text:
Introduction to Sociology/Deviance

Introduction to deviance

Deviance is any behavior that violates cultural norms. Norms are social expectations that guide human behavior. Deviance is often divided into two types of deviant activities. The first, crime is the violation of formally enacted laws and is referred to as formal deviance. Examples of formal deviance would include: robbery, theft, rape, murder, and assault, just to name a few. The second type of deviant behavior refers to violations of informal social norms, norms that have not been codified into law, and is referred to as informal deviance. Examples of informal deviance might include: picking one's nose, belching loudly (in some cultures), or standing too close to another unnecessarily (again, in some cultures).

As the last two examples in the preceding paragraph illustrate, deviance can vary quite dramatically from culture to culture. This makes sense given that cultural norms are relative. If norms are relative, what is required to deviate from those norms (i.e., deviance) is relative as well. For instance, in general U.S. society it is uncommon for people to restrict their speech to certain hours of the day. In the Christ Desert Monastery there are specific rules about when the residents can and cannot speak, including a specific ban on speaking between 7:30 pm and 4:00 am. The norms and rules of the Christ Desert Monastery are examples of how norms are relative to cultures.

Sociological interest in deviance includes both interests in measuring formal deviance (statistics of criminal behavior; see below), examining how people (individually and collectively) define some things deviant and others normative, and a number of theories that try to explain both the role of deviance in society and its origins. This chapter will cover the theories of deviance used by sociologists and will also cover current crime statistics.

Psychological and Biological Explanations
While the focus of this chapter is on sociological explanations of deviance, there are explanations from other disciplines as well. For instance, recent research in neurology and psychology finds that boys with conduct disorder have differences in their brain structure and that those differences exist during childhood and adolescence. These differences likely contribute to their deviant behavior, but whether or not these differences exist before deviant activities is widely debated.

Some biologists have also explored the possibility that the human tendency to follow norms may have evolved as it facilitates group cohesion. In simulations, individuals who did not conform to social norms were typically punished by others in the group, leading to substantial pressure to conform to social norms. This research raises the possibility that humans have evolved - due to selection pressures - to more readily accept social norms and avoid deviance. Part of the reason why biological and evolutionary explanations for conformity to social norms seems somewhat compelling is because of the extreme length to which some people are willing to conform, including causing themselves physical harm in order to avoid breaking the norms of some groups.

Social-Strain Typology
Robert K. Merton, in his discussion of deviance, proposed a typology of deviant behavior. A typology is a classification scheme designed to facilitate understanding. In this case, Merton was proposing a typology of deviance based upon two criteria: (1) a person's motivations or his or her adherence to cultural goals; (2) a person's belief in how to attain his or her goals. These two criteria are shown in the diagram below. According to Merton, there are five types of deviance based upon these criteria:

 * conformity involves the acceptance of the cultural goals and means of attaining those goals (e.g., a banker)
 * innovation involves the acceptance of the goals of a culture but the rejection of the traditional and/or legitimate means of attaining those goals (e.g., a member of the Mafia or street gang values wealth but employs alternative means of attaining her wealth)
 * ritualism involves the rejection of cultural goals but the routinized acceptance of the means for achieving the goals (e.g., a disillusioned bureaucrat - like Milton in the movie Office Space, who goes to work everyday because it is what he does, but does not share the goal of the company of making lots of money)
 * retreatism involves the rejection of both the cultural goals and the traditional means of achieving those goals (e.g., a homeless person who is homeless more by choice than by force or circumstance or a commune established separately from dominant social norms)
 * rebellion is a special case wherein the individual rejects both the cultural goals and traditional means of achieving them but actively attempts to replace both elements of the society with different goals and means (e.g., a communist revolution or social movement activities)

What makes Merton's typology so fascinating is that people can turn to deviance in the pursuit of widely accepted social values and goals. For instance, individuals in the U.S. who sell illegal drugs have rejected the culturally acceptable means of making money, but still share the widely accepted cultural value in the U.S. of making money. Thus, deviance can be the result of accepting one norm, but breaking another in order to pursue the first.

Structural-Functionalism
The structural-functionalist approach to deviance argues that deviant behavior plays an important role in society for several reasons. First, deviance helps distinguish between what is acceptable behavior, and what is not. In a sense deviance is required in order for people to know what they can and cannot do. It draws lines and demarcates boundaries. This is an important function as it affirms the cultural values and norms of a society for the members of that society.

In addition to clarifying the moral boundaries of society, deviant behavior can also promote social unity, but it does so at the expense of the deviant individuals, who are obviously excluded from the sense of unity derived from differentiating the non-deviant from the deviants.

Finally, and quite out of character for the structural-functionalist approach, deviance is actually seen as one means for society to change over time. Deviant behavior can imbalance societal equilibrium. In the process of returning societal equilibrium, society is often forced to change. Thus, deviant behavior serves several important functions in society.

Conflict Theory
A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes. White-collar crimes are typically committed by individuals in higher social classes. Examples of white-collar crimes include :
 * antitrust violations
 * computer, credit card, phone, telemarketing, bankruptcy, healthcare, insurance, mail, and government fraud
 * tax evasion
 * insider trading
 * bribery and public corruption
 * counterfeiting
 * money laundering
 * embezzlement
 * economic espionage
 * trade secret theft

As of 2022, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics do not provide clear statistics on white-collar crime, like they do with other types of crime. Most of the statistics provided are estimates of losses resulting from white-collar crime, which include:
 * unclear amount of money lost from corporate crime, but totaling in the billions
 * at least $50 billion lost every year in the U.S. from health care fraud
 * unclear amount of money lost from financial institution fraud, but totaling in the billions
 * unclear amount of money lost from money laundering, but also totaling in the billions
 * at least 10% of government funds for domestic programs may be lost to fraud every year, totaling in the billions
 * unclear amount of money lost from insurance, telemarketing, and investment fraud every year, but also totaling in the billions

That such crimes are not tracked more clearly suggests that there is less of an emphasis placed on prosecuting white collar crime than there is on prosecuting other types of crime (property and violent crime) in the U.S. It may also be the case that it is difficult to collect such statistics, but that is also likely due to the fact that a system for tracking such crimes has not been put into place because such crimes are not seen as warranting the same amount of attention as exists for other types of crimes.

That white-collar crimes are less likely to be tracked, less likely to be reported, less likely to be prosecuted, and are more likely to be committed by people in higher social classes suggests that the way crimes are punished in the U.S. tends to favor the affluent while punitively punishing the less affluent. Additionally, men benefit more from white-collar crime than do women, as they are more likely to attempt these crimes when they are in more powerful positions, allowing them to reap greater rewards.

Another illustration of how criminal behavior is tied to inequality and power is in the oft-stated motivation for committing property crimes - a lack of money and resources. Many individuals who commit property crimes do so because they are in need of money. Additionally, many of those individuals, and many people who are less affluent, lack education in how to manage money and finances, which can result in a cycle of poverty and crime.

Labeling Theory
Labeling Theory refers to the idea that individuals become deviant when two things occur: This approach to deviance recognizes its cultural relativity and is aware that deviance can result from power imbalances. But it takes the idea of deviance further by illustrating how a deviant identity develops through the application and adoption of labels. Labeling theory argues that people become deviant as a result of people forcing that identity upon them and then adopting the identity.
 * 1) a deviant label is applied to them (e.g., loner, punk)
 * 2) they adopt the label by exhibiting the behaviors, actions, and attitudes associated with the label

Labels are understood to be the names associated with identities or role-sets in society. Examples of more innocuous labels might include father or lover. Deviant labels refer to identities that are known for falling outside of cultural norms, like loner or punk.

There are two additional ideas related to the labeling theory approach to understanding deviance. First, once a deviant identity is adopted, it is often the case that the past behaviors of the now deviant individual are re-interpreted in light of the new identity. The process of re-casting one's past actions in light of a current identity is referred to as retrospective labeling. A very clear example of retrospective labeling can be seen in how the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were re-cast after the incident took place. Much of their behavior leading up to the school shootings has been re-interpreted in light of the deviant identity with which they were labeled as a result of the shootings.

Another important element of labeling theory involves the idea of stigma. Stigma refers to the situation of the individual who is disqualified from full social acceptance because of some mark of infamy or disgrace or a label that is often difficult to hide or disguise. Stigma extend the idea of labeling theory by illustrating how individual characteristics can be the basis for attaching labels that can be life-altering. A good example of a stigma that is now increasingly difficult to hide is the publishing of convicted sex offender identities and information on websites (see here for an example). The stigma is the past behavior - the sex offense - but this identity is relatively easily hidden as it impossible to pick a sex offender out of a crowd. By pushing the sex offender identity into public purview, sex offenders, regardless of current behavior, are stigmatized; they are stuck with a deviant identity that overwhelms any other identity they may have. In sum, labeling theory argues that the application of labels (role-sets) to individuals is an important element leading to deviant behavior.

Crime Statistics
Crime statistics are usually data collected by governments for the reporting of incidents of criminal activity. They are useful for a number of reasons, beyond simply giving an awareness of the extent of criminal activity. Presented below are statistics on criminal activity and the criminal justice system for both the U.S. and selected nations around the world (for comparisons). The statistics included in this section were chosen to provide a sampling of how crime statistics can be useful beyond simply reporting incidents of criminal behavior.

