Due Date 1159 pm EST on Sunday of Unit 7 Points 100

Due Date: 11:59 pm EST on Sunday of Unit 7
Points: 100
Overview:
We find ourselves in a frequent discussion lately concerning
Youth Violence in our
country and how to improve upon this. Daily tragedies are
reported on throughout our
country involving school, gang, and domestic violence, all with
a similar constant theme
which is they involve a youth under the age of 18.
Instructions:
Use the topic of Youth Violence in our country as a platform for
this written assignment
topic. You can then choose your own more direct area of
concentration to further
discuss in 2-3 pages of content.
Examples of areas of concentration:
• Gun violence and its effect on youth in our schools
• Youth and Gangs: Why do they join?
• Relationship Violence/ Domestic Violence
• Youth and Incarceration; Do we lock up our kids?
• Parenting and Role Models; Are we to blame for our kids’
behavior?

Requirements:
• Two to three pages in length, excluding the Title and
Reference page.
• APA format, including an in-text citation for referenced
works.
• At least three resources (not including your textbook).
• 10 points will be deducted for each day the paper is late.
Be sure to read the criteria by which your work will be
evaluated before you write
and again after you write.
SOC101 – Principles of Sociology
Unit 7 Assignment – Written Assignment 2
Evaluation Rubric for Written Assignment
CRITERIA Deficient Needs
Improvement
Proficient Exemplary
0-23 24-27 28-30 31-33
Structure
Organization
structure and

paragraphing have
serious and
persistent errors.
Directions were
ignored and
information
provided was
insufficient to meet
assignment
guidelines.
Written work
inadequate for
college-level
work;
Paragraphing
and transitions
are inadequate;
inappropriate
guidelines
outlined for
paper were not
met with several
problems (see
directions).
Written work is

clear and
adequate
college-level
work;
Paragraphing
and transitions
are
adequate;
appropriate
guidelines
outlined for
paper were
met with a
few noted
problems (see
directions).
Written work is
clear and
excellent
college-level
work;
Paragraphing
and transitions
are clear
and

appropriate;
appropriate
guidelines
outlined
for paper were
met (see
directions).
0-23 24-27 28-30 31-33
Mechanics
Written work had
serious and
persistent errors in
word selection and
use; sentence
structure, spelling,
grammar,
punctuation was
inappropriate and
with serious
errors; APA
style was
unacceptable.
Written work
had serious and
persistent errors

in word
selection and
use;
sentence
structure,
spelling,
grammar,
punctuation was
inappropriate
and with serious
errors; APA
style was
unacceptable.
Written work
was generally
free of errors in
word selection
and
use; sentence
structure,
spelling,
grammar,

punctuation
was
adequate; APA
style was
acceptable
with a few
errors.
Written work
has no major
errors in
word selection
and use;
sentence
structure,
spelling,
grammar,
punctuation
was
appropriate;
APA style was
acceptable
with no to few
errors

0-23 24-27 28-30 31-34
Content
Written work does
not cover the
assigned
topic; assertions
are not supported
by
evidence; paper is
seriously lacking in
page length,
content and detail;
scholarly journals
were not used or
used properly.
Written work
does not do an
adequate
job of covering
the assigned
topic;
assertions are
weakly
supported by

evidence; paper
is inadequate in
meeting the
page and
content area
requirements;
less than 3
scholarly
journals were
used.
The length of
the written
work is
sufficient to
cover the topic;
assertions are
supported by
evidence; does
not meet full
required
number of
pages and
content areas.
3 scholarly
journals were

used.
The length of
the written
work
provides in-
depth
coverage of
the
topics,
assertions are
clearly
supported by
evidence;
Paper meets
required length
of
pages and
content areas;
3 or more
scholarly
journals were
used.
Unit 4.1: Class and Stratification in the United States

8-6Poverty in the United States
LO 7
Identify the characteristics of the U.S. poor based on age,
gender, and race/ethnicity.
So far, we have examined various forms of inequality in the
United States and their effects. Let’s now focus more closely on
the problem of poverty in this country.
The United States has the highest rate of poverty among wealthy
countries. When many people think about poverty, they think of
people who are unemployed or on welfare. However, many
hardworking people with full-time jobs live in poverty. The
U.S. Social Security Administration has established an official
poverty line, which is based on what the federal government
considers to be the minimum amount of money required for
living at a subsistence level. The poverty level (or poverty line)
is computed by determining the cost of a minimally nutritious
diet (a low-cost food budget on which a family could survive
nutritionally on a short-term, emergency basis) and multiplying
this figure by three to allow for nonfood costs. In 2015 about
13.5 percent of the U.S. population had income below the
official government poverty level for a family of four with two
adults and two children under the age of eighteen. In 2016 the
federal government increased the official poverty level for a
family of four to $24,339.
Poverty rates vary widely across the United States. The
percentage of people living below the poverty line is higher in
some states and regions than in others (see Figure 8.18). Among
the highest poverty rates by state are in Mississippi (22 percent)
and New Mexico (20.4 percent). Among the lowest poverty
rates by stare are in New Hampshire (8.2 percent), Maryland
(9.7 percent), and Alaska (10.3 percent) (Proctor, Semega, and
Kollar, 2016). Based on region, the highest rates of poverty are
in the South and West, with the lowest being in the Northeast
and Midwest.

Figure 8.18Percentage of People in Poverty for the United
States and Puerto Rico, 2015.
Source: Bishaw and Glassman, 2016.
When sociologists define poverty, they distinguish between
absolute and relative poverty. Absolute poverty exists when
people do not have the means to secure the most-basic
necessities of life. This definition comes closest to that used by
the federal government. Absolute poverty often has life-
threatening consequences, such as when a homeless person
freezes to death on a park bench. By comparison, relative
poverty exists when people may be able to afford basic
necessities but are still unable to maintain an average standard
of living. A family must have income substantially above the
official poverty line in order to afford the basic necessities,
even when these are purchased at the lowest possible cost. But
many families do not earn enough money to afford living
comfortably and must survive on an economy budget, as
described below:
Members of families existing on the economy budget never go
out to eat, for it is not included in the food budget; they never
go out to a movie, concert, or ball game or indeed to any public
or private establishment that charges admission, for there is no
entertainment budget; they have no cable television, for the
same reason; they never purchase alcohol or cigarettes; never
take a vacation or holiday that involves any motel or hotel or,
again, any meals out; never hire a baby-sitter or have any other
paid child care; never give an allowance or other spending
money to the children; never purchase any lessons or home-
learning tools for the children; never buy books or records for
the adults or children, or any toys, except in the small amounts
available for birthday or Christmas presents ($50 per person
over the year); never pay for a haircut; never buy a magazine;
have no money for the feeding or veterinary care of any pets;
and, never spend any money for preschool for the children, or

educational trips for them away from home, or any summer
camp or other activity with a fee.
Take a guess: When do you think this statement was written?
Recently? No, this statement was written more than twenty
years ago (1992) by social scientists John Schwarz and Thomas
Volgy to describe the limited resources of people at or on the
edge of poverty. Today, many people live in similar or worse
conditions. Some participate in the occasional protest, such as
the brief Occupy movement; others hope that they will not sink
to the bottom rungs of poverty.
8-6aWho Are the Poor?
Poverty in the United States is not randomly distributed but
rather is highly concentrated according to age, gender, and
race/ethnicity.Age
In the past, persons over age 65 were at the greatest risk of
being poor; however, older individuals today have the lowest
poverty rate of all age categories, largely because of Social
Security. Actually titled “Old Age, Survivors, Disability, and
Health Insurance,” Social Security is a federal insurance
program established in 1935 that protects against loss of income
caused by retirement, disability, or death. When Social Security
was established in 1935, it was intended to supplement other
savings and assets. But for more than half of Americans over
age 65, Social Security provides more than fifty percent of their
income, and without Social Security income, nearly half of all
U.S. seniors would be living in poverty (Edwards, Turner, and
Hertel-Fernandez, 2011). Instead, fewer than one in ten senior
citizens lives below the poverty line, making Social Security the
most successful antipoverty program in the United States.
However, because Social Security benefits are based on the
number of years of paid employment and preretirement
earnings, women and minorities, who often earn less during
their employment years, receive less in Social Security benefits
and are less protected against poverty in old age (AARP.com,
2012).

The child poverty rate in the United States is higher than in
other industrialized countries. In the United States today,
children under age 18 have the highest rate of poverty, followed
by people age 18 to 64 (see Figure 8.19). In 2015 the number of
U.S. children in poverty was 14.5 million (19.7 percent), down
from 15.5 million (21.1 percent) in 2014. However, children
under age 18 represent nearly 25 percent of the total population
but almost one-third of individuals living in poverty (Proctor,
Semega, and Kollar, 2016). The precarious position of African
American and Latino/a children is even more striking. Nearly
two in five African American (black) children, one in three
Hispanic children, and more than one in three American
Indian/Native Alaskan children are from families living below
the official poverty line, as compared with nearly one in seven
white (non-Hispanic) children.
Figure 8.19U.S. Poverty Rates by Age, 1959–2015
Source: Proctor, Semega, and Kollar, 2016.
Note: The data points are placed at the midpoints of the
respective years. Data for people 18 to 64 and 65 and older are
not available from 1960 to 1965.Gender
In 2015 the poverty rate was 12.2 percent for males of all ages,
as compared with 14.8 percent for females of all ages. However,
these figures do not tell the entire story. Gender differences in
poverty rates are more pronounced for people age 65 and older
and among younger women who head single-parent families.
The poverty rate for women age 65 and older was 10.3 percent,
while it was 7.0 percent for men. Single-parent families headed
by women in 2015 had a 28.2 percent poverty rate as compared
with a 14.9 percent rate for male-householder-with-no-wife-
present families and a 5.4 percent rate for married-couple two-
parent families (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar, 2016). In her
now-classical study, the sociologist Diana Pearce (1978) coined
a term to describe this problem of gender-specific poverty:
The feminization of poverty refers to the trend in which women

are disproportionately represented among individuals living in
poverty. Over the decades since Pearce’s study, women have
continued to face a higher risk of being poor because they bear
the major economic and emotional burdens of raising children
when they are single heads of households. This problem is
compounded by the fact that the female-to-male earnings ratio
was 80 percent in 2015, which means that for every dollar that a
male worker earns, a female worker earns 80 cents. This
constitutes a so-called gender wage gap of 20 percent. This
issue is further discussed in Chapter 11, “Sex, Gender, and
Sexuality,” and Chapter 13, “The Economy and Work in Global
Perspective.”
Does the feminization of poverty explain poverty in the United
States today? Clearly, this thesis highlights a genuine
problem—the link between gender and poverty (Figure 8.20).
However, all women are not equally vulnerable to poverty:
Many in the upper and upper-middle classes have the financial
resources, education, and skills to support themselves regardless
of the presence of a man in the household. Moreover, poverty is
everyone’s problem, not just women’s. When women are
impoverished, so are their children. Likewise, many of the poor
in our society are men, especially those who are chronically
unemployed, older men, the homeless, men with disabilities,
and men of color.
Figure 8.20
Many women are among the “working poor,” who, although
employed full time, have jobs in service occupations that are
typically lower paying and less secure than jobs in other
sections of the labor market. Does the nature of women’s work
contribute to the feminization of poverty in the United States?
Dmitry Kalinovsky/ Shutterstock.comRace/Ethnicity
In 2015 whites (non-Hispanic) accounted for 61.4 percent of the
U.S. population but 41.2 percent of people in poverty. Whites
(non-Hispanic) had the lowest rate of poverty—9.1 percent—of
any racial–ethnic group. The highest rate of poverty was among

American Indian (Native Americans) and Alaskan Native
populations at 28 percent, followed by African Americans
(blacks) at 24.1 percent, Hispanics at 24.1 percent, and Asians
at 11.4 percent (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar, 2016). Between
2010 and 2015, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian
Americans all experienced at least a slight decline in the
percentage in poverty; however, American Indian and Alaska
Native populations did not. Some demographic factors no doubt
contributed to slight fluctuations in poverty rates by
race/ethnicity, but overall rates remain persistently stubborn to
change.
8-6bEconomic and Structural Sources of Poverty
Social inequality and poverty have both economic and structural
sources. Unemployment is a major cause of contemporary
poverty that involves both economic and structural components.
Tough economic times provide fewer opportunities for
individuals to get a position that may help them gain a toehold
in U.S. society. In January 2017, 7.6 million persons were
unemployed in the United States, making the unemployment
rate 4.8 percent, down from 5.7 percent in January 2015.
Although the unemployment rate for adult men and women was
4.4 percent each, the unemployment rate for teenagers was 15
percent and African Americans were at 7.7 percent. About 24.4
percent of the unemployed (1.9 million) had been jobless for 27
weeks or more in early 2017 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2017b). Even as unemployment rates declined some between
2014 and 2017, more people did not necessarily find work.
Persons are no longer counted as unemployed if they drop out of
the labor market and are no longer actively looking for a job.
In addition to unemployment, low wages paid for many jobs are
another major cause of poverty: Although most working
families are not officially poor, many are “near-poor” or “low-
income,” struggling to pay for basic needs such as housing,
health care, food, child care, and transportation. Nearly one in
three working families in the United States is a “low-income”

family, earning less than 200 percent of the U.S. poverty
threshold.
Structural problems contribute to both unemployment and
underemployment. Corporations have been disinvesting in the
United States, displacing millions of people from their jobs.
Economists refer to this displacement as the deindustrialization
of America. Even as they have closed their U.S. factories and
plants, many corporations have opened new facilities in other
countries where lower-wage labor exists because people will, of
necessity, work for lower wages. Many analysts have
documented how the relocation of domestic manufacturing
offshore has drained millions of manufacturing jobs from the
U.S. economy.
Job deskilling—a reduction in the proficiency needed to
perform a specific job—leads to a corresponding reduction in
the wages for that job or in the use of nonhuman technologies to
perform the work. This kind of deskilling has resulted from the
computerization and automation of the workplace. A significant
step in job deskilling occurs when the primary responsibility of
human operators is to monitor automated systems. The eventual
outcome of such deskilling is that human operators either do not
know what to do when the system fails or they are replaced
entirely by automated technology. Other structural problems
include the overall shift from manufacturing to service
occupations in the United States, which has resulted in the loss
of higher-paying positions and their replacement with lower-
paying and less-secure positions that do not offer the wages, job
stability, or advancement potential of the disappearing jobs.
Technological advances and changing patterns of consumerism
have also contributed to unemployment in the United States and
other high-income nations. For example, the introduction of
smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices means that
fewer people now own a watch, camera, calculator, printed
calendar, or numerous other features (or apps) found on the
typical smartphone or tablet. As a result, fewer people are
needed to design, make, and repair numerous items that created

jobs for millions in the past. The Internet has also contributed
to a decline in hundreds of thousands of jobs in the postal,
publishing, and printing industries as people now e-mail or text
one another or self-publish their ideas rather than going the
traditional route. For example, thousands of postal jobs have
disappeared because of a dramatic reduction in the number of
items to be delivered, and automated systems have reduced the
number of workers employed at the post office itself.
8-6cSolving the Poverty Problem
The United States has attempted to solve the poverty problem in
several ways. One of the most enduring is referred to as social
welfare. When most people think of “welfare,” they think of
food stamps (currently called SNAP) and programs such as
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or the earlier
program it replaced, Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC). Some who receive benefits from welfare programs tend
to be stigmatized, even when our nation describes itself as
having compassion for the less fortunate (Figure 8.21).
Figure 8.21
This California electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card represents
a modern approach to helping people of limited income
purchase groceries. Data-encoded cards such as this one were
developed to prevent the trading or selling of traditional food
stamps. However, one drawback of this technology is that many
of California’s popular farmers’ markets are not able to process
EBT cards.
AP Images/Rich Pedroncelli
8-7Sociological Explanations of Social Inequality in the United
States
LO 8
Compare and contrast functionalist, conflict, and symbolic
interactionist perspectives on social inequality.
Obviously, some people are disadvantaged as a result of social
inequality. In this section we examine some sociological

explanations of social inequality. In doing so we will see how
different sociologists answer this question: Is inequality always
harmful to society?
8-7aFunctionalist Perspectives
According to the well-known classical sociologists Kingsley
Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945), inequality is not only
inevitable but also necessary for the smooth functioning of
society. The Davis–Moore thesis, which has become the
definitive functionalist explanation for social inequality, can be
summarized as follows:
1. All societies have important tasks that must be accomplished
and certain positions that must be filled.
2. Some positions are more important for the survival of society
than others.
3. The most important positions must be filled by the most
qualified people (Figure 8.22).
Figure 8.22
According to a functionalist perspective, people such as these
Harvard Law School graduates attain high positions in society
because they are the most qualified and they work the hardest.
Is our society a meritocracy? How would conflict theorists
answer this question?
AP Images/Elise Amendola
4. The positions that are the most important for society and that
require scarce talent, extensive training, or both must be the
most highly rewarded.
5. The most highly rewarded positions should be those that are
functionally unique (no other position can perform the same
function) and on which other positions rely for expertise,
direction, or financing.
Davis and Moore use the physician as an example of a
functionally unique position. Doctors are very important to
society and require extensive training, but individuals would not

be motivated to go through years of costly and stressful medical
training without incentives to do so. The Davis–Moore thesis
assumes that social stratification results in meritocracy—a
hierarchy in which all positions are rewarded based on people’s
ability and credentials.
A key problem with the Davis–Moore thesis is that it ignores
inequalities based on inherited wealth and intergenerational
family status. The thesis assumes that economic rewards and
prestige are the only effective motivators for people and fails to
take into account other intrinsic aspects of work, such as self-
fulfillment. It also does not adequately explain how such a
reward system guarantees that the most-qualified people will
gain access to the most highly rewarded positions.
8-7bConflict Perspectives
From a conflict perspective, people with economic and political
power are able to shape and distribute the rewards, resources,
privileges, and opportunities in society for their own benefit.
Conflict theorists do not believe that inequality serves as a
motivating force for people; they argue that powerful
individuals and groups use ideology to maintain their favored
positions at the expense of others. Core values in the United
States emphasize the importance of material possessions, hard
work, individual initiative to get ahead, and behavior that
supports the existing social structure. These same values
support the prevailing resource-distribution system and
contribute to social inequality.
Are wealthy people smarter than others? According to conflict
theorists, certain stereotypes suggest that this is the case;
however, the wealthy may actually be “smarter” than others
only in the sense of having “chosen” to be born to wealthy
parents from whom they could inherit assets. Conflict theorists
also note that laws and informal social norms support inequality
in the United States. For the first half of the twentieth century,
both legalized and institutionalized segregation and
discrimination reinforced employment discrimination and

produced higher levels of economic inequality. Although laws
have been passed to make these overt acts of discrimination
illegal, many forms of discrimination still exist in educational
and employment opportunities.
8-7cSymbolic Interactionist Perspectives
Symbolic interactionists focus on microlevel concerns and
usually do not analyze larger structural factors that contribute
to inequality and poverty. However, many significant insights
on the effects of wealth and poverty on people’s lives and social
interactions can be derived from applying a symbolic
interactionist approach. Using qualitative research methods and
influenced by a symbolic interactionist approach, researchers
have collected the personal narratives of people across all social
classes, ranging from the wealthiest to the poorest people in the
United States.
Concept Quick ReviewSociological Explanations of Social
Inequality in the United States
Functionalist Perspectives
Some degree of social inequality is necessary for the smooth
functioning of society (in order to fill the most important
positions) and thus is inevitable.
Conflict Perspectives
Powerful individuals and groups use ideology to maintain their
favored positions in society at the expense of others.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives
The beliefs and actions of people reflect their class location in
society.
A few studies provide rare insights into the social interactions
between people from vastly divergent class locations. In
sociologist Judith Rollins’s (1985) classic study of the
relationship between household workers and their employers,
she examined rituals of deference that were often demanded by
elite white women of their domestic workers, who were
frequently women of color. According to the sociologist Erving
Goffman (1967), deference is a type of ceremonial activity that

functions as a symbolic means whereby appreciation is regularly
conveyed to a recipient. In fact, deferential behavior between
nonequals (such as employers and employees) confirms the
inequality of the relationship and each party’s position in the
relationship relative to the other. Rollins identified three types
of linguistic deference between domestic workers and their
employers: use of the first names of the workers, contrasted
with titles and last names (Mrs. Adams, for example) of the
employers; use of the term girls to refer to female household
workers regardless of their age; and deferential references to
employers, such as “Yes, ma’am.” Spatial demeanor, including
touching and how close one person stands to another, is an
additional factor in deference rituals across class lines. Rollins
(1985: 232) concludes that
The employer, in her more powerful position, sets the essential
tone of the relationship; and that tone … is one that functions to
reinforce the inequality of the relationship, to strengthen the
employer’s belief in the rightness of her advantaged class and
racial position, and to provide her with justification for the
inegalitarian social system.
Many concepts introduced by the sociologist Erving Goffman
(1959, 1967) could be used as springboards for examining
microlevel relationships between inequality and people’s
everyday interactions. What could you learn about class-based
inequality in the United States by using a symbolic
interactionist approach to examine a setting with which you are
familiar?
The Concept Quick Review summarizes the three major
perspectives on social inequality in the United States.8-
8Looking Ahead: U.S. Stratification in the Future
The United States continues to face one of the greatest
economic challenges it has experienced since the Great
Depression of the 1930s. Although we have strong hopes that
the American Dream will remain alive and well, many people
are concerned about the lack of upward mobility for many
Americans and a decline for others. The nationwide slump in

housing and jobs has distressed people across all income levels,
and continued high rates of unemployment and a shifting stock
market bring about weekly predictions that things are either
getting only slightly better or are becoming worse. Perhaps one
of the most critical factors contributing to a lack of optimism
about future mobility in the United States is the vast wealth gap
between the rich and everyone else, and the depth of poverty in
this country.
Given the current economic situation, it is difficult to predict
the future of the U.S. system of stratification. What will happen
with the great economic imbalance in the United States?
Economist and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (2010:
146) has summed up the problem as follows:
None of us can thrive in a nation divided between a small
number of people receiving an ever larger share of the nation’s
income and wealth, and everyone else receiving a declining
share. The lopsidedness not only diminishes economic growth
but also tears at the fabric of our society. America cannot
succeed if the basic bargain at the heart of our economy remains
broken. The most fortunate among us who have reached the
pinnacles of power and success depend on a stable economic
and political system. That stability rests on the public’s trust
that the system operates in the interest of us all. Any loss of
such trust threatens the well-being of everyone.
Given this assessment, politicians, business leaders, and
ordinary people must do all they can to reinvigorate the
American Dream, or everyone’s future—young and old alike—
will look much dimmer as we continue on through the century.
In the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century,
it is alarming to see headlines such as “Middle Class Shrinks
Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up” (Searcey and
Gebeloff, 2015). If more than half of U.S. households were in
the middle class in the late 1960s, what has happened? Why
have more people fallen to the bottom of the class structure?
Middle-class couples with children are among those having the
hardest time holding their place in the structure, at least partly

because of the Great Recession, when many middle-income jobs
were lost, only to be replaced by lower-wage positions. The
main route to the middle class has been through higher
education, and as no one needs to tell you as a college student
that this is an often expensive and very time-consuming pursuit.
Until median incomes improve and more middle-class jobs are
available, people have to find innovative ways to increase their
income and improve their lifestyle. Some work several jobs;
others create a niche for themselves in social media or other
newer technologies that did not even exist a few years ago.
Overall, the bottom-line question becomes how to handle the
rapidly growing gap between the highest income and wealth
group and everyone else. A Pew Research Center (2014) study
found that the gap between the upper-income and middle-
income families in the United States has reached its highest
level on record. More than that, upper-income families have a
median net worth that is nearly 70 times that of lower-income
families. For any meaningful change to occur, there must be
consistent improvements in the job market, the unemployment
rate, the stock market, and housing and oil and gas prices.
Because many middle-class families had their homes as their
primary source of net worth, the Great Recession damaged their
overall economic well-being, and they have not fully recovered.
Are we sabotaging our future if we do not work constructively
to eliminate vast income inequalities and high rates of poverty?
It has been said that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
If we apply this idea to the problem of vast income inequality
and high rates of poverty, then it is to our advantage to see that
those who cannot find work or do not have a job that provides a
living wage receive adequate training and employment.
Innovative programs can combine job training with producing
something useful to meet the immediate needs of people living
in poverty. Children of today—the adults of tomorrow—need
nutrition, education, health care, and safety as they grow up
(see “You Can Make a Difference”).
You Can Make a DifferenceStudents Helping Others Through

Campus Kitchen
Since 2001:
Pounds of food recovered: 4.16 million
Meals prepared: 2.34 million
The Campus Kitchen Project
My life has gotten to the point where if I’m not in class I’m
sleeping or doing something for Campus Kitchen…. So, I’ll let
y’all in on a little secret: Campus Kitchen is worth being
excited about. For the uninitiated, Campus Kitchen is a student-
led organization. We rescue and cook food to distribute to those
in need. Five days a week students go to the dining halls and
pick up pans of food and take them to the Salvation Army. On
Tuesday afternoons, students are busy in the Family and
Consumer Sciences kitchen creating healthy snacks to be given
to children at local schools. On Thursdays, the kitchen crew
cooks a meal that is delivered to the women and children at the
Family Abuse Center.
Excited yet?
—Amy Heard (2011), a Baylor University student, describing
how much she enjoys volunteering for Campus Kitchen
What is Campus Kitchen? Currently, more than 42 college
campuses are involved in Campus Kitchen. This on-campus
student service program is part of the Campus Kitchen Project,
begun by Robert Egger, director of the nonprofit D.C. Central
Kitchen in Washington, D.C. As Amy Heard explains, students
go to dining halls, cafeterias, and local food banks or
restaurants to pick up unserved, usable food and to make sure
that meals gets to a local organization that feeds persons in
need. Each college provides on-campus space for the “Campus
Kitchen,” such as a dining hall at off-hours or a
classroom/kitchen, where students can prepare meals and snacks
using the donated food. Students then deliver the meals to
individuals and families in need of food assistance and to
organizations such as homeless shelters and soup kitchens in
their community. In addition to food recovery, delivery, and

cooking, some campus groups, including the one at Baylor
University, have community gardens in which people water,
prune, harvest, or deliver fresh produce. This is most important
for people living in low-income areas who have a difficult time
getting fresh, affordable fruits and vegetables for a balanced
diet and proper nutrition.
In addition to helping start Campus Kitchen, Robert Egger has
been an inspiration for many others who make a difference by
helping feed the hungry. Egger is one of the people responsible
for an innovative chef-training program that feeds hope as well
as hunger. At the Central Kitchen, located in the nation’s
capital, staff and guest chefs annually train homeless persons in
three-month-long kitchen-arts courses. While the trainees are
learning about food preparation, which will help them get
starting jobs in the restaurant industry, they are also helping
feed homeless persons each day. Much of the food is prepared
using donated goods such as turkeys that people have received
as gifts at office parties and given to the kitchen, and leftover
food from grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, and college
cafeterias.
Can you think of ways that leftover food could be recovered
from your college or university or other places where you eat so
the food could be redistributed to persons in need? For more
information, check the websites of the following organizations:
· Campus Kitchen Project
· D.C. Central Kitchen
Here is an example of Campus Kitchen at work. These Gonzaga
University undergraduates are using leftovers from the dining
hall to put together meals for the needy. Does your college have
a similar program?
AP Images/Amy Sinisterra
Chapter Review Q & A
· LO1What is social stratification, and how do the three major
systems of stratification compare?
Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of large

social groups based on their control over basic resources.
People are treated differently based on where they are
positioned within the social hierarchies of class, race, gender,
and age. Stratification systems include slavery, caste, and class.
Slavery, an extreme form of stratification in which people are
owned or controlled by others, is a closed system. The caste
system is also a closed one in which people’s status is
determined at birth based on their parents’ position in society.
The class system, which exists in the United States, is a type of
stratification based on ownership of resources and on the type
of work that people do.
· LO2How did Karl Marx view social class and stratification?
Marx viewed social class as a key determinant of social
inequality and social change. For Marx, class position and the
extent of our income and wealth are determined by our work
situation, or our relationship to the means of production. Marx
stated that capitalistic societies consist of two classes—the
capitalists and the workers—and class relationships involve
inequality and exploitation.
· LO3What is Max Weber’s multidimensional approach to social
stratification?
Weber emphasized that no single factor (such as economic
divisions between capitalists and workers) was sufficient for
defining the location of categories of people within the class
structure. Weber developed a multidimensional concept of
stratification that focuses on the interplay of wealth, prestige,
and power.
· LO4What are the key characteristics of social classes in the
United States?
No broad consensus exists about how to characterize the class
structure in this country. Sociologists have developed two
models of the class structure: One is based on a Weberian
approach, the other on a Marxian approach. In the Weberian-
based approach, social classes are based on three elements:
· (1)
education,

· (2)
occupation of family head, and
· (3)
family income.
This approach to class structure consists of the upper class, the
upper-middle class, the middle class, the working class, the
working poor, and the underclass. Contemporary Marxian
models examine class in terms of people’s relationship to others
in the production process.
· LO5What is the difference between income inequality and
wealth inequality?
Income is the economic gain derived from wages, salaries,
income transfers (governmental aid), and ownership of property.
In 2015 the wealthiest 20 percent of U.S. households received
more than half of the total income “pie,” while the poorest 20
percent of households received slightly more than 3 percent of
all income. Wealth includes property such as buildings, land,
farms, houses, factories, and cars, as well as other assets such
as bank accounts, corporate stocks, bonds, and insurance
policies. Wealth is even more unevenly distributed than income.
· LO6What are three important consequences of inequality in
the United States?
The stratification of society into different social groups results
in wide discrepancies in income and wealth and in variable
access to available goods and services. People with high income
or wealth have greater opportunity to control their own lives.
They can afford better housing, more education, and a wider
range of medical services. People with less income have fewer
life chances and must spend their limited resources to acquire
basic necessities.
· LO7What are the characteristics of the U.S. poor based on
age, gender, and race/ethnicity?
Age, gender, and race tend to be factors in poverty. Children
have a greater risk of being poor than do the elderly, and
women have a higher rate of poverty than do men. Although
whites account for approximately two-thirds of those below the

poverty line, people of color account for a disproportionate
share of the impoverished in the United States.
· LO8How do functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist
perspectives on social inequality compare?
Functionalist perspectives view classes as broad groupings of
people who share similar levels of privilege on the basis of their
roles in the occupational structure. According to the Davis–
Moore thesis, stratification exists in all societies, and some
inequality is not only inevitable but also necessary for the
ongoing functioning of society. The positions that are most
important within society and that require the most talent and
training must be highly rewarded. Conflict perspectives on class
are based on the assumption that social stratification is created
and maintained by one group (typically the capitalist class) in
order to enhance and protect its own economic interests.
Conflict theorists measure class according to people’s
relationships with others in the production process. Unlike
functionalist and conflict perspectives that focus on macrolevel
inequalities in societies, symbolic interactionist views focus on
microlevel inequalities such as how class location may
positively or negatively influence one’s identity and everyday
social interactions. Symbolic interactionists use terms such
as social cohesion and deference to explain how class binds
some individuals together while categorically separating out
others.Unit 4.2: Global Stratification9-1Wealth and Poverty in
Global Perspective
LO 1
Define global stratification and explain how it contributes to
economic inequality within and between nations.
What do we mean by global stratification? Global
stratification refers to the unequal distribution of wealth, power,
and prestige on a global basis, resulting in people having vastly
different lifestyles and life chances both within and among the
nations of the world. Just as the United States is divided into
classes, the world is divided into unequal segments
characterized by extreme differences in wealth and poverty. For

example, the income gap between the richest and the poorest
percentage of the world population continues to widen
(see Figure 9.1).
Figure 9.1Income Gap Between the World’s Richest and Poorest
People
The income gap between the richest and poorest people in the
world continued to grow between 1960 and 2010 (the last year
for which information is available). As this figure shows, in
1960 the highest-income percentage of the world’s population
received $30 for each dollar received by the lowest-income
percentage. By 2010, the disparity had increased: $150 to $1.
Source: International Monetary Fund, 2012; World Bank, 2012.
As previously defined, high-income countries have highly
industrialized economies; technologically advanced industrial,
administrative, and service occupations; and relatively high
levels of national and per capita (per person) income. In
contrast, middle-income countries have industrializing
economies, particularly in urban areas, and moderate levels of
national and personal income. Low-income countries have little
industrialization and low levels of national and personal
income.
Although some progress has been made in reducing extreme
poverty and child mortality rates while improving health and
literacy rates in some lower-income countries, the overall
picture remains bleak. Many people have sought to address the
issue of world poverty and to determine ways in which
resources can be used to meet the urgent challenge of poverty.
However, not much progress has been made on this front despite
a great deal of talk and billions of dollars in “foreign aid”
flowing from high-income nations to low-income nations. The
idea of “development” has become one of the primary means
used in attempts to reduce social and economic inequalities and
alleviate the worst effects of poverty in the less industrialized
nations of the world.

As we take a closer look at global stratification, there are a
number of problems inherent in studying this issue, one of
which is what terminology should be used to describe various
nations. As we shall now see, a lack of consensus exists among
political, economic, and social leaders on this topic.9-
2Problems in Studying Global Inequality
One of the primary problems encountered by social scientists
studying global stratification and social and economic
inequality is what terminology should be used to refer to the
distribution of resources in various nations. During the past
sixty years, major changes have occurred in the way that
inequality is addressed by organizations such as the United
Nations and the World Bank. Most definitions of inequality are
based on comparisons of levels of income or economic
development, whereby countries are identified in terms of the
“three worlds” or upon their levels of economic development.
9-2aThe “Three Worlds” Approach
After World War II, the terms “First World,” “Second World,”
and “Third World” were introduced by social analysts to
distinguish among nations on the basis of their levels of
economic development and the standard of living of their
citizens. First World nations were said to consist of the rich,
industrialized nations that primarily had capitalist economic
systems and democratic political systems. The most frequently
noted First World nations were the United States, Canada,
Japan, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Second
World nations were said to be countries with at least a moderate
level of economic development and a moderate standard of
living. These nations include China, Vietnam, Cuba, and
portions of the former Soviet Union. According to social
analysts, although the quality of life in Second World nations
was not comparable to that of life in the First World, it was far
greater than that of people living in the Third World—the
poorest countries, with little or no industrialization and the
lowest standards of living, shortest life expectancies, and

highest rates of mortality. Examples of these nations include
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra
Leone.
9-2bThe Levels of Development Approach
LO 2
Describe the levels of development approach for studying global
inequality.
Among the most controversial terminology used for describing
world poverty and global stratification has been the language of
development. Terminology based on levels of development
includes concepts such as developed nations, developing
nations, less-developed nations, and underdevelopment. Let’s
look first at the contemporary origins of the idea of
“underdevelopment” and “underdeveloped nations.”
Following World War II, the concepts
of underdevelopment and underdeveloped nations emerged out
of the Marshall Plan (named after U.S. Secretary of State
George C. Marshall), which provided massive sums of money in
direct aid and loans to rebuild the European economic base
destroyed during World War II. Given the Marshall Plan’s
success in rebuilding much of Europe, U.S. political leaders
decided that the Southern Hemisphere nations that had recently
been released from European colonialism could also benefit
from a massive financial infusion and rapid economic
development. Leaders of the developed nations argued that
urgent problems such as poverty, disease, and famine could be
reduced through the transfer of finance, technology, and
experience from the developed nations to lesser-developed
countries. From this viewpoint, economic development is the
primary way to solve the poverty problem: Hadn’t economic
growth brought the developed nations to their own high
standard of living?
Ideas regarding underdevelopment were popularized by
President Harry S. Truman in his 1949 inaugural address.
According to Truman, the nations in the Southern Hemisphere

were “underdeveloped areas” because of their low gross
national product, which today is referred to as gross national
income (GNI)—a term that refers to all the goods and services
produced in a country in a given year, plus the net income
earned outside the country by individuals or corporations. If
nations could increase their GNI, then social and economic
inequality among the citizens within the country could also be
reduced. Accordingly, Truman believed that it was necessary to
assist the people of economically underdeveloped areas to raise
their standard of living, by which he meant material well-being
that can be measured by the quality of goods and services that
may be purchased by the per capita national income. Thus, an
increase in the standard of living meant that a nation was
moving toward economic development, which typically included
the exploitation of natural resources by industrial development.
What has happened to the issue of development since the post–
World War II era? After several decades of economic
development fostered by organizations such as the United
Nations and the World Bank, it became apparent by the 1970s
that improving a country’s GNI did not tend to reduce the
poverty of the poorest people in that country. In fact, global
poverty and inequality were increasing, and the initial optimism
of a speedy end to underdevelopment faded.
Why did inequality increase even with greater economic
development? Some analysts in the developed nations began to
link growing social and economic inequality on a global basis to
relatively high rates of population growth taking place in the
underdeveloped nations (Figure 9.2). Organizations such as the
United Nations and the World Health Organization stepped up
their efforts to provide family planning services to the
populations so that they could control their own fertility.
However, population researchers are now aware that issues such
as population growth, economic development, and
environmental problems must be seen as interdependent
concerns. After the U.N. Conference on Environment and
Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (the “Earth Summit”), in

1992, terms such as underdevelopment were dropped by many
analysts.
Figure 9.2
Some analysts believe that growing global social and economic
inequality is related to high rates of population growth taking
place in underdeveloped nations. Why might this be so?
Dabldy/ Shutterstock.com9-3Classification of Economies by
Income
LO 3
Identify the World Bank classifications of nations into four
economic categories, and explain why organizations such as this
have problems measuring wealth and poverty on a global basis.
The World Bank classifies nations into four economic
categories and establishes the upper and lower limits for the
gross national income (GNI) in each category. Low-income
economies had a GNI per capita of less than $1,025 in
2016, lower-middle-income economies had a GNI per capita
between $1,026 and $4,035, upper-middle-income
economies had a GNI per capita between $4,036 and $12,475,
and high-income economies had a GNI per capita of $12,476 or
more (World Bank, 2016).
9-3aLow-Income Economies
Currently, about thirty-four nations are classified by the World
Bank (2015) as low-income economies. In these economies,
many people engage in agricultural pursuits, reside in nonurban
areas, and are impoverished. As shown in Figure 9.3, low-
income economies are primarily found in countries in Asia and
Africa, where half of the world’s population resides.
Figure 9.3High-, Middle-, and Low-Income Economies in
Global Perspective
Source: World Bank, 2016.

