2.1.1 Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Describe how social identity and social location impact how people experience social problems.
2. List practices we use to create interdependent community in our classroom and the wider world.

2.1.2 Chapter Overview

With deep appreciation to my students, friends and colleagues who are People of Color. Thank you for speaking your truth, calling me out, and imagining new possibilities with me. May you arrive home safely every day, with your children, and their children, and their children’s children.
—Kim Puttman

Figure 2.1. In this 12-minute video, Social Identities [Video], we explore the diversity of our social identities and the relationship of identity to power and privilege. How do you identify? Transcript

Each one of us is unique. We like to listen to different music, eat different food, learn in different ways, and have different creative superpowers. Pause for a moment, and consider what makes you a unique person. The problems we experience in our lives are also unique…or are they? A common saying in English is, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” All of us are born, and eventually, we die. At some point, we will likely fall in and out of love, get sick and get well, enjoy youth, and grow older. We share this human condition called life.

At the same time, sociologists know that any person’s life chances depend in part on the groups they are a member of. How long you live depends partly on whether you are non-binary, female, or male. It depends on whether you are Black, Brown, Indigenous, Latinx, mixed race, or White. It depends whether you are rich or poor. It depends on whether you are straight, queer, or pansexual. It depends on whether you are able-bodied or not-able-bodied. And the list continues.

However, race, gender, class, or physical ability aren’t in and of themselves social problems. Instead, the problem is the meaning and value society attributes to these categories. We have socially constructed inequality in our society based on these social locations. Some people have power and privilege. Others have less. Power and privilege influence the trajectories of their lives.

These identities and their relationship to power also help us understand social problems in a more nuanced way. Traditionally, sociologists have sometimes explained social problems by using only one dimension of diversity—just age, or just race, or just gender. However, these models do not capture the interdependent nature of society and related social problems. More powerfully, sociologists use the concepts of social identity, social location, and intersectionality to begin to explain systemic inequalities.

2.1.3 Focusing Questions

Our questions for this chapter are simple but powerful. We ask:

1. How do social identity and social location impact the experience of a social problem?
2. What practices can we use to create interdependent community in our classroom and the wider world?

Let’s build our vocabulary for justice!

2.1.4 Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives

Open Content, Original

“Chapter Overview” by Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Figure 2.1. “Social Identities Video” by Elizabeth Pearce, Kimberly Puttman and Colin Stapp, Open Oregon Educational Resources, is licensed under CC BY 4.0.