Inequality

Step 1: Create a page in your E-Portfolio where you list out the different courses that you took that dealt specifically with the area of inequality. For each of those courses, write down some key concepts that you learned from that class.

  1. Sociology 333
    • Race inequality
    • Institutions
    • Criminal Justice System
  2. Sociology 284
    • Disabilities
    • Institutions
    • Privilege
  3. Sociology 233
    • Social Inequality
    • Institutions

Step 2: From those classes find three papers that you wrote that reflect the learning that you did in that class.

Step 3: Create a page in your E-Portfolio

Step 4: Think about issues related to race, class, gender, disability, and sexuality.  How has your thinking changed regarding these issues from when you first started taking classes related to inequality to today?  You will want a paragraph that addresses each of the five areas above.  Your paragraphs should discuss how your views have changed and incorporate concepts that you have learned that have helped to change your views.  You should also refer to the papers you wrote that deal with these issues. (5 paragraphs)

The gender pay gap has traditionally been a central focus of economists concerned with the economics of gender. This is because the wage is of fundamental importance as a major determinant of economic welfare for employed individuals, as well as of the potential gain to market employment for those not currently employed. Further, it serves as a significant input into a multitude of decisions ranging from labor supply to marriage and fertility, as well as a factor influencing bargaining power and relative status within the family.

The top three theories that explain disability prejudice within education is
Social dominance theory, Social learning theory, and Contact theory. Social
dominance theory contends that all societies have systems based on social identity
and group-based hierarchies. Social Learning Theory explains how behaviors can be
changed through social modeling. Contact theory and pluralistic evidence
contribute to the attitudinal formation of individuals toward individuals with
disabilities, this study addressed how those theories related to college students
attitudinal formation toward their peers with physical, psychiatric, and learning
disabilities (Pousson,. n.d).

Sussman states that “Racism is a part of our everyday lives. Where you live, where you go to school, your job, your profession, who you interact with, how people interact with you, your treatment in the healthcare and justice systems are all affected by your race.” The article also talks about how anthropologists, biologists, and geneticists have written about why biological race in humans is nonexistent. In biological terms, the concept of race is integrally bound to the process of evolution and the origin of species. It is part of the process of the formation of new species and is related to subspecific differentiation.
Gannon stated that “Assumptions about genetic differences between people of different races have had obvious social and historical repercussions, and they still threaten to fuel racist beliefs. “

The policing of intersexuality is not confined to the sports world. The medical profession also has a long history of monitoring and ‘normalizing’ intersexual bodies, mobilizing health, instead of leveling the playing field, as the main justification to control and treat intersexuality. The notion that gender exists for all bodies and that it leads to differences in development, both in physical and psychological terms, continues to be present in how the medical profession conceives embodiment, and targets intersexuality as a condition needing specific treatment and care.

Occupation-based scales could perhaps be more accurately seen as measuring some forms of status groupings, rather than social class. The focus on occupation as the basic unit of class measurement tends to divide society into middle and working-class sections while ignoring an upper class characterized not only by occupation (managing directors, etc.) but by ownership (large-scale share-holding and the like). As we have seen, Marxist sociologists argue that this is a crucially important dimension of social class that is largely (if not totally) ignored by most class scales.

Step 5:  How do you see your changing views about issues related to inequality potentially affecting your career? (1 paragraph)

From each of those classes, I learned about how there is inequality in the world
and how it affects each group of society. Since there is inequality there have been more privileges for certain groups over others. Inequality occurs when certain groups in society do not have equal social status. Since there are ones that are privileged with more opportunities we have ones oppressed with the same opportunities. There are five causes of inequality, and laws are created and changed due to how strongly society views certain rights.