Among those most affected by poverty in low-income
economies are women and children. Why is this true? Fertility
rates remain high in low-income economies. In all nations the
poor have higher fertility rates than the wealthy residing within
the same country. Other factors that contribute to the poverty of
women and children are lack of educational opportunity,
disadvantage in control over resources and assets in the
household, gender disparities in work, and lower overall pay
than men. To learn more about gender inequality worldwide, go
online to the World Bank’s World Development Report.
9-3bMiddle-Income Economies
About one-third of the world’s population resides in a middle-
income economy. As previously stated, the World Bank has
subdivided the middle-income economies into two categories—
the lower-middle income ($1,026 to $4,035) and the upper-
middle income ($4,036 to $12,475). Countries classified as
lower-middle income include Armenia, Ghana, Guatemala,
Honduras, Lesotho, Nigeria, Ukraine, and Vietnam. In recent
years, millions of people have migrated from the world’s
poorest nations in hopes of finding better economic conditions
elsewhere.
As compared with lower-middle-income economies, nations
having upper-middle-income economies typically have a
somewhat higher standard of living. Nations with upper-middle-
income economies include Angola, Argentina, Brazil, China,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Iraq, Jordan, Mexico, and Turkey.
Some of these nations export a diverse variety of goods and
services, ranging from manufactured goods to raw materials and
fuels. For example, Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, is well -known
for tobacco growing and harvesting; however, this country has
been accused of hazardous child labor practices by the United
Nations and the international media.
9-3cHigh-Income Economies
High-income economies (a gross national income per capita of

$12,476 or more in 2016) are found in nations such as the
United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Portugal, Ireland,
Israel, Italy, Norway, and Germany. According to the World
Bank, people in high-income economies typically have a higher
standard of living than those in low- and middle-income
economies, but income is only one indicator of overall human
development.
Nations with high-income economies continue to dominate the
world economy, despite the fact that shifts in the global
marketplace have affected workers who have a mismatch
between their schooling and workplace skills and the
availability of job opportunities. Another problem is capital
flight—the movement of jobs and economic resources from one
nation to another—because transnational corporations have
found a ready-and-willing pool of workers worldwide to
perform jobs for lower wages. In the United States and other
industrialized nations, the process of deindustrialization—the
closing of plants and factories—because of their obsolescence
or the movement of work to other regions of the country or to
other nations has contributed to shifts in the global marketplace.
Meanwhile, the 2007 U.S. financial crisis and the Great
Recession that followed produced higher rates of unemployment
worldwide. However, in the second decade of the twenty-first
century, there is some hope for continued job recovery as
companies such as Tesla Motors, the designer and manufacturer
of electric vehicles, have opened plants in the United States and
returned thousands of jobs to areas where other industries were
previously located (Figure 9.4). For example, Tesla’s Fremont,
California, plant is in the former New United Motor
Manufacturing plant, a failed joint venture between General
Motors and Toyota that closed in 2010. (The Concept Quick
Review describes economies classified by income.)
Figure 9.4
Although capital flight and deindustrialization have produced
problems in the U.S. economy, many job sectors continue to
offer opportunities for workers. These Tesla employees on the

assembly line in Fremont, California, are adding seat belts to
the company’s Model S electric sedans.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
Concept Quick ReviewClassification of Economies by Income
Low-Income Economies
Middle-Income Economies
High-Income Economies
Previous Categorization
Third World, underdeveloped
Second World, developing
First World, developed
Per Capita Income (GNI)
$1,025 or less
Lower middle: $1,026 to $4,035
Upper middle: $4,036 to $12,475
High income: $12,476 or more
Type of Economy
Largely agricultural
Diverse, from agricultural to manufacturing
Information-based and postindustrial
Source: World Bank, 2016.9-4Measuring Global Wealth and
Poverty
On a global basis, measuring wealth and poverty is a difficult
task because of conceptual problems and problems in acquiring
comparable data from various nations. As well, over time, some
indicators, such as the literacy rate, become less useful in
helping analysts determine what progress is being made in
reducing poverty.
9-4aAbsolute, Relative, and Subjective Poverty
How is poverty defined on a global basis? Isn’t it more a matter
of comparison than an absolute standard? According to social
scientists, defining poverty involves more than comparisons of

personal or household income; it also involves social judgments
made by researchers. From this point of view, absolute
poverty—previously defined as a condition in which people do
not have the means to secure the most basic necessities of life —
would be measured by comparing personal or household income
or expenses with the cost of buying a given quantity of goods
and services. As noted earlier, the World Bank has defined
absolute poverty as living on less than $1.90 per day (as
measured in 2016 international prices). Similarly, relative
poverty—which exists when people may be able to afford basic
necessities but are still unable to maintain an average standard
of living—would be measured by comparing one person’s
income with the incomes of others. Finally, subjective
poverty would be measured by comparing the actual income
against the income earner’s expectations and perceptions.
However, for low-income nations in a state of economic
transition, data on income and levels of consumption are
typically difficult to obtain and are often ambiguous when they
are available. Defining levels of poverty involves several
dimensions:
· (1)
how many people are poor,
· (2)
how far below the poverty line people’s incomes fall, and
· (3)
how long they have been poor (is the poverty temporary or long
term?).
Figure 9.5 provides a unique portrayal of human poverty in
which the territory size shows the proportion of the world
population living in poverty in each region.
Figure 9.5Proportion of World’s Population Living in Poverty
(by Region)
Source: Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield)
and Mark Newman (University of Virginia). Map courtesy

of worldmapper.org.
9-4bThe Gini Coefficient and Global Quality-of-Life Issues
One measure of income inequality is the Gini coefficient, which
measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family
income in a country. In technical terms the Gini Index measures
the extent to which the distribution of income (or consumption
expenditures) among individuals or households within an
economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. The lower
a country’s score on the Gini coefficient, the more equal the
income distribution. The index ranges from zero (meaning that
everyone has the same income) to 100 (one person receives all
the income). According to World Bank data, income inequality
tends to be lower in Northern Europe, with countries such as
Sweden, Norway, and Finland showing some of the world’s
lowest GINI coefficients. It is also surprisingly low in much-
less-affluent countries such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia. The
highest levels of income inequality are found in countries such
as the Central African Republic, Honduras, Angola, Haiti, South
Africa, and Namibia. However, these data are not always
strictly comparable because of differing methods and types of
data collection in various countries.9-5Global Poverty and
Human Development Issues
LO 4
Discuss the relationship between global poverty and key human
development issues such as life expectancy, health, education,
and literacy.
Income disparities are not the only factor that defines poverty
and its effect on people. Although the average income per
person in lower-income countries has doubled in the past thirty
years and for many years economic growth has been seen as the
primary way to achieve development in low-income economies,
the United Nations since the 1970s has more actively focused on
human development as a crucial factor in fighting poverty. In
1990 the United Nations Development Program introduced
the Human Development Index (HDI), establishing three new

criteria—in addition to GNI—for measuring the level of
development in a country: life expectancy, education, and living
standards. According to the United Nations, human development
is the process of increasing the number of choices that people
have so that they can lead life to its fullest and be able to take
action for themselves to improve their lives (United Nations
Development Programme, 2013). (Figure 9.6 compares
indicators such as life expectancy and per capita gross national
income of various regions around the world.) The United
Nations continues to monitor the progress of nations in regard
to life expectancy, educational attainment, and other factors that
are related to length and quality of life, as discussed in
“Sociology and Social Policy.”
Figure 9.6Indicators of Human Development
Source: United Nations Human Development Programme, 2015.
Sociology & Social PolicyFighting Extreme Poverty One Social
Policy at a Time
The primary aim of the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals “should be to eradicate extreme poverty.
That should be our rallying cry. We can do it in our
generation.”
—At a UN conference, UK Prime Minister David Cameron,
chairman of the G8 organization (Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States), made this call for a rapid reduction in extreme poverty
worldwide (qtd. in Wintour, 2013).
Organizations such as the United Nations establish social policy
initiatives to reduce extreme poverty (defined as living on under
$1.90 per day) and to promote education, health, and well -
being. Developing effective policies for dealing with global
inequality and extreme poverty is crucial for bringing about
social change. Social policy is an area of research and action
that looks at the social relations necessary for people’s well -
being and works to build systems that promote well-being. The

United Nations established eight Millennium Development
Goals to be achieved and continues to monitor efforts in each of
these areas: end poverty and hunger; ensure universal education,
gender equality, child health, and maternal health; combat
HIV/AIDs; work toward environmental sustainability; and
establish global partnerships.
Malnutrition is a widespread problem in many low-income
nations. What other kinds of health problems are related to
global poverty?
The Sydney Morning Herald/Getty Images
All of the G8 leaders signed on to help implement this policy,
and in 2012 the World Bank announced that the first goal,
cutting extreme poverty in half, was ahead of the 2015 deadline.
Although it is an outstanding accomplishment that an estimated
663 million people moved above the extreme poverty line (of
$1.90 per day), it is important to recall that they still remain
very poor, even at $2 per day, based on the standards of middle -
and higher-income nations. Looking at differences in urban and
rural areas, the bad news is that extreme poverty engulfs almost
29 percent of the urban population and 34 percent of the rural
population. However, the good news is that urban poverty is
down about 7 percent and rural poverty has decreased by more
than 9 percent since 2005.
Will it be possible to eliminate poverty through social policy?
According to David Cameron, it will be possible to eradicate
poverty only if people see the issue as “not only about money”
(qtd. in Gill, 2012). He suggests that these goals will be
impossible to attain if there is widespread corruption, lack of
justice, and limited access to law. As a result, Cameron believes
that people must stand up for these governance issues in order
to eliminate extreme poverty and help reduce overall inequality.
Reflect & Analyze
1. Do you believe that social policy is an effective tool for
reducing poverty? Are global policies established by
international organizations such as the United Nations effective

in reducing poverty? Should each nation have its own policies
to reduce inequality?
The top level of development category used by the United
Nations is “Very High Human Development.” According to
the Human Development Report, on average, people who live in
countries in the highest-human-development categories on
average are better educated, will live longer, and will earn
more. In a nation with very high human development, for
example, the gross national income per capita averages about
$41,584, as compared to $3,085 in countries with low human
development category. The top three countries in the HDI are
Norway, Australia, and Switzerland. Recently, the United States
moved from fifth to eighth place. Eritrea, Central African
Republic, and Niger are the three bottom countries in the 2015
HDI. In terms of human development, a child born in Central
African Republic in 2015, for example, has a life expectancy of
50.7 years—nearly 30 years less than a child born in the same
year in Norway, who will have a life expectancy of 82.6 years
(United Nations Human Development Programme, 2015).
9-5aLife Expectancy
The good news is that people everywhere are living longer
(World Health Organization, 2014). According to WHO’s
annual statistics, low-income nations have made the most
progress in increases in life expectancy. Global life expectancy
has improved primarily because fewer children are dying before
their fifth birthday. However, we should not become too
optimistic: People in high-income, highly developed nations
still have a much greater chance of living longer than people in
low-income countries.
Although some advances have been made in middle- and low-
HDI countries regarding increasing life expectancy, major
problems still exist. The average life expectancy at birth of
people in medium- or middle-HDI countries remains about 12
years less (68.6 years) than that of people in very-high-HDI
countries (80.5 years). Moreover, the life expectancy of people

in low-HDI nations is about 20 years fewer than that of people
in very high-HDI nations. Consider these figures: A child born
in a low-HDI country has a life expectancy at birth of just 60.6
years, while the average in medium-HDI countries is 68.6 years.
In high-human-development countries, life expectancy rises to
75.1 years, and in very-high-human-development countries it is
80.5 years (United Nations Development Programme, 2015).
Regions also vary on the basis of life expectancies: An infant
born in 2015 in Latin American or the Caribbean had an average
life expectancy at birth of 75 years, while a child born in sub-
Saharan Africa in the same year had a life expectancy at birth of
58.5 years (United Nations Development Programme, 2015).
One major cause of shorter life expectancy in low -income
nations is the high rate of infant mortality. The infant mortality
rate refers to the number of deaths per thousand live births in a
calendar year. Low-income countries typically have higher rates
of illness and disease, and they do not have adequate health care
facilities. Malnutrition is a common problem among children,
many of whom are underweight, stunted, and anemic—a
nutritional deficiency with serious consequences for child
mortality.
Among adults and children alike, life expectancies are strongly
affected by hunger and malnutrition. It is estimated that people
in the United States spend more than $66 billion each year on
diet soft drinks, health club memberships, and other weight-loss
products (Wyatt, 2014), whereas the world’s poorest people
suffer from chronic malnutrition, and many die each year from
hunger-related diseases. Inadequate nutrition affects people’s
ability to work and to earn the income necessary for a minimum
standard of living. Although some gains have been made in
reducing the rate of malnourishment in some lower-income
nations, about one billion people around the world are
malnourished, and 63 percent of these are in Asia and the
Pacific, 26 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 1 percent in
developed countries (United Nations Development Programme,
2013).

On the plus side of the life-expectancy problem, some nations
have made positive gains, seeing average life expectancy
increase in the past four decades. For example, life expectancy
has improved in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly because of
reductions in deaths from diarrhea, lower respiratory tract
infections, and neonatal disorders. In countries with high- and
very-high human development, life-expectancy gains are mainly
driven by reductions in cardiovascular disease, some cancers,
transport injuries (motor vehicle accidents), and chronic
respiratory conditions. Of course, problems of illness and
mortality remain grave in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa,
where overall longevity and quality of life remain highly
problematic.
Health
Health refers to a condition of physical, mental, and social well-
being. In other words, it is more than the absence of illness or
disease. Many people in low-income nations are far from having
physical, mental, and social well-being. In fact, more than 25
million people die each year from AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis,
pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, measles, and other infectious
and parasitic illnesses (World Health Organization, 2014).
According to the World Health Organization, infectious diseases
are far from under control in many nations: Infectious and
parasitic diseases are the leading killers of children and young
adults, and these diseases have a direct link to environmental
conditions and poverty, especially to unsanitary and
overcrowded living conditions.
Some middle-income countries are experiencing rapid growth in
degenerative diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease,
and many more deaths are expected from smoking-related
illnesses. Despite the decrease in tobacco smoking in high-
income countries, globally there has been an increase in per
capita consumption of tobacco products. Today, nearly 80
percent of the world’s one billion smokers live in low - or
middle-income nations (WHO Tobacco Facts, 2014).

9-5cEducation and Literacy
Education is fundamental to improving life chances and
reducing both individual and national poverty (Figure 9.7).
People with more years of formal education tend to earn higher
wages and have better jobs. Progress in education has been
made in many nations, and people around the world have higher
levels of education than in the past. For this reason the United
Nations Human Development Report uses “mean years of
schooling”—completed years of educational attainment—and
“expected years of schooling”—the years of schooling that a
child can expect to receive given current enrollment rates—to
measure progress in education.
Figure 9.7
In functional adult literacy programs, such as this one
sponsored by the Community Action Fund for Women in Africa,
women hope to gain educational skills that will lift them and
their families out of poverty.
National Geographic Image Collection/Alamy
In nations with very high human development, the mean years
of schooling received by people ages 25 and older is 11.8 years;
in low-HDI nations, the average number of years is only 4.5
years. Medium-HDI countries have 6.2 mean years of schooling,
compared with 8.2 years for high-HDI countries. However, the
United Nations also calculates expected years of schooling
because the agency believes that these figures better reflect
changing education opportunities in developing countries. For
example, the average incoming elementary school student in a
low-HDI country is expected to complete 9.0 years of
schooling, as compared to estimates of 16.4 years in very-high-
HDI countries. Some progress has been made in recent years, as
most low-HDI countries have achieved or are advancing toward
full enrollment in elementary school.
What is the relationship between education and literacy? The

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) defines a literate person as “someone
who can, with understanding, both read and write a short,
simple statement on their everyday life” (United Nations, 1997:
89). Based on this definition, people who can write only with
figures, their name, or a memorized phrase are not considered
literate. Literacy was previously used by the United Nations as
a measure to determine education in relation to levels of human
development. As improvements have occurred in global literacy
rates, researchers found that other measures of educational
attainment were more useful in assessing the knowledge
dimension of human development.
Literacy rates continue to rise among adults and youths, and
gender gaps are narrowing. It is estimated that 84 percent of the
global adult population (ages 15 and above) is able to read and
write. Although 89 percent of young people around the world
have basic literacy and numeracy skills, there are still more than
123 million young people who are unable to read or write
(United Nations, 2013). The largest increases in youth literacy
rates were identified in Northern Africa and Southern Asia. The
literacy rate among young women is growing faster than that of
young men, particularly in these areas of the world. Although
the literacy rate among adult women has continued to rise,
women still represent two-thirds of those who are illiterate
worldwide (United Nations, 2013). Literacy is crucial for
everyone, but it is especially important for women because it
has been closely linked to decreases in fertility, improved child
health, and increased earnings potential.
9-5dA Multidimensional Measure of Poverty
Can we solve the problem of poverty? This is an easy question
to ask, but the answer is very difficult. In part, it is important to
note that there are various kinds of poverty. Sometimes global
poverty is defined as earning $1.90 per day or less, but this
approach overlooks other kinds of poverty indicators. Many
people living in poverty daily face overlapping disadvantages,

including poor health and nutrition, low education and usable
skills, inadequate livelihoods, bad housing conditions, and
social exclusion and lack of participation. So thinking critically
about human development and poverty requires that we examine
the issue of human deprivation. As a result, the United Nations
developed a global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to
help identify overlapping deprivations that are suffered by
households regarding health, education, and living standards.
The three dimensions of the MPI—health, education, and living
standards—are subdivided into ten indicators:
· Health—nutrition and child mortality
· Education—years of schooling (deprived if no household
member has completed five years of school) and children
enrolled
· Living standards—cooking fuel, toilet, water, electricity, floor
(deprived if the household has a dirt, sand, or dung floor), and
assets (deprived if the household does not own more than one of
the following: radio, television, telephone, bike, or motorbike)
To be considered multidimensionally poor, households must be
deprived in at least six standard-of-living indicators or in three
standard-of-living indicators and one health or education
indicator.
How many people are considered to be poor by these measures?
Almost 1.5 billion people in the 101 countries covered by the
MPI experience multidimensional poverty. This number exceeds
the estimated 1.2 billion people who are defined as poor based
on income because they live on $1.90 per day or less. It is
estimated that another 900 million people are vulnerable to
falling to poverty if they have financial setbacks (United
Nations Development Programme, 2015).
A major contribution of the Multidimensional Poverty Index is
that it focuses on many aspects of poverty and calls our
attention to the idea that human development involves much
more than money: It includes life chances and opportunities that
contribute to human well-being. Overall, countries with less
human development have more multidimensional inequality and

poverty. As a result, the MPI is most useful in analyzing
poverty in the less developed countries of South Asia and sub-
Saharan Africa and in the poorest Latin American countries.
Even with a better understanding of how to identify poverty,
much remains to be done. The good news is that
multidimensional poverty is on the decline for some people in
some nations; however, the bad news is that a great deal of
poverty still remains throughout the world.
9-5ePersistent Gaps in Human Development
Some middle- and lower-income countries have made progress
in certain indicators of human development. The gap between
some richer and middle- or lower-income nations has narrowed
significantly for life expectancy, health, education, and income.
Some of the countries in Africa that have seen notable
improvements in school attendance, life expectancy, and per
capita income growth have recently emerged from lengthy
periods of armed conflict within their borders. For example, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo has sought to reduce the
negative effects of genocide, war, and periodic volcanic
eruptions on people’s everyday lives while also working to
provide them with better educational and health care facilities
(Figure 9.8). However, the overall picture for the world’s
poorest people remains dismal. The gap between the richest and
poorest countries has widened to a gulf, and the gap between
the richest and poorest people within individual countries has
also widened to a gulf. As previously stated, the countries with
the highest percentages of “poor” on the Multidimensional
Poverty Index are all in Africa: Ethiopia (87 percent), Liberia
(84 percent), and Mozambique (79 percent). Overall, however,
South Asia has the largest absolute number of
multidimensionally poor people, and about 612 million of them
live in India alone (United Nations Development Programme,
2013).
Figure 9.8
The Heal Africa hospital (shown here) is an example of the

efforts that are being made in some middle- and lower-income
countries to improve quality of life for people who have
experienced violence and who live in poverty.
AFP/Getty Images
Poverty, food shortages, hunger, and rapidly growing
populations are pressing problems for at least two billion
people, most of them women and children living in a state of
absolute poverty. Although more women around the globe have
paid employment than in the past, more and more women are
still finding themselves in poverty because of increases in
single-person and single-parent households headed by women
and the fact that low-wage work is often the only source of
livelihood available to them.
Human development research has reached a surprising
conclusion: Economic growth and higher incomes in low- and
medium-development nations are not always necessary to bring
about improvements in health and education. According to
the Human Development Report, technological improvements
and changes in societal structure allow even poorer countries to
bring about significant changes in health and education even
without significant gains in income.9-6Theories of Global
Inequality
Social scientists have developed a variety of theories that view
the causes and consequences of global inequality. We will
examine modernization theory, dependency theory, world
systems theory, and the new international division of labor
theory.
9-6aDevelopment and Modernization Theory
LO 5
Define modernization theory and list the four stages of
economic development identified by Walt Rostow.
According to some social scientists, global wealth and poverty
are linked to the level of industrialization and economic

development in a given society. Although the process by which
a nation industrializes may vary somewhat, industrialization
almost inevitably brings with it a higher standard of living and
some degree of social mobility for individual participants in the
society. Specifically, the traditional caste system becomes
obsolete as industrialization progresses. Family status,
race/ethnicity, and gender are said to become less significant in
industrialized nations than in agrarian-based societies. As
societies industrialize, they also urbanize as workers locate
their residences near factories, offices, and other places of
work. Consequently, urban values and folkways overshadow the
beliefs and practices of the rural areas. Analysts using a
development framework typically view industrialization and
economic development as essential steps that nations must go
through in order to reduce poverty and increase life chances for
their citizens.
The most widely known development theory is modernization
theory—a perspective that links global inequality to different
levels of economic development and suggests that low -income
economies can move to middle- and high-income economies by
achieving self-sustained economic growth. According to
modernization theory, the low-income, less-developed nations
can improve their standard of living only with a period of
intensive economic growth and accompanying changes in
people’s beliefs, values, and attitudes toward work. As a result
of modernization, the values of people in developing countries
supposedly become more similar to those of people in high-
income nations. The number of hours that people work at their
jobs each week is one measure of the extent to which
individuals subscribe to the work ethic, a core value widely
believed to be of great significance in the modernization
process. Of course, this assumption may be false because much
research indicates that people in developing nations typically
work longer hours per day than individuals in industrialized
nations.
Perhaps the best-known modernization theory is that of Walt W.

Rostow (1971, 1978), who, as an economic advisor to U.S.
President John F. Kennedy, was highly instrumental in shaping
U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America in the 1960s. Rostow
suggested that all countries go through four stages of economic
development, with identical content, regardless of when these
nations started the process of industrialization. He compared the
stages of economic development to an airplane ride. The first
stage is the traditional stage, in which very little social change
takes place, and people do not think much about changing their
current circumstances. According to Rostow, societies in this
stage are slow to change because the people hold a fatalistic
value system, do not subscribe to the work ethic, and save very
little money. The second stage is the take-off stage—a period of
economic growth accompanied by a growing belief in
individualism, competition, and achievement. During this stage
people start to look toward the future, to save and invest money,
and to discard traditional values. According to Rostow’s
modernization theory, the development of capitalism is essential
for the transformation from a traditional, simple society to a
modern, complex one. With the financial help and advice of the
high-income countries, low-income countries will eventually be
able to “fly” and enter the third stage of economic development
(Figure 9.9). In the third stage the country moves
toward technological maturity. At this point, the country will
improve its technology, reinvest in new industries, and embrace
the beliefs, values, and social institutions of the high-income,
developed nations. In the fourth and final stage the country
reaches the phase of high mass consumption and a
correspondingly high standard of living.
Figure 9.9
Although Iraq is no longer categorized as a low -income country,
displaced Iraqis who fled their homeland following an Islamic
State (IS) offensive must rely on supplies donated by the Worl d
Food Programme to provide meals for their families. This
example shows how many factors affect economic development.

Haidar Mohammed Ali/Getty Images
Modernization theory has had both its advocates and its critics.
According to proponents of this approach, studies have
supported the assertion that economic development occurs more
rapidly in a capitalist economy. In fact, the countries that have
been most successful in moving from low- to middle-income
status have typically been those that are most centrally involved
in the global capitalist economy. For example, the nations of
East Asia have successfully made the transition from low -
income to higher-income economies through factors such as a
high rate of savings and the fostering of a market economy.
Critics of modernization theory point out that it tends to be
Eurocentric in its analysis of low-income countries, which it
implicitly labels as backward. In particular, modernization
theory does not take into account the possibility that all nations
do not industrialize in the same manner. In contrast, some
analysts have suggested that modernization of low-income
nations today will require novel policies, sequences, and
ideologies that are not accounted for by Rostow’s approach.
Which sociological perspective is most closely associated with
the development approach? Modernization theory is based on a
market-oriented perspective which assumes that “pure”
capitalism is good and that the best economic outcomes occur
when governments follow the policy of laissez-faire (or hands-
off) business, giving capitalists the opportunity to make the
“best” economic decisions, unfettered by government restraints
or cumbersome rules and regulations. In today’s global
economy, however, many analysts believe that national
governments are no longer central corporate decision makers
and that transnational corporations determine global economic
expansion and contraction. Therefore, corporate decisions to
relocate manufacturing processes around the world make the
rules and regulations of any one nation irrelevant and national
boundaries obsolete. Just as modernization theory most closely
approximates a functionalist approach to explaining inequality,

dependency theory, world systems theory, and the new
international division of labor theory are perspectives rooted in
the conflict approach. All four of these approaches are depicted
in Figure 9.10.
Figure 9.10Approaches to Studying Global Inequality
What causes global inequality? Social scientists have developed
a variety of explanations, including the four theories shown
here.
9-6bDependency Theory
LO 6
Define dependency theory and explain why this theory is often
applied to newly industrializing countries.
Dependency theory states that global poverty can at least
partially be attributed to the fact that the low-income countries
have been exploited by the high-income countries. Analyzing
events as part of a particular historical process—the expansion
of global capitalism—dependency theorists see the greed of the
rich countries as a source of increasing impoverishment of the
poorer nations and their people. Dependency theory disputes the
notion of the development approach, and modernization theory
specifically, that economic growth is the key to meeting
important human needs in societies. In contrast, the poorer
nations are trapped in a cycle of structural dependency on the
richer nations because of their need for infusions of foreign
capital and external markets for their raw materials, making it
impossible for the poorer nations to pursue their own economic
and human development agendas.
Dependency theory has been most often applied to the newly
industrializing countries (NICs) of Latin America, whereas
scholars examining the NICs of East Asia found that
dependency theory had little or no relevance to economic
growth and development in that part of the world. Therefore,
dependency theory had to be expanded to encompass
transnational economic linkages that affect developing

countries, including foreign aid, foreign trade, foreign direct
investment, and foreign loans. On the one hand, in Latin
America and sub-Saharan Africa, transnational linkages such as
foreign aid, investments by transnational corporations, foreign
debt, and export trade have been significant impediments to
development within a country. On the other hand, East Asian
countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore have
historically also had high rates of dependency on foreign aid,
foreign trade, and interdependence with transnational
corporations but have still experienced high rates of economic
growth despite dependency (Figure 9.11).
Figure 9.11
A variety of factors—such as foreign investment and the
presence of transnational corporations—have contributed to the
economic growth of nations such as South Korea.
Picture Alliance/Daniel Kalker/Newscom
Dependency theory makes a positive contribution to our
understanding of global poverty by noting that
“underdevelopment” is not necessarily the cause of inequality.
Rather, it points out that exploitation not only of one country by
another but also of countries by transnational corporations may
limit or retard economic growth and human development in
some nations.
9-6cWorld Systems Theory
LO 7
Describe the key components of world systems theory and
identify the three major types of nations set forth in this theory.
World systems theory is a perspective that examines the role of
capitalism, and particularly the transnational division of labor,
in a truly global system held together by economic ties. From
this approach, global inequality does not emerge solely as a
result of the exploitation of one country by another. Instead,
economic domination involves a complex world system in which
the industrialized, high-income nations benefit from other

nations and exploit their citizens. This approach is most closely
associated with the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein (1979,
1984, 2011), who believed that a country’s mode of
incorporation into the capitalist work economy is the key
feature in determining how economic development takes place
in that nation.
According to world systems theory, the capitalist world
economy is a global system divided into a hierarchy of three
major types of nations—core, semiperipheral, and peripheral—
in which upward or downward mobility is conditioned by the
resources and obstacles that characterize the international
system. Core nations are dominant capitalist centers
characterized by high levels of industrialization and
urbanization. Core nations such as the United States, Japan, and
Germany possess most of the world’s capital and technology.
Even more importantly for their position of domination, they
exert massive control over world trade and economic
agreements across national boundaries. Some cities in core
nations are referred to as global cities because they serve as
international centers for political, economic, and cultural
concerns. New York, Tokyo, and London are the largest global
cities, and they are often referred to as the “command posts” of
the world economy.
Semiperipheral nations are more developed than peripheral
nations but less developed than core nations. Nations in this
category typically provide labor and raw materials to core
nations within the world system. These nations constitute a
midpoint between the core and peripheral nations that promotes
the stability and legitimacy of the three-tiered world economy.
These nations include South Korea and Taiwan in East Asia,
Mexico and Brazil in Latin America, India in South Asia, and
Nigeria and South Africa in Africa. Only two global cities are
located in semiperipheral nations: São Paulo, Brazil, which is
the center of the Brazilian economy, and Singapore, which is
the economic center of a multicountry region in Southeast Asia.
According to Wallerstein, semiperipheral nations exploit

peripheral nations, just as the core nations exploit both the
semiperipheral and the peripheral nations.
Most low-income countries in Africa, South America, and the
Caribbean are peripheral nations—nations that are dependent on
core nations for capital, have little or no industrialization (other
than what may be brought in by core nations), and have uneven
patterns of urbanization. According to Wallerstein (1979, 1984,
2011), the wealthy in peripheral nations benefit from the labor
of poor workers and from their own economic relations with
core-nation capitalists, whom they uphold in order to maintain
their own wealth and position. At a global level, uneven
economic growth results from capital investment by core
nations; disparity between the rich and the poor within the
major cities in these nations is increased in the process.
The U.S.–Mexico border is an example of disparity and urban
growth: Transnational corporations have
built maquiladora plants so that goods can be assembled by low-
wage workers to keep production costs down. As compared to a
federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in the United States,
the minimum wage in Mexico is about 70 pesos per day, which
is about $4.51 in U.S. dollars based on the early 2015 exchange
rate. Many people are paid more than this wage, but often not
enough to be a living wage. For example, a person working in a
factory that builds pickups and tractor-trailer cabs might earn
$7.50 to $8.00 each day. Figure 9.12 describes this process.
Today, more than 5,000 maquiladora plants located in Mexico
employ about 2 million people, in factories manufacturing
apparel; electronic accessories such as computers, televisions,
and small appliances; and motor vehicles and parts.
Figure 9.12Maquiladora Plants
Here is the process by which transnatio nal corporations
establish plants in Mexico so that profits can be increased by
using low-wage workers there to assemble products that are
then brought into the United States for sale.

As Wallerstein’s world systems theory might suggest, one threat
to the Mexican maquiladora plants is offshoring—the movement
of work by some transnational corporations to China and to
countries in Central America, where wages are lower. However,
in 2015 many high-tech businesses appear to be reversing the
trend of offshoring. Instead, these corporations
are nearshoring—moving their production to nearby countries
such as Mexico and Canada where they can take advantage of
cost efficiencies associated with closer proximity to the United
States.
Not all social analysts agree with Wallerstein’s perspective on
the hierarchical position of nations in the global economy.
However, nations throughout the world are influenced by a
relatively small number of cities and transnational corporations
that have prompted a shift from an international to a more
global economy. World systems theory must continue to adapt
to long-term, large-scale social change that influences global
inequality.
9-6dThe New International Division of Labor Theory
LO 8
Discuss the new international division of labor theory and
explain how it might be useful in the twenty-first century.
Although the term world trade has long implied that there is a
division of labor between societies, the nature and extent of this
division have recently been reassessed based on the changing
nature of the world economy. According to the new
international division of labor theory, commodity production is
being split into fragments that can be assigned to whatever part
of the world can provide the most profitable combination of
capital and labor. Consequently, the new international division
of labor has changed the pattern of geographic specialization
between countries, whereby high-income countries have now
become dependent on low-income countries for labor. The low-
income countries provide transnational corporations with a
situation in which they can pay lower wages and taxes and face

fewer regulations regarding workplace conditions and
environmental protection. Overall, a global manufacturing
system that includes the offshoring of jobs has emerged in
which transnational corporations establish labor-intensive,
assembly-oriented export production, ranging from textiles and
clothing to technologically sophisticated exports such as
computers, in middle- and lower-income nations.
At the same time, manufacturing technologies are shifting from
the large-scale, mass-production assembly lines of the past
toward a more flexible production process involving
microelectronic technologies. Even service industries—such as
processing insurance claims forms, reading MRI and CT scans,
and preparing tax forms—that were formerly thought to be less
mobile have become exportable through electronic transmission
and the Internet. The global nature of these activities has been
referred to as global commodity chains, a complex pattern of
international labor and production processes that results in a
finished commodity ready for sale in the marketplace.
Some commodity chains are producer-driven, whereas others are
buyer-driven. Producer-driven commodity chains is the term
used to describe industries in which transnational corporations
play a central part in controlling the production process.
Industries that produce automobiles, computers, and other
capital- and technology-intensive products are typically
producer-driven. In contrast, buyer-driven commodity chains is
the term used to refer to industries in which large retailers (such
as Walmart-like corporations), brand-name merchandisers, and
trading companies set up decentralized production networks in
various middle- and low-income countries. This type of chain is
most common in labor-intensive, consumer-goods industries
such as toys, garments, and footwear. Athletic footwear
companies such as Nike and Reebok are examples of the buyer -
driven model. Because these products tend to be labor intensive
at the manufacturing stage, the typical factory system is very
competitive and globally decentralized. Workers in buyer-
driven commodity chains are often exploited by low wages, long

hours, and poor working conditions.
Although most discussions of the new international division of
labor focus on changes occurring in the lives of people residing
in industrialized urban areas of developing nations, it must be
remembered that millions of people continue to live in grinding
poverty in rural regions of these countries. For many years,
sociologists studying poverty have focused on differences in
rural and urban poverty throughout the world. Where people
live strongly influences how much money they will make, and
income inequalities are important indicators of the life chances
of entire families.9-7Looking Ahead: Global Inequality in the
Future
Social inequality is vast both within and among the countries of
the world. In 2015 it was estimated that 80 of the wealthiest
individuals in the world control as much wealth as the poorest
50 percent of the world’s population (3.5 billion people). No,
you did not read that incorrectly: It is 80 persons as compared
with 3.5 billion. Even in high-income nations where wealth is
highly concentrated, many poor people coexist with the
affluent. In middle- and low-income countries, there are small
pockets of wealth in the midst of poverty and despair. Although
some political and business elites in local economies benefit
greatly from partnerships with transnational corporations,
everyday people residing in these nations have often continued
to be exploited in both industrial and agricultural work. In
China, for example, some people have accumulated vast wealth
in urban areas while poverty has increased dramatically in some
regions and particularly in rural areas.
What are the future prospects for greater equality across and
within nations? Not all social scientists agree on the answer to
this question. Depending on the theoretical framework that they
apply in studying global inequality, social analysts may
describe either an optimistic or a pessimistic scenario for the
future. Moreover, some analysts highlight the human rights
issues embedded in global inequality, whereas others focus
primarily on an economic framework.

