Sociology Chapter 9 Section 3:

1. SociologyChapter 9 Section 3: Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination

2. Individuals hold prejudices of many types. • Prejudice- widely held negative attitudes toward a group (minority or majority) and its individual members. • Prejudice attitudes are based on strong emotions, so they are often difficult to change.

3. Racism is an extreme form of prejudice, because if not only involves judging people unfairly, but it assumes that a person’s own race or ethnic group is superior. • Racists believe that discrimination or exclusion is morally justified because of their own natural superiority.

4. How is discrimination different from prejudice? • While prejudice involves holding biased opinions, discrimination involves acting upon those opinions by treating people unfairly.

5. Discrimination takes many forms including… • Avoiding social contact with members of minority groups • Denying them positions that carry authority • Blocking their access to the more exclusive neighborhoods • Attacking or killing minority members

6. Hate Crimes • In 1998, James Byrd Jr., an African American from Texas, was chained to a pickup truck, then dragged to death. • That same year saw Matthew Shepard, a gay college student tied to a fence and beaten to death. • Hate Crimes- a criminal act motivated by prejudice.

7. How are hate crimes different? • Hate crimes involve bias related to race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, or ancestry.

8. How does sociology interpret hate crimes? • Functionalists might notice that members of a group are bolstering their sense of unity against a common enemy. • Example: immigrants

9. Stereotypes • A stereotype is a set of ideas based on distortion, exaggeration, and oversimplification that is applied to all members of a group.

10. The Functionalist Perspective • In studying prejudice and discrimination, functionalists focus on the dysfunctions caused by these practices. • The safety and stability of the larger society are at risk, because violence periodically erupts between groups.

11. The conflict perspective • According to conflict theory, a majority uses prejudice and discrimination as weapons of power to control a minority. • In conflict perspective, despite being common targets, different minorities tend to view one another as competitors rather than allies in their struggle against the minority.

12. The symbolic Interactionist Perspective • According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, members of a society learn to be prejudice in much the same way they learn to be patriotic.

13. In the pre-generalized learning period, children may overhear parents make racist or prejudice statements, they have not yet learned to separate people by race or ethnic group. • By the time children reach the total rejection stage, they are able to use physical clues to sort people into groups.

14. Symbolic interactionism underlies the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy- an expectation that leads to behavior that then causes the expectation to become a reality.