit and
mining community and were so influential, also, in navigating the Scottish
Trades Union Congress (STUC) and the major Marxist political party of the left
in Scotland at the time; the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
Marta I. Cruz-Janzen Lives on the
Crossfire: The Struggle of Multiethnic and Multicultural Latinos for Identity in
a Dichotomous and Racialized World (p47-62)
We live with a "box
mentality" (Cruz-Janzen, 1997). We have internalized a strong need to
categorize, segregate, and oppress one another. Someone has to be the majority,
superior, stronger, better; someone else has to be the minority, inferior,
weaker, lesser. While this is common to most human societies, race has remains
uniquely powerful in the United States—so powerful that terms such as race,
ethnicity, and national origin have become interchangeable (Davis, 1998) and,
concomitantly, highly misleading and volatile. While the U.S. does state that
its racial categories include both racial and national origin groups (U.S.
Census 2000), it fails to acknowledge and/or address the pervasive and
augmenting popular association of race with ethnicity, persons of color, and
particularly groups from certain countries and/or continents; this at a time
when clarification is crucial for national unity and the well-being of its
ascending diverse population.
Beverly Mason Roads to Power: A
case Study of How Egyptian Working-Class Women Realize Economic and Social
Power (p63-84)
This paper is an examination of how
urban working-class Egyptian women engage in income-generating activities at the
micro level within the dynamics of a global economy. More specifically, the
study explores the work women engage in as they occupy and challenges spaces
defined by powerful forces beyond their control. The broad question discussed,
then, is how do gender relations impact the world system, and how does this
system impact gender relations. The paper examines how women, as economic actors
at the local level, interact with and influence the national and international
arena, as they make their lives in both the public and private spheres in
Africa. Divided into four sections, the paper presents: theoretical frameworks
that address the dynamics of Third World women within the world system; a brief
presentation of the historical forces that place women in their context;
contemporary concerns and women’s everyday realities; and a discussion of the
involvement of women in varied laboring activities.
Magalene Harris Taylor "Martha
Stewart as a Sociological Phenomenon" (p85-99)
This
paper will explore individual economic success as sociological enterprise.
Sociological discourse is utilized to analytically explore the historical and
social impact of Martha Stewart on the institutions of family and work while
simultaneously acknowledging a relationship to the dimensions of race, class and
gender. In essence, this unique mix of history and sociology will highlight the
contributions of one woman to two major socializing institutions, work and
family—through yet a third medium of socialization, the media.
Ronald E. Hall A New Perspective
on Racism: Health Risk to African-Americans (p100-111)
The sociological has dominated
perspectives on racism in America. By virtue of skin color, African-Americans
have become the focal point for various forms of racism as would be suggested by
Affirmative Action. Exacerbated by racist media images, the prevailing social
climate has compromised Affirmative Action and given rise to abuse by law
enforcement. Based upon the constant prevalence of racism in public life
African-Americans as a group suffer from abnormally high blood pressure. The
result is a health risk manifested by correlation between skin color and
hypertension. A new perspective on racism would necessitate same as health risk
to African-Americans. Keywords: racism, health risk, hypertension,
African-Americans
Linda Kalof, Thomas Dietz, Gregory Guagnano and
Paul C. Stern Race, Gender and Environmentalism: The Atypical
Values and Beliefs of White Men (p112-130)
We explored the links
between race, gender and environmentalism by examining differences in values
(altruism, self-interest, traditionalism and openness to change) and
proenvironmental beliefs (New Ecological Paradigm). Analysis of survey data from
a random sample of U.S. residents revealed significant differences between
Whites, Blacks and Hispanics in values and beliefs, but gender differences
existed only for Whites. Of the ten observed significant differences in means,
seven were differences between White men and other subgroups, with White men
scoring lower than one or more other groups on the belief measure and all four
value measures. These results suggest that the attitudes of White men in the
U.S. are anomalous, perhaps because of their historically privileged position
regarding risk and power in society.
Subdipta Das Loss or Gain? A Saga
of Asian Immigration and Experiences in America's Multi Ethnic
Mosaic (p131-155)
In recent years, the
diversity within the Asian-American population and their varied, often
contrasting patterns of immigration and experiences have been recognized and
underscored in American multi-cultural studies. While an extensive amount
of published works continue to concentrate on the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
experiences, the migrations of other significant racial and ethnic groups from
across the Pacific have only begun to unfold. One of these newest and less
examined immigrant groups is the arrivees from India, who had until recently
been relegated to insignificance under the designation of "others" in
American official documents. Their separate racial identity and demographic
status was recognized only in the 1980 U.S. Census report, under the rubric of
"Asian Indians." Being the most rapidly expanding immigrant group with
the highest number (46%) of the total H-1B visa petitions filed (India Abroad,
1999:38), and with education and income levels higher than those of most of the
5.1 million Asian-Americans, this group deserves more attention and analysis
than it has so far received.
Yitchak Haberfeld and Dafna N. Izraeli Gender Inequality in Majority and Minority Groups in Israel (p156-185)
This article is an empirical test of
Almquist’s (1987) hypothesis that gender inequality is greater among groups
with greater resources because men in the dominant group appropriate the
surplus, whereas men in the most disadvantaged groups are forced to be more
egalitarian. Using census data and multivariate logistic analyses, we examine
gender differences in labor force participation, occupational status and income
in eight ethnic- generational class groups in Israel: Israeli- born Jews, first-
and second- generation Western Jews, first- and second- generation Eastern Jews,
Moslems, Christians, and Druse. Almquist’s hypothesis is not supported by our
data. We argue that gender inequalities are better explained by the structural
advantage of men from the dominant group who control the allocation of resources
for all groups. This advantage is augmented by economic development and
differential opportunities for the accumulation of wealth. It is tempered by the
protection provided by ethnic labor market enclaves. Keywords:
gender inequality, Israeli- born Jews, first- and second- generation Western
Jews, first- and second- generation Eastern Jews, Moslems, Christians, and Druse
Guest Editors: Eric Swank
and Keith M. Kilty
Eric Swank and Keith M.
Kilty Introduction (p4-7)
Elisabeth B. Erbaugh Women's Community Organizing and Identity Transformation (p8-32)
This paper addresses how women’s community organizing alters
participants’ relationships to dominant social and political institutions. I
conducted participant observation and interviews in a multi-ethnic,
working-class organization which combines two community organizing models: a
relational model and an institutionally-focused model. Members of the
organization collectively critiqued dominant ideologies and public policies
about welfare and engaged in dialogue with political authorities about economic
issues. In these processes, experiences of collective identity formation and
personal identity transformation increased members’ political motivation and
sense of empowerment relative to the welfare system and other dominant
institutions. I argue that the implications of identity formation and
transformation are important in evaluating the success of community organizing
efforts. Keywords: community organizing, identity, welfare, gender,
race and class
Augustine J. Kposowa,
Glenn T. Tsunokai, & Edgard W. Butler The Effects of Race and
Ethnicity on Schizophrenia: Individual and Neighborhood Contexts (p33-54)
The purpose of the study was to
investigate racial/ethnic disparities in mental health diagnoses. In particular,
it was anticipated that the effect of race/ethnicity on the risk of diagnosis
for schizophrenia would remain even after controlling for neighborhood
characteristics. Logistic regression models were fitted to individual data from
the Riverside County (CA) Department of Mental Health and contextual data from
the U.S. Bureau of the Census (N = 18,533). Substantial racial/ethnic diagnostic
variations were found. African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics were
significantly more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia (psychoses) than
whites. Men were substantially more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia
than women. Neighborhood characteristics improved model fit, but they did not
substantially reduce or eliminate the impact of race/ethnicity or gender.
Clients from communities marked by high unemployment and poverty were
significantly more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than those from low
unemployment neighborhoods. Keywords: race/ethnicity, schizophrenia,
community, diagnosis, clinicians
Rachel Lanzerotti,
Michael Mayer, Wendy Ormiston & Laura Podwoski Racism in
Queer Communities: What Can White People Do? (p55-71)
This article describes a
collective effort by four White queer Master of Social Work students to address
racism in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQQ)
communities in San Francisco. The authors combined commitment to take action for
racial justice with their master project for the San Francisco State University
School of Social Work (2000), by conducting a practice project entitled
"Racism in Queer Communities: What Can White People Do?" In
consideration of a practical application of social work to social justice, this
article specifically will focus on the workshop component of the project and
will explore the theoretical development and methodology of the workshops, as
well as their successes and challenges. Keywords: racism, racial
justice, white privilege, queer, LGBTQQ, popular education, workshop
Ellen Reese Resisting
the Workfare State: Mobilizing General Relief Recipients in Los Angeles (p72-95)
This article is a case study of ACORN’s
campaign to organize welfare-to-work participants ("workfare workers")
in Los Angeles’ General Relief (GR) program, most of whom are African-American
or Latino. Workfare participants had various grievances, including health and
safety violations and lack of training and employment opportunities. In the
1990s, Los Angeles County supervisors also reduced GR grants and adopted a
five-month time limit for welfare receipt. ACORN’s campaign to "end
workfare as we know it" illustrates the potential for building an effective
grassroots, gender-integrated, multi-racial organization of welfare recipients.
By strategically framing welfare issues as "workers’ issues", using
disruptive protest tactics, and working in alliance with other groups, ACORN
won, or helped to win, important policy concessions for GR recipients at the
state and local level. Keywords: general relief, welfare reform,
workfare, welfare rights, social movements, labor movement, community organizing
Cherise A.
Harris Who Supports Welfare Reform and Why? (p96-121)
The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 has dramatically
changed the face of the welfare state. Many authors have argued that prejudiced
attitudes toward minorities and the poor, and attitudes concerning the value of
work shape public support for welfare reform. However, the impact demographic
membership has on these variables and how this translates into support for
welfare restrictions remains somewhat unclear. The findings of this study show
that, in general, racial attitudes have a smaller impact on support for welfare
restrictions, where attitudes toward the poor and attitudes toward work are more
salient indicators of support. Additionally, respondents' race and gender are
moderate indicators, while income is insignificant to support for welfare
restrictions. Lastly, differences in attitudes by race and gender suggest that
support for restrictions differs according to social location. Keywords: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996,
Temporary Assistance to Neddy Families (TANF), Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC), welfare, welfare reform, attitudes toward welfare
Robert Carr Stigmas,
Gender and Coping: A Study of HIV+ Jamaicans (p122-144)
This study investigated the
nature of social stigmas poor urban and rural HIV+ Jamaicans contend with in
their daily lives, and their coping strategies. Poor HIV+ Jamaicans (7 women and
8 men) from urban and rural settings were interviewed in depth. Stigmas found
were related to fears of contamination in the general population. A gendered
hierarchy was also present since men were less stigmatized than women and women
less stigmatized than men who failed to meet community standards of masculine
behavior. Women reported high levels of psychological and physical abuse. A
strong link was found between the treatment of poor HIV+ Jamaicans and the abuse
sanctioned for sex/gender transgressors. Dominant coping strategies were
secrecy, family support, and religion. Keywords: HIV, AIDS,
Jamaica, stigma, homophobia, sexuality, gender, poverty, spirituality, abuse,
discrimination
Donna Baines Radical
Social Work, Race, Class, and Gender (p145-167)
This study of left-of-center social
workers in Toronto, Canada found that workers employed in politically engaged,
community settings tended to formulate race, class, gender in as a dynamic
whereas workers employed in bureaucratic, depoliticized settings used more
limited and segmented formulations. The article shows how single strand
formulations limit our capacity to talk about any one of these social relations
on its own conjunction with other axes of oppression. Concluding with a look at
work place resistance, this article calls for the development of anti-racist,
anti-sexist, and class conscious social work that resonates with the
depoliticizing conditions that exist today. Keywords: radical
social work, race, class and gender
Chishamiso T. Towley The Maternal Socialization of Black Adolescent Mothers (p168-184)
This qualitative research study
examines the meaning of motherhood for African American adolescent mothers. The
research focused on the context and content of maternal messages received by
young African American females in a social service program. It contributes to
the burgeoning body of empirical literature, which attempts to look more
critically, subjectively and holistically at their maternal socialization
experiences. The study concludes that while some adolescent mothers are able to
find positive and self-affirming ways to express maternal identity, they
continue to negotiate with negative and stigmatizing messages about themselves,
some of which are conveyed by institutions with which they engage. Implications
for service delivery, policy and program development are considered. Keywords: black, adolescent, socialization
Guest
Editor: Cecelia Baldwin
Jean
Ait Belkhir & Lenus Jack, Jr. Introduction (p3-7)
Cecelia
Baldwin The Development of Rhetorical Privilege in the News
Reporting of Violent Crime (p8-19)
This
study explores the linguistic presentation of violent crime in news reporting
and reveals how rhetorical patterns created a distorted media. This
distortion subsequently created an extension of privilege granted to the
dominant culture and/or to high economic status. Specifically, this study
examined the term boy and other child oriented linguistic attributes that
projected rhetorical imagery that in turn alleviated responsibility for crimes
committed. Included in the study are several high profile cases of violent
crimes that have had highly saturated media coverage where a rhetorical
alleviation of responsibility was repeatedly given to the dominant culture and
repeatedly denied to diverse cultures. Keywords: media, journalism,
criminology, news reporting, linguistics, race, gender, and class
Meenaskshi
Gigi Durham Adolescents, the Internet, and the Politics of Gender: A
Feminist Case Analysis (p20-41)
This
case study is based on field observation of the first hands-on Internet sessions
experienced by a group of lower-income minority teenagers in a inner-city middle
school. Using feminist analysis to interrogate the social dynamic within
which the Internet use took place, I explore how new technologies are
appropriated by adolescents as a site of social bonding. I conclude that
the adolescents users' social locations in terms of gender, race, and class work
to constrain Internet use to support dominant relations of power. Keywords: adolescents, gender, Internet, new media, teenagers
Shahrzad
Mojab The Politics of "Cyberfeminism" in the Middle East: The
Case of Kurdish Women (p42-63)
Cyberspace
has already emerged as an important site of political struggle, compelling
various social forces to extend their 'real world' activism to the world of
electronic 'virtuality.' While the state and the market continue their
scramble for the control of cyberspace and its 'netizens', some citizens resist
the virtualization of life, which they see as a new, more aggressive, form
of domination and dehumanization. Feminists have actively
participated in this political struggle and are sharply divided over the
question of 'empowering' women through activism in the virtual space. This
paper examines the politics of feminist struggle in cyberspace by focusing on
the experience of using the Internet as a means of advancing feminist studies
and activism among the women of the non-state Kurdish nation. The paper
begins with a brief review of the debate on new communication technologies and
political struggle. It will then sketch the lives of Kurdish women who are
denied the right to national, cultural and linguistic identities, the right to
self-rule, the right to organize, and are, consequently, engaged in a bitter
nationalist conflict, which overshadows feminist activism. Reflecting on
the experience of the International Kurdish Women's Studies Network, the paper
offers a critique of both the 'optimist' (technological determinist) and
'pessimist' (technophobic) approaches. Keywords: Kurdish women,
globalization, cyberactivism, cyberfeminism, women and technology
Bertram
D. Ashe "Hair Drama" on the Cover of Vibe Magazine (p64-77)
This study consists of a cultural reading
of the cover photograph of the June-July 1999 issue of Vibe magazine. It
explores the relationship between Mase, an African-American male rap star, and
the three anonymous African-American female models that surround him. The study
interprets the cover through the long, straightened hair of the models, locating
the models’ hair in a historically-informed context of black hair theory and
practice. The study argues that the models’ presence on the cover,
particularly their "bone straight and long" hair, "enhances"
Mase in much the same way breast-augmented "trophy women"
"enhance" their mates. Ultimately, the study encourages and validates
a wide variety of black hair styles—including straightening—even as it urges
the acceptance of black hair as a site where the demonstration of the struggle
for black consciousness (however one exhibits that consciousness on his or her
head) can be observed. Keywords: African-American hair, hip hop culture,
African American music, beauty
Robin
Hardin & Marcie Hinton The Squelching of Free Speech in Memphis:
The Life of a black Post-Reconstruction Newspaper (p78-95)
Since the appearance of New Orleans’ L’Union, the
first black newspaper in the South in 1862, two currents have flowed through the
rhetoric of the black press. These currents of opposition to white racism and
the assertion of self-determination created a watershed of nationality in the
black community. While there were hundreds of short-lived black newspapers
around the turn of the century, few offered a more popular and powerful voice
than that of the Memphis Free Speech. And, few newspapers black or white,
had such a prime playing field as it did. Firstly, Memphis was a prime location
with a large African-American community, which dealt with widespread hostility
among the races. Secondly, Ida B. Wells, who was the editor of the paper during
its final years, was a bold and remarkably talented woman. The small black
Memphis newspaper served as Wells’ springboard as an influential voice of
black America in the early twentieth century. This paper examines the life and
the subsequent demise of the Memphis Free Speech. Keywords: Ida B.
Wells, Memphis, Black Newspapers, Censorship, Memphis Free-Speech
Katherine
N. Kinnick, Candace White & Kadesha Washington Racial
Representation of Computer Users in Prime-Time Advertising (p96-115)
A content
analysis of 437 prime-time television commercials depicting 938 people using
computers revealed that commercials clearly represent the world from a white
perspective. While people of color were well represented, men of color where
under-represented. Women and children of color were depicted in the workplace or
school, while white women and children were portrayed in both home and
work/school roles. African-American men were significantly more likely to be
portrayed as celebrity or athletes. Keywords: racial representation in
television commercials, computer advertising, race and technology, advertising
stereotypes
Melinda
M. Schwenck "Negro Stars" and the USIA's Portrait of
Democracy (p116-139)
From 1952-1961, the U.S. Information Agency addressed the
nation’s race problems with films about "Negro stars." This paper
analyzes how the USIA’s films appropriated the lives of five internationally
celebrated African Americans to provide visual evidence that American democracy
fostered individual freedom. The author describes the political context that
motivated the USIA to rely almost solely upon the Horatio Alger myth and
celebratory discourse in its portrayals of African Americans. Keywords: Government
propaganda, race, civil rights, visual persuasion, cultural diplomacy, Marian
Anderson, Ralph Bunche, Wilma Rudolph, Rafer Johnson. Althea Gibson, democracy
Jane
L. Twomey Newspaper Coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles
Uprising (p140-154)
Coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising in The Korean
Times and the Los Angeles Sentinel reveals that both minority
newspapers symbolically constructed the event and their community’s role in it
within the borders of a re-articulated, white-dominated racial hierarchy. This
hierarchy, part of a larger racial ideology constructed and maintained for the
benefit whites, is a powerful tool in the maintenance of white hegemony in the
United States. The author argues that by constructing their news coverage in
such a way, both groups symbolically sought white validation, thereby supporting
the superior position of whites and reducing the possibility of any inter-ethnic
alliance that might substantially challenge white hegemony. Keywords: 1992
Los Angeles uprising, hegemony, minority media, racial hierarchy, racial
ideology, white validation
Radharani
Ray Interrogating Race in Mississippi Masala (p155-175)
This essay argues against race as a signifying claim and
contends that Mississippi Masala supports that view. The critique
demonstrates how the social meaning of race is constructed by the interaction
between existing beliefs about racial differences and the exigencies of the
particular situation. Informed by Hall, ideology is understood as a structure
that constrains practice, yet meanings assigned to individual practices and
events constantly produce and reproduce that structure. I contend that Mississippi
Masala carries a resounding argument about the ambiguity, the concealing effect, and the oversimplification of racial categorization. This
interpretation of Mississippi Masala reveals how race becomes primarily a
socio-political discursive construction. Keywords: race, class, ideology, Mississippi Masala
Joann
Lee Asian American Actors in Film, Television and Theater: An
Ethnographic Case Study (p176-184)
Images from Hollywood as well as television are a dominant
part of American culture, often mirroring and even shaping our perceptions of
society. With the push towards multiculturalism the myth of a white dominated
Anglo America is undergoing redefinition from a multitude of ethnic voices. This
study examines how Asian American actors deal with constraints within film,
television, and theater in the context of being a minority in an industry where
physical appearance—in particular racial features—play a key role to
success. Narratives from veteran and aspiring Asian American actors provide
insights into how this minority is coping with shifts in opportunities and
attitudes in casting for films, television and theater. Keywords: Asian
American, media, images, film, theater, television, acting, race, gender,
barrier
Guest
Co-editors: Ahcène Larbi and Mackie Blanton
Ahcène
Larbi Prologue (p5-6)
Mackie
Blanton Foreword - Amazigh Light (p7-11)
Ahcène
Larbi and Rabah Seffal Interview with an Amazigh Sociologist
(p12-24)
Rabah
Kalhouche Socio-Historical Determinations of Loan Words from
Arabic to Kabyle (Berber) (p25-32)
Rachid
Aadnani Resistance as a Linguistic Practice in Mohammed
Khair-Eddine's. Légende et Vie d'Agoun'chich (p33-56)
This article considers the manner in
which the Tamazight (Berber) language is deployed to undermine official cultural
constructs that surpress crucial aspects of Moroccan and Maghrebian identities.
It also examines how the Francophone text can be used both to give voice to a
repressed culture and challenge the very medium in which it is written, even as
it exposes the cruelties that the French inflicted on the Amazigh populations of
the Atlas mountains during colonial military campaigns in North Africa. Keywords: Tamazight (Berber) language, cultural constructs, Maghrebian identities,
colonial military campaigns in North Africa.
Abderrahman
El Aissati Ethnic Identity, Language Shift and the Amazigh Voice
in Morocco and Algeria (p57-69)
Although Berber is known to be the indigenous language of the
populations of North Africa for over thirty centuries, it has never been
promoted to the status of a standard language, let alone that of an official
language of any of the states where it is traditionally spoken as a mother
tongue. Since the late 1960s, a revival movement has been striving for official
recognition of Berber. Some recent events in Morocco and Algeria serve as proof
of a limited success of this movement; but as a result of growing urbanization,
education (mainly in Arabic and French), and emigration inside and outside
Morocco, the threat of a massive language shift is greater than ever. This
paper explores the paradoxical constructs of ethnic identity and linguistic
identity in Morocco and Algeria, and highlights their role in the revival
movement. In the light of these constructs, it deals with (i) the factors that
energize the revival movement, (ii) the factors that impede the official
recognition of Berber and its standardization, and finally (iii) the prospects
for the survival of Berber. Keywords: Berber, North Africa, ethnic
identity, linguistic identity, Marocco, Algeria.