In some regions, high rates of unemployment and persistent
poverty undermine human development and future possibilities
for socioeconomic change. In the second decade of the twenty-
first century, high unemployment rates in the United States and
the Euro zone (nations in the European Union such as Italy,
France, and Germany) continue to threaten global economic
growth and limit opportunities for unemployed and
underemployed workers and young people seeking to get into
the labor market. Worldwide, millions of young people are
unemployed, and many are destined to experience long-term
unemployment. Estimates suggest that as many as 200 million
people are without a job and that about 39 million people have
dropped out of the labor market altogether (International Labor
Organization, 2013).
Problems such as long-term unemployment contribute to gross
inequality, which has high financial and quality-of-life costs to
people, even for those who are not the poorest of the poor. In
the future, continued population growth, urbanization,
environmental degradation, and violent conflict threaten even
the meager living conditions of those residing in low -income
nations. However, from this approach the future looks dim not
only for people in low-income and middle-income countries but
also for those in high-income countries, who will see their
quality of life diminish as natural resources are depleted, the
environment is polluted, and high rates of immigration and
global political unrest threaten the high standard of living that
many people have come to enjoy. According to some social
analysts, transnational corporations and financial institutions
such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
will further solidify and control a globalized economy, which
will transfer the power to make significant choices to these
organizations and away from the people and their governments.
Further loss of resources and means of livelihood will affect
people and countries around the globe.
As a result of global corporate domination, there could be a
leveling out of average income around the world, with wages

falling in high-income countries and wages increasing
significantly in low- and middle-income countries. If this
pessimistic scenario occurs, there is likely to be greater
polarization of the rich and the poor and more potential for
ethnic and national conflicts over such issues as worsening
environmental degradation and who has the right to natural
resources. For example, pulp-and-paper companies in Indonesia,
along with palm-oil plantation owners, have continued clearing
land for crops by burning off vast tracts of jungle, producing
high levels of smog and pollution across seven Southeast Asian
nations and creating havoc for millions of people.
On the other hand, a more optimistic scenario is also possible.
With modern technology and worldwide economic growth, it
might be possible to reduce absolute poverty and to increase
people’s opportunities. Trends that have the potential to bring
about more-sustainable patterns of development are the
socioeconomic progress made in many low- and middle-income
countries over the past thirty years as technological, social, and
environmental improvements have occurred. For example,
technological innovation continues to improve living standards
for some people. Fertility rates are declining in some regions,
but remain high in others, where there remains grave cause for
concern about the availability of adequate natural resources for
the future.
Finally, health and education may continue to improve in lower-
income countries. Healthy, educated populations are crucial for
the future in order to reduce global poverty. The education of
women is of primary importance in the future if global
inequality is to be reduced. All aspects of schooling and
training are crucial for the future, including agricultural
extension services in rural areas to help women farmers in
regions such as western Kenya produce more crops to feed their
families. From this viewpoint, we can enjoy prosperity only by
ensuring that other people have the opportunity to survive and
thrive in their own surroundings (see “You Can Make a
Difference”). The problems associated with global poverty are

therefore of interest to a wide-ranging set of countries and
people.
You Can Make a DifferenceGlobal Networking to Reduce World
Hunger and Poverty
When many of us think about problems such as world poverty,
we tend to see ourselves as powerless to bring about change in
so vast an issue. However, a recurring message from social
activists and religious leaders is that each person can contribute
something to the betterment of other people and sometimes the
entire world.
An initial way for each of us to be involved is to become more
informed about global issues and to learn how we can contribute
time and resources to organizations seeking to address social
issues such as illiteracy and hunger. We can also find out about
meetings and activities of organizations and participate in
online discussion forums where we can express our opinions,
ask questions, share information, and interact with other people
interested in topics such as international relief and
development. It may not feel like you are doing much to address
global problems; however, information and education are the
first steps in promoting greater understanding of social
problems and of the world’s people. Likewise, it is important to
help our own nation’s children understand that they can make a
difference in ending hunger in the United States and other
nations.
Would you like to function as a catalyst for change? You can
learn how to proceed by gathering information from
organizations that seek to reduce problems such as poverty and
to provide forums for interacting with other people. Here are a
few starting points for your search:
· CARE International is a confederation of fourteen global
national members in North America, Europe, Japan, and
Australia. CARE assists the world’s poor in their efforts to
achieve social and economic well-being. Programs include
emergency relief, education, health and population, children’s
health, reproductive health, water and sanitation, small

economic activity development, agriculture, community
development, and environment.
Other organizations fighting world hunger and health problems
include the following; check out their websites:
· WhyHunger
· “Kids Can Make a Difference,” an innovative program
developed by the International Education and Resource Network
· World Health Organization
United Nations Relief and Works Agency volunteers provide a
Palestinian woman with food supplied by the European Union
and the World Food Programme. What other goods and services
might volunteers be able to provide around the world?
Saif Dahlah/AFP/Getty Images
· LO1What is global stratification, and how does it contribute to
economic inequality?
Global stratification refers to the unequal distribution of wealth,
power, and prestige on a global basis, which results in people
having vastly different lifestyles and life chances both within
and among the nations of the world. Today, the income gap
between the richest and the poorest percent of the world
population continues to widen, and within some nations the
poorest one-fifth of the population has an income that is only a
slight fraction of the overall average per capita income for that
country.
· LO2What is the levels of development approach for studying
global inequality?
One of the primary problems encountered by social scientists
studying global stratification and social and economic
inequality is what terminology should be used to refer to the
distribution of resources in various nations. Most definitions of
inequality are based on comparisons of levels of income or
economic development, whereby countries are identified in
terms of the “three worlds” or upon their levels of economic
development. Terminology based on levels of development

includes concepts such as developed nations, developing
nations, less-developed nations, and underdevelopment.
· LO3How does the World Bank classify nations into four
economic categories, and why do organizations such as this
have problems measuring wealth and poverty on a global basis?
The World Bank classifies nations into four economic
categories and establishes the upper and lower limits for the
gross national income (GNI) in each category. Low-income
economies had a GNI per capita of less than $1,025 in
2016, lower-middle-income economies had a GNI per capita
between $1,026 and $4,035, upper-middle-income
economies had a GNI per capita between $4,036 and $12,745,
and high-income economies had a GNI per capita of $12,475 or
more (World Bank, 2016). Defining poverty is more than just
personal and household income; it also involves social
judgments made by researchers. Absolute poverty is a condition
in which people do not have the means to secure the most basic
necessities of life. It would be measured by comparing personal
or household income or expenses with the cost of buying a
given quantity of goods and services. Relative poverty exists
when people may be able to afford basic necessities but are still
unable to maintain an average standard of living. This would be
measured by comparing one person’s income with the incomes
of others.
· LO4What is the relationship between global poverty and key
human development issues such as life expectancy, health,
education, and literacy?
Income disparities are not the only factor that defines poverty
and its effect on people. The United Nations’ Human
Development Index measures the level of development in a
country through indicators such as life expectancy, infant
mortality rate, proportion of underweight children under age
five, and adult literacy rate for low-income, middle-income, and
high-income countries. People who live in countries in the
highest-human-development categories on average are better
educated, will live longer, and will earn more. The adult

literacy rate in the low-income countries is significantly lower
than that of high-income countries, and for women the rate is
even lower.
· LO5What is modernization theory, and what are the four
stages of economic development identified by Walt Rostow?
Modernization theory is a perspective that links global
inequality to different levels of economic development and
suggests that low-income economies can move to middle- and
high-income economies by achieving self-sustained economic
growth. Walt Rostow suggested that all countries go through
four stages of economic development, with identical content,
regardless of when these nations started the process of
industrialization. The stages of economic development are as
follows: the traditional stage, in which very little social change
takes place and people do not think much about changing their
current circumstances. The second stage is the take-off stage—a
period of economic growth accompanied by a growing belief in
individualism, competition, and achievement. In the third stage
the country moves toward technological maturity. In the fourth
and final stage the country reaches the phase of high mass
consumption and a correspondingly high standard of living.
· LO6What is dependency theory, and why is this theory often
applied to newly industrializing countries?
Dependency theory states that global poverty can at least
partially be attributed to the fact that the low-income countries
have been exploited by the high-income countries. Whereas
modernization theory focuses on how societies can reduce
inequality through industrialization and economic development,
dependency theorists see the greed of the rich countries as a
source of increasing impoverishment of the poorer nations and
their people.
· LO7What is world systems theory, and what are the three
major types of nations set forth in this theory?
According to world systems theory, the capitalist world
economy is a global system divided into a hierarchy of three
major types of nations: Core nations are dominant capitalist

centers characterized by high levels of industrialization and
urbanization, semiperipheral nations are more developed than
peripheral nations but less developed than core nations, and
peripheral nations are those countries that are dependent on core
nations for capital, have little or no industrialization (other than
what may be brought in by core nations), and have uneven
patterns of urbanization.
· LO8What is the new international division of labor theory, and
how might it be useful in the twenty-first century?
The new international division of labor theory is based on the
assumption that commodity production is split into fragments
that can be assigned to whichever part of the world can provide
the most profitable combination of capital and labor. This
division of labor has changed the pattern of geographic
specialization between countries, whereby high-income
countries have become dependent on low-income countries for
labor. The low-income countries provide transnational
corporations with a situation in which they can pay lower wages
and taxes and face fewer regulations regarding workplace
conditions and environmental protection.
Unit 5.1: Race and Ethnicity Ch. 10 10-1Race and Ethnicity
What is race? Some people think it refers to skin color (the
Caucasian “race”); others use it to refer to a religion (the
Jewish “race”), nationality (the British “race”), or the entire
human species (the human “race”) (Marger, 2015). Popular
usages of the word have been based on the assumption that a
race is a grouping or classification based on genetic variations
in physical appearance, particularly skin color. However, social
scientists, biologists, and genetic anthropologists dispute the
idea that biological race is a meaningful concept. Researchers
with the Human Genome Project, which was commissioned to
map all of the genes on the 23 pairs of human chromosomes and
to sequence the 3.1 billion DNA base pairs that make up the
chromosomes, made this statement about genes and race:

DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable
subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different
genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be
identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes
across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from
another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human
ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region
for many generations may have some alleles in common [an
allele is one member of a pair or series of genes that occupy a
specific position on a specific chromosome], but no allele will
be found in all members of one population and in no members
of any other.
(genomics.energy.gov, 2007)
The idea of race has little meaning in a biological sense because
of the enormous amount of interbreeding that has taken place
within the human population. For these reasons, sociologists
sometimes place “race” in quotation marks to show that
categorizing individuals and population groups on biological
characteristics is neither accurate nor based on valid
distinctions between the genetic makeup of differently
identified “races.”
Today, sociologists emphasize that race is a socially constructed
reality, not a biological one. Race as a social construct means
that races as such do not actually exist but that some groups are
still racially defined because the idea persists in many people’s
minds that races are distinct biological categories with
physically distinguishable characteristics and a shared common
cultural heritage. The process of creating a socially constructed
reality involves three key activities: collective agreement,
imposition, and acceptance of a specific construction (Lusca,
2008).
Collective agreement means that people jointly agree on the
idea of race and that they accept that it exists as an important
component in how we describe or explain the individual’s
experiences in everyday life. Examples of collective agreement
include a widely held acceptance of the view that “racial

differences affect people’s athletic ability” or of the assumption
that “physical differences based on race cause cultural
differences among various distinct categories of people.”
Imposition refers to the fact that throughout much of human
history, the notion of race has been defined by members of
dominant groups who have the power to establish a system that
hierarchically organizes racial categories (as superior or
inferior, for example) to establish and maintain permanent
status differentials among individuals and groups. These
differences are demonstrated by the level of access that
dominant- and subordinate-group members have to necessary
and desired goods and services, such as education, housing,
employment, health care, and legal services.
Finally, acceptance of a specific construction means that ideas
pertaining to race become so widely accepted that they become
embedded in law and social customs in a society and become
much more difficult to change or eliminate. When a
significant number of people, or a number of significant people,
accept a social construction as absolute and real, the prevailing
group typically imposes its beliefs and practices upon others
through tradition and law. Over time, ideas about race,
inadequate or false though they may be, are passed on from
generation to generation.
In sum, the social significance that people accord to race is
more important than any biological differences that might exist
among people who are placed in arbitrary categories. Although
race does not exist in an objective way, it does
have real consequences and effects in the social world.10-
1aComparing Race and Ethnicity
LO 1
Distinguish between the terms race and ethnicity.
A race is a category of people who have been singled out as
inferior or superior, often on the basis of real or alleged
physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye
shape, or other subjectively selected attributes (Feagin and
Feagin, 2012). Racial categories identified by the U.S. Census

Bureau include white, black, Asian or Pacific Islander, and
American Indian or Alaska Native.
As compared with race, ethnicity refers to one’s cultural
background or national origin. An ethnic group is a collection
of people distinguished, by others or by themselves, primarily
on the basis of cultural or nationality characteristics (Feagin
and Feagin, 2012) (Figure 10.1). Ethnic groups share five main
characteristics:
· (1)
unique cultural traits, such as language, clothing, holidays, or
religious practices;
· (2)
a sense of community;
· (3)
a feeling of ethnocentrism;
· (4)
ascribed membership from birth; and
· (5)
territoriality, or the tendency to occupy a distinct geographic
area (such as Little Italy or Little Moscow) by choice and/or for
self-protection.
Examples of ethnic groups include Jewish Americans, Irish
Americans, Italian Americans, and Russian Americans. Many
people mistakenly believe that the classification “Hispanic” or
“Latino/a” is a “race.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau,
Hispanic or Latino/a is an ethnicity that refers to a person of
Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or
other Spanish culture or origin (Ennis, Rios-Vargas, and Albert,
2011). Persons who are Hispanic or Latino/a can be of any race.
Figure 10.1
New York City’s Chinatown is an ethnic enclave where people
participate in social interaction with other individuals in their
ethnic group and feel a sense of shared identity. Ethnic enclaves
provide economic and psychological support for recent
immigrants as well as for those who were born in the United
States.

Steven Widoff/Alamy
Although some people do not identify with any ethnic group,
others participate in social interaction with individuals in their
ethnic group and feel a sense of common identity based on
cultural characteristics such as language, religion, or politics.
However, ethnic groups are not only influenced by their own
history but also by patterns of ethnic domination and
subordination in societies. It is important to note that
terminology pertaining to racial–ethnic groups is continually in
flux and that people within the category as well as outsiders
often contest these changes. Examples include the use
of African American, as compared to black, and Hispanic, as
compared to Latino/a.10-1bThe Social Significance of Race and
Ethnicity
Race and ethnicity take on great social significance because
how people act in regard to these terms drastically affects other
people’s lives, including what opportunities they have, how
they are treated, and even how long they live. According to the
now-classic works on the effects of race by the sociologists
Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994: 158), race “permeates
every institution, every relationship, and every individual” in
the United States:
As we … compare real estate prices in different neighborhoods,
select a radio channel to enjoy while we drive to work, size up a
potential client, customer, neighbor, or teacher, stand in line at
the unemployment office, or carry out a thousand other normal
tasks, we are compelled to think racially, to use the racial
categories and meaning systems into which we have been
socialized.
(Omi and Winant, 1994: 158)
Historically, stratification based on race and ethnicity has
pervaded all aspects of political, economic, and social life.
Consider sports as an example. Throughout the early history of
the game of baseball, many African Americans had outstanding
skills as players but were categorically excluded from Major

League teams because of their skin color. Even in 1947, after
Jackie Robinson broke the “color line” to become the first
African American in the Major Leagues, his experience was
marred by racial slurs, hate letters, death threats against his
infant son, and assaults on his wife (Ashe, 1988; Peterson,
1992/1970). With some professional athletes from diverse
racial–ethnic categories having multimillion-dollar contracts
and lucrative endorsement deals, it is easy to assume that racism
in sports—as well as in the larger society—is a thing of the
past. However, this commercialization of sports does not mean
that racial prejudice and discrimination no longer exist
(Coakley, 2009).10-1cRacial Classifications and the Meaning of
Race
LO 2
Explain how racial and ethnic classifications continue to change
in the United States.
If we examine racial classifications throughout history, we find
that in ancient Greece and Rome, a person’s race was the group
to which she or he belonged, associated with an ancestral place
and culture. From the Middle Ages until about the eighteenth
century, a person’s race was based on family and ancestral ties,
in the sense of a line, or ties to a national group. During the
eighteenth century, physical differences such as the darker skin
hues of Africans became associated with race, but racial
divisions were typically based on differences in religion and
cultural tradition rather than on human biology. With the
intense (though misguided) efforts that surrounded the attempt
to justify black slavery and white dominance in all areas of life
during the second half of the nineteenth century, races came to
be defined as distinct biological categories of people who were
not all members of the same family but who shared inherited
physical and cultural traits that were alleged to be different
from those traits shared by people in other races. Hierarchies of
races were established, placing the “white race” at the top, the
“black race” at the bottom, and others in between.
However, racial classifications in the United States have

changed over the past century. If we look at U.S. Census Bureau
classifications, for example, we can see how the meaning of
race continues to change. First, race is defined by perceived
skin color: white or nonwhite. Whereas one category exists for
“whites” (who vary considerably in actual skin color and
physical appearance), all of the remaining categories are
considered “nonwhite.”
Second, categories of official racial classifications may (over
time) create a sense of group membership or “consciousness of
kind” for people within a somewhat arbitrary classification.
When people of European descent were classified as “white,”
some began to see themselves as different from “nonwhite.”
Consequently, Jewish, Italian, and Irish immigrants may have
felt more a part of the Northern European white mainstream in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Whether
Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans,
and Filipino Americans come to think of themselves collectively
as “Asian Americans” because of official classifications
remains to be seen.
Third, racial purity is assumed to exist. Prior to the 2000
census, for example, the true diversity of the U.S. population
was not revealed in census data because multiracial individuals
were forced to either select a single race as being thei r “race” or
to select the vague category of “other.” Census 2000 made it
possible—for the first time—for individuals to classify
themselves as being of more than one race. In the 2010 census,
nine million people in the United States—about 3 percent of the
total population—identified themselves as multiracial (Humes,
Jones, and Ramirez, 2011). Between 2000 and 2010, the
percentage of Americans identifying as more than one race
increased by 32 percent. Among U.S. children, the mixed-race
population increased by nearly 50 percent, making mixed-race
children the fastest-growing youth group in the United States
(Saulny, 2011a). With one in seven new marriages in the United
States involving spouses of different races or ethnicities, the
multiracial population is likely to continue to increase (Passel,

Wang, and Taylor, 2010).
Multiracial individuals do not always identify as such. Although
former President Barack Obama is the product of an interracial
couple (his mother was white, and his father was black), for the
2010 census Obama checked only one box: black (Saulny,
2011b). For many multiracial individuals, choosing a racial –
ethnic identity is not simple. Consider the case of Michelle
López-Mullins, a mixed-race college student whose father is
both Asian and Latino, and whose mother, with her long blonde
hair, is mostly European in ancestry but is mixed with some
Cherokee and Shawnee Native American. In grade school, Ms.
López-Mullins was frequently asked “What are you?” and
“Where are you from?” As she explains,
I hadn’t even learned the word “Hispanic” until I came home
from school one day and asked my dad what I should refer to
him as, to express what I am…. Growing up with my parents, I
never thought we were different from any other family…. I was
always having to explain where my parents are from because
just saying “I’m from Takoma Park, Maryland,” was not
enough…. Saying “I’m an American” wasn’t enough…. Now
when people ask what I am, I say, “How much time do you
have?” … Race will not automatically tell you my story.
(qtd. in Saulny, 2011b)
When asked what box she checks on forms such as the census,
López-Mullins replied, “Hispanic, white, Asian American,
Native American…. I’m pretty much checking everything” (qtd.
in Saulny, 2011b).
As noted earlier, the way that people are classified remains
important because such classifications affect their access to
employment, education, housing, social services, federal aid,
and other public and private goods and services that might be
available to them.10-1dDominant and Subordinate Groups
The terms majority group and minority group are widely used,
but their meanings are less clear as the composition of the U.S.
population continues to change. Accordingly, many sociologists
prefer the terms dominant and subordinate to identify power

relationships that are based on perceived racial, ethnic, or other
attributes and identities. To sociologists, a dominant group is a
racial or ethnic group that has the greatest power and resources
in a society (Feagin and Feagin, 2012). In the United States,
whites with Northern European ancestry (often referred to as
Euro-Americans, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASPs)
have been considered to be the dominant group for many years.
A subordinate group is one whose members, because of physical
or cultural characteristics, are disadvantaged and subjected to
unequal treatment and discrimination by the dominant group.
Historically, African Americans and other persons of color have
been considered to be subordinate-group members, particularly
when they are from lower-income categories.
It is important to note that, in the sociological sense, the
word group as used in these two terms is misleading because
people who merely share ascribed racial or ethnic
characteristics do not constitute a group. However, the
terms dominant group and subordinate group do give us a way
to describe relationships of advantage/disadvantage and
power/exploitation that exist in contemporary nations.10-
2Prejudice
LO 3
Define prejudice, stereotypes, racism, scapegoat, and
discrimination.
Although there are various meanings of the word
part dice, sociologists define prejudice as a negative attitude
based on faulty generalizations about members of specific
racial, ethnic, or other groups. The term prejudice is from the
Latin words prae (“before”) and judicium (“judgment”), which
means that people may be biased either for or against members
of other groups even before they have had any contact with
them. Although prejudice can be either positive (bias in favor of
a group—often our own) or negative (bias against a group—one
we deem less worthy than our own), it most often refers to the
negative attitudes that people may have about members of other
racial or ethnic groups (Figure 10.2).

Figure 10.2
Contemporary prejudice and discrimination cannot be
understood without taking into account the historical
background. School integration in the 1950s was accomplished
despite white resistance. Today, integration in education,
housing, and many other areas of social life remains a pressing
social issue.
AP Images10-2aStereotypes
Prejudice is rooted in ethnocentrism and stereotypes. When used
in the context of racial and ethnic
relations, ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to regard one’s
own culture and group as the standard—and thus superior—
whereas all other groups are seen as inferior. Ethnocentrism is
maintained and perpetuated by stereotypes—overgeneralizations
about the appearance, behavior, or other characteristics of
members of particular categories.
Although stereotypes can be either positive or negative,
examples of negative stereotyping abound in sports. Think
about the Native American names, images, and mascots used by
sports teams such as the Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, and
Washington Redskins. Members of Native American groups
have been actively working to eliminate the use of stereotypic
mascots (with feathers, buckskins, beads, spears, and
“warpaint”), “Indian chants,” and gestures (such as the
“tomahawk chop”), which they claim trivialize and exploit
Native American culture. According to sociologist Jay Coakley
(2009), the use of stereotypes and words such
as redskin symbolizes a lack of understanding of the culture and
heritage of native peoples and is offensive to many Native
Americans. Although some people see these names and
activities as “innocent fun,” others view them as a form of
racism.10-2bRacism
What is racism? Racism is a set of attitudes, beliefs, and
practices that is used to justify the superior treatment of one

racial or ethnic group and the inferior treatment of another
racial or ethnic group. The world has seen a long history of
racism: It can be traced from the earliest civilizations. At
various times throughout U.S. history, various categories of
people, including Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Jewish
Americans, African Americans, and Latinos/as, have been the
objects of racist ideology.
Sociology & Social Policy
Racist Hate Speech on Campus Versus First Amendment Right
to Freedom of Speech
From news reports and social media:
· Racist graffiti scrawled on the walls of college dorms and
other buildings
· Derogatory comments from current students directed toward
persons of color visiting a campus on recruitment weekend
· Fraternity members singing a disparaging chant that targets
African Americans
All of these forms of racist hate speech have been reported in
recent years on college and university campuses throughout the
United States. What is “hate speech” anyway? Hate speech
refers to speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based
on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation,
disability, or other traits. Hate speech is often directed at
historically oppressed racial or religious minorities, or persons
in other subordinate-power groups, with the intent to insult and
demean them.
In our government and political science courses, most of us
learned that the First Amendment to the United States
Constitution protects the right to speech even when others
disagree with the speech or find it contemptible. The First
Amendment, in part, states, “Congress shall make no law …
abridging the freedom of speech….” And public colleges and
universities are not exempt from this provision. U.S. Supreme
Court decisions, such as Healy v. James (1972), have reaffirmed
that free speech rights extend to college campuses because they

are not “enclaves immune from the sweep of the First
Amendment.”
Although racist speech is constitutionally protected, many
institutions of higher education have established speech codes
to ban offensive expression on campus, to specify what speech
and behaviors are prohibited, and to foster a productive learning
environment for all students. A speech code is a set of rules or
regulations that limit, restrict, or ban speech beyond strict legal
limitations upon freedom of speech or press found in the legal
definitions of harassment, slander, libel, and fighting words.
Advocates for speech codes in higher education argue that even
though hateful, racist speech is protected by the First
Amendment, there still must be protection against speech that
might constitute a direct threat to an individual or might
provoke an immediate violent response. One university’s code,
for example, prohibits “conduct that is sufficiently severe and
pervasive that it alters the conditions of education or
employment and creates an environment that a reasonable
person would find intimidating, harassing or humiliating”
(Dallas Morning News, 2015). In lawsuits involving public
universities, the courts have typically ruled that the rights
bestowed by the Constitution take precedent over any speech
codes the institutions might devise (with specific exceptions
that are beyond the scope of our discussion).
Like all other areas of social life, college campuses are not
immune to racist hate speech and blatant acts of racism that
target persons of color. Shown here, protesting students chant
“No Diversity, No University” after a noose was found hanging
on an African American professor’s door at Columbia
University’s Teachers College in New York City. Are such
actions a reflection of a climate of racism in our society? Why
or why not?
Mario Tama/Getty Images
However, other legal scholars argue that college speech codes
are unconstitutional because they limit students’ freedom of

speech and send the wrong idea about what values should
govern a free society. This approach is taken by the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, 2015):
Free speech rights are indivisible. Restricting the speech of one
group or individual jeopardizes everyone’s rights because the
same laws or regulations used to silence bigots can be used to
silence you. Conversely, laws that defend free speech for bigots
can be used to defend the rights of civil rights workers, anti -war
protesters, lesbian and gay activists and others fighting for
justice.
Therefore, the fundamental right to free speech should not be
restricted even for bigots because this might mean that rights
become restricted for other persons who are fighting for
tolerance of diversity and justice. The assumption is that
aggrieved individuals will engage in counterspeech that offsets
the negative, racist, or sexist speech. Counterspeech refers to
the process of using more speech to contradict the negative and
add new thoughts and values to the marketplace of ideas. But as
Boston College Law School professor Kent Greenfield (2015)
has stated, “Those not targeted by the [hate] speech can sit back
and recite how distasteful such racism or sexism is, and isn’t it
too bad so little can be done. Meanwhile, those targeted by the
speech are forced to speak out, yet again, to reassert their right
to be treated equally, to be free to learn or work in an
environment that does not threaten them with violence.”
According to Professor Greenfield, counterspeech is both
“exhausting” and “distracting” because individuals continually
have to be speaking up and standing up for their rights,
emphasizing why they should not be oppressed by other people.
From this perspective, individuals who are underrepresented—
those with less power—do not have equal access to freedom of
speech. In the case of the Oklahoma fraternity members’ racist
speech, for example, countering with a protest of their own does
not offset the negative effects of the racist chant.
The debate over hate speech versus First Amendment rights has
gone on for decades and no doubt will continue for many years

to come.
Reflect & Analyze
· How do laws and court interpretations affect how we perceive
race and racism in this country? Is there a possibility that
counterspeech might produce new ideas about race and how to
get along with each other? Why or why not?
Racism may be overt or subtle. Overt racism is more blatant and
may take the form of public statements about the “inferiority”
of members of a racial or ethnic group. An example of overt
racism would be the 2015 situation in which some University of
Oklahoma fraternity members were videorecorded singing a
song that was extremely derogatory toward African Americans
and which indicated that a black student would never be a
member of their organization. It was later revealed that these
students had learned the chant at a nationwide leadership retreat
hosted by the national organization of Sigma Alpha Epsilon
(SAE). However, hateful words such as this are often protected
by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech,
creating a quandary for those seeking to end overt racism and
discrimination (see “Sociology and Social Policy”). Similarly,
in other organizations, including sports teams and their fan
bases, researchers have documented that racist behavior
continues to occur across generations, despite some people’s
belief that racism is a thing of the past. Examples of recurring
patterns of racist behavior by sports team members or their fans
include calling a player of color by a derogatory name,
participating in racist chants, and writing racist graffiti on
game-day signs, locker rooms, and school buildings. These
actions are blatant and highly visible, but many subtle forms of
racism also exist.
Subtle racism is hidden from sight and more difficult to
recognize. Examples of subtle racism in sports include
descriptions of African American athletes that suggest that they
have “natural” athletic abilities and are better suited for those
team positions that require speed and agility rather than the
ability to think or process information quickly. By contrast,

white athletes are depicted as being more intelligent,
dependable, and possessing the right leadership and decision-
making skills needed in positions with higher levels of
responsibility and control on the team.
10-2cTheories of Prejudice
Are some people more prejudiced than others? To answer this
question, some theories focus on how individuals may transfer
their internal psychological problem onto an external object or
person. Others look at factors such as social learning and
personality types.
The frustration–aggression hypothesis states that people who
are frustrated in their efforts to achieve a highly desired goal
will respond with a pattern of aggression toward others (Dollard
et al., 1939). The object of their aggression becomes
the scapegoat—a person or group that is incapable of offering
resistance to the hostility or aggression of others (Marger,
2015). Scapegoats are often used as substitutes for the actual
source of the frustration. For example, members of subordinate
racial and ethnic groups are often blamed for local problems
(such as the home team losing a football, basketball, or soccer
game) or societal problems (such as large-scale unemployment
or an economic recession) over which they believe they have
little or no control (Figure 10.3).
Figure 10.3
According to the frustration–aggression hypothesis, members of
white supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan often use
members of subordinate racial and ethnic groups as scapegoats
for societal problems over which they have no control.
Michael Greenlar/The Image Works
According to some symbolic interactionists, prejudice results
from social learning; in other words, it is learned from
observing and imitating significant others, such as parents and
peers. Initially, children do not have a frame of reference from
which to question the prejudices of their relatives and friends.

