As students arrive:
Please open the Google Form for today's lesson. Please open it in a new window and answer the questions as you read along below.
Review and apply yesterday's lesson:
1. What does Durkheim's structural-functional paradigm focus on?
2. Try to apply that to teens - How can you apply the structural-functional paradigm to the Parent-Teen Conflict article? What parts of the article would a structural-functional sociologist focus on?
Karl Marx's Conflict Paradigm
Karl Marx's Conflict Paradigm
The second paradigm that emerged from the changes of the industrial revolution is called conflict paradigm which developed out of the influence of Karl Marx. He studied the inequalities in industrial Europe and how those inequalities affected individuals. For example, Marx found that a working-class person lived an average of 25 years less than a wealthy person. Like Durkheim, Marx concluded that his findings were not just the result of individual choices. Instead, people were forced to work in unhealthy conditions and forced to yield to the demands of the wealthy owners of the factories.
Marx's Focus
Marx's focus led sociologists to examine who had power in society and who did not. The natural extension of that became the effects of power on groups of individuals and how those in power gained and maintained that power. Initially, Marx's focus was on social class, especially in Europe, but early sociologists in the U.S. like W.E.B. Dubois applied the conflict paradigm to race, while others like Alice Paul applied it to gender in the U.S. Oftentimes, the study of inequality and the fight for equal rights led to overlapping movements such as social class and gender led by Chicago's Jane Addams and other overlapping movements such as race and gender which was led by Chicago's Ida B. Wells. In fact, the University of Chicago was the first sociology department in North America (1892) and Chicago was a leader in sociology for the next 50 years leading to what became known as "the Chicago school" of sociology.
Open your framework chart from yesterday, and add Marx's paradigm to the lower left:
Marx's Focus
Marx's focus led sociologists to examine who had power in society and who did not. The natural extension of that became the effects of power on groups of individuals and how those in power gained and maintained that power. Initially, Marx's focus was on social class, especially in Europe, but early sociologists in the U.S. like W.E.B. Dubois applied the conflict paradigm to race, while others like Alice Paul applied it to gender in the U.S. Oftentimes, the study of inequality and the fight for equal rights led to overlapping movements such as social class and gender led by Chicago's Jane Addams and other overlapping movements such as race and gender which was led by Chicago's Ida B. Wells. In fact, the University of Chicago was the first sociology department in North America (1892) and Chicago was a leader in sociology for the next 50 years leading to what became known as "the Chicago school" of sociology.
Open your framework chart from yesterday, and add Marx's paradigm to the lower left:
Applying conflict paradigm to names
3. Hypothesize: What are some ways that names might create power or inequality?
Small group discussion (based on this lesson from Rabow, et al...):
4. Has your name ever been mispronounced? By who? When? How often?
5. Has anyone had their name changed or taken on a nickname because of mispronunciation? If so, were there any benefits to the new name? Were there any negative consequences?
Race and names
These articles provide research-based evidence of the importance of conflict perspective in examining names and power:
Emily and Greg v. Lakisha and Jamal
In a study from 2003, called Are Emily And Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan sent nearly 5,000 CVs in response to job advertisements in Chicago and Boston newspapers. The CVs were the same, but half were given fake names that sounded like they belonged to white people, like Emily Walsh or Greg Baker, and the other half were given names that sounded African American, like Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones. The call-back rate from employers was 50% higher on the "white" names then the "black" names. The effects were noted even for federal contractors with "affirmative action" policies, and companies boasting they were "equal opportunities" employers. The researchers inferred that employers were using first names to discriminate unfairly against black candidates, perhaps at an unconscious level. Those same prejudices might also come into play at the interviewing stage, but a black applicant called Greg Baker, who receives an invitation to an interview, has at least got his foot in the door.
Drew to Dwayne to Damarcus to Da'Quan
Both of the above is an example of how conflict sociologists view society and how inequality is created and maintained. Read the following and look for how studying names can be viewed through a conflict paradigm.
School and Conflict Paradigm
From PBS's, Why Getting a Student's Name Right Matters
There is also striking evidence of names triggering different outcomes for schoolchildren.