Daniela
Merolla Questioning Gender, Nationalism and Ethnicity in the
Maghreb: Voices of Women in the Kabyle Literacy Space (p70-101)
My paper will focus on the interactions between gender and
community in oral and written narratives from Kabylia. Since the eighties, the
studies on multiethnic and multicultural societies have progressively been
concerned with the intersections between gender, race, and ethnicity. Other
researches have discussed the construction of gender in the colonial discourse
and in the nationalist movements of the Middle East. It is not by chance that
these two streams of research draw together when we look at the construction of
gender and community in the Kabyle context both the women's question and the
so-called Berber's question were central issues in the making of Algeria. Until
this aspect, the field of Berber studies calls attention for the issue of gender
and minorities that has scarcely been treated in the critical apprehension of
Nationalism and Orientalism.. Looking at Kabyle oral narratives, we find a
gendered (dominant) discourse constructed around the Kabyle community/Islamic
Umma relationship. A counter discourse in female terms takes place in the
delineation of Kabyle women's models, but it finds insuperable limit in the
acceptation of the encompassing patrilineal system. Turning to novels by women's
writers from Kabylia, we find a conflicting and dramatic relationship between
Kabyle identity and women's identity. Yet, these texts reveal a preliminary
'female' project for the construction of a renewed Kabyle community, a
construction that is inextricably linked to the problematic relationship between
Kabylia and Algeria.Keywords: multiethnic, multicultural, intersections
gender, race, ethnicity, Berber’s question, Algeria, Berber studies
Tassadit
Yacine Women, their Space and Creativity in Berber Society
(p102-113)
Women are naturally associated with cultural production,
especially in traditional areas relegated historically to women in their own
respective societies. We can therefore sketch out the broad outlines of a tight
relationship between women and folk art. Pottery, weaving, home decoration,
decoration of grain storage compartments, embroidery, etc., are all women's ways
of doing in many cultures. Such is also the case with many regions of the
Amazigh world, and, of course, with that of the Kabylia homelands of Algeria and
the Shleuh homelands of Morocco. The division of labor between sexes, which
includes the cultural production of both the physical and the material, entails
the intellectual production as well. Overcoming historical obstacles that
impinge upon them on the socio-political level as well, Amazigh women have
learned to exist as producers. Some Amazigh women chronicle the psychology of
such an existence in both poetry and song.Keywords: Amazigh women,
Kabylia, Shleuh
Amar
Almasude Protest Music and Poetry in the Rif (p114-134)
After independence, an elite of
plutocrats and religious scholars monopolized the political and economic power
in Morocco. As a consequence, vast masses of the population were marginalized,
and resistance began to gain momentum in certain regions. The Riffians in the
North of Morocco were leaders of this resistance. Given its strategic position
bordering Algeria and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, on the
Mediterranean Sea, the Rif [The northern part of Morocco is usually called the
Rif and is inhabited by a population speaking Riffian or Tarifit. Tarifit is a
variant of the Tamazight language common to all Imazighen.] developed a solid
economy based on smuggling and emigration. However, this economic system
impacted Riffian society in ways that might be both negative and positive. These
experiences are articulated in the works of Amazigh artists, who committed their
lives to expressing concerns about the future of their people. This paper is
intended to help understand various themes of their songs, which include
modernity, emigration, education, capitalism, and democracy. Keywords: Amazigh artists, songs, modernity, emigration, education, capitalism, democracy
Salem
Chaker Berber Challenge in Algeria: The State of the Question
(p135-156)
Even for the non-expert observer of the Maghreb, the Berber
parameter has now become an essential element of the political, social, and
cultural scene in both Algeria and Morocco. In Algeria, since 1989, a whole
series of spectacular actions confirmed the significant adherence of the Kabyle
population to the Berber claim. The latest demonstrations across the region by
Kabyle youth in June-July 1998, following upon the assassination of Lounes
Matoub, remind us that the embers of Berberism are ready to be fanned into
flames at any time. In Morocco, the August 29, 1994 royal address in favor of
the teaching of Berber took place in a quieter landscape, but it truly
represents the rise of a Berber aspiration. Albeit admittedly lacking
organization and political character, the Moroccan political power machine
undoubtedly wanted to anticipate and neutralize it to avoid a possible evolution
in "the Algerian way." This paper will be limited to a presentation of
an update of the situation of the "Berber question" in Algeria, the
forces involved, its actors, and the recent and current developments. Keywords: Magrheb, Berber, Algeria, Marocco, Kabyle, Berberism, Algerian way, Berber
question
Jean
Ait Belkhir and Bernice McNair Barnett Race, Gender and Class
Intersectionality (p157-174)
This
article has been published in a book on Race, Gender & Class Studies
entitled: "Introduction to Sociology: A Race, Gender & Class
Perspective," 1999, Race, Gender and Class Publications. The book is a
collaborative RGC project in which many different sociologists, with expertise
in their particular subfield areas, have written a chapter introducing the topic
from a race, gender, and class perspective. There are 9 Units, composed of 24
chapters, covering major subfields in sociology. Each introduces basic theories,
concepts, and research on the topic as well as provides thought questions,
suggested readings, and extensive bibliographies useful to students and
professors. Reprinting this article from the book will provide a better idea
about trace, gender and class studies.
Susan Archer Mann & Michael D. Grimes Common and
Contested Grounds: Marxism and Race, Gender and Class Analysis (p3-22)
This special issue is
devoted to a debate between Marxism and Race, Gender and Class analyses. In our
view, the necessity for such a debate reflects seismic changes in social
structures, both locally and globally. Therefore, we introduce this special
issue by first grounding this debate in the social, economic and political
conditions that have given rise to paradigmatic shifts in the understanding of
social inequalities and to new and competing scholarships of liberation.
Martha E. Gimenez Marxism, and Class,
Gender, and Race: Rethinking the Trilogy
(p23-33)
This
paper examines the soundness of critical assessments of Marxism which present,
as an unassailable conclusion, the view that Marx and Marxism are of little use
for the study of the connections between class, gender and race. Arguing that,
contrary to the prevailing view, Marx and Marxism are indeed necessary for
elucidating the relationship between class and identities, the author examines
the limitations of the Race, Gender & Class perspective and suggests that
the nameless power underlying all "raced, gendered, and classed" interactions is none other than class power and that, consequently, the RGC
perspective needs Marxism to go beyond semantics (e.g., the endless
proliferation of terms to name the connections between class, gender and race)
and fulfill its avowed theoretical and emancipatory objectives. Keywords: Marxism, class, gender, race
Celine-Marie Pascale All in a Day’s Work. A Feminist Analysis of Class Formation
and Social Identity (p34-60)
In this paper, I explore the mutual
production of racialized, gendered, and classed identities in the United States.
After a brief theoretical overview that includes Marxist theories of class,
theories of racial inequality, and feminist Marxism, I turn to an historical
account of proletarianization in the United States between 1860 and 1920. In
concluding, I analyze the division of labor and the development of class
consciousness in the United States by taking into account the legal and social
restrictions that enforced racialized and gendered conceptions of citizenship. Keywords: gender, race, class consciousness, inequality, U.S.
Richard Hogan Class, Race and Gender Inequality
(p61-93)
Class, race, and gender are theoretically
distinct forms of "categorical inequality," rooted in
"exploitation" and "opportunity hoarding," reproduced
through "emulation," and institutionalized through
"adaptation." These distinct forms of inequality are relatively
autonomous, but their relative importance and autonomy varies socially and
historically. They follow, in general, the dialectical relations of
institutional political and economic development, on the one hand, and political
opportunity and challenge, on the other. In the U.S., for example, class, race,
and gender inequality develop and change in the course of capital accumulation
and state making as these engender and respond to cycles of collective action by
various class, race, and gender interests that challenge institutionalized
inequality in the course of its development. The rise and fall of class, race,
and gender inequality between 1776 and 1929 illustrates the potential of this
perspective. This exploratory analysis suggests that race and gender were the
predominant economic relations and political interests in the Antebellum
political economy. After Reconstruction, however, class and gender economic
relations and political interests became more prominent as white male capitalist
privilege was challenged. Keywords: political economy, social theory, social
history: U.S. 1776-1929
Derek V. Price The Praxis of Critical Empiricism: Race, Class, Gender and
Social Justice (p94-116)
Marxist scholarship and research on the
intersections of race, class, and gender are linked analytically through the
concept of hegemony. Hegemony refers to the struggle between agents for and
against the social transformation of dominant structures. While most scholars
who utilize a race, class, and gender framework agree that social science and
education should be used to challenge social inequities, the strategies of this
struggle are often contentious. In this paper, I argue against the reification
of statistical techniques as implicitly dominating, and for a critical
empiricism as a form of counter-hegemonic praxis. In addition, I advocate for
the connection of theory and practice in the classroom in terms of radical
pedagogy. Race, class, and gender research provides empirical and narrative
facts of ongoing social inequality, while also presenting educators with
analytical tools to "meet students where they are at." This essay
offers a constructive way to connect research on race, class, and gender with
praxis for social justice. Keywords: inequality, social change, education,
consciousness
John Foran "Studying Revolutions through the Prism of Race, Gender
and Class: Notes toward a Framework" (p117-143)
The intersection – or perhaps, better
put, interconnection – of race, class, and gender has become a cutting-edge
issue in critical sociological work today. While the sociology of revolutions
has finally begun to address issues of gender and, to a lesser degree, race,
there is as yet no agreement on how to integrate these three principles
of social stratification for the analysis of revolutions. This essay synthesizes
some recent work on Latin American revolutions in an effort to draw out lessons
for studying the role played by diversely situated actors in the making of
revolutions in Latin America and what difference these actors have made in the
outcomes of revolutions (and conversely, how revolutions have affected the lives
of those who made them). It assesses such topics as the nature of revolutionary
coalitions, the opportunities and constraints for participation, and the impact
of race, class, and gender on the imperfect outcomes of Latin American
revolutions. Keywords: revolutions, Latin America, race, class, and gender
Jean Ait Belkhir Marxism without Apologies Integrating Race, Gender, and
Class: a Working Class Approach (p142-171)
The Marxist analysis of
capitalism has never been more necessary than under the world capitalist economy
of today. Does capitalism have the capacity to end racism, sexism and classism,
to abolish economic and cultural inequality, to eliminate exploitation and
domination, to reconcile environment, technology and society? No way. The
reality is that capitalism stops at nothing to maximize profits even if it means
destroying our planet and exploiting its people. It always has been, and so long
as capitalism dominates our economic and social system, it always must be.
Anti-Marxism may have its moment, but the struggle for social justice against
racism, sexism and classism will continue to haunt them; because, as Marx said,
we believe that the full development of all should be the conditions of the full
development of each.
Guest Co-Editors: Deborah B. Smith and Karen A. Johnson
Jean Ait Belkhir, Deborah B. Smith, Lenus Jack Jr. Introduction
to Race, Gender and Class in Education (p3-7)
This is an appeal to the readers
of this journal to more closely examine intersections of race, gender and power
in your writing because such materials are needed to teach future teachers and
educators in general (Carl Grant et al., 2000).
Valerie Maholmes Revisiting Stereotype Threat: Examining
minority students’ attitudes toward learning mathematics and
science (p8-21)
This
paper invites the reader to examine the minority student achievement gap through
a different conceptual lens. Drawing on the work of Claude Steele and his notion
of "stereotype threat", the author explores whether elementary and
secondary students’ attitudes toward learning mathematics and science reveal
signs of stereotype threat. The author discusses the value of looking at student
achievement through this conceptual framework and poses suggestions for the ways
in which educators and parents can support students’ learning and school
performance. Keywords: mathematics, science, attitudes toward learning, parent involvement, minority
student achievement
Barbara Signer & Deborah Saldana Educational
and Career Aspirations of High School Students and Race, Gender, Class
Differences (p22-34)
The
purpose of this study is to examine relationships between high school students’
aspirations (educational and career), their mathematics achievement levels,
ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status with their parents’ education and
occupations. One hundred secondary students (50 African American and 60 white)
were interviewed from low-SES urban and high-SES suburban school communities.
Chi-square analyses of relationships between the student variables and the
parents’ education are reported. Differences in the relationships between the
students' aspirations and their mothers’ and fathers’ education levels are
presented. Significant relationships were detected for the interaction of
mathematics achievement and ethnicity with student educational aspirations. Keywords: student aspirations, high school students, parental education, ethnicity,
socioeconomic status, mathematics achievement
Stacey J. Lee Exploring and
Transforming the Landscape of Gender and Sexuality: Hmong American Teenaged
Girls (p35-46)
Young
Hmong American women and girls are in the process of transforming the landscape
of gender and sexuality within their communities. This paper examines the
inter-generational conflict over the transformation of gender and sexuality, and
considers the impact of the conflict on students' schooling experiences. The
inter-generational conflict between immigrant parents and their daughters is
examined within the broader conflict between the Hmong culture and the dominant
US culture. The paper concludes with suggestions for educational policy and
practice. Keywords: Hmong, Immigrant, gender & education
Ming Fang He & JoAnn Phillion Trapped In-Between:
A Narrative Exploration
of Race, Gender, and Class (p47-56)
Our
purpose is to explore issues of race, gender, and class from a narrative point
of view that focuses on personal experience. Two three-year narrative studies
are used as the basis for this discussion. One study focused on three Chinese
women teachers in-between cultural experiences in Canada and China. The other
study focused on one Black teacher's experiences in a multicultural school in
Canada. In both inquiries understandings of race, gender, and class and the
impact on identity development, grew out of the personal and professional life
experiences of participants. In this paper we discuss what we learned from the
studies, the complexities of cross-cultural understandings of race, gender and
class, and the potential contribution narrative methods of inquiry offer to
developing new perspectives on these issues. Keywords:
cultural experiences in Canada and China, cross-cultural understandings of race,
gender and class
Pauline Lipman, Eric Gutstein Undermining the Struggle for Equity: A Case Study of Chicago School Policy in a Latino/a
School June 1, 2000 (p57-81)
This paper examines implications of Chicago school
policies for educators and students in one Latino/a elementary school. We argue
that although Chicago’s centrally regulated accountability measures may
resonate with demands to improve the education of low-income children of color,
current policies actually undermine the struggle for an empowering, equitable
education for African Americans, Latinos, and other students of color. We
develop this argument through three themes drawn from our qualitative data: 1)
current Chicago Public Schools policies frustrate the efforts of some teachers
at the school to promote critical literacy; 2) the policies counter curricula
and pedagogies rooted in the language, culture, lived experiences, and
identities of Latino/a students; and 3) the current policies reinforce
ideologically the myth of individual achievement and meritocracy. Finally, we
suggest some elements of a framework for a more liberatory education – one
that is rooted in a sociocultural analysis of educational failure and that
supports critical literacies that are grounded in students’ language, culture,
and experiences. Keywords:
Latino/a elementary school, literacies, Chicago school policies
María Elena ReyesTortured Victory or Joyful
Accomplishment? Successful Eskimo and Latina College Students (p82-106)
The
data from this study indicated that the quality of education offered in the
public high schools both in Texas and in Alaska often poses a serious barrier to
minority students’ later achievement at college. Students reported showing up
for college unable to perform college work. Academically unprepared students in
Texas made use of campus labs during their first two years of college to build
up their skills. Students in the Alaska study typically spent one or two years
taking ‘developmental’ classes prior to taking regular college course work,
a pattern that delayed degree completion by several years. In addition, evidence
suggested that campus climate continues to be a challenge for students who cited
instances of perceived bias, racism or discrimination. It is clear that these
students continue to be negatively impacted educationally by the societal
barriers of race, gender and class. Keywords: Latinas and Alaska Natives, University of Texas at Austin University of
Alaska Fairbanks, societal barriers of race, gender and class
Dave Ramsaran Education in a Multi-Racial Society: Race
Class and Patriarchy in Collusion
(p107-126)
This
paper examines the experience of a small multi-cultural developing society,
Trinidad and Tobago, in its attempt to increase educational access to all in
society. It is suggested that though significant strides have been made with
respect to increasing overall access to education, other factors influence in
which tier of a two-tiered system one gets into, namely race, gender and class.
To understand Trinidad and Tobago society and to account for the interaction of
the different races and cultures in both a historical and contemporary
situation, the creole society thesis is utilized. To understand the unique
position of women within the society the theory of multiple patriarchies which
coincides with different ethnic groups is used. The data used are both country
level data and data generated by a Standard of Living Survey conducted among a
sample of households. A combination of binary, multinomial and ordered logistic
regressions is used to analyze the data. Keywords: education, race, gender, class.
Alan Singer Wanted - Theories and Research that Explain
Privilege and Oppression in Education and U.S. Society (p127-138)
Educators
concerned with ways that United States institutions address issues related to
race, gender, ethnicity and class, especially inequality and injustice, are
participating in the development of postmodern explanations of education and
society that emphasize the ways that subordinated groups describe their own
experiences. These approaches contest the hegemony of received truth by
demonstrating that the same institutions a society describes as democratic,
pluralistic, open, and able to meet the material needs of its citizens, are
experienced by many people as discriminatory and oppressive. But despite their
challenge to hegemonic assumptions, postmodern approaches have limitations.
While they expose examples of privilege and oppression, they are less successful
at explaining the complex relationships within and between groups, the
historical roots of privilege and oppression, their resiliency within societies,
and their points of vulnerability. The concepts of privilege and oppression, as
applied by postmodernist educational theorists, can be critical concepts for
understanding race, gender, ethnicity and class in education and society, but
only when they are applied in the context of a broader explanation of a class
stratified society. Keywords: Postmodernism, privilege, oppression, race, class, gender, ethnicity
George J. Sefa Dei Rescuing Theory: Anti-Racism and
Inclusive Education (p139-161)
In
this paper I present anti-racist thought and practice as resistant responses to
dominant structures and knowledges. The discussion is contextualized in some
personal reflections on contemporary racist practices and the relevance of
anti-racism for educational and social transformation. I utilize the response of
student-teachers to classroom readings on anti-racism, with a particular gaze on
education and its role in the learner’s pursuit of a politics of resistance,
subversion and transformation. The paper argues that material, symbolic and
ideological representation and practice help define our myriad of identities as
students, learners, educators and political activists. A key question is: how
can education help to address the problem of racializing subjects? The comments
of student teachers to anti-racist discursive thought and practice point to the
desires and perils of anti-racism and suggest ways for educators to take up the
challenge of transformative politics. I argue that all learners can begin where
they are at by striving for knowledge of their own intersecting and interlocking
racial, gender, class and sexual identities. Keywords: race, anti-racism, difference, identity,
student-teachers, education and change, Canada
Jeanne Weiler Alternative Visions: (Re)Fashioning Female
Gender Identities Within an Urban Classroom (p162-183)
Using
Bernstein"s theory of pedagogic practice, this paper explores how an
invisible pedagogy (an integrated curriculum) benefits young adolescent female
students attending a school for educationally disenfranchised students. Based on
field work, the paper also focuses on those aspects of the curriculum-in-use
which positively impact on the gender identities of young working class women
emphasizing both skills and knowledge which may help them to more critically
examine and negotiate unequal relations at home and in the workplace. Keywords: urban females, adolescents, working class, Latinas,
curriculum, career education, gender identity, alternative schools
Guest Co-Editors: Beverly Favre and Rose Wilson
Jean Ait Belkhir, Beverly Favre, Lenus Jack Jr.Introduction to RGC and Social Work Practice Special Issue (p3-6)
B.J. Bryson &
Claudia Lawrence-Webb Social Work Practice and Profession: The
Utility of Black Feminist Thought (p7-17)
Black feminist thought is introduced,
defined and examined as a theoretical perspective and model for professional
social work practice. Developed by and for Black women, its utility may serve to
alter the methods used with similar marginalized client populations. The
significance of historical socio-economic context, the intersections of
oppression and culturally specific survival tactics are discussed as omitted
themes in practice. Mutuality of the client - worker experience is encouraged
through prioritizing client self-definition and direction of problem resolution.
Professional social work is discussed for greater inclusion of marginalized
perspectives. Keywords: Black feminist thought, social work practice, survival tactics,
inclusion of marginalized perspectives.
Colleen M. Galambos
& Sherri Lind Hughess Using Political and Community Activism
to Develop Leadership Skills in Women (p18-35)
A review of the literature suggests that
there is gender variation in the use of leadership, power, and influence. This
article discusses the results of an exploratory study that examined
socialization influences and participation in political and community activism
on the personal development of female social work students. From a qualitative
perspective, the study explores the influence of these activities on women’s
development in the areas of leadership, influence, use of power, and
collaboration. Recommendations are offered on ways to enhance leadership skills
and opportunities for women. Keywords: leadership, power, influence, women’s development, political
and community activism
Stan L. Bowie, Carol
Dutton Stepick & Alex Stepick III Voices From The Welfare
Vortex A Descriptive Profile of Urban, Low-Income African American Women on the
Eve of Devolution (p36-59)
The preliminary study is a longitudinal,
ethnographic profile of 20 welfare-reliant African American women in urban Miami
who are experiencing the transition from Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC) to Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). Data were collected through
repeated, in-depth interviews over an 18-month period and respondents were
assessed regarding family patterns and history, family health status, employment
experiences, income sources, and expenditure patterns. Dominant themes from
their welfare reform experience are isolated and respondent quotations are
provided regarding life on welfare, employment prospects and the impact of
immigrants, job training programs, the need to compromise self-respect and
dignity for survival, and hope and family aspirations. Keywords: African American women, welfare reform, PRWORA, ethnographic,
Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC)
Walter J. Pierce &
Erlange Elisme Suffering, Surviving, Succeeding: Understanding
and Working with Haitian Women (p60-76)
The oppressions of race gender and class
intersect quite clearly in the lives of Haitian immigrant women. Coming from a
society where color and class indicate privilege and access to resources,
Haitian immigrant women who are black and poor find opportunities here. Social
workers must learn to use empowerment models to overcome the effects of race,
gender and class in services to this population. Keywords: Haitian, ethnic-sensitive, race, class gender, immigrant,
social work practice
Jorge Delva, Alma
Trinidad & Brenda Jarmon Characteristics of Welfare
Recipients That Seek Drug Treatment in the U.S. (p77-90)
Little is known about factors that
facilitate seeking drug treatment, particularly among vulnerable populations and
among members of racial and ethnic minorities. This paper compares the
characteristics of welfare recipients who seek and do not seek drug treatment
and tests the effects of mental health problems on help-seeking, using a
national representative sample of 199 white, 371 black, and 138 Hispanic adults
living in U.S. households. Keywords: race/ethnicity, drugs, welfare, treatment, mental health
William F.
Stewart Social Worker Empowerment: Race, Gender, and Class
Factors (p91-98)
The concept of empowerment comes out of
social action ideology and the class struggle, and the minority civil rights and
feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s contributed to a growing concern about
the powerlessness of specific groups in society. Social workers are concerned
with empowerment of their clients and particularly those who have suffered
victimization and oppression but social workers may experience problems with
their own empowerment A survey of a purposive sample of 126 public and privately
employed social workers using a self administered questionnaire was completed.
The study examines the level of perceived empowerment of the respondents and
relates perceived empowerment to race, gender, and social class variables. The
analysis shows no significant difference by race or social class overall, but
there are statistically significant differences by gender and education
level. Keywords: empowerment,
social workers
Delores Dungee-Anderson
& Leavelle A.Cox Conflicting Gender Role Perceptions Among
Middle Class African American Males and Females (p99-120)
This paper examines interpersonal
violence between middle-class African American male college students and their
female partners. Gender role perceptions have been found to be an important
predictor of courtship violence. African American female college students in
intimate partner relationships tended to view gender roles as more egalitarian
while their male partners viewed males as dominant in the relationship. For
effective social work intervention with African American couple victims of
courtship violence, social work practitioners must respect and embrace these
divergent views of gender roles. They must also incorporate empowerment, ethnic
and gender-sensitive perspectives in social work practice to both recognize and
address the male’s direct confrontation with negative societal stereotypes of
himself as a "deficient" and aggressive member of society. A case
study illustrates gender role perception differences and empowerment, ethnic and
gender-sensitive social work practice interventions. Keywords: interpersonal violence, middle-class African American, social
work intervention.
Thanh V. Tran &
Kathleen McInnis-Dittrich Social Support, Stress, and
Psychological Distress Among Single Mothers (p121-138)
We conducted this study in a nationwide
sample of 394 single mothers aged 24 and older to determine whether social
support helps to reduce the negative impact of parental stress and financial
stress. The major outcome variable was psychological distress. Three models of
the stress process were analyzed empirically: the protective, moderator, and
preventive models. The data provided support for the protective and preventive
models. The findings from the protective model indicated that social support can
protect single mothers from the negative impact of both parental stress and
financial stress. The preventive model indicated single mothers with good social
support could avoid the negative impact of both parental and financial stress.
Implications for social work and policy are discussed. Keywords: Stress process, stress modeling, parental stress, financial
stress, single parent
Rich Vodde De-centering
privilege in social work education: Whose job is it anyway? (p139-160)
Although social work has positioned
itself as a champion of social justice within the helping professions, it
appears that an adequate job is not being done in Social Work education in
sensitizing students to issues of power and oppression. It is the author's
contention that a major reason for this lapse is due to manifestations of
privilege, particularly white male privilege, in social work education. As an
active process, 'to privilege' can be defined as "to give special attention
or attribute priority to an argument, an event or a text" In the following
paper, the author offers evidence for this contention as well as an analysis of
privilege and a framework for challenging manifestations of privilege in faculty
and students. Keywords: power, oppression, white male privilege, social work education, privilege
Richard K.