When they are rewarded with smiles or laughs for telling
derogatory jokes or making negative comments about outgroup
members, children’s prejudiced attitudes may be reinforced.
Psychologist Theodor W. Adorno and his colleagues (1950)
concluded that highly prejudiced individuals tend to have
an authoritarian personality, which is characterized by
excessive conformity, submissiveness to authority, intolerance,
insecurity, a high level of superstition, and rigid, stereotypic
thinking. This type of personality is most likely to develop in a
family environment in which dominating parents who are
anxious about status use physical discipline but show very little
love in raising their children (Adorno et al., 1950). Other
scholars have linked prejudiced attitudes to traits such as
submissiveness to authority, extreme anger toward outgroups,
and conservative religious and political beliefs (Altemeyer,
1981, 1988; Weigel and Howes, 1985).
Whereas prejudice is an attitude, discrimination involves
actions or practices of dominant-group members (or their
representatives) that have a harmful effect on members of a
subordinate group. Prejudiced attitudes do not always lead to
discriminatory behavior. As shown in Figure 10.4, the
sociologist Robert K. Merton (1949) identified four
combinations of attitudes and responses. Unprejudiced
nondiscriminators are not personally prejudiced and do not
discriminate against others. For example, two players on a
professional sports team may be best friends although they are
of different races. Unprejudiced discriminators may have no
personal prejudice but still engage in discriminatory behavior
because of peer-group pressure or economic, political, or social
interests. For example, on some sports teams, players may hold
no genuine prejudice toward players from diverse racial or
ethnic origins but believe that they have to impress their
“friends” by making disparaging remarks about persons of color
so that they can get into, or remain in, a peer group. By
contrast, prejudiced nondiscriminators hold personal prejudices
but do not discriminate because of peer pressure, legal demands,

or a desire for profits. For example, professional sports teams’
owners and coaches who hold prejudiced beliefs may hire a
player of color to enhance the team’s ability to win.
Finally, prejudiced discriminators hold personal prejudices and
actively discriminate against others. For example, a baseball
umpire who is personally prejudiced against persons of color
may intentionally call a play incorrectly based on that
prejudice. Of course, we hope that such an umpire does not
exist or that his or her actions would be quickly sanctioned if
such an event occurred. But the purpose of Merton’s typology is
to show that prejudice and discrimination do not always coexist
as directly and specifically as many of us might imagine.
Figure 10.4Merton’s Typology of Prejudice and Discrimination
Merton’s typology shows that some people may be prejudiced
but not discriminate against others. Do you think that it is
possible for a person to discriminate against some people
without holding a prejudiced attitude toward them? Why or why
not?
Steven Widoff/Alamy
Discriminatory actions vary in severity, from the use of
derogatory labels to violence against individuals and groups.
The ultimate form of discrimination occurs when people are
considered to be unworthy to live because of their race or
ethnicity. Genocide is the deliberate, systematic killing of an
entire people or nation. Examples of genocide include the
killing of thousands of Native Americans by white settlers in
North America and the extermination of six million European
Jews by Nazi Germany. A lack of consensus exists as to whether
genocide has occurred in the twenty-first century. Some
analysts believe that the mass slaughter and rape of Darfuri
men, women, and children in Western Sudan that began in 2003
should be classified as genocide. However, international
governing bodies typically have ruled that this situation does
not fit the description because for something to be identified as
genocide, the perpetrators must have the intent to destroy an

entire group. By contrast, inflicting damage on a group or
removing the population from a location does not qualify. More
recently, the term ethnic cleansing has been used to define a
policy of “cleansing” geographic areas by forcing persons of
other races or religions to flee—or die.
Discrimination varies in how it is carried out. Individuals may
act on their own, or they may operate within the context of
large-scale organizations and institutions, such as schools,
churches, corporations, and governmental agencies. How does
individual discrimination differ from institutional
discrimination? Individual discrimination consists of one-on-
one acts by members of the dominant group that harm members
of the subordinate group or their property. Individual
discrimination is often considered to be based on the prejudicial
beliefs of bigoted individuals who overtly express those beliefs
through discriminatory actions. For example, a college student
may write racist graffiti on the dorm door of another student
because the perpetrator possesses bigoted attitudes about the
superiority or inferiority of others based on their race or
ethnicity.
However, sociologists emphasize that individual discrimination
is not purely individual. As sociologists in the past moved
beyond studying individual racial discrimination, they found
that a close relationship exists between individual and
institutional discrimination because they are two aspects of the
same phenomenon. Simply stated, when individuals engage in
racial discrimination, their actions are shaped by structural
racial inequalities in the existing society or social system, and,
in turn, their actions reinforce existing large-scale patterns of
discrimination, which we refer to as institutional
discrimination. Institutional discrimination consists of the day-
to-day practices of organizations and institutions that have a
harmful effect on members of subordinate groups. For example,
a bank might consistently deny loans to people of a certain race;
a university might not accept additional Asian American
students in its first-year class or medical school because of an

institutional assumption that persons in this racial–ethnic
category are already overrepresented at the school. However, it
is important to note that institutional discrimination is carried
out by the individuals who implement the policies and
procedures of organizations.
Sociologist Joe R. Feagin has identified four major types of
discrimination:
1. Isolate discrimination is harmful action intentionally taken
by a dominant-group member against a member of a subordinate
group. This type of discrimination occurs without the support of
other members of the dominant group in the immediate social or
community context. For example, a prejudiced judge may give
harsher sentences to African American defendants but may not
be supported by the judicial system in that action.
2. Small-group discrimination is harmful action intentionally
taken by a limited number of dominant-group members against
members of subordinate groups. This type of discrimination is
not supported by existing norms or other dominant-group
members in the immediate social or community context. For
example, a small group of white students may hang nooses (that
signify the practice of racial lynching in the past) on the door of
an African American professor’s office without the support of
other students or faculty members.
3. Direct institutionalized discrimination is organizationally
prescribed or community-prescribed action that intentionally
has a differential and negative impact on members of
subordinate groups. These actions are routinely carried out by a
number of dominant-group members based on the norms of the
immediate organization or community (Feagin and Feagin,
2012). Intentional exclusion of people of color from public
accommodations in the past is an example of this type of
discrimination.
4. Indirect institutionalized discrimination refers to practices
that have a harmful effect on subordinate-group members even
though the organizationally or community-prescribed norms or
regulations guiding these actions were initially established with

no intent to harm. For example, special education classes were
originally intended to provide extra educational opportunities
for children with various types of disabilities. However, critics
claim that these programs have amounted to racial segregation
in many school districts.
Various types of racial and ethnic discrimination call for
divergent remedies if we are to reduce discriminatory actions
and practices in contemporary social life. Since the 1950s and
1960s, many U.S. sociologists have analyzed the complex
relationship between prejudice and discrimination. Some have
reached the conclusion that prejudice is difficult, if not
seemingly impossible, to eradicate because of the deeply held
racist beliefs and attitudes that are often passed on from person
to person and from one generation to the next. However, the
persistence of prejudicial attitudes and beliefs does not mean
that racial and ethnic discrimination should be allowed to
flourish until such a time as prejudice is effectively eliminated.
From this approach, discrimination must be aggressively tackled
through demands for change and through policies that
specifically target patterns of discrimination.10-3Sociological
Perspectives on Race and Ethnic Relations
LO 4
Compare the major sociological perspectives on race and ethnic
relations.
Symbolic interactionist, functionalist, and conflict analysts
examine race and ethnic relations in different ways. Symbolic
interactionists examine how microlevel contacts between people
may produce either greater racial tolerance or increased levels
of hostility. Functionalists focus on the macrolevel intergroup
processes that occur between members of dominant and
subordinate groups in society. Conflict theorists analyze power
and economic differentials between the dominant group and
subordinate groups.
10-3aSymbolic Interactionist Perspectives
What happens when people from different racial and ethnic
groups come into contact with one another? Symbolic

interactionists claim that intergroup contact may either intensify
or reduce racial and ethnic stereotyping and prejudice,
depending on the context. In the contact hypothesis, symbolic
interactionists point out that contact between people from
divergent groups should lead to favorable attitudes and
behavior when certain factors are present: Members of each
group must
· (1)
have equal status,
· (2)
pursue the same goals,
· (3)
cooperate with one another to achieve their goals, and
· (4)
receive positive feedback when they interact with one another in
positive, nondiscriminatory ways (Figure 10.5).
However, if these factors are not present, intergroup contact
may lead to increased stereotyping and prejudice.
Figure 10.5
Symbolic interactionists believe that intergroup contact can
reduce stereotyping and prejudice if group members have equal
status, pursue the same goals and cooperate to achieve them,
and receive positive feedback when they interact with one
another in positive ways. How do sports teams enable such
interaction?
Jeff Gross/Getty Images
Of course, intergroup contact does not always include the four
factors described above. What then happens when individuals
meet someone who does not conform to their existing
stereotype? According to symbolic interactionists, they
frequently ignore anything that contradicts the stereotype, or
they interpret the situation to support their prejudices. For
example, a person who does not fit the stereotype may be seen
as an exception—“You’re not like other [persons of a particular

race].” Conversely, when a person is seen as conforming to a
stereotype, he or she may be treated simply as one of “you
people.”
Symbolic interactionist perspectives make us aware of the
importance of intergroup contact and the fact that it may either
intensify or reduce racial and ethnic stereotyping and
prejudice.10-3bFunctionalist Perspectives
How do members of subordinate racial and ethnic groups
become a part of the dominant group? To answer this question,
early functionalists studied immigration and patterns of
dominant- and subordinate-group interactions.
Assimilation
Assimilation is a process by which members of
subordinate racial and ethnic groups become absorbed into the
dominant culture. To some analysts, assimilation is functional
because it contributes to the stability of society by minimizing
group differences that might otherwise result in hostility and
violence.
Assimilation occurs at several distinct levels, including the
cultural, structural, biological, and psychological
stages. Cultural assimilation, or acculturation, occurs when
members of an ethnic group adopt dominant-group traits, such
as language, dress, values, religion, and food preferences.
Cultural assimilation in this country initially followed an
“Anglo conformity” model; members of subordinate ethnic
groups were expected to conform to the culture of the dominant
white Anglo-Saxon population. However, members of some
groups refused to be assimilated and sought to maintain their
unique cultural identity.
Structural assimilation, or integration, occurs when members of
subordinate racial or ethnic groups gain acceptance in everyday
social interaction with members of the dominant group. This
type of assimilation typically starts in large, impersonal settings
such as schools and workplaces, and only later (if at all) results
in close friendships and intermarriage. Biological

assimilation, or amalgamation, occurs when members of one
group marry those of other social or ethnic groups. Biological
assimilation has been more complete in some other countries,
such as Mexico and Brazil, than in the United States.
Psychological assimilation involves a change in racial or ethnic
self-identification on the part of an individual. Rejection by the
dominant group may prevent psychological assimilation by
members of some subordinate racial and ethnic groups,
especially those with visible characteristics such as skin color
or facial features that differ from those of the dominant group.
Ethnic Pluralism
Instead of complete assimilation, many groups share elements
of the mainstream culture while remaining culturally distinct
from both the dominant group and other social and ethnic
groups. Ethnic pluralism is the coexistence of a variety of
distinct racial and ethnic groups within one society.
Equalitarian pluralism, or accommodation, is a situation in
which ethnic groups coexist in equality with one another.
Switzerland has been described as a model of equalitarian
pluralism; more than six million people with French, German,
and Italian cultural heritages peacefully coexist
there. Inequalitarian pluralism, or segregation, exists when
specific ethnic groups are set apart from the dominant group
and have unequal access to power and privilege. Segregation is
the spatial and social separation of categories of people by race,
ethnicity, class, gender, and/or religion (Figure 10.6).
Segregation may be enforced by law. De jure segregation refers
to laws that systematically enforced the physical and social
separation of African Americans in all areas of public life. For
example, Jim Crow laws legalized the separation of the races in
public accommodations (such as hotels, restaurants,
transportation, hospitals, jails, schools, churches, and
cemeteries) in the southern United States after the Civil War
(Feagin and Feagin, 2012).
Figure 10.6

Segregation exists when specific ethnic groups are set apart
from the dominant group and have unequal access to power and
privilege. What examples of segregation do you see today?
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Segregation may also be enforced by custom. De facto
segregation—racial separation and inequality enforced by
custom—is more difficult to document than de jure segregation.
For example, residential segregation is still prevalent in many
U.S. cities; owners, landlords, real estate agents, and apartment
managers often use informal mechanisms to maintain their
properties for “whites only.” Even middle-class people of color
find that racial polarization is fundamental to the residential
layout of many cities.
Although functionalist explanations provide a description of
how some early white ethnic immigrants assimilated into the
cultural mainstream, they do not adequately account for the
persistent racial segregation and economic inequality
experienced by people of color.10-3cConflict Perspectives
Conflict theorists focus on economic stratification and access to
power in their analyses of race and ethnic relations. Some
emphasize the caste-like nature of racial stratification, others
analyze class-based discrimination, and still others examine
internal colonialism and gendered racism.
The Caste Perspective
The caste perspective views racial and ethnic inequality as a
permanent feature of U.S. society. According to this approach,
the African American experience must be viewed as different
from that of other racial or ethnic groups. African Americans
were the only group to be subjected to slavery; when slavery
was abolished, a caste system was instituted to maintain
economic and social inequality between whites and African
Americans (Feagin and Feagin, 2012).
The caste system was strengthened by antimiscegenation

laws, which prohibited sexual intercourse or marriage between
persons of different races. Most states had such laws, which
were later expanded to include relationships between whites and
Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos.
Class Perspectives
Although the caste perspective points out that racial
stratification may be permanent because of structural elements
such as the law, it has been criticized for not examining the role
of class in perpetuating racial inequality. Class perspectives
emphasize the role of the capitalist class in racial exploitation.
Based on early theories of race relations by the African
American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, the sociologist Oliver C.
Cox (1948) suggested that African Americans were enslaved
because they were the cheapest and best workers the owners
could find for heavy labor in mines and on plantations. Thus,
the profit motive of capitalists, not skin color or racial
prejudice, accounts for slavery.
Sociologists have also debated the relative importance of class
and race in explaining the unequal life chances of African
Americans. Sociologists William Julius Wilson and Richard P.
Taub (2007) have suggested that race, cultural factors, social
psychological variables, and social class must all be taken into
account in examining the life chances of “inner-city residents.”
Their analysis focuses on how race, ethnicity, and class tensions
are all important in assessing how residents live their lives in
four low-income Chicago neighborhoods and why this finding is
important for the rest of America as well.
How do conflict theorists view the relationship among race,
class, and sports? Simply stated, sports reflects the interests of
the wealthy and powerful. At all levels, sports exploits athletes
(even highly paid ones) in order to gain high levels of profit and
prestige for coaches, managers, and owners. In particular,
African American athletes and central-city youths are exploited
by the message of rampant consumerism. Many are given the
unrealistic expectation that sports can be a ticket out of the

ghetto or barrio. If they try hard enough (and wear the right
athletic gear), they too can become wealthy and famous.
Internal Colonialism
Why do some racial and ethnic groups continue to experience
subjugation after many years? According to the sociologist
Robert Blauner (1972), groups that have been subjected to
internal colonialism remain in subordinate positions longer than
groups that voluntarily migrated to the United States. Internal
colonialism occurs when members of a racial or ethnic group
are conquered or colonized and forcibly placed under the
economic and political control of the dominant group. This idea
has been so widely received that it is often referred to as the
“Blauner hypothesis” and is still used in research.
In the United States, indigenous populations (including groups
known today as Native Americans and Mexican Americans)
were colonized by Euro-Americans and others who invaded
their lands and conquered them. In the process, indigenous
groups lost property, political rights, aspects of their culture,
and often their lives. The capitalist class acquired cheap labor
and land through this government-sanctioned racial
exploitation. The effects of past internal colonialism are
reflected today in the number of Native Americans who live on
government reservations and in the poverty of Mexican
Americans who lost their land and had no right to vote (Figure
10.7).
Figure 10.7
Grinding poverty is a pressing problem for families living along
the border between the United States and Mexico. Economic
development has been limited in areas where colonias such as
this one are located, and the wealthy have derived far more
benefit than others from recent changes in the global economy.
How might the concept of internal colonialism be used to
explain the impoverished conditions shown in this photo?

Paul S. Howell/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The internal colonialism perspective is rooted in the historical
foundations of racial and ethnic inequality in the United States.
However, it tends to view all voluntary immigrants as having
many more opportunities than do members of colonized groups.
Thus, this model does not explain the continued exploitation of
some immigrant groups, such as the Chinese, Filipinos, Cubans,
Vietnamese, and Haitians, and the greater acceptance of others,
primarily those from Northern Europe.
The Split-Labor-Market Theory
Who benefits from the exploitation of people of color? Dual - or
split-labor-market theory states that white workers and members
of the capitalist class both benefit from the exploitation of
people of color. Split labor market refers to the division of the
economy into two areas of employment, a primary sector or
upper tier, composed of higher-paid (usually dominant-group)
workers in more-secure jobs, and a secondary sector or lower
tier, composed of lower-paid (often subordinate-group) workers
in jobs with little security and hazardous working conditions
(Bonacich, 1972, 1976). According to this perspective, white
workers in the upper tier may use racial discrimination
against nonwhites to protect their positions. These actions most
often occur when upper-tier workers feel threatened by lower-
tier workers hired by capitalists to reduce labor costs and
maximize corporate profits. In the past, immigrants were a
source of cheap labor that employers could use to break strikes
and keep wages down. Throughout U.S. history, higher-paid
workers have responded with racial hostility and joined
movements to curtail immigration and thus do away with the
source of cheap labor (Marger, 2015).
Proponents of the split-labor-market theory suggest that white
workers benefit from racial and ethnic antagonisms. However,
these analysts typically do not examine the interactive effects of
race, class, and gender in the workplace.

Perspectives on Race and Gender
The term gendered racism refers to the interactive effect of
racism and sexism on the exploitation of women of color.
According to the social psychologist Philomena Essed (1991),
women’s particular position must be explored within each racial
or ethnic group because their experiences will not have been the
same as men’s in each grouping.
Capitalists do not equally exploit all workers. Gender and race
or ethnicity are important in this exploitation. Historically,
white men have monopolized the high-paying primary labor
market. Many people of color and white women hold lower-tier
jobs. Below that tier is the underground sector of the economy,
characterized by illegal or quasi-legal activities such as drug
trafficking, prostitution, and working in sweatshops that do not
meet minimum wage and safety standards. Many undocumented
workers and some white women and people of color attempt to
earn a living in this sector, as further described in Chapter 13,
“The Economy and Work in Global Perspective.”
Concept Quick Review
Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnic Relations
Focus
Theory/Hypothesis
Symbolic Interactionist
Microlevel contacts between individuals
Contact hypothesis
Functionalist
Macrolevel intergroup processes
1. Assimilation
1. cultural
2. biological
3. structural
4. psychological
2. Ethnic pluralism
1. equalitarian pluralism

2. inequalitarian pluralism (segregation)
Conflict
Power/economic differentials between dominant and subordinate
groups
1. Caste perspective
2. Class perspective
3. Internal colonialism
4. Split labor market
5. Gendered racism
6. Racial formation
Critical Race Theory
Racism as an ingrained feature of society that affects
everyone’s daily life
Laws may remedy overt discrimination but have little effect on
subtle racism. Interest convergence is required for social
change.
Racial Formation
The theory of racial formation states that actions of the
government substantially define racial and ethnic relations in
the United States. Government actions range from race-related
legislation to imprisonment of members of groups believed to
be a threat to society. Sociologists Michael Omi and Howard
Winant (2013) suggest that the U.S. government has shaped the
politics of race through actions and policies that cause people to
be treated differently because of their race. For example,
immigration legislation reflects racial biases. The
Naturalization Law of 1790 permitted only white immigrants to
qualify for naturalization; the Immigration Act of 1924 favored
Northern Europeans and excluded Asians and Southern and
Eastern Europeans.
Social protest movements of various racial and ethnic groups
periodically challenge the government’s definition of racial
realities. When this social rearticulation occurs, people’s
understanding about race may be restructured somewhat. For

example, the African American protest movements of the 1950s
and 1960s helped redefine the rights of people of color in the
United States.10-3dAn Alternative Perspective: Critical Race
Theory
Emerging out of scholarly law studies on racial and ethnic
inequality, critical race theory derives its foundation from the
U.S. civil rights tradition. Critical race theory has several major
premises, including the belief that racism is such an ingrained
feature of U.S. society that it appears to be ordinary and natural
to many people (Delgado, 1995). As a result, civil rights
legislation and affirmative action laws (formal equality) may
remedy some of the more overt, blatant forms of racial injustice
but have little effect on subtle, business-as-usual forms of
racism that people of color experience as they go about their
everyday lives. Although many minority-group members
participate in collegiate and professional sports, studies of
sports and media show that overt and covert forms of racism
persist in the twenty-first century.
According to this approach, the best way to document racism
and ongoing inequality in society is to listen to the lived
experiences of people who have encountered such
discrimination. In this way we can learn what actually happens
in regard to racial oppression and the many effects it has on
people, including alienation, depression, and certain physical
illnesses. Central to this argument is the belief that interest
convergence is a crucial factor in bringing about social change.
According to the legal scholar Derrick Bell, white elites tolerate
or encourage racial advances for people of color only if the
dominant-group members believe that their own self-interest
will be served in so doing (cited in Delgado, 1995). From this
approach, civil rights laws have typically benefited white
Americans as much (or more) as people of color because these
laws have been used as mechanisms to ensure that “racial
progress occurs at just the right pace: change that is too rapid
would be unsettling to society at large; change that is too slow
could prove destabilizing” (Delgado, 1995: xiv). The Concept

Quick Review outlines the key aspects of each sociological
perspective on race and ethnic relations.10-4Racial and Ethnic
Groups in the United States
How do racial and ethnic groups come into contact with one
another? How do they adjust to one another and to the dominant
group over time? Sociologists have explored these questions
extensively; however, a detailed historical account of the unique
experiences of each group is beyond the scope of this chapter.
Instead, we will look briefly at intergroup contacts. In the
process, sports will be used as an example of how members of
some groups have attempted to gain upward mobility and
become integrated into society.10-4aNative Americans and
Alaska Natives
LO 5
Discuss the unique historical experiences of Native Americans
and WASPs in the United States.
Native Americans and Alaska Natives are believed to have
migrated to North America from Asia thousands of years ago, as
shown on the time line in Figure 10.8. One of the most widely
accepted beliefs about this migration is that the first groups of
Mongolians made their way across a natural bridge of land
called Beringia into present-day Alaska. From there, they
moved to what is now Canada and the northern United States,
eventually making their way as far south as the tip of South
America.
Figure 10.8Time Line of Racial and Ethnic Groups in the United
States
As schoolchildren are taught, Spanish explorer Christopher
Columbus first encountered the native inhabitants in 1492 and
referred to them as “Indians.” When European settlers (or
invaders) arrived on this continent, the native inhabitants’ way
of life was changed forever. Experts estimate that
approximately two million native inhabitants lived in North
America at that time; however, their numbers had been reduced

to fewer than 240,000 by 1900.
Genocide, Forced Migration, and Forced Assimilation
Native Americans have been the victims of genocide and forced
migration. Although the United States never had an official
policy that set in motion a pattern of deliberate extermination,
many Native Americans were either massacred or died from
European diseases (such as typhoid, smallpox, and measles) and
starvation. In battle, Native Americans were often no match for
the Europeans, who had “modern” weaponry. Europeans
justified their aggression by stereotyping the Native Americans
as “savages” and “heathens.”
After the Revolutionary War, the federal government offered
treaties to the Native Americans so that more of their land could
be acquired for the growing white population. Scholars note that
the government broke treaty after treaty as it engaged in a
policy of wholesale removal of indigenous nations in order to
clear the land for settlement by Anglo-Saxon “pioneers.” Entire
nations were forced to move in order to accommodate the white
settlers. The “Trail of Tears” was one of the most disastrous of
the forced migrations. In the coldest part of the winter of 1832,
over half of the members of the Cherokee Nation died during or
as a result of their forced relocation from the southeastern
United States to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
Native Americans were subjected to forced assimilation on the
reservations after 1871. Native American children were placed
in boarding schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to
hasten their assimilation into the dominant culture. About 98
percent of native lands had been expropriated by 1920. This
process was aided by the Dawes Act (1877), which allowed the
federal government to usurp Native American lands for the
benefit of corporations and other non-native settlers who sought
to turn a profit from oil and gas exploration and grazing.
Native Americans and Alaska Natives Today
Currently, about 6.6 million Native Americans and Alaska

Natives, including those of more than one race, live in the
United States, including Aleuts, Inuit (Eskimos), Cherokee,
Navajo, Choctaw, Chippewa, Sioux, and more than 500 other
nations of varying sizes and different locales. There is a wide
diversity among the people in this category: Each nation has its
own culture, history, and unique identity, and more than 250
Native American languages are spoken today. Slightly more
than 20 percent of Native Americans and Alaska Natives ages
five and older have reported that they spoke a language other
than English at home.
Although Native Americans live in a number of states, they are
concentrated in specific regions of the country. About 22
percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives reside in
federal American Indian reservations and/or off-reservation
trust lands or other tribal-designated areas. There are 326
federally recognized American Indian reservations in this
country and a total of 630 legal and statistical areas (U.S.
Census Bureau, “American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage
Month,” 2016).
Data continue to indicate that Native Americans are the most
disadvantaged racial or ethnic group in the United States in
terms of income, employment, housing, nutrition, and health. As
compared to a median household income of $55,775 for the
nation as a whole in 2015, for example, the median household
income of American Indian and Alaska Native households was
$38,530. In the same year, nearly 27 percent of American
Indians and Alaska Natives lived in poverty at a time when the
national poverty rate was slightly less than 15 percent.
American Indians and Alaska Natives have higher rates of
infant mortality than white American (non-Hispanic) infants,
and American Indian and Alaska Native infants are four times
more likely to die from pneumonia and influenza. American
Indian and Alaska Native suicide rates are nearly 50 percent
higher than those of white Americans (non-Hispanic). Suicide is
particularly a concern among American Indian and Alaska
Native males and among persons under age 25 (cdc.gov, 2014;

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).
Historically, Native Americans have had very limited
educational opportunities and very high rates of unemployment.
Educational opportunities have largely been tied to community
colleges. Since the introduction of six tribally controlled
community colleges in the 1970s, a growing network of tribal
colleges and universities now serves over 30,000 students from
more than 250 tribal nations (see Figure 10.9). This network has
been successful in providing some Native Americans with the
necessary education to move into the ranks of the skilled
working class and beyond (Figure 10.10). Across the nation,
Native Americans own and operate many types of enterprises,
such as construction companies, computer-graphic-design firms,
grocery stores, and management consulting businesses. Casino
gambling operations and cigarette shops on Native American
reservations—resulting from a reinterpretation of federal law in
the 1990s—have brought more income to some of the tribal
nations. However, this change has not been without its critics,
who believe that such businesses bring new problems for Native
Americans.
Figure 10.9U.S. Tribal Colleges and Universities
Source: American Indian College Fund, 2017.
Figure 10.10
Historically, Native Americans have had a low rate of college
attendance. However, the development of a network of tribal
colleges has provided them with a local source for upward
mobility.
AP Photo/Lawrence Journal-World, Mike Yoder
In 2009 Native Americans received a $3.4 billion settlement
from the federal government after the conclusion of Cobell v.
Salazar, a thirteen-year-old lawsuit that accused the government
of mishandling revenues generated by the extraction of natural

resources from American Indian land trusts as a result of the
Dawes Act. Although the federal government was responsible
for leasing tribal lands for use by mining, lumber, oil, and gas
industries and passing on royalty payments to the Native
Americans to whom the lands belonged, Native Americans
derived little benefit because of the government’s massive
abuse of the trust funds.
Native Americans are currently in a transition from a history
marked by prejudice and discrimination to a contemporary life
in which they may find new opportunities. Many see the
challenge for Native Americans today as erasing negative
stereotypes while maintaining their heritage and obtaining
recognition for their contributions to this nation’s development
and growth. For the poorest of poor, however, access to
opportunities is very limited.
Native Americans and Sports
Early in the twentieth century, Native Americans such as Jim
Thorpe gained national visibility as athletes in football,
baseball, and track and field. Teams at boarding schools such as
the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and the
Haskell Institute in Kansas were well-known. However, after
the first three decades of the twentieth century, Native
Americans became less prominent in sports. Native American
scholar Joseph B. Oxendine (2003) attributes the lack of athletic
participation to these factors:
· (1)
a reduction in opportunities for developing sports skills,
· (2)
restricted opportunities for participation, and
· (3)
a lessening of Native Americans’ interest in competing with and
against non–Native Americans.
However, in the twenty-first century, Native Americans slowly
began making their mark in a few professional sports. Sam
Bradford (Cherokee Nation) has made inroads in professional

football. Other notables are in golf (Notah Begay III), lacrosse
(Brett Bucktooth), bowling (Mike Edwards), rodeo (Clint
Harry), and baseball (Kyle Lohse). More Native American
college athletes are also being recognized in the twenty-first
century (visit the website for NDNSPORTS.com).10-4bWhite
Anglo-Saxon Protestants (British Americans)
Whereas Native Americans have been among the most
disadvantaged peoples in this country, white Anglo-Saxon
Protestants (WASPs) have been the most privileged group.
Although many English settlers initially came to North America
as indentured servants or as prisoners, they quickly emerged as
the dominant group, creating a core culture (including language,
laws, and holidays) to which all other groups were expected to
adapt. Most of the WASP immigrants arriving from Northern
Europe were advantaged over later immigrants because they
were highly skilled and did not experience high levels of
prejudice and discrimination.
Class, Gender, and WASPs
Like members of other racial and ethnic groups, not all WASPs
are alike. Social class and gender affect their life chances and
opportunities. For example, members of the working class and
the poor do not have political and economic power; men in the
capitalist class do. WASPs constitute the majority of the upper
class and maintain cohesion through listings such as the Social
Register and interactions with one another in elite settings such
as private schools and country clubs (Kendall, 2002).
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau uses the term “white” to refer to
a person having origins in any of the original peoples of
Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. In the latest (2010)
census, people who indicated that they were Caucasian, white,
Irish, German, Polish, Arab, Lebanese, Palestinian, Algerian,
Moroccan, and Egyptian, among others, were included in the
white racial category (Hixson, Hepler, and Kim, 2011).
Seventy-two percent of all persons (at the time nearly 224
million people) included in the census identified as white alone.

An additional 7.5 million people (2 percent) reported white in
combination with one or more other races. Today, the majori ty
of people in these population categories reside in the South (in
states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and
Virginia) and the Midwest (in states such as Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin). The fastest growth
in white population occurred in states in the South and in the
West (Hixson, Hepler, and Kim, 2011).
In 2015, for example, the real median income of whites (non-
Hispanic) was $62,950, which is second only to that of Asian
Americans ($77,166) and significantly above that of Hispanic or
Latino/a and African American (black) residents of the United
States. Likewise, the poverty rate for whites (non-Hispanic) was
9.1 percent while it was slightly over 24 percent for African
Americans (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar, 2016).
WASPs and Sports
Family background, social class, and gender play an important
role in the sports participation of WASPs. Contemporary North
American football was invented at the Ivy League colleges and
was dominated by young, affluent WASPs who had the time and
money to attend college and participate in sports activities.
Today, whites are more likely than any other racial or ethnic
group to become professional athletes in all sports except
football and basketball. Although current data are not available
to document differences among racial and ethnic categories by
types of sports, we know that the probability of competing in
athletics beyond the high school interscholastic level is
extremely low. For example, only .03 percent of high school
men’s basketball players will become professional athletes, as
will only .02 percent of women’s basketball players. For
football, the percentage of high school players who will become
professional athletes is .08 percent; for baseball, .4 percent; for
men’s ice hockey, .4 percent; and for men’s soccer, .08 percent.
Even the odds of advancing from high school athletics to NCAA
college sports remain low: 3.2 percent for men’s basketball, 3.6

percent for women’s basketball, 6.1 percent for football, 6.6
percent for baseball, 10.7 percent for men’s ice hockey, and 5.7
percent for men’s soccer (National Collegiate Athletic
Association, 2012).
Affluent WASP women participated in intercollegiate women’s
basketball in the late 1800s, and various other sporting events
were used as a means to break free of restrictive codes of
femininity. Until fairly recently, however, most women have
had little chance for any involvement in college and
professional sports.10-4cAfrican Americans
LO 6
Describe how slavery, segregation, lynching, and persistent
discrimination have uniquely affected the African American
experience in this country.
The African American (black) experience has been one uniquely
marked by slavery, segregation, and persistent discrimination.
There is a lack of consensus about whether African
American or black is the most appropriate term to refer to the
45.7 million Americans of African descent who live in the
United States today. Those who prefer the term black point out
that it incorporates many African-descent groups living in this
country that do not use African American as a racial or ethnic
self-description. For example, many people who trace their
origins to Haiti, Puerto Rico, or Jamaica typically identify
themselves as “black” but not as “African American.” Although
African Americans reside throughout the United States, eighteen
states have an estimated black population of at least one
million. About 3.8 million African Americans lived in New
York State in 2016, but the District of Columbia had the highest
percentage of blacks (51 percent), followed by Mississippi (38.2
percent), in the total population (see Figure 10.11).
Figure 10.11U.S. Racial and Ethnic Distribution
While minority populations do continue to grow, regional
differences in racial makeup are still quite pronounced, as this
map shows.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2011f.
Although the earliest African Americans probably arrived in
North America with the Spanish conquerors in the fifteenth
century, most historians trace their arrival to about 1619, when
the first groups of indentured servants were brought to the
colony of Virginia. However, by the 1660s, indentured
servanthood had turned into full-fledged slavery because of the
enactment of laws that sanctioned the enslavement of African
Americans. Although the initial status of persons of African
descent in this country may not have been too different from
that of the English indentured servants, all of that changed with
the passage of laws turning human beings into property and
making slavery a status from which neither individuals nor their
children could escape (Franklin, 1980).
Between 1619 and the 1860s, about 500,000 Africans were
forcibly brought to North America, primarily to work on
southern plantations, and these actions were justified by the
devaluation and stereotyping of African Americans. Some
analysts believe that the central factor associated with the
development of slavery in this country was the plantation
system, which was heavily reliant on cheap and dependable
manual labor. Slavery was primarily beneficial to the wealthy
southern plantation owners, but many of the stereotypes used to
justify slavery were eventually institutionalized in southern
custom and practice (Wilson, 1978). However, some slaves and
whites engaged in active resistance against slavery and its
barbaric practices, which eventually resulted in slavery being
outlawed in the northern states by the late 1700s. Slavery
continued in the South until 1863, when it was abolished by the
Emancipation Proclamation (Takaki, 1993).
Segregation and Lynching
Gaining freedom did not give African Americans equality with
whites. African Americans were subjected to many indignities
because of race. Through informal practices in the North

and Jim Crow laws in the South, African Americans experienced
segregation in housing, employment, education, and all public
accommodations. African Americans who did not stay in their
“place” were often the victims of violent attacks and lynch
mobs (Franklin, 1980). Lynching is a killing carried out by a
group of vigilantes seeking revenge for an actual or imagined
crime by the victim. The practice of lynching was used by
whites to intimidate African Americans into staying “in their
place.” It is estimated that as many as 6,000 lynchings occurred
from the end of the Civil War to the present, at least half of
which have gone unrecorded (Feagin and Feagin, 2012). In spite
of all odds, many African American women and men resisted
oppression and did not give up in their struggle for equality.
Discrimination
In the twentieth century the lives of many African Americans
were changed by industrialization and two world wars. When
factories were built in the northern United States, many African
American families left the rural South in hopes of finding jobs
and a better life.
During World Wars I and II, African Americans were a vital
source of labor in war production industries; however, racial
discrimination continued both on and off the job. In World War
II, many African Americans fought for their country in
segregated units in the military; after the war, they sought—and
were denied—equal opportunities in the country for which they
had risked their lives.
African Americans began to demand sweeping societal changes
in the 1950s. Initially, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
and the civil rights movement used civil disobedience—
nonviolent action seeking to change a policy or law by refusing
to comply with it—to call attention to racial inequality and to
demand greater inclusion of African Americans in all areas of
public life. Subsequently, leaders of the Black Power
movement, including Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey, advocated
black pride and racial awareness among African Americans.

Gradually, racial segregation was outlawed by the courts and
the federal government. For example, the Civil Rights Acts of
1964 and 1965 sought to do away with discrimination in
education, housing, employment, and health care.
Affirmative action programs were instituted in both public-
sector and private-sector organizations in an effort to bring
about greater opportunities for African Americans and other
previously excluded groups. Affirmative action refers to
policies or procedures that are intended to promote equal
opportunity for categories of people deemed to have been
previously excluded from equality in education, employment,
and other fields on the basis of characteristics such as race or
ethnicity. Critics of affirmative action often assert that these
policies amount to reverse discrimination—a person who is
better qualified being denied a position because another person
received preferential treatment as a result of affirmative action.
African Americans Today
Blacks or African Americans make up about 13.3 percent of the
U.S. population. Some are descendants of families that have
been in this country for many generations; others are recent
immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Black Haitians make
up the largest group of recent Caribbean immigrants; others
come from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Recent African
immigrants are primarily from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, and
Kenya. They have been simultaneously “pushed” out of their
countries of origin by severe economic and political turmoil and
“pulled” by perceived opportunities for a better life in the
United States. Recent immigrants are often victimized by the
same racism that has plagued African Americans as a people for
centuries.
Since the 1960s, many African Americans have made significant
gains in politics, education, employment, and income. Between
1964 and 2010, the number of African Americans elected to
political office (on local, state, and federal levels) increased
from about 100 to more than 10,000 nationwide (Hayes, 2011).