David Figlio, now at Northwestern University, analyzed the scores of some 55,000 children in a school district of Florida. Instead of just distinguishing between "white" and "black" names, he codified what aspects of names meant that they were more likely to belong to black children and children from low-income families. This allowed him to create a sliding scale, which went, for example, from Drew to Dwayne to Damarcus to Da'Quan. Figlio found that the further along this scale he went, the worse the school test scores and the less likely the student was to be recommended for the schools' program for "gifted" students. Strikingly, this held true for brothers within a family, and even - although the sample size was small - for twins. Figlio believes that the fault lies with the expectations of schoolteachers and administrators - at schools with more black teachers, the effects were less marked. In separate research, Figlio used the Florida school data to show that black boys who are given names more common among girls are more likely to develop behavioral problems when they reach puberty. The problems increase significantly when there are girls in the same year group with the same name.
Both of the above is an example of how conflict sociologists view society and how inequality is created and maintained. Read the following and look for how studying names can be viewed through a conflict paradigm.
Ethnicity, immigration and names
From American Immigrants and the Dilemma of the White Sounding Name in the Atlantic (2019),
A lot of research on immigration and names examines the subject from an economic perspective. A 2016 paper in the American Sociological Review looked at the first names given to the generation that came after the wave of immigration to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. “Native-born sons of Irish, Italian, German, and Polish immigrant fathers who were given very ethnic names ended up in occupations that earned, on average, $50 to $100 less per year than sons who were given very ‘American’ names,” the researchers wrote. “This represented 2 to 5 percent of annual earnings.” (They determined the “ethnic-ness” or “American-ness” of a name based on how frequently it was given in each immigrant and native-born population at the time.)
Some of this effect, the researchers estimated, was due to class differences among parents (which remain a strong determinant of a child’s future job prospects), but most of it had to do with the symbolism of the name itself. Interestingly, the economic advantage that came with having a “more American” name still applied to people with surnames that clearly indicated their parents’ foreign origins. The researchers surmised that American-sounding first names, then, functioned more as a signal of “an effort to assimilate” than a means of “hiding one’s origins.”
Immigrants in that era frequently felt pressured to change their own first name. A separate study, also from 2016, found that “at any given time between 1900 and 1930,” about 77 percent of immigrants had an American-sounding first name, and it was the norm for them to have dropped their original name within a year of entering the U.S. There were economic overtones here too: Male immigrants were more likely to change their name if they lived in counties where other immigrants had trouble getting jobs.
School and Conflict Paradigm
From PBS's, Why Getting a Student's Name Right Matters
For students, especially the children of immigrants or those who are English-language learners, a teacher who knows their name and can pronounce it correctly signals respect and marks a critical step in helping them adjust to school. But for many ELLs, a mispronounced name is often the first of many slights they experience in classrooms; they’re already unlikely to see educators who are like them, teachers who speak their language, or a curriculum that reflects their culture.
It can also hinder academic progress.
...the dropout rate for foreign-born and immigrant students remains above 30 percent, three times that of U.S.-born white students.
- Mispronunciation can hinder academic progress, and make students feel invisible.
...the dropout rate for foreign-born and immigrant students remains above 30 percent, three times that of U.S.-born white students.
Carmen Fariña, a native-Spanish speaker, had a teacher who marked her absent every day for weeks because she didn’t raise her hand during roll call. The teacher assumed Fariña was being defiant, but the future New York City schools chancellor never heard her name called; the teacher had repeatedly failed to pronounce it correctly, including rolling the r’s.
Mispronouncing a student’s name essentially renders that student invisible, Fariña said Teachers Please Learn Our Names! Racial Microaggressions and the K-12 Classroom, is littered with stories of students who endured shame, anxiety, or embarrassment, and sometimes a mix of all three, when their names were called in class.
There’s the tale of a Portland, Oregon-area student with a traditional Chinese name who had her name garbled by a vice principal during an honors ceremony. Set to present the student with an award, the principal laughed at his mistake, drawing chuckles from the audience. To avoid embarrassment, the student slumped in her seat, refusing to rise to receive the prestigious award. She later skipped her graduation. The mispronunciation wasn’t an isolated event. Having endured years of slights, she felt the need to become invisible long before the principal’s laughter marked the tipping point. The woman, who went on to become an educator, changed her first name to ‘Anita.’ “If someone mispronounces your name once as a high school student, you might correct them,” said Kohli, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India. “But if this has been your entire existence in education, what do you do?” Kohli’s own brother had a teacher mispronounce his traditional South Asian name, Sharad (‘shu-rudth’) as Sharub during a ninth grade class. The teacher and the students decided it was easier to call him Shrub, and it stuck for the rest of high school. The nickname forced him to check part of his identity at the door.
