SOCIOL 1 Final

Social constructs

concepts that humans invented and gave meaning to in order to understand or justify some dimension of the social world.

Race

human created system to classify AND stratify groups of people based mostly on skin tone

Ethnicity

common culture, religion, history, or ancestry shared by a group of people

Construct Evidence: Hispanic Ethnicity

• Around 1970s, activist began lobbying the U.S. census bureau to create national category that included all these communities.

• “Hispanic” introduced in census in 1970

• Univision, hub of Spanish-language media, began socializing people to resonate with and identify as “Hispanic” for 1980 & 90 census

Social Constructionist View of Race & Observable Differences

For centuries, scientists have examined our genes …

• The verdict: No gene for race! (debunks race science) Nothing that clearly separates members of one race from members of another.

• And thus, no evidence to support innate racial superiority or inferiority.

Social constructionist view doesn’t deny difference, but rather implores us to be:

• Critical of how we understand the origin of difference

• Vigilant about meaning & value we ascribe to

difference (e.g., superior v. inferior)

• Aware of perceptions and actions when we

encounter difference

What terms fall under perception?

• Implicit bias

• Explicit bias

• Prejudice

• Stereotypes

What terms fall under action?

Discrimination

What terms fall under perception and action?

• Racism

• Institutional Racism

Bias

or the tendency to view things in a particular way, regardless of the details of the specific situation.

• Can be implicit or explicit

Implicit Bias

subconscious association our minds make between seemingly unrelated things.

• Engrained in all, and often formed early through socialization & media exposure

Explicit Bias

associations that we are openly and consciously aware of

• Explicit racial bias: openly viewing racial groups in particular ways

• Declined over time and is less socially acceptable, but moments of political polarization & racial tension show it still exists

Stereotypes

widely-shared perceptions about the personal characteristics, tendencies, or abilities of members of a particular group

• big contributor to implicit & explicit bias

• Stereotypes may possess kernels of truth due to social explanations, but often gross exaggerations that are not universally true

• Once they circulate & seep into the associations we form (AKA bias), can become…

Prejudice

preconceived beliefs, attitudes, and opinions about members of a group that are usually negative and not based on personal experience or evidence

• Research shows it can grow stronger if we begin to think of another group as an economic, political, or cultural threat

  • Ex: Increased prejudice after exposure to census information

Discrimination

unjust treatment of different groups of people

Racism

set of beliefs or institutional practices that are based on the idea that one racial group is biologically or culturally inferior to another group

Racism = belief/perception + actions

Racism = prejudice + discrimination

Institutional Racism

the ways that core institutions are embedded with racial biases and practices that reproduce racial inequality.

• Think: biased policing, unequal school funding, residential segregation, workplace discrimination

Baluran (2025): Docile or Dangerous

Uses interviews to show how people of Asian descent experience and interpret policing based on racial typicality

Racial typicality

degree to which perceived to posses the physical, behavioral, or cultural characteristics commonly associated with a specific racial or ethnic group.

What factors does racial typicality include?

• Larger eyes, darker skin, lower-class status

• Associated w/ stereotypes like dangerous and deviance

• More commonly attached to South Asians and Southeast Asians

Baluran (2025): Docile or Dangerous - What findings did the research bring?

• Participants believed that policing experiences (i.e., pleasant, neutral, hostile) could be explained by how officers read and interpreted their racial cues

• When racial cues perceived to be aligned with gendered & classed image of (East) Asian-ness, encounter generally more favorable

  • Nuanced finding: Not aggressive treatment, but still reported discomfort or uneasiness

    • Ex: Chloe & Hoang (gendered racism)

• When cues perceived to be misaligned or atypical, encounters less favorable

  • Ex: Ayesha’s father (classed racism)

Police interactions operate as a boundary-making process that make visible for Asian-descent people who DOES & DOES NOT get to be perceived as an unthreatening Asian person.