Caputo Multiculturalism and Social Justice in the United
States: An Attempt to Reconcile the Irreconcilable within a Pragmatic
Liberal Framework (p161-182)
This paper seeks to reconcile
multiculturalism and traditional U.S. liberalism properly understood. The paper
rests on the premises that fruitful discussion aimed at establishing truthful
statements of fact about social reality is possible despite irreconcilable
perspectives and that such discussion is essential for democracy. It rejects
arguments positing that pragmatic approaches to solving seemingly irreconcilable
problems lack a foundation to get the facts about social reality right or that
liberalism lacks a moral basis on which to make judgments about the limits of
tolerance. The paper discusses the multivalent nature of multiculturalism, the
contested nature of social justice, the philosophical underpinnings of liberal
democracy, and implications for social policy that take into account
ethnicity/race, gender, and class. Keywords: multiculturalism, liberalism, social justice, ethnicity/race, gender, and class
Guest Co-Editors: Deborah B. Smith and Karen A. Johnson
Foreword:
Deborah B. Smith & Karen A. Johnson Race, Gender & Class
in Education (p4-5)
Jean
Ait Belkhir, Lenus Jack Jr, Deborah B. Smith Introduction to
Race, Gender and Class in Education (p6-10)
Carl
A. Grant, Kim Wieczorek, & Maureen Gillette Text Materials
and the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender and Power (p11-34)
This
article is an appeal to the readers of this journal to reflect on and write with
such intersections in mind, especially when writing materials for teacher
education contexts. The obstacles that often prevent an intersection analysis in
teacher education text materials include isolated and superficial public
discussion of the separate markers as well as their intersections, fear of
conflict in discussions, and the lack of availability of models for writing and
reading to reflect on such materials. The case of writing an Introduction to
Education textbook is used to examine the constraints and challenges when
writing text materials for foundational teacher education classrooms. Challenges
include lack of models of intersection analysis in writing, the need to be
sensitive to the audiences of a foundational textbook, and lack of an
acknowledgment of the need for intersection analysis in peer review and
promotion hearings, especially for teacher educators who are also scholars.
Angela
Louque and Helen M. Garcia Hispanic American and African American
Women Scholars
(p35-57)
The
purposes of this study were to examine the factors that contribute to the
attainment of the Ph.D. degree by Hispanic American and African American women,
to provide insights about high achieving Hispanic American and African American
women that reflect contemporary values about education, to compare Hispanic
American and African American women’s educational experiences across both
cultures, and to further our understanding of academic achievement by learning
from the women who have attained this level of academic success. In order to
address these purposes a theoretical framework composed of five strands of
research was constructed. This research had previously identified factors that
influenced the academic achievement of traditional college students, African
American college students, and successful minority students. Keywords: Hispanic American women, African American women, attainment
of the Ph.D. degree.
Renée
Smith-Maddox Educational Aspirations of African American Eighth
Graders (p58-80)
This
study uses cross-sectional data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal
Study of Eighth Graders to explore the factors affecting the educational
aspirations of African American eighth graders and the extent to which this
goal-oriented variable varies by class and gender. The results indicate that a
combination of family (i.e., parent’s expectations, parent involvement,
poverty status, and parent’s education), community (i.e., discussing high
school plans and careers with an adult outside of the family and participation
in activities outside of school) and school measures (i.e., mathematics test
scores and placement in low ability groups) have a direct effect on aspirations.
These factors represent a combination of social and cultural resources that are
embedded in a young adolescent’s social network. Within this network the young
adolescent has a variety of experiences with individuals in their family,
school, and community. It is in this domain where aspirations are developed. Keywords: African American eighth graders, family, school, community
Lisa
M. Frehill Race, Class, Gender, and College Completion: The 1980
High School Senior Cohort (p81-107)
This
paper uses data from the national longitudinal study of the high school class of
1980 – known as High School and Beyond – to examine the educational fortunes
of a cohort six years after high school graduation. Although the educational
attainment gap between Blacks and Whites has narrowed in recent years, the
continued presence of this gap has a profound impact on overall life chances.
The intersection of race, gender, and several components of family class
background are considered in understanding students’ persistence in college
over a six-year period. A limited set of institutional effects – e.g., racial
composition and perceived quality of high schools – are also examined, since
the High School and Beyond data set includes information about students’ high
schools and includes students’ postsecondary educational transcripts. Keywords: high school and beyond, college completion, intersection of race, gender, and
class.
George Ansalone Keeping on Track: A Reassessment of Tracking in the Schools (p108-132)
Faith in American education has been supported not only by our historical belief that
education is valuable in and of itself but also by our commitment since the
nineteenth century to education as a tool of social engineering. In sum, an
integral part of the American dream has been the belief in schooling as the
surest path to economic and social equality. This paper provides a theoretical
analysis of tracking and attempts to explore the impact of this educational
structure on student academic achievement and affective development. Our
intention is to develop some broad-based generalizations that may be used as the
basis for new educational policy and to provide a sociological and pedagogical
reassessment of this educational practice. Additionally, we seek to determine if
this educational structure works against the concept of schooling as the
"Great American Equalizer" and empowers the existing structures of
dominance in society. Keywords: schooling, tracking, economic and social equality
Judy
M. Iseke-Barnes Ethnomathematics and Language in Decolonizing
Mathematics (p133-149)
This
paper examines mathematics and mathematics education, drawing upon anti-racist
and critical race theorizing, in discussing ethnomathematics, languages, and
mathematics. It focuses our attention on mathematics as dominant and privileged
discourses which are entwined with colonialism. We are encouraged to reconsider
our definitions of mathematics and mathematics education and to reconsider goals
in these areas towards decolonizing mathematics. It is asserted that mathematics
and mathematics education are produced in culture. D’Ambrosio (1985:45)
defined ethnomathematics as "the mathematics which is practiced among
identifiable cultural groups, such as national-tribal societies, labor groups,
children of a certain age bracket, professional classes, and so on." Keywords: mathematics, ethnomathematics, decolonizing mathematics.
Alicia
P. Rodriguez Adjusting the Multicultural Lens (p150-177)
Multicultural
education or multiculturalism, of whatever form, has been ripe for attack,
demonization, exaltation, and dismissal ever since it became popular in the
1980s. While the response to multicultural education from activists, educators,
critical radical theorists, conservative critics, liberal critics, and others
has ranged the spectrum of opinion, rarely have the respondents engaged in
serious analysis of the premises behind multicultural education and the validity
or weaknesses of the premises. Rather, quick, visceral responses have been more
the norm. Some important writers and thinkers have developed many provocative
ideas about the meaning of "culture," the nature of multiculturalism
and its implications, and the tension between "difference" and
"sameness" that enable us to interrogate the conceptual nuances of
multiculturalism. Although their ideas have been at the center of major
discussions in the humanities and social sciences, their ideas have not
significantly influenced educational practices in schools. This paper is an
attempt to merge the concept of multicultural education with these compelling
approaches to identity and hybridity. Keywords: multicultural education, identity, feminism, hybridity
Christine
E. Sleeter Creating an Empowering Multicultural
Curriculum (p178-196)
Learning
to construct a good multicultural curriculum is an on-going process. One is
never finished learning to do this, because in the process of grappling with the
questions about what is most worth teaching in a pluralistic society, one is
constantly learning. And, curriculum is something a teacher never does quite
"right." Every time I teach, the students are different, the context
is different, and I bring to the enterprise a deeper understanding of the
central issues than I had last time I taught similar concepts. Since a
multicultural curriculum delves into issues that touch the core of our own
personal and community-based identities, doing it well brings a personal, as
well as an intellectual response. The curriculum we teach is as good as our own
understanding of what we are teaching (Howard, 1999). The beliefs we bring about
what is worth teaching, and about diverse people, the society in which we live,
the students we are teaching, and the various academic disciplines have a good
deal to do with the substance of the curriculum we create and teach.
Jean
Ait Belkhir, Johnnella E. Butler, Lenus Jack Jr. Race, Gender
& Class in Volume 7, Number 2, 2000 (p4-6)
Qun
Wang Race, Gender and Class: Lyrics of American Ethnic Literature
and Cultures (p7-38)
"Race,
Gender and Class: Lyrics of American Ethnic Literature and Cultures" examines some of the topical issues in the study of African American, Asian
American, Native American, Latino/a American and cultures. Horizontally, the
article deals with inter- and intra-cultural conflicts, the use of two toned
language, and the fight for social justification as they are portrayed in
American ethnic literatures. Vertically, the connection of these ethnic
literatures is built on thematic preoccupations of race, gender and class. Keywords:
African American, Asian American, Native American, Latino/a American, working
class, literature, cultures.
George
J. Sefa Dei Recasting Anti-Racism and the Axis of Difference:
Beyond the Question of Theory (p39-56)
This
paper examines the axis of difference as a focal point in anti-racist work. To
transform society, anti-racism must ground academic theory and political
practice in particular identities while recognizing the intersectionality of
difference. In discussing the axis of difference, we interrogate the meanings of
‘oppression’ and ‘community’ for anti-racism politics. This paper also
explores the implications of theorizing the ‘particularities’ and the
representations of experience, and investigates the possibilities of spiritual
knowing and emotions as a basis of creating a ‘new epistemology’ of
anti-racism. It is argued that praxical understandings of multiple oppressions
must create the possibilities for transforming society.
Keywords:
anti-racism, community, oppression, identity,
difference, experience, spirituality and emotions.
Theresa
A. Martinez Race, Class, and Gender in the Lifestory of Chicanas: A
Critique of Nathan Glazer (p57-75)
In
his new book, We are All Multiculturalists Now (1997), Nathan
Glazer acknowledges shortcomings in the earlier work and now argues that African
Americans do not have the chance of life success he had once thought possible
due to longstanding institutional discrimination. At the same time, in the new
book, Glazer argues that Latinas/os, unlike African Americans, have "made
it" like white immigrant groups before them, harkening back to his
arguments in Beyond the Melting Pot (1970). The present study questions
Glazer’s contentions with regard to Latinas/os. Using current statistics on
Latinas/os in the United States and responses gleaned from sixty in-depth
interviews with Chicanas--Chicanas/os or Mexican Americans represent the largest
portion of the Latina/o population in America--this study seeks to refute Glazer’s
comments on the life experience of Latinas/os and his claims that Latinas/os now
enjoy the same life chances as whites in America.
Keywords:
Chicanas--Chicanas/os, Mexican Americans, life experience.
Tom
Meisenhelder Toward A Field Theory of Class, Gender, and
Race (p76-95)
I
want to suggest that the growing work of Pierre Bourdieu provides a very useful
way to specify the interrelationships of class, gender, and race in industrial
capitalist society. I want to offer a more or less free and interpretive use of
Bourdieu's theoretical ideas to envision how class, gender, and race
"work" as definers of social positions in a society like the United
States. Society is a "multidimensional space" organized around common
"factors of differentiation" that guide the distribution of various
types and amounts of capital to various positions within a particular social
field. Each of these social fields is structured according to certain principles
of differentiation, "di-vision," and hierarchy that constitute the
social dimensions of the field and its interrelated positions. All these various
social fields are in turn arranged together according to historically generated
and generally taken-for-granted principles of hierarchial structure that most
often stem from the influence of certain core fields. It follows that each
separate field has an relatively autonomous internal "logic" of
organization or "di-vision" and that relations between fields follows
a more generalized logic that characterizes the whole society. Keywords:
multidimensional space, factors of differentiation, interrelationships of class,
gender, and race.
Vincent
Serravallo Class and Gender in Recreational Marathon
Running (p96-121)
Recreational marathon running appears as
an expression of individual qualities, like initiative, discipline and
sacrifice. But an examination of the data provided by the New York City Marathon
clearly supports the view that social class and gender, alone and in
combination, better explain the long-term, uneven pattern of participation in
this 26.2 mile race. When men and women compete on the athletics field socioeconomic
status disappears. Black or white, Christian or Jew, rich or
poor...all that matters is that you’re out there on the field
giving your all. [In the stands,] corporate presidents sit next to
janitors...and they high-five each other when their team
scores...which makes me wonder if [status] should matter at all. (Eitzen
and Sage, 1997:244) Keywords:
occupation, work, social class, gender, professional-manager
class, marathon
Katherine
Hutchings Cultural Norms and Gender Inequality in
Malaysia (p122-148)
This
paper presents the findings of research conducted in Malaysia which examines the
equity practices of Australian and Japanese Multinational Corporations (MNCs).These
organizations make human resource management (HRM) policy decisions that are
influenced by a combination of the cultural and social environments in which
they operate and their own company policies (and associated corporate
citizenship responsibilities). Against a background of social closure/inequality
and corporate citizenship theories, this paper discusses cultural and social
factors and their influence on current equity responses in the workplaces of
selected MNCs in Malaysia. Importantly, it also draws attention to the
underlying dynamic between ethnicity, class and gender in this country and how
it may be used by MNCs as justification for not utilizing the practices observed
in the developed world. It concludes that the companies are "taking the
line of least resistance" in their decisions with national cultural and
social inequality on gender (and racial and class) lines being upheld and
reinforced at the workplace level.
Keywords: Australian and Japanese Multinational Corporations,
national cultural and social inequality on gender (and racial and class)
James
V. Fenelon, Rodney L. Brod Ideologies of Reverse Discrimination:
Race, Gender, Class, Age Analysis (p149-178)
This
article employs a quantitative statistical method, fully-saturated analysis of
covariance, to model the main and interactive effects of race, gender, class and
age on factor analyzed, surveyed perceptions of dependent measures of
institutional unfairness, ideologies of "reverse discrimination" and
support of affirmative action. Viewed together as a recursive (one-way causal)
system, and holding constant education level, the three ANCOVA models reveal a
number of important interactive and main effects of gender, class, age, and
particularly racial group membership on these three major ideologies surrounding
reverse discrimination. Conclusions and implications are discussed with respect
to RGC and affirmative action theory, research, and social policy. Keywords:
reverse discrimination, affirmative action, race, gender, class, age, education,
quantitative methods, analysis of covariance.
Guest Co-editors: Doris Ewing and
Steven P. Schacht
Jean Ait Belkhir, Johnnella E.
Butler, Lenus Jack Jr. Sexuality Special Issue Foreword (p4-6)
Doris Ewing and Steven P. Schacht Sexuality: Toward a Race, Gender and Class Perspective
(p7-9)
Doris Ewing The Fall
of Eve: Racism and Classism as a Function of Sexual Repression (p10-22)
This
paper discusses the relationship between sexually repressive norms and the
racism and classism found in Western society. Using examples from paganism,
early Christianity, the witchcraft hysteria and colonialism, the author explores
the close parallels between the increase in sexual repression and the
distinction between inferior and subordinate subgroups. It is suggested that as
sexually repressive norms decrease in society today, that other forms of
prejudice will also decreases. Keywords: sexually repressive norms, racism, classism, paganism, Christianity.
Lisa Orr "Cotton
Patch Strumpets" and Masculine Women: Performing Classed
Genders (p23-42)
Comparing
Edith Summers Kelley's Weeds, Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones and works by Meridel Le Sueur to selected works of William Faulkner and
Erskine Caldwell reveals how working-class women's sexuality is represented and
suggests that gender performance differs by class.
Traise Yamamoto In/Visible
Difference: Asian American Women and the Politics of Spectacle
(p 43-56)
This
article discusses the positioning of Asian American women in the socialized
landscape of the United States. Through an examination of popular culture venues
such as fashion spreads and film, I argue that the Asian American woman's body
is encoded as a site of spectularized differences that marks the boundaries of
normative whiteness and uphold the promises of liberal multiculturalism.
Keywords: Japanese American, Asian American women, orientalism, racism.
Marian Sciachitano "MOBS"
on the Net: Critiquing the Gaze of the "Cyber" Bride
Industry (p57-90)
For
"Third World" women who become positioned in the "Fourth" or
even "Fifth World" of the "cyber" bride industry, what
possibilities of female agency are out there? Can there be any possibility for
an oppositional gaze in cyberspace for those who don't even own computer, let
alone a modem or access to the WWW? And that what about the possibilities for a critical cyberliteracy here in the U.S./"First World"? Unless we become
global critical cybercitizens who see our tasks as questioning the
representation and commodification of Asian Pacific women's bodies in these new
MOB sites as well as the colonizing relations of power being reinforced and
perpetuated through the "Western, White, heterosexual, metropolitan male
gaze" of the "cyber" bride industry, we are bound to "simply
re-create the imperial gaze -- the look that seeks to dominate, subjugate, and
colonize" (Hooks, 1992).
Keywords: "cyber" bride industry, female agency, critical cybercitizens.
Edna Levy Fresh
Mattresses: Sexuality, Fertility and Soldiering in Israeli Public
Culture (p71-90)
Sexuality
and fertility are interconnected with the meaning attached to soldiering in
complex and powerful ways. Not only is soldiering tied up with notions of
heterosexual masculine sexuality, but it also depends upon the distancing from
and objectification of women's sexuality. Even though the nature of the materiel
reviewed here prevents me from answering questions of intent and individual
interpretation of experience, this analysis of media portrayals reflects the
dominant shared public meaning of soldiering. The images and comments about
sexuality and soldiering that appear in the daily media thus reflect and
influence the common-sense understanding of the connection between masculinity,
femininity, and soldiering. Keywords: soldiering, daily media, sexuality and fertility, heterosexual masculine
sexuality, women's sexuality.
Patti Capel Swartz Sexual
Morality, Cultural/Morality: One in the Same (p91-110)
Current
political and social rhetoric that calls for a return to the "family
values" of the 1950's and that visualizes those times as halcyon days
obscures the actual social structure and imperatives of the times which included
extreme homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, and gender bias. A personal
exploration of this era exposes the "isms" and the political and
social attitudes that allowed McCarthysm and the cold war to flourish, and the
created invisibility of population different from those discussed in the white
American myth demonstrates that a return to this much mythological time is also
a return to increased racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Keywords: McCarthism, "nuclear" family, racism, sexism,
classism,
homophobia.
Dan J. Pence and Eleanor A.
Hubbard Everyday Ideology: A case Study of Sexual
Activity
(p111-132)
This
case study compares college students raised in Utah with those attending college
in Utah but raised outside the state. College students raised in Utah engage in
more risky sexual behaviors, even though there is an unpresedented public
discussion about potentially deadly consequences of human sexuality. Also
college students raised in Utah appear to be largely ignorant of their own
dangerous behavior or assume that their residence in Utah will protect them from
STDs. The authors of this article postulate that the reason these college
students behave this way is that they believe in the dominant ideology: that
Utah is a special religious locale that protects them from the influences,
dangers, and diseases of the outside world. Although there must be multi-causes
for this finding, our evidence demonstrates that being raised in Utah can
influence how one behaves sexually.
Bob Pease Reconstructing
Heterosexual Subjectivities and Practices with White Middle-Class
Men (p133-146)
This
article explores the construction of male heterosexual desire as it is
manifested in sexual objectification by white-middle class men. It is argued
that through the analysis of memories of objectification, men can heighten their
awareness of the ways in which heterosexual desire is socially constructed and
that from this understanding they can strengthen the alternative construction of
non-patriachal heterosexualities. Participants in the study reported here were
asked to recall a situation where they were conscious of objectifying a woman's
body as a basis for sexual arousal. Reporting these memories, the men disclosed
moments in their lives when they accommodated to the reproduction of sexual
dominance. It is argued that when men share and analyze the memories of their
part in the reproduction of hierarchic heterosexuality, they are subverting the
construction of dominant masculinities. Keywords: heterosexuality, objectification, desire, sexual dominance, memory-work.
Steven P. Schacht Paris
is Burning: How Society's Stratification Systems Make Drag Queens of Us
All (p147-166)
Recognizing
the importance of taking a multicultural approach in one's teaching, this
article explores using the movie Paris is Burning in one's classes to
illuminate the performative, relational, and situational basis of social
statuses. Student's responses to viewing and discussing the movie are
examined in terms how each of them performs inequality - race, class, gender and
sexual orientation. The author ends the piece with some personal considerations
about envisioning and realizing a non-appressive future. Keywords: identity, performing (in) equality, social stratification, oppression.
Guest-Editors: Marla Brettschneider
Introduction: Jean Ait Belkhir, Johnnella E. Butler, Lenus Jack
Jr. (p5-10)
This special issue begins to develop grounding to the
discussion of the intersectionality of race, gender, and class in the Jewish
American context. Jews are an interesting example to explore because generally
they are among those seen as outside the race, gender and class discourse and
analysis. In the face of the absence of Jewish perspective in race, gender and
class studies, focusing on Jews, on the particulars of a named diverse
community, can be very specific and therefore helpful in pointing out the
limitation of the current debate on race, gender and class intersectionality.
Rachel Rosembloom A Brief Introduction to Jews for Racial and
Economic Justice (p11-12)
In may 1990, a group of Jewish activists, educators, rabbis,
writers and communal leaders came together to address the increasing level of
racial and ethnic tension and economic disparity in New York City and the
absence of a progressive response from the Jewish community. Out of that meeting
came Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Today, JFREJ has hundreds of
members - in New York City and beyond - and a mailing list over 3,000. We are an
active participant in struggles for racial and economic justice in our city.
Over the past eight years, working with African-American, Latino,
Asian-American, immigrant rights and labor groups, JFREJ has brought Jewish
participation to a broad range of local economic justice and civil rights
struggles.
Marla Brettschneider Theorizing Diversity from a Jewish
Perspective (p13-23)
The mission of
this journal is to critically examine the intersectionality of race, gender and
class. This special issue puts a new spin on the discussion, holding the mission
in tact and further asking "The Jewish Question." Race/ethnicity,
gender, class, and -- I will also add at least -- sexual orientation are not
merely a random grouping of identity signifiers. They are important in current
political and sociological terms due to the way that they fundamentally
constitute power dynamics and thus affect human relations. To ground this
discussion within a sphere of American Jewish consciousness is no easy task;
although Jews, as a minority, have much to offer that is similar in nature to
the perspectives of other minorities, as with each individual group, Jews have
particular experiences and history which affect our understanding of these
issues. The following essay will develop one sort of Jewish grounding to the
discussion of the identity politics of race/ethnicity, gender, class and sexual
orientation in philosophical terms. After presenting some theoretical
background, this paper examines a Jewish perspective on contemporary identity
politics in relation first to Marxism and then to post-modernism in the context
of a post-Marxist debate between modernists and post-modernists. Keywords: Jewish, theory, diversity
Susan Novak "Dark Illuminations: Race, Gender, and Class
During the Shoah" (p24-40)
In a post-Holocaust world, action on
behalf of justice, diversity, and solidarity is nothing less than a moral
imperative. Embracing compassionate action in solidarity with the dispossessed
becomes an act of resistance which seeks a tikkun of the intolerance,
domination, and brutality that fueled the Nazi machine. Unmasking the
antisemitism, racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia which legitimated
discriminatory social programs, bigoted legal practices, and oppressive economic
practices, these acts of resistance are crucial to the development of a credible
post-Holocaust ethic. They challenge us to transform every dimension of our
relationships - the economic and political as well as the sexual and religious -
in light of the fundamental moral and ethical issues raised after Auschwitz.
Moreover, as the nexus for compassion, justice, and solidarity, they rekindle
the hope that faith, identity, and morality may yet be revitalized. Keywords: Holocaust, feminism.
Jessica Greenebaum Placing Jewish Women into the
Intersectionality of Race, Class and Gender (p41-60)
This paper places Jewish women into the
feminist and sociological conversation of identity, oppression, and the
intersectionality of "gender, race, and class." More specifically, it
reveals the resistance to include Jewish women in this discourse. Why is this
oppression different from all others (or not)? Why have Jewish women been
marginalized from the sociological discourse on inequality and oppression? Why has the feminist community denied Jewish women the voice to
express their specific concerns as Jews and as women? Why is this occurring when
much of the ‘difference of Jews’ is similar to that of other marginalized
groups? And what is the sociological, theoretical, and political significance of
this ‘othering’ process? Keywords: Jewish women, antisemitism, intersectionality of gender, race, and class.
