The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race and Ethnicity, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexuality, and Disability

How do categories of people come to be seen as "different"? How does being "different" affect people's lives? What does difference mean at the level of the individual, social institutions, or society? What difference does "difference" make? The Meaning of Difference offers a conceptual structure and up-to-date readings on the differences distinctive to American life-differences of race and ethnicity, sex and gender, social class, sexuality, and disability.

List of contents

Preface

SECTION I-CONSTRUCTING CATEGORIES OF DIFFERENCE

Framework Essay

WHAT IS RACE? WHAT IS ETHNICITY?

1. "Race" and the Construction of Human Identity, Audrey Smedley

2. Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition, F. James Davis

3. The Evolution of Identity, The Washington Post

Personal Account: A Loaded Vacation, Niah Grimes

4. Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America, Eva Marie Garroutte

5. An Interlocking Panethnicity: The Negotiation of Multiple Identities among Asian American Social Movement Leaders, Dana Y. Nakano

Personal Account: I Thought My Race Was Invisible, Sherri H. Pereira

6. Latino Racial Choices: The Effects of Skin Colour and Discrimination on Latinos' and Latinas' Racial Self-Identifications, Tanya Golash-Boza and William Darity, Jr.

7. Whiteness as an 'Unmarked' Cultural Category, Ruth Frankenberg

8. Plus Ça Change . . . ? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of Race Relations in the United States, Frank D. Bean and Jennifer Lee

Personal Account: The Price of Nonconformity, Julia Morgenstern

Personal Account: Basketball, Andrea M. Busch

WHAT IS SEX? WHAT IS GENDER?

9. The Olympic Struggle over Sex, Alice Dreger

10.All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM, Riki Wilchins

11.Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, Cordelia Fine

WHAT IS SOCIAL CLASS?

12. What's Class Got to Do with It?, Michael Zweig

13.The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start, Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr.

Personal Account: I Am a Pakistani Woman, Hoorie I. Siddique

14.The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It, Timothy Noah

WHAT IS SEXUALITY?

15.Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire, Lisa M. Diamond

16.The Biology of the Homosexual, Roger N. Lancaster

17.The Heterosexual Questionnaire, Martin Rochlin

WHAT IS DISABILITY?

18. Disability Definitions: The Politics of Meaning, Michael Oliver

Personal Account: Invisibly Disabled, Heather L. Shaw

19.What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability and Violence in Chicago, Laurence Ralph

20.Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World, Harlan Lane

SECTION II-EXPERIENCING DIFFERENCE

Framework Essay

RACE AND ETHNICITY

21. Formulating Identity in a Globalized World, Carola Suárez-Orozco

Personal Account: Hair, Sarah Faragalla

Personal Account: The Americanization of a Reluctant Vietnamese-American, Hoai Huong Tran

22. Latinos in the U.S. Race Structure, Clara E. Rodríguez

23. Everybody's Ethnic Enigma, Jelita McLeod

Personal Account: My Strategies, Eric Jackson

24. From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race, John Tehranian

Personal Account: Master Status: Pride and Danger, Sumaya Al-Hajebi

SEX AND GENDER

25.The Privilege of Teaching about Privilege, Michael A. Messner

26.Proving Manhood, Timothy Beneke

Personal Account: Just Something You Did as a Man, Francisco Hernandez

27."I'm Not a Feminist, But . . .": Popular Myths about Feminism, Penny A. Weiss

SEXUALITY

28. "Dude, You're a Fag": Adolescent Male Homophobia, C. J. Pascoe

29. Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood: Double Binds and Flawed Options, Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth Armstrong

Personal Account: Living Invisibly, Tara S. Ellison

30. Sexual Orientation and Sex in Women's Lives: Conceptual and Methodological Issues, Esther D. Rothblum

SOCIAL CLASS

31. Cause of Death: Inequality, Alejandro Reuss

32. Why Are Droves of Unqualified, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? Because Their Dads Are Alumni, John Larew

Personal Account: That Moment of Visibility, Rose B. Pascarell

33. The Myth of the "Culture of Poverty", Paul Gorski

DISABILITY

34. Public Transit, John Hockenberry

35. "Can You See the Rainbow?"' The Roots of Denial, Sally French

36. Not Blind Enough: Living in the Borderland Called Legal Blindness, Beth Omansky

Personal Account: A Time I Didn't Feel Normal, Heather Callender

SECTION III-THE MEANING OF DIFFERENCE

Framework Essay

RACE AND ETHNICITY

37. Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments

38.Blink in Black and White, Malcolm Gladwell

Personal Account: Just Like My Mama Said, Anthony McNeill

39.Safe Haven in America? Thirty Years after the Refugee Act of 1980, David W. Haines

40.Hispanics Are Forgotten in Civil Rights History, Nicholas Dauphine

41.Balancing Identities: Undocumented Immigrant Asian American Students and the Model Minority Myth, Tracy Poon Tambascia, Jonathan Wang, Breanne Tcheng, and Viet T. Bui

Personal Account: Let Me Work for It!, Isabelle Nguyen

42.Segregated Housing, Segregated Schools, Richard Rothstein

SEX AND GENDER

43.Many Faces of Gender Inequality, Amartya Sen

Personal Account: He Hit Her, Tim Norton

44.The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower, Ann Mullen

45.The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled, Paula England

SEXUALITY

46.Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity, Tanya McNeill

Personal Account: Learning My Own Privilege, Mireille M. Cecil

47.Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage, J. Jack Halberstam

48.Queers without Money: They Are Everywhere. But We Refuse to See Them, Amber Hollibaugh

SOCIAL CLASS

49.Rethinking American Poverty, Mark R. Rank

50.Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education, Peter Sacks

51.Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor, James H. Carr

DISABILITY

52.Disability Trouble, Bradley A. Areheart

53.Learning Disabilities: The Social Construction of a Special Education Category, Christine E. Sleeter

54.(Re)Creating a World in Seven Days: Place, Disability, and Salvation in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Emily Askew

SECTION IV-BRIDGING DIFFERENCES

Framework Essay

55.Adolescent Masculinity in an Age of Decreased Homohysteria, Eric Anderson

56.What Can We Do? Becoming Part of the Solution, Allan G. Johnson

Personal Account: Parents' Underestimated Love, Octavio N. Espinal

57.In Defense of Rich Kids, William Upski Wimsatt

Personal Account: Where Are You From?, C.C.

58.Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, Paul Kivel

Credits

Index

About the author

Karen E. Rosenblum is Associate Professor of Sociology and Vice President for University Life at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She is a former Director of Women’s Studies and the Women’s Studies Research and Resource Center and a faculty member in Cultural Studies. Professor Rosenblum received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her areas of research and teaching include sex and gender, language, and deviance.

Toni-Michelle C. Travis is Associate Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She is also a faculty member in the Women’s Studies and African American Studies Programs. Professor Travis received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Her areas of research and teaching include race and gender in political participation, and urban politics. She has served as the President of the National Capital Area Political Science Association and the Women’s Caucus of the American Political Science Association. She hosts Capital Regional Roundtable, a cable television show, and is a frequent commentator on Virginia politics.

Product details

• Authors: Karen Rosenblum, Karen E Rosenblum, Rosenblum Karen, Toni-Michelle Travis, Toni-Michelle C Travis, Travis Toni-Michelle
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.03.2015
• EAN: 9780078027024
• ISBN: 978-0-07-802702-4
• Dimensions: 185 mm x 231 mm x 20 mm
• Weight: 837 g
• Illustrations: Illustrationen, nicht spezifiziert
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); USA, Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, Social groups, United States of America, USA, Social groups, communities and identities