SOCIOL 1Z03 Test #3 - Race and Families

Minority

• Any definable category of people who are socially disadvantaged

Two Components of Membership in a minority group

• The groups lack power -Not the size rather they lack power

• Distinct from the majority (Dominant group) - Majority uses dominance to control the social system.

Racialization

• Describes the process of attributing complex characteristics to racial categories

Racism

• An ideology that maintains that one ‘race’ is inherently superior to another

• Defining others as inferior allows the majority group to reinforce its own collective identity and sense of superiority

Psychological Theories

1. Scapegoat theory

2. Authoritarian Personality theory

Scapegoat Theory

• Prejudice and discrimination originate in the frustrations of people who want to blame someone else for their problems

Authoritarian Personality theory

Extreme prejudice is a personality trait linked to people who believe strongly in following cultural norms, traditions, and values. (generally conformists)

• Frankfurt school - examined the role of culture in social reproduction.

Sociocultural Theories

1. Culture theory

2. Functionalist theory

Culture theory

• Some prejudice is healthy and part of all cultures

• Culture of prejudice

Functionalist theory

• Prejudice draws your own group closer together

• Discrimination prevents a society from maximizing the benefits of diversity and the abilities of all its citizens.

Conflict Theory Perspective

• Prejudice and discrimination are logical outcomes of competition

Dual labour market theory

• Primary and secondary (minority groups are disproportionately found in the secondary labour market)

Marxist exploitation theory

• Views the powerful economic elite, rather than the entire dominant group as benefiting from discrimination; ruling class deliberately promotes prejudice and discrimination in order to divide workers.

Critical Race Theory

• Investigates the intersection of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality to explain prejudice and discrimination. Aims to redress social inequalities of the past.

Symbolic Interactionism

• Attitudes and perceptions are not innate, rather learned as a required component of culture or an expression of class conflict

• Contact Hypothesis: Intergroup contact can reduce prejudice

Multiracial Feminist Theory

• Investigates race, class, and gender and gives voice to women of colour who may feel alienated from traditional white feminism 

• Domination and oppression are the outcome of an entire system of inequality that diminishes all human beings

Post-Colonial Theory

Examines the ways in which the colonial past has shaped the social, political, and economic experience of a colonized country.

5 categories of intergroup minority relations

1. Genocide

2. Expulsion or population transfer

3. Segregation and separatism

4. Assimilation

5. Cultural pluralism or multiculturalism

1. Genocide

• Intentional extermination of all members of a minority group 

2. Expulsion or population transfer

• Force a minority to leave the country or confine them to a particular location

3. Segregation and separation 

• Formal physical or social separation of dominant and minority groups 

Separatism 

• Voluntary cultural structural isolation of a minority group from a majority group 

4. Assimilation

• Minority group sheds its differences and assumes the traits of the dominant group

5. Cultural pluralism or multiculturalism 

• A+B+C = A+B+C

• Minority groups retain their cultural identities and the larger society promotes cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity

Amalgamation 

• Occurs when a majority group and minority group combine to make a new group A+B=C (Where C is a distinct group)

Assimilation

• A+B+C = A

• Forced assimilation and permissible assimilation

Immigration 1962

• End to white Canada immigration rules

1967 Points System

• education, occupational skills and knowledge of official languages 

Immigration 1920s-1940s

British Isles and NW Europe (72%)

1945-1966

South East Europe (30%)

Mid 1960s- Present

Rise in Asian immigrants

Nuclear Family

• adult male, adult female, and offspring

Extended Family

• multiple generations co-residing

Family of Orientation

• The family into which one was born

Family of Procreation

• The family one creates by having children or adopting children.

Eichler: Monolithic Bias

- One ideal type of family is considered “normal”

Important aspects of family

•Socialization, emotional relationships, residence, economics, sexuality, and reproduction.

Post-Structuralist Theory 

• Seeks to dismantle prevailing discourses about families 

• Categories such as “good mother” and “good father” saturated in power relations

• Examine relations of power 

Queer Theory 

• Question heteronormativity 

• Question assumption that all families are formed through heterosexual unions

Civil Marriage Act, Bill C-38:

legalized same sex unions

Purpose/Function of Marriage 

1. Finding good in laws and increasing family labour force 

2. Meeting needs of larger groups

3. Extended cooperative relations beyond the immediate family or small band

4. Property and politics 

Robert Strenbrug - Triangular theory of love 

Three components that are necessary for authentic love: intimacy, compassion, and commitment.

1968 Divorce Act

• Prior to its enactment, divorce only granted on the basis of adultery, desertion or imprisonment, or when spouse lived separately for three years

• Led to increase in divorce

1985 “no fault” divorce

• Rates of divorce rose significantly

• Reduced waiting time period

1997 amendments to the Divorce Act

• Child support calculated based on income of the non-custodial parent

Functionalism 

• Social institutions are understood to be interdependent and to exist in harmony with one another 

• Family is a major social institution 

Bronislaw & Malinowski

• Challenged traditional nineteenth century proponents of social evolution 

• There are three features which stem from the primary universal function of the family which is the nurturing of children.

Three Features of Family:

1. Families had to have clear boundaries 

2. Families had to have a place where family members could be together and share the task of childrearing.

3. Family members tend to feel affection for one another (Malinowski, 1913).

George P Murdock (1949)

• Conducted a study of 250 mainly preliterate societies in the 1940s

• The nuclear family was based on marriage as a socially approved, long term, sexual and economic union between a man and a woman.

Five Functions of the Nuclear Family

1. Sexual Regulation 

2. Economic Cooperation 

3. Reproduction

4. Socialization 

5. Emotional Support 

Talcott Parsons (1955)

•Industrialization led to functions associated with families becoming more specialized

Expressive role

responsible for emotional well-being of the family members and the socialization of children

Instrumental role

responsible for paid labour outside of the home

Symbolic Interactionism 

• Micro approach investigating how family members’ behaviours are shaped by their definitions and interpretations of particular situations

• Use ‘roles’ as one of basic concepts

• Goffman (1959)

• Argued that people are like actors in the theatre, everyone plays roles in daily life

Role strain:

the stress that results when someone does not have sufficient resources to play a role or roles

Feminist Theory:

• Families remain primary sites for the continued subordination of women

• Family forms are both time and place specific 

• Challenge the ideology that the family is a ‘private’ sphere

• Reject assertions that men’s and women’s roles within the families are a natural outcome of biological difference

Conflict Theory:

• People are situated in relation to the means of production 

• Look at the family’s relationship to the state 

Marxist Feminist Theorists:

• Meg Luxton and June Corman

• Call attention to social reproduction; all that goes into the daily and generational reproduction of the population. 

Families depend on two types of labour:

1. Income generating work 

2. Unpaid domestic Work 

• In conflict with one another

Intimate Femicide

• The killing of women by their intimate male partners

Family Violence 

• Women are more than twice as likely to be assaulted by someone they know than by a stranger.

• Women account for 85% of victims of family violence.

“Male sexual proprietariness” model 

• Men exhibit a tendency to think of women  as sexual and reproductive “property” that they can own and exchange.. Propriety entitlements in people have been conceived and institutionalized as identical to proprietary entitlements in land, chattels, and other economic resources.

Ethnicity is:

 Multidimensional