At the local level, African Americans have won mayoral
elections in many major cities that have large African American
populations, such as Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. At the national level, the
top accomplishment of an African American in politics was the
election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 and his
reelection to a second term of office in 2012 (Figure 10.12).
Figure 10.12
In August 2008, Barack Obama made history by becoming the
first African American to receive the presidential nomination of
a major political party, and on Election Day he was voted in as
the first African American president of the United States. In
2012 Obama was reelected to his second term and is shown here
taking the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts on
January 21, 2013.
Scott Andrews/Pool via CNP/Newscom
In 2017 there were 52 African Americans serving in the 115th
U.S. Congress: 49 were in the House of Representatives and 3
in the U.S. Senate. Over the past five decades, more African
Americans have made impressive occupational gains and joined
the top socioeconomic classes in terms of earnings. Some of
these individuals have become professionals while others have
achieved great wealth and fame as entertainers, athletes, and
entrepreneurs. But even those who make millions of dollars per
year and live in the most-affluent neighborhoods are not exempt
from racial prejudice and discrimination. Likewise, although
some African Americans have made substantial occupational
and educational gains, many more have not. At the time I am
writing this in 2017, for example, the African American
unemployment rate of 7.9 percent is more than that of white
(non-Hispanic) Americans (4.7) and Asian Americans (3.8).
African Americans and Sports
In recent decades many African Americans have seen sports as a

possible source of upward mobility because other means have
been unavailable. However, their achievements in sports have
often been attributed to “natural ability” and not determination
and hard work. Sociologists have rejected such biological
explanations for African Americans’ success in sports and have
focused instead on explanations rooted in the structure of
society.
During the slavery era, a few African Americans gained better
treatment and, occasionally, freedom by winning boxing
matches on which their owners had bet large sums of money
(McPherson, Curtis, and Loy, 1989). After emancipation, some
African Americans found jobs in horse racing and baseball. For
example, fourteen of the fifteen jockeys in the first Kentucky
Derby (in 1875) were African Americans. A number of Afri can
Americans played on baseball teams; a few played in the Major
Leagues until the Jim Crow laws forced them out. Then they
formed their own “Negro” baseball and basketball leagues
(Peterson, 1992/1970).
Since Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s “color line,” in 1947,
many African American athletes have played collegiate and
professional sports. Even now, however, persistent class
inequalities between whites and African Americans are reflected
in the fact that, until recently, African Americans have
primarily excelled in sports (such as basketball or football) that
do not require much expensive equipment and specialized
facilities in order to develop athletic skills. According to one
sports analyst, African Americans typically participate in
certain sports and not others because of the sports opportunity
structure—the availability of facilities, coaching, and
competition in the schools and community recreation programs
in their area (Phillips, 1993).
Regardless of the sport in which they participate, African
American men athletes continue to experience inequalities in
coaching, management, and ownership opportunities in
professional sports. In recent years, only five of the thirty-two
National Football League teams and fourteen of the teams in the

NCAA elite “Football Bowl Subdivision”—postseason bowl-
eligible competitors—had African American head coaches. By
contrast, 60 percent of the players on the top 25 FBS teams are
black. Today, African Americans remain significantly
underrepresented in many other sports, including hockey,
skiing, figure skating, golf, volleyball, softball, swimming,
gymnastics, sailing, soccer, bowling, cycling, and tennis.10-
4dWhite Ethnic Americans
The term white ethnic Americans is applied to a wide diversity
of immigrants who trace their origins to Ireland and to Eastern
and Southern European countries such as Poland, Italy, Greece,
Germany, Yugoslavia, and Russia and other former Soviet
republics. Unlike the WASPs, who migrated primarily from
Northern Europe and assumed a dominant cultural position in
society, white ethnic Americans arrived late in the nineteenth
century and early in the twentieth century to find relatively high
levels of prejudice and discrimination directed at them by
nativist organizations that hoped to curb the entry of non-WASP
European immigrants. Because many of the people in white
ethnic American categories were not Protestant, they
experienced discrimination because they were Catholic, Jewish,
or members of other religious bodies, such as the Eastern
Orthodox churches.
Discrimination Against White Ethnics
Many white ethnic immigrants entered the United States
between 1830 and 1924. Irish Catholics were among the first to
arrive, driven out of Ireland by English oppression and famine
and seeking jobs in the United States (Feagin and Feagin,
2012). When they arrived, they found that British Americans
controlled the major institutions of society. The next arrivals
were Italians, who had been recruited for low-wage industrial
and construction jobs. British Americans viewed Irish and
Italian immigrants as “foreigners”: The Irish were stereotyped
as ape-like, filthy, bad-tempered, and heavy drinkers; the
Italians were depicted as lawless, knife-wielding thugs looking

for a fight, “dagos,” and “wops” (short for “without papers”)
(Feagin and Feagin, 2012).
Both Irish Americans and Italian Americans were subjected to
institutionalized discrimination in employment. Employment
ads read “Help Wanted—No Irish Need Apply” and listed daily
wages at $1.30–$1.50 for “whites” and $1.15–$1.25 for
“Italians” (Gambino, 1975: 77). In spite of discrimination,
white ethnics worked hard to establish themselves in the United
States, often founding mutual self-help organizations and
becoming politically active (Mangione and Morreale, 1992).
Between 1880 and 1920, a wave of Eastern European Jewish
immigrants arrived in the United States and settled in the
Northeast. Jewish Americans differ from other white ethnic
groups in that some focus their identity primarily on their
religion whereas others define their Jewishness in terms of
ethnic group membership (Feagin and Feagin, 2012). In any
case, Jews continued to be the victims of anti-Semitism—
prejudice, hostile attitudes, and discriminatory behavior
targeted at Jews. For example, signs in hotels read “No Jews
Allowed,” and some “help wanted” ads stated “Christians Only”
(Levine, 1992: 55). In spite of persistent discrimination, Jewish
Americans achieved substantial success in many areas,
including business, education, the arts and sciences, law, and
medicine.
However, old biases remain deeply embedded in the fabric of
American life and are passed on from one generation to the
next. An example of this kind of lingering prejudice surfaced in
2015 when a Jewish student at UCLA who was being considered
for the student council’s judicial board was asked the following
by another student: “Given that you are a Jewish student and
very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself
being able to maintain an unbiased view?” (Nagourney, 2015).
Although the vast majority of Jewish American students on
college campuses nationwide are not asked questions such as
this, the discussion raises concern about the increasing rate of
anti-Semitic acts on college campuses, in cemeteries, and other

locations nationwide in the aftermath of the election of
President Donald J. Trump in 2017.
White Ethnics and Sports
Sports provided a pathway to assimilation for many white
ethnics. The earliest collegiate football players who were not
white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were of Irish, Italian, and Jewish
ancestry. Sports participation provided educational
opportunities that some white ethnics would not have had
otherwise.
Boxing became a way to make a living for white ethnics who
did not participate in collegiate sports (Figure 10.13). Boxing
promoters encouraged ethnic rivalries to increase their profits,
pitting Italians against Irish or Jews, and whites against African
Americans (Levine, 1992; Mangione and Morreale, 1992).
Eventually, Italian Americans graduated from boxing into
baseball and football. Jewish Americans found that sports
lessened the shock of assimilation and gave them an opportunity
to refute stereotypes about their physical weaknesses and to
counter anti-Semitic charges that they were “unfit to become
Americans” (Levine, 1992: 272). Today, assimilation is so
complete that little attention is paid to the origins of white
ethnic athletes.
Figure 10.13
Early-twentieth-century Jewish American and Italian American
boxers not only produced intragroup ethnic pride but also
earned a livelihood through boxing matches.
Bettmann/Corbis10-4eAsian Americans
LO 7
Identify the major categories of Asian Americans and describe
their historical and contemporary experiences.
Recent research has found that Asian Americans have the
highest income and the most formal education of any racial
group in the United States. They are also the fastest-growing
racial group in the nation (Pew Research Center Social and

Demographic Trends, 2013).
The U.S. Census Bureau uses the term Asian Americans to
designate the many diverse groups with roots in Asia. Chinese
and Japanese immigrants were among the earliest Asian
Americans. Many Filipinos, Asian Indians, Koreans,
Vietnamese, Cambodians, Pakistani, and Indonesians have
arrived more recently. Asian Americans who reported only one
race constituted about 5.6 percent of the U.S. population in
2015. From 2000 to 2015, there was a nearly 50 percent growth
in the population of Asian Americans (reported alone or in
combination with other racial–ethnic categories) in the United
States. In 2015 about 20.3 million people in the United States
identified themselves as residents of Asian descent or Asian in
combination with one or more other races (U.S. Census Bureau
Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, 2016). About three-
quarters (74 percent) of all Asian American adults were born in
other countries.
Chinese Americans
Chinese Americans are the largest Asian American group, at 4.5
million (U.S. Census Bureau Asian/Pacific American Heritage
Month, 2016). The initial wave of Chinese immigration
occurred between 1850 and 1880, when more than 200,000
Chinese men were “pushed” from China by harsh economic
conditions and “pulled” to the United States by the promise of
gold in California and employment opportunities in the
construction of transcontinental railroads. Far fewer Chinese
women immigrated; however, many were brought to the United
States against their will, and some were forced into prostitution.
Chinese Americans were subjected to extreme prejudice and
stereotyped as “coolies,” “heathens,” and “Chinks.” Some
Asians were attacked and even lynched by working-class whites
who feared that they would lose their jobs to these immigrants.
Passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 brought Chinese
immigration to a halt. The Exclusion Act was not repealed until
World War II, when Chinese Americans who were contributing

to the war effort by working in defense plants pushed for its
repeal. After immigration laws were further relaxed in the
1960s, the second and largest wave of Chinese immigration
occurred, with immigrants coming primarily from Hong Kong
and Taiwan. These recent immigrants have had more education
and workplace skills than earlier arrivals, and they brought
families and capital with them to pursue the American Dream.
Today, many Asians of Chinese descent reside in large urban
enclaves in California, Texas, New York, and Hawaii. As a
group, Asian Americans have enjoyed considerable upward
mobility, and Chinese Americans are no exception. Many have
become highly successful professionals and business
entrepreneurs. However, other Chinese Americans remain in the
lower tier of the working class—providing low-wage labor in
personal services, repair, and maintenance (Pew Research
Center, 2012c).
Japanese Americans
Most of the early Japanese immigrants were men who worked
on sugar plantations in the Hawaiian Islands in the 1860s. Like
Chinese immigrants, the Japanese American workers were
viewed as a threat by white workers, and immigration of
Japanese men was curbed in 1908. However, Japanese women
were permitted to enter the United States for several years
thereafter because of the shortage of women on the West Coast.
Although some Japanese women married white men, laws
prohibiting interracial marriage stopped this practice.
With the exception of the forced migration and genocide
experienced by Native Americans and the enslavement of
African Americans, Japanese Americans experienced one of the
most vicious forms of discrimination ever sanctioned by U.S.
laws. During World War II, when the United States was at war
with Japan, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were placed in
internment camps, where they remained for more than two years
despite the total lack of evidence that they posed a security
threat to this country (Figure 10.14). This action was a direct

violation of the citizenship rights of many Nisei (second-
generation Japanese Americans), who were born in the United
States. Only Japanese Americans were singled out for such
harsh treatment; German Americans avoided this fate even
though the United States was also at war with Germany. Four
decades later, the U.S. government issued an apology for its
actions and eventually paid $20,000 each to some of those who
had been placed in internment camps.
Figure 10.14
During World War II, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans—
some of whom are still alive today—were interned in camps
such as the Manzanar Relocation Center in California, where
this statue memorializes their ordeal.
Joe Sohm/VisionsofAmerica/Photodisc/Getty Images
Since World War II, many Japanese Americans have been very
successful. The annual household income of Japanese
Americans is between $66,000 and $68,000, as contrasted with
approximately $49,800 for the total U.S. population. But, many
Japanese Americans (and other Asian Americans as well) reside
in states with higher than average incomes and higher costs of
living than the national average.
Korean Americans
Male workers primarily made up the first wave of Korean
immigrants who arrived in Hawaii between 1903 and 1910. The
second wave came to the U.S. mainland following the Korean
War in 1954. This cohort was made up primarily of the wives of
servicemen and Korean children who had lost their parents
during the war. The third wave arrived after the Immigration
Act of 1965 permitted well-educated professionals to migrate to
the United States. Korean Americans have helped one another
open small businesses by pooling money through the kye—an
association that grants members money on a rotating basis to
gain access to more capital.
Today, an estimated 1.8 million Korean Americans reside in the

United States, constituting the fifth-largest category of Asian
Americans and about 10 percent of the total adult Asian
population in the nation. Many Korean Americans live in
California and New York, where there is a concentration of
Korean-owned businesses. The median annual household income
for Korean Americans is slightly above $50,000, which is lower
than for all Asians Americans but slightly higher than for the
U.S. population as a whole.
Filipino Americans
Today, Filipino Americans constitute one of the largest
categories of Asian Americans, with about 3.8 million U.S.
residents reporting that they are Filipino alone or in
combination with one or more additional racial–ethnic
categories. To understand the status of Filipino Americans, it is
important to look at the complex relationship between the
Philippine Islands and the U.S. government. After Spain lost the
Spanish-American War, the United States established colonial
rule over the islands, a rule that lasted from 1898 to 1946.
Despite control by the United States, Filipinos were not granted
U.S. citizenship, but male Filipinos were allowed to migrate to
Hawaii and the U.S. mainland to work in agriculture and in fish
canneries in Seattle and Alaska. Like other Asian Americans,
Filipino Americans were accused of taking jobs away from
white workers and suppressing wages, and Congress restricted
Filipino immigration to fifty people per year between the Great
Depression and the aftermath of World War II.
The second wave of Filipino immigrants came following the
Immigration Act of 1965, when large numbers of physicians,
nurses, technical workers, and other professionals moved to the
U.S. mainland. Most Filipinos have not had the start-up capital
necessary to open their own businesses, and many have been
employed in the low-wage sector of the service economy.
However, the average household income of Filipino American
families is relatively high, at nearly $77,000, because, among
other reasons, Filipinos have among the highest level of

educational attainment among Asian Americans.
Indochinese Americans
Indochinese Americans include people from Vietnam,
Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. Vietnamese refugees who had
the resources to flee at the beginning of the Vietnam War were
the first to arrive. The next to arrive were Cambodians and
lowland Laotians, referred to as “boat people” by the media.
Many who tried to immigrate did not survive at sea; others were
turned back when they reached this country or were kept in
refugee camps for long periods of time. When they arrived in
the United States, inflation was high, the country was in a
recession, and many native-born citizens feared that they would
lose their jobs to these new refugees, who were willing to work
very hard for low wages.
In 2015 it was estimated that about 2.0 million adult
Vietnamese Americans resided in the United States, constituting
the fourth-largest group of Asian Americans. About 84 percent
of Vietnamese Americans were foreign born, but nearly 80
percent possess U.S. citizenship. The median household income
of Vietnamese Americans is $55,132.
Like Vietnamese Americans, other Indochinese Americans from
Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos are often first-or second-
generation residents of the United States; about half live in the
western states, especially California. Even though most first-
generation Indochinese immigrants spoke no English when they
arrived in this country, their children and grandchildren have
done very well in school and have been stereotyped as “brains.”
Asian Indian Americans
Asian Indian Americans (also known as Indian Americans or
Indo Americans) trace their origins to India and make up about
1 percent of the U.S. population. Slightly more than 3.8 million
people count themselves as “Asian Indian alone” in U.S. Census
Bureau surveys; however, when counted in combination with
one or more races, they account for nearly 3.2 million people.

Some earlier Asian Indian immigrants arrived on the West Coast
in the 1900s to work in agriculture, but it was not until the
1960s that their population increased significantly.
Initially, Asian Indians were classified as Caucasian and
allowed to become citizens, but they were later barred from
citizenship. It was not until the 1950s that legislation was
passed to lift this restriction, bringing several waves of
immigration. Among the first to arrive were well-educated
professionals and managers and their families. Later groups
were less well educated and found jobs in the service industry,
such as driving taxis, working in fast food, or opening small
family-owned businesses such as restaurants.
Since the 1980s, many Asian Indian Americans have been in top
positions in the high-tech Silicon Valley of
California, particularly in companies such as Google and
Microsoft. However, slightly less than 25 percent of all adult
Asian Indian Americans live in the West, as compared with
nearly half (47 percent) of adult Asian Americans overall. The
largest populations of Asian Indian Americans are found in New
Jersey, New York City, Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Baltimore-
Washington, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los
Angeles, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The median household income of Asian Indian Americans
($101,591) is higher than that of Asian Americans as a whole
($72,689) and of the U.S. population as a whole ($49,800).
Asian Indian Americans have a higher level of educational
attainment than other groups in the United States. Among Asian
Indian Americans, 50.6 percent of adults age 25 and older have
a bachelor’s degree. Of Asian Americans as a whole, 30 percent
hold a bachelor’s degree, as compared to 29 percent of the U.S
population as a whole (U.S. Census Bureau Quick Facts, 2016).
Similarly, 38 percent of the Asian Indian Americans hold
advanced degrees, as compared to 20 percent of Asian
Americans as a whole and 10 percent of the U.S. population as a
whole (Pew Research Center, 2015) (Figure 10.15).
Figure 10.15

Asian American workers, such as these software engineers, now
make up a larger percentage of the high-tech workforce than
white Americans and persons in other racial or ethnic
categories. This change constitutes a dramatic shift in
technology-related jobs and the corresponding distribution of
higher wages and benefits provided by this employment sector.
Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
Asian Indian Americans have experienced hostility and
discrimination in some areas of the country, at least partly
because of their perceived success and the fear that they are
taking opportunities away from native-born Americans. In the
1980s, Asian Indian Americans were targeted by the
“Dotbusters” in New Jersey because some wore a distinctive dot
on their forehead. Others were discriminated against in the
workplace because U.S. workers believed that they were losing
their jobs to outsourcing in countries such as India. Some Asian
Indian American students have taken legal action against a
number of Ivy League universities, claiming that they were the
victims of discrimination because the schools did not want an
overrepresentation of Asian Americans in their student
population. One of the most recent tragedies occurred when a
white supremacist killed four people and injured others at a
Sikh gurdwara, a place of worship, in Wisconsin.
Asian Americans and Sports
Asian American athletes have begun to receive recognition in a
variety of sports, in the past winning acclaim in the Olympics
and in other major sports: Kyla Ross (gymnastics), Nathan
Adrian (swimming), Jeremy Lin (basketball), Nonito Donaire
(boxing), Julie Chu (ice hockey), Ed Wang (football), and
Ichiro Suzuki and Tim Lincecum (baseball). These and a
number of other Asian Americans continue to be recognized as
top athletes. Sports analysts have pointed out the importance of
having outstanding Asian American athletes because they
provide role models for all young people, but especially for

their own communities, exemplifying the integrity, discipline,
and hard work that are necessary to become a success in sports
and in life.10-4fLatinos/as (Hispanic Americans)
LO 8
Describe the unique experiences of Latinos/as (Hispanics) and
Middle Eastern Americans in the United States.
The terms Latino (for males), Latina (for females),
and Hispanic are used interchangeably to refer to people who
trace their origins to Spanish-speaking Latin America and the
Iberian peninsula. However, as racial–ethnic scholars have
pointed out, the label Hispanic was first used by the U.S.
government to designate people of Latin American and Spani sh
descent living in the United States, and it has not been fully
accepted as a source of identity by the more than 56.6 million
Latinos/as who live in the United States today (U.S. Census
Bureau Hispanic Heritage Month, 2016). Instead, many of the
people who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries think
of themselves as Mexican Americans, Chicanos/as, Puerto
Ricans, Cuban Americans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans,
Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Argentines, Hondurans,
Dominicans, or members of other categories. Many also think of
themselves as having a combination of Spanish, African, and
Native American ancestry.
Across all Hispanic categories, more than 40 million persons
ages 5 and older in the United States speak Spanish in their
household. This is a significant increase between 1990 (17.3
million) and 2015. However, more than half (59 percent) of all
Hispanics who speak Spanish indicate in U.S. Census Bureau
surveys that they also speak English “very well.” As discussed
in Chapter 8, Hispanic households have lower median household
incomes and higher rates of poverty (about 25 percent) than
white (non-Hispanic) Americans.
Mexican Americans or Chicanos/as
Mexican Americans—including both native-born and foreign-
born people of Mexican origin—are the largest segment (64

percent) of the Latino/a population in the United States. Most
Mexican Americans live in the southwestern region of the
United States, although more have moved throughout the United
States in recent years.
Immigration from Mexico is the primary vehicle by which the
Mexican American population grew in this country. Initially,
Mexican-origin workers came to work in agriculture, where they
were viewed as a readily available cheap and seasonal labor
force. Many initially entered the United States as undocumented
workers (“illegal aliens”); however, they were more vulnerable
to deportation than other illegal immigrants because of their
visibility and the proximity of their country of origin. For more
than a century, there has been a “revolving door” between the
United States and Mexico that has been open when workers
were needed and closed during periods of economic recession
and high rates of U.S. unemployment.
Mexican Americans have long been seen as a source of cheap
labor, while at the same time they have been stereotyped as lazy
and unwilling to work. As has been true of other groups, when
white workers viewed Mexican Americans as a threat to their
jobs, they demanded that the “illegal aliens” be sent back to
Mexico. Consequently, U.S. citizens who happen to be Mexican
American have been asked for proof of their citizenship,
especially when anti-immigration sentiments are running high.
Many Mexican American families have lived in the United
States for five or six generations—they have fought in wars,
made educational and political gains, and consider themselves
to be solid U.S. citizens. Thus, it is a great source of frustration
for them to be viewed as illegal immigrants or to be asked “How
long have you been in this country?”
The U.S. recession that began in 2007 and the gradual economic
recovery of the second decade of the twenty-first century
considerably reduced the flow of immigration from Mexico to
the United States. The collapse of the U.S. housing market
reduced the number of jobs in the construction industry, and
other employment opportunities were also lost as the financial

crisis took away positions in manufacturing, personal service,
leisure, and other sectors. However, it is clear that Mexican
Americans will continue to make a major contribution to the
U.S. population because the Mexican-origin population
increased by more than 50 percent (from 20.6 million to 32.9
million), with the largest numerical increase of any racial or
ethnic category, between 2000 and 2010 (Pew Research Center,
2012a).
Puerto Ricans
Today, the nearly 5 million Puerto Rican Americans residing in
the United States make up 9.4 percent of Hispanic-origin people
in this country. When Puerto Rico became a territory of the
United States in 1917, Puerto Ricans acquired U.S. citizenship
and the right to move freely to and from the mainland. In the
1950s, many migrated to the mainland when the Puerto Rican
sugar industry collapsed, settling primarily in New York and
New Jersey. Today, more than half of all Puerto Rican
Americans reside in the Northeast, followed by the South,
primarily Florida (Pew Research Center, 2012a).
Although living conditions have improved substantially for
some Puerto Ricans, life has been difficult for the many living
in poverty in Spanish Harlem and other barrios. Nevertheless, in
recent years Puerto Ricans have made dramatic advances in
education, the arts, and politics. Puerto Rican Americans have
higher levels of educational attainment than the Hispanic
population overall: Among Puerto Ricans ages 25 and older, 16
percent have obtained at least a bachelor’s degree, as compared
to 13 percent of all U.S. Hispanics (Pew Research Center,
2012a). However, the annual median household income
($36,000) of Puerto Rican Americans is considerably less than
that of the U.S. population as a whole.
Cuban Americans
Cuban Americans live primarily in the Southeast, especially
Florida. As a group, they have fared somewhat better than other

Latinos/as because many Cuban immigrants were affluent
professionals and businesspeople who fled Cuba after Fidel
Castro’s 1959 Marxist revolution. This early wave of Cuban
immigrants has median incomes well above those of other
Latinos/as; however, this group is still below the national
average. The second wave of Cuban Americans, arriving in the
1970s, has fared worse. Many had been released from prisons
and mental hospitals in Cuba, and their arrival fueled an
upsurge in prejudice against all Cuban Americans. The more-
recent arrivals have developed their own ethnic and economic
enclaves in Miami’s Little Havana, and many of the earlier
immigrants have become mainstream professionals and
entrepreneurs.
Latinos/as and Sports
For more than a century, Latinos have played Major League
Baseball in the United States (Figure 10.16). Originally,
Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Venezuelans were selected for their
light skin as well as for their skill as players. Baseball became a
major means of assimilation for earlier Latinos in the United
States. By 2012, Latinos represented more than 25 percent of
Major League Baseball players, and growing numbers also
participated in football, hockey, and basketball at all levels of
competition. In women’s sports, golf, soccer, and basketball
also had rising numbers of Latina athletes.
Figure 10.16
Professional sports, particularly baseball, increasingly reflects
the growing racial–ethnic and national diversity of the U.S.
population.
Jim West/The Image Works
In addition to baseball, Latinos have made impressive gains in
Major League Soccer in the United States and Canada; however,
many people in the United States are less enthusiastic fans of
soccer as compared to football. Consequently, salaries of
professional soccer players are lower than in the high-profile

sports, fan bases are smaller, and revenues from sales of team
clothing are not as lucrative. However, the sixteen U.S. and
three Canadian soccer teams provide opportunities for Latino
athletes to be highly visible in professional sports in regions
with large Latino/a populations.10-4gMiddle Eastern Americans
Since 1970, many immigrants have arrived in the United States
from countries located in the “Middle East,” which is the
geographic region from Afghanistan to Libya and including
Arabia, Cyprus, and Asiatic Turkey. Placing people in the
“Middle Eastern” American category is somewhat like placing
wide diversities of people in the categories of Asian American
or Latino/a; some U.S. residents trace their origins to countries
such as Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE (United Arab Emirates), and
Yemen. Middle Eastern Americans speak a variety of languages
and have diverse religious backgrounds: Some are Muslim,
some are Coptic Christian, and others are Melkite Catholic.
Although some are from working-class families, Lebanese
Americans, Syrian Americans, Iranian Americans, and Kuwaiti
Americans primarily come from middle- and upper-income
family backgrounds. For example, numerous Iranian Americans
are scientists, professionals, and entrepreneurs.
Arab Americans
In the twenty-first century, about 3.5 million people in the
United States identify their family’s country of origin as being
an Arab country. The primary countries of origin are Lebanon,
Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Iraq. Although Arab Americans live
throughout the United States, nearly half live in California,
Michigan, New York, Florida, and New Jersey. One-third of all
Arab Americans reside in one of three major metropolitan
areas—Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York. Most Arab
Americans were born in the United States, and over 80 percent
are U.S. citizens.
Since the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Arab Americans
in the United States has become better known because of

campaigns promoting the slogan “check it right, you ain’t
White” that were launched by various Arab American groups to
encourage Arab Americans to check the “Other” box when they
filled out the 2010 Census form and then to identify themselves
as “Arab” or to indicate their specific country of origin.
Iranian (Persian) Americans
About 1.5 million Iranian Americans live in the United States in
the 2010s. However, no official statistics are available because
these data are not collected by the Census Bureau. Instead, the
annual American Community Survey, a sample survey, asks
questions of ancestry that provide this information.
The terms Iranian American and Persian American are used
interchangeably because Iran was called Persia prior to 1935.
Many Iranian Americans refer to themselves as “Persian” rather
than “Iranian” because of the perceived negativity associated
with the political history of the country of Iran and its
relationship to the United States. It should be noted that Persian
Americans are not considered to be Arab because they speak
Farsi and have a different culture.
The most extensive immigration of Iranians to the United States
began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when early immigrants,
particularly college students, left Iran as the Iranian revolution
was taking place. When the Islamic Republic was established
after the revolution, many Iranian students decided to remain in
the United States, and other Iranians also left their country and
established a new life in this nation. Today, the United States
has the highest number of Iranian residents outside of Iran.
More than 80 percent of Iranian Americans are U.S. citizens.
Many Iranian Americans have high levels of educational
attainment and are employed in professional positions in
business, academia, and science.
Discrimination
Despite such high level of achievement, Iranian Americans, like
Arab Americans, have experienced persistent discrimination,

particularly if they are Muslim (Figure 10.17) or if there has
been a recent terrorist scare in the United States. Following the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by terrorists
whose origins were traced to the Middle East, there was an
escalation in the number of hate crimes and other types of
discrimination against persons assumed to be Arabs, Arab
Americans, Iranian Americans, or Muslims. In the aftermath of
this terrorist attack, the U.S. Patriot Act was passed. This law
gave the federal government greater authority to engage in
searches and surveillance of persons suspected of terrorist
activity than in the past. The Patriot Act caused heightened
concern among many individuals and groups because it was
believed that this law might be used to target individuals who
appear to be of Middle Eastern origins.
Figure 10.17
Muslims in the United States who wear traditional attire may
face prejudice and/or discrimination as they go about their daily
lives.
JAGADEESH NV/epa/Corbis
What about the Muslim experience in the United States? In
cities across this country, Muslims have established social,
economic, and ethnic enclaves for social stability and personal
safety. Islamic schools and centers often bring together people
from a diversity of countries such as Egypt and Pakistan. Many
Muslim leaders and parents focus on how to raise children to be
good Muslims and good U.S. citizens. In the second decade of
the twenty-first century, some Middle Eastern Americans
experience discrimination based on their speech patterns,
appearance, and clothing (such as the hijabs, or “head-to-toe
covering” that leaves only the face exposed, which many girls
and women wear). The idea that Middle Easterners are somehow
associated with terrorism has also been difficult to remove from
media representations and some people’s thinking, producing
ongoing hardship for many upstanding citizens of this nation.

Middle Eastern Americans and Sports
Although an increasing number of Islamic schools now focus on
sports for teenage boys, overall there has been less emphasis
placed on competitive athletics among Middle Eastern
Americans when compared to other groups. Based on popular
sporting events in their countries of origin, some Middle
Eastern Americans play golf or soccer. As well, some Iranian
Americans follow the soccer careers of professional players
from Iran who now play for German, Austrian, Belgian, and
Greek clubs. Over time, sports participation will probably
continue to increase among Middle Eastern American males,
particularly in soccer and golf; however, girls and women in
more-traditional Muslim families typically have not participated
in athletic activities unless they are conducted privately.10-
5Looking Ahead: The Future of Global Racial and Ethnic
Inequality
Throughout the world, many racial and ethnic groups seek self-
determination—the right to choose their own way of life. As
many nations are currently structured, however, self-
determination is impossible.10-5aWorldwide Racial and Ethnic
Struggles
The cost of self-determination is the loss of life and property in
ethnic warfare. Ethnic violence has persisted in Mali, Myanmar,
Bangladesh, India, China, South Sudan, and many other regions
where hundreds of thousands have died from warfare, disease,
and refugee migration. Ethnic wars have a high price even for
survivors, whose life chances can become bleaker even after the
violence subsides.
In the twenty-first century, the struggle between the Israeli
government and various Palestinian factions over the future and
borders of Palestine continues to make headlines. Discord in
this region has heightened tensions among people not only in
Israel and Palestine but also in the United States and around the
world as deadly clashes continue and political leaders are
apparently unable to reach a lasting solution to the decades-long
strife.10-5bGrowing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the United

States
Racial and ethnic diversity is increasing in the United States.
African Americans, Latinos/as, Asian Americans, Native
Americans, and mixed-race individuals constitute more than a
third (39 percent) of the U.S. population—up from 30.9 percent
in 2000 (Humes, Jones, and Ramirez, 2011). As shown in Figure
10.18, states vary in their percentage of population that are
minorities. Today, non-Hispanic white Americans make up 61
percent of the population, in contrast to 80 percent in 1980. It is
predicted that by 2056, the roots of the average U.S. resident
will be in Africa, Asia, Hispanic countries, the Pacific islands,
and the Middle East—not white Europe.
Figure 10.18Minority Populations and Percentages by State,
2010*
* Percentages are rounded to nearest whole number.
Source: Humes, Jones, and Ramirez, 2011.
What effect will these changes have on racial and ethnic
relations? Several possibilities exist. On the one hand, conflicts
may become more overt and confrontational as people continue
to use sincere fictions—personal beliefs that reflect larger
societal mythologies, such as “I am not a racist” or “I have
never discriminated against anyone” —even when these are
inaccurate perceptions (Feagin and Vera, 1995). Although the
term sincere fictions was coined two decades ago, we face the
real possibility in the future that interethnic tensions, as well as
many other forms, may increase as competition for scarce
resources such as education, jobs, and valued goods in society
continues to grow and the U.S. population continues to age.
On the other hand, there is reason for cautious optimism.
Throughout U.S. history, members of diverse racial and ethnic
groups have struggled to gain the freedom and rights that were
previously withheld from them. Today, minority grassroots
organizations are pressing for affordable housing, job training,
and educational opportunities. As discussed in “You Can Make

a Difference,” movements composed of both whites and people
of color continue to oppose racism in everyday life, to seek to
heal divisions among racial groups, and to teach children about
racial tolerance. Many groups hope not only to affect their own
microcosm but also to contribute to worldwide efforts to end
racism.
You Can Make a Difference
Working for Racial and Gender Harmony on College Campuses
How can you promote racial and gender harmony on your
college campus? One student, Morgane Richardson, decided to
establish a group called “Refuse the Silence.” The organization
collected stories of women of color who were either attending
or had graduated from an “elite liberal arts college in the United
States” and had experienced problems such as sexual assault.
Organizations such as Refuse the Silence seek to identify the
unique problems of students of color, particularly women, in
regard to racism and sexual assault on elite campuses. However,
concerns about racial inequality, discrimination, and assault
exist on all campuses. You can help by establishing a similar
organization or website at your institution to determine how to
best address this pressing problem and bring greater racial and
gender harmony on campus.
If you are interested in starting your own organization or
developing a blog to look at racism, sexism, or similar issues,
consider how the following factors contribute to the problem:
· (1)
divisiveness between different cultural and ethnic communities;
· (2)
persistent lack of trust;
· (3)
the fact that many people never really communicate with one
another, despite the omnipresence of social media;
· (4)
the need to bring different voices into the curriculum and
college life generally; and

· (5)
the need to learn respect for people from different backgrounds.
Your group could also develop a set of questions to be
answered. Consider these topics for developing questions on
campus racism:
1. Encouraging inclusion and acceptance. Do members of our
group reflect the college’s racial and ethnic diversity? How
much do I know about other people’s history and culture? How
can I become more tolerant—or accepting—of people who are
different from me?
2. Raising consciousness. What is racism? What causes it? Can
people participate in racist language and behavior without
realizing what they are doing? What is our college or university
doing to reduce racism?
3. Becoming more self-aware. How much do I know about my
own family roots and ethnic background? How do the families
and communities where we grow up affect our perceptions of
racial and ethnic relations?
4. Using available resources. What resources are available for
learning more about working to reduce racism? Here are some
agencies to contact:
· The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
· The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
· The National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
· The National Council of La Raza
What additional items would you add to the list of problem
areas on your campus? Would you like to also address Morgane
Richardson’s concern about woman of color and sexual
violence? What goals would your organization have? How might
your objectives be reached? Over time, students like you have
changed many colleges and universities as a result of personal
involvement in dealing with pressing social issues!
To eliminate racial discrimination, it will be necessary to
equalize opportunities in schools and workplaces. According to
Michael Omi and Howard Winant (2013), it is important for us

to be aware of race, rather than ignoring it, if we wish to
challenge the problem of racism. If we are aware that race as a
social construction exists and has meaning in everyday life, we
will gain the political insights necessary to mobilize ourselves
and others against injustice and inequality in our
society.Chapter Review Q & A
· LO1How do race and ethnicity differ?
A race is a category of people who have been singled out as
inferior or superior, often on the basis of physical
characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, or eye shape. An
ethnic group is a collection of people distinguished primarily by
cultural or national characteristics, including unique cultural
traits, a sense of community, a feeling of ethnocentrism,
ascribed membership, and territoriality.
· LO2How do racial and ethnic classifications continue to
change in the United States?
Racial classifications in the United States have changed over
the past century. If we look at U.S. Census Bureau
classifications, for example, we can see how the meaning of
race continues to change. First, race is defined by perceived
skin color: white or nonwhite. Census 2000 made it possible—
for the first time—for individuals to classify themselves as
being of more than one race.
· LO3What are prejudice, stereotypes, racism, scapegoat, and
discrimination?
Prejudice is a negative attitude often based on stereotypes,
which are overgeneralizations about the appearance, behavior,
or other characteristics of all members of a group. Stereotypes
are overgeneralizations about the appearance, behavior, or other
characteristics of members of particular categories. Racism is a
set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that is used to justify the
superior treatment of one racial or ethnic group and the inferior
treatment of another racial or ethnic group. A scapegoat is a
person or group that is incapable of offering resistance to the
hostility or aggression of others Discrimination involves actions
or practices of dominant-group members that have a harmful

effect on members of a subordinate group.
· LO4How do sociologists view racial and ethnic group
relations?
Symbolic interactionists claim that intergroup contact may
either intensify or reduce racial and ethnic stereotyping and
prejudice, depending on the context. In the contact
hypothesis, symbolic interactionists point out that contact
between people from divergent groups should lead to favorable
attitudes and behavior when certain factors are present.
Functionalists stress that members of subordinate groups
become a part of the mainstream through assimilation, the
process by which members of subordinate groups become
absorbed into the dominant culture. Conflict theorists focus on
economic stratification and access to power in race and ethnic
relations. The caste perspective views inequality as a permanent
feature of society, whereas class perspectives focus on the link
between capitalism and racial exploitation. According to racial
formation theory, the actions of the U.S. government
substantially define racial and ethnic relations.
· LO5What are the unique historical experiences of Native
Americans and WASPs in the United States?
Experts estimate that approximately two million native
inhabitants lived in North America in 1492; their numbers had
been reduced to fewer than 240,000 by 1900. Native Americans
have been the victims of genocide and forced migration. After
the Revolutionary War, the federal government broke treaty
after treaty as it engaged in a policy of wholesale removal of
indigenous nations in order to clear the land for settlement by
Anglo-Saxon “pioneers.” Data continue to show that Native
Americans are the most disadvantaged racial or ethnic group in
the United States in terms of income, employment, housing,
nutrition, and health. Whereas Native Americans have been
among the most disadvantaged peoples, white Anglo-Saxon
Protestants (WASPs) have been the most privileged group in
this country. Although many English settlers initially came to
North America as indentured servants or as prisoners, they

quickly emerged as the dominant group, creating a core culture
(including language, laws, and holidays) to which all other
groups were expected to adapt.
· LO6How have slavery, segregation, lynching, and persistent
discrimination uniquely affected the African American
experience in this country?
The African American (black) experience has been one uniquely
marked by slavery, segregation, and persistent discrimination.
Between 1619 and the 1860s, about 500,000 Africans were
forcibly brought to North America, primarily to work on
southern plantations, and these actions were justified by the
devaluation and stereotyping of African Americans. Following
the abolishment of slavery in 1863, African Americans were
still subjected to segregation, discrimination, and lynchings.
Despite civil rights legislation and economic and political gains
by many African Americans, racial prejudice and discrimination
continue to exist.
· LO7What are the major categories of Asian Americans, and
what are their historical and contemporary experiences?
The term Asian Americans designates the many diverse groups
with roots in Asia. Chinese and Japanese immigrants were
among the earliest Asian Americans. Many Filipinos, Asian
Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Pakistani, and
Indonesians have arrived more recently. The subgroups are
listed as Chinese Americans (the largest Asian American
group), Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Filipino
Americans (the second-largest category of Asian Americans),
and Indochinese Americans (which include people from
Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos). Asian American
immigrants as a group have enjoyed considerable upward
mobility in U.S. society in recent decades, but many Asian
Americans still struggle to survive by working at low -paying
jobs and living in urban ethnic enclaves.
· LO8What have been the unique experiences of Latinos/as
(Hispanics) and Middle Eastern Americans in the United States?
Mexican Americans—including both native-born and foreign-

born people of Mexican origin—are the largest segment
(approximately two-thirds) of the Latino/a population in the
United States. Today, Puerto Rican Americans make up 9
percent of Hispanic-origin people in the United States.
Although some Latinos/as have made substantial political,
economic, and professional gains in U.S. society, as a group
they are nevertheless subjected to anti-immigration sentiments.
Since 1970, many immigrants have arrived in the United States
from countries located in the “Middle East,” which is the
geographic region from Afghanistan to Libya and includes
Arabia, Cyprus, and Asiatic Turkey. Middle Eastern immigrants
to the United States speak a variety of languages and have
diverse religious backgrounds. Because they generally come
from middle-class backgrounds, they have made inroads into
mainstream U.S. society. However, some Middle Eastern
Americans experience discrimination based on their speech
patterns, appearance, and clothing. The idea that Middle
Easterners are somehow associated with terrorism has also been
difficult to remove from media representations and some
people’s thinking, which produces ongoing hardship for many
upstanding citizens of this nation.
Unit 5.2: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality ch.11
11-1Sex: The Biological Dimension
LO 1
Distinguish between sex and gender.
Whereas the word gender is often used to refer to the distinctive
qualities of men and women (masculinity and femininity) that
are culturally created, sex refers to the biological and
anatomical differences between females and males. At the core
of these biological and anatomical differences is the
chromosomal information transmitted at the moment a child is
conceived. The mother contributes an X chromosome and the
father either an X (which produces a female embryo) or a Y
(which produces a male embryo). At birth, male and female
infants are distinguished by primary sex characteristics: the
genitalia used in the reproductive process. At puberty, an

increased production of hormones results in the development
of secondary sex characteristics: the physical traits (other than
reproductive organs) that identify an individual’s sex. For
women, these include larger breasts, wider hips, and narrower
shoulders; a layer of fatty tissue throughout the body; and
menstruation. For men, they include development of enlarged
genitals, a deeper voice, greater height, a more muscular build,
and more body and facial hair.11-1aIntersex and Transgender
Persons
Sex is not always clear-cut. An intersex person is an individual
who is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not
correspond to the typical definitions of male or female; in other
words, the person’s sexual differentiation is ambiguous.
Formerly referred to as hermaphrodites by some in the medical
community, intersex persons may appear to be female on the
outside at birth but have mostly male-type anatomy on the
inside, or they may be born with genitals that appear to be in
between the usual male and female types. For example, a
chromosomally normal (XY) male may be born with a penis just
one centimeter long and a urinary opening similar to that of a
female. However, although intersexuality is considered to be an
inborn condition, intersex anatomy is not always known or
visible at birth. In fact, intersex anatomy sometimes does not
become apparent until puberty, when an adult is found to be
infertile, or when an autopsy is performed at death. It is
possible for some intersex people to live and die with intersexed
anatomy but never know that the condition exists. According to
the Intersex Society of North America (2015),
Intersex is a socially constructed category that reflects real
biological variation. Nature presents us with sex anatomy
spectrums [but] nature doesn’t decide where the category of
“male” ends and the category of “intersex” begins, or where the
category of “intersex” ends and the category of “female”
begins. Humans decide. Humans (today, typically doctors)
decide how small a penis has to be, or how unusual a
combination of parts has to be, before it counts as intersex.