Jeraldine R. Kraver Restocking the Melting Pot: Americanization
as Cultural Imperialism (p61-75)
Americanization, at
the beginning of this century, was motivated by the fear that diversity and
pluralism posed a threat to narrowly defined "American values." As
Americans continue to address the perplexing issues of immigration and identity
it is increasingly apparent that, after nearly 100 years, the issues that
inspired and defined immigration education and reform remain unresolved. The
suggestion by the Yiddish-language newspaper Daily Jewish Courier that
"it is not at all necessary for the liberty, security, and prosperity of
America to fuse all nationalities here to a point where they will lose their
identity completely" neatly summarizes the contemporary crisis in
immigration. The date of the edition is June 5, 1918 (Clymer 1982:111). Keywords:Americanization, education, Clara de Hirsch Home, immigrant,
immigration, women’s education, Yezierska.
Debra Renee Kaufman Embedded Categories: Identity Among Jewish
Young Adults in the US (p76-87)
In this article I explore the ways in
which gender, race, class and ethnicity intersect in the lives of the seventy,
twenty to thirty year olds I interviewed throughout the Northeastern United
States as part of a larger study on post-Modern Jewish Identity among that age
group in the U.S., England, and Israel. Keywords: gender, race, class, ethnicity, post-Modern Jewish Identity, U.S., England, Israel
Hinda Seif A "Most Amazing Borsht:" Multiple Identities
in a Jewish Bisexual Community (p88-109)
The author explores the ways that race,
gender, class, sexuality, and other identifications interact in a Jewish
bisexual community in the San Francisco Bay Area. This includes sociolinguistic
analysis of 31 interviews and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of
various theoretical models of intersectionality. The meanings of race, gender,
class, sexuality and Jewishness broaden and transform in interaction. Studying
the interaction of these categories offers an important way to challenge out
assumptions of their definitions, constructions, and boundaries. Keywords: Jewish, bisexuality, intersectionality, sexuality, race, class, gender,
San Francisco
Liona Moriel Dana International: A Self-Made Jewish Diva (p110-124)
Clearly, the Zionists of a century ago
did not think of race, class and gender as we do today. To their credit, some of
them, the idealistic few, sought to include Jews in the human race, and women
among men, and to eliminate class distinctions with the idea of the kibbutz
collective. But for the majority, the new land of the forefathers was to be
basically Jewish, bourgeois, and male. And now the new global reality of
interlocked economies and political alliances is kicking in an all-too-new
realization that time does not flow ever forward; sediments rise to the surface
and old issues must be revisited and rethought. This paper will deal with these
fundamental issues of race, class and gender in Israel through the lens of the
remarkable 29-year-old Disco Diva, Dana International, who challenges all three
categories by merely being herself: an ethnic working-class female.Keywords: Dana International, race,
gender, class.
Dawn Robinson Rose Class as Problematic in Jewish Feminist Theology (p125-135)
While other liberation/minority theologies often find class analysis and subsequent
political action to be integral to theological praxis, this paper shows that
Jewish feminist theology to date exhibits an almost startling lack of internal
class consciousness and/or agenda. Upon examination the author finds this
lacunae to be linked to two primary class-related phenomena. One, shared by
other minorities, is the general invisibility of working-class and poor Jews,
which for the Jewish community is only intensified by the myth of overall Jewish
wealth and power. A second phenomenon, perhaps more specific to the Jewish
community, is the inadequacy of standard class distinctions in describing the
actual access to community power and resources by Jewish women whose education
may suggest a higher rate of middle-class enfranchisement than actual income or
social status allow. In such, the paper links advancement in areas
"theological" (ritual, educational, etc.) To actual community power
knowledge which, without attention to questions of class, will remain unattended
and unattainable.Keywords: Jewish feminist theology, Jewish feminism, feminist theology, Jews, class, gender.
Kerri Steinberg The Ties That Bind: Americans, Ethiopians, and the Extended Jewish Family (p136-151)
In this article, I wish to explore how mainstream American
Jewish philanthropies such as the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) construct an extended
Jewish family through their Press Service photographs. In particular, I am
interested in how the mythology of an extended Jewish family joins
together disparate Jewish identities such as American and Ethiopian Jews within
the cycle of Jewish continuity. Do these photographs really function more as a
barometer of likeness or difference? What might be gained and what is lost
through the paradigm of the extended Jewish family, as it is expressed
photographically? Most significantly, what do these photographs tell us about
the basic assumptions of the family paradigm?
Tobin Belzer A Jewish Identity at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Class: Dorothy Feiner Rodgers (p152-173)
Examined through the
lenses of class, gender, and race, the life of Dorothy Feiner Rodgers
(1906-1993) illuminates the complexity of twentieth-century American Jewish
womanhood. Her accomplishments were many: she was the author of four books,
inventor of household products, mother of two daughters, and the inspiration and
benefactor of the core exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York. She was married
to the famous composer Richard Rodgers, who collaborated with Lorenz Hart and
later, Oscar Hammerstein. Dorothy’s career, her philanthropy and her marriage
to a famous figure made her a unique and complicated woman. Neither her
accomplishments nor her tenuous connection to Judaism, however, protected her
from anti-Semitic discrimination, An examination of her life provides a
compelling example of the construction of Jewish identity at the intersection of
class, gender and race. Keywords: Jewish women, race, gender, and class
intersectionality, Jewish identity, biography Dorothy Freiner Rodgers.
Book Review: Amanda Myriam Chaya Seigel Cornestones of
Peace: Jewish Identity Politics, by Marla Brettschneider , Rutgers
University Press, 1996; Narrow Bridge: Jewish Views on
Multiculturalism, by Marla Brettschneider, Rutgers University Press,
1996 (p167-173)
In the introduction to Narrow Bridge, Marla Brettschneider writes:
Multiculturalism is developing democratic praxis which, rather than squelching
diversity, seeks to welcome difference in the creation of a vibrant and
inclusive public sphere (or spheres) [p.6]. True to her vision, Brettschneider's
book contains specifically Jewish perspectives on multiculturalism, without
assuming a unified Jewish view. In fact, much of the writing by
Brettschneider and others in Narrow Bridge and Cornestones of Peace confronts the idea that all Jews have, or should have, the same opinion or
perspectives. First, many Jews would respond to this idea with,
"What? That's ridiculous! Three Jews, five opinions!'
Chuck Barone Bringing Classism into the Race & Gender
Picture (p5-32)
What’s missing from our
understanding of class oppression is an understanding of class oppression as
"classism," as a system of social oppression that operates on multiple
social levels and that embraces both structures and human agency. This paper
seeks to expand our understanding by sketching out a multilevel analysis of
class oppression as a social system that includes macro, meso, and micro levels,
and includes both structures and human agency. It will examine how people come
to occupy their class roles; how they learn their particular class outlook,
mannerisms, behavior, and culture; and how the personal and social dynamics of
class oppression are related to the larger macrostructures of class oppression
and exploitation. Keywords: class, classism,
oppression, reproduction, schooling
Theresa A. Martinez Storytelling as Oppositional Culture: Race,
Class, and Gender in the Borderland (p33-51)
Bonnie Mitchell and Joe Feagin,
influenced by the work of Robert Blauner (1972) and Michael Hechter (1975,
1978), build on the theory of oppositional culture, arguing that African
Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans draw on their own cultural
resources to resist domination under internal colonialism. Patricia Hill Collins
(1991) expands the politics of domination to include interlocking systems of
race, class, and gender oppression among others and also discusses cultures of
resistance to oppression. One of the cultural resources these theorists stress
is storytelling. This paper suggests that Gloria Anzaldúa’s prose and poetry
is a conscious form of oppositional culture, in that Anzaldúa’s storytelling
serves as a social critique of domination as well as a cultural tool for
empowerment of oppressed groups. A brief analysis of Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La
Frontera: The New Mestiza is provided. Keywords: oppositional culture, storytelling, Gloria Anzaldua, social
critique of domination, rage, gender, class
Algernon Austin Theorizing Difference within Black Feminist
Thought: The Dilemma of Sexism in Black Communities (p52-66)
How have black feminists dealt with the issue of sexism in black communities? My analysis reveals that
there is no strong consensus on how to respond to the issue of black sexism in
black feminism thought. Some black feminist works suggest that gender equality
has existed among blacks throughout African-American history, while others argue
that sexism has been a persistent problem in African-American life. The
ideological orientation of the black feminist author explains her response to
the issue of black sexism. Black feminist utilizing a black nationalist or a
black Marxist analysis of black sexism fail to develop a serious critique. Keywords: black feminism, black
nationalist, black Marxist, black sexism
Abby L. Ferber The Construction of Race, Gender, and Class in
White Supremacist Discourse (p67-89)
This article explores the
intertwined construction of race, gender, and class in contemporary white
supremacist ideology. Exploring the publications of a wide variety of white
supremacist organizations, this research utilizes a theoretical approach which
argues that race, gender, and class are intertwined social constructs. I argue
that race and gender are constructed as essential and inherent identities, while
class is constructed very differently. Class is depicted as a Jewish tool used
to divide and conquer the white race. These particular constructions serve to
maintain white male privilege and power. Keywords: class, gender, Jews, race,
white supremacy.
Jacquelyn Litt Managing the Street, Isolating the Household:
African American Mothers Respond to Neighborhood Deterioration (p90-108)
This article undertakes a
case-study analysis of three poor African American mothers and their strategies
for raising children in a declining and dangerous neighborhood. Viewing local
resources as insufficient, the women expend much of their energy confining their
children at home and monitoring their movements in the public sphere. The
article examines these efforts as an alternative form of mothering, drawing upon
their reflections about the needs they experienced to keep their neighborhood at
bay, and their views of their own and their children’s well-being. Keywords: poor African American mothers, dangerous
neighborhood.
Shang-Luan Yann The Status of Asian American Women Scientists and
Engineers in the Labor Force (p109-124)
This paper
analyzes national data — the 1982 Survey of Scientists and Engineers (SSE) —
which was conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the National Science
Foundation to examine the status of scientists and engineers by gender and race,
particularly primary work activities and earning inequalities of Asian and white
women scientists and engineers in the labor force. Findings from the 1982 SSE
data present us a rather mixed picture. First, Asian women scientists and
engineers tend to be employed in industrial sectors rather than in educational
institutions. However, Asian women scientists and engineers earn less than White
women within the core sector, especially at the doctoral level, who worked in
the core had an annual earnings disadvantage of $2,179.06 compared to white
women. Second, in comparison with Black women scientists and engineers, Asian
women scientists and engineers, like White women scientists and engineers, tend
to have the lower full-time employment rates. This phenomenon may explain that
both Asian and White women are economically better off than Black women. Third,
Asian women scientists and engineers are less likely to be employed in
managerial positions. Keywords: gender, race, scientists, engineers, Asian American women, labor
force
Ivy Kennelly, Joya Misra, and Marina Karides The Historical
Context of Gender, Race, & Class in the Academic Labor Market (p125-155)
In this paper we explore the ways that race,
gender, and class have historically affected and are currently affecting the
rates of hiring, degree attainment, promotion, segregation, and pay in academia.
Throughout the paper we highlight the experiences of minority women, minority
men, European-American women, and members of the working class in academia and
demonstrate that although these groups have variably made progress in their
representation in jobs in colleges and universities, they remain less likely
than members of privileged gender, racial, and class groups to be promoted, more
likely to be segregated in certain positions by discipline, subfield, university
prestige, and lower academic ranking, and less likely to be paid as well.
Gloria Holguin Cuádraz and Lynet Uttal Intersectionality and
In-Depth Interviews: Methodological Strategies for Analyzing Race, Class, and
Gender (p156-186)
In this essay, we
address several common dilemmas that arise when using in-depth interviews to
conduct race, class and gender analyses. Utilizing our own in-depth interview
studies, we illustrate three methodological dilemmas we confronted. First, what
claims about race, class, and gender can be made if the sample does not include
comparative subsamples? Second, to what extent can researchers overlay the
social categories of race, class, and gender on the individual accounts
articulated by interviewees? Finally, how does one explicate the intersections
between structures and biography, while honoring the simultaneous
intersectionality of multiple structures of race, class, and gender? Keywords: in-depth interview, race, class, and gender, intersectionality.
Book Review: Filomina C. Steady Women, Population and Global
Crisis: A Political-Economic Analysis, by Asoka Bandarage, London, Zed
Books, 1997 (p187-189)
This book is a contribution to the mounting criticism of the
oppression of poor women in the South by global economic policies and practices
which exploit the resources, labor and markets of countries of the South. For
the most part of the voices, experiences and aspirations of these women have
been largely invisible except for the writing of female scholars who are mostly
from the South themselves.
Edward Johnson The Racial Contract, by Charles W. Mills,
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997 (p189-192)
Just as feminist theorists have pointed to the blind spots a
predominantly male viewpoint has introduced into traditional philosophy, so
Mills indicates ways in which familiar talk about the "social
contract" has typically presupposed (and in part obscured) a more
fundamental racial contract.
Guest-Editors: Bernice McNair Barnett, Rose M. Brewer, & M. Bahati Kuumba
Preface: Johnnella E. Butler & Jean Ait Belkhir (p5-6)
For the majority of black women, liberation from sexual
oppression has always been fused with liberation from other forms of oppression,
namely slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, racism, poverty, illiteracy and
disease. Consequently, her feminism has relevance in human terms rather than
narrow sexist terms. The manifold nature of her oppression not only heightens
her consciousness about the economic basis of oppression but also indicates its
roots. For the black women, the enemy is not black men but history (Filomina
Chioma Steady, The Black Woman Cross-Culturally, 1991:34-35).
Bernice McNair Bernett, Rose M, Brewer, and M. Bahati Kuumba News
Directions in Race, Class, and Gender: The African American Experience
(p7-26)
It strikes us that any discussion in
a special issue on African Americans, race, gender, and class invokes the
multiplicity of inequality and the social context of racism in the academy.
Racism involves the simultaneity and interaction with sexism and classism and,
bluntly speaking, African Americans have been invisible or pathologized in the
disciplines as traditionally conceived because of race-based exclusionary
practices. This has everything to do with the racism, sexism, and classism in
the academy and in society. Significantly, Black people’s invisibility, or in
some instances the hypervisibility of a select few (which is a different face of
the same coin), is still too readily apparent. Although critiques of this
situation were articulated in arguments found in Black Studies and Women’s
Studies, neither field in its inception precisely located or even began to
satisfactorily address the omission of all people of African descent,
especially African American women, in traditional academic disciplines.
Essentially, it was conceded that racism and racist practices left out Black men
and that sexism and sexist practices left out White women. But, we still too
often have to ask the question, as asked by Hull, Bell Scott, and Smith (1982):
Where are the Black women? Indeed, the deep embeddedness of race/gender has not
been fully theorized in the very fields that ideally should have embraced and
interrogated their simultaneity. Only in the last few years, and heavily through
the writings of Black feminist thinkers, has the intersectionality of race,
class, and gender gotten focused attention in sociology and other fields (see
especially the work of Dill 1979; Davis 1983; Brewer 1989; Collins 1990).
Rose M. Brewer Theorizing Race, Class, and Gender: The New
Scholarship of Black Feminist Intellectuals and Black Women's Labor (p29-47)
The purpose in this article is to explicate some of the recent theorizing on
race, class and gender by Black feminist thinkers in the academy. This
theorizing is further explored in an analysis of Black women's labor and
African-American class formation. The labor transformation of Black women is
explicated in terms of economic restructuring and capital mobility, racial
formation and gender inequality. It is a process linking Black women in the
Northeast and Midwest to the South and Southwest, Asia, Africa and the
Caribbean. It is not the tie of poverty to prosperity, but the tie of
subordinate status to subordinate status crosscut by internal class differences
in all these regions. Most important, only in theorizing the complexity of the
intersections of race, class and gender can we adequately prepare to struggle
for social change in the African-American community.
Keywords: black feminist intellectuals, black women’s labor, race,
gender, class.
Kerry Ann Rockquemore Rethinking Race as a "Metalanguage:" The Intersections of Race and Gender in Locating Black Women's Voices
(p48-72)
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham proposed in her seminal essay "African-American Women’s
History and the Metalanguage of Race" (1992) that race should be viewed as
a "metalanguage" in analyzing the historical experiences of Black
women. This paper calls the race-as-metalanguage hypothesis into question due to
its explicit ranking of racial stratification above all other forms of
oppression. I propose an alternative theoretical conceptualization for
understanding Black women’s experiences that has, as its most unlikely
starting point, the Hegelian dialectic. For analytical purposes I force the
dialectic it to be conversant with Black feminist theory and contextualize it
along the interlocking axes of race, class and gender. This results in three
alternative models which suggest varying possibilities for locating the
multiplicity of our voices. In a fourth model, I provide an alternative
theoretical perspective which is both sensitive to the contextual complexity of
gendered, racialized, and economic power relations and redirect the discourse
away from unidimensional lenses of analysis and toward a more multifaceted view
of Black women’s experience. Keywords: race, metalanguage, gender, class, black women.
Sue Hammons-Bryner The Women's Obstacle Course: Southern
African-American and Rural Women's Barriers to Academic Achievement (p73-98)
Academic achievement has long been a goal for American youth. However, many Americans,
especially women, members of the working class and racial/ethnic minority
groups, confront obstacles that middle-class White males generally do not. The
widespread use of White, urban, upper-middle-class Christian males as research
subjects in postwar achievement studies for major research universities has
reinforced the view in the psychology of achievement literature that these
dominant subjects’ traits are the standard for achievement and for achievement
motivation. Many program developers have assumed that those who do not conform
to the dominant type of the American Dream, especially rural, Black, and/or
working-class women, do not value achievement. Their motivation, however, may be
different rather than absent. Based upon content analysis of published works,
ethnographic interviews, and participant observation, this multi-year study
analyzes the intersections of gender, race, and class on motivations for and
barriers to the educational achievement of southern rural African American and
White European American women. Keywords: education, motivation, achievement, African American women, white and black rural working class women.
Assata Zerai and Rae Banks Maternal Cocaine Use and Infant
Survival: Interrogating the Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender (p99-129)
Analyzing the 1988 National Maternal and
Infant Health Survey, we find that access to prenatal care, as a component of a
hostile environment, is the strongest determinant of prenatal care use when
controlling for background characteristics, maternal fertility variables, and
polydrug use. We believe this conceptualization is illuminated by theoretical
discussion of the ways that race, class and gender intersect to affect and
differentiate experiences of individuals and groups and that our use of hostile
environment as a construct provides an example of a way to operationalize the
intersection of race, class and gender in quantitative research. Findings lay
the foundation for future research that will examine inadequate prenatal care as
an endogenous variable in the hostile environment-birth outcome relationship,
particularly for women of color and those who have used drugs during their
pregnancy. Keywords: logistic regression, maternal cocaine use, hostile environment, race, gender, class intersectionality, prenatal care, African American and U.S.
women
Juan Battle How the Boyz really Made it Out of the Hood:
Educational Outcomes for African-American Boys in Father-Only versus Mother-Only
Households (p130-146)
Using a nationally
representative sample of eighth grade students (N=495) from the National
Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS), this research examines the relative
effects of being in a single parent mother-only versus father-only family on the
educational achievement of African-American middle-grade males. Findings are
that: (1) only in the presence of socioeconomic class status is there a
statistically significant difference between students from these two types of
households; (2) African-American male students in mother-only households
outperform their counterparts in father-only households; and (3) race, gender,
and class are simultaneously intersecting categories/relations in the family
experiences and educational achievement processes of African American boys. Keywords: education, African American male, father versus mother
households, race, gender, class.
Townsand Price-Spratlen Flowin' All at Once: Gender, Race, and
Class in Depression Era U.S. Urbanization (p147-170)
During the Great Migration, millions of African American women and men left the rural Southern
U.S. in search of a better quality of life in urban areas of the South and the
North. This paper evaluates whether urban ethnogenesis varies by gender and by
class among African Americans. No prior research has provided a simultaneous
historical and empirically comparative analysis of race, gender and class
dynamics across multiple destinations of the Great Migration. While a down
period in the Great Migration, the Depression was still marked by sizeable
movement in which nearly ten percent of the total African American population
moved interregionally. Ethnogenic measures such as NAACP activism, number of
community newspapers directed at African Americans, and the level of church
participation were each found to significantly influence the migration flows.
There appears to have been a "gendered vibrancy" in African American
ethnogenesis. Female migration flows were more significantly influenced by
avenues of expressive culture (i.e., church participation) when compared with
male flows, and women also have had more compressed and influential social
networks in urban destinations. Keywords: Great Migration, African Americans, Ethnogenic, Female migration.
Cameron McCarthy Reading the American Popular: Suburban
Resentment and the Representation of the Inner City in Contemporary Film and T.V.
(p171-188)
In this essay, I
move beyond the radical tradition in curriculum and education research that
treats race as an epiphenomenon — that is, as an effect of the political
economy of class divisions. I also move beyond mainstream and panethnic
conceptualizations of race that emphasize primordial attachments and ancestral
continuity. Instead, I focus attention on the topic of racial discourse and the
organization of affect in contemporary political life. I look specifically at
the role of Hollywood film and television in the coordination of the identities
of the professional middle-class (PMC) inhabitants of the suburbs and the
disorganization of the identities of the dwellers of the inner city. Keywords: racial discourse, Hollywood film, television, professional
middle-class, identities, gender, racial locations, whites and blacks in the
U.S.
Guest-Editors: Robert D. Bullard, Dorceta E. Taylor & Glenn S.
Johnson
Introduction: Jean Ait Belkhir & Johnnella E. Butler (p5-11)
The authors in both special issues on environmental justice of
the journal Race, Gender & Class have done excellent work in identifying and
examining the race, gender, and class inequalities in environmental injustice.
Indeed, despite twenty years of research on the demographic determinants of
environmental concern, and despite growing environmental activism in minority
communities, there is still a great deal of confusion about racial, ethnic,
gender and class differences in environmental injustice. The effort to grasp the
nature and extent of intergroup differences in environmental injustice is
particularly important in light of the emergence since the 1980s of the
environmental justice movement. This movement now extends beyond the mainline
environmental preoccupation with legislative reforms to embrace more firmly the
commitment to "environmental justice" and build a progressive
"rainbow" coalition that unites concern for the environment with a
strengthened commitment to civil rights and economic justice (Bullard, Johnson,
and Wright 1997).
Filomina Chioma Steady Gender Equality and Ecosystem Balance:
Women and Sustainable Development in Developing Countries (p13-32)
In this paper, I
discuss the relationship between women in developing countries and the
environment including the impact of environmental degradation on their lives. I
also offer some explanation for the marginalization of women and the failure of
science and technology, propelled by the ideology of the domination of nature
and of people, to provide solutions to problems of sustainable development.
Finally I proposes a model for ecologically sound and sustainable development
that will incorporate feminist perspectives as integral elements in policies and
programs for sustainable development. Keywords: women, sustainable development, developing countries, ecosystem balance
Laura Pulido & Devon Peña Environmentalism and Positionality:
The Early Pesticide Campaign of the United Farm Workers' Organizing Committee,
1965-71 (p33-50)
What differentiates an environmental
justice and mainstream environmental issue? Several different criteria have been
suggested, including the articulation of explicit social justice concerns, as
well as the subordinated nature of the affected population. In this article we
explore this question and argue that positionality is one important criteria.
Positionality refers to one’s location within a larger social formation, and
thus affects how one experiences an environmental problem. Using the early
pesticide campaign (1965-71) of the United Farm Workers’ Organizing Committee,
we show that pesticides in and of themselves do not necessarily constitute an
environmental justice issue. By comparing how mainstream environmentalists and
farm worker activists encountered and responded to the problem of pesticides, we
demonstrate how positionality is one important consideration in the development
of an environmental justice framework. Keywords: Environmental justice, pesticides, positionality, United Farm Workers’ Organizing Committee.
Michael Dreilling From Margin to Center: Environmental Justice
and Social Unionism as Sites for Intermovment Solidarity (p51-69)
In this comparative analysis of
labor-environmental alliances it is argued that various forms of unionism and
environmentalism help or hinder efforts to transcend narrow sectoral interests.