It is important to understand that crime statistics do not provide a perfect view of crime. Government statistics on crime only show data for crimes that have been reported to authorities. These crimes represent only a fraction of those crimes that have been acted upon by law enforcement, which in turn represents only a fraction of those crimes where people have made complaints to the police, which in turn represents only a fraction of the total crimes committed. However, it should also be noted that television presents an unrealistic picture of the frequency of crime, particularly violent crime. Heavy viewers of crime dramas on TV (e.g., CSI, Law & Order, etc.) estimate that there are 2 1/2 times as many real world deaths due to murder than do non-viewers. Thus, while crimes are under-reported, they do tend to receive disproportionate attention in the media, leading people to think that crime is more prevalent than it actually is.

Incarceration Rates and Populations
One of the more interesting features of the U.S. is the extensive number of people who are currently in the correctional system. One explanation for this is the increasingly punitive approach of the criminal justice system. According to Western (2007), those who break laws in the U.S. today are twice as likely to be imprisoned as criminals a generation ago. While debated, the percentage of prison inmates who have been wrongly convicted of crimes is estimated to be somewhere between less than 1% all the way up to 9%, which could mean hundreds of thousands of prison inmates are actually innocent. The figure below breaks down the correctional system population by the status of individuals in the correctional system, including:

 * prison
 * probation
 * jail
 * parole

While the population of the United States is the third largest in the world (behind China and India), the percentage of the population that is in prison is the highest in the world, as illustrated by the map below.

This map illustrates that the U.S. has both a lot of people in prison in sheer numbers but also as a percentage of the population. Comparing incarceration rates by countries goes beyond just reporting incidents of criminal activity (incidents of crime are not much higher in the U.S. than elsewhere) by highlighting differences in the correctional systems of countries. Countries differ in the restrictiveness of their laws and prison sentences. Differences of these types are seen when comparing incarceration rates and populations.

The U.S. has a relatively high recidivism rate. Recidivism refers to the frequency of repeat offenses. More than half (some estimate around 67%) of prison inmates will be convicted on another charge within three years of having been released and return to prison. This statistic is revealing of the nature of the prison system in the U.S.: it is more interested in keeping people who commit crimes away from the rest of the population than it is in attempting to reform or resocialize individuals to make them productive members of society. One factor that contributes to the high recidivism rates is the social stigma that accompanies having been convicted of a felony in the US. van Olphen et al. (2009) found that individuals convicted of drug offenses were very likely to be reincarcerated, largely due to punitive punishments that accompanied their "convicted felon" stigma. For instance, they were often denied access to public housing and food stamps, which led many of the participants in the study to sell drugs to survive, leading to future arrests and convictions. The lack of help given to convicts released from prison increases the odds of those convicts returning to prison. Another factor that significantly increases the odds of convicts returning to prison is their return to their former neighborhoods. Convicts who move away from their old neighborhood are substantially less likely to commit another crime; distancing themselves from the social environment that encouraged their criminal activity in the first place reduces their odds of reincarceration. Finally, the stigma associated with spending time in prison leads to substantially worse physical and mental health for ex-cons, including higher rates of chronic illness, disability, psychiatric disorders, major depression, and anxiety.

A relatively recent innovation in criminal justice that has been shown to moderately reduce recidivism rates is "drug courts," or alternative sentencing systems that mandate treatment and therapy rather than jail time for drug offenses. Drug courts appear to reduce recidivism by somewhere between 8 and 10 percent. That drug courts reduce recidivism is not all that surprising consider there is an actual intent to modify behavior rather than simply removing individuals from society.

Another interesting characteristic of the U.S. is the amount of money that is spent on the correctional system. Policing the nations streets is the most expensive component of the correctional system, followed by housing prison inmates. The average annual cost for one federal prisoner exceeds $20,000. The judicial process is the least expensive, but the combined expenses of all three elements total over $300 billion annually (when you combine state, local, and federal expenditures). Even though billions of dollars are spent on the criminal justice system every year in the U.S., the financial outlays actually account for only part of the cost of mass incarceration. Millions of additional jobs and even lives are lost as a result of the stigma that follows prison inmates when released (which also explains the high recidivism rate). Convicted felons are barred from working in certain industries, have limited access to educational opportunities, and have limited access to welfare and housing benefits from the government. All of these problems combine to concentrate former inmates in poor urban neighborhoods that have limited opportunities to move out of criminal circles. Reducing the consequences of felony convictions and providing occupational and drug counseling would go a long way toward alleviating the high recidivism rates.

Gender
Another way crime statistics can go beyond simply reporting incidents of criminal activity is in highlighting differences between different groups. One difference in criminal activity is seen in the number of violent crimes committed by gender; men are more likely to commit violent crimes than are women.

Another telling crime statistic that is traditionally seen as highlighting power imbalances is the number of rapes in society. While the focus of this chapter is not on exploring the motivations behind rape, the number of rapes in the U.S. and internationally can be seen to reflect power imbalances between men and women as men are far more likely to rape women than vice versa. The figures below shows the rape rate in the US relative to other violent crime rates.

Race
Regardless of one's views on the War on Drugs in the U.S., one thing is certain, the war disproportionately targeted African Americans. Since the inception of the war on drugs in 1980, millions of drug related arrests have been made. African Americans are no more likely to use drugs than are white individuals, but between 1980 and 2003, the arrest rates for African Americans for drug offenses rose at three times the rate as it did for white individuals, 225% vs. 70%. The reason: drug use and trafficking in the inner-city as opposed to suburbs has been the focus of the war. Additionally, penalties for using drugs that are more often found among minorities have traditionally been harsher than for drugs used by white individuals. Crack and powder cocaine are very similar in effect, but possession of crack cocaine carried harsher penalties from the 1990s through the early 2000s and was more likely to be used by black individuals, who account for nearly 80% of crack convictions, than white individuals. These laws were enacted in 1986 and mandated minimum sentencing: 5 years for possessing five grams of crack; 10 years for 10 grams. The thresholds for powdered cocaine were 100 times as high - 500 grams of powdered cocaine got you just 5 years. The discriminatory prosecution of African Americans for drug offenses is just one way in which the criminal justice system in the U.S. works against African American equality.

The criminal justice system in the U.S. has a significant impact on the life chances of racial and ethnic minorities, in particular, people of African descent. Serving time in prison has become a normative event for young, lower-class African-American males. The average African-American, male, high-school dropout born in the 1960s in the U.S. had a nearly 60% chance of serving time in prison by the end of the 1990s. This probability dropped precipitously for college-educated African-Americans. A disproportionate percentage of African-Americans serve time in prison; African-Americans make up ~12% of the U.S. population but nearly 46% of prison inmates. States with larger African-American populations tend to incarcerate more people, have more punitive policies toward juvenile offenders, and have worse conditions of confinement as well. The long-lasting effects of criminal conviction and imprisonment (convicted felons are barred from many jobs), results in the disenfranchisement of many African-Americans - time spent in prison is time spent away from education and on-the-job training. As a result, many African-Americans end up unskilled and with criminal convictions and felony records. Additionally, many African Americans are disenfranchised as a result of their unequal treatment by the criminal justice system. About 2.5% of Americans are not allowed to vote because of felon disenfranchisement, but 7.7% of African Americans cannot vote because of felon disenfranchisement (in Florida, it's 23.3% of African Americans).

Some scholars argue that the disproportionate imprisonment of African-Americans in the U.S. actually countermands the achievements of the civil rights movement. The criminal justice system in the U.S. is arguably a massive machine that results in the production of racial inequality. In fact, the inequality in the prison system is unmatched by that in other elements of society, as the following ratios indicate:
 * ratio of African-American unemployment to European-American unemployment - 2 to 1
 * ratio of African-Americans born to unwed mothers compared to European-American children born to unwed mothers - 3 to 1
 * ratio of African-American infants who die compared to European-American infants who die - 2 to 1
 * ratio of African-American to European-American wealth - 1 to 5
 * ratio of African-American incarceration rate to European-American incarceration rate - 8 to 1

Another result of the disproportionate imprisonment of African-Americans in the U.S. is that imprisoned African-Americans are not included in calculations of unemployment rates. African-American are substantially more likely to be unemployed than European-American, but most statistics do not include prison populations.

Another illustration of the disparity in punishment in the US based on race is tied to the death penalty. Only 10% of individuals in the US sentenced to death are ever actually executed, but which ones are executed is intimately tied to race. Individuals convicted of killing a European-American are five times more likely to be executed than individuals who killed a racial or ethnic minority. This suggests that the criminal justice system in the US values white victims above minority victims.

All of these elements combined lead to the conclusion that one of the most racially disparate elements of U.S. society is the criminal justice system.

Homicide
The chart below tracks homicide rates in the U.S. for the past 100 years. There has been an increase over time, though it is not clear whether that increase represents an actual increase in homicides or an increase in confounding factors, such as: stricter law enforcement, an increased willingness to report crimes, or changes in the definition of homicide itself.

