Roles for small-group discussions Timekeeper: ensure that discussants keep on track and that all questions are addressed in the time allowed. Note-taker: records the group’s answers to the questions. This should be the answer the group agrees on. Representative: will summarize the group’s answer and speak on behalf of the group. Moderator: ensures that members constructively work on the answers and helps to establish what the final group answer will be.

Small- group In what ways do fast-food restaurants constraint workers? (Kelley) How do workers resist the routanization of work? In what ways do they change the structure of work? (Kelley) What is the point of this chapter? (Kelley) What connections can you make between these readings?

Small-Group What is root shock and why is it a problem? (Lipsitz) What are some of the specific ways in which whites benefit from government programs? (Lipsitz) According to Lipsitz, why have minority groups rarely banded together to tackle issues of racism? According to Lipsitz, how has racism changed over the course of US history?

Introduction to the Concepts Important terms

Race Vs. Ethnicity Bonila-Silva, “Ethnicity is a way of asserting distinctiveness and creating a sense of commonality” Race is a way of otherizing, of excluding

Slide 6 Stereotypes Stereotypes = An unreliable generalization about members of a group that do not recognize individual differences within the group. Q: What stereotypes do we have toward minority groups (e.g., Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans & Asian Americans)? Stereotypes  Prejudice  Discrimination Prejudice New racism (cultural racism) Racist Stereotypes = An unreliable generalization about members of a group that do not recognize individual differences within the group. Q: what stereotypes do we have toward minority groups such as Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans & Asian Americans? Stereotypes  Prejudice  Discrimination Prejudice = A negative attitude toward an entire category of people, often an ethnic or racial minority. Ethnocentrism = the tendency to assume that one’s culture and way of life are superior to all others. Racism = The extremely negative attitude, the prejudice, based on significant physical distinctions. New Racism (or cultural racism) uses cultural differences to exclude certain groups. The values of the majority culture are used as the standard for new racism. A racist is a person who believes that some individuals are superior, or inferior, to others as a result of racial differences.

Enculturation: immersion in one’s own culture to the point where they assume their way of life is “natural” or “normal.”

Cultural relativism: judging a culture by its own cultural rules and values. Good points Avoids cultural bias Treats all cultures as important Bad points Can be used to excuse racism, classism and sexism.

Essentialism: the tenet that human behavior is “natural,” predetermined by genetic, biological, or physiological mechanisms and thus not subject to change.

Hegemony "...Dominant groups in society, including fundamentally but not exclusively the ruling class, maintain their dominance by securing the 'spontaneous consent' of subordinate groups, including the working class, through the negotiated construction of a political and ideological consensus which incorporates both dominant and dominated groups." (Strinati, 1995: 165)

Hegemony A class had succeeded in persuading the other classes of society to accept its own moral, political and cultural values; Can be understood as "common sense", a cultural universe where the dominant ideology is practiced and spread; It is a set of ideas by means of which dominant groups strive to secure the consent of subordinate groups to their leadership;

Social construction theory: suggests that what we see as “real” is the result of human interaction. Socialization: the process of social interaction by which people learn the way of life of their society and where they learn their specific roles in that society.

The Social Construction of Reality Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman

Three stages of Reality construction Externalization Humans form habits, through habits .. We create Institutions, values and beliefs through social interaction. The social word exists before the individual

Stage 2 objectivication Objects take on a reality of their own. We do not question how or why institutions exist We treat objects as real i.e. THE ECONOMY

Third stage Final Stage Internalization We learn the objective facts about the socially constructed world. We treat them as real and use these concepts in our everyday life No one tells us to obey the law we just do it. socialization

Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Humans are a social product.