Sociology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Sociology for "Scientific" Eyes
Social Processes: Social Inequalities Teaching Ideas

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i. Social class

• Tsunami and stratification (tsunami the great leveler, or??? Environmental risk, victims, recovery)
  • Life chances
  • Health care
  • Medical advances like Viagra, Botox
  • Global burdens of infectious disease
• Allocation of environmental damage/risk (“Cancer alley”) , environmental “justice” (cf*R.Bullard, “Dumping in Dixie:Race,Class, and the Politics of Place”)
• Internet/computer usage/ownership in homes, schools, workplaces
• Health inequalities

ii. Gender

• Women as minority, obstacles to achievement in science/math/engineering (CAWMSET -- Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology. (2000). Land of Plenty: Diversity as America’s Competitive Edge in Science, Engineering and Technology. Washington, D. C.; Margolis & Fisher, Unlocking the Clubhouse; among others)
  • Language and science( E. Keller, “Feminist perspectives on science studies,”Science, Technology, and Human Values 13:34-47)
• Zuckerman: careers of men and women scientists

iii. Race/ethnicity

• Norplant (birth control implant), as discussed in Roberts, Dorothy. 1997. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. First Vintage Books.
• Internet/computer usage/ownership in homes, schools, workplaces
• Underrepresentation in engineering, other sciences (CAWMSET -- Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology. (2000). Land of Plenty: Diversity as America’s Competitive Edge in Science, Engineering and Technology. Washington, D. C)—the STEM “pipeline”
  • Education
    • Resources in minority schools
    • Access to qualified math & science teachers in high schools
    • Achievement gap in math & science
    • AP classes
    • Undergrad & grad enrollment & completion
    • NACME Engineering Vanguard Program
    • Native American programs to train for sciences, engineering
• Employment
  • Minorities in STEM occupations (doubling as role models & tickets to rewards)
  • Wage differentials
  • Regional variation
  • Global variation
  • Unionization
• Barriers to Minorities in STEM careers
  • Not having influential mentor or sponsor
  • Lack of informal networking
  • Lack of company role members of same racial/ethnic group
  • Lack of high visibility assignments
  • Stereotyping of some minority groups as incapable of doing science
  • Difficulty securing grant monies
• K. Manning, Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Everett Just, Oxford U Press, 1984—and other minority scientists.

iv. Age

• Who doesn’t use the internet, and why, and the consequences of it (S. Woolgar, ed. Virtual Society, 2002, Oxford University Press, Ch. 2 “They Came, They Surfed, They Went Back to the Beach: Conceptualizing Use and Non-Use of the Internet” by S. Wyatt, G. Thomas and T.Terranova)

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