The U.S. does not have the highest homicide rates in the world, but the rates in the U.S. are still relatively high compared to other countries. Homicide rates vary substantially around the world. A new, interactive website, Homicide Monitor, provides detailed statistics on homicide rates for dozens of countries around the world.

Homicide rates also vary by the age of the victim, as shown in the chart below.

High Crime Neighborhoods
Traditionally people have thought of crime as being the result of negative characteristics of a neighborhood (e.g., low incomes, high residential turnover rates, etc.). However, there is some evidence to suggest that crime and the negative characteristics that were believed to cause high crime reinforce each other. This research finds that higher crime rates actually lead to more concentrated poverty, declining retail presence, and more residential turnover. This findings suggests that it is crime that drives away businesses and residents who have more money to safer areas, which then concentrates poverty and crime in that area.

Social Control
Social control refers to the various means used by a society to bring its members back into line with cultural norms. There are two general types of social control:
 * formal social control refers to components of society that are designed for the resocialization of individuals who break formal rules; examples would include prisons and mental health institutions
 * informal social control refers to elements of society that are designed to reinforce informal cultural norms; examples might include parental reminders to children not to pick their nose.

Some researchers have outlined some of the motivations underlying the formal social control system. These motivations include:
 * retribution - some argue that people should pay for the crime they committed
 * deterrence - some argue that punishments, e.g., prison time, will prevent people from committing future crimes
 * rehabilitation - some argue that formal social controls should work to rehabilitate criminals, eventually turning them into productive members of society
 * societal protection - finally, some argue that the motivation for formal social controls is nothing more than removing the deviant members of society from the non-deviant members

Video Games and Deviance
Another area of current research that is of great interest to many people is the alleged effects of violent video games on behavior. Karen Sternheimer explains that a lot of the concern around video games is illustrative of the social construction of deviance. According to Sternheimer, "Politicians and other moral crusaders frequently create "folk devils," individuals or groups defined as evil and immoral. Folk devils allow us to channel our blame and fear, offering a clear course of action to remedy what many believe to be a growing problem. Video games, those who play them, and those who create them have become contemporary folk devils because they seem to pose a threat to children" (p. 13). The assumption is that playing violent video games will lead children to act out violently. However, there is a growing body of literature that is either inconclusive on this issue or that contradicts this assumption: it does not appear as though playing violent video games results in violent behavior.

The reason why the assumption that playing violent video games is not accurate is because it decontextualizes violence. Those who claim violent video games lead to violence fail to realize that violence is context dependent and most players of video games are fully aware of this. Individuals who play video games recognize that violence in the context of the game is okay and that it is not okay to be violent outside of that context. Additionally, many of the studies that have claimed to have found a connection between playing video games and violent behavior have failed to control for other influences on violent individuals, influences that are more likely to translate into violent behavior: neighborhood violence and instability, family violence, and even mental illness. Seldom is a connection made between adult shooting sprees in the workplace (which are far more common than school shooting sprees) and video games. Instead, people look toward contextual influences like those described above (i.e., job loss, family problems, etc.). In other words, violent video games are the folk devils for violent behavior in children, but not for adults.

Finally, the video game explanation is also illustrative of social-conflict and racial discrimination. Seldom is the explanation of a black violent offender's behavior playing violent video games. The assumption is that black culture encourages violence; as a result, violent behavior by young black men is not "shocking," so it does not require a folk devil to explain it. This is, of course, discriminatory. In contrast, it is generally white, middle-class violent offenders whose behavior is explained by alleging a video game connection. The fact that these violent offenders are white and middle class threatens the "innocence and safety of suburban America," (p. 17), which means it requires a folk devil culprit, absolving white, middle-class America of the blame.

Tattoos
One area of current research into deviance that highlights the socially constructed nature of norms is tattoos. In 2003 a survey found that 15% of the U.S. adult population had at least one tattoo; that number jumps to 28% for adults under 25. However, tattoos are a very complicated illustration of the intricacies of deviance. Many of the individuals getting tattoos do not fit the stereotypes of individuals who get tattoos (e.g., soldiers, sailors, bikers, etc.); many of those tattooing their bodies are high-achieving students. Additionally, tattooing is on the rise among women - 15% of women have tattoos while 16% of men do. Intriguingly, men and women get tattoos for different reasons. For men it is to reinforce their masculinity and for women it is to enhance their femininity. This differences illustrates another way in which gender is an action.

Another interesting aspect of tattoos is their changing meanings. While it is probably not the case that the meaning (think symbolic interactionism) of tattoos to those who get them is changing (tattoos have traditionally been used to express one's self or commemorate events), how tattoos are viewed is changing. In the early 1900s tattoos were so stigmatized that they could literally result in prosecution and served as evidence of ill intent and disrepute. Such extreme stigmatization is no longer the case, probably because 88% of Americans know someone with a tattoo. As a result, tattoos are decreasingly seen as deviant. But tattoos also illustrate that deviance is not determined by the action but by those perceiving the action. While a tattoo may mean one thing to the person with the tattoo, it is still the case that others interpret the tattoo in a multitude of ways, and those don't always align with the intended meanings. Still, tattoos are often equated with: drug use, troublemakers, and gang affiliation. This is probably why many people who get tattoos get them in locations that can easily be covered in regular business attire - that way they can still pass when not in the company of those who are more understanding of their tattoos. Tattoos, then, illustrate the sociological understanding of deviance quite well.

Sexual Violence on College Campuses
There has been a great deal of attention concerning sexual violence on college campuses in recent years. The US Federal government has raised concerns about this issue and various reports have found that colleges and universities are not addressing sexual violence as they should. For instance, many universities fail to investigate allegations of sexual assaults, they fail to encourage victims to report sexual assaults, they fail to provide adequate sexual assault training, and there are inadequate resources for the survivors of sexual assault. The figure below suggests that sexual assaults are relatively rare on college campuses. However, fewer than 5% of people raped on college campuses report their sexual assault to law enforcement, which suggests the numbers in the figure may be substantially higher than the figure reports. Further, official figures like the one below limit their reporting to "forcible sexual assault" despite mounting evidence that the vast majority of sexual assaults on college campuses do not fit this narrow definition, and typically involve more subtle forms of sexual violence and coercion. In fact, in-depth analyses of sexual violence on college campuses generally reveal that sexual assault has become a normal aspect of college experience, culture, and structure for many American women, that on average 1 in 5 college women will be sexually victimized in some way during their college careers, and that common forms of college leisure activity, such as Greek life, parties, and drinking cultures and habits on campuses often facilitate the normalization of college sexual assault.

Additional Reading

 * This article in the New York Times Magazine on stopping the transmission of violence in gang retributions offers a fascinating insight into both gang life and measures being taken to curb gang violence.
 * What Happened in Ferguson? This is an in-depth look at the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black male, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014 that led to numerous protests and riots in the area. The article discusses the history of these types of incidents and examines racial inequality in policing.

Becker, Howard. 1983 (second edition). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. Fighting Words:  Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo.

Habermas, Jurgen. 1991. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cmabridge, MA: MIT Press.

Habermas, Jurgen. 1975. Legitimation Crisis. Boston: Beacon

Halberstam, Judith M. 2005. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York, NY: NYU Press.

Haraway, Donna J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. NY: Routledge.

Embodied Resistance Challenging the Norms, Breaking the Rules Edited by Chris Bobel and Samantha Kwan Publication Year: 2011

U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. October 2013. Arrests by Sex, 2012. Washington, DC: Dept of Justice. Chilton, Roland and Susan K. Datesman. 1987. Gender, Race, and Crime: An Analysis of Urban Arrest Trends, 1960-1980. Gender & Society 1 (2): 152-171.

Joe, Karen A. and Meda Chesney-Lind. 1995. “Just Every Mother’s Angel”: An Analysis of Gender and Ethnic Variations in Youth Gang Membership. Gender & Society 9(4): 408-431. Madriz, Esther I. 1997. Images of Criminals and Victims: A Study on Women's Fear and Social Control. Gender & Society 11(3): 342-356.

Discussion Questions

 * Can you think of something you've done that would be deviant in one situation but not in another?
 * Is everything that is illegal deviant?
 * Is everything that is deviant illegal?
 * Can you measure how deviant something is?

title: Introduction to Sociology/Deviance


text:
Introduction to Sociology/Race and Ethnicity

Race and Ethnicity
A race is a human population that is believed to be distinct in some way from other humans based on real or imagined physical differences. Racial classifications are rooted in the idea of biological classification of humans according to morphological features such as skin color or facial characteristics. An individual is usually externally classified (meaning someone else makes the classification) into a racial group rather than the individual choosing where they belong as part of their identity. Conceptions of race, as well as specific racial groupings, are often controversial due to their impact on social identity and how those identities influence someone's position in social hierarchies (see identity politics).

Ethnicity, while related to race, refers not to physical characteristics but social traits that are shared by a human population. Some of the social traits often used for ethnic classification include:
 * nationality
 * tribe
 * religious faith
 * shared language
 * shared culture
 * shared traditions

Unlike race, ethnicity is not usually externally assigned by other individuals. The term ethnicity focuses more upon a group's connection to a perceived shared past and culture. An example of an ethnic group in the U.S. is Hispanic or Latino.

