SCI - The Social Categories Lesson

 

The Social Categories Lesson

Different societies have different social categories, but one thing is certain, the more diverse a society is the more social categories found within the society.  A social category is a collection of people who share a similar status but do not necessarily interact. It differs from social groups in that members of the same groups must interact while members of the same categories do not.  Social categories in America include race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, disabilities and socio-economic class. An individual can be a member of more than one social category at a time. In the previous module, we discussed how people are categorized according to their socio-economic class- an achieved status. Let's now look at the social categories based on those ascribed statuses found in most societies throughout the world.

Race and Ethnicity

Race and ethnicity are often confused.  Race  is a socially-constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.  The "biologically transmitted traits" most often used to categorize race include skin color, facial features, hair texture or body shape.  But the most important thing in sociology to remember from the definition of race is the phrase "socially-constructed category."  President Barack Obama is the child of a mother labeled "white" and a father labeled "black."  Yet, upon his election as the 44^th  President of the United States, news articles across the nation announced the election of the first black  chief executive and headlines declared "Racial Barrier Falls."  Without the "socially-constructed category" phrase defining race, President Obama's election announcement might have read differently.  

When scientists first studied race, they divided the concept into three types: Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid.  However, if you were to take a look at the categories contained within the United States Census survey now, you would find that the American society no longer divides race into three labels- nor do Americans have to identify with only one race (when taking the census, Americans can check off multiple races to describe themselves.)  As the number of racial categories rose, the meanings implied by race changed.

With the transformation of what race meant in America, sociologists studied how a society identified race.  Internal Racial Identity  is the race a person sees themselves as. When filling out the  U.S. Census, this is the race or races that a person marks as representing themselves.  (The U.S. Census is mandated in Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, the federal government must conduct a census every ten years to determine the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives. The census is the official count of all residents of the United States. It is also used to apportion federal funds to local communities.) External Racial Identity   is the race that others see a person as- when headlines identified President Barack Obama as the first black American president, they were projecting an external racial identity.  When the opinions and processes that form Internal Racial Identity and External Racial Identity blend, an Expressed Racial Identity emerges.  The  Expressed Racial Identity   is the words and actions that convey beliefs about an individual's race.  Through these new terms used to define race we can gain a sense of just how dependent race is on the perceptions of a society and we understand why "race" is considered a socially-constructed category.

Another socially-constructed category is ethnicity. Ethnicity  refers to the shared cultural practices, perspectives and distinctions that set apart one group of people from another. In other words, ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage. The most common characteristics distinguishing various ethnic groups are ancestry, a sense of history, language, religion, and forms of dress. Ethnic differences are not inherited as racial differences are. Ethnic differences are learned. As such, this category is more complex because of the diversity of what can be learned. Let's use President Barack Obama's story again. Not only did he have two parents labeled as two different races, but they were also of different ethnicities.  His American mother's family had mostly English ancestry while his father was Kenyan. His parents divorced and President Obama's father remained mostly absent. The future president never experienced a sharing of cultural practices, perspectives or distinctions with the Kenyan side of his family tree until he became an adult. His mother remarried and President Obama's family tree grew to include another continent's culture. While living in his step-father's native Indonesia, President Obama experienced a new culture of sharing cultural practices, perspectives and distinctions. Eventually, he became the older brother of an Indonesian half-sister. At the age of ten, President Obama moved back to America and lived with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii.  His family is American, Kenyan, and Indonesian. Is President Obama a Kenyan-American if he wasn't exposed to Kenya's culture during his formative years but does have Kenyan ancestry?

Following that line of thinking, is President Obama an Indonesian-American if he doesn't have Indonesian ancestry but does share cultural ties with Indonesia or is President Obama an English-American since he was raised by related English-Americans and how does that fit with his external racial identity

Can you see how the diversity of a lifetime can complicate the categorization of ethnicity?  

