SOCIO Week 5 and 6

Is Race Biological?

Sometimes these differences appear to fall across racial groups. •However, geography seems to be a better proxy than our current racial categories.

race

Superficial physical differences that a particular society considers significant

Yellow peril

Asians are denigrated as dishonest, diseased invaders, viewed culturally and politically inferior to whites, and framed as a great threat to white society.

Model minority

Characterizes Asians and Asian Americans as a group who have achieved a higher level of success than others through some combination of innate talent and work ethic

LGBTQ identities

Defined as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people•Overall, about 4.5% of adults identify as part of the LGBTQ community

National Origins Act of 1924

Established quotas that heavily favored immigration from Western Europe

Ethnicity

Group based on common language, religion, nationality, history, or another cultural factor.•Ethnicity is a fluid category, depending on the degree to which that ethnic identity is stigmatized.

Gender social constructionists

Idea that what is viewed to be biological about gender is not naturally-occurring, but produced through socialization and discrimination.

Gender

Refers to the social or cultural distinctions associated with sex

Sex

Refers to these physical differences in primary sexual characteristics and secondary sexual characteristics

Assimilation

The process by which a minority individual or group gives up its own identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture

Social construction of race:

The process through which a culture or society defines what constitutes a racial group •No one characteristic, trait, or gene distinguishes all the members of one race from another •Racial categories change over time and place

Forever foreigners:

Theorizes that Asian and Asian Americans will always be seen as the "other" when compared to white society due to racism.

Gender Rules

These are the instructions for how to appear and behave as a man or as a woman.

diversity ideology

This ideology frames race as one marker of difference to be lauded within the contemporary United States.

bamboo ceiling

While Asians may be perceived to be competent workers, they are confronted with an invisible barrier to career advancement called the "bamboo ceiling.

Gender Ideology:

Widely shared beliefs about how men and women are, and should be, and how they do, and should, behave

Gender essentialists

approach that gender is determined by biology and is fixed or unchanging.

The racial wealth gap

difference in wealth holdings across racial groups.•For every $100.00 in white family wealth, Black families hold just $5.04.

Gender identity

individual's self-definition or sense of gender.

Institutional racism

patterns of discrimination based on ethnicity that have become structured into existing social institutions

Prejudice

preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience

racial colorblindness

the idea that ignoring or overlooking racial and ethnic differences promotes racial harmony

gender expression

to communicate our gender identity through our appearance, dress, and behavior.

Transgender

umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity or expression does not match the sex they were assigned at birth

Discrimination

unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965:

•Abolished previous quota system •Created preference visa categories for family relationships and skilled labor

Immigration

•Immigration: The movement of people, leaving their country of origin to move to another •Push factors: Encourage people to move from a place •Pull factors: Encourage people to move to a place