jagomart
digital resources
picture1_Society Pdf 159658 | 232660228


 132x       Filetype PDF       File size 0.35 MB       Source: core.ac.uk


File: Society Pdf 159658 | 232660228
view metadata citation and similar papers at core ac uk brought to you by core provided by rhode island college rhode island college digital commons ric faculty publications summer 7 ...

icon picture PDF Filetype PDF | Posted on 21 Jan 2023 | 2 years ago
Partial capture of text on file.
     View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk                                                                                                                                       brought to you by    CORE
                                                                                                                                                                                                provided by Rhode Island College
                               Rhode Island College
                               Digital Commons @ RIC
                               Faculty Publications
                               Summer 7-2008
                               The Face of Society
                               Roger D. Clark
                               Rhode Island College, rclark@ric.edu
                               Alex Nunes
                               Rhode Island College
                               Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/facultypublications
                                     Part of the Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons,Gender and Sexuality
                               Commons, and theRace and Ethnicity Commons
                               Citation
                               Clark, R., & Nunes, A. (2008). The face of society: gender and race in introductory Sociology books revisited. Teaching Sociology,
                               36(3), 227-239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055x0803600303
                               This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ RIC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an
                               authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ RIC. For more information, please contactdigitalcommons@ric.edu.
                                      Teaching Sociology
                                                                               
                                                              http://tso.sagepub.com/ 
                                                                               
                                                                               
                   The Face of Society : Gender and Race in Introductory Sociology Books Revisited
                                                            Roger Clark and Alex Nunes
                                                         Teaching Sociology 2008 36: 227
                                                       DOI: 10.1177/0092055X0803600303
                                                                               
                                                The online version of this article can be found at:
                                                     http://tso.sagepub.com/content/36/3/227 
                                                                      Published by:
                                                            http://www.sagepublications.com 
                                                                               
                                                                       On behalf of:
                                                           American Sociological Association 
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                     Additional services and information for Teaching Sociology can be found at:
                                                                               
                                                      Email Alerts: http://tso.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts 
                                                                               
                                                    Subscriptions: http://tso.sagepub.com/subscriptions 
                                                                               
                                                 Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav 
                                                                               
                                             Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav 
                                                                               
                                               Citations: http://tso.sagepub.com/content/36/3/227.refs.html 
                                                     Downloaded from tso.sagepub.com at RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE on November 5, 2010
                         THE FACE THE FACE OF SOF SOOCIETY: GENDER AND RACE IN  CIETY: GENDER AND RACE IN  
                      INTROINTRODUCDUCTTORORY SY SOOCIOCIOLOGLOGYY BO BOOKSOKS REVI REVISITESITEDD* * 
                                                               
                 We have updated Ferree and Hall’s (1990) study of the way gender and race 
                         ROGER CLARK                                       Rhode Island College 
                 are constructed through pictures in introductory sociology textbooks. Ferree 
                       Rhode Island College 
                 and Hall looked at 33 textbooks published between 1982 and 1988. We repli-
                  