Sex

different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, including what we call primary sex characteristics (reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones) and secondary sex characteristics (breast development, facial hair)

Gender

socially constructed characteristics associated with being a woman and man

• Ex: girls and the color pink

Gender identity

a person’s internal sense of being a man/boy, woman/girl, or anywhere else on the gender spectrum

Gender expression

external manifestation of one’s gender identity through personality, appearance, and behavior

• Thought of in terms of masculinity and femininity

How do we know what expectations are associated with gender identities?

Understanding arises through gender socialization

Gender socialization

process by which individuals learn and internalize norms, behaviors, attitudes, and expectations associated with gender identities

How do people learns gender socialization?

Learn from teachers & reinforcers called agents of socialization

• Family

• Education

• Peer groups

• Mass media

• Religion

• Workplace

How do we respond to gender socialization?

West and Zimmerman would argue we respond by doing gender

• We PERFORM actions that PRODUCE gender

• We DO gender in interactions with others

• We do it KNOWING we’ll be judged by others (held accountable for our gender performances)

How is gender connected to structures?

Gender isn’t just something that humans do; it’s also something that structures do

• How societies are organized is gendered…meaning distinctions between males and females, and the qualities attributed to each, underlie institutional structures

Patriarchy

a set of institutional structures that are based on the belief that men and women are unequal categories, with men holding primary power and dominance over women

How do Trad wives adopt a structural functionalism (S.F.) approach (Talcott Parsons)?

• Don’t view gender inequality as inherently unequal, but as a necessary and complementary division of labor for social stability

• As evidence that gender inequality functional, S.F. look back to preindustrial societies:

  • Men took care of responsibilities outside of home (hunting & gathering)

  • Women took care of domestic responsibilities in or around the home

    • Viewed as functional b/c during pregnancy & nursing, women have physical constraints that make it difficult to leave… so solution = stay home!

  • Once established, generationally passed down as effective way to keep the family system functional properly

What does the S.F. Perspective of patriarchy say?

Clear and complementary expectations for men and women reduce social conflict and increase stability, ensuring essential tasks are completed

Counter perspective on gender inequality: Conflict Theory (Karl Marx)

• Society in perpetual state of conflict due to competition for limited resources.

• Given conditions, social order maintained through power domination, with power-dominant groups (men) creating structures (patriarchy) to maintain their privilege over oppressed groups (women)

  • Theory can apply to different dimensions of inequality (e.g., racial inequality, heterosexism, ableism)

• Example: Response to changes in family structure during & post WWII in western world

  • With men gone, many women assumed role of breadwinner alongside domestic role to stabilize changing society

  • Conflict arose when men returned. Wanted to reclaim jobs that many women didn’t want to forfeit

What was the response to men returning back from WWII?

• Women pushed back into the home to re- achieve stability (reflects subordinate position)

• How?

  • Laid-off in mass. Companies that had hired them now said industrial jobs “belonged to men”

  • Postwar American culture pushed the “domestic” ideal. Popular media highlighted “happy housewife”

  • Women who continued to work marginalized in workforce. Pushed into lower-paying, les secure “pink collar” jobs

  • Boom in marriages, which reinforced one-income, husband-worked/wife-stayed-home structure

What dos the conflict theory critique state?

S.F. ignores operation of power, particularly oppression of women, AND that what is “functional” for society can be harmful for individuals (women)

• Acknowledging harm pokes holes in complementary perspective, and forces us to see and perhaps take issue with gendered hierarchy

What is a perception-based term?

Sexism

Sexism

prejudiced belief that one sex should be valued over another (often informed by stereotypes

What is an action-based term?

Gender Discrimination

Gender Discrimination

unequal or unfair treatment of individuals based on their gender identity, sex, or expression

What is the last final important point about conflict theory?

• Big on dominance and oppression (inequality)…and social change!

• Views conflict as inherent and necessary aspect of social life, b/c struggles between competing groups can lead to transformative change