The major categories into which we sort humans — race, class, and gender — in themselves may not be harmful. However, where there are categories, there also seems to be ranking, which leads to such things as racism, sexism, class-based discrimination, etc. This damaging tendency to rank is learned through interaction and encouraged by the distorted picture of the world portrayed in mass media, such as television.
Incorporate the films “La Haine” (You should find this film through the internet) and “Manufacturing Consent” (a link for the film Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhEBCWMe44
If this link doesn’t work, just do an online search for the film; it is linked in many places.), along with course lectures and readings on impression management, class, race, gender, and media, into an elegant, well-organized, thesis-driven 7-8 page discussion of ALL OF the following topics:
1) How do we construct a socially stratified reality? Discuss the ways in which we construct our category-driven realities (you may wish to revisit and reference earlier course materials – such as “Five Features of Reality” (1. Hugh Mehan and Houston Wood, “Five Features of Reality,” in Jodi O’Brien, The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings on Social Interaction (5th Edition), Pine Forge Press: Thousand Oaks, CA, 2011.) and materials on Symbolic Interactionism – for this part).
2) Discuss how we engage in impression management to construct certain images for ourselves in terms of race, class, and gender.
3) How and why does discrimination arise, how is it perpetuated, and what are its consequences?
4) What solutions can you imagine? Describe them, and indicate how they might actually come about.
1. Jean Kilbourne, Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight The Addictive Power of Advertising, ch. 1, “Buy This 24-Year-Old and Get All His Friends Absolutely Free” & ch. 2, “In Your Face…All Over the Place.” Free Press, 1999.
2. Martin Marger, “The Mass Media as a Power Institution,” pp. 377-387 in Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology, ed. Susan J. Ferguson.
Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA. 1996.
3. Erica Chito Childs, “‘What’s class got to do with it? Images and discourses on race and class in interracial relationships,” ch. 3, pp. 22-29, in Kathleen Odell Korgen (ed.), Multiracial Americans and Social Class. Routledge, London and New York, 2010.
4. Melissa R. Herman and Maria L. Castilla, “Appearance and social class: an in-depth look at multiracial Hispanic youth,” ch. 12, pp. 145-162 in Kathleen Odell Korgen (ed.), Multiracial Americans and Social Class. Routledge, London and New York, 2010.
5. Charles A. Gallagher, “In-between racial status, mobility, and the promise of assimilation: Irish, Italians yesterday, Latinos and Asians today,” ch. 2, pp. 10-21 in Kathleen Odell Korgen (ed.), Multiracial Americans and Social Class. Routledge, London and New York, 2010.
6. David M. Newman, Sociology, Chapter 11, “The Architecture of Inequality: Race and Ethnicity.”
7. David M. Newman, Sociology, Chapter 10, “The Architecture of Stratification: Social Class and Inequality.”
8. Robert Granfield, “Making It By Faking It: Working-Class Students in an Elite Academic Environment,” pp. 120-132 in Mapping the Social Landscape:
Readings in Sociology, Susan J. Ferguson. Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA, 1996.
1. “La Haine” (You should find this film through the internet)
2. “Manufacturing Consent”
(a link for the film Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhEBCWMe44
If this link doesn’t work, just do an online search for the film; it is linked in many places.)