The Changing Definitions of Race
The division of humanity into distinct races can be traced as far back as the Ancient Egyptian sacred text the Book of Gates, which identified four races according to the Egyptians. This early treatment merged racial and ethnic differences, combining skin-color with tribal and national identities. Ancient Greek and Roman authors also attempted to explain and categorize visible biological differences between peoples known to them. Medieval models of race mixed Classical ideas with the notion that humanity as a whole was descended from Shem, Ham and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, producing distinct Semitic (Asian), Hamitic (African), and Japhetic (European) peoples. The first scientific attempts to categorize race date from the 17th century; these early attempts developed along with European imperialism and colonization around the world.

In the 19th century a number of natural scientists wrote on race: Georges Cuvier, James Cowles Pritchard, Louis Agassiz, Charles Pickering, and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. These scientists made three claims about race: Races were distinguished by skin color, facial type, cranial profile and size, and texture and color of hair. Races were almost universally considered to reflect group differences in moral character and intelligence.
 * 1) races are objective, naturally occurring divisions of humanity
 * 2) there is a strong relationship between biological races and other human phenomena (such as social behavior and culture, and by extension the relative material success of cultures)
 * 3) race is therefore a valid scientific category that can be used to explain and predict individual and group behavior

These early understandings of race were usually both essentialist and taxonomic; essentialism refers to unchanging and inherent characteristics of individuals and taxonomic refers to classificatory (also usually hierarchical) in nature. The advent of Darwinian models of evolution and Mendelian genetics, however, called into question the scientific validity of both characteristics and required a radical reconsideration of race.

The table below illustrates both how early definitions included essentialist and taxonomic elements and how definitions have changed over time.

Because racial differences continue to be important issues in social and political life, racial classifications continue. The United States government has attempted its own definitions of race and ethnicity (see for example U.S. Census) for such classifications and comparisons.

Social Construction
Debates continue in and among academic disciplines as to how race should be understood. Some sociologists and biologists believe race is a social construct, meaning it does not have a basis in the natural world but is simply an artificial distinction created by humans. As a result of this understanding, some researchers have turned from conceptualizing and analyzing human variation by race to doing so in terms of populations, dismissing racial classifications altogether. In the face of the increasing rejection of race as a valid classification scheme, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word ethnicity to refer to self-identifying groups based on shared religion, nationality, or culture.

The understanding of race as a social construct is well-illustrated by examining race issues in two countries, the U.S. and Brazil.

Constructing Race in the U.S.
Since the early days of the United States, racial classifications have varied and various groups, like Native Americans, African-Americans and European-Americans, were classified as belonging to different races. The table below details some of the different racial and ethnic classifications that have been used by the US Census. The fact that these classifications have changed over time illustrates that race is socially constructed.

The criteria for membership in different races have been very different. For Africans, the government considered anyone with African appearance to be purely African. Native Americans, on the other hand, were classified based on a certain percentage of Indian blood. Finally, European-Americans had to have purely white ancestry. The differing criteria for assigning membership to particular races had relatively little to do with biology; it had far more to do with maintaining a group's defined roles and position.

Some researchers and historians have proposed that the intent of the differing criteria for racial designations was to concentrate power, wealth, privilege, and land in the hands of European-Americans. As a result, the offspring of an African slave and European master or mistress would be considered an African. Significant in terms of the economics of slavery, the mixed-race child of a slave mother also would be a slave, adding to the wealth of the slave owner.

Contrast the African criteria with that of Native Americans; a person of Native American and African parentage automatically was classified as African. But the offspring of only a few generations of Native Americans and Europeans were not considered Indian at all - at least not in a legal sense. Native Americans had treaty rights to land, but individuals with only one Indian great-grandparent were no longer classified as Native American, disenfranchising them from their claims to Native American lands. Of course, the same individuals who could be denied legal claim to Native American lands because they were too White, were still Native American enough to be considered ''half-breeds and were stigmatized as a result. ''

In an economy benefiting from slave labor, it was useful to have as many African slaves as possible. Conversely, in a nation bent on westward expansion (commonly referred to as illegal immigration or ethnic conquest today), it was advantageous to diminish the numbers of those who could claim title to Indian lands by classifying them out of existence. Both schemes benefited the third group, the racially pure whites. The point being, of course, that the classifications of race in the early U.S. were socially constructed in a fashion that benefited one race over the others.

The earliest black individuals in the U.S. were brought from Africa as slaves primarily to help in agriculture in the southern U.S. Although European immigrants to the Americas initially attempted to enslave Native people, their efforts were often subverted due to Native understandings of the land. As a result, slave labor from other parts of the world was deemed more efficient for the production of American land so European immigrants began importing African people while exporting Natives to other parts of the Americas (see Loewen's work for more of this historical record). While migration since then has substantially altered the distribution of African American individuals in the U.S., African American individuals remain concentrated in the southern U.S., as depicted in the map below.

Native Americans in the U.S. are concentrated on reservations following 200 years of relocation policies instituted by the U.S. government (see the documentary film Broken Rainbow for a detailed examination of the latest relocation phase in the 1970's), as depicted in the map below:

Constructing Race in Brazil
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics classifies the Brazilian population in five categories: white, black, pardo or (brown), yellow, and Indigenous, based on skin color as given by the individual being interviewed in the census.

 * White (47.7% of the population): usually a Brazilian of full or predominant European ancestry or other ancestry (such as German Brazilian) who considers themself to be White.
 * Pardo or Brown (43.1%): usually a Multiracial Brazilian of mixed-race features who considers themself to be "Pardo". In practice, most of the "Pardo" people are of mixed European and African (mulatos), but this category also includes people of mixed European and Amerindian (caboclos) and Amerindian and African (cafusos) genetic ancestry.
 * Black (7.6%): usually a dark-skinned Brazilian of full or predominant Black African ancestry who considers themself to be Black.
 * Yellow: (1.1%) usually a Brazilian of East Asian descent, mostly Japanese.
 * Indigenous (0.4%): usually a Brazilian of full or predominant Amerindian ancestry who considers themself to be Amerindian.

Of particular interest to the discussion of race in this chapter is the fact that there is a racial classification that falls between "white" and "black": "pardo" or "brown." That Brazilians have more racial classifications than do people in the United States illustrates the socially constructed nature of race. Additionally, racial classification in Brazil, because it is based on self-classification and there are no objective criteria for what it means to belong to one race or another, is inconsistent. Because of the mixing of the races, race is not inherited but determined purely by physical characteristics (i.e., a white father and black mother could have a "white", "black," or "pardo" child). Additionally, because race is self-determined and there is discrimination based on race (white are favored), Brazilians have a tendency to "self-lighten," or report their race as being lighter than an independent observer may suggest. That people can "self-lighten" illustrates that race is not a fixed construct but rather that it is socially constructed.

Biology and Genetics
The social constructionist approach has not completely occluded other perspectives. Some sociologists (and other researchers) still believe that race is a valid and useful measure when understood as fuzzy sets, clusters, or extended families.

Based on these beliefs as well as the development of genetic modeling software programs, some scientists argue that genetic data can be used to infer population structure and assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their self-identified geographical ancestry (e.g., African, Asian, etc.). Recent research within this tradition argues that self-described race is a very good indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. For example, using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) utilized a software program called Structure to identify 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that corresponded with their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). Based on their modeling, these researchers argued that ancient ancestry/geography, which correlates highly with self-described race and not current place of residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the US population. While the implications of their argument have been deemed significant by some researchers and could be helpful in studies of racial disparities in health (see extended discussion below), it is important to note that their argument actually demonstrates the social construction of genetic racial categories rather than the empirical existence of such categories. Specifically, their study utilized a software program that requires researchers to first decide how many clusters or groups they want the program to produce before it can analyze the data. After the researchers have decided how many races they think or believe exist, the program then sorts all of the data into the pre-established number of genetic clusters. Thus, if the researchers decide upon 5 categories the program will sort all data into 5 categories, but if the researchers decide on 26 categories the program will sort all data into 26 categories; the program does this without any concern for whether or not these "clusters" or the "number of clusters" are in any way empirically real. Rather than demonstrating the genetic foundations of race, then, such studies merely demonstrate that a computer program may be used to confirm the existing beliefs of researchers about how many racial clusters there may or could be. Other researchers, using the same data, found a different number of clusters from the same genetic data. While some researchers ignore the role of the researcher in the creation of genetic clusters, other researchers point to these studies as the latest examples of an ongoing historical pattern of scientific racism. In short, a very strong argument can be made that what clustering studies do is verify the socially constructed nature of even biological and genetic explanations of race, racism, and racial similarity and difference rather than illustrate that race is "real."