Movement organizations that parallel, and sometimes emulate, grassroots
organization, tactics, and discursive practices are better equipped to engage
intermovement, oppositional alliances. This is evident in each of the periods
where intermovement solidarity persisted. First, the efforts to build alliances
between the two movements during the early 1970s can be located in the
strategies of a handful of social unions and an even smaller group of
environmental groups with concerns for social justice and full employment.
Secondly, active grassroots mobilizations during the late 1970s and 1980s in
both movements transformed the character of several leading social movement
organizations. Finally, the broad alliance that challenged NAFTA makes evident
that key sources of intermovement solidarity stem from the way in which larger
movement organizations responded to, or were redefined by these movements from
below, i.e. social movement unionism and environmental justice, respectively. Keywords: Environmental Movement, Labor Movement, NAFTA
Stephen L. Klineberg Environmental Attitudes Among Anglos,
Blacks, and Hispanics in Texas: Has the Concern Gap Disappeared? (p70-82)
Using extensive data on environmental
attitudes from two Texaswide surveys conducted in 1994 and 1996, this paper
explores the specific ways in which Blacks and Hispanics differ from Anglos in
their perceptions of environmental issues, before and after eleven other
demographic and political variables are statistically controlled. The apparent
differences between Anglos and people of color in concerns about local pollution
and reported participation in pro-environmental behaviors decline to
insignificance when the background variables are entered into the regression
models. Being Black or Hispanic does, however, continue to have significant
effects in dampening support for environmental initiatives, when these are
explicitly associated with regressive impacts that threaten to exacerbate
economic inequalities. People of color do not appear to differ from Anglos in
their overall concern for the environment, but they do differ in the kinds of
potential tradeoffs they are willing to accept. The data suggest that America's
diverse communities are unlikely to unite in a new "rainbow" coalition
until the efforts to promote a healthier environment are combined with a firmer
commitment to economic and social justice. Keywords: environment, anglos, blacks, hispanics, attitudes
Francis O. Adeola Environmental Injustice in the State of
Louisiana? Hazardous Wastes and Environmental Illness in the Cancer
Corridor (p83-108)
This study offers
theoretical and empirical assessments of hazardous waste distribution,
environmental injustice, and associated human health problems in southern
Louisiana. Demographic and socioeconomic differences in potential exposure to
hazardous waste sites and related health problems are evaluated through
discriminant analysis and logistic regression model. Respondents' perceptions of
specific environmentally induced morbidity such as lung cancer, pancreatic
cancer, and respiratory problems are presented. Findings indicate that while
Blacks are most likely to reside near hazardous waste facilities, they are less
likely to perceive hazardous waste sites as the most serious problem.
Furthermore, gender and socioeconomic factors are statistically significant in
predicting the likelihood of environmental illness. Race (Black) was found to be
more significant than socioeconomic factors in predicting residence propinquity
to hazardous waste sites, controlling for other demographic and socioeconomic
variables. Thus, the assertion of environmental, racial, and gender inequity
found a strong support in the model estimated. The implications for community
level actions, environmental education, environmental consciousness,
environmental equity policy, and future research are discussed. Keywords: Environmental injustice, hazardous wastes, cancer corridor, LULUs, environmental illness, risks
Al Gedicks Corporate Strategies for Overcoming Local Resistance
to New Mining Projects (p109-123)
Multinational mining companies are
finding it increasingly difficult to get approval for new mining projects in
sensitive areas in most advanced capitalist nations. To overcome grassroots
environmental resistance to new mining projects, multinational corporations, in
cooperation with the state, have attempted a variety of strategies, including
the following: (1) legislative initiatives to thwart local democratic control;
(2) legal challenges to local zoning authority; (3) mass media campaigns; and
(4) attacks on tribal sovereignty. The development and effectiveness of these
strategies will be evaluated in the context of the intense controversy over
metallic sulfide mining in northern Wisconsin. Keywords: multinational corporations, mining, environmental resistance, democracy, corporate strategies, multiracial coalitions , tribal sovereignty.
David N. Pellow Bodies on the Line: Environmental Inequalities.
Hazardous Work in the U.S. Recycling Industry (p124-151)
A growing number
of social scientists are researching the causes and effects of environmental
inequalities -- the disproportionate toxic burdens in spaces where the poor and
people of color "live, work, and play". This study expands upon this
literature by exploring how environmental inequalities are produced in
occupational environments. Drawing on Schnaiberg's Treadmill of Production
model, I argue that the dangers involved in recycling work are produced and
ignored by the ideology of pro-environmentalism and social responsibility used
by recycling proponents. Workers in this industry face a great number of threats
to personal well-being and respond to these hazards through a variety of
strategies. These strategies underscore workers' capacity to critique and act
against environmental injustices along dimensions of race, gender and class.
Keywords: labor, environmental racism, environmental inequalities,
recycling, occupational
Laura Westra Development and Environmental Racism: The Case of
Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni (p152-162)
As Ken Saro-Wiwa rightly saw, the
environment is "man’s first right." Without a safe and healthy
habitat, neither humans nor non-humans can survive and thrive. This case study
examines one of the blatant cases of environmental racism in recent times, a
case of "omnicide" as Sara-Wiwa described it. I argue that the guilt
lies primarily but not exclusively with the military regime in Nigeria, but that
Royal Dutch Shell Oil, Northwest affluent countries and their leaders, and even
all of us who care more about low prices for goods than for justice, must share
the blame. Keywords: environmental racism, ecological safety, Northwest democracies, development.
Book Review: Glenn S. Johnson Environmentalism and Economic Justice:
Two Chicano Struggles in the Southwest, by Laura Pulido, Tucson: The
University of Arizona Press, 1996 (p163-166)
Pulido emphasizes that the new social movements (NSMs) have a
multifacet approach that addresses quality of life issues, environmental racism,
identity politics, and class consciousness. Racism is defined in this book as a
group with low economic power which result in their subaltern status in their
community. This book does an excellent job in explaining how the struggles of
the subaltern are framed in a larger political context due to their grassroots
activism and their formation of an environmental justice movement around
pesticide use, grazing land and grazing rights.
Volume 5
A Race, Gender & Class Critique of Genetic
Determinism
Volume 5, Number 3, 1998, ISSN 1082-8354
Guest Editors: Carlos Muntaner, Christiane Charlemaine and Jean Ait Belkhir
Katherine Bankole The Human/Subhuman Issue and Slave Medicine in
Louisiana (p3-11)
Enslavement and medicine historiography
has not addressed the African’s proactive participation in and development of,
medicine in the United States. The scholarly’s literature largely focuses on
"Negro/Slave Medicine" in which the attention to disease is an
important aspect. Antebellum disease studies of African people used the concept
of race and supremacy to justify the enslavement of Africans. At the forefront
of racial supremacist analysis was the question of whether African people were
human or less than human among the world’s species of human beings. The notes
contained in "The Human/Subhuman Issue and Slave Medicine in
Louisiana" briefly review the complex circumstance and implication of the
intersection of antebellum medicine and enslaved African people. Keyword: slavery, medicine, disease, race, racism, supremacy, Louisiana
Christiane Charlemaine & Jean-Claude Pons What Monozygotic
Twins Tell Us About Genetic Determinism (p12-40)
The present paper reviews studies
comparing monochorionic vs. dichorionic monozygotic twins on biological and
behavioral phenotypes, revealing an anomalous pattern that MC-MZ are more
dissimilar than DC-MZ twins for the former but less dissimilar for the latter
class of phenotypes. The findings demonstrate that previous studies comparing
undifferentiated MZs vs. DZs are invalid in estimating relative genetic and
environmental influences on the phenotypes of interest and that such influences
are much more complex in their interactions and effects than has been generally
reported in the literature. The results from the MC-MZ vs. DC-MZ twins
are generally acknowledged but dismissed in the methodological behavioral
genetic literature. The present article in reviewing the little cited MC-MZ vs.
DC-MZ body of research raises some serious issues about the validity of the
MZ-DZ twin methodology for estimating relative genetic effects on behavior.
Thus, twin studies may have misled us into believing in a genetic origin of many
diseases and behaviors. In conclusion, this study discusses the growing
paradox between the widely assumed identicality of MZ twins and the fact that
truly identical twins do not exist, in either biological or behavioral traits. Keywords: monozygotic twins, monochorionic monozygotic twins, dichorionic
monozygotic twins, genetic determinism.
David King The IQ Quantitative Trait Loci Project: A
Critique (p41-50)
The IQ QTL project is an attempt to
identify genes underlying variations in IQ score, using the maps of the human
genome generated by the Human Genome Project. Due partly to a public campaign,
the project has, for the moment, been postponed in the UK. I argue that IQ is a
reification, a tool of social administration which describes a small subset of
human intelligence. However, genetic variation probably does underlie part of
the population variation in IQ. I situate IQ testing within the history of
eugenics, and suggest that the IQ QTL project is a move to exploit the prestige
of molecular genetics as 'hard science' and an attempt to escape from the
debates around books such as The Bell Curve. I argue against funding the
IQ QTL project because it will tend to lead to a closure of such debates and may
lead directly to eugenic programs of genetic testing. While the liberal model
of the relationship between science and society can only understand such
opposition as an illegitimate attempt at censorship, a more realistic,
dialectical, model understands that science funding decisions are themselves
always acts of perpetuating certain paradigms and censoring others. Keyword: genes, molecular biology, intelligence, IQ, eugenic.
Christiane Capron, Adrian R. Vetta, & Attam Vetta Genetic
Model Fitting in IQ, Assortative Mating and Components of IQ Variance
(p51-60)
The biometrical school
of IQists who fit models to IQ data trace their intellectual ancestry to Fisher
(1918) through Mather & Jinks. There is, however no evidence that they
understand Fisher or, indeed, have read it. Their genetic models have no
predictive value and are, therefore, worthless. Fisher was critical of the
concept of heritability, yet all their efforts are dedicated to finding an
estimate of this worthless parameter. There is an assortative mating for IQ and
Fisher showed that assortative mating introduces complexities in the study of a
genetic trait. Assortative mating destroys independent segregation of genes,
therefore, the concept of heritability which assumes independent segregation of
genes, is not useful in presence of assortative mating. Keywords: Genetic model fitting, IQ, Assortative mating, Variance components.
Elizabeth A. Segal & Keith M. Kilty The Resurgence of
Biological Determinism (p61-75)
Biological determinism demonstrates the
fact that science can be used to reinforce oppressive social values and
conditions. Partly because of the atrocities of the Nazis and other fascists,
biological determinism, especially in the form of eugenics, fell into disrepute
following the end of World War II. Unfortunately, during the past 20 years,
there has been a resurgence in the use of biological determinism as an
explanation for human problems. This paper addresses two areas where science has
been used historically, and continues to be used, to justify public policies and
social attitudes which are discriminatory and oppressive: homosexuality and
alcoholism. The article analyzes the debate over whether these social and
personal characteristics are biologically or socially determined. How science
has been used to reach these positions is addressed as well as the social and
personal implications of such research. Of particular concern is the potential
impact of biological determinism on the acceptance of human diversity. Keyword: biological determinism, diversity, eugenics, genetics
Jacquelyne F. Jackson The Resurgence of Genetic Determinism: Is It A Distraction? (p76-89)
Genetic determinism has received
considerable media and scholarly attention of late, and the problematic social
conditions suffered by African Americans and other low income or minority groups
have been attributed to genetic deficiencies in these groups as a part of the
debate on genetic determinism. This public clamber has overshadowed emerging
research showing child maltreatment in schools such as corporal punishment and
environmental pollution such as exposure to lead as more probable environmental
contributors to poor social conditions and disadvantages of low status groups.
Recognition of these environmental causes suggests interventions that might
alleviate the problems.Keywords: genetic determinism, African Americans, low achievement, corporal punishment, lead toxicity,
Douglas WahlstenOrigins of Genetic Determinism in Medieval Creationism (p90-107)
The discovery of statistical laws of heredity by Gregor Mendel was an important advance in
biological science. However, Mendel’s opinion that the entire character was
transmitted was not derived from his data and instead reflected prior beliefs
outside the domain of science. It is argued here that Mendel, a monk and later
abbot of an Augustine monastery, was influenced by St. Augustine’s theory of
divine creation of the rationes seminales which specified the form for
all future beings in great detail. Furthermore, the continued adherence to
genetic determinism among contemporary scientists is largely, despite strong
evidence supporting a developmental systems or dialectical view of heredity and
development. Keywords: St. Augustine, Mendel, Bateson, heredity, epigenesis,
dialectics, reductionism
Craig T. Nagoshi Japanese vs. Caucasian Intelligence and Social
Attainment (p108-121)
The Hawaii Family Study of Cognition
(HFSC) measured the cognitive abilities and social attainment of a large sample
of American families (both biological parents and at least one teen-aged or
older offspring) of Caucasian and Japanese ancestry. The present commentary
summarizes a series of HFSC studies on possible genetic and social /
environmental determinants of individual differences within and racial/ethnic
differences between groups on intelligence and attainment. These studies
indicate that the factors that determine intelligence and attainment are more
complex, interactive, and malleable than has generally been acknowledged in the
literature. Keyword: intelligence, social attainment, genetic factors,
social/environmental factors, racial/ethnic group differences
Melissa J. Perry & George W. Albee The Deterministic Origins
of Sexism (p122-135)
Biological determinists often argues that
women as a species are inherently inferior to men intellectually, physically and
spiritually. This conclusion originates from an economic system that is
dependent on the imposed inferiority of groups of people for the dominant group
to remain powerful. Examples of the determinist imperative are plentiful in the
sexist beliefs and practices of world religions. The consequences of
deterministic patriarchy are pervasive in the physical and mental health status
of women, and are illustrated by the perpetuation of patriarchal systems of
physical and mental health treatment. This paper discusses the physical, sexual
and psychological ramifications of biological determinism using examples from
the global status of women’s health, the continuation of female genital
mutilation, and the history of sexist beliefs in psychology that serve a social
control function of both creating and defining women’s psychopathology.
Keywords: biological determinism, sexism, genital mutilation,,
psychopathology, patriarchy.
Jean Ait Belkhir & Michel Duyme Intelligence and Race,
Gender, Class: The Fallacy of Genetic Determinism (p136-173)
For good reason, the human brain is sometimes hailed as the
most complex object in the universe. It comprises a trillion cells, 100 billion
of them neurons linked in networks that give rise to intelligence, creativity,
emotion, consciousness and memory. Can we ever fully understand human brain and
intelligence? Every person is indeed genetically different, even
"identical" twins are not "identical!" We cannot brush away
genetic diversity; it is an observable fact, but rather than biology, it is the
cultures that our brains have created that most severely limit our visions and
the potentialities for the fullest possible development of each individual.
Race, Gender & Class Studies in Australia,
Canada and U.S.
Volume 5, Number 2, 1998, ISSN 1082-8354
Introduction: Jean Ait Belkhir & Johnnella E. Butler Race,
Gender and Class Studies in Australia, Canada and U.S. (p5-9)
Theorizing the relationship between class, gender and
ethnicity becomes important in the context of attempting to understand the forms
of inequality experienced by multiethnic and multiracial working women and men.
There is a considerable body of literature which explores the interconnected
relations of race, ethnicity, class and gender and how these relations have an
impact on the lives of women and men (e.g., Belkhir’s RGC bibliography, 1997).
While it can be argued that theorizing these relationships is particularly
difficult, an examination of the papers in this issue of RGC show the
relationships between these three concepts cannot be avoided. Those papers
dealing with intersection issues make an important contribution.
Sandra Harding Backlash: Race, Gender and Class in Australia (p10-13)
Helen Ralston Race, Class, Gender and Multiculturalism in Canada and Australia (p14-29)
This paper explores
issues of access to language programs and of recognition of foreign educational
qualifications and work experience, their relationship with race, gender and
class, and their impact on women’s lived experiences in the settlement
country. I argue that settlement and multicultural policies and programs, by
focusing on cultural diversity and difference rather than on inequalities among
ethnic and racial categories of people, have constructed and reconstructed
gender and racial inequity and that multiculturalism has done little to combat
ethnocentrism, racism, classism or sexism in the work experience of South Asian
immigrant women. I conclude that a critical feminist conflict approach to
multiculturalism is an alternative paradigm for analysis, policy and action
towards creating a gender-just and a race and class equitable democratic
society. The paper draws on qualitative comparative data from original research
among first-generation immigrant women who trace their origins to the Indian
subcontinent and now reside in Atlantic Canada (126 women), in British Columbia
(100 women), and in Australia (50 women). The field work, which was conducted in
Atlantic Ocean between 1988 and 1991 and the remainder between November 1993 and
May 1995, involved one-to-one interviews and limited participant observation in
the women’s everyday activities.
Roberta Julian "I Love Driving" Alternative
Constructions of Hmong Feminity in the West (p30-53)
This paper explores
the social and cultural construction of femininity among young Hmong women in
the western diaspora. Young Hmong women attending high school in the west find
themselves located between competing and sometimes contradictory discourses in
relation to gender as they are exposed to Hmong cultural ‘tradition’ and
western educational values. The paper examines the strategies adopted by young
Hmong women in Tasmania, Australia as they attempt to negotiate through
competing sets of expectations to construct positive images of Hmong womanhood
acceptable to both the local Hmong community and the wider society. It is argued
that alternative constructions of Hmong femininity emerging in Australia and the
United States challenge the core of Hmong social organization as ‘imagined’
in the West. The empirical and analytical discussion is located within a
theoretical framework which focuses on the intersection of class, gender and
ethnicity within the context of Australian multiculturalism. Keywords: Hmong, gender, ethnicity, Australia, femininity, identity
Michael D. Grimes, Susan A. Mann & James G. Shavor Gender and Intimacy: Do Race and Class Matter? (p54-78)
This paper
examines the "essentialist versus diversity" debate by comparing men's
and women's responses to questions involving intimate relations with
partners/spouses and friends from two studies, each representing one side of
this debate. After comparing our findings with regard to gender differences
among African Americans with those of Lillian Rubin, we then extend our analysis
to include another important dimension of diversity - class. Here we examine
whether the responses of our sample of African Americans differ according to
their locations within the class structure of American society. By focusing on
the impacts of gender and class on intimate personal relationships among African
Americans, this study provides a unique opportunity to address some important
issues raised in the debates about essentialism versus diversity. Keywords: essentialism, gender, intimacy, race, class
Marie-Rose Mueller "Women and Minorities" in Federal Research for AIDS (p79-98)
This paper uses the case study of AIDS
therapeutic research to narrate the social processes by which women and
minorities came to be viewed as legitimate participants in federally sponsored
biomedical research activities. It focuses on the strategies that physicians
used to not only bring attention to the marginal status of women and minorities
in treatment research for AIDS, but also to bring about the development of
social policies to increase governmental funding for AIDS-related research. It
argues that strategies deployed by physicians to advance the interests and
participation of women and minorities in AIDS treatment research activities also
served to advance the interests of medical doctors through the expansion of the
jurisdictional boundaries of federally sponsored research activities. Keyword: AIDS, women, minorities
Rodney L. Brod & Paul E, Miller Race, Hunger, and Poverty on Montana Indians Reservations (p99-123)
In this
paper we use a quantitative analytic procedure, logistic regression, to
search for and identify critical attributes of race. In particular, through a
secondary analysis of survey data, we shall ascertain and highlight fundamental,
yet counterintuitive characteristics of American Indians that underlie
hunger on Montana’s seven reservations. In a conventional sense, it might be a
foregone conclusion that an analysis of data gathered on Indian reservations
would be, from the point of view of race, a study of a constant, i.e., a study
of only one race, but that is not the case. Keywords: quantitative methods, logistic regression, American Indians, hunger.
Elisabeth M. Esterchild & Rodney A. McDanel Race, Gender and
Income (p124-138)
This research
describes the annual average income of women and men among the twelve largest
distinct race and ethnic groups in the United States. Groups with high average
incomes and a large gap between the income of women and men are small in
population and comprised largely of highly educated immigrants who frequently
own their own businesses. Groups with low incomes and a small gap income between
women and men are large in population, mainly indigenous and, frequently
employed in manufacturing or government work. The final section of the paper
discusses methods for teaching the social structural perspective employed in the
research. Keywords: race, gender, income
Michelle H. Miller, Rick Anderson, Julie H. Cannon, Eduardo Perez & Helen
A. Moore Campus Racial Climate Policies: The View From The Bottom
Up (p139-157)
We review the
debates over campus multicultural goals from the perspective of university
officials and again from the perspective of the policy target: students. We then
assess a sample of student policy opinions and the role of campus experiences
and diverse racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds in shaping those
opinions. Often descriptive, this provides insights on working with diverse
student populations. We focus our research on students because student voices
are often unheard in education. Administrators are assumed to "know
better" because of their years of campus experience or professional
training. Keywords: student, diversity, education, multiculturalism
Donna Langston Black Civil Rights, Feminism and Power
(p158-166)
Liberal feminism
was strongly influenced by the strategies and vision of the black civil rights
movement. Similarly, radical feminism was shaped by the strategies and visions
of the black power movement. This article offers a comparative perspective of
the strategies and visions of feminist, civil rights, and power movements.Keywords: liberal feminism, black power, civil rights, radical feminism
Book Review: Mary Bosworth Race, Gender, and Class, Martin
D. Schwartz & Dragan Milovanovic (eds), Garland Publishing, Inc., New York,
1996 (p167-171)
The collection of essays entitled Race, Gender and Class in Criminology:
The Intersection, edited by Martin Schwartz and Dragan Milovanovic is
exemplary in its attempt to address the complex interaction between these
categories. Consisting of two parts -- "Theoretical Perspectives" and
"Applications" -- the book offers a rich variety of essays that range
from postmodern, feminist and left realist perspectives, to empirical studies of
women in prison, homelessness and adolescent fear of crime. Although the
chapters differ substantially in content, each strives to challenge the implicit
biases that still exist within criminology and within society. For, according to
the editors" brief introduction, criminologists must "not only
discover [the] configurations and repressive effects [of the interlocking
systems of race, gender and class], but also conceive ways of transcending these
historical structures.
Guest-Editors: Robert D. Bullard, Dorceta E. Taylor & Glenn S. Johnson
Introduction: Jean Ait Belkhir & Francis O. Adeola Environmentalism,
Race, Gender & Class in Global Perspective (p4-15)
The environmental justice movement provides an ideal
foundation for alliance building and a respectful unity-in-diversity because it
understands that the very concept of dominating nature stems from the domination
of human by human. The movement has linked the issues of neocolonialism, racism,
sexism and classism as illustrated in this special issue. Most importantly,
perhaps, is the fact that the environmental justice movement has redefined
problems deeply embedded in the nation’s social, political and industrial
history, and contends that they cannot be solved through a piecemeal approach.
Therefore, the connections made between race, class and gender differential
environmental impact have resonated in the environmental justice movement. As
most of the contributors demonstrate in this special issue, the environmental
justice movement differs from the mainstream environmental movement in its
attempt to link environmental principles with historical and contemporary social
and economic justice struggles.
Dorceta E. Taylor American Environmentalism: The Role of Race,
Class and Gender in Shaping Activism, 1820-1995 (p16-62)
The history of
American environmentalism presented by most authors, is really a history of
middle class white male environmental activism. The tendency to view all
environmental activism through this lens has deprived us of a deeper
understanding of the way in which class, race and gender relations structured
environmental experiences and responses over time. The inability of the white
middle class environmental supporters of the reform environmental agenda to
recognize the limits of that agenda has led working class whites, people of
color and some middle class activists, marginalized and/or excluded from the
reform environmental discourse, to develop alternative environmental agendas.
The environmental movement is a powerful social movement, however, the movement
faces enormous challenges in the future. Among the most urgent, is the need to
develop a more inclusive, culturally sensitive, broad-based environmental agenda
that will appeal to many people and unite many sectors of the movement. To do
this the movement has to re-evaluate its relationship with industry and the
government, re-appraise its role and mission, and develop strategies to
understand and improve race, class and gender relations. Keywords: environment,
people of color, class, race, gender, environmental justice
Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson & Beverly H, Wright Confronting Environmental Injustice: It's The Right Thing To Do (p63-79)
The environmental justice
movement has set out clear goals of eliminating unequal enforcement of
environmental, civil rights, housing, transportation, facility siting, and
public health laws. Community residents are fighting to end their exposure to
harmful chemicals, pesticides, and other toxins in their homes, schools,
neighborhoods, and workplace. They are challenging the "science" and
faulty assumptions in selecting sites for polluting facilities, calculating,
assessing, and managing risks. In many cases, the only science involved in the
siting of locally unwanted land uses or LULUs is political science.