                 cated their study by examining 3,085 illustrations in a sample of 27 text-
                          ALEX NUNES 
                 books, most of which were published between 2002 and 2006. We found 
                 important areas of progress in the presentation of both gender and race as 
                 well as significant areas of stasis. The face of society we found depicted in 
                 contemporary textbooks was distinctly less likely to be that of a white man, 
                 very prominent in the 1980s texts, and much more likely to be that of a mi-
                 nority woman. Thus, while only 34 percent of the pictures of identifiable indi-
                 viduals in the textbooks examined by Ferree and Hall were of women, almost 
                 50 percent of such pictures were of women in the recent texts. Moreover, 
                 while the percentage of white men portrayed dropped from about 45 percent 
                 to 30 percent, the percentage of portrayals of minority women rose from 
                 about 11 percent to 22 percent. Another sign of progress has been the de-
                 creasing likelihood of textbooks to depict race and gender as being nonover-
                 lapping categories: while women of color apparently “had” only race in the 
                 sample examined by Ferree and Hall, they “had” both gender and race in the 
                 sample we studied. Still, our examination of pictures as a whole as a unit of 
                 analysis found that blacks continue to be more likely than any other racial 
                 group to be depicted in the presence of other racial groups and, thus, to ideal-
                 ize the degree of social integration in American society. We also still see non-
                 white women enjoying very little (in fact, no) visibility in sections devoted to 
                 theory, despite developments in feminist theory, generally, and multicultural 
                 feminist, specifically. In general, though, our analysis suggests that the vari-
                 ous criticisms of introductory texts that have appeared in this forum and oth-
                 ers can have an impact on the content of those texts and, by extension, the 
                 sociology we teach. 
                         ROGER CLARK                                          ALEX NUNES 
                       Rhode Island College                                Rhode Island College 
           THE INTRODUCTORY SOCIOLOGY COURSE is  concerns and interests of sociologists gener-
           probably students’ first exposure to the con-       ally and, ideally, some realities of society 
           cepts and concerns of the discipline, and for       itself. That introductory textbooks often fail 
           many students, it is also their last. It is most    to achieve either of these goals is undoubt-
           likely taught with an introductory textbook,        edly less a function of the efforts of intro-
           whose content is supposed to reflect the  ductory textbook authors to achieve them 
                                                               than of the difficulty of keeping up with the 
             *We would like to thank the Rhode Island          many subdisciplines that constitute sociol-
           College Faculty Research Committee for a grant      ogy (see, e.g., Hamilton and Form 2003, 
           that enabled this research. Please address all      Schweingruber and Wohlstein 2005) and of 
           correspondence to Roger Clark at Rhode Island       striking a balance among many valued ends. 
           College, 600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Provi-
           dence, RI 02908; e-mail: rclark@ric.edu.            One of the functions, then, of forums such 
             Editor’s note: The reviewers were, in alpha-      as  Teaching Sociology and other journals 
           betical order, Diane Gillespie and David  has become the provision of feedback to the 
           Schweingruber.                                      authors, or at least the faculty users, of our 
                                    Teaching Sociology, Vol. 36, 2008 (July:227-239)                       227 
                                                        Downloaded from tso.sagepub.com at RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE on November 5, 2010
           228 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY 
           introductory textbooks, and such feedback  claimed that many of the concepts intro-
           has been forthcoming. The purpose of this         duced in texts are rarely used by practicing 
           paper is to assess the degree to which one        sociologists themselves. Nolan (2003) sug-
           kind of feedback about introductory sociol-       gested that by using exaggeration, distor-
           ogy textbooks, that of Ferree and Hall  tion, and simple untruths about social phe-
           (1990) about textbooks’ depiction of gender       nomena, texts run the risk of engendering 
           and race in society, is reflected in a new  distrust and cynicism in students. Keith and 
           generation of such textbooks.                     Ender (2004a, 2004b) and Schweingruber 
              Ferree and Hall, of course, have not pro-      (2004) debated whether sociology as a disci-
           vided the only feedback to authors and pub-       pline has a “core” and whether this core, 
           lishers of introductory sociology texts. The      such as it is, is adequately reflected in our 
           year before Ferree and Hall’s piece ap-           introductory texts. Wagenaar (2004) argued 
           peared in 1990, Mathisen (1989) opined that       that certain topics covered by current texts 
           introductory texts should stop treating  are not seen as important by teaching soci-
           “common sense” negatively. Ferree and  ologists, and Schweingruber and Wohlstein 
           Hall’s piece seemed to inspire a wave of  (2005) argue that textbook authors fail to 
           articles focusing on groups that were omit-       keep up with all the fields they cover, par-
           ted or whose presentation was in some other       ticularly noting that introductory texts pro-
           way inappropriate: Najafizadeh and Men-           mote crowd myths that experts in collective 
           nerick (1992) observed that texts paid little     behavior have debunked. The criticisms 
           attention to Third World education; vary in the degree to which they may be 
           Marquez (1994) noted that textbooks of-           easily and happily dealt with by authors and 
           fered a distorted image of “Hispanic”  publishers of introductory sociology texts. It 
           women; Stone (1996) observed that racial  is, after all, one thing to commit to main-
           and ethnic minorities tend to be ghettoized       streaming racial and ethnic minorities 
           and marginalized in texts; and Taub and  throughout a text (Stone 1996) and another 
           Fanflik (2000) criticized textbooks for their     to commit to demonstrating how sociology 
           limited information about disability. There       lacks the status of a science (Keith and 
           were critiques that asserted that introductory    Ender 2004a).  
           textbooks provided inadequate approaches             But do authors and publishers respond to 
           to inequality or stratification: Lucal (1994)     published criticisms as they rework older 
           found that the majority of introductory texts     introductory textbooks and prepare new 
           offered distributional, rather than relational,   ones, even when the problems addressed are 
           approaches to social stratification and there-    amenable to change? There is some evi-
           fore did not promote a consciousness of  dence that authors read such criticisms (see 
           oppression and privilege; Ferree and Hall  Macionis’s [1989] response to Elaine Hall’s 
           (1996) showed that texts segregated their  [1988] insistence upon the inclusion and 
           discussions of race, class, and gender,  handling of gender.) We replicate Ferree 
           rather than showing them as interactive in        and Hall’s (1990) study based upon the ex-
           stratification processes; Hall (2000) argued      amination of 33 introductory textbooks pub-
           that poverty information is too concentrated      lished between 1982 and 1988, using 27 
           in discussions of class and not enough a part     textbooks published between 2002 and 2006 
           of discussions of race and gender; and  to ascertain the degree to which their cri-
           Hamilton and Form (2003) asserted that the        tique of the visual presentation of gender 
           categories of race, ethnicity, and religion  and race has been addressed by a new gen-
           used by the texts oversimplify social reality.    eration of textbooks. 
           Even more recently there have been articles           
           that seem even more radical in their cri-                           METHOD 
           tiques of introductory texts. Best and   
           Schweingruber (2003), for instance, We have replicated Ferree and Hall’s 
                                                      Downloaded from tso.sagepub.com at RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE on November 5, 2010
The words contained in this file might help you see if this file matches what you are looking for:

...View metadata citation and similar papers at core ac uk brought to you by provided rhode island college digital commons ric faculty publications summer the face of society roger d clark rclark edu alex nunes follow this additional works https digitalcommons facultypublications part educational assessment evaluation research gender sexuality therace ethnicity r a race in introductory sociology books revisited teaching doi org x article is for free open access it has been accepted inclusion an authorized administrator more information please contactdigitalcommons http tso sagepub com online version can be found content published www sagepublications on behalf american sociological association services email alerts cgi subscriptions reprints journalsreprints nav permissions journalspermissions citations refs html downloaded from november sof soociety ciety introintroducducttorory sy soociociologlogyy bo booksoks revi revisitesitedd we have updated ferree hall s study way are constructed t...

no reviews yet
Please Login to review.