Humans decide whether a person with XXY chromosomes and
XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity will count as
intersex.
Some people may be genetically of one sex but have a gender
identity of the other. That is true for a transgender person—an
individual whose gender identity (self-identification as woman,
man, neither, or both) does not match the person’s assigned sex
(identification by others as male, female, or intersex based on
physical/genetic sex). Consequently, transgender persons may
believe that they have the opposite gender identity from that of
their sex organs and may be aware of this conflict between
gender identity and physical sex as early as the preschool years.
Some transgender individuals choose to take hormone
treatments or have a sex change operation to alter their genitalia
so that they can have a body congruent with their sense of
gender identity (Figure 11.1). Many then go on to lead lives that
they view as being compatible with their true gender identity.
But the issue of hormonal and surgical sex reassignment
remains highly politicized. The “Standards of Care,” a set of
guidelines set up by the Harry Benjamin International Gender
Dysphoria Association, establishes standards by which
transgender persons may obtain hormonal and surgical sex
reassignment to help ensure that people choosing such options
are informed about what is involved in a gender transition.
Figure 11.1
Caitlyn Jenner (formerly known as Bruce Jenner) went through
a very public gender transformation from male to female and
became a spokesperson for transgender persons. What influence
do you think high-profile people like Caitlyn Jenner have on the
attitudes and actions of other people in regard to the LGBTQ
community?
Featureflash Photo Agency/ Shutterstock.com
Western societies acknowledge the existence of only two sexes;
some other societies recognize three—men, women,
and berdaches (or hijras or xaniths): biological males who

behave, dress, work, and are treated in most respects as women.
The closest approximation of a third sex in Western societies is
a crossdresser (formerly known as a transvestite), a male who
dresses as a woman or a female who dresses as a man but does
not alter his or her genitalia. Although crossdressers are not
treated as a third sex, they often “pass” for members of that sex
because their appearance and mannerisms fall within the range
of what is expected from members of the other sex. Most
crossdressers are heterosexual men, many of whom are married,
but gay men, lesbians, and straight women may also be
crossdressers. Crossdressing can occur in conjunction with
homosexuality, but this is frequently not the case. Researchers
and analysts continue to engage in dialogue about the correct
terminology to use when referring to persons in the diverse
groups that now make up this segment of the population.11-
1bSexual Orientation
Sexual orientation refers to an individual’s preference for
emotional–sexual relationships with members of the different
sex (heterosexuality), the same sex (homosexuality), or both
(bisexuality). In referring to homosexuality, many organizations
representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer
persons have adopted the acronym LGBTQ. The
term lesbian refers to females who prefer same-sex
relationships; gay refers to males who prefer same-sex
relationships. As noted above, bisexual is the term used to
describe a person’s physical or romantic attraction to both
males and females, whereas transgender is a term applied to
persons whose appearance, behavior, and/or gender identity
does not match that individual’s assigned sex. The “Q” in
LGBTQ variously means “questioning” or “queer,” and
sometimes the acronym is written LGBTQQ to include both
“questioning” and “queer.” When the “Q” stands for
“questioning,” it refers to a person who is uncertain about his or
her sexual orientation. When the “Q” stands for “queer,” it is an
umbrella term for the Queer Movement to indicate pride in
one’s sexual orientation and a rejection of the older, derogatory

use of the word queer to disparage a nonheterosexual person’s
orientation.
What criteria have social scientists used to study sexual
orientation? A definitive study of sexuality conducted by
researchers at the University of Chicago established three
criteria for identifying people as homosexual or bisexual:
· (1)
sexual attraction to persons of one’s own gender,
· (2)
sexual involvement with one or more persons of one’s own
gender, and
· (3)
self-identification as a gay, lesbian, or bisexual (Laumann et
al., 1994).
According to these criteria, then, having engaged in a
homosexual act does not necessarily classify a person as
homosexual. In fact, many respondents in the University of
Chicago study indicated that although they had at least one
homosexual encounter when they were younger, they were no
longer involved in homosexual conduct and never identified
themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Measuring Sexual Orientation
It is difficult to determine how many people identify as LGBT
because of a lack of official statistics. In 2012, for the first time
the Gallup survey asked this question: “Do you, personally,
identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?” (Their
questionnaire did not include the “Q” for queer or questioning.)
More than 120,000 people responded to this survey, making it
the largest study of its kind to date, and about 3.4 percent of
U.S. adults answered “yes” to the question, thereby self-
identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (Gates and
Newport, 2012). Unfortunately, it is not possible to separately
consider differences among lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or
transgender individuals because of the way the data were
collected.

Gallup researchers emphasize that measuring sexual orientation
and gender identity is “challenging since these concepts involve
complex social and cultural patterns” (Gates and Newport,
2012: 2). Because of a lingering social stigma attached to the
LGBT identity, people are not always forthcoming about their
identity when asked to respond to a survey. As a result, an
unknown number of individuals remain in what is often referred
to as the “closet” and are not included in estimates of the LGBT
population.
LGBT Population Estimates
What do we know about the size of the LGBT community?
Gallup polls conducted annually have found that about 10
million American adults self-identify as LGBT (their
terminology), or 4.1 percent of the U.S. population. Gallup also
found that that nonwhites are more likely than whites to identify
as LGBT. The portion of African Americans has remained
relatively consistent at 4.6 percent, compared to an increase to
4.9 percent of Asian Americans and 5.4 percent of Hispanics in
the study. Persons with lower levels of education were more
likely to identify as LGBT, including 4.1 percent of those with
less than a high school education, 4.1 percent of those who had
some college education but not a college degree, 4.1 percent of
college graduations, and 3.9 percent respondents with post
graduate education (Gates, 2017). A higher proportion of people
with lower incomes identify as LGBT: About 5.5 percent of
those with incomes of less than $36,000 per year self-identified,
as compared with 4.0 percent of those making between $26,000
and $90,000 per year, and 3.7 percent making $90,000 or more.
Those who were not religious (7.0 percent) were more likely to
self-identify than the highly religious (1.9 percent), with the
“moderately religious” in between at 3.5 percent (Gates, 2017).
In 2012, 3.5 percent of women identified as LGBT, as compared
to 3.4 percent of men. However, by 2016, LGBT identification
increased to 4.4 percent for women as compared to 3.7 percent
for men. Younger adults between the ages of 18 and 36 were

more likely to self-identify (7.3 percent) than older persons
between the ages of 52 and 70 (2.4 percent) and 71 to 103 years
(1.4 percent). These figures may reflect continuing societal
opposition among some political leaders and persons in the
general public to equal rights and opportunities for persons in
the LGBT community. (To see the full report, go to the Gallup
website and search for “Special Report: 3.4% of U.S. Adults
Identify as LGBT.”)
How valid are these estimates of the LGBT population in the
United States? The figures from Gallup are relatively consistent
with a previous study by the Williams Institute at the University
of California at Los Angeles School of Law, in which
researchers estimated that approximately nine million people
(about 3.8 percent of all Americans) identify as gay, lesbian,
bisexual, or transgender. According to this report, bisexuals
make up 1.8 percent of the U.S. population, with more women
than men typically identifying as bisexual. Only a slightly
smaller proportion (1.7 percent) identify as being gay or
lesbian. Transgender adults make up 0.3 percent of the
population (Gates, 2011).
Gallup and other organizations continue to engage in research
on the LGBT population. One of the Gallup Organization’s
most-recent surveys focused on where LGBTQ Americans live.
Based on surveys of more than 374,000 people, the study
identified ten metropolitan areas with the largest shares of
LGBT people as residents. The highest percentage (6.2 percent)
was found in San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, California,
followed by Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, Oregon–
Washington (5.4 percent), and then Austin–Round Rock, Texas
(5.3 percent). Other areas included in the top ten were New
Orleans, Seattle, Boston, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Denver,
and Hartford. The lowest percentages of LGBT populations
were found in Birmingham–Hoover, Alabama (2.6 percent),
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (3.0 percent), Memphis, San Jose,
Raleigh, Cincinnati, Houston, Oklahoma City, Richmond,
Nashville, and Milwaukee. However, the study concluded that

respondents did not see the issue of openness to and acceptance
of the gay population as a major concern when they chose where
to live. According to the Gallup researchers, this fact might be
an indication that more people in the LGBT community now
perceive of this country as being more tolerant of diversity
regardless of where you live. Complete results of this study are
available on the Gallup Organization website at “San Francisco
Metro Area Ranks Highest in LGBT Percentage.”11-
1cDiscrimination Based on Sexual Orientation
LO 2
Discuss prejudice and discrimination based on sexual
orientation.
The United States has numerous forms of discrimination based
on sexual orientation. One of the most obvious issues was the
fact that, throughout most of U.S. history, LGBTQ couples
could not enter into legally recognized marital relationships.
Many states passed constitutional amendments that limited
marriage to a union between a man and a woman, and in other
states, legislators had passed statutes with similar language.
Prior to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v.
Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage across the United
States, thirty-seven states had legalized same-sex marriage as a
result of court decisions, state laws passed by legislatures, or
popular vote. In 2015 thirteen states still banned same-sex
marriage through constitutional amendment and/or state law.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the
Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, many
other issues pertaining to inequalities based on sexual
orientation remain to be resolved. Among these are marital
property rights, the ability to adopt children, and equal access
to benefits that previously have been provided only to persons
in legal heterosexual marriages. Consider, for example, parental
rights.
Parental rights remain an issue of grave concern to LGBT
couples in a number of states. Among the ways in which persons
in the LGBT community become parents are by adoption, foster

parenting, donor insemination, surrogacy, and having children
from previous heterosexual relationships. Laws governing
family relationships vary significantly from state to state. In
some states, same-sex partners who want to adopt a child or are
raising children together (typically from a previous heterosexual
marriage) learn that only one partner is legally recognized as
the child’s parent or guardian. The LGBT community has
struggled to gain the same parental rights in regard to legal and
physical custody of children as heterosexual couples, including
the right to physical access or visitation with a child, and
various other rights pertaining to the property and well-being of
a child. If gay and lesbian couples are denied parental rights by
law and in the courts of the land, they have little or no legal
recourse and are unable to exert authority over their children’s
lives, health care, or property.
Another pressing issue is housing discrimination. Housing
discrimination is a problem in the LGBT community because
the Fair Housing Act, which affords some redress for some
other minority groups, does not apply. According
to HUD.gov (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, 2015), “The Fair Housing Act does not
specifically include sexual orientation and gender identity as
prohibited bases. However, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or
transgender (LGBT) person’s experience with sexual orientation
or gender identity housing discrimination may still be covered
by the Fair Housing Act.” Sometimes, HUD (Housing and Urban
Development) guidelines come into play in ensuring equal
access to housing for LGBT persons. Examples of housing
discrimination include LGBT persons who have been
discriminated against by real estate agents who refuse to show
them houses in “family-oriented” apartments, condo buildings,
or neighborhoods. Some finance and insurance companies have
treated same-sex couples differently from other prospective
homebuyers or lessees. Transgender persons have been
particularly harmed by discriminatory practices in housing. One
study found that transgender respondents were four times more

likely to live in extreme poverty, and one in five respondents
stated that they had experienced homelessness at some time in
the past because of their gender identity (thetaskforce.org,
2011).
Health care is another area of discrimination based on sexual
orientation. Many in the LGBTQ community believed that
progress was being made in this area with the passage of the
ACA; however the future of Obamacare is in doubt as the
Trump Administration and the U.S. Congress are engaged in a
sustained effort to repeal and replace this law. Prior to the
Affordable Care Act, many LGBT people were unable to afford
the high cost of health insurance coverage, and some were
unable to acquire employer-provided health insurance because
they were not allowed by their partner’s employer to be counted
as a dependent under the partner’s insurance plan. This remains
true in some areas, but changes have been made in others as
state laws and the political climate in some areas have changed.
Prior to the Affordable Care Act, LGBT individuals were denied
insurance on the basis of preexisting conditions such as
HIV/AIDS. The health care problem remains especially
pronounced among transgender people, some of whom report
that they have been refused care because of bias. A recent study
found that 42 percent of female-to-male transgender adults
reported verbal harassment, physical assault, or denial of equal
treatment in a doctor’s office or hospital. It is difficult, if not
impossible, for many transgender people to identify themselves
on medical forms as anything other than male or female
(Seaman, 2015). Transgender respondents also have over four
times the national average of HIV infection, which contributes
to some health care professionals’ lack of desire to provide
medical treatment. Further confounding the problem of
discrimination is the race, ethnicity, and/or class of LGBT
persons.
Occupational discrimination remains a pressing problem for
people in the LGBT community. Despite laws prohibiting
discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation,

openly LGBT people have often experienced bias in hiring,
retention, and promotion in employment. However, in recent
years, greater inclusion has occurred as there has been greater
acceptance in society at large. In the twenty-first century, more
Fortune 500 companies have included gender identity in their
employee nondiscrimination policies, and other corporations
have done likewise. Of course, it remains to be seen the extent
to which actual compliance with these policies occurs and the
workplace becomes truly more diversified and accepting of the
LGBT community.
Historically, one of the most widely publicized forms of
discrimination against gays and lesbians has been in the
military. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy implemented in
1993 by the Clinton Administration required that commanders
not ask a serviceperson about his or her sexual orientation. Gays
and lesbians were allowed to serve in the military as long as
they did not reveal their orientation. However, various studies
showed that this policy led to differential treatment of many
gays and lesbians in the military. As many as 13,000 military
personnel may have been discharged under this law, and gay
rights organizations advocated for its repeal, arguing that the
rules were discriminatory and that they kept gay troops from
seeking medical care or reporting domestic abuse for fear of
being exposed and expelled from their military branch. In 2010
President Barack Obama signed the repeal of the policy, thus
allowing gay and lesbian Americans to serve openly in the
armed forces.
Various organizations of gays, lesbians, and transgender
persons have been unified in their desire to reduce
discrimination and other forms of homophobia—extreme
prejudice and sometimes discriminatory actions directed at
gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender persons, and others who
are perceived as not being heterosexual (Figure 11.2).
Homophobia involves an aversion to LGBT people or their
lifestyle, and it sometimes includes behavior or an act, such as a
hate crime, based on this aversion. Because of violence against

LGBT individuals in the past, laws have been passed such as the
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention
Act that attempt to prevent such crimes or to bring to justice
those individuals who perpetrate such violent acts in the future.
Figure 11.2
For many years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons,
and others who support their cause, have participated in rallies
to highlight the problem of homophobia and demand changes in
laws that discriminate against LGBT persons. Public opinion
and law eventually changed on the issue of same-sex marriage
through the efforts of persons in social movements such as the
one shown here.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Some of the more recently publicized forms of potential
discrimination against the LGBT community are the “religious
freedom” bills that twenty-one states have passed as of mid-year
2015 and sixteen other states have introduced as new
legislation. For example, supporters of the 2015 Religious
Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana and Arkansas claim
that the laws are merely for protection of religious freedom in
for-profit corporations. Critics of RFRA view this type of law
as a possible vehicle to promote discrimination against members
of the LGBT community by allowing conservative Christian
vendors to decline to provide various wedding-related services
(such as flowers, wedding cakes, ceremony planning, and
venues) for same-sex partners. The laws apply religious rights
to businesses and corporations, so it is possible that these
vendors and service companies could use the laws to refuse to
serve partners who are planning same-sex weddings. Because of
the increase in the number of states allowing same-sex
marriage, the intent of such laws may be to keep businesspeople
from having to participate in any way if their religious
convictions dictate otherwise. It is unclear what, if any, effect
these laws will have on the LGBT community or whether

additional states will pass similar legislation in the future.
Despite changes in marriage laws in more states in recent years,
RFRA laws are an indication that battles among diverse
ideological viewpoints and constituencies, as well as the
struggle for equal rights for the LGBT community, are far from
over. Some analysts believe that until a federal law and/or laws
in all fifty states are passed protecting the various classes of
sexual orientation and gender identity, LGBT people will not
achieve greater equality in the United States (Ford, 2015).
How might we describe the type of prejudice and discrimination
experienced by the LGBT community? Some social scientists
use the term heterosexism to describe an ideological system that
denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes any nonheterosexual form of
behavior, identity, relationship, or community. This term is
used as a parallel to other forms of prejudice and
discrimination, including racism, sexism, ageism, and anti -
Semitism. Clearly, from this perspective, issues pertaining to
homosexuality and heterosexism are not just biological issues
but also social constructions that involve societal customs and
institutions. Let’s turn to the cultural dimension of gender to
see how socially constructed differences between females and
males are crucial in determining how we identify ourselves as
girls or boys, women or men.11-2Gender: The Cultural
Dimension
LO 3
Define gender role, gender identity, body consciousness,
and sexism.
Gender refers to the culturally and socially constructed
differences between females and males found in the meanings,
beliefs, and practices associated with “femininity” and
“masculinity.” Although biological differences between women
and men are very important, in reality most “sex differences”
are socially constructed “gender differences.” According to
sociologists, social and cultural processes, not biological
“givens,” are most important in defining what females and
males are, what they should do, and what sorts of relations do

or should exist between them. In a now-classic statement, the
sociologist Judith Lorber (1994: 6) summarized the importance
of gender:
Gender is a human invention, like language, kinship, religion,
and technology; like them, gender organizes human social life
in culturally patterned ways. Gender organizes social relations
in everyday life as well as in the major social structures, such
as social class and the hierarchies of bureaucratic organizations.
Virtually everything social in our lives is gendered: People
continually distinguish between males and females and evaluate
them differentially. Gender is an integral part of the daily
experiences of both women and men (Kimmell and Messner,
2012).
A microlevel analysis of gender focuses on how individuals
learn gender roles and acquire a gender identity. Gender
role refers to the attitudes, behavior, and activities that are
socially defined as appropriate for each sex and that are learned
through the socialization process. For example, in U.S. society
males are traditionally expected to demonstrate aggressiveness
and toughness, whereas females are expected to be passive and
nurturing (Figure 11.3). Gender identity is a person’s perception
of the self as female or male. Typically established between
eighteen months and three years of age, gender identity is a
powerful aspect of our self-concept. Although this identity is an
individual perception, it is developed through interaction with
others. As a result, most people form a gender identity that
matches their biological sex: Most biological females think of
themselves as female, and most biological males think of
themselves as male. However, some people think of gender as
a continuum (a continuous succession or whole) in which
biological females perceive of themselves as more female than
male, and biological males perceive of themselves as more male
than female. Of course, this is a matter for individual
consideration, as is the issue of body consciousness, which is
also a part of gender identity. Body consciousness is how a
person perceives and feels about his or her body; it also

includes an awareness of social conditions in society that
contribute to this self-knowledge. As we grow up, we become
aware that the physical shape of our bodies subjects us to the
approval or disapproval of others. Being small and weak may be
considered positive attributes for women, but they are
considered negative characteristics for “true men.”
Figure 11.3
Which of these pictures contradicts our society’s traditional
gender roles for men? Do you see this trend as a positive one?
Why or why not?
Photographee.eu/ Shutterstock.com; Dmitry
Kalinovsky/ Shutterstock.com
A macrolevel analysis of gender examines structural features,
external to the individual, that perpetuate gender inequality.
Gender is embedded in the images, ideas, and language of a
society and is used as a means to divide up work, allocate
resources, and distribute power. For example, every society uses
gender to assign certain tasks—ranging from child rearing to
warfare—to females and to males, and differentially rewards
those who perform these duties. These structures have been
referred to as gendered institutions, meaning that gender is one
of the major ways by which social life is organized in all
sectors of society.
These institutions are reinforced by a gender belief
system, which includes all the ideas regarding masculine and
feminine attributes that are held to be valid in a society. This
belief system is legitimated by religion, science, law, and other
societal values. For example, gender belief systems may change
over time as gender roles change. Many fathers take care of
young children today while women are the primary income
earners in the family, and there is a much greater acceptance of
this change in roles by both partners. However, popular
stereotypes about men and women, as well as cultural norms
about gender-appropriate appearance and behavior, still linger
and sometimes reinforce gendered institutions in society.11-

2aThe Social Significance of Gender
Gender is a social construction with important consequences in
everyday life. Just as stereotypes regarding race/ethnicity have
built-in notions of superiority and inferiority, gender
stereotypes hold that men and women are inherently different in
attributes, behavior, and aspirations. Stereotypes define men as
strong, rational, dominant, independent, and less concerned with
their appearance. Women are stereotyped as more emotional,
nurturing, dependent, and anxious about their appearance.
The social significance of gender stereotypes is illustrated by
eating disorders. The three most common eating problems are
anorexia, bulimia, and obesity. Some studies estimate that as
many as 65 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 45
have disordered eating behaviors (Science-Daily, 2008).
With anorexia, a person has an overriding obsession with food
and thinness that constantly controls his or her activities and
eating patterns, resulting in a body weight of less than 85
percent of the average weight for a person of that individual’s
age and height group. With bulimia, a person binges by
consuming large quantities of food and then purges the food by
induced vomiting, excessive exercise, laxatives, or subsequent
fasting. In the past, obesity was defined as being 20 percent or
more above a person’s desirable weight, as established by the
medical profession. Today, however, medical professionals use
the BMI (body mass index) to define obesity. To determine this
index, a person’s weight in kilograms is divided by his or her
height in meters and squared to yield the BMI. Obesity is
defined as a BMI of 30 and above (about 30 pounds overweight
for the average person). In the past it was assumed that the
individuals most likely to have eating disorders were white,
middle-class, heterosexual women; however, such problems also
exist among women of color, working-class women, lesbians,
and gay men.
Bodybuilding is another gendered experience. Bodybuilding is
the process of deliberately cultivating an increase in the mass
and strength of the skeletal muscles by means of lifting and

pushing weights. In the past, bodybuilding was predominantly a
male activity; musculature connoted power, domination, and
virility. Today, however, an increasing number of women
engage in this activity. As gendered experiences, eating
problems and bodybuilding have more in common than we
might think. As some women’s studies scholars have pointed
out, the anorexic body and the muscled body are not opposites:
Both are united against the common enemy of soft, flabby flesh
(Figure 11.4). In other words, the body may be objectified both
through compulsive dieting and compulsive bodybuilding.
Figure 11.4
Not all anorexics are women, and not all bodybuilders are men.
However, some analysts suggest that these two issues are
manifestations of the same desire: to avoid having soft, flabby
flesh.
Peter Dazeley/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images; Jasminko
Ibrakovic/ Shutterstock.com
In Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture, writer and personal trainer
Erick Alvarez (2008) describes a globalized subculture of
bodybuilding and physical fitness training among gay men that
focuses on a “built” muscular body. Drawing from his own
experience as a personal trainer in a San Francisco gay gym
club, he identifies categories of gay men—including the Muscle
Bear, Muscle Boy, Circuit-Boy, and Older Male—that emerge
from this subculture, with its distinctive experiences in physical
training and bodybuilding. He concludes that many of the men
who go to the gym are primarily concerned with body image and
the need to look muscular and attractive and to be part of a
distinct community. They are extremel y vigilant about their
workouts, training regimens, and diet schedules because they
need to compete with other gay men in the LGBT social
marketplace as well as in the world at large.
11-2bSexism
Sexism is the subordination of one sex, usually female, based
on the assumed superiority of the other sex. Sexism directed at

women has three components:
· (1)
negative attitudes toward women;
· (2)
stereotypical beliefs that reinforce, complement, or justify the
prejudice; and
· (3)
discrimination—acts that exclude, distance, or keep women
separate.
Can men be victims of sexism? Although women are more often
the target of sexist remarks and practices, men can be victims of
sexist assumptions. Examples of sexism directed against men
are the assumption that men should not be employed in certain
female-dominated occupations, such as nurse or elementary
school teacher, and the belief that it is somehow more harmful
for families when female soldiers are killed in battle than male
soldiers.
Like racism, sexism is used to justify discriminatory treatment.
Obvious manifestations of sexism are found in the undervaluing
of women’s work and in hiring and promotion practices that
effectively exclude women from an organization or confine
them to the bottom of the organizational hierarchy. Even today,
some women who enter nontraditional occupations (such as
firefighting and welding) or professions (such as dentistry,
architecture, or investment banking) encounter hurdles that men
do not face.
Sexism is interwoven with patriarchy—a hierarchical system of
social organization in which cultural, political, and economic
structures are controlled by men. By contrast, matriarchy is a
hierarchical system of social organization in which cultural,
political, and economic structures are controlled by women;
however, few (if any) societies have been organized in this
manner. Patriarchy is reflected in the way that men may think of
their position as men as a given, whereas women may deliberate
on what their position in society should be. As the sociologist
Virginia Cyrus (1993: 6) explains, “Under patriarchy, men are

seen as ‘natural’ heads of households, Presidential candidates,
corporate executives, college presidents, etc. Women, on the
other hand, are men’s subordinates, playing such supportive
roles as housewife, mother, nurse, and secretary.” Gender
inequality and a division of labor based on male dominance are
nearly universal, as we will see in the following discussion on
the origins of gender-based stratification.11-3Gender
Stratification in Historical and Contemporary Perspective
LO 4
Describe how the division of labor between women and men
differs in various kinds of societies.
How do tasks in a society come to be defined as “men’s work”
or “women’s work”? Three factors are important in determining
the gendered division of labor in a society:
· (1)
the type of subsistence base,
· (2)
the supply of and demand for labor, and
· (3)
the extent to which women’s child-rearing activities are
compatible with certain types of work.
Subsistence refers to the means by which a society gains the
basic necessities of life, including food, shelter, and clothing.
The three factors vary according to a society’s technoeconomic
base—the level of technology and the organization of the
economy in a given society. Five such bases have been
identified: hunting and gathering societies, horticultural and
pastoral societies, agrarian societies, industrial societies, and
postindustrial societies, as shown in Table 11.2.
Table 11.2
Technoeconomic Bases of Society
Hunting and Gathering
Horticultural and Pastoral
Agrarian

Industrial
Postindustrial
Change from Prior Society
—
Use of hand tools, such as digging stick and hoe
Use of animal-drawn plows and equipment
Invention of steam engine
Invention of computer and development of “high-tech” society
Economic Characteristics
Hunting game, gathering roots and berries
Planting crops, domestication of animals for food
Labor-intensive farming
Mechanized production of goods
Information and service economy
Control of Surplus
None
Men begin to control societies
Men who own land or herds
Men who own means of production
Corporate shareholders and high-tech entrepreneurs
Women’s Status
Relative equality
Decreasing in move to pastoralism
Low
Low
Varies by class, race, and age
Source: Adapted from Lorber, 1994: 140.11-3aHunting and
Gathering Societies
The earliest known division of labor between women and men is
in hunting and gathering societies. While the men hunt for wild
game, women gather roots and berries. A relatively equitable
relationship exists because neither sex has the ability to provide
all the food necessary for survival. When wild game is nearby,
both men and women may hunt. When it is far away, hunting
becomes incompatible with child rearing (which women tend to

do because they breast-feed their young), and women are placed
at a disadvantage in terms of contributing to the food supply
(Lorber, 1994). In most hunting and gathering societies, women
are full economic partners with men; relations between them
tend to be cooperative and relatively egalitarian (Bonvillain,
2001). Little social stratification of any kind is found because
people do not acquire a food surplus.11-3bHorticultural and
Pastoral Societies
In horticultural societies, which first developed ten to twelve
thousand years ago, a steady source of food becomes available.
People are able to grow their own food because of hand tools,
such as the hoe. Women make an important contribution to food
production because hoe cultivation is compatible with child
care. A fairly high degree of gender equality exists because
neither sex controls the food supply.
When inadequate moisture in an area makes planting crops
impossible, pastoralism—the domestication of large animals to
provide food—develops. Herding is primarily done by men, and
women contribute relatively little to subsistence production in
such societies. In some herding societies, women have
relatively low status; their primary value is their ability to
produce male offspring so that the family lineage can be
preserved and enough males will exist to protect the group
against attack.
In contemporary horticultural societies, women do most of the
farming while men hunt game, clear land, work with arts and
crafts, make tools, participate in religious and ceremonial
activities, and engage in war. A combination of horticultural
and pastoral activities is found in some contemporary societies
in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. These
societies are characterized by more gender inequality than in
hunting and gathering societies but less gender inequality than
in agrarian societies (Bonvillain, 2001).11-3cAgrarian Societies
In agrarian societies, which first developed about eight to ten
thousand years ago, gender inequality and male dominance
become institutionalized. The most extreme form of gender

inequality developed about five thousand years ago in societies
in the Fertile Crescent around the Mediterranean Sea. Agrarian
societies rely on agriculture—farming done by animal-drawn or
mechanically powered plows and equipment. Because agrarian
tasks require more labor and greater physical strength than
horticultural ones, men become more involved in food
production. It has been suggested that women are excluded from
these tasks because they are viewed as too weak for the work
and because child-care responsibilities are considered
incompatible with the full-time labor that the tasks require.
Why does gender inequality increase in agrarian societies?
Scholars cannot agree on an answer; some suggest that it results
from private ownership of property. When people no longer
have to move continually in search of food, they can acquire a
surplus. Men gain control over the disposition of the surplus
and the kinship system, and this control serves men’s interests.
The importance of producing “legitimate” heirs to inherit the
surplus increases significantly, and women’s lives become more
secluded and restricted as men attempt to ensure the legitimacy
of their children. Premarital virginity and marital fidelity are
required; indiscretions are punished. However, some scholars
argue that male dominance existed before the private ownership
of property (Firestone, 1970; Lerner, 1986).
Male dominance is very strong in agrarian societies. Women are
secluded, subordinated, and mutilated as a means of regulating
their sexuality and protecting paternity. Most of the world’s
population currently lives in agrarian societies in various stages
of industrialization.11-3dIndustrial Societies
An industrial society is one in which factory or mechanized
production has replaced agriculture as the major form of
economic activity. As societies industrialize, the status of
women tends to decline further. Industrialization in the United
States created a gap between the unpaid work performed by
middle- and upper-class women at home and the paid work that
was increasingly performed by men and unmarried girls.
Husbands were responsible for being “breadwinners”; wives

were seen as “homemakers.”
This gendered division of labor increased the economic and
political subordination of women. It also became a source of
discrimination against women of color based on both their race
and the fact that many of them had to work in order to survive.
In the late 1800s and into the 1900s, many African American
women were employed as domestic servants in affluent white
households.
As people moved from a rural, agricultural lifestyle to an urban
existence, body consciousness increased. People who worked in
offices often became sedentary and exhibited physical
deterioration from their lack of activity. As gymnasiums were
built to fight this lack of physical fitness, images of masculinity
shifted from the physique of the farmer or factory workman to
the middle-class office man who exercised and lifted weights.
As industrialization progressed and food became more plentiful,
the social symbolism of women’s body weight and size also
changed, and middle-class women became more preoccupied
with body fitness.11-3ePostindustrial Societies
As previously defined, postindustrial societies are ones in which
technology supports a service- and information-based economy.
In such societies the division of labor in paid employment is
increasingly based on whether people provide or apply
information or are employed in service jobs such as fast-food
counter help or health care workers. For both women and men in
the labor force, formal education is increasingly crucial for
economic and social success. However, although some women
have moved into entrepreneurial, managerial, and professional
occupations, many others have remained in the low-paying
service sector, which affords few opportunities for upward
advancement (Figure 11.5).
Figure 11.5
In contemporary societies, women do a wide variety of work
and are responsible for many diverse tasks. The women shown
here are employed in the industrial, factory sector and the
postindustrial, biotechnology sector of the U.S. economy. Do

you think issues of gender inequality might be different for
these two women? Why or why not?”
Kzenon/ Shutterstock.com; Anyaivanova/ Shutterstock.com
How do new technologies influence gender relations in the
workplace? Although some analysts presumed that technological
developments would reduce the boundaries between women’s
and men’s work, researchers have found that the gender
stereotyping associated with specific jobs has remained
remarkably stable even when the nature of work and the skills
required to perform it have been radically transformed. Today,
men and women continue to be segregated into different
occupations, and this segregation is particularly visible within
individual workplaces (as discussed later in the chapter).
How does the division of labor change in families in
postindustrial societies? For a variety of reasons, more
households are headed by women with no adult male present. In
2014 nearly 10 million U.S. children lived with their mother
only (as contrasted with just 1.9 million who resided with their
father only). Among African American children, 50 percent
lived with their mother only (Child Trends Data Bank, 2015).
This means that women in these households truly have a double
burden, both from family responsibilities and from the necessity
of holding gainful employment in the labor force.
In postindustrial societies such as the United States,
approximately 60 percent of adult women are in the labor force,
meaning that finding time to care for children, help aging
parents, and meet the demands of the workplace will continue to
place a heavy burden on women, despite living in an
information- and service-oriented economy.
How people accept new technologies and the effect that these
technologies have on gender stratification are related to how
people are socialized into gender roles. However, gender -based
stratification remains rooted in the larger social structures of
society, which individuals have little ability to control.11-