Joe Bandy Reterritorializing Borders: Transnational Environmental
Justice Movement on the U.S./Mexico Border (p80-103)
In the turbulent restructuring of the
global economic order, North America has seen the emergence of a neoliberal
regime of accumulation, in which the ideologies of free markets and
transnational production accompany practices of uneven development and the
exploitation of natural and human resources. In this context, the U.S./Mexico
border, and especially the San Diego/Tijuana area, has been a site of intensive
political contradictions: rapid growth and industrialization, yet extensive
immiseration and environmental destruction. However, the border also has been
the site of an emergent group of community-based environmental justice movements
which have worked to build trans-issue and trans-national coalitions in
opposition to the abuses of corporate capital and unrepresentative government in
the region. Through extended interviews with several environmental justice
organizers, this study explores the possibilities and limitations of their
coalitional endeavors, as well as their eco-populist and radically democratic
vision of globalization from below. Keywords: environment justice, neoliberalism, US./Mexico border, coalition building, radical democracy.
Jael Silliman Making The Connections: Women's Health and
Environmental Justice (p104-129)
This paper
examines and compares the transnational women’s health movement with the
environmental justice movement in the US. It discusses how both seek to empower
those discriminated against with the information, tools and resources to
challenge discrimination. Women have played key roles in both these struggles.
Each movement has mobilized its own constituency and developed a distinctive
political and economic critique. While providing a broad brush overview of each
movement I underline their similarities and key differences. I compare the two
movements on the basis of their objectives, leadership and membership patterns,
organizing methods, constituencies, and their impacts. The paper points to
potential areas for collaboration and suggests ways to relate to other social
movements dedicated to creating a future based on a more inclusive set of
values. KeyWords: health, environment, transnational organizing, environmental
justice
Raquel Pinderhugues Who Decides What Constitutes A Pollution
Problem? (p130-152)
This article
focuses on problems which emerge for residents who live in low income
communities impacted by small source polluters when environmental regulatory
staff do not concur with their perception that there is a pollution problem in
their community. The article discusses five main differences in perception
between community residents and regulatory staff about the degree to which small
source polluters constitute a "pollution "problem." First,
differences in perception about the importance of looking at small source
polluters vs. large source polluters as one defines what constitutes a
"pollution problem." Second, differences in perception about the need
to compare communities within the regulatory agency's jurisdiction to one
another as one defines what constitutes a "pollution problem." Third,
differences in perception about the need to take the resources of the regulatory
agency into consideration as one defines what constitutes a "pollution
problem." Fourth, differences in perception about the need to take the
health of the business into consideration as one defines what constitutes a
"pollution problem." Fifth, differences in perception about the need
to take zoning regulations into consideration as one defines what constitutes a
"pollution problem." Utilizing case study analysis, the author
concludes that the current "regulatory approach" should be replaced
with a "community-based approach," and that the new approach should be
an "effects based analysis" rather than a "source-based
analysis." Keywords: pollution, air pollution, environmental justice, community, small source pollutants
Paul Mohai Gender Differences In The Perception Of Most Important
Environmental Problems (p153-169)
Research to date has suggested that
gender differences in concern about environmental issues are more likely to
exist for local problems that pose health and safety concerns than for
environmental problems that are framed more generally. It has been hypothesized
that women are more concerned than men about local environmental problems
because they have been socialized to be family nurturers and caregivers.
However, beyond the "local versus general" environmental concern
distinction, there is little information about whether men and women differ in
their concerns about a wider range of environmental issues, and what might
account for these differences if they exist. In this study, gender differences
were examined along five specific dimensions or sets of environmental issues: 1)
resource conservation, 2) nature preservation, 3) pollution, 4) global
environmental problems, and 5) neighborhood environmental problems. Women were
found to express greater concern than men over most dimensions, although
differences were modest. Keyword: gender, race, environment, environmental justice, environmental movement
Book Review: Joseph Damrell The New Resources Wars: Native and
Environmental Struggles Against Multinational Corporations, by Al Gedicks,
Boston, MA South End Press, 1993 (p170-173)
Al Gedicks’ book, The New Resource
Wars, points out that one problem is that, despite all the claims to the
contrary, there is simply no safe way to extract minerals from the earth. The
mining industry worldwide destroys nature and leaves human devastation in its
wake.
Guests-Editors: Qun Wang, Wendy Ng and Jean Ait Belkhir
Introduction: Jean Ait Belkhir & Johnnella E, Butler Race,
Gender, and Class from an Asian American Perspective (p5-11)
This special issue greatly contributes to the development of
multicultural race, gender and class studies, by exploring the intersection of
race, gender and class from an Asian American perspective. We want to thank all
authors of this edition of Race, Gender & Class which reveals how the
race, gender and class paradigm becomes a major concept not only in academic
disciplines, but also in understanding better human social issues.
Yen L. Espiritu Race, Gender, Class in the Lives of Asian
American (p12-19)
This essay discusses how Asian Americans, as racialized
"others" who occupy a "third" position, both disrupt and
conform to the hegemonic dualism of race, gender, and class.
Tim Libretti Asian American Cultural Resistance (p20-39)
In this paper, I will explore the possibilities that
might be produced from an encounter between Marxism and Asian American literary
theory and begin to imagine what an Asian American Marxism (in the spirit of
Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism) might look like. More particularly I
will examine the dynamics of both Asian American literary practice and theory as
acts of cultural resistance and interventions into the complex and interrelated
processes of Asian American working class, national, gender and racial formation
and evaluate how the introductions of "class" and "totality" as literary critical categories might complicate and enhance our understanding
of particular literary texts as well as our theorization of Asian American
political identity as its constituent elements traverse diverse yet at-times
contradictory categories of class, gender, race and nation.
David Leiwei Li Race, Gender, Class and Asian American Literacy
Theory (p40-53)
This essay approaches the categorical construction of
"Asian America(n)" through an interdisciplinary examination of its
contemporary literary emergence. It investigates the ways with which race,
gender and class are embedded within or absent from an evolving Asian American
critical and cultural discourse, to reflect upon the interplay among the key
"trilogy" itself, to note its inextricable relation to
"nation" and "disapora," and to relate them to the role of
Asian American academic critics. To accomplish this general objective, I will
engage in a three-fold argument. First, I shall briefly use the
"pre-scriptive" to suggest both the official legal definition and an
earlier historical definition. The production and prohibition of the
"Oriental" within the formation of the United States thus constitutes
the prescription of the "Asian American" and predetermines to a large
extent the scope of its challenge. Second, I look at the ethnic nationalist and
feminist writings of the "Asian American" as counter narratives and
"self (in)scriptive" acts where race and gender become central
categories of contestation to the Orientalist "prescription." Last but
not the least, I shall examine the "post-scriptive" Asian American
delineational efforts within the more familiar and influential operations of
postmodernist and poststructuralist discourses. This will bring us to the
present moment when Asian American Studies is undergoing serious disciplinary
revision due to the increasing duress of transnational capital. Attention will
be devoted to the global and local capital's complication of race, gender and
class issues, and to the place of the Asian American (academic) intellectual
caught within this nexus of relations.
Julia Lisella Class, Ethnicity and Gender in Maxine Hong
Kingston's China Men (p54-68)
China Men is a book about work and
class. And to focus on the mythic aspects of Kingston’s narrative is to
overlook this larger theme. In this light, I would like to argue here, it might
be more useful to look at Kingston’s work beside that of a more politically
identified literary forebear than Williams, such as Filipino writer Carlos
Bulosan. Indeed, Bulosan scholar E. San Juan, Jr., likens Kingston’s efforts
in China Men to Bulosan’s text, America is in the Heart in that
it offers "another strategy of creative disruption that can outflank the
lure of identity politics, the lure of the romantic totem of the liberal
imagination for writers who overvalorize its demiurgic capacity" (San Juan,
1991:58). Like Bulosan, Kingston examines immigrant labor and the racism that
assailed Asian-American workers during their early century immigration to North
America. And like Bulosan’s landmark autobiographical text, America is in the Heart, Kingston offers us a hybrid text that combines personal autobiography, personal history, and fiction to tell her story.
Jinhua Emma Teng Miscegenation and the Critique of Patriarchy
in Turn-of-the-Century Fiction (p69-87)
Chinese journalist Wong Chin Foo’s account of the New
York Chinese for the August 1888 issue of New York’s The Cosmopolitan addressed a subject that was attracting increasing attention in the American
press during the late nineteenth century: the intermarriage of
"whites" and "Mongolians." Wong’s claim for a supposed
preference on the part of white working-class women for Chinese husbands can be
read in part as a response to the more prevalent sensationalist treatment of
white-Chinese relationships in the American media (Wong, 1888:308).
Qun Wang "Double Consciousness" Sociological
Imagination and the Asian American Experience (p88-94)
As is demonstrated in Asian American literature, what many
writers are searching for is a ground on which they can find their own identity,
whether the identity is Asian or American, or American Chinese or Chinese
American. In Chinese American Amy Ling's article, "Creating One's Self: the
Eaton Sisters," the author reiterates "what has by now become almost a
truism": "the self is not a fixed entity but a fluid, changing
construct or creation determined by context or historical conditions and
particularly by power relationships" (1993:306). By using the example of
the Eaton Sisters who had adopted identities of their choice in creative
writing, Ling convincingly reveals the dialectical relationship between creation
and recreation and between the permeability of the boundaries of the self and
the influence of historical conditions. To understand Asian American literature
in the postcolonial period is, indeed, to resist the temptation of totalization,
to accept the plurality of the Asian American experience, and to appreciate
Asian American writers' effort to democratize American literary voice by
(re)presenting what has been mis(sing)-represented, by celebrating the cultural
diversity of American society, and by calling readers' attention to the
peculiarity and uniqueness of the Asian American experience.
Madhulika S. Khandelwal Defining Community and Feminism: Indian
Women in NYC (p95-111)
This paper is a case study of (Asian) Indian
immigrant women in New York City. Though this is a discussion of one of the
Asian American ethnic groups, it challenges attempts to compartmentalize ethnic
women in homogeneous and static categories of race, ethnicity, and culture. By
placing immigrant women in community trajectories, I hope to bring out gender
dynamics that are shaped at the intersection of multiplicity of factors such as
capitalism and international migration of labor, racial and partiarchal
hierarchies, generation, and family conditions. At the same time, this
intercontextuality of gender is in constant motion, and is (re)constructed out
of relativity of roles.(Mohanty, 1991).
Jeffrey Chin Mobilizing for Social Change: An Asian American's
Perspective (p112-121)
This paper will discuss some strategies for initiating
institutional change on a college campus with intergroup relations as the focus.
The paper will outline conditions under which change agents are likely to work
and some of the special circumstances that arise when the change agents are
Americans of Asian descent. Sociological theories of intergroup relations are
presented to provide a better understanding of why these circumstances are
peculiar to Asian American change agents, and the paper provides concluding
comments.
Deborah Woo Asian Americans in Higher Education: Issues of
Diversity and Engagement (p122-142)
The present article looks specifically at how Asian American
students have experienced and viewed their own participation on a college campus
which has one of the most ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse student
bodies in the world, the University of California at Berkeley. During the late
1960s, when student unrest appeared on many different fronts, issues of racial
and ethnic diversity revolved fundamentally around access. In addition to the
protests related to America's involvement in the Vietnam War, students of all
backgrounds were influenced by the Civil Rights movement. There were real legal
and tradition-bound barriers to participation of ethnic-racial minorities in
higher education in the United States (e.g., old-boy networks and access only
via traditional black colleges). While the workplace was the first sphere in
which affirmative action measures would be implemented, universities would
ultimately be forced to embark on a course of self-examination of their own
restrictive policies. Institutions receiving public monies were thereby required
to better assess how well or poorly minorities fared, relative to the general
population.
Milliann Kang Manicuring Race, Gender and Class: Service
Interactions in NYC Korean-Owned Nail Salons (p143-164)
This paper presents ethnographic data collected through
interviews and participant observation with customers and manicurists in one
Midtown Manhattan salon, focusing on the use of language (Korean vs. English) as
a site of imposition and contestation of status and power positions.
Joyce N. Chinen Sewing Resistance into the Grain: Hawaii's Garment Workers at Work and at Home (p165-179)
This paper explores Asian and Pacific American
women's resistance to racial, class, and gender oppression by examining the work
and family experiences of workers in Hawaii's garment industry. Interviews with
twenty-five garment workers, most of them Asian and Pacific American women,
showed that these workers were a diverse group in terms of age, generation,
training. However, there were also similarities in the resistance strategies
employed by these women in both their workplaces and homes.
Guest-Editors: Anne R. Roschelle, Theresa A. Martinez, & William Velez
Preface: Jean Ait Belkhir & Johnnella E. Butler (p5-9)
This edition of the journal Race, Gender & Class focuses on the multiple effects of race, gender, and class on the daily lives of
Latina/o Americans. The authors use a systematic analysis that integrates race,
gender and class intersection from a Latina perspective and show three levels of
interrelated contributions. First, Latino/a Americans have made limited gains in
educational levels, labor participation, economic situation, rates of poverty,
immigration policies, and other socio-economic indicators. For example, during
1990-91, approximately 60 percent of all baccalaureate degrees, 49 percent of
all Masters degrees, and 33 percent of all doctoral and professional degrees
were awarded to women. However, during 1990-91 Hispanic and African American
women together received less than 6 percent of all baccalaureate degrees, and
4.3 percent of all graduate and professional degrees. Second, Latino/a Americans
have developed resistance against the persistent sources of inequality produced
by the interconnected effects of race, gender, and class on their daily lives -
- e.g., utilizing the paid or unpaid labor of other adults residing in the home.
Third, Chicanas are in the forefront in reformulating Chicano/a Studies by
producing a solid body of literature that explores the intersections of race,
gender, and class. As Alma Garcia writes, "Chicanas have been outside the
framework of Chicano investigation and its research," as well as its
general discourse. Thus, Chicana feminist work in the tradition of those women
of color theorists who have pushed the issues of race, gender, and class to the
forefront of analytical, theoretical and societal discourse.
Alma M. Garcia Voices of Women of Color: Redefining Women's Studies (p11-28)
These personal reflections from my childhood provide a particular
dimension to my analysis of multiculturalism, the voices of women of color, and
Women's Studies. Research on coming of age as a person of color in the United
States is incomplete if gender identity is overlooked. Similarly, gender
research on "growing up female" requires an analysis of racial,
ethnic, and class identity formation. Within the academy, Ethnic Studies and
Women's Studies scholars have been addressing the complexities of race,
ethnicity, and gender which shape the daily life of women of color.
Richard A. Garcia Toward a Theory of Latina Rebirth "Renacimiento de la Tierra Madre:" The Feminism of Gloria Anzaldua (p29-44)
In this essay, I want to suggest that Anzaldua has not only
analyzed the ethnic women's experiences, but has constructed a new theoretical
framework from which to move beyond a dualism in identity to a state of multiple
identities, including lesbianism. She has founded her theories on a
"consciousness of collectivity," linked by a unity of spirituality,
mythology, and humanism, and based on a recognition of differences.
Stephanie Amedeo Marquez Race, Class, and Gender: Reformulating "The Push and Pull Factors" Explanation of Hispanic Immigration (p45-56)
The most scathing indictment of the dominant sociological
theory of Hispanic immigration is not that it is inadequate, or overly
simplistic. The push/pull thesis of job and poverty cogently reinforces the
public stereotype of "floods of poor, fertile, and illegal" Mexican
immigrants fleeing poverty and stealing American jobs."
Cecilia Garza Foreign Domestics: The Use and Abuse of Undocumented Household
Workers (p57-72)
This study presents an insight into the lives and intricacies
of an otherwise invisible population of domestic workers. It also challenges the
protected groups within the framework of established middle-class and
upper-class families and business-sector institutions. Economic connections
between the United States and Mexico have created a marginalized population
differentiated on the basis of race/ethnicity, gender and social class.
Diana J. Torrez The Role of Gender and Race in the Older Latinas's Economic Well-Being (p73-90)
Utilizing Latinas’ socioeconomic indicators during
adulthood, this paper examines the economic well-being of older Latinas. The
educational levels, types of occupation and incomes of Latinas during the life
course is examined in an attempt to understand these factors long-term effect on
the economics of older Latinas. The author concludes that because Latinas are
socioeconomically disadvantaged throughout their lives, this disadvantage not
only persists into old age, but often worsens. This is evident by noting that
Latina women have the lowest median income of any aged group. This paper
concludes that older Latinas’ race and gender are directly related to their
well-being. In order to begin to improve the economic situation of older
Latinas, intervention must begin with young and middle aged Latinas. The
intervention must not only assume the form of increased levels of education, but
also must be accompanied by improved job opportunities and pay equity. Changes
must occur not only at the individual level, but at the societal level as well,
if the middle-aged Latinas are to fare better in the future than their mothers
and grandmothers.
Vilma Ortiz Family Economic Strategies Among Latinas (p91-106)
This paper examines one economic strategy that Latinas may use
to improve their family’s economic status - utilizing the paid or unpaid labor
of other adults residing in the home. To address this issue, I study whether the
presence of other adults residing in the household, not including a spouse, has
an effect on the family’s income level of Latinas. Moreover, I examine the
questions (1) does the presence of other adults benefit non-married Latinas
heading families more than married Latinas and (2) does the presence of other
adults contribute more to the family’s income when women are employed than
when they are not employed? In other words, does the presence of other adults in
the home interact with marriage and employment? I also examine whether the
characteristics of the adults present in the household influence their
contribution to family income. For instance, does the presence of other women or
employed adults in the household have an effect on family income? This study
uses a 1990 survey of Latinos residing in California, who are primarily of
Mexican origin. Results show that the presence of other adults in the household
generally improves family income, especially among non-married and non-employed
Latinas. Moreover, the characteristics of adults present in the household does
influence their contribution to family income. These results contribute to our
understanding of the economic strategies used by Latinas to improve their family’s
income and illustrate how class, race/ethnicity, and gender intersect to
influence family’s economic well-being.
Anne R. Roschelle Declining Networks of Care: Ethnicity, Migration, and Poverty in a Puerto Rican Community (p107-126)
Although past research suggests
that women of color are more likely to participate in informal social support
networks than non-Hispanic White women, there is limited research examining the
child care networks of Puerto Rican women. In addition, past research often
attributes participation in extended kin networks to cultural norms valuing
familism or structural factors requiring participation in networks to mitigate
against the deleterious effects of poverty. However, artificial dichotomies
between culture and social structure have hampered the development of a broader
theoretical paradigm from which to examine participation in extended social
support networks. The research for this particular study originated from an
earlier project that examined kin and non-kin social support networks among
African American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, and White families using national
survey data. Based on the findings of quantitative analyses, I designed a
follow-up ethnographic study to address important questions left unanswered by
survey research. Drawing on the ethnographic data, this research examines Puerto
Rican women's participation in informal child care networks using an integrative
theoretical perspective that explores the intersection of race, gender, and
class by examining both cultural and structural indicators of social support.
Ruth E. Zambrana, Claudia Dorrington, & Sally Alonzo Bell Mexican American
Women in Higher Education: A Comparative Study (p127-150)
Mary Romero Class-Based, Gendered and Racialized Institutions of Higher Education: Everyday
Life of Academia From the View of Chicana Faculty (p151-173)
This study focuses on the everyday practices occurring within
institutions that shape the professional roles of Chicana scholars and teachers
to fulfill specific class, gender, racial, and ethnic expectations held by the
dominant majority in higher education. Analyzing the accounts of Chicana
academic experiences provides a rich source of thick description about the
everyday organization and practices in institutions, particularly the dynamics
in universities, departments, and classrooms that genderize and racialize the
academic positions.
Editors: Judith Barker & Jean Ait Belkhir
Janet Zandy Decloaking Class: Why Class Identity and Consciousness Count
(p7-24)
What I would like to do is offer a road map to class. I want
to point to certain directions, certain stops along the way, hoping that you
will return to them for a closer look another time. In the first part I address
the question of class identity and definition and suggest some approaches to
thinking about this large concept. In the second part, I look at the question of
visibility -- particularly in terms of the blocking of class history and
knowledge. And in the third part, I speak more personally about my own work and
my traveling identity as a working class person.
Brenda Cochrane and Dawn Addy Through the Wall of Fire: Class and Identity in Labor Education and Labor Studies (p25-40)
Little attention has been paid in this literature to a small
group of academics who, although they are trained in traditional disciplines,
choose to pursue their academic career in the specialized fields of labor
education and labor studies: fields where the primary mission is the education
and empowerment of the working class. In this study we will examine the
experiences of these academics who, in their choice of field, appear to be
self-consciously struggling to maintain their class identity and their ties to
the working class as a way of coping with the alienation they feel as they work
in the upper-middle-class milieu of academia.
Fernando E. Gapasin Race, Gender and Other "Problems" of Unity for the American Working Class (p41-62)
This study involved a local union in the public transportation
industry. During the period being studied, 1970 through 1992, this union was
transformed from a 124-member private sector union, made up mostly of White male
bus drivers, into a 1800-member multiracial, multigender, multioccupational
union. It was a period of tremendous economic, political, social and ideological
change, marked by militancy, during which a rank and file movement for democracy
unseated a 25-year incumbent president. It was also a period in which the
leadership of the union changed from a White-run union to a minority led
union. This study suggests that demographic changes in the work force set
objective conditions for fragmentation to occur, but the single variable that is
decisive in building working class unity is the subjective factor, i.e., class
conscious leadership. By class conscious I mean leaders who interpret the U.S.
as a social system divided by class relationships, primarily, working class and
capitalist class. Within this context, class conscious leaders understand that
the system of dominance is not simply one of capitalist domination over the
working class, but also a system of domination characterized by racial and
gender privilege. In other words, within classes, there exist structures and
cultures of domination by which White males have a privileged position over
racial minorities (women and men) and White women. In addition, White men and
women share a favored position in the American social system over racial
minorities (women and men). I argue that "class consciousness" is a
requisite to effective working class leadership. That is, leadership that
recognizes that workers have multiple identities that are given meaning by their
occupation, gender and race. It is the ideological "consciousness" that leads to activist strategies that create internal union coalitions aimed at
increasing democratic participation. The implementation of the strategy results
in an organizational restructuring that increases the potential of racial
minorities and White women to play a leading role in union governance.
Joan M. Morris and Michael D. Grimes Contradictions in the Childhood Socialization of Sociologists from the Working Class (p63-82)
Early socialization within a class culture has important and
long-lasting effects. Therefore, when individuals are socialized within a
working-class family environment, they can expect to experience "culture
shock" when they achieve upward mobility that takes them out of their
class-of-origin and into the foreign terrain of middle-class culture. And, to
the extent that gender and race or ethnicity manifest themselves in ways that
are distinctively class-oriented, the effects of this "shock" are
magnified for women, for people of color, and for the members of ethnic
minorities. The focus of this paper is on the childhood socialization of a group
of sociologists from working-class backgrounds - a group of people who have, by
most standards, "made something" of themselves, but not necessarily in
the ways their parents intended. In fact, for many of them, their successes have
been accomplished in spite of what their parents taught them about what it means
to be successful; their successes have also sometimes come at the expense of the
approval and acceptance of their families and childhood peers.
Jake Ryan Even If You Can't Go Home Again, Do It Anyway!