So how does a person develop an ethnic identity?  They develop an ethnic identity in the same ways that a person develops a racial one. There are internal, external and expressed ethnic identities too. Identifying with an ethnicity comes from internal construction as well as from outside agents.

According to this theory, individuals self-identify their ethnicity based on socially constructed options.  

At any given time or place, the set of choices available to a person depends on the socially and politically defined ethnic categories that society creates. For example, since the history of European immigration to America is very well-documented as the nation of origin and the stories of that immigration were passed down from generation to generation, white Americans (or those of European ancestry) have multiple ethnic identities to choose from. One can be Irish-American or German-American or French-American or some combination thereof and so on. However, the specifics of early African immigration to America were lost due to the forced manner in which it occurred and the institution of slavery prevented the passing on of cultural knowledge based on one's nation of origin as families were often split apart. As a result, black Americans (or those of African ancestry who are not recent immigrants) have only the ethnic identity of African-American to choose.  

Gender

Most people assume that gender is only a biological concept based on the sex of a person.  However, gender  refers to the personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach  to being male or female; therefore, gender is a social construct too.  As a gender, women have historically had a lower status in most societies than men. But the gap in status level between males and females differs based on time and culture. Still, the concept of gender is less complex in sociological terms than ethnicity or race.  

Age

Age  might be the least complex of the social categories, yet it is still a socially constructed category, not in the actual number of years a person has lived, but in the expectations and social positions attached  to that number by society. While this might be the least difficult social category to identify with, it is a social category that is in constant flux. As a society's culture changes, so do the expectations and positions attached to an age. These expectations and positions come from society's norms which include mores, folkways and laws. Norms change as needs change with the result that social positions or statuses  change. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America, many families needed all members to bring in an income with the result that children worked for wages outside of the home. As society evolved and needs changed, including the need for a more educated populace, laws formed to take children out of jobs and to place them into school desks. Based on the needs of the society, what was once socially acceptable behavior for a child changed and the expectations of that age group followed suit. The social meaning of childhood changed. The same is true for other age groups- as the culture changes, the perception of an age bracket does too. How many times have you seen articles in pop culture magazines asking if "Forty is the New Thirty?" or if "Fifty is the New Forty?" Essentially, these articles are questioning whether or not the norms once used to classify a decade of age have shifted to now classify an older decade. In this way, the social concept of age is constantly changing.  

Change over time is not the only manner in which age is in flux.

Whereas a person usually will identify with the same gender, racial and ethnic categories throughout his or her life, that same person will grow older with each year and will find the meaning of his or her status based on age changing thusly.  Unlike the other three social categories, where a person will probably never be able to fully appreciate what it means socially to be a different gender, race or ethnicity than what he or she was born as, a person who lives a long life will experience all of the social delineations associated with age- childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the elderly. With that experience, the individual concept of age changes as well.  

Disabilities

The image that accompanies this portion of your content is somewhat misleading. While some disabilities  are physical, not all are. Instead, they are the physical or mental conditions that limit a person's movements, senses, or activities. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. Founded on the same principles of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prevented discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, the ADA extended federal legal protection for "equal opportunity" to Americans with disabilities. To be protected by this law, a person must have a "physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment. "  Thus ended the federal definition of disabilities.

The definition is general so as to cover an ever-changing field of possible disabilities without having to rewrite the whole law.

 Sociologists tend to view disabled persons as those characterized with a wide variety of either physical or mental impairments that range from the severe or debilitating to the easily managed but that "share common conditions of exclusion, marginalization and disadvantage" within society at large.  Both the political and sociological definitions of disabilities include a social component meaning that in some ways disabilities are social constructs.  

 

Social Category Review Activity

As stated at the beginning of this lesson, the numbers and descriptions of social categories vary from society to society. As these five social categories, race, ethnicity, gender, age and disabilities, are hard to hide and inherently present in all societies, they are the prevalent social categories studied in sociology. Work through the activity below to practice distinguishing between them.

 

 

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