While the diversity of the nation’s public school student body has exploded in the last few decades, the number of African-American, Latino, and Asian teachers hasn’t kept pace. Gonzalez, a former teacher in school districts in Kentucky and Maryland, said she often observed a ‘these people’ attitude from her mostly white female colleagues. “They approached it like, ‘It’s your fault for having a weird name,'” Gonzalez said. To some degree, Gonzalez understands the struggle students face. She grew up with a Russian surname, Yurkosky, that befuddled teachers and classmates. She said it rhymes with “her-pots-ski,” minus the “t” sound in pots. “But I did not experience all the other stuff and other ways that a person can feel discriminated against,” said Gonzalez, who is white.
Butchered names are not just a problem for English learners and immigrants; students from a number of cultural backgrounds have their names garbled or ridiculed. Hawaiian and African-American students, with names that link to their ancestry, also shared stories of how constant mispronunciations made them feel uncomfortable with their names.
Carmen Fariña, a native-Spanish speaker, had a teacher who marked her absent every day for weeks because she didn’t raise her hand during roll call. The teacher assumed Fariña was being defiant, but the future New York City schools chancellor never heard her name called; the teacher had repeatedly failed to pronounce it correctly, including rolling the r’s.
Mispronouncing a student’s name essentially renders that student invisible, Fariña said Teachers Please Learn Our Names! Racial Microaggressions and the K-12 Classroom, is littered with stories of students who endured shame, anxiety, or embarrassment, and sometimes a mix of all three, when their names were called in class.
There’s the tale of a Portland, Oregon-area student with a traditional Chinese name who had her name garbled by a vice principal during an honors ceremony. Set to present the student with an award, the principal laughed at his mistake, drawing chuckles from the audience. To avoid embarrassment, the student slumped in her seat, refusing to rise to receive the prestigious award. She later skipped her graduation. The mispronunciation wasn’t an isolated event. Having endured years of slights, she felt the need to become invisible long before the principal’s laughter marked the tipping point. The woman, who went on to become an educator, changed her first name to ‘Anita.’ “If someone mispronounces your name once as a high school student, you might correct them,” said Kohli, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India. “But if this has been your entire existence in education, what do you do?” Kohli’s own brother had a teacher mispronounce his traditional South Asian name, Sharad (‘shu-rudth’) as Sharub during a ninth grade class. The teacher and the students decided it was easier to call him Shrub, and it stuck for the rest of high school. The nickname forced him to check part of his identity at the door.
While the diversity of the nation’s public school student body has exploded in the last few decades, the number of African-American, Latino, and Asian teachers hasn’t kept pace. Gonzalez, a former teacher in school districts in Kentucky and Maryland, said she often observed a ‘these people’ attitude from her mostly white female colleagues. “They approached it like, ‘It’s your fault for having a weird name,'” Gonzalez said. To some degree, Gonzalez understands the struggle students face. She grew up with a Russian surname, Yurkosky, that befuddled teachers and classmates. She said it rhymes with “her-pots-ski,” minus the “t” sound in pots. “But I did not experience all the other stuff and other ways that a person can feel discriminated against,” said Gonzalez, who is white.
Butchered names are not just a problem for English learners and immigrants; students from a number of cultural backgrounds have their names garbled or ridiculed. Hawaiian and African-American students, with names that link to their ancestry, also shared stories of how constant mispronunciations made them feel uncomfortable with their names.
- Names can even lead to direct mocking of a student:
In an extreme case, a teacher in Wayne Township, New Jersey, lost her tenure status and job in 2015 for mocking a student’s name on Facebook. Several letters in the student’s name spelled out a profane word, legal documents show. More often, the mocking is more direct and reflexive: laughing off pronunciation, asking the student to take on a nickname, or making a spectacle of their name, Kohli said. “It matters what you do when you’re in front of a child and struggling with their name,” Kohli said. “Is it framed as my inability to say someone’s name or is it framed as the student doing something to make your life more difficult?”
The episode called "Substitute Teacher" from Key and Peele is a funny take on how student names can be messed up by a teacher and how that can affect students.Applying conflict paradigm to teens
6. Finally, apply conflict paradigm to the teen-parent conflict article. What are some ways that you can analyze Coontz's Teen-Parent Conflict excerpt through Marx's lens of inequality and power?
6. Finally, apply conflict paradigm to the teen-parent conflict article. What are some ways that you can analyze Coontz's Teen-Parent Conflict excerpt through Marx's lens of inequality and power?
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