(p83-102)
The proteanism essential to the survival of an authentic self
can be realized through action according to Lifton. The search for the authentic
self is through a spiritual journey inward to essence or outward in causes that
reconnect us to our species being, be those cases ecological survivals or other
paths leading to a sense of global belonging. These are the paths leading to
hope and psychic survival (1993:232). What I wish to do in this paper is
raise some questions about Lifton’s postulations, particularly historical
dislocation. What I wish to argue is that far more conflict exists between
historical locations than he allows. Further, when historical dislocations are
multifaceted and include several overlapping oppressions, such as intersections
of class, race, gender, or ethnicity, the problem for the individual goes beyond
estrangement to inner conflict. Resolution of these inner conflicts is not
readily resolved by inward spiritual journeys or astroprojection or cosmic
belongingness. Rather, it is a matter of engaging the specifics of inner
conflict and the external mechanisms of oppression.
Judith Barker A White Working Class Perspective on Epistemology (p103-118)
I was in the
early stages of a research project, interviewing academics from working-class
backgrounds, when Jake Ryan, co-author of Strangers in Paradise gave me
a call for papers from working-class academics and suggested that I write
something. Like all junior faculty I was under pressure to publish and felt that
I had to write something. Since my research was still in the early stages I
decided to write a personal essay about being a white woman from a working-class
background in academia. When I attempted to begin writing I found that I could
not separate my personal experience from my academic knowledge: my academic
knowledge kept creeping into my personal account. The reverse was true when I
tried to write from a purely research standpoint. I spent several months
attempting to write an essay without even creating an introduction or outline.
This was a painful process for me and I began to think that I had writers block.
As the deadline approached I finally wrote an introduction; a "story"
about my mother and myself which was grounded in a combination of personal
experience and academic knowledge. I had no idea why I began that way, but
somehow it worked. When the essay was completed I summarized the roots of
my analysis as: my own personal experiences; conversations with other
working-class women in academia; and the preliminary results of my research. I
sent it off, and while
initially rejected, it was later published in a Women's Studies text. (Barker,
1990).
Roxanne Rimstead What Working Class Intellectuals Claim to Know
(p119-142)
Should we lament the distance that comes between
working-class intellectuals and the friends and family they "leave
behind" or should we celebrate our connectedness? Is class primarily a
social location from the past that working-class intellectuals have transcended
through professionalism, a past that houses memories of family life and
neighborhood but exists largely outside of and out of touch with the academy we
now call home? Or is working-class reality ever present to its own "organic
intellectuals," to use Gramsci's term, who have special knowledge and
special feelings about this community? Can academics from the working class have
it both ways by claiming to know special secrets about both worlds - and yet
protesting we are "nowhere at home" (Ryan & Sackrey 1984, Overall
in Dews & Law 1995)? These are not merely choices of theoretical paradigms
or personal metaphors. These conflicting images of distance and solidarity help
construct the relationship between intellectuals and oppressed people by
generating cultural beliefs about the possible relation between the two.
Terry R. Kandal Gender, Race & Ethnicity: Let's Not Forget Class (p143-166)
The
most serious and pressing intellectual and political challenges to Marxist class
analysis are posed by the rise of new social movements based on sex/gender and
race/ethnicity (leaving aside those based on sexual orientation, generation,
physical challenge, etc., etc.) captured by the characterization "identity
politics." To these we could add environmental/ecological movements, with
green parties attempting to unify all these disparate groupings with sections of
an older left (s). Combined with the relative and recently absolute decline of
the industrial proletariat (Kimeldorf 1994:25) in the advanced capitalist
countries, the weakening of working-class organizations, and trade unions, the
centering of labor and socialist parties, the collapse of Soviet-type communist
states and third world socialist regimes, many on the Left have argued that the
concept of class has outlived its power and usefulness, scientifically and in
political practice. Two sociologists (Terry Clark and Seymour Martin Lipset)
from different ends of the political spectrum, but always at the cutting edges
of social and theoretical developments, represent this shift away from class
analysis.
Jean Ait Belkhir Social Inequality and Race, Gender, Class: A Working Class Intellectual Perspective (p167-194)
We are not born class awareness. It must be learned. My
family was working class, and I began my working life as a factory and
construction worker at the age of 14-15 years old. My family never identified
itself as working class. I discovered this word in Marxist literature when I
went back to school at the age of 29 years old to become a working adult student
without a junior or high school diploma. I struggled for years to understand it.
All learning about social class inequality begins with Marx, but does not end
there. Marx does not adequately address gender and racial inequality and does
not seem to realize that educational inequality is a form of capital, even more
under socialized economy. My aim is to argue that the complexities of social
inequality cannot be understood without a combination of Marx's concept of class
and Weber's theory of socioeconomic status with Bakunin's analysis of education
as a form of capital with race, gender and class intersections as analytical
categories. I will use domestic work as a model to illustrate how the
complexities of race, gender, and class are played out. Boldly I call for "Higher
Education for All Children," and of course, what I have in mind, is
higher education within a curriculum framework of multi-culturalist and
egalitarian ideology.
Book Review: M. Bahati Kuumba From the Left Bank at the Mainstream:
Historical Debates and Contemporary Research in Marxist Sociology, by
Patrick McGuire and Donald McQuarie, New York: General Hall, Inc., 1994 (p195-198)
This collection of articles, edited by Patrick McGuire and
Donald McQuarie, explores the importance of Marxism as a distinct sociological
tradition, source of key concepts and frameworks to mainstream U.S. sociology,
and ideological basis for countless socioeconomic and political liberation
struggles. The timeless of this work is indisputable. It emerges into a
socio-political atmosphere charged by rising neoconservatism, the proclaimed
demise of Marxism as a relevant paradigm, and the dysfunctionality of socialism
as allegedly illustrated by the disintegration the Eastern bloc.
Lois Weis, and Michelle Fine Notes on "White" As "Race:" (p5-9)
"White" as "Race" is a terribly important
question, and we would like to see multiculturalist educators and race, gender,
and class scholars push it more.
Deborah Woo Asian Americans in Higher Education: Issues of Identity and Access (p11-38)
This article reports on how Asian American students have
discussed issues of access at UC Berkeley. During the 1960s efforts to mitigate
social inequalities took new, reformist, sometimes even radical institutional
form. Affirmative Action was a small reformist measure, introduced into
institutions of higher education to offset previous practices which contributed
to the exclusion of certain groups from the ranks of students, faculty, and
staff. On July 20, 1995, a bare majority of the University of California regents
voted to end the use of race as a factor in both admissions and hiring.
Enrico G. Pedro South African Matriculation Results: Comparison Across Racial Lines (p39-60)
In this article, I demonstrate that, because of
inequality that resulted from past racial discrimination, a comparison for
recognition between the matriculation results of the various South African
racial groups is unfair, absurd, and illegitimate. A comparison for recognition
can only be fair and legitimate if the effects of past racial discrimination are
eliminated. I contend that a racial breakdown of the matriculation results,
however, is necessary to monitor the equalizing process. I focus on the
following aspects: racially segregated education, funding, physical resources,
teacher provision, medium of instruction, curriculum and evaluation,
socio-economic conditions, culture of resistance, parental involvement,
apartheid bureaucracy, teacher strikes, and student discipline all of which
contributed to the inequality in South Africa's education. I also make a
few recommendations toward eliminating the effects of past racial
discrimination. They are the dismissal of elements that obstruct progressive
change, a greater racial integration in neighborhoods and schools, compensatory
money allocations, socio-economic empowerment, and a drastic change in the
content and format of the curriculum, and the evaluation instrument. This may
only be achieved over a few decades.
Meg Wilkes Karraker Race or Socioeconomic Status? Predicting High School Females' Plans for Higher Education (p61-76)
This article addresses three questions related to a primary
component of gender roles, the education plans of adolescent females. To assess
the relative impact of race and socioeconomic status on those role plans, the
research on which this article is based examined three questions: 1. Do Black
and White adolescent females have the same or different plans for higher
education? 2. Do Black and White adolescent females from the same family income
circumstances have the same or different plans for higher education? 3. What
contributions do race and family income make to the education plans of
adolescent females? The data which these questions were measured are from the
High School Class of 1980, a decade which signifies the high school graduation
of the cohort known as the 'baby bust'. Scholars and planners can look to this
cohort in anticipation of seeing the crystallization of gender role changes
which occurred in the preceding generation.
Milagros Peña Beijing's 95 and the Women's Movement in Michoacan, Mexico: Centering Discussions on Gender, Class, and Race (p77-87)
The 1995 United Nations' sponsored International Women's
Summit conference held in Beijing, China was a catalyst for an impressive
worldwide mobilization of women's non-government organizations (NGOs). This
paper looks at women's NGOs contributions in Michoacán, Mexico to the 1995
United Nations' international conference on women. The "Toward
Beijing" strategizing helped the women's NGOs in Michoacán mobilization
process and the crystallization of its movement focus. Archived documents,
interviews, and letters circulated in the mobilization for the toward Beijing
buttressed dialogue around gender, class, and race issues that had been evolving
in Michoacán. The opportunities created by the toward Beijing efforts created
forums for dialogue and opportunities for women’s NGOs to meet regularly and
for them to bring their perspectives to the toward Beijing preparatory process.
Linda Pertusati The 1990 Mohawk-Oka Conflict: The Importance of Culture in Social Movement Mobilization (p88-106)
Using an explanatory framework that draws upon the insights of
social movement theory that stresses the importance of culture and frame analysis
, this article will demonstrate how Mohawk Warrior Movement leaders were able to
use cultural resources in order to nurture and capitalize on an ideological
interpretive frame, "nationalism," to articulate their own and their
constituents' grievances against state repression and to assign meaning to
movement participation and protest activity. I will also demonstrate how this
ideology of Mohawk nationalism, when merged with a sense of responsibility to
Mohawk history (in this case, a recurring pattern of land theft, cultural
denigration, and resistance), mobilized a committed constituency of resistance
during the 1990 Mohawk-Oka conflict.
Theresa A. Martinez Toward A Chicana Feminist Epistemological Standpoint: Theory at the Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender (p107-128)
This present work is about that unlearning and learning
process. While the paper is by no means a complete denial of Marx, Weber, and
Durkheim and the other "masters of sociological thought" that
dominated my undergraduate and graduate training, it is about affirming other
ways of knowing the social world. But chiefly, this paper is about
autobiography. It is about my story, my personal history as a Chicana, and as a
feminist. In trying to know and understand my personal history, I take a step
that sharpens my ability to envision the social world within the individual
life, as well as the individual life within the social world, that is both
theorizing and storytelling. This paper, while not an achievement of a completed
Chicana feminist epistemological standpoint, is a beginning step taken toward
its accomplishment and toward affirming its timeliness and its significance in
the world of academia and in everyday life.
David Nibert Note on "Minority Group as Sociological Euphemism" (p129-136)
Recently, while I was teaching a course on the
sociology of race and ethnic relations, a student bristled when the concept of minority
group was presented. The student maintained the label somehow diminished the
status of entire groups of people. As I attempted to respond to my student with
the routine sociological definition, I became increasingly uncomfortable with my
own defense of the concept. I came to consider the possibility that the term
minority group was a euphemism created and perpetuated by social scientists. It
is that position that is developed here.
Raymond S. Franklin A Brief Essay on "The Response to Black Youth Crime By A New Breed of Bleeding Heart Conservatives" (p137-146)
If you can trust the words of Newt
Gingrich, American Civilization rests on the shoulders of black 12-year-old
girls. On April 7, 1995, he stated: "The fact is, no civilization can
survive with 12-year-olds having babies"(NY Times 1995:8). Black girls were
not mentioned because it was unnecessary. Whenever teenage pregnancies are
discussed in the media, pictures of young black girls are shown. The teenage mom
has become a code word for young black women who have children out of wedlock.
How do we make sense of Gingrich’s statement? What does it mean when a
congressional leader of the only superpower left in the world expresses the
belief that the future existence of his country depends on the chastity of black
12-year-old girls? I will try to provide an answer to these questions.
Jean Ait Amber-Belkhir in collaboration with 16 authors
Multiculturalism and Race, Gender, Class in American Higher Education
Textbooks (p147-173)
Guest-Editor: Luana Ross
A Short Story by Patrick LeBeau (p5-10)
The following is true as far as it goes. I
remember Grandpa Allard - my mother’s Mother’s father - use to tell many
stories and such when we would come visiting but only if us kids would sit
quietly and tend to his needs. I always brought him a pack of Camels; a brand he
said he began smoking in 1917. In 1976, when I was eighteen, he told me a more
serious story because he overheard my father and me discussing what I should do
with my life. My father wanted me to go to college rather than throwing block in
Minnesota or raising horses for the rodeo with my uncle in South Dakota. The
story Grandpa Allard told was analogous both to his life and to my father’s
life. But, I wonder how much the story was meant for me.
Jack Forbes The Native Intellectual Tradition in Relation to Race, Gender and Class (p11-34)
A review of indigenous American writing has made it
apparent that indigenous authors have had to think of race, gender, and class,
or more precisely, nation, gender, and caste, within the context of invasion,
colonialism and imperialism. Whatever the position of the genders in
pre-invasion American societies, the five centuries which followed have forced
most First Americans to preoccupy themselves with colonialism, and with the
evolution of caste societies as the latter gradually shifted emphasis from
religion, nationality, and class, to primarily race and caste.
Franke Wilmer
Narratives of Resistance: Postmodernism and Indigenous World Views (p35-58)
This article will focus on the commonalties
between two in particular which have not been examined coincidentally:
postmodernism and indigenous peoples' activism as narratives of resistance and
liberation. In addition to remedying this deficiency by enlarging discussions
about postmodernism to include indigenous social theory and philosophy, this
essay also points the way to further explorations into some of the most pressing
problems unveiled by the postmodern critique, such as how others can be include
without assimilating and totalizing them, and identifying alternative ways of
conceptualizing gender and difference. Finally, by revealing the important ways
in which indigenous philosophies enlighten a broader critique of modernity, this
essay is also a call to social theorists and practitioners to take the
indigenous critique seriously. As global processes weave together ever more
tightly a common destiny, it may well be exactly the pieces of knowledge
contributed by the myriad of indigenous cultures that become vital in our mutual
efforts to adapt, and therefore evolve, in an ever changing social and physical
environment.
Rodney L. Brod, and John Lundt Ethnic Differences In An Indian Reservation High School (p59-74)
Supported by the school administration and the local Indian
parent committee, a study was designed and undertaken to determine the extent of
the relationships, if any, between ethnicity (being American Indian or not) and
relevant measures of schooling and academic achievement. In addition to using
school achievement data, an extensive questionnaire was designed based upon
concepts and items from previous major studies by Dornbusch (1985) and Dornbusch
& Ritter (in press) in the area of home characteristics and by Rutter, et
al. (1979) in school environment. The study instrument reported here was
administered to the sophomore, junior, and senior classes from this reservation
school. Freshmen were not included in the study because, compared to older
students, they were less likely to have: 1) settled into their niches (e.g.,
social groups, curriculum track and advanced placement), 2) acquired a clear and
complete academic track record (e.g., standardized tests, grades and attendance
records), and 3) exhibited measurable socialization and contextual effects of
schooling in the secondary level setting. The study population consisted of 96
students of which 51 (53%) were Anglo and 45 (47%) were American Indian. Before
discussing the specific results, we briefly review some relevant theoretical and
methodological issues pertaining to the study of ethnic or racial differences in
education.
Patricia Albers, and Nancy Breen Gender Parity and American Indian Reservations (p75-96)
Although gender differences have been examined in
the light of federal policy, there has been no attempt to systematically study
how economic features of gender status vary between reservation and
non-reservation populations. In this paper, we compare select economic
indicators from the 1980 Census of Population and from the Supplementary
Reservation Census (PC80-2-ID) published during the same year to determine
whether there are gender differences between on-reservation and off-reservation
American Indian populations. In the course of examining these data, we argue
that American Indians living on reservations are associated with a set of
conditions that contribute to a greater income parity by gender.
David E. Wilkins Henry Berry Lowry: Champion of the Dispossessed (97-112)
Laura E. Donaldson Virtual Conquest: A Little Tale Of Genocide for the Cybernetic Age (p113-124)
Sid Meier's Colonization. Hunt Valley,
MD:MicroProse Software, 1994. [A CD-ROM computer game in which participants
choose to represent either English, Spanish, Dutch or French nationalities. Play
offers several different difficulty levels, all of which involve the
constructing of a "New World" in the Americas. All quotes from the
game and game manual will appear in italics].
Luana Ross Resistance and Survivance: Cultural Genocide and Imprisoned Native Women (p125-142)
This article focuses on resistance and survivance
as a response to prisonization. Specifically, I examine racism, sexism, and
rehabilitative programming. In addition, I briefly discuss reprisal on behalf of
prison officials to prisoners' acts of resistance. I do so gingerly, because I
fear for the Native women who are presently incarcerated in Montana.
Jean Ait Belkhir, Luz Mangurian, Christiane Charlemaine, Brian Masters,
Michel Duyme, and Maureen Yarnevich Mathematics, Intelligence and the Human Brain: A Race, Gender & Class Critical Analysis (p143-173);
Sandra Harding Multiculturalism in Australia: Moving Race/Ethnic Relations from Extermination to Celebration? (p7-25)
Is Australia culturally plural? Is it structurally
plural? Is Australia a multicultural society? I reach this
conclusion after proceeding through four stages. First, I place multiculturalism
in historical context by briefly examining the history of race/ethnic relations
in Australia. Like Wilson (1980), I feel that much can be learned by viewing
race/ethnic relations in the large, as part of the historical development of a
particular society or nation-state. In this particular case, setting the context
reveals the enormity of recent changes in espoused public policy towards white
ethnics and, most especially, people of color. This is no less than a 180o shift in Australian public policy. Next, I review contemporary research on
multiculturalism with a view to both describing the diversity of scholarship in
this area and demonstrating that the espoused theory of multiculturalism does
not (yet) appear to be the theory-in-use. Then, I seek to understand why
Australia does not conform to the ideal of a multicultural society. A range of
barriers, structural, ideological, and attitudinal, exist that have worked
against multiculturalism. More importantly, I suggest that as a theoretical
construct multiculturalism is flawed. Finally, I draw some conclusions about
race and ethnicity in Australia and briefly comment on the implications of my
analysis for calls for multiculturalism in the United States.
Shelley M. Park & Michelle A. LaRocque Multiculturalism: A Challenge to Two Myths of Liberalism (p27-48)
This paper comprises a mere beginning on this project. In the
first part of this paper, we sketch a brief account of multiculturalism. This
sketch is not intended as a complete account of the complexities of
multiculturalism. Indeed, it serves merely to point out, rather than work out,
those complexities. Nonetheless, it provides some of the contours of the concept
of multiculturalism which serve to distinguish it from other positions that have
been under attack recently. In the second part of this paper, we address two
prevalent and diametrically opposed criticisms of multiculturalism, arguing that
multicultura lism, properly understood, evades both of them. More specifically,
we argue that criticisms of multiculturalism as relativistic, on the one hand,
and as absolutist, on the other, simply mask liberal democratic theory's
myth-begotten attempt to resolve the tension between the one and the many.
Multiculturalism challenges the myths of meritocracy and abstract individualism
which underlie liberalism and proposes a reconceptualization of democracy.
Barbara Huddleston-Mattai The Black Female Academician and the "Superwoman Syndrome" (p49-64)
Women are on the lowest rungs of the academic ladder. In
a 1989 national survey (Millem & Astin 1993), women
were53.5% of the Lecturers and 49.7% of the Instructors whereas
they were 38.1% of the Assistant Professors, 26% of
the Associate Professors, and only 14% of the Professors. Of
8,771 black women, who were full-time instructors in institutions of
higher education, 6,364 (71.9%) were concentrated at the
Assistant Professor and lower ranks (Digest of educational
Statistics 1993). Only 1,606 (18.3%) were at the Associate
Professor level and 801 (0.9%) were at the Professor
level. While it can not be denied that racism, sexism, and classism are factors
operating against the upward mobility and job security of black academicians, it
is being proposed here that the "superwoman syndrome", based on these
factors particularly in reference to black women, also operates in a manner that
affects the scholarly productivity of these women.
Judith Barker White Working-Class Men and Women in Academia
(p65-78)
White men and women from working-class backgrounds
confront some remarkably similar experiences, issues, and problems in the
context of class mobility in academia. Gender does, however, shape the mobility
process in a number of ways. As Myra Ferree says, While middle-class
professional women are relatively insulated from the costs capitalism imposes,
as are working-class men from the costs of patriarchy, working-class women
experience and must come to terms with both. (Ferree, 1990:187-188). Race,
whiteness in this case, also shapes the mobility process; white men and women
are insulated from the costs of racism. In this essay I explore some of the ways
in which the structure of our gender system leads to different experiences,
issues and problems for class mobile white men and women, as well as some of the
ways that a common class and racial background lead to similar experiences.
Alison A. Carr Race, Class & Gender Differences in School Change Team
Membership (p79-96)
Community participation has become an important
aspect of almost any change effort in public schools in recent years. The
movement has waxed and waned through the decades since the Common School, but is
enjoying renewed interest with the emphasis placed on involving stakeholders in
systemic change efforts. Typically, community participation has taken the form
of seeking "buy-in" of parents and community members. The shape of the
new systems that are being designed by current restructuring teams will be
largely determined by the makeup of the team itself. Where multiple perspectives
are represented, the team must grapple with diversity but the product will be
more likely to represent the views of many instead of a select group. After an
exploration of the relevant literature on systemic change, community
participation, race, gender, and class, this paper explores membership patterns
exhibited in six middle schools seeking to increase parental and community
participation. The study finds that minority and father populations were
underrepresented and draws implications for the impact of this lack of balance
on school design teams.
Gail Dines Class, Gender and Race in North American Media Studies
(p97-112)
This article, rather than providing a
comprehensive map of the field, is particularly concerned with looking at how
North American scholars modified the theories and methodologies developed by the
CCCS group to explore the role media play in constructing ideologies and
identities. In its journey across the ocean, cultural studies underwent many
changes, some for the better and some for the worse. For many of the critics of
North American cultural studies, the most debilitating change was what they see
as the severing of its intellectual ties to Marxism; while I will argue that
there is some truth to this, I will also suggest that these critics have ignored
the enormous contributions that white feminists and scholars of color have made
to the development of theory and research in North American cultural studies.
Thomas K. Fitzgerald Ethnic Markers: Media & Changing Metaphors of Ethnicity and Identity (p113-124)
For better or worse, we are a consumer society
that now recognizes the utility of diverse markets: suddenly ethnicity and
ethnic markers sell. Is this a transient fad or a fundamental cultural change?
How have metaphors aided in understanding ethnicity, culture, and identity? This
paper addresses the question of metaphorical effectiveness - the
"aptness" of metaphor - in scientific discourse about ethnicity,
especially in the contemporary "culture" debates. Although literal
descriptions have their limitations, metaphorical ones - increasingly subject to
ideological manipulations - call for constant scrutiny. Despite the wonderful
richness of such imagery, metaphor in scientific discourse remains problematic
at several levels. When judging the elegance of research models, the
effectiveness of its guiding metaphors must always be carefully evaluated.
Jean Ait Belkhir, Maureen Yarnevich, Lawrence Shirley & Christiane
Charlemaine Mathematics For All Children: A Multicultural Race, Gender & Class
Analysis (p125-160)
We regard this paper as a preliminary study to attempt to set out the
issues and indicate possible directions, and will be
following it up with more in depth studies later on. Is mathematics a social filter or a women,
race, and class issue? Since mathematics is an activity that is performed by
human beings who live in certain historical and cultural contexts, mathematics
is inevitably an activity influenced by social forces. Everyone can learn
mathematics. The mathematics education movement suggests that this should be
true, and some math teachers and mathematicians believe that it is true.
For many years, mathematics teaching was based on the opposite premise. We
assumed that not everyone was capable of learning mathematics, the "either
you get it or you don't" theory, but we also seemed to expect that only a
small percentage of children would succeed in mastering the concepts and
techniques of this discipline. This study does show that there is something
wrong with mathematics? Why is that particular race, class or gender have a gift
of being able to succeed and that others do not in mathematics?