Even within the aforementioned studies, genetic research reveals that genetic variation within racial groups is generally greater than genetic variation between them. However, the existence of genetic differences among races is well accepted by some and heavily debated by others across scientific fields. Those who believe in genetic differences will point to the genetic clusters created in the aforementioned types of studies, which correspond tightly to the census definition of race and to self-identified ancestry, to support their claims. On the other hand, non-believers in genetic racial difference (and/or significance) will point to the socially constructed nature of these genetic studies to support their claims. Researchers across disciplines regularly find certain genetic conditions are more common among certain races. For example, approximately 1 in 29 individuals of Northern European descent are carriers of a mutation that causes cystic fibrosis, whereas only about 1 in 65 African Americans is a carrier (source). There is a subset of conditions for which individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent are at increased risk (see here). Based on this knowledge individuals can be offered genetic testing based on their race, which can determine whether they are at increased risk to have a child with one of these conditions. While these associations are important areas of analysis, these associations - between race and genetics - often break down for some groups, such as Hispanic individuals, who exhibit a pattern of geographical stratification of ancestry.

There is an active debate among biomedical researchers about the meaning and importance of race in their research. Proponents of using race in biomedical research argue that ignoring race will be detrimental to the health of minority groups. They argue that disease risk factors differ substantially between racial groups, that relying only on genotypical classes - differences in genes - ignores non-genetic racial factors that impact health (e.g., poverty rates and robust neighborhood and environmental effects) and that minorities would be poorly represented in clinical trials if race were ignored. However, some fear that the use of racial labels in biomedical research runs the risk of unintentionally exacerbating health disparities (as happened throughout the history of Western medical science ), so they suggest alternatives to the use of racial taxonomies.

The primary impetus for considering race in biomedical research is the possibility of improving the prevention and treatment of diseases by predicting hard-to-ascertain factors on the basis of more easily ascertained characteristics. The first medication marketed for a specific racial group, BiDil was recently approved by the U.S. FDA. A large study of African American males showed a 43% reduction in deaths and a 39% decrease in hospitalizations compared to a placebo. Interestingly, this drug would never have been approved if the researchers had not taken note of racial groups and realized that although the medication was not effective in previous clinical trials, it appeared to be effective for the small proportion of African-Americans males who were part of the study (source). Despite the controversy, it is clear that race is associated with differential disease susceptibility. Examples of some of these differences are illustrated in the table below. The challenge is in developing clinical and public health interventions capable of using racial patterns to alleviate disease while remaining vigilant against the scientific and medical racism of the past.

Combining Approaches
Perhaps the best way to understand race is to recognize that the socially constructed boundaries and biological/genetic elements overlap. There are clearly biological differences between races, though they are small and, as noted above, there is greater variation within races than between races. But the actual criteria used for racial classifications are artificial and socially constructed, as was shown in the cases of the U.S. and Brazil.

By recognizing the overlap between the two, we are presented with a better understanding of race. However, distinctions between racial groups are declining due to intermarriage and have been for years. For instance, self-described African Americans tend to have a mix of West African and European ancestry. Shriver et al. (2003) found that on average African Americans have ~80% African ancestry. Likewise, many white Americans have mixed European and African ancestry; ~30% of whites have less than 90% European ancestry. If intermarrying of races and ethnicities continues, the biological and genetic distinctions will grow increasingly minute and undetectable. If a completely heterogeneous population ultimately develops, any racial classifications in that population would be nothing more than a social construct.

Controversies surrounding the definition of race will likely continue for some time. But there are important considerations that go beyond the definition of race. Race and race-related issues continue to impact society. Racial discrimination in employment and housing still occurs. Because race remains a significant factor in social life, sociologists feel compelled to study its effects at multiple levels.

Prejudice, Bias, and Discrimination
Prejudice is, as the name implies, the pre-judging of something. Prejudice involves coming to a judgment on a subject before learning where the preponderance of evidence actually lies. Alternatively, prejudice can refer to the formation of a judgment without direct or actual experience. Prejudice generally refers to negative views of an individual or group of individuals, often based on social stereotypes. At its most extreme, prejudicial attitudes advocate denying groups benefits and rights without warrant and based solely on the unfounded views of the individual. It should be kept in mind that prejudice is a belief and may not translate into discrimination, which is the actual mistreatment of a group or individual based upon some criteria or characteristic. Although prejudice can lead to discrimination, the two are separate concepts.

Technically, prejudice should be differentiated from viewpoints accumulated through direct life experience. Such viewpoints or beliefs are not pre-judgments but post-judgments. If the assertion is made that no amount of experience ever entitles a person to a viewpoint then this precipitates a logical absurdity since anyone who opposes strongly-held views must, by their own definition, also be prejudiced, invalidating their own proposition on the grounds of... prejudice. Post-judgments or beliefs and viewpoints derived from experience that maintain unfair or stereotypical perspectives on a group of people is more accurately referred to as bias. Prejudice can be taught, socialized, or conveyed through other means, like mass media. Bias can develop through pronounced negative interactions with the stereotyped groups.

Both bias and prejudice are generally viewed as negative. However, some sociologists have argued that prejudices and biases can be seen as necessary human adaptations facilitating survival. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that humans have an innate or basic preference for people who are like them, specifically when it comes to race. Humans express more empathy when members of their own racial group experience pain compared to when individuals of other racial groups experience pain. This suggests prejudice and biases may have a biological component, but this line of research has been heavily critiqued by racial scholars that point out that there is no way to establish a baseline, biological system of beliefs or prejudices, and thus such studies may merely reveal early childhood socialization, which has been shown to contain racial training prior to pre-school age. Since humans do not always have sufficient time to form personal views on every other group of people, particularly people in opposition to one's own group(s), however, prejudices and biases (regardless of their source) may facilitate interactions. Prejudice may also be detrimental to the individual personally by pre-judging a potential ally (e.g. refusing to patronize the only doctor in a town because they are black). Despite some arguments about the existence of innate preferences towards individuals who look like we do, there is substantial evidence that suggests most prejudicial attitudes and biases are learned and can be unlearned.

Racism
Racism can refer to any or all of the following beliefs and behaviors:
 * race is the primary determinant of human capacities (prejudice or bias)
 * a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others (prejudice or bias)
 * individuals should be treated differently according to their racial classification (prejudice or bias)
 * the actual treating of individuals differently based on their racial classification (discrimination)

Racism is recognized by many as an affront to basic human dignity and a violation of human rights. Racism is opposed by almost all mainstream voices in the United States. A number of international treaties have sought to end racism. The United Nations uses a definition of racist discrimination laid out in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and adopted in 1965:

 * ...any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life (source).

Expressions of Racism
Racism may be expressed individually and consciously, through explicit thoughts, feelings, or acts, or socially and unconsciously, through institutions that promote inequalities among races.

Individual-Level Racism
Individual-level racism is prejudice, bias, or discrimination displayed in an interaction between two or more people. Examples of individual-level racism could include:
 * a person believing people of other races/ethnicities are intellectually inferior and that the inferiority is a characteristic of the race
 * a person holding the belief that all young African males are dangerous
 * an employer firing someone because of his/her race

Children develop an awareness of race and racial stereotypes quite young and these racial stereotypes affect behavior. For instance, children who identify with a racial minority that is stereotyped as not doing well in school tend to not do well in school once they learn about the stereotype associated with their race. Another illustration of individual-level racism in society is the resistance of Americans to classify mixed-race individuals as white if they have even "one-drop" of black ancestry. While most Americans may believe the "one-drop rule" is no longer relevant in society today, recent research suggests that it persists in racial classifications, even if they are informal.

Structural Racism
Structural racism refers to inequalities built into an organization or system. An example of structural racism can be seen in recent research on workplace discrimination. There is widespread discrimination against job applicants whose names were merely perceived as "sounding black." These applicants were 50% less likely than candidates perceived as having "white-sounding names" to receive callbacks for interviews, no matter their level of previous experience. The researchers view these results as strong evidence of unconscious biases rooted in the country's long history of discrimination. This is an example of structural racism as it shows a widespread established belief system that treats people differently based upon their race. Additional examples of structural racism include apartheid in South Africa, the system of Jim Crow laws in the U.S., and the inequitable lending practices of banks (i.e., redlining). The figure below illustrates structural racism by illustrating how black and Hispanic individuals, even when they have the same income as white individuals, are less likely to be approved for home mortgages (as a result of practices like redlining).

Another example of structural racism is the discrimination faced by Asian Americans in attaining leadership positions in corporations. While Asian Americans are over-represented in professional occupations in the US, they are under-represented among corporate elite. Approximately 5% of the US population is Asian American, but just .3% of corporate officers are Asian American. The under-representation of Asian Americans is particularly surprising considering they are perceived to be highly capable, particularly in technical occupations. But they are also perceived to be less capable leaders due to a perception that they lack charisma. The result is structural racism: corporate advancement is structured such that Asian Americans are over-looked for leadership positions.

Cultural Racism
Cultural racial discrimination, a variation of structural racism, occurs when the assumption of inferiority of one or more races is built into the culture of a society. In this perspective, racism is an expression of culture and is also passed on through the transmission of culture (i.e., socialization). An interesting twist on this type of prejudice can be seen in how high achieving secondary school students are treated. African American and Native American students with high GPAs are rejected by their peers while Asian American and white students with high GPAs experience greater social acceptance. This suggests that different racial and ethnic groups are rewarded for academic achievement while others are punished, potentially leading members of those groups to pursue academic success while others are discouraged from doing so.