4Gender and Socialization
LO 5
Identify the primary agents of gender socialization and note
their role in socializing people throughout life.
We learn gender-appropriate behavior through the socialization
process. Our parents, teachers, friends, and the media all serve
as gendered institutions that communicate to us our earliest, and
often most-lasting, beliefs about the social meanings of being
male or female and thinking and behaving in masculine or
feminine ways. Some gender roles have changed dramatically in
recent years; others have remained largely unchanged over time.
Some parents prefer boys to girls because of stereotypical ideas
about the relative importance of males and females to the future
of the family and society. Research suggests that social
expectations play a major role in this preference. We are
socialized to believe that it is important to have a son,
especially for a first or only child. For many years it was
assumed that only a male child could support his parents in their
later years and carry on the family name.
Across cultures, boys are preferred to girls, especially when the
number of children that parents can have is limited by law or
economic conditions. In China and India, fewer girls are born
each year than boys because a disproportionate number of
female fetuses are aborted. Starting in the 1970s, China had a
one-child-per-family law that favored males over females.
However, in 2013 the policy was revised so that couples would
be allowed to have two children if one parent was an only child.
What effect this will have on the birth of female children
remains to be seen. In India a strong cultural belief exists that a
boy is an asset to his family while a girl is liability. Beliefs
such as this contribute to the selective abortion of female
fetuses. As a result of these past practices, nations such as
China and India are faced with a shortage of marriageable
young women and many other problems that result from an
imbalance in the sex ratio. Perhaps seeing the consequences of
favoring one sex over the other will produce new ideas among

parents regarding sex and gender socialization.11-4aParents and
Gender Socialization
From birth, parents act differently toward children on the basis
of the child’s sex. Baby boys are perceived to be less fragile
than girls and tend to be treated more roughly by their parents.
Girl babies are thought to be “cute, sweet, and cuddly” and
receive more-gentle treatment. Parents strongly influence the
gender-role development of children by passing on—both
overtly and covertly—their own beliefs about gender. Although
contemporary parents tend to play more similarly with their
male and female children than their own parents or grandparents
might have played with them as they were growing up, there
remains a difference in how they respond toward their children
based on gender even when “roughhousing” with them or
engaging in sports events or other activities.
Children’s toys reflect their parents’ gender expectations
(Figure 11.6). Gender-appropriate toys for boys include video
games, trucks and other vehicles, sports equipment, and war
toys such as guns and soldiers. Girls’ toys include stuffed
animals and dolls, makeup and dress-up clothing, and
homemaking items. Ads for children’s toys appeal to boys and
girls differently. Most girl and boy characters are shown in
gender-specific toy commercials that target either females or
males. These commercials typically show boys playing outdoors
and engaging in competitive activities. Girls are more often
engaged in cooperative play in the ads, and this is in keeping
with gender expectations about their behavior (Kaklenberg and
Hein, 2010).
Figure 11.6
Are children’s toys a reflection of their own preferences and
choices? How do toys reflect gender socialization by parents
and other adults?
Teresa Kasprzycka/ Shutterstock.com;
Zurijeta/ Shutterstock.com

When children are old enough to help with household chores,
they are often assigned different tasks. Girls often spend more
time doing housework than boys (Belkin, 2009). Boys are more
likely to be paid for doing chores at home than girls (University
of Michigan, 2007). Parents are more likely to assign
maintenance chores (such as mowing the lawn) to boys, whereas
domestic chores (such as shopping, cooking, clearing the table,
and taking care of young siblings) are assigned to girls.
In the past, most studies of gender socialization focused on
white, middle-class families and paid little attention to ethnic
differences. According to earlier studies, children from middle-
and upper-income families are less likely to be assigned gender-
linked chores than children from lower-income backgrounds. In
addition, gender-linked chore assignments occur less frequently
in African American families, where both sons and daughters
tend to be socialized toward independence, employment, and
child care (McHale et al., 2006). In contrast, gender
socialization in Hispanic (Latino/a) families suggests that
adolescent females often receive different gender socialization
by their parents than do their male siblings. Many Latinas are
allowed less interaction with members of the opposite sex than
are the adolescent males in their families. Rules for dating,
school activities, and part-time jobs are more stringent for the
girls because many parents want to protect their daughters and
keep them closer to home. Moreover, studies continue to show
that many Latinas are primarily socialized by their families to
become wives and mothers, while less emphasis is placed on
educational attainment and careers (Landale and Oropesa,
2007). Some contemporary Latinas find that they must struggle
with both cultural and structural barriers to achieving their
academic and professional goals.
Across classes and racial–ethnic categories, mothers typically
play a stronger role in gender socialization of daughters,
whereas fathers do more to socialize sons than daughters,
particularly when it comes to racial and gender socialization
(McHale et al., 2006). However, many parents are aware of the

effect that gender socialization has on their children and make a
conscientious effort to provide gender-neutral experiences for
them.11-4bPeers and Gender Socialization
Peers help children learn prevailing gender-role stereotypes, as
well as gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate behavior.
During the preschool years, same-sex peers have a powerful
effect on how children see their gender roles. Children are more
socially acceptable to their peers when they conform to impl icit
societal norms governing the “appropriate” ways that girls and
boys should act in social situations and what prohibitions exist
in such cases.
Male peer groups place more pressure on boys to do
“masculine” things than female peer groups place on girls to do
“feminine” things. For example, girls wear jeans and other
“boy” clothes, play soccer and softball, and engage in other
activities traditionally associated with males. By contrast, if a
boy wears a dress, plays hopscotch with girls, and engages in
other activities associated with being female, he will be
ridiculed by his peers. This distinction between the relative
value of boys’ and girls’ behaviors strengthens the cultural
message that masculine activities and behavior are more
important and more acceptable.
During adolescence, peers are often stronger and more-effective
agents of gender socialization than adults. Peers are thought to
be especially important in boys’ development of gender
identity. Male bonding that occurs during adolescence is
believed to reinforce masculine identity and to encourage
gender-stereotypical attitudes and behavior. For example, male
peers have a tendency to ridicule and bully others about their
appearance, size, and weight. Because peer acceptance is so
important, such actions can have very harmful consequences.
As young adults, men and women still receive many gender-
related messages from peers. Among college students, for
example, peer groups are organized largely around gender
relations and play an important role in career choices and the
establishment of long-term intimate relationships. In a study of

women college students at two universities (one primarily
white, the other predominantly African American),
anthropologists Dorothy C. Holland and Margaret A. Eisenhart
(1990) found that the peer system propelled women into a world
of romance in which their attractiveness to men counted most.
Although peers initially did not influence the women’s choices
of majors and careers, they did influence whether the women
continued to pursue their original goals, changed their course of
action, or were “derailed.” Subsequent research has also found
that some African American women, as well as women from
other racial–ethnic categories, may change their occupational
aspirations partly based on peer-group influence and their social
environment (Frome et al., 2006).
11-4cTeachers, Schools, and Gender Socialization
From kindergarten through college, schools operate as a
gendered institution. Teachers provide important messages
about gender through both the formal content of classroom
assignments and informal interactions with students.
Sometimes, gender-related messages from teachers and other
students reinforce gender roles that have been taught at home;
however, teachers may also contradict parental socialization.
During the early years of a child’s schooling, teachers’
influence is very powerful; many children spend more hours per
day with their teachers than they do with their own parents.
According to some researchers, the quantity and quality of
teacher–student interactions often vary between the education of
girls and that of boys (Sadker and Zittleman, 2009). One of the
messages that teachers may communicate to students is that
boys are more important than girls. Research spanning the past
thirty years shows that unintentional gender bias occurs in
virtually all educational settings. Gender bias consists of
showing favoritism toward one gender over the other.
Researchers consistently find that teachers devote more time,
effort, and attention to boys than to girls (Sadker and Zittleman,
2009). Males receive more praise for their contributions and are
called on more frequently in class, even when they do not

volunteer.
Teacher–student interactions influence not only students’
learning but also their self-esteem (Sadker and Zittleman,
2009). A comprehensive study of gender bias in schools
suggested that girls’ self-esteem is undermined in school
through such experiences as
· (1)
a relative lack of attention from teachers;
· (2)
sexual harassment by male peers;
· (3)
the stereotyping and invisibility of females in textbooks,
especially in science and math texts; and
· (4)
test bias based on assumptions about the relative importance of
quantitative and visual–spatial ability, as compared with verbal
ability, that restricts some girls’ chances of being admitted to
the most-prestigious colleges and being awarded scholarships.
Teachers also influence how students treat one another during
school hours. Many teachers use sex segregation as a way to
organize students, resulting in unnecessary competition between
females and males (Figure 11.7). In addition, teachers may take
a “boys will be boys” attitude when girls complain of sexual
harassment. Even though sexual harassment is prohibited by law
and teachers and administrators are obligated to investigate
such incidents, the complaints may be dealt with superficially.
If that happens, the school setting can become a hostile
environment rather than a site for learning.
Figure 11.7
Teachers often use competition between boys and girls because
they hope to make a learning activity more interesting. Here, a
middle school girl leads other girls against boys in a Spanish
translation contest. What are the advantages and disadvantages
of gender-based competition in classroom settings?

Mary Kate Denny/PhotoEdit11-4dSports and Gender
Socialization
Children spend more than half of their nonschool time in play
and games, but the type of games played differs with the child’s
sex. Studies indicate that boys are socialized to participate in
highly competitive, rule-oriented games with a larger number of
participants than games played by girls. Young girls have been
socialized to play exclusively with others of their own age, in
groups of two or three, in activities such as hopscotch and jump
rope that involve a minimum of competitiveness. Other research
shows that boys express much more favorable attitudes toward
physical exertion and exercise than girls do. Some analysts
believe this difference in attitude is linked to ideas about what
is gender-appropriate behavior for boys and girls. For males,
competitive sport becomes a means of “constructing a masculine
identity, a legitimated outlet for violence and aggression, and an
avenue for upward mobility” (Lorber, 1994: 43). Now more
girls play soccer and softball and participate in sports formerly
regarded as exclusively “male” activities (Figure 11.8). Girls
who go against the grain and participate in masculine play as
children are more likely to participate in sports as young women
and adults (Giuliano, Popp, and Knight, 2000).
Figure 11.8
NCAA women’s sports such as basketball are popularizing
athletics for young women and making it easier for girls to
become actively involved in sports at a young age.
Monkey Business Images/ Shutterstock.com
Many women athletes believe that they have to manage the
contradictory statuses of being both “women” and “athletes.”
An earlier study found that women college basketball players
dealt with this contradiction by dividing their lives into
segments. On the basketball court, the women “did athlete”:
They pushed, shoved, fouled, ran hard, sweated, and cursed. Off
the court, they “did woman”: After the game, they showered,

dressed, applied makeup, and styled their hair, even if they w ere
only getting in a van for a long ride home (Watson, 1987). A
more recent study found that female athletes who played
softball, soccer, or basketball engaged in “apologetic behavior”
after the game through their efforts to look feminine, their
apologies for their aggression during the game, and the ways in
which they marked themselves as heterosexual (Davis-Delano,
Pollock, and Vose, 2009). According to some social analysts,
being able to identify the paradox between “female” and
“athlete” and the problems that women in sports experience is
the beginning of confronting socially constructed gender norms
and polarized views of masculinity and femininity in Western
culture (Paloian, 2015).11-4eMass Media and Gender
Socialization
The media—including newspapers, magazines, television,
movies, and social media—are powerful sources of gender
stereotyping. Although some critics argue that the media simply
reflect existing gender roles in society, others point out that the
media have a unique ability to shape ideas. Think of the impact
that television might have on children if they spend one-third of
their waking time watching it, as has been estimated. From
children’s cartoons to adult shows, television programs are sex
typed, and many are male oriented. More male than female roles
are portrayed, and male characters are typically more aggressive
and direct. By contrast, females are depicted as either acting
deferential toward other people and being manipulated by them
or as being overly aggressive, overbearing, and even downright
“bitchy.”
In prime-time television, a number of significant changes in the
past three decades have reduced gender stereotyping; however,
men still outnumber women as leading characters, and they are
often “in charge” in any setting where both men’s and women’s
roles are portrayed. Recently, retro series on network and cable
television have brought back an earlier era when men were
dominant in public and family life and women played a
subordinate role to them. Having recently concluded its final

season and now available on DVD and Netflix, the award-
winning series Mad Men (on AMC) is set in a 1960s New York
advertising agency, where secretaries were expected to wear
tight sweaters and skirts and bring men hot coffee throughout
the day, while the men’s wives were supposed to be the perfect
companions and hostesses at home. Although many other TV
series, such as Modern Family, have changed traditional norms,
offering a wide diversity of families, including gay dads with a
child, the shift to retro gender roles in some television
programming and films in the second decade of the twenty-first
century has raised questions about the extent to which change
actually occurs in the portrayal of women and men in the media.
Advertising—whether on television and billboards or in
magazines and newspapers—can be very persuasive. The
intended message is clear to many people: If they embrace
traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, their personal
and social success is assured; if they purchase the right products
and services, they can enhance their appearance and gain power
over other people. A study by the sociologist Anthony J.
Cortese (2004) found that women—regardless of what they were
doing in a particular ad—were frequently shown in advertising
as being young, beautiful, and seductive. Other research shows
that TV ads such as the ones shown on Super Bowl Sunday are
created to sell products but that they also contribute to the
sexual objectification of women. For example, chocolate
commercials often objectify women, turning them into sexual
objects whose seductive behavior is caused by the chocolate
being advertised. Although such depictions may sell products,
they may also have the effect of influencing how we perceive
ourselves and others with regard to issues of power and
subordination.
As we all know, social media can be used in both positive and
negative ways. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr,
Flickr, Vine, and other social networking sites are very
effective tools for communicating with others, but they also
offer prime venues in which to bully others and spread

derogatory comments and photos relating to race, gender, and/or
sexual orientation (Pew Research Center Internet, Science and
Tech, 2015). Today, 91 percent of teens use a mobile device to
go online, so they are no longer under the supervision of parents
or other adults who might oversee their television-viewing
habits or supervise a phone conversation. According to the Pew
Research Center Internet, Science and Tech (2015), a typical
teenager sends and receives thirty text messages per day.
Although this research does not include questions about the
content of these texts, data from other sources suggest that the
texts often relate to the physical appearance of the sender and
others, particularly in regard to sexual appeal, appearance, and
behavior that identifies individuals by sexual orientation.
Extensive research will be necessary to learn how social
networking sites function as agents of socialization in regard to
sexuality, weight, and body image, but these sites present a new
and relatively unchallenged arena in which one’s own beliefs
and biases can be not only projected but also amplified to tens
of thousands of other people.11-4fAdult Gender Socialization
Gender socialization continues as women and men complete
their training or education and join the workforce. Men and
women are taught the “appropriate” type of conduct for persons
of their sex in a particular job or occupation—both by
employers and by coworkers. However, men’s socialization
usually does not include a measure of whether their work can be
successfully combined with having a family; it is often assumed
that men can and will do both. Even today, the reason given for
women not entering some careers and professions is that this
kind of work is not suitable for women because of their physical
capabilities or assumed child-care responsibilities.
Different gender socialization may occur as people reach their
forties and enter “middle age.” A double standard of agi ng
exists that affects women more than men (Figure 11.9). Often,
men are considered to be at the height of their success as their
hair turns gray and their face gains a few wrinkles. By contrast,
not only do other people in society make middle-age women

feel as if they are “over the hill,” but multimillion-dollar
advertising campaigns continually call attention to women’s
every weakness, every pound gained, and every bit of flabby
flesh, wrinkle, or gray hair. Increasingly, both women and
men have turned to “miracle” products, and sometimes to
cosmetic surgery, to reduce the visible signs of aging. However,
the vast majority (90.6 percent) of all cosmetic surgery is
performed on female patients. In 2013 more than 10.3 million
cosmetic procedures were performed on women in the United
States, a 471 percent increase from 1997 (American Society for
Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 2014).
Figure 11.9
Does the double standard of aging for women and men
contribute to some women’s desire to have surgical procedures
that claim to restore their “youth” as they increase in
chronological age?
Robert Daly/Getty Images
Knowledge of how we develop a gender-related self-concept
and learn to feel, think, and act in feminine or masculine ways
is important for an understanding of ourselves. Examining
gender socialization makes us aware of the effect of our parents,
siblings, teachers, friends, and the media on our perspectives
about gender. However, the gender socialization perspective has
been criticized on several accounts. Childhood gender-role
socialization may not affect people as much as some analysts
have suggested. For example, the types of jobs that people take
as adults may have less to do with how they were socialized in
childhood than with how they are treated in the workplace.
From this perspective, women and men will act in ways that
bring them the most rewards and produce the fewest
punishments. Also, gender socialization theories can be used to
blame women for their own subordination by not taking into
account structural barriers that perpetuate gender inequality. We
will now examine a few of those structural forces.11-
5Contemporary Gender Inequality

LO 6
Discuss ways in which the contemporary workplace reflects
gender stratification.
According to feminist scholars, women experience gender
inequality as a result of past and present economic, political,
and educational discrimination. Women’s position in the U.S.
workforce reflects the years of subordination that women have
experienced in society.11-5aGendered Division of Paid Work in
the United States
Where people are located in the occupational structure of the
labor market has a major impact on their earnings. The
workplace may be a gendered institution if jobs are often
segregated by gender and by race/ethnicity (Figure 11.10). In a
comprehensive study, sociologists Kevin Stainback and Donald
Tomaskovic-Devey (2012) describe how data from five million
private-sector workplaces that they examined confirm that white
men still dominate the management ranks and that workplace
segregation, based on both gender and race, is increasing in
many employment sectors. Consider, for example, that white
men are 68 percent more likely to be in management positions
than to be regular staffers, white women are 28 percent less
likely to be in management, African American (black) men are
53 percent less likely to be in leadership positions, and African
American (black) women are 73 percent less likely to be in
management positions (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey,
2012).
Figure 11.10
What stereotypes are associated with men in female-oriented
positions? With women in male-oriented occupations? Do you
think such stereotypes will change in the near future?
Redsnapper/Alamy; Kevin Foy/Alamy
Gender-segregated work refers to the concentration of women
and men in different occupations, jobs, and places of work.
Today, 93 percent of all secretaries in the United States are

women while 91 percent of all mechanical engineers are men
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). To eliminate gender -
segregated jobs in the United States, more than half of all men
or all women workers would have to change occupations.
Moreover, women are severely underrepresented at the top of
U.S. corporations. Out of the top S&P 500 companies (U.S.
stock market index companies), only 23 have female CEOs
(Catalyst, 2015). In Fortune 500 companies (the top 500 public
corporations ranked by gross revenue), women of color are
absent on most boards, making up only 2.8 percent of board
directors. The overall share of board seats held by women of
color is 3.1 percent, but this number is larger only because some
of the same women hold more than one board seat. This figure
shows that board selection committees tend to rely on the same
women of color to fill board seats rather than seeking a larger
pool of eligible women of color to appoint to the positions
(Catalyst, 2015). When there are few, or no, women in top
leadership roles in business, young women lack role models and
mentors to encourage them to enter the business world.
Although the degree of gender segregation in the professional
labor market (including physicians, dentists, lawyers,
accountants, and managers) has declined since the 1970s,
racial–ethnic segregation has remained deeply embedded in the
social structure. Although some change has occurred in recent
years, women of color are more likely than their white
counterparts to be concentrated in public-sector employment (as
public schoolteachers, welfare workers, librarians, public
defenders, and faculty members at public colleges, for example)
rather than in the private sector (for example, in large
corporations, major law firms, and private educational
institutions). And it appears that resegregation is occurring in
the private sector. According to the study of fifty-eight
industries by Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey (2012), seven
had a rise in gender segregation between 2001 and 2005. These
include airlines, railroads, and mining. Similarly, the research
found an increase in racial segregation in eighteen industries,

including transportation and the lumber and leather industries.
Across all categories of occupations, white women and all
people of color are not evenly represented, as shown in Table
11.3.
Table 11.3
Percentage of the Workforce Represented by Women, African
Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans in Selected
Occupations
The U.S. Census Bureau accumulates data that show what
percentage of the total workforce is made up of women, African
Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. As used in this
table, women refers to females in all racial–ethnic categories,
whereas African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian
Americans refer to both women and men.
Women
African Americans
Hispanics
Asian Americans
All occupations
46.9
11.4
16.1
5.7
Managerial, professional, and related occupations
51.6
8.8
8.7
7.5
Management occupations
38.6
6.7

9.1
5.4
Professional and related occupations
57.2
9.7
8.6
8.6
Architecture and engineering
15.4
5.2
8.2
11.7
Lawyers
32.9
5.7
5.6
4.4
Physicians and surgeons
36.7
5.5
6.3
21.0
Service occupations (all)
56.7
16.2
23.4
5.4
Food preparation and serving
55.1
12.6
24.9

6.0
Building and grounds cleaning
40.2
14.6
36.7
3.4
Health care support occupations
87.6
25.7
16.2
5.2
Grounds maintenance workers
6.3
6.3
43.6
1.7
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015.
Labor market segmentation—the division of jobs into categories
with distinct working conditions—results in women having
separate and unequal jobs. Why does gender-segregated work
matter? Although we look more closely at the issue of the pay
gap in the following section, it is important to note here that the
pay gap between men and women is the best-documented
consequence of gender-segregated work. Most women work in
lower-paying, less prestigious jobs, with less opportunity for
advancement than their male counterparts.
Gender-segregated work affects both men and women. Men are
often kept out of certain types of jobs. Those who enter female -
dominated occupations often have to justify themselves and
prove that they are “real men.” Even if these concerns do not
push men out of female-dominated occupations, they affect how
the men manage their gender identity at work. For example, men

in occupations such as nursing tend to emphasize their
masculinity, attempt to distance themselves from female
colleagues, and try to move quickly into management and
supervisory positions.
Occupational gender segregation contributes to stratification in
society. Job segregation is structural; it does not occur simply
because individual workers have different abilities, motivations,
and material needs. As a result of gender and racial segregation,
employers are able to pay many men of color and all women
less money, promote them less often, and provide fewer
benefits.11-5bPay Equity (Comparable Worth)
Occupational segregation contributes to a pay gap—the
disparity between women’s and men’s earnings. The pay gap is
calculated by dividing women’s earnings by men’s earnings to
yield a percentage, also known as the earnings ratio. When the
1963 Equal Pay Act was passed, women who were classified as
“full-time wage and salary workers” earned about 59 cents for
every dollar her male counterpart earned. In 2015 women
classified the same way earned about 80 percent (or 80 cents for
every dollar) of the amount earned by men in the same category.
Although some progress has been made, the gender pay gap has
been persistent and has basically stalled over the past decade.
As Figure 11.11 shows, women in all age categories also receive
less pay than men, with the disparity growing wider in the older
age brackets.
Figure 11.11The Gender Wage Gap by Age, 2015
Source: AAUW, 2017.
Earnings differences between women and men in various racial –
ethnic categories are the widest for white Americans and Asian
Americans. White (non-Hispanic) women’s earnings were about
76 percent of their white male counterparts in 2015, while Asian
American women earned about 81 percent as much as their male
counterparts (see Figure 11.12). By comparison, Hispanic
women (Latinas) earned about 92 percent as much as their

Hispanic male counterparts, American Indian and Alaska Native
women earned 85 percent as much as their male counterparts,
and African American women earned about 90 percent as much
as African American men (AAUW, 2017). Figure 11.13 shows
women’s median earnings as compared to men’s median
earnings in each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia,
and Puerto Rico.
Figure 11.12Women’s Annual Earnings as a Percentage of
Men’s in Each Racial–Ethnic Category
Source: AAUW, 2017.
Figure 11.13Women’s Earnings as a Percentage of Men’s
Earnings by State and Puerto Rico, 2015
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016.
The gender gap is greatest the higher up the income ladder a
person is: Women near the top of the ladder earn 80 percent of
wages for men at the same level. Among men and women with
advanced degrees beyond a college diploma, women are paid
about 74 percent (roughly $1,257 a week) as compared to men
($1,707). At the bottom of the income ladder, minimum-wage
laws influence what people are paid, so there is less disparity in
income. However, even in low-wage jobs, males typically earn
more than their female counterparts.
Pay equity or comparable worth is the belief that wages ought to
reflect the worth of a job, not the gender or race of the worker.
How can the comparable worth of different kinds of jobs be
determined? One way is to compare the actual work of women’s
and men’s jobs and see if there is a disparity in the salaries paid
for each. To do this, analysts break a job into components—
such as the education, training, and skills required, the extent of
responsibility for others’ work, and the working conditions—
and then allocate points for each (Lorber, 2005). For pay equity
to exist, men and women in occupations that receive the
same number of points should be paid the same. However, pay
equity exists for very few jobs. What are the prospects for the

future? The Paycheck Fairness Act—proposed by the Obama
Administration in 2010, 2012, and 2014—that would have
extended pay-equity rules that apply to federal contractors to
the entire U.S. workforce, while also making updates to the
Equal Pay Act, was blocked from consideration by members of
the U.S. Congress. So for the foreseeable future, women will
continue to earn considerably less than men, even in similar
occupational categories.11-5cPaid Work and Family Work
As previously discussed, the first big change in the relationship
between family and work occurred with the Industrial
Revolution and the rise of capitalism. The cult of domesticity
kept many middle- and upper-class women out of the workforce
during this period. Primarily, working-class and poor women
were the ones who had to deal with the work/family conflict.
Today, however, the issue spans the entire economic spectrum.
The typical married woman in the United States combines paid
work in the labor force and family work as a homemaker.
Although this change has occurred at the societal level,
individual women bear the brunt of the problem.
Even with dramatic changes in women’s workforce
participation, the sexual division of labor in the family has
remained essentially unchanged for many years. Most married
women share responsibility for the breadwinner role, yet some
men do not accept their full share of domestic responsibilities.
Consequently, women may have a “double day” or “second
shift” because of their dual responsibilities for paid and unpaid
work (Hochschild, 1989, 2003). Although the original work on
the second shift was completed twenty-five years ago, the
primary researcher, Arlie Hochschild, announced in 2014 that
time-use research continues to show that women still do, on
average, about twice the housework and child care as men even
when the women are employed full time. According to
Hochschild, women now make up half of the workforce, and
they are earning more overall than in the past; however, they
have found that the workplace does not provide them with the
necessary flex time and parental leave to help them deal most

effectively with both their work and family life. Some men find
it more difficult to find work today because jobs are less certain
and there are fewer jobs to be had in some fields, which may be
one reason why more men are taking a larger role in
maintaining the household and children (Schulte, 2014).
According to studies conducted by the Pew Research Center, the
time that mothers and fathers spend with their families has
changed significantly, with fathers now performing more
housework and child-care activities and women being more
involved in paid employment. For both men and women,
juggling work and family life constitutes a major concern that
may produce stress. Among working mothers, 60 percent
reported that they found it difficult to balance work and family
life; 50 percent of fathers reported a similar problem (Parker,
2015). According to Pew Researchers, mothers are still
spending more time than fathers in childcare and household
chores, but some gender convergence has occurred in how they
divide their time between work and home. Among dual-income
couples, fathers spend about 42 hours each week on paid work,
as compared to 31 hours of paid work for mothers. Housework
takes up an average of 16 hours per week of mothers’ time, as
compared to 9 hours of fathers’ time. Child care accounts for an
average of 12 hours per week of mothers’ time, as compared to
7 hours per week of fathers’ time (Pew Social Trends, 2015).
Problems from the past remain in many households: Working
women have less time to spend on housework; if husbands do
not participate in routine domestic chores, some chores simply
do not get done or get done less often. Although the income that
many women earn is essential to the economic survival of their
families, they still must spend part of their earnings on family
maintenance, such as day-care centers, fast-food restaurants,
and laundries, in an attempt to keep up with their obligations.
Especially in families with young children, domestic
responsibilities consume a great deal of time and energy.
Although some kinds of housework can be put off, the needs of
children often cannot be ignored or delayed. When children are

ill or school events cannot be scheduled around work, parents
(especially mothers) may experience stressful role conflicts
(“Shall I be a good employee or a good mother?”). Many
working women care not only for themselves, their husbands,
and their children but also for elderly parents or in-laws. Some
analysts refer to these women as the “sandwich generation”—
caught between the needs of their young children and their
elderly relatives. Many women try to solve their time crunch by
forgoing leisure time and sleep. When Arlie Hochschild
interviewed working mothers, she found that they talked about
sleep “the way a hungry person talks about food” (1989: 9).
Perhaps this is one reason that in later research, Hochschild
(1997) learned that some married women with children found
more fulfillment at work and that they worked longer hours
because they liked work better than facing the pressures of
home.11-6Perspectives on Gender Stratification
Sociological perspectives on gender stratification vary in their
approach to examining gender roles and power relationships in
society. Some focus on the roles of women and men in the
domestic sphere; others note the inequalities arising from a
gendered division of labor in the workplace. Still others attempt
to integrate both the public and private spheres into their
analyses.11-6aFunctionalist and Neoclassical Economic
Perspectives
LO 7
Compare functionalist and conflict perspectives on gender
inequality.
As seen earlier, functionalist theory views men and women as
having distinct roles that are important for the survival of the
family and society. The most basic division of labor is
biological: Men are physically stronger, and women are the only
ones able to bear and nurse children. Gendered belief systems
foster assumptions about appropriate behavior for men and
women and may have an impact on the types of work that
women and men perform.

The Importance of Traditional Gender Roles
According to functional analysts such as Talcott Parsons (1955),
women’s roles as nurturers and caregivers are even more
pronounced in contemporary industrialized societies. While the
husband performs the instrumental tasks of providing economic
support and making decisions, the wife assumes
the expressive tasks of providing affection and emotional
support for the family. This division of family labor ensures
that important societal tasks will be fulfilled; it also provides
stability for family members.
This view has been adopted by a number of politically
conservative analysts who assert that relationships between men
and women are damaged when changes in gender roles occur,
and family life suffers as a consequence. From this perspective,
the traditional division of labor between men and women is the
natural order of the universe.
The Human Capital Model
Functionalist explanations of occupational gender segregation
are similar to neoclassical economic perspectives, such as the
human capital model. According to this model, individuals vary
widely in the amount of human capital they bring to the labor
market. Human capital is acquired by education and job
training; it is the source of a person’s productivity and can be
measured in terms of the return on the investment (wages) and
the cost (schooling or training).
From this perspective, what individuals earn is the result of
their own choices (the kinds of training, education, and
experience they accumulate, for example) and of the labor-
market need (demand) for and availability (supply) of certain
kinds of workers at specific points in time. For example, human
capital analysts might argue that women diminish their human
capital when they leave the labor force to engage in
childbearing and child-care activities (Figure 11.14). While
women are out of the labor force, their human capital
deteriorates from nonuse. When they return to work, women

earn lower wages than men because they have fewer years of
work experience and have “atrophied human capital” because
their education and training may have become obsolete. One
study found that over a fifteen-year period, women compared to
men worked fewer years and fewer hours when the women were
married and had dependent children. As a result, the women
were more likely to work fewer hours in the labor market and be
low earners (Rose and Hartman, 2008).
Figure 11.14
According to the human capital model, women may earn less in
the labor market because of their child-rearing responsibilities.
What other sociological explanations are offered for the lower
wages that women receive?
Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Evaluation of Functionalist and Neoclassical Economic
Perspectives
Although Parsons and other functionalists did not specifically
endorse the gendered division of labor, their analysis suggests
that it is natural and perhaps inevitable. However, critics argue
that problems inherent in traditional gender roles, including the
personal role strains of men and women and the social costs to
society, are minimized by the functionalist approach. For
example, men are assumed to be “money machines” for their
families when they might prefer to spend more time in child-
rearing activities. Also, the woman’s place is assumed to be in
the home, an assumption that ignores the fact that many women
hold jobs because of economic necessity.
In addition, the functionalist approach does not take a critical
look at the structure of society (especially the economic
inequalities) that makes educational and occupational
opportunities more available to some than to
others. Furthermore, it fails to examine the underlying power
relations between men and women or to consider the fact that
the tasks assigned to women and to men are unequally valued by

society. Similarly, the human capital model is rooted in the
premise that individuals are evaluated based on their human
capital in an open, competitive market where education,
training, and other job-enhancing characteristics are taken into
account. From this perspective, those who make less money
(often men of color and all women) have no one to blame but
themselves.
Critics note that instead of blaming people for their choices, we
must acknowledge other realities. Wage discrimination occurs
in two ways:
· (1)
the wages are higher in male-dominated jobs, occupations, and
segments of the labor market, regardless of whether women take
time for family duties, and
· (2)
in any job, women and people of color will be paid less.11-
6bConflict Perspectives
According to many conflict analysts, the gendered division of
labor within families and in the workplace results from male
control of and dominance over women and resources.
Differentials between men and women may exist in terms of
economic, political, physical, and/or interpersonal power
(Figure 11.15). The importance of a male monopoly in any of
these arenas depends on the significance of that type of power
in a society. In hunting and gathering and horticultural
societies, male dominance over women is limited because all
members of the society must work in order to survive. In
agrarian societies, however, male sexual dominance is at its
peak. Male heads of household gain a monopoly not only on
physical power but also on economic power, and women become
sexual property.
Figure 11.15
Although the demographic makeup of the U.S. Senate has been
gradually changing in recent decades, men still dominate it, a
fact that the conflict perspective attributes to a very old pattern
in human societies.

Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images
Although men’s ability to use physical power to control women
diminishes in industrial societies, men still remain the head of
household and control the property. In addition, men gain more
power through their predominance in the most highly paid and
prestigious occupations and the highest elected offices. By
contrast, women have the ability in the marriage market to trade
their sexual resources, companionship, and emotional support
for men’s financial support and social status. As a result,
women as a group remain subordinate to men.
All men are not equally privileged; some analysts argue that
women and men in the upper classes are more privileged,
because of their economic power, than men in lower-class
positions and all people of color. In industrialized societies,
persons who occupy elite positions in corporations, universities,
the mass media, and government or who have great wealth have
the most power. Most of these are men, however.
Conflict theorists in the Marxist tradition assert that gender
stratification results from private ownership of the means of
production; some men not only gain control over property and
the distribution of goods but also gain power over women.
According to Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, marriage serves
to enforce male dominance. Men of the capitalist class
instituted monogamous marriage (a gendered institution) so that
they could be certain of the paternity of their offspring,
especially sons, whom they wanted to inherit their wealth.
Feminist analysts have examined this theory, among others, as
they have sought to explain male domination and gender
stratification.11-6cFeminist Perspectives
LO 8
Describe four feminist perspectives on gender inequality.
Feminism—the belief that women and men are equal and should
be valued equally and have equal rights—is embraced by many
men as well as women. It holds in common with men’s studies

the view that gender is a socially constructed concept that has
important consequences for the lives of all people. According to
sociologists, both women and men can be feminists and propose
feminist theories because they have much in common as they
seek to gain a better understanding of the causes and
consequences of gender inequality (see “You Can Make a
Difference”).
You Can Make a Difference
“Love Your Body”: Women’s Activism on Campus and in the
CommunityDo You Love What You See When You Look in the
Mirror?
Every day the beauty industry and media tell women and girls
that being admired, envied, and desired based on their looks is a
primary function of true womanhood. They provide them with a
beauty template that is narrow, unrealistic, and most
importantly ingrained into their brains leaving any woman who
does not fit this template feeling inadequate. The Love Your
Body campaign challenges the message that a woman’s value is
best measured through her willingness and ability to embody
current beauty standards.
—promotion for “Love Your Body Day,” sponsored by the
NOW Foundation (2015)
Although this message appears to be for girls and women only,
many boys and men are also concerned about their physical
appearance, as well as how girls and women are represented in
the media. Both men and women can make a difference by
becoming involved in a campus or community organization that
helps people gain a better understanding of body-image issues:
· Participate in the national Love Your Body Day, which is a
day of action to speak out against ads and images of women that
are offensive, dangerous, and disrespectful.
· Discourage sexist ads and media reporting about women (for
example, a focus on weight or other physical attributes rather
than on their accomplishments) by sending letters to the
publications or encouraging journalists to rethink how they

frame stories about girls and women.
· Think of on-campus traditions or events that promote negative
body-image stereotypes, such as parties where students are
encouraged to wear scant clothing. Actively encourage the
organizers of such events to rethink “theme party” clothing or
other kinds of dress that contribute to body-image problems.
· Promote positive body image on campus by encouraging your
club or organization to host a “Friends Don’t Let Friends Fat
Talk” day. Have students write down on an index card their
negative body-image thoughts such as “I hate my thighs.” Then
ask students to wad up the cards and throw those thoughts into
trash cans.
Other opportunities for involvement exist through local, state,
and national organizations. Here are two places to start:
· The National Organization for Women (NOW). NOW works to
end gender bias and seeks greater representation of women in
all areas of public life. On the Internet, NOW’s website
provides links to other feminist resources.
· The National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS).
NOMAS has a profeminist stance that seeks to end sexism and
an affirmative stance on the rights of gay men and lesbians.
“Love Your Body Day” and more-frequent use of plus-sized
models (shown here) in fashion campaigns are two examples of
how people send a positive message to girls and women about
loving what they see in the mirror rather than feeling
judgmental about their appearance. Are you aware of campus or
community organizations that help individuals gain a better
understanding of body-image issues?
Lorna Roberts/Alamy
Feminist theory seeks to identify ways in which norms, roles,
institutions, and internalized expectations limit women’s
behavior. It also seeks to demonstrate how women’s personal
control operates even within the constraints of relative lack of
power. In the twenty-first century, feminist theory focuses more
on global issues such as how “fat stigma” among women has

become globalized (see “Sociology in Global Perspective”).
Sociology in Global Perspective
Women’s Body Size and the Globalization of “Fat Stigma”
Of all the things we could be exporting to help people around
the world, really negative body image and low self-esteem are
not what we hope is going out with public health messaging.
— Alexandra Brewis, lead researcher for a Current
Anthropology article on the globalization of fat stigma,
describes how perceptions from the United States and the
United Kingdom have contributed to negative beliefs about
body size in dozens of developing countries (qtd. in Parker -
Pope, 2011).
In past sociological and cultural ethnographic studies, people in
nations and territories such as Fiji, Puerto Rico, and American
Samoa were found to appreciate the “fuller figure” as the norm
for women’s body size. According to Professor Brewis and
colleagues, “Plump bodies represented success, generosity,
fertility, wealth, and beauty” (qtd. in Bates, 2011). In some
cultures, weight has traditionally been associated with class
position in society. For example, being overweight or obese in
India can be considered to be a sign that the person is middle
class or wealthy. In Tahiti it was a custom to encourage young
women to gain weight and to have rounded faces and bodies that
made them more attractive for marriage. However, Professor
Brewis’s research team was surprised to discover in their
eleven-country study that people in Mexico, Paraguay,
American Samoa, and some other areas where people typically
have been more favorable toward the fuller-figured norm,
respondents had high scores for “fat stigma” based on twenty-
three survey questions asked through in-person interviews or
Internet surveys. Items included in the study represented
socially credited or socially discrediting attributions related to
body fat and obesity such as “People are overweight because
they are lazy,” “Being fat is prestigious,” “People shoul d be
proud of their big bodies,” and “Obese people should be

ashamed of their bodies” (Brewis et al., 2011).
Many organizations in the United States and other nations use
public health campaigns like the one shown here to encourage
individuals to be concerned about health problems that are
associated with being overweight or obese. However, some
social analysts believe that certain health messages may contain
negative moral messages about the worth of people as well. Do
you think this is a valid concern? Why or why not?
CHOA/Barcroft USA/Barcoft Media/Getty Images
Although it is important for people to learn the detrimental
effects of obesity on the individual’s health and for public
officials to view wide-scale obesity as a public health concern,
fat stigma has become a troubling side effect of extensive
global media and public health campaigns to make everyone
more aware of the problems associated with being overweight or
obese. Stigmatization of obesity generally often becomes a
stigma against fat individuals specifically (Parker-Pope, 2011).
Negative body image and self-deprecation follow when
individuals are labeled as “lazy,” “unattractive,” and
“undesirable.” It is possible that negative health messages also
contain negative moral messages about the worth of people as
well. So the delicate balance in messaging for the future
becomes how to have effective public health campaigns that
help curb diabetes and high blood pressure worldwide but do
not negatively stigmatize those individuals who are overweight
or obese.
Reflect & Analyze
· What signs of fat stigma do you see in the United States or
another country with which you are most familiar? How might
the media and global health organizations more effectively send
the message of the problematic health risks associated with
being overweight or obese while, at the same time, encouraging
people to be nonjudgmental about the body size of other
individuals?

Liberal Feminism
In liberal feminism, gender equality is equated with equality of
opportunity. The roots of women’s oppression lie in women’s
lack of equal civil rights and educational opportunities. Only
when these constraints on women’s participation are removed
will women have the same chance for success as men. This
approach notes the importance of gender-role socialization and
suggests that changes need to be made in what children learn
from their families, teachers, and the media about appropriate
masculine and feminine attitudes and behavior. Liberal
feminists fight for better child-care options, a woman’s right to
choose an abortion, and the elimination of sex discrimination in
the workplace (Figure 11.16).
Figure 11.16
In recent decades, more women have become doctors and
lawyers than in the past. How has this affected the way that
people “do gender” in settings that reflect their profession? Do
professional women look and act more like their male
colleagues, or have men changed their appearance and activities
at work as a result of having female colleagues?
Jim Arbogast/Photodisc/Getty Images
Radical Feminism
According to radical feminists, male domination causes all
forms of human oppression, including racism and classism.
Radical feminists often trace the roots of patriarchy to women’s
childbearing and child-rearing responsibilities, which make
them dependent on men. In the radical feminist view, men’s
oppression of women is deliberate, and ideological justification
for this subordination is provided by other institutions such as
the media and religion. For women’s condition to improve,
radical feminists claim, patriarchy must be abolished. If
institutions are currently gendered, alternative institutions—
such as women’s organizations seeking better health care, day
care, and shelters for victims of domestic violence and rape —

should be developed to meet women’s needs.
Socialist Feminism
Socialist feminists argue that the oppression of women results
from their dual roles as paid and unpaid workers in a capitalist
economy. In the workplace, women are exploited by capitalism;
at home, they are exploited by patriarchy. Women are easily
exploited in both sectors; they are paid low wages and have few
economic resources. According to some feminist scholars,
gender-segregated work is a central way in which men remain
dominant over women in capitalist economies, primarily
because most women have lower wages and fewer opportunities
than men. As a result, women must do domestic labor either to
gain a better-paid man’s economic support or to stretch their
own wages. According to socialist feminists, the only way to
achieve gender equality is to eliminate capitalism and develop a
socialist economy that would bring equal pay and rights to
women.
Multicultural Feminism
Recently, academics and activists have been rethinking the
experiences of women of color from a feminist perspective. The
experiences of African American women and Latinas/Chicanas
have been of particular interest to some social analysts.
Building on the civil rights and feminist movements of the late
1960s and early 1970s, some contemporary black feminists have
focused on the cultural experiences of African American
women. A central assumption of this analysis is that race, class,
and gender are forces that simultaneously oppress African
American women. The effects of these three statuses cannot be
adequately explained as “double” or “triple” jeopardy (race +
class + gender = a poor African American woman) because
these ascribed characteristics are not simply added to one
another. Instead, they are multiplicative in nature (race × class
× gender); different characteristics may be more significant in
one situation than another. For example, a well-to-do white

woman (class) may be in a position of privilege when compared
to people of color (race) and men from lower socioeconomic
positions (class), yet be in a subordinate position as compared
with a white man (gender) from the capitalist class (Andersen
and Collins, 2010). In order to analyze the complex relationship
among these characteristics, the lived experiences of African
American women and other previously “silenced people” must
be heard and examined within the context of particular
historical and social conditions.
A classic example of multicultural feminist studies is the work
of the psychologist Aida Hurtado (1996), who explored the
cultural identification of Latina/Chicana women. According to
Hurtado, distinct differences exist between the worldviews of
the white (non-Latina) women who participate in the women’s
movement and many Chicanas, who have a strong sense of
identity with their own communities. From this perspective,
women of color do not possess the “relational privilege” that
white women have because of their proximity to white
patriarchy through husbands, fathers, sons, and others. To
change this situation, there must be a “politics of inclusion,”
which might create social structures that lead to positive
behavior and bring more people into a dialogue about how to
improve social life and reduce inequalities.
Concept Quick Review
Sociological Perspectives on Gender Stratification
Perspective
Focus
Theory/Hypothesis
Functionalist
Macrolevel analysis of women’s and men’s roles
Traditional gender roles ensure that expressive and instrumental
tasks will be performed.
Human capital model
Conflict
Power and economic differentials between men and women

Unequal political and economic power heightens gender-based
social inequalities.
Feminist Approaches
Feminism should be embraced to reduce sexism and gender
inequality.
1. Liberal feminism
2. Radical feminism
3. Socialist feminism
4. Multicultural feminism
Evaluation of Conflict and Feminist Perspectives
Conflict and feminist perspectives provide insights into the
structural aspects of gender inequality in society. These
approaches emphasize factors external to individuals that
contribute to the oppression of white women and people of
color; however, they have been criticized for emphasizing the
differences between men and women without taking into
account the commonalities that they share. Feminist approaches
have also been criticized for their emphasis on male dominance
without a corresponding analysis of the ways in which some
men may also be oppressed by patriarchy and capitalism.
The Concept Quick Review outlines the key aspects of each
sociological perspective on gender socialization.11-7Looking
Ahead: Gender Issues in the Future
Over the past century, women made significant progress in the
labor force. Laws were passed to prohibit sexual discrimination
in the workplace and school. Affirmative action programs
helped make women more visible in education, government, and
the professional world. More women entered the political arena
as candidates and elected officials instead of as volunteers in
the campaign offices of male candidates. And a woman ran for
president of the United States in the 2016 election.
Many men joined movements to raise their consciousness,
realizing that what is harmful to women may also be harmful to
men. For example, women’s lower wages in the labor force

suppress men’s wages as well; in a two-paycheck family,
women who are paid less contribute less to the family’s
finances, thus placing a greater burden on men to earn more
money. In the midst of these changes, however, many gender
issues remain unresolved in the second decade of the twenty-
first century. For example, recent national surveys have shown
that the movement toward attitudes of greater gender equality in
the United States has slowed and that more people are
embracing a new cultural framework of “egalitarian
essentialism,” which is a blend of feminism equality and
traditional motherhood roles (Hermsen, Cotter, and Vanneman,
2011).
In the labor force, gender segregation and the wage gap are still
problems. As the United States attempts to climb out of the
worst economic recession in decades, job loss has affected both
women and men. However, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics (2014) show that the wages of the typical woman who
has a job have risen slightly faster than those of the typical
man. Rather than this being considered a gain for women, some
analysts suggest that it is a situation where everyone is losing
but that men are simply losing more because of job insecurity or
loss, declining real wages, and the loss of benefits such as
health care and pension funds.
In the United States and other nations of the world, gender
equity, political opportunities, education, and health care
remain pressing problems for women. Gender issues and
imbalances can contribute not only to individual problems but
also to societal problems, such as the destabilization of nations
in the global economy. Gender inequality is also an
international problem because it is related to violence against
women, sex trafficking, and other crimes against girls and
women (see Figure 11.17). To bring about social change for
women, it is important for them to be equal players in the
economy and the political process (International Foundation for
Electoral Systems, 2011). According to Hillary Rodham Clinton
(2011), former U.S. secretary of state, and presidential nominee

in 2016:
Governments and business leaders worldwide should view
investing in women as a strategy for job creation and economic
growth. And while many are doing so, the pool of talented
women remains underutilized, underpaid, and underrepresented
overall in business and society. Worldwide, women do two-
thirds of the work, yet they earn just one-third of the income
and own less than 2 percent of the land…. If we invest in
women’s education and give them the opportunity to access
credit or start a small business, we add fuel to a powerful
engine for progress for women, their families, their
communities and their countries.
As Clinton suggests, an investment in girls and women, whether
in the United States or in other nations of the world, will
strengthen other efforts to deal with social problems such as
violence against women, inequality, and poverty. However, we
must ask this: How will economic problems around the world
affect gender inequality in the twenty-first century? What do
you think might be done to provide more equal opportuniti es for
girls and women in difficult political, economic, and social
times?
Figure 11.17
Latinas have become increasingly involved in social activism
for causes that they believe are important. This woman states
her belief that we must “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants” in
establishing policies and laws to protect the U.S. border.
Ken Howard/Alamy
· LO1How do sex and gender differ?
Sex refers to the biological categories and manifestations of
femaleness and maleness; gender refers to the socially
constructed differences between females and males. In short,
sex is what we (generally) are born with; gender is what we
acquire through socialization.
· LO2What kinds of prejudice and discrimination occur on the

basis of sexual orientation?
Homophobia refers to extreme prejudice and sometimes
discriminatory actions directed at gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and
others who are perceived as not being heterosexual.
Discrimination occurs in many forms, including marital and
parenting rights, housing, health care, bank lending policies,
and other rights and privileges taken for granted by
heterosexual persons.
· LO3What are gender role, gender identity, body
consciousness, and sexism?
Gender role encompasses the attitudes, behaviors, and activities
that are socially assigned to each sex and that are learned
through socialization. Gender identity is an individual’s
perception of self as either female or male. Body consciousness
is how a person perceives and feels about his or her body.
Sexism is the subordination of one sex, usually female, based
on the assumed superiority of the other sex.
· LO4How does the division of labor between women and men
differ in various kinds of societies?
In most hunting and gathering societies, fairly equitable
relationships exist between women and men because neither sex
has the ability to provide all of the food necessary for survival.
In horticultural societies, a fair degree of gender equality exists
because neither sex controls the food supply. In agrarian
societies, male dominance is overt; agrarian tasks require more
labor and physical strength, and females are often excluded
from these tasks because they are viewed as too weak or too
tied to child-rearing activities. In industrialized societies, a gap
exists between nonpaid work performed by women at home and
paid work performed by men and women. A wage gap also
exists between women and men in the marketplace.
· LO5What are the primary agents of gender socialization, and
what is their role in socializing people throughout l ife?
Parents, peers, teachers and schools, sports, and the media are
agents of socialization that tend to reinforce stereotypes of
appropriate gender behavior. From birth, parents act differently

toward children on the basis of the child’s sex. Peers help
children learn gender-role stereotypes, as well as gender-
appropriate and gender-inappropriate behavior. Schools operate
as gendered institutions, and teachers provide messages about
gender through the formal content of assignments and informal
interactions. In terms of sports, boys are socialized to
participate in highly competitive, rule-oriented games, whereas
girls have traditionally been socialized to participate in
activities that involve less competitiveness. Recently, however,
more girls have started to participate in sports formerly
regarded as “male” activities.
· LO6In what ways does the contemporary workplace reflect
gender stratification?
Many women work in lower-paying, less prestigious jobs than
men. This occupational segregation leads to a disparity, or pay
gap, between women’s and men’s earnings. Even when women
are employed in the same job as men, on average they do not
receive the same, or comparable, pay.
· LO7How do functionalists and conflict theorists differ in their
perspectives on gender inequality?
According to functionalist analysts, women’s roles as caregivers
in contemporary industrialized societies are crucial in ensuring
that key societal tasks are fulfilled. While the husband performs
the instrumental tasks of economic support and decision
making, the wife assumes the expressive tasks of providing
affection and emotional support for the family. According to
conflict analysts, the gendered division of labor within families
and the workplace—particularly in agrarian and industrial
societies—results from male control and dominance over women
and resources.
· LO8What are the feminist perspectives on gender inequality?
Feminist perspectives provide insights into the structural
aspects of gender inequality in society. In liberal feminis m,
gender equality is equated with equality of opportunity. Radical
feminists often trace the roots of patriarchy to women’s
childbearing and child-rearing responsibilities, which make

them dependent on men. Socialist feminists argue that the
oppression of women results from their dual roles as paid and
unpaid workers in a capitalist economy. Academics and activists
have been rethinking the experiences of women of color from a
feminist perspective. The experiences of African American
women and Latinas/Chicanas have been of particular interest to
some social analysts.
Unit 6.1: Families and Intimate Relationships
15-1Families in Global Perspective
LO 1
Explain these key concepts: families, kinship, family of
orientation, family of procreation, extended family, and nuclear
family.
As the nature of family life has changed in high-, middle-, and
low-income nations, the issue of what constitutes a “family”
continues to be widely debated. In the “Universal Declaration of
Human Rights,” Article 16, adopted by the United Nations
(1948), the family is defined as follows:
· Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to
race, nationality, or religion, have the right to marry and to
found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage,
during marriage and at its dissolution.
· Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full
consent of the intending spouses.
· The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of
society and is entitled to protection by society and the States.
According to this declaration, the social institution of family
must be protected in all societies because family is the “natural”
and “fundamental” group unit of society. Although families
differ widely around the world, they also share certain common
concerns in their everyday lives. Food, clothing, shelter, and
child care are necessities important to all people.
In the United States the Census Bureau defines a family as
consisting of two or more people who are related by birth,

marriage, or adoption, and residing in the same housing unit.
(The Census Bureau specifies that one person in the household
unit will be identified as the “householder.”) For many years the
standard sociological definition of family has been a group of
people who are related to one another by bonds of blood,
marriage, or adoption and who live together, form an economic
unit, and bear and raise children. Some people believe that this
definition should not be expanded—that social approval should
not be extended to other relationships simply because the
persons in those relationships wish to consider themselves to be
a family. However, other people challenge this definition
because it simply does not match the reality of family life in
contemporary society, particularly at a time when only about
half of adults ages eighteen and older are married in the legal
usage of the term.
Today’s families include many types of living arrangements and
relationships, including single-parent households, unmarried
couples, LGBTQ couples with or without children, and multiple
generations (such as grandparent, parent, and child) living in
the same household (Figure 15.1). To accurately reflect these
changes in family life, some sociologists believe that we need a
more encompassing definition of what constitutes a family.
Accordingly, families are relationships in which people live
together with commitment, form an economic unit and care for
any young, and consider their identity to be significantly
attached to the group. Sexual expression and parent–child
relationships are a part of most, but not all, family
relationships.
Figure 15.1
Contemporary families are more diverse than in the past,
including an increasing number of households made up of young
people who, at least temporarily, have returned to live in their
parents’ homes. What larger societal factors contribute to this
living arrangement?
Denise Hager, Catchlight Visual Services/Catchlight Visual

Services/Alamy
How do sociologists approach the study of families? In our
study of families we will use our sociological imagination to
see how our personal experiences are related to the larger
happenings in society. At the microlevel, each of us has a
“biography,” based on our experience within our family; at the
macrolevel, our families are embedded in a specific culture and
social context that has a major effect on them. We will examine
the institution of the family at both of these levels, starting with
family structure and characteristics.15-1aFamily Structure and
Characteristics
In preindustrial societies the primary form of social
organization is through kinship ties. Kinship refers to a social
network of people based on common ancestry, marriage, or
adoption. Through kinship networks, people cooperate so that
they can acquire the basic necessities of life, including food and
shelter. Kinship systems can also serve as a means by which
property is transferred, goods are produced and distributed, and
power is allocated.
In industrialized societies, other social institutions fulfill some
of the functions previously taken care of by the kinship
network. For example, political systems provide structures of
social control and authority, and economic systems are
responsible for the production and distribution of goods and
services. Consequently, families in industrialized societies
serve fewer and more-specialized purposes than do families in
preindustrial societies. Contemporary families are primarily
responsible for regulating sexual activity, socializing children,
and providing affection and companionship for family members.
Families of Orientation and Procreation
During our lifetime, many of us will be members of two
different types of families—a family of orientation and a family
of procreation. The family of orientation is the family into
which a person is born and in which early socialization usually
takes place. Although most people are related to members of

their family of orientation by blood ties, those who are adopted
have a legal tie that is patterned after a blood relationship
(Figure 15.2). The family of procreation is the family that a
person forms by having, adopting, or otherwise creating
children. Both legal and blood ties are found in most families of
procreation. The relationship between a husband and wife is
based on legal ties; however, the relationship between a parent
and child may be based on either blood ties or legal ties,
depending on whether the child has been adopted.
Figure 15.2
Whereas the relationship between spouses is based on legal ties,
relationships between parents and children may be established
by either blood or legal ties.
Myrleen Pearson/Alamy
Some sociologists have emphasized that “family of orientation”
and “family of procreation” do not encompass all types of
contemporary families. Instead, many gay, lesbian, transsexual,
bisexual, and transgender persons have families we choose—
social arrangements that include intimate relationships between
couples and close familial relationships among other couples
and other adults and children. According to the sociologist Judy
Root Aulette (1994), “families we choose” include blood ties
and legal ties, but they also include fictive kin—persons who
are not actually related by blood but who are accepted as family
members.
Extended and Nuclear Families
Sociologists distinguish between extended families and nuclear
families based on the number of generations that live within a
household. An extended family is a family unit composed of
relatives in addition to parents and children who live in the
same household. These families often include grandparents,
uncles, aunts, or other relatives who live close to the parents
and children, making it possible for family members to share
resources. In horticultural and agricultural societies, extended

families are extremely important; having a large number of
family members participate in food production may be essential
for survival. Today, extended-family patterns are found in Latin
America, Africa, Asia, and some parts of Eastern and Southern
Europe. With the advent of industrialization and urbanization,
maintaining the extended-family pattern becomes more difficult.
Increasingly, young people move from rural to urban areas in
search of employment in the industrializing sector of the
economy. At that time, some extended families remain, but the
nuclear family typically becomes the predominant family form
in the society.
A nuclear family is a family composed of one or two parents
and their dependent children, all of whom live apart from other
relatives. A traditional definition specifies that a nuclear family
is made up of a “couple” and their dependent children; however,
this definition became outdated when a significant shift
occurred in the family structure. A comparison of Census
Bureau data from 1970 and 2015 shows that there has been a
significant decline in the percentage of U.S. households
comprising a married couple with their own children under
eighteen years of age, so we will look at what some social
analysts refer to as the contemporary, diverse family.
The Contemporary Family—Family Diversity in the Twenty-
First Century
In the second decade of the twenty-first century, researchers
have found that there is no such thing as a typical family. In the
past the typical family comprised two married, heterosexual
parents in their first marriage and their children under 18 years
of age. In the 1960s, this was the norm for 73 percent of
children living in the United States. However, by 1980, only 61
percent of children lived in such families, and the percentage
reached a new low at less than one-half (46 percent) in 2014
(Livingston, 2014). In the words of a Time magazine article,
“Pretty much everyone agrees that the era of the nuclear family,
with a dad who went to work, and the mom who stayed at home,

has declined to the point of no return” (Luscombe, 2014). Of
course, the question remains: “What is taking the place of the
nuclear family?” And more family researchers are finding that
the answer is diversity—a wider variety of family living
arrangements has become the norm. According to the
sociologist Philip Cohen (2014), three major factors have
contributed to this dramatic change in family structure in the
United States:
· (1)
a decline in marriage rates;
· (2)
a rise in the number of women who are employed in the paid
workforce, and
· (3)
a shift from the majority living in a nuclear family to a wider
variety of living arrangements, such as blended families,
cohabitation, and more-extensive patterns of remarriage
(discussed later in this chapter).15-1bMarriage Patterns
LO 2
Describe the differences among the following marriage
patterns—monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry—and
the differences among these patterns of descent—patrilineal,
matrilineal, and bilateral.
Across cultures, different forms of marriage characterize
families. Marriage is a legally recognized and/or socially
approved arrangement between two or more individuals that
carries certain rights and obligations and usually involves
sexual activity. In most societies, marriage involves a mutual
commitment by each partner, and linkages between two
individuals and families are publicly demonstrated.
In the United States the only legally sanctioned form of
marriage is monogamy—the practice or state of being married
to one person at a time. For some people, marriage is a lifelong
commitment that ends only with the death of a partner. For
others, marriage is a commitment of indefinite duration.
Through a pattern of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, some

people practice serial monogamy—a succession of marriages in
which a person has several spouses over a lifetime but is legally
married to only one person at a time.
Polygamy is the concurrent marriage of a person of one sex with
two or more members of the opposite sex. The most prevalent
form of polygamy is polygyny—the concurrent marriage of one
man with two or more women. Polygyny has been practiced in a
number of societies, including parts of Europe until the Middle
Ages. More recently, some marriages in Islamic societies in
Africa and Asia have been polygynous; however, the cost of
providing for multiple wives and numerous children makes the
practice impossible for all but the wealthiest men. In addition,
because roughly equal numbers of women and men live in these
areas, this nearly balanced sex ratio tends to limit polygyny.
Contemporary cable TV shows have portrayed several U.S.
families whose members live the polygamous lifestyle (Figure
15.3).
Figure 15.3
Polygamy is the concurrent marriage of a person of one sex with
two or more persons of the opposite sex. Although most people
do not practice this pattern of marriage, some men are married
to more than one wife. Shown here is a polygamist family made
up of Kody Brown and his four wives, who have been featured
on the TLC reality television series, Sister Wives.
WENN Ltd/Alamy
The second type of polygamy is polyandry—the concurrent
marriage of one woman with two or more men. Polyandry is
very rare; when it does occur, it is typically found in societies
where men greatly outnumber women because of high rates of
female infanticide.15-1cPatterns of Descent and Inheritance
Even though a variety of marital patterns exist across cultures,
virtually all forms of marriage establish a system of descent so
that kinship can be determined and inheritance rights
established. In preindustrial societies, kinship is usually traced
through one parent (unilineally). The most common pattern of

unilineal descent is patrilineal descent—a system of tracing
descent through the father’s side of the family. Patrilineal
systems are set up in such a manner that a legitimate son
inherits his father’s property and sometimes his position upon
the father’s death. In nations such as India, where boys are seen
as permanent patrilineal family members but girls are seen as
only temporary family members, girls tend to be considered
more expendable than boys.
Even with the less common pattern of matrilineal descent—a
system of tracing descent through the mother’s side of the
family—women may not control property. However, inheritance
of property and position is usually traced from the maternal
uncle (mother’s brother) to his nephew (mother’s son). In some
cases, mothers may pass on their property to daughters.
By contrast, kinship in industrial societies is usually traced
through both parents (bilineally). The most common form
is bilateral descent—a system of tracing descent through both
the mother’s and father’s sides of the family. This pattern is
used in the United States for the purpose of determining kinship
and inheritance rights; however, children typically take the
father’s last name.15-1dPower and Authority in Families
LO 3
Identify the authority figure(s) in each of the following kinds of
families: patriarchal, matriarchal, and egalitarian.
Descent and inheritance rights are intricately linked with
patterns of power and authority in families. The most prevalent
forms of familial power and authority are patriarchy,
matriarchy, and egalitarianism. A patriarchal family is a family
structure in which authority is held by the eldest male (usually
the father). The male authority figure acts as head of the
household and holds power and authority over the women and
children, as well as over other males. A matriarchal family is a
family structure in which authority is held by the eldest female
(usually the mother). In this case the female authority figure
acts as head of the household. Although there has been a great
deal of discussion about matriarchal families, scholars have

found no historical evidence to indicate that true matriarchies
ever existed.
The most prevalent pattern of power and authority in families is
patriarchy. Across cultures, men are the primary (and often
sole) decision makers regarding domestic, economic, and social
concerns facing the family. The existence of patriarchy may
give men a sense of power over their own lives, but it can also
create an atmosphere in which some men feel greater freedom to
abuse women and children.
An egalitarian family is a family structure in which both
partners share power and authority equally. Recently, a trend
toward more-egalitarian relationships has been evident in a
number of countries as women have sought changes in their
legal status and increased educational and employment
opportunities. Some degree of economic independence makes it
possible for women to delay marriage or to termina te a
problematic marriage. Recent cross-national studies have found
that larger increases in the proportion of women who have
higher levels of education, who hold jobs with higher wages,
who have more commitment to careers outside the family, and
who have greater interest in gender equality all contribute to the
support of egalitarian gender values in the larger society as
these ideas eventually spread to others.15-1eResidential
Patterns
Residential patterns are interrelated with the authority structure
and the method of tracing descent in families. Patrilocal
residence refers to the custom of a married couple living in the
same household (or community) as the husband’s parents.
Across cultures, patrilocal residency is the most common
pattern. Patrilocal residency can be found in countries where it
is to the distinct advantage of young men to remain close to
their parents’ household.
Few societies have residential patterns known as matrilocal—
the custom of a married couple living in the same household (or
community) as the wife’s parents. In industrialized nations such
as the United States, most couples hope to live in a neolocal

residence—the custom of a married couple living in their own
residence apart from both the husband’s and the wife’s parents.
Up to this point, we have examined a variety of marriage and
family patterns found around the world. Even with the diversity
of these patterns, most people’s behavior is shaped by cultural
rules pertaining to endogamy and exogamy. Endogamy is the
practice of marrying within one’s own group. In the United
States, for example, most people practice endogamy: They
marry people who come from the same social class, racial –
ethnic group, religious affiliation, and other categories
considered important within their own social group. Exogamy is
the practice of marrying outside one’s own group. Depending on
the circumstances, exogamy may not be noticed at all, or it may
result in a person being ridiculed or ostracized by other
members of the “in” group. The three most important sources of
positive or negative sanctions for intermarriage are the family,
the church, and the state. Participants in these social institutions
may look unfavorably on the marriage of an in-group member to
an “outsider” because of the belief that it diminishes social
cohesion in the group. However, educational attainment is also
a strong indicator of marital choice. Higher education
emphasizes individual achievement, and college-educated
people may be less likely than others to identify themselves
with their social or cultural roots and thus more willing to
marry outside their own social group or category if their
potential partner shares a similar level of educational
attainment.15-2Theoretical Perspectives on Family
LO 4
Compare functionalist, conflict/feminist, symbolic
interactionist, and postmodernist perspectives on the family as a
social institution.
The sociology of family is the subdiscipline of sociology that
attempts to describe and explain patterns of family life and
variations in family structure. Functionalist perspectives
emphasize the functions that families perform at the macrolevel
of society, whereas conflict and feminist perspectives focus on

families as a primary source of social inequality. Symbolic
interactionists examine microlevel interactions that are integral
to the roles of different family members. Postmodern analysts
view families as being permeable, capable of being diffused or
invaded so that their original purpose is modified.15-
2aFunctionalist Perspectives
Functionalists emphasize the importance of the family in
maintaining the stability of society and the well-being of
individuals. According to Emile Durkheim, marriage is a
microcosmic replica of the larger society; both marriage and
society involve a mental and moral fusion of physically distinct
individuals. Durkheim also believed that a division of labor
contributes to greater efficiency in all areas of life—including
marriages and families—even though he acknowledged that this
division imposes significant limitations on some people.
In the United States, Talcott Parsons was a key figure in
developing a functionalist model of the family. According to
Parsons (1955), the husband/father fulfills the instrumental
role (meeting the family’s economic needs, making important
decisions, and providing leadership), whereas the wife/mother
fulfills the expressive role (running the household, caring for
children, and meeting the emotional needs of family members).
Contemporary functionalist perspectives on families derive their
foundation from Durkheim. Division of labor makes it possible
for families to fulfill a number of functions that no other
institution can perform as effectively. In advanced industrial
societies, families serve four key functions:
1. Sexual regulation. Families are expected to regulate the
sexual activity of their members and thus control reproduction
so that it occurs within specific boundaries. At the macrolevel,
incest taboos prohibit sexual contact or marriage between
certain relatives. For example, virtually all societies prohibit
sexual relations between parents and their children and between
brothers and sisters.
2. Socialization. Parents and other relatives are responsible for
teaching children the necessary knowledge and skills to survive.

The smallness and intimacy of families make them best suited
for providing children with the initial learning experiences they
need.
3. Economic and psychological support. Families are
responsible for providing economic and psychological support
for members. In preindustrial societies, families are economic
production units; in industrial societies, the economic security
of families is tied to the workplace and to macrolevel economic
systems. In recent years, psychological support and emotional
security have been increasingly important functions of the
family.
4. Provision of social status. Families confer social status and
reputation on their members. These statuses include the ascribed
statuses with which individuals are born, such as race/ethnicity,
nationality, social class, and sometimes religious affiliation.
One of the most significant and compelling forms of social
placement is the family’s class position and the opportunities
(or lack thereof) resulting from that position. Examples of
class-related opportunities are access to quality health care,
higher education, and a safe place to live.15-2bConflict and
Feminist Perspectives
Conflict and feminist analysts view functionalist perspectives
on the role of the family in society as idealized and inadequate.
Rather than operating harmoniously and for the benefit of all
members, families are sources of social inequality and conflict
over values, goals, and access to resources and power (Figure
15.4).
Figure 15.4
Functionalist theorists believe that families serve a variety of
functions that no other social institution can adequately fulfill.
In contrast, conflict and feminist theorists believe that families
may be a source of conflict over values, goals, and access to
resources and power. Children in upper-class families have
many advantages and opportunities that are not available to
other children.

Monkey Business Images/ Shutterstock.com
According to some classical conflict theorists, families in
capitalist economies are similar to the work environment of a
factory: Men in the home dominate women in the same manner
that capitalists and managers in factories dominate their
workers (Engels, 1970/1884). Although childbearing and care
for family members in the home contribute to capitalism, these
activities also reinforce the subordination of women through
unpaid (and often devalued) labor. Other conflict analysts are
concerned with the effect that class conflict has on the family.
The exploitation of the lower classes by the upper classes
contributes to family problems such as high rates of divorce and
overall family instability.
Some feminist perspectives on inequality in families focus on
patriarchy rather than class. From this viewpoint, men’s
domination over women existed long before capitalism and
private ownership of property. Women’s subordination is rooted
in patriarchy and men’s control over women’s labor power.
According to one scholar, “Male power in our society is
expressed in economic terms even if it does not originate in
property relations; women’s activities in the home have been
undervalued at the same time as their labor has been controlled
by men” (Mann, 1994: 42). In addition, men have benefited
from the privileges they derive from their status as family
breadwinners.15-2cSymbolic Interactionist Perspectives
Early symbolic interactionists such as Charles Horton Cooley
and George Herbert Mead provided key insights on the roles
that we play as family members and how we modify or adapt
our roles to the expectations of others—especially significant
others such as parents, grandparents, siblings, and other
relatives. How does the family influence the individual’s self-
concept and identity? In order to answer questions such as this
one, contemporary symbolic interactionists examine the roles of
husbands, wives, and children as they act out their own parts
and react to the actions of others. From such a perspective, what
people think, as well as what they say and do, is very important

in understanding family dynamics.
Some symbolic interactionist theorists focus on how interaction
between marital partners contributes to a shared reality (Berger
and Kellner, 1964). Although newlyweds bring separate
identities to a marriage, over time they construct a shared
reality as a couple. In the process, the partners redefine thei r
past identities to be consistent with new realities. Development
of a shared reality is a continuous process, taking place not only
in the family but in any group in which the couple participates
together. Divorce is the reverse of this process; couples may
start with a shared reality and, in the process of uncoupling,
gradually develop separate realities (Figure 15.5).
Figure 15.5
Marriage is a complicated process involving rituals and shared
moments of happiness. When marriage is followed by divorce,
couples must abandon a shared reality and then reestablish
individual ones.
Corbis Super RF/Alamy; Pixland/Getty Images Plus/Getty
Images
Symbolic interactionists explain family relationships in terms of
the subjective meanings and everyday interpretations that
people give to their lives. As the sociologist Jessie Bernard
(1982/1973) pointed out, women and men experience marriage
differently. Although the husband may see his marriage very
positively, the wife may feel less positive about her marriage,
or vice versa. Researchers have found that husbands and wives
may give very different accounts of the same event and that
their “two realities” frequently do not coincide.15-
2dPostmodernist Perspectives
According to postmodern theories, we have experienced a
significant decline in the influence of the family and other
social institutions. As people have pursued individual freedom,
they have been less inclined to accept the structural constraints
imposed on them by institutions. Given this assumption, how
might a postmodern perspective view contemporary family life?

For example, how might this approach answer the question
“How is family life different in the digital age where many of
us are surrounded by our technological gadgets?”
The postmodern family has been described as permeable—a
more fluid and pliable form of the nuclear family that is
characterized by larger variations in family structures. These
variations are generated by divorce, remarriage, cohabitation,
single-parent family structures, and families in which one or
more grandchildren live with their grandparents. In the
postmodern family, traditional gender roles are much more
flexible. Younger people are much less constrained by the
hierarchy and power relations of more-traditional families,
sometimes to the displeasure of parents and other adult
caregivers. In the postmodern era, the nuclear family is now
only one of many family forms. Similarly, the idea of romantic
love has given way to the idea of consensual love: Some
individuals agree to have sexual relations with others whom
they have no intention of marrying or, if they marry, do not
necessarily see the marriage as having permanence. Maternal
love has also been transformed into shared parenting, which
includes not only mothers and fathers but also caregivers who
may either be relatives or nonrelatives.
Urbanity is another characteristic of the postmodern family. The
boundaries between the public sphere (the workplace) and the
private sphere (the home) are becoming much more open and
flexible. In fact, family life may be negatively affected by the
decreasing …

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