Guest-Editors: Agnes Calliste, George Sefa Dei
Agnes Calliste, George Sefa Dei, and Jean Ait Belkhir Canadian Perspective on Anti-Racism and Race, Gender & Class (p5-10)
While each paper argues for the centrality of
race in Canada's anti-racism education debate, the authors explore the
relational aspects of social difference by race, gender and class in what may be
termed integrative anti racism. It is pointed out that a working knowledge of
the intersection of race, class, and gender in the anti-racism discourse is
helpful in the development of multicultural education. If we are to respond to
any of these questions, our current thinking on race and anti-racism education
will have to include a critical interrogation of the economic, political, social
and ideological processes and structures of society for their implications in
sustaining contemporary forms of what may be termed "anti-different"
racism.
George Sefa Dei Integrative Anti-Racism: Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender (p11-30)
This paper examines some of the basic tenets of
anti-racism education and the implications for transformative learning and
social change. While the paper argues for the centrality of race in the
anti-racism debate, the author explores the relational aspects of social
difference (race, class, gender, sexuality) in what is termed "integrative
anti-racism.".It is pointed out that a working knowledge of the
intersections of race, class, gender and sexual oppressions in the anti-racism
discourse is helpful in the struggle for educational equity, social justice and
change. In the final section of the paper, the author examines issues concerning
the education of youths of African descent in Canadian school systems, pointing
out the lessons for an "integrative anti-racism".
Carl E. James Multicultural and Anti-Racism Education in Canada (p31-48)
In this paper, we will examine how "official"
multiculturalism has influenced multicultural and anti-racism educational
policies and practices in Canada. We will argue that the principles and
practices of multicultural education, premised on the Canadian Multiculturalism
Policy/Act, which are to be found in the approaches to education in many of
today's classrooms, have been ineffective in addressing the needs, expectations
and aspirations of students generally, and minorities in particular. While
schools and institutions, particularly ethnically and racially homogeneous ones,
have been somewhat hesitant to take a multicultural education approach in
addressing the needs and problems of students, they are even more hesitant to
adopt anti-racism education because it is perceived as
"counter-productive" and placing too much emphasis on race by racism
(Mansfield and Kehoe 1994).
R. Patrick Solomon Why To Teach From A Multicultural And Anti-Racist Perspective?(p49-66)
The study reported in this article analyzes my
experience as a African-Canadian male directing a Social Foundations of
Education course at a teacher education facility in urban, multicultural Canada.
The course engages students in a sustained inquiry into the sociological,
historical and philosophical issues that are pervasive in the practice of
teaching in contemporary schools and classrooms. Student teachers whose
world-views are often anchored in their race, class and gender locations are
provided alternative interpretations from the literature to broaden their
perspectives and prepare them for the complex task of teaching. Some of the
issues explored in the course are race, culture and socialization; schooling and
social class stratification; gender socialization and occupational
opportunities; policy, provision and pedagogy for antiracism and ethnocultural
equity; teacher education for racial and cultural diversity. An introduction to
these issues in plenary is followed by small group seminars where assigned
readings as well as student - generated resources are discussed. The
experiential and interactive dimensions of these seminars provide the
opportunity for student teachers to link theoretical perspectives presented in
the literature with their own experiences in schools and classrooms. Although
most of the course content was Canadian based (e.g. , Claiming on Education:
Feminism and Canadian schools by Jane Gaskell, Arlene McLaren and Myra
Novorgrodski; Stacking the Deck:The streaming of working-class kids in Ontario
Schools by Bruce Curtis, D. Livingstone and Harry Smaller), their conceptual
framework was enriched by cross-cultural research and literature.
Sherene H. Razack The Perils of Talking About Culture: Schooling Research on South and East Asian Students (p67-82)
This paper is an exploration into how we as
activists and researchers might simultaneously talk about the sign of culture,
the terrain of racism and the many ways in which schools are organized to
reproduce a highly racialized and gendered status quo. I will argue that the
only way to pay attention to these three themes is to confront head on the risks
of talking culture in educational debates and to pay attention to the context of
culturalised racism in which such discussions are conducted. The risks
notwithstanding, it is clear that we do need to talk about cultural
differences in the context of schooling given that culture is the terrain in
which racial othering occurs and also the ground for an oppositional politics.
Najja N. Modibo Immigrant Women's Participation in Toronto Union Locals (p83-104)
Over the last two decades increasing
demographic shifts resulting from immigration patterns in Canada has continually
remade the make up of trade union membership, this has been especially so in the
country's major cities. At the same time, immigrants have not actively
participated in their unions. Also, their experiences have largely been ignored
in the literature. In this study of 35 women who immigrated from countries such
as South Korea, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Uganda, Bolivia, Spain, Poland, Hong
Kong, Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Portugal, Jamaica, Greece, Cambodia, India, St.
Vincent and the Ukraine, I examined the obstacles to the women's participation
in their locals. All of the women were of working class backgrounds. Some
observers have identified the women's lack of familiarity with the host
language, and their culture as responsible for their lack of participation in
their locals. However, I have found that despite the efforts of some trade
unionists and trade unions to adjust to the new membership's needs, issues of
class, ethnicity/race and gender offer a better explanation to the women's lack
of participation.
Ronnie Leah Anti-Racism Studies: An Integrative Perspective (p105-122)
In this exploratory article, I
discuss the emergence of anti-racism studies as an identifiable perspective in
sociology and related disciplines in Canada. Anti-racism studies incorporates
multiple theoretical models, and it builds on the analysis of gender, race, and
class to provide an integrative understanding of oppression -- how the social
relations of gender, race and class intersect in people's lives. Anti-racism
studies incorporates multicentric and holistic understandings of human
experience in its social, cultural, ecological and spiritual aspects. This
perspective is explicitly transformative and liberatory, focussing on social
justice for all people as the goal of academic analysis and community activism.
Drawing predominantly on recent Canadian writing and research, as well as
relevant international literature, I suggest that anti-racism studies can be
considered an emerging paradigm in sociology.
Agnes Calliste The Influence of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement in Canada (p123-142)
This paper examines the influence of the American Civil Rights
and Black Power movements in Canada from a social movement perspective. These
movements had a tremendous impact on a new social and political consciousness
and identity of African-Canadians, for example, they intensified their
anti-racist organizing and resistance. In 1968-69, several African-Canadian
organizations (such as the Afro-Canadian Liberation Movement [ACLM] in Nova
Scotia and the National Black Coalition of Canada [NBCC]) were formed to foster
Black consciousness and identity and to eliminate racial oppression, social and
economic injustices against Black people (ACLAM 1969). However, the status quo
resisted African-Canadians' demands for societal transformation and
power-sharing. The Canadian state sought to contain the movement for Black
equality through political appeasement--such as funding African-Canadian
organizations and the appointment of commissions--and RCMP surveillance of
anyone suspected of being a Black activist.
Jean Ait Belkhir Integrative Anti-Classism: Race, Gender & Class (p143-166)
Review Essay: John A. Weaver Popular Culture and The Shaping of Race, Class and
Gender: Exploring Issues and Imploding Academic Boundaries (p167-174)
In this review essay, I want to suggest that as
sociologists, educationalists and cultural critics of race, class and gender we
should embrace a hybrid of the two: one that sees popular culture as a vital
source of knowledge but maintains the critical tradition.
Jean Ait Belkhir Multicultural Education: Race, Gender & Class. Rethinking the
Introductory Textbook in the Academic Disciplines (p11-38)
Robert J. Frankle Integrating Multiculturalism Into General Education: Some Practical Issues and Models (p39-48)
The
movement for a more multicultural curriculum in higher education has, of course,
many dimensions (for a discussion of some of these, see Adams 1992). One is
supporting and strengthening programs such as Women's Studies, African-American
Studies, and Ethnic Studies. Another is striving to transform both the
curriculum and the structure of the different majors and professional programs.
Still a third is seeking to insure that all students are required to study some
multicultural material in the course of their college career. It is this last
dimension which will form the subject of this paper. While
there does not yet appear to be a consensus on a precise operational definition
of "multiculturalism," the term is often used, sometimes
indiscriminately, to denote two related but distinct types of content. One is
the study of differences among disparate cultures. The other is the examination
of the relationships between dominant and subordinate groups, including such
issues as racism, sexism, and class conflict. In this paper, I shall refer to
the first of these contents as "cultural diversity" and the
second as "issues of injustice." I shall use
"multiculturalism" as a broader, umbrella term to encompass both of
these two meanings.
Patricia I. Francis A Review of the Multicultural Education Literature
(p49-64)
Attempts are made in this article to capture the
fairly tumultuous history of multicultural education, to summarize its many
meanings, and to identify conceptual and pragmatic problems faced by educators
who have tried to implement this approach. Special attention will be paid to
these issues in America higher education, the educational level at which
multicultural education is least developed. A basic assumption is that
college-level educators can learn a great deal from efforts to implement this
approach in primary and secondary schools, particularly regarding the need to
extend multiculturalism beyond the classroom to the total campus environment.
Penny Anthon Green Evolutionary Insights Into Problems of Sexism, Classism & Racism, Including Prospects for their Elimination (p65-84)
My argument begins by introducing theoretical
preliminaries necessary for understanding the evolved foundations of human
behavior. It then considers some evolutionary insights that are relevant to
gender, class, and racial/ethnic domination. Objections surrounding Darwinian
analyses are also addressed. The concluding discussion examines the evolutionary
foundations of behavior that would seem essential to eliminating the aforesaid
domination.
Vivian J. Rohrl The Anthropology of Race: A Study of Ways of Looking at Race
(p85-98)
First of all, I would like to make
clear that, as far as contemporary scientific anthropology is concerned, there
is no set of scientific racial categories. (Lasker, 1976). Furthermore, one
premise of anthropology is that science, rather than reaching absolute truth in
a vacuum, progresses and selects what and how we study on the basis of who we
are and what we believe and assume about life and relationships. This means
that, if the concept of race once existed, it was the product and result of ways
in which groups of people thought about other groups. The fact that our
scientists are now dismantling the idea of race reflects aspects of our North
American version of such things as equal rights under the law, an extension of
the earlier Euroamerican "melting pot" tradition. Having said that, in
the rest of this discussion I will explore with you the ways in which the
concept has been used in the past and the implications of this word,
"race," in modern times.
Ronald E. Hall The Color Complex: The Bleaching Syndrome
(p99-110)
The objective of this paper is then to inform
African-Americans and shed light upon some of the dynamics associated with
racial domination. It will introduce the Bleaching Syndrome (Hall, 1990a) as a
response by African-Americans in their attempts to assimilate into a society
characterized by such domination. It will also make available to scholars a
theoretical framework for logically comprehending the impact of assimilation and
racial domination upon the psyche of less powerful groups. And lastly, it will
define and illustrate some of the consequences of the Bleaching Syndrome for
those African Americans who internalize light skin and other dominant race
characteristics as the ideal point of reference for normal assimilation into
American society.
Robert Jensen Men's Lives and Feminist Theory (p111-126)
The two main points of this essay may seem
self-evident or simplistic to feminists, but they are important for men to
consider: (1) For men who are messed up (that is, facing problems related to
their emotional lives, sexuality, their place in society, and gender politics
-in other words, me and virtually every other man I have ever met) feminism
offers the best route to understanding the politics of such personal problems
and coming to terms with those problems. (2) If men accept the first point,
feminism will confront and confuse us about ourselves, and our job is to
embrace, not run, from that challenge. Put more simply: Men need to (1) take
feminism seriously, and (2) take it personally, for their own sake as well as in
the interests of justice.
Helene M. Lawson Gender Equality in the Manual Working Class (p127-138)
This paper focuses on the gendered exchanges and coping
strategies used by these married working-class men and women to get a college
education and keep their marriages intact during the process. First I discuss
the data- gathering methods used for this study and the characteristics of the
sample. Next, I examine the concerns of students and their spouses with juggling
school, work and family responsibilities. I then describe coping strategies
based on role switching and sharing used by these couples and their satisfaction
with their new roles. I conclude with a discussion of the meaning of these
findings for future class, family and gender research.
Terry R. Kandal Gender, Race & Ethnicity: Let's Not Forget
Class (p139-162)
The questions this essay addresses are whether it
is possible to integrate in a scientifically adequate sense the problematic
relations of ethnicity/culture, sex/gender and social class into systems of
structured social inequality (to take from Cynthia Heller). More specifically,
under what conditions are which identities most salient? It appears that we know
more about those in which racial, ethnic, national, gender, and sexual
identities take precedence than about what happens when such differences are
overcome by a common consciousness and mobilization against dominant classes.
The only guidelines we can derive are from a careful comparative examination of
the historiographies of revolutions, working-class, women's and oppressed
minorities' movements employing the theoretical armories of the full range of
humanistic disciplines. It is clearly the case, to borrow a title from Robert J.
Antonio, that we have witnessed "The Decline of the Grand Narrative of
Emancipatory Modernity" (1990) so central to Marxism. Before we put class
in third place (or even further down the scale) we must remember that in 1898,
Eduard Bernstein, following the Fabians, had declared class polarization,
immiseration, and capitalist crises passe. It is the argument of this paper that
the dismissal or severe reduction of the theoretical and political significance
class is premature and unwarranted - especially in light of the relentless,
irreverent and licentious and fetters to the accumulation of capital on a world
scale. Further, in a world of identity hatreds, we ignore class at our own peril
and do a disservice to our students. With these introductory remarks made I will
turn to a consideration of these points in some of the literature generally
referred to as multiculturalist.
Jean Ait Belkhir, Suzanne Griffith, Robert Beam, David Carroll, Diane Garsombke
& Mary Pulford Multidisciplinary Reviews on Race, Sex & Class (p7-30)
This article has examined various issues
involved in teaching about race, sex, and class in multiple disciplines. These
three topics and their integration and inclusion are on the cutting edge of
pedagogical and curricular change. With that change will come new paradigms (new
understandings of humanity, its diversity, and how these diversities influence
behavior, thought, and emotions) to guide instruction in the 21st century.
Christine E. Sleeter Multicultural Education and the American Dream: Race, Class and Gender (p31-54)
In this article, I will examine why most teachers
participating in staff development project felt that they had learned much, but
why changes in their classrooms were generally quite limited. First, their
conceptions of multicultural education will be described. Then I will analyze
three contexts in which those conceptions were constructed: their work at
school, their personal life experience in the wider society and the staff
development project.
Jama Lazerow Winning Hearts As Well as Minds? Teaching Multicultural History in the 21st Century 55 Berch Berberoglu Class, Race and Gender: The Triangle of Oppression (p69-78)
This paper examines the class nature of racial and gender oppression under capitalism and provides an analysis of the processes by which capital has secured for itself a racially and sexually differentiated working class that it can exploit for greater private profit. The relationship between class, race, and gender are thus examined in the context of the processes that facilitate the exploitation of labor within capitalist society.
Jean Ait Belkhir The "Failure" and Revival of Marxism on Race, Gender & Class Issues 79 Vincent J. Roscigno Social Movement Struggle and Race, Gender, Class Inequality (p109-126)
This paper is devoted to exploring the general issue of group
subordination and struggle with a particular emphasis on the ways in which
patterns and processes are constant and the extent to which they may vary across
subordinate groups. First, I examine processes central to insurgency as
suggested by prior research. Following this discussion, I question the extent to
which these processes may vary depending upon whether the struggle occurring is
rooted in race, gender, or class inequality. Finally, implications for
researchers, educators, and social activists interested in inequality and group
struggle are explored.
Rose Weitz Sex, Class, Race: Health and Illness in the United States (p127-144)
The causes of illness are not randomly
distributed among the U.S. population, but rather fall more heavily on some than
on others. Similarly, the nature of illnesses varies dramatically from group to
group, with some groups experiencing health problems unknown to others. This
article looks at how, is illness distributed among the U.S. population,
examining the impact of three social factors - sex, class, and race or
ethnicity.
Robert E. Parker Race, Sex, Class: The Contingent Work Force in the United States (p145-160)
This paper focuses on the race, sex, and class dimensions
surrounding the emergence and growth of the contingent workforce in the U.S.
economy. Contingent workers are those who have a loose affiliation with their
employers (Polivka and Nardone 1989; Russell 1991). As the 1990s began, between
one-quarter and one-third of all U.S. employees were a part of this burgeoning
workforce. Examples of contingent workers include temporary workers (the fastest
growing category), many self-employed "entrepreneurs", part-time
workers (both involuntary and involuntary), and contract or subcontract workers
(usually employed by business service firms). Each of these occupational
categories that make up the contingent workforce are growing considerably faster
than the U.S. labor force as a whole. While some workers choose a contingent
working status (often for family or other personal reasons), a large and growing
percentage of these workers are finding contingent positions their only option
as U.S. corporations continue to downsize and restructure their global
operations.
Yaffa Schlesinger Race, Sex, Class: Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (p161-173)
The 1993 Biennial exhibit at the Whitney
Museum of American Art (New York, March 4 - June 15, 1993) has been
described as a sociopolitical exhibit with a social consicence. It received
mixed reviews, from being a politically correct exhibit with little concern for
esthetic and pleasure, to an exhibit that is most ethnic and diverse. In this
exhibit, Glenn Ligon presents a most unusual work titled Notes on the Margin
of the Black Book. This paper suggest that Rashomon, the movie by
Akira Kurosawa, and Mapplethorpe, as presented by Glenn Ligon, have
become new concepts added to the vocabulary of arts and letters.
Jean Ait Belkhir, Suzanne Griffith, Christine Sleeter & Carl
Allsup Race, Sex, Class & Multicultural Education: Women's Angle
of Vision (p7-22)
It was at the American Sociological
Association workshop on Race, Class, and Gender in June 1993, that I realized
how we were ill prepared to face the challenge of developing and teaching a
race, sex, class and multicultural education in our disciplines. In the past two
years, working with several colleagues in my campus, we have found that the
problem is very serious. In general, students are mostly not
"interested" learning about "differences" between racial
ethnic groups, or women are the only ones in the classes on gender. And finally,
they have been taught that the United States is a classless society! How, in the
face of such concrete reality, can education be developed to educate, support,
and empower those who have been (are still) excluded from the history of human
society? An additional issue is the paucity in all disciplines of programs that
focus on race, gender, and class and multicultural education. The challenge is
great! It is time to question ourselves: do we want to encourage each other to
integrate race, gender, and class in our classroom and beyond? -Jean
Belkhir
Gail Dines What's Left of Multiculturalism? Race,
Class and Gender in the Classroom (p23-34)
This article discusses my attempts to facilitate
such a shift in my classes at Wheelock College--a process which involved much
self-scrutiny and re-analysis of what it means to be a progressive feminist
teacher coming out of the English education system.
Joyce Beggs, Dorothy Doolittle, Diane Garsombke Entrepreneurship Interface: Linkages to Race, Sex & Class (p35-52)
Jean Ait Belkhir Race, Sex Class &
'Intelligence' Scientific Racism, Sexism, & Classism (p53-84)
Much of this paper is an attempt to reject the notion that
racial, sexual, and class differences in "intelligence" truly exist or
can be attributed to genetics. There are a number of similarities in the
research on race and class, including (a) fairly large and reliable differences
in IQ; (b) a continuing controversy over the relative importance of genetics and
environment in these differences; and (c) an obsession with IQ scores as opposed
more specific measures of intellectual performance (such as mathematical vs.
verbal ability). By contrast, in the studies on sex, we can notice (a) weak and
inconsistent overall differences in IQ or brain size; (b) relative less concern
with cultural differences between men and women; and (c) a concern with more
specific measures of intellectual performance. But overall, I believe the idea
to study the dubious link between genes and "intelligence" by
comparing race, sex, and class would never be scientifically value free because
it originates in a society based on racial, sexual, and class differences.
Monika Bahati Kuumba The Limits of Feminism: Decolonizing Women's Liberation/Oppression Theory (p85-100)
Qun Wang i>Literature Reading, Curriculum Building and
Cultural Diversity (p101-110)
Eleanor Lapointe Integrating Gender, Race, Class and
Ethnicity into our Research and into Graduate Student Studies (p111-116)
The following discussion is based on a
presentation I gave at the 1989 meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society,
graduate student caucus. Written from a graduate student perspective, the
analysis reflects on how students grappled with aspects of diversity, inclusion,
and exclusion in a seminar designed to address theoretical issues of inequality.
Kathleen Kaufelt Social Class: By Design or Default?
Conceptualization of Poverty as Hegemonic Discourse (p117-136)
In this paper, I will present my
contention that everyday conceptualizations of poverty serve as a hegemonic
discourse in the ensuing struggle for power and domination which I have just
described. I will argue that this hegemonic process is not one that has recently
surfaced but rather has deep historical roots embedded in the conservative
decades of this nation's life span. Writers such as Edward Banfield, Lawrence
Mead and George Gilder will be profiled to exemplify the specific fallacious
notion of blaming the victim which serves as an ideological tool in this
hegemonic dynamic. By no means do I mean to imply that these are the only such
adherents of blaming the victim. I have merely included in this writing a
sampling of those whose arguments I found particularly applicable to my premise,
and, quite frankly, I feel are the most proficient at manufacturing a false
notion of reality.
Eloise Hiebert Meneses Race and Ethnicity: An
Anthropological Perspectives (p137-146)
Book Review: Suzanne Harper White Women, Race
Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, by Ruth Frankenberg,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993 (p147-149)
Ruth Frankenberg's study of white women makes a
major contribution to our understanding of the complex intertwining of race,
gender, sexuality and class. Drawing on recent writing which views
"race" as a fluid social, political and historical construct.
Frankenberg explores white women's lived experience of "race," and
specifically "whiteness."
Mary Pulford Anthropology and Race, by
Eugenia Shanklin, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1994 (p149)
This book is ideal reading not only for faculty but also for
students. While its aim is to address the notion of race
within anthropology course, its appeal id broad based and should be helpful in
all of the social sciences. The content of this book is divided into five
chapters: "Race as a Social Category, Not a Biological Fact",
"The Anthropological Curiosity: Why Are There Differences?",
"Ignoble Savages or Just Others? Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel
Wallace", "Race, Culture, and Eugenics", "Discarding Race,
Dealing with Racism". At the end of each chapter Shanklin provides
discussion questions as well as a list of further readings.
Jean Ait Belkhir, & Michael R. Ball Editor's Introduction: Integrating Race, Sex & Class in our Disciplines (p3-11)
Elizabeth Higginbotham Sociology and the
Multicultural Curriculum: The Challenges of the 1990's and beyond (p13-24)
Patricia Hill Collins Toward a New Vision: Race,
Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection (p25-46)
My presentation today addresses this need for new
patterns of thought and action. I focus on two basic questions. First, how can
we reconceptualize race, class and gender as categories of analysis? Second, how
can we transcend the barriers created by our experiences with race, class, and
gender oppression in order to build the types of coalitions essential for social
exchange? To address these question I contend that we must acquire both new
theories of how race, class and gender have shaped the experiences not just of
women of color, but of all groups. Moreover, we must see the connections between
these categories of analysis and the personal issues in our everyday lives,
particularly our scholarship, our teaching and our relationships with our
colleagues and students. As Andre Lorde points out, change starts with self, and
relationships that we have with those around us must always be the primary site
of social change.
Jean Ait Belkhir, Michael R. Ball & Paul Lutter Race, Sex & Class: An Alternative Introductory Course. A Working Class Egalitarian Perspective (p47-64)
Although the definition of sociology as a
"social science" implies that the discipline is objective and
therefore neutral in its stance, sociologists and other scientists have not been
immune to adopting the culture's standards without reflection. This has been
especially true in the study of race, sex and class.
Jeanne Ballantine Race, Gender, Class and
Education (p65-94)
In this article, we examine several aspects of
the educational experience of race, gender and class and their dynamic process
within this system.
Marcia Texler Segal ; The Academic Confrontation with
Patriarchy: Two Decades of Feminist Theory and Practice in Sociology and Related
Disciplines (p95-108)
I begin this paper with an overview of the
theoretical perspective that currently inform feminist scholarship in the social
sciences. Next, I discuss the epistemological and methodological implications of
the theories. Comparisons with more traditional approaches in the social
sciences are made throughout.
Larry T. Reynolds and Leonard Lieberman The Rise and
Fall of "Race" (p109-128)
Walda Katz-Fisman and Jerome Scott After the
Quincentenary and the Columbus Debate: Whose "New World Order?" (p129-144) |
|