Historical Racism
Historical economic or social disparity is a form of inequality caused by past racism, affecting the present generation through deficits in the formal education and other kinds of preparation in the parents' generation, and, through primarily unconscious racist attitudes and actions on members of the general population. This perspective argues that African-Americans, in particular, in the U.S. have had their opportunities in life adversely affected due to the mistreatment of their ancestors (see slavery, Sundown Towns, Jim Crow, and The War on Drugs). Disparities in wealth, net worth and education lend credence to this idea. The figure below illustrates how historical racism has resulted in lower odds of inter-generational transmission of wealth, which, in turn, reduces net worth for racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S.

Historical racism also relies upon the ongoing "whitening" of social history by educational, political, and economic elites. American history textbooks offer an illustrative example of this process. In these textbooks, students are generally provided with heroic tales (often fictionalized) of white American founders free from deficit and their racial transgressions are typically either ignored or justified. Notable examples include the omission of Christopher Columbus as the founder of the slave trade, the racial basis of early American governmental decisions to support or oppose Independence and Freedom movements in other countries (e.g., anti-slavery administrations like that of John Adams that supported independence attempts by other colonies while pro-slavery administrations like that of Thomas Jefferson that opposed these attempts and provided support to colonial powers in these contests), and the re-segregation of the federal government that paved the way for many Jim Crow laws and Sundown Towns by Woodrow Wilson. Further, textbooks generally leave out of the American origin story anti-racist speakers and activists like Marie Stewart in the 1830's or Ida Wells Barnett in the 1890's and facts that demonstrate that American history has not been a steady movement toward racial progress, like the existence of African American major league baseball players in the 1800's well before Jackie Robinson or the existence of African-American political and economic institutions dating back to the late 1800's. These omissions give the impression that past racism occurred without opposition and always got better instead of different over time. This allows white individuals to avoid taking responsibility for historical racism. Elites construct an American story line that absolves contemporary white citizens from the ongoing historical construction and maintenance of racial disparities embedded within American history, culture, and structure. One response to racial disparity in the U.S. has been Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is the practice of favoring or benefiting members of a particular race in areas such as college admissions and workplace advancement, in an attempt to create atmospheres of racial diversity and racial equality. Though lauded by many as a boon to society, giving the less privileged a chance at success and working to overcome historical social disparity, the practice is condemned as racially discriminatory by others.

Racial Profiling
Another type of racism is racial profiling. Racial profiling involves the singling out of individuals based upon their race for differential treatment, usually harsher treatment. Two examples of racial profiling in the United States are often discussed. The disparate treatment of minorities by law enforcement officials is a common example of racial profiling. Another example is the disparate treatment of young, male Arabs in airports who are more likely to be subjected to extensive screening. Many critics of racial profiling claim that it is an unconstitutional practice because it amounts to questioning individuals on the basis of what crimes they might commit or could possibly commit, instead of what crimes they have actually committed. A clear example of racial profiling can be seen in media depictions of Muslim and Hispanic individuals. One study found that major news programs in the US (including: ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and Univision) described 81% of domestic terrorists - individuals committing acts of terror in the US - as Muslims. Yet, actual crime data suggest only 6% of domestic terrorists were Muslims; the majority are white supremacists or white fundamentalist Christians. Similarly, of immigrants accused of committing crimes on news shows, 97% were identified as Hispanic even though only 47% of immigrants who commit crimes are Hispanic.

Color-Blind Racism
In the US, the avoidance of racial language by European-Americans has been used to suggest that racism is no longer an issue. However, the continued prevalence of institutional racism has led some scholars like Eduardo Bonilla-Silva to argue a "new racism" exists, that has arisen during the post-Civil Rights era. Bonilla-Silva suggests that a "color-blind racism" ideology supports racism while avoiding any reference to race. He outlines four frameworks of color-blind racism:

 * Abstract Liberalism - using liberal language divorced from context and history to deny racism exists (e.g., all Americans are free now so they can be whatever they want)
 * Naturalization - arguing that racial disparities, segregation patterns, and other racial phenomena are natural occurrences divorced from historical and structural socialization processes between races (e.g., whites just like to be around whites)
 * Cultural Racism - drawing on culture-based beliefs and arguments to explain racial inequalities in contemporary society (e.g., blacks have too many babies or Mexicans are just like that)
 * Minimization - arguing that discrimination is no longer prevalent in society (e.g., its not a big deal now like it was back then)

A powerful tool in our current age of color-blind racism involves the depiction of racial minorities via media outlets. As Patricia Hill Collins notes, much of our contemporary media offerings (e.g., music videos, songs, films, television shows, magazine and newspaper materials, and online materials) rely upon and reproduce historical patterns of racial inequality, and derogatory depictions of racial minorities in relation to their white counterparts. Take, for example, magazine covers and videos that position African American athletes and singers in "jungle" themed decorations, costumes, and settings that mirror colonial depictions of African and Native American slaves long used to justify scientific, religious, and economic exploitation of racial minorities. While these depictions may be argued to be nothing more than creativity removed from the historical context, they continue a long line of images (see, for example, the experiences of Sarah Baartman) that depict racial minorities as "wild," "savage," and "more nature-oriented" than whites (for similar examples in relation to Hispanic people see Latinos Beyond the Reel and for similar examples in relation to Asian people see The Slanted Screen). Expanding on this theme, sociologists have begun to explore "cinethetic racism," which is defined as the portrayal of racial minorities in ways that appeal to white expectations of "good" racial minorities while reproducing the subordination of racial minorities to white needs, desire, and leadership. The quintessential example of cinethetic racism occurs in what has been termed Magical Negro Films - like The Matrix, Bruce Almighty, and The Legend of Bagger Vance among many others - where a racial minority character (often echoing historical racism conceptions of racial minorities as magically inclined or deeply tied to nature) exists for the sole purpose of helping a white male accomplish and recognize his inner greatness. While such films are improvements over more explicitly white supremacist classic films (see, for example, still highly celebrated classic films promoting explicit racism like The Birth of a Nation or Gone with the Wind), they echo these films by casting racial minorities as the "servants," "assistants," and "natural guides" for white victory and celebration. These are manifestations of color-blind racism.

Genocide
While not exclusively the result of racial or ethnic tension, genocide, the attempt to completely destroy a group of people based on a characteristic they share by another group of people who do not share that characteristic, is often the result of racism. One technique that is often used by individuals engaged in genocide and even in war is racial epithets that dehumanize the enemy, making it easier to kill them.

Minorities
Racism is usually directed against a minority population, but may also be directed against a majority population. The definition of a minority group can vary, depending on specific context, but generally refers to either a sub-group that does not form either a majority or a plurality of the total population, or a group that, while not necessarily a numerical minority, is disadvantaged or otherwise has less power (whether political or economic) than a dominant group. A majority is that segment of the population that outnumbers all others combined or one that is dominant.

The issue of establishing minority groups, and determining the extent of privileges they might derive from their status, is controversial. There are some who argue that minorities are owed special recognition and rights, while others feel that minorities are unjustified in demanding special rights, as this amounts to preferential discrimination and could hamper the ability of the minority to integrate itself into mainstream society (i.e. they may have difficulty finding work if they do not speak the predominant language for their geographic area).

The assimilation of minority groups into majority groups can be seen as a form of racism. In this process, the minority group sheds its distinctive traits and is absorbed into the dominant group. This presumes a loss of all characteristics which make the newcomers different. Assimilation can be voluntary or forced. Voluntary assimilation is usually the case with immigrants, who often adopt the dominant culture established earlier. Reasons that have been postulated for voluntary assimilation include:
 * 1) it is seen as an avenue to upward social mobility
 * 2) it is a way to escape prejudice and discrimination

Socially pressured to adapt, the immigrant is generally the one who takes the steps to integrate into the new environment, such as learning the language of the country or region, making new friends, new contacts, finding a job or going to school. The adaptation is made more difficult when the immigrant does not speak the language of their new home.

Assimilation can have negative implications for national minorities or aboriginal cultures, in that, after assimilation, the distinctive features of the original culture will be minimized and may disappear altogether. This is especially true in situations where the institutions of the dominant culture initiate programs to assimilate or integrate minority cultures. Many indigenous peoples, such as First Nations of Canada, Native Americans of the US, Taiwanese aborigines, and Australian Aborigines have mostly lost their traditional culture (most evidently language) and replaced it with the dominant new culture.

An example of a minority population discriminating against a majority population is seen in the racial apartheid that existed until the 1990s in South Africa. South Africans of European descent (the numerical minority) discriminated against the numerical majority indigenous African population. Additional examples of minorities discriminating against majorities include two instances of colonial rule:
 * the treatment of the Vietnamese people by the French
 * the treatment of Indians by the British

Racial discrimination is and has been official government policy in many countries. In the 1970s, Uganda expelled tens of thousands of ethnic Indians. Until 2003, Malaysia enforced discriminatory policies limiting access to university education for ethnic Chinese and Indian students who are citizens by birth of Malaysia. Today, many other policies explicitly favoring bumiputras (Malays) remain in force. Russia launched anti-Semitic pogroms against Jews in 1905 and at later dates. During the 1930s and 1940s, attempts were made to prevent Jews from immigrating to the Middle East. Following the creation of Israel, land-ownership in many Israeli towns was limited to Jews, and many Muslim countries expelled Jewish residents, and continue to refuse entry to Jews.

