Race & Ethnicity
In How the Irish Became White, Noel Ignatiev writes: “While the white skin made the Irish eligible for membership in the white race, it did not guarantee their admission; they had to earn it.”
How did Irish Americans "earn" their whiteness?
Irish immigrants became white by distancing themselves from Black Americans and participating in anti-Blackness to gain social and political privileges. How?
Assimilating into WASP values and practices (thus aligning themselves with whiteness)
Perpetuating anti-Black cultural stereotypes
Joining in police departments (material commitment to anti-Blackness)
Culture. What is it generally, and what are its two main types?
The shared beliefs, norms, behaviors, practices, and products of a group
Material culture: physical objects, artifacts etc. (including tools, technology, architecture and art) that are created, embraced, or consumed by society that help shape people’s lives.
Nonmaterial culture: composed of the abstract, intangible ideas about behavior and living; beliefs, values, customs, norms and language that shape behaviors and social interactions
"All men are intellectuals [] but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals." What does Gramsci mean by this quote?
Every kind of work requires skill, but society only labels certain types of work/knowledge as "skilled," "expert," or "intellectual"
What is the difference between assimilation and integration?
Assimilation: adopting norms and practices of the mainstream culture
Integration: maintaining connections to home culture while also adopting aspects of new culture
Describe (generally) a functionalist vs. conflict theory perspective on the role that education plays in society.
Functionalist: education promotes social cohesion by inculcating shared norms and values. Serves society's needs as a whole
Conflict theory: education is another tool by which the haves oppress the have-nots; education is used to promote values and norms that legitimize ongoing inequalities
According to Richard Alba, why was George Borjas wrong for lumping together European and non-European immigrant groups in this analysis?
(From "How Enduring Were the Inequalities among European Immigrant Groups in the United States?")
Non-European groups have faced a history of structural racism that is qualitatively different from the history of European immigrant groups.
EX: Chinese Exclusion Act, "barred Asiatic zone," mass waves of Mexican deportations,
The difference between high culture and "low"/popular culture
"High" culture: forms and modes of cultural expression associated with the ruling classes
"Low" culture: popular culture associated with the masses / those with less power
Traditional intellectuals are ...
Traditional intellectuals - intellectuals associated with the ruling class and maintain/legitimize existing systems
Classical assimilation theory argues that over time, diasporic immigrant communities become ...
more assimilated into the U.S. mainstream, and ethnic differences disappear
The "hidden curriculum" refers to ...
an amorphous collection of “implicit academic, social, and cultural messages,” “unwritten rules and unspoken expectations,” and “unofficial norms, behaviours and values” of the dominant-culture context in which all teaching and learning is situated. These “assumptions and expectations that are not formally communicated, established, or conveyed” stipulate the “right” way to think, speak, look, and behave in school.
https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/resources/teaching-the-hidden-curriculum/
When Black Southerners migrated to the North, they faced ...
Hostility from white (and Black) Northerners → intensified segregation, racial violence, redlining --> disinvestment, white flight
As a result of these hardships, many Black residents ended up creating their own cities within big cities, fostering the growth of a new, urban, Black culture.
Ethnocentrism. What is it?
Ethnocentrism: framework by which we judge other cultures by the standards of our own—because we perceive our own culture as "natural" or "normal." Cultures that seem different from our own are assumed to be "inferior."
Organic intellectuals are ...
Organic intellectuals - intellectuals that emerge from, represent, and support a specific social group
What do the melting pot and salad bowl symbolize in terms of metaphors for the immigrant experience in the U.S.?
Melting pot: vision for America = immigrants can achieve the American Dream by blending themsleves into the mainstream
Salad bowl: vision for America = difference is appreciated and celebrated
Bowles & Gintis argue that education reforms led to classrooms becoming more similar to _______.
Bonus question: what term did they use to describe this concept?
capitalist workplaces.
The correspondence principle
“Push” factors: Jim Crow, racial terror, & economic hardship
Social push factors: Jim Crow laws, racial violence, lack of access to education
Economic push factors: poverty, joblessness, sharecropping system and agricultural mechanization in the South (i.e. the cotton gin).
“Pull” factors: economic opportunities in the North arising from WWI
What are the three types of cultural capital? How are they defined?
Objectified, embodied, and institutionalized cultural capital
Objectified cultural capital - refers to objects you put on display for others to see because they symbolize high status.
Embodied cultural capital - efers to how you walk, talk, what you wear -- the ways you communicate who you are based on how you use and move your body.
Institutionalized cultural capital - refers to credentials you receive from a recognized institution
"[T]he supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as ‘domination’ and as ‘intellectual and moral leadership’.” What does Gramsci mean by this?
Gramsci means that lasting dominance is not purely economic (like Marx would argue); it requires winning cultural and ideological leadership.
Hirschman critiques the notion of the American melting pot by arguing that it doesn't account for ...
the "stickiness" of ethnicity (i.e. the ways that ethnic identity and difference persists over generations)
The "hidden injury of class" refers to ....
The concept that as working-class students enter into spaces of higher education and encounter the "identity beliefs" of the middle-class (i.e. the norms and values of the middle class), the friction between their own background and middle-class values places a psychological burden on them.
Describe the difference between race, nationality, and ethnicity
Nationality: legal and political membership in a nation-state (i.e. what passport do you have)
Ethnicity: cultural or historical identity based on shared language, culture, experiences
Race: a social construct that attaches cultural, political, and social significance to different perceived attributes (note: this can include real or stereotyped physical attributes) in order to classify certain people for better or worse treatment
Distinct “races” are created through the consolidation of various ethnic groups.
This theory argues that intergenerational inequalities persist because affluent families are able to invest the labor-time needed to transform economic capital into cultural and social capital for their children, which then allows these children to use cultural and social capital to accrue more economic capital under the guise of meritocracy/in ways that obscure the unfairness of the system.
Social reproduction theory
Bonus question: which theorist is credited with forwarding this theory?
Gramsci uses this term to describe the "common sense" generated and maintained through the work traditional intellectuals.
Bonus question: how does Gramsci understand the connection between this "common sense" and continued domination?
Cultural hegemony: the “common sense” created by the “taken-for-granted” assumptions, understandings, and beliefs that shape our everyday interactions.
Cultural hegemony creates conditions in which people seemingly consent to systems even when they don’t benefit them --> ideological domination is maintained through consent and institutions like education.
Segmented assimilation theory argues that immigrant communities can follow one of these three trajectories
Upward assimilation (similar to classical assimilation theory)
Integration (some assimilation while maintaining ethnic solidarity; sometimes described as "biculturalism")
Downward assimilation (assimilation into the U.S. "underclass")
Humanistic vs. vocational education models
Humanistic education: promoted a comprehensive curriculum that would be similar for all students across the board, development of well-rounded individuals
Unions historically supported this model because they perceived vocational schools as “scab factories,” ways for owners to weaken power of skilled labor
Generally supported by liberal reformers at the time like Dewey
Vocational education: promoted creating different "tracks" for students to specialize earlier on; also promoted grouping students based on "academic ability level"
Supported by a Taylorist approach to education
Historically promoted by business and philanthropic interests