2.4 Chapter Summary
Kimberly Puttman
In this chapter, we asked the question, “Who are we?” We answered that question by understanding our own social identity and the social identities of others. We didn’t stop with exploring identity, though. We looked at different types of power. We connected social identity and power to better understand our own social location. We used social location to understand the inequality that people experience when facing social problems. Finally, we explored practices for acknowledging and respecting diversity and differences in power in our classroom and our world. These practices can help us better understand ourselves and people different from us so that we can learn and change.
Now that we understand what a social problem is and how social problems impact people unequally, we can turn our attention to the “why” of the matter. In Chapter 3, we explore how sociologists make sense of the social world.
Essential Ideas
Learning Objective 1: How do social identity and social location impact the experience of a social problem?
People differ in their social identity. People and groups also differ in their relationship to privilege and power, based on their social location. This inequality is both personal and structural. Social problems are manifestations of this inequality.
Learning Objective 2: What practices can we use to create an interdependent community in our classroom and the wider world?
The practices that promote interdependent action—power with, power to, and power within—start with self-awareness and self-care. Know when you are reacting strongly, breathe, and ask for help. They also include respecting others, stepping back when you need to, practicing cultural humility, and showing compassion. These practices support a healthy classroom community and a more just world.
Key Terms Review
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Key Terms List
age group: a group of individuals who are regarded by society as holding a similar position based on their age.
class: a group that shares a common social status based on factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation.
cultural humility: the ability to remain open to learning about other cultures while acknowledging one’s own lack of competence and recognizing power dynamics that impact the relationship/
disability: a condition of the body or mind that makes it more difficult for a person to participate fully in everyday life.
ethnicity: a group of people who share a cultural background including language, location, or religion.
gender: a social expression of a person’s sexual identity that influences the status, roles, and norms for their behavior.
intersectionality: the idea that inequalities produced by multiple and interconnected social characteristics can influence the life course of an individual or group.
marginalization: a process of social exclusion in which individuals or groups are pushed to the outside of society by denying them economic and political power.
microaggression: brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group.
privilege: an advantage that is unearned, exclusive to a particular group or social category, and socially conferred by others.
racism: a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities.
race: a socially constructed category with political, social, and cultural consequences based on incorrect distinctions of physical difference.
role: the behaviors and patterns utilized by an individual, such as a parent, partner, sibling, employee, employer, etc., which may change over time.
sexual orientation: a person’s emotional, romantic, erotic, and spiritual attraction toward another person.
social identity: the sum total of who we think we are in relation to other people and social systems.
social location: the combination of factors including gender, race, social class, age, ability, religion, sexual orientation, and geographic location that define an individual or group in relationship to power and privilege .
structural inequality: a condition where one category of people is attributed an unequal status in relation to other categories of people.
White privilege: the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits, and choices bestowed upon people solely because they are White.
Discuss and Do
- Social Location: Please draw your own personal wheel of power and privilege. What is your unique social location? Where do you have power based on your social location? How do your race, class, gender identity, able-bodied status, and other social locations combine to give you less power or more power? How could you use this power to create change in your own life or in society?
- Structural Inequality: Identify one law that changed access to power and privilege in the United States. Which law did you choose? Why? What condition in society did it try to change? Do you think that the change in the law has fully transformed our world? Why or why not?
- Diversity and Conflict: Some politicians and activists argue that by focusing on our differences, we are creating conflict. Other politicians and activists argue that by understanding the causes and consequences of our differences, we can begin to create a more just world. Which position makes more sense to you?
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Summary
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Summary” by Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY 4.0
the sum total of who we think we are in relation to other people and social systems
the ability of an actor to sway the actions of another actor or actors, even against resistance
the combination of factors including gender, race, social class, age, ability, religion, sexual orientation, and geographic location that define an individual or group in relationship to power and privilege
a social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or our physical world