Racial Stratification
While race itself is a social construction, race continues to play a prominent role in societies around the world. Race is often the basis for different types of stratification. Following are some of the ways society is stratified by race.

Race and Pollution
Pollution and polluting facilities are not evenly distributed in the U.S. Communities made up predominantly of racial minorities are significantly more likely to be polluted and to house factories and business that pollute extensively. While it might seem that this is inadvertent and not intentionally racist, the evidence suggest otherwise: these communities are systematically targeted as locations for situating polluting businesses.

Interracial Marriage
Not until 1967 were laws outlawing interracial marriage abolished in the United States. Prior to that time, an individual from one race who married an individual from another could be jailed and fined. These laws were referred to as miscegenation laws (miscegenation means "mixing races"). This was the experience of Mildred and Richard Loving, who married in 1958 in Washington D.C., a district in the US that no longer had a law against interracial marriage. Mildred was black; Richard was white. When they moved to Virginia shortly after their wedding, law enforcement decided to prosecute them, breaking into their home in the middle of the night and carrying them off to jail. Both Mildred and Richard were from Virginia, where their extended family still lived. The judge who heard their case, Leon M. Bazile, told the Lovings during their trial for miscegenation that, 'if God had meant for whites and blacks to mix, he would have not placed them on different continents.' He also seemed to take pride in telling the Lovings, "as long as you live you will be known as a felon." The Lovings eventually contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, who took their case to the Supreme Court in 1967, resulting in Loving v. Virginia, which abolished miscegenation laws in the U.S. Even so, as the diagram to the right indicates, attitudes toward interracial marriage did not immediately improve. Still as late as 2002, close to 10% of people in the U.S. favored a law prohibiting interracial marriage.

A Research Example
Devah Pager and Lincoln Quillian compared employers' responses on questions involving race-related hiring practices to their actual hiring practices by sending matched pairs of young men to apply for jobs, either both of European descent or both of African descent, but one of the men had a criminal record. Pager and Quillian found that employers claimed they would be much more willing to hire an ex-offender than they were. Additionally, while the survey results showed no difference in hiring preferences between African-Americans and European-Americans, employers were more than three times as likely to call job applicants with a European lineage back in comparison to Americans with an African lineage. In short, Pager and Quillian found that employers, in their survey responses, were more open to the idea of hiring both African-Americans and ex-offenders than they were to the actual practice.

Conclusion
After the establishment of European colonialism, the ever-increasing contact between different societies around the globe eventually led to the burgeoning of academic scholarship on race and ethnicity. There were many attempts by scholars to understand the origins of societal differences. Were these perceived differences biological or social in origin? In the 1700s, a Swedish scientist by the name of Carolus Linnaeus was the first to publish on the human divisions of race. From there, scholars continued to use various physical differences, such as cranial size and body type, to classify individuals into discrete races and make assumptions regarding intelligence and other capacities based on those physical differences. Those perceived differences were a fertile breeding ground in manufacturing and maintaining racism across the globe and even attempted to justify the ill treatment of certain groups of people such as those enslaved. Despite more recent studies providing evidence for the social construction of race and ethnicity across time and space, racism in all its various forms is still prevalent today in the inequalities found in numerous aspects of society that continue to exist along racial lines.

Additional Reading

 * Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2009.  Racism without Racists:  Color Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America.  Rowman and Littlefield.
 * Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought:  Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.  Second Edition.  New York:  Routledge.
 * Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1994.  Racial Formation in the United States:  From the 1960’s to the 1990’s.  New York:  Routledge.
 * Masi de Casanova, Erynn. 2004. “No Ugly Women”: Concepts of Race and Beauty among Adolescent Women in Ecuador. Gender & Society 18(3): 287-303.
 * Hanser,Amy. 2005. The Gendered Rice Bowl: The Sexual Politics of Service Work in Urban China. Gender & Society 19(5): 581-600.
 * Harvey Wingfield, Adia. 2009. Racializing the Glass Escalator: Reconsidering Men’s Experiences with Women’s Work. Gender & Society 23(1): 5-26.
 * Marshall, Gul Aldikacti. 2005. Ideology, progress, and dialogue: A comparison of feminist and Islamist women’s approaches to the issues of head covering and work in Turkey. Gender & Society 19(1): 104-120.
 * Richards, Patricia. 2005. The politics of gender, human rights, and being Indigenous in Chile. Gender & Society 19(2): 199-220.
 * Feagin, Joe R. 1991. “The Continuing Significance of Race: Anti-Black Discrimination in Public Places.” American Sociological Review 56: 101-116.
 * Quadagno, Jill, 1994. The Color of Welfare:  How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty.  New York:  Oxford University Press.
 * Blee, Kathleen. 2002. Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
 * Einwohner, Rachel. 2006. "Identity work and collective action in a repressive context: Jewish Resistance on the "Aryan side" of the Warsaw ghetto." Social Problems 53:38-56.
 * Bennett, Pamela R. and Amy Lutz. 2009. “How African American Is the Net Black Advantage? Differences in College Attendance Among Immigrant Blacks, Native Blacks, and Whites.” Sociology of Education 82(1): 70-99.
 * Carter, Prudence L. 2003. “‘Black’ cultural capital, status positioning, and schooling conflicts for low-income African American youth.” Social Problems 50(1): 136-155.
 * Foster, Gigi. 2008. “Names will never hurt me: Racially distinct names and identity in the undergraduate classroom.” Social Science Research 37(3): 934-952.
 * Goldsmith, PA. 2004. “Schools’ racial mix, students’ optimism, and the black-white and Latino-white achievement gaps.” Sociology of Education 77(2): 121-147.
 * Herman, Melissa R. 2009. “The Black-White-Other Achievement Gap: Testing Theories of Academic Performance Among Multiracial and Monoracial Adolescents.” Sociology of Education 82(1): 20-46.
 * Kao, Grace and Jennifer S. Thompson. 2003. “Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Educational Achievement and Attainment.” Annual Review of Sociology 29:417-42.

Discussion Questions

 * Do races actually exist?
 * Who determines someone's race?
 * Is there a way to verify someone's race?
 * Why are there differences in income and wealth by race?

Recommended Readings for Students

 * Dugger, Celia W. 2009. “Apartheid Legacy’s in South African Schools.” The New York Times, September 20 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/africa/20safrica.html?partner=rss&emc=rss (Accessed September 20, 2009).
 * This article discusses the continuing legacy of racial discrimination in South Africa. The school system under apartheid favored whites, but even since the end of apartheid, the school system continues to favor whites and the few blacks who make it into the formerly white-only schools.  As a result, blacks in South Africa who attend the formerly all-black schools remain poorly educated and unable to find good work.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Cookbook:Steamed Buns with BBQ Pork

| Bread

This is a yeast dough bun that is stuffed with a meat filling and steamed until cooked.

Bun filling

 * 8 ounces (225 g) shredded cooked pork or chicken
 * ½ cup barbecue sauce
 * 1 tbsp soy sauce
 * 1 tbsp cooking oil
 * 1 tbsp granulated white sugar
 * 1 tbsp Teriyaki sauce
 * 1 tsp garlic chili sauce
 * ¼ tsp five spice powder
 * ¼ tsp toasted sesame oil

Steamed buns

 * 1½ cups warm water (95°F / 35°C)
 * 3 tsp (or 1 packet) active dry yeast
 * 3 tbsp granulated white sugar
 * 4 cups white bread flour
 * 2 tbsp cooking oil
 * 1 tsp baking powder
 * ½ tsp salt

Bun filling

 * 1) Place all ingredients in food processor.
 * 2) Process until ingredients are blended and chopped fine.

Steamed buns

 * 1) Stir yeast and 1 tablespoon of sugar into 1½ cups of warm water (95°F / 35°C.). Let stand for 15 minutes.
 * 2) Mix yeast water, 2 more tablespoons of sugar, flour, cooking oil, baking powder, and salt in mixing bowl.
 * 3) Stir until dough forms. Knead dough for 10 minutes.
 * 4) Allow dough to rise in a warm place for 1½ hours.
 * 5) Punch dough down and divide into 12 pieces.
 * 6) Roll each piece of dough into a ball, then flatten with rolling pin into a 6-inch (15 cm) circle.
 * 7) Place 1 tablespoon of meat filling in center of each flattened piece of dough.
 * 8) Lift the edges of the flattened dough up around the filling and bring edges together. Pinch edges closed to form filled bun.
 * 9) Place buns on parchment paper. Allow to rise in a warm place 1 hour, until doubled in size.
 * 10) Steam buns in a steamer over boiling water for 20 minutes.
 * 11) Remove from steamer. When cool enough to handle, remove parchment paper from bottom.
 * 12) Serve warm.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * Keep leftovers refrigerated. Reheat in microwave for 30–45 seconds.

title: Cookbook:Steamed Buns with BBQ Pork


text:
Horn/Authors

 * 1) Horndude77 - Began project.
 * 2) Ross Uber - Done some, with a great deal of sources derived from the hard work of Professor David G. Elliott

title: Horn/Authors


text:
Instructional Technology/Reusable Learning Objects in Special Education

Reusable Learning Objects, NCLB and Special Education
What do [NCLB] (No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) and Reusable [Learning Objects], have to do with each other? The latter could help satisfy the former. NCLB is an aggressive plan by the federal government to improve student achievement and hold schools accountable if students do not. Schools must make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) with all students being proficient by 2013-2014. If a a school that is receiving Title 1 funding fails to make AYP for two consecutive years, they are required to offer school choice, take corrective action, or provide supplemental education srvices to their students. To do this, the achievement levels of specific subgroups of students must be raised, with students in special education being one of those subgroups.

