The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and DisabilityThe Meaning of Difference focuses on the social construction of difference as it operates in American formulations of race and ethnicity, sex and gender, social class, sexual orientation, and disability. The conceptual structure of this text-reader comes from four framework essays addressing the construction of difference, the experience of difference, the social meaning of difference, and social action that might bridge differences. Each framework essay is followed by a set of readings selected for readability, conceptual depth, and applicability to a variety of statuses. Boxed inserts throughout offer first-person accounts from real people, many of them students. This edition features an expanded focus on disability and 29 new readings, including articles on how immigration is transforming the nature of American race and ethnic categories, the changing shape of higher education, and the experience of Americans of Middle-Eastern descent. |
Contents
WHAT IS RACE? WHAT IS ETHNICITY? | 40 |
The Evolution of Identity | 59 |
I Thought My Race Was Invisible | 78 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
African Americans ancestry Asian American asked become behavior biological bisexual blind blood Census Chinese citizens civil rights color constructed Court culture deaf defined definitions disability discrimination DISCUSSION QUESTIONS diversity dominant economic example experience federal feel female Filipino Fourteenth Amendment heterosexual Hispanic homosexuality human identify identity ideology immigrants income Indian individuals inequality intersexual labor Latinos lesbian lives look male masculinity master statuses mean Mexican middle middle-class minority model minority multiracial Native Americans Negro one-drop rule one's pan-Asian panethnic parents percent person perspective political poor population privilege Puerto Ricans race racial racism Reading relationship segregation sexual orientation Sharon social class social reproduction society status stereotypes stigmatized things tion transgendered U.S. Census Bureau United University Press woman women women's sexuality workers York