Special education means different things to different people. It can be as simple as a special education teacher advising a regular classroom teacher as to ways lessons can be adapted to make them more accessible for [included] special education students, all the way to residential schools that cater to students with a particular [disability]. Despite the location, special education means helping students with special needs achieve the goals and objectives as dictated by their IEP’s (Individualized Education Program).

The Individualized Education Program
[IEP] stands for Individualized Education Program and is the plan agreed upon by the parents/guardians and educators for every child that is designated as needing special education. They are reviewed yearly and altered if needed.

Examples of IEP goals and objectives:
The student will develop/increase their math application skills by identifying/using graphs and tables to obtain information 80% of the time on an informal test.

The student will develop/increase vocabulary and word recognition skills by recognizing/recalling common sight words, critical sight words: colors, numbers, months, days of the week, Dolch list, and survival words 8 out of 10 tries.

Customizing for the IEP Using Reusable Learning Objects
In a nutshell, special education is customizing lessons to meet each students’ needs. Reusable learning objects will allow teachers to do just that. Students in special education need to be exposed to the same information as their regular education peers, but not necessarily in the same format. Since students with the same disability can function at different levels, it is very difficult to find a textbook to accommodate a given group of students. Another problem with textbooks is that they are usually written at grade level. Students with disabilities often do not read at grade level. They need other ways to access the information.

A well constructed learning object deals with a single idea or chunk of content. A teacher can string these objects together to create or support a lesson. Searching through learning object depositories, teachers would be able to review objects and find ones that met the needs of their students. Because RLO's are digital, they are limited only by the creativity of the author. The issue of reading level could perhaps be avoided by finding an object that taught through animation. Sound can also be incorporated into learning objects to assist with the reading level issue. As well, or for those student whose learning modality is more aural than visual. They may also need to have the content presented differently, or in a number of ways before they get the meaning. This can be easily accomplished with this digital medium.

In some cases, templates are available. Using a template for a learning object, even teachers with minimal experience can provide numerous opportunities for learning. Once a student is familiar with the interactivity of the particular learning object, the no longer have to worry about what to do and can focus on learning the content. For many students in special education, reading and following directions can be a problem. If a student is familiar with a particular format they can work on their own without having to wait for instructions.

Memory is also an issue for many students in special education. Some need a great deal more exposure to the content than their peers. If the teacher is also the author of the learning object he/she would be able to easily personalize these objects to make them more meaningful to the student. More importantly, they could be tailored to address the specific objectives from that student's IEP. Building quizzes and tests into the objects would also allow the student and the teacher to monitor the student's progress.

More and more, teachers are expected to individualize instruction. Reusable learning objects can make this much easier. Textbooks are expensive and districts aren't likely to purchase individual ones for students as teachers might like. Specialized packets aren't any more practical in the long run. The costs of paper and the purchasing and maintaining of copiers is a constant packets is extrememly time-consuming for teachers. Storing all these accumulated materials also gets to be a problem over time. Eventually, closets and storerooms become filled with leftover materials that either did not work out as expected or were extra because many materials have to be ordered in specified quantities.

Initially, creating and/or retrieving learning objects may be time-consuming, but, once assembled, the teacher need just review and edit them for use with another student and/or class. No more flipping through workbooks and hours in front of a copier or rummaging through dusty closets. With a well-organized favorites folder and a few clicks of a mouse, teachers will be able to construct customized lessons and for students that genuinely reflect the goals and objectives on their IEP's.

Links
[IDEA]

[Bobby]

Digital Storytelling Create Digital Stories as RLOs for Special Education students.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

K-12 Classroom Reusable Learning Objects in K-12.

Return to Instructional Technology. Return to Learning Management Systems.


text:
Ido/How is Ido different from Esperanto?

Vocabulary
Ido is a modified version of Esperanto with a number of changes designed to make it easier to learn and easier to type.

The first noticable difference between the two languages is that Esperanto has the diacritical marks ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŭ, ĉ, and ŝ. These are used in order to adhere to the one letter = one sound rule, but many thought them to be a needless barrier in promoting the language. Ido did away with letters with diacritical marks and instead replaced:
 * ĝ with j (pronounced as in French je and as the 'zh' sound as the 's' in 'pleasure')
 * ĥ with h (the ĥ in Esperanto is pronounced as a gutteral as in Arabic)
 * ĵ with j (same sound as above)
 * ŭ with u
 * ĉ with ch
 * ŝ with sh.
 * j with y

Internationality
The creators of Ido felt that much of Esperanto was either not internationally recognizable, or unnecessarily deformed. Ido aims to fix these with more "international" or "corrected" roots. This can sometimes be at the expense of Esperanto's simplified word building process. Below are some examples.

Affixes
The prefix mal- (creating a word with the exact opposite meaning) in Esperanto is overused as a prefix. It can be inappropriate since it has negative meanings in many languages.

The primary Ido grammar book states that one reason for the adoption of the Latin-based sinistra for "left" instead of maldextra (mal- plus the word dextra, or dekstra for "right") is that often only the last one or two syllables can be heard when shouting commands.

Ido does not assume male gender in a word.

Personal names
As stated above, most European given names have Esperanto equivalents: "John" is Johano, "Alexander" is Aleksandro, etc. Because some cultures place the surname first before the given name and others last after it, it is the practice of some Esperanto writers to give surnames in all capital letters, although it is unusual to find this in publications. "John Smith" would thus be rendered "John SMITH" or "Johano SMITH" in the first mention. Most non-Western names do not have equivalents and are rendered as close as possible in Esperanto orthography.

Ido, on the other hand, simply leaves the names as is; "John Smith" would be "John Smith" in Ido. Names from languages with non-Latin scripts are rendered as phonetically as possible. Ido does not capitalize surnames.

Place names
Most countries have their own names in Esperanto. The system of derivation, though, is sometimes complex. In Old World nations, where the country is named after an ethnic group, the main root means a person of that group: anglo is an Englishman, franco is a Frenchman. Originally, names of nations were created by the addition of the suffix -ujo (container), hence England and France would be rendered Anglujo and Francujo respectively (literally, "a container full of Englishmen/Frenchmen"). More recently, Esperanto has adopted -io as the national suffix, thus creating names more inline with standard international practice (and less odd-looking): Anglio, Francio.

In the New World, where citizens are named for their nation, the name of the nation is the main word, and its inhabitants are derived from that: Kanado ("Canada"), kanadano ("Canadian").

Names of cities may or may not have an Esperanto equivalent: Londono for London, Nov-Jorko for New York. Place names which lack wide-spread recognition, or which would be mangled beyond recognition usually remain in their native form: Cannes is usually rendered as "Cannes".

In Ido, country names must conform to the language's orthography but otherwise are left unchanged: Europa, Peru, Amerika. City names are treated as foreign words (London), except when part of the name itself is a regular noun or adjective: Nov-York (Nov for nova, or "new", but the place name York is not changed as in Esperanto "Nov-Jorko"). This is not a hard and fast rule, however, and New York is also acceptable, similar to writing Köln for the city of Cologne in Germany. South Carolina becomes Sud-Karolina, much in the same way that a river called the "Schwarz River" is not transcribed as the "Black River" in English even though schwarz is the German word for black. However, less well-known place names are generally left alone, so a small town by the name of "Battle River" for example would be written the same way, and not transcribed as "Batalio-rivero". This is because transcribing a little-known place name would make it nearly impossible to find in the original language.


text:
Horn/General/Players

There have been many great horn players over the years. Here are some virtuosos who have influenced many horn players after them.

 * Friedrich Adolph Borsdorf (1854-1923)
 * Dennis Brain (1921-1957)
 * Alan Civil (1929-1989)
 * Philip Farkas (1914-1992)
 * Friedrich Gumpert (1841-1906)
 * Joseph Ignaz Leutgeb (1745-1811)
 * Eduard Constantin and Joseph Rodolphe Lewy (1796-1846), (1802-1881)
 * Max Pottag (1876-1970)
 * Giovanni Punto (1746-1803)
 * Karl Stiegler (1876-1932)
 * Franz Strauss (1822-1905)
 * Emil Wipperich (1854-1917)
 * Dale Clevenger
 * Hector McDonald (born 1952)
 * John Cerminaro (born 1947)
 * Hermann Baumann (born 1934)
 * Michael Thompson (born 1954)
 * Barry Tuckwell (born 1931)

title: Horn/General/Players